A Farmer's Son - Reflection

A Farmer’ Son – Reflection

          Our professor instructed us to view the video on YouTube entitled “A Farmer’s Son”, and also instructed us to write a reflection about the video. The video is all about the son of a Filipino farmer who is now an engineer, and also the one who designed the first personal computer chipset, and it is now inside every personal computers nowadays, his name is Diosdado Banatao also known as “Dado”. Dado was once an Overseas Filipino Worker in the United States, and he encountered many failures but eventually he built his own company. And now, he is using his own success to help his own country which is the Philippines and also to all Filipino Youth with his job at the PhilDev. The Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev) is a nonprofit, innovation organization that accelerates science and technology for national development through initiatives, programs, and partnerships (www.phildev.org). The Philippine Development Foundation was founded by Diosdado Banatao. The foundation is developing scalable solutions to domestics needs and it is also advocates innovative and revolutionary ideas                                                                             then lead that ideas to global platform. Also, the foundation is providing scholarship opportunities to the Filipino Youth who wanted to be successful.

          The story of Diosdado Banatao is very inspiring because he was a son of a farmer who is always get bullied and get inferior with others. But despite of this situations he was determined to achieve his dreams in life, he wanted to be successful which he now accomplished. He even established his own companies, especially the “The Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev) that helps the Filipino Youth for them to now to stop studying, and for them to more knowledge on how to be successful. Also, the foundation is helping school to have internet access which is in the Philippines, the internet access is very poor. Because Diosdado Banatao once said “We know hardship, it is time we learn success”. As a college student, I never thought of this kind of mindset, maybe because I do not feel hardships in life by the mean time. All I ever have in mind is that I should get good grades and graduated for me to have a high-paying jobs in the future. Moreover, I am not that determined as Sir Diosdado Banatao was to achieve goals. I do not even sure what I really wanted to achieve in life, and instead I should have to get good grades, to be graduated, and to have a high-paying job someday. I never thought of having my own company, so that I could provide more available for the Filipinos who in need. I never thought something that would help the others, and all I even think of is myself and goodness for my family. Maybe it is time think the differently, because in life is difficult, especially here in the Philippines, which is in the crisis of lacking of opportunities. After knowing the story of Sir Diosdado Banatao, it made me realize that I should really have to do my very best, to have a goal in life, and to be determined to achieve that goal so that I could provide opportunities to the others, especially for the Filipino Youth for them to also have a hope for achieving their goals in life, and also for them to establish their own companies so that they could also provide opportunities to be successful in life.

Furthermore, from the story of Sir Diosdado Banatao, I learned four things for me to achieve my dreams as well as to be successful, namely: I should be creative, innovative thinker, passionate, and most especially I should have determination for achieving my goals in life. Currently, as a college student, these things are the things that I do not have right now. Maybe I am creative but I am not just aware of it, maybe I am innovative thinker but I just ignore that ideas, maybe I am passionate to the things that I have to do but I am not that sentiment. But what I am really sure is that I am not determined to achieve the goals in life and to be successful in the future. Because for me, it is even difficult to just think of what are the things that I really wanted to achieve, and I do not know the things that makes me happy, and all I ever think of is myself and my family. And all I ever think is to graduate in college to have a high-paying job for me to help my help and having high-paying job is the current and only I am thinking right now. And also, I do not feel passionate and determine it is because I do not feel the need to be passionate and to be determined. Because I do not feel the pressure or the hardships the Sir Diosdado Banatao once had. The only pressure I always feel is in the academics, I feel the pressure of finishing my homework on time, submitting the projects on time, and I even always do cramming most of the time, and that is it. There is nothing special of all the thing I do. Even though, we are not that rich and abundant, I am still not determined, maybe because of the mindset that I am having right now, is to get good grade, to be graduated and to have a high-paying jobs someday, and there is no pressure with this at all. Because for our life to better, all I have to do to graduate in college so that I could eventually help my family. Maybe it is not the time change our mindset we are having right now. Changing it to “Get good grade, to be graduate, to be graduated, and create our own company and be the boss”. Moreover, because of the story of Sir Diosdado Banatao, it made me realize that I really have to change the way I think in life, that I have to think like a technopreneur, so that I could achieve the goals in life and to be successful. And so that I could also provide opportunities to the others for them to be successful.

