Jul

13

iPhone 3G MS Exchange sync pricing strategy

Filed Under business, entrepreneurship, marketing, mobile, product management, strategy | Leave a Comment

Unless someone knocked you out in a hockey fight last Friday and your consciousness has just returned, chances are that you have heard of this thing called the iPhone 3G launch. I’ve been going back and forth on my decision on whether to get it or not. There are 2 things that are holding me back from getting an iPhone 3G:

  1. MS Exchange synchronization pricing
  2. No tethering option

It’s a classic pricing strategy–their (AT&T’s) attempt to extract more value from the wireless consumer segment that well .. has more money to dispose. Not only have they hiked the price of the unlimited data plan by $10/month from $20 to $30, but they charge you an additional $15/mo if you want to synchronize with an Exchange Server.

I’m a price-sensitive customer *and* I’m a techie at heart, thus I simply balk at having to guarantee AT&T’s revenue for 2 whopping years merely to transfer a sequence of low and high electrical signals to some proprietary email server, as opposed to any other email server, or as opposed to just casually serving the web.

The techie in me knows that they’re simply charging more by discriminating against MS Exchange data from casual web surfing, or any non-Exchange email data.

From Wikipedia’s entry on Net Neutrality: Neutrality proponents also claim that telecom companies seek to impose the tiered service model more for the purpose of profiting from their control of the pipeline rather than for any demand for their content or services.

The entrepreneur in me knows that they are just playing it by the pricing strategy books. To that end, I say, all the more power to them. Maybe I won’t buy the phone, but seeing that they are so savvy and nickel and diming the segment I am in (the “tough” crowd), I’m considering buying their stock instead.

My second gripe is the inability to tether the iPhone 3G to a laptop (without hacking it). This point is important to me because when I travel with my laptop, and if I’m in a spot where I don’t have wifi access, I just need that option to tether my laptop to my mobile phone.

Maybe AT&T is worried about people starting to use the iPhone as a modem and thus cannibalizing revenues from their existing wifi hotspot sales. To that end, I feel like if I’m already putting up with the hike in price for monthly unlimited data, putting up with the extra monthly charge for their discriminating against MS Exchange data, it’s just simply un-polite to ding me again by forcing me to cough up even more for a separate wifi hotspot plan. Come on.

And I quote Bruce Scheier:

Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet. To me, it’s basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea.

I can see how they might have justified this impoliteness though. Corporate users probably have their companies paying for the bills anyway, and corporations have much deeper pockets and can easily justify such a cost as a business expensive. However, this pricing model obviously neglects the average work-for-a-corporation-joe-but-this-is-an-out-of-pocket-expense.

All said, here’s a message from a randomly-selected passionate early-adopting techie from the price-sensitive “tough crowd” segment, to whoever green-lighted this pricing strategy. You guys suck, and I hope you enjoy this video.


How to Get Broke by Buying an iPhone

Jul

3

Hidden flaws in strategy (part un)

Filed Under business, entrepreneurship, product management, self improvement, strategy, things to remind myself, winds of change | Leave a Comment

The McKinsey Quarterly has an interesting piece titled “Hidden Flaws in Strategy”, authored by Charles Roxburgh. What I like about this article is that it forces one to think about your blind spot, and provide solutions on how to overcome your own bias. A blind spot is well, very self-explanatory, which is why I think that’s just all the more reason why people, especially those who do any kind of strategy, should read this well put together article.

I’ll sum up some of the key takeaways to me, but reading the original piece of McKinsey is highly recommended.

Here are the common strategy flaws.

Flaw 1: Overconfidence

Our brains are naturally wired to make us overconfidence. This can be a good thing, because otherwise no one in their right mind would want to launch a new startup. However, we hurt ourselves when we try to make accurate estimates. Given a test question like “How heavy is a fully laden 747?” where participants are asked to give an answer where they were 90% confident, most people would rather be precisely wrong than be vaguely right.

