Shane and Peter’s Interview
I was know Shane from Freelanceswitch forum as he always giving fast and long respond among others. I find a link in the forum to his and his friend, Peter, business website. Regulary I visit their blog and read some new perspective, at december 6 2007 in Jakarta time they give people questions. I am trying to understand their questions since I don't leave outside from Indonesia for my entire life hahaha. Ok, let's start the interview. You can see the original post from Shane & Peter Blog
The Interview
What’s your personal mission statement?
Long term mission, I want to be computer professional as my promise to my dad before rolling in into University. I want to share knowledge, educate and also giving excellent service to my client. Beyond of that, I want to help people either in personally or professionally manner. The big one is to build a business which showing that our country could be considered as world class software producer.
What’s the biggest mess you’ve dealt with this year?
Fixing an Accounting Application using Mambo Content Management System done by another programmer, what the heck, since when we could use a website tool into web application which require reliability. Secondly, I am trying to find the true answer of the differences between freelance and enterprenuer.
What current entrepreneurial efforts consume your time?
Finding a project and trying my luck. Creating proposal, creating quotation, making an invoice, interact with my loyal customer, programming, giving training, implementation, fixing bug, and find a good time to take a rest.
I read inspirational books to motivate me in doing business, such as "Muhammad business before his prophecy", "Sufi Corporate", "35 mistakes done by enterprenuer", "Riding the Dragon" and also local management books. I learn on how making good proposal, yet some proposal is accepeted. My favorite book is "The Purple Cow".
Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? When do you get most excited?
Houston, I got language problem hahaha. I hope the answer is not miss much; I do what I need to do to continuing my life and I love to do this.
People inspire me, including Shane & Peter which have a nice studio site. Traffic jam inspire me too, I can not work 8 hours a day and trapped in traffic jam for hours when going to work place and back home.
When I meet new people and sharing knowledge in many topics. Getting involve in new project make me excited.
Boxers or Briefs? or as Naomi says, Bikini or Thong, duh?!?
Errr, boxers?
What do you do when you’re not [designing | programming | managing | writing | toiling for the wo/man]?
Have fun with my Xbox console, messing around with my Korg keyboard, and talking to my cat when I really bored. Yeah, I know the last one is weird. hahahaha.
What one thing made the biggest difference when getting started?
A nice situation, nice chat, nice negotiation, and nice cofee.
What’s your exit strategy?
I don't have one today.
What is the last thing that made you belly laugh?
When I answer these questions, I see Short Video on YouTube! David Blane spoof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxu_MQSTTY
Have you ever been in business before?
No, I never involved in business before.
At what point do you consider yourself successful?
Success is relative stuff for my self, since it never can be measure but I am trying to answer the question: When my business is run well and any project done
What was your first experience with a computer?
Using my dad computer with DX 486 Cyrix 66Mhz machine, I play around with Windows 3.11, QBasic and Lotus Worksheet. If nintendo is a computer, then nintendo is the first computer I ever touch.
Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates in a jello wrestling match, where’s your money?
I put in half, so I don't I lose some money and gain more money from the winner.
Where do you do your best thinking?
My bathroom is the most quiet place on my neighborhood. I always crack the problem when I do some "regular" task in life.
What does your average daily work / life balance look like? How much time do you work, play and sleep?
I have no constant work hours and trying to cope my time at best to keep my health in optimal state. I rest for first 5 hours, the play a game for 2 hours, then working again for 3 – 5 hours, going outside for about 4 hours, and going sleep for 2 – 6 hours.
If I could introduce you to anyone, who would it be?
Person give me chance to partnership and give me opportunity to work their project in my country. I hope he/she also show kindness in budget. hahaha.
What stops you from giving up when you are frustrated?
Pray to God. If you need human then my lovely fiance is the best supporter and nice place to share my difficulty, she tried to understand what I am talking about especially when I am talking about zorg thing like programming and such. She is the best bet to release my stress.
If Chuck Norris and Steven Hawking had a baby (hey it’s my damn interview), would you vote for her for president?
Yes, since their baby name is Harry Potter.
This is the end of the interview. I need 3 hours to answer these hard question hahaha.
OpenSUSE 10.3 ROCKS!!
Two Thumbs UP!.
OpenSUSE 10.3 merupakan DISTRO TERBAIK dari distro lain yang pernah saya gunakan. Segala macam pernak – pernik multimedia yang dasar seperti MP3 sudah terdapat dalam bundle DVD yang diberikan InfoLinux, saya ingin mendownload tapi rasanya lebih murah dengan membeli majalah. Installasinya kini sangat mudah hanya saja pada saat mempartisi akan sedikit direpotkan dengan setting yang tidak kita duga, lebih baik anda memahami partisi dengan lebih baik sebelum menggunakan OpenSUSE.
Apa alasannya saya menggunakan OpenSUSE?
- Mono disponsori oleh Novell dan inilah yang menjadi dasar mengapa saya memilih openSUSE
- Tampilannya memikat dan tidak pelit wallpaper
- Experience dalam menggunakan OpenSUSE persis seperti Windows dan hanya terdapat sedikit modifikasi, saya lebih menyukai GNome dibanding KDE.
- MP3 sudah built-in, saya tidak perlu membuang waktu saya untuk fungsi dasar seperti ini.
- Elegan dan CEPAT!
- Alasan terakhir saya menyukai paduan warna yang ditawarkan, Ubuntu bagus tapi warna coklat membuat mata saya cepat bosan.
Coba deh kalau seneng mencoba Distro Linux, saya pribadi OpenSUSE 10.3 adalah beyond expectation dan ini hal positif!
