NET ASSETS; AT 14, SHE'S AN ENTREPRENEUR WITH HER OWN WEB SITE - AND IT'S ALL IN THE FAMILY.Byline: Reed Johnson Reed Cameron Johnson (born December 8, 1976 in Riverside, California) is an outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League East division of Major League Baseball. He weighs 180 lb (82 kg) and is 5'10" tall. Staff Writer Next month, if she's not busy power-lunching with her new business partner, Richard Dreyfuss Richard Stephen Dreyfuss (born October 29, 1947) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. Biography Early life Dreyfuss was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine, a peace activist. , or fielding e-mails from London and Tokyo, Ashley Power may pause to celebrate her 15th year on the planet. But probably not for long. When you're an aspiring Internet mover and shaker mover and shaker n. pl. movers and shakers One who wields power and influence in a sphere of activity: "the importance of hanging out with the movers and shakers of the art world" employing 30 adults, including your own mother and stepfather, lots of people want a piece of your time. Big-name Hollywood actors. MTV MTV in full Music Television U.S. cable television network, established in 1980 to present videos of musicians and singers performing new rock music. MTV won a wide following among rock-music fans worldwide and greatly affected the popular-music business. development honchos. Venture capitalists with eyes locked like heat-seeking missiles on the next big thing. And, of course, newspaper and television reporters panting panting rapid, shallow breathing, a characteristic heat-losing reaction in dogs; represents an increase in dead-space ventilation resulting in heat loss without necessarily increasing oxygen uptake or carbon dioxide loss. over a killer combination of smarts, ambition, great teeth and runway-model poise, all wrapped up in one wholesomely suburbanized Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, package. Not to mention your high school teachers, your 2-year-old brother, Josh, who sometimes needs baby-sitting, a pair of sweet but labor-intensive Labradors, and a cadre of caring friends who can't always understand why you're no longer able to drop everything and grab a mocha Mocha (mō`kə), town (1990 est. pop. 2,000), S Yemen, a port on the Red Sea. It was noted for the export of the coffee to which it gave its name but declined as a trading port in the late 19th cent. with the rise of Hodeida and Aden. or hit the mall. Finally, there are those thousands of other teens, the hormonally dazed daze tr.v. dazed, daz·ing, daz·es 1. To stun, as with a heavy blow or shock; stupefy. 2. To dazzle, as with strong light. n. A stunned or bewildered condition. and confused masses you set out to comfort, amuse and commiserate com·mis·er·ate v. com·mis·er·at·ed, com·mis·er·at·ing, com·mis·er·ates v.tr. To feel or express sorrow or pity for; sympathize with. v.intr. with, via your swiftly rising Internet Web site, Goosehead.com. Er, better make that Goosehead.com Inc., the privately held Studio City-based startup that Ashley and her parents are hoping to turn into a multimedia New Economy pacesetter. In the scant 18 months since Ashley founded her interactive brainchild, the Toluca Lake teen has watched Goosehead.com grow into one of the World Wide Web's biggest and most popular pubescent pubescent /pu·bes·cent/ (pu-bes´int) 1. arriving at the age of puberty. 2. covered with down or lanugo. pu·bes·cent adj. 1. hangouts. For Ashley, the project began simply enough as a do-it-yourself hobby, as well as a kind of one-person protest against the cluelessness of most existing ``teen'' Web sites - much of whose content is blatantly fabricated by adults. But with technical help from her mom, Michelle Schilder, 33, her stepdad, Mark Schilder, 38, and a small team of risk-taking financial investors, the site has quickly blossomed into a bustling family business. Named for a cement goose statue that was accidentally decapitated de·cap·i·tate tr.v. de·cap·i·tat·ed, de·cap·i·tat·ing, de·cap·i·tates To cut off the head of; behead. [Late Latin d when the family moved into its current home, Goosehead.com is the Y2K See Y2K problem and Y2K compliant. Y2K - Year 2000 equivalent of the old-fashioned, multigenerational mul·ti·gen·er·a·tion·al adj. Of or relating to several generations: multigenerational family traditions. corner grocery store. Or perhaps a post-nuclear version of ``The Brady Bunch'' in which Marcia is CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Mike's architecture firm, and Carol is her executive secretary. ``My friends think my parents are, like, the coolest,'' enthuses Ashley, who has kept her biological father's surname, ``because they're young and stuff, so they totally get it, for the most part. I don't get away with as much as I probably could if my parents were old. They know what's going on Verb 1. know what's going on - be well-informed be on the ball, be with it, know the score, know what's what know - know how to do or perform something; "She knows how to knit"; "Does your husband know how to cook?" .'' Indeed, the Schilders seem better equipped than most