Posted by kevinpaulmorris in Apple, Tom Peters, albert lai, crazy ones, jack welch, no fear, startups.
This is going to be a unique post for me; in the Tom Peters, rant-style, in the heat of the moment kind of way.
I’ve recently been shooting emails back and forth with Albert Lai. For anyone who doesn’t know, Albert was featured on the cover of Canadian Business magazine in June 2008.
Here’s what I can tell you about Albert:
-28 years old
-founded, invested in or consulted with over a dozen startups in the past 10 years
-Founder of:
-MyDesktop
-BubbleShare
-BuyBuddy
-and a TON more
From what I hear, he sleeps about 3 hours a night - bed at 1am and up at 4:30am. The guy is incredible, and what I’ve written doesn’t do justice to the work he is doing or how highly regarded he is in the web/tech world right now.
Read the article in Canadian Business here.
Something that has come up a lot over the past few months is being visionary, forward-looking, and determined to follow through with an idea - no matter how crazy people think you are.
There’s been a few times over the past few years (and heck, even more when I look back to ever since I can remember) where I did NOT follow through with something (an idea, a project, a business, or even saying something) no matter how good I thought it was. “What will other people think?”
Well, Kev, what the hell were you [not] doing?
I was recently speaking with my dad, one of my most trusted mentors, about Albert.
“How the heck does he do it, Dad? People search their whole life for just one idea. Here’s this guy that’s taken over twelve ideas and turned them into profitable, exciting, and most of all disruptive new ideas.”
My dad’s answer:
“No Fear.”
And, just like most father-son moments, he was exactly right. You can’t have fear.
Most importantly, when people say you’re crazy (and they will!), you’ve got to keep pushing.
A good idea is a good idea. Want to follow through? Just do it. Don’t let anyone tell you no.
To be completely honest, I think you’ve got to be at least a little crazy, quirky, weird, and/or straight up strange if anyone’s going to listen to you. People might tell you you’re crazy, but that’s when you know you’ve got their attention.
I’ve had the “crazy talk” with a few people recently. Most notably, Marc Stamos. Another ‘crazy one’. Here’s a guy who ‘had it all’, including a lucrative career in corporate law.
But, he did something very unique. Marc looked up the corporate ladder at the firm he was with, and decided it wasn’t for him.
What did he do? He quit.
And he turned his attention to what is one of the coolest projects/organizations I have seen in a while: REBEARTH (www.rebearth.com)
Another “crazy one” who didn’t let fear get in the way.
It makes me sad when I encounter someone so scared of change that it almost paralyzes them. I actually, no word of a lie, feel sad - because they’re missing out on the exhilaration of trying something new, taking risks and working for something they actually believe in - not to mention the possibility of success! They let fear get in the way.
So here is what I’m going to do (and I owe this to the person who gave me some very good advice today over the phone). The next time I have an idea - I’m just going to do it. I’m not waiting for anyone’s permission to try something out, and I’m certainly not going to wait to have things perfected before I get the ball rolling. I’m just going to do it, ‘crazy’ or not.
You see, ‘crazy’ is a relative term. You’re only considered crazy until everyone else thinks the same way.
And besides, who will listen if you’re not half crazy?! In the words of Jack Welch:
“You can’t behave in a calm, rational manner. You’ve got to be out there on the lunatic fringe.”
Here’s my commitment to living out on that fringe. I am a lunatic. And I am more than OK with that :)
Just to finish things up, here’s a great ad from the mid 90’s Apple campaign called Think Different:
Please, if you do one thing tomorrow: be a little crazy. The world could use a few more crazy ones.
-K
October 26, 2007
Posted by kevinpaulmorris in Uncategorized.
October 26, 2007
Posted by kevinpaulmorris in Uncategorized.
October 26, 2007
Posted by kevinpaulmorris in Uncategorized.
October 26, 2007
Posted by kevinpaulmorris in Uncategorized.
Posted by kevinpaulmorris in Google Book Search, google, harvard.
