August 29, 2008
The Summer 2008 Olympics are now over. The national conventions for the Democrats and Republicans are happening. Democrats just wrapped up theirs and Barack Obama is the official candidate. The Republicans are up soon and John McCain just announced his VP, Sarah Palin. School has started for all kids across the country. Summer vacations are over. And life goes on.
Like many I watched the Olympics when I found the time in the evening and was fortunate enough to see some of the men and women’s gymnastics, swimming, track and field, and volleyball. I saw the US women’s beach volleyball team win. I saw the women’s gymnastics team win and saw Nastia Lukin win gold. I saw Michael Phelps win several of his gold medals for swimming. One weekend I even caught the Chinese synchronized swimming team. Wow, that was impressive! My husband stayed up later and saw the women’s and men’s volleyball teams as well as the men’s basketball team.
I actually think I was able to watch more of the events during this Olympics than any other Olympics in my life. I’m not sure why that is given that my life is so much busier than it used to be. It’s probably because my husband was watching it and it was a nice (often nerve wracking) way to end the day and see several of the events “live.”
What struck me was how hard all of these athletes have been preparing for the vast majority of their lives for this one shot at gold, fame, and potential sponsorship opportunities from big name brands/companies. All their preparation comes down to a single point in time to succeed or fail. The pressure and mental stress must be extreme, and yet they get up every day to prepare for that one moment in time.
Every individual who competes tries hard, practices hard, prepares hard and only 1 receives the gold medal. The same is true for entrepreneurs but fortunately there aren’t hundreds of little kids competing to win in one particular business (e.g., selling widget X). There may be several competitors in a space but it’s doubtful that the leaders of your competitors started practicing to compete to sell “widget X” when they were 10 or even 5 years old!
However, there seem to be many more factors way out of the control of the entrepreneur that determine their company’s success or failure (e.g., the economy, people issues, product issues, market timing, etc.). An athlete has much more control on whether they get up and practice every day with the major big unknown being a devastating injury. They are rarely blindsided by a last minute entry who ends up being a well-funded Superman/Superwoman athlete!
Building a successful business is extremely hard, costs money, and is time consuming, but after watching the Olympics, my guess is that preparing and then winning a gold medal is harder, requires more discipline, and is more time consuming but with more defined parameters. Even more so if you happen to be a Chinese Olympic team member who are often taken from their parents at a very young age.
People expect athletes to take years or even a decade to train to even make it to the Olympic games, but many expect entrepreneurs to make it big in just a few years and in the process they often burn themselves and others out. I’m guessing that fewer entrepreneurs earn ‘gold medals’ than individuals and teams do every four years in the summer Olympics.
August 27, 2008
If you haven’t heard, they are already signing up people for Blog Action Day 2008 and the topic this year will be on Poverty. If you are a blogger and have thoughts to share on the topic of poverty, go sign up now! The only requirement is that you do a post on October 15, 2008 on the topic of poverty. I posted last year for Blog Action Day and the topic was the environment.
My post last year was called Rock. Paper. Scissors. How Do We All Win? I wrote about ways we could reduce the amount of paper we use by cutting down the paper we receive. Since last year, I called up and cancelled several of the catalogues that we randomly received, made sure we were getting e-statements instead of paper statements, etc. We have drastically reduced the amount of unnecessary mail we get, but we still get things that I haven’t figured out how to stop getting! But I’ll keep on trying.
Check it out, sign up, and share your entrepreneurial and parent related thoughts about poverty!
August 23, 2008
The other day I went to traffic court for the first time in my life. I got a ticket back in May for ‘disregarding a right turn only’ sign on 4th and Lavaca in the downtown area of Austin. [I couldn't find a right turn only image, but it looks similar to the 'left lane must turn left' image I put at the beginning of this post except for the fact it said 'right' instead of 'left.']
At the time, there were three cops pulling over people for doing the exact same thing I had done. While they were giving us tickets, at least 5 more cars drove by who did the exact the same thing the three of us had done. I had not seen the sign just like the others and it was obvious to me this was a ‘right turn only trap!’
I’ve never contested a ticket in my life, but this time I felt it was obviously a set-up and I DID NOT ‘disregard’ the sign because I didn’t see it. How can you disregard something you don’t even see? So thinking I might have a chance to make my point and get it dismissed, I pled ‘not guilty.’
Now I’ve had a few speeding tickets in the past…not many. I’ve never (knock on wood) had a ticket hit my record because here in Texas you can take a Defensive Driving course and a) the offense won’t show up on your record and b) you can get a discount on your insurance premiums. I believe you can take the course no more than one time per year.
