Thursday 18 November 2010
Social Enterprise
Social Enterprise and Social Innovation discussed yesterday at E-Club, not overly impressed with the topic, to be honest. I mean, I really respect all the not-for-profit good-doing and world-saving work they are keen on, especially the passion with which they are trying to save all poor souls in this world, the climate and other stuff, but I guess it's just not my cup of tea. Hope it doesn't make me a bad person. Yesterday's event was featuring Claire Carpenter, founder of The Melting Pot, Scotland's premier space for social innovators. A couple of quotes I wrote down in my notepad at the event:
...It's going to cost you three times more and take three times longer than you think it is. If you knew it was, you wouldn't bother.
Many of us exist without e-mail, but Twitter - we love it!
I hate saying this, but people are becoming a marketplace
Claire was followed by a couple of other speakers, one of them bringing a fair bit of retardation to the conference: this woman, I'm not sure what kind of business she's doing, but presumably it has something to do with making people look like idiots. "Can everyone here please stand up. Now turn to the left, say your name and have a wee bit of laugh, turn to the right, clap your hands and have a wee bit of laugh, turn around and have a big silent laugh and dance..." WHAT THE F....!!! Guess it was just this bit that made me feel negative about the event.
Anyway, today I'm going to check out the Student Market presentation, event hosted by iCue.
Thursday 11 November 2010
Heidi
Do you have the balls?
Cause she certainly does. And these are not my words but I hundred percent agree with that: I wish I was at least half as bad-ass as her. As far as Silicon Valley goes, she's seen and done it all: together with her brother started a software company in 1979 (T/Maker, one of the word processing pioneers); been Apple's vice-president of worldwide developer relations at the worst of Apple's times; been on the board of several public and private companies; worked as mentor capitalist for a while; signed on with Softbank Venture Capital as a general partner in 1999. She's seen companies rise during the late nineties dot-com craze and crash when the bubble popped in 2000. 52 year old now, still sharp and full of energy, seems like she's never going to stop. Because she is Heidi Roizen.
Personally, it was really interesting for me to compare Heidi's interview at the conference today with the one that E-Club was hosting about a month ago featuring Ann Winblad, co-founder of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. The general message Winblad was trying to get across, or at least as it seemed to me, was "We're there for you! Go ahead and start a business.", while Roizen's was "It's tough out there, tougher than you could ever imagine.". Only 14 years after co-founding T/Maker would she become a millionaire by selling the company to Deluxe. 14 years of extremely hard work, not having much or any personal life and earning just enough to cover the rent and bills. Furthermore, life didn't get much easier for her after selling T/Maker! And that's fair enough, I'm not being dillusional in any sense, I know that entrepreneur's life is quite far from how it's pictured in Hollywood films, but really, when you look her in the eyes you don't want to even think about starting your own company! Having said this, it's just an impression I got, and she can't speak for the entire industry. In any way, this conference wasn't one of those "Hey, life in Silicon Valley is fa-a-a-antastic, let's all be entrepreneurs!" sort of things. For God's sake, the year is 2010, not 1997 and we're in Scotland, not California.
One thing I would disagree with is her belief that if you want to start an IT venture and get it off the ground, you got to do it the American way and you got to think from the very beginning of relocating to States, or at least having significant presence there. True, they have much more capital than we do here in Europe and that's a very big deal, but hey, wasn't Skype born in Estonia?
P.S.
So, really, who are entrepreneurs: freedom fighters, guys from Forbes cover, those who managed to escape the cubicle nation and change the world or are they just paper millionaires who substituted their 9 to 5 five days a week for 9 to 12 seven days a week, those who risk everything for nothing, dream big but never really see those dreams come true? I'll leave that up to you, however one thing that is undeniable: entrepreneurs are people that don't want to live simple lives.
