Blog entries written by Anthony Dale Kuhn
| What Makes Entrepreneurs Quake In Their Boots? | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Entrepreneur.com : Exactly what scares the living daylights out of entrepreneurs? Well, actually, many of the same things that give the Average Joe or Jane the heeby-jeebies. Lindsay Holloway recently brought some experts together for a closer look at the phobias that strike fear into the entrepreneurially inclined. From What Are You Afraid Of? Holloway provides more thoughts from Jim Koch, founder and brewer, The Boston Beer Company, and Colleen Long, founder and creative director of FreudTV: "Without a doubt, an entrepreneur’s biggest fear is failing--understandably, because 95 percent of all businesses fail within the first five years, Long says. When you’re starting with those kinds of odds, it’s OK to be a little freaked out." But don't let that one fear get you down, there are at least 4 more bugaboos to consider each one more chilling than the last. If you can manage to overcome your fear of clicking onwards, a new-found respect for the moxie it takes to strike out on one's own will be your silent reward. ZDNet.com : Open-source and innovation are a pair of buzzwords frequently lumped together in hopes of spawning some kind of mashed-up magic by hopeful entrepreneurs with small cash reserves and grand(iose) ideas. The myth of the lone innovator just that: a myth. More often than not it's a team effort that arrives at the truly novel and useful idea. Dana Blankenhorn, business journalist and blogger extraordinaire, offers one way to herd the nerds into a manageable bunch: "Innovation, in a group setting, demands an innovative gatekeeper" and that gatekeeper is the binding force that brings together an otherwise cluster-shaped gaggle of geeks who would hopelessly spawn idea after great idea with not a clue of how to market or monetize their intellectual property. Read more of Blankenhorn's thoughts on focusing talent towards innovation in Gatekeepers of open source innovation . Irish Times : Clean, green startups/businesses are not only the apple of Americans' eyes but also keep Irish eyes a smiling if a timely article by Elaine Edwards is correct. Here's a snippet of Eco-innovation 'offers opportunity' : "New 'eco-innovation' technologies being developed in Ireland and elsewhere offer a major opportunity for the EU economy, the Environmental Protection Agency has said." The EPA's report lauds efforts by EU businesses to capitalize on green practices and products, especially those on the Emerald Isle that are poised to take advantage of a huge pool of Euros looking for clean investments. "Researchers and businesses are developing technologies that will deliver environmental benefits while improving competitiveness. We are confident that progress in this area can position Ireland at the forefront in one of the most rapidly growing international markets." With ~2.3 trillion Euros at stake, Irish companies are ramping up their efforts to put their famous luck to work with hopes of netting a pot o' gold at the end of the eco-innovation rainbow. The 271 Patent Blog : In other innovation research news, Peter Zura highlights a recent report by Thomson Reuters on Innovation Hotspots. From his topical post, Thomson Reuters Publishes "Innovation Hot Spots" , Zura writes: The study identified three general areas as "hotbeds of inventive activity over the last 5 years: biofuels, telecom and bio-related nanotechnology. Not surprisingly patenting activity in biofuels has exploded. In 2003, global patents on biofuels numbered only 341, and the patents were predominantly filed by Japanese companies (70% patented by Japanese companies in top 13 patenting companies; 31% of patents were filed in Japan). By 2008, patenting activity had risen by 550% to 1,878 patents. In the latest period (January 2008 to April 2009) the number of biofuel patents was 2,466. China has moved in significantly (31% of patents were filed in China); China shared top position with Japan (three companies) in the Top 10 patenting companies. Great news for bio, telecomm and bio-nano startups and those invested in them. The clue train hasn't quite pulled all the way out of the station yet, so be sure to click through and read the rest of Zura's piece on Thomson Reuters revealing report. All aboard! TechDirt.com : Think computers don't already run things behind the thin, fleshy veneer of the wetware interface? Think again. Mike Masnick's Automated Copyright Settlement Letters Apparently A Lucrative Business unearths the terribly shady practice of sending out automatically generated cease-and-desist letters to people who may not even be infringing based on computer-generated investigations. Sadly, some people are even paying out of the fear of having to hire a lawyer to fight the 100 percent bogus claima. Masnick writes, "ACS:Law, which is one of the organizations that's been involved in a similar settle-or-we'll-sue letter sending campaign has been outed as sending bogus letters to people who had nothing to do with the content they're alleged to have infringed upon. The most amazing thing? The companies involved seem to admit it. In a letter used by multiple firms, they note that 'We do not claim that your computer was used to commit the infringing act (although we do not exclude this possibility), nor do we claim that you downloaded our client's work. Our claim is that your Internet connection was used to make our client's work available via one or more P2P networks. The file may not, therefore, be on your computer.' But they still want you to pay up, of course. It's guilty until proven innocent, because that's a lot more lucrative." Whoops! Not sure if you might be hosting an infringing file? ACS:Law isn't sure either, but that won't stop them from sending you a letter like the ones above in hopes that you'll just pay up just to avoid lawyerly assistance and related fees. Fie on you, ACR:Law and your cabal of larcenous bandits. Bonus piece o' the day: Tim Berry's Venture Capital: Innovation, or Big Business in Disguise? at The Huffington Post . | |||
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| Brad Feld On How To Get To "No" In Less Than 60 Seconds | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Feld Thoughts : Startups attempting to secure some kind of interaction with a venture capitalist in hopes of getting funded need to be aware that there will be many, many more "Noes" than "Yesses" along the way to success. Brad Feld, co-founder of the Foundry Group, early-stage investor and entrepreneur for over 20 years, offers his tactical approach to being available while at the same time spending as little energy as possible on potential opportunities that don't strike him as profitable in his recent post, Saying No In Less Than 60 Seconds . Here's a snippet of Feld's thought process: "One of my goals is to be accessible to anyone that reaches out to me. Another goal is to minimize the amount of time I spend on things that I either (a) don’t have an investment in, (b) won’t have an investment in, or (c) don’t have an interest in. Basically, I want to 'optimize my accessibility'. This ebbs and flows – when I’m in balance I’m very happy; when I’m out of balance I’m still very happy, but notice that I’m out of balance." While it might sound a bit harsh at first to imagine that a highly successful investor such as Feld would give only 1 minute (or oftentimes, less) to a startup's request for a meeting, it actually works to the benefit of both parties. Just read the rest of the post to find out how. The New York Times : Climate change and reduced intellectual property licensing fees sound like strange bedfellows, yes, but at least one thinker believes that marrying the two would create propitious, if not profitable, opportunities for both the environment and businesses. John Lorinc reports on a previous blog post, "In his Monday post here at Green Inc., James Kanter wondered what it would take to get the developing world to sign a climate change deal. Besides cash, some suggest that any accord must ensure developing countries have access to the proprietary mitigation technologies — that is, the intellectual property that companies in the developed world are creating to fight global warming — at bargain basement prices." Would Western holders of climate change-mitigating IP be willing to donate or offer IP at lower rates out of the goodness of their corporate hearts? Check out Climate Change and Intellectual Property for a few thoughts on that very question. The Philadelphia Enquirer : A recent meeting at the Newseum , located in Washington D.C., hosted some of the brightest minds in the country and had as its focus the principle of innovation and how to foster its development. Christopher K. Hepp, Enquirer Staff Writer, had the good fortune to be in attendance as the assembled collection of scientists, scholars, creatives, and rabble-rousers puzzled out many of the parts that make up "innovation." That is to say, a good time was had by all. In At Newseum, great minds gather to explore innovation , Hepp sets the scene: Imagine a sleek room of black and chrome filled with the smart set - university presidents, corporate leaders, scholars, scientists, and a provocateur or two thrown together to strike sparks. In the course of a day, conversation ran from fusion to folding cars, high-performance computing to Pringles packaging, patented ball caps to the meaning of life. Sponsored by the Council on Competitiveness and the science magazine Seed, the seminar Tuesday at the Newseum explored creativity - and, more specifically, how to generate it. Along the way, there were a few side trips, led by the big thinkers in the room. The general feeling at the meeting was one of humor and fostered a stab at finding consilience . Although the quest for the unity of knowledge was not completed, plenty of other facts and sidebars provided copious quantities of fodder for thought. These types of get-togethers are rich soil for "tilling the fields of innovation" and are worth imitating at the more local level. TopNews : In patent infringement news, a variety of popular Sharp products have been found to be in violation of patent held by rival Samsung. Justin Sorkin reports, "According to the US International Trade Commission (ITC), Sharp Corp has violated a patent held by rival Samsung Electronics - as such the Commission passed an 'exclusion order' on Wednesday, blocking the imports of some of the Sharp-manufactured liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions and computer monitors in the US. The 'exclusion order' by the Washington agency is conditional on evaluation by the US President, and the causal patent case can also be appealed to a US court specializing in patent law." This means Sharp will no longer be able to import their offending LCD products to America barring an overturn of the existing order by President Obama or a sea-change in the ITC's current ruling. Neither seems very likely, but Sharp is considering an appeal according to the company's spokeswoman, Miyuki Nakayama. More information can be gleaned in US agency passes “exclusion order” against Sharp’s LCD TVs and monitors . PEHub.com : Here's an unusual twist on an old idea: the business plan contest, but this time, the presenters are being asked to attend virtually . How's that, you ask? Joanna Glaser has the answer for you: "Draper Fisher Jurvetson is hosting its annual business plan competition again, but this year is telling presenters to stay home. The Silicon Valley firm’s contest – which includes 16 startups from 6 countries — is using TelePresence, Cisco’s costly and much-promoted videoconferencing system that’s designed to make people in different places appear as if they’re in a single boardroom. The competition takes place on Tuesday, with judges gathering at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters to choose who will win a $250,000 investment." The entrants outside the US are "located in Israel, China, Russia, India and Brazil" and include a Chinese game maker and an Indian eco-friendly pico-powerplant startup. For the rest of the story on this 21st Century take on a 20th Century idea, read Glaser's A Twist on the Standard Biz Plan Competition . Bonus piece o' the day: A Dark Summer by Stuart Ellman and Eric Wiesen at Five Years Too Late . | |||
