The following post was inspired by Jim Collins, author of best selling books Built to Last & From Good to Great

A big hairy audacious goal (BHAG) is something everybody and every organization should have because it creates a goal to aspire to. It creates meaning for yourself and your colleagues. It gives you a sense of purpose! Without a big hairy audacious goal, how does one motivate him or herself to do remarkable things in life?

When I was thirteen years old, my first BHAG was to setup a cool company. My last company thrived on the fact that it was run by 13/14/15 year olds. Once we had something going, we reset our BHAG to owning a rack full of servers. After that, we reset a BHAG to getting an entire cage at multiple datacenters, and that's about when we died. It was good that there was a mental gap between our confidence, wisdom, and capability for taking risk. In other words, young kids are ignorant. Setting a BHAG is fun and motivating, regardless of how stupid or farfetched the goal may be. In fact, that's the point! If we had gone through the conventional planning of business, we wouldn't have started a company until graduating from college. I probably wouldn't have gotten into early college. I probably wouldn't have decided to start a blog that's based on my few experiences. I probably wouldn't have had the pleasure of meeting all of you!

Big hairy audacious goals don't have to be limited to business. Apply this to your personal life. Do the non conventional because it'll foster your motivation and success. The idea of going to college early sounded outlandish to my parents and my friends, but that was precisely the point. If they had supported me on making the change, it wouldn’t be a big hairy audacious goal, now would it?

Of course, if the goal is achieved, there no longer is a BHAG. Once achieved, it's time to set a new goal -- perhaps this is the reason why entrepreneurs are "never satisfied," regardless of the success they previously achieved. So let's say I run a company called Powerset and my goal is to oust Google from the search market. Once I've succeeded in doing this, it's time to set a new goal -- perhaps, to oust the leader in online advetising -- and after that, to oust the leader in online entertainment… etc.

Of course, sometimes it's reckless to go for your big hairy audacious goal. A lot of the time, the critics are right in that the product you want to create will go nowhere, depending on the capabilities of your team. If I ever faced such an issue, I would turn to my "board of life." (click here if you don't know what the super important board of life is) I'd see what they thought about my BHAG, and I would ask what's needed in order to execute on my outlandish vision.

Once you've established what your BHAG is, YOU NEED TO COMMIT TO IT. Set milestones. Make sure your team meets those milestones. I set a BHAG to own my own datacenter within 3 years of starting the company. I invested 80% of the company's profits towards buying assets and renting DC space. Of course, we failed at achieving the BHAG, but at least we died trying. As I'll mention in another post, there are a few things a company can do: 1) grow, 2) fail, and 3) go nowhere. Going nowhere is by far the worst. Not growing is not an option for me. The opportunity cost in going nowhere exceeds any cost of failing. So we chose to sell out prematurely, thus failing. It was unfortunately the right choice to make based on the circumstances.

Committing to a BHAG is obviously 1000X harder than setting the BHAG. You're putting your money on the line. You're putting your business on the line. You're putting your personal well being on the line, and it's a tough commitment to make. Unfortunately, I don't know how to teach someone to feel content when committing to a BHAG. It just has to be done, and if it doesn't get done, you're going to find yourself paying a much heavier opportunity cost. True entrepreneurs are willing to make these commitments. If you’re not willing to make such a commitment, I suggest you join one of those multi-level-marketing schemes.

It's important that BHAGS take on a life of their own. They must be goals in themselves that your team members will always seek to achieve. The main question is, will the BHAG outlast the leader? This poses a problem for super charismatic leaders, or overly-demanding disciplinarians. At that point, the goal is to satisfy the leader -- not to reach the goal. Perhaps this is precisely why over-protective parents are ineffective in parenting. Children do what the parent says, but they don't understand the underlying goals and purposes for achieving those goals. Once the leader (or in this case the parent) is gone, there's no longer a sense of purpose.

If you don't currently have a BHAG in your life, set one now. Matter of fact, I won't let you leave this blog post until you've established at least a basic idea for what your BHAG for life may be. Think it through and remind yourself everyday how you might be a step closer towards achieving your goal.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early collegeBard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

Amsterdam was an amazing experience, but no one blog post can do the city any justice. As I've previously mentioned, I was invited to speak at the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam only a few weeks ago - received an email invitation while I was down in Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Festival, and decided that this would be a pretty cool trip.

Shortly after I accepted the invitation, I told you all that I'd slow down on my travels and take a break from all of this, but a few conferences get special exceptions: TED, South by Southwest, and the Next Web. There's no better excuse for a 17-year-old to fly out to Amsterdam by herself in the middle of spring break. I'll leave it at that :)

So i spoke! I gave my first real presentation to my first real crowd. I've spoken at Model U.N. and at the Supernova Conference, but neither was to an audience of more than 100 people. As I've also mentioned many times before, conferences are only as good as the people who attend. Next Web attracted only high rollers because it cost 750 Euros to go. The real quality was in the time I spent with fellow speakers at exclusive dinners and parties. So basically, if the conference doesn't offer super awesome parties or exclusive events, it's not something I see as worthwhile. Why? Because then you're less likely to make actual connections.

