Entrepreneural Attributes - Problem Solving - from Raj Jain

"The better part of an entrepreneur’s day is about solving problems – especially in the early stages of a venture. Many things will go wrong; there are various challenges which need to be tackled. At these times, it is important to get to the root of the problem – focus on what are the key causes, rather than just looking at some aspects of the issue and trying to fix the ones that are easy. When it comes to problem solving, one must not make the mistake of trying to go for the low-hanging fruit.

Identifying the causes of what is going wrong is very important. What one sees are the effects. What is needed to trace back the lineage to the roots, and identify those key issues which cause the problem at hand.

Let me give a current problem that I face and go through the problem solving process. In my company, we face an issue of support for our customers. Some customers are unhappy because they have to hold for a long time when they call, others are not too thrilled about having to explain the problem every time they call in the event that there is a new person who they are communicating with. If one just looks at these issues, then the obvious solutions would be to add more support staff and get the staff to document the problem faced by the customer when they call. But the issues are a lot more complex.
"

Entrepreneur Attribute - Multitasking

From my favourite section on Raj Jain's blog - Entrepreneurship, he talks of multitasking being an integral characteristic of an entrepreneur:

"One way to go through a day is to focus on one thing at a time, complete it and then move on to the next. An entrepreneur needs exactly the opposite attitude. This is because challenges do not come sequentially. The next problem does not wait for the previous one to complete – an entrepreneur’s life is not a PowerPoint presentation.

Multitasking is at the heart of an entrepreneur’s day and life. The phone rings and needs to be answered, an urgent email needs a reply, a team member needs a map of the way forward, a customer is unhappy, a sales call needs to be made – all pretty much at the same time. In this scenario, one can throw one’s hands up – or smile, and jump right into it. In doing so, an entrepreneur needs the ability to switch from one context to another rapidly.

Such is the activity sequence of an entrepreneur. Many may deride the entrepreneur’s lack of focus or inability to delegate effectively. The reality is that the entrepreneur has no choice. This is not necessarily because the entrepreneur is a poor operational manager and therefore a critical resource and perhaps a bottleneck. It is because the entrepreneur has the compass and the landscape – in the mind’s eye. It is not easy to translate this to everyone, and so the others need a guide, a torchbearer who leads the way. In doing so, the entrepreneur thus ends up having to manage multiple activities, especially at the early stage of a venture."

In the last para, he mentions:

"One either likes context switching or not. It is not easy to do. But when at the end of the day, the entrepreneur sits back and thinks for a moment about the day, there will be a sense of satisfaction, even a little smile – irrespective of how the day went. And then, as the eyes close for a night of sleep, the entrepreneur is already looking forward to the list of tasks that already await the light of the next morning. "

- entreprenuer or workaholic ? Maybe there is only a thin line that differentiates the two. Maybe a little bit of workaholic-ism isn't all that bad - as long as you drink it in in moderation.

Burning Interesting means to generate '3D' photos


An interesting mechanism for generating 3D photographs (from Boing Boing)

AviSprint Enters PTT

Sprint enters the Push -To-Talk market with 2 new phones form Sanyo. Of course, Sprint has their own name for it - PCS ReadyLink. According to Avi Greengart form Jupiter Research:

"Sprint announced this week that they're launching a Push To Talk service (Reuters). I had a chance to play with the phones last week in an ideal environment (Sprint's campus in Kansas City), so I reserve judgement on real world performance. But if what I experienced holds true, Sprint has a real winner here.....

Nextel offers a variety of handsets, most of which are clunky, and only a few have color or consumer-friendly Java and ringtone capabilities. This works well for some business users - the phones are pretty much indestructable - but not consumers, who prize size above all else"

Wire-Free Electric Power

An interesting product that Chad Dickerson pointed out, MobilWise. Not quite what I had expected when I read the title - 'Wireless Electricity', but it is an innovative idea for powering up mobile devices such as PDAs, phones and laptops.

The product is a currently marketed as a thin 'pad' with some kind of contacts on it. When a MobiWise-compatible device is placed on it, the device would be charged. Mind you, the pad is of course plugged in, so you still need cables - but not connected to your devices individually.

