I don't care what people say but being optimistic at all times is the worst thing you can be. If you are optimistic at all times then you are in a state of fully daydreaming. In your mind the underdog always wins; web site traffic pours like thunderstorm; money grows on trees; and stock market always goes up and so on...

At the same time being Pessimistic at all times is equally worse. In your mind you have the worst luck; you can never win; there are too many other people better than you; everything you try to do the opposite happens. People who are pessimistic at all times tend to not do anything at all because they say to themselves "if i'm going to fail then why bother trying!" and my answer is always "but if you don't try, you never know!".

Here is where the balance comes in, both optimists and pessimists are only right about half of the things and in the real business world they fully compliment one another. since examples are the best way to convey a message here are a few of them:
 

1)

OPTIMIST would say:
"We have a web 2.0 idea and when we make it and launch it, within 1 year we'll be like google"

PESSIMIST Would say
"We can never beat or match google so why bother"

BALANCE of the two results:
"It's hard to beat google, but we still have a chance to make good grounds, and what if we never get the traffic we need to make decent money so what do we have to do? lets plan this to the smallest detail"
 

2)

OPTIMIST would say:
"We have an idea and millions of people would want it"

PESSIMIST Would say
"it's a stupid idea because nobody would want it"

BALANCE of the two results:
"What would make a million people want it? and what do we need to consider if nobody wants it? Either way lets put our target getting a 1,000 customers first then we can worry about the next 10,000 and the next 100,000 and eventual million target"

What is the BALANCE?

Balance allows you to see things in perspective, like seeing both sides of the coin, it helps you plan for the best and the worst. Knowing about the worst things allows you to be prepared in case they happen, also knowing there even worse things that could happen also gives you enough motivation to be optimistic about even the little gains. Balance allows you appreciate you gains, your efforts and your life. It's helps you avoid pitfalls and makes every mistake a step closer the ultimate success.
 

So go ahead and be pessimistic and optimistic at the same time. It's only good for you!

You know the Cliche "Time is Money", now a days seconds are even more money. Regardless of who you are or where live there is only 24 hours per day. The art of time is about putting every hour, minute and second into productive work. So lets do it...

Due to Health lets give our bodies a 5 hour sleep period. That's right 5 hours, you are young and can do this, unless you're not then you can sleep for 6-7 hours max. The point here is that sleep is a good thing, it refreshes your body and with no activity your brain power can rest. It is important to have a great sleep while you sleep because of have i have in store for you.

So we are left with only 19 hours now, so much for 24 hours of productivity! Lets make this 19 hours really work for you. Before you jump into filling up you daily schedule with lots of tasks lets take a step backwards. Look back to the past week or so, what are the most important things you need to for the FUTURE. If you have immediate tasks and responsibilities coming up then they take the higher priority so make a list of them. Now, try to come up with a LONG list of everything you think you should be doing for today. A long list is a very detailed list in case you didn't know. Divide each task into smaller elements, for example, if you are going to write a blog post then dividing it into little tasks mean counting research, inspiration, draft write up, image creation, factualization, link baiting, to finalizing draft and publishing it. Knowing the little details allow you to dedicate a certain amount of time to each task this way if you thought writing a post would only take an hour would not end costing you 2 hours on researching alone. Keep doing this for all the tasks you have to do for the day.

Listing all the stuff in your time sheet is not enough, you have to actually stick to it and perform each of them to the second, so if you assigned yourself with 20 minutes of research as soon as your 20 minutes are up stop the research and move on to the next task. Don't worry if your research sucks, you don't expect to become extremely efficient in just one day did you???

Practice makes perfect! The first a few days are going to be rough but after that your brain and positive energy adjust themselves to your new routine. The trick is not to go back to the old you, it's like quitting smoking for 2 days but picking it up again, you won't live cancer free because of those 2 days.

When your level of efficiency picks up you'll realize that before you were spending 2 hours on research like tasks that were getting you no where to now that you can do resulting research in just 15 minutes. Now just imagine with your new level of efficiency if you had 2 hours to do tasks you normally do in 15 minutes, imagine the glorious results. This is actually how quality and innovation happens. You can apply this to almost any task you can imagine. I personally even analyze my driving, shopping, online surfing, books and magazine readings and everything else you can imagine.

I only started to really care about my time since mid last year and it has done wonders for me in terms of my performance at work, my side projects and running multiple sites and managing couple of web projects. Without managing my time i would have never been able to take care of 2 projects let alone the things i do now!

Time Management is one of those important elements that contribute to any type of success. Manage your time effectively and efficiently and you'll be managing a huge bank account!!!

here are some great resources for managing time that would help you get going:

BOOK - Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

BOOK - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

BOOK - Time Management for the Creative Person

SITE - Mind Tools - Time Management

ESSAY - First Things First  < Very important Essay

SITE -  Time Scheduling and Time Management for dyslexic students

Software - ToDoList  or something similar

We use names to identify with People, object and subjects. Brands names are basically the names that have become popular. To come up with is rather simple, if you want to name a baby all you have to do is to go to a baby names website and pick the one you like best, but making brand names are not only tough in practice but even tougher from a scientific point of view. Brand names are in fact scientifically made, coincidentally or not.

The Logical Definition of Brand Names:

Brand Name = Name + Brand Positioning + Strategy + Marketing

Naming:

No matter what your business is everybody needs to identify you some how. But just having a name is not enough, your name should be easy to read and understand; it also has to be memorable and friendly.

Unique names tend to be special since they are new words people have never heard before and any sort of definition you give to it has the tendency to stick. The biggest problem however is unique names tend to be easy to forget unless you have the resources and money to keep repeating it until it becomes a part of natural language. It's hard to come up with unique names, you can mash up a few alphabets together but names also have to make sense. Web 2.0 sites have exhausted the idea that a misspelled word is still a unique name, in my opinion if there is a spelling error in a name it just shows the dumbness of its creators. Flickr was a clever name because it was among the first but every other similar name that came after was really dumb and since the idea was no longer unique and clever it lost its appeal.

How to find a good name?

To find a good name first make a list of keywords. By keywords i mean words that mean want your name is trying to represent. Categorize each keyword into definition groups, so if you have a whole bunch of keywords but 5-6 of them basically mean "inventive" then create a group called "inventive" and put all the keywords associated with that meaning under that group. Next find as many COOL words that are also synonymous with "Inventive" by looking into thesaurus part of dictionary, also don't forget to look into other languages to find cool translations.

When you have lots of words that seem to be cool enough start the word play. Playing with words involves mixing up words that are in the same category or in the contrasting category, manipulating words, cutting words into pieces and matching them with other pieces from other words. The list goes on. The goal is to come up with at least 50 new words.

To make sure your new names are easy to read try to read them out loud your self and ask others to read it out loud as well. If you find that you have to correct others in pronunciation then there is something wrong with that name. Forget fixing up words at this point. you have lots of names to go through. The words that pass the "read" test move on to "understandable" test.

To see if your new name is understandable, ask people to see if they can guess what the each word suppose to mean. Better yet, ask them what is the first thing that comes into their mind. Narrow the list down to those words that convey the some what original meaning.

You list should be very short by now, i'm guessing we are down to about 5 to 10 from 50. You next goal should be to narrow it down to 3. Sometimes it's a matter of taste or a hunch, no matter how you decide to narrow down the list the important thing is that you as the new owner of the name can totally relate to them name.

When you have you top 3, it's time to do some more research. If your name is going to be a global player then it has to have safe meanings in all of the popular markets. I have my own way which is a proprietary way used in the industry and i can't disclose it yet, i can't bite the hand that is feeding me. But i will give you an example, There is a clothing company in Canada and it's called ROOTS, when the Olympics was held in Australia, ROOTS was the clothing sponsor for the Canadian Team, Little did they know in Australia ROOTS means having sex. The ROOTS name was ridiculed all over the world, it was a disaster for the brand name because it was opening locations in Europe and Australia and after what was thought to be a great investment ended up forcing the company to abandon its plans and invest in only North America.

Back to conclusion, After you've done your research on all your top 3 names then now is the time to pick one. But before you pick that 1 special name consider the following:

• make sure .com domain of that name is available
• finalize any changes to the alphabetical structure of the name
• search the trade marks database to make sure the name is available
• search google to see if anybody else is using the name and what are they using it for
• make sure the name has a clean, safe and trusting meaning

Now you have a name, good luck!

Brand Name = Name + Brand Positioning + Strategy + Marketing
 

I've been talking a lot about "everything is a process" and how you should incorporate this mentality into your every project, if you want to become successful! This article is to prepare you for the challenges a project might have, sort of like "what you should know before jumping into building you business"

Goals are a great thing have, they give you a target to achieve and motivation to achieve them but most often we disregard the challenges that we might have to face in favor of the sweetness of the outcome. The truth of the matter is if your goal is to make a $1,000,000 (1 million dollars) you won't wake up one day and have that in your bank account, the fact is you have to first make a $100, then $1,000 and over come more challenges, innovate more solutions to get to $10,000 then $100,000 and if everything works out then you achieve your first goal. It takes time and a lot of work, consistency and efficency are the absolute requirements.

But before you set a Million Dollar goal for your self, there are a few things you should know:

1- How well do you know your self?

• if you want to get into business you should NOT wake up later than 7am. I'm practicing to move my current wake up time from 6:30am to 5am. The Earlier you wake, the longer day time you would have to work. Contribute the early hours to answering emails, reading the news, making comments, discovering new sites and working on your blog if you have one.
   
• We all need to have routines, we need to be disciplined that way. Try to make plans for your entire day, hour by hour and stick to it. If everyday you tend to do different things that do not relate to each other then you are very confused. Organize you time and manage it within your abilities. After a while your routine will become natural to you and as a result your productivity will increase.
   
• Measure how long it takes to do the basic humans needs, like how long it takes you to eat lunch, commute to work, shower, shopping, and etc. When you are aware of the minutes you spend  doing everything you have to do everyday then you you can find better more efficient ways to increase your working times. Don't over kill your self, what i mean is taking a shower should take about 10 to 15 minutes at max but if you're spending an hour in shower then here is an opportunity to save 45 minutes and put it towards working on your blog, making phone calls, making new connections and finding more ways of making your business better.

2- Do you REALLY know what you're doing?

• if you're going to start a blog, are you familiar with the blogging world. Regardless what the topic of your blog is about there are several key blogs working in that category already, familiarize your self with them and everything they do, the last thing you want to do is to have a blog that has the exact same topic and discussion, what you want to do is to find out where these key blogs are lacking and start your blog knowing that you're filling a gap and contributing to the well being of the category. Having a complimentary blog grows much faster than a copy blog, over time when you have a lot of traffic then you can move into other blogs' category.
   
• if you starting your own web app (web 2.0 or semantic) project, then how well do you know the industry, you need to know how it works and how you're going to make it big. Promoting a web app has its own set of challenges and before you jumping into programming you need to consider all the roadblocks. Getting traffic is a big issue and before you assume that you're going to get a lot of traffic consider why people would want to use it and why it should become a part of their routine. The worst thing you can do when building a web app is to assume everything will workout on its own, trust me it doesn't. Always prepare with the worst case scenario in mind!
   
• Know everything about your competition (small or large). for example, If you're going to make something that compliments DIGG but you don't know about MIXX then that's a huge problem because if you don't know what everybody in the category is doing and how they are doing it then you probably won't be able to come up with a solution that solves big problems. You also don't want to be compared to other websites, avoid "YET ANOTHER WEB APP" attribute at all cost!

3- How well do you know BUSINESS?

• Business is a game, a dog eat dog world. Just because you can make a great site doesn't mean you can make a big business out of it. In business you have to know how to manage people, employees, PR people, your network and etc. If you can't manage people then you cannot attract talented people to do the tricky parts of your business, they just won't stick around. If you don't know how to make deals or negotiate to get maximum benefits then you're business won't have a chance to grow. Managing innovation, money, growth, revenues streams are a few of the other things you need to be very familiar with.

I'm not trying to scare you, but i'm trying to prepare you. remember if it way easy everybody would have done it, it's difficult and that's what makes it interesting and appealing. Now i only mentioned a few things you should know before jumping into muddy waters, there are many other things you need to consider such as choosing the right business partners, knowing your audience, optimum design, naming and branding, strategy, and last but not least knowing when you want to launch, how you're going to do it, and what you need to do to promote it. The list goes on and on, the more you know the better you will do.

i've been engaged in quite a few conversations in the last couple of weeks regarding strategy and process involved in constructing web projects. We all have different methods of practice, we do things differently based on the orientation that is most comfortable to us. Notice in none of articles so far i have tried to push for a single way of doing things but i've been trying to lay everything out on the table and let you chose your own methods.

There are a lot of blogs, magazines, and books that talk a great deal about how to build a great looking site, or a successful site, blog whatever. Everybody has his/her own way of doing things and just because they saw great results doing it their way doesn't mean it work the same for you as well.

before i launched this site, during the time i was still thinking about the design and what kind of CMS i should go with, i researched, bookmarked and printed out most of these articles (i plan to release my entire sources this weekend), and I found out that each person walked a different path that seems different but has a lot of things in common with another person but at the same each path was engineered, by accident or not, to fit each individual's unique situation.

Each article in one way or the other emphasized the process that got them to where they are now, which is a great deal of success. So while i was reading all these articles i started picking out the ideas that i liked best, i did not choose based on performance but based on my own personal abilities, I even became as brave as tweaking some of the ideas. Before i knew it i had so many plans and ideas for making a great site that i needed 10 of me to do it.

Doing everything you want to do takes time and effort and sometimes it takes so much effort that you can't psychically do it by yourself. Since i had no help i decided to divide my process into phases, i ended up with 5 phases in total. Right now i'm at phase 1, and i'm only %20 through the process.

The point is, there are lots of great articles out there, keep reading them and take notes but don't pick one and bank all your money on it. As our Wall St. friends always say "Never put all your eggs in one basket"

here are some great sites to get you started with, i promise to have a great list of articles soon.

ProBlogger - self explanatory

DoshDosh - blog and SN marketing

HipMojo - great set of blog/project articles

Will Price - about blogging and creating traffic

Smashing Magazine - blog and blog design articles

I love Typography - content in essence is typography

A List Apart - I think everybody knows this one already

Andy Rutledge - probably better than "A List Apart" wink!

Seth Godin

Brand Autopsy

Branding & Marketing

Buzz Marketing for Technology

Conversation Agent

Web Ink Now

Entrepreneur's Journey - The name says it all

BNet - Business Management Articles

Get Rich Slowly - Knowing your finances is just as important as knowing your CSS/HTML

Simple Dollar - Another finance/saving blog

 Above though a lot of links are still a small fracture of my own resources for wishing to get somewhere on this internet. I know i can because i've made plans and have calculated every step of the way but this how i do things in general, also in part it's my job.

I hope this little blog article give you the hope and motivation to start researching your own next big break! remember we can only make it happen for ourselves, nobody is going to hand a successful business you have to fight for it.