Cristian George Strat

Canadian GOLD

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:11:00 +0200

In Canada ice hockey is a BIG deal. Besides being the official winter sport, most of the development of modern ice hockey happened here. The first organized indoor game was in Montreal, 1875. The rules of the game were codified by Canadian students, and the first ice hockey club was funded in Montreal.

Today I witnessed the 2010 Olympics hockey final for the gold medal between two old rivals: Canada vs USA. The game was epic! US tied the score only 25 seconds before the end of the match, thus extending the game in sudden death mode. Finally, Canada broke the tie and secured the 2010 hockey gold medal.

As a foreigner in Vancouver, I was very impressed with how Canadians celebrate this sport and I captured a few pictures and videos to show you.

Here’s a bunch of Canadians in a pub at the beginning of the game. Nothing really going on, somebody taking a call, just chillin’.

Now here’s what happens when Canadians score! You’d better turn down the volume by a few notches. It is LOUD! :)

Let’s go out and see what’s going on on the streets!

“Go Canada!”, high-fives, free hugs, and loud cheers all around. The streets are full in the middle of the day!

Vancouver is going crazy!

This guy was arrested for a minor offense - he climbed on the bus station. :)

I’m happy to be in Vancouver in these moments! It’s moving to watch thousands of people celebrating together. It’s not good times that test the strength of a country but they do show how Canadians truly love their homeland.

Cum să nu fii original

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:44:42 +0200

Cea mai mare ambiție în viață a lui Brown e să fie original, iar metoda sa de a deveni original este să ia ceea ce nu este original și să facă invers.

Dacă lui Brown i s-ar da o planetă a sa proprie ca să facă ce vrea cu ea, el ar numi ziua - noapte și vara - iarnă. I-ar face pe toți bărbații și femeile sale să meargă în mâini și să-și dea mâna cu picioarele; copacii săi ar crește cu rădăcinile în aer, iar cocoșul bătrân ar trebui să facă toate ouăle, în timp ce găina ar sta pe gard și ar face cucurigu. Apoi s-ar da cu un pas înapoi și ar spune:

- Vedeți ce lume originală am creat; e în întregime ideea mea proprie!

Un citat dintr-un roman simpatic: „Arta de a nu scrie un roman”, Jerome K. Jerome :)

Book Review: Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:00:00 +0200

Reading this book was an amazing experience! The main story revolves around 3 couples: Tomas (an incurable womanizer) and his loving wife Tereza, the same Tomas and his mistress Sabina (an aimless artist), and Sabina with Franz. (a moody and indecisive professor)

“characters are not born like people, of woman; they are born of a situation, a sentence, a metaphor containing in a nutshell a basic human possibility that the author thinks no one else has discovered or said something essential about.”

As the story unfolds the author pauses frequently to contemplate intriguing philosophical questions. The motif is The Difficult Resolution: whether people should be weighted down by meaningful and responsible living or act freely, carelessly, but ultimately with no consequences on the world around them.

“The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they are. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, […] his movements as free as they are insignificant.”

“What shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

Perhaps ironically, all important resolutions in the life of the characters, all irrevocable decisions with profound consequences are done in a careless blink of a second.

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. In the realm of kitsch, the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme.”

The central setting of the novel is Prague in the spring of 1968 when the Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia to halt their attempts of political liberalization. Telling the story of this agitated period, Kundera has numerous occasions to contemplate on the absurdity of the communist regime.

“the [communist] regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.”

”[…] theory of socialist art: The Soviet society had made such progress that the basic conflict was no longer between good and evil but between good and better. So shit (that is, whatever is essentially unacceptable) could exist only on the other side (in America, for instance), and only from there, from the outside, as something alien (a spy, for instance), could it penetrate the world of good and better.”

This was a tremendous novel and some of its questions kept me thinking long after closing the book. I really enjoyed the style and I’ll definitely look into more writings by Milan Kundera.

Book Review: Blue Ocean Strategy

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:47:00 +0200

This business book by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne was sold in over 2 million copies and translated in more than 40 languages. Despite the high praise it has enjoyed, I am not personally very fond of it. Here’s why.

