Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Time Management

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

It’s funny that one always have too little time, no matter what you are doing. A person who works 20 hours a day, wants to have just as much more time as someone who works one hour a day.

I don’t know why 99% of the people I know are time optimists, thus always complain that they have TOO much to do. However, I always want to hug those who does more than these people, and who always have an hour OR MORE to sit down and talk to me about whatever we wish we had more time to discuss.

I have written about Randy Pausch and his book “The Last Lecture” before, and mentioned his reason for being a successful researcher/friend etc. He managed his time.

I just finished watching his “Time Management” presentation [audio] and once again this man blew me away. Some day I’ll get back to what I learned from watching him, but for now, I’ll leave you with this statement, something that I hopefully can live by for years to come.

No matter what you are doing, working on, studying for, and everything that seems to take up a lot of your time remember that there are two persons that you must take time off for in order to do your job as good as you can:

  1. The person who means THE WORLD to you, your best friend, your boy-/girlfriend, family member. No other person can make you regain your strength as much as the one who makes you happy. Your other friends, family members, etc. will still be there in a week/month. Don’t worry!
  2. YOU! You always have time for yourself. Now, this does not mean that you should GIVE yourself an hour of watching TV if you have a report due in two days and it will take every moment of your time to write it. What it means is that you always have,
    • time to sleep,
    • time to eat,
    • time to exercise.

    These are basic needs. Humans NEED to do all of these things to survive. Playing video games, reading funny blogs, and whatever, is not something you NEED to survive. And guess what, that video game is still there after those three days when that report is written. Those funny blogs are still there, and you might even get a couple of extra posts to read.

This is what I learned from watching Randy, and I will come back to him again. And again.

But first, I have a list of things that are more important.

Ted Valentin got a (couple of) thing(s) going on

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

I get inspired – to study harder, read more books, interact with people more different from myself, with another thinking pattern and culture background – every time I come across someone who blows my mind.

People dream. People have ideas. People wish for things to happen. And then there are those who just go for it. They never let these “barriers” (that seems to exist around others) hold them back, but instead they sit down/stand up and create/do/make something.

Ted Valetin is one of these people. I came across him out of pure coincident after searching for blogs with smart, interesting, inspiring content – and there he was. With more then 20 websites on the Internet (18 of these within his map project), and several added soon, this man is becoming an Internet phenomenon underdog.

Maybe underdog is an understatement, but I believe that too many people are underestimating this man’s full potential.

I decided to write about this man two days after he released his site Blogopedia.com. The idea is so simple, yet so f-ing brilliant that there is no need for me explain it. But for those who wants to know, the idea is simple:

Blogipedia collects facts and opinions from blogs.
If a blogger writes that something IS something, for instant “Cheese is good”, then that text will be shown on Blogopedia within a couple of days.
After that can our members tag the text as fact, positive, negative, or neutral.

To see if it works, I have decided to test with a couple of strings.

  1. Ted Valentin är en sann entreprenör.
  2. Ted Valentin är en inspirationskälla.
  3. Johan Olsson är ägaren av State the Obvious, en blogg om kommunikation.
  4. Johan Olsson är född 1982, han gillar att bygga med LEGO, åka berg-och-dalbanor, och spela gitarr.

For more information on Ted Valentin, visit him on www.tedvalentin.com.

When the customer limits your development

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

I did a quick note on the problems of not understanding your customer, or that THEY did not understand the questions you are asking them.

I just received some very interesting information from one of the professors here at BI, C. A. Solberg. This was also mentioned by professor, Eric Olson.

In a recent study done, concerning customer orientations, it might not be a good thing to actually have a two-way communication with your customer.

“It can even be dangerous” to quote on of them.

The reason might be that your customer does not have a single clue of what your are asking them to tell you, because they do not understand the products potential .

They mentioned a technological product, and an IT service.

If you are a producer of a technological product, you should try to have a two-way communication with your potential customers. They can give you important advise on how to develop the product.

However, if you are developing IT software, services etc., studies show that it actually sets you back more, or that by surveying your customer about future development, will set you more back financially than what you would generate from the study. This is because the common people tend not to have knowledge, or an understanding of what can be done. They might say – “Change the banner into red, instead of blue.” Not because that would make it better but because it is the only thing they can think of.

I am looking forward to read this report once I get my hands on it.

Quote #1

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Chance favors the prepared mind

Something my father always says, and now I even read it in one of the most important articles ever written concerning Marketing.

Communicating with Customer

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

I glanced through my notebook just as I was about to o to sleep, and saw a notation I did a few days back. After reading through a couple of times, I decided that I should post it here, who knows, it might strike a chord somewhere.

If you ask a customer what it wants and the customer does not have an answer, that probably mean that:

  • The customer did not understand the question.
  • It has not idea what it can get.

These are two VERY interesting step stones for you as a company.

  1. It gives you a heads up what you are missing in your communication with your customer/clients.
  2. You can start showing what you are capable of.

Start communicating!

First Week

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

First week of school is done. Sunday evening and I am exhausted. With the re-exam in Applied Economics, thousands of new impressions to analyze, and interesting people to talk to and interact with, it is obvious that I have a hard time keeping my eyes open.

As soon as the exam is out of the way, I can catch up on my reading, both school material and volunteer.

You should see the library, books on marketing, branding etc. It’s going to be a great stay here in Oslo

When dreams comes true

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Have you ever have to fight to hold back tears of joy while attending class?
I just did!
For now, New Product Development with Eric Olson might one of the best choices I ever made.

Academic articles

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Three of the courses that I’ll be taking this semester all includes at least 20 newly published articles, that is each!
That’s 40 more articles in one semester, that I have had in 3,5 years at USBE.
I briefly mentioned this to a teacher – I won’t repeat what he said, but it was true.
It’s interesting how things/companies/organizations shows their “colors” and market position by their ability to be open-minded, and how they recruit the best, all of the time.
I wouldn’t say that I’m complaining of what USBE has given me, but I’m affraid that they’ll b easing the wrong direction if they don’t change chains of thought, soon.

Social Media – Dare to be Stupid

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Brand-Man posted an interesting video. Watch it, and feel a bit smaller. This world is spinning faster and faster.

BI Master Courses

Friday, August 14th, 2009

I have been updating Safari on my iPhone all day just to see if I have been accepted to any courses here at BI. At total I asked for take five of them, and today was the day that they were to let us know.

biI got all five courses, which is more than I could have asked for. Add to this that all courses are between Monday to Thursday, and no one crash into the other. Win!

It also looks as if I won’t need to buy more than three books to these five courses, so if I’m lucky, I might have just a tad more money than I first thought.

Also, if I won’t have that much to read, I might just step by the library and borrow as many as I can. Did I mention that they have a HUGE selection of books on branding, marketing, leadership etc.? No? Well, they have!

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