BlogTV : New Way to Blog and Chat
I was accidently read an advertisment in google adsense that new social services just launched it called BlogTV. The BlogTV still in beta phase but has giving awesome experience to rest of people. The community growing fast, most of the users are from United State of America, Canada, United Kingdom, dan other countries. I has been testing the service about a week ago.
I getting intouch with a friend from UK, we just know each other at his show. I trying to be a co-host with my first web camera lol and it running smooth. Okay, when on BlogtV we will see 2 boxes, one for the host and another is for co-host. It also contain a chat box for people who want to chat with them or each other. It's like an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) but with value added service, the live web cam is the greatest feature that offered by BlogTV.
I found some intresting moment when a live show is going on because they don't know where is Jakarta and ofcourse Indonesia. Wow, that very amazing that our country is not well known. Okay, now about the connection speed. We will have big lag when we talking real-time with the cam, I am on 768Kbps cable connection and still lagging. I don't know why this is happen, is it from BlogTV itself, the broadcaster, or my connection.
If you want to try new experience in chatting without hassle just try BlogTV. Maybe, someday we will had one in Indonesia with IIX (Indonesia internet exchange) as the backbone.
Happy trying!
Account Terminated
** This is only a notification. You do NOT need to respond. ** This email is to confirm that your Yahoo! account, "nurasto," has been recently terminated per your request. Your account has been deactivated and will be deleted from our user registration database in approximately 90 days. This delay is necessary to discourage users from engaging in fraudulent activity. To satisfy terms agreed to in the Yahoo! Finance Terms of Service, personal information for users subscribed to Yahoo! Finance Premium Services will be kept by Yahoo! for at least 3 years after the subscription date. If you did not request this action please reply to this message. Thank you for using Yahoo!. You can always sign up for a new account by clicking on any "Sign In" or "Sign Me Up" link appearing on the front page of most Yahoo! Services. Yahoo! Member Services
PS: I delete my nurasto@yahoo.com account, you will need to contact me if you need to chat with me. I am creating yahoo.co.id account. I love my country so much.
Freelance and Enterprenuer
In my journey I've been felt so amusing with all management and business stuff. I try to find any source what definition could represent me as individual who involved in Information Solutions. The story is not so simple, the journey began when I was college student. I always pick economic simulation games as my main genre and wasting my leasuire time instead of learning in field. This a bit personal.
I was active student in Accounting Faculty and then I decide to move to another university and taking Computer Science faculty. During the transition I work as part-time trainer in Sony Ericsson Indonesia to markets their new product SE T68i. I learn marketing knowledge there and meet many people which creating a great network. Often, this could be opposite to my dialy activity who always in front of computer and researching something. The journey is begin here.
Gaining information about business, I saw how Sony Ericsson Indonesia and it's partner work very hard to achieve the target. It's very amazing experience working with them. I work as front-end trainer and found new kind of client everyday with different behavior and thoughts. The character of users are different, I found a customer who only handle the T68i without asking in 1 hour, she looks confused but she afraid to ask. So firmly I ask to her "May I help you, madam?" and she smile, and the feeling in my heart is so overwhelming. "How I could use this mobile phone, sir?" she said. I am bit suprise, in 1 hour she don't know how to operate the T68i and I help her along the way. The impact is big enough, she bought one!. I learn that we should approach, respect and educate client.
After 2 year working, SE Indonesia needs refreshment in their trainer line. They inform me 5 months before my last exhibition, and I thinking hard what I could sell from my self. A girlfriend is the best support at the moment, she encourage me to enter my hobby as my source of income. I was 19 years old to start a freelance career. I am trying my opportunity in many place, and a start up company ask me to join them as freelance programmer. I take the chance to gain more experience either in technology and business.
The very different ecosystem
I found that freelance programmer have orientation to done the task not the business, I am free from business and have responsibility to obey my upline command. After the graduation I work as Full-time employee for about 6 months in a firm owned by ex-Microsoft Indonesia Director, Richard Kartawijaya, and I found similarity between freelance, part-time, and full-time employee. The similarity I found :
-
Day-to-Day Work
-
Work for business
-
Organization structure (freelance is seemless)
-
Free from any responsibility to build business plan, investing, feasibilty analysis, etc
-
You have boss
The enterprenuer is very different creature and have different mindset, I learn from many books that Enterprenuer are :
-
Have Business Plan (even the simple one that we wrote on word processor)
-
Feasibility analysis is required
-
Have an electronic library of contract, agreement, and supported document (SDLC for example)
-
Have different cashflow between his personal and business account
-
Build network and partnership (example, going to a cafe like StarBuck, Dunkin Donut)
-
Usually the person having Strong Character (I found in most my friend and collague who build business)
-
They attend motivation, management, and business related seminar
-
They believe that business supporting the work, giving solution with comprehensif education and knowledge to their customer regardless to technical requirement
-
Must have vision, mission, and strategy
Being Enterprenuer is not nightmare but we trying to step our foot to great path which involving human relationship and managing our life. Being optimist is one requirement to be an enterprenuer, we see something from different perspective. I admit that not many person could do this, but I could see their thought are relatively different from common people. Much of passion, much of strong will, and trying to find the most effective and effecient to deliver / deploy product.
This two kind have advantage and disadvantage related to financial matter. The distinction between this two kind of world only could be felt by ourselves and must be guided by many resource like books and discussion. I know that the transition from intraprenuer (employee / freelance) to be enterprenuer is quite difficult and needs time.
I am not geek enough and love to create relationship beyond a community but to many communities, and I want something that represent my self.
Have a nice day.