Archive for June, 2010
June 28, 2010
I saw the movie The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo this past weekend with a friend and it was way more intense than I thought it would be. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen a dramatic, serial killer type movie. It got me so angry at the evil, sadistic criminals and what they did to those poor innocent girls. The movie was really well done and the plot was strong. It had such an interesting mix of characters in different phases of their lives (e.g., an 80 year old, a middle aged divorced guy, a 24 year old girl) with vastly different experiences. They intertwined with each other nicely. Although we are taught that it’s wrong to take justice into our own hands, you can’t help but be proud of the 24 year old girl/woman (Lisbeth) who didn’t sit back and let herself be the victim unlike the woman they were looking for who they thought was murdered but actually ran away 40 years ago from the people hurting her. Lisbeth didn’t run away from the people who hurt her, she paid them back in spades with a dose of their own medicine and made sure they wouldn’t hurt anyone else. It got her in trouble when she was little, but it made her hard and street smart as she got older. This movie is apparently the first in a set of three based on books written by Swedish author and journalist, Stieg Larsson, and the series was published after his death in 2004. I look forward to seeing the next one.
I’m reading a book right now that I plan on writing about soon. It’s a bit of a touchy/feel-y book but very powerful if you can absorb the concepts. Maybe I’ll add in brief movie reviews to my future blog posts. I’ve been renting movies and seen some in the theater over the last several months. I finally saw Avatar, but on DVD. I could tell I missed a lot of the stunning visual experience not watching it on the big screen. The plot was predictable in a Romeo & Juliet (i.e., different families, tribes, cultures, species, whatever) sort of way except for both Human & Blue Alien lovers live, don’t accidentally die, and the humans were defeated. I rented Valentine’s Day, kind of cute because of Ashton Kutcher but otherwise not a very strong plot and The Men Who Stare at Goats starring George Clooney (handsome!) which was good but apparently not as funny or good as the book. It was interesting to see Clooney play a character that is psychic.
I took the kids to see Toy Story 3 a couple of weekends ago and of that’s a great one. I started crying way more than I probably should have when the Lots ‘O Huggin’ Bear didn’t pay back the favor of Woody (the main toy character) saving his life and let all the toys go towards their death when he could have saved them. My daughter kept saying (because she was sitting on my lap) “Are you crying mommy?“ I just said “yes, because I was sad that Lotso the bear was so mean.” I couldn’t tell her that mommy is still working through a lot of unresolved issues and the reason for the overly abundant tears was far more complicated? 
I cried when I saw the Disney movie Up. My son even said he felt sad when he watched it. I didn’t used to cry that much but those damn Disney movie writers/animators sure know how to push those buttons in me. I think I need to rent more of them…
Posted by Aruni
9:25 am •
movie reviews •
June 27, 2010
Human Statues on the Ramblas in Barcelona
Yesterday after I checked out facebook and updated my profile picture to one of my daughter wearing a flamenco dress that I bought her during my recent trip to Barcelona where I got to explore a little bit of my poetic side, I began thinking about people’s images. I like facebook because I can see what is going on with friends & family who are all over the world. I check it once every couple of weeks…sometimes once per week depending on the notifications I get. I set all my privacy settings so that only the people in my network can see my pictures, comments, etc. I used to use twitter almost daily but in the last year, my usage has decreased drastically. Most of my tweets are just my automatic tweets when I publish a blog post. Even the frequency of my blog posting has decreased mostly because of lack of time, I haven’t been inspired to write, and I’m writing more offline. LinkedIn is another site that I’ve checked out periodically.
The reason I started using twitter was first because I had wanted everyone to know I had gone to a Duran Duran concert, and then more importantly to see what it could do for my business Babble Soft, that is now run by Nicole Johnson, who was my business partner and who thankfully was able to take over the company and run with it. Twitter is a valuable tool to meet people and get the word out about your business. Most of what I tweeted was pretty upbeat or business related.
As I was looking at some facebook pages (mine included), it’s clear that what we show online and often what we show people even in “real” life isn’t really what’s going on with us. We often show a rosy picture with glamorous photos of us or our kids/family smiling, and we tweet about events or fun things. There are a few crazies out there who let it all hang out, but soon they are ostracized even online. Sometimes even those closest to us in real life don’t really know what’s going on with us because we’ve been told it’s not good to share too much of the hard, ‘real’ stuff. So we stuff it inside or say to ourselves ‘who cares’ or ‘I’ll get over it.’ I agree in one sense that we should keep some stuff to ourselves if we can (but sometimes as crazy as it sounds we just can’t), but I’ve also discovered that not sharing at all, which is what I used to do, meant that people didn’t really know me and after I started sharing things like others shared with me, I realized how strange things sometimes sounded. When I started talking and writing, I and others started to hear and see me differently. Even the greatest writers of all time couldn’t tell us explicitly through their writing what they were processing because of social pressures, which is part of what makes their writing so provocative!
