GREENROOM136 had moved!

I’m happy to share that I’ve moved the Greenroom to a more versatile home on the web.

All my future postings and shenanigans will be updated to the new site at greenroom136.com

Thanks for visiting GR136.

Gordon

Revolutionary leaders.

Derek Sivers is a professional musician. Back in ’87, he formed CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians. On April 2010, he appeared on TED with this short but inspiring piece, “How to start a movement”. To know more about Derek Sivers, visit sivers.org and to watch more TED videos, visit TEDtalksDirector on YouTube.com. This video is embedded without permission but with highest respect to the speaker and the organising team of the event.

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Over a couple of beers yesterday with a good friend from EatnPlay.com.my, we talked about Greenroom136 and he got me thinking about an important question; ‘What is the identity of GR136?’

So I explained the concept; a blog resource by a starting up entrepreneur for starting entrepreneurs. It’s that simple. After having brooded on that topic in brewery bliss, it dawned on me. The terminology of entrepreneurship is actually very overwhelming and even to the point of being obnoxious to some. Here is why;

The definition of an entrepreneur according to wikipedia;
An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of an enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. It is an ambitious leader who combines land, labor, and capital to often create and market new goods or services.

And if you pull up the definition of leader, you will find;
A leader is one who influences others.

Therefore in context, I believe that leadership is the epicentre. Let’s face it; an entrepreneur is a leader that influences the surrounding elements to achieve its goals. It is always an individual influencing a vision of the group. But it is the concerted hard work of the group with the entrepreneur that will make the vision a reality.

Digging deeper into the entrepreneur’s organisation, you will find subsets of leaders and followers that are working in congruent to the larger visionary goals of the organisation. These leaders do not own the company or carry the same amount of risks as the entrepreneur. But they are non the less leaders in every right. Because without these leaders, the individual departments would not function properly and thus making it harder for the organisation to achieve its goals.

When I first conceived GR136, I didn’t really care about entrepreneurship. I didn’t care if a person wants to build its own company or be working for some one else’s company. I didn’t care if you want to be an employer or an employee. True, I wanted to build a company, a product and a brand; thus that’s entrepreneurship. But really, I cared more about leadership. Because without the values of leadership, there would not be entrepreneurs.

Therefore, from today onwards, Greenroom136 will no longer be about entrepreneurship. But rather, it will be dedicated to leaders of every domain; be it one that would build a company to one that will lead a movement within a company – of the non confrontational type, let’s not be testy to bite the hand that feeds us. It will be for the many influential individuals with the capacity to conjure a movement of followers and supporters to make things happen.

Greenroom136 will be about inspiring revolutionary leaders.

Your f@&king crazy!

People tend to call me that pretty often. Fact is, I rather be called crazy than not be called anything at all.

You see, we are born with a gift. And that gift would be the ability to “choose”. We make decisions everyday. And there are no rules to decision making. There is no guideline or template. In many circumstances, no one can tell you in advance if your decision is justified or not. You just have to bite the bullet and make a choice based on the set of information presented before you at the point of decision making and really hope for the best.

That is why I like people that thinks I’m a loon. Because these people will tell you why they think your idea is crazy. People that sings praises will never have anything negative to say about your plans, thus what good will that praise do to the success of your decision?

As we try to gather information for decision making, having a 3rd person’s perspective can help you see things which may not be visible to you. And normally, if some one is able to gather the courage to call you crazy, would probably have a very good and justifiable reason to call you that. Otherwise, they risk embarrasment if their call is unjustifiable.

So, next time if some one calls you a blipping nut. Make sure you thank them and probe the reason why they just called you that. The person may have saved you from making some nasty call and strenghten your already solid plan. And if the reason is unjustifiable, you now have the luxury to politely ask that person to F$&K OFF!

FREE Advertising.

This post is just too amazing to give a miss.

In the last installment of The Star newspaper’s ‘Thumbnails’ column, I chanced upon this photo which completely blew my mind. ‘Thumbnails’ is a weekly contest for readers to send in their latest zany photos taken using a mobile phone to win cash.

Well, coming back; It’s a photo of a 3D sculpture maker delivering his latest masterpiece – a full-sized IRONMAN - probably to his client using their company van. The groundbreaking fact is that the sculptor had just received the most compelling and powerful advertisement for absolute no cost on Malaysia’s leading newsprint advertising platform, without even the slightest intention. What do I mean? Let me explain;

In the design of an advertisement, you can say there is a level of basic understanding over how things are to be. For instance, if you so choose to use the AIDA model; your advert would be designed with the methodology of invoking Attention-Interest-Desire-Action. Let’s reflect AIDA to this photo.

