• Map your customers and identify the most promising ones for targeted sales campaigns
• Develop new products to sell
• Create a map to clearly and more completely understand the evolving or unmet needs of your customers.
• Analyze and improve your company’s business model
• Identify opportunities to reduce waste in your business – the savings go straight to the bottom line.
• Map your current market segments, and identify adjacent ones with similar needs into which you can expand your marketing and sales.
• Brainstorm the content of a white paper or information product (e-book) that will help you to dramatize your product’s or service’s unique selling proposition to potential customers.

In what other ways are you using mind mapping software to grow your business?

I read regularly the blog of Chuck Frey on Mind mapping and owes to him the above idea!

La lecture du document m’a donné une envolée rapide de la situation économique du pays, ses enjeux et ses alternatives et options choisies par le présent gouvernement. Je reste quelque peu sceptique à quelques uns des avancés du gouvernement, cependant je pense qu’il vaut mieux croire dans l’avenir du pays.

La création d’emploi au cours des années futures a été pensée et des mesures sont prises pour résorber le problème d’emploi. Ce qui m’inquiète : c’est la dégradation des valeurs societales. J’entends bien que le budget n’est peut être pas le forum ou le lieu où on pose le problème des valeurs de societe. A-t-on inclus dans les finances le budget pour la promotion des valeurs qui feront avancer notre sociéte ?

From what I gathered, whilst on the one hand, we want the fish hub to be one of the pillars of our new economic development, our civil service, on the other, is lagging behind to providing the minimum requirements for the entry of our products to the targeted market: the European Market.

Not only do we have to produce the right product at the right price and at the right time, the exporter must ensure that the products are certified for the importing country. Has the authorities done there job properly? How do we stop irresponsible parties to mar our destiny?

This reminds me of an experience, which occurred many many years ago. After grueling rounds of interviews, this Youngman full of hope and high spirited, got a letter confirming to him that he had been selected out of some twenty candidates and was awarded a scholarship under the Commonwealth Scholarship scheme. He was asked to call in the Ministry of Education to pursue the formalities and to complete the Common Wealth applications.

There I was, aged 20, happily registering myself to a Canadian institution to study Heating & Refrigeration at a tertiary level at College in Canada. There were then 2 other awardees. The first was awarded a bursary to study music and the second fellow a similar scholarship in Aeronautics. I had even got the acceptance from the College which was in Laval Quebec.

Came September which was the moment to finalize the departure, the government officer, Mr. Telescourt told me that there was a problem. What turned out was: the Ministry through of an over sight did not file in the document in time for our applications to the Common Wealth secretariat to process the requests. After much exchanged of telexes (in those days) The Commonwealth secretariat conceded only the Aeronautics study as the funds were reallotted to countries that requested more scholarships and were on time.

This is the story of how an administrative mistake crushed all the hope and tomorrow of an enterprising budding yougman. Let us hope that the administrative shortcomings of the authorities will not in turn crush the tomorrow of our budding Fish hub.

In Mauritius, being a small island, we are very concerned with Global warming & sea water level. The recent events on the changes in the “Pas Geometriques” leasing agreement as provided by our minister Sithanen triggered my thoughts to look for the impact of Global warming and to a larger extent climatic variations on the country and on our tourism industry which is based on Sun Sea & S…

Whilst one always hears about Global warming, hardly anybody talks of global dimming and its slowing effect on warming. I really enjoyed the hour spent on the net browsing on the subject. It would seem the scaring predictions are made without the concurrent equalising effects of other factors.

Am I wiser now? Not so sure, but I am definetly more reassured about the phenomenon which would become critical in some 100 years or so and based on today’s predictable future technologies & human creativity. By then, I would be enjoying bliss in heaven, hopefully.

“Be serene whilst having an ever inquisitive & exploring mind!” I heard my inner voice murmuring. Be Happy!

How to become an entrepreneur?

Last night,the question of entrepreneurship haunted my mind. The first things first came in my mind. F T F was the title of a book written by Stephen R Covey and the Merrill couple I thought. Indeed, the definition of “what does one wants to do” is the first step of the entrepreneur.

Next, the word “Goals”lit up in my mind’s eyes. I was brought back to some exercises that I did with the help of a motivational writer and speaker Brian Tracy. Writing up a Personal Mission Statement, for a fact, directed the course of my life and has ever since been my life compass.

Being myself a “has been” looking forward for regeneration in a new life, I have a message to the upcoming entrepreneurs.For those of you who would be looking in the direction of setting off to building an exiciting and meaningful life, now is the time to target your Goals.

I recently agreed to share some of my life experiences, with a group of young start ups in life. One of them asked me to talk about time management.” Because we have so much to do, we are lost. We have to learn to manage our priorities.”he said. I retorted that “knowing what one wants” could be more important and pressing. So we have decided that we shall work on Goals.

Can you imagine a no-goal Entrepreneur?

Do drop in a comment and I shall share with you some of my knowledge literature and experiences on Goal setting & FTF.