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| On-line Retailing Has A New Name: Alice | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Springwise.com : There's a new on-line shopping retailer who just might revolutionize the purchase of pre-packaged consumer goods: Alice . Here's the scoop: "Just launched into beta this week, Alice offers more than 6,000 unique products from hundreds of different manufacturers. Its prices are 20 percent to 30 percent lower than those at other online stores, it says, and shipping is always free. US consumers begin by creating a free account and then selecting a list of all their favourite products, ordering only the items they need right then. Each shipment is bundled together in a single 'Alice' box and delivered directly to the consumer’s door. Meanwhile, Alice organizes all the products on the member's list, finds coupons and deals for them, and reminds them to reorder when they are likely to be running low." Free shipping? Coupons? Up to 30 percent off? Where do I sign up? Oh, wait. They don't ship to Alaska. For those of you lucky enough to be in the Lower 48 states, check out Household goods, straight from manufacturers for the details on this innovative business concept. San Francisco Chronicle : Looks like US-based biotech is in need of a big shot of innovation to continue to make profitable discoveries and remain globally competitive. California is especially in need of some new energy to keep its world-famous biotech industry pumping. Tom Abate explains some of the ways biotech firms can keep on going even in tough times: "As money becomes tighter, biotech firms are keeping their core staffs lean and outsourcing every function they can to stretch their cash. Many companies also are moving beyond drug discovery - which can have huge payoffs but takes a long time - into fields like creating diagnostic tests that help determine with greater precision whether a patient is likely to respond to a given remedy. 'This is one of the best ways to control medical costs and improve medical outcomes,' said Jeffrey Peterson, chief executive of Target Discovery, a Palo Alto firm that is developing diagnostics to guide ovarian cancer treatments." There are other ways that biotech firms can diversify in order to keep the lights on until the return of better market conditions. Find out more in Abate's Innovation called vital for biotech to survive . Patent Baristas.com : In other biotech news, a renewed call for increased exclusive rights to medical discoveries is creating quite a stir in the Obama administration. Stephen Albainy-Jenei has some pertinent facts to share from his topical post, Administration’s First Volley on Biosimilars: 7 Years of Exclusivity is Long Enough . "The Biotech Industry Organization has called for 14 years of market exclusivity, while generic makers want the period limited to no more than five years of protection. Not to be confused with patents, data exclusivity is the period after the FDA approves a product during which an imitator can’t rely on the innovator’s clinical data for safety and effectiveness. It can run during and longer than the period of patent protection." Why not give biotech this increase in protection? Here's the FTC's position (which surely influenced the White House stance): "The potential harm posed by such a period is that firms will direct scarce R&D dollars toward developing low-risk clinical and safety data for drug products with proven mechanisms of action rather than toward new inventions to address unmet medical needs. Thus, a new 12- to 14-year exclusivity period imperils the efficiency benefits of a FOB [Follow-on Biologics] approval process in the first place, and it risks over-investment in well-tilled areas." Whether or not biotech can manage to sway all the President's men remains to be seen but one thing is sure: biotech would definitely benefit from a favorable policy change just as greatly as FOB firms would suffer. PEHub.com : Connie Loizos recently interviewed San Francisco-based True Ventures' co-founder Tom Callaghan and learned more about the venture capital fund's recipe for success. From Loizos' The True Story of True Ventures , Callaghan explains the fund's mix of ingredients: "We have three products. The first we call our 'real deal product,' which is one where we write you a check for $1.25 million for 25 percent of your company. We have the 'seed deal product,' which is a check for $500,000 for 20 percent of your company. And we have our 'super seed product,' which is $250,000, for 10 percent of your company. There, the entrepreneur has an idea but he’s not really sure if it’ll turn into something. We’ll still write him that check, though, because you know what? That’s one-tenth of one percent of our fund, and because our LPs want us to take risks. It also means that if a company sells for $10 million or $20 million, that still makes us a lot of money." That's a perfect trifecta of opportunities for a sound return on a variety of investments. The rest of the interview should be a fine way to occupy yourself for a few minutes and plus, you'll gain some valuable knowledge in the bargain. Don't be shy: click the link! Wisconsin Technology Network : Here's a primer on the benefits of choosing either a trademark or trade secret to protect your businesses intellectual property: The Best Protection: Trade Secret or Patent? Author Gina Carter's piece has both the necessary length and breadth to warrant more than a cursory review, including gems like this: "Importantly, unlike a patent, owning a trade secret does not come with exclusive rights. While the owner can take action against third parties who misappropriate the secret, the owner has no recourse if a third party independently invents the information, discovers the information through reverse engineering, or obtains the information due to accidental disclosure. Once any of these events occurs, the owner loses his or her property rights in the secret." Trade secrets have their own maintenance costs, much like a trademark or patent, but there are some important distinguishing differences. For those, you'll just have to visit the WTN site and read Carter's full guide. Bonus piece o' the day: ArsTechnica.com 's Casey Johnson throws his hat in the ring with NRC wants government to support venture-funded businesses . | |||
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| VCs Only Say Yes 1% Of The Time | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| The Next Big Thing : Jeff Bussgang breaks down some insider tips on understanding venture capital funding rates as quoted by Don Dodge in his June 25th blog entry, Why VCs say no 99% of the time . Bussgang says, "As one wise old VC once told me, 'the trick in this business is to spend very little time on a lot of deals, and then a lot of time on very few deals.' In other words, see everything to be a better investor, but exert a very tough first filter so that you only spend time on very, very few deals. In my experience, a typical VC has the bandwidth to actively 'spend time' or actively work on only one to two deals at any given time and perhaps 10-20 in a year -- as compared to those 300-500 they get exposed to." Find out why this formula works magic, and not only for venture capitalist, by reading the rest of Dodge's piece at the above link. Innovate On Purpose : It's not surprising that some companies get bogged down in the comfort of measurable, dependable methods and results but they might not realize that this very mindset is keeping them from innovation and big leaps forward. Jeffrey Phillips shares his thoughts on the trouble that focusing on predictable results can get your entrepreneurial venture in: "[I[ndividuals measured on operational excellence want consistency, a clearly defined process that people follow closely, the elimination of failures and mistakes, the elimination of variance. These are GOOD things for an organization once it has determined the appropriate mix of products and services customers want. To be able to deliver the products and services at the highest quality and lowest cost is valuable." However, it is this same way of viewing a company's goals and aspirations that get in the way of the "Eureka!' moments necessary to propel things forward in large steps as opposed to measured, and paced baby steps. Be sure to read Phillips' Operational Excellence - once an enemy, now a friend to innovation? for an insightful look at the changing face of how to drive business outcomes. HBS - Innovation Insights : How can Google go from young, impish startup with lots of zest and plenty of time for rogue engineers to innovate freely to a mature, innovative megacorp with a successful and varied product base on which to sustain its huge market presence? Scott Anthony has three things that he offers to the Googlers that might help them make it through the current economic crisis to the other side where lollipops and sugar canes wait by the bushelful. Anthony writes, "First, set and communicate clear criteria for how you make funding decisions. Make sure those criteria include quantitative elements (how big could the market be) and qualitative elements (how passionate are we about this). Second, create an 'ideal' innovation portfolio that blends core improvements and new growth businesses. Finally, consciously seek ideas that provide 'unique' diversification by using a new channel, reaching a new customer, or creating a new revenue stream." If that trio isn't enough information on one expert's views on helping Google bridge the gap to "adulthood," just click on through and read the remainder of Google grows up for your very own self. Springwise.com : And I used to be impressed at the clever origami-like pop-up structures that spring up at music fests and outdoor events, but this is something much more interesting for the potential franchise owner: a pop-up restaurant that is both highly transportable and earth-friendly at the same time. Here's some details to whet your appetite for this killer idea: "Müvbox features a fully functional kitchen with enough space for four members of staff and a wood-fired pizza oven. The walls of the container collapse to create a covered patio with enough room to serve 28 people, half of whom can be seated at small bistro tables. The concept has some laudable eco features, too: the structure is a reused container and little construction is needed to install it. Müvbox's floor is made from recycled tires and its roof contains solar panels to provide up to 40% of required energy. And it's easily shipped by land or sea. The food is mostly local, too, serving lobster rolls, seafood pizza and other local lobster dishes." The cost isn't astronomical at ~$150K and it's totally customizable for your particular application. Read Foldout restaurant has solar panels, will travel for more on this most excellent concept. BusinessWeek.com : In an attempt to maximize marketing dollars, and to better compete with Staples and other similar operations, business supply giant OfficeMax hired a firm to find out the things women want in their desks at work, and it appears that a sense of flair is one of them. Jessie Scanlon's How to Kick Off an Innovation Project explains this successful effort: "OfficeMax needed to innovate, but how? The first step was to understand the problem and the opportunities. A standard customer survey commissioned by the company in 2006 provided a starting point, revealing a split in how men and women thought about office supplies. Knowing too that women had spent $44.5 billion on office supplies the previous year, OfficeMax wondered if a focus on female shoppers might be an opportunity to differentiate itself. Ultimately the new strategy, and the innovations that followed, influenced everything from product development and marketing to store design and hiring." Slogging through the study's data revealed a number of key places that OfficeMax could focus on and steal market share away from its competitors, including more fashionable designs and some specially-created items that addressed a number of problems that female shoppers were experiencing. Can you think of an area that you're business can improve to capture more customers? Bonus piece o' the day: NuWire Investor 's How To Register A Trademark: A Guide For Acquiring A Trademark by Clifford D. Hyra. | |||
