On Making Meaning In Your Company: A Reflection On The Words of Guy Kawasaki

Mr. Guy Kawasaki’s video on making meaning in one’s company is our assignment. It is for this purpose that I am writing this reflection. Before I start, let me give some info on Mr. Guy Kawasaki.

Kawasaki, who is Japanese-American, was born in Honolulu in Hawaii on August 30, 1954. He is known as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, a Technology Evangelist, best-selling author and an Apple Fellow.

He got a job in Apple Computers through a roommate when he was studying in Stanford University (Mike Boich). He became the company’s technology evangelist until he decided to leave Apple and start his own company. In 1987, he was hired to lead ACIUS, the US subsidiary of ACI, which published the popular Apple database software system called 4th Dimension. He left ACIUS in 1989 to further pursue his writing and speaking career.

He relates his experiences in this video, especially his ideas on making meaning in one’s company. He shared his three ways of making meaning: (1) Increase the quality of life; (2) Right a wrong; and (3) Prevent the end of something good. Aside from that, he said that the motivation of the companies that he founded is not about making money but making meaning. It’s because he has a (naïve according to him) belief that if you make meaning, you probably make money and not the other way around because if you prioritize making money than making the meaning, then the company will not succeed and you will not be making money.

When he was still in Apple, Mr. Kawasaki believed in his boss Steve Jobs’ vision of changing the world and increasing the quality of life through the various gadgets that Apple has invented and promoted over the years and he is still doing that even though he’s out of Apple now. We all know that Apple Computers has invented many gadgets that made the lives of people around the world more comfortable and easy. It was all part of the vision of Steve Jobs, and Mr. Kawasaki himself has helped in the realization of that vision by being the technology evangelist of the company.

The second point that he shared is to right a wrong. What he means is that whenever there is something wrong or even notice if there is something wrong, then you have to find a way to fix it. This is applied to particularly every aspect of our lives, may it be personal, business-related, relationship-related, environment-related or any other thing. In my whole life, I have tried to right every wrong I make, and I was successful in dealing with some and failed in others. Aside from personal, this can also be applied in business, especially among aspiring technopreneurs and those who are really successful. Even the best of the best make mistakes, but they never back down and instead find every way to fix those wrongs they have done. In short, they do not let those mistakes slow them down but instead take them as lessons in righting every wrong. Also, this can be applied in relationships. If a man or a woman made a mistake and wronged his/her partner, he/she will try to right the wrong done and make the relationship work like before. Aside from those mentioned, this can be applied to the environment. Nowadays, Mother Nature has been facing many problems and it’s because of us. We technopreneurs can help the environment by righting the wrongs done by our fellowmen. How do we do this? We design and build gadgets that are environment-friendly and also design new technologies that will benefit instead of harm the environment. There are many other things in which this particular point is applied, and there are too many of them to mention here.

The third point he emphasized is preventing the end of something good. If you have made something wonderful or very good then you can’t stand it being ruined. It’s just like creating something and maintaining it afterwards. The easy step is the designing, planning and the implementation. The hard step is the maintenance because it requires your utmost attention. This can also be related to business. If you have a company and you have seen it doing well, then you will do everything to maintain it that way, because you know you did something great and profitable and you don’t want to lose it. It can also be applied to our personal lives. When we know within ourselves that we are doing very well in our life journey, then our responsibility is to keep it that way and never let the good decline. Instead of just preventing the end of the good, it’s time to make it the beginning of the better. This can also be applied to our relationships with other people, which is a crucial part of our being technopreneurs. Our relationship with other people can determine if we are a capable leader. If we have good relationships with other people, then we will earn their trust and their loyalty, and it’s our responsibility to do good things in order to maintain that trust.

The last thing he said is that “If you haven’t got one of those motivations yet, you better re-think what you’re doing because these things are the key to start an organization.” He believes that an entrepreneur/technopreneur must have one of those motivations that he stated because they have been proven to be a factor in successful business ventures, especially when those business ventures are beneficial to the people and to the world that we live in. He has experienced them all and therefore he is sharing it with the world so that every aspiring technopreneur/entrepreneur will be able to find success through the three motivations he shared.

