Enjoy!
technorati tags: best of us, olympics, motivation, dreams
Enjoy!
technorati tags: best of us, olympics, motivation, dreams
Yoink'd Mediabox is a fully AJAX / DHTML web media player (like Windows Media Player, iTunes, Winamp, etc..) for finding, organizing, and sharing available online video content (from youtube, google video, etc.). Features include:
Our core value lies in user experience and our media sharing capabilities. We truly want to change the way we view media on the web.
Enjoy this short demo to the sweet, tunes of Aly and AJ in "The Potential Breakup Song."
technorati tags: yoink'd, yoinkd, mediabox, aly, aj, potential breakup song, yoinkd.com
Chapter 9 of The Valley of Heart's Delight by Michael Malone.
...We take a job... and we dream of what might have been. And then we scheme ways to make the career we've found more fulfilling, more rewarding. Ambition colors our lives --- an all-consuming, fundamental ambition to somehow reach a better slot. This ambition is a universal disease. Politicians dream of becoming president, priests of being named pope, apparatchiks of becoming commissar, commoners of being crowned king.
..It's just that when one speaks of work, it always comes back to dream versus reality, to envy and ambition. But most of all, it comes back to self.
This is understandable, but also deadly. Too often we are so busy contemplating our splendid selves, congratulating ourselves over some minor, meaningless victory ("The Boss remembered my name! My future is made.") or chastising ourselves over some inexplicable defeat ("The Boss forgot my name! I'm human trash. I think I'll kill myself.") that we fail to look around. More often than not, that is where our real problem lies.
The Job. The Company you work for. We shed a tear over Dickens' horrific workhouses, then fail to notice that our own company makes Scrooge & Marley seem like Club Med; or that, next to our boss, Fagin is Mother Teresa.
...But when you return to the corporate cave tomorrow morning, do not tell your workmates what you've learned. Don't turn to the person at the next desk and loudly announce, "You know, this place really sucks." Such philosophical honesty may result in your living in a damp cardboard box under the San Fernando Street overpass and wearing somebody else's underwear. Just keep your mouth shut and remember: Given the present state of Social Security, you can never, ever retire...
Hah, I love the author's sarcasm and sense of humor. In any case, skimming through this chapter reminded me of how much my current New York roommates are corporate slaves --- *suffering* through the long hours of investment banking. I barely see them at all since they work well over 100 hours per week. One of my roommates -- Sharon -- ran out of the door this afternoon (practically in tears) since she was called back to do work. I immediately left her a voicemail to offer my support and encourage her to do well. It really hurts me to see my roommates like this.... Why do they even have jobs like this? Employee unhappiness should be a crime!
Rule #1: The real world is slower, more inefficient. And guess what? You got to live with it. I think I learned this the hard way ;p. I'm naturally an impatient person (which may be good or bad) -- but I have this natural tendency to not only "get things done" but to also get them done fast. I guess you can say I'm very results-oriented ;p....
Rule #2: If you can't live with Rule #1, you have to invent your own rules. This is the path I'm currently taking...Yes, I'm most likely going to be living out of a cardboard box but hey, at least it's -my- cardboard box. Luckily, I still have my underwear :) In the next coming weeks, I'm leaving New York City and moving back to the bay area...
technorati tags: ambition, silicon valley, michael malone, secrets, job
One of his older posts back in April 2007 caught my attention. He points out an interesting ultimate social networking tool, Spitr, a project by Inrvoice LLC being worked on by technologists and biomedical researchers:
technorati tags: twitter, social networking, spitr, bluetooth
I'm curious as to how much evidence there is on this issue (e.g. how many leaders were examined? how is "leader" defined?). Does anyone know of a link to a study done on this research? One interesting idea (that I believe is already being worked on) is to post biographies and stories of people on the Internet and do analytics on it. (Hah, I'm all about running the numbers.) There's all sorts of connections that can be made by studying one's past.
technorati tags: absent fathers, supportive mothers, leadership
After Andris nearly loses his life to scarlet fever at the age of four, his family is forced to deal with the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Fleeing the Germans, Andris and his mother find refuge with a Christian family in the outskirts of Budapest and then hide in cellars from Russian bombs. After the nightmare of war ends, the family rebuilds its business and its life, only to face a new trial with a succession of repressive Communist governments.
