Bill Gates: how he became so rich

        Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, was born as a baby on October 28, 1955 in Seattle. His parents were William H Gates II, an attorney, and Mary Gates, a schoolteacher. By no means under privileged, but neither was he born to a fortune.

       From an early age he had an interest in computers and started programming them at age 13. He went to study at Harvard, but dropped out to pursue his 'small' business called Microsoft. He and Paul Allen adapted the BASIC programming language for use on the Altair 8800 - the first successful personal computer.

The real visionary deal Bill Gates made was buying a disk operating system (DOS) from another company and providing IBM with MS-DOS for their personal computers. And as the saying goes, the rest is history.

      He married Melinda French on January 1, 1994 and the couple have three children Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe.

      In 1995 Bill Gates ventured into writing with the book The Road Ahead. He followed this up with Business @ the Speed of Thought. Both books have spent numerous weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list.

       He ranks as the richest person in the world. So how rich is he? Estimates in 2004 put his wealth around $46 billion. Lucky kids, you might think, but Bill Gates reckons he'll give away most of his wealth and leave only a small portion to his kids. He has already created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation whose aim it is to bring technology to the under privileged.

       Though there seems to be continuous investigations into Microsoft's business practices, the fact remains that Microsoft software made computers accessible to everyone. And we have Bill Gates to thank. Thank you Bill!

Article from here.

Bill gate's new idea about cell phones

2Most of us think of cell phones primarily as a convenient tool to stay in touch with people and store information. But increasingly, scientists are exploring ways to use cell phones to deliver critical health care to people in developing countries.

     If you’re like me, you’ve probably become quite attached to your cell phone. These amazing devices allow us to do things that previously could be done only with a computer, such as search the Internet, read books, watch TV and movies, and purchase things online.
      But what I find even more impressive is how researchers are examining ways to put cell phones to use to improve health in developing countries. This week, the foundation announced grants of $100,000 each to eight scientists who are pioneering the use of cell phones to improve health care in communities where resources are limited. The grants are part of Grand Challenges Explorations, a foundation-funded effort to jumpstart unconventional projects that we believe have the potential to improve global health.
      For example, Peter Lillehoj and Chih-Ming Ho of the University of California, Los Angeles, received a grant to develop a disposable malaria biosensor based on a SIM card platform. The SIM card-biosensor will allow malaria detection to be performed using a cell-phone, which will make diagnostic testing more widely available in rural and remote areas.
      Terry Ferrari of World Vision will be field testing the use of two cell phone modules that will help community health workers in Mozambique caring for pregnant women and newborns to assess, to take action, and to refer cases with complications and emergencies. Another mobile-phone based tool being developed by Marc Mitchell of D-Tree International uses clinical algorithms to quickly identify women at risk during labor and delivery and assist with emergency transfer to a hospital. If these tools are successful, they could significantly reduce maternal and infant mortality rates.
        Mark Thomas will be leading a team at VaxTrac to field test a mobile phone-based vaccination registry that uses fingerprint scans to track people who have received immunizations. The goal is to reduce redundant doses and increase coverage levels in developing countries.
       I shared information about these and other innovative cell phone projects that we’re funding today at the 2010 mHealth Summit, an international conference focusing on the use of mobile technology to improve health care in the developing world.
       Cell phones are amazing tools. For some of us, they’re about staying in touch. For millions of people, it could be about staying alive. 

-Bill Gates

Article from Bill Gate's Website

Guy Kawasaki: Make Meaning

“If you make meaning, you will probably make money. But if you set out to make money, you will probably not make meaning and you won’t make money.” 

I’ve been writing a small number of articles about Entrepreneurship particularly about Technopreneurship and somehow I got some helpful and motivating ideas to start my own business.  I’m pretty sure that on one of my articles, I had mentioned there the main reasons why I wanted to set up my own—and Making money is on the list. Well, honestly, I love the idea that owning a business will give you the ability to earn much more money than you are likely to ever earn in your day-to-day job. And also considering the fact that it would be better to be your own boss rather than doing what you’re told. However, recently I learned that this reason must not be the essence of entrepreneurship. People having this kind of principle are the people who most likely fail. This knowledge was based from the talk of the awesome man named Guy Kawasaki to the Stanford Technology Ventures Program in Stanford University. Guy Kawasaki, in case you don’t know him, is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He was once an Apple Employee helped to market the Macintosh way back 1984. Currently, he is the Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, a seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund that willing to invest in extraordinary entrepreneurs who have the ability to build great teams and great companies.

                This guy was first introduced to us by our facilitator through a video clip. A 2:52 minutes lecture that talks about the core or real essence of entrepreneurship. He said that the true essence of entrepreneurship is about making meaning. According to him, making meaning first would probably make money, but making money first would not probably make meaning which means you won’t make money. Since all of us or most of us dreamt of starting our own business, having the right reasons for staring a company must be given vast importance.

 

Wrong and are the most common reasons in starting up a business

                Actually, there are a lot of reasons that encouraged people to establish their own business, and the most common of them, as I mentioned, is about “making money”. Many people started a business without considering the things that must be considered. They are the people who constantly keep their sight into themselves and not to the people that surrounds them. These people are also the cause of the increase in business failures every year.

Here I gathered most common reasons (which I learned were wrong) that most of the starters consider as motivations:

-To get rich quick and won’t have to work much

Judging by their behavior, most people have an obsession with wealth. Politicians promise to create it, most popular magazines are filled with gossip about those who have it, and the average person spends much of their adult life trying to obtain it. We are creatures obsessed with money, partly for what it can buy, but also as a thing of value in it. Money is a massive motivator for an entrepreneur. Dreams of wealth are what attract people to start their own businesses; chasing those daily, weekly or monthly targets keeps you on your toes and gives you constant new goals to shoot for, and the desire to develop and grow a business to reap the rich financial rewards is strong. However, thinking about money first would not bring you a sweet success since it would make you focused only on the quantity and not on the quality; this would soon bring you to your downfall.  Remember that the world of business is full of risks and challenges.

 

- So I can have more time with my family and friends

The most commonly held fallacy about entrepreneurial life is that owning your own business will somehow offer you more freedom.Anyone who responds with the “it’s for the freedom” answer either has never owned their own business and has a troublingly fantastical view of the responsibilities of such a position, or alternatively has just successfully completed their exit strategy making them instant millionaires. Either way private investors are likely to consider this response to mean that their money would be best offered elsewhere.

You can assume that all private investors will know that the life of an entrepreneur is far from easy, and that any suggestion of freedom is likely to indicate inexperience or a lack of drive, neither of which should you be advertising if you’re hoping for their financial support.

