S.Y.S talk » Success

Infographics: Things to Know about Amazon.com

Dedy Sofyan — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:56:14 +0000

One of the dotcom-era success stories is none other than amazon.com.

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Inspiration: J.K. Rowling on the benefits of failure and the importance of imagination

Dedy Sofyan — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:20:41 +0000

Saw a rerun of Oprah’s interview with Jo Rowling,
well-known first self-made billionaire female children’s book author, made famous and known by her initial J.K. Rowling.

Looking back, she recalled that no publishers wanted to publish her book, twelve publishers turned her down. She also recalled that editors kept reminding her that children’s book won’t see big commercial success but she went on and kept writing.
Then it was the thirteenth publisher, thirteen’s the charm, took them to the single most successful children’s book franchise in history of mankind, paving its way in becoming Hollywood’s most successful movie franchise of all time, as well. The budget for the total of eight Harry Potter movies in the franchise: $1,155,000,000. The box office for all eight movies in total reached $7,642,955,524.

Seeing that Harry Potter books and movies franchise have come to a close. Rowling said it was like saying goodbye to a friend, it was hard, and one of the most heartfelt moment of one of the chapters of her life. Especially when she remembers that a young girl came up to her and said “you are my childhood.”

During the interview, Rowling shared about the appeal of magic: “We ourselves have power and we can shape our world.” She also shared more about failure and imagination, referring to her 2008 Harvard Commencement Address (video and some of the text as follows).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Source: http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/06/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008

[...]
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense.
Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation.
In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
[...]
We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

You might also want to read my previous post about J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter here: http://sys-talk.com/inspiration/libera-mentem-nil-desperandum/

References:

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To make the Dream a Reality: the Disney Brothers’ Way

Dedy Sofyan — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:01:25 +0000

This is part two of the Walt Disney’s blog post I wrote… in memory of Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966).
To read the first part: http://sys-talk.com/inspiration/to-make-the-dream-a-reality-the-walt-disneys-way/

Soon after the completion of The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World,
someone said, “Isn’t it too bad Walt Disney didn’t live to see this?”
Mike Vance, Creative Director at Disney, replied, “He did see it. That’s why it’s here.”

You can even follow @Disney on Twitter and see the sketches made for EPCOT, Tomorrowland at WDW, pictures of Walt showing the concept arts, and read his famous words of wisdom. He did see it in his vision: EPCOT, Tomorrowland, and many more.

Even at the time before he passed away. Hours before, he still spoke to a reporter and let the reporter write his imaginary vision of DisneyWorld and EPCOT on his hospital ceiling while lying in bed. Barely able to speak clearly, he asked the reporter to came closer so that he could whisper it. Such passion, determined to fulfill that dream, and Walt’s belief that one day it will be there even if he couldn’t really see it being built with his own eyes. But in reality, it was already built in his mind on that hospital ceiling wall, and people believed in it also, especially his older brother, Roy (who postponed his retirement and determined to continue Walt’s unfulfilled dreams). That’s why it’s there and still there, even continue growing and expanding, even now. Walt’s death actually pushed his employees more determined toward completing those dreams in honor of Walt.

“I know of no other man whose personality has continued to inspire so many for so many years.”
Charlie Ridgway, Disney Press and Publicity Director

But vision, hope and dreams, also enthusiasm alone won’t make all that appear out of nowhere. Even a dreamer, innovator, inventor, artistic genius like Walt Disney himself was aware of this.

“I’d say it’s been my biggest problem all my life… it’s money. It takes a lot of money to make these dreams come true. “
Walt Disney

Thankfully, Walt was so fortunate to have the support of his beloved older brother, Roy O. Disney. Since he moved to California, his older brother Roy supported him, and helped him most from the financial side. When Walt came up with an idea, he went to his brother and asked him to prepare some capital to finance his ideas and dreams. At the end of the day, “Just get the money for me,” Walt said to his brother.

Roy was a miracle worker himself, much like his younger brother Walt, he almost always came up with the capital Walt required for his dream projects. Some said Walt couldn’t achieve so much without Roy, and vice versa. Walt was the CEO and Roy was the CFO. Walt the dreamer and Roy the financier.