Lesson learned: Be skeptical of strategies premised on certainty, and (duh) give yourself some wiggle room.

Flaw 2: Mental Accounting

Richard Thaler, a theorist in behavioural finance named the concept of mental accounting, defined as “the inclination to categorize and treat money differently depending on where it comes from, where it is kept, and how it is spent.” Some examples of mental accounting in the boardroom:

  • imposing caps on core business while throwing money at a startup
  • writing off money spent with conveniently created categories such as “revenue-investment spend” or “strategic investment”

Lesson learned: Don’t be so quick to throw away “so what if we throw it away” money. Eval potential investment through the standard scrutiny process, regardless of how the money fell into your lap.

Flaw 3: Status quo bias

An experiment conducted by Samuelson and Zeckhauser discovered that when students were asked how they would invest a hypothetical inheritance of millions of dollars, they adopted a “let’s leave things where they are” approach. That is, if the inheritance was already in high-risk high-yield stocks, it would be left as is. If the inheritence was already in low-risk low-return bonds, it would also be left as is. They opted not to rebalance the allocation in this hypothetical portfolio, even if it wasn’t in accordance to their risk preference.

The explanation is that people are more concerned about the fear of loss more than they are excited by the prospect of getting more. That’s the status quo. That’s what makes entrepreneurs special–they are not the status quo.

The other explanation is the endowment bias. Thaler discovered in an experiment with Cornell students that they wouldn’t pay more than $2.75 for mug with a Cornell imprint, but if they were given one, they wouldn’t sell the same mug away for less than $5.25–did the free market suddenly decide that the same mug has more value when it was already in someone’s possession when the same mug (a brand new one available for purchase) would be worth less? I think not.

While conservatism can be a strategic asset, it is important to distinguish between a status-quo option that is genuinely the right thing to do vs. one that just “feels safe” because of our innate bias.
Read more

Apr

24

SDSIC Integrated Product Management and Development - A Case Study

Filed Under business, entrepreneurship, marketing, people i like, product management, project management, san diego, startup, strategy | Leave a Comment

Recently, I’ve been really fortunate to have met so many amazing people, that I can just learn from through osmosis, merely by just hanging around them (the converse is also true, which is why I am careful to stay way from people I don’t want to model myself after). Two days ago, I attended a San Diego Software Industry Council (SDSIC) event on Product Management where a real world case study was presented by Alan Kiraly, CEO of Enterprise Informatics.

When I last took Rod Whitson’s class on product management at UCSD, I particularly liked the real world case studies that we went over. It was definitely a plus that Rod actually had real world experience to draw from. Likewise with Alan, who is also an industry veteran. The other thing I like about an actual face-to-face event is the people interaction, the stuff that you learn that nobody will actually write in a book.

Here’s a couple of things I picked up from Alan’s presentation.

A solidified and well defined business processes can be quite the competitive advantage. Alan talked about how Enterprise Informatics use their own product for their SOWs “lifecycle” management (eating your own dogfood == awesome!). What I particularly liked about this really manages decision making. Once an SOW is defined, if the time is not right, it can be thrown out in the “parking lot”. At a later time, if the opportunity arrises, the SOW can be picked up, dusted off a little, tweaked and be reused by putting it on the development cycle train.

The obvious value here is in saving time and resource in planning. Planning and strategizing stuff takes time and .. well, brain power! Too many times have I figured a whole plan for something, shelved it, and then later when I want to revisit it, I have to redefine the entire plan from scratch again.

Transparency is good. Ok, so nothing really ground shattering here, but it’s nice to hear about real world problems when transparency is not advocated. In a global and diverse organization, with people working across various continents and different timezones, synchronizing work and expectations can be a challenge. I can surely relate to that–my team at work, consist of folks in California, Australia, Israel, China, France, and the UK.
Read more

Apr

8

Lessons from the Warrior of the Light

Filed Under changing the world, entrepreneurship, execution, failure, fear, goal setting, passion, perseverance, quotes, regular reads, self improvement, startup, strategy, things to ponder about, things to remind myself, values | Leave a Comment

I’m definitely a fan of Paulo Coelho, the renowned Brazillian author. He has a unique way of teaching the lessons in life that he has learned through storytelling.