Social networks enabled millions of people to share things about themselves…their daily lives that in some ways validated the mundane lives we often live. I used to share things about where I was going or notes on events, etc. Thankfully not things like people joked about (i.e., going to the bathroom)! But people shared, continue to share, and make connections to individuals they might not have otherwise in a mostly safe environment. twitter is a fire hose, or as I like to describe it a river, of information sharing.
Social networks have given people a medium to be heard and you cannot argue with the fact that it has fundamentally changed the way many people interact with each other and think of each other. Tools like twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn have brought customers, job seekers, stay-at-home parents, entrepreneurs, and companies closer together and it has shown a very large side of humanity that craves attention & connection that they apparently weren’t/aren’t getting in their real, offline lives.
I think we will see and are seeing an auto-correction on the use of these tools, but I believe these kinds of human connection tools are here to stay. When you tap into an aspect of someone or a group of people that needs/wants to be heard, they can often overdo it, spin out of control and then just like in the financial and political markets there will eventually be an auto correction that when it happens seems huge and out of control in a different way. Although markets are supposed to behave rationally, just like people who drive them, they often don’t.
I still remember this guy I knew at a Southern Baptist church I went to during junior high and high school. He was older (i.e. in college), wiser, and I think he was one of our Sunday school teachers. I looked up to him and adored him. There was so much going on in my life that I wanted to share with him pieces of it and get his advice, yet I couldn’t because I felt if I did he would think differently of me. Like most teenagers, I already felt I was different enough. I remember sitting with him somewhere alone trying to tell him something that seemed so ominous at the time and now is just a fact of my life, and I think because he could sense my angst he said ‘some things are better off left unsaid.’ I suddenly felt relieved because it took off the pressure, and gave me a sense that he understood, but it still left me feeling the same, different person.
So, yes some things are better off left unsaid except for when they aren’t. If by saying them online, offline, to people you trust, to people you don’t know if you can trust, you find a kindred soul, someone who can help you figure it out, or someone who changes you or your path for the better, or even realize that you really aren’t that different because there are other people out there kind of like you, then it’s better to say it and take the risk. Unless of course you are saying & texting things like Tiger Woods. You certainly learn who you can and can’t trust when you are at your most vulnerable.
But when you consciously or unconsciously take that risk, it will have an affect on your online image and/or your real life image. The type of affect (positive or negative) will depend on what’s going on around you and how you deal with the aftermath. It’s important to manage your online and real life image/reputation but if you over manage it, no one really knows the real person like Bernie Madoff, who everyone thought was a great guy…until they didn’t.
June 23, 2010
I took the kids to Barnes & Noble a couple of weeks ago to look at books and play with the train set in the kids section. When I can’t think of anything else to do, I go there because I can get a Starbuck’s hot chocolate or passion tea lemonade and hang out with them while they look at books. My son happened upon a book series on display called The 39 Clues (there’s even an official website!) and for some reason he decided he wanted the books. I think there are 9 in the series and he was excited because the 9th book took place in the Bahamas which was a place they were about to go to with their dad. Although he’s not quite the recommended age (9 to 12 years) for the books, I was thrilled he wanted to read them. He’s a good reader, but he really hasn’t been that interested in sitting down for any length of time and reading a book. He loves any and all things sports related and usually prefers to play Wii NFL Madden football than read a book. He asked me almost every day since the day he saw them if the books were here…well they arrived today.
This book series seems to be about kids searching out clues around the world to unlock and discover the secret to their family’s powers. It’s apparently a New York Times bestselling series and it comes with special clue cards.
Being the frugal mom/person that I usually am, I told him that I would go check them out online first before buying them and of course they were cheaper online at Amazon so I ended up buying him The 39 Clues Book 1: The Maze Of Bones – Library Edition (39 Clues. Special Library Edition)
, The 39 Clues Book 2: One False Note
, The 39 Clues Book 3: The Sword Thief
, and The 39 Clues: Card Pack (v. 1)
(Amazon Links). It will be interesting to see if he likes them and gets hooked.
