Lately I’ve been interested in reading books on business, money, life, motivation, and other intriguing topics.  I’ve always read a lot online, but rarely would buy a book to sit and read.  After getting many suggestions recently, I’ve become interested in reading more offline.  I’ve gathered a decent a list of books that I will purchase soon, and am currently reading “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy”, which analyzes how strategy affects business.

While searching for other books to read in the future, I came across a book called “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” by Daniel Pink.  The title seemed interesting, and the summary did as well.  After reading some reviews, I came across a TED talk that Daniel gave on the science of motivation in 2009.  It gives a convincing analysis of motivation, incentives, and results and compares traditional 20th century motives and models to 21st century – and is summarized as:

Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.

It is an 18 minute talk, and is well worth the time if you have any interest in what I’ve said above.  You can watch it below, or at this link.

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2011 has been another great year.  It comes and goes faster than we always expect, and it never fails to surprise us when it is gone. Time is interesting – we use it as a measurement of age, and all things are relative.  Short time for something like cooking (measured in minutes), medium time for something like human age (usually in decades), and long time for something like rock age (measured in thousand or millions of years).  Well, another 365 days have now passed, or 31,536,000 seconds, and another birthday has come and gone.  It goes by fast because our mind gets caught up in everything going on these days.  Here is a recap of my year (or I guess you can now easily review your life with Facebook Timeline).

2011 kicked off sitting on the couch with Sophie, and my roommates Kyle and Camille, drinking a bottle of champagne in Golden, Colorado.  Sophie flew back to London within a week to start working on her university projects.  I headed off to Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit West on January 11th with my brother John.  I returned just before my last semester of college began in mid-January.

In February I skied quite a lot since I had a season pass to Loveland Ski Area.  In mid February I played in the Pabst Pond Hockey Tournament in Silverthorne with John and a bunch of his friends.  It was an awesome 2 day tournament.  The following week I went to Colorado Springs for a cubing competition, which also happened to be on my 22nd birthday.  I broke a few personal records, won the competition, and enjoyed an awesome cube cake (thanks Helena!).

In March I took the 8 hour Fundamental Engineering Exam (FE) (and passed it), enjoyed more skiing, went to a Colorado Avalanche game, and celebrated my last E-days (Engineering Days at CSM) . I was also featured in the last segment of a video on the Mines International Progam - I talked about my experiences while living abroad in England.

In April I bought a cheap motorcycle on Craigslist.  It has been a childhood dream to own a bike, and after getting my license in November, 2010, I finally purchased a bike.  I also went golfing for the first time. In May I graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a degree in Electrical Engineering.  Although it often seemed to be a burden, I thoroughly enjoyed university.  The last semester proved to be one of the best of them all.

Sophie flew back to Colorado in June to spend the summer with me.  Throughout the summer, we hiked Mt. Bierstadt (my second time) with my brothers Ron and John, hiked around the mountains near Golden, went camping, boarded the Great Sand Dunes, attended a few Colorado Rockies games, attempted to eat a 6lb calzone, and we also road-tripped California for 2 weeks. During the summer I also moved out of my apartment and into Lakewood with my brother John and his friend Scott.  Sophie left back to England in early September to begin her third year of undergrad.

In October I launched an online puzzle shop and began working on e-commerce.  It has long been one of my interests, and has so far proved to be a great learning experience. In late October I helped my brother Ron move from Denver to Salt Lake City, which was a great experience. In November I flew to England to spend time with Sophie and my old friends from when I lived in England (2009-10).  I celebrated Sophie’s 21st birthday at her house in Leeds, and the following weekend took a train south to Bristol to attend the UK Open 2011.  It proved to be one of the best competitions I’ve ever attended.

In early December, Sophie and I flew to Budapest for 4 nights to relax and checkout the city.  In mid December we drove to the Lake District to celebrate the 21st birthday of Emily, one of Sophie’s university friends.  It was a great time. Around Christmas we drove to Watford (north London) to celebrate.  I met a good portion of her family and spent an excellent week in London, including a day trip to St. Albans to checkout the Verulamium Museum (ancient Roman ruins), and a trip to an aircraft museum in northern London.

As a write this from Leeds, England, 2011 is about to end and 2012 is about to begin.  I expect 2012 to be bigger and better than ever before.

