Play the Game of Life
Ryan Petersen's Blog

The guy believes in his product...it's enough to make any entrepreneur proud.

Labels: business, entrepreneurship

Biologist Richard Dawkins makes a case for "thinking the improbable" by looking at how our human frame of reference -- the things we can perceive with our five senses, and understand with our eight-pound brain -- limits our understanding of the universe. Think of it: We can't see atoms, we can't see infrared light, we can't hear ultrasonic frequencies, but we know without a doubt that they exist. What else is out there that we can't yet perceive -- what dimensions of space, what aspects of time, what forms of life? Dawkins calls the human-size frame of reference "Middle World": between the microcosmos of atoms and the macrocosmos of the universe. Middle World thinking limits our ability to see the universe in terms of the improbable, whereas "in the vastness of astronomical space and geological time, that which seems impossible in Middle World might turn out to be inevitable."

This talk will blow your mind!!

Labels: evolution, evolutionary biology, mystery, physics, science

Nobel laureate James Watson opens TED2005 with the frank and funny story of how he and his partner, Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA. The tale is full of colorful details: How Watson had planned to be an ornithologist until Schroedinger's book What Is Life? transformed him into a geneticist. The painful rejections he suffered along the way, first from Caltech and then from a certain girl. And finally, how the basic DNA model ultimately came together in just a few hours. Watson finishes with one of the topics currently making him tick: the search for genetic bases for major illnesses.

Thanks Ted.com!!

Labels: evolution, evolutionary biology, science

A great talk about how unique our place in the universe really is...or isn't!

If you're interested in global warming, make sure you hang on til the end when the guy finally brings some logic/reason to the debate.

Labels: global warming, physics, science

Notes from a Columbia Business School seminar with Ellis Chase, a human resources consultant and executive coach.

I.) Avoid the issue of money AT ALL COSTS!

Why avoid the issue?

The longer you wait, the more you make.

Four primary risks of discussing money:

1) You come in so low that somebody might judge your ability by this figure.

2) You come in low, they take the offer, and later you find out the other guys make more. You'll be pissed and want to quit!

3) You come in too high and eliminate yourself from consideration.

4) You come in at just the right level...and leave money on the table!


How to avoid the issue of money?

You can't just say "I don't want to discuss that." You just can't.

Here's what you do:

The CFO says to you, "what'd you make in your last job?"

Your response, "I'd rather not price myself out of the job, so if its okay with you, I'd rather wait til we've had a chance to really explore the great fit here."

CFO's response, "Yeah, yeah...what'd you make?"

Your reply, "Could you give me an idea of your range?"

Now the CFO is starting to get impatient and asks you what you made a third time.

Your reply this time, "I'll be looking for pay in the range of ____"

Finally you can tell she's losing patience with you, and asks yet again, "come on, how much did you make in your last job?"

Well, now you can avoid the subject any longer, you tried your best. So you tell them how much you made, but include the TOTAL value of all compensation, including all salary, benefits, bonuses, stock options, etc. It's likely these come to about 30 percent above your actual salary, but may be overlooked by many.

II) You got the offer, what now?

Absolutely Key: ***NEVER NEGOTIATE AT THE POINT OF OFFER!!***

Why not?

You'll forget parts of the compensation that are very important, health benefits, bonuses, performance metrics, etc. It takes time to work all these things out, don't rush into it!

Scenario 1: You get an offer lower than expected.

Your response: Look straight down at the floor and count to ten slowly without saying anything. The silence will make the other person so uncomfortable that in 10-15 percent of cases they'll add $$$ immediately. Then, you say, "I'm excited as hell about the offer, I'm very flattered, but I'm a little concerned about the money part. I think it might be a little bit low based on my perception of the market. I couldn't be more excited though. Give me a couple of days to look into it, there's a lot to evaluate and I'm sure I'll have a few questions for you and I know you must have some for me. How about if we set something up next week to finalize things?"


Scenario 2: The offer is just right.

Your response:

Look straight down at the floor and count to ten slowly without saying anything and then say, "I'm excited as hell about the offer, I'm very flattered" Same as above, just don't say that the money is too low.

Scenario 3: They come in high.

"I don't think we're going to have any problems with the financials, but there's a lot of other factors. I'm so excited about this, I'm really flattered. Let's set up a time in a few days to see if we can seal the deal."

