Received this in my inbox today:

ATTN Innovative Undergraduate Student!

Due to an increase in interest and demand for the RISE Competition, we will be extending the deadline for the first round and for the final time until Wednesday February 3, 4:00 P.M EST!

This means that your Executive Summary (max. 2 pages ) and Elevator Pitch (90 seconds) must be properly submitted by the extended deadline.  I encourage you to consider this opportunity as only a University of Waterloo student may qualify for the grand prize of $5,000 and entry for the Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award.

If you are interested, create a YouNoodle account and join RISE today! Carefully review the attached protocol document in submitting material through YouNoodle for the RISE Competition – failure to adhere to these guidelines may result in disqualification from the RISE Competition and/or entry for the Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Award.

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind you that judges and RISE administrative staff will be signing a confidentiality/nondisclosure agreement to ensure that the highest security and regard is given to your ideas.  If you want to inquire further about confidentiality measure please feel free to contact me by telephone or e-mail address [below].

Thanks!

Yael Magid, Marketing and Communications Assistant
Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology, University of Waterloo
Ph: 519.888.4567 x38381 | ysmagid@artsmail.uwaterloo.ca | cbet.uwaterloo.ca     

I attended a seminar by Langdon Morris in Taiwan this September. Langdon Morris’ work involves developing “innovation, strategy, and collaboration methodologies to solve problems with very high levels of creativity and innovation.” He is also an author of several books, the recent one being “Permanent Innovation.”

The presentation talks about creating a work culture of permanent innovation, which is a bit of an oxymoron if you ask me, since the word ‘innovation’ is regularly used within the context of change. But Morris argues that it is, in fact, possible to have continuous innovation within any company. It just takes a lot of work and requires a few elements to exist first. The details though, Morris points to his book.

Nonetheless, here are a few notes I had written during the seminar:

1) Innovation is a company’s only sustainable competitive advantage.

1a) Failure is very costly and it doesn’t always produce results that translate into profit for companies

2) Starbucks is a good example of a brand that can sustain selling high-cost products because they provide something extra to your drinks: A unique cafe experience, and the guarantee that your drink will be perfect the way you want it.

3) There must exist three roles for developing an innovative culture:

- creative genius (sees what others do not see)

- innovation leader (sees the future and engages society in the quest to achieve this)

- innovation champion (holds everyone up, makes everyone successful, can break existing rules)

4) Three types of innovation:

- business model innovation (change the way profit is made)

- incremental innovation (change the product/service)

- internal innovation (organizational reform)

All in all, it was an alright seminar – definitely not the better ones I’ve attended. One major reason was the attitude of the speaker, Langdon Morris. He must have been irritated before coming to his presentation since he was pretty rude to the volunteers of the event, and questioned the reaction of the audience at certain times. I understand that the event could have gone more smoothly, but there is no need to talk to people (the same people helping your event!) the way he did. And whenever you are doing a presentation, never ever question the intelligence of your audience!

It may have been that he’s not accustomed to Taiwan’s culture, but irregardless his attitude affected my perception of his character. Just because you are in a foreign country doesn’t mean you can be rude to others.

Ultimately, I came out of the seminar knowing more about his character than his speech.

Peter Kao

Ahhh. The fresh beginning of a new decade.

Many people I know wish this decade hadn’t existed. It was certainly a tough decade for the world in general, especially for the economy and American politics. The latter hilariously summarized by this video:

Fortunately, I have a condition where I think the last thing that happened was the best thing ever. Well…unless it’s really really bad.

There were definitely some tough personal challenges that’s happened this decade, but from those challenges I’ve furthered myself in many areas. I guess I’m just an optimist. Anyways, I’ll spare you the details and move on to my reflection of last year’s resolution.

Last year’s resolution:

1. Manage my cashflow better

Nope. Didn’t do this at all.It’s pointless to manage any cashflow when you don’t spend that much to begin with.

2. Generate more residual income

A few projects were created for this, but like many web projects they either fail quickly or succeed after a long while. I don’t want to spread my time too thinly on so many projects. This resolution was definitely a dud!

3. Improve my tennis to the point of winning a local tournament

This reflection isn’t turning well. I didn’t win any local tournament, in fact I didn’t even look for any. Most tournaments happen within a club membership but those are expensive for students like me. However, I’m definitely better at tennis now! I would say I’m intermediate level when I’m at my best.

4. Meet more like-minded people

I’ll extend this resolution to this year with a better approach. Read below.

5. Get more involved in organizations, clubs, events or conferences

Yay! One successful resolution.

