OK, I lied. That last post wasn't my last post for 2008. THIS is my last post and it left me laughing so hard... :) Enjoy



My favorite line:

"Oh, im sorry Brian, is my time machine not as good as your time machine?"

Due to my new project, this is likely the last blog post of 2008.

8 things:

1) Two weeks ago I came back from a three week long trip to Beijing, Shanghai, Qufu, Jinan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. I went as a guest of a Chinese government program to share what China has accomplished in recent years with 133 overseas Chinese born individuals who play a significant role in their community, business, industry, etc from 23 different countries.

I was really impressed at how much Beijing has changed in the past 10 years. They toured us around the Water Cube, the Bird's Nest, the Bird's Egg, the Great Wall, Tienanmen Square, a Chinese liquor factory where they make the popular Baijou, and several Confucius temples. We met with government officials who shared with us the economic status of China, the constant transition of their citizens from rural to urban cities, and the importance placed on establishing a solid infrastructure while taking into account generations of growth. It was so impressive, I'm actually entertaining the idea of moving there once I learn Mandarin and my Internet projects are more established. The best part though was the people I befriended on the trip- they were the most valuable takeaway and we're already planning a reunion party in Hong Kong next year.

Some picture highlights.































2) I'm writing an eBook to share with others who are interested in launching a business of their own. I should be done by the end of the month. The new site is called smallshopbigbusiness.com. I wanted to call it solostartups.com but only after I registered the domain name did I realize that there is already a solostartup.com site. Damn. Note to others, check variations of your potential domain purchases prior to purchasing otherwise you'll "waste" your money. Oh well, I'll just redirect it.

3) In China / Hong Kong, I enjoyed local and international long distance calling abilities for something near 3 cents (usd) per minute. Well upon my return, my frustration with expensive overseas calling led me to www.Voxofon.com. It's a VoIP service so the people you call will see a local number.

My call to China: 1.3 cents per minute.
My call to Australia: 14 cents per minute.
My call to Indonesia: 13 cents per minute.

Drunk dialing will never be more fun...

"Harro! Mikey! I just flew in and I'm at a payphone at the airport, come pick me up!!" hahaha.

4) The value of viral videos cannot be overemphasized. I posted a racing video on one of my sites on Thanksgiving to see if I could get some site visitors passing along a link. I'll let the numbers do the talking.



5) I suspect Kanye West used Cherokee People, Cherokee Pride as the inspirational melody for his new Love Lock Down song. From the first time I heard his song, I immediately thought of the Cherokee song. Here they are on youtube, you can compare yourself.

Cherokee People, Cherokee Pride

Kanye West's Love Lock Down

6) HTC just came out with their Max 4G phone and it is SCARY quick. In fact, this thing is faster than the IBM Thinkpad 600E I had in 2001!

Here are some fun stats:
Processor: Qualcomm® ESM7206A™ 528 MHz
Platform: Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
Memory: ROM: 256MB / RAM: 288MB / Flash: 8 GB
Screen: 3.8" wvga touch screen.
Camera: 5 megapixel camera

More here: http://www.slashgear.com/htc-max-4g-for-russian-wimax-network-announced-1222475/

7) I cannot escape how infectious the song Just Dance is by Lady Gaga. Prepare to be addicted in 3... 2.. 1...

8) I've officially had the G1 Google Phone for one month now and I think it's time for a quick review. Overall, this phone is great but there are some drawbacks. Thankfully, the drawbacks can be overlooked due to the low price.

Pros:

1) Applications! Here's a list of my most frequently used apps/services: voxofon, fbook, shazam, mortgage calculator, wikimobile, and wikitude.

2) iPhone-ish interface + a real keyboard = winner! This phone is a lot quicker than my HTC made ATT Tilt. The G1 menu slides out really quick, you can scroll through your contacts just like the iPhone, the integration across functions is also impressive. From searching for something locally, clicking it, getting directions, calling the place, saving it to your contacts list, and then mapping back to it later... it's good. If any of you know someone who is prone to getting lost, this phone is the "sauveur de la journée".

3) Browser offers multiple windows so you can sort of alt-tab between web pages.

4) Seamless integration with gmail, gcal, and contacts. I had over 500 contacts in my old AT&T Tilt which thankfully were also on my outlook via MSFT ActiveSync. To move the contacts from Outlook, I just exported a CSV file, switched my gmail account to the "old version", uploaded the CSV file to my Google Gmail contacts, and I had all 500 contacts in my G1 within 20 seconds. Un-Freakin-Believable. Oh yeah, you can add other e-mail accounts if you'd like.

5) All you can eat Internet. Of couse you're paying for it but eh, it's always nice to be connected.

Cons:

1) Picture viewing leaves something desired. The pictures cannot be enlarged with two fingers like on the iPhone due to a copyright infringement issue with the iPhone. The technology is there but just not allowed to be used.

2) Once your text message conversations reach 500+, the text messaging interface starts to take some time to load.