You can summarize the main idea behind Blue Ocean Strategy in two paragraphs:

Instead of competing in crowded markets, companies should focus on exploring Blue Oceans - large, untapped markets, free of competition. One can discover such Blue Oceans through Value Innovation - the process of creating value for both the buyer and the company.

Value Innovation essentially means bringing a better product (faster, easier to use) for a smaller price (no unnecessary features, less costs). This contradicts conventional wisdom that quality and low prices are mutually exclusive.

Now, this is a fine idea, and I like it. My problem with the book is that there’s nothing really more to it besides this main idea. I got bored going through the 230 or so pages. Here’s what you’ll find if you take the time to read it:

Repetitions: “Didn’t I read this before?” and “You already said that!” were constantly popping up in my head as I went through the book. It’s tiresome!
Hardly useful labels and templates presented as tools and frameworks to create Blue Oceans systematically. I think most of them are too thin and too trivial to be useful. For instance, here is essentially The Four Actions Framework:

1. Come up with brilliant new features
2. Improve some existing features
3. Eliminate unnecessary features
4. Reduce some less important features

What do you think?
Anecdotal evidence involving hundreds of real companies from dozens of industries such as hotels, cinemas, retail stores, airlines, energy, computers, etc. The authors highlight inspired business decisions that follow Blue Ocean reasoning. The problem is they are all after-the-fact conclusions. We don’t know if the companies were consciously executing BO strategies.

Take the example of the Apple II PC (1978) which was more powerful and easier to use than its competitor (the IBM PC), at a price affordable for middle-class families. Apple created the market of personal computers for home use. You can certainly call that a Blue Ocean, but does it mean Apple was using BOS with its tools and frameworks? Can we assert that Apple owes its success for doing the key things that constitute a Blue Ocean Strategy? Go figure.

On a more positive note, there is a thing I like about this book. It’s the story of many a world class company executing brilliant strategies, winning the hearts and mind of customers, and reshaping whole industries. Such inspiring stories do more for me than the concepts and theories of the Blue Oceans.

Big in Romania

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:17:01 +0200

readfu:

Since the announcement in December that we’ve been accepted into Bootup Labs ReadFu has been getting quite a bit of press coverage in Romania, our home country.

We hope our story will inspire entrepreneurs from Romania and that more companies will apply to Bootup Labs (next cohort is in May) or similar incubators!

We did some interviews, both online and on TV, and we’ve tried to be as informative as possible regarding the application process. If you feel inspired, you can start “preparing” by reading what’s been said about us:

http://www.arenabiz.ro/readfu-un-startup-romanesc-este-acceptat-in-incubatorul-bootup-labs

http://webtv.money.ro/emisiuni/antreprenor-12-01-2010

http://www.focusit.ro/2010/01/readfu-de-la-balaur-ro-la-bootup-labs-in-canada

http://manafu.blogspot.com/2010/01/online-balaurii-merg-cu-readfu-la.html

http://www.strategic.ro/digital/readfu-a-fost-selectat-pentru-bootup-labs.html

http://www.dailybusiness.ro/stiri-new-media/povestea-proiectului-romanesc-readfu-com-care-a-atras-o-finantare-de-100-000-de-euro-din-canada-36891

http://www.iaa.ro/Articole/Comunicate/Readfu-un-startup-online-romanesc-in-vancouver-canada/3179.html

http://www.businessmagazin.ro/actualitate/afaceri/incubatorul-canadian-bootup-labs-investeste-in-start-up-ul-romanesc-readfu-5315792

http://refresh.ro/2010/01/despre-readfu-si-seedcamp-la-the-money-channel

P.S.: Wouldn’t it be great to be able to preview all these links without having to open a new tab? :)

Am apărut pe The Money Channel cu ReadFu și balaur.ro. Have a...

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:12:00 +0200

Am apărut pe The Money Channel cu ReadFu și balaur.ro. Have a look! După primele 5 minute îl puteți vedea și pe Vladimir Oane de la uberVU. :)

mirceapasoi:

ReadFu on Money Channel recording - first 5 minutes (in Romanian)

Book Review: Valley Boy, The Education of Tom Perkins

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:26:00 +0200

Tom Perkins is the co-founder of America’s premier venture capital firm - Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He served as director of Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Philips Electronics, News Corporation, Symantec, and many more. His VC firm reshaped venture investing and the companies they invested in reshaped whole industries.