The long-term connections happen by investing time into out-of-the-office fun. For example, a guy from intruders.tv interviewed me on the first day of the conference. He was professional. I liked him. But then at one of the after-parties, we started the connect up as actual friends. Same goes with Robert Scoble -- I see him at conferences a lot, but big deal. The real fun happens in the hotel, at the dinner table, and at the after-parties.

This trip was good enough to tie with South by Southwest. Top five best events ever? This one's on the list. More to come!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early collegeBard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

Boris from the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam asked me to speak only a few weeks ago -- I had plans to just be with my friends in San Francisco, but I couldn't resist the offer! I mean, all expenses paid for trip to Amsterdam over my college spring break? Why would I turn that down?

Not to mention, this conference is like no other I've ever been to. Firstly, it's in Amsterdam: beautiful city, amazing people, and even better after parties.

Next, the private events: As a speaker, I've made friendly with all of my fellow co-speakers (including but not limited to Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon, Chris Saag from DataPortability, and Khris Loux from JS-KIT). When you're with the same people every day, you build closer relationships with them. This almost feels like summer camp!

After party at the Odeon, Amsterdam

Anyway, it's 6AM Amsterdam time and I've been up wayy too late doing nothing but watching Revision3 and pondering my future as a wanna-be-entrepreneur. The speaking engagement went quite well, but I felt like I was there more to entertain than I was to teach. (which was the intent) Expect a blog post from me about lessons learned from public speaking :)

Signing off for the evening.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early collegeBard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

Phew, so I'm finally here! I ran into a few other speakers on the KLM flight here, so that was super fun!

Diggnation is filming live as I write this. The two guys sitting next to me traveled over four hours just to get here. Crazy!!! It's like a cult! As always, you'll find me sitting in the front rows :)

Anyway, tomorrow I present my keynote at 3PM Amsterdam time. Fun! Keeping busy, but I'll keep you all updated.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early collegeBard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

I've been to way too many events and conferences over the past year. Actually, it was a little over a year ago that I first flew out to see San Francisco! Since then, I've been a frequent at many meetups and dozens of tech/business related conferences. Here's my list of the top events I've been to and why they were so great:

1) South by Southwest 2008: Best Overall Conference

Words cannot describe how amazing the South by Southwest conference was. So many of you readers and friends of readers contacted me in order to convince me to go. I was skeptical, but after speaking to dozens of you, I was convinced to go. I only made it for the last three days, but I feel drained mentally and physically from the amazing experience. What made it so great?

First and foremost, the people were smart, courteous, and fun. They came to SxSW with an enthusiastic attitude. There were plenty of fun geeks and few "marketing" people. At the web 2.0 conference, there were way too many self serving biz dev people who were out to pitch and promote their companies. At SxSW, the geeks were there to have fun. Some people call SxSW the spring break for geeks. I'll have to agree.

Even when the day's conference is over, the day has just begun! There are sooo many parties to choose from. Each night, there were at least ten events to choose from. If the popular events had long lines, just start your own party! I'm definitely planning on returning next year. In a few months, maybe I'll gather a few friends and reserve the Presidential Suite in the Hilton. We'll throw our own parties :)

2) GeekSessions 1.1: Best Tech Meetup

This was definitely the best informal cocktail event I've been to for many reasons. Before going, I had envisioned it as being a high-caliber meet-up for super smart and super cool techies. My guess was completely spot on. Firstly, it was invite only. Like all good conferences, you primarily go for the people. If the people are good, the experience is good. Since then, Geeksessions has opened up registration for all and I've met fewer people since. Maybe it's just the fact that I know so many people who go there already!

Secondly, the conference organizers were able to manage the work-play balance that all events need. There's usually both an educational and a networking component to these events. The trick is not having too little or too much of either, and GeekSessions did that amazingly well. Strict 5-10 minute deadlines per speaker helps the situation.

3) Supernova 2007: Best Professional Cocktail Gathering:

The Supernova cocktail party, like every other event I endorse, had high caliber people socializing with each other. The conference was open to all. That is, to anyone who could afford the $2800 price tag. What's better than being in a room filled with free drinks, great appetizers, and seasoned entrepreneurs? The event attracted an older crowd, but most people knew what they were talking about.

Worst Event: PowerShift

I felt reserved about writing about the worst event I've been to, but I decided that it would be ok given that I remained objective with my reasoning.

PowerShift was basically a conference to combat global climate change. I'm all for fixing this problem, but the conference itself was despicable in relation to the dozens I've been to. I can probably predict why: The attendees were of low caliber. There were 6,000 attendees, none of them paid more than $25 for their conference badge, and most had very little background in global climate change and activism. I know this because I asked many attendees the following questions:

- how do you know global climate change is happening?

- what do we do to fix it?

- why should conservative money-obsessed republicans worry about this issue?

Most people came off as being ignorant and self-absorbed "activists." And yes, there is a negative stereotype for activists, and yes, most people at this conference fit into that stereotype. If anything, I left that conference learning why politicians feel reserved when dealing with teenage activists. I'm a liberal democrat, I believe that we need to fix global climate change, and I believe that rallying against the "rich republican capitalists" is the wrong route to take.

One may counter-argue my reasoning by saying, "isn't the point of a conference for people to learn?" Sure, but half of the learning happens in the networking with your knowledgeable peers! And if most of them aren't, you're at a loss.

But to the people who organized my top three rated events: Good job! I've since decided to cut back on my event-going to do REAL work, but I'll forever be loyal to the select few events that are able to attract brilliant minds. I'm quite confident that we can already add the TED conference to the 2009 list. :)

Plenty more to come!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com.

One of the organizers for the Next Web Conference in Amsterdam sent me an email that expressed interest in having me speak there. He asks what I'm interested in talking about. Honestly, I think the better question is what are adults interested in hearing about from a 17 year old's perspective?

I'm at a loss. I have so many different ideas, but I don't know what you guys want to know from me! Please email me with ideas and I'll be sure to give you credit if I end up presenting. :)

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)

The days are super long! Feels like it's been a week ago since I left New York to come here. Well, few highlights:

1) Zuckerberg keynote = Big LOLS! I feel bad for the woman who asked him the questions... people were just piling on top of her!

2) Gawker party was cool, but the bouncer was super strict! Thanks to the help of some friends, I managed to get in and have an awesome (sober) time.

I'll post in detail soon. For now, there's this something called SLEEP.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)

I try not to splurge, but sometimes I have no choice! Take for example SxSW: You guys convinced me to go to the South by Southwest Conference, so I'm going. Few issues:

1) The only flight out that worked for me cost $620. It was only $100 for an upgrade to first class, so I bought it. Some call it splurging but I call it well deserved.

2) Every half decent hotel in Austin is completely booked. What can I say, the only so-so hotel I found was this place called the Four Seasons. Hopefully I'll find myself a successful, sexy, (wealthy) business man while I'm there? I'll dream on.

3) I had to upload a picture of my face to South by Southwest's website in order to claim my badge. I don't have many photos of me on the internet, but I figured I'll show you guys what I have:

Fugley or what? Whatever, it's better than my driver's license photo. Funny enough, this is the first real photo I've shown to you publicly via my blog.

I'll promise to take lots and lots of pictures for you guys! I'll be lonely, so please shower me with visits.

PS - I'm underage so I can't check into the hotel. Their stupid company policy is that I have to be at least 19 years old. Any of you want to help me? I'm offering a reward!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)

Firstly, I must say that I absolutely loved Vancouver. What a friendly city! If only my trip getting to and from Vancouver was easier... Flying United Airlines was a mistake on my outbound flight. Departing from Vancouver via United Airlines to San Francisco was also a failure, but they compensated. They delayed my flight by three hours, but I upgraded myself and got an entire row for just $30! Observe:

And yes, those are my legs and those are my socks and the white box is filled with my greasy Chinese take out dinner. The book to the right is Richard Branson's autobiography. What a great book! And what an unhealthy meal!

More photos! I checked into a nice Vancouver hotel while attending the Northern Voice conference. Once again, the people at the front desk failed to ask for my I.D. and I had access to a fridge stocked with enough alcohol to get me drunk every day for the rest of my life. Except I'm not that dumb... Here's a picture of my hotel room:

There was a hot tub in the hotel! I couldn't resist! My friend Phillip Jeffrey and I hung out there with a bunch of 16 and 17 year old high school girls.

Sorry, but we didn't take pictures of our adventure to the hot tub. Next time :)

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.

Thanks to everybody who commented and voted on my recent poll: Should I go to the South by Southwest conference or go to school? I'm not a class cutter, but it seems as if SXSW takes preference. I'll meet great people and learn a little of something. As of Tuesday evening, 69% of you told me to go to SXSW, 29% told me to go to school, and 2% told me "other." What other is I can't tell you!

However, I do have an issue. I need cash! The trip is expensive. Airfare will run me $350 and hotel will run me about $400. I've decided that because of all of these trips, it makes sense for me to have sponsors. No, not pesky advertising banners on the side of my blog, but trustworthy sponsors who I can publicly thank for sponsoring Jessica Mah in action. If you have any ideas, please let me know! To whoever gives me a good lead, I'll give you my VIP pass to SF Beta :) And lots of e-kisses and e-hugs!

More to come!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star.