-so I can be my own boss and no one can tell me what to do

                As a successful business owner you can name your own schedule. Vacation? Days off? Take them whenever you want. No one can say anything when you come in late, leave early, or take a three-hour lunch. If your business is a successful, well-oiled machine you can do what you want and you deserve to do what you want for all the hard work you’ve done! Ultimately this can mean more time with your family (maybe you’ve even employed your family). Also, if you have enough wealth from your business you can afford what you need when it comes to healthcare options and you aren’t tied down to what a company is offering you. However, you will always have responsibilities, but if your business is successful the responsibilities become less of a burden. Things eventually fall into place. Part of it can be fun! You want to be your own boss so you can make the decisions. You decide how to market your product. It’s a big responsibility because you’ll either fail or succeed, but it’s a fun responsibility because you’re in charge! As your own boss you take on a tremendous amount of responsibility. First, you’re responsible for making your dream a success. That’s a lot of hard work. Secondly, you’re responsible to your investors (that includes family who have invested their future in you). Finally, if you have employees it is your responsibility to make sure they are doing their jobs and that the business is doing well enough to keep them employed. Bills must be paid and payments must be collected. Marketing and advertising is another responsibility. You have to be sure all these wheels are turning all the time. A well-oiled machine takes time to build and takes constant maintenance. You didn’t want to become your own boss so your life would be less stressful, did you?

Topic note:

I believe that reasons for launching a business will encourage you to do better, pick you up when you’re pushed down, and allow you to be proud of what you have achieved that’s why it is very important that we should start our business in right reasons. Now, how can we identify and know the right reasons/reason in stating up a business? Here are the learnings I acquired from the talk of Guy Kawasaki that might help you:

We should make meaning first

Creativity and innovation are not ends in themselves. Their ultimate objective is to create meaningful new value. In today's article, let's get a better understanding of the concepts of value creation and meaning. 

Guy Kawasaki relates the following advice to would-be entrepreneurs: "The core of entrepreneurship is about making meaning. Many people start companies to make money — the quick flip, the dot.com phenomenon. I have noticed that those companies that are fundamentally founded to change the world, to make it a better place, are the companies that make a difference. They are the ones that succeed. My naive and romantic belief is that if you make meaning, you probably make money. But if you set out to make money, you will probably not make meaning and you won't make money. So you need to make meaning — that should be the core of why you start a company." 

Similarly, making meaning — and not making money — is at the core of creativity and innovation. 

Now, exactly what does making meaning connote? And how can we do it?

 

Making meaning implies adding significance or value to something; doing something that is novel, relevant, appropriate, worthwhile and highly useful. 

For example, in the context of Bangkok, you probably agree that opening another spa or internet cafe does not create much value, while coming up with an innovative traffic and transport concept for the metropolis represents a significant value proposition. As Guy Kawasaki points out, making meaning is all about making our world a better place. We can achieve this noble objective by following one of three paths toward meaningful value creation: 

- increase the quality of life

 Many truly great innovations in the history of humanity greatly increased the quality of people's life. Can you imagine how our daily lives have changed by the invention of the personal computer? What about mobile phones or the internet? How about air conditioning or electricity, not to mention airplanes, cars, and other means of transport. We need to ask: How can we increase the quality of life of our customers with what we're doing? Over 100 million products sold testify to how the iPod has increased the quality of life for music lovers around the world.

-Right a wrong 

Take note of problems you encounter as you go through life on a list and look for ways to turn these problems into business or innovation opportunities. What annoys you and needs to be fixed? What does not work as well as it should? What is poorly designed and needs improvement? What unmet and often unarticulated need has not yet been addressed by the market? What really sucks and could be changed for the better by you? Online music is a good example: P2P-sharing services allowed people to easily find their favorite songs online. In October 2003, Apple righted another wrong by offering a legal way to acquire songs online with the opening of the iTunes Music Store. 

-Prevent the end of something good

 As the world changes, people vary in their perception of which of these changes are good and bad. Is there something good, beautiful, or wonderful that is about to come to an end due to changes in the environment? If you just cannot stand the fact that something good is about to end, turn the problem into an opportunity to start a business, an innovation project or a social movement. For example, in Africa, national parks with premium safari lodges help to preserve the beauty of the African wilderness while creating job opportunities for the locals and tourism income for the country and its entrepreneurs. 

Conclusion:

"Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success," said Thomas Edison. Like Guy Kawasaki, the world's greatest inventor understood: To make money, first focus your innovation efforts on making meaning. Make it your prime motivation to engage in creativity and your main judgment criteria for innovation. 

References:
http://blog.angelsden.co.uk/index.php/2010/11/top-5-reasons-for-starting-a-business/
http://thinkergy.com/resources/articles/true-innovation-is-about-making-meaning.html

Try to walk around somewhere and discover technopreneur idea

Try to walk around somewhere and discover technopreneur idea

I tried to walk around somewhere just to generate some good interesting technopreneur idea/s but unfortunately, (to be honest) I haven’t think of one.  I just found myself thinking of (common) technopreneur ideas that competing fiercely in their respective markets. Well, we can’t force ourselves to think of one since the essence of serendipity walking (as what they call them) is a kind of unconscious consciousness – an awareness that if we listen … can take us down unexpected paths. However, even if I did not formulate some interesting outcomes on my serendipity walking thingy, I still have the idea I had before that (though not new) would somehow be the subject where my efforts will be place in if ever.

I do not know if you are familiar with the term virtual assistance. As you move around the 'net, you'll see a variety of definitions about what Virtual Assistance is, and what Vas (Virtual assistants) do. It's up to you to decide which definition you want to embrace.  One definition is that a VA is anyone who provides any sort of assistance to another person or business without having to be physically present in the client's location. That definition has a VA providing administrative and personal support, across the board, in long-term and collaborative relationships. So, a VA is a person who supports a client, across the board, administratively and personally without being geographically present in the client's location.

                A VA is not someone who provides consulting services. That person is a consultant. A VA isn't someone who only provides bookkeeping services. That person is a bookkeeper. A VA isn't someone who only provides marketing support. That person is a marketing consultant or a marketing assistant. A VA isn't someone who books speaking engagements. That person is an agent. Nor are VAs Tax Advisors, Accountants, Medical Transcriptionists, Web Designers, or professional business and personal coaches.
                “Virtual Assistance" isn't a handy catch-phrase for people working from home.  It's a profession in its own right, and it deserves a definition that separates it from all others.  Much in the same way that all brain surgeons are doctors, but not all doctors are brain surgeons, all VAs are virtual workers, but not all virtual workers are VAs.  What makes a person a VA isn't that the services can be performed at a distance from a client, but rather that the services that are being performed are administrative in scale and scope, and are provided with the desire to support the client across the board, not with just one specific function or task, no matter how ongoing that might be. (See www.eworkingwomen.com/experts/va.html)

                Internet has become a part of people’s daily lives especially nowadays that if it starts low connectivity, would bring too much worries and anxiety for almost all of its users, includes business areas. But for interest's sake, lets say we were in some kind of Hollywood Armageddon movie, and a band of hackers were working together on a powerful Digital WWW Doomsday Bug with the ability to permanently jam or destroy connections.... and the internet really got shut down....That would be the end of life as I know it. To think.... no more banks, complete files & records lost in all departments on all of us, businesses collapse, everything gone, total global pandemonium will ensue... and worse, no more e-mail, youtube, wikipedia, and facebook. The Internet is so big, so powerful, and so pointless, that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.

