The Beatles have inspired hundreds of thousands of artists, writers, musicians and songwriters. There are an unending amount of creative tips and techniques we can learn from their years of creative productivity. Today I want to share some of the cool things about the inspirations behind many of the Beatles most memorable songs.

By the time the Beatles were invited into the living rooms of America in February of 1964 on the Ed Sullivan Shows, these young guys from Liverpool were already a polished and very experienced band of musicians. They had spent years playing 5 hours or more a night, 7 days a week in the clubs of England and Hamburg, Germany. In his recent book “Outliers” author Malcolm Gladwell attributes the Beatles incredible success to the 10,000 hour rule.. Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule estimates that it takes roughly that many hours of dedication and hard work to become proficient enough with your God given talents to be truly masterful. I think it’s a great example that nothing great is ever achieved without years of preparation.

The early years of the Beatles creativity were influenced by the music they grew up with including Gospel, R&B, rockabilly and the beginnings of rock and roll. The subject matter of their early work consisted primarily of love songs and teen relationships. As they matured, so too did their music and the inspirations behind the songs.
Lennon and McCartney worked together in the early 60’s bouncing their songs off of one another face to face, often in hotel rooms while on tour. Their popularity had forced them into a world of isolation and yet their exposure to all of the many places they toured and the people they encountered certainly primed the pump to create at an amazing pace.

Tomorrow I’ll delve more into that collaborative process and how we can apply the Lennon McCartney creative approach in the atmosphere of the corporate workplace. But for today I think it’s key to remember that their relationship and their approach to songwriting allowed them a greater range of creative options to explore than if they had chosen to work separately.

I’ve broken down a list of Beatles songs and the inspiration behind them into categories. I think this helps to be able to see how many songs were influenced or inspired in different ways and I hope gets your creative mindset open to the possibilities for the creative sparks all around us everyday. They are there, if we are open enough and observant enough to see them and use them in our own process. Much of the information I gathered for my research for this list came primarily from the terrific book “A Hard Days Write” by Steven Turner. I highly recommend if you want to get a much more in depth explanation behind the songs.

The Beatles and The Seven Sources of Creativity.
1. People

Iris Caldwell, one of the girls McCartney dated inspired “I saw her standing there”- Paul
Dot Rhone, another of Paul’s girl friends from1961 inspired “PS I Love You”-
Jane Asher, McCartney’s most steady female relationship in the Beatles early years was the inspiration behind numerous songs including “We can work it out”, “And I love her”, “You Won’t See Me” “I’m Looking Through You”, “Here, There and Every where” and “For No One”
Pattie Boyd, George Harrison’s wife whom Harrison had met during the filming of “A Hard Days Night” inspired “I Need You” “ “If I Needed Someone”, the enduring “Something” and the Eric Clapton song “Layla” after her affair with Clapton.
Cynthia Powell ,John Lennon’s first wife inspired multiple songs including “Do You Want to Know a Secret” after Lennon learned she was pregnant. The couple married shortly thereafter.
Lucy O’Donnell was Julian Lennon’s child hood friend that inspired a picture that became the source of the Lennon classic “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
Tar Browne was the friend “who blew his mind out in a car” in the song “A Day in the Life”. Lennon wrote the lyric partly after the tragic car accident that claimed the life of Browne, a well to do Irish socialite.
Prudence Farrow-Mia Farrow’s younger sister who inspired the song “Dear Prudence”
Linda Eastman, whom McCartney married in the later Beatles years inspired many songs including “Birthday” from the White Album
Yoko Ono, Lennon’s second wife inspired-”Don’t Let Me Down” and, of course, ” the ballad of John and Yoko”. There’s no real proof that Yoko was the muse for the cryptic song about a Lennon extramarital affair in the song “Norwegian Wood”
Rosa Parks was the inspiration for the classic McCartney song “Blackbird”
Timothy Leary’s run against Ronald Reagan for Governor of California inspired Lennon’s attempt at the campaign song “Come Together”
Julia Stanley,John’s mother inspired the song “Julia”
Mary McCartney, Paul’s mother provided some of the inspiration for ”Let It Be”

2. Places

Abbey Road
Hamburg helped inspire “Ticket to Ride” Lennon’s veiled song about the licenses prostitutes in Hamburg had to acquire to be legal.
Penny Lane a song by McCartney was about the area he and Lennon had grown up in.
Strawberry Fields was a large Victorian building in a heavily wooded area close to one of Lennon’s childhood homes. The building became a place he could escape to be alone to think. He remembered it fondly as a place he could let his creative imagination roam free. The building is no longer there.
High Park was the farm in Scotland owned by McCartney and the inspiration behind “The Long and Winding Road”
The Lennon song “In My Life” had numerous references to places he remembered during his youth. He took them out so the song could be a bit more relevant to a wider audience.

3. Things

“Eleanor Rigby” was actually a name on a tombstone near the place where Lennon and McCartney first met. It wasn’t until years after the song was written that McCartney became aware of the actual existence of an Eleanor Rigby tombstone. The name had manifested itself subconsciously from something he had seen years before.
“Paperback Writer” was written mostly because Paul liked the sound of the words. SGT Pepper reference to salt and pepper or Dr. Pepper
Salt and pepper became “Sgt. Pepper”
Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking glass and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland inspired some of the lyrics Lennon’s “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”.
The Goon Show, a British radio comedy show also was a source for Lennon’s lyrics in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “I am the Walrus”
A piece of property Paul had purchased sight unseen became a song called “Fixing a Hole”.
Newspaper articles inspired McCartney’s “She’s Leaving Home” as well as Lennon’s contribution to the song “A Day in the Life”.
An 1843 Circus Poster that Lennon discovered in a 1967 stroll through an antiques store inspired the classic “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Eastern philosophy inspired George Harrison to write “Within, Without You” “I, Me, Mine”-
A box of corn flakes became the song “Good Morning, Good Morning.
Television advertising Slogans helped Lennon pen the anthem “All You Need is Love”. Lennon found himself more at home after 1965, burned out from the rigorous schedule the Beatles had kept in the early 60’s. Simple things found around the house now inspired Lennon songs mostly because he was too worn out to venture any further.
A play-on-words became “Hello Goodbye”

4. Emotions

Both Lennon and McCartney lost their mothers at a young age, which influenced each in very different ways.

