PersonFinder for those seeking information, or who have information, about Haitian victims of the recent earthquake. http://haiticrisis.appspot.com/



During the April 2007 shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech, news outlets reported on, and relied upon, the way students made extensive use of Facebook to communicate with one another about the event. Schoolmates updated one another about the whereabouts of friends, class cancellation, victims and death toll (though inaccuracies abounded). CNN began reading students’ posts on the air, instantly giving us a first-hand human response to the unfolding nightmare. Those of us who hadn’t yet taken advantage of Facebook’s public invitation in late September 2006 suddenly became well aware of the potential impact this technology had on those issues that deeply affected our lives.

 

But social media was not specifically developed to communicate during tragedies. In fact, if Wikipedia is correct, Marc Zuckerberg invented Facebook to get his mind off a girl that dumped him that night (obviously I can’t speak for Mr. Zuckerberg, but I’d be willing to bet it worked).

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“I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry. They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”—President Barack Obama.



Listen, you know mobile technology is important when the then president-elect, despite both resistance from the Secret Service and the collective coronary failure of a whole pack of attorneys, patently refuses to relinquish his smartphone upon entering office. 

 

As The New York Times recently reported, mobile applications are even becoming available on feature phones (“regular old cell phones”), though smartphones are heavily gaining in market share. In fact, the sales of traditional feature phones are flat, while smartphones posted double-digit growth in Q3 2009. 

Currently Apple’s iPhone is the most popular mobile smartphone in use in the US, capturing 4% of the total mobile phone market share. However, 2009 marked a true dogfight for the “Best in New Sales” moniker...

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You’ve heard it a million times—“there’s an app for that.” In fact, iPhone’s slogan has become so ubiquitous that it’s eclipsed “that’s what she said” as the hip sardonic punch line. As in, “Caught the swine flu on your birthday? There’s an app for that.”

Go ahead and make your own at www.appft.com

Apple would have you believe that there’s an app for everything under the sun (and if not, you have a great joke). In fact, their website actually boasts “Apps for Everything” in print. Everything.

But, and I hope you’re sitting, what if there really isn’t an app for that?

The fact of the matter is that the App Store and its counterparts can offer you mobile applications...

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We had quite a few visitors to our new Shanghai office on November 19, 2009, including Nora Neibergall, Cindy Urbaytis, Karen Collins, and KK Poon from Institute of Supply Management (ISM), Marcus Chao from Lean China, Tim Yeh and Kenneth Mao from Zheng Heng Industry, and Marty Komer from RT-Systems. Most of these visitors did not know each other. It just happened that they all came to visit us on the same day. In order to efficiently use our time, I proposed that we all go to Hyatt Jing Mao Hotel for lunch, which is one of the nicest places to entertain visitors in Shanghai. My dear friend Marcus asked, “How come you never took me to such a treat?” Well, I answered that it was simply extraordinary that, without planning, all these important people would gather at Logic Shanghai at the same time. It was time to celebrate and to see what we can do for each other. We reserved a room on the 86th floor at the Jiang Mao Club, where you have an extraordinary view of Shanghai. As the government of Shanghai prepares...

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By Grace Lee, Logic Solutions, Inc.; Treasurer, MIT Enterprise Forum, Great Lakes Chapter

In his recent book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that besides intelligence and some common traits, extremely successful people’s families, birthplaces, and even their birth dates have a profound effect on their successes.

One of interesting commonality is the birth date of some of extremely successful technology companies’ executives: Eric Schmidt (Google): April 27, 1955, Bill Joy (Sun Microsystems): November 8, 1954, Scott McNealy (Sun Microsystems): November 13, 1954, Steve Jobs (Apple): February 24, 1955, Paul Allen (Microsoft): January 21, 1953. All of them were teenagers when the computer age started to take off.

So what does this mean to the rest of us, the struggling entrepreneurs or entrepreneur want-to-be’s? Since we were born either way before or after 1954 and 1955, did we miss the golden opportunity to be successful?