In June 1956, the popular Hungarian uprising is put down at gunpoint. Soviet troops occupy Budapest and randomly round up young people. Two hundred thousand Hungarians follow a tortuous route to escape to the West. Among them is the author ...
This story is beautiful. It's a story of courage, dedication, strength, determination, will, commitment, etc. I do want to share one part of the memoir that touched me the most (literally made me teary):
My father brought home some pictures he had managed to keep with him throughout all his years in the war and captivity. They were wallet-size studio photographs of my mother and me, taken before he left just so he could have a picture of us with him while he was away. My father treasured these pictures; they never left his body. They gave him strength when he needed it most. In his darkest moments, when it looked like he would not make it, he used the backs of the pictures to scribble his good-bye messages to us.
I read these notes over and over. One of them that my father wrote near the end of the war particularly touched me. It was dated April 1945. "My dear ones: Now that it looks like the end would be here and the prospect of seeing you again, I have had another setback--- a new disease, some skin ulcers. It's spreading from one day to the next. There is no medicine. They don't know how to treat it. It's slow death. It looks like struggles of the last three years were for nothing. And all I would like is to see you again, to know that you are alive. But I am destroyed. Just my love for you keeps me alive. Gyurka."
He made it home five months later.
For me, this passage reminds us how strong love can be. It truly is a powerful force that makes extraordinary things happen. In modern-day society, things move and change at such a fast pace that I often feel like we don't have the time to really reflect and think about the people we love the most. This is a post dedicated to those who we cherish :)
Mr. Volenski (his favorite physics teacher) once told Andrew's parents, "Life is like a big lake. All the boys get in the water at one end and start swimming. Not all of them will swim across. But one of them, I'm sure, will. That one is Grof."
Later, the author finishes the book with "As my teacher Volenski predicted, I managed to swim across the lake --- not without effort, not without setbacks, and with a great deal of help and encouragement from others. I am still swimming."
technorati tags: swimming across, andrew grove, intel, love
I saw there were basically two different paths to a sustained state of peak motivation.
One path was to be driven by love. The other was to be driven by fear. Love and fear are the two fundamental poles of motivation. If you chose to embrace either one fully — really chose and commit to that choice — you’re far more likely to feel inspired, driven, and unstoppable.
...
Someone who polarizes with love becomes a lightworker, and one who polarizes with fear becomes a darkworker.
In actuality the vast majority of people (more than 99% I imagine) are neither lightworkers nor darkworkers because they haven’t made the conscious commitment to polarize. They may have strong leanings one way or the other, but they remain indecisive about what’s most important to them. If you ask them point blank, such people will say they prefer a balanced approach or that they simply disagree they have to make a choice at all. The most driven people I’ve ever met, however, tend to fall very strongly on one side or the other. Either they’re absolutely gushing with a desire to contribute and to make a positive difference in the world (lightworker), or they’ve concluded that doing whatever it takes to make themselves happy is their top priority (darkworker).
...
For example, ask yourself these two questions:
In addition, my friend is "paranoid" and will not disclose his idea until it is "finished" (which is not a problem by me, of course. I'm just a curious girl and love to hear about new ideas.)
This post is not to make fun of my friend as he is super-talented and an amazing computer scientist. I just find it amusing as I've heard the same exact lines echoed previously in blog posts I've read in the past year or so. In fact, here are some related, very useful articles by industry leaders and experts:
One of the key lessons I've picked up from visiting TechStars, talking with entrepreneurs, helping build a social web media player, and working at a startup is the importance of speed-to-market and customer feedback. It's so critical to rapidly prototype in order to churn around fast iterations of a product. This process of fast, agile development is advocated by heavily by Eric and Todd of MyBlogLog; it's also a trend we notice with the high influx of Facebook and iPhone apps. Yet, this seems to be at odds with the emphasis in design in my last few posts, right?