Goals

Every year I try to set goals and then recap.  Here is my 2010 Year in Review post .  I set goals to prevent procrastination and to give me something to work more hard for – a motivation if you will.

Here is a recap of my goals for 2011 and their outcome:

• Graduate from CSM with an Electrical Engineering degree - DONE
• Go to graduate school in England – FAILED – Got accepted, but unable to get sponsorship to secure funding.
• Travel more – DONE – went to Las Vegas, California, Salt Lake City, England, Hungary
• Expand my company, expand to more consistent niches – DONE – expanded quite a lot, but still have a lot more to go.
• Take the GRE – DONE – it wasn’t necessary, but did complete it.
• Attend Rubik’s US Nationals 2011 – FAILED – was road-tripping California.
• Get better at ice hockey – DONE – played in a few more leagues and tournaments.
• Sell house in Southern Colorado – FAILED – was taken off the market.
• Develop more websites and expand current ones – DONE – launched some exciting ones and others grew nicely.
• Learn more German – DONE – put in many hours, but plan to do much more in the future.

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It’s been a crazy last few weeks for me.  I helped move my brother out to Salt Lake City, Utah (which is a beautiful city by the way), and a few days later caught a flight out to Manchester, England to visit my girlfriend Sophie and my other friends abroad.  A couple weekends ago started with Sophie’s birthday party, and then I spent the weekend in Bristol, England for the 2011 UK Open Rubik’s Cube Championship, followed by a weekend in Newcastle raising money for charity.  Late last night I got back from a couple days in Birmingham (for a Frank Turner concert and then watched the opening of “The Nutcracker”).  So far the trip has been pretty good, and I expect it to get better.

I wanted to write a bit about my thoughts on future technology and its effect on our lives. I’ve been pondering a lot over the last year about the future of our lives, with the mass emergence of Facebook (which has enormous about of influence on the world, and is taking over people’s lives), and how mobile phones are removing the use of desktop/laptop internet use – mobile internet will soon overtake fixed internet (in terms of traffic).  It is an interesting thought.  10 years ago a mobile phone wasn’t even that common to have, 5 years ago having a phone was normal, but internet on it no so much, and 5 years further everyone not only has a phone, but they have a phone with internet – and they are using it – A LOT. Instead of logging on their home computer to check Facebook, people simply pull their phone out of their pocket, anywhere, anytime.  It is interesting and facinating to think about.

You can look at it from many perspectives (from the phone user, from the phone creator, or from an advertiser, to name a few).  Since I’ve been arbitraging the internet advertising market as of late, I’d like to talk about it from that perspective.  Advertising on the internet has exploded over the last few years – I remember reading in 2008 how Google grossed something like $22 billion with Adwords.  It was surprising, but I didn’t fully understand it.  I remember when Google bought Admob (mobile ad network) a couple years ago for $800 million, and I didn’t fully understand.  In 2009, internet advertising overtook TV advertising in the UK. It all makes sense now – they predicted that mobile was going to be huge (they also build the Android – and they now lead the mobile market).  Another interesting piece – the richest man in the world is the guy who runs the biggest cellphone carrier in Latin America.  Looking at just this, you can see this crazy shift – mobile is becoming a huge part of our lives, and with that, mobile is becoming a big part of internet advertising – and is taking it over.  Because the internet will likely be used more on a mobile phone than on a desktop computer soon, people will be spending their money advertising on a mobile a phone.  Contrary to what most may think, this is likely a good thing.

With a desktop computer, what do you know about the user (from an advertiser perspective)?  Well, you know thier location, you know what sites they are visiting, and depending on the website, you know their age, gender, interests, etc.  With a mobile phone, you also know all this information.  The big difference is that the mobile phone constantly travels with the user, so advertising can be taylored toward where someone is, what they are doing, and how they are doing it.  Ads will be much more personal, which is good.  Say you’re walking through downtown NYC around lunchtime during the summer – if ads show up on your phone showing which local businesses next to you are offering free lemonade and 50% off on a meal, it helps you find what you want.  It helps businesses make money, and it helps you save money.  It just makes sense, and it helps people enjoy their life more. This is just one minor example – the possibilities are endless.

