Gerhard Rasocha - Unplugged

I think this quote by Mark Twain sets a good stage as we approach the end of the year:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So through off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Follow your passions, feel the emotions and enjoy your life. I wish everyone a happy and successful New Year!

Interesting things on the net:

CampaignMonitor - an online service (SaaS) for companies who create and send email newsletters for themselves and their clients. CampaignMonitor allows you to track the results of your campaigns and to manage your client’s subscribers. Very neat !

Confabb - combines an aggregate database of major conferences, conventions, and trade shows sorted by industry with social networking tools designed to empower conference attendees to improve their overall experience.

RelentaCRM - an online CRM (customer relationship management) tool. Includes email, contact manager, shared calendar, email newsletter marketing, autoresponders. Relenta pricing varies from permanently free to custom plans depending on the number of users and contacts, volume of email, and disk space usage. Short review here.

The Economics of Online Storage - good article comparing the cost of online storage to local file storage. This raises an interesting question: will we store all our files online in the future ?

There is a big hype around personal productivity these days. New websites are appearing almost daily, promising to help in the search for the perfect solution.
I am not surprised by this trend. The stress-level of the average business person has become almost unbearable. There is big demand for personal productivity systems to help us cope with our daily workload and all those things entering our lives. Just look at 43folders, DIY Planner, Getting-Things-Done (GTD), Franklyn Covey and Total-Workday-Control (TWC). They are all really worth a look - you will definitely find some great input to increase your efficiency.

But, beware! The search for the perfect system is a dangerous one, because:

1) there is a risk to get over-organized - this is something I experienced myself: you implement a sophisticated system that becomes either very complicated to maintain or which simply is incompatible with your personality
2) you are easily traped by the temptation to keep on trying new systems - as a result you will wind up less productive, because “searching for the system” or “improving it” becomes more time/energy consuming than the productivity gains you get through using the system.

So, my advice on this is very simple (and I admit I am sometimes guilty of not following it through myself): (more…)

Do you know this feeling ? Sometimes you are really struggling to get things done effectively, while at other times you are highly productive and everything seems so easy. Well, at those times when everything goes so easy you are in the state of “flow”.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”; researched this topic and describes flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”.

Wouldn’t it be great to get yourself into this state, whenever you want ? Nick Smith shares this vision and wrote The little book of flow on his Life 2.0 blog.

The premise of this essay is that those exquisite but all too rare moments when we experience ‘flow’, when we are truly creative, happy and intuitively know exactly what is needed, are simply those instances when we glimpse our original and true nature. It sets out to show how, instead of trying to fathom the conditions for flow, we can realise this ‘true nature’ and make ‘flow’ our normal way of being, wherever we are and in whatever we do.

Nick has some excellent points on how to get yourself into the state of “flow”. A word of warning though: this is not easy to digest. The printed version of this article weighs in at over 30 pages, but its well worth the time and effort.

Chris Campbell of Particletree on 5 Reasons to Create Your First Startup and why it may be a good experience even if you fail:

1) It Prepares You for How Much Work Is Involved
2) It’ll Teach You What to Look for in a Cofounder
3) It’ll Show You How Flexible Your Ideas Need to Be
4) It’ll Teach You the Importance of Passion
5) It’ll Show You How Little You Know About Money

Chances are very high that you will fail with your first company. But this may not be such a bad thing after all. If you realize the failure early enough without sinking too much money, you can propably get out of the business without too much damage.
You are now much better prepared to make your next company a success. Much better than someone who hit a “lucky punch” once.

So, start small, follow your ideas with passion and get out, if it does not work out. Don’t get discouraged and apply what you’ve learned to your next startup, and always remember: failing makes you smarter than succeeding.

For those who have not seen it. The new iPod Shuffle is a cute little MP3 player that holds 240 songs and lets you you listen to your music for up to 12 continuous hours. Apple just released a cool new commercial for the Shuffle.
Check out the video (mov/QuickTime).

The music in this one is Who’s Gonna Sing? by the Prototypes- cool video, great music. Combine emotions with simple Mac/PC connectivity, great usability and make it easy and affordable to buy music through the internet (iTunes).
Its as simple as that.

Does anyone still wonder why Apple holds 60-70% market share for portable music players ? Its all about selling “experiences”.

Some interesting links for internet geeks

What Is Web 2.0 - written in 2005, but still a great read to understand what web 2.0 is really all about

Web 2.0 Summit 2006/San Francisco - 13 interesting start-ups presented their solutions at Launchpad

Thumbstacks - making and sharing presentations on the web / not PowerPoint yet, but just another step into the “client-less” future of software

Omnidrive - storage aggregator, that allows you to bring all your files and content together from your desktop, devices and the web onto a single space that’s easily accessible from any platform (the account with 1GB of storage space is currently free)

The VentureBlog has a great piece extending on a recent presentation by Paul Graham of YCombinator a venture firm specialized in funding early stage startups. Paul talks about key success factors for startup companies and their founders. I want to pick out three points which I consider the most important ones:

• make something people want
• with focus and determination
• and the ability to listen and react

This really captures the essence of a good start. It sounds simple, but lets look at the potential pitfalls in a bit more detail:

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Did you sometimes wish to have a mobile scanner with you ? Well, then I have good news for you. ScanR - an online service - makes it easy to use a camera phone to scan documents, whiteboards or even business cards.

The whole process is fairly easy:
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Are you considering to take an MBA program, but you are not sure its worth the cost and effort ? Then how about the Personal MBA ?

The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufmann is a great low-cost alternative to a traditional MBA program. Josh’s approach does in no way claim to fully replace the business school experience of your typical MBA program - things like networking and in-class discussions are still of great value - but it will help you to progressively develop a greater understanding of business and increase your effectiveness at work. And this might just be what you want after all.

The Personal MBA is more flexible than a traditional MBA program, doesn’t involve going into massive debt, and won’t interrupt your income stream for two years. Just set aside some dedicated reading time, pick up a good book, learn as much as you can, and go out and make great things happen. - Josh Kaufmann

Check it out at the Personal MBA website.

TIP: A printable PDF version of this great resource, can be downloaded at ChangeThis.