It was just last semester when we had our 1st elective, it was Technopreneurship 1. What is technopreneurship? That’s a common question for us students who took the subject and my initial answer was technology plus entrepreneurship, as the name suggests also. I later defined those two terms; technology, which means knowledge, an expertise, a know-how, or simply defined as applications of knowledge to human work while the other, entrepreneurship, means practicing of consistently converting good ideas into profitable commercial ventures or simply an enterprise or business. And so, my first definition of technopreneurship was technopreneurship is converting good ideas into profitable commercial ventures with the aid of technology, or simply having a business which is incorporated or has something to do with technology. We are information technology students and we are the most close to being one of those people engaged in technopreneurship; the so-called technoprenuers. A technopreneur is an entrepreneur who is technology savvy, creative, innovative, dynamic, dares to be different and take the unexplored path, and very passionate about their work. They take challenges and strive to lead their life with greater success. They don't fear to fail. They take failure as a learning experience, a stimulator to look things differently and stride for next challenge.
Mind Sets – Paradigm Shift
"Go to school, get good grades, land in a high-paying job." This is the usual mindset that most people have about formal education. Parents send their children to school with this mindset. Students imbibe this mindset and carry it with them until college. Most schools subscribe to and support this mindset. It is like a default mindset. We can formally call it the employment mindset."Go to school, get good grades, create and own a company."Use your knowledge, skills, core values, creativity and passion to create and innovate through technology. These statements offer an alternative mindset. We can formally call it the technopreneurship mindset. Technopreneurship is entrepreneurship in the field of high technology. It is the healthy interplay of technology ideas, technology skills, management skills and the entrepreneurial mindset. It starts with an idea, which when pursued, has the capacity to be transformed into a viable technology-based enterprise. The cultivation and nurturing of this alternative mindset can start in schools. A technopreneurship track in the IT curriculum can prepare students to be budding technopreneurs.
Having to know these mindsets I came to realize that it is indeed possible that after graduating from our course we could become more than an employee but we could be the employer. We have greater edge against others because we have the technology and today’s era is the technology era; the information era. There is so much opportunity out there that we can grab all we should do is go for it. We were so into the employee mindset that we forgot we could make an employer out of our selves; become a technopreneur.
To know more and understand more what a technopreneur is our first activity was a film viewing. It was a movie about some great technoprenuers who were very successful in their field, the founders of Apple and Microsoft; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, respectively, and so the film was “The Pirates of the Silicon Valley”. In the movie, it showed different factors that we could use a tips on how to become a technopreneur or what it takes to become one.
Be a risk taker.
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And the most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
-Steve Jobs
When all is said and done and the dust has settled, it is the risk-takers who win in business and life. Every day entrepreneurs have to make decisions. Make the right decision and you could become very wealthy. You don't want to make a wrong move that could bankrupt you. It’s enough to stress out the calmest of us. It’s always going to have some uncertainty associated with it. If we could predict the future we would all be rich.
If you correct your bad decisions quickly you're on the right path to being a successful entrepreneur. They will also be less likely to repeat the bad decisions. And they will learn to trust their gut to figure out the right path.
..Be always hungry, hungry for brilliance.
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
-Steve Jobs
With a reputation for being a hardnosed perfectionist, Jobs believes that having the best and the brightest workers behind him was one of his biggest success factors. “To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines,” he says. With little faith in the value of focus groups, Jobs relied on gathering small groups of people from a wide array of backgrounds to stimulate creative ideas within each other.
“Innovation comes from people meeting in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem,” says Jobs. “It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.” Innovation, in other words, cannot be structured. It can be encouraged, but it must not be restricted.
Despite this, Jobs has a reputation for being tough on new ideas from his staff, typically rejecting the first idea that anyone proposes before even seriously considering it. He considers this part of the key to innovation. “It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much,” he says. “We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”
Next, we were introduced to the SEED model, SEED stands for Self Mastery, Environment Mastery, Enterprise Mastery, and Development of a Business plan. For the previous semester we were supposed to tackle the first two of the SEED model but because of the limited time we had only discussed one; the Self Mastery.