I’ll admit on a couple of occasions, I deserved a speeding ticket so I took the course. On only one occasion did I consider a ticket I got to be unfair and again it had to do with a traffic signal issue. They changed the timing of the signal and several people who normally drive that way accidentally ran a light. The cops even said that was the case, but I was in college and too afraid to contest anything back then. But I digress…back to the ticket at hand.
I was assigned a date to show up at the court to hear my options. The prosecutor, who had an attitude of “I’m smart. You’re dumb. Don’t waste my time.” did not tell me anything more than what was on the paperwork I had. He asked me if I wanted to waive my right to a trial by jury. I told him I wasn’t sure and asked his opinion. He had no real opinion other than to say if I wanted a trial jury I would most likely be in court several days because the jury trials run over time often and are rescheduled for other days. He told me if I picked a trial by judge I would most likely get it all over with during the set time. So being the busy person that I am, I picked the trial by judge.
I don’t have any traffic lawyer friends so I kind of hoped the cop wouldn’t show up. I did try calling the University of Texas Law School to so if they had any students who could help me only to find out they only help other students or possibly indigent citizens and they were backed up for months. If the cop doesn’t show up, the ticket is usually dismissed. Well in my case, the cop did show up.
So the day of the trial, I called the traffic engineering department of the city because a co-worker of mine said he thought the sign had been changed. I figured if I could get proof that the sign had been changed, I would have a chance to prove it was poorly designed and the charges should be dismissed. They faxed me over two documents showing the intersection and one a work order that was called in by a police officer in June to make the street painting/marking clearer to indicate that lane was in fact a ‘right turn only’ lane and to add a sign to the traffic light (where MOST people look) that indicated the right most lane was a ‘right turn only’ lane.
The cop was fair in his description and admitted they were performing a ‘traffic initiative’ (nice way to say ‘traffic trap’ if you ask me) and indicated the painting on the street was faded. I didn’t know what rights I had in an ‘entrapment’ situation so I had no idea what questions to ask!
I attempted to submit the work orders and other paperwork I had received from the traffic engineering department of the city and the prosecutor immediately started saying things like ‘that’s hearsay, she can’t tell another person’s story‘ before I was even able to say anything. I said ‘how can written documents be hearsay?‘ The judge then said he wouldn’t allow the documents and he wouldn’t even read them!
He instructed the court reporter to make note of them and for me to show them to the prosecutor. I tried to show them to the judge but he refused to look at them. He kept asking me if I had further evidence to submit. Now, my degrees are in business and my only experience with lawyers is with corporate attorneys or TV shows like Boston Legal so I wasn’t sure what else I could present as evidence. I wasn’t even told I could bring witnesses. Even if I knew I could bring witnesses, I don’t know who I could have brought that would have been credible to the judge.
I was TOTALLY unprepared to represent myself in this matter and yet I was probably more prepared than 90% of the people who enter that courtroom! I could tell I threw them for a loop by actually bringing in paperwork that demonstrated the KNOWN safety hazard that intersection presented. They seemed at least momentarily perplexed.
So, I was found guilty and sentenced a fine of $101 ($1 above court costs) plus $25 in filing fees of some sort. Of course I was annoyed but was slightly distracted by the splitting headache I had started to get a couple of hours before arriving at the courthouse.
In my summary, I asked the judge to consider the fact that I did not have a ticket on my record (due to taking defensive driving and it being years since I received my last one anyway) and have never appeared in court. Apparently, that didn’t matter.
I asked the judge, unfortunately after his verdict, about deferred adjudication, and he said I should have been offered that earlier and I said I had not been offered that. With an attitude of ‘oh well,’ he then said that since he had already ruled that was it and he was done with the case.
As I was leaving, the cop told me I had done a really good job in presenting and he agreed with me that the intersection was badly marked and should be fixed. He was nice enough, and I know he was doing his job or doing what he was told. But it does beg the question why these cops didn’t just call in this problem years ago since it’s obviously a ‘violation’ that happens often.
I was, as I mentioned, annoyed and angry, but those feelings were tempered because I got to see the case right before me that had to do with a taxi driver. [I found it odd that everyone can come in and watch the cases to know what you were accused of because not only because that could be uncomfortable for the defendant but also might make the judge feel like he has to be a stickler to show he's not weak.]
This poor woman was a single mom who drove a taxi in the evenings to make ends meet. She mentioned she had even put her daughter through college and had another kid at home. After listening to the case, it was unclear to me what she was accused of and I think she did a good job of telling her side of the story. However, it didn’t seem to matter because they believed the cop, who had his partner with him who said she could see everything (highly doubtful) and found her guilty and fined her $164.
