Know Thyself, Work Hard and Don't Get Emotional
The Investment Process Is Methodical
Stay Objective and Independent
Investment Discipline Is Key
The Past Is Not Necessarily Prologue to the Future
Risk and Reward Should Be Assessed Properly
Knowledge of Accounting Is a Must but Meetings with Management Have Little Value
Be Open to Others' Ideas but Rely on Your Own Analysis
Only Invest/Trade When Distractions Are Limited
Read and Learn From the Best

My Tenets of Investing

I'm a former "salaryman" (Osaka), former Apple employee (Cupertino), jazz musician, branding enthusiast, communications specialist, and design evangelist currently working in Japan as a fulltime marketing professor for a local private university. I'm also director of a Japanese design group and love living here in Japan.

Please find more information on my background at my website here.
Interests

OK, here's a list of my interests (in no particular order): Beautiful design, philosophy, branding, business communications, marketing, great presentations (and doing my part to help rid the world of boring, ineffective, ridiculously bad, amateurish PowerPoint presentations") Zen in the arts, Zen in daily life, Buddhism, Jazz, Blues, playing the drums, Japanese pop music (save SMAP and Ayumi Hamasaki, of course), Japanese traditional music, Okinawa music, fitness (particularly weight training & nutrition), hiking, cross-country skiing, searching out "Wabi-Sabi" in the Japanese countryside, reading (mostly non-fiction these days), Mahatma Gandhi, Ayn Rand, Plato, Taoism, Martin Luther King Jr., multimedia, technology, Apple Macintosh, Apple iPods, all things Apple, graphic design, web design, American college football (especially Oregon State Univ.), Hawaii, Oregon, Switzerland, Asia, Japanese labor management, Japanese popular culture, WWII history, laughing, good TV/film animation, leadership, education, the Ocean and incredible sunsets, helping young people (and not so young people) improve themselves, interior design, Earth Wind & Fire, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, good films, digital photography, snow, sun, spicy food, Japanese food, late-night TV, early morning coffee, reading or working in a downtown cafe, meeting friends for drinks, learning something new everyday...

Presentation Zen

Surefire strategies to help you win the hearts and minds of every crowd for every purpose Presentations that Change Minds illustrates fourteen proven strategies for creating and delivering winning presentations. Just as importantly, it shows you how to determine which strategy will work best in a given situation and how to apply a range of best practices for realizing that strategy. Presentations guru Josh Gordon supplies sample timelines for delivering presentations based on the various strategies. He also gives expert advice and guidance on how to read an audience and alter its collective mindset; how to avoid dangerous assumptions that can sink a presentation; how to prepare physically and mentally; and much more.

Presentations that Change Minds, by Josh Gordon

Brutal competition. A stock going nowhere. Microsoft is in crisis, so Bill Gates has unleashed his new hire, software genius Ray Ozzie, to remake the company - and conquer the Web.

FORTUNE: Microsoft's new brain - May 1, 2006

Business literature is packed with advice about worker motivation—but sometimes managers are the problem, not the inspiration. Here are practices to fire up the troops.

1. Instill an inspiring purpose.
2. Provide recognition.
3. Be an expediter for your employees.
4. Coach your employees for improvement.
5. Communicate fully.
6. Face up to poor performance.
7. Promote teamwork.
8. Listen and involve.

Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation

At the 2006 O'Reilly Media Emerging Telephony Conference, David Isenberg recited a hilarious Dr. Seuss-style poem, a call to arms against a proposed U.S. telecom bill. The new law would create a tiered, prioritized telecommunications industry, where ISPs would have the right to provide preferential access to their own VOIP and IPTV services for customers on their networks. Isenberg has organized the Freedom to Connect conference to educate and advocate for "net neutrality," an open internet that doesn't favor one kind of information or source of information over others.

[Due to language, this program is not family/work safe.]

David Isenberg - Freedom To Connect

For Thomas Malone, organization is something that sits on top of what we normally think of as the technology stack. Organizations are changing and this change mimics how human social groups have changed from bands through kingdoms and into democracies. These organizational changes will see a great deal of innovation in the future.

In this presentation Malone shows how new organizational structures can be invented. He provides examples in current companies, both large and small. Malone explains how new materials have always provided opportunities for new inventions. He illustrates how the availability of cheap communication as a material can give rise to new organizational approaches that will transform how we work in the future.

By relating the change in organizational structure to the change in human society, Malone makes a compelling case for the availability of lower cost communications as the catalyst for this change in both our societies and our organizations. He demonstrates how this single factor can allow groups to work together in ways that could not have happened before the rise of the Internet, e-mail, and other communication technologies.

Malone finishes by challenging listeners to think about using our values to create the types of organizations we want to see in the future, and the future world we will live in.

Thomas W. Malone - The Future of Work

General Memetics Corporation, baby. Don't you know it.

Word-of-mouth marketing has become a new trend in efforts to reach young consumers. Thousands of unpaid volunteers create a "buzz" about certain products, which they get for free. Corporations trying to use word-of-mouth marketing pay six figures to companies that provide these "buzz agents."

Word-of-Mouth Marketing Creates a Buzz

Interscope Records has struck a deal with Hasbro, the toy maker, to create a line of fashion dolls modeled on the six members of the Pussycat Dolls. The toy line — which aims to mimic the act's playfully risqué style — is expected to be on sale by this year's holiday season. Hasbro executives estimate the dolls, intended for children aged 6 to 9, will be priced around $15, with the label receiving a royalty on sales.

Managing to score at toy retailers would illustrate how elastic the aura of a manufactured pop act can be, as the Pussycat Dolls straddle the image of late-night lounge dancers and child-friendly pop singers at the same time.

Music executives have been eager to appeal to fans who are (they hope) too young to download music illegally.

"Once it's branded as a tween thing, it's very hard to flip it up. But what the older sister and older brother like definitely trickles down to the kids. That's what's happening to the Pussycat Dolls."

As Pop Music Seeks New Sales, the Pussycat Dolls Head to Toyland

Along the way, he also developed a reputation for directness that could be a little rough. Mr. Riccitiello said that Mr. Ward "can run certain people over" with his big voice and strong point of view.

"My sense is if you took the average executive with a 50- to 80-hour workweek, they spend about 50 percent of their time just being nice," said Mr. Riccitiello. "Jim doesn't deal with that. He picks up half a week right there."

At LucasArts, No Playing Around in Quest to Be No. 1