Top 10 tips to learn a language

When it comes to starting anything new, including learning how to speak a foreign language. So here’s my top 10 tips on how to hack the language learning process using the web:

1. Watch free youtube lessons on speaking your preferred language. They’ve got ‘em all.
2. Follow native speakers of that language on twitter. Here frequency & brevity is your ally.
3. Comment on blogs in that language to practice your written form.
4. Makes friends on-line with people from that country who want to learn English.
5. Organize skype chats with your on-line friends to practice each others language together.
6. Download one of the many free apps to practice in down time or while waiting for people.
7. Offer free on-line English lessons to speakers of the language you desire to learn.
8. Watch kids shows (cartoons etc) from your home country that have been translated on-line (see youtube)
9. Set your browser, mobile and web apps into the language you are learning.
10. Bonus Analogue tip – go to local restaurant and practice with waiters…

There’s never been a better time to start something worth starting.

10 ‘just because’ projects

I’ve been thinking about a few different projects I’d like to do. Which at this stage have no real revenue or business associated with them, other than I find them interesting. I thought I’d list them here to see if anyone has similar crazy ‘just because’ projects. Maybe these fun crazy things are what we should be doing and building, instead of working out what other people want. Maybe the thing that really matters is what we want. Either way here they are;

1. Take a year to fly to every commercial Airport in the world – without a break. yes, including living in planes and airports for a full 12 months. Document it and what happens for some reason. Find interesting stuff and people. See what happens. Film it. Socialize it on live digital media. Find something no one has ever thought of or seen. Just because.
2. Live for a year only on food that is grown at home. Vegetables and animals. Cook using only wood and home made ovens. Every bit of food that goes in my mouth I will have grown, baked, killed cooked and created. Document it all. Just because.
3. Walk around the entire coastline of Australia. Beach by beach, headland by headland. 25,760 km’s of it. Learn something. Document it…. Just because.
4. Make a short film. Without any false ambitions of becoming the next Tarantino. Just to create. Be part of it. Just because.
5. Renovate a house. Yes, a totally dilapidated 100 year old timber home. To see what my eye and hands can really make when they collaborate. Build a house my family can live in, be safe in, grow together in. Take time out and do this. A non Grand Design for me and my people. Just because.
6. Start a cult. Just to see if we can make a positive one. A cult of good. To see if I could lead people in such a way that they live for the cause, but to flip it. To make the cause about fixing broken shit in the world….Like the banking system and the 1%. Just because.
7. Be a used car salesman. mainly because I think it would be really, really hard. To see how I could sell in a difficult environment. To test my skills, and see what I could learn to take into my future. To be the most untrusted person in the commercial world. To be that guy. The be that guy and see how I handle myself and what I become. Just because.
8. Coach A little league team. Pass on some skills, about the game, and maybe about life. Teach some youngsters stuff that matters – have am impact on their attitude without them even knowing. See how it feels to help out the people who will inherit our world. Just because.
9. Live in a tropical paradise. Mainly to remove the myth or confirm it. A place where little money is needed, the weather is always warm and technology and financial growth are irrelevant. Find out out if the picture of paradise is real or perceived. Stay forever if it is real. Just because.
10. Join a street gang. A real underworld style gang. Think East L.A. Get dirty and down and be part of something bigger than me that is from the opposite side of town. Learn their rules and play by them. Deal, steal and destroy. See if the emotional roller coaster is the same, or different. See if I like it more or less. Understand the plight and political machinations of a crime organization from the inside. Draw the analogies and comparisons to the legal world – find out the truth. Just because.

Sometimes we need to embark on startup projects, that aren’t really startups…. Just because.

45 seconds

I implore every entrepreneur to watch the first 45 seconds of this interview. Ben Lee is an average musician, but an incredible artist. Here he encapsulates the thing that matters the most when starting anything: Permission is not required.

Why junk mail matters

Junk mail is not named correctly. It should be called Research Mail, Zeitgeist Mail or something much more complementary.

Here’s a list of great things it does:

• It tells us what people think they can sell
• It tells us the price of things, probably our competitors
• It tells us who can afford to advertise
• It tells us the economic conditions of the day via the discounts made
• It display the advances in technology
• It tells us what’s hot
• It keeps us in touch with the business environment more than the Wall Street Journal does

It’s an entrepreneurs best friend. Startup blog says read your junk mail.

the cool thing about blogging

I’ve had to very quickly pull together a social media straetgy for a project I am working on. The timeline I had was a few hours. I’m certain that only due to the fact that I’ve been an avid blogger for a few years was I able to meet the deadline. Blogging creates great habits. It forces us to consider our chosen topic deeply and regularly. (startups & marketing in my case) It forces us to respond to our ideas quickly, to trust their value and publish them anyway, before tomorrow comes. It’s a personal newspaper and our readers want to know what’s new everyday. They’re not looking for perfection, but inspiration.

