Archive for the ‘JohnnyLau’ Category

Johnny speaks: The Tipping Tail

Posted by johnnylau52 on July 30, 2009

The world requires a make over right now. If we can have make-over reality shows for men and women, we certainly need one that can make-over the world. We cannot just rely on one Mr. Obama and certain US companies to do this, since the latter are largely responsible for driving the world economies to where they are today. So while some companies are attempting to get us out of the current mess, we cannot afford to sit around and on the fence waiting for the original culprits to fix the world. We have to get on our own two feet to make these changes.

The majority of books dealing with change or about world affairs always have a chapter on China and India – or Chindia (out check the book Chindia edited by Pete Engardios) – but less than a decade ago both these giants were ignored and essentially left for dead. Today both the Dragon and the Tiger have emerged as the new and wealthiest kids on the block, and the ones to watch to see how they make and adapt to changes in the world.

Every country around the world is trying to differentiate itself to attract tourists and talent, but we are also living in a world that is increasingly connected. Everyday, news headlines feature stories about how countries are trying to differentiate themselves from the rest of the world so they can attract investment, talent and customers. In this tightly connected world where most developed cities are linked wirelessly, this differentiation is essential.

The world that students are graduating into is a very different from the one a mere generation ago. With the internet and mobile technologies’ omnipresence, rules & regulations are being rewritten everyday by companies such as Google. You might think you’re already swimming in the sea of the latest trends such as Google, iPhone and YouTube, but this is rather different from operating a business in this environment. Do you know how you, as a designer, film maker, product designer or photographer can play a part in this new world? How will you function in this world where everything is connected, where nothing has to be isolated and everything can be triggered, collapsed or cascaded into cash or a crash?

The world used to be simpler and essentially made of two curves that every business student had to learn: the Demand Curve and the Supply Curve. This is no longer so in a connected world. There are now three New Curves that I think everyone must understand if they want to make a difference. These are:

First Curve: Critical Mass

Technically, critical mass is not a curve but a graph. What this is means is that whatever product students design, or the film or animation they create has to be consumed by the public, and so, it is crucial for these products to achieve a certain level of popularity so that their creators can continue to design and make more works. Achieving critical mass is key to success, and connecting that one Good Idea to the world is a good start. Be it a product or a service, once it is plugged into the connected world and made relevant, there is at least a chance that your Good Idea can reach a critical mass and make a difference. If you want to know more about the idea behind critical mass, I would recommend that you read Philip Ball’s Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another.

Second Curve: The Tipping Point

Once your Good Idea is connected to the world, there will be a higher chance of it reaching a point that author Malcolm Gladwell calls the tipping point in his book The Tipping Point - “a magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviors cross a threshold, tip and spread like wildfire.” Reaching this tipping point was the way that ideas from Amazon to Facebook, Google and iPhone reached their cult status.

Third Curve: The Long Tail

I was at a talk given by Mr. Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail. I told him about the incubation program I was working on, which was then called the OpenSource Brand, where a dozen companies came together to share the same brand. They can essentially deploy the same logo and trademark without additional cost and everyone can benefit from this directly or indirectly.

Mr. Anderson asked me a candid question: “…so if I want to join this OpenSource Brand, I could?”. He was spot on because although technically this is the concept behind the Brand, I would have a problem if I allowed anyone and everyone around the globe to join this brand. I still have much work to do if I want to make the third curve happen: which is what Mr. Anderson’s book is really advocating – that the future of business and culture isn’t in ‘hits’ – the high volume head of a traditional demand curve – but in what used to be regarded as misses- the endless long tail of that same curve.

So if I was to see Mr. Anderson today, I would have to tell him, ‘Yes, our brand has a long tail that includes a mixed-bag of up and coming products & services, as well as those that are not so popular for now, but could still be regarded as businesses due to their long tail of being sold to a niche market over a long period of time’. Not only that, but the brand is open to everyone who is from the Creative Industries, as well as those who are not but aspire to be, all of which will boost the brand to be a bigger one with a ‘longer’ tail.

I conducted a course on Professional Practice earlier this year at the School of Arts, Design & Media (ADM) out of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and I shared my views about the three New Curves with the students. I took the liberty to record all 13 weeks of my classes and I have edited them into 51 YouTube videos. Here is the one that is relevant to the New Curves.

Or you can go directly to my YouTube channel to view the video:

Look for OSB Week 3- 2.

Johnny speaks

Posted by johnnylau52 on July 26, 2009

There are a number of start-up programs for entrepreneurship, often offered by MBA schools and more recently, private organizations.

CiX started out two years ago with a different take. I designed the program with a specific output in mind: to create new products and/or new businesses. I know for certain that we are two things: 1) we are a practical process-driven program that leads to realistic output and 2) we are Free-of-Charge.

I know there are a few models out there right now:

1. MBA courses: These courses are often based on proven syllabi from aboard. Besides taking up 3 years of your life to find out whether starting up a business is your cup of tea, you would have to pay a hefty fee for it. But hey, you need the paper qualification anyway so why not?

2. Professional Incubators: They charge you a fee (usually not too high to entice you to sign up) for 1 or 2 day seminar to get you started. You will get a gist of Business 101 through a set of Powerpoint slides which you could download yourself via www.businessplans.org . Then the incubator may claim that they have a fund that they can invest in your ideas, but you need a business plan (because this fund, as it turns out is set up by an affiliated company) But you would have to pay them first to get advice to posh up your business plan. Now once you have the business plan written, they now tell you they can help find you an investor (no money guaranteed) but you would have to pay them a finder’s fee base on their success rate. I have known of incubators who owns the seminar company, the start-up fund and of course a stake of your company. There is no lose-lose for them, only win-win.

3. Entrepreneurial Programmes: These are run by private organizations with heavy subsidies from the government. They often have a ‘host’ facilitating the program by inviting professionals from different background to give snapshots of different topics for the participants. They also bring in mentors to help oversee the writing of the business plans, largely because these organizations do not have experiences on their own. And sometimes, they don’t even pay the mentors. (Hence, they would not be hiring the professional incubators we mentioned earlier). Makes one wonder how sustainable these programs are once the government funding dries up.
CiX is anything but the above. We have two separate approaches. One we call the Industries Xchange where we do matchmaking of businesses from different industries, the other involves start-ups.

The entire Start-up process takes up 3 months where the budding entrepreneurs need only to commit half a day of their time every other week, and subsequently the process is largely online, follow by occasional face-to-face meetings with me. But in order to be qualified for the programme, the individuals who are keen must invest their own time during the ‘pre-process’ interview – which involves meeting with me for at least 6 hours over a few weeks.
I admire one particular incubator-http://ycombinator.com. The US company is essentially an early start-up fund that incubates young companies. Each company is usually given a small sum of no more then $250,000.00 (US dollars) and the founders must meet the fund manager on a regular basis for updates.

CiX is not a fund so there will be no investment of money into promising business ideas, but what we do effectively is we ‘invest’ a lot of our time with the selected few. I personally would put in hundreds of hours to the companies I am working with. Sometimes, its better to start out without money then with money because there is a tendency to spend it all when you have money in the bank.

So this is why CiX came into being, and why I hope it is relevant to some of you out there.

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