3) Checking google analytics is not possible with the phone nor does google have an application that can pull down the data for you. You can get your information via an e-mail setup within the GA interface but c'mon...

4) Construction. There are two arms and a curved track that keep the screen attached to the phone itself. Unfortunately though, there is too much play with the screen so after a month's use, I've found that I can press down on the screen and it'll give a little. :(

This is offically my favorite video on youtube now.

So my other post has started some talk with various friends and MANY of them have told me that they like the "rah rah" spirit but they're not sure how to get started. I invited a friend of 14 years to the house and I had a few suggestions for him on how to get his thought process going.

1) Turn your TV to CNBC and listen to channel 127 on XM Radio. Part of adjusting the way you think is adjusting the information that is going into your brain. I know this sounds so simple but I guarantee you'll find valuable programming on CNBC and develop an appreciation for the content they have. It will also train you to think with a business mindset.

2) Read magazines and keep up online with various blogs/news threads. You don't necessarily need to fully understand EVERYTHING you read, just get a read of the general direction of society's interests. Successful entrepreneurs, consciously or unconsciously, do this. They have an innate ability to sense patterns in society's interests and act before the rest of society.

Look at Google's ability to harness web traffic by giving people a straight forward way of searching and then turning those eyeballs into interested clicks that are auctioned off to the highest bidding advertiser for just about ANY product/service you can imagine. They understood back in 1998 that the web would be big and the globe would need a reliable search engine that served up relevant content.

Look at Apple - there were dozens of MP3 players out on the market before their iPods were released but they knew that only people who were more tech savvy were the ones messing around with these MP3 players. Their goal? Make it easy for EVERYONE with iTunes/iPods.

These companies think differently and choose to be on the proactive side of society and help guide the rest of us while we busy ourselves with our own lives.

3) Expand your horizons. The business you start may not necessarily be entirely related to what you do now and that's a good thing. Stop and think about what you do at your job. What have you learned to do your job well? Is it knowledge that is ONLY applicable to your job or can you apply it elsewhere? Reflect enough and you'll realize that you DO possess newly acquired skills that can be applied to a business of your own. Not only do you have skills that can be applied to your own business but by expanding your horizons and looking into other industries for a business opportunity, you'll realize opportunities that may not be apparent to those already in the industry.

Example 1: Guy works at a Internet start up and toils away in the customer service department. By putting himself in the customer's shoes and understanding their frustrations he learns how important customer service is in a company. Guy vows to change things in the company and moves on to SEVEN other roles in the same company where he learns valuable lessons in managing people, data harvesting, search engine optimization, customer buying trends, etc... Guy finally oversees software development that rakes in $20M+ a year, happens to look into the automotive lighting industry where he notices customer service is lacking and starts up a company to fill that niche. Business booms and he resigns via text message to the VP of HR. Guy now runs a one-man-band business and sends light bulbs to thousands of customers a year and loves it.

Example 2: Guy works at an Internet start up in 1999, fresh out of Stanford with a Masters in computer science. Despite him being a software coding genius, the dot-com tanks but he goes on to work at a few more start ups where he witnesses the importance of intellectual property law. Enrolls into law school in 2003. Guy is now an intellectual property patent attorney where his experience as a software developer gives him the technical insight necessary to do his job exceptionally well. Guy doesn't necessarily own his own business yet but he's well on his way to making partner or starting his own firm/consulting company.

Example 3: Guy gets a masters in accounting and works in the head finance department for several high volume car dealerships. Guy learns how to manage a business and develops a quick eye to identify healthy/unhealthy business situations. Saves up cash and quits to revamp high end homes. Armed with capital and the financial acumen from his car dealership days, he identifies an opportunity acquire a night club and turns it into a hit. After selling the club he moves on to acquiring and ramping up a struggling flight school. It's a hit. Guy sells it and acquires a struggling auto body shop where he pushes all the financial statements from the red deep into the black. Guy sells and celebrates and just recently acquired a small restaurant in a historic district in Virginia Beach with massive potential for growth.

None of these businesses have a common thread and he went from INDUSTRY to INDUSTRY! His uncanny ability to identify businesses/industries where an opportunity exists is truly rare but it can be learned and if he can do it not once but five times in 15 years! You can do it once!

4) Put on your Sherlock Holmes hat on and explore the world. Subscribe to Inc, Fast Company, Business Week, etc and check out the resources Inc.com offers to people interested in starting up their own company. At any given moment I personally have these and other magazines strewn around my house and office so I can read up on what other companies are doing and how they're tackling problems that I may be dealing with or may have to deal with in the future.

Every week I also interface with good friends who happen to be fellow business owners around my town to get a feel for the retail market and what is cooling off and what may be warming up. Not only do I try to get a barometer reading of my immediate surroundings, I also read newspapers in other major markets including Asia, Europe, and Australia.

John Donne: No man is an island And likewise - no country is an island (well, in our metaphorical sense...)

China:
SINA
China Daily

Hong Kong:
The Standard

Australia:
The Age

Interested in another country? Check out this site.