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| SMS Usage Cuts Costs And Increases Service Levels For Medical Non-profit | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Springwise.com : Why not use burgeoning cellphone SMS penetration to cut costs? And while you're at it, why not leverage the power of being connected to do some good in the world? Such is the thinking behind a most excellent healthcare innovation in one of the poorest corners of the globe: Africa. Based in California, FrontlineSMS:Medic hopes it can increase much-needed medical care and save on many of the related costs, including fuel for visits to far-away villages, with an SMS-based system that connects field working nurses and doctors to a centralized clinic. Launched in February, FrontlineSMS:Medic aims to improve matters using FrontlineSMS, a free, open-source software program that enables large-scale, two-way text messaging using only a laptop, a GSM modem and cell phones. Working with donations collected through Hope Phones, the initiative places a laptop running FrontlineSMS in a central clinic and then distributes cell phones to community health workers. Workers are trained in sending text messages to hospital staff to request drug dosing information or treatment instruction, for example, or provide status updates on a particular patient. Modified camera phones, meanwhile, can be used to analyze blood and sputum samples and perform critical diagnostics for conditions including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In a recent, 6-month pilot test of the system at a hospital in Malawi, 150 patients received emergency care, community health workers saved 1,000 hours of travel time—allowing them to visit more patients—the number of people being treated for tuberculosis doubled, and the hospital saved USD 3,500 worth of fuel, freeing up funds to purchase more medication. Operating the system, meanwhile, requires an investment of just USD 500, according to an article in the Guardian. This is a inspirational non-profit venture that accomplishes many important goals at once: economizing available resources, utilizing technology to decrease operating costs, and providing quality goods and services to an under-served population. Be sure to read the rest of Health care via SMS in the developing world for an uplifting story worth a few minutes' time. FutureLab.net : On the idea of sunk costs and irrational behavior, the doggie bag full of poor-quality restaurant foods is an exemplar par excellence . Roger Dooley, neuromarketing guru extraordinaire, explains the contradictions evident in the theory vs. reality of money ill spent in his recent topical piece, Doggie Bags & Sunk Costs . "Economists have long argued that sunk costs, i.e., money that has already been spent and can’t be recovered, are irrelevant to decision-making. Only new costs, they say, should be considered. Behavioral economists, who take into account not just economic theory but also real-world human behavior, argue that sunk costs do indeed affect our decisions whether or not that is rational." There is a real relationship between the brain and the decision to load up that plate-full of leftover glop that can be leveraged to your advantage. Seth's Blog : Seth Godin weighs in on the "sunken costs" theory and votes to ignore them when faced with a current choice regardless of how much past ones have failed. As an example, he points out the concert ticket purchaser faced with an unexpected opportunity: You have tickets to the Springsteen concert. They were really hard to get. You spent four hours surfing StubHub until you found the perfect seats for $55 each. On your way into the event, a guy offers you $500 cash for each ticket. Should you sell? It turns out the amount of time you spent getting the tickets is irrelevant. If you wouldn't be willing to PAY $500 for these tickets (and you weren't, or you would have) then you should be willing to sell them for $500. Spend $250 on dinner and go buy better tickets for tomorrow night's show. Or say you make a mistake and go to the concert instead of selling (those seats are $500 seats now). But Bruce is sick and Manfred Mann is substituting for him. You don't like him so much. But you paid $500 for the seats! Should you stay? Stay only if you like Manfred Mann more than the loss of your future time, which might be more valuable to you than the already sunk costs of $500 per seat, that's the rub. Check out Godin's Ignore sunk costs for the rest of the story. Heck, you've already spent 5 minutes reading this much; you might as well spend a few more to get the whole kit and kaboodle... Entrepreneur.com : Isn't not spending money the same as *making* it? Well, if you're in business for yourself, cutting expenses can increase cash flow, so in a way, yes! But how to make the difficult decisions of what to cut when every item seems important to your day-to-day operations? Joseph Benoit, a small business banking executive for Union Bank, N.A., has a few expert tips on how to trim any remaining fat from your already lean budget in his recent article, Manage Expenses Strategically . Benoit writes, "In your effort to cut costs, examine each expense, no matter how small, and determine which items you can do without. Don't hesitate to cut items that don't directly contribute to your bottom line. Consider trimming extras or perks, such as snacks for the breakroom. Create reports every week to examine both your expenses and revenue. Make adjustments as needed, especially when you notice that you are spending more than your budget allocations. Areas important to your business's revenue, such as production-related expenses and marketing, should be among the last items cut." Although these moves might seem a bit Draconian at first blush, they can pay off handsomely in the long-term. Temper these cuts with an effort to create low- or no- cost ways to keep employee morale up like team sporting events, company-sponsored charity work, or the like. ArsTechnica.com : Warning: Eighties flashback ahead! Nate Anderson has been covering the Jammie Thomas-Rassett P2P file-sharing case and finds someone rooting for Thomas-Rassett from an unexpected corner: Richard Marx. Anderson reports on the oft-maligned Marx' musical redemption: "Richard Marx this week has partially redeemed himself for the album's [Paid Vacation] creation (and for the $11 I must have spent on it back in high school). Marx issued a strong statement against the 'greedy actions of the major labels' after hearing about the $1.92 million Jammie Thomas-Rasset verdict." Indeed, one of Marx' songs was among the 24 that Thomas-Rassett made available for sharing via KaZaA software which added some levity to the courtroom proceedings but did little to change the outcome of the proceedings. Much to Ms. Thomas-Rassett's dismay and to the great ire of the once-great pop singer, Marx. If you'd like to read what Marx thinks about the nearly $2 million fine, do so by clicking on this surprising headline: Richard Marx (!) attacks RIAA after $1.92M Thomas verdict . Bonus piece o' the day: KansasCW 's Recessionary Thinking: Ten zany patents in pictures. (If you don't laugh out loud at at least one of these ideas, you're taking things way too seriously.) | |||
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| Board Meetings 101 For Startups | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Here's a guide that points out how to run your startup board meetings with panache and verve: the aptly titled How to Run a Startup Board Meeting , courtesy of blogger Andrew Payne. And after all his startup experience, Payne knows that of which he speaks. Here's a little sample of what's in store for the brave clicker who boldly makes the leap to wiki.payne.org : It's important to remember the board’s primary purpose: to hire (or fire) the CEO. The board really only makes that one decision at each meeting. A secondary purpose is advising the CEO and management team. In a well-functioning board, the directors give advice and opinion, but the CEO and team make the decisions (which might be against board advice, but they’ve got to live with the consequences). The board does not set the plans, objectives, goals, or strategy; instead, the CEO develops these, and presents them to the board for discussion, feedback and (possibly) approval. Finally, the board formally approves certain business items (as dictated by the company by-laws), such as: stock and option grants, 401(k) plans, compensation for executives, etc. Also, in smaller companies, board approval may be needed for any obligation above a certain threshold (e.g. $100k or $250k). If there’s a question about an item needing board approval, it’s best to err on the side of caution and get formal approval. After such a meaty quote, it's good to know that Payne explicates things further in the rest of his piece and should you find yourself in the enviable position of putting together your very own startup board, be sure to read the entire thing for yourself. The 271 Patent Blog : Peter Zura sure knows how to write a synopsis with the best of them. Why not try his Report From IP Business Conference 2009 for an example of his exemplary blogging capabilities? Here's just one of the paragraphs from what is most likely the best reportage of its kind on the IPBC09: China – Speaker: Ian Harvey, Chairman, Intellectual Property Institute. According to Ian, Chinese IP laws continue to develop and are becoming among the best in the world. The quality of patents were described as “particularly good,” even for applications filed by foreign firms. CIPO recognizes that more examiners are needed, and is in the process of instituting a massive training program to get examiners specialized in examining patents in their technical fields. Costs for prosecution is reasonable, but not cheap. Currently, China is aiming to become one of the top 5 patentees in the world by 2015. But wait, there's more! Simple click on the above link to Zura's site and check out the rest of the story in all its explicative glory. BusinessWeek.com : There are many in the storied annals of legal work who stand out from their much-maligned peers. People like Thomas Jefferson, or maybe even President Bill Clinton, if you're feeling kindly, but do you know about a new kid on the block who's sure to join the proud ranks of the litigatory Hall of Fame? Enter John Duffy. You might not recognize him at first glance, but unless you've been hiding on some far-away island under a proverbial rock, you know some of the very famous, and precedent-setting, cases he's worked on. Cases like Bilski , and KSR . You *do* know those names, nu? Michael Orey hopes to increase your familiarity with Mr. Duffy's on-going crusade to change the landscape of US patent law in his recent article, A Scholar-Activist Challenges U.S. Patent Law . Orey writes of Mr. Duffy's exploits, "Last spring, in a case known as Bilski, the Federal Circuit hand-picked Duffy to argue for broadly patenting business methods. The court rejected his argument in an October ruling that significantly pared back what can be patented. Now that the case is headed to the Supreme Court, Duffy says he expects to make another amicus—or friend of the court— filing." Will Duffy meet with better success in front of SCOTUS, or will he have to go back to training for his next big patent win? PatentBaristas.com : A timely book review in the subject area of intellectual property (IP) is always a welcome addition, yes? Stephen Albainy-Jenei aims to satisfy with his recent look at the Annual Review of Intellectual Property Law Developments: 2006-2008. Albainy-Jenei suggests you add this (initially) 3-years-in-one tome to your IP must-read list. "This type of volume is meant to satisfy two purposes: (1) to provide a good quick overview to the practitioner of important recent developments; and (2) to provide an easy-to-use way to incorporate the most recent decisions into legal research. This book succeeds on both counts. The book provides good, succinct summaries of recent decisions (and even some legislative and rule-making matters), providing enough information to allow the reader to place the decision in context without suffering information overload." Check out the rest of Book Review Monday and also be sure to click through to the book's Amazon.com link if your curiosity is piqued enough to want to read the complete book in black-and-white. ArsTechnica.com : Oh, FTC, why must you think you can stop "faux-blogging," or simply "flogging," as I like to call it? How can anyone honestly say they can tell when someone's a shill for a company or product without actually knowing it's a fact? Snooptress Jacqui Cheng enlightens us further: "Undisclosed 'sponsored' blogging may soon go the way of the dodo, the T. Rex, or the quagga under some strict new guidelines under consideration by the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC says it is looking at bloggers who write about certain products or services in exchange for money or favors from the companies behind them, potentially misleading the Internet-reading public about an apparent conflict of interest. The Commission hopes to introduce new guidelines this summer to better define how bloggers can write about these products." Enforcement? That's going to be the sticky wicket, methinks? FTC to crack down on undisclosed "sponsored" blogging for more on this sad attempt to stop people from pretending on the Interweb tubes...Good luck with all that, FTC! | |||