                The fact that internet has been the very first and effective tool in giving convenience to people these days it is no surprise that it would likewise become an avenue for people who wants to make a living. One of the ideas I thought that would effectively optimize the use of internet is about having my own Virtual Assistance Company (I dunno what the best term to describe this idea). As more and more people are having their own business whether online or offline, the need of virtual assistants arises. Business owners often have so much to do but do not have enough time to get it done. This is where my business will come in.

                This kind of Service Company will provide clients with a wide variety of support services through a single point of contact. Tasks may or may not be delegated to another person in the company depending on who is best-suited for the assignment. For instance, graphic design work would be delegated to a graphic designer within the company. Proponents of this model say that the benefit to the client is that all types of services are offered under one roof.  I think more virtual assistants prefer to be into company rather than having their own because it would help them start efficiently, be guided to what industry they like to focus on, at the same time work with big clients (means earning a lot of dollars!), they can also control their works…they can decide how much the service will worth.

Why I choose this kind of venture?

·         Conveniences   

        the first thing I considered is its convenience. Since it mainly uses the internet (which allows you to access anywhere in    anytime), you can have your job wherever you wanna go. Virtual assistants utilize today's technology to deliver their services and communicate with clients by working remotely. And since Businesses today (whether online or offline) uses Virtual assistants to support their operations, a large number of opportunities and works may arise.

·        home-based businesses 
        The beauty of this work is that the only things you can't really do are things which actually need to be touched in your client's office, such as paper filing (and even that's possible if you're creative!). Otherwise, you and your clients are only bound by imagination, need, skills and desire.

·        Relatively easy business to start

In putting up business, money will be major thing to be considered. You need to have enough capital to rent an office space and pay bills such as electricity, water, and internet connection. The advantage of this kind of venture is the fact that through this you can save much more money. Plus you will not be bothered by electricity, water, and internet connection bills because you can make your own home as your office.

·       Easy earnings 
       Since there are no limitations and boundaries to whom you will render your business, or to what, a lot of great possibilities would grow. Perhaps, easy-dollar making people on the other side of the world would just call you and ask you for assistance even if you are on your home doing whatever. And another thing, as what I mentioned, being a VA, you can have the ability to control, rate your projects or assignments. You can also decide if you will going part time or not.Some people think they'd like to keep a full-time job, and work part-time as a VA in the evening and on weekends, building a practice until the income generated is on par with the income earned at the full-time job. If that's something you're considering, know that, depending on your circumstances and financial needs that might not be an especially realistic goal, as it may require you to work more hours than you have the capacity to handle.

If you too want to become a Virtual Assistant, I gather this info from www.mysmallbiz.com/how-to-become-a-virtual-assistant/

How to become a VA?

Because a VA forms a long-term partnership with just a few clients, she learns her client’s business and can add value through her independent work.

To be a VA, you need to be very comfortable with computer programs and have strong word processing, spreadsheet and secretarial skills. In addition, as a business owner, you’ll need to be a professional and organized self-starter.

Does this sound like you? Opportunities for VAs are expanding as companies outsource support staff. And, as more small businesses grow, they may need support but not be able to afford in-house staffing.

The beauty of the business is that your clients can be located anywhere in the world, so you don’t have to be restricted geographically.

A number of organizations provide more information on how to become a Virtual Assistant. Assistu.com provides training courses and employment tips for people interested in this career. Industry organizations such as International Virtual Assistants Association (ivaa.org) offer certification that may help you increase credibility as well as gain additional networking opportunities.

Tools Needed 

Because your work relies on communication, your technology must be reliable and updated. A good computer with a high-speed Internet connection and e-mail is a must. Your computer should have a commonly used word processing and spreadsheet program that you are comfortable using.

In addition, a separate phone line (or cell phone) with long distance, along with a copier/printer and a fax machine round out the essentials.

Make sure you establish an online payment option, such as Paypal, so clients can pay you easily.

What to Know About Becoming A Virtual Assistant

While some work can be done during flexible hours, some work will need to be accomplished during your client’s business hours (i.e. phone conferences). So if your client is in a significantly different time zone than you, you may need to make early morning or late night phone calls.

VAs can specialize in specific areas or industries such as Internet marketing, real estate, web design and desktop publishing. If your background or interests lead you to one of these areas, you can develop your own niche too when starting a virtual assistant business.

How to Market Your VA Business

·        As this is a technology dependent business, show you’re savvy with your own website.

·        Make business cards and hand them out at every opportunity.

·        Join professional organizations related to Virtual Assistants and to the industry you’d like to focus on.

·        Join search engines and job boards on the Internet to let people worldwide know you are available.

·         Find companies in your area to contact to see if they have a need for a VA.

Becoming a Virtual Assistant is a great opportunity to use your skills and technology to operate your own successful business.

 Last thought…

                The virtual assistant industry is a growing one that, if you are willing to work hard and are dedicated, can provide you with unlimited career and educational opportunities. How far you advance in the virtual assistance field is really up to you. You can work as a freelancer or you can build your own nationwide or worldwide virtual assistant freelance organization where you can hire as many employees as you want: The sky really is the limit when it comes to virtual assisting.

WHY DO PROJECTS FAIL?

WHY DO PROJECTS FAIL?

                “What we learn from lessons learned is that we don’t learn from lessons learned.” This old saying when comes to projects is not far from the truth. In fact, two times or more numbers of projects are failures, and they fail the same few ways over and over again.

                For a person like me who haven’t yet experienced making big projects (those to be considered complex), the word “failure” of a project is something objectionable and appalling. However, in reality, statistics proved that it is common for projects to fail, but it is not common to know the ultimate cause of the failure. No one sets out to fail, but for some reason people just accept that a lot of projects won’t deliver on time, under budget with the expected scope intact. But talking about what causes failure makes people uncomfortable, because nobody wants to give or take that kind of criticism.

                Many believe that the main reason why projects fail is due to methodology used. Some says because of the Project Managers and others because of the unexpected vast changes. During my class on Project Management, our facilitator said that the reason why projects fail because the people behind the project fail to plan. Do you agree? I do not, and so is he. What he truly meant was that people behind the project plan to fail. He used as an example our admission at the university. He pointed out the reasons why we are in the university studying. Since a lot of my classmates (us for I’m one) were not be going to commencement exercise on time (that means failing the project *see my post about what is a project), was a proof that from the start we actually plan to fail, for if we didn’t, we should be doing our assignments and submitting our school projects prior to or on deadline and attending to class on time.

