Steve Jobs Project
There is a GoogleGroup for this project.
Mission
The Steve Jobs project Cameroon aims at creating through training at least three Steve-Job-like Cameroonians by 2020, set up a Silicon Valley based company to protect credit of our project results by 2015, set up excellent ERP support call center in Cameroon by 2016, and become a reference hub for Africa and beyond by 2016. This is an initiative of Red1 (talk) (Malaysia) in close collaboration with Dr.-Ing.Stanley Mungwe, CEO of IT Kamer, Germany. This project is now under the proposed KAfrica Foundation.
Strategy
- Pareto Principle - learn from the guru 20% of his experience that has 80% impact.
- Learn by doing - get hit by a bug, and do not rest till you find out what the heck happened.
- Learn by teaching - when you tell someone something, more things come right in your mind.
- Learn by playing - inter-team contests, role playing and actual field sales and profit.
- Some call it branding - we call it 'planting our flag on the mountain'.
- Some call it focus - we call it 'attention directing tools'.
- Some call it free - we call it 'freedom'.
Steve Jobs Project core values
- Ensure student and customer success - Obsessive and unwavering commitment to making students and customers successful.
- Focus on scoring the goal- Relentless focus on delivering results that lead to the final goal: 3Steve Job-like, and Silicon Valley achievement.
- Strive for excellence and visibility- Commitment to a collaborative enviroment infused with professionalism,integrity,passion,and accountability.
Matrices for participants
| Metric | Metrics under which participants are measured |
| Punctuality | Must be punctual in all aspects and keep deadlines |
| Documentation | Consistently document steps,results and references of every work. Work is not considered until it is well documented |
| Publish | The end result and user guide of every work must be publicized in a community or forum etc. Community is our free tester and natural examiner |
| Use modern communication methods | Make the best of modem free or cheap method of communication instead of face to face meetings and phone calls Using project chat-rooms and email groups is a must |
| Integrity, professionalism transparency | When you don't get something say you don't get it Be hard and diligent Be honest Positive "can-do" attitude,goes above the call of duty,strives for personal excellence, focuses on results, and drives customers and student success |
Our killer apps
- Wonderful POS: Make idempiere ERP and POS as user fiendly as possible, and applicable to real small businesses all over Africa and beyond.
- Analog Phone to CyberSpace: Allowing poor phone users the chance to access Google via normal phone service.
- Asterisk Support Centre: A total bench marked solution that makes Cameroon the hub for its richer time zone counterparts in the north.
- iDempiere DocBook Project: Full suite of help content for the best free ERP in the world.
- iDempiere Easy Installer: Anyone wants to be famous and take over this flag? Then improve and upgrade this iDempiere Windows Installer
Social Skills
Red1 taught (Using the Pareto Principle) some social skills to the apprentices. Neuro-linguistic programming an approach to communication and personal development to get his disciples more confident. Also, make your English more international that is; be more eloquent, speak much more slower and also add some British swag to your pronunciation.
Sales techniques
Why do people hate salespersons? and why did you fail to conquer that girl? Nobody wants to buy from a salesperson because it's more like they are throwing away something they do not want and girls tend to be attracted to guys having girls around them already.The point actually is don't look desperate when trying to close a sale. Consider branding yourself and using AIDA principle :
- A – attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer.
- I – interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising).
- D – desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.
- A – action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.
Red1 sensei will always tell you what to do to succeed but to know the how, you got to read in Red1's presales book.
It's high time we got our hands dirty
Now we will look at some POS source code to get to understand how it works and then we modify it to our convenience.Apprentices have two rules to follow: never should you forget to document your work and release early, release often. The Wonderful POS needs a logo, it's time for a logo competition, make it flashy guys.
Advanced social engineering
Physical ability to resist adverse conditions is a function of conformity to natural physical laws. Similarly, a person's ability to incorporate into a group or a movement and derive benefit from it can be said to be resulting from conformity to certain laws, customs, manners, culture and moral traditions.In short it's about how well you behave. There are rules over the internet.These rules are made and enforced by virtual governments. Apprentice have to be aware of that and show some respect. Over the internet there's a way for doing almost anything and we at the Steve Jobs Project follow that etiquette, Netiquette.Netiquette covers not only rules of behavior during discussions but also guidelines that reflect the unique electronic nature of the medium. Whether it is how to ask questions,how to participate in open source projects or even how to fork someone project, Open source is an inherently social process.