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| Francophiles Love To Hate Counterfeit Montreal Bagel Bakers | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| The Vancouver Sun : Canadians are people, too, especially those from Quebec, and they're not going to take it anymore. "It" being the use of area-specific monikers (aka intellectual property) for tasty French-Canadian foodstuffs by businesses that aren't keeping true to the spirit of the items' origins. Take, for example, the humble Montreal bagel: During a recent morning at St. Viateur Bagel, co-owner Robert Morena praised the idea of quality standards while indignantly recounting the activities of a would-be competitor from Hamilton, Ont., in early 2008. "Someone in Ontario was claiming to make Montreal bagels, and this person obviously did not know how to make Montreal bagels. It was a bagel with powdered sugar on it, and they were claiming it was a Montreal bagel!" Morena adds that he would support the creation of a system to promote and protect the authenticity of the city’s famous food product. He is adamant that it is the one-of-a-kind quality of Montreal bagels that has led St. Viateur to acquire regular customers across Canada and throughout the U.S. Northeast. The French, Italians and Spanish already have protections in place for their regional food specialties, so why not Canada, too? Read more on recapturing a bit of Canadian pride in Culinary intellectual property and the Montreal bagel by Jeff Roberts. PEHub.com : There's an unexpected correlation between venture capitalists and investments in geographically-close businesses that is generating a bit of a kerfuffle. The good folks at the Harvard Business School have discovered a relationship between VCs and local startup funding that turns out to be somewhat contrary to common beliefs. Dan Primack reports on the HBS study: "Specifically, the paper found that VC firms based in San Francisco, Boston and New York generally return more money on investments outside of their local geographies than on investments close to home. This isn’t to say that such firms do badly on their local deals – a Palo Alto-based firm still does better on a typical Menlo Park deal than would a Cleveland-based firm – nor does it take into account organizational costs (travel, etc.). But, again, that Palo Alto-based firm will probably generate a higher return on a Cleveland-based portfolio company than on one based in Menlo Park." Whoa there, Nelly! So, in the case of funding new entrepreneurial ventures, being a "locavore" is not all it's cracked up to be. Read Primack's piece, Study Disputes The Value of VCs "Buying Local" , for more details and be sure to hit up the link at the end of the page for a look at the entire "world gone upside-down" HBS report. InformationWeek.com : Now that off-shoring US tech jobs to India is par-for-the-course behavior, should American students be concerned that their Computer Science degrees will get them nothing more than a paper hat and plastic nametag at BurgerWorld? Well, yes, actually, if one very successful Indian CEO is to be believed. Rob Preston, VP & Editor in Chief at Informationweek, expands the picture a bit in his topical piece, Top Indian CEO: Most American Grads Are 'Unemployable' , and reveals Vineet Nayar's tough love answer to a query by an educational representative of a large US state: "The official wanted to know why HCL, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, wasn't hiring more people in his state. Vineet's short answer: because most American college grads are 'unemployable.'" Wha..?! That's a sucker punch to the satchel and a wake-up call to American educational institutions. When Indian tech giants refuse to hire US students because they "are just too expensive to train," it's time to revisit CS curricula and program goals, don't 'cha think? Reminds me of that old joke: "What does a Computer Science degree and $.75 get you? A cup of cheap coffee." The New York Times : You've surely heard of Google's high-minded motto: "Do no evil," but can such a statement co-exist with the companies stated mission of seeking "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Maybe, or maybe not, depending on who you're talking to about the subject. From Mountain View, California, David Carr recently took a private tour of the Googleplex and met with the founders of the multi-billion dollar IP-heavy company. Here's the closing bit of Carr's How Good (or Not Evil) Is Google? , which should give some indication of his impressions of Google's prominence in all things information: "When I told Mr. Schmidt I was worried about Google’s dominant presence in my digital life, he said: "It’s a legitimate concern. But the question is, how are we doing? Are our products working for you?" Why, yes they are. And if a book is ever written about all this, Google will probably be able to serve that up as well." ArsTechnica.com : The RIAA vs. P2P filesharers Question of the Day is: What's next for Jammie Thomas-Rasset? And, it's not a query to be taken lightly, my friends. Nate Anderson continues his in-depth coverage of an increasingly interesting case with this snippet on the grossly unconstitutional ~$2 million dollar fine levied against Thomas-Rasset: "The sheer, outrageous size of the damage award in the case is already prompting calls to change the law. Even among the Ars commentariat, plenty of readers believe that Thomas-Rasset did infringe the 24 copyrights at issue, but there was near universal disdain for the jury and for the law that allowed such an award. But the outrage isn't confined to the blogosphere. The Washington lobby group CCIA, backed by AMD, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and others, calls the verdict 'ridiculous.'" Man, you *know* it's a kooky-sized fine when the tech industry biggies get on-board the "WTF?-train"! I bet Thomas-Rasset wishes she had settled for $5K now but maybe that's the point: fight all the way to the end and stand up for your principles in the face of daunting odds. Isn't that the same guiding values that led to the foundation of this great nation? Go, Jammie, go! Bonus piece o' the day: PEHub.com 's Dan Primack presents Private Equity and Venture Capital To Be Regulated . | |||
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| Debating The Validity Of National Innovation Policy | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| The New York Times : Is innovation an organic, untempered process that performs best when unfettered by any outside influence, governmental or otherwise? Or is it a definable series of policies that can be implemented more rigidly to produce repeatable results? One group of innovation experts from around the globe pondered those questions at a recent, private meeting outside of San Francisco, California. Steve Lohr captures some of the goings-on at this "unusual gathering" in his recent article, Can Governments Till the Fields of Innovation? Lohr writes on a Scandinavian point-of-view that suggests innovation could use a little help: CLEARLY, the innovation meeting in California was a gathering of enthusiasts. One view not heard was that innovation policy itself is a mistake — government meddling in decisions best left to the marketplace — as free-market purists contend. Lars Aukrust, executive director for innovation at the Research Council of Norway, answered that criticism by comparing a nation with a large corporation. "If you are going to run a big company,” he said, “are you going to leave it all to serendipity or make some strategic choices?" "Innovation policy is a probability game," Mr. Aukrust added. "You can improve the odds of success." Be sure to check out the rest of Lohr's piece for more global viewpoints on the policy of governmental innovation guidance. Core77 : As the population of the United Stages ages, there are more and more people struggling with long-term and potentially debilitating diseases that make it difficult for people to self-administer injectable drug treatments. OXO , a company famous for their very user-friendly product designs has created a novel and innovative syringe with the aim of helping people with rheumatoid arthritis take better care of themselves. OXO gives Universal Design a shot in the arm by "hipstomp" provides a few details on this ground-breaking design that might be eventually used in any number of treatment plans should it prove to be effective and popular. Also enclosed is a history of the hypodermic needle that helps show how innovative OXO's design truly is. Nothing like looking back to see the way forward with more clarity, nu? Vator.TV : Chris Rock is famous for his comedy, but did you know he is also something of a economist? Well, at least he played something of a price point expert in "I'm Gonna Get Your Sucka" according to John Greathouse in his related piece, The Chris Rock school of entrepreneurship "How Much For A Rib?" I recommend you visit the site hosting Greathouse's post and check out the referenced video snippet and read his complete analysis of price point economics, but here's an executive summary if you're in a hurry: The essence of Chris Rock’s cameo in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" became a watchword at Citrix. Whenever we encountered a prospect who attempted to nickel-and-dime us with an unreasonable request, we referred to them as "wanting a rib." In other words, they were a prospect that was unlikely to become a profitable customer. As Chris Rock runs from the ribjoint, chased by Isaac Hayes, actor Bernie Casey enters the scene and admonishes Isaac Hayes’s character by saying, "Don’t do it. The customer is always king." Experienced entrepreneurs know this is simply not true. Some would-be customers, such as those who are unwilling to pay an equitable price for your solutions, should be sent fleeing, just like Chris Rock’s character. If they are not, it just may be you who is gonna get it, sucka. Good stuff and injecting a little humor into each day is a good thing, don't you agree? FutureLab.net : How important is place/history to an impression? Quite, according to one expert's recent post the subject. Neuromarketer Roger Dooley's A Sense Of Place encourages you and your business to consider the value your customer places on the story behind your product or service and offers a few examples to make the point stick. "We all tend to do the same thing, to varying degrees, when we come in contact with places or objects of great personal or historic significance. If I handed you an old brick, you might be rather non-plussed. If the director of Mount Vernon opened a velvet-lined walnut box and handed you a brick, telling you that it had sat on George Washington’s desk as a paperweight for 20 years, you might be more affected. Holding an object so intimately associated with the founder of our country would, for many people, be a moving experience. Once again, though, our experience is shaped by our belief about the object rather than some intrinsic power of that object." The mind can be a strong influencer of the emotional experience your customers feel when they purchase or use your product or service, so why not follow in the footsteps of some brilliant efforts by generating an honest and uplifting back-story to help generate a sense of place and history? OPEN Forum : Are you interested in learning "how to dramatically accelerate the development of business relationships to drive sales, spark innovation, and create team cohesion"? You should be, if you're not. Especially if you're a C-level exec at smaller business, according to a recent interview featured by Guy Kawasaki with author and CEO Keith Ferrazziof Ferrazzi Greenlight. Here's a one of the more pertinent Q&A examples to get you pointed in the right direction: Question: Why do people fail to perceive how badly they are performing? Answer: People tend to fall victim of what scientists call “self-serving” bias. This means that when we succeed, we congratulate ourselves. When we fail, we blame someone else. Therefore, we learn less from our failures than we could or should, and that’s why we need people to help us complete the feedback loop. These helpers are "buddies" and importantly, they are not yes men, but rather people with whom you have a long-term relationship established and who will advise you honestly when you need it most. Ferrazzi suggests one method that has worked for him to help get a buddy lifeline relationship off on the right foot: "I'm a big believer in making that deep connection in person during a time dedicated to relationship-building—like a date, but not a romantic one. I call that a "long slow dinner."After that, technology is a great way to keep the relationship going." Priceless knowledge and well worth the price of a click or two. Bonus piece of the day: Mike Speiser's Cargo Cult Management at Gigaom.com . | |||