Lennon internalized it more, and it manifested itself in his songs like “Help”, It Won’t be Long”, “Tell me Why” “I’m a Loser” and “Nowhere Man” each stemming from feelings of isolation, loneliness, and insecurity.

McCartney, whose childhood was much more stable than Lennon’s, despite the loss of his mother, tended to write more optimistic songs like “All My Loving”, “She Loves you” and “We can Work it Out”.
McCartney wasn’t always upbeat. His song Hey Jude was a compassionate letter to Julian Lennon, who was forced to endure his parents painful divorce, and “Let it Be” was all about the pain of the Beatles being torn apart at the seams after the loss of Brian Epstein.
Paul and John weren’t the only ones who were able to express emotions through their songs.
“It’s been a Hard Day’s Night” and “Eight days a Week” were both inspired by Ringo Starr’s frustration with the Beatles often grueling work schedule
“Don’t Bother Me” was written after George Harrison’s day in bed with the flu.
“Here Comes the Sun” was also written by Harrison to express a glorious moment of freedom from the the painful ongoing business meetings at Apple studios that would be the bands undoing

5. Environment

Much has been made of the influence that drugs played in the creative process of the Beatles. Many of the alleged references such as “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” being a cover for a song about LSD just simply weren’t true. But clearly some of their songs were a product of their environment and the time in history in which they created. Songs like “Rain”, “Got to get you into my life”,”Tomorrow Never Knows” and “She said, She said” were most likely songs about their experiences. Since I come from the school of thought that any kind of artificial stimulus impedes the creative process (that includes caffeine, so I’m guilty as charged) I won’t speculate here as to the outcome that the Beatles experimentation had on their process.

Dreams can often be part of the creative process. The song “Yesterday” literally wrote itself musically as McCartney awoke one morning. He sang “scrambled eggs” to remember the melody and completed the lyrics much later.
A Family boating outing inspired Ringo Starr’s Octopuses Garden.
“It’s Getting Better All the Time” and “Fool on the Hill” were a product of McCartney’s many walks with Martha his dog.

6. Childhood
“Yellow Submarine” was a McCartney’s attempt at writing a children’s song
“Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields” were both childhood recollections and the song “I Get by With a Little Help from my Friends” was a children’s song for Ringo’s Billy Shears character on the Sgt. Peppers album.
The writings of Lewis Carroll were a definite influence in John Lennon’s creative process, as I mentioned earlier. The poem “the Walrus and the Carpenter” inspired “I am the Walrus”.
And, strangely enough, McCartney’s song about growing old “When I’m Sixty Four” was written at the ripe old age of 15.

7. Sounds
The Beatles sound was inspired by a myriad of musical influences. They were known for borrowing a chord from a Glenn Miller song to practically lifting a bass part right out of a Chuck Berry tune.
Bob Dylan, Buddy Holly, Smokey Robinson, Wilson Pickett, the Shirelles, the Chiffons, Nina Simone, The Loving Spoonful and the Who were all influences that the Beatles incorporated into their songs and melodies.
The key were there is incorporated, not copied.
It’s OK for an artist to reflect those influences that inspire them, to learn from them. It’s not cool to have your art, writing or music be so influenced by one certain artist that it ceases to be yours. In other words, like the Beatles, diversify your inspirations.

There’s a lot to absorb here. Take your time or print this list out and just ponder it for a while. And next week as you start to create, set aside a little time to be inspired by something in your world that is under each of these Seven Sources of Creativity categories. I’m going to do it and see what I find. I hope you will too.

Tomorrow I’ll be back here with The Beatles Build a Better Business or Creative Collaboration in the workplace the Lennon and McCartney Way.

CLICK HERE TO OPEN THIS CHAPTER

“I had an idea the other day ….”

That’s how it starts.  A single voice.  A moment in time.  Often, very soft —- like a whispered spring breeze.  And gone just as easily.  But in that moment rests the tipping point of history.  It is the origin of change.

Change became the hot topic in American culture in 2008.  As a nation – and as individuals – we got a green light to open the flood gates of change.  You can thank Barack Obama for that.  Even conservatives started saying nice things about change.

All well and good.  But change requires something more than permission.  It also requires an idea.  Without one, change is impossible (change to what?).  The whole thing grinds to a halt – all for the lack of an idea.  That’s why I wrote this book.  It’s about one simple thing — how to have an idea.  I hope it changes your life.  You’ll find out why in a minute.

But first, let’s get a few things straight 

Albert Einstein never needed a book like this.  Neither did Michelangelo nor da Vinci.  I’d also suggest that Steven Speilberg and Steven Jobs don’t need it either.  Because those folks are what I’d call “pure creatives” – one-man idea factories.  They’re born with it.  And it is utterly impossible to educate or train someone to be a pure creative.  You either got it or you ain’t.

 But here’s the good news – the rest of us can learn how to do a pretty fair imitation.  And that’s where a book like this comes in.

