Seth Godin made an announcement last year that he wouldn’t publish another book through traditional means. Never again! There was much debate online, questions were asked and many speculated that he still will.

All speculation was cast aside when he launched The Domino Project, with Poke The Box being his first release. So, I went over to Amazon, ordered a copy, waited 3 weeks. . . . . . And voila! The 84-page little book, with a running man arrived.

Seth Godin cuts through all assumptions and challenges you right from the start. Much like he did in Linchpin, he tempts you out of comfort, he calls you out, he asks you to take a stand. No contents pages, no forewords, no introductions, he just gets right into it.

In all of four sittings, each less than an hour – with coffee breaks – I was done.

“The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo; 

 the job is to invent the status quo.” 

When you read those opening lines, you know it’s you. Or not. If it isn’t, don’t bother reading further. This post is not for you. Check back next time.

Poke The Box – is a book about:

• Doing!
• Doing what you love
• Questioning the status quo
• Starting things
• Starting everyday
• Failing!
• Failing often
• Making a connection
• Finishing what you started
• Shipping
• Shipping often
• Repeat!

In 84 pages, Poke The Box takes you through a journey of changing things. A journey of getting to ‘Yes!’. Of facing fear. Of living without the fear of starting. You realize when you’ve done enough and you need to take your ideas out to market.

Now go!

Go start!

Start new things. Start every day. Ship your ideas. Repeat!

After reading most books, I would review them. That is, comfortably write about what I got, yet The Art Of The Start was different. It goes in depth about starting an organization (whether for profit not), and running it successfully. If you are running a successful organization, then it’s a book you wish you read before starting – and a hardback you want to own.

Guy Kawasaki had me gripped in his introduction, where he wrote:

“When telescopes work, everyone is an astronomer, and the world is full of stars. When they don’t, everyone whips out their microscopes, and the world is full of flaws.”

Granted! We all start organizations to cause – some much needed – change in the world. More important than change, if you take away one thing from this post – it should be go out there and make meaning. Guy warns entrepreneurs against “being solutions looking for problems”, which most experts won’t tell you.

Carve a niche

An entrepreneurial organization that serves, and targets everyone, is a solution looking for a problem. A well defined business model quickly resolves this issue and helps you cut your losses. Here are Guy Kawasaki’s guides to defining a business model:

• Who has your money in their pockets?
• How are you going to get it into your pockets?

Tips to develop your business model

1. Be specific – Know who your customer is, serve them and grow outwardly.
2. Keep it simple – Narrow your business model down to ten words.
3. Copy somebody – Many people have innovated business models, you can copy what exists and innovate in technology, markets or customers.

Have you ever had a great idea, one you knew that was sure to be the proverbial cash cow, but you never acted on it?

Well….ideas by themselves are worthless and Guy Kawasaki advises that you create a prototype to end the uncertainty and get it to market immediately. Most of us want to perfect our offer, as though that is the final version of the product, when our customers will need us perfect and change it.

The Art Of Bootstrapping

Having read (and lived by) Seth Godin’s, Bootstrapper’s Bible and being eager to reach Guy Kawasaki’s chapter about it. It seemed to take me too long.

I admit, the possibility of raising capital, building an organization that quickly gets acquired by a conglomerate and “living happily after”, crossed my mind. Sadly, happily afters are great before bedtime and 8pm romance thrillers.

From being an Evangelist at Apple in the 1980s, to starting Garage Ventures – a venture capital firm. Guy Kawasaki himself emphasizes how the odds of raising capital are slim to non-existent.

In the beginning stages of this chapter he states that “entrepreneurs can bootstrap any business model”, because bootstrapping is managing for cash flow. And when done correctly, it will be a stage in the life of your business.

Here are some excerpts to note about bootstrapping:

• Build A Bottom Up Forecast – Know the minimum achievable goal, then build your cash and sales forecast from there.

• Ship, Then Test – Get your product to market immediately, fix problems that may arise, ship again and alter product till you’ve perfected it.

• Forget The Proven Team – Forget about hiring well-known industry veterans. Build a case for your team.

• Start As A Service Business – You can making cash immediately and pay for further research and development.

• Focus On Function, Not Form – When selecting service providers, pick them based on your needs – not their size.