Besides doing high business, Tom is a man of exceptional passions, among them yachting, ocean racing, vintage cars, and writing.

This auto-biography is wholly entertaining, sprinkled with dry humor, wisdom, and adventures. You’ll get a glimpse at the founding moments of many historical tech companies. For example, he mentions putting $20M in Google for about 24% of shares in 1999:

John [Doerr of KPCB] helped founders Brin and Page to develop a team - he went on the board and also recruited Eric Schmidt […] to help run the place, and the strategy for selling advertising spotted to searches was developed.

Be advised though, this isn’t a business book! Tom shies away from giving specific business advice and account details. (The whole Google story spans just two paragraphs, despite being “their most successful home run.”) He goes on instead to tell the story of a well lived life, his mentor Dave Packard, his being tried for manslaughter in a backwater French town, his passion for sail boats, the death of his wife, the writing of a novel, and his relationship with Danielle Steel.

By his own account, the toughest assignment he’s ever had was as a trustee emeritus of the San Francisco Ballet Company, helping them become one of the best in the world.

Tom is a brilliant story teller and his memoir is a real page turner.

Why should you read it?

My biggest take away from this book is the inspiring winning attitude of Tom Perkins. With every page I turn he’s taking on another challenge and going the extra mile until he completely wins it. It’s not just about the business, it’s in everything he does. Expect to end up dreaming big and feeling energized after this lecture.

PS: If you are interested in this book and you live in Bucharest I can lend it to you. Just leave a comment.

2009, Lucrurile bune

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:08:03 +0200

După exemplul lui Dragoș, mi-am propus și eu să-mi fac o listă de realizări pe 2009. Având în vedere că mai sunt 7h până la momentul 0 și că trebuie să plec acuși spre petrecere, ar trebui să mă grăbesc. :)

Am decis să scriu numai despre lucrurile bune. Aș avea ceva rele de zis însă vreau să închei anul pe o notă pozitivă. „Cele rele să se spele, cele bune să se-adune!” :)

Anul Balaurului

De departe, în 2009 am lucrat cel mai mult la balaur.ro: Am conceput, am lansat și am dezvoltat balaur.ro - cel mai tare motor de căutare de job-uri din România. :) Experiența aceasta m-a învățat enorm de multe și m-a pus în legătură cu oameni foarte tari. Doar câteva exemple de pe vărful limbii: Dragoș Rouă, Cristian Manafu, Dragoș Novac, Dragoș Mănac, Vladimir Oane, Sergiu Biriș. Mai sunt mulți, scuze, dar nu sunt în stare să-i enumăr aici. :)

Balaurul a fost premiat la DevWorld și la Webstock, s-a prezentat la GeekMeet și în general e un proiect foarte tare de care sunt mândru. Balaurul a făcut multe în primul său an de viață și vă invit să-i citiți bilanțul pe 2009. E scurt și impresionant. :)

ReadFu, mergem în .com!

ReadFu este o idee de startup pentru piața internațională. Am făcut un prototip, am aplicat la BootupLabs - un incubator de startups din Vancouver, BC. Am trecut de preselecții, interviuri și în final am fost acceptați! Deci ne mutăm în Canada și ne așteaptă 8 luni grele de muncă și learning. Primul mentor cu care vom interacționa pe ~28 Ianuarie 2010 va fi Guy Kawasaki. Sper să îi placă produsul nostru! :)

Află mai multe despre BootupLabs pe ReadWriteWeb.

O nouă conducere la infoarena.ro

infoarena.ro este comunitatea olimpicilor la informatică din România. Este proiectul meu de suflet pe care l-am fondat împreună cu 3 prieteni foarte buni acum 6 ani de zile. Pe infoarena, mii de elevi și studenți învață informatică și programare, unii de la altii. Organizăm concursuri de informatică, scriem articole, dezvoltăm software, facem schimb de experiență și idei. (Mai multe despre infoarena.)

