Accelerated Digital Daily Routines

More of the daily habits for many are going digital..  There is no doubt, Moore's law for computing, Metcalf'e's law on connectivity are showing their effect on people! 

The examples are just glimpses into how things are changing forming a digital universe, how one's personal wake up and sleep routines, belongings, home, surroundings are changing.

Where are we in terms of this digital universe where things can communicate with each other? 

Sensors, RFID tags are enabling one way communication and are setting themselves up for two way/ multi sided communication. The magic of devices talking to devices to run the household or a business supply chain network managing itself is not far off!

What could be the benefits and challenges of inter connectivity for societies - philosophically, realistically?

Digital learner centered environment in Education

Learner centered environments

Role of technologies is growing for knowledge management, self and team organization, process and project management, communication and several of the social media as informal learning tools. The facilitator facilitates the learner to self learn and collaborate, participates in all these areas on the side as a guide.

The “one tablet per child”, “AkashTablet” initiatives are indicating how important it is to learn by doing – especially using technologies. Standards are key to conformity.  Encouraging entrepreneurial mindset is to break the conformity where change is much needed.

Khan Academy is one of the many ventures that is changing the way children do homework and classwork. NIIT Delhi’s Mitra’s experiments with educating children with no formal background in the subject, Nicholas Negropante (one laptop per child initiatives of MIT Media Lab), Hans Rosling ( his famous global population bubble map, experiments with statistics are changing the way statistics can be taught using massive data of the world) are just a few ventures happening.

 The MIT opencourseware is useful as a “go to place” for searching and finding how experts in the field think on the subject you are exploring. I registered with Coursera to find out more about how a topic like Entrepreneurship is being taught in other universities. How to learn, how to incorporate such great, high quality, freely available resources in the curriculum is becoming a challenge for the educators.

Glimpses into Emerging Trends - power of the smart phone

Glimpses into Emerging trends – power of the smart phone

Activities with mobile phone is becoming part of daily life for many.

Accessing the phone for the daily activities could start from browsing the social media networks, watching for weather and news, email, traffic conditions and maps, playing games, listening to music and searching for places and things.

The smart phone is clearly taking over even the tablet.

This raises questions as to how to utilize the power of the smart phone in business.

Consider the Moble, Apps, Cloud  infrastructure for a small business.

 

Mobile – has the potential to integrate everything to do with the traditional media - all that is necessary to ship and deliver your products.

Apps don’t require software license, they connect people and business processes to wherever you are. It does n’t matter where the worker is, the technology comes in handy to manage the workflow connecting with colleagues, customers, suppliers.

Think Apps such as skype, Square, Quickbooks, Desk.com, Google Translate.

Try doing an internet search – “small business apps” for more insights on this topic.

Cloud digital storage, pay as you go approach are popular with small businesses for transmitting files and documents. These new ways are forcing businesses to rethink how to conduct business. Concerns of fraud, privacy and security issues are prevalent, requiring caution. 

Reference:

Delaney, Laurel J.( © 2013). Exporting: the definitive guide to selling abroad profitably

Chapter 9: The Mobile World at Work

Cliché Advice to the entrepreneur

The opportunities to take on new ventures happen to anyone who is open to evaluate and identify the potential to grow the idea. School projects, ideas and needs in and around the neighborhood, voices  and concerns of consumers and customers,  people in news are just some of the sources for  opportunities. An entrepreneurial mind assesses the benefits and risks carefully and takes the first step to progress with what he/ she believes it as an opportunity.

Opportunity analysis, business plan development and implementation keep the process going. The progress with the initial phases starts to demand more resources from the individuals involved. It is during this time that the doubts arise about seeing through the process towards the finish line. However, the finish line is really not an end of the project. It is just the beginning of the next step. Addressing the issues that gave rise to the doubts is key to progress with enthusiasm. Friends and family, collaborative teams play a crucial role in keeping the rhythm of the process to progress.

I like to treat a business venture (or for that matter any project) as a science experiment. Study, method, discipline and documentation go a long way to give the necessary support for any venture to progress. While it appears to take time on the onset, the preparation culture brings about a maturity to handle tough problems, and take up unforeseen challenges more naturally. No project or problem will appear chaotic to the disciplined individual.  

Google experienced an astounding growth in the very first year that Larry Page and Sergey Brin joined hands to work on the search engine they teamed up at School. This story may be unique to talk about, but the opportunity for a search engine to grow at the rate Google did is filling a need at that time – with the assets on the Internet waiting to be found.

Consider the Yelp app. I am not bringing up Yelp to compare it with Google. Yelp is a specialized service in the search arena. Yelp is a handy app on your mobile phone, to use it for a very specific purpose. You just search for a restaurant at the middle of a new city you are touring around. You get the restaurant list beckoning you to pick your choice and have a good evening.

A search engine like Google is working in the background for Yelp. You get the point – don’t mix up the timings – Yelp is what you need today – but you can’t get to it without the Search engine in the background. Sometimes, one may be too way ahead of  ideas to make them happen in reality. Hence, the study, method, analysis, people to support.

Entrepreneur in a nutshell

Entrepreneur in a nutshell:

How do entrepreneurs think and behave?

I find entrepreneurs have a great discipline to pursue what they take up. Think Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates for Microsoft, how they started and built their “Accidental Empires”.  They take up what matters and leave the rest. They don’t get on to every bandwagon just to keep their presence felt. They are alert, focused and understand what the emerging trends are in the area of their interest. They are also innovative to come up with something new which can even be a breakthrough and disruptive.

They act on their thoughts and adapt quickly with the feedback they consider valuable.  They create and enable work opportunities for many in their domain.

Think Internet. How many ways is Internet used to breed new business models, find new approaches to solve old problems? Think how portable computing (mobile phones) are used to make a difference in the lives of many as well as for new opportunities in businesses.

Reference:

Accidental Empires: Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date Paperback – September 13, 1996

by Robert X. Cringely  (Author)

McGrath, Rita Gunther & MacMillan, Ian. ( © 2000). The entrepreneurial mindset:

 strategies for continuously creating opportunity in an age of uncertainty