“My business is making people, especially children, happy.”
Walt Disney

Yes, Walt let Roy took care of the funds and capital, so that Walt could focus on his business: making people, especially children happy. His brother, Roy must have loved Walt so much that he understood and also let Walt focus on his dreams, pour all his heart and mind on his ideas. The ability to focus and excel in the things you like doing, and the support of the people you cared most are God-send.

“I could never convince the financiers that Disneyland was feasible, because dreams offer too little collateral.”
Walt Disney

And yes, Roy took care of that part for Walt, too. To invest on something, you must calculate the risks and the return of investment if you want to invest smart. Rarely would-be-investors put their money on something that came out of a dream, especially when someone stated that he wanted to make something completely new like no other in the world. In their point of view the risk is really high. Especially in the theme park business when most theme parks of the time was unclean, not well-maintained and degrade with time. Disney envisioned a theme park that both children and even parents can enjoy, that is clean, entertaining and imbued with Disney’s magic. When you enter the gate, they’ll be transported to a magical land, leaving their daily problems at the gate. Most people predicted that it would become a failure, the dream was too grand to be realized, even if it were to be build, it would required a great amount of money to maintain such large facility.

“People look at me in many ways. They’ve said, ‘The guy has no regard for money.’ That is not true. I have had regard for money. It depends on who’s saying that. Some people worship money as something you’ve got to have piled up in a big pile somewhere. I’ve only thought about money in one way, and that is to do something with it. I don’t think there’s a thing I own that I will ever get the benefit of except through doing things with it.”
Walt Disney

“I knew if this business was ever to get anywhere, if this business was ever to grow, it could never do it by having to answer to someone unsympathetic to its possibilities, by having to answer to someone with only one thought or interest, namely profits. For my idea of how to make profits has differed greatly from those who generally control businesses such as ours. I have blind faith in the policy that quality, tempered with good judgment and showmanship, will win against all odds.”
Walt Disney

That quality that sprung out Walt Disney’s passion for his work made all this possible and success was ensured. While others were skeptical, Roy stood by his younger brother, believed in his dreams, supported and financed Walt’s dreams.

.
“Walt Disney World is a tribute to then philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney and to the talents, the dedication and loyalty of the entire Disney Organization … may Walt Disney World bring joy and inspiration and new knowledge to all who come to this happy place.”
Roy Disney, October 1971, formal opening and dedication of “Walt Disney World”

Two months after the opening, in December 20, 1971, Roy Disney passed away because of stroke. Merely two months after he saw his brother’s dream came true.

Roy Oliver Disney was lesser known to most people as his name was eclipsed by the enormous shadow of his younger brother Walt. But his dedication, support and hard work, keeping the company financially stable, providing the means for Walt’s dream projects were equally important to Disney’s success.

Honoring both Walt and Roy Disney, for both their passion and dedication to make millions of children and parents happy.

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Aussie ‘fail whale’ designer’s next big hit (Sydney Morning Herald)

Dedy Sofyan — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 02:05:56 +0000

Read the full story here:

Walls360: ‘Fail Whale’ Designers Yiying Lu’s New Website by Asher Moses

Excerpt:

Twitter’s iconic “fail whale” made Sydneysider Yiying Lu one of the web’s most exposed designers and now it’s taken her to Silicon Valley where she has just unleashed a new startup promising to provide “art for everywhere”.

US talk show star Conan O’Brien commissioned Lu to create a custom version of her fail whale graphic – dubbed the “Pale Whale” and featuring O’Brien riding the whale – to celebrate his return to TV after being dumped from the Tonight Show.

Aside from O’Brien, well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki also commissioned Lu to design a graphic for his new book, Enchantment, while a couple paid Lu to create the “win penguins” – the opposite of a fail whale – for their wedding invitation.

Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment "Butterfly"

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To make the dream a reality: the Walt Disney’s Way

Dedy Sofyan — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 00:30:49 +0000

The Evolution of Mickey

All started by a Mouse

“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse.”
Walt Disney

He was talking about the mouse that everybody knows, loves, and adores: Mickey Mouse. Mickey was created in 1928, and appeared for the first time on screen in “Steamboat Willie” in November 1928. Decades ago, but still children everywhere are so familiar with this lively and lovely mouse even to this date.