For us to be successful, I would like to say that we need four things which I learned from Sir Diosdado Banatao, namely: Creativity, Innovative Ideas, Passion, and Determination. First is the Creativity, for us to be successful, we have to think creatively, we have to think something new and interesting, we have to think wisely, because creativity is not just for tangible things it is could also be intangible things. We could create new technology that could solve domestic needs, and we could also create ideas that could help to remain passionate and determined. Because things starts with an idea, an idea that could change the life of the others, an idea that could solve crisis, and an idea that could provide opportunities for the other, and an idea that could help us achieve our goals. And that is why we have to be creative for to survive in the world of entrepreneurship. Moreover, being creative is also means that we have to take all the risk and we have to ignore every doubt we have then we face every challenges that we may encounter. Being creative, also means that we have break or change our routine and start doing something different for us to create something different because do not want to stick as we are right now, we have to change because life always move forward. Creativity also comes with great inspirations. We could have inspiration from our family, we could have inspiration for achieving our goals in life, and inspiration to be successful entrepreneur. The time that we have inspiration, we could now start challenging ourselves to a whole new level of entrepreneurial marketing.

Secondly, we have think an Innovative Ideas, because the advancement of technology is fast, it evolves very quickly. For us to solve crisis we have to think an idea that is innovative. We could even use an existing idea and then we have to innovate to something different and turn it to something new to the public. Being innovative help to create more effective solutions that could actually help the growth of Information Technology (IT) industry. Being innovative is also means changing our own perspective in things that do not expect. Also, being innovative means we have to adapt to the changes in the environment and everything around us, so that we could provide better provide products and services to the life of the people. In addition, there are a lot of ways for us to be an innovative. We have to find the aspects or ways that would help us to innovative our own company or business, either we have to do research or we plan ahead of time and anticipate possibilities. And it will be applied to all under the company, in every departments, and in every employees so that the effectiveness for innovative will be successful. Because innovation is the way for the business to be globally competitive, and then could provide high quality products and services to the customers. And because at the end of the day the only matters is the idea, an idea that is innovative and effective solution to the problems.

Thirdly, the next key for us to be successful is to have Passion. We have to be passionate for all the things that we have to do for us to be successful. We have to love the career we chose to take, a career of being a technopreneur. Because Technopreneurship or being in a business, requires positive thinking and having a purpose why we want to be a technopreneur and why we want to achieve our goals to be successful in life. It help us to be happy for all the things we do every day, give us the idea that we are on the right path, and gives us hope to have an exciting future. Because it is not just a career that we should really pursue eagerly, we have to enjoy everything and get excited to achieve our goal to be a successful technopreneur. That is why all of the technopreneur, such as Steve Jobs are successful. And that is why to be passionate is important in our lives. But of course, too much of passion is also bad for our career, we might hurt some people in the process. We only need to be passionate enough for to have energy to do all the tasks that we have to do. In addition, to be passionate also being a creative, it help to us to be creative because we have the eager to risk more and put more on the line of Technopreneurship.

Lastly, the last thing that for us to be successful is Determination. We have the ability of being creative, we have the ability to be passionate to every work, and we have the ability to think innovatively but all of these will be wasted if we are not determine to pursue our dreams. We cannot be successful if we are not determined to achieve our goals, we cannot be successful if we do not want to be successful. Because we have to be positive all the time, we have to have a positive personal character that would help on achieving goals in life. In Technopreneurship, we cannot afford to be opposite of it, we cannot afford to have hesitations to every decision we have to make, because we have to be interested in all the things that need to do of being technopreneur and a successful business owner. But if we are not determined, we most likely be given up easily, and we tend not to get things to be done, and more importantly, being determined means we are eager to have all the rewards that are waiting for us in the future, and determined means being confident to execute all of the plans and strategies for marketing. These are the things that I learned from Sir Diosdado Banatao, his willingness to risk, his ability to consistently be passionate and determined, and also his high level of creativity which is makes him a very successful technopreneur. His story is what makes me realize to think different and innovative, and as well as to be determined to achieve all of the goals in life, and part of it is to be a successful Technopreneur someday.

