When you turn on your radio, it seems that all you hear are ads telling you how simple it is to become rich or famous (or both) simply by buying a particular vendor’s book and/or seminar.

One of these particular ads is by Donald (“Thanks for the money, pops!”) Trump, who (pardon this) trumpets his combination book/website, saying, in effect, “You wanna be as rich as me? Just send me money and I’ll tell you how!”

The damnable part of all this is the fact that millions of people will send the Donald their hard-earned cash in return for slick, well-packaged glossy brochures, a DVD, and a solicitation to move to yet another level of 'success' (which happens to cost even more money!)

The truth of the matter is far, far away from what Trump and his kind are selling. For just as there is no pill that will make you lose weight and no “quick way” to earn a college degree - success in all things is simply a matter of goal setting and precise execution of all of the steps necessary to reach your goal.

It’s called work. And it includes the need to first build a firm foundation, or infrastructure, upon which you will later build your enterprise.

Click to read more ...

Lately, I have borne witness to a local phenomenon that I like to call, “General-Itis”.

This affliction, found mostly in start-up and early-stage businesses features a Modus Operandi wherein enough new sales revenue is generated to barely cover the next payroll/overhead costs.

Systems and planning are the first victims of General-Itis (hereinafter “GI”). Instead, the mindset of a GI-focused organization is “See the ball/Hit the ball.” And don’t worry about anything else.

General-Itis is typically the result of poor or little planning on the part of the “managers” (a term I’ll use lightly) of that business. “Hand-to-Mouth” is a term often used synonymously with GI.

Businesses typically suffering from GI include: home remodeling, software development, car repair, and lawn maintenance. But, and in reality, no human being is immune from this disease. Heck, I know many lawyers, doctors, and even scientists who just can’t seem to plan first and execute later.

And so do you, I’ll bet.

So, who are these guys? Well, I’m guessing that you are thinking right now, “Hey, they can’t be smart people, right?”

Think again.

Click to read more ...

“This guy’s gonna live”, I said to my wife after reading a Post-Gazette account of CMU professor Randy Pausch’s battle with terminal cancer, “Look at all he has accomplished. Look at all he has to live for (three kids, great wife, exciting job). Look at how he thinks.”

If you were fortunate enough to have witnessed Professor Pausch’s now-famous “Final Lecture,” you know that this guy is something special. (If you are one of the unfortunate few, you can see it now by going here.)

I have personally read his speech a half-dozen times. Partially because I love a “fighter”, and partially because it helps me with my own personal battle with liver and pancreatic cancer.

Already, Pausch has lived well beyond the (minimum) three month “window” that his doctors gave him in August. (They gave him a “max” lifespan until February … but I’ve personally dealt away two of these myself.) In the newspaper today, I just read that “palliative chemotherapy” is now extending his life some more, “probably well into 2008.”

Well, this is no surprise to me. In fact, I’ll bet that we’re seeing Randy Pausch above ground for at least the next year and probably for years beyond that. How do I know this? If there is one thing that I’ve learned in my four-year battle with this disease - it’s that tough guys live and everyone else dies.

And Pausch is obviously one tough guy!

Click to read more ...

Still astounded by Pittsburgh’s choice in the recent mayoral race, I decided to see for myself just what the high-tech community might have lost, had Mark DeSantis indeed been elected over Luke Ravenstahl.

You see, Mark started MobileFusion on the start-up fecund South Side about eighteen months ago. While I must confess seeing very little connection between that name and this company’s flagship product, I can say that I came away from my three-hour visit/demo extremely impressed. (And I’m a guy who looks at literally hundreds of companies each and every year.)

In short, MobileFusion makes and sells a hardened ball that contains all kinds of exotic sensing devices and software that is designed for deployment (usually by hand) into dark and dangerous “Bad Guy” areas - mainly by anti-terrorist personnel.

“We’re tired of sending eighteen to twenty year-old kids into these traps”, a prominent, yet unnamed Marine Corp General is quoted. “For a small price, we can instead use the MobileFusion device to feed back to us all that it sees, hears, smells, and even infers.”

How is this possible? Well, that's the secret sauce. MobileFusion has done a lot of things right; but the first and most important thing they've done correctly, is their research. Interviewing primarily the branch of the service known as SOCOM (betcha didn’t even know that there is a 5th branch of the military, did you? Well, there is, and it’s been in existence since 1978) MobileFusion’s professionals determined exactly what the very top direction-setters in our defense department truly want from their surveillance devices.

Click to read more ...