People in early stage startups tend to be generalists

March 23, 2011 By

Sean Murphy is the CEO of SKMurphy, and offers customer development services for software entrepreneurs. The interviewer is Floyd Tucker from DreamSimplicity. Here’s a quote I found interesting from the video:

People who do well in early stage startups tend to be generalists.
To prosper, to scale up you’ve actually got to hire specialists.

Now I don’t have anything against specialists or the idea of specialising in one field. That’s great, and we need those people. My gripe is that we don’t have enough generalists.

I believe having more Leonardo da Vinci’s will help solve a lot of world problems. You and I might not envision a solution, but that might be because we’re tunnel-visioned. They aren’t.

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Interview with Guy Kawasaki

March 8, 2011 By

Enchantment

I have the inestimable pleasure of having interviewed Guy Kawasaki, on his book Enchantment (which is released today on 8 March 2011). I’m still not sure how that happened (getting the interview, not the book)… I wasn’t sure if he’d respond, what with me being a small time publisher and all, but I asked him anyway with a short list of questions. He replied! That Guy is a great guy…

Guy Kawasaki

So here’s the interview.

Why is Enchantment important?

Enchantment is important because the more innovative and important your product, service, or idea, the more you will encounter resistance. You would think it would be the opposite, but the world usually resists a better mousetrap.

What prompted you to write this book?

Two major factors: my editor pounding on me for another book and my desire to combine the body of knowledge about influencing, wooing, and persuading people with my personal experiences as an evangelist.

Is Enchantment simply persuasion? How is it different?

It’s more than persuasion. Persuasion is usually applied for a specific transaction–you persuade people to do something like buy your widget. The purpose of enchantment is a deeper, longer-lasting, and more delightful relationship. Some companies persuade you to buy their laptop. Apple enchants people, and they buy a Macintosh, iPhone, iPod, iPad, and iAnything.

How can artists and scientists benefit from Enchantment?

Artists and scientists face the same challenges business people do: raising funds, communicating their passion, finishing their work, and then marketing it. All these stages require enchanting people and organizations–to change their hearts, minds, and actions.

[Ed: The "artists and scientists" part is a reference to my magazine, Singularity. Hey, I take care of my readers. *wink*]

Where can we find out more about Enchantment and your work?

The best place to learn more about Enchantment is
http://www.facebook.com/enchantment.

People can also tap these resources:

Speech video: http://www.guykawasaki.com/enchantment/video/
Web quiz: http://great.guykawasaki.com/
Facebook quiz: http://www.facebook.com/enchantment?v=app_6009294086
Infographic: http://www.guykawasaki.com/enchantment/infographic/

The best place to read my latest work is
http://www.openforum.com/connectodex/how-to-change-the-world.

Last words

Ok, so it appears there’s also a Facebook photo contest. Here’s the link:
http://apps.facebook.com/enchantmentcontest/entries

Wow, there’s a Nikon D3100 and an Apple iPad up for grabs!

The contest ends on 11 March, so you better hurry.

There are also wallpapers for your computer screen if you’re interested. Here’s the link:
http://www.guykawasaki.com/enchantment/wallpaper/

You can buy the book Enchantment from Amazon (aff link)

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Interview with John D. Cook

March 7, 2011 By

John D. Cook

So I interviewed John D. Cook for the March issue of Singularity magazine. The most interesting answer came from the last question I asked: “Last comments?” And John said,

My graduate adviser told me that he thought there would be a lot of opportunity for someone who could combine theoretical math and computation. I believe he was right. Most of my career has been in that overlap and I’ve had the opportunity to do some interesting things.

The whole interview is in the March issue. Click on the link above to get the magazine.

Musings

Some time between my final exams and getting my first job, I’ve been afraid. “What can I do?” came up a lot. I had a double major in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science. I’m not really that good in mathematics, nor am I “qualified” to do programming. The research facilities want PhD’s and MSc’s (in maths). The software companies want graduates with a computer science degree, not a computational science degree. They don’t understand the difference, so it takes more convincing.

Ok, just to clear things up a little. You probably know what computer science is. So what’s computational science? This is the definition I recall from a professor:

We write programs to solve scientific problems

Or something like that. I wrote a program that analysed wave motions (I think). I wrote a MATLAB program to do image texture matching with Fourier Transforms. I wrote a C program to simulate computer virus behaviour.

It’s why I never learned about databases and SQL. My scientific problems and experiments hadn’t required large amounts of data. I understand that my peers in the computer science courses learnt to simulate airline ticket purchasing, and to connect to databases, and to design web interfaces.

I just typed “cc vince.c -o vince” on my Unix command line. Then “vince” to run the program. If segmentation faults didn’t assault me, then I had the output somewhere in a text file.

Luckily, I got hired a few months after graduation. A telecommunications company director interviewed me. Apparently my maths degree was an edge, because all his hires were computer science graduates. One of the departments that the director was in charge of, was the billing support department. Hey numbers! My forte! Supposedly. (No, I mean, yes, definitely my forte! [I needed to eat...]) I found out about that supposed maths edge I had some time after I was hired, when he talked with me (I think).

So John’s answer struck something deep within me. I wished I heard that when I was in university. Then I don’t have to be so afraid that I won’t be of use anywhere.

When I did my honours thesis project (I was working on computer virus behaviour simulation), my adviser suggested I become an epidemiologist. It means I help in the study of epidemics, such as virus outbreaks and stuff. I was more interested in writing code, so I declined his offer to make recommendations to the Singapore CDC (or some health organisation. It was a long time ago. I forget…). I wonder what would’ve happened had I accepted his offer…

So to the (future) mathematicians out there, learn to write code. Programming is actually quite compatible with how you think in maths.

