May 14th, 2008 Yashar
I got an email today from the Engineering Alumni Affair and they released Jim’s PowerPoint presentation on 10 Secrets of Success (click the link to download the file) that he used.
I’ve also written the points out for an easy read below:
- There is no order
- You need to do them all
- Different situations require a different skill
- Rule 1 - There isn’t any secret - it’s all the little things
- Rule 2 - Fail Often. Fail Fast. Fail Cheap.
- Rule 3 - Know Yourself. What is your Unique Strength. (He touched about this idea of “Unique Strength throughout answering the questions asked of him. He said find out what you’re good at and get someone else to do the other things. Obviously not for everything though.)
- Rule 4 - Manage Your Risk
- Inventory buy backs (He said when he started his computer distribution business he would buy from the manufacturer with the condition that he would be able to return the goods if not sold)
- Marketing $ (He said if you ever see a Synnex ad you’ll also so an “HP” or “Sony” logo below it which is because they are paying for advertisement)
- R & D
- Some deals I do not do
- Rule 5 - Set a pace you can maintain forever
- Business is a marathon
- Stephen Covey - sharpen the saw
- Rule 6 - Be Frugal
- Function vs. Show
- I spend my profit
- Throw pennies around like manhole covers
- Rule 7 - Be Growth Oriented
- Growth allows painless efficiency
- Growth motivates
- Rule 8 - Welcome and Embrace Change
- Change is opportunity
- Create change
- Rule 9 - Nurture a Network
- Give freely to people
- Keep in touch
- Organize it
- Be Deliberate
- Rule 10 - Be a Time Management Fanatic
- Use tricks
- Study it
- Time is your friend and enemy
- Speed/sense of urgency wins
- Slow and Steady Wins the Business Race
- My Mantr: “Sense of Urgency Wins”
And be sure to check out Jim Estill’s very one blog, which I very much enjoy reading at http://www.jimestill.com
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May 13th, 2008 Yashar
I just came back from a presentation by Jim Estill the CEO of Synnex Canada. He was a graduate of the Systems Design Engineering program at Waterloo in 1980 and became the CEO of Synnex Canada managing $3 billion of annual sales after his computer distribution company was acquired by them.
What I liked most about Jim and his presentation was his causal and down to earth persona. He didn’t try to impress anybody on stage nor did he respond to questions asked by the audience in an arrogant manner.
He started his presentation with a very short PowerPoint presentation on the “10 Secrets of Success”. Being a strong advocate of time management and having created programs and literature on the subject you can tell he hadn’t bothered spending much time on his PowerPoint slides. He simply stated his 10 points on 10 slides (which did contain simple grammatical errors) and allowed the reminder of the time for us to ask questions.
He was moving too fast to write down the 10 points he mentioned but they were all trivial and intuitive. The two most important things from the presentation that I walked away with were:
- “Worst thing, first thing”. Meaning that by accomplishing what he least wanted to do during the day first thing in the morning he has tremendously increased his productivity and sense of accomplishment.
- Invest time in a speed reading program. He believes that taking a speed reading class has greatly increased his efficiency and productivity. This reminded me of the comment Bill Gates made when asked if he was a superhero which super power would he most want, to which he replied “the abililty to read faster”. Warren Buffet (who reads thousands of annual reports a year agreed with him)
P.S. For University of Waterloo students this event was actually pretty interesting and I encourage you to attend other ones. There was plenty of food, BEER, wine, soft drinks to go around. Plus my friend and many other won a book and some other things. This specific event was sponsored by the Laurel Centre (www.laurelcentre.ca) (Hmm… they use the American spelling of “center” but with a .ca domain :P)
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May 10th, 2008 Yashar
Finally I was able to enroll in some courses I have a profound interest in. The first of which is ECON 220 “Principles of Entrepreneurship“. Here are some interesting points from the lecturers first set of slides about reasons against having a business plan:
- Inc 500 founders surveyed
- 40% wrote a business plan
- Of these 40%, 65% significantly changed their original plan
- Thus, writing a plan can take alot of time and energy
- During this time the window of opportunity may close
- Businesses not seeking capital may not need to be committed to a plan, giving them more flexibility
But,
- Raising capital requires a plan
- Can be used as a selling document
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April 1st, 2008 Yashar
You don’t realize how big the oil/tanker business is until you see some of these figures. I caught this article in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here are some interesting excerpts:
“His units are in such demand he can charge major oil companies nearly $600,000 a day to use them. Similar rigs were earning about $70,000 a day just five years ago. With leasing rates like these, a vessel that cost half a billion dollars to build can pay for itself in as little as four years.”
