Archive for the Category ◊ Opportunity ◊

Cleaning house and laying plans
Saturday, December 11th, 2010 | Author: kevin

I always get a little wistful and full of introspection with the approach of a new year. Often this is is tinged with regrets for projects that I thought would be farther along (or finished with by now…), but this grieving process, at least for me, is motivating. It provides me with a small enough period to examine what I wanted to get done, and compare it with my actual results. Now in my case, part of my shortcomings can be excused by my Crohn’s and Colitis, however, if you know me, that’s one “excuse” that I refuse to let define my life. So here’s a snapshot review of 2010, and preview into where I’m going in 2011…
Objectives Achieved

  1. Attended and presented at 2010 O’Reilly OSCON (Including a visit to the Oregon Brewer’s Festival
  2. Participated in the “1st” BarCamp in Puerto Rico
  3. Published “Thirty Stories” for Gil the Jenius
  4. Joined program committee for TOC Publishing Conference
  5. Got published in O’Reilly’s Radar Blog
  6. Healed my brother

Projects Not Realized

  1. Publish a book for myself
  2. A year of unruly passion
  3. Cleaned out my junk (both physical and mental)

Looking Forward

  1. Establish a financial sponsorship relationship to submit grant applications
  2. Establish shell corporate structure to:
    • Apply for grants directly
    • Conduct social entrepreneurial development
    • Formalize virtual independent publishing house
  3. Present tutorial on fund-raising OSCON 2011
  4. Publish backlog of projects for Gil the Jenius
  5. Publish backlog of personal projects
  6. Continue efforts to become leading expert in the new world of publishing

I’m purposefully leaving all of these achievement, trials, and goals at the project level. Having “almost” finished David Allen Coe’s “Getting Things Done.” These are the destinations, however, the individual day to day execution is where the real rubber meets the road. I’m using 43 Things to manage these goals, and Google Tasks to manage the daily to dos. It seems like a very light-weight system to manage both the high-end and low-end needs of this “freelance executioner.”

Per chance to dream

I’m also a firm believer in giving yourself a chance to dream, to imagine the impossible. While I thought I had it made, I really thought I was going to the 2011 TOC Publishing Conference. I’ll be working to make a miracle happen so that I can attend the conference. Since I saw the original “call-for-proposal,” I felt that I was supposed to go. While I didn’t get an invitation, I’m afraid that I might have “given-up” too soon.

I’m now a big believer in the power of intentions. Although I bought a magazine with a multitude of opportunities to submit writing work, I let them all pass. This isn’t something that I intend to let happen again. I bought the 2011 Writer’s Market Deluxe Edition (Writer’s Market Online) book last night. I will get published in 2011.

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Category: Execution, Opportunity  | Comments off
Riding the Wave
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 | Author: kevin

As a technologist, and an aspiring author, artist, poet, publisher, I’d have to say the biggest dilemma I face is deciding whether to stay abreast of the latest whatever or focus on my projects. No kidding, I bet on a daily basis I come across at least ten articles to read and two or three themes that require additional investigation.

However, the mysteries of our minds, our subconscious, and our free will continue to confront the same truism. Only those who are able to rid themselves of all distractions and apply the strictest dedication to their selected tasks are the ones that break through and achieve the celebrity or success they desire.

A while back I started to use Twitter as a pressure release valve for this information overload. Whenever I came across something appealing or interesting, or requesting my attention, I simply posted it to Twitter and tried to bring my attention back to where it needed to be. That strategy works pretty well, at least until I find the next shiny new article full of the promise to complete the puzzle I have in my head. Actually, it’s more like puzzles.

You see, I have these theories, and they’re nearly complete. They are just not fleshed out enough to be able to document them with enough authority for them to gain traction. Although, to be honest, when I look at other successful technologists they have some distinct advantages. First, they are not crippled my a chronic disease. It’s cruel but true, while my body is ravaged by Crohn’s, my mind remains clear and active. Second, they are not stranded on a island in the middle of the ocean. Ideas are like plants. They require the cross pollination that only comes from frequent contact with other deep thinkers. Unfortunately due to the oppressive force of zero-sum thinking in Puerto Rico, there is absolutely no meetings of smart people doing interesting things.

I’ve got one other disadvantage (well, it’s really a blessing). I’ve decided to be a home maker for my wife and our three daughters. Which as my good friend Gil tells me, places me in a really unique position. There are many resources available if you want to be an entrepreneur, a freelancer, or an artist, but I’m basically making things up as I go. For there is no play book for an expatriate living in Puerto Rico, disabled by Crohn’s, home maker, who wants to heal the world. I guess that’s the reason I’m so tempted by each shiny new article to come out; I’m hoping it holds some information that can help me navigate these uncharted waters.

