Category Archives: Work and Business

The Great Non-American Dream

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Posted by Lloyd Morgan on March 12, 2007 – 1:58 pm
Filed under Sci/Tech, Work and Business

Jon Lech Johansen is a self-taught software engineer who quit high school after one year to work on a personal project: DeCSS. DeCSS is a program used to decode the content-scrambling system on DVDs which was designed to enforce licensing but inadvertently prevented DVDs from being played on open-source operating systems. DeCSS was released late in 1999, and a few months later Jon was arrested and prosecuted by the Norwegian Crime Unit, the Motion Picture Association of America and the US DVD Copy Control Association. He was 17 and faced two years in prison on hacking charges.

Three years later and three days before Christmas 2003, Jon was acquitted for the second time after releasing a number of other controversial programs. Another three years later and Jon, at 24, has been placed 19th in PC World’s article: The 50 Most Important People on the Web.

This is an impressive and overwhelming article listing everyone from venture capitalists and investors to bloggers, gamers and even a MySpace ‘personality’. Four of the top five on this list are under 35 and the youngest on this list - Matt Mullenweg - is only 68 days older than me. He created Wordpress - the blogging format used by millions (including me) - and the anti-spam system ‘Akismet’ used by even more. His company Automattic has five employees, one of which is Toni Schneider… an ex senior Yahoo! executive.

What does this list teach us and what can we learn from it? That the Internet is the only way forward for entrepreneurs aiming for success; or that if you want success on the Internet you have to be young, intelligent and gifted? Not in the slightest. It’s telling us, in no uncertain terms, that the Great American Dream is over - the Great Dream is now available to every single person, the world over.

There is success and fame to be found in ‘real-life’ offline businesses, by entrepreneurs that aren’t even born yet; there are riches to be made for countless young technophiles using technologies still to be invented and there will be a whole new wave of Internet opportunities when Web 2.1 (3.0?) is unveiled sometime in the future. All this list illustrates is that if you’ve got an idea, it’s now easier than ever to realise your dream.

Doing What You Love… Again!

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Posted by Lloyd Morgan on February 20, 2007 – 1:15 pm
Filed under Work and Business

Just over a month ago I wrote regarding New Year’s Resolutions and specifically about living your passions.

I referenced Steve Jobs’ Stanford commencement speech and Steve Pavlina’s 10th business lesson which, at least in part, promote working towards making a business out of a personal passion. The same goes for employees: if you wouldn’t do what you’re doing now if you didn’t get paid, you need a new job.

Now it seems Donald Trump is getting in on the action - here’s an excerpt from a recent interview by Guy Kawasaki:

Guy Kawasaki: TV is TV, real life is real life: What’s the most important real-life advice you can give to an entrepreneur?
Donald Trump: You have to love what you do. Without passion, great success is hard to come by. An entrepreneur will have tough times if he or she isn’t passionate about what they’re doing. People who love what they’re doing don’t give up. It’s never even a consideration. It’s a pretty simple formula.

New Day’s Resolutions

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Posted by Lloyd Morgan on January 16, 2007 – 4:20 pm
Filed under Money, Work and Business

New Year’s resolutions and plans are always a talking point throughout January and this year is no exception. Come June (and sometimes even February) however, and these resolutions are a long forgotten idealistic inspiration. 2007 will be different!

After my post detailing some of my goals, Carl commented, writing that one of his goals for 2007 is “to give the same renewing energy to each month, week, or day rather than just once a year.”

In reply to this I was wondering how to go about this - to keep this ‘New Year’ dynamism you must first instigate change or create a system to keep these changes at the forefront of your mind, right? What’s the best method? A reward system?

Carl directed me to the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA - Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech at Stanford, 2005

Then today I read Steve Pavlina’s most recent blog entry: 10 Business Lessons from a Snarky Entrepreneur. At first they seemed totally unrelated but in fact they are not. To quote the 10th business lesson:

Do what you love, but be damned sure it’s profitable.
If you do work you love, but it doesn’t generate income, your business will fail. If you do work you hate, but it generates income, your health will fail… and your business along with it. If you can’t do what you love and make it profitable, you’ve either got a hobby or a headache, not a sustainable business. Don’t settle for anything less than passion and profit.

This, paraphrased and put bluntly, was one of Steve Jobs’ three points in his speech: find what you love and make it a career; passion breeds success and success takes time; don’t settle.

My opinion is slightly different to Steve Pavlina’s though - if you do work you love, but it doesn’t generate income, your business will fail unless you work harder and find a more successful business model. If it truly is work you love, work at it and you will eventually find a way to make it profitable. Don’t settle for an ineffective business model.Have I found my passion? Am I doing work I love? Is my answer to one of the most important questions ‘Yes’: Would you continue your work on a daily basis for free? No I haven’t, and my answer is ‘no’. But I’m young and have plenty of time to find out what this passion is and work towards it.

Wealth, happiness and health may come in time, but if you’ve found your passion you won’t care. Have you found yours?