Guy Kawasaki - Reflection

Rules for Revolutionaries (Reflection)

On the fourth meeting of our class, our professor instructed us to watch the clip of Guy Kawasaki about the Rules for Revolutionaries on youtube. The video clip is a quite blurry as it was in the late 1990s video. It is actually a conference of Apple and the one who talked in front of the stage is Guy Kawasaki. Honestly, I did not finish watching the video clip because the audio of the video is also quite distorted and it is difficult for me to understand all of the words of Guy Kawasaki have spoken. And also, honestly, I am a person who is not good at listening but instead I prefer reading texts and articles, which could I understand more than listening. So instead, I searched an article about the outline of the video clip of Guy Kawasaki on the web and it is all about the Rules for Revolutionaries. Firstly, I would like to introduce who Guy Kawasaki is. Guy Kawasaki is an American business market specialist, he is also an Author, and the Silicon Valley venture capitalist. Guy Kawasaki was also an employee of the Apple Company, and he was assign for the marketing of the Macintosh computer way back 1984. Also, Guy Kawasaki was the one popularized the ‘evangelist’ word and the concept of evangelism marketing and technology evangelism. And that is Guy Kawasaki just for our information. The next will be about the Rules for Revolutionaries of Guy Kawasaki.

Again, I did not finish the video clip of Guy Kawasaki’s Rules for Revolutionaries but instead, I searched an article about it. But it I found out that Rules for Revolutionaries is also a book wrote by Guy Kawasaki. The Rules for Revolutionaries by Guy Kawasaki is about creating products and services that could change the rules of the marketing business. What Guy Kawasaki’s Rules for Revolutionaries try to emphasize is that how we create things or ideas that would also change the rules of the supremacy in marketing. Also, Guy Kawasaki talked about the idea of ‘thinking out of the box’ and then in the process he thought about the revolutionary process. It means that we do not have to think a very long time but instead we have to try to think smarter and efficiently so that we will not exert more effort about thinking good ideas. Furthermore, the goal of Guy Kawasaki is changing the rules of business marketing, changing process of business marketing, and the process of marketing products and services. In short, the goal is to create a revolutionary ideas. Moreover, the Guy Kawasaki talked about the mindset of marketing. He said that we have to be more perfectionist and pushing you limits up. Change the way you think, do not contain ourselves. But instead, we have to think out of the box. It means that we think outside our perspective, see our surroundings, and think an ideas that are very creative and revolutionary. Because for Guy Kawasaki, the mindset in marketing should be think perfection. For him, he prefer a fast release and have an immediate feedback from the customers, so that the customers will be served immediate according to their needs and satisfactions. Because, what all matters to Guy Kawasaki to enhance the people’s life. In addition, he also emphasizes that we do not have to create an original ideas from scratch but instead we could also innovate existing ideas, enhancement of existing products and services is also the key.

Furthermore, Guy Kawasaki talked about ‘Leadership’ because for him, giving a good command implies different things. However, for Guy Kawasaki, what all matters is that all products should become more revolutionary. So that, for us to satisfy all the needs and expectation of the target stakeholder. It is all about creation of revolutionary ideas, and convincing people. Because we have to let all the people to know more about the goodness of the products and services that we have offered.  But for us to provide good products and services to target customers, we should also know all the constraints upon developing products and services, as it can help to reduce the unwanted expectations of the customers. Thus, we have to plan a concrete solution for every feedback that the target customers will give, and for the customers to continue to support and will promote our products and services have offered. In addition, for us to make sure that the target customers will continue to subscribe to our products and services, we should one step ahead to our competitors, so that they will not steal our beloved customers. Moreover, Guy Kawasaki also want to emphasize that we must make the products and services an obvious solution to our target customers and stakeholders. We have to think more about creative and revolutionary ideas for us to achieve this goal. And just to add to mindset, we also should have a determination, passion, and the eagerness in achieving our goals in life, and also in business marketing.

Going back to Evangelism. Guy Kawasaki have mention about the ‘Evangelist’ and the ‘Evangelism’. As I as for knowledge about evangelist and in a bookish explanation, evangelist is the person who is the one who seeks to convert other people to Christian faith, by public preaching. But for Guy Kawasaki, being evangelist in marketing perspective is about convincing target customers and stakeholders to think that the products and services we offer is the number one product that resolves their problems and satisfy their needs. For Guy Kawasaki, being evangelist is about the communication and establishment of relationship to the target customers and stakeholders. It is not just about providing the people a good product and services but also establishing a strong relationship to the people, to our target customers and stakeholders. And I agreed to his perspective because, we do not want our beloved customers to be ‘just’ a customer but also to be a very especial assets, as we cannot become successful without their support and loyalty. We have to love our customers and establish good relationship to them. That is the thing that we could also provide to them, a good relationship. Additionally, having a good relationship to customers will also raise a good reputation for the company, and thus, we lead to have more customers. It is like hitting two birds and one stone.

