PicoBusiness

This is a great list of suggestions/tips/perspectives on being in IT and working with non-IT people. Definitely take these tips to heart!

If anyone out there has any drawing skill, a clipart or icon library focusing on process workflow would probably be very useful. Everything I’ve seen so far is “built in” to applications like Visio or SmartDraw or what have you. There’s nothing “general” i can find that I could use with Word or Powerpoint or websites.

From The Top Ten Sci Fi Movies that were never made

Then again, when I was watching Predator I didn’t think two members of its cast would become governors, either. So you never know.

From: Tricks of the Trade

If you want to get people to participate in a workshop or presentation, ask them “What questions do you have?” and wait for someone to answer. The usual “Any questions?” acts as a participation deterrent, as it requires the questioner to be a speed bump in the presentation. “What questions do you have?” implies that participants are expected to say something, and they often will.

Where do I get one of these?

It turns out that if you pay people by the piece for work done, instead of by the hour, you get more productivity per hour.

Wow. When you pay people an hourly wage, a lot of them do the minimum amount of work necessary to keep from getting fired. But when you pay them per piece, they have an incentive to work hard and get a lot more done.

In software, this seems like the kind of thing you could implement with eLance or other small contract bidding systems. (Question for the forum - if you’ve used eLance or other services, which ones do you like and dislike, and why?)

A loyal reader sent me a collection of links on business life in Somalia.

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4038799.stm
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4020259.stm
• http://www.petermaass.com/core.cfm?p=1&mag=51&magtype=1

There’s a forum as well.

When you consider how much easier and safer it is to start a business in the US or other parts of the free world, it makes you want to run out and start a business right away, just out of gratitude for the sheer simplicity.

An amazing rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon on acoustic guitar. I’ve played enough guitar to know just how hard this would be to pull off, especially live.

There are two types of pundits in this world. The first type (type B) is quiet, contemplative. They look at the world, they provide their thoughts, they learn new things, they generally try to be a reasonable voice that helps people make up their own minds.

Those pundits are weenies.

Real pundits (type A) are people (men, usually) who demand that you agree with them, if they have to rip their way through your monitor or newspaper and grab you by the throat and shake you until you see the light. These are the movers, and shakers. They can do no wrong. If you disagree with them, you’re an idiot (at best) and/or a complete moron. If you don’t understand them, you’re an idiot, and/or deliberately being obtuse. They know what the truth is. They know what is going to happen next, and they know why everyone would be better if they just listened.

They get all the speaking gigs, and the TV show time. They get to pontificate and ramble on about their topics, and get in shouting matches with everyone. New data comes along that isn’t consistent with their worldview? It’s flawed or the study is flawed, or it was paid for by X or the timing is questionable. New study comes along that supports their worldview - it’s ultimate vindication that proves that everyone who ever disagreed had their heads stuck up their asses.

“Screw Type B!” I hear you cry. “I want to be a Type A pundit! How do I get there, John?”

Luckily for you, I have a list I’ve prepared:

1. Accept and embrace the fact that you are always right. - this is incredibly important - you can’t be a Type A pundit if you’re not always right. “But I was wrong about X before” you whine - STOP! No More Whining. Type A pundits do not whine, and they are not wrong. Got it? It never happened. I’ll repeat that for those of you who are slow. You were never wrong. You were just misunderstood.
2. People who disagree with you are the scum of the Earth. - this is critical - even Type B pundits who disagree with you are scum. They are tools of the opposition. They are in cahoots with your enemies. They are only one step… well, a half-step up from child molesters. In fact, they probably are child molesters, in addition to disagreeing with you. They deserve nothing but contempt.
3. Abuse your listeners/viewers/readers - think about it. If they were sure of themselves, why would they pay attention to you? Clearly, they need a guiding light. And will they consider you a guiding light if they don’t feel inferior to you? Of course not. So you have to abuse them. Call them names. Soak them for money. More importantly, tell them that you’re soaking them for money. Tell them they’re fools if they don’t do everything just like you do. Make them feel guilty for even ever considering that you might have been wrong about something. Tell them to “wake up” and realize that your point of view is the one true point of view, and everyone else who doesn’t agree with you is living in a “sub-human” state (this is particular popular amongst some personal development gurus I know).
4. Deplore the vile rudeness of your enemies, and then throw feces at them. - Nothing, but nothing gets your audience going like feeling that you are being unfairly attacked. It doesn’t matter how “polite” the attack is - it’s an affront to man, nature and everything in between. A demonstration that in addition to being half-a-step above child molesters, your rivals are also inexcusably rude and hateful. And then, once you’ve shown what a victim you are of the vile manners of the opposite side, go for the throat. Infidelity, bribery, conflict of interest, littering - bring out any scrap of dirty laundry you can find. After all, they did it to you first.
5. Generate cutely abusive nicknames for everyone. - Nothing shows your contempt for your enemies like a happy little nickname. “Hibernator”, “Breeder”, “Timmeh”, “Wanker”, “Commie Chris” - keep it short and to the point, and use it, use it, use it. Eventually, you’ll have your own jargon that your audience can share with you, creating a clique for you to administrate. If you are good, you can create nicknames for your friends too. But of course, if you aren’t good, you’re a talentless hack who shouldn’t be reading this important treatise. Get out of here, loserinos!
6. Do your homework, but not too much. - Nothing will spoil the fun like too much time researching your subject. At best, it takes up valuable insulting time. At worst, it provides you with conflicting data that sucks the air out of your crusade/jihad (pick whichever word offends you more). I’ve read numerous studies on this, and let me tell you, the data is clear.
7. Lie about how much time you spend examining the data. - The previous point aside, don’t tell anyone that you’re too busy being a pundit to do the fundamental research. You want your enemies quaking in their boots/flip flops/mocassins, fearing the righteous wrath that you can bring down upon them, usually in the form of non-cited references to numerous studies that prove what you are saying.
8. If you put it in bold, it must be true. - ’nuff said.
9. Lists make people believe. - Lists on the Internet are like blue-ribbon panels. Instant credibility. Remember, your audience believes that you’re never wrong. They’ll read whatever they have to into your list to make it true for them.
10. A little cultural elitism goes a long way. - As far as anyone’s concerned, you don’t watch much TV, you are well travelled, you have a fine palate for wine (although imported beers will do these days), you are an avid reader and you listen to classical music and/or fine alternative bands. Nothing turns off an audience like the knowledge that you’re an RC cola swilling, American Idol/Survivor/Big Brother-watching Barry Manilow fan. …Unless you’re a gay pundit, in which case, you’re just being counter-counter-cultural.
11. State your opinion as though it is proven, well-known fact. - This is perhaps the most versatile tool in the pundit toolkit. For example, I could simply state that ‘It is well known that the best way to enjoy brie is on thin, dry crackers’. And it’s true!
12. Assume that everyone is like you. - This is another favorite of personal development gurus. Let’s say you have a manic personality disorder, and it gives you the focus to do two or three times the work of the average person. Well, that’s a gold mine - all you have to do is tell everyone that they should do everything that you do, and they’ll be able to do two or three times the work of the average person too!
13. Repeat, repeat, repeat. - Numerous studies have shown that the more often you repeat a message, the more it will be believed, regardless of the facts. My personal experience also demonstrates that this is true. The more often you repeat a message, the more it will be believed.
14. You see the big picture. - It doesn’t matter how creative, how successful, how well educated, how well travelled or how experienced your rivals are. If they don’t agree with you, it’s at least partially because they just haven’t really thought about how the world works.
15. Don’t worry about consistency. - your opinions don’t all fit together neatly? WHo cares! Those nitpickers just can’t see the big picture. They’re probably too busy watching ‘Lost’ and pretending its fine art like The House of the Seven Gables. Those philistines.