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Category: Internet, Opportunity, Writing  | Comments off
LinuxWorld – ABCs of Desktop Linux
Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 | Author: kevin

Next week I’ll be in Boston attending my first LinuxWorld conference. were I’ll be giving to presentation/demonstrations a day, plus plenty of public and vendor meet and greet. It should be insane. I’m pretty excited about doing a good job, but as usual I’m still not quite prepared. I’ve got to go through my slides and demonstrations a few times. Plus on Monday we have to install Linux on some loaner machines and test some tricks I have planned.

Then over all of that, I have to try to do some serious on-the-spot journalist stories to help cover some of my costs. Looking forward I want to cover:

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Category: Internet, Linux, Mono, Open Source, Opportunity  | Comments off
Planning ahead
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 | Author: kevin

For anyone considering a jump into starting their own company, forming or joining a startup, the next few posts will offer a few quick words of advice. As I share them, I’ll also give a brief description of my work efforts.

1. It is said that planning for any project is indispensable, while the plan you create for that project is disposable.

If you’re going to make the jump, make sure you take a parachute along with you. A parachute in this sense is a fall back position that can carry you through the extended “project initiation” phase. It is going to take way more time than you ever believe to get rolling. Whether that means landing the first contract or making the first sale. You’re going to need some insurance. Your insurance could be an existing client. Like quitting your job and being able to contract yourself back to them and continue to provide services.

This is proof that no matter how smart someone might seem, or claim to be, reality is quite often more brutal. I know this rule, but yet I wasn’t actually able accomplish creating a fall back position. While I have a proposal pending with my ex-client, I’m still waiting for feedback. Therefore, I didn’t plan ahead successfully. Many excuses what I didn’t incorporate sooner, build the web site sooner, create a capabilities statement early, for I need them now; and they’re not ready.

Although I did pick up a great sideline gig by becoming the new Editor in Chief of TUX Magazine, it’s not directly on my path to create a startup or software and services company. I’m working on my third issue and it is a lot of fun. It is very helpful in bringing closer to reality my life long dream of authoring a technical book. And in a weird sort of Moebius strip, infinite loop, sort of a way it takes me back some 25 years to when I started Journalism school at Ball State University.

Creating passionate users as I launch my software and services company

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Category: Business, Computer, Opportunity  | 2 Comments
Social Entrepreneurs Wanted
Tuesday, November 29th, 2005 | Author: kevin

In last week’s Caribbean Business Rafael Hernandez Colon, three-term former Governor of Puerto Rico, restated the obvious by emphasizing the need for Puerto Rico to mobilize itself and put in place promptly a plan to attack the genetics, digital, and knowledge revolution. I do agree with him; to address this opportunity will require a change in our system of higher education. The only problem is I have not heard nor seen any such plan to dramatically impact Puerto Rico’s higher education system.

Governments are like businesses. Many of the same methods are equally effective in each of these environments. Puerto Rico faces declining revenues, increasing costs, and ineffective leadership. If this were a business, the actions required are clear. Develop new revenue streams, or maximize those you have by trimming costs, and find new leadership Although the Pridco reduction seems promising, I doubt the entire Government could follow suit. There are just too many powerful constituencies. There is a potential solution, however, social entrepreneurs. When there is too much bureaucracy and the resistance too powerful, then social entrepreneurs can leverage agility and freedom to address critical issues.

We need a plan to quickly empower Puerto Rico’s higher educational system, but the Government nor the United States holds the answer. The only possible path to a plan and a solution lies within the entrepreneurial community. For me, what we desperately need are businesses that wire, educate, and instill Puerto Rico.

First we need low cost broadband available for all of the major cities of Puerto Rico. However, what needs to be clear is this is not an investment to get rich quick, but a rising tide floats all boats scenario where the long range is emphasized.

Second, the only way to create a knowledge industry is to produce knowledge workers. We need massive quantities of highly educated, computer savvy graduates. We need a new workforce which is as comfortable with a keyboard and compiler as they are with a cellular phone.
Finally, we need to instill into this new workforce, the entrepreneurial spirit. They need to be able to see for themselves that we need a new path. They need to feel it in their bones, that the old path only leads into a dead-end. They need to be able to look past the lackadaisical acceptance that our current system is not broken and see opportunity.

Plainly, there is no other way. This is the only option available to us. Becuase if we don’t found businesses to address these problems, we hasten our arrival at the end of our current path. Only suffering lies at the end of that path.

