Timothy Chen

本日佳句 – Long Term Relationship

Posted in Quote on Jul 1st, 2009

A marriage is not an easy relationship by any means. The stresses of children, finances, families, and a shared living space (and many more) wears on the partnership and causes tension and friction. It takes work and a lot of communication to make it successful. But in addition to constant effort and communication, I think there are two other critical factors - tolerance and shared vision/values. (source)

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本日佳句 – A Packager

Posted in Marketing Thought, Quote on Jun 29th, 2009

Any time you can successfully bring together people who have a reputation or skill with people who sell things, you’re creating value. If you find an appropriate scale, it can become a sustainable, profitable business.

(source)

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本日佳句 - 決定是這樣下的

Posted in Quote on Jun 27th, 2009

"…intelligent people make decisions based on opportunity costs — in other words, it’s your alternatives that matter. That’s how we make all of our decisions. " (source)

[a smart person scans] the world trying to get his opportunity cost as high as he can so that his individual decisions are better.” (source)

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本日佳句 – Focus on Business

Posted in Quote on Jun 27th, 2009

In the morning I review the newspapers, national and international, and watch the morning news. I pay attention to anything that might have an effect on my many businesses and make mental notes about that. It gets my mind going for what I need to address that day, and gives insight into developing situations that might also affect my businesses in the future. This provides an immediate focus. – Donald Trump (source)

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本日佳句 - 當下

Posted in Quote on Jun 23rd, 2009

總有一天，你不會再做你此刻正在做的事。想想此刻你在這個世界所處的一隅，是什麼模樣，再想想看當你離開時，你希望它又會是什麼模樣。

- 唐納.歐基

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Bill Gates Sr. and Jr. on Charlie Rose Interview

Posted in Quote on Jun 21st, 2009

BILL GATES JR.: Well, Paul had spotted this computer on a chip, the microprocessor, and we’d been talking about that for several years. And he had encouraged me, hey, let’s start a company, let’s start a company. Well, I was under some pressure to go to school and do — you know, be semi-normal. So he came back to Boston to keep convincing me we should do it. 當年 Paul Allen 比 Bill Gates 更急於創立公司。

…but Meg called Mary and said, gee, I have houseguests at my place on Bainbridge Island, and Warren Buffett and Kay Graham. And I have a weekend ahead, and I wondered if maybe we could come visit you at your place on the water. And we said, sure, that would really be fun. I mean, who would want to pass up the possibility of a day with those two? And the interesting next point, of course, is we called Bill. Actually, Mary called Bill and said, you know, we have this wonderful overnight ahead.

WILLIAM GATES SR.: And he said, “Mother, that’s a Friday. On Friday, we work at Microsoft.” And she persisted a bit as she was prone to do, and he said, OK, OK, I’ll come over for a couple hours in the afternoon. And he came for a couple of hours and he never left. He got so involved in these wonderful conversations with Warren. And you know, to this day, that beginning was an indication of just what a great amount they had in common.

BILL GATES JR.: Oh, it was one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me. It was July 5th, 1991. I had taken part of Thursday off because that was July 4th, and I was going to work on Friday. There was some important work to get done. But I ceded to my mom’s strong request and then I met Warren, and you know, he and I just started talking. And he asked me questions I had always wanted somebody to ask, you know, which showed a lot of understanding, of, OK, why did IBM do this and why didn’t other computer companies do that? And it just started a conversation that continues to this day about the fascinating world of business. Bill Gates 和 Warren Buffett 第一次見面的經典橋段，相信大家多少都有聽過，這次由 Gates 父子口述這段過往，更添加了真實性。

CHARLIE ROSE: There was I think if my memory serves me, you asked a question about what is the most important quality in a life, and several people said I think — either Warren or you said, focus. And you looked around and the other was shaking his head in affirmation, yes? WILLIAM GATES SR.: That’s right. BILL GATES JR.: Being maniacal about something is very helpful. 不只要專注，而且要到偏執狂 (maniacal) 的境界。

BILL GATES JR.: …So early reading lets you imagine all these situations and start to think of yourself. You know, could I ever run a business? Could I ever discover something in science? And I do think some positive reinforcement — hey you, you’re clever, you can do these things — at a young age takes you a long way, and then — and this is a great time to be a curious person. You know, you go online, get DVD courses. 讀書帶來想像的空間；想像的空間帶來人生更多可能。小時後讀(過)什麼，真的會大大影響到往後的興趣、志向、甚至是整個下半輩子。

CHARLIE ROSE: Do you have a role model in your life beyond your father? BILL GATES JR.: I’d say Warren Buffett as the closest thing I have to a role model. CHARLIE ROSE: Because? BILL GATES JR.: Because of the integrity and thoughtfulness and joy he brings to everything he does. You know, I’m continuing to learn from my dad, I’m continuing to learn from Warren, and many times when I’m making decisions, I try and model how they’d approach a problem. 除了父親，Gates 人生的另一位楷模就是 Warren Buffett。

(source)

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本日佳句 – Jeff Bezos (2)

Posted in Quote on Jun 20th, 2009

During the 1999 stock bubble, Jeff says he kept telling employees "Don’t feel 30% smarter because the stock is up 30% this month, because you’ll have to feel 30% dumber when it goes down."

"One of the differences between founder/entrepreneurs and financial managers is that founder/entrepreneurs are stubborn about the vision of the business, and keep working the details. The trick to being an entrepreneur is to know when to be stubborn and when to be flexible. The trick for me is to be stubborn about the big things."

"We’ve made many errors. People over-focus on errors of commission. Companies over-emphasize how expensive failure’s going to be. Failure’s not that expensive….The big cost that most companies incur are much harder to notice, and those are errors of Omission.

(source)

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本日佳句 - Innovation

Posted in Quote on Jun 18th, 2009

People like the idea of innovation in the abstract, but when you present them with any specific innovation, they tend to reject it because it doesn’t fit with what they already know.

- Jessica Livingston

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When writing marketing reports, think about this…

Posted in Quote on Jun 17th, 2009

Because marketers were raised on the scale of mass—TV, radio, newspapers—they have a churn and burn mentality. The internet turns this upside down. The internet is about who, not how many. The internet lets you take really good care of 100 people instead of harassing 2,000.

Yet, panicked marketers still look for scale (How many followers can we get? What can we do with a Facebook fan page?) and then hijack that attention, hoping to filter out the masses and get a few sales.

Scalejacking inevitably tarnishes most communities, because individuals (people) hate being treated like numbers just standing by to be filtered.

On the Internet, the mantra that works is, "Be with the ones you love (and the ones that love you.)" Ignore everyone else. It doesn’t have good internal pentameter, but it’s true.

(source)

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