Naturally, there are tradeoffs to everything in life. It's hard to pursue several ideas at once only to "see what sticks" so to speak. However, I feel like what's more important is finding the right balance between all these different choices. I guess, at the end of the day, there must be a final team consensus -- make a decision and move forward.
technorati tags: entrepreneurship, startup, technology
technorati tags: janice fraser, adaptive path, design, ceo, entrepreneurship
People need to have a visceral understanding -- an image in their minds -- of why you've chosen a certain strategy and what you're attempting to create with it. Design is ideally suited to this endeavor. It can't help but create tangible, real outcomes.
Because it's pictorial, design describes the world in a way that's not open to many interpretations. Designers, by making a film, scenario, or prototype, can help people emotionally experience the thing that the strategy seeks to describe. If, say, Motorola unveils a plan to create products that have never existed before, everyone in the organization will have a different idea of what that means. But if Motorola creates a video so people can see those products, or makes prototypes so people can touch them, everyone has the same view.
Unfortunately, many people continue to think of design in very narrow terms...
» Interview with Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO (by Brandon Schauer of Adaptive Path)
technorati tags: design, design thinking, design strategy, ideo, tim brown, business, innovation, adaptive path
In particular, we were talking about finding "good quality" topical blogs. While blogging has enabled mass participation from everyone, it has also made the entire universe more cluttered, crowded, and hard to filter through. You always get the good with the bad.
Like what happens in mainstream media, it seems that a few, key influential blogs (either by an individual or group of bloggers) have a widespread effect on the content on all posts across different subsystems of the blog world:
There are sites out there already that helps us filter information: vertical search engines, social bookmarking (digg/reddit), etc. Even in the real world, we see the same filters: New York Times' Bestsellers, Zagat guide, etc. However, what if I don't want to read what everyone else is reading? What about finding the hidden gems inside the "long tail" (e.g. those blogs who have not yet established high authority or rank on Technorati, new authors, etc..)? Or better yet, do we need to do anything at all? In theory, a "good" blogger over time should be able to rise in the ranks (e.g. of Technorati, etc.) as more and more people "discover" his/her content. (Hah, quick financial analog: A undervalued stock who's price has finally returned to "fair" value.) The problem is that, if the blogger is not active about "getting known and out there," this process can take a really long time. And time is what we -don't- have these days. Hmm..there should be some way to speed up this process.....
technorati tags: influence, law of a few, blogosphere, long tail
Ho's blog is the first I've seen that actively applies the principles of Warren Buffett and value investing to venture capital. This struck me as unusual. Why? Because they tend to be very different. It's like apples and oranges. Here are the major differences I see --
It was through reading Ho's blog and speaking with him in person that I've come to realize that these two camps are actually very similar. At the end of the day, there are common principles of what makes good, sustainable businesses. That being said, I feel Altos Ventures positions itself very well in terms of applying these fundamentals to its venture investments, focusing more on those "qualitative" factors and making more careful investment decisions rather than throwing money out randomly and "seeing what sticks."
What I really wonder, is how likely these kind of unique opportunities actually exist in today's world (compared to the time Buffett invested)? With the rise of internet, information and knowledge is much more readily available and more "free." Is it much harder to "know more than the market" compared to the past? While Buffett relied on his newspapers and didn't believe a computer program could make sound investment decisions, I would say that with the added aid of technology, it's now possible for a Buffett-type investor to not only acquire more information (e.g. interesting / niche content, annual reports, etc.) at a faster rate but also interpret that information. For instance, today's value investor may use software to draw diagrams on financial data and see trends (e.g. illustrating the facts on the computer) and then use the increased information (from news sources, blogs, etc.) to assess the qualitative factors of the business. This way the data reading and opinion formation of the investor is still separated.
