Sample Text from Various Chapters
At my wedding, my newly minted father-in-law wrapped his long arm around my shoulder and said, “Son, I’m gonna tell you one word that will make your future.” He paused as I expected the line from the hit movie “The Graduate” where the one word is “Plastics” but instead he said in a solemn tone, “RS-232”.
I was dumbstruck. I had no idea, but he went on, “It’s the connector that lets computers communicate with modems.” I still had no idea. But he was right. Years later I created America’s very first e-commerce business and at the core was my modem.
In those days I thought I knew all about computers. I was the godson of the Pres Eckert, the chief engineer who designed ENIAC, the first all-electronic computer. I’d been taken as a child to see ENIAC and various UNIVAC computers. They were huge monsters, dozens of massive steel boxes with massive tape recorders, all of them housed behind glass walls in climate-controlled environments. I’d learned as a child that computer work required engineering genius like Uncle Pres had. So when my father-in-law regaled me with the wonders of modems, my eyes glazed over and I went on with my life.
In Bali, Indonesia, that Australian ecologist we’d me was doing research on rice yields. He had built himself a home-brewed computer: no glass room or monster metal cases; his was housed in a homemade wooden box and powered by a car battery. I was fascinated. A few weeks later at an air base in Japan, I met some grade school kids who were all twitterpated with their Apple computer and were talking about DOS. I was shocked that a 10-year-old knew all about something of which I knew nothing. My first computer came with three pieces of software: DOS 1.0, EasyWriter and a game called Asylum. EasyWriter was, well, easy.
Asylum was build with IBM’s block graphics, a vain effort in those days to use the space of a letter to make a shape. Someone had obviously spent a lot of effort creating “rooms” and “people” that all looked like stick figures done by Mondrian. It was as much fun as playing with a stick and a string.
SNIP
Still driving, I was struck with a vision; I stopped on the roadside to called Camie. “What if we made a market, a trading post where people could sell the machines they outgrow – We’d help make them cheaper with an organized market? We’d help people move up to their next machine. We’d help people on tight budgets get a good used computer at the fair price and mostly we could get really good gear for ourselves.” She understood instantly.
By the time I got home she had drafted our cards – not business cards, trading cards. The blue one said “I want to Sell.” The orange said “I want to Buy”. Fill in the blanks for Maker, Model, RAM, disk drives, printers and other peripherals.
We printed 100 copies and took our cards to the next meeting of the Boston Computer Society. I boldly stood up during the question time and announced, “If you want to buy or sell a computer, see me and fill in one of these cards.” We were inundated. Everyone in the room wanted to sell their old computer. Everyone had something they wanted to buy. They filled in ALL of our cards and we spent the whole evening laying them out on the living room floor shouting out, “I got a guy here who wants to sell an Apple II at $1,200.” “Here’s a buyer for that at $1,300.” We made dozens of phone calls the next day and by week’s end we’d concluded 30 deals collecting a 10% commission from the sellers. Checks came in and The Boston Computer Exchange was a success – for us and for our customers.
We had no idea what we were doing, no experience starting a business, no money and no idea about the laws and rules... so we were ideally suited to create a new business.
Wizard’s Principle: On every mountain there is a single pebble – Move it and unleash an avalanche. Find that pebble.
Law of Ample Supply: Only ask people to bring to the table what they have in abundance and can share generously — we all come out way ahead.
Motherball’s Law of Options Shock: Whenever you choose something, you are NOT choosing everything else.
Good News Guy’s Maxim: “Speak in Sound Bites”
Writers Perplex: When you are writing a book or a dissertation, everyday feels like Tuesday; there is no relief in sight.