Cause she certainly does. And these are not my words but I hundred percent agree with that: I wish I was at least half as bad-ass as her. As far as Silicon Valley goes, she's seen and done it all: together with her brother started a software company in 1979 (T/Maker, one of the word processing pioneers); been Apple's vice-president of worldwide developer relations at the worst of Apple's times; been on the board of several public and private companies; worked as mentor capitalist for a while; signed on with Softbank Venture Capital as a general partner in 1999. She's seen companies rise during the late nineties dot-com craze and crash when the bubble popped in 2000. 52 year old now, still sharp and full of energy, seems like she's never going to stop. Because she is Heidi Roizen.Personally, it was really interesting for me to compare Heidi's interview at the conference today with the one that E-Club was hosting about a month ago featuring Ann Winblad, co-founder of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. The general message Winblad was trying to get across, or at least as it seemed to me, was "We're there for you! Go ahead and start a business.", while Roizen's was "It's tough out there, tougher than you could ever imagine.". Only 14 years after co-founding T/Maker would she become a millionaire by selling the company to Deluxe. 14 years of extremely hard work, not having much or any personal life and earning just enough to cover the rent and bills. Furthermore, life didn't get much easier for her after selling T/Maker! And that's fair enough, I'm not being dillusional in any sense, I know that entrepreneur's life is quite far from how it's pictured in Hollywood films, but really, when you look her in the eyes you don't want to even think about starting your own company! Having said this, it's just an impression I got, and she can't speak for the entire industry. In any way, this conference wasn't one of those "Hey, life in Silicon Valley is fa-a-a-antastic, let's all be entrepreneurs!" sort of things. For God's sake, the year is 2010, not 1997 and we're in Scotland, not California.
One thing I would disagree with is her belief that if you want to start an IT venture and get it off the ground, you got to do it the American way and you got to think from the very beginning of relocating to States, or at least having significant presence there. True, they have much more capital than we do here in Europe and that's a very big deal, but hey, wasn't Skype born in Estonia?
P.S.
So, really, who are entrepreneurs: freedom fighters, guys from Forbes cover, those who managed to escape the cubicle nation and change the world or are they just paper millionaires who substituted their 9 to 5 five days a week for 9 to 12 seven days a week, those who risk everything for nothing, dream big but never really see those dreams come true? I'll leave that up to you, however one thing that is undeniable: entrepreneurs are people that don't want to live simple lives.
Sunday 7 November 2010
Democracy VS Dot-Com: Round 1
“The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.”
Now, one thing I would like to mention prior to saying what I mainly wanted to say in this post was this: I am in no way a politician, never wanted wanted to be one and can't say I like them very much. Also, haven't read any books on political theory and,generally, never really been into that subject at all. I'm not an expert, but rather an ordinary "user" or an average voter. However, so often it is only an ordinary user who can say "hey, your product sucks because ... and here's how you can make it better!" Please read it and tell me what you think.
Dot-Com Revolution
You know, I think that Web 2.0 has brought into this world much more than just a cheap and efficient way of communicating with people. It has started a new era of ultimate freedom of information. Anybody can share anything they want with people they know or don't, and nothing can stop this. I mean, let's take a look at the music/film industry and copyrights: Napster was forced to shut down back in 2002 by big guys in the entertainment industry who sought to protect their copyrights, however now, eight years later, you can download anything over torrents and it still doesn't cost you a penny to do that. There are two facts that always hold true about protectionism: 1) it occurs every time someone finds the way to do it cheaper (ultimately, for free as in our case) and better, 2) protectionists always loose in the end, no matter what. The way that torrents deal with copyrights is actually amazing: it's just impossible to make anyone responsible for breaching the law if, potentially, hundreds of people were sharing the same file! Most importantly, nobody cares nowadays, everyone does that and it's cool, it gives musicians that you otherwise would've never heard of a chance to make it to the top. Likewise Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and other social networks have suddenly made it possible to share your ideas and content with millions of other people that you have never met before, all that for free and without much fear of consequences.
Democracy: when it fails
It's probably worth mentioning at this point where I come from, I mean geographically. Belarus. It's a country that used to be a part of a state which several hundred years ago introduced the first constitution in Europe. Now it is in a deep shit from both political and economic points of view, and it's not because people that live in this country are stupid or lazy or whatever, it's just because sometimes democracy fails. When the whole soviet thing collapsed in 1991 we had a chance, but unfortunately it all went downhill from there: now the country is ruled by a dictator who's been in power since 1994 and it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon, GDP per capita is one of the lowest in Europe, the industry is largely suffering from lack of investment and entirely messed up legal system, all mass media is controlled by the government and so on. To be honest, the entire PESTLE of this country is crippled, if you know what I mean. Interestingly enough, back in the early nineties we had one of the most promising new-built democratic governments among the post-soviet freshly independent states. Then people elected a wrong guy, oops. A bright politician, he always had and still has, despite the poverty and all other damage he caused to the nation, massive support across the country. Why? A very, very charismatic person. People don't vote for his ideas, people vote for his personality, and that's what I think is one thing that is fundamentally wrong about democracy: politicians.