• Pick Your Battles – Make money from you magic, not things anyone else can do.

• Go Direct – The more middlemen there are between you (the seller) and your customer, the longer it takes to know what to fix.

• Position Against The Leader – Your competition has done you a huge favour by establishing themselves ahead of you. Use known equivalents to describe what you do.

• Take The Red Pill – As in The Matrix, rid yourself of fantasy and face reality.

• Get A Morpheus – As in The Matrix again, this is the person who sees to it that you achieve your objectives and is realistic.

• Understaff and Outsource – Run with a lean team, it’s better than laying off people you didn’t need in the first place. Outsource everything else.

• Build A Board – Not only for funded businesses, it helps with evangelism and maintaining innovativeness.

• Sweat The Big Stuff – Looking big and fancy are less significant than developing your product, selling and getting paid. Focus on what matters

As you can tell, bootstrapping is one of the lessons I had to learn again. It keeps you on course and definitely differentiates you from everyone else. That, like romance thrillers, leads to a happily after.

This chapter, which also quotes Seth Godin, drives home the idea of making meaning and strengthening your business model.

These, as said earlier, are just some of the highlights and lessons I had to learn. You’ll be seeing a lot of quotes from The Art Of The Start, going forward. It spoke to areas in my startup that need perfecting and improving and testing. Other things that also ring true from the book are the Art Of Pitching and the Art Of Selling.

What is the most significant lesson you’ve learnt in business, lately? Care to share?

Let us know what you’ve read as well. If you’d like to share it, you could write a guest review.

I avoid going to the bank as much as possible. Who wants to queue and get average service?

Thereafter – in most instances – be told to go to “your home branch”. At least that was always my perception of banks. Until this past Saturday, that is.

With the excitement of Friday night, I forgot my card at some store after making a payment. As Murphy’s Law would have it, I only realized that after 11am on Saturday. Knowing banks close at 12pm on Saturdays and you cannot get anything out of them without raising your voice. Well….all the purple angry faces on Hello Peter would also have you believe that. I have posted a few about other companies as well.

After 1pm, I arrived at a quiet Nedbank branch in Sandton City, and that alone was too good to be believable. With Murphy’s Law hanging over my shoulders and all. The guy behind the desk advised me to cancel my card using the phone in their branch and request a replacement one.

Expecting the skies to fall, surprisingly their contact center was open, the card was canceled quickly and Victor Mochemi – the teller – gave me a new one.

For the first time, all the perceptions I had of banks were changed. Victor Mochemi raised the bar and made it difficult for his colleagues to give anything less than great service. So, Murphy’s Law no longer applies.

From this experience, I also learnt that the larger Nedbank branches close at 3pm on Saturdays instead of 12pm. On weekdays, they close at 6pm and that would be convenient for normal branches to offer as well. They really improved their service and with linchpins like Victor, they can only get better.

If the world were a perfect place, this would be the bear minimum you expect of banks. But, sadly it isn’t. Most companies tend to get stuck in the clouds and aspire to be many things, except what they should be.

Where were your expectations exceeded recently?

Image by: Mark Bridge on Flickr

Business plans are never a true reflection of what goes on in a startup. Yet banks, funders and potential investors still insist on them. My mentor told me something very interesting recently, which also transformed the way I view business since that chat. His words were “don’t plan too much, take your product to market and let clients determine how you craft it to meet their needs”.

That message was also conveyed in Allon Raiz’s new book – Lose The Business Plan “What they don’t teach you about being an entrepreneur. Something I got prior to launch and Allon Raiz singed it. If you have been here before, you may have read a wish list of people I wanted to meet and talk to, Allon is one of those people.

The book begins with Allon citing a meeting he had with his mentor, who believed in him and continually invested in ideas that sometimes failed and others succeeded. While starting businesses and growing them, Allon Raiz realized his passion was in building businesses rather than running them. That was when he discovered the incubator business model, which he now runs as Raizcorp alongside a team of committed people.

Desire

In the first few chapters he got me hooked, not only with the bold title, but because of some of the things he mentions in the book with desire being one of them.