If You Master Yourself, You Can Master Anything
The self mastery component is an internal journey into an alternative mindset (which is technopreneurship) from the default employment mindset. Assessment exercises on inclinations towards technopreneurship are done as well as business idea generation exercises springing from what the participants personally love, hate, and are good at. This “self mastery” thing is an essential factor which could help us individuals to improve ourselves to become successful in the future; possibly, a great entrepreneur or technopreneur.
For us to master ourselves we were given tests as our tool in getting to know our selves.
First test, Personality traits: Personality traits are the relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that differentiate individuals from one another. The idea that traits cause organizational behaviors has in the past been a point of controversy (Davis-Blake, & Pfeffer,1989), primarily because it is difficult to reconcile behavior being changeable by organizational factors and simultaneously caused by stable individual differences. Being able to know ourselves lets us know our strengths and weaknesses. We should maintain our strengths or better improve them more. For our weaknesses, we should find a way to make those things as our strengths. It’s easy to say these things, but in reality it’s not that easy to apply, well maybe for others but mostly not. We are uniquely made by God, which makes us different from one another from the start. Then by the experiences and the environment that we gain from the past up to the present we change and still different from another. Even as indicated by the results of the personality traits we took, the numbers really vary.
Second test, IQ: IQ is the acronym for intelligent quotient, and refers to a score given for several standardized intelligence tests. The first of these was developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet in 1905. He constructed the IQ test, as it would later be called, to determine which children might need additional help in scholarly pursuits. Today, the IQ test is commonly based on some model of the Stanford Binet Intelligence scale.
The third test, EQ: EQ actually stands for Emotional Intelligence Quotient. Much like an intelligence quotient, or IQ, an EQ is said to be a measure of a person’s emotional intelligence. One particularly popular setting that employs attempts at measuring EQ is the corporate world. Many businesses utilize EQ tests to help their employees determine and measure their emotional responses to various situations. While most corporate EQ tests are administered on the basis that a person’s EQ can be modified or increased, there is dispute about whether emotional intelligence is standard or can be changed.
The fourth test, AQ: Adversity Quotient test help individuals become valuable at work. Basically, tests would not only measure a person’s ability but also people’s capability to deal with the work and deal with others. It is on the relationship of a technopreneur has to obtain. The test is more focused on situational basis, which is very helpful for a person to know his capability of becoming technopreneur.
After reading the Commencement Address of Steve Jobs, I was so touch though I’m not listening on act to where he said all of it but the essence of all the words of wisdom he stated there makes me feel that I’m present and unswervingly listening to him too.
Reading between the lines in the commencement speech of Steve Jobs, I concluded some lessons which can help me to continue what I’ve started and serve as inspirational words to me to chase everything I’ve coveted.
“You’ve got to find what you love.” It’s really, truly, absolutely and definitely true. You can never be on a place when you were just force to do so by someone or anyone else. You, yourself should be the one to be eager to do that thing because you love too. It’s just the same as taking a course in college, when you’re not interested to a course, you’ll never choose it. You’ll prefer to take the course you really love because that your fashion. It’s just concluding that everyone has its different place, different interest and different perspective in life. So you can never force yourself or even others to do things which they don’t want. Only oneself can bring him into his interests and do chase it someday.
The Steve Jobs’ Commencement address ended with four simple but powerful words of advice from the billionaire entrepreneur and that is to “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” To stay hungry which means to starve or to ask for more even if you already have what you want. And as a technopreneur we should stay hungry because if not we would probably become lazy and contented from what we have. And to stay hungry which means to reach your goals and be foolish enough to take risks for in that way you will only reach and achieve your goals in life. Steve Jobs’ commencement address is really motivating and it indeed inspires me a lot.