III) Negotiating the Terms:

Your Strategy:

Make a list of everything that's important. And alternate easy-hard all the way down the list!!

Start with something that you know is impossible:

1) Can I start the 401k earlier?

The answer is 100 % no!! It's illegal...

2) Now a very easy one, can I roll my old 401k into your program earlier?

The answer is 100% yes, it costs them nothing.

3) Now bring up the thing that's most important to you.

Use the word "market" often.

Say things like, "What can we do to get the number up?"

Start selling yourself, gently, firmly and collegially, referencing the market all the time. Remember, there is ALWAYS money in the back pocket, and they expect you to negotiate for it. If you don't, what will that say about you?

4) Ask about careers questions. What's the job going to be like? Maybe some specifics? Who will you report to? What are the performance metrics?

5) Vacation -- it is negotiable!!

Last thing--severance pay "what kind of protection do you offer in the event of redundancies?"

Forget signing bonuses!! They are taxed to death and have no effect on your long-range salary which is more likely to be based on percentage increases to your base salary.

Instead ask for two six-month reviews, not one. That will get you two reviews in the first twelve months. Combined with very clear goals and performance benchmarks, you'll be on your way to two raises in the first year!

Digg this article!!

Labels: Columbia Business School, salary negotiations

by George Carlin

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

"How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

"How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony. YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're Just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60..
You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30 ; you REACH bedtime and it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!"

May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

HOW TO STAY YOUNG

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay "them."

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop.

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love, whether it's family, pets,keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health : If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.

9 Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER :Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

And if you don't send this to at least 8 people - who cares? But do share this with someone. We all need to live life to its fullest each day!!

Labels: inspiration

Copyright The Financial Times

April 6 2007

I am due to meet Jeffrey Sachs in his choice of restaurant, La Porte des Indes, on a quiet central London backstreet. It’s an unremarkable entrance, but once inside the space opens up to give the impression of colonial India, complete with wicker furniture and palm trees growing from the floor below.

The Columbia University economics professor, and director of the Earth Institute, is already there, in conversation with his assistant, Margot. I realise that Sachs is no longer just an eminent academic, he is a brand, and travels the world with an assistant in tow, spreading his economic gospel. I introduce myself, and Margot goes off to have some lunch at another table while ensuring that we don’t overrun our tight schedule.

Sachs is in London to deliver the first of five BBC Reith Lectures, a sought-after honour for academics. The lectures give a chance to talk to a worldwide radio audience. ”[The lecture] is unique as a global discussion. It’s hard to think of another way to reach such a wide audience,” Sachs says, and then pauses. Referring to the BBC, he says: ”They quote a 100 million audience - rather more than that, a 150 million audience.” Then he asks me if I know how many people will listen. I haven’t a clue, I admit, but tell him that the audience figure might need an ”up to” added before the numbers. This first encounter persuades me instantly that his voice - courteous, engaging and persuasive - will work well on radio. Even his slightly unshaven neck, a crime on television, will go unnoticed.

Audience size clearly matters to Sachs. His website says he is ”widely considered to be the leading international economic adviser of his generation”, and his mission is to solve the problems of poverty, disease, global warming and globalisation. Although his current views are highly controversial, he knows that the bigger the audience, the bigger the impact.

Economics splits analysis into the ”positive”, describing and explaining the world as it is, and the ”normative”, articulating how it should be. Now in his early fifties, Sachs has left positive economics behind. He is proud to have been listed among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2004 and 2005. He campaigns for a better world, and is certain he knows how to get one. With such meaty topics to discuss, there is little time for chitchat. As we discuss the colonial feel of the restaurant, Sachs launches into a quick destruction of the view that the British Raj was good for India: ”The rail[way] is quite useful... but most of the good things could have come from the diffusion of good ideas without all the downsides of empire.”...

I change the subject as I don’t want to get bogged down in matters of British history...

... The theme continues as we move on to talking about poverty in Africa. This has been the focus of his more recent work. Immediately, he shows his anger at those who claim aid fails because Africa remains desperately poor, even after some $2,300bn of aid - the figure comes from Professor William Easterly of New York University. Sachs manages a masterly dismissal; he calculates the amount as only $16 per poor person per year over the past 60 years. ”I see the number and say, well, that’s a pretty modest sum. The rest of the world sees the same number and says that’s a horrendous failure that’s nearly bankrupted us.”