Over 3,000 readers took advantage of Harvard-Google Project last month
Published On Thursday, October 18, 2007 3:39 AM
Contributing Writer
Instead of meandering through Widener’s labyrinthine stacks, Harvard students are now beginning to use a digital alternative: scanned books, courtesy of the Harvard-Google Project.
More than 3,000 users accessed Google Book Search through the online HOLLIS catalog in September, Suzanne Kriegsman, the project’s manager, announced to a library staff e-mail list last week.
That number is still rising as the scanning of Harvard’s library collections continues.
The initiative is part of Google’s larger objective to digitize the world’s libraries into a widely accessible and easy-to-search form.
According to Kriegsman’s e-mail, which was obtained by a Crimson reporter, eight libraries at Harvard have finished scanning their books.
Those libraries are Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Gutman Library, Loeb Library, Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library, Countway Medical Library, Fine Arts Library, Schlesinger Library, and Cabot Library.
Scanning will progress to Loeb Music Library, the Government Documents collection in Lamont Library, and the Harvard-Yenching Library. Scanning is continuing at Widener Library and the Harvard Depository.
Kriegsman could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Dale P. Flecker, associate director for planning and systems at the Harvard University Library, said that work on the project is going “very well.”
The volumes available online now number in the tens of thousands, but Flecker said that many library users do not know about their availability.
“We have not done very much outreach,” he said.
Flecker said that Pforzheimer University Professor Robert C. Darnton ’60, who became the library’s director in July, has been “very supportive of the project and very involved.”
Jan Merrill-Oldham, the Malloy-Rabinowitz preservation librarian, said she is excited by the implications of a universal library accessible to all with a computer and an Internet connection.
Online availability of library collections has the potential to increase exposure for thousands of little-known books that might have been lost to time, Merill-Oldham said.
She added that the quality of Harvard’s scans of its rare books and illuminated manuscripts is good enough to capture “incredible drawings of plants and animals” and “fine pencil marks.”
Launched in late 2004, the Harvard-Google Project encompasses only the books that are not under copyright protection.
Over a million books are affected by the project, though that is a fraction of the University’s holdings of over 15.8 million volumes.
The Internet search firm is also collaborating with other university libraries in the project, including those at Princeton and Stanford Universities.
A few days ago I was invited to join the 767 “activists” on Facebook who are taking part in “Buy Nothing Day” on November 23 - the day after Thanksgiving.
This is what the invite said:
“Stand up against the mindless consumerism of the Holiday season, if only for one day. The day after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day of the year when countless people around the world shop blindly for gifts, BUY NOTHING unless you absolutely have to (i.e. food)”
While I admire the collaboration and efforts of people around the globe looking to make this world a better place, here is my problem with this:
buy nothing day = EARN nothing day
Anyone who thinks Buy Nothing Day is a valid and viable way to support whatever cause you may be ’supporting’, needs to think things through in terms of the entire transaction of that dollar spent.
Every dollar you do not spend is a dollar not earned by someone else, by a family member, perhaps by yourself. Those earned dollars by someone else would have gone on to create earnings for someone else, which would have gone on to create earnings for someone else, and so on and so on…so, you have a ripple effect where 1 dollar turns into much more than that for the economy, and the people within it. For anyone who has family members or friends who own a store, or work at a store, those are the individuals you will be hurting by not spending…
…maybe.
I say maybe because anyone who doesn’t purchase something the day after Thanksgiving is really kidding themselves if they think that will slow down spending (which I don’t understand as a cause). If someone doesn’t purchase something this day, it will be purchased at another time.
I suggest people support something they care about in ways that will actually have a positive impact; how about a “Support-an-actual-cause-day?”
A man approached JP Morgan, held up an envelope, and said, “Sir, in my hand I hold a guaranteed formula for success, which I will gladly sell you for $25,000.” “Sir,” JP Morgan replied, “I do not know what is in the envelope, however if you show me, and I like it, I give you my word as a gentleman that I will pay you what you ask.” The man agreed to the terms, and handed over the envelope. JP Morgan opened it, and extracted a single sheet of paper. He gave it one look, a mere glance, then handed the piece of paper back to the gent. And paid him the agreed-upon $25,000.