American parents to handle the vicissitudes vicissitudes Noun, pl changes in circumstance or fortune [Latin vicis change] vicissitudes npl → vicisitudes fpl; peripecias fpl of the information age and its capacity for turning several million years of parent-child relations upside-down. After overcoming their initial skepticism when Ashley first proposed expanding her then 4-month-old Web site, the Schilders helped their daughter assemble financial backers. They then formed a corporation, purchased the necessary equipment, rustled up office space and hired a staff - all within the last 14 months. Mark, a successful painter and graphics designer, now serves as Goosehead's co-chair, helping Ashley supervise creative ``content.'' Michelle, also an artist and designer, handles the company's business-development end. Ashley is listed as ``president, co-chair and founder,'' a pretty heady title for a high school freshman. ``It's hard sometimes, because we spend a lot of time together,'' says Michelle, an upbeat, direct woman. ``We get on each others' nerves a lot. I think we've learned over the last year that the most effective way to make it work is to communicate, and not let things eat at you and bug you.'' ``We've just always had a really open relationship with Ashley,'' Mark chimes in. ``We've always just had the attitude of talking about everything. If she comes to you with a subject, don't try and milquetoast milque·toast n. One who has a meek, timid, unassertive nature. [After Caspar Milquetoast, a comic-strip character created by Harold Tucker Webster (1885-1952). it.'' With her parents firmly in her corner, Ashley has worked to make Goosehead.com steadily bigger and better. When the site was overhauled, redesigned and relaunched Feb. 28, it boasted cutting-edge graphics, free e-mail See Internet e-mail service. accounts, access to teen-oriented World Wide Web search engines A Web site that maintains an index and short summaries of billions of pages on the Web, Google being the world's largest. Most search engine sites are free and paid for by advertising banners, while others charge for the service. , chat rooms, message boards and savvy, unpatronizing advice on dating, sex and relationships. Since then, it's been drawing about 100,000 electronic visitors every day, an impressive number considering that its principal audience is probably preoccupied with playing Nintendo and studying algebra. But the site's most significant calling card is ``Whatever,'' an amiably outspoken live-action cyber serial that stars Ashley as her Valley Girl alter ego A doctrine used by the courts to ignore the corporate status of a group of stockholders, officers, and directors of a corporation in reference to their limited liability so that they may be held personally liable for their actions when they have acted fraudulently or unjustly or when , Skye Warner. ``Skye's kind of like me,'' says Ashley, flashing a knowing grin. ``Some of the stuff she goes through is stuff that I go through, like being grounded or having her parents take her phone away.'' Dealing with such age-old adolescent Sturm und Drang Sturm und Drang (sht  rm nt dräng) or Storm and Stress, as geeky classmates Classmates can refer to either:
adj. nos·i·er, nos·i·est Informal 1. Given to prying into the affairs of others; snoopy. See Synonyms at curious. 2. Prying; inquisitive. (if well-meaning) parents, the free Netcast program can be easily downloaded and viewed in the privacy of one's own bunk bed. But ``Whatever,'' which Ashley developed and co-wrote with her stepfather, may soon be getting streamed in a few Hollywood executive suites as well. Barely two weeks ago, after meeting to brainstorm with Ashley and her parents, actor Richard Dreyfuss announced that he was signing on as a Goosehead.com partner. He'll also provide future interactive content for the site and hopes to develop programming for multimedia syndication. Dreyfuss' older brother Lorin is also a partner with the company, and Lorin's 13-year-old daughter, Natalie, has acted in previous ``Whatever'' episodes, which helped turn uncle Richard on to Goosehead. ``I think that Ashley is going to have a hell of a lot of fun with this thing, as is everyone visiting it, which is already a lot,'' Richard Dreyfuss says, ``and I wanted to have some of that fun, so here I am.'' Since news of Dreyfuss' involvement with Goosehead broke in the trade papers, dozens of e-mail requests, business proposals and solicitations from other celebrities have flooded the company's sparsely furnished Studio City offices. All of which makes this level-headed adolescent feel excited, but slightly unnerved. ``I'll be honest,'' says Ashley, leaning her 5-foot-9-inch frame against a kitchen counter at her parents' spic-and-span country-modern home. ``Sometimes I get so overwhelmed that I'm on the verge On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) is a play written by Eric Overmyer. It makes extensive use of esoteric language and pop culture references from the late nineteenth century to 1955. of having, like, a nervous breakdown nervous breakdown n. A severe or incapacitating emotional disorder, especially when occurring suddenly and marked by depression. nervous breakdown . Because a normal teen-ager, a normal person who's my age, their job is to go to school. And for me it's different. I have two jobs. I have a job to be a student and a daughter, and a president of a company.'' At 14, Ashley is roughly the same age as the cyber revolution. She remembers getting her first computer, ``a little tiny Mac,'' when she was 8. She has virtually never known a world without gigabytes or e-mail. As she expresses it on her home page: ``My computer is a lifeline. I live on it.'' Having grown up amid virtual environments, Ashley has no trouble fingering what bugs her about conventional ``teen'' Web sites. ``They were a little, like, messy or a little, like, Yahoo!