A small piece is now available from the sound track here under. Just click and enjoy.
[audio:http://www.josephyiptong.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/Goals.mp3]

Goals.mp3

]]> http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/07/22/entrepreneur-ii-the-way-to-the-renewed-mauritius/feed/ 0 http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/07/07/inspiration-from-paul-graham/ http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/07/07/inspiration-from-paul-graham/#comments Fri, 07 Jul 2006 07:16:50 +0000 joseph http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/07/07/inspiration-from-paul-graham/ Who is he and who & why should One know him?

Paul Graham is an essayist, programmer, and programming language designer. In 1995 he developed with Robert Morris the first web-based application, Viaweb, which was acquired by Yahoo in 1998. In 2002 he described a simple Bayesian spam filter that inspired most current filters. He’s currently working on a new programming language called Arc, a new book on startups, and is one of the partners in Y Combinator.

Paul is the author of On Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1993), ANSI Common Lisp (Prentice Hall, 1995), and Hackers & Painters (O’Reilly, 2004). He has an AB from Cornell and a PhD in Computer Science from Harvard, and studied painting at RISD and the Academia di Belle Arti in Florence.

Paul’s ideas are published in Essays on his web site could help us to think and learn how to build our Cyber based development in Mauritius. I wish that we Mauritian specially Academia, Politicians, Government authorities, Entrepreneurs, Businessmen would be inspired by his writings to map out our model of development.

Paul’s dual track of Philosophy & Arts and Computer science educational back ground gives him insights which resulted in unbelievable achievement.

Of particular interest to me is his essay :HOW TO BE SILICON VALLEY http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html

In short, Silicon Valley (SV) happened at the confluences of various factors and absence of other factors.

Learning about the factors will help us model our own.

The founding and creating element of a technology hub lies in two essential types of people: Rich People and Nerds.

No Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats by their nature are the exact opposite sort of people from startup investors.

Not Buildings

But it’s the people that make it Silicon Valley, not the buildings.

Universities

So if you want to make a silicon valley, you not only need a university, but one of the top handfuls in the world.

So if you managed to recruit, en masse, a significant number of the best young researchers, you could create a first-rate university from nothing overnight. And you could do that for surprisingly little.

Personality

It has to be a place where investors want to live, and students want to stay after they graduate.

There has been a lot written lately about the “creative class.” The thesis seems to be that as wealth derives increasingly from ideas; cities will prosper only if they attract those who have them.

What exactly is personality? I think it’s the feeling that each building is the work of a distinct group of people. A town with personality is one that doesn’t feel mass-produced. So if you want to make a startup hub– or any town to attract the “creative class”– you probably have to ban large development projects. When a large tract has been developed by a single organization, you can always tell.

Nerds Attraction

If you want to attract nerds, you need more than a town with personality. You need a town with the right personality. Nerds are a distinct subset of the creative class, with different tastes from the rest.

What nerds like is the kind of town where people walk around smiling.

Most nerds like quieter pleasures. They like cafes instead of clubs; used bookshops instead of fashionable clothing shops; hiking instead of dancing; sunlight instead of tall buildings.

Youth

It’s the young nerds who start startups, so it’s those specifically the city has to appeal to. The startup hubs in the US are all young-feeling towns. This doesn’t mean they have to be new. Cambridge has the oldest town plan in America, but it feels young because it’s full of students.

Time

That has two important implications. The first is that you need time to grow a silicon valley. The university you could create in a couple years, but the startup community around it has to grow organically. The cycle time is limited by the time it takes a company to succeed, which probably averages about five years.

Competing

One of Silicon Valley’s biggest advantages is its venture capital firms.

Does the impetus given by the spirit of the new Budget speech encourage the creation of a technology hub?

What are the gaps to be bridged?

Too much Bureaucracy! The battle to wage against the heavy bureaucracy has been ordered.

How will it be fought successfully?

We need infrastructure. High speed internet connections at competitive costs have to be available. More importantly we need to attract Nerds or brains and set them in right environment.

We have the youth and need to get them at university level.

Where are the venture capital firms? How long have we got to wait?

]]> http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/07/07/inspiration-from-paul-graham/feed/ 2 http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/06/27/budget-speech-of-rama-sithanen/ http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/06/27/budget-speech-of-rama-sithanen/#comments Tue, 27 Jun 2006 19:11:16 +0000 joseph http://www.josephyiptong.com/2006/06/27/budget-speech-of-rama-sithanen/ I have been lagging behind in posting news and events on my blog these days. Time was the issue. Reading and studying the impact of the budget speech on Mauritius for the coming years took my concentration, and most of my spare time.

I personally feel that in a few years this speech and thinking behind it will show results, provided the present Government is able to work the plan. The map is drawn, we the nation has now to toil in the distance.
“SECURING THE TRANSITION: FROM TRADE PREFERENCES TO GLOBAL COMPETITION”is the title chosen by Minister Rama Sithanen. See link.

Mauritius is now at a turning point of its economic development. We have to take the right turn. Gone are the days of protectionist era, the post independance years,where the colonist powers granted us preferences for our Sugar, Textiles exports. WTO has dawned. The world economy is becoming the arena of free for all, battle of the most innovative brains, the fittest and the smartest….

Entrepreneurship is the key word I have retained. That is the reason, I am now stretching my wits to come up soon with some notes on Entrepreneurship.
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