Living in Thailand, these concepts simply are the way that things are done. Having lived in Canada, I saw how it is possible for it to take place in North America. Having lived in Hawaii, I saw what it was like to have almost none of the food raised or sold within 100 miles. The ... Read more
Randy Komisar's book Getting to Plan B is an excellent read and he has some very useful guidelines and advice to the entrepreneur. Plan A is Necessary but not Sufficient > Plan A is useful for a number of reasons... The process of creating Plan A is useful in and of itself. It forces you ... Read more
Innovation is the specific tool of the entrepreneur according to Peter Drucker. How this tool actually works is of deep interest. One recent book on innovation has claimed that it is not possible to innovate systematically (because failure rate is more than 50%). However, we believe this is not true. Therefore, we need to look ... Read more
I don't mean to be a hater. But there is another side of the story. The so-called lifestyle gurus and permanent travelers seem convinced that their lifestyle is superior. The you too can do it is the biggest hint that their path is preferred. Certainly they don't literally believe it, but rather it is an ... Read more
To be a refuge for others. Key Buddhist concept. Buddhists are defined in Buddhism as anyone who seeks refuge in the triple gem of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.
Don't be a legalistic idiot. Business is not about getting money from people who don't want to give it to you or want it back, for good or services that were never provided. Who would come up with this as a definition for business, much less good business? This sounds more like a government taxation ... Read more
Apple sees most clearly how integration between devices and the cloud, with the cloud as the memory system between devices, is a competitive advantage. Network effects are not only in terms of more users of a system or platform, but more uses across systems for a single user. This means that the Mac OSX notebook ... Read more
There is a plethora of keyboards available in Android (as opposed to the iPhone), and some have the innovative swiping feature of dragging fingers across the keys instead of individual typing of each key. That is great, and the original Swype is available for free in Beta. However, if there is a need for multilingual ... Read more
There is an interesting news item on how a Stanford Statistics PhD may have beaten the odds through a systematic approach. Total winnings from four scratcher jackpots beginning in 1993 adds up to $21 million. The Clever Part The clever part was figuring out the seasonality and geographic locations of the winning scratcher cards. Not ... Read more
One annoying phrase which tends to be more useless than anything is: > We can agree to disagree Thanks to Wikipedia we know that this phrase may be close to 250 years old. We also know that it implies a kind of tolerance but lack of acceptance of another persons' position. However, there are several ... Read more
As has been said many times over the past 2,000 years or more, The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions. How do we deal with good intentions in the presence of bad outcomes? Specifically, if an employee, partner, customer, etc. is well-meaning but with poor results, how do we respond? As we get ... Read more
Much of academia and academic research in America is epiphenomenal. This is best illustrated by the common comparison of college with the real world. That is, college, the ivory tower, etc., is its' own world that has different rules, and whose learning doesn't always or even usually apply to the other world, outside of academia. ... Read more
The Solo Entrepreneur is considered to be an inferior species, generally shunned by investors, and for whom traction comes many years later, when compared with two or more founding partners. However, there are many advantages to solo entrepreneurship, and while the odds of success are likely less, the odds of success of any entrepreneurial activity ... Read more
Peter Drucker - The Man who Invented Management Peter Drucker died in 2005, eight days shy of his 96th birthday. The man literally invented the discipline of management and the management consultant. His 39 books have been translated into over 30 languages. The book of Drucker's I have read the most is The Effective Executive. ... Read more
Don Dodge wrote a great blog post titled Is your product a vitamin or a painkiller? This is actually quite an old post, but old as in golden. When a Vitamin becomes a Painkiller What catalyst or event causes your prospects to actively seek your product or solution? When you look at all the sales ... Read more
The inane, though of course superficially appealing, desire to change the world. The question in response is to what? After all, some changes are either inconsequential, or worse, complete disasters, through unintended consequences. It is no comfort that the particular change might be unavoidable or done by someone else in any case. For the one ... Read more
John Paul DeJoria gave a Keynote at Stanford Entreprenuership recently. He has many skills and strong instincts. Now he is a multi-billionaire, but he slept in his car the first few weeks of founding John Paul Mitchell Systems. People Person Skills His people-person skills are phenomenal. In the Q&A he was asked how to size ... Read more
Bicycle Ride up Doi Suthep Doi Suthep (ดอยสุเทพ) is a mountain directly to the west of Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. Doi Suthep is named after a legendary hermit (Suveda). The mountain is granite with diciduous forest below 1,000m and evergreen above. The top of Doi Suthep is at 1,676 meters. There is around 1,200 meter ... Read more
I've got a new bicycle, after nearly three years without. How did I survive that long? I really don't know. It's nice to be back in the saddle. That said, I've really enjoyed and continue to enjoy the awesome Honda Wave 125i that I acquired a little over two years ago. (Yes, there was nearly ... Read more
Glass is kick ass. Also extremely sustainable. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38
Brilliant! Cambodian builds three cars of increasing complexity with no automotive training. Self-taught automotive engineer and designer. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIU3ywpC5M
2000 will soon be ten years old. Welcome to the new decade! (Yes folks, there is no year zero, therefore the calendar decade of the Gregorian calendar begins at year 1 and ends at year 10.) Ok, where have we been and where are what's next? Retrospective and Foresight Looking back cannot really show the ... Read more
The Real Life Social Network v2View more documents from Paul Adams.