“Desire is almost the inoculation against the downside. It is desire that gives you the ability to carry on when sales are down and you’re not closing any deals.” – Page 28

Business Plans, as almost a prerequisite, are not expected to portray anything that resembles change and wanting to transform how things are done in business. Banks and funders are about the numbers, low risk and a graph that starts with funding and takes an upward curve. Realistically, startups have challenges and continually alter their offer to suit the market. And banks, though knowing this, expect small businesses to follow a similar path.

Most funding requests are measured as being viable by people who, themselves, are not entrepreneurs. Then comes the dreaded meeting with your would-be funder, where you put on your best behavior and leave the dream, the desire to change things back home.

I had sex last night

Keep your mind out of the gutter, at least till you’ve commented – what you do thereafter is up to you.

Sex, being a universal activity across different cultures is a test that Allon uses for research among groups of entrepreneurs he interacts with. In this test he requests the participants to write words they associate with sex.

His findings reveal “up to 10% of the participants in pairs have no words in common and the average correlation is less than 14%”. This he uses as proof that something as unique as your business, in comparison to a universal activity, requires you to get the masses excited about.

He also found over 500 definitions of the word ‘entrepreneur’, with the only link being “They see an opportunity, take a risk, and in doing so create value”.

It is then, for the purpose of this post, safe to say that no 2 people will have a similar path in their businesses and business plans overlook that.

3 Types Of Entrepreneurs

You may have found yourself in countless debates about who is an entrepreneur and who isn’t. The committed man down the road from you, who has been running the same supermarket for ages, is seen as an entrepreneur. You may not agree, but everyone is adamant he is. Allon settles that argument with these 3 different kinds of entrepreneurs.

And the types are . . . . .

• The Subsistence Entrepreneur : Generally a one man band that has no real value, as it relies completely on the entrepreneur. It also does not make consistent profits.
• The Lifestyle Entrepreneur : Similar to the subsistence entrepreneur’s business, this one cannot be sold without the entrepreneur. Inversely, it makes a consistent profit that is sufficient in sustaining the entrepreneur’s lifestyle.
• The Growth Entrepreneur : This entrepreneur’s entity has value, and with time depends less on the entrepreneur. It also makes profits without the entrepreneur.

The Bottom Line

Allon Raiz wrote this book to get a point across and he manages to grip you quickly. Within the first few pages, you know if it’s something worth reading for you or not. He makes some valid points and in all of two sittings, I had decided to read the 154 pages again. Because it has some invaluable information, I would give it away except mine is a signed copy.

This book obliterates a lot of the misconceptions we tend to have about entrepreneurs and what makes them.

Which type of entrepreneur are you?

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Allon Raiz is the founder and CEO of Raizcorp, the only privately held, unfunded, profitable business incubator on the African continent, supporting in excess of 200 businesses.

Make contact with Allon on his website here, take a peak at Raizcorp and follow them on Twitter.

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So . . . about 2 months ago I decided to work something that, at the time, seemed simple enough. A lot of the projects I worked on over the years had one thing in common – building movements behind a single idea.

After working with a few people, being the recipient of a stern talking to from my mentor and attending grueling 12-week business bootcamp. A new startup is ready to be unveiled.

We can venture into dialogue about creating an offer, business models and what it takes to cut it as an entrepreneur.  But we wont. . . . Instead, the one thing that is still missing for most businesses is conversation behind their products.

Introducing WordStart

After the bootcamp, aching everywhere and rethinking things – WordStart came to the fore. This is the newbie, my latest startup, the change.

Drumroll please . . . . WordStart is a word of mouth agency that connects young African influencers with the latest and coolest products to seed word of mouth.

We are now ready unleash this newbie to the world and let people interact with the community, share their ideas and let us know what they want to sample. We all love new things (well most of us), and being the first to talk about them. That’s what WordStart is all about.

Come join us on Facebook and Twitter. And take a look at our video, you may be one of the bright young WordStarters we are looking for. More details will follow next week.

The first thought was to begin this post with – ‘It seems News Café have suddenly become too big their customers’. Then I took a quick glance on Hello Peter, only to realize they’ve become giants and the customers does not matter.

We went to the News Café at the Emperor’s Palace recently after a comedy event, on a month end Saturday evening. Not being a restaurant owner, I would guess the last Saturday of the month would be one of the busiest times. It takes a whole franchise, 15 years of experience in the cocktail bar industry and experienced managers to conclude they need fewer waiters for that time of the month.