Care e realizarea pe 2009? Din Octombrie, infoarena are o nouă conducere! Asta înseamnă că proiectul nostru a ajuns la maturitate și că are continuitate. Succes echipei infoarena!

Am jurizat 100+ proiecte web

Am fost în juriul de aplicații web la InfoMatrix și InfoEducaţie, două concursuri mari de proiecte software pentru elevi. E un lucru pe care îl fac cu mare plăcere de câțiva ani. Anul acesta cred că am analizat peste 100 de proiecte și prezentări făcute de echipe de liceeni super super talentați.

Oameni din online despre care știu că au fost la InfoEducație „în tinerețe”: Vivi, Marius Deak, Laurian Gridinoc, Andrei Gheorghe, Bogdan Bocșe, Cristi Bălan, Irina Dumitrașcu. Voi mai știți și alții?

Pe la aceste evenimente umblă viitorii antreprenori și profesioniști web din România. Vă încurajez să urmăriți și să sprijiniți astfel de evenimente! (Aviz către Seed Money :P)

Master la FMI

Am fost admis cu nota 10.0 la master-ul de Sisteme Distribuite de la FMI, Universitatea București. Nerd! :)

Altele

Un articol științific la care sunt co-autor a fost prezentat la ALENEX09 în NYC: Solving Maximum Flow Problems on Real World Bipartite Graphs
Membru în comisia științifică a Olimpiadei Naționale de Informatică 2009, Galați.
Mi-am luat carnet de șofer, m-am mutat în casă nouă, am terminat runda 1 pe locul I la GMC România…

Am format o echipă tare

Las această realizare la sfârșit pentru că e cea mai importantă și pentru că vreau să o țineți minte. :) Am un sfat pentru cei care încă lucrează solo: Căutați-vă coechipieri super tari! Aproape tot din ce am înșirat aici nu ar fi fost posibil dacă lucram singur.

Încă de la începutul anului am format o echipă cu doi prieteni buni: Silviu Gănceanu și Mircea Pașoi. La început ne întâlneam sporadic, fiecare dintre noi avea proiecte personale, treburi de făcut pe lângă însă ușor ușor am ajuns să lucrăm full-time, fără distracții, zi de zi la un vis comun. De departe, faptul că facem o echipă bună este principalul nostru avantaj în toate provocările pe care le vom întâlni. (10x, guys! Ne vedem acuși la party! :P)

Dacă nu am fost suficient de clar, încerc din nou: Cam toate realizările de mai sus sunt ale echipei noastre, nu doar ale mele. :)

Un mic bilanț și felicitările de rigoare :)

Cam atât am avut de zis, sper că nu am uitat ceva major. :)

Mi-am adus aminte că pe la începutul lui 2009 mi-am stabilit câteva obiective personale, le-am și notat pe undeva. Sumarul lor era acesta (citez din notițele mele):

2009 este anul în care fac tranziția de la student, sau liber profesionist, sau expert, la antreprenor.

Consider că am estimat bine cum va arăta 2009 pentru mine, că am rămas fidel obiectivului meu și că am progresat. Deci felicitări mie din partea mea și, e clar, trebuie să beau și să sărbătoresc tare în noaptea aceasta! :)

La mulți ani!

ReadFu, our Romanian startup FTW!

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:01:00 +0200

Great news, everyone! The startup I’m working on with my friends has been selected for the Jan 2010 BootupLabs program, a startup incubator based in Vancouver, BC.

This is exciting news! We’re looking forward to 8 months of hard work and mentorship from world class CEOs and tech leaders. Can’t wait to fire up some questions to Guy Kawasaki, Tim Bray, and all the others!

You can read more on this ReadWriteWeb article and on the BootupLabs portfolio page.

"Morgan Stanley: Mobile Internet Market Will Be Twice The Size of Desktop Internet"

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:48:00 +0200

“Morgan Stanley: Mobile Internet Market Will Be Twice The Size of Desktop Internet”

- Via ReadWriteWeb

FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY (Techno Tuesday)

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:07:00 +0200

FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY (Techno Tuesday)