Life Observations by John Yu

There is No Replacement for Physical Presence

2008-03-24T13:45:00.009-12:00

I watched U2 3D at the Simons IMAX Theatre near Chinatown, Boston on Central Wharf. Watching them on screen reminded me of the rock concerts I experienced in high school and college, and the people I was with at those times. This type of recollecting life events is probably very common. However, why didn't I flash back to times when I watched music videos of live concerts, or times at a club or a party?

It's because there is no replacement for presence. The combination of the senses with location, time, age, who else you're with all combine to make the recollection of physical life experiences much easier than in virtual or online worlds. When was the last time a thought of an IM conversation came up, or you remember a WOW character instead of your friend playing that character? The closest thing we have been able to accompish with technology is video chat, or chatting in virtual places like Second Life or Qwaq.

Social networking helps us stay in touch with fringe contacts. Now, with the Facebook newsfeed, we can keep up with the goings on for 300-500 friends, effectively shattering Dunbar's 150. With all of this enhanced communication, physical presence becomes more expensive. The next enabling social technologies will likely come from mobile phones, which can incorporate location and match making. For instance, if I were looking for funding, it would be nice to know mutual contacts with a VC at some event, or that we both share an avid passion for white water kayaking.

MIT Concept Clinic Event

2008-03-21T05:17:00.004-12:00

I went to the MIT Concept Clinic for the first time last Thursday.

The team presenting was Rob, working on an mobile advertising start up, Brring.com, where you can earn money every time someone calls you. When people call you, they will listen to a 10-15 sec advertisement, and you get paid. They have been running since September, and are pretty much all sweat, running on friends and family money for now. This specific clinic focused on their primary problem: how to quickly and cheaply prove their concept.

The layout of the event was really good. The event went from 6pm to ~8:45pm. The founders get to present their idea for 1 to 1.5 hours, then break up into groups focusing on different topics (product, raising money, marketing, etc). Then we regrouped for comments from the panelists and general audience.
The panelists present seemed to have varying backgrounds, with
many of the local venture groups represented, people tapped into the Boston start up scene.

The overall tone was people trying to give suggestions to help get Brring to the next level. The consensus was that they are trying to fight two problems at the same time:
1. get users
2. get advertisers

If I were in their position, I would try to simplify the situation to solve only one problem, and then look for the quickest way to get cash flow. One of the key points Rob indicated was that advertisers want a minimum of 1 million impressions per month before they start testing things out. I would try to locate different sources for users in large volumes, and then find advertisers. This makes the advertiser problem much more easy to manage.

I think Brring really needs to hone in on an initial niche market, and figure out what they want. For instance, they could spread this service very quickly across college campuses to offer local restaurants a convenient way tell college kids about their promotions. Imagine around dinner time, you call a friend, and hear a local advertisement about $5 specialty pizza at Papa John's for the next hour only. Or, because business is slow on a Tuesday night, a bar owner advertises "1st drink free, no cover" to get more bodies. Getting college students should be pretty straight forward, using internet marketing, or on-campus recruiting campaigns.

Another suggestion I thought would get much better reception is monetizing wasted "on hold" time. If you need to hold to get Verizon customer service, and you don't really have many other options, they might as well be selling that hold time to advertisers. The same thing could be done with call centers. Even though this is not the ideal market, it is readily available, and you can start making money right away.

I wish I had these types of panelists questioning me during my real estate start up. Getting grilled by a bunch of bright, experienced people is not the most pleasurable activity, but you really come out better from that experience. I am really looking forward to the next one.

The Dreaded Elevator Pitch

2008-03-18T19:11:00.005-12:00

I attended the SCNE Elevator Pitch event tonight, which was held in Suffolk University, downtown Boston.

An elevator pitch is a quick 20-30 second summary, used to explain your business idea. It is unlikely that a VC will give you any useful assessment after hearing a 25 second elevator pitch. Slimming down your pitch is still a useful and practical exercise in understanding your differentiating factor.

You do not have time to say:
- any facts about the market
- anything about the problem you are solving
- any details about business
- any information about yourself

In 25 seconds, you only have time to deliver your value proposition, and a quick question. The value proposition is meant to immediately catch the listener's attention. The question is an invitation for additional conversation. For simplicity's sake, it may be easier to say "imagine x, but z." So if I were to describe an iMac, "imagine a Windows PC, except secure, friendly, and fun." This shortcut allows people to access things that they are already familiar with, and easily make a comparison.

For my pitch, I said, "You can get property values on broker's websites, and our website, and we make money by selling leads to realtors. How do you brokers get your listings right now?" It would have been a lot easier saying "think Zillow, but 50% more accurate."

Business Model Innovation

2008-03-09T05:13:00.009-12:00

This is an argument for studying and understanding how different markets make money and solve problems.

Gift certificates must be one of the easiest money making opportunities for retail stores. You trade real dollars for dollars that will be spent at a later time. In the insurance industry, this money is called float and is a source of additional revenues. For gift cards, not only do you have float, but there is also some likelihood that people lose or don't spend their gift cards before they expire. There have been several times when I just plain forgot to go to Best Buy with my $100 gift card until after it was expired. Best Buy makes tens of millions from unused gift cards. Business schools call this "breakage."

Being a curious cat, I looked at other places for business model innovation. I found three fascinating online companies that borrow business models from other industries to develop new sources of competitive advantage and significant revenue opportunities: BountyJobs, PatientsLikeMe, and uProdigy.

BountyJobs
This startup creates an online interface between recruiters and HR Departments. Recruiting results in large dollar transactions, with fees that could amount to tens of thousands of dollars for placing executive positions. BountyJobs uses the internet to access and manage more applicants and also leverage the concept of float. When HR departments choose to hire an applicant, BountyJobs holds the bounty for several months before paying recruiters to affirm the performance of the employee. They have access to:

$5,000 held per bounty x 2 bounties per day x 90 days holding period = about $900,000 float.

With access to this type of free working capital, they have opportunities to create substantial streams of additional revenue.

PatientsLikeMe
This healthcare startup tries to solve the problem of information asymmetry among patients suffering from similar diseases, which goes one level beyond traditional support groups and online communities. With active and developed communities, they have opportunities to aggregate and sell anonymized information to third parties. Additionally, they are uniquely poised as a new channel for the traditionally expensive and time consuming process of clinical trial recruitment.

uProdigy
This startup is creates an online marketplace for tutoring. Most other online and offline businesses use a cost per hour pricing model. Instead, uProdigy has implemented an "all you can eat" monthly subscription. Why?

There are several different elements that they are using to their favor. The most obvious element is the 3x to 10x labor arbitrage between the cost of local tutors ($20-40/hr for college students) and the wages of masters and PhD students. Also, the people that pay for the service are different from the end users. Parents can pay a low monthly fee thinking that their children will use the service all the time, but in reality, only a small fraction of students will fully utilize uProdigy's resources. There are a lot of moving parts, but these three elements combine to create a unique and compelling value proposition to parents.

By incorporating models from other industries, these startups substantially differentiate themselves from the incumbents in their markets. This is one effective way to slay giants in mature markets, and a great reason to stay abreast of the inner workings of seemingly unrelated markets.

Babson Talk

2008-03-08T12:06:00.005-12:00

My friend Li Hong pushed me to attend a Babson University event last Wednesday, and I'm glad I went. Mike Michalowicz was speaking on behalf of Obsidian Launch, which is a type of early stage incubator for first time entrepreneurs.

