“Never mistake a clear view for a short distance” – Paul Saffo
- Know when not to make a forecast.
- Overnight successes come out of twenty years of failure.
- Look back twice as far as forward.
- Be indifferent
- Tell a story or, better, draw a map.
- Prove yourself wrong
Category: Entrepreneurs
Long Now Foundation Podcasts
The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very lon g term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and promote “slower/bet ter” thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.
Podcasts of many seminars are available on the Long Now Foundation’s website.
Venture Capital Investment Trends
If you want to find out what’s hot for the enterprise, follow the money: the venture capital money, that is. Interest in old-school business models and applications has waned, but startups that offer enterprises innovative, secure solutions at low cost are attracting big money.
Newspapers as Mainframes
Jeff Jarvis and others have been discussing the analogy of newspapers as mainframe computers. In essence, they are analagous: mainframes represented centralized processing, distribution and control. PC’s came along and blew that up. Mainframes still exist, but are being replaced by clusters of smaller, generally clustered linux computers. The migration continues to ever smaller network devices.
There is another analogy: Newspapers as legacy media. I recall discussing this last fall with Jay Rosen at Bloggercon. The software business uses the term legacy to describe mothballed code, or something that is no longer updated. Generally, this term is used when a customer is moving from software product/platform a to product/platform b (DOS to Windows, Unix to Linux, terminals to client/server to web services).
There will always be journalism, some great, some not so great. It will simply be delivered many different ways.
VC’s Survey Opportunities
What about future trends, asked Sahlman. Many venture capitalists made money in enterprise software, until the space was saturated. Will venture capitalists have an impact in fields relating to healthcare, education, and the environment—all areas that show a great demand for new solutions?
“Clean energy is big on the West Coast,” said Reiss. “Venture capitalists haven’t traditionally invested in those areas that you mentioned . . . but given the amount of money that’s in the business, somebody is going to try, and somebody will be right.”
Signs of A Bubble?
As we near the end of the year, I realized that it’s been about half a decade since the bubble burst on the dotcom world. At the same time, it seems that a number of similar bubble signs may be showing up again. Based on my personal experience, I’d like to present what I consider the top five signs of a bubble being in place. Some may overlap but I’ve tried to define some generic rules that can be applied to all bubbles, not just the ones in technology
The Demise of IP
More than two years ago, Massachusetts embarked on an “open standards, open source” policy, ostensibly working to guide its executive agencies toward a more citizen-accessible, cost-effective management of state IT assets. The state finally settled on the mandated use of OASIS’ OpenDocument Format, plus Adobe’s PDF schema, for its executive agencies’ office suites by January 2007. This policy has pitted those in favor of government mandates to meet “larger considerations” against others in the industry who favor a more market-oriented approach.
One editorial labeled Massachusetts’ OpenDocument Format plan as the “domino” that will cause other governments and private parties to follow suit, fostering more choice. Others believe that it represents a mandate for a single type of software model, one purposely imposed to limit competition, not strengthen it.
The Evangelist of Entrepreneurship
“FORGET space aliens and race cars—here’s a game that gives kids skills they can use for the rest of their lives.” So says the blurb for Hot Shot Business, an online game (www.hotshotbusiness.com) played each year by millions of “budding entrepreneurs” who get the chance to open their own pet spa, skateboard factory, landscape-gardening business or comic shop in Opportunity City. Players start marketing campaigns; change products, services and prices; and respond to demanding customers and big news events. And, “as a self-funded entrepreneur, you’ll keep all the profits. But if anything goes wrong, well, you’re on your own.”
Google: What Lurks In It’s Soul?
My visit to Google? Despite the whimsical furniture and other toys, I felt I was entering a 14th-century cathedral — not in the 14th century but in the 12th century, while it was being built. Everyone was busy carving one stone here and another stone there, with some invisible architect getting everything to fit. The mood was playful, yet there was a palpable reverence in the air. “We are not scanning all those books to be read by people,” explained one of my hosts after my talk. “We are scanning them to be read by an AI.”
When I returned to highway 101, I found myself recollecting the words of Alan Turing, in his seminal paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, a founding document in the quest for true AI. “In attempting to construct such machines we should not be irreverently usurping His power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children,” Turing had advised. “Rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates.”
Google is Turing’s cathedral, awaiting its soul. We hope. In the words of an unusually perceptive friend: “When I was there, just before the IPO, I thought the coziness to be almost overwhelming. Happy Golden Retrievers running in slow motion through water sprinklers on the lawn. People waving and smiling, toys everywhere. I immediately suspected that unimaginable evil was happening somewhere in the dark corners. If the devil would come to earth, what place would be better to hide?”
Learning From Failure
Embracing failure as a teacher in the school of hard knocks was the theme of last week’s “Ideas to Profits” conference at UW-Whitewater, where the Wisconsin Innovation Service Center marked its 25th year of helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Three successful Wisconsin entrepreneurs told their stories to conference participants during a panel discussion that illustrated how most – if not all – innovators have overcome obstacles along the road to growing profitable businesses. About 200 people attended the two-day conference organized by Dr. Deb Malewicki, UW-Whitewater’s director of business outreach services.