“Larger than a football field, semis are floating vessels, supported by big pontoonlike structures submerged below the sea surface, that can operate in waters up to 10,000 feet deep. Dynamic positioning — a computer-controlled thruster system fed by data from satellites and transponders located on the seabed — keeps them in place directly above the oil well. The price tag for such a vessel is now around $655 million.”
This guy does business the way I’d like to do it, efficiently:
“Fredriksen and Troim move very fast,” says Odd Harald Hauge, a Norwegian journalist who has written two books on Mr. Fredriksen. “They do deals on napkins.”
“One of their most daring acquisitions was of, a big Norwegian driller, in January 2006. Noble Corp., a U.S. rival, had taken a 30% stake in the company, but Seadrill snapped up shares and eventually forced Noble to sell out. “We bought that in a taxi in Seoul,” says Mr. Fredriksen.”
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March 22nd, 2008 Yashar
Last week, in another over-capacity filled lecture room, Larry Smith, probably the most sought after professor at the University of Waterloo, gave another high impact lecture on the importance of planning our careers.
Having been a student of Larry’s back in second year and seeking countless hours of business advice from him I knew I would learn a lot from this lecture of his and made an extra effort to attend. Unfortunately, the previous week he had given another lecture on the topic of “How the World Will Try and Stop You and Your Idea” which I was unable to attend. Thankfully however, the video of this lecture was made available to us and you can enjoy it as well http://www.laurelcentre.ca/lectures_larrysmith.html.
Larry’s lecture on career success covered a wide range of topics. He began by telling us how he was tired of hearing from too many alumni about how unhappy they were with their jobs. The problem with these alumni wasn’t that they weren’t getting paid enough or didn’t have interesting work. Their main problem was that they didn’t have a life. They were overworked and while they were mostly paid in the six figures they barely had a chance to start families and enjoy their hard earned money.
What was Larry’s advice to us, the next generation on avoiding this?
It was to go back to using our brains and differentiate our skills from everyone else. The perfect example being himself. As a business consultant he’s paid to think on behalf of CEO’s who didn’t have enough time to do the thinking themselves. When one student asked if an MBA would help, he replied only if it was to advance a specific part of our careers. To get an MBA for the sake of getting an MBA would slightly differentiate us from others but wouldn’t be applicable if there wasn’t a particle problem it would help us solve. He gave the example of an alumni who used the skills he learned in his MBA to penetrate a new market sector for the company he was working for and secure relationships within that sector. He said there was no way the company this alumni was working for would over work him because he had planted himself firmly as the connector in that business relationship.
Another way to differentiate ourselves? Stop using Google. Larry mentioned how Google is not even close to being the best place to find answers. It doesn’t have access to copyright material and it’s what everyone is using. Going back to the basics, such as research publications, newspapers, magazines and books where the valuable, reliable information is held would help us find more innovative solutions to workplace problems. He gave the example of “Factiva” a Dow Jones database of copyrighted information which we pay for through our tuitions yet barely any students use. I personally had never heard of this database until this lecture and found some valuable information searching it afterwards.
Basically, what I gathered from this lecture was that Larry was trying to drive the point which I had come across a few months back on my previous work term in The Economist magazine:
“Far from being simply some missing factor in the growth equation, innovation is now recognized as the single most important ingredient in any modern economy—accounting for more than half of the economic growth in America and Britain. In short, it is innovation—more than the application of capital or labor—that makes the world go round.”
