I tried, or I think I did. But I failed. NaNoWriMo has come and gone and I got 1/4 of the way to the finish line – which by anyone’s measuring is pretty dismal!

The problem was this – 1/4 of the way into November I went to the place where a chunk of my novel was to be set – the Tsunami devastated region of Tohoku, Japan. It was a very moving experience. But it also made me realise that what I was writing was pale in comparison and did not do justice to the emotions that I felt simply walking amongst the rubble of thousands of homes.

It was at that point a lot of things came to me. Many I won’t share on here, yet, but one was a thunderbolt:

Be true to yourself.

I knew what I was writing was not what I wanted to read. I was writing for some invisible audience, not for myself. It made me scrap the idea and reevaluate.

I have to relate one thing that happened to me while in that region.

Standing in front of the Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki I met an old man who lived up the hill. For those of you who don’t know, this school lost 75% of it’s student population and 10 of it’s 13 teachers. I asked the old man – in my simplistic, broken, Japanese – if he lived here. He pointed up the hill, to where the houses were untouched by the devastation. I nodded my head and looked for the words. What he must have seen that day and in the days to come would have been devastating to most of us.

He simply shook his head and said ‘difficult time’.

He then looked up the rather steep path to where his house was and said ‘lunchtime. thanks for coming to Japan’.

I guess you can’t dwell too much on the past. But you have to live, and not squander the gift of time.

Or, he wanted to go have lunch.

Either way, I am here to hold my hands up and admit defeat to the gods of NaNoWriMo – but also to thank them. If not for this challenge I never would have gone to Tohoku. It has changed me. And for that I am grateful.

One of my photos of Okawa Elementary School in Ishinomaki, Japan. Totally devastated by the tsunami.

For thousands of people tonight is not about the terror of Halloween… it is about the terror that tomorrow NaNoWriMo starts.

For those of you too lazy to click the link, let me tell you a little about NaNoWriMo. This bizarre words stands for ‘National Novel Writing Month’. The national is not really applicable as it is real InaNoWriMo (international!). Around the world, right now, thousands of writers and would-be writers are coming to the realization that tomorrow they have to start writing a book and they are not in the slightest prepared. (And if you think you are, you aren’t!)

This is my second stab at this insanity. A couple of years ago I attempted the feat – to ‘complete’ a 50,000 word novel in a month – and failed. Life got in the way and I let me project slide beyond the state where it could be revived and the target hit.

Will this year be different? Who knows! I can already see problems: on the 8th I am flying to Japan. But, a 12 hour flight is a good chance to get some writing done, right? And while I am in Japan I am making a brief side trip up to the disaster zone, as my novel has a chunk of it set there… maybe.

So, forget about the ghosts and goblins ringing your doorbell tonight. Tomorrow you will have some real demons to wrestle with!

Good luck, fellow NaNoWriMo-ers. And, to the partners and friends of this insane group of people, please, give them a chance! This is a hard enough task without someone stomping on your dreams.

See you in a month.

When I say choose your partners carefully I am talking about in business. I think it is maybe more important in business than in your personal life! Rarely in your personal life is there a contract to think about.
Each partner, no matter how big or small, has a role to play in a business. When a new partner comes in that role has to be defined. And, there has to be some way of making sure that the partner DOES what it expected of them.
Small businesses do not only require injections of cash. In one sense finding financial contributors is easy. You are only looking for one thing: money.
But finding a partner that will contribute what is really needed to make a small business work (ie experience and an expansion of your circle of contacts) is much more difficult. Beware of investors who promise to be the latter, active type, but in fact really only want to be the former, passive type. The biggest risk is that you will give em the benefit of the doubt and skew your terms in hoping to attract such an active participating investor.
The problem lies in this: what do you do if that partner does nothing?

I don’t have a solution here. Except to offer that both sides of a partnership need targets and goals and if neither side makes an honest effort at going after those goals then perhaps a dissolution or renegotiation is in order.

Seems only fair. If you are not going to do what you promised or offered then the terms should change.

So – choose your business partners carefully.

Millions of words will be written about Steve Jobs today. The fact that a large portion of those will be written on devices that sprang from his imagination is fitting tribute enough.

From my first Macintosh, back in the 80s, to my news MacBook Air, I’ve been a fan of the company and its products. Since Jobs reassumed the helm of Apple I have also been an investor in their stock and wow has that done me wonders.

From what I hear, Jobs was a devout Buddhist. The search should be begin soon for his latest incarnation!

Thanks, Steve.

I said before how I am reading (well, listening actually) to Napoleon Hill’s seminal ‘Laws of Success’. The book truly is amazing.

Right now I am on the chapter about developing a pleasing personality. So, to remember the seven steps to doing this I am going to write a sarcastic blog posting, which, while it might help me remember the steps, surely is self-undermining. Oh well.

First: Form the habit of interesting yourself in other people; and make it your business to find their good qualities and speak of them in terms of praise.

Hmm…good qualities in other people? That is going to be tough.

Second: Develop the ability to speak with force and conviction, both in your ordinary conversational tones and before public gatherings, where you must use more volume.

I think I can do that, maybe. Would you believe me if I did…I might be doing it wrong?

Third: Clothe yourself in a style that is becoming to your physical build and the work in which you are engaged.

Fat people – note the ‘style that is becoming to your physical build’. Terrycloth tracksuits, and lycra are not becoming to your physique (in the case of the former, any physique).

Fourth: Develop a positive character, through the aid of the formula outlined in this lesson.

This is a crappy step.

Fifth: Learn how to shake hands so that you express warmth of feeling and enthusiasm through this form of greeting.

