Singaporeans are not the only kiasu people around. While we can boast of the Bubble Tea phenomena, the Hello Kitty queues and the Donut craze (among others), the herd mentality as a result of “kiasuism” seems to also be present across the world.
Within the last few years, the Facebook explosion and $1.65b buyout of YouTube have gotten everyone crazy about social media. This is no different in Singapore, with the greater use by and coverage of social media news through media companies giving it exposure to the average citizen. Organizations too, have began jumping on board, evident through the increase demand for Social Media consultancy, and the many organizations that pitched with a Facebook Application idea in an attempt to get developers to work on them.
Big Problem though: Social Media is NOT for everyone!
As such, I took some time to compile 7 of the most important things an organization should know before wanting to get onto Social Media (or get a Facebook App for that matter).
1. Focus on Channels with your Audience
Social media is just a MEDIA. Similar to traditional campaigns, pick and choose the media where the target audience can be found and USE THAT MEDIA. There is no point being on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube & Flickr at the same time – there is no such thing as diversification of “risks” by being on all these media.
2. Tribes vs. Eyeballs
There is a need to choose if a campaign is to get as many eyeballs within a short period of time or to build a community around products and services. Having a cool application or social network or YouTube video is nice, but what is the business objective? To have a tribe of fans around products (e.g. Macrumors.com)? Or perhaps just to create buzz around that product?
3. It’s not about what you want
Social Media is not about pounding advertisements down people’s throats, and there is no way to “force” a community to develop. In order to meet the desired social media objective, value must be provided to the community that the organization intends to reach out to.
4. Social Media might not be Cheaper Whopper Sacrifice might have been cheaper to do than a whole page advertisement on Wall Street Journal, but how many failed Internet campaigns have you seen? In addition, once a community is built around a product, how much future money is to be spent maintaining the community?
5. Get an Expert & Leave it to them
Similar to how campaigns are left to PR and Marketing Consultancies (unless you have the expertise), it may make more sense to leave social media work to the experts. These are the people with the latest Social media news, religiously check Twitter, and love contributing to online communities. Spend time doing what you’re world’s best in, give a direct on where you want to go with social media, and let these people work their magic.
If one has all these thought out properly and still want to pitch about a Social Media idea, then I have great news for you. Through the experience thus far from the CS3216 module, all you need is a Good Developer with Passion for the idea, and the idea can be done on ANY platform. Be it on Facebook, OpenSocial or any other platform, magic can be done within 3 short weeks!!
Adapted & Edited from Sports Medicine journal:
“The activity patterns of exciting projects are intermittent in nature, consisting of repeated bouts of brief maximal/near-maximal work interspersed with relatively short moderate/low-intensity recovery periods. This is generalized description currently provides the best means of directly assessing the physiological response to this type of activity. During a single short sprint, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is resynthesised predominantly from having a vision of future achievements, with a small contribution from possible financial gains. During recovery, new ideas sharing remains at a high level to restore motivation via processes such as networking sessions, attending inspiring talks, and seeing others on the same path as you.”
Researching into the successes of the Apples, IDEOs and Toyotas of the world, a common theme of start-ups is often the seeming lack of fear – the singular focus on the goal at hand, ignoring all odds and giving it all you can.
Quoting from Seth Godin’s post yesterday, “The best way to overcome your fear… might be to sprint… all the internal dialogue falls away and we just go as fast as we possibly can… you don’t feel that sore knee and you don’t worry that the ground isn’t perfectly level. You just run… You can’t sprint forever… the brevity of the event is a key part of why it works.”
“The project deadline is tomorrow.”, “You have 24 hours to plan and execute the entire roadshow”, “(from Prof Ben) Learn an entire new programming language and API, and deliver an application within 3 weeks”. All of us, in a point or another, have achieved something extraordinary by sprinting, often egged on by external motivation factors, so we know that it is possible. Sometimes, we might even only realize the enormity of the project on hand after we had completed it.
How often do you sprint? Only when people ask you to? Why not decide to sprint regularly and build up your stamina to take on larger projects? Build the next Google? Be the first non-astronaut on the moon?