WHAT IS PROJECT FAILURE?
               

                I’ve read many articles about the reasons why projects fail, but only few define what project failure is. Regular Geek  said, defining what a project failure is determining who’s to blame. A few simple guides are whether a project finished by a planned deadline, whether the project finished within a planned budget or whether the number of production defects. Once the definition is set, then the blaming will be so determinable? If the project is late, then the project manager should be blamed. If the project is over budget, then the customer is to blame because they requested too many features. If the number of defects is too high, then the developers are to be blamed. Nice and simple, right? Wrong. There are two problems with this simple blaming pattern. First, there are likely several things that went wrong during a project. So blaming one thing is never the answer. The second problem is the stigma of failure within software engineering. What if your definition of failure, a late project, is met but your customers love the new system? Is that really a failure? Even if the project meets the three simple definitions of failure, late delivery, over budget and poor quality, blaming someone does not help. Projects and companies fail all of the time. If people stopped at their first major failure, half of the entrepreneurs currently working in Silicon Valley would not be working.

On the PMBOK Fourth Edition, there are now 6 variables being checked—scope, schedule, budget, risk, resources and quality. This may be better than the original 3 variables, or also known as the triple constraints (scope, time, money), however it is likely an effort to keep away from failure than to succeed. Can we really define project failure as a set of measurements?

Defining Failure

The list of failed projects is long than the list of successful projects, however defining failure is not easy s it may seem. Upon reading a number of articles regarding this matter, I wondered why even though we already know why projects fail; we know how to prevent their failure –why do they still fail?”They said when project has not delivered what was required in line with expectations, it is considered a failure, therefore, in order to succeed, a project must deliver to the 6 variables mentioned above to define threshold

Here are. So, let’s look at each one:

Scope – For any given project, scope can be used to determine whether a project is complete. However, feature completeness should not be the criteria for success. Functional completeness, which is whether the users can complete their work using the system, is a better measurement and it is also harder to define. Functional completeness is not known until many users go through their typical work flow in the system several times.

Schedule – If a project goes past its deadline, many companies consider that a failure. I do not believe you can measure the schedule miss without looking at other aspects of the project. Also, you need to look at the reason for the deadline. If the deadline is only the time when all of the work was estimated to complete, then it was not really a deadline. If there was a time to market concern or the users have some other schedule constraints and need the system by a particular date, then the schedule does become very important. Missing an estimated end date and missing a constrained scheduled deadline are two very different things.

Budget – Money is an issue for most companies and is one of the few measures that can be a big indicator or cause of failure. The budget for a project is typically a function of the number of resources over the life of the schedule, unless there are capital expenditures like new hardware. For smaller companies, the budget can be of extreme importance because funding is limited, especially when compared to large corporations. In the most extreme cases, the budget can be the reason a project gets shut down, obviously meaning that the project is a failure.

Risk – At this point, I ask that all project managers skip to the next bullet. Risk and the implications of that risk is something that can be managed but should not be evaluated in terms of the success or failure of a project. There are very few cases where risk should matter, and those are projects where the defining feature is to reduce risk in the business itself. Risk is a good measurement to determine the possibility of failure or other bad situations, so from the management perspective it is a good window into the health of a project.

Resources – Staffing of a project is typically not used as a measurement of failure, but it can be a very good indicator of impending doom. For example, if a project was estimated to require 5 software engineers for 6 months, and after 2 months another 5 engineers are added, that is a significant indicator that something is wrong. It may mean that a large amount of scope was added to the project, or that the project or its complexity was severely underestimated. Additional resources will also affect the budget; probably add more risk due to communication difficulties and likely impact the quality of the software delivered.

Quality – As I mentioned before, quality should be a huge determining factor in the success of a project, but it should not be the defining factor. A high defect rate is always a bad thing, and will have long lasting effects on the application. Thankfully, agile processes like test driven development, and basic automated unit testing have helped developers ensure some level of code quality. The only problem with quality is that you can never rid a system of all defects, you can only be rid of known defects. It can also become fairly expensive to ensure the highest levels of quality.

At this point, you are probably asking where the definition of failure is. Technically speaking, failure is very specific to your environment. I have limitedly defined success and you could say that failure is not matching or exceeding the success criteria. The most important thing is defining success and failure in the context of your business. If you know what these definitions are, then you can actually determine whether your project was successful and how you can drive towards success in your projects.

(Reference: http://regulargeek.com/2010/11/08/defining-project-failure/)

COMMON REASONS WHY PROJECTS FAIL

From the discussion on our Project Management class, our facilitator presented us these 10 reasons why projects fail.

-poor estimates

Poor estimate refers to the bad associations of plans. Bad estimates lead to bad cost projections which ultimately equate to poor delivery. The problem being when estimates are needed for efforts to be completed to project costs. Often a project is estimated for resource effort before it is budgeted. Therein lays the problem. The estimator is rarely the individual doing the work and the amount of work may not be fully understood. This is one of the reasons why the estimator must be well knowledgeable and skilled. Estimations involves time (influenced by the scope of the project) and planning. In estimations, one must understand the project outcome. Since it is only estimations, one would not think that it will be perfect; however, accuracy plays an important role.

-scope changes

Defining scope is perhaps the most important part of the upfront process of defining a project. In fact, if you don't know for sure what you’re delivering and what the boundaries of the project are, you have no chance for success. Managing scope is one of the most critical aspects of managing a project. However, if you have not done a good job of defining scope, managing scope will be almost impossible.

The purpose of defining scope is to clearly describe and gain agreement on the logical boundaries of your project. Scope statements are used to define what is within the boundaries of the project and what is outside those boundaries. The more aspects of scope you can identify, the better off your project will be.

Defining and planning a project is only the first step in successfully managing a project. After you plan the work, you have to work the plan. You must make sure that the work you agreed to deliver is completed within the timeframe and budget allocated. Part of the work-the-plan process is preparing for the inevitable fact that, once the project starts, the client will probably end up asking for more (or different) work than what was originally agreed to. This is when you must use scope-change management. If you don’t, you will end up trying to complete more work than what was originally agreed to and budgeted for. In other words, you will be heading down the road to trouble.

-work breakdown failures

Projects don't just happen they are planned. The whole project team should develop the plan not just the project manager. This ensures that the teams' experiences are taken into account and that everyone is fully committed and has ownership of the plan.

Running a project without a plan is foolish. Working without knowing where you are going is likely to lead to problems and possible failure. Running a project without a plan is like trying to find your way in a strange city without a map. As the saying has it, "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail."