Whatver we do, are interested in and regardless of our industry, blogging is a must for those of us wanting to get better and faster.

Fail with pride

I teach Marketing At Melbourne University on a part time basis. One of the things I try to do is stretch my students thinking beyond the traditional marketing arenas. It seems every week we are going through another consumer goods example, or the car industry and lately social media. This week I tried something different and I had a massive fail.

The task was for students to pick a market dominated by 2 brands, and to discuss the points of partity and difference, and how the brand communications and positioning vary. After the students gave me the expected brands:

Herald Sun vs the Age

Facebook vs Myspace

Coke vs Pepsi

Nike vs Addidas

I thought I”d mix it up and asked the group to discuss Capitalism vs Communism.

In the first instance I had to convince the students they were actually brands, and it didn’t improve much from there. The idea fell on deaf ears. It was so far outside of their expectations on what marketing is (consumer goods, shiny products and TV advertising) that they lost interest. I ended up spending the remaining 45 minutes of the tutorial explaining why they are both brands which are managed exactly the same way corporations manage them. It was meant to be a discussion. I failed.

After the initial disappointment and embarrassment wore off, I was pretty happy with it. I’m glad I tried to stretch the students. I’m glad I tried something different, and maybe next week, their minds will be more open.

Startup blog says: Fail with pride.

You’re in good company

This blog is an example of compound effort. Yes, just like interest, effort compounds too. In the 4 years I’ve been writing it every month the readership has increased. With no real marketing of the blog. Just good solid writing, be open and honest, sharing insights, and letting the wondrous SEO of wordpress do the rest on Google for me. A few things worth considering if you’re into blogging and want to build an audience.

• I have written 1 blog entry for every day this blog has been live. Consistency and frequency matter.
• Every entry is on the same topic. Startups and Entrepreneurship. I stay focused by having one of these two words in every entry.
• I love the topic my blog is about. I find it fascinating and would still write it if nobody was reading.
• 70% of my traffic is Long Tail, which means that every entry increases my total traffic flow.
• It taught me more about digital media and the internet that anything else I have done.

Of all things I have done in my career writing this blog has generated the most value. It has documented my thoughts, improved my thinking, built discipline, created a reputation, generated media coverage for rentoid, launched me as a business journalist in other business magazines, it places me number 1 in Google searches for the term startup blog in every country in the world and has built friendships and helped others.

If you read this blog regularly you are among 70,000 other people every month. So you’re in good company. Thanks for reading.

Building your personal brand

One of the sections at Startup School is building personal brands. Which are of increasing importance in the entrepreneurial sphere. Once upon a time our business reputation built a personal brand. Recently things have flipped somewhat where our personal brands are used to build our business ones. Jay Z style… It just so happens that it works on a micro level as well.

Build a personal reputation, as a smart, caring,  and giving person in this new business context (or have some hit song and Hip Hop wars) and you’ll be on the way to building an external financial brand.

So here’s some nuggets from Startup School to get excited about:

Great learning environment

Our environment shapes our behavior. Inspiring places create inspirational events, and with that in mind I’ve booked an Incredible location for Startup School Melbourne. The uber groovy Lindrum Hotel. Where the coffee and ambiance are both inspirational. Click on the image to check out the photos I took while checking it out.

At the event we’ll have Barrista style coffee (Lattes, Cappucino, espresso) all day – none of this McDonalds style pot of black muck. As well as great food from the restaurant. Even I’m looking forward to it. It’s also a nice space for a drink after and maybe a game of billiards together.

Still a seat for you. Click here to book: http://www.startupschool.com.au/ and join us in the mass corporate cubicle exodus

The most important startup

I am incredibly happy with the following things:

- My relationship with my family (immediate and wider family)

- The state of my health. I fit and well enough to enjoy, people life and exercise.

- Where I live. Yarraville, Melbourne, Australia. In fact so much so that I evangelize it.

- My house. A beautiful little renovated Edwardian, not big but it’s just right for me and my wife.

- The state of my country Australia. It allows us to practice any religion / or not and live a free life with opportunity.

- How I invest my spare time. I like surfing, gym and mountain bike riding.

- The fact that I am continuing a vocation of learning.  Both in life and academically in my areas of interest.

- The work I do. Running rentoid.com teaching at Melbourne University and writing this blog.

If any of these parts of your life aren’t right. If we are not quite happy with them, no less totally unhappy with them. Then this is the most important startup we can focus on. The start required to change it. Start today.