As for children’s chatter, I love listening to my kids having conversations with each other. The things they talk about are so funny and interesting. While driving around running errands with them after work today, they decided to ask me how babies are made and I explained to them as simply as I could how a baby gets inside a mommy’s tummy. They grasped the concept but not really the details as I didn’t get into the mechanics of how it happens. [My daughter usually says she does not want to have babies. I ask her why and she says because her tummy would get big. But then a few minutes later, she's playing with her baby dolls! My son hopes to only have boy babies because other than his sister, he much prefers hanging with his buddies.] Anyway, they laughed and then started talking to each other about turning into sand. My daughter said she wanted to turn into sand after she died. My son said that according to the Chinese, you become an animal after you die. He asked me if that was true and I just told him that some people believe certain things and no one really knows what happens after someone dies. My daughter kept asking her brother if he wanted to turn into sand and after a while he agreed that he would also want to turn into sand. She then smiled a victorious smile because she got her brother to agree to something she wanted to do. I feel so blessed that they usually get along really well with each other right now. They really seem to look out for each other and make sure the other is OK. I hope it lasts and I can’t wait to overhear their next sandy conversation.
June 13, 2010
Here are a few interesting things that have hit my in box and show my penchant for Chinese food to read and think about:
Articles, Posts, & Cartoons
Why Change Is So Hard: Self-Control Is Exhaustible – Fast Company.
“People won’t change because they’re too lazy. Well, I’m here to stick up for the lazy people. In fact, I want to argue that what looks like laziness is actually exhaustion. The proof comes from a psychology study that is absolutely fascinating.”
“This brings us back to the point I promised I’d make: That what looks like laziness is often exhaustion. Change wears people out—even well-intentioned people will simply run out of fuel.”
I found the short article interesting from a business and personal perspective. Organizations and people can handle only so much change/stress that’s why it’s even more amazing to me when entrepreneurial endeavors make it because the speed and quantity of change that a start-up and the people involved experience is enormous. Burn out happens often and frequently. I’m a fairly high (and usually efficient) multi-tasker, but when I’m trying to process a lot of change and exerting a lot of self-control, it can feel exhausting which slows me down. I also see how it affects people/entrepreneurs in the work environment.
Entrepreneurial Fog – A gapingvoid cartoon. As an entrepreneur who has had a very interesting set of experiences in her life, many of Hugh’s cartoons resonate with me. I did a couple of posts a while back on some of his cartoons called Love and Entrepreneurs Part 1 and Part 2.
“Army Generals talk about “The Fog of War.” No matter how good your preparation is, it all means little once the actual fighting starts.”
It seems to me that many things in life are foggy and one characteristic trait of entrepreneurs and great leaders is that they are comfortable with the fog…well maybe not comfortable with it but have the wherewithal not to let it completely overwhelm them like in some scary, horror flick.
Passing it On – A post by my favorite VC blogger, Fred Wilson about one of their firms junior investment professionals, Andrew, that is moving on after his two year stint, teaching their new professional Christina about “proceeds by class of stock.” The teacher in me liked this post. Although I’ve only officially taught a short time in my career (i.e., a handful of undergraduate classes in entrepreneurship), I’ve always liked to teach people things. It must be in the blood because my grandfather and my mother were both professors at different times during their careers. It’s always an amazing/rewarding moment when you see a student/employee/person ‘get’ something for the first time or you see them applying skills they may or may not have realized they learned from the class. I sometimes hear from my former students via facebook and it’s really hard to explain the feeling you get when they mention how things they learned are still helping them today. I really did want to comment on that post, but I think I’ll have to refer back to the ‘laziness/exhaustion’ article I mention above…when I finally had a few minutes, I felt the time to comment had passed.
Fortunes
A while back I did a series of posts based on fortunes from fortune cookies I had received and one post almost resulted in me being mentioned in a New York Times article. As I was searching for the links to my previous posts on the topic, I discovered one I did on November 2, 2008 called Business Is Like War; Easy To Begin But Hard To Stop where the fortune actually said “Love is like war; easy to begin but hard to stop.” I compared Love and Business in an actual table format! How…how…business like of me. The end result was most businesses and marriages fail (as people tend to define failure – something ceasing to exist) in some form or fashion. This is when I sometimes look back on what I’ve written and realize I forget that I actually wrote it. Those words seem to describe the disillusionment I was entering into or maybe it was the illusion I was waking up from at the time and that was over a year and a half ago. Weird. Anyway, here are some fortunes I or others have recently had the fortune of receiving. Like some others, I think that the fortune cookie industry has run out of fortunes and has decided to move into giving mere random statements:
You are a fun-loving person and will find much happiness.
Life is like playing the violin in the public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Love is the greatest gift of all.