To me, Mr. Guy Kawasaki is one of the role models that every aspiring technopreneur/entrepreneur should follow because everything that he shared can be applied to every aspect of our lives because they are proven and true.

A Technopreneur's Mindset

In the course of our life, we are used to the usual mindset: go to school, get good grades and land in a high-paying job. Most students of our generation (and even the past generation) are doing that. They study, learn, and graduate just to look for jobs. In short, they study and graduate just to be mere employees, mostly brought by their desire to help their respective families. The sad truth is that these graduates often migrate to other parts of the country or even go abroad just to work and earn money. They are not helping our own country in its development but instead they are helping the other countries develop. Also, some help in the development of cities in other parts of the country, and not their hometowns.

Some of us only want to go to school just to get good grades and graduate. Well, I have this question: what is the use of having good grades? There are many ways to get good grades and the hardest part of it is to study and persevere. Most students nowadays cheat their way to good grades, and because of it, they have not learned anything. I believe that you need learnings, not good grades; because numbers do not equal learnings, and what you have learned in school is very useful if you are to survive in the real world. Getting good grades through cheating will only get you nowhere, because you did not work hard for it and so did not deserve it.  It’s just like our faith in God: without works, our faith is dead. It simply means that we have to not only aim for it but also we have to work for it.

Yet I still believe that good grades are a necessity, although I know it does not guarantee if you have learned anything or none at all, because mostly they are required. And those students who got good grades through cheating are the ones who get accepted because, obviously, they have good grades. In the long run, they are the ones who will suffer.

But because we are the future technopreneurs, we have learned that there is an alternative mindset: go to school, get good grades and create a company. This is the mindset of technopreneurs. Unlike employees, or people having the usual mindset, we technopreneurs are the ones who initiate and create jobs for people. Unlike employees, who often go to other parts of the country because of good job offers, we want to help our respective hometowns in the development. We have a vision for our respective hometowns, and through our creativity and ingenuity, we will be able to implement many things that will be of help to our hometowns and lead it to prosperity. Not only do we help ourselves, but also our families and the people around us. In fact, many people have been recognized because of this mindset. Their creativity and ingenuity combined with their passion and desire to help people have made them what they are today: SUCCESSFUL.

These entrepreneurs and technopreneurs are the ones who apply the concept of job creation. The concept of job creation is always in conjunction with the SEED Curriculum which can also be applied in our own lives.

S means SELF-MASTERY. We have to know ourselves first. In this way, we would be able to know what we want and do not want, what we need and what we do not need, our own perspective in life, our own personality, and our strengths and weaknesses. In this manner, we would be able to use our strengths fully and develop our greatest weakness. I learned this quote from one of my favorite video games: “take your greatest weakness and turn it into your greatest strength.”

The first E means Environment Mastery. For entrepreneurs and technopreneurs, we have to be aware of the latest trends in technology, and because of that we ought to have a keen eye on what is going on around. We have to be able to also sense and grasp opportunities whenever they come, because opportunities are limitless. The only thing we need to do is take the chance and grasp it. By combining these skills altogether, we will be able to generate excellent business ideas.

The second E means Enterprise Mastery. Every technopreneur must know how to run a business, because through business we earn our living. Because of this, we have to learn about the different business principles and disciplines. Technopreneurs and entrepreneurs are good in running businesses, and combined with their ingenuity and creativity, they are able to expand their businesses to the outlying cities across the country and even across the globe!

I would like to quote these wonderful business principles by Neil Patel from the website quicksprout.com:

Principle #1: Take fewer risks as you get older

When you are young, you should be doubling down because you don’t have much to lose. If you are in your early 20s or 30s, you probably don’t have as many commitments compared to people in their 40s or 50s.

If you are in your late teens or early 20s, you can probably live with your parents, avoid bills and focus on going to school/building a business. During this period in your life you should be placing as many bets as possible and doubling down when you see fit.

And when you get older, you have more financial responsibilities, such as a family to support and a mortgage payment. So, you shouldn’t make as many risky bets because if things go south, it will affect more than just your life.