[slideshare id=54019&doc=strategy-grand-tour-20096]
Apparently I am "probably" a spammer. But it doesn't matter in any case... Ah, this is how an open system works, I see. Well, for one I haven't subscribed to anyone in a long time. Secondly I do not spam. Identica Cannot be Trusted This is about trust. How can I trust a service with ... Read more
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K146oS3tJ80
I love Spolsky's blog. He has also written articles for Inc, such as the one on competition and strategy called Fire and Motion. In the article there is a great quote about how management for his company is not about employees quickly obeying directives. The biggest problem is getting people to tell me when I'm ... Read more
Sakichi Toyoda and the Five Whys Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Motor Company, is considered one of the greatest if not the greatest inventor of Japan and the father of Japanese Industrialization. His impact on the world should not be underestimated. As with most historical figures, our tasks are different because we live in ... Read more
Peter Drucker is by far the most important management thinker of the 20th century. Even in 2010, his thinking and guidance is highly effective and has lost little of its lustre and value. The Five Most Important Questions Drucker formulated five "Most Important" questions to ask an organization. Each of them have subquestions which result. ... Read more
Magic or Superstition Living in Thailand means being surrounded by ghosts, magic incantations, and spiritual seers. The longer one lives here the more the beliefs and their apparent reality prey upon the mind. Good Luck, Bad Luck Good luck is not just about avoiding the bad, but mitigating the bad. Only extreme religions think in ... Read more
First, read the blog entry Nine Time Horizons - Connecting the Past to the Future from 2009-04-30 Definition of Time Horizon A time horizon is understood here as a cognitive structure in which planning and thinking about the future (and the past) can be effectively accomplished. The idea is that there is no intuition regarding ... Read more
This is the sort of post that generally makes me laugh out loud. No one can predict anything like 40 years out. I myself routinely mock anyone who tries to do such a thing. However... However, it is possible to draw out trend lines, even though we can be certain they will shift. And in ... Read more
Moderately Not severely. In comparison to much more difficult weeks this one is mild. Yet, it was not easy, hence moderate in scope. Difficult The difficult part started right there in the beginning, and after a bit of seeming progress (though perhaps mild) it progressed into difficulty surprisingly quickly. Week It took up the entire ... Read more
I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and ... Read more
Cultural Differences As an expatriate American there are many cultural differences I have come across where I now live in Chiang Mai, Thailand. One is the buddhist concept of being a refuge for others. The ability to provide for other people, to feed and shelter them and to take care of their needs is important ... Read more
2009 In Review This past year has been very interesting. A major reason was the relocation out of the US to Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand. Living abroad as an expatriate has a sense of permanent discovery to it, especially the first year. I transitioned out (aka dropped out) of my PhD program at the University ... Read more
This is about the commercial viability, supporting documents available, NASA support and competitions, projected use and demand, and green focus of the flying car. NASA predicts that two-car families will have one road car and one flying car in their garages in the next 30 or so years. -Mail and Guardian Turns out, there are ... Read more
Beauty, Design Constraints and Innovation Jeff McNeill podcast for 2009-12-19. * Why beauty, like real estate, should be a part of the marketing budget. * What is the relationship between beauty and innovation?
Biopolymers, Biocomposites and Bamboo - Podcast 2009-12-19 . How are biopolymers made, what are biocomposites, how do we use bamboo. Sustainable construction.
For those who are seeking for employment or looking for new employees there are three job boards which are in English (though for the JobsDB site many of the jobs are for Thais or in Thai). * Craigslist Bangkok - covers the entire country of Thailand, not only Bangkok * The cesspool aka Thaivisa.com - ... Read more
I was reading an obituary on on Jim Carroll (Basketball Diaries) and it seemed a lot more personal and less like I was reading history. I think I've reached "middle age" (วัยกลาง). Was compelled to write this in my notebook: Somehow I've muddled into middle age. Evidence: I read obituaries, become bored with anyone under ... Read more
This is a pretty tasty snack, rife with possibilities. A bit Polyanna-ish and not very even-handed. The world is becoming a hybrid of work styles, not monolithically mobile and on-demand. In any case, this is the sort of work style we have at Lanna Innovation and SEO Chiangmai, namely mobile, from anywhere, but with pulsations ... Read more
According to Freire (2007) there are Five Archetypes of Organizational Culture. Naturally, these cultures are based on, developed and perpetuated by leadership. Those he names: Customer-Centric - The Customer is everything One-Team - Oneness is everything Innovation - Learning is everything Achievement - Getting the job done is everything People-First - Our people are everything ... Read more
Note: This was originally published in July, 2009. Looking at this from December, 2018 these all hold fairly well. Internationalization and localization is a small issue, since the world hasn't really gotten that much smaller or more connected, except for the enormous (though largely invisible) efforts of Google with Android and Noto fonts (Apple also ... Read more
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaJu89iyEhw
Note: added this to the Time Horizon document at the 8 year cognitive time band. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ-VjUKAsao
There is a long and storied history regarding pricing of goods and services. Wikipedia has a nice overview article with linked sub-articles. Simplicity - The Rule of Three Complexity is managed easiest with simplicity. In this case all the various Pricing "strategies" can be summed under three specific uses of pricing: Pricing as a product ... Read more
I highly recommend the book Making Meaning by Diller, Shedroff & Rhea (2006). The material is well researched and built from significant insight and a good deal of hard data. The core question of the book is what meaning is being produced through interaction with a brand. From this perspective, the production of meaning can ... Read more
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. - André Gide