This morning was very productive in many ways!
As I worked my way through a critical step of my main project in the office, some thoughts I had been following for the past weeks finally fell in place. Now I can formalize a few ideas for new business that arise, mostly, from discussions with friends and colleagues , based on topics from the "4-hour work week" best selling book by Tim Ferris.
1. price minister online shop :
as I realized last time I shopped online, there are more and more entrepreneurs opening shop on PriceMinister, eBay, and other "P2P" online trading platforms. In France, this has become increasingly easy thanks to a new administrative status introduced in 2009.
The idea, if you follow Tim Ferris' advice, is to keep yourself out of the picture: setp up the shop, but make sure that customers orders are sent directly to your contractor, which will in turn manage by itself production and delivery of the goods, BUT ALSO after-sales service. Or find a thirf party to do it. After all, if such opportunities are available nowadays, why would you want to spend hours and hours answering customer emails when a specialist can take care of it for minimal fees?
2. diversity agent
A friend sent me a link to a very interesting blog on "social spelunking" (sorry French people, it's hard to find a translation for that....)
On this post about women in technology & tech conferences, the author explains that the majority of web users are female in North America, and that the largest population on the Web is Asian.
So?
So, it means that for companies such as Mindvalley, and of course plenty others, their activity of online marketing and advertising strategies would benefit from identifying those trends as soon and as precisely as possible.
I am confident there is still today a market for this kind of activity: as traditional advertisement becomes less effective, creative companies are in need of hard facts to identify the trends they want to surf.
Alright, that's all for today folks. Reactions welcome.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
A good day for business, bad day for me
Here are a couple of business/non-profit project ideas that I had in the past week,but that are already taken:
- a website for happiness : behappy.fr or something like that...
the idea would be like a blog, or a twitter, and everyday I would give a hint on how to be happy, how to engage in activities that foster the factors of happiness.
Mostly based on the How to be happy wiki, except the points that I dont agree with. it would link everyday to a different topic, like www.vie-de-reve.com, www.dreaminder.com, etc.
- a website for energy audit for companies: the aim is to provide an online tool for companies to be able to assess their energy consumption by themselves, to identify the main sources of energy consumption, and to provide some guidelines for reduction of carbon footprint.
Then on top of that, I was thinking of building a "freemium" model, i.e. Free + Premium, where one can sell consulting and expertise about energy audit, training for CSR/SD (corporate social responsaibility & sustainable development responsible in companies, etc. One name I had thought about was "Elec'onome".... and it's already taken! by the syndicate responsible for the local distribution of electricity in France.
well... more to follow, soon. I need to get ahead of the trend, now I 'm just having ideas that someone already had before!
- a website for happiness : behappy.fr or something like that...
the idea would be like a blog, or a twitter, and everyday I would give a hint on how to be happy, how to engage in activities that foster the factors of happiness.
Mostly based on the How to be happy wiki, except the points that I dont agree with. it would link everyday to a different topic, like www.vie-de-reve.com, www.dreaminder.com, etc.
- a website for energy audit for companies: the aim is to provide an online tool for companies to be able to assess their energy consumption by themselves, to identify the main sources of energy consumption, and to provide some guidelines for reduction of carbon footprint.
Then on top of that, I was thinking of building a "freemium" model, i.e. Free + Premium, where one can sell consulting and expertise about energy audit, training for CSR/SD (corporate social responsaibility & sustainable development responsible in companies, etc. One name I had thought about was "Elec'onome".... and it's already taken! by the syndicate responsible for the local distribution of electricity in France.
well... more to follow, soon. I need to get ahead of the trend, now I 'm just having ideas that someone already had before!
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Keep Walking in 2010
First : I wish all of you readers, and your relatives & friends, a very happy new year 2010.
Now. Digging up what I had or hadn't posted for last year's season greetings, I ended up cross-checking the objective(s) of tyhis blog, detailed in my very first post : The ambition of leadership.
Quoting myself (I know, very unpolite!): "Let's try to find out more about [...] what it means to be human. Here as in many other situations, the final destination - ultimate knowledge - is not as interesting as the path towards it."
What do I mean by "keep walking"? Mostly 3 things:
1. keep going towards what you like and enjoy most
2. keep paying attention to how you are maturing, what you are learning
3. adjust your direction accordingly (back to 1)
What is there in 2010 for me?
1. I keep looking towards the renewable energy sector, learning more facts, techniques, business stakes
2. I have my personal plan for the " coming years, with deadlines & checks regularly spread out
3. I still read a lot and enjoy it, which helps me to look at my choices critically as I go.
There are tons and tons of things I would like to do, but at the moment I am rather trying to simplify my life around priorities, therefore I am doing less things, and more of them.
As usual, I will try to post some of my initiatives or business ideas around these pages.
In the meantime, why don't you try the exercise for yourself:
What is there in 2010 for you?
Keep walking, I hope your footsteps bring you back here from time to time.
Once again: i wish you a VERY HAPPY 2010.
Now. Digging up what I had or hadn't posted for last year's season greetings, I ended up cross-checking the objective(s) of tyhis blog, detailed in my very first post : The ambition of leadership.
Quoting myself (I know, very unpolite!): "Let's try to find out more about [...] what it means to be human. Here as in many other situations, the final destination - ultimate knowledge - is not as interesting as the path towards it."
What do I mean by "keep walking"? Mostly 3 things:
1. keep going towards what you like and enjoy most
2. keep paying attention to how you are maturing, what you are learning
3. adjust your direction accordingly (back to 1)
What is there in 2010 for me?
1. I keep looking towards the renewable energy sector, learning more facts, techniques, business stakes
2. I have my personal plan for the " coming years, with deadlines & checks regularly spread out
3. I still read a lot and enjoy it, which helps me to look at my choices critically as I go.
There are tons and tons of things I would like to do, but at the moment I am rather trying to simplify my life around priorities, therefore I am doing less things, and more of them.
As usual, I will try to post some of my initiatives or business ideas around these pages.
In the meantime, why don't you try the exercise for yourself:
What is there in 2010 for you?
Keep walking, I hope your footsteps bring you back here from time to time.
Once again: i wish you a VERY HAPPY 2010.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Simply simplify
Three months or so ago, I sat with a friend for six hours, writing down my personal goals for the next 3 to 5 years.
Two weeks after that, I sat down again, on my onw, to finalize what we had started and detail my goals into specific, timely actions. (yup, that's also something I learned from Aiesec)
One month after I had completed my action plan, I realized that I was not tracking my actions. I could not know if I was living my life according to my own priorities or not. So I started tracking.
Two weeks of tracking later, I realized that I needed to update my action plan, in order to incorporate a gross estimate of the time I was spending on my priorities: was I getting enough time to sleep, to read books or watch a movie, to spend time with friends; was I getting enough time to work?
Now, after one month of detailed tracking, I realize that it is very hard to keep within the limits I set to myself. To grant each of my personal priorities (including work) the right amount of time in order to achieve my goals. Because there is always a temptation, either a project that I want to study more in detail at work or some procrastination opportunity at home.
My daily life is getting in the way of my personal goal.
Recently, through a couple of well-meant links and thought-sharing from a great friend, I came accross an interesting idea: simplify.
The first link I surfed was http://zenhabits.net/. It is a perfect starting place for pragmatic, long-term thinking about how to implement your long-term plans, your life dreams, your great-idea-that-you-just-never-get-to-start. It has a lot of content revolving around personal organization, without being pushy or arbitrary.
From then, I discovered http://mnmlist.com/ . It is about minimalism. You had guess, had you not? ;)
There is a lot of truth and evidence in the posts on that blog, but it takes a lot of change to go from mass-consumption to life-streamlining to minimalist-living. That guy has gone very far, and he is keeping his own possessions under 100 items (or keeping blog posts under a certain number of words ;) ...), and having a lot of upper-limit numbers to a lot of things. I have not been that far, but I took some ideas already, that I mention further in this post. If you want to know where your life stands today, as regards simplicity, try any post from the top #20 posts. I would be surprised if there is not a single idea that you can start using today already.
In the past 2 weeks, I have undertaken three significant actions:
1. I have tidy-ed and cleaned up my bedroom. That involved a lot of thinigs going OUT of it; some to the trash, some to other places in the house. Not necessarily the best way, but at least it is out of my room. I have simplified my library, not the only books featured on my shelves actually reflect pretty well py personality! (there is philosophy, economics, Aiesec, comics & mangas, EU policy drafts and the UN charter...)
Consequence: The moment I was done, I could feel my mental space expanding, all the mind clutter stress flying away. It feels good, and healthy, to be in an environment that has nothing un-necessary on the floor, or getting in the way of your movement. Also, I felt more "at home": the room felt more like my place than it had ever before.
2. I have reduced my use of mobile phone: in transportations, considering that the mobile signal is poor in the subway, I got to reduce my exposure to electromagnetism (I am not debating whether it is dangerous or not). I think that I should be able to have my mobile 'off' at some point of the day. So it is that time: commuting to and from the office.
Consequence: I use that time to read a book, or close my eyes and think about a situation, a time of the day that I want to understand better. During my 8-day experiment, I did not read or think about anything, I was just looking at people, all the other passengers, and I found it can be quite boring ! So I figured reading is a good way to use that commute time.
3. I applied to myself the minimalist desktop; one from mnmlist that can be found here. I did that on both my office laptop, and my personal netbook. My pro laptop actually has exactly the same image as the minimalist guy, with the same quote, and I used a more personal photo for my netook.