 In truth, I think Speilberg would skim this book, then say – “Ah .. yeh.  No, this book is nice.  I can see where it would be helpful, yeh … like the section on …” – not because it actually helped him, but because he wants to help those who lack the natural instinct.  In contrast, I think Edison would have taken notes – because Edison wasn’t actually creative.  He was simply the only man in history more innovative than George Washington Carver.  This is a punchy way of introducing the fact that there are only two routes to having an idea:  creativity, or innovation.  We’ll talk about both.

© 2009 Joe Anderson

“And then he [Jesus] told them, ‘Go into all the world and preach [communicate] the Good News to everyone, everywhere.’”¹

Donald William Dotterer wrote, “Steven Jobs is the man who founded the enormously successful company called Apple Computer. Jobs decided that Mr. John Sculley was the man he needed to help him fulfill his dream of building a completely different kind of computer company, one which [Jobs dreamed] would make computers available to every person in the world. However, Mr. Sculley was comfortably and safely entrenched as president of the Pepsico Corporation, the makers of the soft drink Pepsi.

“In this position, John Sculley had achieved everything that a man could want: power, prestige, public recognition, an enormous salary and a secure future. The thought of a career change requiring a move to the West Coast frightened him. He was concerned about losing pensions and deferred compensation and the adjustment to living in California, in other words, ‘the pragmatic stuff that preoccupies the middle-aged.’

“John Sculley knew that he was safe at Pepsico. But he also knew that he had grown to dislike the competitive nature of the business. He also knew how bored he was. Steven Jobs at Apple Computer sensed this. And so he finally confronted his new friend with this pointed question. He said to John, ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?’ That question penetrated deep into the heart and mind of John Sculley. It changed the course of his life. He therefore went to Apple Computer and helped it to grow into one of the most successful corporations in the world. Mr. Sculley’s life was changed because he took the risk and decided to invest. Was it a risk? Yes. But without it, there would be no reward.”²

I’m not suggesting that you should change your job (though some of you may need to), but I am asking, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life doing only what you are doing now, or do you want to help to truly change the world—one person at a time?”

You can. Here are a few of many simple ways you can do this:

First, make yourself available to God every day and ask him to use you to be as Jesus to every life you touch and that people seeing Jesus in you will want him for themselves.

Second, become involved in serving others through your local church or a fine voluntary organization and help make a difference in your local community.

Third, you can send copies of suitable Daily Encounters to friends and loved ones and share with them these non-preachy Christian messages that speak directly to their personal needs. Hundreds of people are being reached with the gospel and Christian message in this way and it, too, is helping to change the world—one person at a time.

Fourth, besides financially supporting your local church, help support faith organizations that are making a difference and those that are spreading the gospel. There are many such organizations that are dependent on the support of concerned Christians for their operation. And in your giving, please consider becoming a partner with ACTS International (publisher of Daily and Weekend Encounter) through your prayer and financial support and therein be a part of a work that is sending the gospel around the world via E-mail and the Internet every day of the year.

Suggested prayer:

“Dear God, thank you for Jesus, the Savior, the hope of lost mankind, and the only one who has the power to truly change the world. I am available—please guide me in how I can best invest my time, talents, and money in your work, and use me today and every day to be as Christ to every life I touch and therein help change the world in which I live—one person at a time. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Mark 16:15 (TLB).
2. Donald William Dotterer, “Living the Easter Faith,” CSS Publishing Company, 1994. Cited on www.eSermons.com, 2002.

Source: http://www.actsweb.org/weekend_encounter.php#2

Steve Jobs, deve retornar de sua licença médica este mês, e há ainda a especulação de que ele aparecerá na Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) na semana que vem, afirmou o Wall Street Journal nesta sexta-feira (05/06).

Jobs, que já teve câncer no pâncreas, tirou licença médica em janeiro citando um diagnóstico relacionado desequilíbrio de hormônios, o que levou a sua perda de peso. O executivo havia prometido voltar para a Apple até junho.

              FONTE:SITE IDGNOW!

Computer & iphone giant, Apple, has tapped the passion of Shakespeare lovers worldwide. Click here to see what they are selling that is Shakespearean in downloadable hotness today. Hot!!!

Even hotter is the prologue of William Shakespeare’s most famous text Romeo & Juliet, in both Arabic & Hebrew from author Robert Ellis’ romantic novel, Courage To Love.

In a move to cultivate, encourage and foster world peace in the hotspot of The Middle East, Ellis has set his novel of  forbidden young love between Josh Isaacson and Haja Bin Kanaan in the hot spot of The Gaza Strip. A stunning concept. To see Shakespeare’s timeless words from Courage To Love in Arabic and Hebrew, together for the first time ever in world history, Horiwood.Com presents it to you (below). Go Apple with Courage To Love in the world…  

ARABIC – PROLOGUE OF ROMEO & JULIET from ROBERT ELLIS’ COURAGE TO LOVE:

مقدمة

’’بيتان، في المقام متماثلان،

في حوض المتوسط الرائق حيث نبسط مشهدنا،

معاً من تفجر بغض قديم و حتى عصيان جديد،

حيث الدماء المتحضرة تدنّس الأيدي المتحضرة.

مـن رحم هذين الغريمين إلى النور يظهر

عشاقان اثنان متهوران يغامران بحياتهما؛

و انقلاباتهما البائسة سيئة الطالع

تدفن ـ مع عشقهما ـ تخاصم آبائهما.