In order to identify the individual tasks in a project it is useful to create a Work Breakdown Structure. The WBS is the foundation for the detailed project plan. Get the team together and brainstorm all of the tasks and sub-tasks in the project, in no particular order. Write them down on sticky notes and put them on a whiteboard. Once everyone has thought of as many tasks as they can, arrange the sticky notes into groups under the major areas of activity. Add, modify, remove and shuffle the sticky notes until the WBS is accurate, complete and logical. The purpose of a WBS is to decompose the project into steps and sub-steps.

www.projectsmart.co.uk/planning-a-project-using-a-work-breakdown-structure-and-logic-network.html

-not enough time/ resource allocated

Sometimes managers are not given the opportunity to plan because time pressure from senior management take over and most of the time the project is on it’s way before it has been clearly defined (New Zealand Management, 2003). In such cases, people see planning as a waste of time because they believe that time is better spent doing something rather than planning (Fichter, 2003).

 -incompetent project manager

According to the experienced failures, one of the major major reason of projects failure is due to the incompetence of the project manager. Project mangers have a lot of responsibility to handle just to make their projects successful. One of the responsibilities of project mangers is about communication. Since Project managers get busy, many times they don't make time to manage project communications properly. Also, the project manager may think they are doing a good job communicating, but that may not be the case. Project managers must remember that the project team is made up of individuals. Each person on the team has a preference for the types of communication they like to receive, and each person processes communications differently. Poor Communication leads to poor project team, and this matter considered to be a fault of the project manager. There are a lot of incompetent project managers that are hurting our profession because they either refuse to alter their communication styles or are too arrogant to change.

-ineffective use of PM discipline and processes

Every step of business succession progresses according to project plans. So project management becomes very important part of succession because a small mistake may result in wrapping up the business plans forever.

During one project management study, the working methodologies adopted by project management professionals employed with management consulting firms were analyzed. The conclusion drawn was that most of these project management professionals employed at these management consulting firms used the project management techniques which were perfected with the trial and error methods and deep understanding of the business rules.

Project management is all about calculating the pitfalls and creating outlets to avoid the consequences. All the projects share a common aim – following ideas and activities to shape them into working realities. Even if the project is well planned and carried still the possibility of encountering dangers exists.

Project management progresses by following methodologies

§ Plans

§ Organizing

§ Staffing – employing right people who can do justice to the job

§ Guiding – Guiding people to do follow things

§ Monitoring – Monitoring the flow of project at each step

§ Innovation – Introducing new ideas to add uniqueness to project

§ Completion – Setting deadlines for the completion of project

Any project which lacks to identify its objective can be compared to going on a fishing trip in a dry river. An objective goal will always give direction and lead to the project. The objectives should always be concrete, not something vague as improving customer satisfaction or improving the popularity etc. Such objectives are immeasurable whereas you can set objectives like easing out the process by introducing some value addition etc. Often project management teams proceed to work towards achieving some selected objectives because setting many objectives may hamper the quality of work.

(http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Importance_Of_Project_management.html)

 -lack of proper management support

The project manager is the interface between the business and technology sides of the company (The Standish Group, 1999). Without executive support project managers in the organization find difficulty in aligning business with their projects. The executive management also needs to be straightforward if they have reservations about the project. Otherwise, once problems are encountered in the project their support will weaken (Glaser, 2004).

Most projects will change the work life of many users and require that they participate in design and implementation. Without user involvement nobody in the organization feels committed to the project. User involvement requires time and effort, but the staff might be already stretched and unable to find time for a new project on their schedule. That is why executive management support is important to make priority clear to the staff.

-wrong use of technology

Information technology should be an asset to a business and support the business through a clear definition of the role technology will play in the business. This is defined in the business plan.

Implementing a full technology strategy can have benefits that cascade throughout the organization.  Wrong use of technology would somehow lead to the failure of the project.

Conclusions

The past failure need not discourage project managers from future efforts. Past examples of IT project failures gives us the opportunity to point to the relevant lessons that can be derived from recognizing areas where IT projects is more likely to fail.

Project managers can position themselves to reduce the possibility for project failure by considering the following recommendations:

• Make sure to plan before starting the development or implementation.
• Pay attention to tasks in the critical path.
• Set up the necessary processes to calculate and inform the risk.
• Ensure that the IT project has clear objectives.
• Understand project trade-offs when making decisions regarding objectives change.
• Use the duration instead of the time on task to estimate schedule.
• Avoid using linear approximation when estimating time or resources.
• Get the support from the executive management and ask them to be open if they have any reservations about the project.
• Ensure and communicate regular about the progress, even if it seems invisible.
• Require that users participate in design and implementation of your project
• Make sure you have the appropriate planning, communication, and technology skills.

(http://www.projectperfect.com.au/info_it_projects_fail.php)

Other causes of failure could be added ad nauseam, but the existence of additional factors is not the point. The factors of successful project management have been documented for years—they merely need greater attention. But if this article has helped serve as a reality check for your project, it will have served its purpose. If you violate any of the principles noted by the consultants and practitioners in this article, you should not expect to succeed in spite of yourself.

What is project management?

What is project management?

         In the twenty-first century it has become fashionable to manage one's own investments. People nowadays are very much serious on deploying their projects in order to ensure the success of it. Indeed, our environment today is very complex that it requires ongoing implementations. By the use of project management skills, we can be able to manage chaos by providing framework for working amidst persistent change. Or in better understanding, by use of it we can create an environment conducive to getting critical projects done! So what is project management then?
Project management as described by the book, is an application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Project management is accomplished though application and integration of the project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing. Project management is then about organization, about changing people’s behaviors, about managing, or about decision making. And the person responsible for accomplishing the project’s objectives is called a project manager.

           We all know already that there is no magic formula to guarantee the success of a project. But there are techniques and strategies that will help plan and manage projects. These things are in the scope of project management. Project management therefore provides methods and tools to ensure that objectives are successfully achieved. Thus, without proper project management, a project would certainly fail.

           There 3 constraints I learned on managing a project. First is to find its scope. Finding the scope means developing a common understanding as to what is included in, or excluded from, a project. What is it you are supposed to accomplish by managing this project? What is the project objective? Is it a real time system? Is it all screen-based? What reports can be produced? Where does the information come from? What manipulation is required for the data? Is all the data compatible? Do you want to generate standard letters? How many letters? How customizable are the letters? Do you want to store the questions? Do you want to store the answers? Etc. etc. etc. Scope is not about determining the time and cost. We are not talking about deciding how long it will take, or how much it will cost. Time and cost are outputs of scope or comes after the scope is defined. So it is of paramount importance to define the scope to determine the outcomes. Poor scopes leads to failure, so we must see to it that the scope we included or excluded are accurate.

The other two are time and cost. In project management time management describes how to monitor and control time spent within a project. It is all about recording the time spent by people on a project. The time process helps the manager know which tasks has been worked on, when and for how long. It also get varies depending on the present circumstances. Time factor is not in total control despite more sources and alternatives are available to achieve the task. If you have limited resources you can’t control over the time. It is one time of limitation once you are behind the time schedule.