-ish. Too much stuff,'' she says. ``I just couldn't really relate to it, the writing and the way they talked. I was like, 'That doesn't sound like me and my friends.' '' Ditto for those relentlessly ``with-it'' TV shows like ``Dawson's Creek Dawson's Creek is an American primetime television drama which aired from January 20, 1998, to May 14, 2003, on The WB Television Network. The lead production company was Sony Pictures Television. .'' ``I loved 'Dawson's Creek' the first season. After that, it was just like a flippin' soap opera soap opera Broadcast serial drama, characterized by a permanent cast of actors, a continuing story, tangled interpersonal situations, and a melodramatic or sentimental style. . It wasn't real, it wasn't true. Like my mom would let me go crawl into some boy's window and spend the night in his bed?!'' Too old for Pokemon, too young to day-trade, Ashley wanted her site to appeal to the middle-school crowd, a notoriously slippery demographic. By studying Web-page design books and getting writing tips from Mark and design help from her mother, she began constructing her site in earnest in the fall of 1998. ``She focused on things she liked, as opposed to focusing on things she thought people would like, or what adults might think a teen-ager would like,'' Mark says. In fact, although her name sounds as if it might've been dreamed up at a Warner Bros BROS Brothers BROS Benefits and Retirement Operations Section (King County, Washington) BROS Barnes and Richmond Operatic Society (London, UK) . story meeting, a few blocks away from her home, Ashley Power is, as she herself claims, a pretty typical upper-middle-class Valley teen-ager. Her hair is its natural color. Apart from a double piercing on her left ear, she doesn't sport any fashionable body impalings or tattoos. Away from the office, the company president does her homework, takes out the trash, washes her dishes and cleans up after the dogs. Between snowboarding engagements and learning to play guitar, she finds time to attend a local church with her mother and brother. Mastering the new religion of high technology at first proved tricky for Ashley. So she started firing off e-mails to various Internet servers and site designers, seeking advice. One of her early contacts was Pat Galvin, 44, a Net entrepreneur. Eventually, he became one of five Goosehead.com partners who ponied up a total of $250,000 for the startup's first round of funding, plus untold hours of expertise and sweat equity Sweat Equity The equity that is created in a company or some other asset as a direct result of hard work by the owner(s). Notes: For example, rebuilding the engine on your 1968 Mustang to increase its value. . ``She's a sweetheart,'' Galvin says of Ashley. ``She's really intelligent and didn't treat me any different than anyone else. Just asks questions and gives her thoughts. And I never anticipated it being where it's at right now. I was just happy to help. Still am.'' Filled with snapshots of family, friends and pets, the initial Goosehead site also offered pointers on coping with the peer-pressured living hell otherwise known as eighth grade - a subject about which Ashley claims a hard-won expertise. When she transferred schools between seventh and eighth grades, she says, many of her new classmates were less than welcoming. (She has since moved on to a Valley parochial high school.) ``I think she wanted to help, in some way, somebody who was going through what she went through,'' says Michelle. More than other family units, Ashley, Michelle and Mark seem to have grown up together, an experience that has helped cement their new business partnership. Raised as an only child until Josh was born, Ashley - whose high school basketball coach nicknamed her ``Mom'' because she was always ministering to teammates - was exposed to adults from an early age. ``She literally was hanging out with me and my friends,'' says Michelle, who was just 18 when Ashley was born. Mark likes to tell a story about an incident that occurred shortly after he and Michelle first got together. One day when Michelle was at work and Mark was home, Ashley, then about 4 1/2, came down with a bug and began vomiting. ``I had never dealt with a child on that,'' Mark recalls. ``I call Michelle like, 'What do I do?!' And she's like, 'Ashley will walk you through it.' She (Ashley) had this really high fever. And it was more like Ashley was the adult, telling me how to (take care of her).'' Still, at the end of the workday, it's clear who the real parents are. ``It's not like I sit here and, like, boss people around,'' Ashley says. ``We all work together and make decisions together. So I really don't have a problem going home and just being the kid and listening to my parents. Because I always listen to them. I just have never been very rebellious.'' If anything, Michelle and Mark sound more concerned about their daughter's perfectionist per·fec·tion·ism n. 1. A propensity for being displeased with anything that is not perfect or does not meet extremely high standards. 