Principle #2: Never lose your investors money

Have you ever heard of Warren Buffett’s two main rules? Well if you haven’t, here they are:

1.)   Never lose money

2.)   Never forget rule one

I can’t say that I have followed Warren’s rules to the tee because I have lost money and the chances you will too. So I modified his rule because I am a big believer in never losing other people’s money.

Whether it is your family’s money, or investors, you just don’t want to lose other people’s money. And if you do, figure out a way to repay them because if you take care of your investors they will always take care of you.

Principle #3: Spend 10% of your day thinking about new ways to make money

You don’t have to do this during working hours, but you should focus a portion of your day thinking about ways to make more money. Doing this everyday will help you come up with creative money generating ideas.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you should look to start a new business, but instead look for new ways to grow your company’s revenue. Think outside the box, look for new marketing trends or waves you can ride.

And once you find these waves to ride, be the first to leverage them. Once a channel gets saturated, it becomes very difficult to leverage.

Principle #4: Over communicate

The one thing that I love doing is over communicating. Whether it is with investors, customers, co-workers, or business partners, you have to over communicate.

I have co-founded a handful of companies and every time my revenues decline it’s usually because of communication issues. You can avoid this mistake if you:

Listen carefully – before you communicate you need to understand what the other party is asking for.

Communicate regularly – come up with a regular schedule that way people know you care about them.

Be clear and concise – what makes sense to you may not make sense to others. Make sure you are descriptive.

Stop whining – use facts when communicating. Complaining or putting blame on other parties never helps.

It will take a while for you to sharpen up your communication skills, so if you are interested in speeding up the process you may want to read some of these articles.

Principle #5: Never burn bridges

It’s just a matter of time before someone screws you over. It happens to all of us and the shitty thing about it is that the other party usually doesn’t think that they are screwing you over.

But instead of getting upset, talking trash, and burning your relationship, you should just let things go. You never know when that person can come in handy and who knows they may realize what they did is wrong.

I’ve been burned a ton of times and once it even cost me a million dollars. But there were other times in which the people who burned me apologized, and made me a decent amount of money later on in life.

Principle #6: Spend 10% of your day networking

I’m a big believer that you don’t have to be great at what you do to make money. You just have to be well connected. Going to local networking events, blogging, and even participating on social web are good ways to network.

If you don’t think networking is important, just look iCrossing. iCrossing is a marketing agency that sucks at marketing, so much that they don’t have the best reputation in the Internet marketing world. But the people within the firm are so well networked that they were able to bring in millions of dollars in revenue and ended up selling the company to Hearst for $325 million.

Principle #7: Never bail on business partners or investors

For some reason it is considered “ok” to leave a company you founded. And to make it worse, many of these entrepreneurs who are leaving took on millions of dollars of investment from venture capitalists.

I don’t give a shit if you hate what you are doing, but you never leave a team member or investor stranded. If your company is making millions of dollars in profit and your co-founder/investors feel that you are not needed to keep on growing the business, then that’s fine, you can leave.

But if that’s not the case, you better stick it out with your investors and co-founders.

Wonderful, aren’t they? Very practical. I just hope technopreneurs like us have to live by these business principles. I know because as the author has experienced, he has been living up to these very principles that he has mentioned in his blog article, and because of that he is successful. His key to having successful business ventures is COMMUNICATION. We technopreneurs and entrepreneurs are also good communicators, and we used it to our advantage when dealing with investors, potential business partners and even our own employees.

The last one is the Development of the business plan itself. Developing our business plans may be a daunting challenge to most people but to us technopreneurs, it is life-changing. Why? Most business plans come from original ideas of most entrepreneurs and technopreneurs. What they did is they developed their ideas more, coming up with lots of really good business plans. Because of those wonderful business plans, they have reached the top and are recognized not only in our country but also around the world. All we technopreneurs need is an idea and a vision. Some of us may follow in the footsteps of well-known technopreneurs like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, who are great technopreneurs that have great ideas and visions. Some may have their own ways and become successful in their own right.

