"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible" - Frank Zappa

Leadership and Management

In the early days of a startup, a tremendous amount of effort is put into getting product shipped and selling the vision. It’s very difficult to achieve the former without doing the latter. Great leadership is required in order to sell the vision. The ability to recruit and motivate the right people to make things happen is invaluable.

It’s accepted practise that the visionary founder assumes the role of CEO. I see the role of CEO as two parts. Firstly to set direction, define culture, motivate and inspire, recruit, and reinforce the vision. Secondly to manage the business of the business – essentially the operations of the business.

Privacy In The Digital Age

I think we should all start worrying about the future of our right to privacy in the digital age. Essentially everything we do on the web and on our mobile devices is being logged and stored somewhere. We must be careful not to forget about the importance of privacy, secure communication and the ever present threat of what could happen if our data fell into the wrong hands.

My Writing Problem

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.
- Ernest Hemingway

I have so much to say. So many things that I would like to weigh in on. Whenever I get the urge to blog, I map out the post in my head. I start writing the blog post and then after writing for quite a while, I save the post as a draft and never get around to publishing it.

The problem I have is one of “insecurity”, for lack of a better word. In most of my posts I strive to get a point of view across. However once I near the end, I start to attack my own post from the point of view of someone with a differing opinion. I then try and close all the gaps in the post in order to prevent someone from counter arguing or arguing with semantics. It becomes too tiring and eventually I give up on the post.

Nokia’s Last Great Phone

Instead of providing some great back story explaining how dominant Nokia used to be before Apple launched its iPhone, and other handset manufacturers started using the Android operating system on their devices, I am going to jump straight into it. Nokia has not been able to produce a phone that is greater than the Nokia N95 8GB they launched in 2007.

I remember when I bought my Nokia N95 8GB. I can compare the feeling to when I got my first iPhone. In fact, it took me a while to switch from my N95 to my iPhone. I really wasn’t sure about the whole touch screen interface and everything on my N95 just worked. It had a better camera, it worked as my 3G modem, it had apps I used often, and it also just felt right. I can’t explain it, but I was emotionally attached to this device because it was just brilliant.

On Doubt and Optimism for Entrepreneurs

When I was a 35 year old CEO, I knew everything. Now I’m a 58 year old CEO and there’s rafts of things I don’t know.
- Howard Diamond

If you have attended an event where entrepreneurs are bound to be lurking, you will undoubtedly notice they are the most optimistic people ever. It’s their job to be right? They have to exude confidence in what they are doing because they are always selling, even when they aren’t.

However what you probably might not know and rarely see are the moments when the most confident and even the most successful entrepreneurs doubt themselves. The reason you don’t see it often is because they are masters at hiding it. In fact, I doubt myself quite often but you wouldn’t notice it because I never show it. I’ll explain in moment how I deal with doubt and uncertainty.

2 of 6
123456