Another big part of mobile are the applications.  Advertisers can also buy real estate in the applications, and offer you further things that interest you.  While you’re using an application to find directions across town (by the way, mobile phones are removing GPS’s from existence), you can now be offered places to stop and eat, shop, rest, fix your car, and much more.  Although this isn’t too new, it is becoming much, much more accurate as your phone learns more about what you do, how you do it, and what you like.  The more the phone knows, the more it can help you.  Additionally, there is huge demand for quality phone applications, and there is also huge competition.  Applications that hold the most popular spots make a lot money (I remember iFart making upwards of $50,000 a day a few years back when it was one of the most downloaded applications).  Because there is competition (because of demand), there is money, and overall this boosts the quality of the applications, which is better for you, the phone user.

This is just something to think about, and there is huge opportunity here to jump into a lot of markets built around mobile.  It is massive, and it is going to get much, much bigger.  I find it fascinating, and I am excited to see what the future brings in mobile.

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Since I was a junior in high school, I have managed to run somewhat of an online business while going through school. As a junior in high school, I knew that the internet had high potential and I wanted to be part of it. I didn’t fully realize the potential, however, until the end of my junior year. I began looking into the different ways to create useful content, products, and sites online. By the end of my junior year I had solely launched my first big idea. During my senior year of high school, I continued to develop my idea and also look into new ideas. While most students my age were out messing around, I was often brainstorming about my next idea while working on my homework.  I’m not sure why this was, but it seemed more interesting to me. Once I graduated from high school, I went on to study Electrical Engineering away from home.  While my free time went down, I was forced to balance my life more carefully.  I woke, showered, ate, went to school for a few hours, worked through work-study to ensure I could pay my expenses, came home and did homework, and then worked on my online business.  That was a typical day.  I’d often taok weekends off during the first year or two of college.

During my college years is when I really picked it up and took it seriously, almost as a job (but I loved doing it so I didn’t seem the way most people consider “work”). During my first year of college, I worked in the admissions office as a work-study student to make more money. Second year I switched to doing work-study at home, which paid way more and gave me much more flexibility. Third year I lived in England as a study abroad student.  I had much more free time (due to way less contact hours and way less homework – just a different education system there), but I was often out exploring the city or meeting new friends (I wanted to take advantage of my time living abroad).  However, even with going out daily, traveling on break, and spending a lot of time away from the computer, I still found lots of time to manage my online business.  By this point I was no longer doing work study and I found the investment of my time was best at home (instead of work study working for the university).  My online business was furthering developing.

My fourth year of university (back in the US) was busy, but productive.  First semester I had a busy class schedule, and was also managing tons of new projects.  I often slept 6-7 hours a night to make things work.  Second semester my schedule lightened, and I was able to devote more time.  However, my schedule was similar to first year, except instead of work study, I was working for myself at home.  Typically I woke at 7am (whether I had class early or not), worked for an hour or two, went to class all day, came back and did homework, and then worked when I finished homework.  However, keep in mind with all this happening, I often went out with friends and was involved in many school activities.  I rarely denied an opportunity to go out and do something with friends.

Since graduating, my business had expanded beyond what I expected at this point.  Since going full time, I’ve not only learned a great deal, but have made some tough decisions that have worked out well.  I’ve recently just begun a new venuture which will launch in a couple weeks, and I’m excited to begin developing that.  My full time schedule is now something like: sleep 8 hours, wake, run, shower, eat, check email/browse for an hour, work for a couple hours, eat lunch, work for a few more hours, eat dinner, and work more.  However, I don’t really consider it “work”, since I love doing it.  I love setting my own hours and pay, and I love the excitment in the risk and thought that goes into it. I also know that the more time I put in now, the less time I will have to put in later. I’m currently working extra hard because I am leaving to England in 2 weeks for a 2 months trip over there, which I am super excited about.

With this said, it is certainly possible to run a business while attending school full time – and do well in both.  The internet is powerful – you can go anywhere at anytime and be doing something.  You can also automate almost everything, so you don’t need to be physically there to make things work.  I’m excited to begin traveling and working, and explore new people and places around the world.  Work hard, have fun, and enjoy what you do.  In other words, work hard, party harder.

And if you need some motivation or tips, I’d highly suggest you checkout this video if you haven’t seen it yet.

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