الدرب المهيب لحبهما المهدَد بالخوف،

و سرمدية حنق آبائهما،

الذي لا يمحوه سوى فشل حب ابنيهما،

هو الآن زخم صفحات روايتنا،

ذاك الذي ـ لو أرهفت له قلباً صبوراً ـ

ما سيخفق منه هنا، فسيكافح كدّنا من أجل إصلاحه.‘‘

’’روميو وجولييت‘‘

مُعدلة، مع الاعتذار لـ

ويليام شكسبير

HEBREW- PROLOGUE OF ROMEO & JULIET from ROBERT ELLIS’ COURAGE TO LOVE:

פ ר ו ל ו ג

“שתי משפחות, דומות בהדרת כבודן,
בוורונה הנאווה, את סיפורן תפעלנה,
ומטינת קדומים תפרוצנה למרי רענן,
בו בדם אזרח ידי אזרח תגואלנה.
מחלצי שני אלה האויבים יגיחו,
זוג אוהבים פזיזים, שיחרפו נפשם;
ביש מזלם מעורר החמלה ישליכו,
ויקברו עימות אבות בלהט תשוקתם.
נתיב אהבתם תחת אימת רודפיהם,
וזעם הוריהם שעוד בוער כסנה,
שלא יכבה ממאום מלבד אהבת בניהם,
הם נשמת אפו של סיפורנו זה,
סיפור, שאם אליו תטו את לבבכם,
כל שתחמיצו, נפעל בעמלנו לשקם.”

“רומיאו ויוליה“

מעובד, בהתנצלות

בפני וויליאם שייקספיר

ENGLISH- PROLOGUE OF ROMEO & JULIET from ROBERT ELLIS’ COURAGE TO LOVE:

Prologue

“Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Mediterranea, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the loins of these two foes,

A pair of impetuous lovers risks their lives;

Whose misadventure’d piteous overthrows

Do, with their passion, bury their parents’ strife.

The fearful passage of their terror-threatened love,

And the continuance of their parents’ rage,

Which but their children’s love naught could remove,

Is now the traffic of our novella’s page,

The which, if you with patient heart attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”

Romeo and Juliet, Opening Chorus, Scene 1, Act 1, Written circa 1594-5

Amended by Robert Ellis,  a tribute to William Shakespeare

BOOK COVER ARTWORK- ROBERT ELLIS’ COURAGE TO LOVE is by SALVADOR DALI.

Order your copy of Courage To Love today from Tate Publishing.

Apple Inc., major manufacturer of personal computers and other digital devices, including the popular digital music player, the iPod, and the online music service known as the iTunes Music Store. With headquarters in Cupertino, California, Apple designs, produces, and sells personal computer systems for use in business, education, government, and the home. It also creates its own operating system software, server software, and World Wide Web browser. In addition to these products, Apple also makes printers, monitors, scanners, a cell phone, a digital video system, Web services, and networking products. Apple also operates a chain of retail outlets.

Apple Computer was formed by Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak in 1976 to market the Apple I, a computer circuit board that they had designed and built in Jobs’s garage in Los Altos, California. They scrapped their plan to sell the board alone when Jobs’s first sales call yielded an order for 50 units. They were, however, sold without monitor, keyboard, or casing. The company was incorporated in January 1977 by the charismatic Jobs, the meditative inventor Wozniak, and their new partner and chairman, Mike Markkula. Markkula brought credibility, maturity, engineering and product management experience, and an extremely broad-based knowledge of the business world, as well as investment cash of his own and contacts among Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists. Markkula also recruited all of Apple’s outside board members and lured away managers from other major high-technology firms, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and National Semiconductor.

In 1977 Apple introduced the Apple II, a personal computer able to generate color graphics, with its own keyboard, power supply, and eight slots for peripheral devices, which gave users wide possibilities for add-on devices and software programs. Apple established its corporate headquarters in Cupertino in 1978. The Apple III computer, introduced in 1980, sold poorly because of hardware problems and a high price.

With Apple II sales soaring, in 1982 Apple became the first personal-computer company to record annual sales of $1 billion. In 1983 Apple introduced the Lisa, a personal computer designed for business use that incorporated a handheld mouse to select commands and control an on-screen cursor. The Lisa was followed in 1984 by the Macintosh personal computer, based on the 68000 microprocessor manufactured by Motorola. Like the Lisa, the Macintosh, also known as the Mac, incorporated a graphical user interface, which made the computer easy to operate for the novice user. Apple entered the office market with the introduction of its LaserWriter printer in 1985 and Macintosh Plus computer in 1986, a combination that launched the desktop publishing revolution. Although the company prospered in the early 1980s, Wozniak left Apple in 1985 to start a company of his own. That same year disappointing sales and internal wrangling led to restructuring, the company’s first layoffs, and Jobs’s departure from the company. John Sculley, whom Jobs had hired in 1983 as Apple’s president and chief executive officer, replaced Jobs as chairman of the company’s board of directors.

The late 1980s and early 1990s were times of growth and change at Apple. In the late 1980s Apple’s net income increased substantially, and in 1990 Apple introduced a new line of Macintosh computers, priced at 50 percent less than previous models to attract new customers to the Macintosh. In addition to expanding the Macintosh line, Apple extended its system software, the modular System 7. In 1991 Apple formed an alliance with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and Motorola to develop the PowerPC family of reduced instruction set computing (RISC) microprocessors. In 1992 Apple introduced the family of Macintosh PowerBook laptop computers, which offered built-in networking capabilities. That same year the company introduced its QuickTime software, which allowed computers to play video clips in multimedia applications.

In 1993 Michael Spindler replaced John Sculley as chief executive officer of Apple. That same year the company introduced the Newton, a handheld communications device with several functions including the ability to translate handwriting into typewritten text. The company also announced restructuring plans that included substantial layoffs, wage freezes, and changes at the executive level. In 1993 Apple discontinued its Apple II product line.

In 1994 Apple launched the Power Macintosh line of high-performance computers, the first Macintosh computers based on Motorola’s PowerPC chip. The company also began licensing its operating system, Mac OS, to other computer manufacturers for the first time. After a year of solid growth, Apple’s fortunes declined again in 1995. A string of problems, including severe shortages of some computer models, led to sluggish sales and financial losses.