He started out with a lot of inspirational/motivational comments, which reminded me a lot of Rich Dad, Poor Dad lessons. These type of pep talks about attitude adjustment are commonplace in the real estate industry. There was not much new information, but it was good to remind myself to be cognizant of self-limiting beliefs.

There were several points in his talk that piqued my interest. One unique aspect of Obsidian Launch was the incorporation of a sports psychologist. In retrospect, it actually makes a lot of sense. The difference between a good and bad day can be as simple as an attitude adjustment. And when those bad days come, involving professionals can potentially help accelerate the recovery process. In addition, a lot of people may not realize how powerful words and beliefs are. I am typically not the type to believe in psychological "feel-good" techniques, but there is so much that we do not understand about the human mind. He also mentioned that they only accept single founders in their program. Because they offer a support system of staff and mentors, it doesn't feel like you are starting and running a company by yourself. Another point that caught my interest was defining a 10x differentiator between you and other competitors. This is just another way of describing an unfair competitive advantage. Either you offer some unique feature, ease of use, price difference.

What interested me the most was when he talked about the "Gathering of the Titans" which is an event sponsored by MIT. He spoke of how one guy ran up from his seat and out of the room to the closest Staples. There, he bought a voice recorder, copy paper, and started sketching. After he finished, he immediately faxed his sketches to the office, got on the phone to organize an office meeting the next day. Why did he do that?

He was in the lawn care industry. Typically, home owners give you a call, sets up an appointment, someone comes out with a van, measures the lawn and gives a quote. The cost of these quotes was substantial, taking about six months before lawn care companies could recoup the costs of giving estimates. When he was sitting in the conference hall, playing around with his laptop, he realized that with Google Maps, he could measure the lawn size via the internet from his office instead of giving out estimates. This key insight changed his business, and gave him a key competitive advantage over his competitors.

All in all, pretty interesting.

7 Steps to Selling Vaporware

2008-02-21T16:02:00.006-12:00

Far too often, as a consultant for government funded medical technologies, I have found technologies looking for market applications. Also, I have observed many hackers that have the philosophy of developing and releasing fast, trying to get customers to use their product/service, and iterating from there. This works only in a subsection of opportunities, such as programmers developing stuff where they are end users, the problems only need simplistic solutions, or it is a web application which requires marginal fixed costs. When end users are not tech savvy, when the technology aspect is complex and requires substantial thought, the quick prototype and iterate philosophy breaks down. When you need an interdisciplinary team that requires substantial investments in time and money, up-front market research pays off in spades. In these cases, I suggest the alternative approach of "selling vaporware."

In this way, you benefit by:
-quickly distinguishing what users want from what users want and will pay for,
-wasting less development time
-ensuring a better product/market fit (in reference to a previous pmarca post)
-acquiring a ready list of customers that you can show to investors

The steps to selling vaporware are:
1. Figure out the group you want to target, and think of a couple different problems you could potentially offer.
2. Get a list of people you can call or meet.
3. Test one value proposition at a time.
4. Interview them and try to sell them your vaporware.
5. Listen carefully and understand their responses during your interviews. Figure out what issues they care about most, and restructure your pitch.
6. Figure out if you could potentially make a profit by building what users want.
7. Iterate 3-6 until people like the idea and have people that are willing to pay.

1. Figure out who you want to target.
When you first come up with an idea, figure out who your likely users are, and try to make it as niche as possible. Examples could be real estate agents that gross over $1 million per year, travel agents listed in the yellow pages in the New England area, or accountants that do not yet have web presence. It is likely your first idea sucks and won't work. That's ok. Just come up with a couple different ones that you can try out.

2. Get a list of people you can call or meet.
Look for a concentrated list of contacts. You can typically find them in the yellow pages, trade associations, blogs, websites, forums, trade publications, research institutions. You want to contact them in person or on the phone because you want to have a conversation with them to figure out what issues are on their minds. E-mails don't tend to elicit as much useful responses.

3. Test one value proposition at a time.
You don't want to start out with something you have no chance in delivering. Try to pitch something that differentiates on an aspect of performance, ease of use or price. In different types of markets, different value propositions will work. Also, different people have different pains. Some pains are so great that people don't really care how much the cost is as long as the product works well, such as effective diagnostics or treatments for early detection of esophageal cancer, sepsis, heart disease, etc. Some things are commoditized such that you can only compete based on brand or price such as tooth paste, paper, soap. You get the idea. Think of how you can compete, and try out one thing at a time.

4. Interview them and try to sell them your vaporware.
The point of this is to try to make a sale, or at least progress the sales process. You can't just get people interested, but figure out if they will pay you for your efforts. "Would you pay $20 per year if you could get online e-mail service with 50 gigs of storage and keep your old e-mail address? Why/why not? What if it was 100 gigs? What if it was $5/year? What if it had no ads? What do you use now? What do you like/dislike about it? What kind of service/product do you think we should focus on? What do you think people will pay for?" This is the most useful step to figure out what their priorities are, and reaffirm that your assumptions are correct.

5. Listen carefully...restructure your pitch.
Mostly this is looking at notes from previous interviews and trying out different value propositions and pitches for the next interviews.

6. Can you make a profit?
This is not just Price - Cost of Product = Profit. Many entrepreneurs forget distribution costs and cost of acquiring new customers. If distributors typically get 50% for a $300 product, can you let distributors make more so they're more incentivized to sell your product over others? Exact numbers are not necessary, but it is good to understand how profitable it could be. Also look at the number of sales you need to break even, profit margins to see how feasible your business is.

7. Iterate 3-6 until people like the idea and have people that are willing to pay.
You're not going to get it right the first time. Or probably the second time. Keep iterating through your contacts and ideas until your vaporware sells. You should have at least 5-10 people willing to pay. By this time, you'll know what makes the end users tick, what they value most, and have a good idea of why they want to pay to use your vaporware.

While this certainly does not apply to every start up, it's something to keep in mind.

How well do you know your interviewees?

2007-06-19T02:31:00.005-12:00

How much can you know about your job candidates? Looking at the cover letter, resume, a couple phone interviews and in-person interviews later, you have spent less than 8 hours in total with that person. Can you really figure out if someone is great and a good fit just from this?

For start ups, it seems trite to say that you only want to work with the smartest, best people, and accidentally turn down really great people on occasion because of the high screening process. Google seems to skew heavily towards people with high GPA's from prestigious schools, and screen with notoriously difficult questions. I tend to believe that companies like Google are looking at the wrong stats. It appears that in one study, a typical job interview improved chances of selecting the best candidate by less than 2%. Sabermetrics, as described in Moneyball is really a great read on this topic.

For start ups, it's more important to know what people have done during school than what they've studied. Also, an interview can not replace or guide people to figure out the performance of a particular candidate. I think trial hirings make much more sense than locking into a full year with someone. Marc Andreessen states that you're doing great if 70% of your hires work out. Wouldn't it be better if you gave people a baby several week project to test them and make sure you're hiring the right person?

The only thing you need is PSD

2007-06-19T02:14:00.000-12:00

There is a time and place when degrees are necessary. I have mostly seen these necessary in large companies, science businesses and consulting. However, in most disciplines, what matters above all else is execution. In these cases, having a bunch of Ph.D.'s in a room can actually hinder your performance. Come to think of it, there seems to be no correlation between advanced degrees and career advancement.

I share with you an alternative model for hiring. Instead of MBA or PhD, look for the PSD. PSD standards for poor, smart, and driven. There are winners and losers in life. At the risk of sounding cliche, knowledge can be acquired but attitude can not. The message from entrepreneurs consistently states that persistence is a key trait for success.