               In the case of the cost, we can't know the exactly until the project is complete because we can't accurately predict the future. Cost of the project depends on the different factors like change in the rate of materials, equipments & machinery, change in rate of labors and other various factors. However, we can do an estimate. Doing an estimate would create a good understanding of how projects should unfold through the project life span.
Before ending this piece, I conclude that it is therefore important to understand project management for us to be aware on decision making. Through this we can manage any risk that would eventually comes our way while achieving our project’s objectives.

What is management?

What is management?

               If we are going to ask by this question, as first thought, we would probably shout “it is what managers do!” I would possibly do that, but I will not shout huh? Lol. Seriously, the definitions of this term over the internet all have similar concepts. My friend Wikipedia says “it is an act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives efficiently and effectively” and that it “comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal” and my other friend in Suite101 says “Management is an organizational function, like sales, marketing or finance. It doesn't necessarily mean managing people. We can manage ourselves or the material assigned to us at work. If you managed a project very well on your own, it would mean that you did the job in a well-organized, efficient manner, making good use of all resources at your disposal” Ohh.. They just have the same idea I have in mind, they just raised their hands first! Lol. But I guess I have to share my ideas too…Well, to sum up all my understanding, management, I guess, is like raising your kid. You need to have a plan for his future first. You need to guide, direct, instruct, control, or advice him so that he will not be into the path he should not walk. Through that you will be rest assured that you will have the best results after all the things you’ve done. If you are a parent, you understand that it is pretty hard to do. Management therefore not is just a simple task. It requires great responsibility in order to perform it well. It requires time, skills, and resources if necessary. What would be the world if there are no managers like? Do you agree we need managers to plan for us? What about leadership?
          On the class, I learned that management is different from leadership. I thought before there is no difference. But with the help of our facilitator I recognized that leadership and management are two different functions or simply they provide two dissimilar purposes. A manager executes while a leader directs. Implementing existing directions and maintains efficient operations are the main role of managers. Making new directions to influence others through innovation are the things leaders do. Managers focused only on performance, they only make sure that the project would be efficient that’s why they are seen as task-oriented, controlling and insensitive to peoples needs. On the other hand, leaders induce us to change. They don’t control us. They are just to direct us for the better. We don’t necessarily follow them. We can have a choice. These are the reasons why leaders described as inspiring, visionary and emotionally engaging. But for clarifications, managers also provide direction but only on HOW to execute efficiently. Managers are more on occupying a position, while leaders are more about doing something different. However I’m with no against with management. In fact I do not agree with our facilitators thought of changing our course description from Project management to project leadership. But I do not also agree if leadership will be out of bounce. Both management and leadership skills are needed at the organizational, team, and personal levels. It's not a case of either/or, but and/also. Futurist, Joel Barker provides another helpful distinction between the two roles; "managers manage within paradigms, leaders lead between paradigms". Both are needed. Trying to run an organization with only leadership or management is like trying to cut a page with half a pair of scissors. Leadership and management are a matched set; are both needed to be effective.
         I also learned from the discussion the PODC thingy in management to make a group of individual more effective and to achieve their objectives efficiently. ‘P’ stands for Planning. Planning has a broad definition but for simplifications, it means setting up. Planning refers to the process of deciding what to do and how to do it. It involves preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific goal. To reduce to bare bones, think a plan as a map. When following a plan, you can always see how much you have progressed towards your project goal and how far you are from your destination. Without a proper business plan the business has no direction. One can do the business without plan, but the results are not what one wants. It is rightly said “Well plan is half done”. A carelessly planned project will take three times longer to complete than expected .A carefully planned project will take only twice as long.

          ‘O’ stands for Organizing. This is the second function of management. This happens after a plan is already in place. It transforms plans into reality by deploying people effectively through assigning and coordinating tasks, and makes use of the resources orderly and wisely. There is also called an organizational structure. It is framework intended for decision making. The organizational structure is defined as set of formal tasks assigned to individuals and departments, formal reporting relationships, including lines of authority, decision responsibility, number of hierarchical levels, and span of managerial control, and design of systems to ensure effective coordination of employees across departments.

        ‘D’ stands for directing. It is a process in which managers guide and instruct to achieve their goals. They said it is actually the heart of the whole management process. Without it, planning and other functions are with no importance. This function involves influencing human behavior. This might be through motivation, leadership, discipline, development, etc. In this function, managers are transforming into good leaders’. They are bound to accomplish the organizations’ objectives while concurrently helping each team members grow.

          The last function is controlling or control. This function involves instructing team members in order to achieve the organization’s goals or simply making sure other people do what should be done. For managers, the key to maintain management control is to establish performance standards for employees because it will give them an idea of what is expected of them and tells them how you assess their performance. Controlling also is a function in the management cycle closely related to planning. After plans are made, controlling function ensures that the plans made are carried out, or, if circumstances necessitate, that the plans are modified.

          I remembered during my high school days I was asked what I eventually wanted to be. Without hesitation, I answered “to be a manager”. I never thought that time that managing is not easy as it may seem. The position it will create needs great responsibility. You must be well skilled before entering this area. Some might think that managers do not have any personal production, that they don’t do anything aside from instructing. The true fact is, every manager has something to do that no one else can or should do.

What is a project?

What is a project?

            I know you too encountered this term even before and you would perhaps agree that we usually used this term when we are referring to our afterschool activities right? On my case, I used this term frequently when I’m referring to my big school works. I mean those that require a long span of time, those tasks I considered as with high difficulty or usually conducted before the semester ends. And if you are not a student anymore, this term might usually mean something that you are working to in relevance with your career. But, is the definition of this term limited only to what we are thinking?