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| Unemployment Threatens To Eclipse California's Economic Sunshine | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| BusinessWeek.com : Things on a few fronts appear to be trending towards some kind of economic recovery, but in the United States' largest financial powerhouse state, the story is still trending downwards. Juliet Williams and Michelle Rindels' related article, Calif. jobless rate climbs to record 11.5 percent , details the situation from the Golden State. They write on the Terminator-in-Chief's thoughts about this not unexpected turn of events: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement that with the massive international economic downturn, it's natural the state would see historic job losses. "A full recovery will not happen overnight -- it will take time, which only further underscores the need to continue the economic stimulus measures I fought for in the February budget," said Schwarzenegger. "There is no greater priority right now than to stimulate the economy, create jobs and get California back on the road to prosperity." Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has proposed laying off another 5,000 state employees, along with billions of dollars in cuts to education and social welfare programs, to address a $24.3 billion deficit for the fiscal year that starts July 1. That road might be riddled with huge potholes for those hoping to get back to work, but it looks like the Governator is serious about getting things patched up. Cutting 5K state jobs and making a substantial reduction in government funding -for what some would see as the most important programs in any state's budget- is sure to be controversial, but at least there's some semblance of action in the face of a worsening situation. A VC : Should your venture capital motto be "Wanted: LTR?" Fred Wilson thinks that well-founded and lasting relationships are the key to future returns on your investments and uses real-life lessons to prove his point. From Building Successful Long Term Relationships Wilson writes, "Like a marriage, a venture investment is a long term relationship. None of mine have lasted twenty-two years and none will be as important as my marriage. But if you treat them like a marriage (on both sides) and work hard at them, communicate early and often, are tolerant, and most importantly share your vision and values, it can be a very rewarding experience, both emotionally and financially." Wilson also provides some tips on how to make your long-term relationships go the distance while bringing a grounded and dignified point-of-view to the subject. Adventures in Capitalism : From the outside looking in, the practice of entrepreneurship appears to be full of high-stress situations and critical deadlines/decisions, but there's another side, a more human one, to the day-to-day life of an entrepreneur that is less frequently seen. Chris Yeh offers up a one day diary of his life as an entrepreneur including some genuine and much-relatable moments that should help the general layperson understand that entrepreneurs are people, too. Be sure to check out Yeh's blog post, A Day In The Life Of Chris Yeh , for an insider's look at a day in the life. Entrepreneur.com : David G. Javitch, Ph.D., organizational psychologist and president of Javitch Associates, thinks that the old methods of motivating your employees might not work so well after all but he hopes that his recent piece, with its closing list of 10 ways to *actually* motivate your employees, will lead you in the correct direction. Javitch opens with this premise: "Business owners need to ensure that their employees are productive and eager to do the best job possible--this is especially true during today’s challenging economic times. Yet every industry and every organization has people who simply do not produce work in the quality that they are capable of providing. That can create costly problems for a manager. Leaders often miss the mark when trying to ramp up employee productivity. Let’s debunk some of the top motivational myths." 5 Employee Motivation Myths Debunked for the win and while you're at it, be sure to do some thinking about how you can better manage your employees to be all they can be for your venture. VCBall : Although a bit dated, Steve Brotman's Go for the Dark Horse, Obama relates to startups and venture capital investments alike as Brotman suggests that the real magic behind any successful venture is the judicious application of the Dark Horse, or unknown quantity, principle. From his 2008 post, Brotman writes why every businessman needs to take a risky gamble, "I think most entrepreneurs, as well as most VCs, and as most Americans, deep down, want to believe in Dark Horses too-- for good reason I think. Supporting the underdog is a uniquely American trait; it's a belief that hardwork and tenacity in the land of opportunity will pay off. Americans and entrepreneurs know that Dark Horses know they are Dark Horses; Dark Horses have so much more to prove than traditional candidates: they need to win, not for money or love or power or fame but for the fact that no one expected them to get there and they have a lot to prove, to themselves if nothing else-- and nothing to lose if they just lay it all out there. This set of traits is exactly what every startup needs." Three cheers for the underdog! Be sure to check out the rest of the story for more on how betting on Dark Horses can pay off handsomely. | |||
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| Angel Investing Still Alive And Kicking In Seattle | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Xconomy.com - Seattle : You may not have already heard about the largest angel investment group in the world, but that's all about to chance. Enter stage right: "The Keiretsu Forum is the world’s largest angel community, with 750-plus accredited members across 18 chapters from Barcelona to Bellevue. Since 2000, its members have invested more than $180 million in 200 companies spanning technology, healthcare, consumer products, real estate, and other sectors." The exciting news for more local venture capital-seeking startups is the Seattle chapter of Keiretsu headed up by Todd Dean. Gregory T. Huang takes Dean's pulse of the Pacific Northwest angel/startup funding situation: "As for his take on investing in the Northwest, Dean says, 'We’ve never lacked entrepreneurs, and never lacked capital. But there’s a huge disconnect between the two.' He points out that Keiretsu has been successful in the Northwest in part 'because of pulling deals from the Bay Area' and working together with other Seattle-area investors. For example, he points to Seattle-based Earth Class Mail, which raised a large Series A round ($13.3 million) in early 2008 from Keiretsu Forum members and Bellevue-based Ignition Partners." Working together doesn't sound all that bad now, does it? Look for a rousing rendition of "Kumbaya" to break out any moment or, if that's not what you had in mind, just read Todd Dean of Keiretsu Forum on Northwest Angel Investing Strategy for the rest of the story. Heritage Foundation : "Strong intellectual property (IP) protections are especially important to economic recovery and growth--a critical consideration, given the current economic climate. Congress should remember that patents are, at base, property, and that moving intellectual property farther from the real property paradigm endangers American innovation." This from co-authors Honorable Thomas C. Feeney and Andrew M. Grossman in their deep-reaching piece on IP and patents entitled Patent Proposal Puts Property and Innovation at Risk . Feeney and Grossman offer a cogent "state of affairs" look at the current situation of IP/patents and then offer up a short list of points to help guide policy with this introductory statement: "The Senate should take the following steps to maintain the strong property-rights paradigm that underlies the U.S. patent system, encourage innovation, and discourage endless legal maneuvering..." Be sure to click on through and see what this dynamic duo think will get innovation and intellectual property back on track. The Guardian : Google's Sergey Brin recently shared his thoughts on how and why Google remains on top of the innovation company list even though the company is no longer small and new. From Secrets of a nimble giant by Jemima Kiss, offers this explanation for the search engine's continued success: "It's important for people to realise that you should benefit from the scale - if you're not benefiting then you're doing something wrong, and might as well break up into lots of little things. Instead of having our employees in large buildings, we could have several thousand houses each with a garage - there's nothing stopping us from doing that. But the fact is that as we scale, we should be able to take advantage of that. Look at how many colleagues can you talk about a specific issue with, and how can you take advantage of a piece of infrastructure that the company already has." Not to mention that Google's famous 80/20 innovation program allows its best and brightest to create new ideas and hone them in preparation for presentation and possible adaptation by higher ups. And a final closing quote on Brin's view of the "Eureka!" moment to help guide you in your creative efforts: "...[C]oming up with an idea is the least important part of creating something great. It has to be the right idea and have good taste, but the execution and delivery are what's key." AP News via Google : President Obama's health care reform plans are growing legs and causing plenty of hand-wringing not only for insurance companies and health-care providers but also for small businesses. From Promises, Promises: Obama's health plan guarantee by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar come further insights into the potential troubles for employees and employers under the proposed changes to America's ailing health care program including what to make of Obama's assurance that "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." MIT's Jonathan Gruber, a leading health economist, said Obama's promise shouldn't be taken as a sign that Americans will be able to keep indefinitely the same coverage they have now. "With or without reform, that won't be true," said Gruber. "His point is that the government is not going to force you to give up what you have, but that's not to say other circumstances won't make that happen." He predicts only a small share of employers will drop coverage, and they will use the money they would have spent on premiums to give raises to their workers. Health care reform is a hotly-debated issue and there are many interested parties sending swarms of fat-wallet lobbyists to the hallowed halls of Congress in an attempt to influence the outcome of the reform effort but one thing's for sure: things might get worse before they get better, but at least there's not far to fall should the bottom drop out of the health care system. Steve Blank : How best to balance startup and family lives? A tricky question, indeed. In his topical post, Epitaph for an Entrepreneur , Steve Blank offers up the plan that he and his wife arrived at after the arrival of their 2 children. From this post, Blank outlines some of the highlights for us: •This life isn’t practice for the next one. I started to realize that some of the older guys who I had admired as role models at work had feet of clay at home. They had chose their company over family and had kids who felt abandoned by their dads for work – and some of these kids have turned out less than optimally. I met lots of other dads going through the "could-have, would-have, should-have" regrets and reflections of the tradeoffs they had made between fatherhood and company building. Their regrets were lessons for me. •What will your epitaph say? When our kids were babies I was still struggling to try to put the work/life balance in perspective. Someone gave me a thought that I tried to live my live my life around. He asked me, when you’re gone would you rather have your gravestone say, "He never missed a meeting." Or one that said, "He was a great father." Holding my two kids on my lap, it was a pretty easy decision. What are you doing to balance your separate lives and what will be written on your tombstone after you shuffle off the mortal coil? Worth thinking about, for sure... | |||
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| The Fine Art Of "Thinking Entrepreneur" By Jay Goultz | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| The New York Times : Well, you've been waiting for it, and Jay Goultz wants to deliver. What am I talking about, you ask? I'm pointing you in the correct direction to check out the very first post at the new You're The Boss blog entitled Introducing: Thinking Entrepreneur . Here's just a sample of what's in store for you, dearest constant reader: "One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that small businesses are widely misunderstood. There are millions of small business owners out there who are struggling with similar issues. There are things that keep them up at night. There are things they need to know but have no way of knowing: how to hire, how to fire, how to find new customers, how to keep old customers, the difference between cash flow and profits, the difference between doing what you want because you own the business or because you’re being a jerk." It's the knowing that counts and such knowledge only comes with time and effort. My Dad tells me experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted and it's invaluable stuff, that. Be sure to add the You're The Boss blog to your daily "must read" list and learn from someone who's been there, and done that. Big trouble for Jammie Thomas-Rasset! From a recent APNews piece, Jury rules against Minn. woman in download case , we learn details of the outcome of her retrial, and it's not good news at all: "A federal jury ruled Thursday that Jammie Thomas-Rasset willfully violated the copyrights on 24 songs, and awarded recording companies $1.92 million, or $80,000 per song. Thomas-Rasset's second trial actually turned out worse for her. When a different federal jury heard her case in 2007, it hit Thomas-Rasset with a $222,000 judgment." Holy inflated damage judgments, Batman! ArsTechnica.com 's Nate Anderson has more to add on this travesty of justice: "A new lawyer, a new jury, and a new trial were not enough to save Jammie Thomas-Rasset. In a repeat of the verdict from her first federal trial, Thomas-Rasset was found liable for willfully infringing all 24 copyrights controlled by the four major record labels at issue in the case. The jury awarded the labels damages totaling a whopping $1.92 million. As the dollar amount was read in court, Thomas-Rasset gasped and her eyes widened." I hope Kiwi Camara, Thomas-Rasset's superstar lawyer, can convince the judge that such a massive judgment is unconstitutional and unconscionable. Check out more of Anderson's coverage in Thomas verdict: willful infringement, $1.92 million penalty . Intellectual property auction giant Ocean Tomo is pulling the plug on its unprofitable sale of IP and passing on the baton to British interdealer broker ICAP for $10 million, according to a recent piece at the Chicago Tribune . The company is penning a partnership deal with ICAP stipulating that Ocean Tomo's IP specialists stay in their respective offices in Chicago, Florida and Connecticut. For more details, read Ocean Tomo sells intellectual-property-rights division . In other IP news, Venture Beat 's Camille Rickets reports that "Conformia Software, maker of software used to manage software cycles end-to-end, has sold its intellectual property assets to Oracle for an undisclosed amount. The company, which specialized in drug development processes, appears to now be defunct. Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle, on the other hand, plans to merge this technology with its existing Oracle Agile Product Lifecycle Management product, which also assists and monitors drug development from beginning to commercialization." More details in Conformia sells intellectual property to Oracle, disbands via The Industry Standard . IPWatchdog.com : Gene Quinn has some thoughtful comments on President Obama's selection of David Kappos as the next head of the US Patent and Trademark Office in his recent topical piece. Quinn shares with us a few of his musings: "...I am not exactly sure what to make of the White House announcement today. Exactly what does it mean when the White House announces President Obama intends to appoint Kappos to be PTO Director. Is this an announcement that an announcement of Kappos as PTO Director is forthcoming? I don’t know, but it seems as if Kappos is heading to the PTO, which means Alfred E. Neuman once again will not hold a position within the US government." If you don't know much about Mr. Kappos, Quinn offers this summation of some of his accomplishments as released by the White House Press Office today: "He has held various previous leadership positions in intellectual property law associations in Asia and the U.S. He has spoken widely in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. on intellectual property topics. Mr. Kappos received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California Davis in 1983, and his law degree from the University of California Berkeley in 1990. He joined IBM in 1983 as a Development Engineer and has served as an Intellectual Property Law attorney in IBM’s Storage Division and Litigation group, as IP Law Counsel in IBM Software Group, as Assistant General Counsel in IBM Asia/Pacific, IBM Corporate Counsel and as Assistant General Counsel prior to his current position." Find out what Senator Orrin Hatch has to say about Mr. Kappo's nomination by reading the rest of Quinn's President Obama Intends to Appoint Kappos as PTO Head . Bonus piece of the day: 5 Lifelines for Your Startup by Amy Reinink at Entrepreneur.com . | |||
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| New York Times To Feature New Entrepreneurial Blog | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| The New York Times : A new blog is coming to prime time at the last bastion of printed news, which is quite strange to imagine. Entitled You're The Boss , the blog aims to let Jay Goultz, the "Thinking Entrepreneur," wax poetic on what it means to be an entrepreneur with the wheel of the good ship tightly in your grasp. Here's a quick executive summary of the blog's guiding principle: "One of the guiding thoughts behind this blog is that unlike doctors and lawyers and a lot of other professionals, business owners rarely get any training. Nor do they have a lot of places to turn to compare notes, get advice, learn from one another’s mistakes, and keep up with the important changes coming out of Washington. We’re hoping this will be that kind of place." If that sounds like your kind of thing, be sure to add the blog to your RSS feed reader and learn more as Goultz chronicles "his own experiences as well as those of other business owners he will follow." Gigaom : Who else but Om Malik could offer Tips on Innovation & Entrepreneurship From Jeff Bezos ?Here's just one of a plethora of valuable hints from Amazon.com's CEO and innovator extraordinaire: "The trick to being an entrepreneur is to know when to be stubborn and when to be flexible: Be stubborn about the vision, but flexible about tactics, Bezos said. For instance, you can be flexible about reducing costs, but you don’t change your vision to reduce costs. Great point, because more often than not, founders get caught up in the tactics and change their direction as a result." There are many more where that came from, including a solid suggestion to take failure as just one step on the ladder to business success and one way to make sure your customers remain the focus of your business' day-to-day operations. 5-star stuff, people! ArsTechnica.com : Whoops! Looks like something's rotten in Denmark, or Minneapolis (if you'll excuse the mis-location of a metaphor) and the RIAA's stepped in it again, it seems. Nate Anderson is on the legal beat and his RIAA lawyers toss "a skunk in the jury box," apologize helps to clear out the odor from a smelly bit of lawyer-ly misconduct. Anderson explains how RIAA computer science expert Doug Jacobson pulled a rather large boner in this doozy of a quote: Jacobson said he had found a log file on the Jammie Thomas-Rasset hard drive image he had examined. That log file indicated that an external hard drive had been connected to the machine—a minor point, but one that the recording industry seemed to believe indicated that Thomas-Rasset had loaded her new hard drive with songs from an external drive. (She had replaced the hard drive at issue in the case when the infringement in question was detected, apparently after her 10-year old son had smacked the machine in frustration and broken it.) Defense lawyer Joe Sibley said that this log file information was news to him, and he wondered why it wasn't in Jacobson's original report. When had he learned about it? "A couple days ago," said Jacobson. "A couple days ago!" thundered Sibley. "No further questions." He stalked off to his table and threw down his pen. The jury was removed and Jacobson was questioned further. It turned out that he had recently unearthed the log file information when preparing again for his testimony, had mentioned it in passing to a recording industry lawyer, and no one had notified the defense—a massive error. This is top-notch miscreancy in one of the most followed P2P piracy cases in recent history. Tune in for tomorrow's testimony by defendant Jammie Thomas-Rassett, who is slated to take the stand and testify in her own defense. Let's hope she knows how to plead the 5th Amendment should the RIAA's lead counsel, Tim Reynolds pull out the self-implication shtick. Forbes.com : Rest easy and let this automatic slideshow present a bevy of entrepreneurial spirits who know how to make a good idea great. In Pictures: 10 Remarkable, Recession-Proof Entrepreneurs for the win. TechCrunch.com : And finally, to cap off the day's interesting stories, why not visit Sarah Lacy from far-away Africa in her very insightful post, Memo from Rwanda: Eat Your Heart Out Al Gore . Lacy has visited the dark continent more than once this year and provides an honest assessment of how things are shaping up in one of the poorest countries on Earth. Surprisingly, Rwanda is rich in natural resources that could serve as fuel for future development and economic growth. Lacy writes on the huge methane reserve trapped at the bottom of Lake Kivu: "For years, the local brewery, Bralirwa, which is 70%-owned by Heineken, has extracted some of the gas to power its plant, and now the country is extracting enough to power three of its cities with more planned. Experts say there’s enough Methane to power the entire country for 400 years. And the Rwandan government has ambitious plans to eventually sell the excess energy to other African nations." Be sure to check out the rest of Lacy's story for an unexpected look at a country on the mend. Bonus piece 'o the day: Harvard Business ' Seize the Silver Lining: A Checklist for Innovation by Scott Anthony. | |||
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| 100-Hour Work Week Not The Way To Small Biz Success | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Adventures In Capitalism : Chris Yeh takes on the myth of the necessity of the 100-hour work week that many entprerneurs see as the way to success in his topical piece, Workaholism Is A Choice (Usually The Wrong One) . A quote from Yeh's well-intentioned piece to get you started: I had a moment like this during my first startup, when I was held late at a meeting, and didn't have time to pick up my wife for a dinner were were supposed to attend. I dashed off to the dinner about an hour late, and discovered that she wasn't there, because we were on a trip, and I had forgotten that she didn't have a car. So I drove off to pick her up. She was furious, and rightly so. That never happened again. He's probably lucky his wife didn't make him sleep in the "dog house" for a long time after that incident. Are you living life to work or working to live? Onstartups.com : Seems like David Letterman's kind of comedy is getting less than stellar reviews these days, but Dharmesh Shah's efforts to join in the funny business of 10 things you won't hear an angel say are much more enjoyable. Check out Shah's Angel Investor Non-Admissons: 10 Things They Won't Say for a few belly laughs. There's almost nothing better than a good chuckle to make the day seem lighter. One of my favorites from the list is Number 8: "I like to invest in cool startups because it helps make up for high school." Not all of them are quite so pointed, but the other 9 items are worth a quick click and an equally fast read. ArsTechnica.com : It's almost time for Jammie Thomas & Co. to approach the bench for another round of RIAA cagematch legal wranglings, and Nate Anderson has plenty of deets for the hungry IP-interested reader in his related article, Thomas retrial begins Monday: what to expect . Superstar savant laywer Kiwi Camara is expected to do a knock-up job of punching holes in the RIAA's already weak argument against Thomas. Anderson writes, "Kiwi Camara, the new lawyer who is defending Thomas-Rasset, mounted an ambitious pretrial attempt to exclude MediaSentry evidence, throw out record label evidence that they actually owned the copyrights in question, and make a 'fair use' defense of Thomas-Rasset's alleged sharing." If Camara's ambitious legal program will meet with skeptical judicial dismissal has yet to be seen but the court-side seat that Anderson is sure to occupy will bring you, the faithful reader, as close to the real thing as possible without even having to leave your office chair. PRWeb : For an interesting news release on an upcoming IP auction, be sure to read Fortunoff Intellectual Property Auction Set for June 18, 2009 . "Fortunoff's intellectual asset portfolio for sale includes certain trademarks, domain names, and customer databases. In addition, CONSOR has identified additional value added elements such as the bridal registry, exclusive jewelry designs, 1-800-Fortunoff, training materials, knowledge databases and IT systems." BusinessPundit.com : Battery technology company Ener1 is on the path to lithium-battery world domination if their current product line can be brought to market with a little bit of taxpayer moola. Drea reports, "The Obama administration is trying to position the United States to become the world’s foremost manufacturer of lithium ion batteries. If the plan works, Ener1’s domestic first-mover advantages could poise it to control the global LI battery industry. 'Ener1 estimates it could win 5-12% of a million-vehicle battery market, creating $2.1B in annual revenue with 15% margins,'according to Seeking Alpha. As it stands, nobody knows yet whether the DOE will give it the necessary grant." Loans from Uncle Sam are a bit easier to get these days with oodles of stimulus funny money rolling downhill to even the most modest of startups. Read Ener1 Wants to Win Lithium Ion Battery Race to catch up on the rest of the LI story. | |||