So how do you test if someone is PSD? Well, there are actually a couple ways to tell. What's the candidate's work history? Have they run a paper route for at least a year's time? Did they work for a family business when they were younger? Have they done anything to demonstrate hard work ethic, and a scrappy, results oriented nature?

There is nothing that can not be accomplished if you are PSD, and not afraid to make a bunch of mistakes.

Google: It's not the Search, but the Ads

2007-06-15T01:08:00.002-12:00

Everyone knows Google from its search capabilities. However, Google has made nearly all of its money from advertising. "Advertising revenues made up 99% of our revenues in 2004, 2005 and 2006. We derive the balance of our revenues from the license of our web search technology, the license of our search solutions to enterprises and the sale and license of other products and services." -- page 40 of their SEC filing. Eric Schmidt states that Google's core competency is advertising, and hopefully they can leverage their experience in data mining to other forms of advertising.

Google's margin for Adsense is between 22% and 18%[1]. From the 2007 Q1 revenues, Google Network websites running AdSense accounted for 37% of total advertising revenues. So online advertising is a big market, but how lucrative is it? How much could a start up expect to take in this market? What is the best approach to taking marketshare? From O'Reilly:
"In addition, there's still a huge amount of room for growth in internet advertising. Paul Kedrosky's been studying the latest reports from the Internet Advertising Bureau, which show internet advertising at $16.8 billion for 2006. If I recall, tv advertising is at about $80 billion, so there's considerable room for growth as the internet continues to draw attention away from print, tv, radio, and other old media." -- http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/03/the_economics_o_3.html

There are a couple key points where ad networks compete against each other. Several of these are listed by Josh Catone:
- good advertiser campaign management and bidding tools - Google has a large amount of advertisers. Keeping the ROI's for their campaigns is what will keep them coming back. Advertisers will need to be shown that their ROI is better on another ad network before they switch. Campaign management and bidding tools for advertisers are a must, and Google has this end covered well.
- good publisher management and reporting tools - Publishers want to earn money right away, and they want to know how to improve their advertising income. AdSense has done an ok job, but this is where someone can really introduce some real innovation. For a start-up, adoption from top publishers will be a turning point for success.
- great contextual ad matching technology - AdSense is good, but not great. I believe OpenAds, an open source ad serving technology is trying to compete in this avenue.
- high paying advertisers - You need to develop some sort of higher value advertisement that advertisers will pay.

Stay tuned for an analysis of behavioral advertising.

[1] Taking the Advertising Revenue from Google network sites, and dividing it by the Traffic acquisition costs, interpreted as Adsense publisher payoff.
Advertising and licensing revenues (2002-2003) page 15 http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504074059/d1012g.htm#tx84790_13
revenues and cost of revenues 2002-2006 page 36 http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312507044494/d10k.htm#toc70021_21
advertising and licensing revenues (2004-2006) page 42 http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312507044494/d10k.htm#toc70021_21
traffic acquisition costs from page 45

blogs on software

2007-01-28T19:14:00.000-12:00

I've been hardpressed to find any software blogs that aren't in their start up phases.
I'm looking for blogs with some history.   In Google terms, I'm looking for authoritative sources of
useful information on best practices of software design.

My intent is to be able to learn the right way of doing things, and practicing these skills on my internet website project until they become an inate way of life.
I have located two sources of information.

One is by a guy that's been in software since 1998. Joel is the owner of a software consulting company located in NYC. Even through the net bubble, and the mass outsourcing going on,
Joel seems to be plugging along quite nicely.

Another source is the book, Getting Real. It's more about keeping light, building limited software quickly, and involving your target market from the get go. It's a design philosophy that basically states that any problem can be solved on budget and on time if you properly phrase the problem. It's basically keep swinging at every pitch, and you'll hit the ball some of the time.

Deciding between Wikis

2007-01-06T07:35:00.000-12:00

I decided to use a wiki for my latest internet project. A wiki allows for a collaborative approach in helping with business strategy. The current alternatives for communication are phone/skype, e-mail, fax, meetings. For online collaboration, there are some interesting innovations like writely.com and YCombinator’s http://thinkature.com/ However, I feel private wikis can best suit evolving long term business strategy issues.

It's much better than using e-mail, fax, and phone are ephemeral. While this seems to be the most used method of information transmission, the information is quickly lost under a neverending waterfall of e-mails. A wiki allows a more long-term view of any particular issue. It allows you to have multiple people to shape an idea over a much longer period of time. Instead of being reactive to e-mails, you can be proactive with wikis, and have the ability to track revisions.

Wikis can tie multiple resources together easily for non-technical people. You can display resource links, useful info quickly with simple wysiwyg editing. After researching and finding that wikis were the best and fastest solution, I dug through a couple resources to try out a couple services.

I figured the best place to start was wikipedia, probably the most well known wiki, ranking in the first page of most Google searches. It was pretty difficult to edit the entries. You could insert HTML markup directly into the site. Looking through the related links, Wikipedia directed me to use wikimatrix, a site that compares over 100 wikis after inputing your criteria. I basically wanted a free wiki, ability to upload files, intuitive content creation, wysiwyg editing, and a private viewership so I could limit my wiki to our small development team.

While the matrix limited my options to 25. From these 25, I selected wetpaint, social text, seedwiki, pbwiki. I recollect hearing about social text, seedwiki, and pbwiki, but don’t remember the exact sources.

Wetpaint was by far the most intuitive product offering. From the user experience when registering, to the intuitive page creation, page customization, and well organized tutorial, it was a joy to use. The only problem was that all the information was available for public display, which is not what I wanted for sensitive business information.

seedwiki seemed very technical and not user friendly at all. not very intuitive, and start up information not well organized. Didn’t meet my criteria, but I could see how it would be useful for a more technically inclined team.

Pbwiki was easy to register, and easy to get started, but I found the tutorial to be ridiculously hafhazard.

Socialtext was not the easiest utility, but it was good enough. The page linking was great, you can upload as much as you want, and the best part is you can make a private wiki! Don’t be fooled, if you look around, there is a free personal wiki limited to 5 collaborators.

The next tool we need is a wiki spreadsheet. Come on guys, let’s get with the program! How many hedge funds or consultants would be ecstatic if you could easily edit spreadsheets online? Chop chop.

Don't Cheat, or Google Will Catch You!

2007-01-03T13:13:00.000-12:00

Google filed a patent in Dec 31, 2001 for a similarity engine, and it was recently approved. Basically it looks at the object (probably text article), and summarizes it into a product vector that you can then compare to other product vectors.

The full patent is provided. Could this be the beginning of effective methods of policing content and enforcing copyrights? I certainly hope so :-)

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,158,961.PN.&OS=PN/7,158,961&RS=PN/7,158,961

youtube, you're busted!

2007-01-02T13:43:00.000-12:00

What's everyone viewing on YouTube these days? Is it more witty and original user generated
lip syncing duos? Nope. Is it drama from a bunch of high school girls? Nope.
Take a look here: http://www.youtube.com/browse?s=mp&t=m&amp;c=0&l=EN
It's commercial advertisements and fake porn, with only 3 of the top 20 being user generated.

I hate to bash YouTube, but come on. Fix your picture labelling and think of a better way to flag films fast. The sad thing is, because everyone wants to look at porn, I'm sure the most clever people will just disguise whatever marketing message they want to send with screenshot of half naked Britney wrapped up in the shower. As more clever bad guys catch on, you'll be fighting an endless battle of spam.