A few lessons from the Warrior of the Light.

Using one’s own madness

A warrior of the light studies very carefully the position he wishes to conquer.

However difficult his objective may be, there is always a way to overcome the obstacles. He verifies the alternative routes, sharpens his sword, and seeks to fill his heart with the perseverance necessary to face the challenge.

But, as he advances, the warrior realizes there are difficulties he had not foreseen at the outset.

If he waits for the ideal moment, he will never move from his position; he sees that a little madness is needed for the next step.

The warrior uses a little madness. Because - in war and in love - one cannot foresee everything.

Life is such that if you wait to gather 100% of every single detail before you can make a decision, others would have surpassed you. If you waited for the fog to clear, then what you see is what everyone else will also see. Given the perfect picture, anyone sane would make the same correct, best choice. This is exactly how *not* to beat the market.

CEOs often make decisions with incomplete data–and that takes a little madness. It’s about making decisions with the best information possible available at that time. Standing still through inaction is waiting to fail–and I’ll fail from action than inaction.

So when do you put yourself out there and wear your heart on your sleeve?
Read more

Dec

18

Interview with Max Levchin, CEO of Slide

Filed Under people i like, startup, strategy, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

Max Levchin is someone I admire. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, he is the co-founder of Paypal that was sold to eBay for $1.5Bil.

Here are some of my key takeaways:

  1. As an entrepreneur, you have to learn to define yourself as someone who runs a company. You know you’re really good at that if you dont think that much about what kind of company you are running (meaning, it’s second nature to you).
  2. After you launch something, watch the world respond to it. If they say it is no good, you must evolve.
  3. You don’t wait for the market to tell you that your product or idea sucks. You keep your ears close to the ground. Sometimes you must completely your strategy. Smell the opportunity.
  4. On reaching out to end-users: Being active in forums and the company blog is good, but that doesn’t scale. Satisfy your early adopter (your core base), then shift to metrics. Use metrics to drive all features. It’s important to measure, interpret the information, and feed that directly into product strategy. 10% of headcount at Slide is dedicated to measuring.
  5. Greatest fallacy: build products for yourself. Abstract yourself out of the equation. Startup founders are smarter and crazier than the average person, you can’t use yourself as the “normal” person this product is built for. Find out who you are building it for. It’s great if you are a part of your audience, but you may not necessarily be. If you are not, you must understand the audience really well.
  6. At Paypal, everyone on board understood the vision, and genuinely focused on customer needs. Build value, create something people want.



I found this cool interview of him, by iinnovate. Read more about Max on the New York Times.

Aug

25

Value creation by opportunity cost

Filed Under business, ideas, innovation, startup, strategy, technology, things to ponder about | Leave a Comment

I was thinking about Tivo earlier. While it’s no rocket science product, it certain has become a common standard in households in the US now. In fact, Tivo has achieved the status of Google in the sense that people now use it as a verb. How many times have you heard, “I tivo’d that show”, “I will tivo that movie tonight”, “wanna come over, I have that game tivo’d”?

Anyway, I just thought it was interesting to note that one of the ways Tivo creates value for its users, is by reducing/eliminating the opportunity cost for its users. Opportunity cost or economic cost, is the cost of something in terms of an opportunity forgone (and the benefits which could be received from that opportunity), or the most valuable forgone alternative (or highest-valued option forgone), i.e. the second best alternative.

For instance, if there were two shows on two different channels that will show at the exact same time. If you only had one TV, you must pick only 1 show to watch. Even if you had 2 TV’s, you can’t really watch both at the same time. So in the pre-Tivo and DVR days, you would pick the show you liked better. The opportunity cost for viewers would be that other show that they unfortunately could not watch. Tivo fixed that. And good for them, because this is a pain that customers were willing to pay in order to get rid of. Just as a contrast, there are plenty of problems that aren’t painful enough such that customers aren’t willing to pay for a solution.