One thing from the journal to note for the chronic optimist (like myself) though, “if duration of the recovery periods is insufficient to restore the metabolic environment to resting conditions, performance during successive work bouts may be compromised”.. Pick your battles and sprint through to the finish line!
Stories of how companies are born are without fail, one of the genres of stories that I find most exciting and most appealing to the entrepreneur in me. That’s a major reason why I attended the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Series when I was in SV, still listen to its podcast regularly, and am involved in In3, where we try to bring such entrepreneurial leaders to share their stories at NUS to all Singaporeans. I was therefore, very happy when greeted this morning with a tweet from @dom about How Twitter was born.
Let’s do lessons learnt before we go on:
1. When you have an excellent team, try and try until you succeed - Odeo didn’t, but Twitter sure did
2. For the people – People didn’t understand the value of Twitter till much later, given its lack of a special feature. However, what they missed is the only important feature – People.
3. Keep a record of thoughts – Tweet #38 said “Oh this is going to be addictive” and sure it was. These records make for excellent stories, both in success and in failure.
4. Go for glory – Being B2C, without the huge events that Twitter supported, it couldn’t have gotten the network effect that it currently has
More straight-to-the-point than the article itself, though, is the comments that one of the co-founders, TonyStubblebine wrote:
“… Odeo was made up of a lot of past and mostly present company founders… I think we needed that many rockstars to turn the middling opportunity we had in podcasting into the major opportunity that Twitter has”
Throughout all these start-up stories, it is clear that persistence is one of the few persistent topics. By persistently pursuing dreams and aspirations, one naturally will attract people who are as passionate as they are. While along the way, each one of us may fail in our own projects, but when we keep at it, and find others on the same path to band together, great things are bound to happen.
Never give up pursuing entrepreneurial aspirations – it is going to be addictive!
With so many of my friends involved in a presentation or a pitch recently, I thought I might post some notes that I have from a short lecture by David S. Rose on 10 things to know before you pitch a VC for money. Why is this relevant? One of the worst presentation situation to be in is when you have to ask someone else for money, hence being able to do so effectively would give one wings when in other situations. (I will not discuss the fact that VCs actually need credible entrepreneurs as well to achieve their investment requirements.) And of course, there is a fair number of people actually looking for funding.
Having attended so many such lectures throughout my days in ASES and NOC, and read more detailed commentary on the topic (do check out The Art of the Start if you’re interested), the content wasn’t anything out of the blue, but it was a good lecture nonetheless.
Key Ideas
1. Define your goals – VCs invest in people, keep in mind that you’re really trying to say “I’m the one you’re looking for”
2. Manage Emotions – Grab attention, Wow with solid content, end off by hitting the homerun with something they cannot resist
3. Use Imagery instead of bullet points (I am a huge advocate of this)
4. Go to the point – Give them what they are looking for (adhere to the conventional templates which VCs are used to looking out for)
5. Give attention to detail – It tells what type of person you are when you don’t check for typos
Jumping right back into the great Mac vs PC debate, an interesting take away from the lecture might be that despite Jobs having raised “corporate presentations and product introductions to an absurdly high level”, one can more than make up for the inability to do this by being extremely good in everything else like Bill is.
Enjoy the 15min video and share any comments that you might have!
When I received an email from the Facebook@NUS module teaching team saying that we should all watch Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture before attending the first week of class, it hit me that I really should write down some lessons learnt from the lecture, having watched it 2 times prior to this. (My 2nd thought was, hey, how come it didn’t occur to me that CS3216 was pretty similar in spirit to the Building Virtual Worlds class?) These are what I jotted down while going through the lecture a 3rd time:
1. Dream Big and Celebrate Brick Walls
If only the world celebrated brick walls more. Innovation and entrepreneurship would have progressed in leaps and bounds through the years, but I guess, that’s what make innovators and entrepreneurs special. My corollary to this would be that if an ecosystem were formed to support one another in our quests to break down brick walls, it would seem so much easier. Glad to see that Singapore is finally moving towards this direction through various initiatives and cool modules like CS3216.
2. Educators should learn from Randy
Good teaching imparts knowledge. Great teaching inspires students to have an inquisitive mind towards topics and facilitate their imagination to pursue greater knowledge themselves. Becoming a model of learning and pursuing excellent for the students is one of the best things a teacher could do for students. For me, this seems key in my quest to help others achieve success.
