DISQUS

I do not think Xerox made any money out of inventing ethernet (or the modern computer for that matter.

On the other hand Altavista didn't make Google's money from search tech even when they had near monopoly (even in relative terms of audience)... so there is no sure thing.

But if you want a good example of sharing sale of data and the best of interfaces, the prize has to go to iTunes. Amazon can beat them (or level them) with a price war. Apple's monopolistic prices have been bad for consumers but good for Apple's medium term profit. I don't see Amazon pulling off the same trick with the Kindle but there may be other vertical systems out there where data, interface and platform form a virtuous circle of great profit. I hope so.

I am pleased that you see education as an important growth and innovative area. A lot of the work we (in education) did in the 1990s on collaborative learning prefigured so much of social media - however getting investors to take us seriously was impossible (and our own business model was winning the next grant). Education is an industry ripe for disruption: It is expensive and time consuming but the returns to investment are well understood. In the informal sector there is also a thirst for productive leisure.

My favourite example it the tecno brega movement in Belem do Para in Brazil. They release the music straight to the pirate street sellers and don't make money from the CD or its distribution directly. There is a quote from Brasil in GoodcopyBdcopy: "there is amazing creativity it the business models in the creative communities of poor countries" (www.goodcopybadcopy.com)This film is worth watching.

The music btw is tecno cheese - cheesy pop meets the merengue.

See also http://www.openbusiness.cc/2005/09/26/tecno-brega/

I agree with Alan.... I think there is a limit in looking at US companies. Nonaka (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Knowledge-creating-Comp...) said and continues to say much more interesting things- particularly about networks and social processes in innovation. There is a deep analysis of how "questioning, risk taking, openness, patience and trust" are actually achieved.

I also think that ideas about "pull" innovation (eg JSB http://www.johnseelybrown.com/) provide good insight- use your customers and suppliers.

I also think one difficulty lies in the clear difference between invention - having ideas, research -developing ideas, and innovation - making use of ideas. Invention arrives on the shoulders of giants.

Age does not debar you from being cutting edge. I would say that as I am 59 and doing the entrepreneur thing for money for the first time. I would say that as an academic I was entrepreneurial as well. I haven't stopped having new ideas most days, I haven't stopped analysing possibilites and taking risks. I haven't stopped learning and I haven't stopped playing.
One of the stupidest concepts floating in this culture is that of digital natives (born post SNES/Apple2/internet delete or insert as required) and digital immigrants. Some of us were aboriginals. We still follow the songlines.

So please don't diss the sixty year old guy who will be sprinting up the stairs at Union Sq to give you the pitch. It could be me. I am a soixante-huitard who still wants to change the world.

many happy returns.

Accenture identified this earlier this year in their report Televison in Transition 2008. However the report also shows that although there is a reluctance to consume content on the phone (pre-iPhone) in the "north" the south - with Mexico and Brasil in the lead- have less reluctance. There are 100 million mobile phones in Brasil. Africa was not included in the study - and there is little competition from tv sets or other screens in Africa. There are 340 million phones there.

I was on an expert panel on "Killer Apps for the Mobile Phone" at the broadcaster's IBC in Amsterdam in 2005- and I made the point then that A G Bell already had the killer app for the mobile phone. To get leverage on video on the mobile phone you need to build on that personal communicative capacity. Even in multi-screened US there is potential - maybe US kids are not as phone savvy as Europeans? It's worth looking on what OFCOM has found about youth consumption of media.

Revolve was a summer album. I remember the day it came out and the sun was shinning... but we worked long hours in the summer. Rubber Soul was a winter album.... so you hung out in friends rooms playing and talking (and copying the chords) - wasn't it good Norwegian Wood....
but then Revolver has McCartney's greatest song "Elennor Rigby"
but then Rubber Soul has Lennon's greatest song "In my life"....
ho hum

I am coming to the end of an EU project on intergenerational learning (using technology) in public spaces. Public spaces, piazzas and parks have been a key element of building social solidarity, citizenship and creating the environment where consensual and trusting activity like commerce and justice can operate over the history of mankind from the campfire onwards. (Details of this study will be published on www.puente.it - but not yet - a taste on http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents...).