Our final requirement for technopreneurship was a presentation of our business proposal. It was not easy. Our ideas were rejected many times, just like Steve Jobs did to his staff. We had to be creative. We have to be unique, the idea should be fresh. That’s the thing that we kept saying onto our group even we were rejected many times. Basically new idea is a combination of old ideas. You need to have enough old ideas to come up with new ideas. That's why constant reading and observation are important. Sometimes when someone has launched a new product, you would say, "Hey! I thought about that before. That's my idea." You might have had thought about the idea but you didn't capitalize on it. Someone has done it before you.
Mind Sets – Paradigm Shift
"Go to school, get good grades, land in a high-paying job." This is the usual mindset that most people have about formal education. Parents send their children to school with this mindset. Students imbibe this mindset and carry it with them until college. Most schools subscribe to and support this mindset. It is like a default mindset. We can formally call it the employment mindset."Go to school, get good grades, create and own a company."Use your knowledge, skills, core values, creativity and passion to create and innovate through technology. These statements offer an alternative mindset. We can formally call it the technopreneurship mindset. Technopreneurship is entrepreneurship in the field of high technology. It is the healthy interplay of technology ideas, technology skills, management skills and the entrepreneurial mindset. It starts with an idea, which when pursued, has the capacity to be transformed into a viable technology-based enterprise. The cultivation and nurturing of this alternative mindset can start in schools. A technopreneurship track in the IT curriculum can prepare students to be budding technopreneurs.
Having to know these mindsets I came to realize that it is indeed possible that after graduating from our course we could become more than an employee but we could be the employer. We have greater edge against others because we have the technology and today’s era is the technology era; the information era. There is so much opportunity out there that we can grab all we should do is go for it. We were so into the employee mindset that we forgot we could make an employer out of our selves; become a technopreneur.
To know more and understand more what a technopreneur is our first activity was a film viewing. It was a movie about some great technoprenuers who were very successful in their field, the founders of Apple and Microsoft; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, respectively, and so the film was “The Pirates of the Silicon Valley”. In the movie, it showed different factors that we could use a tips on how to become a technopreneur or what it takes to become one.
Be a risk taker.
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And the most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
-Steve Jobs
When all is said and done and the dust has settled, it is the risk-takers who win in business and life. Every day entrepreneurs have to make decisions. Make the right decision and you could become very wealthy. You don't want to make a wrong move that could bankrupt you. It’s enough to stress out the calmest of us. It’s always going to have some uncertainty associated with it. If we could predict the future we would all be rich.
If you correct your bad decisions quickly you're on the right path to being a successful entrepreneur. They will also be less likely to repeat the bad decisions. And they will learn to trust their gut to figure out the right path.
..Be always hungry, hungry for brilliance.
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”
-Steve Jobs
With a reputation for being a hardnosed perfectionist, Jobs believes that having the best and the brightest workers behind him was one of his biggest success factors. “To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines,” he says. With little faith in the value of focus groups, Jobs relied on gathering small groups of people from a wide array of backgrounds to stimulate creative ideas within each other.
“Innovation comes from people meeting in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem,” says Jobs. “It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.” Innovation, in other words, cannot be structured. It can be encouraged, but it must not be restricted.
Despite this, Jobs has a reputation for being tough on new ideas from his staff, typically rejecting the first idea that anyone proposes before even seriously considering it. He considers this part of the key to innovation. “It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much,” he says. “We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.”
Next, we were introduced to the SEED model, SEED stands for Self Mastery, Environment Mastery, Enterprise Mastery, and Development of a Business plan. For the previous semester we were supposed to tackle the first two of the SEED model but because of the limited time we had only discussed one; the Self Mastery.
If You Master Yourself, You Can Master Anything
The self mastery component is an internal journey into an alternative mindset (which is technopreneurship) from the default employment mindset. Assessment exercises on inclinations towards technopreneurship are done as well as business idea generation exercises springing from what the participants personally love, hate, and are good at. This “self mastery” thing is an essential factor which could help us individuals to improve ourselves to become successful in the future; possibly, a great entrepreneur or technopreneur.
