To be Successful Entrepreneur, you need to free your mind

As this calendar year comes to an end, experts started to speculate on the main events that could shape the year 2012. Personally, I think we will see a growing trend of workers looking for unconventional jobs, moving away from the typical 9-5 work day and looking for more innovative ways to accomplish tasks. There will be a growing numbers of start-ups (Entrepreneurs) who have the passion to make a change in our world, even if it’s only a small change.

The founders of the biggest technology firms today were free thinkers, most of them didn’t not finish college, and their successes was fueled by their passion to innovate and by their courage to think freely.

Great ideas, Innovations, companies and ideologies were founded by people who had the courage to defy the conventional wisdom and the courage to think beyond their limited horizon.

Cloud Computing, Social Media Websites and your Personal Data, the on going issues with privacy

Online Data security still remains the most critical issue for businesses and individuals. There are still no clear cut regulations on the issues of data ownership, who owns the data that is stored? What happens to the data if online storage providers go out of business? Who will be responsible for the stored data?

Without Cloud Computing, Social Media Websites and various online services, much of the Internet as we know it today won’t be possible. But we can’t stop thinking of data security just as we can’t stop thinking about our physical security in our home and cities.

As someone put it “at some point, you just have to surrender control.”

Did the Increase in online shopping lead to some store closures?

Reports released on the numbers of customers who prefer to shop online show an upward trend, with the numbers of shoppers who chose to shop online growing year after year with no sign of slowing down.

Retailers quickly adapting to smart phone applications made it easy for millions of customers to shop using their smart phones.

In Canada “Canadians boosted spending by 15.4 per cent on Cyber Monday (Nov. 29) compared to dollars spent during the comparable period in 2010, Moneris Solutions reported earlier this month.”

In the US, “U.S. Christmas Day 2011 Shopping Online Increased by 16.4 Percent.”
This significant increase in online shopping will have direct effects on the more traditional way of shopping and no doubt the numbers of customers shopping in stores will delaine which will ultimately lead to store closures.

Why Laptops and desktops are still holding up their prices?

With the wide spread use of smart phones and tablets, one would think the prices of the traditional laptops and desktops would fall rapidly, but the prices are not coming down as most of us had hoped.

Why the prices are not falling? For one big reason, laptops and desktops are still the most convenient way for millions to perform their work, smart phones and tablets are way to small of most of us to do any creative work.

Not sure if smart phones and tablets will replace laptops and desktops as cell phones did with land phones, but for the near future, the demand for the most traditional way to use computers will remain strong.

Can you take your Twitter flowers with you after you leave your company?

An interesting story about ex-employer suing a man for taking Twitters flowers with him after he left the company. The man was a blogger for the company and he developed the list while working for this company, now who owns the list? The blogger with his skills and style developed a list of followers, but he did that by promoting the company’s product, so who owns the list now? Will future employment contracts list “employers ‘social media sites accounts” as an Intellectual property?

This will be a whole new legal practice field.

Copyrighted Materials should be kept off the Internet

The current debate over SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is about protecting Copyrighted materials posted online; the Act would allow ISP’s to block Internet domains suspected of copy rights infringements.

Trying to govern the Internet will only create a massive bureaucracy that will cripple the Internet. Millions of people around the world are novice users of the Internet who have very limited understanding of anatomy of the Internet aside from their basic browsing, e-mailing and files downloading.

Regulating the Internet will only lead to more frustrated users.

Good news for wordpress.com bloggers, time to make some money of your blog

The latest announcement by WordPress will allow bloggers to make money of their WordPress blogging. Bloggers will be able to display advertising contents on their blog
pages.

I think this move till give bloggers an incentive to create more credible blog contents and spend more time working on their blogs.

Cutting on un-necessary e-mails

Do not communicate when it’s not absolutely necessary. How many e-mails your manager/client wants to get from you? The absolute minimum!!!!!

If you are working on a project and if everything is going on schedule and on budget, there is no need to contact your manager/client for minor issues. In the work environment e-mailing has become a formal means of communications and each e-mail you send must get a reply; having to reply to each e-mail add a workload to the already busy managers.

As the saying goes “don’t sweat the small stuff”, don’t send e-mails regarding the small stuff as long as your project is on time and on budget and there is no significant reason to contact your manager/client.

Click, Click, Click and Submit, not too fast

The speed at which information are been exchanged in phenomenal, thanks to online applications. Almost your entire application for any service (new bank account, driver license, college application, etc,) is done online and it stored in a database once you click on the “submit” button.

This ease and speed of submitting information give us a little chance to take a second look at what we are submitting, in the past when everything was manual, there was enough time to re-think before mailing in the application, while driving to the post office to mail the application you still had enough time to rethink what you are about to send.

Since most of applications are submitted online, it’s a good idea not to click that “submit” button too fast. In many instance, you will have a chance to print out the application and go over it before submitting it. It would be a good idea to print out the application and leave it over night and go over it one more time the next day before finally “submitting” you application online.

Employers are looking for your soft skills in addition to your technical skills

In a recent recruitment event, a recruiter mentioned the importance of having business skills (soft skills) next to your technical qualifications. He said some employers value your over all business skills as much as they value your technical skills and it could reach to the scale of 50/50.

In today’s work environment where companies’ size is shrinking, either because of the proliferation of startups or the downsizing trends, you must be able to wear different hats in order to perform your job(s). Skills in leadership, management, marketing, customer service and accounting will be very valuable assets to your new employers in addition to your technical skills.