In 1996 Gilbert F. Amelio, a business executive credited with saving the National Semiconductor Corporation from financial ruin, replaced Spindler as Apple’s chief executive officer. Apple abandoned its plans to release a major upgrade of its operating system. Later in the year, the company paid $400 million to acquire NeXT Software, a company headed by Apple cofounder Jobs, and announced plans to release a new operating system based in part on NeXT technology. Jobs returned to Apple as a part-time consultant. Despite losing $816 million in 1996, Apple rejected a number of proposed mergers.

In 1997 the company’s sales continued to drop due to competition with manufacturers of Macintosh clones and computers using the Windows operating system developed by Microsoft Corporation. (Encarta Encyclopedia is published by Microsoft.) That year Apple laid off 4,100 workers, or about 30 percent of its workforce, as part of a sweeping reorganization designed to return the company to profitability. Also that year, Apple’s board of directors dismissed chief executive Amelio. At the time of his dismissal, Amelio had not managed to bring about a promised reversal of the company’s fortunes.

Although he held no formal position at Apple at the time of Amelio’s departure, Jobs embarked on a bold plan to turn the company around. He persuaded longtime rival Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple, to pay sizable fees to license Apple technologies, and to develop new Macintosh versions of Microsoft Office, a suite of business application programs. In September 1997 Apple hired Jobs as interim chief executive officer, and he continued to make fundamental changes in Apple’s business strategy.

Jobs reversed the company’s decision to license the Mac OS to other computer manufacturers, which had taken away market share from Apple. He discontinued the Newton, Apple’s handheld computer that had never made a profit. The company also introduced a successful line of high-powered desktop and notebook computers based on the PowerPC G3 processor made by IBM and Motorola. In 1998 Apple introduced the iMac, a low-cost computer with an eye-catching design; this quickly boosted Apple’s share of the personal computer market. The same year it launched a new operating system, the Mac OS X. Building on the success of the iMac, Apple introduced the iBook laptop the following year.

Under Jobs’s leadership, Apple experienced a significant financial rebound after years of losses, and the company’s profits steadily increased. In 2000 Jobs accepted the role of permanent chief executive officer and dropped the word interim from his title.

Apple began 2001 with a new round of product upgrades, but the most dramatic turnabout in its fortunes came with the introduction of the digital music player known as the iPod at the end of the year. The music player became extremely popular and was credited with helping turn the company around. The same year the company announced plans to open retail stores, which helped Apple provide better marketing support for its products. Following on the success of the iPod, Apple in 2003 debuted an online music site called the iTunes Music Store that enabled computer users to purchase and download music. The service quickly became one of the most popular music download sites on the Web.

By 2005 Apple had opened more than 100 retail outlets in the United States, along with stores in Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom. It continued to pioneer in music services, unveiling the iPod nano, a smaller, thinner version of the iPod. In 2006 Apple sold about 39 million iPods and announced that users had downloaded more than 2 billion songs from its iTunes Music Store.

Building on the success of the iPod, Apple continued to diversify its product line. In January 2007 the company renamed itself Apple Inc., dropping “Computer” from its title to signify that it was no longer just a personal computer company. The same month Apple announced the development of the iPhone, a cell phone capable of playing music and videos, surfing the Web, and sending e-mail, as well as making telephone calls. Although other companies had pioneered such “smartphones” long before, Apple brought its unique graphical user interface design to the product, including touchscreen capability rather than a built-in keyboard. The iPhone was to be made available by June 2007 through a single carrier, Cingular Wireless, and was expected to offer search functions and special applications from Google and Yahoo.

In 2007 Apple also introduced Apple TV, a digital video system that plugs into a television set and stores up to 50 hours of video. The system enables the wireless transfer of videos from a computer to the television set.

The Celebrity Billionaires Vs Bernie Madoff story. If you’re a news and entertainment news reporter looking for a lead story for news or primetime…. click on this link: HOW MANY CELEBRITY BILLIONAIRES WOULD IT TAKE TO RECOOP BERNIE MADOFF’S FRAUD TOTAL? That’s hot TV!

Bad Joke - Bernie Maddoff was a wannabe billionaire at any cost! This years financial news shocker news story!

How much did Bernie Madoff rip off investors?

Okay, in celebrity billionaire terms, it’s like this: 

Bill Gates, $40 Billion does not even come close to what Bernie Madoff stole!

Take the world’s richest man (Bill Gates) entire net worth and give it all to Madoff…. then click below, to see how many more celebrity billionaires fortunes Bernie Madoff would have had to snuffle through, in order to accumulate the estimated TOTAL of what Maddoff defrauded. It’s kinda shocking! In pictures …. 

Bill Gates, plus all of these celebrity billionaire’s hard earned fortunes too:

THE MADOFF EQUATION IN WORDS & NUMBERS - Bill Gates entire fortune ($40 billion)+ Oprah’s $2.7 billion + Stephen Spielberg’s $3 billion + Jk Rowling’s $1 billion + Fashion Kings, Georgio Armani’s $2.8 Ralph Lauren’s $2.8 + Richard Branson’s $2.5 billion + Steve jobs $3.4 + George Lucas’ $3billion + Donald Trumps $1.6billion… and then we are still $2.2 billion short … of the estimated $65 billion that Madoff swindled! Oh fudge stix, we’d have to throw in David Geffen’s entire wealth as well into the Madoff pot, to really have an idea of the totality of what Bernie Madoff robbed. But let’s not!