Each business plan has three main components: (1) the goals; (2) the reasons why they are attainable; and (3) the plans for reaching those goals. There is no fixed content for a business plan, as long as it contains these three important components.

With this SEED curriculum, future technopreneurs will be able to start their own businesses. They would be able to know the trends of today and be able to generate business plans based on those trends. 

The only thing that these technopreneurs and entrepreneurs need is an idea. All they need to do is to develop it more. The result: SUCCESS.

  

Source: 7 Business Principles You Have To Follow, by Neil Patel (http://www.quicksprout.com/2010/08/05/7-business-principles-that-you-have-to-follow)

Technopreneurship Assignment II - My Reflections on the Movie "3 Idiots"

3 Idiots is one of my favorite movies because of the story of friendship, college life, struggles, and the everyday lives and activities of professors and students in that particular setting. Being a college student myself, I was able to relate to the story. There are many funny scenes in the movie but the one that stood out for me is the Teachers’ Day Speech, which made me laugh non-stop.  

The story comes to life through the different characters whose lives in that college we experience and relate ourselves to.

There are three characters in this particular movie that captured my attention. They are Ranchhoddas Shyamaldas Chanchad (Rancho, whose name is really Phunsukh Wangdu; played by Aamir Khan), Farhan Qureshi (played by R. Madhavan) and Raju Rastogi (played by Sharman Joshi).  These three friends are the “three idiots”.

There are also characters in the film that gave the story its share of spices. Dr. Viru “Virus” Sahastrabuddhe (played by Boman Irani), the Dean of the Imperial College of Engineering who is so full of himself, doesn’t accept defeat and doesn’t want anyone to be ahead of him, constantly tries to break the friendship of the three titular characters apart. Chatur Ramalingam (played by Los Angeles-based Indian actor Omi Vaidya) is a fellow student who values rote learning and mindless memorization above applying and understanding the concepts, and who gave the most outrageous speech in the Teachers’ Day Celebration (I laughed really hard at the thought of someone giving a speech without even understanding what each word meant, never realizing that it was altered). Pia Sahastrabuddhe (played by Kareena Kapoor), the beautiful daughter of Virus, is Rancho’s love interest and joins Farhan, Chatur and Raju in their search for Rancho. Joy Lobo (played by Ali Fazal) is the student who committed suicide because Virus did not accept his project.

In the film, the three friends (more known to us as the “three idiots”) are among the students struggling in the Imperial College of Engineering in India. Farhan Qureshi, an aspiring wildlife photographer, was forced to take up engineering against his own will because his father (played by Parikshit Sahni) wanted him to become an engineer. He is an example of the children who are forced to follow their parent’s wishes instead of them choosing the path they want to take in life. I cannot deny that there are parents like that, and I know that the intention of these parents is good (mostly because the parents wanted to preserve the legacy, which sometimes happens in the families of prominent and well-known people), but forcing your children to become what you want them to be and never asking your children what they want to be are the doings of control-freak parents who are totally obsessed with preserving their legacy. This puts undue pressure on their children, and I’m sure Farhan feels the same. But with the help of his dear friend Rancho (he advised Farhan to “speak from the heart”) he is able to convince his father to let him pursue his passion for photography. I hope every child will have the courage and the heart to speak to their parents and convince them that they have their own life, they are meant for greater things, and they will succeed if the parents will allow them to pursue their dreams and ambitions. Farhan told his father that if he allows him to pursue his passion for wildlife photography, he will do it out of his genuine love for his parents.

Raju Rastogi, who is very poor, studied engineering in order to land a high-paying job and get his family out of poverty. Raju is one of those students studying hard just to have a job and provide for the family. I must admit that there are a lot of poor people here in our country and I have been witness to that. Parents have no jobs, children cannot go to school due to lack of money, children laboring and toiling under the heat of the sun just to earn something, even if it means putting their own dignity and their lives in real danger…that’s just too depressing to think about. Raju is also fearful of the future because his family had hoped that he would end their poverty, and entering a college where the students are in a frantic race to get good grades and land jobs only served to intensify his fear.