– The Economist (Sept. 19, 2002)
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March 4th, 2008 Yashar
Probably the biggest Web 2.0 buzzword of 2008 thus far and maybe even 2007 has been “Social Networking”. Most of you are probably already part of communities like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Orkut, etc. However what amazes me about my recent findings is how many other forms and variations of social networks exist.
Wikipedia has a list of many of these Social Networks and it’s interesting what concepts people have been trying to build social networks around (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites). There’s niche specific social networks like BlackPlanet for AfricanAmericans, there’s device specific (mobile applications) social networks and many other forms.
The question is, with soo many social networks out there is there any room for others in the market? I believe there is, however entrepreneurs need to think outside the box, specifically the laptop and desktop machine to see where the opportunities lie.
As some of you may know, Google is working on entering the mobile market. They’ve developed a mobile OS called Android (http://code.google.com/android/) and back in 2007 we heard the now confirmed rumors that they are developing a mobile phone all their own. To encourage development on the new Android platform Google has also started the “Android Developer Challenge” (http://code.google.com/android/adc.html) and will dish out cash prices and rewards to those who develop engaging applications, and one area of focus their interested in is social networking.
Yahoo is also getting in on the mix and announced this year their “oneConnect” mobile service that promises to be a one-stop-shop for messaging and social applications so you don’t have to worry about fetching your updates from each one of them separately.
So with all this social networking activity coming from the big dogs how can you fit in? From what I see there’s many great new tools out there for developers such as OpenSocial, SocialGraph, various APIs, Widget and others to create new appealing niche specific applications from.
Or maybe as mentioned above it’s time to think beyond the laptop and the desktop computer. Maybe the opportunity lies in the GPS system in your car, or maybe in the new electronic displays in malls. Wherever it may be don’t be afraid to challenge the existing norms of society and build a more social globe.
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February 27th, 2008 Yashar
Two hunters were out in the woods one day when they heard the snarl of a grizzly bear. One hunter began to run, while the second stopped to put on his running shoes. “What’s the point of that?” asked the first hunter. “Do you really think you can outrun a grizzly?”
“No,” said the second hunter, straightening up. “I only have to outrun you.”
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February 12th, 2008 Yashar
I’m in the business of helping others build web businesses. Because of this, I need to be on top of the best practises, newest technologies, market opportunities and much more. One thing I spend a lot of time doing is reading online blogs. Blogs are a great way for me to get useful information fast and filtered. One blog I enjoy reading is Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People.
He sends out a newsletter once in a while and when he does it’s usually gold for the average Joe. This last edition was about “How to Build a Successful Online Business”.
Here’s an excerpt from his newsletter:
“I love the lifestyle that comes from running an online business. I get to work from home each day, set my own hours, choose my own projects, and enjoy abundant income. It’s hard for me to imagine how I’d feed myself without the Internet. When I think about income generation, I immediately think of the web.
I was talking to a successful entrepreneur recently who pointed out that building an online business is an exercise in personal development. He’s absolutely right. I’ve probably learned more valuable life lessons from my entrepreneurial pursuits than from any other areas of my life. Running a business tests you in so many ways — your self-discipline, your intelligence, your communication skills, your focus, etc. If you’re lacking in any of these areas, your business results will reflect it.
The real world of business can be unforgiving. Success is rewarded. Mistakes are punished. The benefit is that it keeps you honest. You can’t settle for weakness, laziness, and bad ideas, or your business will fail. There’s a huge chasm between an idea that sounds good and an idea that actually gets implemented and succeeds under real-world conditions. Anyone can come up with good ideas, but most people can’t successfully implement them.
Some people can’t handle the pressure of running their own business. They worry about the risk of failure. They’re looking at it from the wrong angle though. That risk is precisely the point. Risk is what helps you grow. It makes you stronger. An entrepreneur who fears risk is like a bodybuilder who’s afraid of barbells.
