The 10 Myths of Entrepreneurship

Myth 1: Entrepreneurs are doers, not thinkers

• Reality: Although entrepreneurs are action oriented, but they are also a thinkers
• They make careful plan & strategy.
• Entrepreneur will try to come out with alternative action towards a solution.
• In the era of globalization & hyper-competition, entrepreneurs need to be good thinkers.

Myth 2: Entrepreneurs are born, not made

• The idea that the characteristics of entrepreneurs cannot be taught or learned. Entrepreneurs are born with special traits or characteristics.
• Traits such as include aggressiveness, initiative, drive, a willingness to take risks, analytical ability, and skill in human relations.
• Reality: Like all disciplines, entrepreneurship has models, processes, and case studies that allow the traits to be acquired through learning.
• Reality: Research has proven that entrepreneurs can be produced, and it is not limited to certain race, group or individuals.

Myth 3: Entrepreneurs are always inventors

• Not all inventors are entrepreneurs.
• Reality: Many successful entrepreneurs are not inventors, but rather use creative ideas in doing something. They will modify & innovate to suit the market demand.

Myth 4: Entrepreneurs are academic and social misfits

• This myth results from people who have started successful enterprises after dropping out of school or quitting a job
• Long time ago, educational and social organisations did not recognise the entrepreneur
• Reality: The entrepreneur is now viewed as a highly educated professional, who is well versed and sociable with excellent communication skills, and strives in economic development of the community & the country. 

Myth 5: Entrepreneurs must fit the "profile" 

• Many books & articles have presented checklists of characteristics of the successful entrepreneur
• Reality: It is not necessary for the individual to have ALL the characteristics, as described previously, to become a success (only some will do).

Myth 6: All Entrepreneurs Need Is Money

• Every biz. venture needs capital to survive
• Large number of business failures occur because of lack of financing
• Failure due to lack of financing indicates other problems
• Managerial incompetence;Lack of financial understanding; Poor investments; Poor planning; Reality: Money is a resource, not the ultimate objective.  

Myth 7: All Entrepreneurs Need Is Luck

• Being in the right place at the right time is always an advantage
• "Luck" happens when preparation meets opportunity
• What appears to be lucky could really be several other factors

              a. Preparation & hard works

              b. Determination

              c. Desire

              d. Knowledge

              e. Innovativeness

Myth 8: Ignorance is bliss for an entrepreneur

• The myth that too much planning and evaluating will give rise to problems. In the competitive world of business, which demanded detailed planning & preparation, entrepreneur should be equipped with solid knowledge and strategies, which would be keys to success.
• Reality: Careful planning- Not ignorance is regarded as beneficial, since Key success factors are;

        a. ability to identify strengths and weaknesses of a venture

        b. Setting up clear timetables with contingencies for handling problems

        c. Minimizing problems through careful strategy formulation

           - Careful planning is the mark of an accomplished entrepreneur

Myth 9: Entrepreneurs seek success but experience high failure rates.

• Many entrepreneurs suffer a number of failures before they are successful
• Failure can teach many lessons to those who are willing to learn and failure often leads to future success

Myth 10: Entrepreneurs are extreme risk takers (gamblers)

• The concept of risk is a major element in the entrepreneurship process
• While it may appear that an entrepreneur is "gambling" on a  wild chance, the fact is that the entrepreneur is usually working on a moderate or "calculated" risk
• Reality: Most successful entrepreneurs work hard through planning & preparation to minimize the risk involved.

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Rise and Fall

2007 was the year when Apple revolutionized the smartphone market. Mobile phones no longer required buttons and images could easily be magnified or reduced with two fingers. But where was Nokia the, market leader among mobile phone manufacturers, when the revolution begins? Though Nokia is still the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world the competitors are quickly catching up. In addition to Apple, even Google, Motorola and HTC have surpassed Nokia in the smartphone domain. 

30,020 Nokia employees work in the field of research and development. This is about 30 percent of all employed Finns. But all these endeavours are not sufficient to dispute Apple in the smartphone market. Smartphones from the Finnish company suffer from the reputation of being cumbersome to operate. For example, the N97 that was launched on 2009 confused its users with a messy menu structure. Because of iPhone many users were used to have all items directly on the start screen. The new operating system MeeGo is supposed to solve this problem starting 2011. Nokia can see that the disadvantage is also due to patent infringements. Court proceedings have been on since 2009. 

500,000,000 members have joined Facebook since July 2010 and the number is on the rise. MySpace had underestimated his development. In 2007, MySpace founder Chris DeWolfe had described Facebook as a ‘Network for students. That is the niche.’ Today MySpace focused mainly on musicians. In 2005, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation took over MySpace for USD580 million and the company wanted to develop MySpace into a multimedia rival on MTV. But the plan failed, since users did not go along with this. MySpace stagnated, while Facebook consistently increased its membership. Today, the network has about 100 million members. Three years back, the number of members was more than double of this. And only about 18 million members are active and the tendency is sinking.