Mickey and his friends

With Mickey Mouse’s success, Walt added supporting characters like Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto. Mickey and his friends have made millions of children (including ourselves) smiled, giggled, and laughed. They are our friends whom have accompanied us through our childhood and will continue to do so with our children and most absolutely will accompany our children’s children as well. Such is the magnificent and powerful dream of Walt Disney coming true even long after he passed away. The dream that he once envisioned to continue growing and unending as long as there’s imagination left in the world.

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Walt Disney

The time before Mickey

Walt started drawing and sold sketches to neighbors at the age of 7. When the first World War hit, he tried to enlist in Military service, but got rejected because he was only 16 at the time. Instead he joined the Red Cross and he spent that time driving an ambulance that was covered with cartoons and drawings, instead of the standard camouflage.

After the war ended, he tried his luck in California, with nothing more than drawing materials and a few dollars in his pocket. Luckily his brother, Roy supported Walt and with the capital they raised, they set up a small cartoon studio in the garage. They named the studio: the Disney Brother’s Studio. They began with a live-action series, but soon discovered near the end that animated characters were more appealing. The studio produced a new series with an animated character: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

Oswald was an instant success and became popular.

But… the success didn’t last long.

After a failed negotiation, Disney lost the rights to Oswald, and lost most of his staffs to Universal, too.

An extremely hard blow for Disney. He had to start all over again on his own. It seemed so impossible to beat the popularity of Oswald and another popular animated character at the time: Felix the Cat.

Not giving up, Walt Disney created a new character to replace Oswald.

He drew the sketches of a mouse inspired by his pet mouse.

Later the sketches were fine-tuned by fellow animator, Ub Iwerks. Walt Disney personally lent his voice and personality to Mickey.

In the words of a Disney employee, “Ub designed Mickey’s physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul.”

Sound in cartoons were new at that time. With the animation fully-synchronized with sound, it really brought the animated character come to life and complete with personality. The audience fell in love with Mickey Mouse’s personality and adored him right away.

With the success of the release of “Steamboat Willie” the first animation / cartoon with sound (featuring Mickey Mouse), Mickey became a new instant success and replaced Felix the Cat as the world’s most popular animated character.

Golden Age

Later, in 1932, Disney released a full-length animated musical, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, which was estimated to had been produced at the staggering cost of $1.5 million during the time of the Great Depression, the time when most people struggled to make a living because of the devastated economy. “Snow White” became an instant masterpiece of the motion picture industry.

Disney literally trumped the impossible.

Years later Disney continued to produce more animated classics, which I believe you all should have seen by now.

Classics like Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi, Fantasia, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Cinderella, and many more.

Truly the Golden Age of Disney Animation.

Disneyland

“Disneyland is a work of love.”
Walt Disney

Still full of dreams, Disney envisioned an amusement park where his employees can spend time with their children.

Interestingly enough, the engineers and planners for the Disneyland project were named “Imagineers”.

Why? Because he said that he wanted it to look like nothing else in the world. To accomplish that they have to use their imaginations.

“We did it: Disneyland, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster – closed and forgotten within the first year.”
Walt Disney

Disneyland officially opened in 1955, with Walt’s speech: “To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land.

Here age relives fond memories of the past …. and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.

Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America … with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

Contrary to what analysts predicted, it wasn’t closed and forgotten within the first year, and became a hit.

The dream didn’t stop there for Walt, early 1964 he announced a larger version of Disneyland, to be called Disney World. With the heart of the Disney World was EPCOT, short for the Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow. A prototype to improve the quality of life in future America.

Too bad, he passed away because of a heart attack in 1966, years before he could see his latest dream came true.

To honor Walt, his brother Roy took over his brother’s dream and insisted on renaming the “Disney World” to “Walt Disney World”. It was opened for public as scheduled in 1971 and EPCOT in 1982.

Even years and years after his death, his legacy lives on.

His dreams have brought joy and laughter, have inspired and entertained millions of children and adults all around the world.

It was all started by a mouse, called Mickey Mouse and it will never end as long as imagination lives on. That’s the legacy of Walt Disney.

