Saturday, August 6, 2011

Why successful people don’t want to mentor you

AUGUST 1, 2011 ·

Successful people are constantly sought out as mentors.

Sadly, most people do a terrible job of asking for mentoring. They come off as desperate, awkward, and irritating.But busy people LOVE helping others who take action, so there is good news: As in many other situations, the Craigslist Penis Effect(where most people are terrible and, if you’re simply slightly better than them, you can dominate) applies here.

For example, a few months ago, a Hacker News commenter asked why he was getting unfriendly responses from prospective mentors. Blogger Ravi Mohan gave a fascinatingly insightful answer:

I have some experience in this, so let me try to explain a couple of things that I learned in the “school of hard knocks”.
Once upon a time I was in a situation where I thought I could contribute to something one of the best programmers in the world was working on so I sent an email (I got the address from his webpage) and said something to the effect of ” you say on this webpage you need this code and I have been working on something similar in my spare time and I could write the rest for you over the next few months because I am interested in what you are doing” and I got a 2 line reply which said (paraphrased) ” A lot of people write to me saying they’ll do this , but I’ve never seen any code yet so I am a little skeptical. Don’t take it personally. Thanks. bye.”.
So in the next email (sent a minute after I received his reply) I sent him a zipped file of code with an explanation that “this is what I’ve done so far which is about 70% of what you want” and he immediately replied saying “Whoa you are serious. That is refreshing .. ‘ and opened up completely, giving me a lot of useful feedback and very specific advice. He is a (very valued) mentor to this day.

Here are the things you need to know about finding valuable mentors:

Stop being so damned lazy. When you write a busy person asking a general/broad question, they will ignore you. Why would they respond when you haven’t done the homework yourself? Similarly, if you are asking stupid questions like “How do you get the motivation to accomplish so much?” plan on being ignored. If you want someone to sing Kumbaya to you, find a vegan non-profit employee. If you want a mentor, DO YOUR HOMEWORK.
Here is the 1-2-3 Choice Technique: “Hi Ramit, I love your book on blah blah. I noticed you said I should XYZ in chapter 5, and so I tried it. I’m stuck due to XYZ. So I’ve come up with 3 possible routes:

blah blah1
blah blah2
blah blah3

Which do you think I should do?

This will get almost a 100% response rate, since you have actually done the work in your head…plus all I have to do is tell you which is best. GOOD JOB.

I, and many other busy people, use barriers to avoid kooky people. So if you can get through them, you will find people LOVE helping other ambitious people who take action.

Friday, June 24, 2011

THE REAL KENNY “MR SUSHI” KUNENE

ABOVE: Kenny standing proudly on the roof of the Radisson Hotel, when ZAR was nothing but a floor of concrete, a few pillars and a dream.

The words of his friend Gayton McKenzie

(written in tribute by another friend, Charles Cilliers)

There’s always going to be speculation about the kind of man Kenny Kunene is and how he managed to make something of his life. Everyone’s going to have their own opinion, and that’s fine, but the experiences I have had of my friend have also shaped my life and left me with nothing but respect for him.

It’s true that he wasn’t a straight arrow before he went to prison, but his life since prison has been exactly what I wish many ex-prisoners would learn from: he wasn’t impatient, he had a plan and a dream, and he was willing to do whatever it took to prove he was a better man. When Kenny and I joined up again, he was basically just another ex-prisoner among many to me, at a time when I was spending a lot of my days on trying to help other ex-prisoners. My life story had just been published, so I invited him, along with two-dozen other ex-prisoners, to my house to offer them the opportunity of selling my book as a source of income. “You can get half the profits,” I promised them. All these guys were happy to eat the meat at the braai and drink the beers, but the next day when it was time to come back to my house for a box of books to sell, Kenny was one of the few who actually showed up to collect a box of sixty books. The day after that, he was the only one who actually came back with all the money from all the books he’d sold and he took another box.

It was the start of one of the most unexpected and strongest friendships of my life. I got to know a man who was almost always in good spirits, full of jokes and good advice, unshakeable loyalty and a philosophy on life that I can confidently say is entirely his own. I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like him ever again if I live another hundred years. Kenny can happily keep company with kings and paupers, and he has lived like both of these himself. He’ll buy and drink Ace of Spades champagne with Timbaland and Ciara on a Saturday night at ZAR, but still be right back in Kutlwanong township on Monday afternoon, eating tripe with his elders.