Concluding Thought: Does a "good" business necessarily have to have "long-term" sustainability as Buffett seems to look for? What if you are just doing well in the shorter term (5, 7, 10 years out)? Perhaps things change because of consumer preferences or just some other disruptive technology. In other words, is it necessarily "evil" that people are overly concerned with exits (short term gain)?
technorati tags: ho nam, altos, venture capital, value investing, warren buffett, buffettology
I really admire Lucy Sanders. She has a highly impressive background: worked R&D and executive positions at AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent Bell Labs, and Avaya Labs for over 20 years, awarded Bell Labs Fellow (highest technical accomplishment) in 1996, and has served on the boards of an array of organizations from academic institutions to venture-backed companies to non-profit organizations. What I really like is the fact she has made significant contributions in both the private and public spheres, having a broad influence not just within a company but to the community at large.
Lucy's work echoes the work of Janet Hanson and 85 Broads, a global network of more than 13,000 members worldwide for women in business. I met Janet last summer when I worked at Lehman Brothers. Janet's vibrant personality and energy definitely shined as she spoke. You could tell she truly genuinely cared about her work. She even told us that she envisioned 85 Broads cafes all over New York City one day.
I really support the work of Lucy and Janet and hope to encourage women to pursue science, technology, and business. It's not about trying to "level the playing field" and "forcing" women to study these subjects. Rather, it's making sure that they are not discouraged to try it out. For instance, I know a number of my friends (both female and male) who did not pursue engineering because they thought it was "too hard" and "too much work." "I don't want to spend all this time and have it lower my GPA," a friend told me.
I do admit there are sacrifices to be made. Engineering = more requirements, more labs, more classes, more time. Ultimately, I think the most important thing is to find out what you like to do. Don't be afraid to take a class. Grades are overrated. Learn for the sake of learning.
technorati tags: women, it, technology, lucy sanders, ncwit, 85 broads, janet hanson, nonprofit
What is it? How do startups get ahead of customers? How and when do startups execute on strategy? What happens if your strategy fails?
Panelists: Alex King (Crowd Favorite), Brad Feld (Mobius Venture Capital), Don Loeb (Feedburner), Dave Taylor (serial entrepreneur and consultant)
Should all startups blog? Must they do so nowadays to gain critical mass?
While Brad Feld argued for complete transparency in blogging, I feel companies ought to exercise caution. While blogging may be especially beneficial for consumer-oriented internet startups in "spreading the word," it also is a source of competitive intelligence. One interesting point that was brought up was whether or not companies should blog about a "roadblock" they've encountered. Another point was whether or not young people today should be worried about what they are blogging about online. In other words, can the words you say now (e.g. say as a teenager using MySpace or Facebook) be used against you later (e.g. for a future job position)? Since perception is so important, one negative first impression can ruin the future image of the brand (or person).
technorati tags: techstars, go-to-market strategy, blogging, startups, marketing, getting started
My trip has been amazing so far. First off, Boulder is absolutely gorgeous. Here are some of my favorite perks about the city:
In addition, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the conversations I’ve had with the founders of the TechStars teams. I love meeting new people and hearing their thoughts and ideas. I could immediately feel the excitement and energy of the founders just from short conversations with them, making me more eager to see the results of their hard work. All of them have been working on some very interesting, exciting, cool ideas. Unfortunately, most of them haven’t been getting too much sleep… For instance, my friends on the LingoLinko team have had crazy schedules (e.g. sleeping at 7am and waking up at 12noon). I’m amazed by everyone’s energy ….
I’m heading out of Boulder this afternoon. Thanks to David Cohen for letting me crash TechStars for a few days. Also, special shout out to Ben Casnocha for making my trip even more amazing and introducing me to more entrepreneurial people in the Boulder area!
technorati tags: techstars, boulder, colorado, david cohen, startups, entrepreneurship