Now, if we had to do the same thing for the cost of the war effort in Iraq under the George W.Bush administration, that would be just too heart-breaking! there wouldn’t be enough American billionaires to do that!  let’s just stick to Maddoff and marvel at how much $ he lost of other peoples hard earned dollars. It’s a shocker!

The passing of Ted Rogers, founder of Rogers Communications, is a blow not only to the corporation but to Canada as he was a corporate icon that cannot be replicated.

He took on immeasurable risk to build a media giant that would surpass BCE and Telus. He did a great job buying media properties or building them from scratch and then buying content like the Toronto Blue Jays to increase the profitabilty of his organization.

His model was very similar to that created by Ted Turner, the founder of CNN and TBS as well as the owner of the Atlanta Braves. I look at Mr. Rogers in the same light as Steven Jobs from Apple or Bill Gates from Microsoft. There are very few entrepreneurs that have made suck an impact. He will be missed by many.

Your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated

Once thought the exclusive domain of the lazy, incompetent and unsuccessful, unemployment has historically found its way into the ranks of the rich, famous and major talents of the world.  Here are the stories of 10 famous firings.

10.  Ignaz Semmelweiss – I know what you are thinking, Ignaz Semme-whositchacallit?  I thought this was about famous people.  Semmelweiss is called “the saviour of mothers” in the medical field, he introduced the controversial theory to maternity wards that hand washing before handling infants could lead to fewer incidents of fever.  His insistence that nurses wash their hands before handling infants was ridiculed and he was not only fired, but the medical community in Budapest, outraged by his audacity to suggest this solution, severely ostracized him and he was forced to leave.  The story has a happy ending, as his letters of protest to medical boards of the time became increasingly angry, he was committed to a mental institution and beaten to death by guards within two weeks.  Did I say happy ending?  I meant for the rest of us, his theories were vindicted after his death by Louis Pasteurs findings relating germs to disease and babies were exposed to less danger after birth.

9.  David Letterman – Breaking into TV on Indianapolis station WTWI, Letterman was allegedly fired for describing hailstones as “the size of canned hams”, possibly cited as a second behavioral abberation after congratulating a “tropical storm” on its upgrade to “hurricane”.  He apparently did not learn his lesson from an earlier sacking at Ball State’s campus radio station WBST, for treating classical music with irreverence.  Worse, to this today he refuses to take accountability for his actions that led to these dismissals, and take a long look in the mirror before making the changes necessary to fit in.  He continues to display irreverance throughout his 25 year career as a TV host.  Some people never learn.

8.  Rudyard Kipling – In 1889, Kipling, following a successful submission to the San Francisco Examiner, was refused any further work with the publication.  As explained by the editor, Kipling did not “know how to use the English language“, and that the paper “isn’t a kindergarten for amateur writers“.  Recoiling from the severity of the criticism, Kipling went on to write the classic “Jungle Book”, and many other famous works, though his heart wasn’t really in it.

7.  Crayola color “Forest Green” – Forest green began it’s career as a crayola color in 1958.  Truly it was a different career market in those days, it was almost implied that you would only work for one company within your lifetime and retire from it.  It came as a shock then, in 1990, when forest green was dumped from Crayola’s original box of 64 colors.  After 32 years with the same job, forest green had a difficult time transitioning back into the employment pool.  A series of poor financial choices and highly publicized divorces left the crayon broken. 

6.  Ray Romano – A notoriously poor audition actor, Romano thought he finally hit the big time in 1994 when it was announced that “NewsRadio”, for which he had secured the role of station electrician “Joe Garelli” at a whopping $8,000/episode, was greenlighted.  Unfortunately for Ray, writers felt his slow style of talking clashed with the pace of the show, and he was replaced by Joe Rogan.  “Nobody loves you and your slow style of talking” he was told by the creators of the program, which aired from 1995-1999.  Much like pal David Letterman, Romano was too stubborn to evaluate what was wrong with him and make the necessary changes.  This is often evidenced in his frequent appearances during a 9 year run on the show “Everybody Loves Raymond”, where he continued to inflict his slow style of speech on an approximate average of 16 million viewers weekly.  His Emmy awards and final season earnings of $1 million/episode only serve to further enable his refusal to make a positive change in his life.

5.  JK Rowling – Author of the moderately successful “Harry Potter Books”, Rowling was apparently fired from her job as a secretary for using company time to write her books.  According to her former boss “Rowlings use of company time and computers to pursue personal ambitions is tanatamount to stealing”, and added “We made the right decision to sack her, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see her come crawling back here for her old job once this Harry Potter thing blows over.”

4.  Speedy Gonzalez – in 1999 Cartoon Network shelved episodes of the popular animated mouse, citing political correctness and hostile work environment.  Speedy, often seen wearing an oversized sombrero and speaking in a thick spanish accent, was deemed offensive to people of Mexican descent by reinforcing negative stereotypes.  Further, it was implied that Speedy was promiscous with the other mice, as workplace surveillance camera’s caught the following exchange among his coworkers: “He (Speedy) goes steady with my sister” – “Speedy goes steady with everybodies sister!”.  Those closest to Speedy rebuffed the vicious characterization of their friend.  They argued that Speedy was highly altruistic, often helping and in some cases rescuing complete strangers, abstained from alchohol though many of his friends drank, is very intelligent and kind to everyone.  Fortunately, responding to public pressure in 2002 the network hired him back on.  During the three year hiatus Speedy completed a degree in liberal arts at the University of Phoenix online, ironically majoring in womens studies.

3.  Michael Bloomberg – the mayor of New York was fired from Solomon Brothers, albeit with a $10 million severance package, in 1981 and here is how he responded: “if they’d said, “We have another job for you”–say, running the Afghanistan office–I’d have done it in a second. Was I sad on the drive home? You bet. But, as usual, I was much too macho to show it. And I did have $10 million in cash and convertible bonds as compensation for my hurt feelings.