You will be showered with good luck.
Be careful or your true idiocy will shine through. (I’m half joking on this one because someone I was sitting next to got something similar to this, but I can’t remember the exact words but the gist was the same.)
Chocolate covered raisins cure all ailments! (Yes, I made that one up because I’m about go eat some)
I’ll blame it on the entrepreneurial fog and change exhaustion as to why I’m not interested in doing full posts where I create compare/contrast tables on any of the aforementioned fortunes.
June 6, 2010
I just got back from Barcelona, Spain, and I don’t recall another time in my life where I’ve had the time to sit, think, write and let the words come without having some daily routine distraction. I was in Barcelona visiting my cousin, Ashan Pillai (a true Outlier) on my way back from a business trip to Portugal. After getting all the gifts for my kids (couldn’t forget the Spanish team soccer/futbal outfit), I sat in a plaza near the famous Ramblas shopping area in Barcelona with a notebook, listened to the people, listened to the street noises & pigeons, and waited for the words to appear. I had a lofty goal of writing 7 song lyrics. I should have gone with the goal of 3 that Brett Wintermeyer, our courier at work and also band member of The Sophisticates suggested, but I have an ‘eyes bigger than stomach’ tendency. I wrote 3 lyrics and started 2 others. I wrote 5 poems and started 2 others. Many more started and swirled around my head but never made it to paper or computer. I still have no idea if my lyrics are any good as I haven’t yet put them to actual music.
The thing with poetry that I’ve discovered over the past year or so is that sometimes its meaning is different between the writer and the reader. Who or what the poem is about becomes about the readers personal experience or interpretation of the words. As a writer I know that I often write things that have double meanings which are both true but the degree to which one is truer can only be fully known by the writer and possibly specific readers close to the writer.
The meaning can also slightly change depending on how it’s read out loud…the rhythm of the reading can affect someone in ways unknown. If you are a poet, this is probably not news to you. I suppose that’s the point…if it can touch someone even if it’s different than intended then it would have served its purpose. I wonder how many poems/lyrics go unread by others because there are so many writers out there who write for themselves as they struggle with their humanity. I suppose the really famous writers have their poems discovered after their death and people are left to interpret them best they can, but for us mostly unknown writers they probably disappear into oblivion.
I have never shared my poetry on this blog…well not the serious ones anyway but after being inspired by Shaku letting me post her Icarus In Flight poem on my blog, I thought I’d share just one. On a side note, in addition to me knowing Shaku through a non-profit organization, she also worked for an Austin Technology Incubator (ATI) company called Webify that was bought by IBM. It’s a small world considering I work for ATI now.
I wrote the following poem in my cousin’s neighborhood (the day before I went to the Ramblas) after hearing a song in a video my aunt was playing for me that evoked many juxtaposing emotions that compelled me to escape outside. Fortunately, the weather is gorgeous in Barcelona this time of year. This poem is a mixture of recent stories…a little bit of mine, a little bit of his, a little bit of people who changed our lives. He is in the middle (or shall I say the beginning) of an experience no new father should ever have to go through. So without further ado…
Streets of Barcelona
On the streets of Barcelona
I wander with ancient tears in my eyes
Thinking of you and nights all alone
At Last the song with many sighs
A translucent marriage to a soul
Recently departed to a sully sea foam world
Because one could not wait to grow old
Afraid to take comfort in touches never know’d
The blustery city noises and a pigeon’s soft coo
Might wash out the pain of consequence ridden choices
And obliterate irrelevant, life altering feelings taken by you
While holes you exposed must be filled with clear voices
True sadness eludes me because fear
Overrules the quixotic, addictive emotion of love
But steely sharpness of knowledge shall bring forth to bear
Wavering courage to continue onward from Above
© May 30, 2010 Aruni S. Gunasegaram
June 4, 2010
The first year of the new Magellan International School (MIS), founded by the father of my kids (Erin Defosse), is almost over. And it was a really great year! I always believed in the vision of the school when Erin first told me he wanted to start it. It has been a phenomenal entrepreneurial success and it was wonderful to see the kids at their end of school year performance speaking in Spanish. I remember when I first met Erin how impressed I was that he was fluent in Spanish and often told him he should use the language more often since it was such an asset. I can understand about 60% of what people say in Spanish now. During my recent trip to Portugal (See post 1 and post 2) and Spain (will do a post soon) I was able to get by with my limited Spanish in Spain. Portuguese has some similar words to Spanish so I could pick up some of what people were talking about. I wish I knew other language other than English, but I don’t. My parents know two other languages but they don’t really have the opportunity to use those languages much since they aren’t commonly spoken.
