1candela.com

PayPal

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Buhacoff) — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:20:00 +0000

I'm pleased to announce that 1candela.com now facilitates payments between students and teachers via PayPal's new Adaptive API's.

Students can now pay teachers with any offline method the teachers accept, or online via PayPal.

At this time, 1candela.com does NOT take any commission on student registrations, to encourage teachers to opt for the convenience of online registrations.

Creative Scheduling for Small Business Owners

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Buhacoff) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:26:00 +0000

Let's say you're a new comedy company, like Left Coast Comedy, and you're trying to attract a bigger audience to your shows. You could offer a class on 1candela.com called "How To Be Funny" and schedule it for 30 to 60 minutes before your next show. Teach your students how to be funny, then invite them to stay for the show!

This technique can be used by other kinds of small business owners, too. It's probably a good idea to mention in the class description that the class will be followed by a bonus event, so that students are aware of the possibility of staying longer. Also, mention how long the bonus event might last, so if the student wants to stay for the whole thing he or she knows in advance the time commitment.

A variation of this technique, for bonus events that normally have a ticket price, is to include some or all of the ticket price in the class registration fee and advertise that the bonus event is free or discounted for students.

1candela is good for the economy

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Buhacoff) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:20:00 +0000

California's unemployed population increased in February to 10.5%. That's more than 3.5 million people!! Is it possible that some of these people have skills or knowledge that they can teach to others? I think so.

How can you turn skills and knowledge into money? I propose 6 easy steps:

First, make a list of what you know and what you can do. Making the list is a brainstorming session, so it's fine to mention obvious things in addition to any special knowledge or skills that you have. Special projects that you've worked on are a great source of items for this list.

Second, turn each item in the list into a class topic. For example, if an item on the list is "built online marketplace for learning", then a class topic might be "how to build online marketplaces".

Third, sort your topics by putting the most interesting ones at the top, and write a short description for each one. Your description should highlight what a student would find most interesting or useful about your class.

Fourth, decide on a format and price for your class. After you write the description, the format and price for your class might become obvious. Do you think you could teach what you wrote in your description in an hour? Or maybe it's better suited for a 3-hour hands-on workshop? How much would it be worth to your students? If deciding on a price is difficult for you, start with $20 for every hour and adjust from there. So for a 3-hour workshop, you would charge $60 per student. It's your class; you set the price to whatever you think you can get.

Fifth, visit 1candela.com and post a class offer in your area. A class offer consists of a title or topic, description, format, and price. When someone shows interest in your offer, the site will send you an email. When there is interest and you are ready, schedule your class by adding a date, time, and address. All the interested students will be notified and they will have an opportunity to sign up for your class.

Finally, show up at the scheduled date and place to teach your class. After your class, make some notes to yourself about what you could do better next time. Better yet, ask your students for their ideas on how you can improve your class. If you reach this step, congratulations are in order, because you successfully turned your knowledge into money! You can do this again and again.

Anyone who can follow these steps can make money, and I think economists will agree that when more people are earning money through useful work, the economy tends to improve.

For help following the 6 steps, visit the 1candela discussion group.

7 reasons to learn something new

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Buhacoff) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:40:00 +0000

Learning is fun... for some people. Learning can also be hard, but either way it's usually worth the effort, unless you have a knack for picking subjects that are both useless AND boring.

Learning something new sometimes leads to a new hobby. Other times, a new hobby leads to learning something new.

Learning might improve some of your skills. People who learn to improve their skills are sometimes called apprentices. Some people also try to acquire skills that help them learn. These are sometimes called studying skills.

Learning can lead to making new friends. Often, making new friends can lead to learning something new. Try a different crowd to see this in action.

Learning helps people get jobs in a tough economy. Companies have to cut costs and an easy way to do that is to eliminate non-essential jobs. Every employee's job is essential to that employee but it's not always essential to the company. Employees who stay have to do more work. Employees who know more than other employees may have a better chance of staying so they can do more work. So people who think being overworked is better than being hungry may like to learn something new and useful in hope of keeping their job. If that's you, remember to show off your knowledge because it won't do you any good if the boss doesn't know about it. On the other hand, people who are fired from their job learn that tough economies suck.

Learning helps people get pay raises and even promotions. Most of the time, people learn something new after they get promoted. Sometimes people get promoted beyond their ability to learn. Don't let yourself be such a person.

Learning is a good way to prepare for travel. People who travel to exotic places often learn something about their destination before they go. They might learn about the people, their culture and history, and their language. Historically, most people who travel to far away places learn about them first, or at least know that they are far away. If you do travel to a far away place, be prepared to learn something new.

Supplement your income at 1candela.com

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Buhacoff) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:23:00 +0000

The job market is suffering. Since the end of 2007, 3.6 million jobs have been lost. The worst period was October thru December of 2008, when the United States had the biggest three-month job loss since 1945. Last month alone, close to 600,000 jobs were lost. You can look up these numbers and more at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US Department of Labor.

The unemployment rate in the United States has risen from 7.2% to 7.6%. In addition, close to 8 million people are underemployed: working part time but preferring to be working full time. Millions of workers have become discouraged and have stopped looking altogether.

Big companies like Circuit City (now going out of business), Caterpillar, Nissan, Boeing, GM, Sprint/Nextel, Macy's, Starbucks, Intel, Microsoft, and Motorola are all laying off thousands of employees. Thousands of other companies are downsizing by either completely laying off employees or cutting back hours and wages.

Not all the unemployed people have the skills to fill those jobs. Can we help them AND improve YOUR financial situation at the same time? Yes we can!

Take a quick inventory of what you know how to do. You have skills and knowledge in some industry or you are really good at some hobby. Sign up today at 1candela.com to teach a class on how to do it and get PAID!

You can charge whatever fee you want for your class. You may be surprised at what people are willing to pay in order to gain valuable new knowledge and skills that will help them find work! Can you see yourself teaching something to 10 students at $20 each? That's $200 for a single afternoon. Imagine what you can earn if you hit on a subject that people are really interested in learning! What if you found something that people are willing to pay $50 or more to learn? Could you use an extra $500??

You can try your luck, RISK FREE. That's because it's FREE to post a class offer on 1candela.com. Just post your offer and see who's interested in taking your class!

How it works:

1. Decide what you want to teach and how much you want to be paid by each student.

2. Post a class offer on 1candela.com.

3. When you see people are interested (check your email), schedule the class for a specific date & location.

4. Teach the class and get paid!!

The highest unemployment rates are in the Pacific region and in the Eastern parts of the US. California unemployment rates, reported at 10.1% today, are among the highest. So if you are on the West Coast or the East Coast, you know your neighbors really need you. Use 1candela.com to help yourself and help others too.

A new marketplace for students and teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Buhacoff) — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 06:36:00 +0000

1candela.com is a site where students and teachers can find each other and see what's available.

Anyone can be a teacher or a student: post the classes you can teach and look for the classes you want to take. If you don't find the class you're looking for, post a request! Then someone who can teach it will see there is interest and hopefully post a class offer. When they do, you'll get an email notification so you can review it and decide if you want to sign up.

Classes are searchable by geographic region so you can limit your search to your town or a distance you're willing to travel.

Posting class offers or requests is free. Teachers can choose to handle enrollment on their own or let 1candela.com handle it. The site charges a small fee to teachers for handling enrollment and provides email notifications, class roster, and payment so when students and teachers get together they can focus on the learning.

Students who take a class can rate it and post comments when they are done.

I hope 1candela.com will one day be the first place you look to find a teacher, and the first place you post when you want to find students.