The next thing that Guy Kawasaki also stated is about the ‘Working Hard’. For Guy Kawasaki, it is not just about how we exert effort, how hard we worked on something but instead for him efficiency more than quantity. It means that we only have to work efficiently and save our time and energy for upcoming revolutionaries. Just want to share; here are some of the quotes of Guy Kawasaki. ‘Patience is the art of concealing your impatience’, ‘Evangelism is selling a dream’, ‘A good idea is about ten percent and implementation and hard work, and luck is 90 percent’, and many other but these was the quotes that I can understand and relate of. We only need to have a good idea, enough effort and the rest luck. But for me, to fully utilize the power of luck, we really have to consider the timing of the events. The timing on when our products and services be released and introduced to our beloved customers and stakeholders. In addition, just want to share also, there is Jack Ma who is a Chinese business investor and he is the co-founder and executive chairman of the Alibaba Group. According to Jack Ma, for the business to be success we should consider the timing, because for him it is all about the timing, we should know when we will release and introduce a new revolutionary idea to our target customers, and which I am convinced and agreed that it is all about the timing, luck should be paired with a good timing. It is the same as for life, we have to have hope, faith and we must believe to ourselves. That is very important and also the key for achieving our goals in life. Because for the quote of Guy Kawasaki ‘Patience is the art of concealing you impatience’ for me it is the same as in believing for ourselves, and for our goals to be fulfilled.

Furthermore, Guy Kawasaki also talked about searching and learning. As I searched about the Rule for Revolutionaries on the web, I read about one of his saying is the ‘eat like a bird, poop like an elephant’. Though, it is like ‘weird’ to read, but for Guy Kawasaki it is very meaningful as it help him to become successful in marketing career. It means that we have to be a voracious consumer of information and we have to spread that knowledge much broader as possible. It comes back to his saying ‘Thinking out of the box’ we have to learn more knowledge for us to full understand everything we must to know about marketing and entrepreneurship. Also, Guy Kawasaki wants us to understand more about the connections between the revolutionary ideas and its values. And to understands more about our target customers. And also, Guy Kawasaki want us to think of the opportunity to have a broad knowledge in marketing and as well as Technopreneurship, and we should not miss that opportunity. There is a saying ‘Knowledge is Power’ I read this somewhere on the web. For me, I think it is true because with knowledge you do all the things you wanted to do. You understand how the things works. You know very much in everything. It is a power because, you have the knowledge and ability to utilize all of the knowledge you acquired. Thus, knowledge is equal to power. As for Guy Kawasaki, we have to be more knowledgeable for us to compete in the world of technology marketing. I could agree to this saying because, I do not have knowledge about things in life, I am not that knowledge, and I only know that I have to live happy and contented, and how about the things that could help to understand the world? It is difficult for me to comprehend things. There are still a lot of things that I have to learn more about. Especially in Technopreneurship, I still have so much knowledge to learn and skills to acquire in becoming a proper Technopreneur. But with the support of our professor, I know that I will become a knowledgeable and competitive person. But of course, it will comes with passion and determination. These must not be absent in the process of becoming a competitive Technopreneur.

As for me, exerting effort on something that we want to achieve is more relatable, because as a college student, we always have to work hard for us to survive and be graduated later, and have a degree. As a college student, effort is a golden weapon for us. Because it is really difficult for us to manage our time and effort, perhaps this may only applies to me but still I have to do everything I could, at least. And it is the only key to success that I could think recently. However, Guy Kawasaki made me realize that we to do not have to work harder, we only have to work efficiently and decide wisely. We do not have to be perfect, we only have to be ourselves. We only have to go with flow, and happily do things. And that is also Guy Kawasaki did on marketing products and services, that it should not be that perfect but it could be at least could satisfy customers and then later we improve in time. But instead, we could start from scratch, and then later we innovate. We innovate our life to become a better person that qualified to become a Technopreneur. We could be an evangelists, we convinced the people, to have their support, and we will successfully achieve our goals in life.