“All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.”
Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966)

Walt and Mickey the Mouse that started it all

Epic Mickey with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

As for the fate of Oswald, he was finally reunited with his friends at Disney more than a half of century later, in 2006 after a trade with NBC Universal.

You can meet both Mickey and Oswald in Disney’s latest Wii Game, the Epic Mickey.

Epic Mickey’s developer Warren Spector comments on Oswald: “All he really wants is to be loved by Walt Disney.”

Next part of the story:

To make the dream a reality: the Disney Brother’s way

http://sys-talk.com/inspiration/to-make-the-dream-a-reality-the-disney-brothers-way/

References:

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“Libera Mentem” & “Nil Desperandum”

Dedy Sofyan — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:30:19 +0000

You might have been more familiar with this chant/spell: “Expecto Patronum”. Yes? Sounds familiar?
Which is in Latin (if I’m not mistaken) and it’s one of that spells that any Harry Potter’s fans will vividly remember.

Well, I’m not here to discuss Harry Potter. (But yes, the new movie is out so go queue for the tickets at your nearest cinema.)

Without the author, you won’t even got the chance to get into this wonderful world of fantasy and wizardry. From the amazing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where these young children learn magic, then the game of Quidditch and the racing brooms, potions and spells, hexes and curses in words that’s familiar yet strange on your ears. It was all sprung out from the creative mind of J.K. Rowling and her road to success surely wasn’t easy.

Meet J.K. Rowling…

She wrote the first book when she was a single parent, taking care of her daughter and was living on state welfare support at the time. She wrote in local cafes when her child was asleep. But the idea of the story was already molded in her mind a few years back, she didn’t really know where the idea came from, but she began writing it immediately.
A lot has happened since then, her mother passed away, Rowling moved to Portugal, got married and have a daughter. But the marriage didn’t last long and she came to Scotland as a struggling single parent with her daughter. Rowling was even diagnosed with depression and contemplated suicide at that time. Surely the darkest period of her life.

When she finally finished writing the first book, it was submitted to twelve publishing houses and all turned it down. Not until a year later, an 8 year old which happens to be the daughter of the chairman of Bloomsbury, a small publishing house read the first chapter and got very excited to actually demanded more from his father. Bloomsbury then agreed to publish the book, but the editor advised Rowling to get a real job because they could only get little money out of children books.

(Well, if you look back now… You wouldn’t have wanted to actually say that to her, would you? Had you now knew that the world of Harry Potter has now bewitched and bedazzled not only children but adults as well.)

She still had a long way to go, months later the book got its first award, she continued writing sequels and these sequels had won awards too. Then came the fourth book, which sales hit the roof, in the US: three million copies sold in the first 48 hours. Rowling was named author of the year.

Then came the fifth, sixth. More records broken, more awards given. The seventh which was the final, sold eleven million copies in the first day in UK and US.

With the amazing success of the books, Warner Bros. purchased film rights from Rowling for great amount of money.
In 2004, J.K. Rowling became the first person to become a billionaire by writing books. In 2008, the 144th richest person in Britain. She received honorary degrees from universities and even bestowed the honor as “Officer of the Order of the British Empire” (OBE).

One of the local cafes where the world of Hogwarts came to life

What’s the secret?

I’d say…
“Nil Desperandum“:
Don’t ever give up.
J.K. Rowling’s rags to riches life should be prove enough and inspire us to live our life to the fullest and achieve our dreams…
The Latin proverb “Nil Desperandum Auspice Deo”: don’t give up, trust in God. God will show you the path…
Undeniably, her love for her daughter also took great part to make her not giving up because there’s a new life that solely depends on her to succeed.

“Libera Mentem“:
Set your mind free, be an open mind, know no boundaries, create (write, paint, compose, sculpt, construct, build) whatever it is that came flooding through your mind…
Let the magic flows through… Let the automatons, giants, ships, spaceships, flying saucers; or magicians, knights, princesses, and dragons inhabit your newly-created world and share them with the real world.
(Which reminded me of “Eragon” a fantasy book written by Paolini at the age of 15!)