In this forum we might believe that the intersection of journeys and minds now happens on the bit stream - but Fred's recent adventures and the abundance of "meets" and "coffee" seem to indicate that civic society does need what are sometimes called "third places" - not work, not home.
I sit bootstrapping in the wilds of northwest Wales and I am well aware that this limits my networking potential. On the other hand nature has done for me what the good Landburgurs of Gotham have done for the river Hudson.

oops chek out posterous.com (not our)

Check our posterous.com

So simple.

I use tumblr for very specific purposes - to back up my real world meetings/presentations with in depth information. I also use my delicious account for the same purposes. Neither have spaces for comment - which is where posterous may have the edge.

Otherwise commenting on other people's blogs is a good activity!

Third places - not home, not work - are important to the creation of all civic society. As I roam around not so tourist trodden parts of Europe I detect a culture of places to "hang". Amongst teenagers in rural and sub-urban areas it seems to be around the village Spar(7-11 store). This is often because it is the only place open, public and legal (in the UK you need to be 18 to use the pub). There is a potential for these places to provide a powerful nexus - except of course that the owners have even tried to dissuade visitors by playing high pitched (and therefore only detected by the young) noise over loud speakers.

What I see as the future potential of these public spaces is their enhancement by pervasive wireless media (wifi or 3G). The mobile phones in the kid's pockets augment the real space they are in and ultimately much more interesting than simply being on-line. Already I use quasi public spaces (or coffee shops as they are sometimes referred to) for my office and meetings. When these kids enter business their techo-nomadic culture will be their norm. Get out off office block investment soon. Invest in tools for mobility. Charitably wire-up the places were kids "hang".

I figure for most Parisians it was never like it used to be. New York seems to be a place for international writers to congregate. Fred, I am sure you bump into Salman Rushdie and Peter Carey in your local Starbucks all the time. Singer-songwriters throng around Bleeker St. and Jeff Koon is dashing off sketches to pay his restaurant bills.

Nick, Umair’s piece is valuable if VCs are reading it. I have just spent a week in Africa – where I was invited to talk about how mobile technology might transform learning. Africa has 340 million mobile phones. Instead of talking, I soon learned it was much more valuable to listen.

Communication is the key to so many of the issues raised by Umair – I remember working with fair trade coffee producers in the 80’s. Typically there are times when there is was no electricity. There were times when there was no telephone. Some time there would be both. Asynchronous communication (with 1200 Baud modems) via a bulletin board was the only option. Now central America has a viable fair trade industry.

The mobile phone offers so much more. We explored the simplest of tools – how to learn in 160 characters. ZygoHubs txt groupware provides a great mechanism for small group mutual support and learning. frontlineSMS is designed specifically for NGOs and provides means of broadcasting information without interference by other channels through txt..

Although many of the young African researchers and change agents I spoke with last week were keen to discover what solutions I had to offer - it became obvious that the solutions to Africa’s problems (apart from the G8 obvious!) had to have an African dimension and that ICT systems need to start from or evolve into an African context. What works in San Jose does not work for Addis. Returns on investment in Africa may not seem great at the moment – but there is real potential there.

I suspect some of the real revolutionaries of the next wave must come from Africa.

However one important perspective they did share on current ICT: the advantage they see in Web 2 is that “free” is a very good price for them.

Was that George III of the House of Hanover you are referring too.... or are other George's like that?

At a relatively advanced age, I am a “new” entrepreneur – however I have had to run teams, take risks and make difficult executive decisions (I was a Hackney school teacher once!). I have never ever regretted choosing the “clever and bright” over either the “experienced” or the “qualified”.

All too often twenty years of experience is one year of experience twenty times over. Bill Kilmer may be right that there are automated sub-routines that make life within an enterprise easier – but I can hire that talent. The important thing is to back someone who gets it and is not deluded by their lack of reflection and reflexivity.

BTW I am interested that you “are seeking to work with people who want to build world beating companies” when what I am hearing is that swift exits, M&A etc are what VCs seek. I thought my chances of building a UK based household tech brand name with a ten figure turnover and a customer based developing into the foreseeable future as “unfundable”. Back to the bootstrapping.

It is right that Britain ceased to have an Empire. What right had we to steal the wealth and labour of other peoples? The economic shock of giving up Empire explains a lot. Having an empire can make you less efficient. It allowed our wealthy people to have an anti-industrial attitude. Corelli Barnet, the historian will really repay reading (eg The Audit of War,)

Learning to be post-imperial is as hard as being post colonial. I have just had a very humbling week working with educators from all over Africa developing ways in which we can use Africa's 340 million mobile(cell) phones for education. European or north American solutions do not work in that context. They were very eloquent in describing their own context. We need to learn together.