So, fine. Many of last year’s resolutions flopped, but it’s the awareness and the pursuit of those resolutions that’s important right? ..I guess that’s my optimism speaking again.

Carrying on, here are my resolutions for 2010:

1. Create a good working prototype of an invention (my invention)

2. Better balance between being active (outside frolicking) and passive (inside in front of my computer)

3. Openly share my views and perspectives

An extra note on resolution #3: I’ve connected with a few strangers this year by sharing my views, and it brought me closer to them. Equally important, they understood me and benefited from what I had to share. For the first time in my life, I’ve had a glimpse of what it’s like to be a transformational leader, and it’s a powerful feeling of achievement and purpose. The latter of which I will explain further through my revised Vision, which will exist shortly due to resolution #4.

4. Write in my blog weekly (I can see this being hard already!)

5. Meditate at least once every week

Hopefully, I’ll have positive reflections when I come back to review my resolutions next year. If not, you can call me on it.

- Peter Kao

I’ve finally found a way to sync files on my desktop, which is where I keep most of my most used docs and latest projects, across multiple computers.

My desktop is like my work desk. It’s crowded, and packed with a lot of junk but I like to call it organized chaos. It becomes a hassle to access project files when they are located on one of my 4 desktops (Windows XP/Ubuntu on VMware, Windows 7 on both my laptop and desktop computer.

Here’s a way to mitigate the problem:

1) Download Link Shell Extensions and install it.

2) Get the free Dropbox account.

3) Navigate with Windows Explorer to your desktop folder that you want to synchronize to the Dropbox server.

The directory path to your desktop folder should be something like this: C:\Users\YourUsername\Desktop or C:\Documents and Settings\YourUsername\Desktop

4) Right click on the desktop folder and choose Pick Link Source as it appears in the context menu.

5) Navigate to your Dropbox folder, which should be located in C:\Documents and Settings\YourUsername\My Documents\My Dropbox unless you changed it during installation.

6) Right click on the Dropbox folder and choose Drop As…then, select Junction.

Now do the same for other desktop folders (or any folder, in fact) to keep them all synchronized!

- Peter Kao

Credit source

Unfortunately, Canadians carrying Android phones don’t have access to paid apps on the Android Market as it is currently open for only the US and UK. This was a huge problem for me since I’m absolutely terrible with directions – I needed a GPS-software on my HTC Hero!

The current “best” GPS-app is the Copilot by ALK Technologies, and sadly I couldn’t pay and download their application. Searching on the Android Market didn’t work. Direct URL via barcode scanning didn’t work. Nothing did! Or more correctly put: there was no simple way of doing it.

In order to access paid applications with a non-US/UK Android you have to do the following:

1. Root your phone

2. Install Connectbot (only if you have an HTC Hero)

3. Install MarketEnabler

Sounds simple right? Not really. Be prepared to set aside an hour or so (it took me nearly 3 hours with lots of Googling. Hopefully this will help you shave off some time).

Are you in your comfy clothes yet? Let’s begin!

1. Root your phone

This will take up most of your time. It will take up even more time if your phone has Firmware 2.73.x.x or above, since you’ll have to downgrade your phone first. There’s currently no way to root your phone from more updated firmware.

Since the steps are a bit complicated and long, I won’t paraphrase or try to simplify/clarify the instructions that I’ve found. Instead, I’ll just link to them.

1. You’ll need to set up ADB/USB Drivers for Android  Devices so your computer can properly communicate with your phone.

2. Downgrade Your HTC Hero So It Can Be Rooted or if you have another Android-enabled device that is newer.

3. Root your HTC Hero or if you have a G1 or Mytouch.

4. Pick and install a custom (rooted) ROM for your device. For my HTC Hero, I used MoDaCo’s Custom Hero ROM. To get this to work with other devices, you’ll have to find custom (rooted) ROM’s specific to your device. Custom ROM’s also provide better stability and speed so you get the double benefit! This step is mandatory in order to root your Android.

2. Install Connectbot (only if you have an HTC Hero)

Phew. Now, the easy stuff. Remember to skip this step if you don’t have an HTC Hero, since there’s a bug in MarketEnabler which prevents it to work with HTC Hero.

1. Download Connectbot here.

2. Open Connectbot and hit ‘Local‘ when prompted for connection location.

3. Enter ‘su‘ to get Super User permissions and type ‘rm -rf /data/data/com.android.vending/cache/*‘.

4. Reboot, and move on to the last step!

3. Install MarketEnabler

Download MarketEnabler and select T-mobile to emulate your location to the US. Open up ‘Market’ and enjoy!

- Peter Kao