There have been times when I had to deal with tough problems, like having bills due but no money to pay them. These problems made me dig deep inside myself. My business compelled me to grow into the kind of person who could handle these sorts of things. I learned to trust myself to work hard, to stay focused under pressure, and to even enjoy the process.
We all have different levels of risk tolerance. You don’t need to stress yourself out to grow. You just need to challenge yourself in a way that stimulates you. Lift weights that are heavy and which tax your muscles… but which you can still successfully lift. Afterwards you may feel spent, but you’ll also grow from the experience. If you only do what comes easy for you, you’ll suffer from atrophy, and life will become rather boring and pointless.”
Source: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/
Consider building an online blog. What you need is frequent interesting content and some technical help. Contact us at info AT advathink DOT com if you’d like help.
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February 6th, 2008 Yashar
After taking a Speech Communication course at university last semester where we were required to present 3 speeches (an informative, persuasive and entertaining speech) I truly appreciate a powerful public speaker. I learned more in that single course about the real world than any of my engineering courses. Below are excerpts from the famed professor Patrick Henry Winston’s lecture this semester. For more detailed notes please visit here.
How to Start
Some advice for starting your talk.
- Don’t start with a joke. The audience is not accustomed to you or your speaking style yet. Humor will be difficult at this point.
- Do start with a menu. Tell them exactly what you’ll be speaking about and in what order.
- Do provide an empowerment promise. Explain why your audience will come away from the talk better than when they entered.
The Big Four
A collection of four heuristics that make a talk work.
- Cycling. Deliver ideas first in brief, then in detail, then in summary. To use the lingo of artificial intelligence: let your audience load the schema, then fill in the details, then let them know what’s worth indexing for future reference.
- Verbal Punctuation. Provide a mechanism to help people who “fogged out” to easily rejoin the talk. For example: “We have just finished talking about the first heuristic, cycling, I am now going to talk about the second heuristic for helping to make your talks more interesting…”
- Near Miss. When explaining an idea, also describe other ideas that are close but not quite the same. This will help people understand what the important points are that define your idea.
- Ask Rhetorical Questions. Don’t make them too easy. Don’t make them too hard. Wait 6 seconds for an answer.
The Tools
Four tools that can make or break your presentation.
- Time and Place. If it’s in your control: mid-morning is the best time. Choose a location that will look full with your expected audience size. Make sure it is well-lit. Don’t let them turn down the lights. (“It’s easier to see slides in a light room then to seem them through closed eyelids.”)
- The Board. A blackboard lets you draw natural graphics that highlight your points. It also paces you. The speed of writing matches the speed with which people process information. Use a logo that captures the main point and that you can return to. (“I once saw a Sloan professor lecture for a whole hour about a triangle; it was amazing!”) It also provides a target. The best thing to do with your hands? Point at things on the board.
- Slides. Don’t use anything less than 24-point type. If you can’t fit the information at this font size then you have too much. Follow these four rules:
- Don’t read the slides! “A special circle in hell for those who…”
- Don’t stand far away from the screen. This requires divided attention from your audience.
- Have one meaningful picture per slide. If it’s found in Microsoft’s clip art gallery, it’s not meaningful.
- No pointers. Laser or otherwise. These are distractions. You’ll play with them. They’re annoying. Stand by the screen and point with your hand or refer to visual anchors on the slide.
- Props. When possible, use a prop to illustrate an idea.
…and more of the lectures notes here.
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February 5th, 2008 Yashar
Here’s an interesting test I was introduced to a couple of months ago. Try to tell if the women figure is spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise (and yes it is possible to see one, or the other, or both). I’m personally only able to see the figure going clockwise, but friends of mine have been able to switch between both directions.
The source of this test is here if you want some more insight into the right and left brain.
Now after reading some of the points on the sourced site about right brain vs. left brain attributes would you say entrepreneurs tend to be right-brained or left-brained?
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