Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Are You a Key Man?
Are you a key man in your business? Do you represent your business and the interests therein? Are you the face of the brilliance?If so then some might term you to be the key man in your business (you could also be the key woman, but I am a man so we'll run with that). If you are the "key man" in your business then you will understand the pressure that you are under to perform.The Key Man does not, in any way imply the best person, the performer or the smartest most successful person in your business. You are simply (in my mind) the man that the business relies on. As the term itself states, the Key Man.This concept has started to plague my mind a bit. As a young entrepreneur I am battling with the idea that I might be, and more than likely am a Key Man in my company. The issue here is simple: I am where I am because I love what I do. I run websites, I help build them, I promote them, update date them, punt them and live them. This, in theory makes me the key man. I also meet with potential investors, advertisers and marketers. This makes me an entrepreneur. Being the key man involves a lot of participation. This is where the problem comes in.If I am managing 3 websites and contributing to 3 blogs, I am spending more than half my day online involved in the sites. This leaves very little time to actually be an entrepreneur. To find clients, to keep them, to meet with potential advertisers, to develop new products to market your existing ones and to simply run a company and manage all your shareholders.This is something that is increasingly concerning me. One of the solutions is to hire people to manage and maintain certain projects. How do you get someone in to raise your own children, all day every day? I am not comfortable with that. I like my hands on approach very much. I like being under a bit of pressure to perform because that is when I perform the best. But also, I am the key man and hence I am many of the sites I run. This blog for one. Who would read nicharalambous.com if it wasn't updated by nicharalambous himself? No one. It is as simple as that.I don't have an answer to this conundrum and I am not sure that there is a specific answer to the problem. I think that this might be one of those situations where experience and time dictate the route that each entrepreneur needs to follow.
Long Weekend Work
Most people crave long weekends. Most people think of it as a bit of respite. But then there are the others. The people who reckon that they have worked so hard during the last few months/weeks that they deserve to go out every night of the long weekend and recover.I have been a combination of the two above. I think I deserve some rest, I do. But then my mates will phone me, we'll make plans that turn in to more plans that get you drunk and end up with you jamming at 4am at some club somewhere with someone. What a mission. Then Monday comes round again and you are trying to recover from the long weekend as well as the week prior to that when you were working.Sometimes being sociable feels like a job too.
Get Them Laid - South African Version needed?
I came across Get Them Laid today and think it is a fantastically humorous site that pokes fun at those who need a shag. Let's be honest, everyone needs a shag!I think that we should swing together a team and have a GetEmLaidSA site up and running as soon as humanly possible. I've been to the geekdinners, I've seen the "otherside" and let me tell you there are no tans and no orgies!! OK, OK, I am exaggerating but still, what a great idea!
Steve Rubel Links to Amatomu
I subscribe to Steve Rubel's RSS feed and just noticed that he has linked to Amatomu in his del.icio.us links. That is super cool. Maybe I am missing something and a bit slow on this post, but maybe the dudes at Amatomu haven't noticed it yet!I think it's pretty cool.
Last Weekend for Badge Submissions
The SA Rocks badge competition is coming to a close. There have been some great entries that will be judged and the prizes are still up for grabs.The competition closes on the 9th of April so make good use of your weekend and submit a badge! It doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to be great, it has to be South African.So support the cause and win yourself a South African Rugby Jersey or 6 Bottles of Stormhoek Wine or even a Stormhoek T-Shirt!To enter email your badges through to competition@sarocks.co.za!!