Worse, Sachs thinks that Easterly’s criticisms of aid are having an impact on giving. ”The difference between Mr Easterly and myself is that I’m actually trying to get something done practically... But I know that since he has launched this tirade, it makes it harder to do.” He insists that for $16 a person a year, aid has ”done extremely well”. Trying not to fall into either the ”aid works” or ”aid fails” camp, I try to challenge Sachs, and say that just as it is probably wrong to pin African failure on aid, success stories are also not necessarily the result of aid. Sachs doesn’t engage. He is now on a mission and wants to ram his point home.

”People are dying in large numbers. The triumph of politics over economics is not that money is being lost in Africa, it is that money is not going in.” He vehemently denies that big aid has been tried before and not worked, and challenges me to name studies proving him wrong, knowing full well that I can’t.

We move on to talk about a specific project Sachs is currently involved in, Millennium Villages, where his ideas on fertilisers, malarial bed-nets and the like are tried on the ground. My less-than-ecstatic reaction to his reports of their success is clearly the same as that of many aid agencies. It instantly raises his hackles. I suggest there are many examples where success in pilots does not translate into something that can be replicated on a large scale, and that you don’t necessarily need to try something to know it won’t work. ”I’m sorry,” he is almost shouting now. ”That, I disagree with completely. That’s preposterous.”

I realise I have exaggerated for effect, and counter that it is equally preposterous to insist they will work. ”I know,” he says, ”but how do you actually do something in life? Do you list all the things that may go wrong and then decide we won’t do it, or do you actually try?”

We talk about global warming. It’s easily solvable, Sachs insists, because the costs of doing something about carbon emissions are exaggerated - so people will soon realise that they can cut carbon emissions without much pain. We talk about global trade - all the US has to do is offer an aid, trade and climate change deal to the rest of the world and a solution is within reach. We talk about US healthcare - within a few years, people will see sense and the uninsured will be covered, he predicts.

As coffee arrives, I wonder aloud whether economics really can solve these big global challenges. In Sachs’s world, problems aren’t really problems because there is always an easy solution. I suggest vested interests, national differences and the fact that reforms tend to throw up winners and losers make issues rather more intractable than he believes. Bringing the subject full circle back to his lectures, he says: ”The key word of all of these lectures is ’choice’. A generation has a choice, and we have choices we make collectively... We have some absolutely terrific opportunities... but we miss opportunities all the time. That’s why it is really important to understand what these choices are - and that is what I’m trying to explain in these lectures.”

The conversation drifts into small talk, and Margot reappears, telling us our time is up. Sachs leaves, telling me the conversation was fun. As I pick up the very reasonable bill and leave, I feel more positive about the world. A few minutes later I get snarled up in London’s creaking public transport system and realise that some problems really are intractable.

Chris Giles is economics editor of the Financial Times.

Labels: Africa, Columbia Business School, International Development, sachs

Two presentations all entrepreneurs should watch:



Presentation two, for the Tech Coast Angels venture capitalist organization: Guy Kawasaki at UCLA

Labels: business, entrepreneurship, inspiration, personal growth, video

 

 

 

 

Labels: china, chinese language, Kunming, photos, yunnan

By Ryan Petersen

On March 27th Matt Flannery, founder and CEO of Kiva.org, visited CBS to talk with members of the International Development and Social Enterprise Clubs about the future of the group’s innovative microfinance portal.

Kiva.org is a non-profit that is revolutionizing the fight against global poverty by enabling people to connect with and make personal loans —of as little as $25—to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world.

Most of the poor in developing countries are self-employed entrepreneurs and a small loan to purchase business-related items such as sewing machines or livestock can empower them to earn their way out of poverty.

How Kiva Works:

From Togo to Ecuador, microfinance institutions (MFIs) around the world go to Kiva.org and post photos and profiles of low-income entrepreneurs in need of money for their businesses.

Lenders go to Kiva.org and browse through profiles of low-income entrepreneurs—a dairy farmer in Kenya, a man who wants to open a shoe shop in Honduras, or a tailor in Bulgaria. Loans can be made for as little as $25 to the entrepreneur of a lender’s choice via PayPal, a globally recognized online payment service.

The entrepreneurs pay the interest rates charged by their local MFI, but the MFIs themselves receive the funds from Kiva interest-free. Lenders currently receive no interest on their loans, but Flannery has plans to begin paying interest as soon as the U.S. regulatory hurdles can be cleared.