Before all this, though, he was just another struggling ex-con. If I think back on it, all the other guys I had been trying to help were always just thinking about what was in it for them. They wanted my success seemingly without wanting to work for it and they seemed to think that just because they weren’t doing crime any more the world owed them a favour. Well, it doesn’t work that way. There was many a time that Kenny told me he’d rather stay home than go out, saying, “G, I don’t even have a car, I can’t be going to any parties, but my time will come.” He kept saying that and believing it. I couldn’t credit it one day when I saw him take a picture of an Audi A4 Convertible from his back pocket and look at it. That picture looked so old and careworn and he told me he’d been walking around with it for two years. He wasn’t sure how he was going to buy it, but he knew that one day, somehow, he would.

Fortunately, we made quite a lot of money from my book. I made him my agent and he, despite my protests, managed to move my average speaking fee from R5,000 an hour, to R25,000 an hour – and by the time I was ending my time on the speaking circuit, he had me getting bookings for R50,000 an hour. He convinced me I was worth that and, as a result, I was. There’s not a person who paid Kenny’s rates who ever said they got a raw deal, because, over the months and years, Kenny was a hard taskmaster to me. In the beginning, especially, we relied on the sale of books, and Kenny would have his table in the back of the room with the books piled high, and if the books didn’t sell he’d let me know it in the car as we left. “Hey G, that was a shit talk you gave man. I only sold two books!” I was never allowed to protest that it was a tough crowd of Afrikaner farmers or five year olds who can’t even read – he just told me to try harder and to find a way. By the end of it, I had learned to talk to anyone.

So we had some money – we invested some of it in a frozen food business and I can show you the photos of us loading tons of frozen fish and chickens from the back of a truck into our freezer room. Kenny sold fish from the boot of a VW Golf, he would sell frozen chickens to everyone from school headmasters to people getting into taxis.

When, through our talks and the books, I got an opportunity to do some consulting work for a gold mine, Kenny accompanied me every day to work – and he was dressed better than anyone there. He would help out at the office however he could, would chat to the directors, the CEO, the CFO, the Company Secretary, the IT guy, the Head of HR, simply everyone, and within a month I’m sure there was hardly a person there who thought he didn’t work there full time. Almost everyone asked for his advice and they trusted him. He was always one of the first to arrive there each day and he did so for three months without a salary. Finally, one day, the company had a problem that literally no one had a solution for, and it was only Kenny who took out his phone and said, “Hang on, I know a few people who can help.” We all laughed and thought, as if, but sure enough the company received a call from a senior official at the Reserve Bank later that day and we were in business.

When they made Kenny a job offer, they also offered him three months’ back pay for all the days he’d been there for free. That’s the day Kenny replaced the old picture of the Audi with a brand new, S-Line A4 Convertible. I told him to buy an RS4 and he just told me, “Let’s not gettoo carried away just yet.” It was only after we had done much more for the mine and earned bonuses that Kenny allowed himself to buy the sports cars and live in the luxury houses. He’s never said he’s a billionaire, but let me tell you that even when he was selling frozen fish, he carried himself like one. He has the magnanimous soul of a billionaire.

Since then, many further opportunities have come his way and he’s had the chance to make more money, along with more mistakes, but that’s just the nature of the game. What’s important is that he has stayed true to himself all this time. When you see him having flashy parties, being attended to by droves of beautiful women and driving fast cars, that’s exactly what he said he’d be doing five years ago, when my book was first published.

Many laughed at him, but who’s laughing now? Me, and his many other true friends, are, because anyone who truly knows Kenny Kunene will only wish him all the success in the world, because I can’t think of a nicer guy I’d want to see having it.

Kenny doesn’t know that Charles and I colluded to write this piece about him – but we just want him to know that he is the best friend in the world and we will always adore him.