To the (future) programmers out there, learn to broaden your knowledge and skills. (You thought I was going to say maths, didn’t you?) Software is getting more complex and simpler at the same time. That’s because the range of needs from users is getting wider. There’s software that does facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, speech recognition, image matching, and textual analysis. There’s software that does billing, accounting, profit sharing, and banking. There’s also software that just blips 140 characters to some server. There’s software that does all kinds of things that people want or need.

Your skill to write code isn’t in question. Your skill to understand the myriad scenarios and conditions for your software to work, is.

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Singularity Magazine March 2011

March 1, 2011 By

Singularity Magazine March 2011

So in a fortnight’s time, it will be Pi Day! Are you excited? Yeah? Yes? no? Oh, you don’t care… Well, you get to eat pies… oh you love pies? Great! So look out on the Internet on March 14. Why March 14? Because the first three digits of PI (3.14159) is 3, 1 and 4. You know, 3/14 as a date?

Anyway, the March 2011 issue of Singularity magazine is available! I’d chomp right through a bushel of cookies if I had it right now. Because I’m that happy. Speaking of cookies, there’s a special report on CookieBank, a sweet way of microlending. Check it out in the magazine.

Since we have Pi Day, we can’t escape from mathematics, right? I bring you an interview with mathematician, John D. Cook. He says contrary to popular understanding, Taylor series approximations are not used to calculate trigonometric functions in computer chips. What, you didn’t know? Neither did I!

Download the March issue right now (about 3MB)

Behind the scenes

So the fairies I hired last month are really good. They helped me track down nice pictures to use in the magazine, small bits of info here and there, do some design stuff. All they ask for is that I feed them, which is ok, since they eat very little. And that I let them take rides on my cat (assistant). My cat graciously obliged (after I begged her imperial Majesty for a few days. I really needed the fairies to help).

There was one small tiny bit of a commotion. An incident really. The fairies were exploring the house, and they settled near my cat’s food bowls. They picked a couple of pieces of dry cat food out.

KABLOOEEE!!

My cat pounced onto the fairies. Luckily, no fairy was hurt (they fly and flee fast, I’ll give them that). Otherwise I’d have to answer to the Magical Minist… what? Oh, I’m not supposed to tell them. Uh, forget what I said.

So. My cat’s fine with the feline rides. But touch her food bowls and you die. Period.

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Interview with Karol Gajda (and other stuff)

February 16, 2011 By

Karol Gajda

So a few weeks ago, I managed to interview Karol Gajda, a Polish traveller, minimalist, online entrepreneur, guitarist and vegan. We talked about freedom, diet, challenges and fear.

They are all fighting for you to be normal. – Karol Gajda

Read the entire interview in the February issue of Singularity magazine.

The other stuff part

So while I was doing research on Karol for the interview, I read about his views on vegetarianism. In particular, on what he means when he says he’s a vegan. Now there are actually “levels” of vegetarianism. My friend called it the Vegetarian Continuum, which I wrote about in the August 2010 issue.

There’s the normal meat eaters. Then the Pescetarians, whose meat only comes from seafood, mainly fish. Then there are the “ovo” and “lacto” combinations, where you consume eggs and/or milk. Then comes the vegans, where you don’t consume meat at all (eggs and milk count as “meat”), or even have animal products in your lifestyle. Then we have the Buddhist vegetarians, where certain plant types are also excluded (the allium family, such as onions and garlic). And then we have the fruitarians, where your diet consists only of fruits, nuts and seeds.

Do you know about Buddhist monks seeking alms? Did you know they are not supposed to refuse any food placed in their alms bowls? Did you also know they cannot throw away food placed in their alms bowls? And finally, did you also know that if meat is placed in their bowls, they have to eat it?

Karol follows the spirit of vegetarianism, that of not killing another animal (or life). As do Buddhist monks. Here’s the thing. As a vegan, Karol doesn’t eat meat. BUT, if despite instructions or precautions or whatever, he ends up having animal products in his food, he will still eat it. For example, if he explicitly said to remove all cheese, but when the food arrived, it still contained cheese, he would still eat it.

Because if he didn’t eat it, it would be a disservice to the animal which died so it could be on his plate. If he refused to eat the incorrectly prepared food, most likely it would be thrown away. The animal was already dead. Throwing the food away meant that the animal died for nothing. Think about that the next time you waste food.

Obesity, overeating and possibly its cure

So here’s just a small idea I have about obesity (or at least the preventable behavioural type). In these modern times, when we no longer have to hunt for food, where food have become plentiful, we start to waste it. We continue to eat because there’s still more food, and not stop when we’re done and full. Economics then take over. More demand meant more supply needed. Which fed (no pun intended) back to growing demand. Which is why we now have Trenta sized Starbucks coffee.

The message seemed to be, it’s ok to have supersized food portions. The worse message is that, it’s ok if we can’t finish it. There’s still more food!

I don’t think it works the same way when Chris Anderson said it’s ok when we start wasting bits.

This is the power of waste. When scarce resources become abundant, smart people treat them differently, exploiting them rather than conserving them. It feels wrong, but done right it can change the world.

Here’s something else to think about. I can’t remember where I read it, but according to scientific studies, the more you eat, the shorter your lifespan. This is because your body is breaking down faster at the cellular level. When you eat, your body breaks down the food into useful materials and turns it into energy. That process wears down your cells. The more it does that, the more wear and tear your cells take.

Eat moderately. Don’t waste food. Don’t overeat, but don’t starve either.

Eat enough to live, then go do something awesome with your life. Then come back here and tell me about it.

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