And there you have it - do the things I listed above, and you will be well on your way to punditry heaven - full of servile fools, lackeys, flatterers and yes-men (and women). Don’t think that this sounds like a fun and pleasant life? Well then, you’re either an idiot, or you’re just not honest enough with yourself to admit that
you don’t have what it takes.

And if you do these things, and punditry heaven doesn’t come? Well, you just didn’t do it right.

CNet wrote a great article on Web 2.0 startups.

This seems like the area where overseas companies stand the best opportunity to sell to Americans - offering high quality, simple applications that solve specific problems. No one cares where you are, what you look like or how much your servers cost to maintain. They just want their apps to work.

The Financial Times is running a series of articles complete with reference PDFs, links and a video lecture on business management. The first week is focused on managing in an unpredictable world.

This is good stuff, and probably worth your time to look through. And if you have the time, to watch the video elements.

Some great ideas/thoughts/comments on why starting a side business is a good idea.

In addition to education, freedom from fear, self esteem and a better use of your free time, I’ll also add that side businesses provide an outstanding role model for your kids, unless you want them to be soulless corporate drones who have no inspiration to a better, more self-actualized existence. Side businesses also:
* Give you a reason to be more assertive
* Inspire your creative juices

More later.

I wish I had written this compendium of blog articles about startups. - I certainly had already read each of these articles. Alas. A great job by Individualist

One of the main reasons large corporations have historically thrived is that they had near-monopolies on information and awareness. Specifically:
#1 It cost a lot of money to create awareness of your product/service/good
#2 It cost a lot of money to perform market research
#3 It cost a lot of money to have lots of salespeople out in the field, finding out what the customer was willing to pay.

But these things are simply not true anymore. If Craigslist can thrive with 18 employees, if del.icio.us can become a primary stop on the Internet with the effort of one man, if flickr can become the ‘premier’ spot to store, share and build games with photos, then #1 clearly isn’t true.

#2 may never have actually been true - but very few people trusted their gut. The perception has been for the longest time that you had to have an army of researchers to perfectly tune your product to the market. But when Guy Kawasaki says ‘Ship, then test’, when products can be extremely successful while still in development, when it turns out that dry-but-targeted text ads are far more effective and valuable than flashy banner ads, it’s pretty clear that trusting your gut is far more cost-effective.

#3 was definitely true - the large corporations owned huge databases of information, and they had the money to buy studies and surveys and market research that the average joe just did not have. But these days, if you have a website, you have all sorts of stats available to you.

So, what are big corporations good for? Well, there are certainly still devices and systems that require tremendous capital to build. And there are certainly types of businesses where the perception of stability and ‘time tested reliability’ are extremely important (airlines, for example).

But selling wine? Or suits? Or chocolate, or smoked turkey? Do you need to be huge to do those things? Clearly not, not anymore. And you can run websites that would have cost ten thousand dollars a month in 2000 for $20/month now. Databases and statistics, and security, and shopping carts and blogs, and forums and chat rooms and so on, all for a pittance.

I predict that in industry after industry, if you don’t need to be big to prosper, the big companies will fail, or exit the space. As Seth Godin said a while back, Small is the new big.