Archive for August, 2008
Marching ahead with small steps…
I stumbled upon this interesting post and could easily relate how I work towards my goals and how much I believe in this philosophy.
Patricia Handschiegel explains the importance of understanding how success comes in small steps.
The idea is to get started with your goals and keep working on it consistently in smaller steps. In short term, we may not see the rewards, but we have to hope that it will do in the long term. All the best!
Launching Siliconverge: A social news site for people from Semiconductor industry
I'm
very excited to announce an interesting project – Siliconverge – A social
news site for people from semiconductor industry. I've been working on
this since quite some time, but haven't really launched in public yet.
Here are some details about what, why and how.
What is Siliconverge?
A
place for people to share, discover and discuss latest and greatest
news & stories only related to Semiconductor industry from
different sources on the web.
It's a Digg for Semiconductor related industries.
Here is how it looks like -
Why Siliconverge is started?
It is started to enhance the way people from semiconductor industry consume the news and information online.
Semiconductor
industry is still miles away from the benefits of Web 2.0 revolution -
sharing, social discovery, and better user experience, etc. Everyday,
people from this industry still refer to approx. 5-10 different news
sites to discover latest news or interesting articles. It's still so
Web 1.0ish. Most of the times, all they get is non-relevant stuff like
product release updates and financial quarter results. Very rarely,
they discover some quality news on these websites. The reason these
news are boring or non-relevant because those stories are published by
editors and can be biased.
Siliconverge
wants to improve this experience in Semiconductor domain. It wants to
democratize the way people from Semiconductor industry consume the
information online.
How Siliconverge is different than other traditional news sites?
At
Siliconverge, whenever someone finds some breaking news, exciting
story, interesting blog post, research paper, valuable tutorial or
design article on the web, she submits it on the Siliconverge. Then
users on Siliconverge will find it, and will vote it if they like it.
The more the number of votes, the better is the quality of story.
Thus,
Siliconverge will provide you the best stuff to read as voted on by our
users. You won’t find editors at Siliconverge because it's a place
where people collectively determine the value of the content. By using
community's voting power, you’ll always find something that is
interesting and unique to consume.
How Silicoverge works?
Submit: Find a news article, research paper, or blog post online and submit it to Siliconverge.
Discover: Visit the “Upcoming News” section to discover recently submitted news.
Vote: Participate by Voting the stuff that you like best.
Comment: Share your opinions by commenting on news.
Who's behind Siliconverge?
You, the community and somewhere in the background, myself, Aditya Kothadiya.
Why you started Siliconverge?
I'm
a Chip Design Engineer and also a consumer of news from Semiconductor
world. And I was frustrated for the way how I had to consume the
Semiconductor related news online.
First,
I wanted to filter out the signal related to semiconductor industries
from other noise available on the web.
Second, I wanted to keep myself
up to date with news by following 1 single best source and not by
following 10 different sources.
Third, I wanted to read what my friends, and community find best, not some editor who decides what's best.
I
observed that there are many people from Semiconductor industry, who
also have similar problems. So I decided to solve it on my own. I
believe this project adds tremendous value to lives of people from
Semiconductor industry. And I wanted to make difference in their lives
by providing this solution to them. So I went ahead, and started
Siliconverge.
Is this your startup?
Nope.
Not yet. I prefer to call it as a valuable side project. I'm a Chip
Design Engineer (Semiconductor domain), and also know Web Development
(Web Domain).
I found that there is this incredible opportunity at the intersection
of these two domains which adds tremendous value to lives of many
people. So I started building this project. Currently, I wouldn't jump
into this for full time, so I wouldn't call this as a startup. I'll
leave that spot for something else.
If it's not a startup, then why there are advertisements?
Simply,
to cover the server infrastructure and development costs. In case, if you find advertisements are too obtrusive, then please let me know. I will have a look at it.
What's next?
Explore it. Use it. Submit news. Participate actively. Suggest improvements. Provide feedback. Report bugs.
Still, what's next?
Since you are asking so much – Promote it your friends. Invite them to submit and participate.
Remember,
the system shows marginal benefits when many users actively participate
on a large scale, so make sure to do your part – Submit and Vote
content that matters to you and Invite friends who are closed to you!
I want to be a part of this, can I?
Awesome! Of course, Yes! Shoot me an email at aditya AT siliconverge.com and we will sync up to see how we can work together.
As a final note, I believe that this project will help tremendously to
Semiconductor industry people a lot. I will really appreciate if you
could provide me feedback on issues, feature suggestions, or any damn
thing. I'm open to listen and learn.
Please, if you also find this project interesting and valuable enough,
then do let your friends from Semiconductor/Hardware domain know about
this. Ask them to participate and take the benefit.
Once again, I'm open to your thoughts and suggestions!
Go check it out – Siliconverge at (http://siliconverge.com)
What I’m Thinking? – from Twitter
I am still doing some interesting stuff on http://twitter.com/adityakothadiya that I mentioned a few weeks ago – post random, but quite meaningful
thoughts in less than 140 characters. Here are my latest ones -
I think it's very important to find the core, but it's more important to communicate it with others.
When you are saying 3 things, you aren't really saying anything. Please tell me, what's the most important thing. Period.
I think good leaders don't get into the
details of solutions. They just convey the intent. And subordinates
come up with their own solutions.
Is your startup idea a pill or a vitamin? Don't worry. Some people need both!
Give something that they want to take and not that you want give – can be the mantra of building an active community.
I hope you liked them. If you want to follow me on Twitter, here I'm – Aditya Kothadiya on Twitter
What Makes Them Entrepreneurial? #34
Their Excitement to Make Impact on a Significant Number of People
Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs
Ben Casnocha asks a very interesting question on his blog.
My take is that in the short-term (0-2 years after founding): Yes. In the long term: it's not enough and a genuine passion for what the business is doing and the customers it's serving is a necessary additive.
If your business survives until the long-term, generating the passion shouldn't be hard. If you start a trash pick-up service, maybe at first you see it as just a cash cow business. After all, who can get fired up about waste management? But eventually, as the business grows, and you start to serve tens of thousands of customers, you can get passionate about the idea of impact on a large scale.
Impact is the entrepreneur's drug of choice and if a company gets to a point where it is impacting a significant number of people I would argue any founder / executive can find a way to become genuniely excited about the mission above and beyond simply making money (which is an acceptable if not ideal driver for the founders at the outset).
As said above, the desire to make money can be short-term motivation of any entrepreneur, but the desire to make meaning and impact on a significant number of people can be the main driver of all entrepreneurial personalities.
Note: To read more articles from this series, please visit: What Makes Them Entrepreneurial?
Related Articles:
WMTE? #33 - Their temperament for stress craving
WMTE? #32 - Their Ability To Work Unsupervised
WMTE? #31 – Their Egolessness Attribute