- Gayton

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Nokia smartphone fails to impress

Reuters | 21 June, 2011 08:17

A staff member displays a Nokia N9 mobile phone during the CommunicAsia expo in Singapore.Image by: TIM CHONG / REUTERS

Nokia Chief Executive Stephen Elop unveiled a new smartphone that uses software the firm plans to ditch, a move analysts said would do little to halt the Finnish firm’s slide in market share for handsets.

Nokia, once the ubiquitous name in hand phones, has lost ground in the smartphone market to Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices, and in the low end of the market to Asian rivals such as ZTE and India’s Micromax.

At a telecoms conference in Singapore, Elop reiterated that Nokia would launch its first smartphone using Microsoft’s

Windows platform later this year, even as he unveiled the new N9 smartphone, which uses a platform called MeeGo.

“Our primary smartphone strategy is to focus on the Windows phone,” said Elop, who moved to Nokia from Microsoft last year.

“I have increased confidence that we will launch our first device based on the Windows platform later this year and we will ship our product in volume in 2012,” Elop said.

Analysts said the firm’s strategy would condemn the all-screen N9 to being a niche product.

The model — Nokia’s first and last to use MeeGo — can be navigated by a single finger swipe and comes in black, cyan and magenta colours in a polycarbonate design.

“The N9 comes too close to the expected launch of Nokia’s Windows Phone device to have any impact on its current smartphone woes,” said Ben Wood, head of research at London-based mobile consultancy CCS Insight.

“The strength of rival ecosystems leaves little room for MeeGo powered devices. It’s difficult to see the N9 being anything more than a niche device ... the N9 will be a tough sell.”

The MeeGo platform — a newcomer in the market dominated by Google Inc and Apple Inc — was born in February 2010 when Nokia and Intel unveiled a merger of Nokia’s Linux Maemo software platform with Intel’s Moblin, which is also based on Linux open-source software.

After Nokia pulled back from the project four months ago, other vendors have become more interested in the technology as Nokia’s dominant role in the project had held back others from adopting it.

Nokia has thrown in its lot with Microsoft , with whom it will co-develop its next generation of smartphones. It hopes to get the kind of attention Apple and Google have attracted from software developers who enrich their devides.

Little update on strategy

Elop’s speech in Singapore was billed by Nokia as “an update on progress in our new strategy”, but he provided few details on how he planned to tackle the company’s troubles.

Last month, Nokia said it had abandoned hope of meeting key targets just weeks after setting them, raising questions over whether Elop can deliver on a turnaround he promised in February.

Nokia’s market value has plunged by more than half since February, after the leak of a memo from Elop that compared the company’s market position to a man standing on a burning oil platform.

The company said it plans to launch up to 10 new smartphones using its own Symbian operating system. It introduced three affordable handsets which features dual sim-card, years after its Asian rivals put that feature into their phones.

“Any new products by Nokia will be a stop-gap ... until its first Microsoft phone is out in the market,” said Seo Won-seok, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities in Seoul.

“It won’t be easy for Nokia to aggressively market these products and even new product lineups will be limited given that it is spending heavy resources in developing Windows phones. Under such circumstances, I’m quite doubtful whether they’ll get a strong response from customers.”

The partnership with Windows may not be a panacea for Nokia’s troubles since rivals including Taiwan’s HTC and China’s ZTE will bring out devices based on Microsoft’s software.

Some phone users said the N9 held no appeal versus its rivals.

“It will be too much of a hassle to switch all of my applications to some other device, so I’d need a lot of convincing to switch to a new type of device like the N9,” said Mark Fox, managing director of NetEvents International.

“I’d rather take the easier life and stick with the Apple, which I am happy with. With the iPhone, it’s the user interface and the ease of use, how easy they’ve made it to use the different types of apps.”

In a research note this month, Nomura said Samsung Electronics would become the world’s largest smartphone maker this quarter and Apple would take the number two spot next quarter, pushing Nokia to third place.

Nokia had led the market since 1996 when it launched the Communicator, a smartphone that is popular in the business community for its ability to browse the internet as well as to receive and send emails, data and fax.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Kanye West Signs Nigerian Acts D’Banj And Don Jazzy

Posted 6/10/11 5:44 pm ET by D.L. Chandler in Music News

With a loaded roster that includes John Legend, Kid Cudi, Cyhi Da Prince and Pusha T,Kanye West and his G.O.O.D. Music imprint has reportedly gone international with the signing of popular Nigerian artists D’Banj and Don Jazzy.