We got in, sat ourselves at a table that needed to be cleaned and thought it was temporary. A waitress finally attended to us 20 minutes later – still leaving the table dirty with empty glasses, till we called her back.

Our order

o   A glass of Coke

o   A double tot of Chivas

o   Double Jameson

o   And another soft drink

We then requested her to bring ice on the side.

What she heard

Take 30 minutes with our drinks. And oh, let the ice melt in them almost completely.

The long and short

We sat there for about 3 hours with every round of drinks taking no less than 25 minutes to arrive. The explanation was “the bar is busy this evening”, which the manager echoed after we spoke to him about the problem.

When I read on Hello Peter, it became clear that 54 complaints – in the past year – ranging from robberies to assaults by staff, revealed a different story.

Waiters and managers normally get grief from “fussy customers”.

While sitting there watching tempers flare from all the other tables, something else came to mind.

A flawed system is screwing your staff

Someone, other than me, also reported a similar issue on Hello Peter and it occurred around the same time. Guess what? It was for the same branch. Surprised?

Your system is inefficient when customers have the same problem. People would report the waiter and the manager without considering how the franchise puts this in place.

If you happen to be from News Café, or know someone who knows someone. . . . Please tell them to stop turning away customers in their shorts and go read Hello Peter here. They might get some insights from their customers.

Photo by: Dan Orbit on Flickr

Whether a customer pays you or not, they have expectations. Do you know what they expect?

This past Friday I went to a show in Johannesburg, where DJ Premier was playing. In a nutshell Premier, for me, is one of Hip Hop’s superheroes a ninja. An icon. He wields nanchuks that are foundation of Hip Hop globally. The one DJ and producer whose work we listened to growing up and shared with friends.

15 years later when Premier comes to South Africa, we wouldn’t dare miss his show. And we didn’t, as you would expect.

The show was organized by Kenzero, a local highly influential DJ, who also does another show (Party People) that has a huge following. He has a well established brand in the local Hip Hop scene, and his is a name most people are likely to know.

Perceived value

While having dinner with friends, who also wanted to see Premier just as much, we had a conversation about the value of things.

The tickets were worth R180 at the door (about $29 US), which is more than you would pay at an up-market nightclub. But it’s fine – it is Premier after all.

If you pay for something, regardless what the amount is – it creates expectations. I already anticipated being blown away both Kenzero and Premier. They are both respected names in the scene and supposedly lead the pack.

The set played by Kenzero was quite good not great, which was unexpected given his following. We knew all the songs, when we expected to hear a bit of what we haven’t. Perhaps that’s part of what he sells.

Understanding that what you sell is not always what people buy is key. I bought into that event because of the profile I heard of it. The value people place on what they exchange for your product – be it money or attention – is significant to them and you may lose them if those are disconnected.

Meet expectations

What does a potential raving fan expect when they use your service for the first time?

The following you have and the word people spread about you is what the masses have in mind when they interact with you for the first time. For as long you raise the bar above all those expectations, you win.

When you approach new interactions on the basis of arrogance from past successes, you stand to lose more than your following. You may think – “but I’m the exception not the rule”. But I wasn’t because some of the people I was with agreed they didn’t get what they expect.

Are you selling what people expect to receive?

The illusion of a great following

When you are of the impression that your fanbase makes you, you are bound to stuff up.

The wake up call I had this past weekend was how much of a consumer most service providers and sellers perceive their customers as being.  We tend to disregard that people – all of us – want to be treated as individuals. I don’t care that you are servicing a million other clients.

Let’s face it, a huge client base bring with them even more expectations. You have to work more at managing expectations and exceeding your past success. The conversation changes when. . . you no longer provide an experience worth talking about.

The death of the superhero

DJ Premier is one of the all the time Hip Hop music superheroes. He ‘s one of the producers and DJs you wanted to listen to in the 90’s even now, but a lot of talent has risen since then.

I went there expecting him to play a lot of new music, which he didn’t. Without discounting the great music which he played, his 2-hour long set had some things I still question.

There was an artist with him who does not match up to the talent he used to produce in his early days.

After over 12 years of listening to Premier, I was quite disappointed with the presentation at that gig.

