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.”

When Corporate World loses touch with public

A person can’t help it but to wonder how decisions are made at the corporate level. In the past few months, decisions made by large corporations were met by uproars from the general public.

The job of the customer relations departments is to gauge the public view of the company and how would the public react to any future moves by the company.

Time and time again, corporations make deadly moves that alienate people and cause the shareholders millions in damage control. Why this happens? This happens because decisions makers relay heavily on reports and market intelligence data from the traditional sources, the usually miss the big picture when they fail to account for people who could fall under “the silent majority” group; people in this group only react when they see something is fundamentally wrong, otherwise they keep silent.

Corporations need to get creative in their purist to collect market data; they need to listen to those who are not visible on the corporate radar screen.

The ease of spreading Information is not always good

As the saying goes “Ignorant is bliss”, knowing so much may have negative effects on our well being. The constant spread of information and news over various outlets, mainly the Internet and TV networks, will eventually create a less interested public.

How many times throughout the day we see news flashes such as “Breaking news?” Breaking news is no longer a significant news story; it’s just an extra piece of information that many viewers find it “insignificant.”

This type of information over load, if not managed properly, will lead to a general public that may not react passionately to the real “Breaking news”, freedom of information should not lead to “Information overload” where information become a burden.

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.

Don’t be expandable

Job market is not as bad as many people think, the IT industry still showing a good growth rate, but the required skills sit is changing. Employers are looking for multi-skilled IT professionals, you may be professional JAVA programmers but if that is the only IT/Management skills you posses than you will be expandable. If the company cannot relocate you to another project which may require a different skills set, your contract duration may be shortened.
Don’t be expandable; make it hard for the company to let you go, don’t really on one set of skills.

US Judge Orders search engines and social media site to remove fake sites

Another move by the business community to ask the government to regulate the Internet. Is it the government responsibility to protect you online? Shouldn’t the government rule by as an advisory body and not as a regulating body for the cyberspace?

Safe online business transactions are essential for e-commerce to flourish, but shouldn’t that be the responsibility of the industry and not the government?

On the other hand shouldn’t online business (e-commerce) be regulated as any other business?