To have some numbers at hand, let's consider UK. At the moment the country is ruled by the coalition of two parties: 307 Conservative MP's and 57 Lib-Dems hold the legislative power. It's 364 people all together. No doubt, these guys are bright public speakers and excellent negotiators. However, do you really think that out of 60 million people that populate this country only 364 are smart enough to propose and legislate bills? You know, maybe there are people that that worked out better ways to deal with unemployment, credit crunch and environmental problems but you will never hear these ideas because they just aren't that great as public speakers. As long as the system functions, at least somehow, nobody cares. It's only when it utterly fails we start thinking of how we could change things and live better lives.
democracy.com
About two or three years ago I had a long argument with a good friend of mine about democratic concepts. You know, he's American, I'm Russian by origins, so we have quite different points of view. Anyway, the main conclusion of that argument was: yes, it's shit, but can you think of better ways? (that's, roughly, what Churchill said long time ago) This made me think, well, what if we could design, at least at the conceptional level, a system that would take advantage of modern tools and technology that would help to make this world a better place?
That's right, move the democratic system to the web! Anyone can vote and anyone can propose new laws. If local community likes your idea then it starts naturally generating buzz, as people discuss and vote for it. In other words, the visibility of your idea on the web grows like a social bubble, it's a bit similar to the way Facebook Top News system works. As soon as it reaches the regional level, people around your state or county will see it as one of the top proposed laws. Anyone can vote for or against the idea and propose their amendments (which can also be voted for or against) to it. When it reaches the top, country-wide level, the discussion is finalised and some legal entity responsible for that legislates the bill. That's it.
Conclusion (sort of...)
Now I'm not claiming this to be a panacea for the modern world political systems, but rather a cool thing to think of. Some might say, you Russians really have this thing for revolutions:) Well, that's really not what I meant to say by all that. Some time ago I mentioned that later on I would post about my business idea. Although it is definitely not about starting a social revolution or anything like that, what I presented here is the underlying concept of the system we're working on, this is where the idea comes from. Because, you know, if they, all the guys that made it to the top, say you got to dream big, then this is my dream: to live in a better world.
Thanks for reading!
Sir Winston Churchill
Now, one thing I would like to mention prior to saying what I mainly wanted to say in this post was this: I am in no way a politician, never wanted wanted to be one and can't say I like them very much. Also, haven't read any books on political theory and,generally, never really been into that subject at all. I'm not an expert, but rather an ordinary "user" or an average voter. However, so often it is only an ordinary user who can say "hey, your product sucks because ... and here's how you can make it better!" Please read it and tell me what you think.
Dot-Com Revolution
Democracy: when it fails
It's probably worth mentioning at this point where I come from, I mean geographically. Belarus. It's a country that used to be a part of a state which several hundred years ago introduced the first constitution in Europe. Now it is in a deep shit from both political and economic points of view, and it's not because people that live in this country are stupid or lazy or whatever, it's just because sometimes democracy fails. When the whole soviet thing collapsed in 1991 we had a chance, but unfortunately it all went downhill from there: now the country is ruled by a dictator who's been in power since 1994 and it doesn't look like it's going to change any time soon, GDP per capita is one of the lowest in Europe, the industry is largely suffering from lack of investment and entirely messed up legal system, all mass media is controlled by the government and so on. To be honest, the entire PESTLE of this country is crippled, if you know what I mean. Interestingly enough, back in the early nineties we had one of the most promising new-built democratic governments among the post-soviet freshly independent states. Then people elected a wrong guy, oops. A bright politician, he always had and still has, despite the poverty and all other damage he caused to the nation, massive support across the country. Why? A very, very charismatic person. People don't vote for his ideas, people vote for his personality, and that's what I think is one thing that is fundamentally wrong about democracy: politicians.
To have some numbers at hand, let's consider UK. At the moment the country is ruled by the coalition of two parties: 307 Conservative MP's and 57 Lib-Dems hold the legislative power. It's 364 people all together. No doubt, these guys are bright public speakers and excellent negotiators. However, do you really think that out of 60 million people that populate this country only 364 are smart enough to propose and legislate bills? You know, maybe there are people that that worked out better ways to deal with unemployment, credit crunch and environmental problems but you will never hear these ideas because they just aren't that great as public speakers. As long as the system functions, at least somehow, nobody cares. It's only when it utterly fails we start thinking of how we could change things and live better lives.democracy.com
About two or three years ago I had a long argument with a good friend of mine about democratic concepts. You know, he's American, I'm Russian by origins, so we have quite different points of view. Anyway, the main conclusion of that argument was: yes, it's shit, but can you think of better ways? (that's, roughly, what Churchill said long time ago) This made me think, well, what if we could design, at least at the conceptional level, a system that would take advantage of modern tools and technology that would help to make this world a better place?
