Month: November 2013

Hi guys, check out this amazing new invention from a team in MIT, called inFORM.

It’s phenomenal.

We all know how the world, due to leaps in technology, is heading towards the “smartphone” era, where we all have many smart devices that make us focus on the virtual screen more, and become more antisocial as a community.

Well, this new invention combines both an innovating technology leap and a tool that increases human’s social interaction. Instead of virtual pixels from smart devices and apps, we now can interact socially through atoms!

The invention is not fully developed yet, but basically we can imagine it as how the first telephone was invented. It is, to quote the article, “a self-aware computer monitor that doesn’t just display light, but shape as well”. In other words, inFORM is both a hardware and software. With it, two random people who live half across the world can basically talk and see one another’s face through Skype on their iPads, and hold one another’s hands on inFORM!

Scientists are optimistic about the possibility. And, just like smart software and hardware we already have, this can be used for future business people and managers to communicate, even experiment and demonstrate prototypes! Just imagine there might not be any Apple’s product launching presentation anymore, but instead an inFORM demonstration session of iPhone 6 (well.. maybe not that soon)! I am personally intrigued by this possible insight into the future!

Nam,

I recently read an article on HBR blogs named “Is it OK to Yell at Your Employees?”. Very interesting.

First and foremost it points out that the answer is open. There are many leaders famous for raising their voices, especially Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Sir Alex Ferguson. However, the core problem does not lie in the decision to yell or not.

It is in the leadership style, the personality of both the leader and the organization. Yelling indicates high expectations and level of intensity. However, if one only yells for the love of yelling and bossing around, the result might turn out not that good..

I personally lean towards the yelling side, as I’d prefer a high level of intensity at work. It shows a high expectation of every task, as demonstrated in organizations like Apple or Manchester United. I think great companies should work this way (at a high level of intensity I mean, not… always yelling at each other).

So, as a lesson for me to take away from the article, a company’s culture is important as an underlying factor affecting its productivity, as learned in COMM101. If the environment is enthusiastic yet can get intense at times, employees should pay a little more attention and do their work more passionately. Or, as quoted in the article, “…at the organizations that seem to have the greatest energy and drive, the conversations aren’t whispered and the disagreements aren’t polite”.

Nam,

Check out the interesting article.

Yesterday I checked out Forbes’ list of the most valuable brands in the world! It’s fascinating.

Not surprisingly, tech companies are the most common ones, showing how “hot” the market currently is. If you’re guessing Apple takes the 1st place, then prepare to be surprised to know, not that it doesn’t, it does, that it is worth nearly twice as much as any other brand on the list!  Yes, 1st place: Apple, worth $104.3 billion. Coming at 2nd place is, yes, another tech company, which is, yes, Microsoft, at $56.7 billion. Other tech companies on the list are IBM (4), Google (5), Intel (8) and Samsung (9).

If you’re wondering who’s the other one in top 5, it’s Coca Cola. And it might also interest you that Pepsi is ranked at only 25.

The automobile industry also accounts for a few places, with BMW the leader at #11, Toyota #14 and Mercedez Benz at #16. BMW’s prestige of building luxury vehicles make it stand out from its competitors.

Other popular brands that you may care about: McDonalds at #6 (yes!), Louis Vuitton #10, Disney at #17, WalMart eighteen and Budweiser at 19. It might be surprising that Nike ranks at only 24.

Perhaps the most important lesson I learn from this list is that one can be successful in whatever industry, as long as he is passionate and intelligent enough to stick to his brainchild.

Also drawn from this list, you can never be the best forever. The world changes at the blink of an eye and someone’s going to get left behind, as in the case of Microsoft.

On a more business-related note, these kinds of surveys let me know more of currently “hot” markets. Applying Porter’s 5 forces, one can determine that, for example, the tech market, both in hardware and software, are extremely competitive with many valuable brands competing for market shares.

Nam,

Also, all hail Steve Jobs! We all remember how Apple was on the edge of bankruptcy not that long ago before Steve’s return..

So I recently followed on a number of articles on Forbes regarding Twitter’s IPOs, which is certainly an usual thing for such a hot event, and picked up some thoughts and knowledge: (Warning: Scary Interesting finance stuffs below)

It is actually extremely hard to determine the value of Twitter, and therefore the decision whether or not to buy its stocks. A professor in Wharton Business School, Luke Taylor, gave his graduate and undergrad students an assignment determining Twitter’s value and share’s price. It varied. The reason behind this is that it is extremely difficult to determine the profitability of the company. Tech companies are just popular, not necessarily profitable. What is more, it’s also really hard to identify the market size. Twitter is surely popular, has a lot of users, but its market cap is not that large compared to Facebook, LinkedIn and a few other rigorous competitors.

However, there are certain advantages we can see in the company. It has not reach its full potential. In fact, it lost over a million of dollars (Yes!) in the first 9 months this year. Thus, investors believe they should buy in Twitter’s stocks, as it might not lose much more money than the above number in the next 9 years.. So yes, it offers a bright prospect. Twitter also managed to avoid Facebook’s mistakes, for example by listing its IPOs on NYSE instead of NASDAQ like many other tech’s, or using money raised for operation rather than shareholders’ stake. Another interesting study has shown that a Twitter user is actually the most valuable social media user. What it did was simple math, taking the value of the company, based on its current stock price, and divide it by its number of users. So, for Twitter, 25.5 billion over 232 million users means 1 user is worth $110, compared to $98 of Facebook and $93 of LinkedIn!

It was fascinating reading these articles, and the bottom line I draw for myself: Finance is harsh! There are numerous underlying assumptions, which directly affect how much money goes into, or out of, your pocket. Thus financial ventures like Twitter’s IPO  can really be called, as used in the article, “Art over Science”.

But, as they say, possibilities make all the fun!

I, unfortunately, have yet created a Twitter account. But here is my LinkedIn if you want a new connection.

Nam,

-> You might find it interesting to read these Forbes articles mentioned above:

Ten reasons why Twitter IPOs aren’t like Facebook

Twitter: What It’s Worth?

A Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn user’s value

So I recently read an article on former BuzzFeed Creative Diretor Chris Baker (picture above), and found it both phenomenal and hilarious the way he came up with his “viral ideas”.

The article summarized Baker’s viral ventures, typically the two websites called Unbaby.me and TheWorldsMostExclusiveWebsite. The former helps users remove their Facebook friends’ new-born baby photos (yep..) and the latter only has “exclusive” doors for people to pass through, based on the number of followers on their Twitter account.

Spontaneous as these projects may seem, they actually helped Baker make a substantial living. It makes me think about entrepreneurship in this era. A viral idea does not have to be that giant or outstanding, it just needs to “kill some pains”  for customers, or as Baker put it: “if this little stupid thing on the Internet is bothering me, it’s probably bothering 20 million other people.”

I did learn about the “pain-killer” effect as a value proposition in Comm101. Turns out, it is an indispensable, if not sole, factor for a viral idea. With the power of the Internet these days, perhaps all a successful entrepreneur needs to do is surf around, watch trends, notice pains in the neck, create a tool, sit back and count cash..

Nam,