I couldn’t argue with giving our kids the gift of another language and only hope they will take every opportunity to use it when they grow older. My son has already helped me on occasion communicate with someone who only speaks Spanish. It makes me so happy that he can help me translate!
Erin and the head of school, Marisa Leon, have done an amazing job getting the school off the ground. I remember meeting/interviewing Marisa in a Thai restaurant in downtown Austin, Texas and knowing immediately that she was the right person to head the school. She has a great mixture of the ability to communicate with parents and children which is so important in a school. I trust her and my kid’s other teachers completely with our kids.
MIS started the school year with about 45 students and ended with about 65. Next school year is anticipated to start with 100+ students! Plus, next year the students will start learning Mandarin! The amount of work it takes to get something like a successful, private school going is tremendous. Although I wasn’t involved in the day to day of getting the school off the ground, I did play a supporting role even if people didn’t see or know what I did, and I don’t believe it’s my place to say how and what I did as well as the sacrifices/compromises we made as a family to make it happen. All entrepreneurial endeavors require strategic resource allocations (time, money, etc.), but I can say confidently that I did gave birth to the two kids who inspired him to build the school…and I think that is a visible contribution that counts for something.
Although Erin and I are no longer married, I have always believed in his ability to make the school successful. Our kids are very happy there and the teachers are all world class and caring. They have worked with us during our family transition and have kept the kids as their number one priority which means the world to me. When my kids are happy, I’m happy or shall I say happier than I would be otherwise!
So if you want to give your kids the gift of another language as well as a wonderful learning environment that uses the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (coordinated by my daughter’s teacher Ms. Alexandra Castro) and Singapore Math teaching methods, check out the Magellan International School!
June 1, 2010
I went to Portugal with 4 other colleagues (3 of us presented) to help give a workshop on incubation management and on-shoring opportunities for Portuguese technology companies to the US. The UTEN program is also run through IC2 which the Austin Technology Incubator (where I work) is also under.
[Boat photo: Taken in Porto. These were the types of boats that people used to transfer port wine to different parts of the Europe and the world. The bridge in the background I believe was built using the same material used to build the Eiffel tower.]
In my previous post on culture, food, and technology, I discussed a little bit about the culture which is very different than the US culture, and I believe culture plays an important role in entrepreneurship. I don’t have a lot of time to write this up since I’m in Barcelona, Spain and will be heading outside soon to enjoy the weather, listen to people & pigeons, read, and write before I head back tomorrow so I’ll keep it brief:
The people we interacted with (incubator managers, professors, technology transfer officers) were all eager to learn how to help make their country more supportive of entrepreneurship. Their government has allocated money to support programs like ours not just with UT Austin but also universities like MIT, Harvard, Cambridge, and Carnegie Mellon to help them in this mission. We were there giving a workshop on incubation management that included exercises on negotiations, case studies, due diligence best practices when selecting companies, how to mentor companies, etc.
The cultural norms of late lunches, late dinners, arriving fashionably late, siestas and sometimes waiting for things to happen versus making things happen doesn’t always mesh with the capitalistc entrepreneurship traits we are so used to in the US. The people in the roles above have a challenge ahead of them to help not just the entrepreneurs but the entities playing supportive roles to move faster and connect the dots in different ways than they are used to. Many of them are so energized about their potential roles in making this happen and have made significant 
progress! It’s hard for them, the government, and even us to appreciate how far they have come in the last few years and how much hard work is ahead of them.
[Man cooking photo: This was taken in Porto outside of the restaurant I mentioned in the food, culture, technology post I mentioned above. This entrepreneur was cooking sardines and bell peppers on the streets.]
The companies that are in their incubators today are not just technology related as most of us in the US understand them. They include innovation in textiles, marine biology, foods, etc. It will be fascinating to see how and if they can get the few entrepreneurs in their country who have made money on traditional businesses to take the risk on technology investments.
There are very few business angel investors and as I mentioned most of them are not used to investing. Their wealth is also typically not as great as the investors in the US. The venture capital market is virtually non-existent and I think most of the venture capitalists have home bases in other places in Europe or the US and will occasionally invest in a Portuguese company.
Overall I was impressed with the people, the program, and the vision. I was so glad I had the opportunity to go and contribute to the success of the program. There are so many moving parts including a government under economic stress, as are other countries in Europe, but the fact that they have intelligently identified an opportunity to invest in knowledge enhancement in the world of entrepreneurship (dear to my heart) is in my opinion a very wise, long term strategic decision!
