In this edition of Web Enlightenment we'll be talking about how you should respect my dear Aunt Sally, or PEMDAS.

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Aunt Sally Deserves Respect

Web professionals are excited - as the economy encounters more difficulty companies are running to the Internet rapidly. By brute force the current reality is accelerating the shift to the web, and quite frankly it is happening more quickly than I had imagined.

All of this excitement has caused some very serious disrespect of Sally - and that is something web entrepreneurs should really keep in mind.

Remember back when you were a kid and they taught you basic math? The first time you saw:

6 + 10 - 6 / 2

You may have thought the answer was 5, which is indeed what you'd get if you simply followed along left to right. As we all know the actual answer is 13 and somewhere rattling around in your adult brain there is probably some way to remember that.

Basic math uses an order of operations and we first perform parentheses and exponents, followed by multiplication and division, and finally addition and subtraction. Right about here is where someone explained about Aunt Sally.

Parentheses, Exponentiation, Multiplication/Division, Addition/Subtraction = PEMDAS
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

As I understand it from younger friends of mine Aunt Sally apparently died peacefully in her sleep during the 1980's - she was replaced by Pink Elephants. I'm not sure why they were Pink when they could just as easily have been Purple, Puce, Peach, Periwinkle, Platinum, or Pumpkin but I digress...

Pink Elephants Make Dandy Apple Sauce

And there are numerous other variants as well

People Eat More Donuts After School
Purple Eggplants Make Delicious Afternoon Snacks
Peanuts Ended My Donut Addiction Saturday
Purple Elephants Marching Down A Street (see, Elephants can be any color)

So right about now you might be wondering what all this has to do with websites these days - and the answer is an awful lot - just bear with me for a second.

In the long long ago - back before we even had the Internet (how awful that must have been) - people did indeed open businesses. I would imagine that way back then if you walked into a new store and noticed a gorgeous carved wooden sign out front you'd feel free to ask for a business card. If they didn't have a card you'd think it was awfully weird - who would spend big money on a carved sign and not print a business card first? That just doesn't make any sense at all.

In the land of Advertising and Marketing we have a basically agreed upon order of operations - it is a rare business indeed that has a national TV commercial but has never done any radio advertising. Some educated marketing folks don't say "rare", they say "stupid" - and that is perhaps a reasonable point of view.

As Internet entrepreneurs get more excited about the web they are displaying lots of carved wooden signs out in front of businesses that do not have a business card - which is as silly now as it was in the long long ago.

Do you have a significant social media effort in progress but no basic E-Newsletter?
Do you have six videos on your site but no good text descriptions of your products?
Are you buying banner ads but you have no cost per click campaigns rolling?
Are you implementing a live help system but you don't have a toll-free number?

I ask that you please remember that 6 + 10 - 6 / 2 = 13, it does not equal 5 - and it never will, no way, no how.

Web efforts require a basic order of operations just like math does and as an Internet Entrepreneur you need to be aware of the difference between bold and silly.

The web is succeeding in an incredible way but the seas are quite stormy these days. To make headway in lousy weather you 'batten down the hatches' and make sure all of your basics are in impeccable shape first. Then you execute a cool and interesting move if you can get it done reasonably.

Now is the perfect time to review your web efforts and confirm that they are being executed with clear goals firmly in mind and that all of your basics are flawless. Successful Internet Entrepreneurs have an awful lot of respect for dear old Aunt Sally and so should you.

Atlantic City Report - My Roulette System Earns $40

As many of you know I spent a few days in Atlantic City last week and I had a great time. As one would expect we really enjoyed the ocean view and the endless buffets.

When I play roulette I do what all geeks do - I use a mathematical system. I place two cover bets , one on the 1st 12 and one on the center 12 (2,5,8, etc). I then play a pattern inside - 26, 28, 30 straight up and the corners on 31/32/34/35 as well as 32/33/35/36. If I'm doing well I also place a few bucks on my birthday the 18th and my wife Amy's birthday the 7th.

Like most cover bet systems three out of four times when you "win" all you've done is take off the table the same amount of money you put down - which I love because it means I can play for hours pretty much for free. I am well aware that the house is still in charge and eventually they will collect all of my available funds.

At The Borgata I saw something really fascinating - an older Asian man with a huge notebook in front of him, he had clearly been writing down the numbers that came up for hours. He also had an intriguing set of equations on another pad that I stared at for awhile. He was busy calculating as he placed his bets using those algorithms. This was the part that fascinated me and I really wish I had had the chance to chat with him but he was drawing a big crowd, he spoke zero English, my Japanese is insanely rusty, and trying to find common ground in my old exchange student Spanish was a non-starter.

The part that fascinated the crowd was not really his equations (not many geeks at the casino I guess) - it was his use of $100 chips, often stacks of 10 or 20 of them on a single number. I saw him win $35,000 over the course of an hour - three different times.

Me and my little system had fun, and I even won $300 after a bit of play which more than made up for my losses earlier in the day. We went to Atlantic City with a family gambling budget of $500 (which we always expect to lose fully) and when we left we had in fact come out ahead - I had $540 and so we paid for two trips to the lunch buffet. Woo-Hoo indeed.