Archives for category: Life

Hi there. If you follow what I do, you’ll know that Branchr Advertising acquired my small business collaboration suite SaaS app Atomplan back in August. During that time, I was also building an advertising system called Adaptance Advertising, based on two algorithms I designed and developed called HyperTargeting and FairAds.

I’m happy to report that I’ve joined Branchr Advertising as CTO, joining Christian Owens (CEO) and Arjun Rai (aka: Aaron Ray) (COO). Adaptance Advertising is now exclusively licensed for the moment to Branchr Advertising, and we’ll be integrating our top-notch technology with Branchr’s existing, extensive customer base of publishers and advertisers.

I’m really really excited about this opportunity. Branchr is relaunching with Adaptance technology in the next few weeks, so look out for news here!

How to determine what’s important, and what you should drop

Throughout high school, I’ve racked up many achievements and leadership positions related to school. Every year, though—I’ve decided to give it all up to focus.

  • Sophomore Year: Sophomore Representative to School Council (and the year before as well) — could have done junior year, decided to quit
  • Junior Year: Debate Club President — could have won President again, but decided to quit
  • Junior Year: Convention Coordinator at the Northeast State of the JSA — could have campaigned for the top position as Governor, but decided to quit

All decisions, all about giving up positions of authority and prestige up, after working very hard to get to them. I’ve found that I sometimes regret these decisions, and whether they were the best to make.

The Problem with Focusing

The main problem with focus is that focus usually means dropping other things. When we’re talking about things you’ve worked hard to achieve—positions of leadership or otherwise—it’s hard to let go.

However, the things that you do that don’t line up with what your real focus (and areas of development) will act like leeches on your time and energy. In many cases, that’s more detrimental than hanging on. When you’re at that point, it’s important to know how to rotate your focus ring with precision.

Areas of Development

I’ve identified three areas of development that I’d like to see from everything that I voluntarily work on.

  1. personal development — helping me work with teams, people in general, getting work done
  2. social development — chances of meeting new and valuable people in the process of work
  3. college and résumé/career development — chances to improve my chances in college and in my career
  4. extrapersonal benefit — helping others, including those who can’t help me back (a life goal)

Think about your own areas of development. Like above, write down the area and a description on why it’s important to you to develop.

Questions I Asked Myself

Indeed, they weren’t easy decisions to make—each of them required a lot of thinking beforehand to determine whether they were the best decisions to make. They were based on:

  • If I continued, how much workload (time) would I have to spend on it?
  • Will this workload affect my ability to do work that I really, really want to focus on? (entrepreneurship)
  • Is continuing an acceptable sacrifice for the areas of development?
  • Is quitting an acceptable sacrifice for focus?
  • Is this really something that contributes to my life goals and areas of development? How?

Ask these questions to yourself with regard to your areas of development. Is it something you’d like to still pursue?

Through experience, I’ve seen that maintaining focus is important. It has affected my hard-earned positions of leadership, but it’s important. A tough choice to make, but in the end, one that is very valuable.

As I step on the subway, I take note of society around me. I love the subway. It’s one of the best places to explore one’s curiosities about society and the world. However, today I notice one thing.

Everyone is connected.

Through mobile.

Let’s take a step back. Let’s look at mobile from the big picture standpoint. Mobile is what connects us. It is what breaks barriers of distance and time. It allows humans to communicate notwithstanding the normal constraints of communication. We can call, text, or MMS anyone we know in the world.

Everyone around me there are mobiles. iPhones, Blackberries, Nokias, Motorolas. All of them connected in an international network that connects all people to each other.

What is so amazing about mobile is that it is the first technology to connect people wherever they are. As opposed to before.

It’s a completely revolutionary technology. Mobile. 3 billion subscribers. And we’re just getting started.