Touching people? Yuck!

Sixth: Attract other people to you by first “attracting yourself” to them.

I have attracted myself to Jessica Alba… now what?

Seventh: Remember that your only limitation, within reason, is the one which YOU set up in YOUR OWN mind.

Well, there you go. I knew I couldn’t do it.

I am listening to the amazing audio book version of the update revision to this timeless masterpiece. True, it clocks in at around 20 hours, but it is time well worth spent (and you can’t / shouldn’t listen to too much at a time, you should let it percolate).

If you don’t know who Napoleon Hill is then read this to discover the man who pioneered self-help. All who followed have done little more than rearrange the deck chairs on his mansion.

My problem is that I have fallen at step one! (How embarrassing to admit). Step 1 is: ‘A DEFINITE CHIEF AIM’. i.e. decide what you want to do. How much is wrapped up in those 4 little words?! If I knew what I wanted to do the rest would be easy!

I have been horribly remiss at this blog. Not that anyone cares, but, it seems hard for me to keep this going. Despite my busy life – work is insanely busy… recession, what recession? – and my various personal pursuits I just can’t keep it going.

Some would say ‘who cares’. Or ‘why bother’. Both of which are great questions. (The first is easy to answer… no one!). There is so much blah blah blah out in that blahosphere of the internet that sometimes I think that perhaps NOT blogging is a greater contribution than blogging.

But of course, here I am. Blogging again. It is a way of occupying my mind, or relieving the built up pressure. Writing is a good way of focusing, and maybe writing here (those thoughts I think should be public knowledge) will help with that. God knows I need focus.

My chief goals at the moment, outside of servicing my 3 major clients, are:

Improve my Japanese

You may or may not know that I bought a house earlier this year in Kyoto, Japan. I love Japan, the people and the culture (and the fooood!!!!!). But, there is an insurmountable barrier if you don’t speak the language. So I am muddling along, doing the best I can in the Nihon-deprived region called Andalucia.

Be creative

When I get stuck into a length of time where I cannot exercise my creative demons I go a bit crazy. I know that I need to do something – write, music, film… something. I can feel an immense pressure building up inside of myself. This has happened before and the resulting explosion is not pretty.

Give back

I believe that contributing to the world is important. For years I have been trying to find a way to donate myself – not my money – to a cause. It is, quite frankly, impossible. Early in the decade I contacted every NGO type organisation I could find that did work I was interested and said I wanted to come work for them. For free, if need be. Only 1 responded to me… in the form of a letter that basically said ‘thanks, but we don’t want you. We want your money’. The search continues! If anyone knows of an organisation that wants an experienced business person, with lots of practical technical knowledge, public speaking experience, etc etc… ah forget it. I know that isn’t going to happen!

Anyway, that’s all for now. That is enough despair for one day!

I was looking today to figure out how to schedule work time for California (Toygaroo) while I am in Kyoto (Japan).

I stumbled across this site. There are probably others like it, but this is the one I found.

TravelMath lets you pick two places (very nice that you can just enter airport codes) and it will tell you not just the time difference – and the current time in the two places – but it also has a nice little chart about what work hours overlap! And what would be good times to schedule business calls between the two. Nice!

I’ve put two links into my brower’s toolbar

LAX to KIX (Los Angeles to Japan)

and

FRA to KIX (Frankfurt to Japan)

Very handy! Nice work TravelMath!

TechCrunch did a nice article about Toygaroo and the Shark Tank appearance… and the resulting investment from Mark Cuban and Kevin O’Leary. It looks like the company and the site are starting to get some traction and we are still getting some great traffic – even after the ridiculous original spike from being on the show the numbers are still very good!

For us as a company of course this is a learning experience. We’ve gone from 5 people with an idea to having some serious investment. That means firming up how we work internally – assigning more concrete roles, etc. Being several thousand miles away shelters me somewhat from the storm, but even here in FilmAmora central things are having to change!

The hardest part is actually that time difference. Like most things it has pros and cons! One of the big ‘pros’ is that I can work on the site in the morning my time and release a new version while it is still around 4am over there! The con of course is that I am having to check email and respond and be involved up until at least midnight (and the wife is getting tired of it!).

But, until such time as it is financially viable to move closer (and personally desirable… if THAT ever happens) things are how they are!

Next month I am off to Japan for a while – which is then going to mean I am many hours out in the other direction. I’m not really wanting to spend my time in Japan huddled over my computer (wearing a Radiation suit, if things keep on going as they have been!) – but you have to do what you have to do.

Of course, Toygaroo are not my only obligation. The juggling is also a component of figuring this whole thing out.

So, now that the show has aired, and most people have watched it either live or via DVR, we can start talking about it!

If you want some details on what transpired you can read: this article.

Basically, we took $200k from Kevin O’Leary and Mark Cuban in exchange for 40% of the company. These two bring some good things to the party – O’Leary ostensibly (I will let you Google it to see what I qualify the statement) has some good contacts in the toy industry and Cuban brings some good internet scaling and content delivery chops.

Only time will tell just how this whole arrangement works out but of course we are excited about the prospect of what the future might bring!

Toygaroo is America’s biggest, best and perhaps only quality toy rental company. Right now we only service the continental US (even though I am a Canadian living in Spain! Go figure). Plans range from around $30/month on up, depending on how many toys you want and for how long.

Under the hood Toygaroo runs on Ruby on Rails and utilizes a version of the software we developed for FilmAmora.com. I am on board as CTO.

Since the airing of the show – 2 days ago – we’ve had over 100,000 page views and a whack of signups. In other words – it pays to be on TV!