It is quite disheartening for me to say – I don’t think I’ll ever view him the same again. The childhood hero has lost me as a fan because of that 2 hour set. That brings me to the last point.

A brand is. . . . . .

. . . . . the collective perceptions people have of you and the dealings they had with your service offering.

Let’s bring that home. For all the years I listened to Premier, shared his music, recommended it to friends and raved about him – I was spreading a marketing message. So was he. That is how and what his brand was to me and the people I spoke to.

Your clients speak and their word speaks volumes to them than any marketing message you send out about yourself. We think the people around us are more credible than the billboard across the road. Even the radio presenter.

These collective messages that surpass your marketing by far. That is what creates a brand.

How are you spreading a positive message?

Photo by: eyesore9 on Flickr

Do you want to change the world, but struggle to differentiate yourself enough?

Organizing a community lets people know whether they belong there or not. Whether it’s for them or not. With the right people, you are able to focus instead of wasting your time and energy on everybody else – who is not meant to be part of that community.

Author, world traveler and change agent – Chris Guillebeau is our first guest this month. He took a moment from planning his book tour – to let me know what inspires him and how he built his global community.

Q & A with Chris Guillebeau

Q : What is the Art Of Non-Conformity?

Chris : AONC is a blog, a book, a business, and a community—mostly the latter. I started the project in 2008 as a way to spread unconventional ideas and help people find a way to achieve big goals.

Q : While developing products and travelling the world, how do you maintain focus on building your business and “making a living”?

Chris : I don’t really focus on “making a living.” I do focus on work, but most of my work is free for everyone. I use a 90/10 model where 90% of my writing and events are free and 10% are paid.

Q : How would you define your product?

Chris : Let’s look at the overall goal: to help people live unconventional, remarkable lives. How that works varies. I have the blog and other hubs where I connect with readers. I have the Unconventional Guides business that consists of things like the Empire Building Kit and the Frequent Flyer Master guide.

Overall, I hope that all of these help people in a different ways, but with the same goal of creating individual freedom and inspiring action.

Q : Why did you decide on creating your own niche community?

Chris : I felt like I had helped a lot of people on a one-on-one basis over the years, but I had no broader platform. I turned 30 years old and in the process realized that I wanted to be a writer. So I started the site and went from there.

Q: Most entrepreneurs starting out want to satisfy everyone. We want to sell everything to everyone. How did you identify the people you wanted to organize into a community?

Chris : Correct, and that’s a big mistake. In my case I learned to target people on a psychographic basis as opposed to a demographic basis. I have readers of all ages, all backgrounds, from all over the world. What they have in common is a desire to change the world.

It’s interesting, because in the beginning when I connected with a literary agent and he was pitching my project to traditional publishers, some of them said, “People who want to change the world are not a target market” – which makes sense in a traditional, business-oriented context. But over time I’ve become more and more convinced that “people who want to change the world” is indeed my perfect audience. It’s also an audience that is motivated to take action, which is always good.

Q : What would you attribute as the single most important aspect of creating your community?

Chris : Consistency. A lot of bloggers start out strong and then fade off into the blogging sunset. If you can just keep going and building a strong platform, you end up outlasting people and it gets easier over time.

Q : In your manifesto: A Brief Guide To World Domination – you clearly state “I should warn you now that this report is not for everyone”. I have also realized that from your blog and the rest of your products. Doesn’t that separation of your audience from everyone else limit how much you can make and who you can reach?

Chris : No, for reasons you alluded to earlier—it’s always a mistake to target everyone. Better to be clear what you’re about and who your work is for. This also makes it much easier to build trust and authority among the group with which you choose to identify.

Q : Most of your content is free, while traditional business principle tells us to “sell” “sell” sell”. Where do you make your money?

Chris : I still make money, but the greater goal is influence. The money comes from UnconventionalGuides.com and my book publisher—though much more of it comes from my own projects than the publishing arrangement. (I’m still a fan of writing books, but it’s true that there’s not much money in it.)

Q : You have become quite – in fact very influential online and off. What does it take to build such influence and become this outstanding?

Chris : Well, I’m not sure I’m outstanding. When I think of people who are outstanding, I don’t think of bloggers—I think of people who have truly sacrificed, like the aid workers I used to work with before I embraced the soft life as a world-traveling blogger.