Preparation for Sales of the Wonderful POS
On the third day, Red1 got those apprentice of his do some role play on how they intend to go out and "sell" the POS. It was fun and entertaining but this was also to attain other objectives.
- Know about our product.
- Know about possible resistance.
- Know how to present our product.
There are a variety of ways to close sales and certainly a million more to lose.We want to avoid all losses, so apprentices have got to read and document themselves in preparation,remember the three rules; Practice, practice and practice. An assignment was given to every apprentice "Go and try to close a sale at, at least one store, restaurant or whatever.Just go and come give feedback for our next meeting".
Gurus of the Guru
Three gurus were presented together with their philosophies and success.
- Al-Ries - Different vs Better
- Steven Covey - Important vs Urgent & COC/CONC
- Edward de Bono - Attention Directing
The lessons were motivational, inspirational and instructive aiming at lighting a flame within the apprentice and producing an Inside-Out change, in due time.
A paradigm as defined by Steven Covey is the way we "see" the world -- not in terms of our visual sense of sight, but in terms of perceiving,understanding, and interpreting. Sometimes positive personality traits like diligence, communication skills, e.t.c, are not good enough to take us where we want especially if we have the wrong paradigms(the wrong map). Sometimes it's important, if not vital, to make a paradigm shift. Most people focus on results and to achieve glory, they want easy and quick fixes to obtain the goose eggs whereas the results we have come from the things we do and the things we do come from the way we think.
"Don't struggle to be better, be different," Differentiate or die! " Manage your time, manage your life and become more successful," "Be Proactive not reactive," Publish or perish! and "Where is your focus? What grasps your attention and energy?". Those were the words which were spoken to enlighten spirits towards a better way of life for utter and complete success. As usual the guru does 20% the rest is in the hands of the apprentice.
Boiling Brains
Changing the way you think implies changing your perception of problems.Exercise the mind to have it work better and faster. Those are the goals so games were proposed to the apprentices to make them think outside the box and have some fun:
- 3 bulbs problem
- 1 dollar 50 cents choice.
"The answer you should not google, or if you do another puzzle you must find. Your intelligence you must not insult." said the Guru. A good apprentice follows the steps of his master even if it hurts.
ADempiere vs IDempiere
To know who is better you need a proper analysis, let's walk scientifically. Who is faster when it comes to make code changes to your source?, who's having more bugs and got hacked repeatedly by the same people?, who's got a community on which it can count?.
IDempiere is an upgrade of Adempiere. It provides all the fuctionalities of Adempiere + the OSGI framework. What this meanns is that now you have the ability to plug-in and plug out the fuctionalities you desire without tempering with the core of the app. New features can be added to your system and that without even a server shutdown. Check out this demonstration made by Red1 here.
There are also a few security faults and some maintainance Issue in Adempiere which demosntrated that a change was needed. Illustration here.
The one thing which made Adempiere what it is and will take IDempiere further is its community. There and for ever present. google groups | chatroom. When ever trying to use this valuable resource always recall the Red1 three laws:
- Information is Free, you have to know.
- People are not, you have to pay.
- Contributors are priceless, you have to be.
Yes, people you want IDempiere and here is how you move to the dark side: The GodFather PDF guide
Speed Boat
- I am getting more warmed up after listening to the team members and we be ready to jump on the speed boat sooner than later. The plan will be to have a Round Robin camp-du-code where concerned members will focus on a certain piece of code intensively together in a house or cave together until the code is done (cave-women are welcome to help cook!):
- WonderPOS extra category product add-on during synch (Global).
- WonderPOS export of new Customers (Global).
- Sales/Pricing Brochure (Local).
- iDempiere WF Editor (Global).
- Windows Installer (Global).- Done
- C in memory monitoring ERP DB movement (whatever Agent Smith is thinking about) (Global).
- Sample POS/Bar/Kitchen setup at Thierry or any nearby restaurant as pilot proof (Local).
- Zelimacontacts extentions (Global/Local).
- DocBook documentation.
- OpenbravoPOS forum review for technical questions, bugs and resolving them.
- WDYT? <throw more ideas here, but it will be done round robin one at a time for intense attention>.