3. “Wait, and people will surprise and impress you.”
Most, if not all of us will have stories from one part of our lives or another that has someone, come out of nowhere to amaze us with what they can do. And this usually happens on 2 fronts, “evil” people doing good things, and people we have written off showing us greater potential than we expected. Jumping to conclusions, especially when it is about people, creates a glass ceiling in our hearts, which should be shattered so that we leave room for these people to impress us.
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While my list of quotes that I wrote down and took from the last lecture far exceeds the above 3, I guess the key lesson is to live life passionately, help everyone else around you succeed, and your own dreams and aspirations will be achieved.
An excellent brand is more than just a good logo. Use the following terms and definitions when evaluating the brands you find tonight.
Delivery on Promise
A good brand has a well-defined (either implicit or explicit) promise to its customers, and consistently delivers on that promise. For each brand you visit tonight, try and define what their promise is, and how they deliver.
Memorability/Ownability
The brand uses color, typography, logo and other design elements such as layout and dress of retail locations in a consistent manner. Creating distinctive elements and using them consistently not only makes a brand memorable, but keeps other companies from using the same elements.
Superior Offering or Service
The brand’s product or service works more consistently, tastes better, or provides a more satisfying experience than the competition.
Fulfills a Need/Innovates
The brand takes an existing product or service and elevates it to a new level by re-imaging, redesigning, or combining it with a new approach.
Do we dare to dream big?
Core belief: World CHange Starts With Educated Children
To reach Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal: 10 million children by 2010
70% of Nepal is illiterate, suffering from poverty of opportunity.
John rented Zag the yak to carry the library of books from one village to village.
GDP is linked with education.
Purchasing Power Parity (economy) is linked with education.
Infant mortality is linked with female literacy.
110 million children of primary school age are not enrolled in school.
880 million people around the world cannot read or write. 2/3 of these groups are girls and women.
SOLUTIONS:
To work with government to supply teachers
To enlist parents to build the school rooms
To build reading rooms – learn their own language and english
To publish local language books
Long-Term Girls Scholarship – funded by Don Valentine
“Educating girls yields a higher rate of return than any other investment available in the developing world” The World Bank
Room to Read fund raise.
BUSINESS MODEL:
1) Hire strong and entrepreneurial local teams – not to send volunteers or expat
2) Engage the Community – We call them “Challenge Grant” – catalyze creation of schools, give them ownership.
“You can only help ppl who wants to help themselves”
3) Be nimble and act quickly, no excuses – Team opened 39 schools in post-tsunami area in one year even though no present operations there.
4) Invest heavily in human capital – training teachers and librarians
5) Invest heavily in monitoring and evaluation – 84% Laos librarian is confident to train new librarian.
They published books in Hindi, Sinhala, Nepalese – 10,000copies per books. Authors include 10, 15-year-olds.
6) Have an Intense Focus on Results
“What gets measured, gets done”
7) Makes efficient use of donor’s money – instituted no Land Rover policy – can’t open 25 libraries, can’t open 4 new schools in Nepal.
Run a social business:
Low overhead ensures the money goes where it’s needed most
87% Program services
Rated 4 Star by Charity Navigator.
Create a World-wide movement of “Super Empowered Individuals”
“Go Big or Go Home!” on philantropy. Scale up
“If Starbucks can do it”
Low prices alllow everyone to “Be the change”
What is the most image can you imagine? – potential or kinetic – take action.
Growing an Entrepreneur
Lessons:
1. Try, Fail, and Learn, Grow – Try Fry Cry
a. Find Your Passion (What are you good at?)
b. Hang on the edge of your comfort zone
c. Failure Teaches Fast
2. Social Media use to network, build your identity and try out projects
a. Facebook – Launch Tool, Events, Fan Pages, Podclass.com
b. Twitter – Follow people in your field of learning
c. Blogs – i) Start your own blog ii) RSS Feeds of people in your field iii) Find advisors
d. Organize Local events – i) Meetup.com, barcamp.org, mobilemondays, wikiwednesdays, startupdinners ii) Volunteer for events to surround by smarter people where you can learn
3. People, People Technology
a. Find your team
b. Find your team style
c. Find your team, Style your team likes
d. Find your team, Style your team, Likes that breeds success
Info about Sudha
Ignorance to breed success. The first woman to raise venture capital in the New England states. 120 people and met in 40 days to get first million. She didn’t know about it, might have been scared off if she did.