Just a day short of his 31st birthday, D’Banj tweeted on June 8, “Just like yesterday myself and my brother did Tongolo. 7yrs later Mo' Hits signs with Good Music. Best birthday gift ever. God thank u” – referring to his debut hit single “Tongolo” produced by Don Jazzy, president and lead producer for Nigerian indie label Mo’Hits Records. D’Banj, an award winning artist in his country, has earned in the past a 2007 MTV Europe Music Awards win as well as several MTV Africa Music Award trophies in what appears to be a very full display case.

Don Jazzy, credited as mostly a producer, musician and label head, counts D’Banj as his flagship artist and also has made him the vice president of the Mo’ Hits label. The small label also lists artists Wande Coal and Dr SID as part of the Mo’Hits brand.

On Don Jazzy’s very active Twitter page, the seemingly jovial musician fielded questions about the Kanye signing and even tweeted a photo of himself standing next to his rumored new boss Kanye West and hip hop heavyweight Jay-Z. G.O.O.D. Music reps have not confirmed the signing of the Nigerian pair, but the exuberant tweets from both D’Banj and Don Jazzy will certainly gain the African stars attention in the days ahead.

Debuting in 2005 with his No Long Thing album, D’Banj has released four albums with the most recent being Mr. Endowed in 2010. American rapper Snoop Dogg featured on a remix of that album’s title track as well, which was produced by Don Jazzy.

What do you think about the rumors of Kanye West signing D’Banj and Don Jazzy to G.O.O.D. Music? Tweet to us at @MTVRapFix or leave us a comment below.

Tags CyHi Da Prynce, D'Banj, Don Jazzy, good music, Jay-Z, John Legend, Kanye West,Pusha-T, snoop dogg

Monday, June 13, 2011

Rapture predictor Harold Camping suffers stroke

By: David S Morgan

Harold Camping speaks during a taping of his show "Open Forum" in Oakland, Calif., May 23, 2011 - two days after the 89-year-old had said the Earth would end. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

(CBS News) Harold Camping, the Family Radio minister who inaccurately predicted that the world would experience Judgment Day last May 21, has suffered a stroke.

Camping, the 89-year-old head of the Oakland-based evangelical media company, suffered a stroke on Thursday night after a radio broadcast and was taken to a local hospital, according to a message posted on a Family Radio-oriented Yahoo group by Charlie Menut, station manager of Family Radio affiliate WFME.

Harold Camping doomsday prediction record: 0-2
Harold Camping "flabbergasted" by non-Rapture
Apocalypse ... uhm, when?
A neighbor of Camping told the Oakland Tribune that the Alameda minister was taken by ambulance from his house Thursday night.

The unnamed neighbor said she had spoken with Camping's wife Shirley on Friday and was told the radio evangelist is doing "OK," although his speech is "a little bit slurred."

Family Radio is expected to give an update on Camping's condition on Monday.

The fundamentalist minister had led his Christian followers to believe Saturday, May 21, 2011, marked the Rapture and the countdown to Judgment Day.

The day after, Camping told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter he was "flabbergasted" when the predicted End Times did not materialize.

Final Sale? Businesses cash in on End Times
How Harold Camping marketed the Rapture
Harold Camping reschedules "rapture" for October

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Meet South Africa's new Richest Man

South African born Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore, is about to become South Africa's richest man and the second richest in Africa, knocking Nicky Oppenheimer to third place, when the company lists later this month.