I read Mark Cuban's most recent post, and thought it was a great analogy to compare today's
social networks to yesterday's forums. With the lack of any real policing, the Youtube community will inevitably crumble. Sooner rather than later.

Wii is fun

2006-12-31T05:10:00.000-12:00

I spent Christmas over at my relatives in Toronto, Canada. It was a lot of fun. The best parts were playing around with the Nintendo Wii.

Although I'm a known game addict, Wii is like liquid crack 100x. I played the games that come with the system, tennis, golf, bowling, boxing. My favorites were tennis and boxing. Tennis was very intuitive. you swing the racket at the time when the ball on the screen reaches your players. the speed, angle, and position of the racket in relation to your body changes the ball's trajectory, and determines if your player will take a dive for it. 2v2 is definitely the most fun, and I look forward to wii tennis tournaments.

Boxing was a whole other animal. Learning the moves is everything, and the learning curve is pretty steep. There is no gaming manual for boxing moves, so it's more of a self discovery of what works and what doesn't. There's jabs, hooks, uppercuts, blocking the face and body, leaning back, moving from side to side.

There is just so much added functionality to the possible gameplays. It more than makes up for the simplistic graphics. Imagine if you and three other friends are fighting, punching, slicing up enemies in some epic quest of good vs evil. Or if you could be a squad of assassins against another squad that play head to head online. Wii is definitely a step in the right direction.

book list 2007

2006-12-30T17:05:00.001-12:00

So many books, so little time. In 2007 I plan to read 1 book every 2 weeks. This will be done by basically reading though most of a book on Sundays. I feel like my mind hasn't expanded enough since I got out of college. Itching for a new venture.
I move to Providence, RI in February to do technology analysis, but it feels like it can't come soon enough.

cheap chinese food

2006-12-30T17:05:00.000-12:00

Why is it that Chinese food is cheap? Even at authentic, classy Chinese restaurants I expect to pay much less than other types of restaurants. Am I the only one that notices this phenomenon? Of course there is the el cheapo $4-5 lunch special, consisting of many Americanized fast food Chinese meals such as Kung Pao Chicken, Sesame Chicken, Beef w/ Brocolli, all coming with a generous proportion of fried rice and soft drink.

It's certainly not because it's asian. Both Korean and Japanese share an image of eloquence. Every time I go to a sushi place I end up spending at least $25 / person. At dim sum, if I spend more than $15 / person then either I'm with a bunch of marathon eaters or I feel like I've been p0wned.

It's not the ingredients. Many Asian dishes use the same meats and prepare the meals in similar ways.

It might have something to do with some Chinese mentality. People from China seem to always sell themselves short. I see that in my parents, and some of my friends that are PRC (they came from the People's Republic of China). I understand that life in China sucked horribly. That people would have 2 eggs per month, and that would be their total protein intake. This is why some PRC's would gladly be fed well and work 60 hrs / wk in the States rather than starve in China. And to make more than that is to indulge in frivolous wants.

I guess cultural and environmental events can have life long consequences.

trust and permission marketing

2006-12-29T14:50:00.000-12:00

In direct marketing, sometimes we give away freebies. This gives prospects a chance to identify themselves, and give us their contact information. These marketing pieces give us a chance to show our prospects who we really are, and demonstrate how useful we can be. But it's not just how helpful we are, it's also how much trust we can establish.

While there are dedicated snoopers out there that research everything thoroughly, it's certainly not a quick and easy thing to determine if you can trust someone or trust a website. The traditional means to build trust include a plethora of testimonials, your picture, business address and real phone number, and an iron clad guarantee. But how about for the casual seller or buyer?

It'd be interesting if there was a portable reputation/trust packet you could carry with you where ever you went on the web. Two interesting services I noticed are Opinity and Rapleaf.
Opinity feels like building a myspace profile geared towards building "trustability." You can insert personal info, friends testimonials, awards, education, etc. and take your identity to where ever you do business.

Rapleaf is more lightweight, has an open api for easier site integration. You can tie in online and offline transactions, but there is no transaction specific feedback. You can measure different aspects of the person's rapleaf profile, like difficulty of obtaining the e-mail address, number of positive and negative feedbacks.

All the value is in the network. When your reputation system is the one to use, revenue opportunities will present themselves. The biggest problems are fraud detection (false negatives and false positives) and making big business development deals.

community building

2006-12-28T02:57:00.000-12:00

In web 2.0, everyone touts that community is key. Looking at Digg, I couldn't agree more. It started as an interesting idea and now enjoys a bolstering community behind it. While there are technologies that make websites technically superior to Digg, what many of these sites lack is community. What I'm wondering though is that even though there are thousands of Digg clones out there, how did Reddit make it to the top?

Communities all start by having content that helps the individual. Keeping the content fresh helps visitors come back for more. As your community grows, add social networking/community aspects to make content more useful and interactions meaningful. In Digg's case, as link submissions increased, the most interesting news became more valuable. Other social features added include:
-commenting
-adding friends
-feeds to friends and users
-recognition for accomplishments by users
-community enforced policing

an interesting proposal I noticed was to buy parked domains that have a lot of traffic, add useful content, then add social stuff ( grab.com and deals.com and wikihow.com)

another play off this idea is to buy the traffic generators for myspace/youtube and direct it to the next myspace (that you created)

Opera 9.2 fan!

2006-11-18T18:00:00.001-12:00

I was looking for XP tweaks for my old desktop system. Want to run MatLab on it while I use my laptop for other applications. While browsing, I found this interesting read on FireFox Myths.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyths.html

I haven't used v2.0 myself, but v1.5 was fairly disappointing. Switched to Opera a couple hours ago, and I love it. It's Firefox, except it's much much faster! Sites that used to take me 15 seconds to load now take me 4 tops.

http://www.opera.com/

Only annoying thing is remembering all my passwords and bookmarks. Guess I'm forced to use a social bookmarking site now :P

google/youtube

2006-11-07T00:54:00.000-12:00

Goo-tube wants to take over the world now, and they seem to be well on their way. With the piless in cash Google has sitting around, it can buy whatever it wants. Just recently I was reading in the Wall Street Journal and on digg.com about how Google is setting up deals with print advertising, and radio advertising.

I'm surprised Google hasn't bought like.com yet, and try to make image advertising more relevant.

Kudos to youtube founders for getting out right before traffic flatlined.

tech ideas

2006-11-07T00:33:00.000-12:00

It's 2006, and I'm still thinking of ideas like it's 1999. I've only started brainstorming, and I've come up with some fantastic ideas. Too bad they're about 3 years too late.

That's the typical way of thinking, but when one opportunity is taken away, there are others that open up. Take Google for example. They are a huge influence in the internet right now, and they're doing all the big things right. However, there are smaller niche things that people can still dominate in. And, with the power of leverage and interconnectivity over the internet, you can explode pretty quickly.

Just look at meebo.com ; a start up with 3 people and 6k in credit cards. This story is being told over and over again. Using the power of numbers, low overhead, and a good idea can get you mass eyeballs and revenue that you couldn't even imagine.

a lot of catching up to do

2006-11-06T09:36:00.000-12:00

I've mostly been posting on [jhuteam], a group of jhu buddies that still have stuck together post college.

After a bit of thinking, I think it'd help people to actually read some of my insights, instead of just limiting the audience to jhuteam. Guys, I love ya, but there's a greater good that needs to be done.

So in the next couple weeks, I'll be posting original thought, and some old stuff from jhuteam.

management consulting

2006-11-06T02:28:00.000-12:00

during the summer, beginning in july, i decided i wanted to become a management consultant, with a specific interest in strategy business consulting.

there are many great things about being a consultant that appeal to me at this stage.

first off, i know how to make money, but money is not what i need right now. i need experience and good mentors. consulting will give me exposure to different industries, and access to top level business leaders. yes, i could get this type of experience other ways, but with consulting, i think it's the biggest payoff to time committed.

second, i'd like to leave my options open. there are so many things i'm interested in, but not particularly passionate about. as an entrepreneur, i feel that my ability to enter the corporate world is closing. not really sure if i like that or not. this could probably be a book full of the different considerations that could possibly affect the decision.

third, i'm not exactly a polished diamond. my ability to communicate my thoughts i think is above average, and so is my ability to think rationally under extreme pressure. but it could be a lot better, and being around other people that communicate their thoughts very explicitly will help me through submersion.

fourth, by working with other smart, passionate people, i will be able to set myself up for my next big venture, and also enjoy myself, doing something new every day.

while everyone's reasons may be different for their interest in management consulting, but there are quite a few applicants, and relatively few job offers. when seeking advice on how to apply, the career counselors told me that my GPA of 3.55, which qualified me for biomedical engineering honor society, was probably too low to make the first cut. But, once I got an interview, I knew that I would be able to shine by showing them my intellectual horsepower.

Bain will accept ~30-35 associate consultants for the 2007 class. I'm guessing that's how McKinsey and BCG recruit as well. However, there are literally thousands of new graduates that want to work at these prestigious places. Interesting work, great contacts, pretty ok pay, great work environment, no prior knowledge or skills necessary, and the list goes on.

at hopkins, i'm guessing there were 80-100 applicants, 28 1st round interviews, 4-5 2nd round interviews. i didn't even hear anything from mckinsey or BCG, which i assume is because of "low" GPA.

so now i'm at the 2nd round interview with Bain. the only thing i need to overcome is my nervousness around potentially senior staff. when i have that piece down, then i will most likely get the job.

malaria project this summer

2006-05-02T23:49:00.000-12:00

I went to see Wai Yim's business plan competition MoshPitt Finals last Thursday. It was a really interesting showing.

I really would liked to have seen the business plans from all the groups. The group that won was ResRx Pharmaceuticals. There are 11,000 drugs out there right now. What they proposed was academic institutions screen these drugs to find new uses. Their method was to outsource this testing to facilities that specialized in certain diseases, to most efficiently screen for the drugs. I'm not sure how much this costs, but it seems like you're basically leveraging the academia's research grants to fund a private enterprise.

creativity

2005-10-10T14:38:00.000-12:00

Geno Schnell was giving a talk on creativity in one of the BME Entrepreneurship Seminars. I learned a couple new things about creativity.

As an engineer and being surrounded by scientists, I do not encounter creative people by the common definition. On the contrary, people in these areas are taught to think methodically and predict the next step. Very little seems to be done on hunches, inklings, and luck. However, it is with creativity that the major breakthroughs are made. The best part is that creativity can be fostered and learned.

Schnell states that the easiest way to improve creativity is to observe your mental thought processes. As you think through things in a certain way, try using different hands to solve the problem, or think of the problem through different experiences. Creativity is very dependent on the environment.

Leaders must have a lot of soft skills to create an open environment where the group trusts the leader, that there are no expectations and no right answer, and that the group understands and uses its diversity. Also, everyone normally has a creative outlet. To improve the individual's creativity, it's best to learn the process through their outlet. By searching on Amazon for creative process + (art, music, or whatever) then you can develop your creativity through the way you'll learn the fastest.

Some interesting points in the presentation is that young people are more creative because of their self-doubt. They question themselves constantly, which leads to many different approaches. With high self-esteem, the person is more persistent to follow through an approach to the end. A highly creative individual must have both self-doubt and high self esteem in the group to get the best creativity.

job vs. school

2005-10-09T14:55:00.000-12:00

It seems that everyone I know is either working or going to grad school. It seems the people in grad school are much busier with their lives than those working. I have proposed that people try to expand or shrink to their immediate time demands.

With a job, you will have more free time on the weekends, you're making money, and the stuff you learn is somewhat useful for your career. With grad school, you have less free time, you're paying for your education, hopefully learning something that somewhat relates to what you'll do, but the big bonus is that you delay real life for a year, and you get more opportunities to chill with people of similar interests and age.

I think it's interesting how people view what they're doing compared to what they perceive what their friends doing different stuff are doing.

However, when I go to grad school to study an MBA, I think it will be a nice change of pace, and I'll be at a time where I can relate to other MBA's. But we'll see if I'm bitching like everyone else when I get there.

psychic predictions

2005-10-08T09:40:00.000-12:00

I've always been curious about supernatural phenomena, super human abilities, paranormal activities, etc. I'm not sure exactly why, because I've never really seen anything in my lifetime that suggests the presence of ghosts or spirits, but I do believe I have psychic powers.

During one of the breaks in my real estate agent license class, we discussed psychics and I mentioned that I wanted to go see a good psychic. One of the people in the class recommended a psychic she's been seeing for years. The psychic's name was Bessie.

I went to see Bessie with Dave on Wednesday, Oct 5th, 2005 at Pete's Restaurant in Curtis Bay, MD, near Glen Burnie. I went, not really knowing what to expect. Dave got his reading first, and it was pretty much dead on. The interesting insights I gained were that he was one of five children, always has a $ when he goes into something, very impatient, needs to watch out when he's driving, and his new venture will have two other partners and he should watch out for one of them that's kinda sneaky.

Then it was my turn.

She told me right away that I'm going to move and it would be permanent. I was starting a business, and had mixed feelings about it, even though I was going to make really good money. She said that money wasn't the most important thing in my life, that being successful was, and that I would be successful. I was growing farther away from my family and friends, and oddly enough she said to stay away from my old friends from the past, that they'd be a bad influence on me. She said that I've come a long way, and still have a lot to go and do. I'd be traveling a lot in my future, and would eventually end up in California, while still having operations going on in Maryland.

As far as business, my real estate ventures would make me very wealthy, and that I would have successful ventures in production, and design. As she said that, her voice became stronger and proclaimed that I have a God given gift that I haven't used yet. That she saw everyone recognized my previously hidden talent for designing. She mentioned that I would meet a girl in 4-5 months that I would end up with for the rest of my life. She was part American Indian, and we would meet at this event and start talking without anyone introducing us. We would have five kids, and that I would never divorce under any circumstances. She mentioned my knees being weak and that I should watch my balance.

All in all, it was an interesting experience to say the least. Now that I have some sort of guage to work against, it makes me wonder about my destiny and how everything fits into place. Do I work towards a destiny that I create, or is it all just some sort of puzzle where all my actions and experiences sum up to one small piece?

harsh lesson

2005-09-14T13:57:00.000-12:00

150k, 10k in repairs, 220k ARV
This is a really tough one for me to take, but I admit that I screwed up royally. I faxed the seller a contract instead of sitting him down and making one up.
I should have got a contract from him when I made the appointment, and not hesitated for 1 second on the worth. I didn't do my homework.
So, in summary, here are the lessons I learned:
1. do your homework, and do it thoroughly. I need to know my values and what constitutes a deal or not.
2. get an appointment to get the contract. You can always rip up the contract later, but you can't get a contract when the seller disappears.
3. you can't steal in slow motion. this is self-explanatory.