           I was a bit surprise with the definition I learned in the first day of our class in Project Management which is still facilitated by Mr. Randy Gamboa. According to him, everything we do is actually called a project. I was puzzled that time. I mean, is it really everything? I could agree with him if he says it’s called work or something alike, but he still insisted. He then asks us what we usually do in our house. One of my classmates said, “I do wash plates”, and then sir said “Well, that’s a project.” “How you enter this university is called a project too”, he added. I began to realize that projects perhaps are about matters that needed to be under a course of action or process before completion. But my realization that time was still narrow (although not wrong) until he cited an additional case. He asked, “Why you are here studying? What’s your purpose?”Some answered “to learn”, and some naughty people answered “to have an allowance”. Then sir said, “You are here because you wanted to graduate!” Well, we could not agree more with him. Then he said with conviction, “That’s your project!” “By entering in the college you are actually starting your project, and graduating means finishing it” he added. Then he continued on lecturing. He defined the term project with the help of the PMBOK or Project Management Book of Knowledge, as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. From this definition we can say that projects are in fact temporary only . Temporary because it has a definite beginning and end not necessarily mean short in duration. Remember the example our facilitator stated that I mentioned earlier? The graduation thingy? Yes, like what he said, entering the college means starting the project, and graduating means ending it. Therefore, the definition from the book and the example are actually in match. Studying is a project that had a definite beginning and a definite end. However, according to the book, an end of a project is reach when the project’s objectives have been achieved or it becomes clear that the project’s objectives will not or cannot be met, or the need for the project no longer exist. So now, can we still call studying as a project? Certainly! Before we enter college, our minds are already set for the diploma, right? So if you can notice, right from the start we already have a vision or an objective, which is to graduate, and not just to graduate, but to graduate on time! If we cannot reach that objective, that simply means we cannot graduate so the project fails and ends. Or if it became clear to us that the project’s objective will not or cannot be met either due to the difficultness of the course we took or to the terror teachers who keep their prying eyes on us, that still means we cannot graduate, so the project still fail and have its end. Or maybe because of the worst case scenario where in the need for the project no longer exist (example is when we realized that we are into teaching and not in the computing field).And the best thing, if we be able to graduate (on time), or we achieved our objective, that means the project is successful and have its wonderful ending.

         You know, honestly, what I wrote above was the “temporary” nature of a project. It was just one of its six natures. So we still have 5 more to tackle. Let’s start with the next.
          According also to the book, a project is a “job done once”. Well, I’m not pretty sure if that was from the book or from the mouth of our facilitator, but anyways, as what the second nature implies, a project is actually a task done only once. (Waah! I’m just repeating it. lol) So if you already graduated from that course, what the hell you wanna take it again? Taking PhD and Masteral doesn’t mean taking it again huh? When you do the masteral and PhD means you want too be more knowledgeable to that field. And hey! You are starting new project again with new objective! Wow! You’re impressing me! lol.

           Next nature, according to our facilitator (or from the book, I guess), a project is “designed to solve a problem”. We do projects for specific purpose. If we want to prove that students fail because of the teachers, we could have a research project about it. It can be used to determine whether or not it’s true. It will surely create a great impact in the society especially on educational areas. Referring to the definition of the project I mentioned earlier, a project creates unique product, service or result. These 3 are what call project deliverables. Let’s go technical while explaining this 3. According to the book, a project can create a product or articraft that is produced, is quantifiable, and can be either an end item in itself or a component item. In case of the services, it has the capability to perform a business functions supporting production or distribution. And a project also can create as a result, such as outcomes or documents. Therefore, a project actually has the property called uniqueness. Uniqueness in the light of my understanding means something a project possess in order to solve a problem. A project has to provide a specific response to a need (problem) in a specific context. They are innovative in short. It is something important in project deliverables. Since a project is unique, it means it is plan to work out on a specific problem also. Take for example, assuming that a bridge in your place was broken and needed to be fix, do the project need to fix also other broken bridges near your place? I guess not. Every project has its scope, time and budget. It has its limitation then. I will just discuss this further on my next post soon.

        A project also “consists of interrelated tasks”. When making project, we need to gather data or information first to solve for a particular problem. If the information we gathered are not interrelated, there’s no sense in continuing the project ‘cause it will surely fail. And since projects are the product of collective endeavour. They are run by teams, involve various partners and cater for the needs of others.

          The last nature was phrased as “all projects are work, but not all work is a project.” According to the book, work is operational or ongoing while project is temporary and unique. Still a bit puzzling? Well, what I think is that all projects are called work because they just not simply end, they could have impacts or aftereffects that could sustain a business or something. However, not all work is a project might be because a project is just temporary or it is designed to attain specific objectives then terminate if achieved. A work as we know creates new objectives once the other objectives were achieved then continue all along. And works also activities which can be repeated or transplanted anywhere at any moment; I think that’s the difference.
           This time, I do know exactly what a project means, that everything is a project. Everything we do has objectives…that might be simple or hard to accomplish. And like all the projects, the endings are not predictable especially when we are not skilled at project management. There are times a project will fail because we did not attain the objectives or the need of it no longer exists. Just like life.

HOW TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL TECHNOPRENEUR?

My reflection/learning's on Technopreneurship 1

    I marked the subject course Technopreneurship 1 as full of creativity,wisdom, knowledge and fun. I enrolled in this subject without me knowing that it would not be a simple battle for me to win. I spent a lot of effort just to make passing close to reality. Well, that includes making on the class on time and trying not to sink my head when preparing written documents like this one! Ha-ha. You know, I really do struggle with putting my ideas and thoughts on paper that's why my writing skills may be a little rusty. Nah, I mean, not little. Maybe this is just one of the lessons I learned in the said subject though it was not some sort of English 101.
The activities and lectures conducted and discussed in the scope of this subject were never became boring. Our facilitator did an excellent job in imparting us knowledge and information regarding this matter. Honestly, I hate business-related subjects not because I find them uninteresting; I just suck on this field. However, I do of course thought of having my own business but I never thought I could have the ability not to make stay as a thought only. Listening to the lectures on this subject not only gave me knowledge about technopreneurship but also confidence and motivations.

        As far as I can remember, we first discussed about the definition of technopreneurship. If you didn’t know this yet, Technopreneurship is simply entrepreneurship in the field of high technology. For you to be called a technopreneur, you must be engaged into innovative technology venture through developing new technology products or even services. Sounds hard? Yes, it is really is! As what I’ve learned during the entire course, getting into this field is not easy as it may seem. I learned that not everyone has the capacity and the capability to become successful in this area. Even though you have all the resources necessary, you can’t still assure triumph. Only a very few people make the journey to thriving businesses. And it is the decisions that these people take that makes them shine like crazy diamonds in a world full of diminishing and dimming pebbles. The term decisions that I am using here are not just about decisions made by the use of your head only. I learned that it is not intelligence or ideas alone make a business prosper. Even though this matters a lot, this must not be the entire baseline in every decisions or actions a technopreneur will have. Ideas are important to start a business. Ideas that guaranteed to work, that is. However, in order to ensure that your idea becomes a real world success, you will have to take pains to measure its feasibility. Measuring its feasibility means knowing your self, interacting and coping with other people and the environment. These were the reasons why we engage into the first topic in SEED Model—Self-Mastery. Self-mastery is knowing one’s self, very obvious huh? Hehe. As what our instructor said, “Self-mastery brings passion”. “When you know yourself, you know what you want and do not want”, he added. I definitely agree with him. I think it is paramount important to know yourself before engaging into business because I believe that your business is actually yourself. It is a reflection of your own personality. It represents what you know and what you love to do best. It stands for what you are good at and what you love. I remember we did an activity where in we were ask by our instructor to list all the things we love, best at and irritants. I wrote there things all about art such as sketching, crafting, drawing, and other art related thingy for ‘love’ and ‘best at’ sections, and “cockroaches” for the last (hmm. Far out =P ). I realized that I really love art indeed! LOL. After that activity, I learned that we should never engage in anything that we do not know anything about even if we can afford to hire the “best brain” that can implement our plans for us. And also considering the fact that other person’s brain may not really be able to neither understand the depth of our passion nor grasp what we really like to do in the real sense. There is nothing like being” hands-on” in the business; more so when we are just starting. This is the reason why before engaging ourselves into technopreneurship or even on other kind of venture, we must first think of the things we love to do. As what Steve Jobs said, we can’t do great if we don’t love what we are doing. In my case, I love art. But I also consider the facts that there are a lot of art related businesses and the competition in the market is fierce. So, I guess the best thing to do is to sell and promote my products in different approach—unique approach. Arts are not limited only to drawing and alike; there are a lot to do with art and it could offer you other than the traditional art we know. What I am saying is that we must become innovative while staying in the field we love. Sticking into what is normal will not make us the person we like to become.