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Category: General, Opportunity, Puerto Rico  | 2 Comments
The hardest battle is often within
Friday, October 21st, 2005 | Author: kevin

By far the challenge I face in trying to be remarkable and do remarkable things is resisting the sweet temptation that surrounds. It’s everywhere, pervasive, you can never hide from it: MEDIOCRITY. The battle I most hope to win in the rest of days is the battle against mediocrity. When most everyone around us seem committed to mediocrity, it makes it a struggle to remain committed to excellence.

Seth Godin asks “Why are we willing to settle for work products that just isn’t that good–while at the same time we vote with our dollars to buy things and experiences that are exceptional?” Why indeed?

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A journey of a million miles…
Wednesday, September 07th, 2005 | Author: kevin

Here is something new for me. Let’s call it a core dump. For the none geeks, a core dump is what happens when a computer encounters an ABEND, or abnormal end. Any one who has ever witnessed a “blue screen of death” is familiar with a core dump. In the unfortunate event that this happens, the computer will list all of the contents of the registers and the call stack (”the memory”) to aid in troubleshooting the problem. In short, this is just a random dump of things that I’ve been meaning to blog further on, but probably won’t get the chance to expand on. So I want to share (document?) them while these thoughts are still relatively fresh.

Huh?

The other day driving to work I saw a work truck from the water and sewer authority with the following slogan in bumper sticker form: “Work is sacred, Don’t touch it!” Some one once asked me if I was a linguist, because I get upset when words are used incorrectly. This was slightly confirmed by a Tickle test that I once did that was for my Intellectual Type, an “Insightful Linguist”. The driver of the vehicle is most obviously a member of a water workers union or whatever, so I know what he means. However, in our short, sweet lives there are many things that are sacred, but I don’t believe that “your job” is one of them.

Woo Hoo

I saw today that the Director of the El Nuevo Dia, Luis Alberto Ferré Rangel, has started what he calls “el primer blog de cualquier medio de prensa en Puerto Rico”, the first blog from any news media in Puerto Rico. The blog is featured under a banner that states that “El periodismo es una conversación”, journalism is a conversation. All I have to say is “welcome to the conversation! Your voice has been long over due.” I hope that this helps build momentum for our conversation and we see many other businesses, government officials, and leaders join with us.

Business 2.0 Business Ideas

It’s not every day that a smart group of people get together and share ideas for companies that they would like to see built, so they can give them money (invest in them). The current issue lists 11 different ideas that a group of venture capitalists will fund if they receive the right business plans. Here are the ideas:

  1. Mobile ID for Credit Card Purchases
  2. Back-Office Bank Syndicate
  3. The Ultimate Online Upsell
  4. Subscription PCS for Seniors
  5. An even Smarter Smartphone
  6. Open-Source IT Center
  7. Social Networks Meet The Town Crier
  8. Customer Service Over IP
  9. Plug-And-Play Mobile Services
  10. Home Patient Monitoring
  11. A Killer App for Convergence

For me, the product recommendation, open-source IT management, and the social networking opportunities seem very achievable and realistic. What I also like this list is that it is written from the investors perspective which is invaluable, especially for non-business oriented innovators.

EnterPRize

I feel really fortunate for believing in Grupo Guayacan and participating in the current Business Plan Competition workshops. Today I attended the latest workshop Technology Entrepreneurship: A Silicon Valley Perspective with Henry Sang Jr., from HP Palo Alto, California. I’m sure that what I learned today will help guide me as I begin ramping up my entrepreneurial activities. HP is offering up their IP backlog for entrepreneurs to develop the ideas. A couple of eye-openers from the session. If an opportunity does not represent a business capable of generating more than $860 million, HP is not interested. Don’t try and hit the $1 billion dollar grand slam start-up, go for one hundred $10 million singles. I think you can continue to scale this down until it becomes achievable. Wanna have a million dollar company? Try creating 10 $100 K businesses.

…begins with the first step!

Finally, tonight I took my very first step towards becoming a Web 2.0 entrepreneur. I bought a few new domains, secured a new web host, and installed Mambo, courtesy of GoDaddy, my apologies to 1 and 1 hosting. For free, they have been decent hosts. I would of preferred Drupal, but installing Mambo was just a click away. I guess we’ll see if it is up to the challenge. Within the next year I’ll probably have to deal with leaving or moving x-cito.com and snapplatform.org. So far, all I have to say is that it will be hard to beat GoDaddy’s prices and convenience.

