Hey Entrepreneur: It’s OK to be anti-social

There has been much speculation over the last ten years or so that Asperger  Syndrome is common in creative and  technologically minded people.  Asperger Syndrome is a developmental disorder characterized by obsessive and rigid behavior, poor communication skills, clumsiness, and a lack of empathy.   It is also known as a mild form of autism.

In a 2011 New Yorker profile, venture capitalist Peter Thiel spoke about the prevalence of Asperger’s-like behavior among startup founders; “These mild cases of Asperger’s seem to be quite rampant.  There’s no need for sales—the companies themselves are weirdly nonsocial in nature.”  People with Asperger’s tend to observe rigid behavioral guidelines, act in an aloof manner, lack interest in their peers, lack reciprocity, engage in repetitive behavior, and, according to some research, may be unable to understand societal implications of actions.

Asperger’s is also characterized by uncoordinated motor movements, including an odd gait, poor balance, and bad handwriting. At the same time, those affected by the disorder often engage in repetitive movements like “hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements.”  Thank you Gawker.com

 If you recognize some of these traits in yourself; no worries.  Below is a list of famous innovators rumored to have (had) Asperger Syndrome:

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Sir Isaac Newton, Alfred Hitchcock, Albert Einstein, Jim Henson, Henry Ford, Michael Jackson, Mark Twain, Woody Allen, Dan Aykroyd and Andy Warhol.  The list goes on and on.  

Random notes on where mobile is headed

On May 23, 2012 I am scheduled to give a two hour presentation in Ft Wayne on the how technology is driving and impacting business. In support of this effort, I have been gathering some notes about Smart Phone, which I’d like to share. BTW, recall that a week or so ago I inquired about the Samsung Galaxy Sii and HTC Amaze. I also posted a blog about using Smart Phones as a computer. I’ve decided to wait until next month until the quad-core Samung SIII comes out (indeed, if it does – see here) and further, I’m going with Sprint because of its 4G and no capping policy, unlike AT&T, Verizon etc. Notes for you to ponder follow:

• Smart Phones (SP) are used by 60% of 18-35 year olds who are also well off
• But only 13% of those 65 and older have/use them
• In Feb 2012, 46% of US own a SP; 41% do not
• 12% have no cell phone period
• Facebook has almost one billion users and 425 million of them regularly access from SP
• Media consumption: over 25% from mobile, 22% TV and trending strongly
• Social-Mobile-Local are three forces trending a perfect storm
• The App Economy: 129-182K new jobs in 2011, worth 12-16 billion
• Etsy iPhone app in four months reached 1 million downloads, with average of 30 page views per visit

More to follow later in the month. What do you have to add?  Hank

How the government thwarts entrepreneurs

John Stossel of FoxNews recently had an article on what was required to open a simple lemonade stand in NYC. I’ve excerpted the stated requirements below. As FoxNews likes to say, “We report, you decide” if “government is really helping or hindering entrepreneurship in this case, and many others too. Think tornado shelters in Georgia! Hank

1) Register as sole proprietor with the County Clerk’s Office (must be done in person)

2) Apply to the IRS for an Employer Identification Number 

3) Complete 15-hr Food Protection Course! 

4) After the course, register for an exam that takes 1 hr. You must score 70 percent to pass. (Sample question: “What toxins are associated with the puffer fish?”) If you pass, allow 3-5 weeks for delivery of Food Protection Certificate.

5) Register for sales tax Certificate of Authority

6) Apply for a Temporary Food Service Establishment Permit. Must bring copies of the previous documents and completed forms to the Consumer Affairs Licensing Center. 

Then, at least 21 days before opening your establishment, you must:

Arrange for an inspection with the Health Department’s Bureau of Food Safety and Community Sanitation. It takes about 3 weeks to get your appointment. If you pass, you can set up a business once you:

- Buy a portable fire extinguisher from a company certified by the FDNY and set up a contract for waste disposal.

Have A Happy Friday: These three German Sheperds are!

Thanks to DC Davis for the link. Hank

Dolphin Sonar = Siri (kinda) rolls out

Just yesterday, the Dolphin web browser rolled out a new update (7.4) that includes an addin named “Sonar.”  Sonar allows users to use their voice as a tool to search the web and navigate the browser. Dolphin uses Google’s voice recognition API to convert voice input into text, which their own back-end then interprets to bring you the best results.

I have it loaded up on my Asus Transformer running Android 4.0.3, and it works like a champ. Long hold the faint icon in the bottom left of the screen, and you will be given a choice of gesture or microphone. Chose microphone, then speak your input, such as “Google Mobile World Conference.” You will be presented a Google page with the search term “Mobile World Conference.” Pretty neat.

Dolphin also supports a bunch of gestures to navigate its interface which are also pretty cool. Dolphin is a free download from the Market. They have a “cute” video advert which I’ve embedded below. Hank

The artist who became an architect:

One of my favorite entrepreneurs of all time is Avriel Shull.  I really only just heard of her about a year ago, and since then I’ve been enthralled with her story.  Driving past a neighborhood of small modern ranch homes in Carmel, Indiana while visiting my sister last spring, I spun my head around to get a better view and asked “what neighborhood is that?”  “Thornhurst” she replied. “It was built by some woman in the 60’s.”  I made my sister turn the car around and slowly drive through Thornhurst to get a better look.

As soon as I got home I did a little research and learned that Avriel’s family once owned the land on which Thornhurst was built.  It was part of her family’s farm.  By the age of 15 the lively and talented girl had already become a professional artist, getting paid for her work.   She graduated from Carmel High School at the age of 16, and dropped out of Heron School of Art after becoming too restless to stay in school.  She married, had two daughters, designed her own clothing, planned weddings, had an article written about her in LIFE Magazine, and continued with her art.