I like problem solving, and am on the lookout for interesting ways to create value. This is one way, so from now on, I will keep my eyes peeled for opportunity cost problems that can be solved.

Aug

20

Data suggests: More swings at the bat == higher success rate

Filed Under did you know, innovation, regular reads, self improvement, strategy, things to ponder about | Leave a Comment

Wow, I just read this great post by Marc Andreessen — finding empiric data (true to Marissa Mayer’s what-does-the-data-suggest style) to answer the flame-brewing question that has been circling: “Are older or younger people better at entrepreneurship?” I do no justice by just skimming here, so please read the entire post for the full effect.

For the impatient: In summary, the valuable lesson learned here from Dr. Simonton’s research is that:

  1. Generally, productivity — output — rises rapidly from the start of a career to a peak and then declines gradually until retirement.
  2. This peak in productivity varies by field, from the late 20s to the early 50s, for reasons that are field-specific.
  3. Precocity, longevity, and output rate are linked. “Those who are precocious also tend to display longevity, and both precocity and longevity are positively associated with high output rates per age unit.” High producers produce highly, systematically, over time.
  4. The odds of a hit versus a miss do not increase over time. The periods of one’s career with the most hits will also have the most misses. So maximizing quantity — taking more swings at the bat — is much higher payoff than trying to improve one’s batting average.
  5. Intelligence, at least as measured by metrics such as IQ, is largely irrelevant.

Aug

19

Winds of Change

Filed Under changing the world, perseverance, self improvement, stanford, strategy, things to remind myself, winds of change | Leave a Comment


* Image courtesy of GIS and AOL’s CDN

Update: Welcome Carnival of Career Intensity readers! Thanks to Dave for including this post in the Labor Day carnival.

I’m adding a new category to my blog, titled “Winds of Change”. I could have just called it “Change”, but that’s no fun ;) (in case you want to know where I got it from, it’s a name of a song I like). Change is inevitable, and I’ve learned a great deal (and still have much to learn), about embracing change instead of fighting to defend the mediocre status quo. Carly Fiorina gave a great talk about change at Stanford 3 months ago, and why sometimes leaders get “carried out on their shields” because change is difficult! I highly recommend listening to her talk, if you don’t have time, make time, I promise you will not regret it :)

So without further ado, I wanted to share a good article I read about change.

Begetting Change: Same Choices, Same Results

Repeated bouts of adversity are an unavoidable aspect of human existence. We battle against our inner struggles or outer world forces, and in many cases, we emerge on the opposite side of struggle stronger and better equipped to cope with the challenges yet to come. However, we can occasionally encounter trials that seem utterly hopeless. We strike at them with all of our creativity and perseverance, hoping desperately to bring about change, only to meet with the same results as always. Our first instinct in such situations is often to push harder against the seemingly immovable obstruction before us, assuming that this time we will be met with a different outcome. But staying power and stamina net us little when the same choices consistently garner the same results. A change in perspective, behavior, or response can do so much more to help us move past points where no amount of effort seems sufficient to overcome the difficulties before us.

Whether our intention is to change ourselves or some element of the world around us, we cannot simply wish for transformation or hope that our lives will be altered through circumstance. If our patterns of thought and behavior remain unchanged, our lives will continue to unfold much as they have previously. Patterns in which fruitless efforts prevail can be overcome with self examination and courage. It is our bravery that allows us to question the choices we have made thus far and to channel our effort into innovation. Asking questions and making small adjustments to your thought processes and behaviors will help you discover what works, so you can leave that which does not work behind you. To break free from those unconscious patterns that have long held sway over your actions and reactions, you will likely have to challenge your assumptions on a most basic level. You must accept once and for all that your beliefs with regard to cause and effect may no longer be in accordance with your needs.