But in terms of influence, it takes working towards something day-in, day-out for an extended period of time, often without much reward or attention in the beginning. I also decided I wanted to create real relationships with readers as much as possible. I answer all the emails and don’t outsource anything. I meet with readers wherever I go. I do blog interviews for sites that have 10 readers and podcast interviews for shows that are still getting off the ground.

Over time, I think those things have a real impact.

Q : Most entrepreneurs want to be different, but fear the unknown – the unexplored. How does one overcome that hurdle of distinguishing themselves and carving a niche?

Chris : Yes, I agree that fear is a very real obstacle. I think the key to overcoming it is:

a. acknowledging your fears, without trying to be “fearless” or pretend that fear doesn’t exist, and

b. not allow your fears to make your decisions for you.

Instead, ask yourself – what would I do if I wasn’t afraid, or if there were no limits? Then find a way to get closer to that, even if it’s a series of small steps at first.

Q : You are doing the Unconventional Book Tour soon, what inspired it?

Chris : These days a lot of people are saying that books are dead and book tours are ineffective. I like the idea of proving those ideas wrong—my contention is that people have been doing book promotion the wrong way, but that doesn’t mean that books are dead.

And I also like big goals, so when I decided to establish my own tour, I thought… why not make it as epic as possible? So I picked all 50 states instead of just the major cities. Then I added all 10 provinces in Canada, because I didn’t want to leave them out. Then I added an extra city in California, an extra city in Texas, Washington, D.C. – and came up with a 63-city self-funded, collectively-organized book tour. I hope to take it worldwide next year, but one thing at a time.

Q : As an entrepreneur and agent of change, what is the one most difficult challenge for you?

Chris: The fear and insecurity we mentioned earlier are continual challenges. I also have a hard time asking for help – I have a lot of people willing to help with things, but I don’t always know what to ask them to do.

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While Chris is on the go and launching his new book, he also Tweets here and blogs at AONC. I recommend you follow him.

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My posts here have decreased over the past few months. The most natural thing to think is  – oh come up with a new strategy. Talk about some exciting airy fairy little idea that keeps people at the edge of their seats.

No edge-of-your-seat sitting, unless you normally do when you write.

The plan is to have a minumum of one guest post per month to start with. As more posts come through, I will increase the frequency. They can range from posts about business, business events and your experiences in dealing with clients.

Some of them will also be interviews with some entrepreneurs I know locally and everywhere in the world. That way, we all get insights from each other and keep building from the experiences of one another.

First up, we have a guest post by a freelance writer and PR Specialist. She has dealt with quite a few corporates and currently advises in an NGO for young business professionals. Her post is coming your way tomorrow.

Are you one of those guest bloggers? Drop me a line.

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Photo by: DaveAustria.com on Flickr

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I recently wrote about the Tech4Africa Conference, which actually turned out to be amazing. More awesome than the conference itself were the organizers, who gave me an all-access blogger pass. Emerging Media and the Tech4Africa team are rockstars.

We interviewed some of the speakers, delegates and Seedcamp participants.

The Tech4Africa Special

In this NetwebTV special, we spoke to:

• Gareth Knight, the founder of Tech4Africa, about how it was received and whether the change he foresaw ago when we spoke was achieved.
• Gareth Ochse – the founder of iSigned and one of the competitors in Seedcamp Africa. I heard they are also one of the companies who qualified to attend Seedcamp Week in London

Speakers and delegates

We also caught up with some of the speakers and delegates who gave us their views on development in Africa as a whole.

Erik Hersman, the co-founder of Ushahidi spoke their development and how it’s changing lives. It is also one of the most talked about projects on the web.

Mark Kaigwa, a Creative Director and Entrepreneur shares his views about the conference and what it means for Africa. Kenya is 4 to 5 countries away from where conference was, so Mark came a long way.

Clay Shirky was the keynote speaker at the conference and he also took a moment to speak to us. In a nutshell – Clay is a professor, speaker, thought leader and an icon in all things economics, community and open source.  He is the author of 2 books and shares his expert views on how social phenomena were started small and grew globally.

Take a look at the video below and share some of your views with us in the comments.