For us to master ourselves we were given tests as our tool in getting to know our selves.
First test, Personality traits: Personality traits are the relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that differentiate individuals from one another. The idea that traits cause organizational behaviors has in the past been a point of controversy (Davis-Blake, & Pfeffer,1989), primarily because it is difficult to reconcile behavior being changeable by organizational factors and simultaneously caused by stable individual differences. Being able to know ourselves lets us know our strengths and weaknesses. We should maintain our strengths or better improve them more. For our weaknesses, we should find a way to make those things as our strengths. It’s easy to say these things, but in reality it’s not that easy to apply, well maybe for others but mostly not. We are uniquely made by God, which makes us different from one another from the start. Then by the experiences and the environment that we gain from the past up to the present we change and still different from another. Even as indicated by the results of the personality traits we took, the numbers really vary.
Second test, IQ: IQ is the acronym for intelligent quotient, and refers to a score given for several standardized intelligence tests. The first of these was developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet in 1905. He constructed the IQ test, as it would later be called, to determine which children might need additional help in scholarly pursuits. Today, the IQ test is commonly based on some model of the Stanford Binet Intelligence scale.
The third test, EQ: EQ actually stands for Emotional Intelligence Quotient. Much like an intelligence quotient, or IQ, an EQ is said to be a measure of a person’s emotional intelligence. One particularly popular setting that employs attempts at measuring EQ is the corporate world. Many businesses utilize EQ tests to help their employees determine and measure their emotional responses to various situations. While most corporate EQ tests are administered on the basis that a person’s EQ can be modified or increased, there is dispute about whether emotional intelligence is standard or can be changed.
The fourth test, AQ: Adversity Quotient test help individuals become valuable at work. Basically, tests would not only measure a person’s ability but also people’s capability to deal with the work and deal with others. It is on the relationship of a technopreneur has to obtain. The test is more focused on situational basis, which is very helpful for a person to know his capability of becoming technopreneur.
After reading the Commencement Address of Steve Jobs, I was so touch though I’m not listening on act to where he said all of it but the essence of all the words of wisdom he stated there makes me feel that I’m present and unswervingly listening to him too.
Reading between the lines in the commencement speech of Steve Jobs, I concluded some lessons which can help me to continue what I’ve started and serve as inspirational words to me to chase everything I’ve coveted.
“You’ve got to find what you love.” It’s really, truly, absolutely and definitely true. You can never be on a place when you were just force to do so by someone or anyone else. You, yourself should be the one to be eager to do that thing because you love too. It’s just the same as taking a course in college, when you’re not interested to a course, you’ll never choose it. You’ll prefer to take the course you really love because that your fashion. It’s just concluding that everyone has its different place, different interest and different perspective in life. So you can never force yourself or even others to do things which they don’t want. Only oneself can bring him into his interests and do chase it someday.
The Steve Jobs’ Commencement address ended with four simple but powerful words of advice from the billionaire entrepreneur and that is to “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” To stay hungry which means to starve or to ask for more even if you already have what you want. And as a technopreneur we should stay hungry because if not we would probably become lazy and contented from what we have. And to stay hungry which means to reach your goals and be foolish enough to take risks for in that way you will only reach and achieve your goals in life. Steve Jobs’ commencement address is really motivating and it indeed inspires me a lot.
Our final requirement for technopreneurship was a presentation of our business proposal. It was not easy. Our ideas were rejected many times, just like Steve Jobs did to his staff. We had to be creative. We have to be unique, the idea should be fresh. That’s the thing that we kept saying onto our group even we were rejected many times. Basically new idea is a combination of old ideas. You need to have enough old ideas to come up with new ideas. That's why constant reading and observation are important. Sometimes when someone has launched a new product, you would say, "Hey! I thought about that before. That's my idea." You might have had thought about the idea but you didn't capitalize on it. Someone has done it before you.
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