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| Savvy Businesses Invest In Intellectal Property | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| Tulsa World : Margaret Millikin offers some of her ideas on the value of a business' intellectual property assets in the well-titled " Leveraging of intellectual property important " with a special focus on the process of getting your IP house in order. She writes, "Good investors assess values and reallocate to make their assets work harder. This axiom applies to your intellectual property as well. Just as you would rebalance your retirement portfolio, savvy investors review and rebalance their IP assets, or 'intellectual capital,' in a down economy." Millikin has a 3-step program for you to follow as you work at discovering any IP your venture might be overlooking including a tip to perform an full accounting of this valuable resource: "An IP audit is a useful tool to identify your IP and determine where and how it is being used. Organizations and individuals use these reviews to identify and update their inventory of intellectual assets and record them in a central location. The list should be maintained and periodically updated." New York Post : Who's afraid of new search engine Bing ? Would you be surprised to learn that Google's Sergey Brin is scrambling to reverse engineer Microsoft's latest bid for search engine domination? James Doran delivers some insider details of the Google exec's actions in light of upstart Bing's increasing market share. "[C]o-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft's rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service, The Post has learned. Brin, according to sources inside the tech behemoth, is himself leading the team of search-engine specialists in an effort to determine how Bing's crucial search algorithm differs from that used by the company he founded in 1998 with Stanford University classmate Larry Page." Officially, Google is offering no comment on the veracity of this rumor, but surely Bing has gotten some attention from the Mountain View, California king of search/adwords. At only an 11 percent market share, Microsoft's "decision engine" has plenty of room to grow if Google is unable to modify their proprietary search algorithm to steal traffic away from Bing. Check out Fear Grips Google for the rest of this developing story. TechDirt.com : Old Orrin Hatch is at it again. Propagating intellectual property and copyright falsehoods and generally making a mess of the whole IP argument. One of the main weapons in Senator Hatch's tirade against IP pirates is his frequent citation of various "expert" studies, but only those that prove his point. Article author Mike Masnick explains this onerous misapplication of non-empirical data: "The study, which Senator Hatch conveniently did not cite (wonder why...?) was actually written by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a group of companies who have benefited greatly from the intellectual monopolies, and clearly wish to extract additional monopoly rents. Their study has been widely discredited and debunked, and was recently the source of controversy after the Conference Board of Canada mistakenly relied on its results -- which The Conference Board later withdrew and apologized for after realizing what a mistake it was to rely on those numbers. In the meantime, the only reason that research was used by The Conference Board was because the IIPA was upset with the actual numbers that showed copyright infringement really wasn't that big of an issue." If this piques your interest, be sure to read the rest of Masnick's Senator Orrin Hatch... And The Lies The Copyright Industry Tells . BusinessWeek - NEXT : Helen Waters had a chance to talk with some of the attendees at the Incentive To Innovate conference held at the United Nations building and learned that innovation, for some, is about process, not people. From How to build an innovation culture Waters writes, "There were no 'aha', breakthrough moments of clarity here. Instead, conference attendees came up with some perfectly reasonable suggestions of encouraging cross-department collaboration or creating internal networks for ideas. What came out loud and clear is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this critical issue." One attendee points out that if you have a system in place for generating innovative ideas, it can survive almost any change in personnel: "'I've fired nearly everyone, rehired and had exactly the same company,' he said. In other words, fostering innovation is about the way you do business as much as who does your business for you. Recreate the same uncreative processes and you’ll have the same uncreative business[,]" said former Halliburton CEO John W Gibson. Waters also provides a link to her podcast interview with InnoCentive’s Dwayne Spradlin for your auditory delight. Xconomy.com - Boston : Can waste management be innovative? You betcha! Especially if you're the eponymous Waste Management , a Houston, TX-based waste hauler and environmental services company with more than 20 million commercial, residential, municipal, and industrial customers in North America. In a homerun business idea, sun-powered trash compactor startup BigBelly Solar is teaming up with Waste Management to widen the availability of its environmentally-friendly waste collection products. Wade Roush provides more dirty details of the clean sweep in the making: "The two companies aren’t revealing the financial terms of their deal. But it could be lucrative for both parties, as it gives Waste Management an attractive new service to offer to cities or large commercial facilities that already hire the company to pick up residential curbside waste or to empty dumpsters. Waste Management hasn’t traditionally collected waste from public trash bins—but in places where City Hall wants to install the BigBelly machines, residents may soon see Waste Management’s distinctive green trucks rather than public-works trucks emptying sidewalk waste containers." BigBelly's solar-powered trash compactor units "can hold up to five times more waste than ordinary public trash bins" and send out a wireless signal when full. How cool is that? For more on this potentially powerful partnership, read BigBelly Strikes Big Agreement with Waste Management . Bonus piece o' the day: Freep.com presents Microsoft CEO Ballmer to push innovation by Tom Walsh. | |||
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| Why Your Next PowerPoint Pitch Should Be "Tuftian" | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| BusinessWeek.com : If you've ever inwardly cringed at the thought of being subjected to yet another crappy Powerpoint presentation for fear of bloated, confusing and just plain poorly presented tables of data, Adam Aston's recent piece on Edward Tufte (pronounced TUFF-tee) might be just what you need. In his special report, Tufte's Invisible Yet Ubiquitous Influence , Aston reports on one man's quest to make data presentation elegant, simple and full of meaning: "In dismantling some of the worst habits of two dimensional design, he has framed new analytical terms that flicker through many design conservations. For Tufte, 'chart junk' is the kudzu of modern information work. It includes the ubiquitous, unneeded words and addenda that tend to crowd the margins of corporate communication, from PowerPoint to project management charts and financial reports. Most of this junk can be removed without diminishing understanding. 'Clutter is a failure of design, not an attribute of information,' Tufte writes in Envisioning Information." A self-published polymath with a penchant for making difficult numeric presentations sing, Tufte is constantly on the road and continues his efforts to make your next PowerPoint presentation end with a standing ovation instead of groans, or worse yet, snores. OnStartups.com : Once again, Dharmesh Shah weighs in with some relevant thoughts on startups, as is his frequent wont. In response to the myriad comments on one of his most popular previous blog posts on the free/freemium/subscription Internet business model, Shah takes it on himself to layout a few tips and hints on making a go of the "freemium" including this gem: "1. If you’re playing the 'freemium' game, you need to look at this for what it is: a marketing expense. If it takes 100 free users to get 1 paying customer, you may have a problem (because the 100 free users are costing you something, and that’s contributing to the acquisition cost of the customer you got). My guess is that conversation rates vary widely, but let’s use 1% because it makes the math easy. If it costs you about $2/year to support a customer, that means you have $200/expenses for your 100 free customers that it took to get you one paying customer. Maybe, with your pricing, this makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t." Whether or not the model will work in your case is something you'll have to puzzle out for yourself, but don't let that stop you from catching the rest of Shah's excellent post on Web 2.0, Startup Pricing Models: Free Forever, Freemium and Freedom To Pay . Open Forum : As a follow up to his super coverage of a visit to the USS Nimitz for some Navy social web goodness, Guy Kawasaki presents a guest post by fellow air carrier visitor, Bill Reichert, Top Ten Lessons from the US Navy: Management Lessons on an Aircraft Carrier at Sea . In his piece, Reichert relates the things he and Guy observed during their stay on board one of the world's modern technological military wonders and item number 3 in his list could very well be the best takeaway from the group: "Teamwork: As much as the movie Top Gun created the impression that it’s about competing to be Number 1, the ethic in an actual operating situation is intensely about team performance. Watching the crews maintain, fuel, setup, and pilot F-18s for flight, it’s clear it’s not about who’s the hottest dog on the deck. Every single person counts on other members of the team to enable them to get their part of the job done, and no one person can take credit for success, or benefit from another’s failure." Every successful operation needs synergy and teamwork to be more than commonplace: excellence lies in the hands of every person and each of them knows that without their individual efforts the mission would fail. That's power, and powerful. What does you business do in order to create a sense of ownership and pride in your team members? Entrepreneur.com : By now the news is out that the Small Business Association is offering stimulus loans to help SMEs bridge the cash gap back to stability and profits but do you know any specifics of the program? Mark Deo does, and he shares his inside knowledge of this Obama administration lifeline in his timely, and dare I say, topical piece The Low Down on ARC Loans . Here's the lowdown on how the loans function: "The loans are 100 percent guaranteed by the SBA and made by existing SBA 7(a) lenders. They have no SBA or lender fees associated with them (unless the lender must secure collateral as part of the loan). The disbursement period (up to six months) is followed by a 12- month deferral period with no repayment of principal. After the deferral period, the borrower pays back only the ARC loan principal over a five-year period. ARC loans are available through SBA-approved lenders as long as funding is available or through Sept. 30, 2010, whichever comes first, and cannot be used to make payments on another SBA-guaranteed loan, with the exceptions of loans made with an SBA guaranty after Feb. 17, 2009." There are a number of other caveats to qualifying for this particular loan program, but it's worth checking out the rest of Deo's piece to find out if you can take advantage of this excellent opportunity. The New York Times : Lastly, but definitely not leastly, a piece on how to get your pitch together before you take on the monumental task of getting an angel to invest in your mashing entrepreneurial startup. Brent Bowers reports, "What angels are looking for...is evidence of a market opportunity with growth potential, a strong management team and an exit strategy, including a list of possible acquirers, since the eventual sale of the companies they invest in is how they make money." Seems pretty straightforward, but there are some possible pitfalls along the way. Like not being willing/able to admit that you don't know the answer to an angel's question, unrealistic projections of profits and the timeline to profitability, and the importance of having a product in the market that shows a solid effort on your part to make the first, hard step towards a real, live business: investing your own hard-won dollars. Read Bower's complete story, In Pitching to Angel Investors, Preparation Tops Zeal to learn the secrets behind angel investment attainment. | |||