The Art of the Start (Reflection)

Our professor instructed us to watch the video clip of Guy Kawasaki about “The Art of the Start” and the “Rules for Revolutionaries”. This reflection will be all about “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki. But first, I would like define about who is Guy Kawasaki. Guy Kawasaki is a managing Director and Chairman of Garage Technology Ventures (Based on the Video Clip). Guy Kawasaki is also an American Business Marketing specialist, he is also an Author. He published that books “The Rules for Revolutionaries” and the “The Art of the Start”. In additional, Guy Kawasaki is the one who popularized the term “Evangelist”, the concept of “Evangelism Marketing”, and the “Technology Evangelism. So now, the “The Art of the Start” by Guy Kawasaki is all about how we should start an entrepreneurship in a proper way and to effectively be successful with our own business marketing career. Moreover, for Guy Kawasaki, and according to the video clip of his speech about starting up a business, there are eleven (11) things that we have to consider upon starting up our own business, our own entrepreneurship career. Namely: Make a Meaning; Make a Mantra; Get Going; Define a Business Model; Weave a MAT (Milestones, Assumptions, and Tasks); Niche Thyself; The Art of Pitching; Hire Infected People; Lower the barriers to adoption; Sales; and Be a Mensch.

For starting up a business or to be an entrepreneur, according to Guy Kawasaki there are things, the core and true essence of starting-up entrepreneurship. First is the making a meaning, Guy Kawasaki once said that starting-up a business is not just about making money that it should be making meaning, because making meaning is also making a money. I could agree because, usually our mindset is that we want to have a business to have a lot of money, and to be rich but the true essence in starting-up a business is making meaning because we want to make our life and our world to be a better place. We propose ideas so that we could ease the hardships of the people. We propose technological ideas so that we could resolve all of the issues that we currently having right now, such as the crisis in lack of opportunities in our country. Furthermore, making meaning is also equivalent to have a purpose of why we want to start a business, and why we propose technological ideas. For us to enjoy our career of being entrepreneur, we have to have a meaning in what we really want to express to the people, and as well as we have to identify what is the purpose of starting-up a business, to be an entrepreneur. So that, for us to be able to enjoy our life in the fullest.

The next thing to consider in starting-up a business is that we have to make “mantra” it means that we have to create our own slogan or tagline for the business. With this, our start-up business will have an appeal to our target customers. In addition, mantra is also a statement that will describes the mission of the start-up business. It is like a mission and vision statement that will tell the people what are the goals of the business that we will be having. Also, for Guy Kawasaki it is important because it is also a statement for convincing the people, and as well as for the people to have something that they will be expecting to our start-up business. Every company has their own mantra such as the BDO, they have the mantra of “We find ways” which is very popular to people. Every time they hear this statement they will immediately think of that company, BDO. Furthermore, the third thing to consider is ”Get Going”, according to Guy Kawasaki, for us to be able to be successful for our start-up business, we should not have to stop thinking new things, we should not think the same things but instead, we have to think differently so that we will be able to sustain our business. So that we can offer something new to our customers because, sometimes customers always wants something new, something that will impress them greatly. Moreover, every start-up business has a business model. Therefore, it is important to define a business model so that we could identify the revenue sources, and to have a concrete design for the business operation to be successful. With business model, we could identify what are the customer’s needs, the specific details of each products and services that we want to offer to the people, and as well as we see the details of the financing of the start-up business.

Every start-up business, the entrepreneur should weave a MAT which means that we have to have a Milestones, we should have Assumptions, and as well as we have to have Tasks. Because these are the things will also help us to identifying the goals and objectives of our start-up business. The start-up business should have a Milestones to accomplish on time, to finish all the designs on time, and also for us to be able to monitor the development of our start-up business. Also, we will be able to come up an idea that will improvement the start-up business. Moreover, every entrepreneur should also have assumption because we have to anticipate all of the events that will occur in the future. So that we could plan ahead and have an advance strategy to immediately resolve every problems that the start-up might have in the development process. Additionally, the entrepreneur should have tasks to work on to. Because in business, we have to strategize every single move that we will make. Tasks that we must do for the start-up business. That we should identify what are the things that we must accomplish for achieving the goals and objectives of our start-up business. In addition, Guy Kawasaki also consider about the having an ability provide unique products and services to the people. Because in business world, what it really matters to be successful is that we have something to offer to the people, something that is unique, something that is first in the market, and something that is interesting to the people. With this, we will have a very high success rate in achieving our goals and objectives in our start-up business.

