My business partner Mark Parncutt was quoted in this article in StartUp Smart about the state of entrepreneurship in Australian universities.  Happy reading!

http://www.startupsmart.com.au/growth/young-entrepreneurs/2011-06-07/the-state-of-student-start-ups.html

As the Cheshire Cat says, "if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."

In my Engineering Analysis A class (an engineering maths class), in my second year at uni, my tutor asked everyone in the class what they wanted to do after uni.  Twenty people said they didn't know, one person said they wanted to do business, and I said I was going to be an entrepreneur.

At the University of Melbourne right now, people are criticising a new reform, the Melbourne Model, which is basically a broad 3-year degree followed by a specialised 2-years Masters degree.

One of the main criticisms is that it doesn't let students go into uni and study what they actually want to do.  With only 2 out of 22 people (11.11%) people in the above-mentioned engineering tutorial (a specialist degree) knowing what they want to do, I don't think that the criticism is well-founded.

Now, a lot of my friends are in the final year of their degrees and are getting worried because they don't know what they want to do next year.  Most of them are just applying for every graduate position out there from consulting companies to banks to engineering firms.  Not all of them want the corporate route though.  So here's my two bits of advice about taking the road less travelled:

1. Figure out what your purpose is in life.  Do you want to "have a positive impact on the world", "revolutionise an industry", or "to help people".  I know people with all these purposes.  There's no right or wrong purpose, it's just what's there for you when you philosophise on what you want to accomplish in your life.

It's about figuring out an over-arching goal that drives your life however you choose to execute it.

Bill Gates' purpose was to put, "a computer on every desk and in every home".  He came up with that vision in the 1970s, while Microsoft was just being created, when personal computers were the thing of science fiction.  He then worked his guts out and helped make his vision a reality.

Figure out a phrase that distinctly describes what you want to do in your life.  Make it short and snappy so that you can keep reciting it off to yourself.  If it's too long and complicated, you'll forget it immediately and never use it again.

For me, my purpose is to "put a robot in every home, to make people's lives easier".  Yes, I know Bill Gates wrote an essay called that in a 2007 Scientific America magazine edition (I bought a copy the first day I arrived in Melbourne to study at uni!)  But I'm pretty sure I had that vision before I read the article.  So it was very cool to see that a thought leader and the richest guy in the world also had the same vision as me.

I study Mechatronics Engineering and Computer Science to learn about robotics, I run a not-for-profit organisation Robogals to increase the number of young women pursuing engineering in their tertiary studies and careers, and I hang out at entrepreneurship networking events to keep me inspired and to meet cool people.  It's all aligned with my purpose.

2. Next, what are your interests?  Are you into politics?  History?  Arts?  Software?  Electronics?  Languages?  It's important that you do something related to your interests so that you bring an added level of passion and enthusiasm to your role, that comes from doing what you love.

You might be interested in programming because you spend most of your time coding.  Or else, you might be interested in fashion design, but you don't really know how to sew.  Or you might be interested in French, but you don't speak any French.  Whatever the case, if your interest sounds cool to you and you know how to do it, great!  You're well on your way to carving out a career in that area.  If you don't really know much about your area of interest at all, give in and get amongst it!  If you spend your time immersed and engrossed in your interest, before you know it, you'll feel confident.

When I first started university, I really wanted to start up something, so I founded Nudge.  After I did that, I spent all my spare time reading blogs on the internet about entrepreneurship.  After about a year and a half of reading countless blogs about marketing, raising money, how to write a great pitch, what makes an entrepreneur, countless success and failure stories and everything in between, it just clicked for me and I suddenly just really got entrepreneurship.  It's very simple.  Choose something to do, and work hard.  If you need money for it, fund it yourself or go to the bank.  If you need more money for it than you have access to, make a solid plan and go and raise some dough from angel investors or VCs.

The world is your oyster.  By ensuring your opportunities are aligned with your interests makes the choice easier for you.

3. Finally, join steps 1 and 2 together and create a goal that aligns your purpose with your interests.  Whether that be doing in internship in NYC to get experience in publishing with the purpose of sharing people's stories, being a ski instructor in Japan to learn Japanese with the purpose of helping your country, or being a solicitor at a top firm so you can help people.

Your goal doesn't have to take into account the next 20 or 30 years of your life.  I'm told that my generation is expected to have 7 or 8 careers during our lives!  It can just take into account the next two to three months, with a loose 2-year goal after that.

Interests change.  Goals change.  Opportunities change.

The most important thing is that whatever you choose to do in the next two months, or the next three months, or the next two years is immaterial, as long as it is aligned with your purpose.

For me, I'm going to be at uni until the end of next year, during which time I'll work on Robogals and keep making it better and better.  While I do that, I'm working on my first robotics startup.  I'll do as much as I can while I finish off uni and keep my commitments towards Robogals.  Then, after I graduate - world, look out!  It's going to be exciting!  :)

Having said that, I've told a good friend of mine that if he has a web startup idea that he wants to make happen, then I'll support him with that.  (If I also get to be cofounder and have an equal stake in it.)

Either way, I'll still be developing my entrepreneurship skills in the tech industry to help me fulfil my purpose, so whichever of those two options I choose will still be the right path for me.

I think one of the most inspiring and magical things about this world is that things can change so quickly.  So, the opportunities and options that you have now may be minuscule compared to those you'll have in six months time.  One moment I was in Melbourne with a vision of having Robogals be an international organisation, even though I didn't know anyone anywhere overseas.  Six months later, Robogals was international, after I initiated our second chapter in London.

So don't worry so much.  Choose a direction and follow it intently.  If it's aligned with your purpose, you're going the right way.

If you're delegating tasks and then pulling your hair out over it, then you're probably not doing it right.

Anything that's insanely great requires a team to achieve.  At the simplest level, while one person might need an hour to achieve a task;  with 3 people, the task can be done in 20 minutes.  As well, different team members can focus on different tasks and bring a focus to that task that cannot be achieved if only one person is working on all tasks - having one person focus on marketing and another on sponsorship is going to achieve a lot better results than having one person focus on both!

Last year, I tried to run Robogals Global in a team of three.  There was the secretary, whose job was to keep the books in order, the marketing manager, whose job was to create our website and monthly newsletter, "The Amplifier", and then there was me, who was in charge of everything else.  Everything else included monthly phone calls with all the Robogals chapter presidents (10 calls a month to people all over Australia and the United Kingdom), networking, sponsorships and partnerships, PR and monthly internal newsletters.  This included me flying to London for a week during semester (when I was meant to be studying), attending a conference for 3 days during semester, and dealing with emails and queries that came my way from all directions!  I don't think I thought nearly enough about everything I was signing up to do before I chose not to recruit anyone else into the team!

So where did that leave me?  Stressed, tired, exhausted all the time and feeling like there was no support for anything I did.  I could never relax because there was always a huge burden of all the stuff that I hadn't done weighing down on me.  It got to a point where I was holidaying in Shanghai (I had to take a holiday to de-stress!) and I still had this massive to-do list to do of about 60 things!

Anyway, since then, thanks to a huge boost of realism and enough people in the leadership chain in the organisation, I now have an incredible team who I work with to achieve Robogals' aims.  I always thought that I did decently in my role last year as the everything-girl for Robogals last year.  But now that I have team members who only work on aspects of what I did (like sponsorships and partnerships, PR and chapter president mentoring), I realise just how much I was not coping doing everything last year!

So, how should you delegate?

1. Role description:  The first thing is that everyone in your team should know exactly what is expected of them.  They should have a very clear role description and know exactly what areas their role covers.  In Robogals, everyone in the executive committee at a chapter level has a role training manual that was written by someone who has done the role before.  In the Global team, most people are the first person to take their job on, so they're writing their role manual themselves as they do the job.  This ensures that everyone knows exactly what their areas of responsibilities are and what they are accountable for.

2. Expectations:  It should be very clear to both of you what the expectations are for your team member.  That way, you won't have any false expectations about the work they will do, and they will know exactly what they are required to deliver.  If both of us understand each other's expectations about the role, then we don't get disappointed.  The most important task my secretary undertakes is doing our BAS statement every quarter and doing a financial report every year.  My secretary is uber organised, and while it bores me thinking about doing the BAS statement every quarter and formally doing the books, I know it's uber important.  So as long as my secretary keeps all our books in order and ensures we file our BAS statements every quarter so we don't get fined by the government, then I'm happy.

3. Creating goals and a timeline:  So that people feel empowered about achieving their goals, everyone has a say in their goals and the timeline by which they'll work to.  I always work with the people in my team to set their goals so that we are both absolutely clear about exactly what they need to do, and so I know exactly what to expect from them.  As well as that, I always work with my team to create their goals so that if I think they aren't challenging themselves to grow enough through their goals, I help them see they can raise the bar higher.  It's always better to set the bar high and fail to reach that, than to set it too low and not challenge yourself.  I don't want my team members to just do what they already know how to do, I want my team members to learn and grow and be better people out of working with me.  :)

4. Checking up:  After the goals and timelines have been set, aligned with their role, then I think my job is to hold my team members to their word and support them in carrying out their plans.  A good way to do this is to set up a structure whereby you and your team member meet regularly so you can check up on how they're doing and brainstorm new ideas together.  I meet either once a week, once a fortnight or once a month with my direct reports, depending on the urgency of the projects.  Having a systematic way of communicating is also good for peace of mind as you won't stress about people not getting back to you.

5. Partnership:  It's very important to trust that your team members will do a good job.  You've worked out the goals and the timeline together, you know what the expectations are, and you meet up regularly to come up with better ideas - you're in it together; so trust that they will do their job and trust that they will do a good job.  By giving them that respect, they will rise to the challenge and do a great job!  If your team members need help, they will come to you.

So, how I am going now with delegating?  A lot better than I was last year!  I think the results show for themselves.  This year, I am more on top of my studies at university than I was last year, Robogals is achieving a lot more, I feel better about Robogals, I feel better about myself, and I have a great group of friends in my Robogals team that was formed through all of us working towards a common goal.

Finally, I think the other hard thing about delegating is that, you may think that you can do whatever you're delegating by yourself.  I once read that the lawyer can probably do all of the secretary's tasks better than the secretary can do them, but if the lawyer did all of the secretary's tasks, then she wouldn't have time to do anything else!  So I think a good quote to remember is, "I can do anything, just not everything".

For those of you who know me from a few years back, I started up a blog in January 2009 (I think?), blogged everyday for like 2 months straight, then weekly, then nothing by about July 2009...

Why did I start blogging?
I was inspired by Seth Godin.

Why did I stop?
Inspiration isn't enough to do something.

I think after the honeymoon phase, I just got over it. It was too arduous to write a blog post everyday. My blog was in a similar vein to Seth's, where I used everyday examples and allegories to illustrate my point, however, I didn't have the business and corporate experience that Seth Godin had, so all my examples weren't as personal.

Then I got a nasty comment and that kind of ruined my spirits for a while...

Anyway, that was 3 years ago, and since then, I've had some truly amazing experiences that have taught me heaps about start-ups, entrepreneurship, getting things done, and being unstoppable (not to say that I'm still not stopped, but it takes more to stop me than it did before).

So, given that I avidly devour blogs that my friends link me to on Facebook, or visit regular favourite blogs on lazy mornings, I thought it would be fun to again contribute to the blogging space.

This time however, I want to do it right.

I value authenticity, so I'm going to aim for that with this blog. Authenticity inspires me. So, it's my hope that my authentic blog posts will inspire people from around the world to get in touch, and that through this blog post, I create new friendships and connections throughout the world. :)

By the way, if you want to find my old blog, give up. That entire blog has been deleted because the server it was on died late last year. Lesson 101: Back-up everything, people!

Edit on 5 January 2012:  My friend Joe discovered some of my old blog posts on a website that archives other websites!  So two days ago, I posted up all the old blog posts I could find.  Enjoy!  :)

When I was 17, I came 3rd in an international Japanese speaking contest. However, I don’t do anything about my Japanese studies now. The year prior, I got the highest marks in the state in my grade 7 piano exams. Now, I don’t play piano. During high school, I did 30-40 hours of maths during my school holidays. I finished the KUMON mathematics programme and got the highest mark possible for maths upon graduation (VHA 10. In my two maths subjects, I dropped just half a mark the entire year). I now hardly do any maths.

So, I had it that I was a failure. I had it that I was a quitter. I had it that I was a free-spirit who couldn’t stick through with anything. I had it that I only did stuff so that I could achieve in that area, and that once I had reached a certain level, I would get bored and quit.

If I’d stuck with my Japanese, maybe I could have been a young international diplomat for the government by now? If I’d stuck through with my piano, maybe I could have been a concert pianist by now. In maths? I could have been one of those crazily-young maths geniuses at universities who become tenured by the time they are 25 and spend their life devoted to the art, becoming a historical figure in that field, like Einstein or Newton.

However, while muling over my complete lack of commitment to sticking through with my hobbies, and while thinking about spending my life as Stephen Hawking has, I came to a realisation.

I never wanted to be a young international diplomat for the government. There was so much more I wanted to offer the world than just my language skills. Being a concert pianist didn’t excite me. I wasn’t passionate enough about music to practice for 15 hours a day. And I don’t want to become a professor and spend the rest of my life at university. I want to explore the world. I want to learn as much as I can and give the world as much of me as I can. I want to live life to the fullest.

This conversation came up for me because of programming.

I’m in my third year of a mechatronics engineering/ computer science degree, and passing countless exams and assignments later, I still don’t think I’m very good at programming.

So, over Summer, I plan to do lots and lots and lots and lots and lots (you get the picture) of programming. When I do something, I like to go all the way. I want to be masterful. If I put my mind to something, I can and do achieve it. So, I know that after Summer, I’m going to be awesome at programming.

However, I was scared. I was scared that if I did programming, then I would stop after I thought I had achieved enough to justify that I was good at it. And, as I want to be the CEO of a robotics company, it wouldn’t bode well with me to stop programming when I’d achieved ‘enough’ to prove to others that I was good at something.

But then I realised the difference between programming and all my other activities. Whereas my mum wanted me to be good at Japanese, piano and maths; I really, really, really, really want to learn and be masterful at programming because it fits with my life goals of being a tech entrepreneur. And while I think my mother is amazing for working so hard to provide me with the opportunities to explore and excel in those areas, I know it will make a lot more of a difference if I am empowered to learn for me.

So now, I’m not scared that I’ll get bored of programming once I get good. I’m not scared that I’ll give it up when I’ve achieved ‘enough’. I’m just really looking forward to it, and I cannot wait until my exams end so that I can start programming the things that I want to program.

I’m not a failure or any of those things. I just hadn’t found my passion yet.

So don’t get disheartened if you keep giving up on things. Just keep searching until you find something that truly ignites you, and that you think is worthy of you committing your time to.