For 1300 athletes from around globe March 6th 2010 was due to be an epic day. It was the Taupo, New Zealand Ironman race, a kind of crazy endurance triathlon that takes an awesome amount of physical training and mental strength to conquer.
After many months of training their day began at 7am with a 3.8km swim, then followed by a 180km cycle and finished up with a full marathon 42km run!!
This year a group of friends and I went along to support a mate who was doing the Ironman for the first time and he crushed it in just 10 hours, 43 minutes. Insane!
It was the most inspirational event that I have been to in a long time. Seeing people of all ages and gender out there giving it everything they’ve got in the tanks to get around the course. No doubt its a tough ask and but a never give up attitude and a strong will to succeed gets them over the line at the end of the day.
If you’re ever looking for a boost or scratching for inspiration find yourself an Ironman event and go support the hundreds of people out there doing it! It’s truly awesome.
Here’s a few videos and pics of Brad captured from around the course and crossing the Finish line.
Just past half way on the bike
High fives on the last stretch before the finish line
Nothing to say here. Just watch the video and you’ll see what I mean.
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend the Auckland version of TEDx and it was awesome. In fact I would go as far as saying it had the best atmosphere of any conference I have ever been to.
Everybody that attends a TED style conference takes away something different. For me it wasn’t about any particular speaker or performance but rather the culmination of all the speakers, performers, production crew and eclectic audience that made it a truly inspirational event.
Thanks to Richard at The Department of Doing for masterminding the whole event and putting Auckland on the TEDx map.
If you aren’t familiar with TED then take a look here www.ted.com for more information and stay tuned for links to the TEDx Auckland videos as they come available.
The Litmos team went along to the opening night of Ruben Guthrie last night. Now I’m not a critic or reviewer so don’t have any flashy words to explain how it all went down but I certainly do recommend you get along to the Herald theatre in Auckland and check it out.
http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2009/sep/auckland-central/ruben-guthrie
The basic story is about the life of Ruben Guthrie, a high flying creative director with a drinking problem. Theres plenty of booze, foul language and a bit of nudity too. Oliver Driver played the lead and did an amazing job at it.
Anyway, so thanks to Andy at the IceHouse for setting up the night. It was a great opportunity to network with some of regulars on the tech scene (@duncanshand, @bwagy, @iceandy etc) but in a completely different setting.
Cheers!
Looks like Xero is finally releasing the rest of features required to truly run multi-currency in an efficient way.
Xero is awesome in many ways but the multi currency support has been a bit trying at times. In fact it was easier to manage multiple currencies in MYOB but with the next update of Xero all this looks set to change.
We hung in there with Xero as we knew they would get to it eventually, it’s one of the great reasons to buy into a SaaS solution. Regular updates, new features, no downloads. Love it.
I use Google apps for mail, calendar and some docs if collaboration is required so when I arrived into the office this morning to find that Google apps mail and Gmail were down it hit home how much we rely on the cloud for some of our core functions.
Just wait for the wave of cloud computing and SaaS opponents singing “I told you so!” and to some extent they would be right but it really depends on how good your setup is and how you use today’s technology to run your business.
I’m still a staunch supporter of SaaS and cloud computing and here’s a few reasons why:
- Mail servers go down. Its a fact of life and I would back Googles super qualified tech team to get it up and running quickly without data loss over a team of middle of the road IT guys.
- If you use Gmail or Google Apps mail be smart about it. Download Google Gears to give you offline access to your email. Sure you cant get new email if they’re down but you can search, read and compose.
- Hardware dies, gets stolen or lost. It happens all the time. Think about the implications of this happening if you are travelling on business. If you’re running a traditional setup where you connect to the head office for email, calendar etc you will need an IT guy to either send you a new laptop or come out and install/configure all the crazy voodoo VPN software that they use to secure the connections. If you’re running in the cloud and accessing services via the browser then you simply head to the nearest shop, buy a new laptop and you’re back in action. Cloud wins!
- There are more ways to comunicate than email alone. IM, Twitter, Yammer, Facebook and various other social tools are becoming increasingly popular alternatives and don’t forget theres also the trusty telephone.
I could go on about reasons to swithc to the cloud all day but that’s enough for now. Google apps is still down but I have some emails to compose.
I’ve been speaking to a bunch of people lately ranging from eager young entrepreneurs to experienced businessmen and one thing that people often have trouble with is confidence in talking about what they do.
The reasons for the lack of confidence are varied but mostly it boils down to one of two things. Either people fear that they might face opposition to their opinion so keep it to themselves or they are so involved and analytical about what they are working on that they only see the problems and struggle to express the great things they are achieving.
One way to get around this is to find confidence in your passion. Rather than talking about a project that you are working on or a business that you are involved with try starting off by talking about the things that you love.
It’s awesome speaking to people who are really passionate about what they do. If you can’t find confidence in talking about your current venture then try using your passion for the industry as a starting point.
Here’s a quick video of some Segway polo and a few lucky people getting to take the Martin Jetpack for a spin at MORGO.
I attended the annual MORGO conference last week and had the privilege of hearing Bill Reichert of Garage Ventures speak. Bill had a lot of great sound bites of advice for entrepreneurs but one that stuck for me was borrowed from his friend and business partner Guy Kawasaki.
It’s about sharing the vision. As Bill explained, the concept of using a mission statement as a guiding light is old school. The problem is that most of these mission statements are so long and generic that they don’t really give the team, stakeholders or customers an idea of what the company actually does.
The best way forward is to forget the mission statement and create a simple mantra. Guy has a great post about this here but basically its about coming up with 2-3 words that succinctly describe your core values.
So get to it. I’m still working on mine 
The thing I love about many first time entrepreneurs is how blindly optimistic they are that their venture will be a huge success. They’re bright eyed, bushy tailed, have the best idea in the world right now, and they will make a few hundred million within the next 2 years. Amazing!
Talk to the same people a 1-2 years later and they often have a different story. The thing is that massive success is just not that easy and often the entrepreneurs are still very optimistic but the grandeur of their expected success is scaled back.
I believe this is due to the massive learning curve that you go through when you start-up and run your first business. Its like learning to swim by jumping in the deep end and you just dont know what to expect until you jump. The result is that you learn fast and with all the new knowledge and understanding in your field the you start seeing all the reasons that you should not succeed and planning to mitigate them.
Overall this makes for a better understanding of business and what it takes to be successful but it can also result in lower levels of passion and enthusiasm for the project on hand. Its just not the same going out to hunt a whale and then settling for a fish.
So I recommend at least 1 spoonful of blind optimism in every business mix. Whether it be a start-up or established business, looking past the reasons for failure will keep you and your team full of passion and motivated that the whale is still out there for the taking.
ps. I love whales! it’s just a metaphor
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