Malcolm Gladwel’sl argument only reinforces one of the most important elements of entrepreneurship: Chaos Creates Opportunity. If there is no disruption to the equilibrium, big companies will rule the business world and there is no opportunity for new comers: Sony, IBM, AT&T, and Sears will dominate the world. There will be no Google, no Apple, no eBay, and no Amazon.

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The day before I left for Taiwan, my wife, who was already there with the children, told me, “Typhoon Morakot is pounding Taiwan. We are running out of food at home.” I reassured her that typhoons typically last only 1-2 days, so they should be fine by the time I arrived.Growing up in Taiwan, I have been through a lot of typhoons. When I was a kid, I used to love typhoons because school would be cancelled and there would always be a treasure hunt with my buddies afterwards. Now as an adult, I know what human tragedies these natural disasters can cause. Still, not in my wildest dreams, did I expect Morakot to be so devastating. In the three days that I was in Taiwan, I saw the horror first hand. With advances in media and internet, we can feel and witness the sorrow as if we were there. The disaster clearly has also gathered worldwide attention: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/typhoon.wrap.saturday/index.html.Taiwan...

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The pressing issue nowadays in Michigan is the rising unemployment rate that seems unstoppable. Whenever there is news about a company going under or downsizing, the first reaction is that the unemployment rate is going up again. However, some of these jobs can be saved if they can be put in good hands.About four months ago, I came across a company called Taylor Systems Engineering (TSE) in Plymouth, Michigan. Its parent company, Red Roller, had filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut, which left TSE without much management structure for months. Employees were in despair and clients were confused. If the company had been liquidated to a company outside Michigan, jobs would have been lost or left Michigan. When I visited the company, my first impression was that even when the parent company was completely out of business, the employees at TSE were holding the company together on their own without any supervision. Everyone still came in to put in their best effort every day. I said to myself, “These are the kind of...

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As someone who grew up playing soccer, I have heard this phrase a million times. It was mainly from fellow teammates or parents who did not care for something the coach did or said. “He wasn’t the best player in college and could not cut it on the professional field so he naturally became a coach. You don’t have to be the best in order to coach.” This was the normal chatter that I heard.

Whether you agree with this phrase or not, I think the better phrase should be, “Those who can play should coach!” If you have talent there is nothing more important than sharing that with others. And there is nothing more rewarding in life then to see someone’s expression when they finally get it and have the “Ah hah, I understand now” moment. Coaching (or teaching) also helps the coach to learn more and instills the lesson deeper in the coach.

It is very important to take this lesson off the field and into your career. Having a super star is great, until he/she leaves the company. But, having someone who can coach...

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On my recent trip to China last month, I had a five hour layover in Tokyo on my way back to Detroit. Searching for something to read at the Northwest World Club, I saw two headlines that grabbed my attention. The Wall Street Journal read “Chrysler Makes Bankruptcy Filing” and on Time Magazine it was “Shanghai, the Next Detroit.”

 

In my years of doing business in Shanghai, I have witnessed both the enormous growth and influence of this coastal city. Nonetheless, it is still farfetched to claim Shanghai the “Next Detroit,” just as it is wrong to declare Shenzhen (in Canton province) the “Next Silicon Valley.” During my visit to the biennial Shanghai International Auto Show, I saw a number of things that might have caused this incorrect connotation to persist, including:

 

The show’s size. There are so many automotive OEMs in China now, more than 120 of them. Naturally, there are a lot of cars to see. There are more than six large halls that host domestic and foreign made cars. ...

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There are things that I still like about bricks & mortar. When I started Logic Solutions 13 years ago, most people could barely spell website. I remember that the first public talk that I gave was to tell people what a website was, how to make one, what it is used for, etc. I predicted that the internet would replace a lot of what we were used to. Logic Solutions was started based on that belief.

 

Well, sometimes I wonder if I really want to believe in my own prediction. Recently, our local newspaper, The Ann Arbor News, shocked the community by announcing that it will cease operation in July after 174 years of operation.  Although both Seattle and Denver newspapers made similar announcements a few weeks ago, I still can’t accept that I soon won’t have The Ann Arbor News to hold in my hand everyday. What replaces The News will be annarbor.com which is mainly an on-line only media site. I found it funny that I was arguing with my wife about why the newspaper must exist when I am the one who always...

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