Stagnation is often a sign that great changes are on the horizon. Courting the change you wish to see in yourself and in the world around you is a matter of acknowledging that only change begets change. The results you so ardently want to realize are well within the realm of possibility, and you need only step away from the well-worn circular path to explore the untried paths that lie beyond it.

Great lesson here. Sometimes, brute-force techniques aren’t the most efficient way to solve a problem. It’s always best to remain open to other possible problem solving methods. Acknowledging you have made a mistake (or could have done something better) is the first step, before making incremental adjustments to your course. When you feel growth stalling, then you know you have to actively seek out change, for the same choice will return you the same results. Take charge of your destiny.

What I’ve found true for myself, if you don’t take charge of your life, others will run your life for you. It’s your own responsibility to ensure that you end up where you want to be. If you don’t like where you end up, you only have yourself to blame.

Jul

29

See the world, but never forget the drops of oil on the spoon

Filed Under goal setting, quotes, strategy, things to ponder about, things to remind myself, time management | Leave a Comment

“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon”.

Yeah, me too. Never forget the what?

I got this quote from Wikipedia’s entry on the book titled “The Alchemist”. First of all, I’m pretty much a straight up technology nerd/geek/whatever-they-call-it-these-days. I don’t pretend to be a domain expert on chemistry or biology. Sure, I took some classes in college, but it never really interested me as much as all things technology did, or even math. Matter of fact, I hated math when I was a kid. My parents and high school math teachers will testify how much I failed at the subject, hated the subject, and faked liking the subject (I sort of faked liking school too, but that’s a different story altogether to tell another time). I’ll bet that my teachers then will be shocked to hear today, that not only did I get a minor in math, published an original research paper in math, but actually like and appreciate math.

That being said, during my geeky nerd years doing my B.S. (ha-ha) in C.S., I pretty much thought of chemistry and biology as an “overhead cost” to getting my degree. It just wasn’t that much related to tech or math (sure I understand that CPU’s need electrons for the transistors and logic gates, but outside of that .. ?), and it was pretty much required if I wanted to graduate, so I knew that this isn’t something I could walk around and forget. When I graduated, a good friend of mine who graduated with me gave me a graduation/parting gift. It was a book titled “The Alchemist”. Now that you know my love-hate relationship with all-things chemistry at that time, I naturally thought to myself, “uhh .. what on earth were you thinking?” Nevertheless, I accepted the gift with a smile, thanked her for it, and well .. chucked it a side.

Just to put things in perspective, back then, I only read stuff like Slashdot, Onlamp and O’Reilly. Back then, there was no Digg or Reddit, but if there was, I would be reading that. I hung on on mailing lists, like for FreeBSD. I wouldn’t even touch business. Today, I read lots of business. So back then, if it wasn’t tech, I pretty much didn’t care. Ok, I read a little bit of national news. A little international news too, but 95% was tech, tech, and tech.

Many times when ridding my garage of bloat, I thought of ridding myself of a book that I knew I would never read, but it reminded me of the moments I had with Amira in the computer science lab, hacking away at programming assignments, logic problems, the late nights studying in the library (with coffee we quietly snuck past the pesky librarians), cramming for a test and stressing out over math and physics homework assignments. To date, I still have the book with me. Recently, I read the book mentioned somewhere and decided that well, I will at least devote enough time to read the summary of the book — which is when I looked up it’s Wikipedia entry and got that quote.

So anyway, following this trail led me to another interesting discovery. (Be warned, this is going to be a long blog post)

I googled for that exact quote and the first result was this blog post, by someone from Kerala, India. Here’s the story behind that quote, it’s worth the read I promise.

A certain shopkeeper sent his son to learn about the secret of happiness from the wisest man in the world. The lad wandered through the desert for 40 days, and finally came upon a beautiful castle, high atop a mountain. It was there that the wise man lived.