            Aside from the activity I mentioned earlier, we also conducted 4 more activities that would help us measure and know ourselves more. Those activities were actually tests—personality test, emotional quotient test, adversity quotient test, and intelligence quotient test. These tests are necessary in assessing one’s self and for career planning process. I learned that knowing your skills, values, interests, and personality are important for the success of your career choice. As what I’ve always pointing out, ideas or intelligence alone are not the only bases for you to be called an entrepreneur, and not just entrepreneur, but successful entrepreneur. I believe your skills, talent, knowledge, personality, and strengths will be your best assets in any cases. And if you gonna ask me about my results on the tests, well, I can tell you they were satisfying. They were not bad as I expected they would. I remember, we took the personality test as our prelim exam. The test was not hard, it composed of situations (common) that would measure your personality by calculating your responses. I wondered that time why we need to test our personality. Even though I know that I still have to know what my subconscious mind is doing, I never thought that testing our personality is vital in business. It was when our instructor gave us his talk. According to him, your personality affects everything in your life. That might be personal relationship or professional associations. It is who you are. It the way people see you, the way they will interact with you and the way you interact with them. Your personality will ultimately define how effectively you work with people and how they work with you. So, doesn't it make sense that you should have a realistic understanding of your personality before you get started in any important new life event? Indeed, learning how people see you is a very positive step toward promoting yourself effectively especially in business where in you will be more into interacting with other people.




           And with my Emotional Quotient test? Outstanding! I mean above average. LOL. FYI,this test measures the people’s ability to collaborate, network, socialize, negotiate, and cooperate or simply the capacity for effectively recognizing and managing our own emotions and those of others. I suck on socializing and negotiating part of the test that’s why I only got this rating. Our instructor said that EQ is the primary determinant of success than IQ. At the start, I did not agree with him ‘cause I really thought Intelligence matters most in businesses. It was until he gave his talk again (lol). He said emotions have the potential to get in the way of our most important business relationships. A lack of EQ is the main reason promising careers derail. He said that successful entrepreneurs were not necessarily gifted with IQ and that it has virtually nothing to do with success in life. What they actually have is EQ. I guess I don’t have any reason to argue with him anymore since I proved it myself by reading inspiring articles about businesses.
And about my AQ? As good as my EQ. At first I got confuse with the difference of AQ from EQ. Maybe the first letter? Just kidding. According to the site http://hi.baidu.com/geovindu/blog/item/c492d288163c3a9fa4c27282.html, EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient, abbreviated as EQ), is to manage their own emotions and interpersonal capabilities while AQ (Adversity Intelligence Quotient, abbreviated as AQ), refers to the ability to pressure the face of adversity, or, and capabilities. Therefore, AQ measures how stoic a person is, and proposes that the more stoic one is, the more he can resist failure. It makes sense, because when you don't break or give up in extreme conditions, you are bound to succeed. However, it forgets that the person may be stoic, but may also be reticent and aloof, and therefore alienated. He may not have money, people network, love, happiness and consequently balance in his life. He might be a successful fighter, but may have picked the wrong fights (or is often on the wrong side). Does that account for success? 

         At last about my IQ. I was quite impressed with the result. I thought I have a very very low IQ. Yey! I have not. Too good to know also that in businesses we don’t actually need to be kinda smart. Because if we do, I think I am no space for this field. However, even if IQ is not the primary thing we need in business, it still plays important role in running our business. Intelligence is something our culture particularly values, and it can certainly be counted among the more desirable things to have in life. With intelligence, we can have the ability for complex thinking and reasoning, and the processes, such as attention and memory, that support it, it’s an asset in helping people stay motivated and meet long-term goals. But again, IQ alone fails to achieve a high position.
On the class, aside from those tests, we were also asked to make our personal vision or goals in life. According our mentor, a vision is a picture or idea you have in your mind of yourself, your business, or anything that is going to happen. A clear vision helps you pursue dreams and achieve goals; an idea of the future, a strong wish. A vision that is clear will open your mind to the endless possibilities of the future. Thinking that I am not a child anymore, that I can no longer depend on my parents for everything, that I also need to live my own life and create my own career success is quite hard indeed. Over the years, I have been thinking of my goals in life, but I always turn out trapped in goals I didn’t really choose. I mean I can’t actually point out what I want to become. This feeling ended until I realized that like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates; little by little somehow I could make my own vision. Now, fortunately I had realized how the future will hold me. Though I can’t tell exactly how it will be, in some way I can assure it will be good. I love this topic because I learned that a vision actually will help you to overcome obstacles in the way and helps you hold on when times are tough. And a vision that is well defined helps you to focus and create a purpose that becomes your measurement for your success. And if you do not have a vision of who you want to be, how you want to succeed or what you want out of life, you begin to lack drive and your life becomes just an order of events =).  


            The last highlighted activity I remember was our Business Proposal Presentation--about Techno Business. Waaaahh. This activity was really a tough one. We did 3 or 4 presentations I guess just to make our instructors thumb up. We did a lot of brainstorming. I and my group mates did all the things we can. We even gathered all the things we love to do and best at just to generate a good business plan but we still ended with a mistake. We were not aware that time that all we need to have was a unique proposal. A business proposal that would surely click. But it was hard to think a unique plan. It was until our group mate thought of something wonderful. We ended in a webpage with amazing content—online live streaming of cockfights or simply online derby. I think it was a great idea since cockfighting nowadays became one of the famous game or shall we say a famous legal gamble and if be brought to the internet world, a lot of money will be raise for sure. You know, I think one of the best things I learned from this activity, we should be aware of our environment because there are a lot of business ideas and opportunities out from our surroundings. They are just there, waiting to be discovered.

          This subject was indeed a remarkable one. I did gain a lot of knowledge and wisdom. If you gonna ask me what I don’t like with this subject? Maybe the subject description…I hate to spell it. =)