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| NPEs Come Under Close Scrutiny By Team Of Ligitation Researchers | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| The 271 Patent Blog : In an interesting study, John Allison, Mark Lemley & Joshua Walker have taken a microscope to Stanford's IP Litigation Clearinghouse information in search of a defining set of distinctive traits of highly-litigated patents. The study, "Extreme Value or Trolls on Top? The Characteristics of the Most-Litigated Patents," unearthed some interesting gems after separating the overburden from the pay dirt. Among them is this not unexpected discovery: More than 80% of the most litigated patent suits are filed by NPEs. Overwhelmingly these are filed by inventor-owned or inventor-developed companies; those companies account for 74.4% of the most-litigated patent lawsuits. The share of suits filed by licensing shops actually falls to 6.7% of all suits. Non-practicing entities are a small share of once-litigated patents, but they represent an overwhelming share of the suits filed on the most-litigated patents. Certain NPEs are often derogatorily called "patent trolls" by some in the intellectual property industry, although the category also includes non-productive inventors. The researchers also discovered at least one patent that had been litigated 97 times, which deserves either an award for stubbornness or a raspberry for making a mess of all things patent protection. Read Peter Zura's Looking at the Most-Litigated Patents for more on the study results and a link to the study itself. Innovate on Purpose : Michael Mandel's provocatively entitled BusinessWeek.com piece, The Failed Promise of Innovation , continues to create hubbub among the innovation cognoscenti and Jeffrey Phillips joins the fray with a few words of his own. Phillips isn't so sure the end of innovation is nigh: Innovation isn't dead, and it hasn't failed to meet unreasonable expectations or promises. Instead of creating these false peaks and unrealistic expectations about innovation, perhaps we should simply create the environment where innovation can thrive and get out of the way. Some of the biggest impediments to innovation aren't technological or even monetary, they are cultural and bureaucratic. The next article written about this will certainly suggest that since innovation has "failed" in the private sector, perhaps the Federal Government should create specific programs to "manage" and fund innovation in specific segments[.] Innovative ideas are destined to fail some of the time and that's part of the magic: without failures, and the drive to try again, there would be no reason to continue researching a difficult solution to a critical problem or start a new business after declaring bankruptcy after a previously unsuccessful venture. Failure is the currency of success; hard-earned and valuable, each false step lead inevitably to untold riches of knowledge, and occasionally, hidden treasure beyond one's wildest dreams. Click on Promises Kept - Why Innovation works for a look at the other side of innovative misadventure. ArsTechnica.com : The RIAA is going to rue the day they started their ex parte lawsuit campaign, and soon, if rising IP patent lawyer Kiwi Camara has anything to say about it. From Nate Anderson's Lawyers plan class-action to reclaim "$100M+" RIAA "stole" , we learn that Camara isn't afraid to dream big, and with the backing of the infamous Harvard legal professor, "Billion Dollar Charlie" Neeson, he's ready to take on the recording industry watchdog in a courtroom death match. Anderson reports, "The recording industry has spent (and continues to spend) millions of dollars on its litigation campaign against accused file-swappers, but if two lawyers have their way, the RIAA will have to pay all the money back. Not content simply to defend Jammie Thomas-Rasset in her high-profile retrial next week in Minnesota, lawyer Kiwi Camara is joining forces with Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson to file a class-action lawsuit against the recording industry later this summer. The goal is nothing less than to force the industry to pay back the alleged '$100+ million' it has collected over the last few years. Perhaps the RIAA had good reason not to send those settlement letters to Harvard for so long." Check out the whole story for details on Camara's proposed battle tactics with some surprisingly clever legal maneuvering in store for the RIAA's litigation team. Ready? Fight! The New York Times : The new frontier for venture capital investment lies not Westward, as in the previously halcyon days of Silicon Valley domination, but rather Eastward, towards the world's most populous country. Claire Cain Miller captures some of the new-found excitement of pouring LP dollars into new frontiers with her recent article, China Wins for Venture Capitalists Looking Abroad . Here are a few startling statistics to back up the claim that China will soon be the crowned the new king of venture capitalism: "Almost half of American venture capitalists surveyed said China had the most to gain in overall economic stature over the next three years, while only a quarter said the same about the United States. Fifty-seven percent said the United States had the most to lose. Perhaps not surprisingly, just over half of Asia Pacific venture capitalists said China had the most to gain in economic stature, while only 5 percent said the United States did." Ouch! That's gotta hurt the Sand Hill crew where it hurts most, in the pocketbook, as their prospects for continued VC domination rapidly disappear into the ether. Investors.com : The outlook for VC investing in the US is continuing its grim progression towards un-profitability and eventual failure. An upcoming global survey by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the National Venture Capital Association will reveal the facts supporting this bleak outlook. NVCA president Mark Heesen is quoted in Venture Capitalists To Entrepreneurs: Hard Times as saying: " U.S. firms may still get most of the VC funding, but they will no longer dominate as in the past. He sees VC groups getting stronger in the U.K., Germany, France and Israel. Moreover, investment opportunities are growing in China, India, South America and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region, and less so in the U.S. One reason is that many foreign entrepreneurs educated and trained in the U.S. have returned home to start companies in the past couple of years. As more VC funds flow into other regions, U.S. firms will have to compete harder for a slice of the pie." Combined the the flood of funds being siphoned off to Chinese investment opportunities, the VC business is sure to see a highly reduced number of new funds as the poorly performing among then fade into black (or should that be red?). There is a one spot of light in the blackness ahead: the future offers the best chances of VC success "for firms in the cleantech and medical device sectors." | |||
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| Small Business Capital Expenditures Continue To Rise | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| NFIB : The National Federation of Independent Business recently released their monthly Small Business Economic Trends report for May and the results are encouraging. From the survey summary: Small business owner optimism continues to improve. The National Federation of Independent Business Index of Small Business Optimism rose 2.1 points in May to 88.9[1]. Added to April’s gain of 5.8 points, the Index has clearly bottomed (the March reading of 81.0 was less than a point away from the all-time low reading of 80.1 reached in the second quarter of 1980) and is signaling an end to the recession. Nine of the 10 Index components were unchanged or up in May." Job creation, however, remains low and credit is still hard to come by but that's not keeping small businesses from having a positive outlook for future prospects and they're putting their money where their mouths are: "Plans to make capital expenditures over the next few months rose a point to 20 percent, up for the second month in a row. A net 12 percent expect business to conditions to improve over the next six months, up 10 points from April—a significant improvement in expectations." Read the whole piece here for the rest of the survey results. NDN : Located within a stone's throw of the White House, the New Democratic Network is in the perfect position to take the Obama administration's pulse on clean tech innovation. In his topical piece, Clean Technology Innovation: Reaping the Rewards, Michael Moynihan critiques a BusinessWeek.com article that focuses on the supposed collapse of US innovation. Moynihan summarizes Michael Mandel's pessimistic views, "According to Mandel, many of our current woes stem from a failure to innovate over the last decade since the glory years of the late 1990s. While most Americans still take pride in our innovation, Mandel provides some sobering statistics: the wages of young college graduates -- precisely the group that should be succeeding in the information economy -- declined 24% between 1998 and 2007. The U.S. trade balance in high tech goods flipped from a $30 billion surplus in 1998 to a $53 billion deficit in 2007. Mortality statistics actually worsened for those 45 to 54, belying talk of medical breakthroughs." So why should we not go gently into that good night, you ask? Moynihan explains the way forward: "Now one of the hottest areas in Silicon Valley and an area that the Obama Administration believes is key to powering prosperity, clean technology has -- as John Doerr has said -- more potential for wealth creation than information technology. Yet despite numerous technology breakthroughs, the clean energy and technology space has yet to generate the type of home runs on a company level or growth on an economy-wide level needed to reinvigorate the American economy and get wages moving upwards again." Green, clean innovative businesses and products could very well be the saving grace for a country in dire straits but the real question is if the combination of profits and cleantech is a real possibility or merely a fantastic figment of the imagination. BusinessWeek.com : Also be sure to check out the original referenced piece by Michael Mandel, The Failed Promise of Innovation in the U.S. , with the equally depressing subtitle, "During the past decade, innovation has stumbled. And that may help explain America's economic woes." Here is just one key indicator of bad times for American would-be innovators: "A more indirect indication of the lack of innovation lies in the wages of college-educated workers. These are the people we would expect to prosper in growing, innovative industries that need smart, creative employees. But the numbers tell a different story. From 1998 to 2007, earnings for a U.S. worker with a bachelor's degree rose only 0.4%, adjusted for inflation. And young college graduates—who should be able to take advantage of opportunities in hot new industries—were hit by a 2.8% real decline in wages." Huliq News : Have you heard about the new program providing interest-free loans from the Small Business Association for "established, viable, for-profit small businesses that need short-term help to make their principal and interest payments on existing qualifying debt." Here's an article with more information on the much-needed opportunity, No Interest, Fee-Free Small Business Loans From SBA , and for your further information gratification, check out the SBA's topical news release on the subject. With up to $35K available, this boost should help normally profitable small businesses continue to operate while the ailing economy gets back up to speed. Reuters.com : Polish up your elevator pitch and get your Google groove on, entrepreneurs! Eric Schmidt & Co. are seriously shopping around for small tech ventures to pad out the search engine giant's portfolio. Here's the takeaway portion of the piece: Schmidt said Google plans to focus on the cloud, mobile, and open source distribution of software in the next year. "We have been (looking to acquire)," Schmidt said. "We have been wandering around looking at all of the different companies. With the big ones we haven't come across anything we've particularly liked. We are definitely talking to a number of smaller companies but we've done that routinely." "We primarily look for technology. It's a typical build versus buy. How long does it take us to build it with our engineers, versus there are already engineers in this other company that have built this thing." Strike while the iron is hot, people! This could be an excellent time to take advantage of some good old-fashioned Google largess in a general market of lowered expectations and commensurate decline in M&A activity. Read UPDATE 1-Google CEO says looking to buy smaller firms for the rest of this exciting story. Bonus piece of the day: The Patent Prospector highlights an example of False Marking , a tale of coffee lid mislabeling that could lead to BILLIONS of dollars in damages. | |||
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| Large, Institutional VC Investors Seek Smaller Funds | |||
| Written by Anthony Dale Kuhn | |||
| NYTimes.com : Not everyone is in favor of the "Go big or go home" theory of venture capital investment and a few investors are even specifically seeking more modest funds in which to gently place their precious dollars. Who are these smaller-minded, yet savvy investors, you ask? "One of them is Judith Elsea, a co-founder and managing director of Weathergage Capital, which invests in venture funds, and the former chief investment officer of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. 'I'm looking for people who want to raise smaller funds and approach the entrepreneur in a very handcrafted, old-school kind of way,' she said Friday at the International Business Forum venture capital investing conference." There are, however, some in the VC industry that aren't so sure this trend will last very long. Nicole Belytschko worries "that as soon as the market for initial public offerings returns and venture firms have a few big I.P.O.’s, investors will quickly forget their new discipline." Time will tell if it's going to be "hell-bent for leather" or "the mouse that roared," so in the meantime, read Claire Cain-Miller's Investors Want Smaller Venture Funds for more details. ChinaView.com : Who ever said the Chinese we always on the wrong side of international IP justice? In a sweet victory, one China-based company has struck a blow for their intellectual property rights against the mighty US patent jugernaut. | |||