Advices
When you think about what you don’t know, get to know it.
A milestone to live and die by – measurement of success.
Its about the people. An important milestone – find people.
The more you try, the luckier you get
When you know how to do something, get someone else to do it. Go find something else to do
Practice scaling and “doing business for others” as an exercise
Marketing to Students – Facebook Marketing
Hand around and find or create a group to network with people
Find local meetups to evangelize to people, these people have the local knowledge on the market
If you don’t ask busy people exactly what help you need, they can’t help you.
One Lesson: “Find Great People. Not just people who mean well, but GREAT people who can help”
Always be looking at the people, give a chance to people
Growing an Entrepreneur
Lessons:
1. Try, Fail, and Learn, Grow – Try Fry Cry
a. Find Your Passion (What are you good at?)
b. Hang on the edge of your comfort zone
c. Failure Teaches Fast
2. Social Media use to network, build your identity and try out projects
a. Facebook – Launch Tool, Events, Fan Pages, Podclass.com
b. Twitter – Follow people in your field of learning
c. Blogs – i) Start your own blog ii) RSS Feeds of people in your field iii) Find advisors
d. Organize Local events – i) Meetup.com, barcamp.org, mobilemondays, wikiwednesdays, startupdinners ii) Volunteer for events to surround by smarter people where you can learn
3. People, People Technology
a. Find your team
b. Find your team style
c. Find your team, Style your team likes
d. Find your team, Style your team, Likes that breeds success
Info about Sudha
Ignorance to breed success. The first woman to raise venture capital in the New England states. 120 people and met in 40 days to get first million. She didn’t know about it, might have been scared off if she did.
Advices
When you think about what you don’t know, get to know it.
A milestone to live and die by – measurement of success.
Its about the people. An important milestone – find people.
The more you try, the luckier you get
When you know how to do something, get someone else to do it. Go find something else to do
Practice scaling and “doing business for others” as an exercise
Marketing to Students – Facebook Marketing
Hand around and find or create a group to network with people
Find local meetups to evangelize to people, these people have the local knowledge on the market
If you don’t ask busy people exactly what help you need, they can’t help you.
One Lesson: “Find Great People. Not just people who mean well, but GREAT people who can help”
Always be looking at the people, give a chance to people
What were you excited about as a kid?
That’s what you’re passionate about, VCs will fund you, etc. Life’s do short to do something for somebody else
Government can’t take risk for space frontier as there’re too many issues involved that would cause them to lose out politically
Have to go with the private industry
Long Term Mission – Asteroid Miner, lots of $$ in there
How X Prize Foundation is financed
Spirit of St Louis – Flight across the Atlantic for a prize
If he can do it, everyone can do it – the flying fool, Lindberg
Hence X Prize is the prize to simulate the prize for Lindbergh
Line of Super Credibility – Things you do that no matter what you do it will succeed. Line of credibility only brings you to being acknowledged
Insurance Company took the bet with X Prize that for each trench of advancement, the company will pay out
Founded Zero G airplanes to have fun
Space Adventures – Rocket Racing League
True breakthroughs require taking risk. The day before something takes off, it is a crazy idea. Got to be willing to take these risks.
How can we incentivize really crazy stuff? Originally was by government.
Average age of Apollo program engineers was 26 as nobody was there to tell them what they could or could not do. Same as dot com revolution.
Leverage on people’s capabilities for sponsorship instead of $$ all the time
When you ask for great advice you get great money
It’s a people process, not a $ process
Singaporeans are not the only kiasu people around. While we can boast of the Bubble Tea phenomena, the Hello Kitty queues and the Donut craze (among others), the herd mentality as a result of “kiasuism” seems to also be present across the world.
Adapted & Edited from Sports Medicine journal:
Stories of how companies are born are without fail, one of the genres of stories that I find most exciting and most appealing to the entrepreneur in me. That’s a major reason why I attended the 
Create a World-wide movement of “Super Empowered Individuals”