David Allen Rocks

2005-09-05T09:06:00.000-12:00

I'm using David Allen's system for Personal Organization, and I must say, it kicks ass. I'm probably the most organized I've ever been, even though I have more stuff to manage. Having a real file cabinet is just indispensable, and having different lists for different types of tasks is just great.
The down side is that all these lists need to be easy to find, updated consistently, and intuitive. Hopefully, by continuing my once per week parsing, I will be able to keep up with everything. I'm also reading 1 book per week until the marketing really starts spitting fire, and taking time away.
Off subject, www.nowok.net is a great site for broadband users to listen to Chinese music.
Peace,
John

changing, always

2005-09-01T23:42:00.000-12:00

Brad and I split up the business Aug 3rd, and it's been a wild ride. Brad has taken an existing system and continued to work it. I've implemented a couple new systems, while getting signing up. It's been hard.
From Brad's actions, it seems that he really doesn't want to do anything with these properties we own jointly. He's not answering my phone calls, e-mails, or inqueries about our shared properties. This is a partnership ending that's turning sour very quickly. I'm thinking of taking my money and running, and letting him take care of all the headaches the way he wants.
For me to implement this, I need to cut all dependencies on him, and negotiate a fair solution.

life at home

2005-08-30T08:52:00.000-12:00

When I was in high school and college, I couldn't stand even looking at my parents let alone being around them. Just thinking about them made me feel disgusted. They always wanted to throw their advice down my throat, expecting me to just close my mouth and swallow. Same thing with relatives. All anyone would ever do is ask me a bunch of stupid questions and pretend to be interested in what I had to say, and I'd try to come up with other things to talk about that might be interesting to them.
After school, however, I've come to realize how important family stuff is, and it's become more important to me to spend time with my family when I get the chance. Complete 180.
Being at home is not so bad. Free food, free rent, and not needing to worry about a lot of other things. It's pretty nice. While I straighten out my personal finances and get my business in order, I'll be looking to move out soon enough, and get my life back. In the mean time, I'll be chillin at home.
John

a good mentor

2005-06-22T01:59:00.000-12:00

I spoke with Rav, the founder/CEO of Ravgen. It's a biomedical company that wants to create a new standard for diagnosing fetuses in pregnant women. The basic problem is that 2% of fetuses get aborted when testing for whatever because the needle gets inserted into the womb. Ravgen has created patents and techniques to take the blood from the arm, instead of the womb, which lowers the miscarriage rate to 0%.

Anyway, I impressed him with my real estate business, and I told him that I would have 400k of my own money to put into the business after 1 year of full time effort. I think this is realistic if we have door knocking up full speed, as well as signing, direct mailing and classified ads. I estimate we will have a 50k deal per month if we just do door knocking alone (from previous experience).
From Direct Mail, I project 5 to 10 phone calls every month, which will bring in another 10k per month.
Signing and classified ads consistently brought in at least 10k per month.

So the point is, when I see the numbers of everything working properly, I get 900k per year.

After this year, I will be poised to enter the biomed business full steam. Rav offered the ideas and people and capital, if I could show him that I can man the ship, and this year I will do everything I can to prove the systems work, and I'm right.

18 days later..

2005-06-22T01:49:00.000-12:00

So it was about 18 days ago that I moved back into my house. I bought plane tickets to China, so there's no turning back. I'm leaving July 12th, and I have no clue what to expect. I'll need to get a Learn Chinese program to prep me for China, luggage, travel bag, camera, etc. etc.
I've also read through and implemented David Allen's Personal Organizational System. It seems to be working quite well so far. I've only used it for about 10 days, but I'm getting very productive, and seem to forget things a lot less. I need to make some tweaks to include priorities and then I'll be set. The tickler file I'll set up today.
I've set up a tickler file type system for leads handling. I'll need to continuously tweak it until it works just the way I want it, and Brad uses it.
As far as equipment, I've purchased folders, post it notes, paper stacking trays, a file cabinet, and a new printer.
The printer will allow direct mail to be sent out without any hiccups.
All the other stuff is to keep everything more organized.
DSL will be in July 5th, which is when I come back from my trip with Dave.
I'll give ~weekly updates on how the personal and leads organizational systems work.

living semi-dependent

2005-06-09T02:35:00.000-12:00

It's been crazy for the last couple days. Not having a permanent place to live, not having all the tools I need for making money.
I really understand now the pain of moving from one place to another, like a true nomad. It's very hard to set yourself and be productive while moving things in and out. This is why most people only move every couple years.

last couple days

2005-05-16T03:49:00.000-12:00

I just recovered from straight gaming the last couple days. It's been so much fun being free from work these last few days. I even goofed off this morning. However, I need to get back into the groove and be productive. This afternoon I'm going to warm up by doing a couple light tasks. This evening I'm going to work on the CIS paper. It feels great to be almost free from my biggest time committment, school.

messy room

2005-05-09T16:35:00.000-12:00

I looked at my room today. And my hair. My physical appearance and the stuff around me is all disorganized, messy, and unprofessional. Books and papers are scattered over my desk. Unopened envelopes are on my dining table. Clothes are scattered all across the floor. Junk just seems to collect in all the free spaces, and there's pizza boxes everywhere. Is this the image I want to send off?

Yeah, I have a lot of stuff to do. Yeah, I don't have much time. Yeah, I hate doing it. But I need to clean my room and make it look presentable at least. How else can I convince myself and others that I have the control over my own destiny when I can't even display control over my personal living space?
I think this came about because I am always future oriented, and as such, I didn't care about where I lived or what I did. However, I'm going to change this behavior starting today. I will make my work space and living space clean.

Thanks to all of those who have beared this place long enough.

reading books

2005-05-05T01:05:00.000-12:00

This is my first book I've read in a while. It's called "Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves" - Robert Ringer. I'm about 1/2 way through the book, and I'm learning some things here and there. Such as, success is action biased, and you always have a choice of at least doing something or nothing.
There's a couple really good points that I wanted to jot down. First, I have not developed tactfulness to the extent that I want it to be. In the book, he states a lot of references to Christianity, which I was very put off by because of the way he explained some things. However, I almost put down the book because of it. Instead, I stuck it through and learned more about the tact that I lack :) Basically, I use very powerful negative words with other people, and I need to use words less as a whip to sting people with, and more like a harp to soothe people with. If someone says something wrong, don't point it out and expose them, especially if it's something minor. If it's something important, gently coax them the right way, because jerking them to move will put up all kinds of resistance.
Second, I forget :P. I'll put it up when I remember, and I'll probably have a couple other points to write about when I finish the book.

Emotional Swings, the other way

2005-04-29T11:18:00.000-12:00

Your heart beats faster, your breath gets shallower, you feel a little dizzy and light headed.
It's a natural high, and it feels GREAT. I only get that experience through a few things. Computer games, making a shitload of money, truly helping people in tough situations, accomplishing a lot in a day, getting through a sticky situation, doing a perfect negotiation, kayaking and conquering a river I have no business being on, taking a jump shot over the biggest guy on the court, climbing to the top of the wall.
It's all about peak experiences. These are the ones I will remember for the rest of my life. Who I was with, and when it was, and the circumstances of that great feeling. Like you're on top of the world.
Today, I dealt with a bad situation with 28th st, and Lindsay. Lindsay's the big score, raking in 25-30k.