Rather than finding a saintly man, though, our hero, on entering the main room of the castle, saw a hive of activity: tradesmen came and went, people were conversing in the corners, a small orchestra was playing soft music, and there was a table covered with platters of the most delicious food in that part of the world. The wise man conversed with everyone, and the boy had to wait for two hours before it was his turn to be given the man’s attention.

The wise man listened attentively to the boy’s explanation of why he had come, but told him that he didn’t have time just then to explain the secret of happiness. He suggested that the boy look around the palace and return in two hours.

“Meanwhile, I want to ask you to do something”, said the wise man, handing the boy a teaspoon that held two drops of oil. “As you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill”.

The boy began climbing and descending the many stairways of the palace, keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. After two hours, he returned to the room where the wise man was.

“Well”, asked the wise man, “Did you see the Persian tapestries that are hanging in my dining hall? Did you see the garden that it took the master gardener ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

The boy was embarrassed, and confessed that he had observed nothing. His only concern had been not to spill the oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“Then go back and observe the marvels of my world”, said the wise man. “You cannot trust a man if you don’t know his house”.

Relieved, the boy picked up the spoon and returned to his exploration of the palace, this time observing all of the works of art on the ceilings and the walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around him, the beauty of the flowers, and the taste with which everything had been selected. Upon returning to the wise man, he related in detail everything he had seen.

“But where are the drops of oil I entrusted to you?” asked the wise man. Looking down at the spoon he held, the boy saw that the oil was gone.

“Well, there is only one piece of advice I can give you”, said the wisest of wise men. “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon”.

This makes sense to me. I know and realize that I sometimes am like that boy. I focus all my energy on the day-to-day important stuff, but I miss the long term important stuff. This is a great example of the phrase “penny wise, pound foolish”. I sweat the stuff that is urgently needed within the next 24 hours and strive the hardest to hit my mark, which I do — but I miss my mark in meeting my long term, broader 5 year goal. I attribute this to not aligning my daily goals to my 5 year goals — something I MUST remedy soon.

A perfect example of this is my not taking a vacation off ever since I began working right after college. Today, I’m what you corporate folks diagnose as “bleeding vacation time”, that is, my vacation time accrues, but is capped off at a certain amount. Short term: there’s _always_ something important and/or urgent at work, such that I just cannot afford to not go to work. Long term: I lose my sanity and burn out from working so hard. I’m only human after all.

Before the end of this year, I will go for a vacation. I have nothing solid planned, but I know I must take a vacation if I am to become a better employee. It’s really better for my company anyway. I never thought I’d say that, but I am now. By the end of this year, if I still haven’t taken a vacation, I will be truly SORRY and DISAPPOINTED with myself. My ex-girlfriend actually predicted that I’m the “bleeding vacation time” type of person. And she predicted that when I was still in college. Multiple part time jobs while getting a degree, why would she ever say something like that? :/ I remember thinking to myself, “that’s because you Europeans take it too damn easy”. Which in my defense, is true. American workers put in more hours than their European counterparts, last I remember from reading a world labor stats report. Thus, I shrugged off her comments as irrelevant and inherently biased, based upon unreasonable metrics.

My fear is that I’m driving on the road in high gear, in pitch black darkness with my headlights shining no farther than 30 feet. I can easily avoid small objects lying on the road and remain on the path, but I may not see the brick wall standing 31 feet in front of me. Or stop in time before it’s too late.

I have since lost touch with Amira since she moved back to Bosnia and Herzegovina after graduation (little over 3 years now at time of writing). Nevertheless, in the age of the wonderful internets, with search engines, e-mail, instant messengers, social-networks, and the good old telephone, there really is no excuse for not staying in touch. I hope she will drop me an e-mail if she reads this. I know (and she knows), and now you know, what a heartless prick I can be sometimes (see “what the hell were you thinking?” above). I’m sorry :(

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

Dec

10

Things you want to address before they happen

Filed Under strategy, things to ponder about, websense | Leave a Comment

IMG_0751

It rarely rains in San Diego, but it did last night. I guess my car’s brakes were still wet although it was sunny today. As I made a pretty tight corner, jamming my brakes a little hard, I felt the ABS go off and I thought to myself, “wow, am I glad I went with the ABS on this car”. I drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse ‘05 and I remember the day I was debating if I should go with the GTS or the GT trim, the latter not having the ABS and cheaper.