I can see offices having these pads placed on conference tables - potentially even being embedded in these tables. Maybe wifi hotspots would have them set up - and yes, they do mention that the pad is resistant to spilled coffee :-)

Its a simple looking idea, but I'd be interested in seeing how well it is adopted. Of course the barriers they would need to cross would be developing an ecosystem of products that are compatible and locations that are willing to host their pads.

MobiTV and TiVo

There have been some ideas going around in the context of mobile TV being transmitted to your cell phone. Like Russel mentions, integrating such a solution with your DVR (eg. TiVo) box would make it so much cooler.

Also see Snapstream.com for a software DVR solution with mobile access (at least for control at the moment).

Theo Kanter's Projects

Theo Kanter's projects on mobility and context awareness have always been interesting...

Comment Spam Manifesto :: Kalsey Consulting Group

The war on SPAM has begun !!!!

What I wonder is why don't these law suites involve the people whose products are being marketed? If people start boycotting products that are marketting via spammers, won't product vendors start informing their marketing agencies to stop using spam as a mechanism for advertising? I am sure enough people have thought of this..... but why isn't anything happening ?

Nokia 5140

Nokia releases the 5140 Push-to-talk GSM phone. It looks rather sporty and with its integrated camera, it looks a tad bit cooler - feature wise as compared to the Motorola v60p. I haven't seen any reviews comparing the quality of PTT audio - which might (?) make all the difference. In case the SME/enterprise market accepts the non-iDen/NEXTEL PTT solutions I'd like to see how the two giants battle out in the PTT space. Having seen some of the proposals for future PTT products, I think its going to be an interesting market to watch out for.

Also see: http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=100208

India Shining

Raj Jain has an interesting summary of a presentation by Umesh Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, India on the key reasons why India is a great place to invest in.

Telepocalypse: Spamming the sidewalks

Martin Geddes speaks out about the potential unwanted commercial use of bluejacking (Bluetooth Hijacking):

"I can imagine an evil business opportunity. I set up my PC with a Bluetooth card in an office above the entrance to a heavily-trafficed Tube station in London, for example. Every passer-by with a Bluetooth phone gets a spam - thousands of them. Might just be a simple message, might have a URL of a website to visit. As Bluetooth becomes pervasive, so does my spam - and you can’t avoid it without turning your phone off."

This adds to my worries of unsolicited mobile marketing happening without carrier intervention that I have been discussing earlier.

AgileManagement

My colleague from Motorola, David J. Anderson, has an interesting blog on management principles for software companies. In his own words:
"David J. Anderson's Agile Management Weblog - thoughts on management, software, constraints and agility.."

This is the daily update and companion to his book 'Agile Management for Software Engineering - Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results'

Mobile Marketing - Or more unwanted spam as you go?

Fast Company Now has a transcript of a panel discussion on Mobile Marketing from Ad:Tech 2003 (Advertising Technology Conference).

The first question that pops to my mind is, with companies like ipsh! and m-Qube cropping up, how soon would it be before SMS/MMS advertisements sent to our phones become as daunting as spam ? ipsh! already claims that they can send out large volumes of SMS/MMS messages without the carrier's knowledge.... now that sounds scary ! Wouldn't it be a matter of time before more companies like this crop up and start pushing out content based on your context or location - even without you needing to sign up for the service.

Maybe its a good idea to start work on a technology to sell to carriers to prevent these large volume SMS messages being sent out....... I can see a market for that emerging real soon.

Gizmodo : Get ready for Bluejacking

[from Gizmodo:]Alberto Escalarte of CacheOp warns us of the interesting concept of 'bluejacking':

[U]sing a phone with Bluetooth, you can create a phonebook contact and write a message, eg. 'Hello, you've been bluejacked', in the 'Name' field. Then you can search for other phones with Bluetooth and send that phonebook contact to them. On their phone, a message will popup saying "'Hello, you've been bluejacked' has just been received by Bluetooth" or something along those lines. For most 'victims' they will have no idea as to how the message appeared on their phone. So, personalised messages like 'I like your pink top' and the startled expressions that result is where the fun really starts.

Nextel's Direct Connect Walkie-Talkie Coast To Coast

Ever wondered how NEXTEL's Push to talk works ?

Ever wondered where all the cool Motorola phones get released ?

Ever wondered where the latest MOT phones are ? Check out the Motorola China web site or even the Motorola South Korea site.

Or even better still, try Motorola Hong Kong.