2. streak - what Michelle describes as Ashley's tendency to ``beat up on herself'' if something goes awry. ``It's a lot of weight on my shoulders,'' Ashley says of her potentially brilliant new career. ``And I've been trying now to kind of take those weights off, just by accepting the fact that other people are helping me, and they're willing to help, and I need to let them help and not do everything myself.'' REALITY BYTES These days, practically the entire country seems to be living in front of (or behind) a camera, or else hooked up to the Net. Don't think so? Then who's on that monitor as you stand in line at the bank? Who's watching you as you wander around at Universal CityWalk Universal CityWalk is a part of Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Japan originating from Universal's first park, Universal Studios Hollywood. , or any of thousands of other public places? Who's that person choosing to exhibit the most mundane or ridiculous parts of his or her life, either on Web casts or reality-based television shows, for the voyeuristic pleasure of millions of strangers? It's you. It's me. It's us. Meanwhile, we've grown accustomed to interacting at the speed of a T3 line, our words whipped through fiber-optic cables, our biological clocks Biological clocks Self-sustained circadian (approximately 24-hour) rhythms regulating daily activities such as sleep and wakefulness were described as early as 1729. reset to a 24-7 cycle. Technology is altering our relationships, our worldview world·view n. In both senses also called Weltanschauung. 1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world. 2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group. , even our basic identities as human beings. Today, L.A. Life introduces ``Reality Bytes,'' an occasional series that will look at how these changes are impacting our lives and perceptions. GIVING DIRECTIONS This Internet stuff is fine, but what Ashley Power really wants to do is direct. Sort of. Actually, what the ambitious 14-year-old business executive wants is to expand the entertainment offerings of her Internet-based ``teen entertainment network,'' Goosehead.com. That should be easier now that actor Richard Dreyfuss has come aboard Goosehead as a financial partner and co-developer of original interactive programming. Since then, the company says it has received inquiries from at least one other Hollywood actor and a pop music star, whom it declines to name publicly. The fast-growing, privately held company privately held company A firm whose shares are held within a relatively small circle of owners and are not traded publicly. , initially funded with a $250,000 investment, employs 10 people at its Studio City headquarters, 12 in Chatsworth and nine in San Jose, where the company's Internet servers are located. Goosehead's future may hinge on creating more offerings like ``Whatever,'' the live-action, cybercast cy·ber·cast n. A news or entertainment program transmitted over the Internet. [cyber- + (news)cast.] comedy-drama that stars Power herself as a Valley teen. Power co-wrote the show with her stepfather and co-chair, Mark Schilder. She wanted to direct its first episodes but deferred to his experience in directing television commercials. ``I think entertainment is where Goosehead particularly is going toward,'' Power says. ``That's what I'm focusing on, and we're so glad we signed Richard.'' - Reed Johnson CAPTION(S): 6 photos, 2 boxes Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) Ashley Power of Toluka Lake has become an Internet mover and shaker Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer (2 -- color) The juxtaposition in Power's professional and personal lives is evident as she answers questions during an interview with About.com, while her vintage bike casually rests against the wall. (3) Ashley Power , 14, left, started her own Web company with help from mom Michelle Schilder - with 2-year-old Josh - and stepdad Mark Schilder. Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer (4 -- color) Ashley Power, in her Studio City Goosehead.com office, says about other teen sites: ``I just couldn't really relate to it, the writing and the way they talked.'' Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer (5 -- color) Goosehead.com features a live-action cyber serial that stars Ashley as her Valley Girl alter ego, Skye Warner. (6) Richard Dreyfuss Financial partner Box: (1) REALITY BYTES (See text) (2) GIVING DIRECTIONS (See text) |
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