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How important is your Virtual Identity?

Is that person with more than 500 friends, innumerable photos, scores of witty status message, fan pages and likes really you? Who is doing what, who is seeing whom, who attended what concert, who bought a new phone, who hates his/her job, who is eating what food, who hates Mondays, who is going where. Some people tend to chronicle every minute spent. Is this information we really can’t live without?

Nevertheless these days we are not only bombarded with such information but also willingly contribute to it ourselves. There is a need to stand out. One can easily gauge an individual’s personality by simply looking at their profiles by simply looking at their profiles on these social networking sites.

Profiles pictures, status message reflecting the current state of mind, pictures of parties, events of outings, relationship statuses, work information, likes fan pages etc are all a part of our virtual identity and reflect our personas.  This increasing presence online is either competing with or complementing our identity in real life.

Does the old adage that an extrovert in real life will be equally popular and outgoing in the virtual worlds and vice versa, hold true in the digital age? Or will an introvert in real life exhibit a livelier persona and find it easier to express himself freely in the virtual world? It is very difficult to establish the truth, but we can safely say that in the most cases, our profile pages mirror our real life down to the last detail.  

Socializing in the real world often puts pressure on people to live up to their virtual avatars. Also more often than not, through these sites people vent their feelings about issues faced in real life. Maintaining popularity is the key.

The general belief is that the number of friends and followers one has reflects how popular they are. You will find people accepting friend requests from random users some of them may be friends of friends or even strangers who just came across your name somehow.

On the other hand, having a good profile picture or an emotional status message has become a way of attracting attention. Researchers have attributed these behavioural patterns as narcissism while also stating that constant use further fuels such tendencies.

A study conducted by the York University of Canada suggests that Facebook is a magnet for narcissists and people with low self esteem.

The study defined narcissism as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Undergraduate psychology student Soraya Mehdizadeh who conducted the study states that Facebook is an ideal setting for narcissists and also serves as a social lubricant for those with low self esteem.

According to her people with low self esteem find it easier to connect with people online and this boosts their confidence.

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What happens to your Virtual Identity after you’re dead?

Having created a virtual identity and almost living an alternative life in digital space it is natural to wonder what would happen once our physical lives come to an end. We think about what will happen to our material belongings but the fate of our digital existence isn’t well understood or controllable. The legal backdrop of most popular social networking sites like Google, Facebook or Twitter usually maintain the companies rights over digital content even if it is publicly shared by its users leaving the equation between legal heirs or loved ones and the digital property of the demised party in question. 

In the earlier 2010, Facebook faced a tiff with Stephanie Bemister, sister of deceased British journalist Wiliam Bemister who wanted to remove her brother’s profile from Facebook but couldn’t because the website’s policy is to maintain profiles as memorial pages. 

Turning a profile into a memorial requires contacting the company with relevant documentation in order for them to strip out sensitive features like status updates and approving friend requests. Memorialized pages allow only friends already connected to it to post loving comments and share memories. 

Other social networking services haven’t dwelled much on the matter. Twitter’s policy allows it to close the account on request but not pass it on to the loved one. Relatives, children and possibly even future biographers will not have access to a deceased person’s private correspondence on the way that traditional paper letters and records can be unearthed today. 

It’s important to maintain offline physical records as well. The relevance of this concept might seem minuscule to some right now but an increasing amount of time is being spent sharing personal information online. 

Data is permanently archived rather than deleted and storage is moving from personal computers to assorted servers ‘in the cloud’ where our descendents might not be able to access it. The destiny of our digital afterlife is a matter of concern for both individuals as well as the industry in question. 

An initiative called Digital Death Day 2010 held in California and London attempted to address this matter by bringing leaders from businesses of social networking, data management and death care to discuss issues pertaining to digital estate planning.



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Crooks Crack mTAN Technique

A customer must confirm every transaction for online banking using a TAN (transaction number). The financial institutions use different procedures for conveying the TAN safely to the customer from the bank. In the case of mTAN (mobile transaction number), the bank sends the TAN via SMS to the stored cell phone number. This procedure, which was apparently the safest propagated procedure, has been cracked by the hackers.

For this the hackers use the banking-based TrojanerZeus. The security service provider S21sec has now invented a new ciariant which goes one step further, a fake version would appear on the browser window when a bank’s page is called.

It’ll ask for a so-called essential update for cell phones, in the form for a firmware. To download this, users need to enter his phone number for the download link to be sent to his phone.

Accessing this link the user inexplicably installs the mobile ZeuS version on the cell phone. Every incoming SMS then will automatically be forwarded to the hacker.

Unauthorised transfers can then be carried out in combination with the PC version. In earlier variations of the crime the crooks could even loot the accounts where they used to send collective bank transfer to the bank server.

Cell phones running Symbian and Blackberry systems are affected. A patch is not available to date. Thus bear in mind that you need to install software for your PC only from reliable sources. Also ensure that you read the bank SMS in detail and compare the number of transfers the account number and with your entries.

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