There were a few more guys waiting to do their trial when I left. There was another woman waiting outside who said she’d been there since that morning because she was accused of outstanding tickets that she claims she never did. She said she was living in another state during the days they accused her of certain tickets. She said she had $7K in fines and no way to pay them and would have to sit in jail for 30 days to serve her time and take a leave of absence from her job. Crazy!
They gave me a hard to understand document about appealing but given the time I’ve already spent on this and I’d have to pay about $110 just to get the transcript made by the court reporter if I wanted to use it in an appeal, I’ve decided not to appeal and reduce my chances to get more headaches.
I know this post is long, but I had to get it out in case it helps someone else. My key takeaways:
1. Request a trial by jury and make every attempt to have a flexible schedule around the time of your jury trial date.
2. Take pictures (i.e., evidence) of the site
3. Find a witness. I had thought about asking the two other drivers who were pulled over to contest with me, but I was afraid to get out of my car for fear the cops would think I was doing something crazy and they would shoot me or something.
4. Find a lawyer friend who knows something about traffic law to help you or show up with you at a jury or judge trial
5. Bring headache medicine with you! My headache medicine of choice is usually something laced with ibuprofen like Advil.
6. Bring someone with you for moral support if you don’t have a lawyer or a witness.
7. If you have the opportunity, take a Defensive Driving course even if you feel wronged and avoid the whole experience all together
I don’t regret contesting the ticket because it was a learning experience for me and interesting insight into our legal traffic court system. Live and learn as they say.
If you think this post could be helpful to others, please Stumble, Digg, share, etc. If any of you have experiences with the traffic court system, please share in the comments below.
Posted by Aruni
1:55 pm •
FYI,
random stuff •
August 17, 2008
I co-write articles for university alumni magazines with my fabulous writing partner Pam Losefsky. You can also see more of our write-ups on the article page of this blog.
Our most recent article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is on Bart Knaggs (gif). Bart is the founder of Capital Sports and Entertainment which brings us the annual, highly popular Austin City Limits Festival. Here is an interesting quote from his interview:
“There are ways you want to manage opportunities, but mitigating risk, I think takes you down the wrong path.” Instead of thinking that you might lose so you’d better prepare for the crash, Knaggs says you must believe you’re going to take off, so you’ll only prepare to fly. “You have to commit 100 percent to powering the engines and getting up to speed. You have to rally your people, you just have to know you’re going to fly.”
Bart has two kids. After getting his undergraduate degree, he became a competitive cyclist – “a form of self-employment in which the sacrifice is monumental and the payoff only accrues to an elite few.”
One more article in the Self-Starter series will be coming out soon, so sign up for free email updates and you won’t miss it!
August 14, 2008
Earlier this year, I had such a great time at SXSW Interactive 2008, that I submitted a panel idea for SXSW Interactive 2009 called Building A Web Business After Hours and more people than I thought are interested in seeing it happen!
Panel Description: Many businesses are built after-hours or during odd hours of the day and night. Join us for a panel discussion by entrepreneurs who built (or are building) their Web/E-commerce/Other business while holding a day job, multiple jobs, or who are currently balancing two+ career options.
For those of you who don’t know, I am attempting to build a web business (Babble Soft) after hours and lets just say it has it’s ups and downs but mostly it’s really hard and challenging with a big upside bejng that in my day job I get to be around other entrepreneurs.
How many of you (or people you know) are building sites and businesses in their spare time (on the side)? What kind of businesses are they? Many great businesses start with tinkering on the side…
I’ve started to assemble a great group of panelists including:
- One of the co-founders of BlogHer, the top female blogging site in the world that has partnerships and customer relationships with some of the top recognized brands in the world! Elisa Camahort Page, a co-founder, awesomely mentioned my panel in her Time to vote for SXSW panels post. Check out Elisa’s post to see the other great panels she’s recommending.
- Thom Singer is the director of business development for Austin based vcfo. Additionally he is the author of four books about the power of business relationships and is a professional speaker. With the support of his employer, he successfully manages his job and his own business, speaking to companies around the country on how to network. He blogs at Some Assembly Required.
- Karen Bantuveris, Austin founder & CEO of VolunteerSpot, knows firsthand what ‘juggle’ means. She’s built VolunteerSpot from the ground up while running a successful management development and executive coaching business, and being active in her daughter’s school PTO Board and Scout troop. She even manages to sleep, occasionally.�
- Jeremy Bencken, co-founder of ApartmentRatings.com, Tenant Market, and PR for Pirates. Jeremy and his wife, Katie, founded ApartmentRatings.com in 2000 out of their one bedroom apartment in Mountain View. They bootstrapped the site while attending business school at UT-Austin and then during full-time jobs for 4 years before selling the company to Internet Brands in 2007. Along the way they grew traffic to over 12M unique visitors per year (without an ad budget), built a base of advertisers, fought off frivolous lawsuits, and got their site featured on NPR Marketplace, and in stories in the NY Times and AP.