When funds from individual lenders reach a total loan amount requested, Kiva pools the money and transfers it to its MFI partner who in turn administers it to the entrepreneur. Once loans are repaid, Kiva users can choose to withdraw their principal—or re-loan to another entrepreneur.

Kiva’s Mission:

Kiva’s does not aim to be the largest provider of funds to the microfinance industry. Rather the organization’s mission is to develop social networks that can raise people’s awareness about the role of micro-enterprises in alleviating poverty. Flannery says there are easier ways to raise money than soliciting small contributions from the general public. If the goal were just to raise as much money as possible, you’d be better of focusing on huge donations from foundations that can give tens of millions of dollars all at once.

What Kiva offers is somewhere between an investment and a donation to charity. If you look at it as a pure investment, it’s the worst investment you could ever make, because the best you can do is to get your money back. However, if you look at it as purely charity, it’s the best you can possibly do, because you can actually get your money back! It turns out there is tremendous demand for this hybrid model of giving.

Even after the loans start paying interest later this year, Flannery doesn’t believe Kiva will ever be an attractive investment from a purely financial perspective. Rather lenders will participate primarily because they get to feel connected with a small-business owner in a foreign country. By allowing you to lend directly to a real-life entrepreneur, Kiva provides a level of personal connection that is simply unavailable in other formers of philanthropy. And because you can get that connection with as little as $25, suddenly you don’t have to be rich to feel like a philanthropist.

It’s been widely reported that Kiva has a 100 percent repayment rate, but Flannery says that statistic is potentially misleading. So far there have been no defaults, but Kiva has delinquent loans where the borrower is not on track to make the repayment within six months of the original due date. He says there is no question they will have defaults in the future.

Asked if there is a risk that by providing interest-free loans to microfinance institutions, Kiva might be distorting the market, Flannery responds that rather than being an external, distorting force, in fact Kiva is just another force within the market. If lenders in the first world are willing to lend money without receiving interest, then its not subsidized credit. Instead, the loans are the result of people acting on their own free will.

Labels: Columbia Business School, International Development, microfinance

By Ryan Petersen

At the start of the semester, the Earth Institute asked an International Development Club team to investigate the value chain for rechargeable lighting appliances to help reduce energy expenditures rural Africa. In areas without direct access to the electricity grid, people light their homes with kerosene, an expensive, poor quality source of light that also generates indoor air pollution. For example, in the village of Sauri, Kenya, ninety percent of the population earn less than $1 per day, with kerosene representing the second largest monthly expense (behind charcoal). The switch to energy efficient LED lighting, powered by rechargeable or disposable batteries, could save these people a lot of money.

Our four-person IDC team has spent the semester speaking with the key players in the Kenyan market to learn what types of interventions could accelerate the transition to more efficient lighting technologies. In March we traveled to Kenya for a series of interviews to help us understand the forces driving supply and demand for the products.

The team of first year MBA students was assembled for our diverse and complimentary backgrounds: Nathaniel Choge, a Kenyan whose father is an entrepreneur in the solar industry, has degrees in electrical engineering and business from MIT; Richard Wang is an electrical engineer who owns a company producing power controllers for solar panels in Tianjin, China; Ryan Petersen, an American, spent the last two years working in China as a sourcing agent and supply chain manager for an international trading firm; and Daniel Madden is a former strategy consultant from the UK who lived in Kenya for seven years,

During our time in Nairobi we met with a broad range of stakeholders in the markets for rural electrical appliances.. We spoke with executives from dozens of stakeholders, including the leaders of Kenya’s two largest battery producers, its largest grocery chain, and a credit cooperative. We also met with retailers, importers, logistics companies, solar product outlets, energy entrepreneurs, non-profit organizations and battery charging stations. In addition, Dan Madden conducted focus groups to learn which lighting products most appeal to people without grid access

The Earth Institute has been working under the assumption that despite cost savings over their lifetimes, the up-front costs of LED appliances are too expensive for Africa’s rural poor. Yet in Kenya as elsewhere, the prices for LEDs powered have fallen to levels that the poor can finally afford. Indeed, in both Nairobi and in towns nearer to Sauri—the village selected for the institute’s pilot project—we found LEDs to be widely available, with some selling for as little as $1.40.