Consequence: Here, only positive aspects. I never use desktop icons anyways, so not having them displayes suits me fine. I managed to remove even the "trash can" from windows desktop, ask me in a comment if you wanna know how ;) and I have all the essential shortcuts in the "quick launch" area of my auto-hide taskbar.
Closing words for today : Simplifying your life is not easy. One quote goes: "I did not have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead".
But simplify is simple, in the sense that you have it in you. It starts with your will to simplify and get rid of things. And it is not absolute, it is mostly iterative: you go over those things, thinking you need them, at some point you will realize that you never read that book or never wear those socks.
As always, ideas and comments welcome.
Two weeks after that, I sat down again, on my onw, to finalize what we had started and detail my goals into specific, timely actions. (yup, that's also something I learned from Aiesec)
One month after I had completed my action plan, I realized that I was not tracking my actions. I could not know if I was living my life according to my own priorities or not. So I started tracking.
Two weeks of tracking later, I realized that I needed to update my action plan, in order to incorporate a gross estimate of the time I was spending on my priorities: was I getting enough time to sleep, to read books or watch a movie, to spend time with friends; was I getting enough time to work?
Now, after one month of detailed tracking, I realize that it is very hard to keep within the limits I set to myself. To grant each of my personal priorities (including work) the right amount of time in order to achieve my goals. Because there is always a temptation, either a project that I want to study more in detail at work or some procrastination opportunity at home.
My daily life is getting in the way of my personal goal.
Recently, through a couple of well-meant links and thought-sharing from a great friend, I came accross an interesting idea: simplify.
The first link I surfed was http://zenhabits.net/. It is a perfect starting place for pragmatic, long-term thinking about how to implement your long-term plans, your life dreams, your great-idea-that-you-just-never-get-to-start. It has a lot of content revolving around personal organization, without being pushy or arbitrary.
From then, I discovered http://mnmlist.com/ . It is about minimalism. You had guess, had you not? ;)
There is a lot of truth and evidence in the posts on that blog, but it takes a lot of change to go from mass-consumption to life-streamlining to minimalist-living. That guy has gone very far, and he is keeping his own possessions under 100 items (or keeping blog posts under a certain number of words ;) ...), and having a lot of upper-limit numbers to a lot of things. I have not been that far, but I took some ideas already, that I mention further in this post. If you want to know where your life stands today, as regards simplicity, try any post from the top #20 posts. I would be surprised if there is not a single idea that you can start using today already.
In the past 2 weeks, I have undertaken three significant actions:
1. I have tidy-ed and cleaned up my bedroom. That involved a lot of thinigs going OUT of it; some to the trash, some to other places in the house. Not necessarily the best way, but at least it is out of my room. I have simplified my library, not the only books featured on my shelves actually reflect pretty well py personality! (there is philosophy, economics, Aiesec, comics & mangas, EU policy drafts and the UN charter...)
Consequence: The moment I was done, I could feel my mental space expanding, all the mind clutter stress flying away. It feels good, and healthy, to be in an environment that has nothing un-necessary on the floor, or getting in the way of your movement. Also, I felt more "at home": the room felt more like my place than it had ever before.
2. I have reduced my use of mobile phone: in transportations, considering that the mobile signal is poor in the subway, I got to reduce my exposure to electromagnetism (I am not debating whether it is dangerous or not). I think that I should be able to have my mobile 'off' at some point of the day. So it is that time: commuting to and from the office.
Consequence: I use that time to read a book, or close my eyes and think about a situation, a time of the day that I want to understand better. During my 8-day experiment, I did not read or think about anything, I was just looking at people, all the other passengers, and I found it can be quite boring ! So I figured reading is a good way to use that commute time.
3. I applied to myself the minimalist desktop; one from mnmlist that can be found here. I did that on both my office laptop, and my personal netbook. My pro laptop actually has exactly the same image as the minimalist guy, with the same quote, and I used a more personal photo for my netook.
Consequence: Here, only positive aspects. I never use desktop icons anyways, so not having them displayes suits me fine. I managed to remove even the "trash can" from windows desktop, ask me in a comment if you wanna know how ;) and I have all the essential shortcuts in the "quick launch" area of my auto-hide taskbar.
Closing words for today : Simplifying your life is not easy. One quote goes: "I did not have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead".
But simplify is simple, in the sense that you have it in you. It starts with your will to simplify and get rid of things. And it is not absolute, it is mostly iterative: you go over those things, thinking you need them, at some point you will realize that you never read that book or never wear those socks.
As always, ideas and comments welcome.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Trying to post pictures from my mobile!
Envoyé à partir d'un téléphone mobile Sony Ericsson G705u
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)