Please, please, please go vote for the panel by clicking on this link: Building A Web Business After Hours. I believe 30% of the weight on whether a panel is chosen is from people like you voting. The only downside is that you have to create a log in, but the upside is that you will be in the SXSW system and see all the other cool panels going on and vote for many more!
Thanks and I look forward to seeing some of you at SXSW next year. 
August 12, 2008
While out on vacation for almost 11 days, I had to check emails. I can’t fathom not checking emails at all and coming home to thousands of emails. I think I would have cried…not that I don’t already feel like crying over the mental draining-ness (not a word I know) of keeping up with day to day emails. Currently, I actively check 3 different email accounts.
I know that tons of busy business people get overwhelmed by email and some have even stopped responding altogether to email, but I haven’t reached that point yet. Companies like NutShell Mail (I met the founders at SXSW here in Austin earlier this year) attempt to solve it by having all of your emails going to one place. Right now when I’m home two of my email addresses download into one Outlook and the third to another set up of Outlook on a different desktop at my day job. When I’m on the road, I have to log in to 3 different webmail accounts. Fortunately, I’m not on the road that often.
What I found interesting is that I ended up probably deleting about 40% of the email I received (which included newsletters, news updates, blog feeds, friend updates, etc.) while I was gone. I’m still deleting some even though I’m fairly caught up because if I tried to read them, I wouldn’t get to anything else! It’s making me wonder if I should even be getting those emails and instead rely on the ‘if it’s really big news, I’ll hear about it from someone’ belief.
The risk of doing this is looking stupid if something big has happened (especially in your market) and you unknowingly wear a blank stare when someone exclaims ‘Did you hear about xyz?!”
I guess one always has to take calculated risks in life. In my current life situation, I have to take the risk that I might not be in-the-know in exchange for paying attention to the rest of my life.
How do the rest of you cope with email overload…or do you?
August 10, 2008
We arrived back in the United States yesterday and boy what a trip! The first part was great fun spending time with my sister-in-law and family and a couple of days in San Miguel de Allende but the day night before we flew to Mexico City, Montezuma exacted his revenge (the link takes you to a British phrase finder site that give you other funny names for this condition around the world that I’d never heard before like Tokyo Trots and Delhi Belly).
It seems that invariably when we travel someone gets sick and this time it was me and to a lesser extent the kids. The only plus from getting sick is that I think I lost the 3 lbs I gained during the first part of the trip. 
Some details are just too crazy to get into but all I can say is that it is good to be back in the good ‘ole US of A where:
- The streets are clean! When we arrived in Mexico City one of the first things our son asked us was why the streets were so dirty?!
- You can drink water straight from the tap if you want to.
- Customer service really means that the customer comes first. Renting a car in Mexico can be time consuming/draining when compared to renting in the US.
- Breakfast is in the morning, lunch is around noon, and dinner is around 6 or 7 pm. In Mexico they usually eat their lunch around 2 or 3pm and then a light dinner around 9 pm.
- They take credit cards pretty much everywhere you go. Many places we went in Mexico did not take credit cards so if you were out of cash, you had to the nearby ATM which happened to us several times.
The few things we do miss are:
- Our family in Leon, Mexico
- The cooler temperatures (60 to 80 degrees versus today’s high in Austin of 105!!)
- The beautiful flowers
- The kid-friendly restaurants. In Mexico many restaurants had easily accessible, closed-in play scapes where the kids could run around and you can watch them calmly from your table. It made eating with kids much more enjoyable!
I’ll be playing catch up for a few days. Since I was able to check email periodically while I was out, I only have hundreds of emails to go through instead of thousands!
Here’s a picture my husband took of a section of a mural done on a wall by Eleanor Coen in 1942 inside a museum of art in San Miguel de Allende:
Posted by Aruni
1:41 pm •
holiday •
August 4, 2008
We are visiting family in Mexico which means posting has been and will be light for the next week or so. I’ve seen some interesting things during our visit to do posts about later ranging from tamale stands to gorgeous flowers to street peddlers to laughing kids. Our flight was thankfully uneventful and so far our trip has been really nice.
We took our first overnight trip away from the kids since they were born! My wonderful sister-in-law and brother-in-law were kind enough to watch them while we took a two day escape to San Miguel de Allende for the weekend! It’s so great to have family with older kids who like to play and watch our kids.
So in the meantime, here’s a picture from San Miguel for your viewing pleasure:
