Quite often, there is a huge gap between vision and reality. A vision lives in an ideal world. A vision does not care about sales targets, revenue streams, cash flow or shareholder value. To turn your vision into a profitable business, define your mission, set objectives and goals, develop and execute a success strategy. Stay focused, follow your time-lines and dates, sell your product and save your vision from becoming a dream.

SEIKOURI helps turn your vision into a success, ensuring sweet dreams at night.

And what does it mean? “I am only open for opportunities during certain times” or “Currently, I don't care about business?”
Of course, everyone needs quality time with family and friends, but the question really is, do you need to advertise it?
We are living in a 24/7/365 world. Your international business never stops. While you go to bed, your customers on the other end of the world are on the way to their offices. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't sleep or that you shouldn't go on vacation but telling the world that you are off for a certain amount of time and, even worse, that you don't have access to email or voice mail is asinine. No one needs to announce they are not interested in new opportunities. As a successful entrepreneur, you know that you are never really “out of the office”. You constantly think about your customers. You are always plugged in wherever you go.

Isn’t it absolutely frustrating reaching out to somebody only to get an automated “out of office” reply? And what does it mean? “I am only open for opportunities during certain times” or “Currently, I don't care about business?”
Of course, everyone needs quality time with family and friends, but the question really is, do you need to advertise it?
We are living in a 24/7/365 world. Your international business never stops. While you go to bed, your customers on the other end of the world are on the way to their offices. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't sleep or that you shouldn't go on vacation but telling the world that you are off for a certain amount of time and, even worse, that you don't have access to email or voice mail is asinine. No one needs to announce they are not interested in new opportunities. As a successful entrepreneur, you know that you are never really “out of the office”. You constantly think about your customers. You are always plugged in wherever you go.

They often say, “I want to build a company with products that change the world. All I need is a good idea.” But that’s not the whole story. Good ideas that look like good ideas are not changing the world. Everyone has the same ideas, because good ideas are obvious. Big companies are already working hard on good ideas that look like good ideas. So, are startups in the ideas-left-over business? Not necessarily. The best startups are good ideas that originally look like bad ideas. You need an idea that sounds bad but is not actually bad—It is brilliant. Lucky for you, most people can’t see these. We call this the idea sweet spot. Draw two intersecting circles, one labeled “good ideas” and the other called “seems like a bad idea”. The intersection of both is the idea sweet spot for startups.

Let SEIKOURI help you identify the idea sweet spot.

At the end of 2007, we had the initial idea of founding a new company. Like all founders we faced the issue of finding a cool and memorable company name. Wanting to get it right the first time and avoid common pitfalls, we decided to follow established naming conventions.

THE RULES

Rule 1: For international business, use a company name that can be pronounced in different languages without sounding completely different.

Rule 2: Exact match domain name (company name & domain name are equal)

Rule 3: With exact match domain name in mind, find a company name with eight characters or less, preferably in the English language. (Longer domain names bring with it the risk of misspellings & frustrated visitors.)

Rule 4: If you are doing business in the United States and/or international, a .com domain is a must.

Rule 5: Wait ... HOLD ON A SECOND ... An English word, 8 characters or less, still available with a .com domain? IMPOSSIBLE at the end of 2007. All English words with 8 characters or less .com domains were taken.

We thought, are we screwed? Are we going to end up with a ridiculous domain name like www.buyyournewwallpapersshop.com?

THE SIGN (Or Non-Sign)

Two weeks before the holidays and the deadline for the company kickoff looming, we still had no name. We brainstormed this and that, we had different working titles and iterations, but nothing stood out. We were going crazy and almost delirious (okay maybe we actually were delirious) with panic. In fact, we began to ponder the idea of using just a symbol for our name, you know like Prince? The problem is Prince during this period was referred to as “the artist formally known as Prince”, so once we came to our senses, we realized Prince’s bad moniker was a bad one for us too. Back to the drawing board we went.

THE CALL (The Real Sign)

As we were prepping for the launch and still struggling with the never-ending name debacle, we had a call from a potential client. The person on the other end was representing a large technology company headquartered in Japan, had heard about us and indicated he would like to hire us (yes, miracles do happen every day). We, of course, enthusiastically explained our services and pricing model. He was excited, we were excited. But then, the moment happened, the moment we had been dreading, he said the words, we were hoping he would forget, “What is your company's name?” The blood froze in our veins and there we were entrepreneurs, with a great business idea, a first client but no name. So what did we do to solve this problem? No, we did not pull a name out of the magic hat, we did what any respectable person would do, we hung up the phone without saying goodbye. Oops!!

Realizing we had to get this mental block over with we started again. What did we want our name to do? Explain our business approach, our business in general and the clients should remember the name. And since our first client was Japanese, we asked ourselves, what would make him happy? Maybe a Japanese word would be nice and voila that might be easier to find a word still available with a domain of under 8 characters and .com.

GET IT DONE

Suddenly the block was gone and we knew what we wanted. What is the goal for our business? SUCCESS. What's the Japanese translation of 'success'?
‘seikouri’. It doesn't look bad. We need to know the pronunciation and how it sounds. Oh, it sounds great and it is by far easier to pronounce than expected.

How does it comply with Rule # 1? We need it to be pronounceable in not only English, but Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, Russian. Fortunately, we have a global network of friends, so out go the e-mails to 80+ friends around the globe asking for a favor. Please read the word in their language and record the pronunciation. Within 48 hours, we receive 57 files covering a multitude of languages. We were overwhelmed and thrilled, because no matter what language used, SEIKOURI always sounded more or less the name. Rule #1 — checked.

Looking up the spelling made us even more excited. Eight characters. Rules #2 and 3 - checked. (We know, it is not an English word. Not yet.)

Next step a domain. This might be the difficult part. Let's perform a WhoIs search. 'seikouri.com' - sent ... wait ... wait ... wait ... 'Domain available’. Now we were starting to get our hopes up. Let's try a different search. Search 'seikouri.com' ... wait ... 'Domain available'. Wow, this was easy. Unbelievable. Rule Four - Checked.

So, here we are several years later with a company name that really works. Great ideas are born every day out of the simplest things.

Being prepared for that cultural differences in Asia is absolutely mandatory, but is the same tru for Europe? Would you give the same though and preparation to your first business trip to Europe if you would to one to Asia? Are you looking into differences in business mentality and culture before leaving?
You’ve scheduled the meetings and booked your ticket. You are on your way to Southeast Asia - Japan and South Korea to be exact. Well aware of the cultural differences, you are booked into a seminar to learn how to bow to someone properly and wait, you have to present your business card a certain way. Whew, it’s good you booked this course. By the time you’ve finished you might also have learned about local dress codes, a few Japanese or Korean words as a sign of respect to your business partners and maybe, you might learn how to use chop sticks correctly, too. Wait, you think, I’ve been using chop sticks for years and there’s a wrong way and a right way?

No doubt about it, being prepared for the cultural and business differences in Asia is absolutely mandatory.

Now that you’ve gone global, you are on to your first business trip in Europe. Are you going to prepare yourself in the same way as you did for Asia, looking into the differences in business mentality and culture before leaving? Or are you going to rely on the 10 day/10 country tour you took in high school as training? Are there similar differences in business cultures in Europe as in Asia? Indeed!! The differences may not be as obvious, but they exist and just as you prepared for traveling to Asia, similar thought should go into preparing for your first business trip to Europe, but hey, at least you do not have to use chopsticks, just a plain knife and fork that’s easy enough. Or is it? Did you know that how you use your silverware is different in the United States versus Europe? For example, if you order a steak in the US, you typically hold the knife in your dominant hand to cut off a few pieces, put down the knife and then use the fork again in your dominant hand to eat it. In Europe, you would never put your knife down like you do in the US. You keep it in your dominant hand (unless of course you are ambidextrous and then you can do whatever you like), using it to cut the beef, but also to push side dishes on the fork. The opposite hand is then used to fork the meat and eat with. Little difference in using silverware, but a huge impact on the mark you might leave. While the European way of using cutlery might be misunderstood in US, the American way causes irritation in Europe. Using the fork and knife simultaneously during an entire course is a 101 of cultivated manners in Europe.

Going overseas is the beginning of doing international business. When going international, many American companies start their European activities in Great Britain.
“Doing business in the UK is easy, they speak the same language.”, is a common argument. Is this really true?

Separated by a common language

Often, we are so close, yet so far, separated by a common language. Of course, you will understand each other if you talk or exchange emails. The problems start if you try to sell a software product with US-English user interface and manuals in the UK. “Color” instead of “Colour” will cause confusion as well as “sizable” instead of “sizeable”.
But it is not only the spelling that makes the difference.
Before an adjective, American “quite” means “very”, while British “quite” could mean “very” or “somewhat”. If you are “quite tired”, the British will direct you to your bed. On the other hand, if a Brit refers to a restaurant as “quite good”, perhaps you should look for something better.And there is another interesting difference. If you talk about “toilet”, you are referring to a piece of porcelain. For the British, it is a room that also contains that particular piece of porcelain. So, if your British counterpart tells you that she stuck in the ladies‘ toilet, don’t offer her a towel and a hairdryer.

