After prolonged soul searching the last few days I have decided to spin off my varied interests into numerous blogs for mini projects that I have been starting, then incubating, then forgetting, then dusting off, ad nauseam.

So spinning off these various interests (more on this later) which have made this blog somewhat unfocused will also breath life into the other projects and give them something to develop from and build off from over time. Rather than just sitting in the proverbial corner of my mind, muttering about potential and opportunity.

So this blog will refocus onto my chief entrepreneurial hobby and document (sounds quite official?) my journey along this path. This path being that of an increasingly mobile and nomadic solopreneur. Or as a title “How to build a business that travels well.”

This fits with the whole Beach Bum Billionaire concept and is essentially the distilled core, of determining the course and formula of freedom of location, time and financial constraint, very much inspired by Tim Ferris, and his mini-retirements. There is a distant goal of taking a much needed gap year and travelling, the challenge though is to not stop working, to reformat that “work” such that it is not a burden and is also completely mobile and nomadic.

Its about the greedy pursuit, with the best intentions, of the best of both worlds. The world of work and the world of ‘not work’. Seeking work that is meaningful and purposeful such that it ceases to be work, and the reconfiguring that process so that it can be conducted within the best of changing environments.

Its about getting rid of the physical hindrances, being leaner and lighter, getting mobile, and getting going. Its the combination of doing and seeing. Broadened horizons breed bountiful perspectives.

So I hope you’d care to join me on my journey to discover “How to Run a Business From a Hammock”, I’m sure to share the odd tip, trick and tale.

About this talk

Andy Hobsbawm shares a fresh ad campaign about going green — and some of the fringe benefits.

About Andy Hobsbawm

Andy Hobsbawm is the European chair of Agency.com and the founder of the website Green Thing.

This is a very quick short video that’s pretty cool and has 2-3 lessons that are worth re-learning even if you’re one of those Netizens that know everything already.

About this talk

In a funny, rapid-fire 4 minutes, Alexis Ohanian of Reddit tells the real-life fable of one humpback whale’s rise to Web stardom. The lesson of Mister Splashy Pants is a shoo-in classic for meme-makers and marketers in the Facebook age.

About Alexis Ohanian

Alexis Ohanian co-founded Reddit, a social-voting news website with geek allegiances, a small-town feel and a penchant for lighting up the memes your friends IM you about next week.

Have you started a movement today? Got any tips?

So take this 2–minute Isenberg Entrepreneur Test, below, to help you find out if you’ve got what it takes. Just answer yes or no. Be honest with yourself, the worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

1. I don’t like being told what to do by people who are less capable than I am.
2. I like challenging myself.
3. I like to win.
4. I like being my own boss.
5. I always look for new and better ways to do things.
6. I like to question conventional wisdom.
7. I like to get people together in order to get things done.
8. People get excited by my ideas.
9. I am rarely satisfied or complacent.
10. I can’t sit still.
11. I can usually work my way out of a difficult situation.
12. I would rather fail at my own thing than succeed at someone else’s.
13. Whenever there is a problem, I am ready to jump right in.
14. I think old dogs can learn — even invent — new tricks.
15. Members of my family run their own businesses.
16. I have friends who run their own businesses.
17. I worked after school and during vacations when I was growing up.
18. I get an adrenaline rush from selling things.
19. I am exhilarated by achieving results.
20. I could have written a better test than Isenberg (and here is what I would change ….)

Note: I’ve been meaning to post another test, but this one I found is simpler and faster, so it won. The original source.

And keep in mind, building a business is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. No test can tell you if you have what it takes, you need to decide for yourself.

In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to just ignore the ordinary stuff. Marketing guru Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones.

Running Time: 17 mins.

Speaker Bio

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur and blogger who thinks about the marketing of ideas in the digital age. His newest interest: the tribes we lead.

"Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age," Mary Kuntz wrote inBusiness Week nearly a decade ago. "Instead of widgets or car parts, he specializes in ideas — usually, but not always, his own." In fact, he’s as focused on spreading ideas as he is on the ideas themselves.

After working as a software brand manager in the mid-1980s, Godin started Yoyodyne, one of the first Internet-based direct-marketing firms, with the notion that companies needed to rethink how they reached customers. His efforts caught the attention of Yahoo!, which bought the company in 1998 and kept Godin on as a vice president of permission marketing. Godin has produced several critically acclaimed and attention-grabbing books, including Permission Marketing, All Marketers Are Liars, and Purple Cow (which was distributed in a milk carton). In 2005, Godin founded Squidoo.com, a Web site where users can share links and information about an idea or topic important to them.

"[Godin] is a demigod on the Web, a best-selling author, highly sought-after lecturer, successful entrepreneur, respected pundit and high-profile blogger. He is uniquely respected for his understanding of the Internet."

Forbes.com

My Thoughts

I am an admitted Seth Godin fan, I have read at least three of his books, with another of his books in the pipeline. If you are open-minded marketer or business starter and looking for a different perspective, a different more creative approach to business then have a listen to this one idea.

For me Godin’s ideas simply resonate, I hope they resonate with you too.

A lot of time has been spent getting my company’s new product offering up and running. The front end package offering may seem simple enough, you can view packages how to get a small business website here, but what has really kept us busy is the automation behind it.

Now its not some enterprise level ASIMO inspired automation, but the amount of options available for business related cloud apps and the resulting permutations of their possible configurations is mind blowing. Also its mind numbingly boring so I will not go into details.

My question though is how to share what I have learned without giving away any trade secrets or any edges. The question really is about whether my implementation is anything unique or something far more common. If its the latter then no harm no foul, if its the former then "’bugger” I’ve just let the competition in.

I will probably lean with the former and write up a magnum opus of the trials and tribulations of restructuring a business to operate in the ‘cloud’ and why you would care, or should, and why in fact I care.

The post will be titled something utterly pompous like: Rebuilding My Business with My Head in the Cloud. No headline is truly complete without some sort of poorly judged pun.

This is the reason for my absence and silence, also I have been working or tinkering on a new theme for this blog that better captures the energy and spirit. I’ve notice that while I get plenty traffic from commenting on fellow bloggers posts (being first helps mind you, just as much as writing something intelligible) not many of these new visitors stay very long. In fact only a couple of seconds.

This boils down to a disconnect or unappealing initial impression. Once I recovered from the grave insult, and had sobered completely from a debaucherous binge needed to recover my shattered self-esteem. I decided to tidy things up a bit and add in some much needed colour and yes a bit of a brand.

So in the next few weeks, something resembling the online abode of a Beach Bum Billionaire will be erected and displayed in all its ramshackle glory.

So that’s how it stands:

1. Developing a product for small business websites
2. Restructuring my business for mobility
3. Crafting a Frankenstein of an island vide theme

I will torture you in the future will inexplicably detailed reports on the above.

*This post is best read as if with the accent of a 19th century ‘tortured soul’ English aristocrat. I have know idea why but that’s how I see the scene, should this be made into a major film adaptation. Just saying.*

Comment Idea: Let me know of any preference for the three topics and it will prioritise the order at which they come out.

Bored in school, failing classes, at odds with peers: This child might be an entrepreneur, says Cameron Herold. At TEDxEdmonton, he makes the case for parenting and education that helps would-be entrepreneurs flourish — as kids and as adults.

About Cameron Herold

An entrepreneur since childhood, Cameron Herold wants parents and teachers to recognize — and foster — entrepreneurial talent in kids.

I personally love this talk and think all prospective parents and all ‘breeders*’ should watch this, before popping the proverbial bun in the oven. There’s nothing wrong with your kids being lawyers, doctors, dentists and accountants. And neither is there anything wrong with raising entrepreneurs.

*My theory is that all people who have kids (the typical way) are breeders, not all are parents. I’m just cynical like that.

I was passing a ‘little’ one the other day and noticed that his shirt was on inside out. I mentioned this in passing, and the little boy stopped.

He looked at his shirt, then back at me, and said simply and somewhat incredulously: “It still works.”

And promptly toddled off to whatever important affairs of state he had to attend to.

I smiled that smile you smile when you think “That’s cute, you silly silly ignorant thing you…” and walked on.

Only to stop dead in my tracks a few steps on. Ding. Light bulb on. Wheels turning.

Here it is simply put, as I don’t want to hyperbolize something so wonderfully simple.

The kid was right.

“Obviously!” you say.

“Obviously.” I say in honest agreement.

I pause, and then ask you: “About what?”

You look at me blankly, in a manner suggesting that not only do I have my shirt on inside out but its one of those ‘hug myself all day’ only comes in white variety.

• Yes the kid was right, but he was right not only about the fact the simple T-shirt works even when its inside out.
• He was also right about the fact that products need to keep that kind of ‘misuse’ in mind, during the design phase.
• That products should keep in mind the varying perspectives that their product may encounter.
• He was also right about the nonchalant manner in which common definitions on what is right and wrong don’t really matter if the end goal is still reached (the obvious caveat is implied there, obviously)
• That there are different ways one can achieve the same goal and that some of these can fly in the face of a rational perspective so huffed up on its own self-importance.
• ‘Wrong’ can in fact be ‘right’

So think like a kid the next time you are designing something, the next time you are outlining the way something should work. The next time you are prescriptive with the way things must be, or what is the ‘correct’ way to do things. Stop mid sentence should you be uttering the fateful words: “Its my way or the highway!”

‘Your way’ may only be ‘one way’, and ‘right’ can be a far more fluid concept depending on the freedom you allow yourself, or your employees.

I tend to just see it. Well most of the time really. I skim through the appropriate sections and something just pops, standing head and shoulders above the rest. I’ll often go through again just to make sure, often in more detail, yet whenever the waiter arrives – I almost always go for what I noticed first. If I don’t the meal is typically quite average.

Now what has this got to do with anything? Well its basically about making snap decisions. Rapid, concise judgements based on a significant amount of information on an instinctive, intuitive level.

Again you say but why is this important? Well when I pick a meal like this in a few moments, its a great meal. On the other hand the considered detailed analysis results in sub par result. Quick unthinking beats studied and detailed?

Doesn’t make sense does it? We’ve been taught to think first act second. I say that’s not always true. I say your gut has its uses. Sometimes leap before you look. Sometimes what pops or just feels right, is. Sometimes you know without thinking. I believe taking a more intuitive approach to business could lead to faster more authentic choices. Choices you don’t overthink. To hesitate can decimate. Trust. Jump. Choose.

If you find these quick and effective, strangely efficient snap judgements intriguing give Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink a read – he’s got all evidence and anecdotes you need wonderfully intertwined in brilliant read.

So, what was my order? Why Lindt covered Springbok, the most unique thing on the menu.

(I only actually thought about the fact that I was eating a dead mascot drizzled in chocolate when Schalk Burger and Jean de Villiers walked passed… Tasted great nonetheless.)

This post was written on my girlfriend’s Blackberry while I lay snug in bed.

This video focuses on people’s motivations, which is a big theme on this blog so I thought it fitting.

Thanks again to JP Ren from Chrometa for pointing it out.

Hope you enjoy it, and stayed tuned for next week’s TED Tuesday!