But what’s amazing about Raju is his loyalty to his friends, and his determination to do everything for them. In fact, when faced with the choice that either he or Rancho will be rusticated by Virus, he chose to jump from the window of Virus’s office. Just thinking about it makes me wonder if I will really go that far just to protect my loved ones and friends. Another quality that made me admire him more is his frankness which manifested when he was interviewed, which in turn led him to be hired for a job on the spot.

Rancho, or Phunsukh Wangdu, is the intelligent idiot. Why? He loves to learn, he doesn’t care if he is first or last, he is daring, he is willing to face every challenge in life, he is fearless, and all the qualities of a successful individual are all in him. In short, he is a talented individual who goes to college solely because he loves to learn. Even though he was sneered at by his professors, he managed to earn the respect of Farhan, Raju, Millimeter and eventually Virus and Chatur. His belief: “Chase excellence and success will follow you.” And he was proven right. His beliefs contributed to his being a successful scientist, with over 400 patents and being in demand even by the Japanese. Chatur, the antagonist, is obsessed with defeating Rancho through his usually unscrupulous methods, thinking that he will be able to surpass Rancho. Chatur is trying to catch a deal with someone named Phunsukh Wangdu, but upon knowing that Rancho is Phunsukh Wangdu, he realizes that he is already defeated. Rancho symbolizes the successful individuals of our society. Every successful individual is willing to take risks, face challenges, and all because of their desire to excel in their fields. He doesn’t care what others would say, he doesn’t care how people will look at him, he doesn’t care if he will be first or last; all he cares about is to study, learn and excel in Engineering. In a college where everyone only cared about degrees and how to land jobs, he stood out because he was different from the other students. In Farhan’s words, “it [degrees] did not matter to him”. In fact, when Farhan, Raju, Pia and Chatur found Rancho’s school in Ladakh, they were amazed at the gadgets and technologies being invented and used there, and they said that only Rancho could build a school like this because they know of his ingenuity and his passion for machines.

These three friends displayed the power of their friendship in various scenes of the film. This proves that no matter what various attempts other people will do just to break the bond between these three friends, the bond remains strong and unbreakable. This also proves that no man is an island and cannot work without friends, because if the three had not helped each other and instead went their own ways while studying in college, they would not have graduated together (except for Farhan, who quit Engineering to pursue his passion for photography after his father finally allowed him).

The film is also imbued with great lessons, mostly coming from the intelligent idiot Rancho. As I said before, he believes that you have to strive for excellence and success will follow you. That is very true.  Rancho believes that being able to excel is more important that degrees. What’s the use of such degrees if you haven’t learned anything when you’re in college? That degree is only a piece of paper; learnings remain with us until we die. Rancho has also taught me to make my passion my profession. If you chose a profession that is not in line with your passion, in the long run it will only become a boring routine. On the other hand, if you chose a profession that is in line with your passion, you will not only succeed but you will also enjoy what you’re doing and learn a lot more. And the most important quote for me: “I wasn't teaching you engineering, that you know better than me. I was teaching you how to teach.”  Teachers in some colleges more often than not placed undue importance to memorizing textbook definitions, not appreciating those who apply those definitions and those who are critical thinkers. What’s the use of memorizing without understanding?

The world nowadays needs critical thinkers like Rancho, not those who mindlessly memorize like Chatur. Colleges that support this kind of learning are not anymore considered schools but factories, and the students are more like robots than humans.

Some teachers even bore their students to death, humiliate them if they did something wrong, and even hurt them physically, never considering the effect it would have on their life and studies.  

The most important lesson I learned in the film: “Make your passion your profession.” My passion right now is computers, and by taking up Information Technology I will be able to learn more about computers, so that when I graduate, I will be able to apply what I learned in the classroom to real-life situations involving computers. Pursuing your passions is one of the key factors to success, not getting rich and owning expensive material things, for money never equal success because money is only the by-product of it.

Farhan, through the relentless pursuit of his passion despite the disapproval of his father has taught me that no matter others would say, if I’m happy with it then I must pursue it. Raju, on the other hand, taught me that poverty is not a hindrance to education.