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Okay, I’ve reflected.  While I still don’t believe that my contest is bad or harmful in any way, I don’t want the image of impropriety.  I’m going to go over the rules one more time, the prizes one more time, and then– that’s it.  For the few No!Spec people out there, I’m sorry if I gave the impression that I was trying to devalue your work.  I understand all too well that for some, work is like our children.

Here Goes

Rules:

1.  Nothing that you can’t show to teenagers.  By that, I mean nothing you wouldn’t want me to show your child or grandmother.

2.  Nothing that you don’t own.  You have to be able to transfer the winning entry over to F4Y.

3.  The entries should evoke thoughts of education, teens, finance, money, etc.  You art people know what I mean.

4.  If you win, your art becomes My cover.  If not, your art becomes my deleted file.  I won’t use it.

5.  If you think your art is too good for this kind of contest, it probably is.  Don’t enter.

5a.  If you think you are too good for this contest or this site, you probably are.  Please leave my site.

6.  I’m not telling you what I want to see.  The whole point is for you to show me what you think of finance, teens, youth, money, education.

The prizes:

1.  Finance For Youth Gear

1a.  There will be several items that aren’t yet available for purchase.  You get these free.

2.  Free copy of the book with your artwork on the cover.

3.  Toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss.

4.  My thanks, eternal gratitude, and adoration.

5.  CASH!!!!!!!

5a.  For every entry received, I will put cash into a pot.  There is no limit to the amount of cash that can go in.

5b.  Each entry must be substantially different.  Submitting one entry with four different fonts?  Guess what, it counts as one.

5c.  When in doubt, I will ask a disinterested third party whether to count an entry as one or as more than one.  Their decision is final.

The last day to submit entries is June 30th, 2007.  Any entries received after that will be returned, and will not count.  To enter, email me at wil@finance4youth.com

with the subject line : F4Y contest entry request.  Some variation of that will probably also work.  I will send you a file on which submit your entry.

For those of you who feel that this is a slap in the face of a professional, and who compare art to medicine, I never meant to insult you or your work.  I sincerely hope you will get past that feeling.

If I receive no entries by the closing date, the contest will close, and I will go through an alternative process.

Good Luck!

I’ve been doing a little research for the F4Y art contest, and I found a site No Spec website. This site tells students to not enter ‘contests’ like mine. After spending hours reading, I’m not sure I blame them. It seems young, inexperienced, artists get screwed pretty hard by people who want something for nothing. While I don’t think this applies to me, I can easily understand those that do. So have you heard of this movement? Is that the impression I’m giving with my contest? What do I need to do to make sure this is not the perception, while still maintaining my desire to have this done by someone who “gets” my work? Let me know.

I usually don’t talk about finance articles from MSN, Yahoo, or other sites that are out of touch with young people. Most of the time, they are just wrong, or they come down on young people with a ferocity that is rarely justified.

MSN has an article, titled “Why Your Kids Expect to be Rich”, that is pretty interesting. In it, the statistic of 73% of teens believing they will be making more than 100k per year was brought out.

I’m not going to rehash the entire article, if you want to read it http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/RaiseKids.aspxYour Kids Expect to be Rich, check it out. The point is, because we are seeing our parents pretending to be made out of money, and because our parents aren’t having candid conversations with us about money, we have a screwed up view about how much money we will make.

Look, you don’t need to make 100k to have a good life. More people make less than that than make more. Individually, neither my wife nor I make that kind of money. Of course, we don’t want to have to work as hard as it would take to make that kind of money either.

If you are a young person, don’t worry about a dollar amount. No matter what number you pick, you will probably find out that its not a realistic representation of what you are going to need to thrive. Talk to your parents about money, and have an honest conversation. If you need to, come up with a premise that is sure to get them to sit down and talk to you. I’ve found that talks about pregnancy (or the pregnancy of a “girlfriend”) does the trick. Sure, it can be a little embarrassing at first, but once you get into the conversation, its usually worth it.