She wasn’t a typical housewife of the 60’s, as her restless creative energy couldn’t be contained.    At the age of 23 she had an idea to build a modern house and sell it without the help of a real estate agent.  She didn’t have any architectural training, but she had an eye for design.  It took her five months to complete the home.  On site, housed in a trailer, she took on the jobs of architect, contractor, foreman and workman all at once.  After the job was finished, she had an open house.  Over 600 curious people toured it and gave her positive comments, but no one bought it.  She ended up asking a realtor friend to help her sell it, and when it sold, she began working on another home.  Over the next 20 years Avriel continued to build what we now call Mid-Century Modern style homes and apartment complexes throughout the Indianapolis area.   No two Avriel Shull homes are alike, though they are distinct in her artistic expression.

What I love most about her story is her tenacious individuality.  She was tough and cared not the opinions of others. She bravely entered an industry dominated by men, and did it without any previous experience.  She didn’t listen to those who told her she couldn’t do it, she did it anyway.  And she did it well.   The woman had no fear, apparently swore like a sailor, had wild red hair and was considered quite the bombshell, often showing up to work sites in her bikini brandishing a cigarette like a contractors cigar.  By the time she died, at the age of 45, she had lived an unconventional life by her own rules.  She left us with a legacy in the beautiful homes she built. Beth Carroll

What the future for smart phones potends

Yesterday I blogged about the potential choices I am considering for new smart phones for my wife and I. Sunday evening, at the Mobile World Congress 2012 meetup in Barcelona, Spain, HTC announced a quad-core 4.7 inch smart phone to be rolled out by ATT in April. And so did Huawei. Dual core smart phones with faster cores than Netbooks are becoming quite common.

Tie this with an incentive by Ubuntu, the Linux folks, to port an Android version of Ubuntu running on smart phones, and the future is in your hands: a smart phone that when docked with a large monitor/mouse via HDMI/USB ports, becomes a full-blown pc. Yes readers, a phone by day in your pocket/purse, and a full-blown Linux supported PC when docked in your cave, at your desk, in the library, whenever, wherever, you carry your thin client with you. Your “stuff” is stored in the cloud, as much/most of it is for many of us now, always acceptable via pipes (4G) that are as fast or faster than what many have at home now, me for sure.

I know some of you are going to look down your nose and say Linux? I know nothing about Linux. My response is two-fold: 1. You don’t need to know anything about it – it can be installed to be form/fit/function the equivalent to Windoz/OS-?, and 2, most all of the hardware behind the internet (Apache servers), Google (Google’s server farms run on Linux), and on and on, run on Linux. So you have been using Linux all along and perhaps didn’t even know it (or care for that matter.) See video below for more details. The train is coming. A smart phone is shortly going to be the ONLY “computer” you generally need/want. Hank

Should I: Samsung Galaxy SII ???

I’m seriously considering purchasing two T-Mobile phones on their family plan; one is the Samsung Galaxy SII (for me), the other, a HTC Amaze for my wife. (She doesn’t like the size of the SII.) Both run on T-Mobile’s 4G network, have 8 MP front camera, dual core processors etc. And both are in the queue to be updated to Icecream Sandwich (ICS) in the near future. (BTW, my Asus Transformer was updated to ICS/Android 4.0.3 yesterday.)

From Wal-Mart, total cost of the phones on a two year plan will be somewhere around 200 bucks, and the family plan with 1000 minutes, unlimited text, and 2GB of high-speed data is $59.99 times two plus taxes. Twenty bucks per phone ups the talk time to unlimited and the data to 5GB. Check the links out above for details of reviews from Engadget.

My question is to readers, what is your opinion, if any, of these smart phone selections? And please, Apple fan boys/girls, lay off; we currently have and have had iPhones for the past 4 years. Been there, done that. Tomorrow’s blog will shed light on more reasons I’m going with Android-based phones. Please comment!!! Hank

Oreo’s Going Global Lessons

Many companies think all they “have” to do to sell their products in foreign markets is to overcome the language, legal and cultural barriers. Oreo found out the hard way how true this is and more. Here’s a link from NPR documenting Oreo’s lessons learned. And to be complete, we all know Oreos have ingrained themselves in the culture of the United States, even to the extent of entering our “blues” music.  See below for an example. Hank

Legos then and now?

Cartoon above from here: When our two sons were growing up, they had every imaginable Lego on the market. So many in fact, that we built a huge toy box with a drawer in it just to store the many many parts. Our sons and their friends spent many hours conjuring up all kinds of futuristic objects and devices.

According to Wiki, “The Lego Group began in the carpentry workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, in Billund, Denmark. In 1916, Christiansen purchased a woodworking shop in Billund which had been in business since 1895^[1]. The shop mostly helped construct houses and furniture, and had a small staff of apprentices. The workshop burned down in 1924 when a fire, lit by two of Christiansen’s sons, ignited some wood shavings^[2]. Ole Kirk constructed a larger workshop, and worked towards expanding his business even further. When the Great Depression hit, Ole Kirk had fewer customers and had to focus on smaller projects. He began producing miniature versions of his products as design aids. It was these miniature models of stepladders and ironing boards that inspired him to begin producing toys^[3].”

Within the past couple of months, Lego rolled our a new “Friends” line of building kits with girls as the target market. Sounds right on, right? Nope! Many women oriented groups find the Friends line to be insulting. Girls, you know, grow up to be astronauts and engineers, love building race cars, boats and other objects just as much as boys do. So what’s your take? Is Lego’s move after decades of success targeting boys (and their mothers by association)  right on, or totally coming from left field? See one of their video ads below. Hank