Once you realize all that… Combine them with hard work, faith and dedication…

**“Expecto… Maiestas“**

The author and the main casts that brought the world of Harry Potter to life on the big screen


Side note: Now less and less people are encouraged to be creative,
because it's far more easy and faster to imitate rather than to create and come up with something new.

Unrelated to creativity... but more related to the story...
Once I attended a sermon discussing about hope and how the number of suicides are high nowadays.
These people should have looked up to the famous people who had suffered and never gave up hope.
The preacher then mentioned a novel author whom I didn't recognized as an example...
I was telling myself, he should have also mentioned J.K. Rowling,
all these young people must have known and more familiar with her and the Harry Potter series 
so there you go, it was my inspiration to write this blog post.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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The “Fail?” Whale

Dedy Sofyan — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 06:24:09 +0000

Meet the “Fail Whale”…

The Fail Whale, originally entitled "Lifting up a Dreamer" by Yiying Lu

the image that is shown when the infamous micro-blogging site, Twitter, is overloaded.
For those of you who are not familiar with Twitter, it is a social networking site where users can post a 140-character long of sentences, to express and announce anything from the party they’re gonna attend or about the movie that they just watched, pretty much like your facebook.com‘s status updates or the karma-driven plurk entries at plurk.com.

Twitter is currently down for unplanned maintenance doh?

Most sites show a relatively boring and annoying “not found” and “site currently down” page to their users during down time or when their user stumble upon a broken link.

Twitter, however, chose to express empathy to their users during down time. Biz Stone, a Twitter founder, chose an illustration, that best illustrates the teamwork at Twitter working to resolve the problem, on iStockPhoto a while back.

The Fail Whale Artist, Yiying Lu, photo by Nick Cubbin

The image is an image of a flock of birds (associated with the Twitter bird) are lifting a smiling whale from the ocean. The effect was found so effective and so touching. The users are entertained by the cute smiling whale being lifted by the flock of birds, instead. Some users suggested that they give the whale a name. Later the whale finally got a name: “Fail Whale”, a name coined by one of the fans and twitter users.

The Fail Whale

The “fail whale” became so popular, that it spawned lots of fans, fan sites, fan pages and groups. One fan, even contacted the original creator of the “fail whale”, Ms. Yiying Lu to inform her of her work that is now popular among twitter users world-wide. Ms. Lu, who at first is unaware of Twitter when she first created and uploaded the illustration to iStockPhoto, suddenly has gained a lot of supporters and fans of her artwork. I can only imagined the surprise and the excitement she felt when she found out that her work is used on a very famous micro-blogging site.

Soon, fans found out the real back story of the “fail whale”, which was originally named “Lifting Up a Dreamer” and was intended as an e-card for her friend overseas. Ms. Lu suddenly became as famous as her friendly smiling whale.

You can find many articles about her and her whales all over the news and the internet:

Fans fell in love with the whale and instead of frowns, the cute whale made people smile during down time. So you can really call it a failure, can’t you? Because it really served its purpose and grew into a global icon. Not only that, many “fail whale” t-shirts and mugs have been sold to numerous of fans.

Lessons Learned

So, you have to remember that being famous and successful is perhaps only a click away in this era. Just remember the fail whale. “Success” is only a swim or a lift away from “failure”, just keep smiling.

Check out some of the sites about the “Fail Whale”:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2008/07/twitter-fans-tu/

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S.Y.S talk » Success

Infographics: Things to Know about Amazon.com

Inspiration: J.K. Rowling on the benefits of failure and the importance of imagination

To make the Dream a Reality: the Disney Brothers’ Way

Aussie ‘fail whale’ designer’s next big hit (Sydney Morning Herald)

To make the dream a reality: the Walt Disney’s Way

All started by a Mouse

The time before Mickey

Golden Age

Disneyland

“Libera Mentem” & “Nil Desperandum”

Meet J.K. Rowling…

What’s the secret?

“Expecto… Maiestas“

The “Fail?” Whale

Meet the “Fail Whale”…

Twitter is currently down for unplanned maintenance *doh*?

The Fail Whale

Lessons Learned

**“Expecto… Maiestas“**

Twitter is currently down for unplanned maintenance doh?