http://www.innovation-works.com/index.asp

青青子衿，悠悠我心。
但为君故，沉吟至今。

From Zen

My ultimate science: the theory of everything:
“The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_reality

My favorite tech: human-machine interaction
“The Singularity Is Near”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_is_Near

From Zen

At least that is the case in the recent US government report.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/20/global.trends.report/index.html

“While conflicts are still most likely to “revolve around trade,
investments, and technological innovation and acquisition,” the report
states that “we cannot rule out a 19th century-like scenario of arms
races, territorial expansion, and military rivalries.”“

So human race has to play this delicate game of trade,
investments, and technological innovation and acquisition reasonably well to last long enough to see the technical breakthrough in energy and environment cures us all, or it will get UGLY.


Great. Can we survive ourselves?

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20020201/23855.html

i just came across this very interesting article about the unique style of Greg Gianforte, a software cowboy .

I didn’t mean the cowboys in the movies. They’re nuts for business. He’s a cowboy like many good old texians I know here: life time fan of DIY, with a reasonable blend of love of the wild and peaceful life. And I believe he had fun in his ride in business just like cowboys in their riding of bulls. I think that is probably the single most important talent.

But according to the article, his most important trick is bootstrapping. It is to save money, and much more. Well I can’t help comparing it to agile software development approach. (And i believe that’s what RightNow guys are practicing in their software development from beginning to the now.) The essence of it, I think, is to always do spiking before fully deploying your resources. The trick is, that, for most startup/software development, the first 10% of work is most risky, since it’s very possible that you’ve stepped into the wrong direction, but it could be the most rewarding if your direction is right, since with very little cost(other than your own HARD WORK) you get a prototype, which probable would provide 50% of the most important features.(It you can’t make it, forget about starting a small business for it.) Now the unsmart move is to throw in considerable amount of cash and other resources in from the very beginning, hoping to get a product that could blow the custermer away after it’s finished. The smart move is to do experiment a little bit with technique possibilities, and then consult customers even before you start working on the prototype, and do “sales as survey” in the prototyping phase if you have enough grasp of it. In a word, to find the short cut from idea to result(sales), bypassing as much risk as possible.

Now I think this “bootstrapping”, “short cut”, “agile approach” is a fundermantal strategy for startups and any kinds of beginner in a risky field: minize the disadvantage of constraint of resources and maximize the advantage of experimenting on a lot of things freely with feedbacks in the process. There is one more point to add, though: experience is very important to carry out this. People have to rely on experience heavily to decide the amount of resources to allocate and how to bypass risk/trouble and get to the destination. But if we also add “agile learning” into this strategy, i believe it would be general enough to be applicable to beginnners at different levels.

What is “agile learning”? just a word i give for a learning strategy that is compatible with “bootstrapping”. Calling customers as salesman to do survey is agile learning in a radical form. I how I put together my inspirations and carry out some a good enough practice to post here, soon.

Came across an interesting book:

Silicon Dragon: How China Is Winning

the Tech Race (Hardcover)

I didn’t read the book. but from the comments, i can see the major examples listed in the book. Most of them happen to be stars of web2.0. Glad to see China’s tech edge is recognized by foreigners, but i have my own doubt on the subject:

1. Unlike U.S., I don’t think those star entrepreneurships are driving a major sector of economy. But, yeah, we may(or have to) be there after a while.

2. By and large the tech ventures in China are still mainly about localization. Well, “learning” from the west. I don’t think the community there is ready for leading things. At least it’s not cost effective.

3. Like most countries, China’s tech community started from a primitive and dirty phase. People want to get out of the mud and establish themselves as soon as possible, and they’re learning from whoever they can. But somehow we’re having problems with learning. For some reasons, rationality is still a rare thing in a lot of cases in China. In the 80s we learnt from japan, and now we learn from America. We have the traits of both, but it seems that we missed the most important part from both sides. A few days ago a Chinese major student talked with me about Chinese car’s big business plan in US, i regret to see the truth end up like this. Automobile industry is a good example. we have neither super technicians (like japanese), nor visionaries(like U.S.)

Chinese values education, and we have a immense amount of human resource. But somehow this growing force is still finding its way in the dark. I’m still waiting for the day it finds its way.

And, the author is looking for the Steve Jobs of China in the book. I think the real tech hero in China would be more like Bruce Lee, and I am yet to see one. And it nowadays it takes a whole community practicing tech-fu, rather than a few stars to push things forward. This is the case everywhere in the world.

I believe the two are honest and to the point when saying the single most important thing they should have learnt from each other. And here I’m going to talk about what Jobs wished he had learnt from Gates: work with others.

O. Maybe you want to stop me right here. Bill Gates working with others? Yeah. this is his working with others in action:

But, what I have to say is, in spite of brutal business strategy, when communicating with others, he’s always ready to give full recognition to other people’s good work, even for Jobs:)

Although known as “verbally combative”, he stated many times that he has the passion to work with smart people with different skill sets. And I did see proof of that in the way he communicates with people: he always put first priority to placing people at the right point for a bright future. And when it comes to give recognitions, he’s never too ready and sincere to do that.

When I compare this style to mine, I see a huge difference. Although not too “verbally combative”, the first thing I look at when listening to other people’s work is to find holes, draw backs. It’s good to point out those to people, but in order to work well with people, I find I have to have the passion to give proper recognition to others, either to those who at competing position. Maybe years of test based education put too much emphasis on being correct in my mind, that sometimes, in my subconscious, I forgot the ultimate goal is to find new solutions and get things done, and the shortest path to that is to motivate people around you and work together to that destination.

What a dangerous mistake!

Self-made helicopter by a self-educated chinese

A Chinese farmer-made airplane

I can’t do that…..

Their makings might be shaky and primitive, but their mind and body is free and energetic out there in the sky, while a huge number of so called “researchers” imprison their mind and body in the lab.

Hats off to the farmers.

Hatebreed – I Will Be Heard