Given their superior lighting qualities and reduced kerosene expenditures, LEDs represent a sound investment for residents of Sauri. Not surprisingly, the Chief Operating Officer of the credit cooperative Faulu, Kenya, wants his lending officers to begin promoting these cost-saving devices to a network of 75,000 borrowers.

We have found evidence of a huge market potential for LEDs and other energy-saving products to consumers in off-grid areas of rural Africa. To help spark interest of market players, the Earth Institute will soon launch a pilot project in Sauri. They will source the lights and batteries from the low-cost suppliers we found in our investigations. We have recommended that they conduct rigorous product quality testing to overcome negative perceptions of LED dependability. We have also suggested that they carry out frequent focus groups and demonstrations of the lights to raise awareness in the village. To succeed, we believe the Earth Institute must enlist Sauri’s merchants and kiosk operators as partners in reaching this untapped market.

Labels: Columbia Business School, Energy, International Development, Kenya

 

 

 

 

Labels: Columbia Business School, photos

Dollar a Day
How the world's poorest really spend their money.
By Tim Harford
Posted Saturday, March 31, 2007, at 8:33 AM ET
From Slate.com

Guntur, southern India, is a city short of money but not of entrepreneurs. Stroll through the main thoroughfare of the largest slum at 9 in the morning, and outside every sixth house you will pass a woman sitting behind a kerosene stove, ready to prepare dosa—rice-and-bean pancakes—for passersby with a rupee to spare. An hour later, each woman will be onto her next job. One woman earns cash by sewing fancy beads onto cheap, plain saris. Others are laborers, rubbish collectors, or pickle-makers.

The scene is described by two MIT economics professors, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, in their recent article, "The Economic Lives of the Poor." They set themselves the task of explaining how very poor people make money and how they spend it.

The "very poor" are those who live on less than $1 a day. That benchmark—a rare piece of brilliant marketing from the World Bank—is both more generous and more frugal than it seems. Generous, because the benchmark dates from 1985 and has since been adjusted to take account of inflation. But frugal because the dollar is adjusted for purchasing power. In other words, a Kenyan farmer might have 50 cents a day to spend but still not count as "very poor" because 50 cents in Kenya buys more than $1 would in the United States. However you look at it, a dollar a day is a tiny income.

Perhaps surprisingly, then, even the poorest find the resources to let their hair down. Duflo and Banerjee, looking at economic surveys of the very poor from 13 different countries, conclude that about one-third of household income is spent on stuff other than food. The alternatives to simply trying to consume more calories include shelter, of course, but even the poorest find some money to spend on things such as tobacco, alcohol, weddings, funerals, or religious festivals. Radios and televisions are also popular. Looking at food spending itself, although the very poor do focus on the cheapest grain—millet—they also spend on wheat, rice, and even sugar. This is expensive and offers little nutritional benefit, but it certainly makes lunch taste better.

The very poor even seem to have some consumer power. For example, in the countries where free public schools are especially bad, some parents scrape together the resources to send the children to private schools. The teachers may be largely unskilled themselves, but at least they show up.

The same is true for health care. A pair of World Bank economists, Jishnu Das and Jeffrey Hammer, examined the quality of public and private health care in Delhi, India. They found that while publicly employed doctors tended to be far better qualified than the private doctors, the private doctors tried much harder, spending more time, asking more questions, and examining patients more carefully. Competition works even for the poor.

It would work better yet if the poor were less destitute. One of the problems is that so much of this entrepreneurial activity is carried out on too tiny a scale to make much cash. Scaling up would be more efficient but requires capital equipment. That's hard to come by in a world where bank loans are scarce (this is why people, including the Norwegian Nobel committee, get so excited about microcredit), and cash savings are at risk from inflation and theft. It would be better, too, if it were easy to set up a legal business. According to the World Bank's "Doing Business" reports, the poorest countries often boast red tape that means it takes months and costs a small fortune to set up in business.

But do not despair entirely. In 1981, 40 percent of the world's people lived on less than $1 a day, according to Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion of the World Bank. The figure plummeted to 21 percent by 2001 and may be as low 15 percent by 2015. We can hope.

Labels: economics, International Development, poverty

Check out Social Edge, a Web community for those interested in social entrepreneurship. Matt Flannery, founder and CEO of Kiva, is among the site's bloggers.

Labels: entrepreneurship, social enterprise