That's right, move the democratic system to the web! Anyone can vote and anyone can propose new laws. If local community likes your idea then it starts naturally generating buzz, as people discuss and vote for it. In other words, the visibility of your idea on the web grows like a social bubble, it's a bit similar to the way Facebook Top News system works. As soon as it reaches the regional level, people around your state or county will see it as one of the top proposed laws. Anyone can vote for or against the idea and propose their amendments (which can also be voted for or against) to it. When it reaches the top, country-wide level, the discussion is finalised and some legal entity responsible for that legislates the bill. That's it.
Conclusion (sort of...)
Now I'm not claiming this to be a panacea for the modern world political systems, but rather a cool thing to think of. Some might say, you Russians really have this thing for revolutions:) Well, that's really not what I meant to say by all that. Some time ago I mentioned that later on I would post about my business idea. Although it is definitely not about starting a social revolution or anything like that, what I presented here is the underlying concept of the system we're working on, this is where the idea comes from. Because, you know, if they, all the guys that made it to the top, say you got to dream big, then this is my dream: to live in a better world.
Thanks for reading!
Thursday 4 November 2010
Valley Girl in Edinburgh and a great negotiations day!!!
A bit earlier that day I managed to get on board two friends of mine to help developing the web-site (I'll post about the idea very soon), which is absolutely fantastic! I worked with both of them previously on different projects and they're not only great web developers but also complement each other's and my skills. Really hope everything goes well, because if some team could implement the system in the amount of time we have, then it's only a team like this.
Wednesday 3 November 2010
The most amusing spam letter I've ever received!!!
That's just something from the other world=)))
Dear,
Kind regard, I am Juan Lomeli, please, kindly permit my contacting you through this medium I am compelled to contact you via this medium for obvious reasons which you will understand when we discuss details of my proposition. Please i will like you to reply to me through my mail address so that we will know each other very well, i am looking forward to your positive confirmation to enable us have an important discussion the we will start from there which will include my introduction, i will send my photos later.
thank you and God bless
Mr Juan Lomeli
Dear,
Kind regard, I am Juan Lomeli, please, kindly permit my contacting you through this medium I am compelled to contact you via this medium for obvious reasons which you will understand when we discuss details of my proposition. Please i will like you to reply to me through my mail address so that we will know each other very well, i am looking forward to your positive confirmation to enable us have an important discussion the we will start from there which will include my introduction, i will send my photos later.
thank you and God bless
Mr Juan Lomeli
Monday 1 November 2010
Launch48, looking back
So, what the hell has happened last weekend? I'm still not sure, way too many thoughts and emotions, think it'll take a while to process all that. Even though I felt like I was hit by a train in the morning, now I'm surprisingly fresh. Now I'm asking myself whether I'd go there again if it was happening next weekend, and you know what? Without a shadow of a doubt, yes I would! And I'd easily recommend anyone, because you wouldn't get such experience anywhere else and believe me, it's worth your money and time!
Launch48 Edinburgh started with a conference, where speakers from Skyskanner, WikiJob, The Difference Engine and other successful businesses were giving presentations on a number of very interesting topics, mainly about going from local to global and what issues companies have to deal with when entering foreign markets. Anyway, I've talked about it already.
Found an interesting note on the event and projects we've been working on: http://benwerd.com/2010/11/launch48-edinburgh-an-inspiring-start/ . I think we did a very good job, definitely top effort from the team, still can't believe we managed to pull it off in only two days with a team of complete strangers. Really don't know where all this will be going after this weekend and if it's going anywhere at all. It largely depends on... well, it just depends. It's a very interesting case study for me, and I am really hoping that comparetheuniversities is not going to fall apart just now. We'll see.
Launch48 Edinburgh started with a conference, where speakers from Skyskanner, WikiJob, The Difference Engine and other successful businesses were giving presentations on a number of very interesting topics, mainly about going from local to global and what issues companies have to deal with when entering foreign markets. Anyway, I've talked about it already.
Found an interesting note on the event and projects we've been working on: http://benwerd.com/2010/11/launch48-edinburgh-an-inspiring-start/ . I think we did a very good job, definitely top effort from the team, still can't believe we managed to pull it off in only two days with a team of complete strangers. Really don't know where all this will be going after this weekend and if it's going anywhere at all. It largely depends on... well, it just depends. It's a very interesting case study for me, and I am really hoping that comparetheuniversities is not going to fall apart just now. We'll see.
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