The Paper:
1. Every morning, write a list of the things that need to be done that
day.
2. Do them.
Posted by kevinpaulmorris in India, technology, traffic.
Bangalore’s traffic is among India’s worst. About 700 new vehicles hit the IT hub’s roads daily, turning a normal 25-minute drive into two hours at rush hour, so executives often work on cell phones and laptops in their cars. In June, software outfit Mapunity Information Services roped in India telecom giant Bharti Airtel, and Bangalore’s traffic cops, to track traffic via cellular signals. These are used to create Web maps like the one above, of a recent evening rush, and Bharti sends customers text messages about which roads to avoid.
By Nandini Lakshman
BANGALORE DIARY
So what exactly does a ‘flat world’ mean? Well, it means that the “global competitive playing field is being leveled” says Thomas Friedman.
Still confused?
Think of it this way:
“It is now possible for more people than ever to collaborate and compete in real time with more other people on different kinds of work from more different corners of the planet and on a more equal footing that at any previous time in the history of the world.”
It means that MBA students in North America can work on projects with MBA students in China, and then have that work edited by MBA students in India. It means that someone with a laptop in an internet Cafe in Nigeria can start a business using Yahoo search engines and UPS logistics to ship products he has manufactured in China directly to the buyer who ordered the goods online, the whole time never touching his own products. It means that anyone with a laptop can connect to absolutely anyone else with a laptop, and collaborate on any project, in almost any country, and change, create and develop anything they have the imagination to come up with. It means a site like MySpace, if considered its own country, would be the 8th largest in the world, and that 1 in 8 couples married in 2008 will have met over the Internet.
It means that a company can open up its management, product development, and marketing tools to the world, share information that was once considered ‘for executives’ eyes only’, and see customers participate in company processes that used to be reserved for the boardroom. It means that 6 billion people have a shot at participating in the new global economy.
Well….almost.
Friedman is quick to admit that not all the world is flat…at least not yet. There are still close to 3 billion people in rural parts of China, India, South America, Africa, and even Europe and North America who don’t have access to the flat world. However, that is changing as well. In efforts to maximize the global ‘talent pool’, individuals and organizations already in the flat world are now using globalization and collaboration to solve these problems. Take Jeremy Hockenstein, for example. A former McKinsey employee, Hockenstein left to start a not-for-profit data entry firm that outsources work to Cambodia of all places; not the best of economies or work environments. So what did he and his colleagues decide to do? Bridge the gap between the flat world and the un-flat world. They opened “Digital Divide Data” and trained people in Cambodia to type information into computers. They then went to India to find data-entry organizations who needed text inputted into computers in digital form to be stored in databases. They also returned home to America to find work there. In fact, Harvard gave Digital Divide Data its first big contract, archiving old copies of its school newspaper. So, in a nutshell, two Americans trained people in Cambodia to type and use the Internet so that Indian companies and Harvard University could outsource data-entry work. The world is flat.
While we’ve all heard the arguments against globalization, it is critically important to see the advantages of living in a truly flat world. When projects like this can happen seamlessly, and its just as easy to communicate with someone in the next city as it is the opposite side of the world, the possibilities are endless. It will surely be exciting to see where the flat world takes us, and how it will shape education, governments, health care, organizations, and individuals. I would go as far to say that The World is Flat should be a required reading for all business and economics students, not to mention professors and faculty. If our generation will be living in a flat world, should we not be educating for it? With all the tools and technology out there, there is no reason why business and economics students are not be working on papers and projects right alongside students in India and China.
There is no doubt that the concept of a ‘flat world’ is one that every future employee, business leader, politician, entrepreneur, student (and the list goes on), must understand. The fact that globalization is happening is a non-issue. What does matter is the how the human race pushes globalization along. Friedman’s The World is Flat is an excellent starting point, but just like in the flat world, its what we do with all this shared knowledge and collaboration that counts.
