1. The Rich Dad in your first book was based on your friend’s father. What is that friend doing these days? Syed Tabish Rehman CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH

He’s a rich man. He’s managing the family estate. I published Rich Dad, Poor Dad in 1997, and both my real dad and my other dad were dead. If I had written the book while my real dad was still alive, he’d have killed me.

2. If you did not have your Rich Dad in your life, what would you be doing today? Ajay Gupta, GRAYSLAKE, ILL.

That’s hard to say. As a young kid, I really wanted to be rich. I think you naturally seek your role models and teachers. Today I still seek mentors and wise men and wise women because that’s how you get wiser–by hanging out with smart people.

3. At one point, you were living out of your car. How did you remain confident that you would be able to retire rich? Stephen San Roman LAREDO, TEXAS

Confidence comes from discipline and training. I spent six years in the Marine Corps. Military training teaches you that there are four strengths: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. What happens for most people, since they lack that discipline, they crack under pressure. That discipline and training kept me going.

4. Is it possible for a person with no money and few resources to still make a fortune? How? Muhammad Zafar ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

Get off your butt. You have to look for teachers. If you want to be a mechanic, go hang out with mechanics. It’s really simple, but it takes determination, discipline, drive. You can’t quit.

5. Do you think anybody can be successful in business? Rogelio Gonzales BRICK TOWNSHIP, N.J.

Absolutely. It takes discipline. Most people would like to have a great body like Charles Atlas, but they’re at Burger King wolfing down a Whopper with fries. I don’t know how you can expect to get anything you want without some degree of long-term commitment. Quitting is the easiest thing to do. That’s why most people don’t make it.

6. Does education have anything to do with how rich or poor you become? Muhammad Umar Gulzar NEW YORK CITY

No. Education is what you learn after you leave school.

7. You’ve said that your dad forbade your family to talk about money at the dinner table. Are people allowed to talk about money at your dinner table? Jay Siena, TOKYO

That’s all I talk about is money. When somebody tells me, “We don’t discuss money”–well, money is discussed every day. We may not discuss religion, we may not discuss politics, but my decision to live in a safer community or have better food–it’s all based upon money.

8. Are there opportunities to create new companies in this turbulent economy? Jefferson Camargo SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL

This is the best time. When times are bad is when the real entrepreneurs emerge. Entrepreneurs don’t really care if the market’s up or down. They’re creating better products and better processes. So when somebody says, “Oh, there’s less opportunity now,” it’s because they’re losers.

9. I am in the middle of a business project, but I have doubts and fear of failing. How can I overcome this? Javier Hernandez GUADALAJARA, MEXICO

Everybody has doubts and fear of failing. But look at Tiger Woods or any great athlete: when the going gets tough, that’s when they turn into geniuses and most people turn into wimps.

10. You talk about the profits that can be made flipping real estate properties. Did you take losses in the market downturn of the past few years? Kenny Smith, BOSTON

I never said that. I don’t believe in flipping real estate properties. Flipping is gambling. That’s not what I do. I am a pure investor. I look at properties for the cash flow. The people that are worried today are flippers. The people invested for cash flow are still doing fine.

Here’s a great round-up article I came across that offers ten different examples of how companies are finding success with social media for their business-to-business marketing efforts. It gives some good illustrations how a variety of companies in a variety of industries approach social media, what they’re doing with it, and how they’re doing. It’s interesting because it features business-to-business marketing efforts as opposed to the consumer company efforts that tend to get more press. Maybe you’ll find an industry similar to yours in the mix. (Originally posted on socialmediab2b.com). CLICK HERE to read the article.

1. Embrace the opportunity in every situation. “Getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, and less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”

2. Commit to doing great work and never settle. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking, and don’t settle.”

3. Make every day count. “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”

4. Don’t miss your moment. “Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

5. Keep your priorities in check. “Manage the top line, which is your strategy, your people and your products, and the bottom line will follow. My model for business is the Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.”

6. Attract remarkable people. “Building a company is really hard. It requires the greatest persuasive abilities to hire the best people and to keep them working at your company and doing the best work of their lives. We’ve been lucky to have great partners and to have attracted great people. Everything that has been done has been done by remarkable people.”