When in Rome, dress like a Roman

Business dress codes in Europe differ slightly from country to country but there is one general rule: You must be well-groomed and neatly dressed. The jeans or khaki and short-sleeve polos look that rules Silicon Valley’s conference rooms will not cut it in Europe.
A well-cut, dark suite is a safe bet in every country. A tie is a must in the UK, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany but it’s not very common in Scandinavia and Finland.
You always wear knee socks in a color corresponding with your suit. Regular socks that allow a view of your calves when you sit down or cross your legs are frowned upon.
Sneakers are a no-go in business, even it they are black. In Europe, shoes are a very important part of people’s attire and they spend a lot of money on business shoes. A couple of hundred bucks plus for a pair of shoes is very common. And I am not taking about women’s Manolo Blahniks or Christian Louboutins only. And forget about rubber soles; men and women wear leather soled shoes. Period.
October Fest - German logic

It is nice to combine a trip to Europe with a stop at world’s largest beer fest, the October Fest in Munich. Before you schedule your trip, be aware that October Fest starts in September and it traditionally ends first Sunday in October.

Finally - and going back to the United Kingdom again - if you are ordering a steak in a British restaurant, don’t be surprised to receive a butterfly-cut, 0.3in thin piece of beef on the plate.

Learning the nitty-gritty helps to be successful in a foreign country.

How to get rid of the time zone hassle when booking meetings across different time zones

Imagine, being in your office in Manhattan and a client from the UK wants to schedule a call with you. Usually, they send you an appointment request through their calendar app like Outlook, iCal or Google Calendar or they send a request by e-mail.

Maybe it is only me but 99% of the times I receive an appointment request through a calendar app, I am not available at this time, either because I am already booked or because I am in a different time zone and it will be in the middle of the night for me.

Receiving meeting requests via email causes other issues. Almost always, these e-mails state a time but not a time zone. I cannot count the number of e-mails going back and force asking "is it your time zone or my time zone?". What a waste of time!

Are you sure you picked the right time zone in the end? Which time zone is Scottsdale, AZ? Mountain Time, right? But wait, Arizona does not participate in Daylight Saving Time. So, from March to November, Scottsdale will have the same time as Pacific Standard Time, even though it resides in MST. Confusing enough for you? Confusing!

Therefore, I wanted to find an online scheduling tool that would alleviate these issues. I wanted to have my available times online so that everyone could book a call or a meeting with me based on my availability and none of the existing calendar applications gave me what I wanted.

I found several tools promising exactly what I was looking for, but when I tried them, I encountered the same issue with all these apps. All of them assume that your availability or opening hours is in the same time zone all the time. This might work for a shop or a restaurant or for people who work in one time zone, but not for people working across multiple time zones.br>
My availability is 10AM to 10PM on business days. So far, so good but the "10AM to 10PM" availability could be in New York on Monday, in Los Angeles on Tuesday and in Singapore on Thursday before going to Berlin on Friday. And this is where the problems started. None of the apps allowed me to setup my availability in a different time zone in a proper way.

What I need is a solution like this. My office is in NYC and therefore, EDT (UTC -4) is currently my time zone. When I go to LA on Tuesday, 10AM to 10PM is in PDT (UTC-7). Wednesday, I am not available because I will be on the flight to Singapore. In Singapore, I am available from 10AM to 10PM in SGT (UTC +8) and in Berlin on Friday, from 10AM to 10PM in CEST (UTC+2).

I want to do this with a few simple clicks but none of the apps offered this kind of functionality. I talked to their support teams and even to the founders of some of the service providers but nobody really understood my pain and all responded that they cannot do it because their systems need a default time zone to work properly.

I was very close to giving up when I came across a startup from Edinburgh, Scotland who offered an online scheduling solution for beauty salons. Beauty salons? - Yes, beauty salons - and it seemed to very successfully provide the services they need.

But how could an online scheduling specialist for beauty salons help me with my time zone issue? First of all, they actually listened to me and they understood my requirements. They listened to my time zone hassle, they understood the problem and - most importantly - they understood the market opportunity, especially for the North American market where people have to deal with 4+ time zones all the time.

We had these conversations in early December 2014. Today at the end of May 2015, I can say that they not only fixed the problem for me but moved the solution to a level where I can truly say that they offer the world's first and ultimate multi-time zone scheduling software.

Today, if you want to schedule a call or a meeting with me, no emails going back and force anymore. You simply go to http://markus.seikouri.com, pick the time that is best for you and you are done. No matter if I am in NYC or Berlin on the selected day, you see my available time slots in your own time zone. No time zone math anymore. And there is 2-way sync with all major calendar systems so that I get all my appointments directly synced into my calendar.

In today’s world of texting, spell check and relaxed, casual communication, grammar rules seem to have flown out the window, but that does not mean there is not a right way and a wrong way use words and phrases. Take for instance the word on-premises, many mistakenly remove the “S” from the end and say “on-premise”, but this grammatically speaking is incorrect. Premise and Premises are two different words, meaning very different things. Premise: something assumed or taken for granted Premises: a tract of land with the building theron, or a building or a part of a building To give you an example of each in context, if you say, “I like the solution on premise”, you are stating “I like the Idea of the software”. If you say, “I like the software on premises,” you are saying “I like the software in my building or on my server”. Or, “I like the software on premises on premise.” Now some will argue that premise is a fine substitute for premises and that the English language is evolving, just look at the word cloud. However, the two words mean two different things and using premise as a replacement is not grammatically correct, is technically slang and an abbreviation. Be aware and cognizant of this word and many others as you speak to people not familiar with tech lingo.

In April 2012, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) published the 16th and final version of the document, “The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing”, which is fairly agreed upon within the industry.

Per research firm Gartner, there is still a lot of cloud-washing or market confusion on exactly what the technology is.
In a Citrix survey, they discovered one third of the Americans believed that "the cloud" is related to the weather.

NIST Cloud Computing definition.

"Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
This cloud model is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models."

Cloud Deployment Models (NIST definition).

Private cloud.
The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a single organization comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business units). It may be owned, managed, and operated by the organization, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.

Community cloud.
The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for exclusive use by a specific community of consumers from organizations that have shared concerns (e.g., mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). It may be owned, managed, and operated by one or more of the organizations in the community, a third party, or some combination of them, and it may exist on or off premises.

Public cloud.
The cloud infrastructure is provisioned for open use by the general public. It may be owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or government organization, or some combination of them. It exists on the premises of the cloud provider.

Hybrid cloud.
The cloud infrastructure is a composition of two or more distinct cloud infrastructures (private, community, or public) that remain unique entities, but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability (e.g., cloud bursting for load balancing between clouds).

The hype around cloud computing has led to misconceptions about what a private cloud is.

Cloud is not just virtualization
Just throwing a hypervisor on a server is not private cloud computing. While virtualization is a key component to cloud computing, it is not a cloud by itself. Virtualization technology allows organizations to pool and allocate resources, which are part of NIST's definition. But other qualities around self-service and the ability to scale those resources is needed for it to technically be considered a cloud environment. A private cloud - compared to public or hybrid clouds - refers specifically to resources used by a single organization, or when an organization's cloud-based resources are completely isolated.

Cloud is not just a money saver
One of the biggest misconceptions by IT organizations is that the cloud will save money. It can, but it does not inherently do so. Automation technology, an important part of a private cloud network, can be a significant investment for many IT organizations. The result can be the ability to reallocate resources more efficiently, and it may allow some organizations to reduce their overall capital expenditures for new hardware, which can save money. Gartner says the primary driving benefit of adopting a cloud model should not be a cost savings, instead it's around increased agility and dynamic scalability, which can improve speed to market.

Private cloud is not always on-premises
Many people associate private cloud with being in an organization's data center, whereas public cloud is from a third-party service provider. Many vendors will sell off-premise private clouds though, meaning the resources are dedicated to a single customer, with no multi-tenant, shared pooling of resources among various customers. Private cloud computing is defined by privacy, not location, ownership or management responsibility. Be careful of various security definitions from providers though. Some vendors may, for example, outsource their data center operations to a collocation facility, or could pool resources among customers but separate them using VPNs.

Private cloud isn't just in the infrastructure layer
Private cloud computing is often thought of as virtual infrastructure services. There are other private cloud deployments though, particularly on the software and platform layers and increasingly in many other forms.

It may not always be private
Private cloud is the natural first step toward a cloud network for many organizations. It provides access to the benefits of the cloud - agility, scalability, efficiency - without some of the security concerns, perceived or real, that come with utilizing the public cloud. As the cloud market continues to evolve, organizations will open to the idea of using public cloud resources. Service-level agreements and security precautions will mature and the impact of outages and downtime will be minimized. Eventually, the majority of private cloud deployments will become hybrid clouds, meaning they will leverage public cloud resources. Meaning your private cloud today, may be a hybrid cloud tomorrow. By starting with a private cloud, IT is positioning itself as the broker of all services for the enterprise, whether they are private, public, hybrid or traditional.

SaaS vs. Cloud Computing vs. Hosted
In order to understand the difference between SaaS and cloud computing – each with their own set of principles – they must be reduced to their simplest forms. In doing this it is possible to understand the difference as follows:

Software-as-a-Service refers primarily to the payment method of accessing software whereby a client pays a vendor an on-going monthly or yearly fee for access.

Cloud computing refers primarily to the physical location of the software system. With cloud computing the system is physically located off-premises and accessed via the “cloud” (internet).

Hosted refers to the fact that the software provider is responsible for the software and the hardware it is installed on (hosting).

These terms have, over time, come to be used interchangeably. SaaS is used to essentially refer to all three simultaneously. It will be used to describe a system whereby a client accesses the system off-premises via the internet and pays an on-going subscription (or rental) fee where the software provider is hosting the software and hardware.