I ordered a sable jacket for my wife, Sue. While I was never embarrassed to say that I’d been fired and was now running a small start-up business, I’m tougher than many others (or, perhaps as a psychological defense mechanism, I have convinced myself not to care what others think). But I was worried that Sue might be ashamed of my new, less visible status and concerned I couldn’t support the family.  A sable jacket seemed to say, “No sweat. We can still eat. We’re still players.”

On my last day of work, September 30, 1981, I picked up the jacket. Sue was delighted. Next morning, I started Bloomberg, the company. The rest is work in progress.”

Today Michael Bloomberg’s personal worth is estimated by Forbes at $5.5 billion dollars, and he holds a civil servants job, just in case.

2.  The Planet Pluto – In 1930, after 90 years of speculation on the possibility of a ninth planet in our solar system, “Planet X” was formally coronated as “Pluto”.  Unfortunately, Pluto’s employment status was short lived as 74 years later the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified planet status that excluded Pluto from the ranks it shared with his coworkers, including Jupiter and Uranus, and was demoted to “dwarf planet”.  Many argue that the dismissal was unfair, that Pluto was meeting performance expectations.  Unfortunately, the American branch of the IAU is located in Washington, whose “at will” employment standards left Pluto little recourse in litigation for wrongful dismissal.  “I know it sounds harsh” one noted astronomer reasoned “but Pluto could have easily quit us at any time just as quickly as we fired him.”

1.  Steven Jobs – After founding Apple computers in the 1970’s out of his garage and revolutionizing the personal computer industry, Jobs found the managing of a larger company required expertise beyond his time and ability.  As such, he lured then Pepsi employee John Sculley to Apple as CEO.  After a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Sculley fired Jobs.  This move made a ton of sense.  The person who created the personal computer and the culture of innovation at the company was apparently not a culture fit for the company anymore.  After a series of product flops, Sculley was himself replaced and his replacements replacement brought Jobs back in 1996.  People have occassionally noticed Apple product from time to time in the streets and on store shelves since the return of Steven Jobs.

Some pretty cool things happening over at Apple these days.
Click here to listing to Steven Jobs and all the exciting stuff happening at Apple inc.

Wealth is what many people want. Whether they realize it or not, what many people want the most is a lifetime partnership, often between two or more individuals, that produces what other people want to pay for. Not just for businesses, a marriage between a man and a woman can be claimed to be such a partnership. Most great companies like Hewlett Packard or Apple Computer started out with such a partnership. HP began with the partnership between Mr. William Hewlett and Mr. David Packard. Apple Computer began the partnership between Mr. Steven Jobs and Mr. Stephen Wozniak.

However, not everyone can run into a great partner. More often than not, the partner you want to have is someone who can do what you cannot alone carry out in order to realize a mutual goal. This is often not an inexpensive proposition and the partnership does not often last a lifetime.

Lifelong offshoring is an alternative. Lifetime wealth is possible for everyone when lifelong offshoring is affordable to anyone. This calls for ownacoder.com.

The website, ownacoder.com, lets you own a coder for life. Coder is a misleading word. In truth, this person could be someone who knows how to work with Flash or Photoshop, or someone who knows about business more than you do. It could be just about any type of people, so long as it is your type. For your protection ownacoder.com will supply you with an appropriate substitute in case your offshore subordinate decided to quit.

At ownacoder.com an offshore subordinate is called a velgie. Originally, velgie means a Vietnamese entry-level gift professional. Over time, the original meaning fades away and the term velgie as a shorthand simly means an offshore subordinate. An ideal lifelong offshoring situation is a relationship that is forged between an American freshman college student and a Vietnamese freshman college student. In such a relationship, the two would develop their careers in such a way that they would advance together or in parallel. The advantage for the velgie is job security whereas the advantage for the velgie holder is creative freedom. A programmer can create nicer software when his work is backed by a velgie who knows how to do Photoshop. A web designer can create greater website when his work is backed by a velgie who knows how to do Flash and ActionScript.

The set of principles necessary to make lifelong offshoring affordable and lifetime wealth possible are called Minh Duy Avenue.

To be sure, Minh Duy Avenue is just a way of life and it is not a religion. You must not give up your basic beliefs in order to share the same path with others whose views are different than yours.

Minh Duy Avenue is a road to lifelong offshoring and lifetime wealth.

To learn more about Minh Duy Avenue, ask for Tony Minh Duy

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iphone image

Not yet, that is…

I was looking at the list of countries that the 2nd version of the iPhone will be released in on July 11th.

What sparked the desire to jump over to Apple’s iPhone page was a post by CBBQTT (aka Chief BBQ Taste Tester or in the corporate world: wonderkid CEO) Matt Mullenweg of this (WordPress) blogging company fame posting on the WordPress.com corporate blog “iPhone Updates: Prologue and Mdot.”  Mullenweg was basically saying WordPress was updating the mobile interface in preparation for the larger release of iPhones to the world.  A smart move in my book even though some might say it’s jumping on the iPhone bandwagon.

It’s a smart move regardless of if the iPhone is or is not the dominate mobile platform moving forward.  As the purported iPhone Killers Samsung Instinct, Motorola ZN5, or OpenMoko’s Neo Freerunner start to gain popularity, the added competition and acceptance of the public to start browsing the web off their phones is gaining traction.  People are more accepting of using the Internet on their phones and Mullenweg along with all the blogs on the Internet powered by his WordPress invention will benefit not only on PC’s, but also on mobile phones everywhere.

I had a feeling that Korea wouldn’t be on the iPhone v2 country release list which includes: australia, austria, belgium, canada, denmark, finland, germany, hong kong, ireland, italy, japan, mexico, netherlands, new zealand, norway, portugal, spain, sweden, switzerland, uk, and of course the u.s.a.   However, I thought Jobs would at least have in the works negotiations for the most wired country in the world for his “adding the iPhone later” country list (Adding the iPhone in their country later is argentina, botswana, brazil, cameroon, c. african republic, chile, columbia, croatia, czech republic, domincan republic, ecuador, egypt, el salvador, equatorial guinea, estonia, france, guatemala, guinea, guinea-bissau, greece, honduras, hungary, india, ivory coast, jamaica, jordan, kenya, latvia, liechtenstein, lithuania, macau, madagascar, mali, malta, mauritius, nicaragua, niger, paraguay, peru, philippines, poland, qatar, romania, senegal, singapore, slovakia, south africa, turkey and uruguay – btw, it took a while to type up this list!).  Come on…botswana, guinea and senegal will have the iPhone before Korea does?

Thoughts that float into my head with the iPhone possibly not coming here to Korea in the near future despite Apple stores opened throughout the country are: 1) Steven Jobs & his troops don’t feel like they can compete in Samsung’s home territory; the country that is threatening his iPhone with the Instinct (M800), F700 (Ultra Smart) or Samsung Omnia (i900).  2) Jobs & company are too greedy with their terms on how to release the iPhone in Korea. Jobs is known to be an ass (or maybe in his mind a “hard ass”) in meetings or how he negotiates as shown by this meeting of FON’s Martin Varsavsky (with Jobs) who had a business development meeting with him earlier (more documented here). 3) Korea is still a bit anti-U.S. or a little too protectionist and will sacrifice exposure to products that should help it’s people learn.  4) It may be Apple’s lack of business contacts in both Korea and I saw one of the biggest markets NOT on the list of countries CHINA…so I don’t feel so bad.  Perhaps Apple’s team doesn’t know how to negotiate in either country yet.

The irony is that Koreans potentially have both the highest penetration of mobile phone users and also broadband Internet usage, but they aren’t as up to date on the combination of the two?  Or are they?

Nevertheless, I hope to see more of the technology one way or another.  I think honestly restricting cutting edge to the masses actually prevents a country from advancing.  Ideas and inventions from Korea will be limited to a few if the masses aren’t exposed to what is available in the entire world.  One of the great strengths of this country is HUGE numbers of Internet and mobile phone users taking advantage of all the great technology that’s available.  The continuation of being able to use the best and latest will help it stay on top despite the lack of natural resources.

**OpenMoko knowledge is courtesy of http://www.iphonekiller.com, Motorola’s ZN5 is courtesy of crave.cnet.com

Entrepreneurs tend to have a higher level of confidence in their ability to make things happen than most people. They also tend to rely less on what others do and to care less about what other people think. Confidence plays a key role in entrepreneurship because you have to believe you can make things happen that you and possibly no one else has ever done before. Confidence gives entrepreneurs the courage to take the first step in a long journey. It also gives them faith that they can meet the challenges they will face and deal with the barriers that stand between them and the fulfillment of their vision. Read more here.

Entrepreneurs need to be able to deal with turbulence that comes with times of change and uncertainty. Today’s marketplace resembles the white water of a rapids more than the serenity of a placid lake. A lot of people deal with uncertainty by trying to cope with it. Entrepreneurs do more than cope with it; they deal with turbulence in a proactive manner. Entrepreneurship at its best involves thriving in turbulence. Rob Ryan noted, “The true entrepreneur doesn’t see change as something to fear or even merely has tolerance for change. Instead, he or she has an appetite for it, recognizing that change is what brings opportunity.” Read more…

Times of great change are also times of uncertainty. Uncertainty implies risk, because you are not sure what is possible and what the probabilities of various possibilities may be. Some people freeze when faced with uncertainty. Most people, especially professionals, try to reduce or eliminate uncertainty by collecting information about the situation they are facing. Entrepreneurs capitalize on change by acknowledging the ambiguity, accepting the risk, and seizing the moment. They know that opportunity is always present in the midst of crises, turbulence, and change. Learn more…

A pergunta que não quer calar e assola os fans e acionistas da maça psicodélica. Durante o lançamento do iPhone 3G, que vai chegar por aqui em setembro, o principal assunto da apresentação desta vez foi o próprio fundador da Apple.

Steve Jobs que estava com a eterna calça jeans, tênis e camisa preta e o seu brinquedo novo na mão estava mais magro que da última vez que revelou ao mundo o celular revolucionário (Veja e compare as fotos).

Não se falava em outra coisa nos sites e blogs de tecnologia gringos. Que diabos Steve Jobs tem? Os rumores de cancer assolaram a imprensa. Pois ele teve um câncer raro no pâncreas que atinge apenas 1% da população mundial por ano (cara sortudo hein…).

O susto voltou e os investidores levantaram as orelhas. Pois Jobs é o cara que prende e solta qualquer coisa que passa pela Apple. Ele participa diretamente de todos os projetos que estão em desenvolvimento. Além disso, ele foi o responsável por salvar a empresa do vermelho com os últimos brinquedos revolucionários como iPod, Macbook Air, entre outros.

Em caso de uma possível morte, a Apple poderia ir junto e isso ninguém quer…

Em nota a imprensa, a Apple divulgou que o Jobs teve sim um problema de saúde e ele está fazendo tratamento com antibióticos.

Mas  não se preocupe! Se ele morrer, o CedoNoR (Centro de Documentação NoReset) já tem uma bibliografia pronta para soltar no blog e assim acompanhar a história deste que revolucionou a tecnologia mundial.