Attention – It’s a full-sized IRON MAN. What more do you want? Advertisements with movie tie-in are extremely common in this day and age; with the very first tie-in dating back to 1977 between Burger King and Star Wars. For any advertiser wishing to tie-in with the movie IRON MAN, there would be hefty royalties or marketing commitments that is needed to be paid to the licensing party of the property. This sculptor made the tie-in for absolutely no charge since the photo was probably taken and posted on The Star without their knowledge – tens of thousands of ringgit saved.

Interest – Advertising with movie-tie is extremely popular as images from movies are real attention grabbers. People are generally interested to know more or find memorabilia pertaining to the movie, so readers are more interested to take a second look at the offer advertised. In this case, the first thing that popped into my mind … “real size iron man – I WANT ONE!”.

Desire – The interest to own a real size IRON MAN in my room is just too epic to ignore – especially when the new IRON MAN 2 movie is just about at the corner of theatrical release. So, I combed through every single inch of the photo hoping to find … (read the next line)

Action – … some “call to action” details about the sculptor and how I can get myself an IRON MAN. VOILA! The man’s (or wo-man) got a web-address at the back of the van – Brilliant! Although the editor was kind enough to censor the mobile number for safety reasons (probably the sculptor would have preferred it otherwise); the web-address was left untouched; www.germs3d.wordpress.com . I bet that website had a good increase in traffic since publication.

Wonder how much it would cost for a full-size Darth Vader sculpture?

The Chocolate Research Facility

Located at Wheelock Place, Singapore; this establishment is heaven to all choc-lovers and an inspiration to entrepreneurs.

The business is unique with its core product being chocolate bars infused with over 100 unique flavours. And wrapped with truly awesome looking packaging and design concepts.

The cool factor of this company is how it is able to re conceive an age-old product and completely rebrand it with a cool new age design concept that spans all the way from packaging; to merchandising; and to store design. The level of detail placed in the design concept, created an aura of brand confidence, which definitely enticed customer’s compelling need to buy drool. A winning formula. Visit www.chocolateresearchfacility.com to find out more.

Glaco’s Soda Pop Stop

When I first saw this video, I was spell-bound. Not only because of the founder’s passion, but because the concept behind the business is so compelling.

Operated by John F. Nese, “The Soda Pop Stop” is a purveyor of over 450 brands of sodas, 500 brands of beers and forgotten candies. I won’t spoil the moment by giving my two cents worth as I have all respect for this business and it would be a sin for me to comment as I’ve never once sat foot into the establishment. But ever since watching this video about the business, I can’t help myself to a bottle of soda every time I come across a fridge.

This is an excellent video produced by the good people at www.chow.com and if you want to know more about Soda Pop Stop, visit their online store at www.sodapopstop.com

Fail!

WOW! Its been a frustrating and eventful morning. The bad news just proves the many emotional pitfalls of a startup. Apart from the distraught, half the time prior to this post was the debate of whether this rant would be considered professional. Point to note, my evil self emerged triumphant over censorship; not because the truth hurts and the best remedy is to wash my dirty linen in public, freeing myself from the emotional baggage brought upon me. But rather, the fact that this is real. THIS IS EFFING REAL!

It burns me to announce that Project ConcreteJungle will suffer delay in launching the very first messenger bag because of production difficulties; due to the poor work ethics of the 3rd party manufacturing facility. The company that was entrusted with the contract of mass producing the first production failed to complete the simple task of presenting with a final quotation and bill of material. It was further delayed by poor professionalism leading to procrastination and the inane act of misplacing the prototype sample. Therefore, I’ve decided to forego the months of business relationship with this partner, to pull back to re strategise and to source for a new manufacturer.

The reason why I chose to post this unfortunate news is because;

1. Unprofessional partners are real. They are there and they will screw up your perception of reality; forcing your “lizard brain” to kick in, enticing you to drop the ball and run for the hills. Should you run, you will have no one else to blame for the failure except for yourself.

2. Proper project management skills are crucial in ensuring timely release of your product. Delays should preferably be due to product related problems. Should it be due to people problem, the problem should be eradicated immediately or have the culprit removed from doing further harm to the greater good of the project at hand.

3. If you are not comfortable by the ethics of your supplier, do not force yourself to continue with the relationship. It is after all, a marriage between two corporation towards the birth of a common goal. So, make it a good one by respecting one another.

Every dark cloud does have its silver lining. Further progress with this partner may have resulted in even further delays or heavy financial losses possibly due to poor production quality. Now that time is needed to source for a new partner, guess I’ll have another chance to reflect upon the final designs for further improvements.

Sucks to have a negative post as the very first post of Project ConcreteJungle. Will just have to make the best out of this negative news; and make it good again. Stay tuned for future updates on production progress… its not over yet.