YouTube Meets God
...and then there was GODTUBE!Can you hack it? I must say that I think the creators of this site are probably going to be incredibly rich. The Christian faith is expansive and many are wealthy. As much as I will not be using this site for much, or anything for that matter, I do think there is a huge faction of people who will.Check it out as soon as you feel that you have found god. Godtube.com - Broadcasting him. hehehe
Second Life Mimics Life - Legal Woes ensue
I have not really ever bothered to make use of Second Life (the crowd gasps in horror). I think that it is a pseudo life involved in a real life that is the possible pseudo life of another life's imagined real worlds sisters second cousins aunt. Wow, talk about existential hey! This is some serious Meta discussion going on.No, it isn't. It is actually fairly obvious and simple in my mind. People want to play god, they want to reinvent themselves, they want to live like movie stars they watch in the cinema. In order to do all of this, we [humans] create a second life for ourselves in which we can do all of the aforementioned things.What we didn't plan for unfortunately is that the authorities would also mimic the real world! I mean seriously, lets just think about this for a second. We make a world where humans can reign free, religion might not matter, money isn't that important (yet) and sex is cyber. Alas, that is not all true, money does matter apparently and the FBI are interested to know how exactly the online gambling within Second Life works. I think that this is all very ironic. We create what we think is a world that is untouchable and then realise that we are screwing it up by doing the bad things that exist in the real world. Human nature is just unavoidable.
Football Hooliganism Makes Football Watchable
Sitting at the Keg last one of my mates was watching the Football. Manchester United vs AS Roma. BOOORRRRRIIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!But Wait, it's half time, the riot police are out and some Mancs (term for Manchester United Supporters) are getting the living daylight kicked, punched, beaten and whipped out of them. Let me tell you, the entire pub came to a stand still, turn around, and watched the onslaught. People cheered, shouted and went absolutely mad at a bit of police brutality.Prior to the incident, not a single peep from anyone regarding the Football!What does this say about the state of society right now?1: Either Football is an extremely boring sport and people are catching on or2: It takes blood and guts to make us feel good.I think that both are applicable. I can't turn around without hearing someone talk about the movie 300. Blood, comic books, gore, aggression, etc etc etc. Same old, same old. Yet no one takes two seconds to discuss the more subtle films, songs, T.V. series on. It's all about Nip/Tuck, Prison Break, beat your mom music, death metal and all the rest of the testosterone boosting influence that is available.It must also be said that Football is not a particularly stimulating watch for the AVERAGE viewer, not the emphasis on average. I am not talking about the Mancs, the die hard pommie wanna be football freaks who not which team finished 15th in the premier league 12 years ago. I am talking about the average guy or girl sitting at a pub NOT wanting to watch football.Quick comparison:Rugby: 80 minutes a game, points are scored via Tries, Conversions, Penalties or a drop goal (occasionally a Penalty Try will be awarded). There are lineouts, scrums, mauls, rucks, tackles, contact, kicking, passing (via hands), passing (via feet) amongst many other interesting phases in and out of the game. Games hardly ever end in a draw and when it does, that is usually a fair result.Football: 90 minutes a game, a goal can be scored by a player (usually the forwards), goals can be scored with the head or the foot (occasionally an obscure part of the body, NEVER the hands or arms). There are throw-ins, freekicks, the occasional penalty and very often the game ends in a draw which is usually a crap and boring result.Now, before you start telling me that I am bias, I am not, I love Football, I support Everton (UK) and Pirates (SA). I just think that something could be done to improve the sport for the viewers, and I don't mean beat the fans until the T.V. station puts on a Heineken Advert!
Pic supplied by AOLsportsblog
Focus, Prioritise and Streamline
Right now I feel like my life consists of none of the above things. I have ducks, plenty of them, but none of them are walking a nice neat row. I need to sit down, prioritize and streamline my business endeavors. This might take some time, but it is something that must be done.I also feel the need to minimize the effect of negativity in my life. There are some things that happen that need to happen and somethings that happen that don't need to. The latter needs to be minimized and ultimately extinguished completely!At the moment I am one person dealing with multiple business opportunities and offers as an individual, companies need to be registered, bank accounts opened and business deals closed. Partnerships need to be formed and consolidated. All of this needs to be a part of a great transformation in my life currently.Lets hope. Watch this space, streamlining coming soon!
DOWN WITH BLOGGER!!!!!!!!!