I generally dislike the “scare” tactic used by salesmen. It usually entails providing you reason why if you don’t buy whatever they are selling, then something bad will happen to you.

But if I am going to be like that, then logic follows that I should start thinking about the things I need before I need them. I needed my ABS to stop my car before I hit another car. Surely, I can opt to get the ABS after I hit the car, but then I’d have to pay the financial consequences. So why not take the pre-emptive measure of getting the ABS first? I’m already penalized plenty for car insurance (namely because I am under 25, single, no kids, and drive a 2 door car). I do have a clean driving record, so my preference would be to keep it that way for as long as I can.

The punchline for this post is: What are the things in life that you should address before something undesirable occurs that will affect you, your loved ones, and/or belongings?

The other extreme would be to buy everything a scare tactic tells you. Sure, I could be struck by a meteor the size of Saturn that crashes on my car while I am driving to my hockey game, but what are the odds of that happening? (That was a jab at the insurance telemarketers that try to sell me their load of crap).

Without even feeling a *little* bit guilty for being biased (heh), another thing that comes to mind is my company’s flagship product. You can read all about it from the marketers, but one of the things we do is prevent people from accidentally visiting malicious websites that will silently install malware (trojan horses, viruses, spyware) on your PC. Did you know, just by visiting a link from your e-mail, you could get infected? That’s all it takes. Yes, that was a shameless plug for my company. I work for the Websense Security Labs. You could get a product as such AFTER you have been hit by piece of malware silenty running on your PC, harvesting all your credit card information from all that online shopping, but you’ve just paid the price. And if your Big Corp, Inc. — the damage to your reputation because you lost your customer information will be hard to undo.

There are plenty of examples like these in life, I guess I just need to list them all, and address them as they come. Do share in the comments below. I’ve just enabled Akismet, to combat comment spam. We’ll see how well this thing works!

On another note, I haven’t written anything for 1+ weeks because I was on a trip to Louisiana. Might post some hideous pictures up later. Cheers!

Nov

28

While you whine about how it can’t be done, someone else is already doing it

Filed Under innovation, quotes, strategy | Leave a Comment

The world is moving so fast these days that the one who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.
–Harry Emerson Fosdick

This quote reminds me that why I like whiners and skeptics. While they reason and debate why something cannot be done and why they are better off not doing it, I get a head start by planning and strategizing how it can be done. The more they work to convince themselves that they can’t do it, the larger the perceived barrier to entry for them — and the lesser the competition for me, and I get the first-mover advantage!

Works great for me :)

Oct

9

Honing strategic thinking skills

Filed Under career, self improvement, strategy | Leave a Comment

Dave Lorenzo talks about learning how to think strategically and how it is similar to learning a new foreign language.

  1. Perfection is simply unattainable when you are learning. Strategic thinking is developed over time, and isn’t an on/off switch you can flip at a whim
  2. You evaluate, choose, and act, leveraging your experience, and then evaluate the outcome, refining your ability for future decision making. You don’t need to make the perfect decision—you only need to keep making active choices and striving for excellence
  3. Practice. Keep making better decision over and over, until making best strategic decisions until it becomes second nature.

For the more technically inclined (e.g. programmers), this reminds me a lot of the rule of writing recursive functions.

  1. The result of each successive computation has to be closer towards the ultimate result, no matter how small of a leap
  2. Just keep running it as many times as needed (just assume until infinity)

* I’ve ommited the last rule of recursive functions, which is to stop when the result is achieved. Learning how to think strategically should be a life-long learning process. There’s no such thing as too much of it. We just don’t want computations on computers to run forever.