Today's challenge was fairly simple yet sometimes the simplest tasks can be quite challenging.
"Today was filled with learning (at work), laughing (with friends) and loving (the sunshine)."
My hope is that tomorrow will be much of the same.
15 Minutes to Live - #Trust30 Day 1
Today's challenge was not what I expected, but certainly excited me (take a second to click on the link before reading on, otherwise it just won't make sense and I don't have a lot of time to explain why).
Here's the story:
Ironically, the story is about time. Time is easily the most valuable thing we have and it's only when it becomes scarce that we realize its true value. Think about all the different things you can do with your time. I could spend the rest of my time, writing about the various things I could do or could have done with it; however, it would seem useless because my time is going to end soon.
Instead, I would like to encourage you to think about your time. Think about the ways you can use it. How you choose to spend your time can certainly speak volumes to the kind of person you are. Investing your time in other people is to me, one of the most altruistic things a human being can do. You should try to spend your time in such a way that you won't regret in the future.
Happiness is relative. It is relative to the amount of sadness you have felt in your life. There have been and will be times where you will feel sad; however, I encourage you to not dwell on these periods because you and I both know your time is better spent happy. The good thing is, now that you've experienced sadness you know what happiness can feel like.
I've got a few minutes to spare here, but I think I've spent enough time telling the story that needs to be told.
A 30 Day Challenge
The objective of this challenge is pretty simple. In essence, you have to ship something ... every day ... for 30 days. I'm not going to replicate the details of the challenge here (because they are very easy to find), instead ... I am going to invite you to join me in trying this out.
Seth Godin is someone who ships every single day.
This challenge may prompt you into a habit and if so, a habit of creating something and sharing it with the world is certainly one worth having. I once read in a book by Robin Sharma that it takes 21 days to form a habit. In this challenge you have 9 extra days to cement that habit.
This specific challenge asks you to reflect on an idea and then share your reflection; however, I would like to open up the challenge and ask that you try to do something ... everyday for 30 days. Something outside your regular routine of course. Something worth talking about.
Give it a shot and share your experiences. Good luck.
The Hacker and The Hustler (Podcast)
Listen to the episode on iTunes
Episode Summary:
On this episode I am joined by a very special guest, Gabriel Tomescu. Gabe is an entrepreneur (founder of Quotica and Noctural), Laurier grad, hustler and all around great guy. During the show we talked about Gabe's experiences as an entrepreneur and some of the lessons he has learned so far. We also talked about his latest startup - Quotica - and his team's vision for the future of the service. Gabe is an inspirational guy and I look forward to having him on again! We hope you enjoy the conversation! (Runtime: 41:38)
Interesting sites to check out:
Money and the Media (Podcast)
Listen to the episode on iTunes
Episode Summary:
On this episode, I am joined by my good friend from Washington Andrew Baskerville! It's been a while since Andrew and I got together so we decided to make it happen and catch up on some recent news. Our topics of discussion included: Playbook's new line of commercials, LinkedIn's IPO, Apple's malware, corporate social media and more! We hope you enjoy the show! (Runtime: 41:47)
Points of discussion:
Interesting sites to check out:
A trip to the gas station in 2012
If you were ever a fan of Knight Rider or Thunder in Paradise (Hasselhoff and Hogan ... classics), then you have at some point dreamed of having a vehicle that talks to you. Well ... according to a Fast Company article, Toyota in collaboration with Microsoft and Salesforce will soon bring you something just as good ... a car that tweets to you.
Imagine if all you needed to do to personify your car was sync up an app on your phone with a unique vehicle identification code. I'm not sure if it will necessarily work this way; however, if it did then the following scenario may just become a reality...
It's coming close to the end of a given work day in 2012 and suddenly I receive a tweet from @carofshum. It reads, "Hey Shum, I'm a little low on gas ... if you could fill me up soon that would be great. Thanks, much love homie." Luckily for me, I recently just acquired one of those fancy tweeting Toyotas. I decide to boot up my car's personalized app and take a look at the dashboard that displays the level of gas I have left in the tank ... yikes, it's pretty low ... I decide to hit the convenient button that says "Get Gas."
(At this point you may have a question in this hypothetical story ... if you're a creature of habit, then why must you hit that 'Get Gas' button? You should already know which gas station you need to stop off at in order to get gas? There's probably one on your way home right? ... just wait, the story gets interesting...)
After I hit this button, the app pulls up a listing of gas prices from nearby stations that are updated in real-time (using crowdsourcing) so as to equip me with the best deal in town. Once I've found a suitable station I click on it to check whether there are any Foursquare specials at that location (extra incentive to go there of course). Turns out there happens to be a station I hadn't heard of that's just around the corner from my workplace and offering a new Foursquare check-in special ... 'Check-in and purchase $40 worth of gas to recieve a free ice-cream!'
Nice. It's been a long day and I feel like ice-cream ... so I decide to make a trip to the gas station.
There are really only two things I wish to leave you with from the hypothetical scenario:
1. Collaboration is a competitive advantage.
2. It all started with a tweet.
Five Minutes Into The Future
"It's like seeing the future when you do it" - Tim O'Shaughnessy, LivingSocial CEO & Co-Founder
Here are a couple of key takeaways from this interview:
1. Real-time location-based offers = demand fulfillment: When we want a question answered in real-time, our phone will be able to answer it for us ... regardless of what the question is. Services like Foursquare and Yelp can tell you where to go within a certain radius of where you are; however, it seems LivingSocial is taking it one step further by enticing you with deals. I can imagine a collaboration between Foursquare and LivingSocial in the future; whereby, a social-layer gets added on top of the deals so that you can find out where your friends have eaten and which deals they recommend trying.
2. Is there a danger of commoditization? Henry asked a very interesting question regarding the ability for merchants to control deals in real-time and make adjustments based on competition. Will this lead merchants down a rabbit hole? There are many sides to this argument; however, if I took the most simplistic and assumed a consumer was solely interested in the price (the best deal) ... might this lead to a bidding war to see how low one can go? This may be a very shallow question because there are certainly other factors to consider here; however, it will be interesting to see whether or not this happens.
3. There will be no need for wallets in the future: As Tim said in the interview ... there was no need for a wallet to be used at any point during this entire series of events. Can you imagine a future without wallets? Sure you may think that it's a little risky to lay it all on the line with a phone ... what if you lose it? What if it gets stolen? What if you have an 'incident' involving a toilet (classic #fail)? All valid questions no doubt but I would like to turn your attention to two simple trends: 1. The cloud (your information is not actually stored on your phone, your phone is merely a device for displaying things from the cloud) and 2. Increased levels of security due to recently publicized hacks of major networks (encryption levels will only rise).
Final Thoughts: This is only the beginning.
All About Facebook (Podcast)
Listen to the episode on iTunes
Episode Summary:
On this episode I had the chance to talk to a twitter friend and very special guest,
Ben Wise. Ben is a Brand Consultant at a company called Level5 and was able to share some fascinating insights into our topic of the night ... Facebook. Ben and I discussed various aspects of Facebook including: Like-walls, sponsored stories, brand tagging and more. Ben's insight combined with his experience on the platform helped make this conversation one of the most interesting on the show yet. We hope you enjoy it! (Runtime: 40:46)
Sources for the discussion:
