The Shallows .. Do we really changed ?

      In “The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,” Nicholas Carr shows how our brains have changed to adapt to the Internet era, as technology has become a major part of our lives. The book reads as a long narrative with personal issues with the Internet, daily life experiences, and much advice.  If you are addicted to the Internet, you will be shocked when you read Carr’s assertion that computers are destroying our concentration, and search engines are making people lazy: they no longer use academic and trustworthy sources.

        Carr wants us to blame ourselves, not the technology. He asserts that many people are having difficulties reading long articles or books, because they are used to the fast pace of reading Internet pages, where you can read extensive news articles and view many pictures all at once. The distraction described by Carr definitely exists. For myself, I find it difficult those days to carry a book and read it while I’m riding the metro or sitting in a coffee shop. Nowadays, I’m carrying my IPad, IPhone, or laptop. There is no need to carry books or newspapers. 

         Carr, however, sees this as a natural reaction of the brain to recent changes. He links our ability to accept change and become accustomed to it to the flexibility of our minds to be shaped via experience. I think he is right; my mind is now refusing to accept any hardcover book, or anything that takes a long time to read. Everything has changed, even the way in which we think.

A Visit to Course Horse

The ideas are available, but it is a rare person who thinks about it. Course Horse is a good example of that, especially the co-founder of Course Horse, Nihal Parthasarathi, and his team. They worked hard to come up with the idea of their company. What is the main idea? The main idea is based on building a huge database for classes in many majors, and all of the classes must be in New York City. The database is on a website, and there are no certificate courses, so the whole website is designed to provide an idea about the classes that are available. 

        Nihal says that there is no real difficulty in taking many classes, but there are problems in finding what people want. For example, there are no classes in photography, and the next plan is to make them available. One of the ways to find out which classes are easily uploaded to the website is to visit colleges and schools and discuss with students the ways that can make people find out about programs and classes.

Don’t be surprised that when you listen to Nihal, you like the project. The reason is that he won a competition at NYU based on his presentation skills. He was presenting his project in a smooth way, starting from why and ending up with how his project improves things. After I met Nihal, I decided it would be easy to start an online business, where the cost is less than implementing a physical one. Does it make money? This question was Nihal’s advice to us, when he said, “You have to start to think about your upcoming business, ask yourself some questions, and then start.”

There is nothing difficult. All you have to do is think about what people need. Course Horse fits your time and needs, and it is a great idea because you can find the class that will help you improve your skills, and help you gain knowledge in an easy way.         

New Inventors

I have been always interested and eager to be part of the social media field. However I was never so confident that I could, until I visited the NYU:POLY incubator and met  three of their young CEOs and co-founders. they talked about their different experiences, diverse backgrounds and long journeys, yet I felt we all shared something in common; passion and determination and it seemed that was more than enough to be part of this inventive field.

The three CEO were the inventors of three of the most fascinating companies in the social media field; Brainscape, Baba Apps, and Local Uncle.  Each has started his or her journey in a totally different ground. In fact one of them has a bachelor degree in biochemistry. However, their dreams has lead them all to graduate from NYU:Poly as I did.

NYU:POLY was not the end of their tough path , as I hope it's not the end of mine too, it was only the beginning. They all pursuit their careers in online investing and business, which in my opinion is one of the toughest  areas to compete in. Internet  business requires endless creativity and devotion. One needs  to utilize the simplest tools to invent the greatest ideas. For example,  Brainscape have utilized the simple idea of educational flash cards and transformed it into a great application that student could download on their laptops and I-pads instead of carrying infinite number of actual paper.  Local Uncle has also dazzled me with their simple innovation. They use Twitter’s hash tags to provide people with information on restaurants, coffee shops, museums and other places to visit.

These three companies reminded me by a company owned by one of my friends in Saudi Arabia, which is called New Windows. Although the mission of this company seems complicated, which was managing the content for the governmental departments and ministries on, the application was quite simple.   

Thinking of the fact the 75% of applications around the world are for fun, makes me feel that anyone with a dream has a potential to succeed in the social media field. Visiting the incubator has enlightened my vision. I have never paid so much attention to the environment around me. Every single thing we utilize serves as a simple idea to a great innovation. Every place I go is stimulating my imagination. In fact visiting the incubator has added a new dimension into my life; Internet! 

To eMusic

There is a big debate whether the new social media affects the classic media or not. To have a real opinion about that debate , I decided I need to have a living experience and because the  effect , if any , of new media over the classical one  extends to reach all of the media aspects including music thus, I visited  eMusic production company. eMusic is an online digital library for music, that you can enjoy and benefit from by visiting their website. Furthermore, the eMusic production company is not specialized just in music, but also it has audio books and some audio shows on  websites.

There, Mr. Richard Caccappolo (CTO) and Mr. Max Smith (CFO), gave an interesting presentation about the evolution of music production that has influenced my perception of this debate. They talked about the invention of cassette tapes , CDs , and about the new era of music called internet. Sharing music  has never been the same after the internet invention. Mp3 players, laptops and all websites can serve now music. In fact nobody in the Audience could remember when the last time they used cassettes was.   

They also talked about digital marketing, when Mr. Smith spoke on New York Times media group, and how the Newspaper income is almost more than 70% of the whole group annually  income, he  enhanced my perception and presumption that classic media has not been effected by the new media. He also indicated that there is a great opportunity in there to improve the print (classic) media to increase their  sales and there is no vanishing for the print media. 

Moreover, eMusic offers 30 % discounts on online subscriptions than the other digital music companies. This step attracts more subscribers and increases the company's profits. eMusic also expanded its services to  Offer thousands of digital books to attract different kind of consumers and also increase their sales. Not specializing in music is a great and profitable idea. Currently eMusic has more than 400,000 subscribers. 

I have learned new terms in the advertisement and e-commercial world such as “CPT” meaning cost per thousand, “CPC” meaning cost per click, and “PPC” pay per click. Also the speakers provided us with many information on some corporations that still trades CDs, such as Walmart and BestBuy. The musical industry is hug and profitable, which make the competition between the music companies harder.

Finally, I would like to say that I just knew that music is considered as part of the media. In Saudi Arabia and Middle East, people consider music as an art and not as a media. I also enjoyed the history of music  sharing evolution.

"Delivering Happiness"

Since childhood, Tony Hsieh, the author of “Delivering Happiness”, was eager to be a businessman. In his book, he told stories on how he succeeded in his life , and how he got over all the  difficulties that he faced in his path to the money world.

Hsieh, the 36-years old American and the CEO of Zappos started his book by elaborating about his childhood. The first part of the book was almost about Hsieh’s early life, and his passion to  business. He switched from focusing on his musical instruments to try running small businesses. He failed some times and other times achieved his goals. In the first chapter of “Delivering Happiness”, you will read how Hsieh and his colleagues started their first company which was called LinkExchange, and how they gained millions of dollars from starting this company. From the first chapter, I have learned many things, especially LinkExchange’s story, when Tony and his co-workers got an offer from Yahoo to buy the website with 1 million dollars, Tony and his friends postponed the transaction because they thought it would be better and it may worth more. Later on they achieved what they were looking for, the money and the success.

Also from the first part of the book, I have learned that to enter the market and challenge it with a new business, saving capitals are got to be made for applying projects and ideas. A businessman should not be too happy with the early earnings from the business by spending them on whatever.

In the second chapter Tony was explaining how he could create a new company from zero, until Zappos worth more than 1 billion dollar. Also, Tony published some of the internal e-mails that he used to send to the workers, in order to motivate the staff, and when the company was going to be bankrupt.

In the third chapter, Tony talked about how he dealt with the PR news and the media coverage that got bigger and bigger at Zappos. In his books, he explained in the last part how he was preparing for the press conferences and public events. He had three rules for his talks one of them is to tell real stories to people in his speeches and talks. In the third part, he told stories about how the Amazons buyout been done, and how he was not able to tell the employees directly. 

In short, I really enjoyed reading this book. It gives you lessons in how to not hurry for the future, and don’t follow what is being decided for you already. If you are a teacher, a pilot. a Doctor, and you find yourself in the business world, and technology industry, don’t hesitate to switch to what you want regardless to your background or even for your parents interests.  This book has also inspired me to think about the future and how to think creatively. I read the book as if it is a story, and it really is.