Emotional Swings

2005-04-28T18:50:00.000-12:00

When I thought I landed an awesome 30 unit deal, I was incredibly ecstatic. $15k/unit in an area surrounded by $23k/unit. I thought that was just awesome.
Now after I talk to a CPM in the area, I find out that it's a piece of shit property and I'm overpaying by 2k. It's a good thing I found out about it during the due diligence period.
But it really took a lot out of me. I was feeling pretty bad for a while. And I still do feel like I got punched in the stomach.
I tried rationalizing it by saying to myself, "Hey, it's ok that this is not the deal I thought it would be. It's ok that I feel foolish now. I can justify all of this because I took my shot, and I learned a couple valuable lessons. First, if an area is losing population when the general area is gaining population, that area sucks ass. Second, I get really emotional when it comes to deals, so I'll try to learn to control it as much as possible. Third, I learned that I can pull the trigger quickly when I recognize a good deal. Fourth, if I keep on looking long and hard, the deals will present themselves. Fifth, I picked up a very honest CPM on my side, and a property inspector.
So eventually, I'm going to overcome this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, get back up, and keep on submitting offers. Submitting offers is the only way I'll be able to keep my eyes out there, continually honing my sight, and eventually I'll get one. Brokers will see that I'm serious, and I will continue to build my support staff.
DFW, I'm going to conquer you and make you my bitch. I hope that discomforting feeling I get when I think of when remembering good deals passing me by will never completely go away. Remembering that sting will keep my taste buds sharp.

obstacles

2005-04-19T04:45:00.000-12:00

I'm facing a lot of obstacles to get to my goals. I'm currently dealing with Bob Steele, and he's not returning my phone calls. This is important to me because I need to know what's going on, and when things will happen.
I see a lot of discrepancies with what I see in the market, and what Dave asks me to use. Why should I use 7% when going interest rates are ~5.5%? Why should I assume 10-15% vacancies when the current vacancy is 5% or less? It's frustrating that I need to turn down properties because I think they are deals and Dave does not. However, I did expect something like this to happen. Looking back at SFHs, in the beginning, everything looks like a deal.
I guess this is the learning curve that everyone needs to go through, and I'm not an exception to the rule. As long as I keep on marketing, analyzing, and making offers, I'll get through this learning process and start finding good deals. I am a winner, and I do what it takes to achieve my goals, and I keep going on where most people stop and quit.

Winning Mentality

2005-04-18T10:30:00.000-12:00

I am a winner. Always have been, always will be. I've noticed this even more so as of late. I take a look around, and see myself surrounded with intelligent and ambitious friends. Pretty much all of them are, and it's pretty interesting to compare them to people I know, but do not really associate with. Like the people I hang around with the most, Bin, Anson, Brad, Dave, Harman, Dmitri, Anatoliy, Ab, Emily; all of them do well.
I compare that to some of the other people I hang around, like Zoo, Bridgitte, Wai, that don't do so well.
Success attracts success, and I find that completely fascinating. When I listened in on Ravi speaking, it reminded me a lot of important facts.
I do whatever it takes to succeed. I remind myself that if it wasn't challenging, it wouldn't be worth doing. On my path to greatness, I'll encounter a lot of bumps along the way that separate me from everyone else that tries. I remind myself two times a day that I'm a winner, and winners go for it all and learn from their mistakes.
I am a winner.

the way to greatness

2005-04-15T02:59:00.000-12:00

I attended a talk with Ravinder Dhallan, the Chairman and CEO of Ravgen. It really inspired me to see an honest guy working on a serious problem. He's willing to put his life on the line to solve this one problem, which is really an interesting feat.
How this relates to my life. I see stem cells as being a large part of the future of biotechnology. I want to be able to supply family members with the most viable stem cells for whatever they need them for. This source is umbilical cord blood from newborn babies.
Other companies have solved this problem, and I'm looking for different ways to differentiate. After I find a couple good ways to differentiate, I will cut the cord and go at it. Solving an important question, and a multi-billion dollar payoff, here I come.

My Sassy Girl (spoiler)

2005-04-13T01:33:00.000-12:00

Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet.
I watched My Sassy Girl for the first time. The director really developed the girl's personality well throughout the movie. She tried so hard to be different and righteous. She tried so hard to act happy when she was sad. She tried so hard to ignore her feelings for Kyun-woo, but attachments to her old bf didn't allow her to connect the way she wanted.
While this is a movie, there were a couple interesting personality matching questions that arose. Can you fall in love with several people in your lifetime? I think the answer to this is most definitely a yes. Love is very much a product of circumstances and a mutual give and take, with some common ground activities and random hardships.
Also, under what conditions would I be willing to tolerate a sassy girl?
What can I tolerate, what can't I tolerate?
The most important thing for me is that the girl has a healthy dose of curiosity. Curiosity is the force that drives people to seek new knowledge all the time. Of course, the girl must take care of her body and not have drug addictions, or self-mutilation habits. I find that I go more for cute, younger looking girls. She doesn't need to be able to cook, but it'd definitely be a big plus. One thing that the sassy girl did that I liked a lot was that she kept introducing Kyun-woo to new situations and new experiences. A girl that will create us a lot of great memories is paramount. Experiences are what people treasure in a relationship. So I'm done droning on and on now. The search continues...

NCAA Final

2005-04-04T16:36:00.000-12:00

In basketball, I've never seen such an awesome display of teamwork vs. talent. That was a great game. However, the match up of the two teams was just too uneven. Illinois was full of 3 point shooters, and UNC was based around a great center. The problem with Illinois was that they had no real answer for May. He shot for 11/12 or something really ridiculous because no one on Illinois was close to his size. He simply bullied everyone around and got easy lay-ups, or dished it out to the open shooter.
To Illinois' credit, they had an excellent team, with great passion, passing, and getting the ball to the open guy. They kept the game very close and very exciting. However, in the second half, UNC fed the ball more to May, and Illinois didn't have an answer, while letting Illinois shoot all the 3's they wanted. Simple lay-ups & dunks > 3 pointers, even when they're college 3's.
It always seems like the winning formula is get a dominant big guy, and get some shooters, and feed it to the mismatches created.
I'm not a super sports fanatic, nor an expert basketball tactician, but I've noticed this general pattern over and over again. Center outmuscles other team for the win. When will someone recognize this formula and find a good way to beat it?

first kayak trip in a LONG time

2005-04-04T06:28:00.000-12:00

I had my first kayak trip for a long time. I didn't go to a roll session or lead a trip because I hurt my wrist in snow football during the OP leadership retreat in PA. Antietam was running at 4.1ft in the beginning of the day and ended at 5.4 ft because it was raining all day. All the rapids were pretty much flushed out and the dam was running way high. There was only one good wave on the left side of the dam, and I got some side surfing as well as an ender.
It was such a tiring trip because you needed to paddle hard to get upstream back to the dam and it to way way too much effort. Overall, it was a good trip. good thing we went for the takeout at burnside bridge.
Even though it was such a shitty day, and the water was running way too high, it was very fun. I got to get away from my work, enjoy the atmosphere, and focus completely on the river, the animals, the sound of geese, the cold splash of water spraying onto my face, and the feeling that while I'm in control, the river ultimately has the last say in what I do.
Will took some pretty good pictures. It's a great idea to get a camera to do photos. I'm going to get a camera so then I can get my own photos.
John