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Irish TechCamp, Puerto Rican CollabCamp
Tuesday, August 30th, 2005 | Author: kevin

I got this link in one of the many feeds that I receive. It seems if you compare Ireland to Puerto Rico, as it has been done very many times before, that Puerto Ricans are just like the Irish in something else. This quote is from a wiki announcing the plans to host TechCamp:

“Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be as much tech innovation coming from grassroots-tech in Ireland. The US is doing some great work in Web 2.0 and Blogging; having loads of conferences and blogger-dinners; while all we have here is a few very business-like events, and seemingly very few new projects. What’s needed is for us to CONNECT and SHARE and maybe a few companies will get started as a result!”

Here is an interesting exercise. Where ever it mentions Ireland you replace it with Puerto Rico. I really couldn’t have said it any better. So first, things first. My initial gut feeling was right. Just as the founders of TechCamp realized, I now realize. Yes, I want to participate next year and setup a simultaneous BarCamp in Puerto Rico, but we can’t wait! There is no time to waste. We have to kick start our Web 2.0 economy and I can’t think of any better activity than a collaborative, get things done, have fun event like this.

So second things second. Where to conduct the event? We need a comfortable meeting place, with ample room, whiteboards, projectors, wireless high speed Internet, and preferably 1 large meeting room and two smaller (or a large room that can be divided). That’s not too much too ask? Some sponsors for breakfast, lunch, and after event drinks would be nice too! :D

Finally, I need to pick a date. I’ll be very busy through September, so October looks good to me. How about mid-month, October 15, 2005. That gives about 6 weeks to get everything ready. I’ll start asking around for a location and hopefully within a week, I can announce the availability of the CollabCamp Wiki.

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Category: Internet, Open Source, Opportunity, Puerto Rico, Web Development, Writing  | One Comment
Total immersive way of getting things done
Sunday, August 28th, 2005 | Author: kevin

Just the other day, Kathy Sierra on her “Creating Passionate Users” blog shared an excellent idea for getting something done. Fresh from her participation at Foo Camp, she shared the results of a session she attended that was focused on “total immersion / ultra-rapid game development” from one of the leaders of the The Ad-Lib Game Society.

Briefly, this concept involves organizing a small group or team and having this team dedicate 48 hours on getting something done. Everyone agrees to invest 48 hours on completing a task and then you make it happen.

I like this concept for many reasons:

  • If everyone is willing to make that type of investment, you can bet that everyone is motivated, dedicated, and committed.
  • It is easy to set ground rules to minimize disruptions and time wasters: Minimal cell phone usage, no pointless Internet surfing, or blog reading. The task should be clear and foremost on everyone’s mind.
  • With a little preparation you can have everything ready before getting together. Including installing wireless networks, servers, and acquiring any supplies required. It should be everyone’s goal to maximize their output during the 48 hours and completing the “push” goal.
  • Again, once started, there will be no trips to the bank, the pharmacy, to pick up the kids, or whatever. No one should leave the activity until you are complete or if there is an emergency.
  • Building on this further, don’t think you can pull off the same thing by just concentrating on something for two days. Once everyone leaves the office, who knows if they’ll make it back? There will always be something interrupting the flow.
  • The limited time frame helps keep the goal achievable. It should be big enough to be a challenge, but not too big. That can be debilitating as everyone struggles to get their heads around the task.

Of course, this all requires having a location that will allow the team to be comfortable and productive. It should be well stocked with snacks and coffee, and have enough space for everyone to sleep horizontally. It should also be close to some restaurants or within the delivery area of some, which is even better. Try to remove reasons for people leaving. It should be clear, pick a team, pick a goal, prepare for the activity, get to work, have fun, and walk away with something everyone can point to and say see; “We did that!”

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Category: Business, Opportunity, Software Development, Writing  | 2 Comments
Here’s a doer: Where Did Jim O’Malley Go Today?
Monday, August 22nd, 2005 | Author: kevin

I was thinking about James today while talking with some guys at the lab. So when I was monkeying around with my website, I remembered I had a blogroll. So I expanded it and there I found that I had included James a while ago.

After reading his latest entry I remembered how much better my life in Puerto Rico was with James in it. Several times before he was there to offer a choice observation that made everything just a little more bearable. Here’s another one that I’ve wondered about myself: “Doing nothing takes more energy (in Puerto Rico) that it does in the US, of that I can assure you. The flip-side is that doing something is a bit easier. And doing something, opens up one of the possible ways that we as humans may grow. I wouldn’t be the person I am today if not for Puerto Rico. ” I think I’d have to agree with him.

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