Ok, that heading is a bit overboard but I was fed up and about to slit my blogging wrists (but how would i type then???). So instead of doing that I have moved to Wordpress. I tried, I really did, but I just couldn't get what I needed out of blogger, she was good for me at one point, but in the end, the relationship needs to be a two way street. I was giving more than I was getting.After I read this post on techrunch I knew I had to move and was making the right decisionThanks to the gracious assistance of one Mr Justin Hartman, I am able to host my site and have moved. Dude, you kick ass!Welcome to the new look for nicharalambous.com. I will not be changing the theme for a while now. I promise. I have said that before but this time it is believable (that's what all pathological liars say isn't it?).Please let me know what You think of theme, if you dig the design and if you think I stink!
Vincent Maher Makes Virgin Money
Today Vincent announced that he has a new blog, Money Talks, and it's sponsored by Virgin Money.The new blog is about banking and in Vincent's own words,
The basic idea is this: I have a baby (also in the pipeline har) due in two weeks now, I know i need to get my personal finances in order and Virgin Money contacted me and asked me if they can sponsor a blog about it. I said “sure, why not? As long as you don;t tell me what to writeâ€. They agreed, so it happened.
Immediately I can hear bloggers tapping at their keys and making a fuss about the influence that a big corporate has on the blogging ethos. Rubbish I say.First off Virgin is not sponsoring Vincent's regular blogs so there is no direct impact there. Second off, I think, as Vincent says on his new Money Talks blog,
Historically this is a moment of crystallization – all the talk about the legitimacy of blogging as a cultural explosion, and the commercial value of the blogging medium in general, seems to me to have come together. It is a sign of respect for the individuals who make up this community that it is being recognized as a powerful consumer voice and not dismissed as a morass of subjective nonsense.
Good point. Bloggers must begin to understand that money is not the root of all evil, in fact, we all spend our days wondering how we can profit from our passion for blogging. Vincent is doing just that, and good on him.However, with all of this said, I must ask the question: What if Vince wants to bad mouth Virgin Money? Or Virgin Music, Virgin Gyms or Virgin Airways for that matter? What then? Is this sort of "freedom of speech" allowed in their deal? I wonder? Vincent must believe that it is, otherwise he wouldn't have done it but I have my doubts.Nevertheless I am extremely excited about the prospects of this sort of deal for the blogging community here in SA. The big corporates have finally taken not of the expansive impact blogs could have on the South African Community. Good job Virgin, good work Vince.
Take a Break
As you might have noticed (and maybe not if you don't visit this blog) I haven't posted since Friday. I took some time off. In hindsight, time off sucks. Screw those people who say I'm addicted to my Laptop and the web, I couldn't care less that I am or if I was.But I digress. I took the weekend off to relax with my girlfriend, have a braai, be lazy and chill. NONE of the above took place. The braai was interrupted by a monumental misunderstanding on my behalf that ended up with me standing at airport Terminal A2 for two hours waiting for no one. Really, I mean it, I stood there like a proper tit waiting for no one. But it was completely my mistake in the end. Then I return to the braai to realise that the food I cooked was so incredibly tasty that it was all gone (a mixed result in the end!).So I sit, eat my boerie roll, take out my guitar and start to jam, then a couple of other muso's around start to play with my guitar, we're singing, it gets late, people start to leave and I am left with a mess and sore head.We clean up that night (Saturday) and all is well in the world, until I wake up that it. My guitar is gone. My wonderfully pleasant, blond looking baby is no more. I can't tell you where it is, I dunno what happened to it, but it is gone. Nothing more to say. *weep*So in hindsight, it is safe and secure and relaxing behind my laptop and on the web, in future no more breaks for me.