praise > criticize

2005-03-31T18:28:00.000-12:00

I was reading through Dale Carnegie's book again about how to win friends and influence people.
It's kind of funny that I've done a 180 turn from what the book recommends to do.
I was good earlier at praising people in freshman and sophomore year, but in junior and senior of college, I started slipping back to chastising instead of praising. I'm going to work on this trait, and change it for the better.
My drive is to become a better person, lead and manage people better, and accomplish something great and important by praising people's strengths instead of focusing on weaknesses. By praising people, they can do more for me and I can accomplish more. I can also feel a lot better by making people happy and realize their own strengths that they might not have known about before. I will acknowledge good work when it's done, and encourage self actualization from everyone around me.
John

happiness

2005-03-28T01:05:00.000-12:00

This is a pretty tricky topic. Means a whole world of different things to different people. However, I do like having open discussions on this.
I think there are two parts of happiness, one part fixed, and one part variable. The fixed part means that you MUST have at least most of these things in order for you to be happy. The variable part I believe is experiential, and as attitudes and behaviors change so do the experiences you want that generate happiness.
One part of life I'm enjoying right now is figuring out the things that I like to do and derive joy from, versus the things that I really despise doing. Some of the things that I enjoy doing now is talking to my roommates, talking and spending time with friends, reading stories of people with incredible achievements, kayaking, rock climbing, working out, bjj, working towards retirement, and working on personal development things.
In the past, my idea of happiness was being able to do what I want, when I want. Now I realize that it's also with WHO I want. In addition to that, it's also not doing what I don't like, and not being financially constrained.
I've mentioned this in other entries, but what I've been lacking is long-term friendships and relationships. The kind that build on each other and create a synergy. I think that's what I want from a girl more than any other quality, just not slowing me down and pushing me forward in all different directions that I never knew existed. Closer towards self-actualization.
Self-actualization is a very interesting thing. It's when you've reached your limit, when you've 'actualized' your potential. It's the finish line that when you pass, you can see the next finish line in the distance, and the race goes on and on until you're done with that direction and move on to another direction.
Amazing.

relationships

2005-03-24T11:23:00.000-12:00

I'm very bad at maintaining relationships. One thing I realized I do sometimes is that I withdraw from my emotions when they get too extreme, in either direction. This is very bad when you're around people you like being around a lot. There are three distinct examples of where I fucked up some really good opportunities.
Example 1: I remember a time in seventh grade where I had a really strong crush on this one girl. She was really hot, athletic, smart, creative, and friendly. One time I remember another girl asking me if I liked the crush girl, and I blushed for like 5 minutes. I couldn't help it, and I felt so out of control. I didn't like that feeling of complete helplessness, like I just surrendered my logical thinking self to be a slave to emotions.
I never wanted to feel that vulnerable and helpless again, so I decided that the next time that happened, I would control my physical reaction and not blush, and even feign dislike. It worked like a charm. No longer was I a slave, but the master of my emotions. I could turn them off any time I wanted, and it felt good at the time to re-establish control.
Example 2: There was this one girl that liked me a lot, and I liked her a lot. We chilled out for hours every day after school and on the weekends too. We'd go fishing, and she'd make food for me, and we'd just shoot the shit for hours with new things to talk about every time. Well, one day, she wrote me a 10 page letter on how much she liked me and how she liked being around me. I screwed that up by pretending that the letter meant nothing to me, even though my heart fluttered with excitement as my eyes seemed to pierce straight through the paper and words to absorb everything where was to say. But because I didn't show my emotions, I screwed up a good relationship. We don't even talk anymore, and the last time I saw her, it was just full of awkward pauses.
While this felt bad at the time, in retrospect, it was probably a good thing I didn't get too emotionally attached to this girl because she had too many problems going on. She had early child abuse problems, slit her wrists, and was totally dysfunctional with family stuff.
Example 3: This is probably not a good example, because I'm sure I can salvage this one. But anyways, continuing my sad story, this was probably the weirdest hook-up ever. A mother in a boot camp I went to stated that she was psychic, which is probably true, and she told me a couple things that I found very very interesting. Anyway, she invites me down to her place and stay with her daughter, claiming that she's hot and that she and I would be married.
Now, I'm a very open-minded guy, and I also believe things happen for a reason. I'm also very much an explorer, willing to try almost anything once. So I call her about once a week or every other week, just feeling her out and seeing how things are going. She's hot, flexible, cooks, down to earth, learning latin dancing, and is just a fun girl to talk to. However, I feel like I'm getting too busy and just stop calling her and stop taking her calls. I can still recover from this one by calling her again, which I will do some time this week. It's officially on my list of things to do.

While these stories aren't very tragic and they probably aren't my soulmate or anything permanent, I have identified a personality problem, a pattern that may lead to destruction of good friendships and relationships. When I start to see myself going through a pattern of withdrawal, I need to go through a rationalization of the situation, and put a value to continuing to withdraw vs. expressing what I feel. In this way, I can completely master the situation by choosing what I express and what to hide.

spring break 2005

2005-03-23T01:52:00.000-12:00

I had an awesome time this spring break, mostly because I went out and actually took a break, instead of studying.
I'll really cherish those joyful moments and I respect all the personal sacrifices that were made to make this trip so positive. Below is a quick summary of the events on each day.
3/12/05, Sat. We woke up at 6am. Steph and Deb made us breakfast and it was delicious. We finally headed out at 8:15 or so and nearly missed our 9:05am plane!
At 12pm we headed to a dim sum buffet which was very excellent and had some boba tea dessert. Afterwards, we settled down, I was staying at Anson's parents house with Anson, Bin and Alvin. Park stayed at Fred's house in Garland. For dinner, Anson's sister Winjie and her husband Darrell treated us to Simon's Sushi, which turned out to be really excellent sushi. Probably the best I've ever had.
3/13/05, Sun. Today was more relaxing. We went to Fred's driving range and hit a lot of balls. I got a call from my good friend Dave, and we chatted a while. It turns out that I picked up golf very quickly. I remember going golfing with some friends of mine in high school. Both of them were on the high school golf team and I wasn't. Needless to say, it wasn't very fun. I don't really remember what we had for dinner this night. At night we went bowling and shot some pool. That was a lot of fun. I had a conference call later that night about learning different apartment markets, and I fell asleep halfway through it.
3/14/05 Mon. Today was going to Six Flags. This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We went on the Texas Giant and Titan, and Superman many times. For lunch we went out of the park to Sonics, where I had a hot dog, and a Sonic burger. Those burgers were delicious. I then blew some money on the crooked carnival games, which I pretty much never do, but I wanted to try out some of the games. The pool stick was flat at the top, making it very hard to hit the balls straight. The most memorable time was probably when we all decided to do 'shocker' shots during the entire ride of the Texas Titan.
For dinner we went to On the Border, where they gave me a Strawberry Daiquiri with only 1 shot of vodka in the entire pint. I was very disappointed and told them to give me a Corona.
The rest of the days are kind of a blur now. I remember going to the DMA, eating at bob's steakhouse, eating at tasty wok, going to NBA basketball game, going karaoking until 4am, and
going to the shooting range.
This is one of those times I will always remember.

Post Guidelines

2005-03-20T08:10:00.000-12:00

This is my first blog. I'm using this as a tool for personal expression and reflection with no real intent on sharing the contents with anyone. As such, it will be more a personal outlet of my frustrations, successes, and also a gauge for personal development. I may share this blog with a few close friends in the future.
I'm using this format because of its ease of use, portability, and organization.
I plan on adding an entry every couple days. Each entry will be about how I feel at the time, a memorable experience, a personal insight or observation, or about an interesting topic or book that was brought to my attention.