Every start-up business is start with an idea. An idea that will help the people to have a better life, and to make the world a better place. Every idea should be expressed and should be presented, because we have to convince the people, and to have their support for developing our ideas. Expressing our entrepreneurial ideas should properly be presented. Thus, pitching ideas is very essential step to start a business. The next thing that we have to consider according to Guy Kawasaki is the “Art of Pitching”. Guy Kawasaki said in the video clip is that pitching ideas is seeking agreement to the people. He said that pitching is seeking agreement for money, seeking agreement for market sales, seeking recruitment, and also pitching is seeking for partnerships and investments. To in presenting our ideas, we usually use slides that will be projected to the audience. For Guy Kawasaki, the slides should only contain ten (10) slides at maximum, because presentation in not about reading every slides, putting all the contents of each topics to discuss but instead, we should only put the key points of what we want to present to the audience. Furthermore, presentation will only have ten (10) slides and each slides will contain the following: Title, Problem, Solution; the Business Model; the Underlying magic; the Marketing and sales; competitions; the Team; the Projections; and the status and timeline. For the format of the content of the slides will be at least 30 points of font, because for Guy Kawasaki it is the ideal font size for slide presentation, and that it should not be 12 points or 8 points because audience will not totally read each word in the slides but instead they will have eye to eye contact and have their attention focus to the speaker. So that for us to successfully present our ideas, and so that we be able to successfully convince our audience about how good our ideas. And that are the things that we have to consider every time we pitch our technological and revolutionary ideas to the people, which is all according to Guy Kawasaki.

The next thing that we have to consider in our start-up business is to hire infected people. It means that we have to have a very good resources in our business. Because to Guy Kawasaki it is also essential to hire people that are better than ourselves, better people to run the start-up business successful. Also because, every business employees are the number one asset that the business will ever have, without the employees the business will not be successful. Because we cannot do all the necessary things for accomplishing our goals and objectives in our start-up business. Additionally, this is also why our professor encouraging us to change our mindset to have an entrepreneurial mindset. Because entrepreneurship will help us to resolve the crisis of our country, the lack of opportunities for the people. Moreover, start-up business can open up opportunities for the people who in need, for them to be able to give support to their families, and also because not everyone is lucky enough to have a work in our own country, and therefore, they most likely will apply to other countries instead. Because of this, instead of helping our country to be more developed in terms of technology, and increase the technology industry opportunities, they have no choice but to work for the other countries to be more developed. Our country’s technology is still under development, thus, our country will always stay behind the ranking in term of how develop our technology is.

In every start-up business, it important that we have to at least lower the barriers that prevents the business to adopt to constant changes and development of technology. It is important because we have to identify the solution for breaking these barriers for us to be able to adopt to the constant changes, because it is not just about proposing ideas then implement that idea but also we have to think of strategy to keep our business running and to be able to provide good and unique products and services. In addition, we should not let the business stays as it is, we should also think different ideas that will improvement the products and services quality. As Guy Kawasaki said, we have to aim higher, we also improve our goals and objectives in start-up business. Because it is a start-up business it is still under development that it be incubated constantly for it to be more developed so that it could be globally competitive. Additionally, what I observed in others companies is that they constantly release new products and services which are better than the previous releases. And they release products according to their target customers’ needs. Every time they release new products they always satisfy their target customers’.

All of these core steps that Guy Kawasaki wants us to consider are very helpful because it is not just helping our start-up business to be success but also it help us to understand the things about entrepreneurship. It gives us ideas on how we improve our businesses to be able to achieve the goals and objectives. Also, it gives me an idea on how I properly pitch the idea that I will come up. It help me to identify the things that are needed to the start-up business. But to be successful it is always comes with determination and passion to achieve our goals in life. And as Guy Kawasaki said that we have to aim higher for us to be successful in life. That we have to think differently, and think out of the box.