7. Choose the right horse to ride. “Apple is a company that doesn’t have the most resources. The way we’ve succeeded is by choosing the right horses to ride really carefully. We try to pick things that are in their Spring. If you choose wisely you can save yourself a tremendous amount of work, instead of trying to do everything. Sometimes you just have to pick the things that look like they’ll be the right horse to ride.”

8. Don’t stress…it will all work itself out. “If the market tells us we’re making the wrong choices, we’ll listen to the market. That’s what a lot of customers pay us to do, to try to make the best product. And if we succeed, they’ll buy them, but if we don’t, then they won’t. And it will all work itself out.”

9. Move on to the next great thing. “If you do something and it turns out pretty good, you should go out and do something else wonderful. Don’t dwell on it for too long, just figure out what’s next.”

10. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. “Much of what I’d stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.”

Early reports state that IE 9 is faster, has better support for HTML5 and CSS3, and seems better-tuned to the needs of the user than previous versions did. Taking UI cues from Google Chrome, Microsoft has streamlined the interface, making the browser less apparent and allowing the user to focus more on content. The addition of pinned websites makes accessing frequently accessed bookmarks faster and adds some great features by way of jump lists. IE9 also harnesses the PC’s hardware to accelerate graphics, videos and text. The result is that IE9 is able to render heavy graphic interfaces far better than even Chrome or Firefox.

While still a beta product, stay tuned, IE promises to be worth a second look.

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone.

2. Never give up.
Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.

3. When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think.
There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be.
Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.” My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, “Well, Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.”

5. Focus on what you want to have happen.
Remember that old saying, “As you think, so shall you be.”

6. Take things a day at a time.
No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7. Always be moving forward.
Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8. Be quick to decide.
Remember what General George S. Patton said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

9. Measure everything of significance.
I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.
If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing.
When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12. Never let anybody push you around.
In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided that what you’re doing is legal.

13. Never expect life to be fair.
Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14. Solve your own problems.
You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.” There’s also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: “A wise man keeps his own counsel.”

15. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There’s always a reason to smile.
Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time!”

Here’s an excellent blog from Mashable.com. Some interesting ideas on how hotels, restaurants, airlines, anyone in the hospitality industry can take advantage of social media opportunities. Take a look and let us know how Orange could help:  http://mashable.com/2010/05/24/hospitality-social-media/

Key social media usage highlights include:

• 75% surveyed have a company page on a social networking site

• 61% use social media for identifying and attracting new customers

• 57% have built a network through a site like LinkedIn

• 45% expect social media to be profitable in the next twelve months

Microsoft Office 2010 Available May 12

Business users will be able to get Office 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010: May 12. Consumers will have to wait until June to buy the product online and at retail, Microsoft officials said on March 5, via a post to the Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering blog. Microsoft also began offering users who are purchasing Office 2007 a free upgrade to Office 2010, as of today, March 5.

iPad Available April 3

Apple officially set the release date early Friday, after months of speculation about when the device would become available to the public.

Wi-Fi models will be available in the U.S. on April 3 and models with Wi-Fi and 3G will be available in late April.

Customers can pre-order any iPad, for a starting price of $499, from Apple’s online store beginning March 12, and an iBooks application for the iPad will be available as a free download on April 3, according to a company statement.

This past week iTunes reached a significant milestone: over ten billion songs downloaded. Started in 2003, this amazing amount of downloads pays tribute to not only a significant amount of revenue, but also to Apple’s extremely powerful presence in the music industry.

All-time-most-downloaded song? The hip hop group Black Eyed Peas take top honors with “I Gotta Feeling”. Their “Boom Boom Pow” is the third.

Most songs in the top 25 most downloaded? Lady Gaga with three singles: “Poker Face,” “Just Dance,” and “Bad Romance.”

Other artists in the top 10 include Jason Mraz, Flo Rida, Taylor Swift, Leona Lewis, and Ke$ha.

Who won iTunes’ contest to be the 10 Billionth person to download? Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Ga. Sulcer purchased Johnny Cash’s “Guess Things Happen That Way,” and as a reward for downloading the 10 billionth song from iTunes, was given an iTunes gift certificate worth $10,000.

Just as significantly, iPhone apps are making their mark. Last week they passed the 3 billion mark. Pretty amazing given their relatively young existence.