Articles

The pricing of Glencore's public offer yesterday implies the commodities trading company would have a market value of $61 billion or R403.8 billion.
This means that Glasenberg's stake in the company, which is rumoured to be as much as 15%, would be worth $9.5 billion or 62.9 Rbillion at yesterday's exchange rate.
Should the value of this stake, which is just one of Glasenberg's assets, be compared to the wealth of the billionaires on the Sunday Times Rich List, which is based on publicly available information and only includes disclosed shareholdings in JSE-listed companies, Glasenberg would be South Africa's richest man by far.
According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2010, Indian steel magnate Laskhmi Mittal, who bought what is now ArcelorMittal SA in 2001, led the pack for the sixth consecutive year with a fortune of R21.5 billion. This only reflects the value of his holding in ArcelorMittal SA, and not the international ArcelorMittal Group.
In second place, and the richest South African, was mining executive Patrice Motsepe, who is worth R19.9 billion through his stake in African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) and Sanlam. This excludes, however, the value of his other investments.
De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer was ranked third on this year's Rich List, based on his 2.5% stake in Anglo American, which was founded by his grandfather Ernest in 1917.
The listing of Glencore will also make Glasenberg one of Africa's richest men. Placed against the net worth of individuals making the Forbes Rich List, Glasenberg would become the fifth South African on its list of 1,250 dollar billionaires.
He would be ranked at 93 along with Malaysian telecoms tycoon Ananda Krishnan and Russian fertilizer baron Dmitry Rybolovlev.
On Forbes list of African billionaires, he would knock Oppenheimer from the second spot to take a place behind Nigerian Aliko Dangote. Dangote has a net worth of $13.8 billion while Oppenheimer and family have a net worth of $7 billion.
Other South Africans on the list include Johann Rupert and family with a net worth of $4.8 billion, Motsepe at $3.3 billion and Christoffel Wiese at $1.6 billion.
When Glencore publishes its full flotation prospectus later on Wednesday, it is also expected to show that another two South Africans have become paper billionaires.
Steven Blumgart, the co-ordinator of Glencore's alumina and aluminium division, and Stuart Cutler, co-director of ferroalloys, nickel and cobalt, are seen as holding substantial stakes in the company - enough to make them rand billionaires.
Glencore has made its senior management promise not to sell their shares for at least five years after the public offering, which is set to take place later this month.
Glasenberg, in the meantime, has pledged not to sell a single share till he steps down as chief executive. For the 54-year old, who took up the seat of CEO in 2002, the stock market listing converts his stake into currency. Glasenberg who joined Glencore in 1984 has worked for Glencore for 27 years, Glasenberg, initially in the coal department in South Africa and Australia.
A fiercely private man, Glasenberg has been thrust into the limelight by the proposed listing on the London and Hong Kong bourses.
In fact the company's listing is one of London's largest ever with Glencore set to be the first company in 25 years and only the third ever to enter the FTSE 100 index on the day of listing. Glencore's equity makes it slightly bigger than Anglo American and puts it among the world's top-five commodities groups, which also include BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale. The listing also puts the publicity-shy company under the spotlight after 54 years as a private company.
Like Goldman Sachs, the company has an aura of misery, perhaps in part due to its beginnings.
Glencore was founded by Marc Rich, an American oil trader accused of breaking sanctions against Iran and later pardoned by US president Bill Clinton. Rich was bought out by Glasenberg and other managers about 17 years ago.
According to Australian daily, The Australian, the other part of the Glencore aura is speculation about how much its top traders are paid - the top traders are believed to earn at least what their counterparts at Goldman earn, if not more.
Last year, Glencore's directors and top managers split £90 million, the newspaper said.
But as the newspaper pointed out, the traders' salaries and bonuses will be dwarfed by the float payout. It will give the 485 partners who own Glencore shares on average $103 million each.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Sellers overpricing properties by 20%-30%

Sellers overpricing properties by 20%-30%: Jawitz

Property sellers typically want their properties priced 20% to 30% above their real market value, which makes them less competitive than others on the market, according to Francois Venter, Western Cape regional sales manager for Jawitz Properties.

Venter said on Monday that some sellers did not realise that buyers had a lot more choice, and were far more patient than in the boom years of the property market.
The FNB Property Barometer's first-quarter estate agent survey showed an improvement in demand, but the bank said that this did not necessarily translate into more rapid sales.
"It is possible that tougher financial times have made many potential buyers more discerning, implying that they shop around for longer before buying," FNB said.
Venter said buyers used to view an average of 10 to 20 properties before making decisions and well-priced offers. Now buyers were viewing more than 50 properties before deciding whether to present an offer for the property.
"They're playing hardball and will only offer on a property they perceive as providing the best value for money," Venter concluded.