HOsting locally and feeling like a HO
I read the article that appeared on My Broadband and think it was a fair and equal representation of the situation of hosting in SA. SA Rocks is hosted locally but not necessarily because it is the best option. I chose to host it here because it is very tough to promote SA in the USA.I must however comment on this situation, as the original article does. Here is my comment: "It costs me a R100 a month, at the least, to host SA Rocks locally, what a ball ache. Stupid local hosts, ripoffs, mo-fo's."I feel like a Ho, I feel like I am being used and abused, but instead of them paying me, I am forking out the cash. I want to know, more substantially than an a single article, why it costs me, as a blogger, R100 to host here in SA? It is cheaper for me to be hosting 3 sites abroad than it is to host one blog.Surely there is some sort of intelligent life out there in the world of hosts and service providers that can see the blogging boom occurring here in SA? Surely they can figure that quantity is massive and thus if the hosting price is dropped it might be beneficial in the long run? having 10 bloggers at R50 a month is better than one at R100 a month. Half those exorbitant price for a while, do a test and see what happens. In that test period, make it known to bloggers and webdesigners that this offer is on. Go on, I dare you, take a leap of faith and see what happens?It takes on company to break the mold. The article at My Broadband sites a vicious circle of selfishness (in my opinion) that perpetuates this situation. Why doesn't one hosting company/service provided try something new and see what happens, you can afford it, I'm sure!
Change is Brewing
Ruda Landman is leaving Carte Blanche according to an Iol story. I am not saddened by this. She is an incredible investigative journalist and business woman, but it has been 19 years that she has been a part of the show. Hopefully the show will not suffer but will carry on with some fresh blood.Carte Blanche needs to take this opportunity to redesign, re-align and refocus their goals and ambitions for the next 19 years without Ruda.I hope that wherever Ruda goes she goes well and is successful, but thank goodness she is leaving Carte Blanche. Now, anyone got any ideas for Derek?
Amatomu Zeitgeist sentence
I love checking out tag clouds. I try to decipher obscure sentences out of them. I do this extremely often and find some hilarious stuff. Occasionally sentences are glaringly obvious and occasional they are somewhat obscure. I've been waiting for the right time to start this thread of posts. Recently my tag cloud perusing has been focused on Amatomu so I am sticking with that. The perfect time and sentence didn't really show itself so I have chosen the first semi sort of sentence to kick off this thread!
I threw in a comma in this sentence to make it slightly more clear.If you stumble across any tag cloud sentences from Amatomu please send them through to me (nharalambous@gmail.com)! Thanks!
Website stolen on MyBlogLog
Now maybe I am making a bigger deal out of this than I should. But imagine you went to register one of your sites on MyBlogLog and you were told the following:
This Hecubus freakin' dude is starting to really piss on my battery. I have now emailed the MyBlogLog people twice and am awaiting a response. Let's hope this gets sorted out fast.Any advice from anywhere would be welcome. Chillibean, got anything?
27 Dinner was awesome, the police weren't
The 27 DinnerI love the 27 Dinners. The most spoken words of the evening must be "I need to talk to you," or "We should really talk."I am not going to post in detail about things as I am sure many other bloggers are planning it, when that happens I will point my readers to their posts and everyone will be happy.Update: There are other bloggers who have said it better than I could've: Carly, Tyler, Matt, Groogle, Vincent, Chillibean and just for sympathy read Mike's post 27 post.My speech apparently went well, people cheered, some laughed with me, others cried but all in all a good response!The PoliceI ended up leaving the dinner at about 1 am last night. That was fine, but then as I turn left on to the highway to get to rivonia, BAM, the cops. Now I honestly did not think that I was over the limit in any way shape or form. Alas, apparently I was. Here is my list of things to do when being stopped by the cops:
- Be Sober (no shit)
- Don't be drunk (no shit)
- Don't talk too much, they'll know you're covering it up
- Don't talk too little, they'll know you're covering it up
- Have your license ready.
- After breathaliser test, ask to see the reading yourself (I did not)
- Make sure your ID disk on the car is dated correctly
- MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AT LEAST R40 IN YOUR POCKET
Now, that last point might be incredibly strange to overseas people, but last night it save my butt. After a serious amount of persuasion attempts and offers to get the cop AWAY from a "spot fine" I gave up, there was no way he was taking me to jail, there was no way he was writing me a ticket and there was no way that he was letting me go without some compensation for his hard work.Lets just say the rest worked itself out, he gave me some drinking advice, "You must eat while you drinking, its much safer like that," said the wonderful cop. Thanks Mr. Cop-man you're a gem.Next 27 Dinner, lets leave before 1am and miss the cops. It'll save me a lot of trauma.