If you think of companies that got underway in the "bad times" of the 70's I think you will find there were some fairly good investment opportunities there.

It is having a product that has a development trajectory and customers discovering they need it. although I can't quite remember the name of the company that supplied the 9K `Basic for my home brew computer.... did they ever come to anything?

There are a whole bunch of ideas developed over the past 10 years from the sociable media group at MIT Media lab on visualized representation of intensity of discussion in sociable media. I recall chat circles is something that represents by intesity and size the most intense conversations in a chat room site. it is comparable to walking into a party or reception and making decision about which group to join, Sometimes the biggest and brightest is the one to join - but your voice may be small in that company. Smaller conversations might be of less general interest but may be both more salient for you and your voice would proportionately have more weight.

Having traveled from Europe (wales) to South Africa over the past 24hours, it is quite cool to be able to sit in the B&B and skype home.

I am in South Africa to talk to educators. To explore some means of educating effectively , cheaply using technology. Tomorrow I will be running a workshop : education in 160 Characters: The developing world is mobile-phoned. Applications like FrontlineSMS help NGOs braodcast news and actions effectively. I will also work with ZygoHubs- SMS groupware which in Mexico has been effective in aids support. Comms and mulltiway technology (web 2 if you must) has massive potential.

On Friday I will deliver a keynote: how printed electronics, oleds, sub $1 processors can provide low cost and totally innovative concepts can change patterns of literacy and other education in the world.

Fred, I realise your time is mainly going to be in capital cities - such is the concentration of entrepreneurs. However - sometimes it is a lot cleverer to bootstrap in the boondoks - relax and come to Wales for a suprise or two

The eco-psychologist Gibson said something cool" "it's not what is in your head, it is what your head is in".

Fred, you and I live in different spaces. I am bootstrapping a strtup on the western shores of Europe and you are a VC in New York. Hopefully in the end there is a symbiotic relationship. I need to know your perceptions of world/tech/investement... and ultimately you need to know where the head of folk like me is in - I hope to be your future fortune. However my blogging is mainly for the people I need to inform in the short term (I am doing a keynote in Capetown next week and so all my prep and refs are "public" if you knew the URL). It allows me to be terse and expects them to follow up the Tumblr.

You can/should be different to Arrington- I read you because I need to feel your space - just say what is there.

Take a look at http://chatcircles.media.mit.edu/.
This technology comes from the days of "chat rooms" - and which one to visit.
It takes a party as a metaphor... which group has the sparky conversation - more people contributing- more contributions per person.... visually displayed.

Anecdotally... Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto) are based in Dundee, Scotland. One hypothesis for the existence of a games industry on the banks of the Tay goes back to the time that the local Timex factory produced Clive Sinclair's computers- a computer that midwived many great computer games companies. Most local kids had Sinclair computers ( however).

A strong case for OLPC unconstrained from having to run MSOffice. OX needs Sugar more than Windows.

Anecdotally... Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto) are based in Dundee, Scotland. One hypothesis for the existence of a games industry on the banks of the Tay goes back to the time that the local Timex factory produced Clive Sinclair's computers- a computer that midwived many great computer games companies. Most local kids had Sinclair computers ( however).

A strong case for OLPC unconstrained from having to run MSOffice. OX needs Sugar more than Windows.

The people behind Squeak (eg Alan Kay) are still carrying a flag they have been carrying for a long time (see www.squeak.org).

MIT MediaLab have done great work with Scratch.

If you want something that looks like a PC first person game.... Mission Maker from UK developer immersive education is a good choice (see www.imed.co.uk)

James, you do our times down. Fascism was defeated in 1945, imperial powers left their colonies in the 60's and 70's. Mandela did lead a rainbow nation. Women do have the vote. I am not suggesting there isn't more to do.

However there is a greater desire for universal provision of health, education and nutrition now than there has probably ever been. We might not have got there, but most of the world wants to head in that direction.

You may see that as material rather than moral - however what virtue is there in morality if it is not about helping our fellow humans.

Having had the pleasure of seeing OLPC/OXs in favela schools in Sao Paolo one can determine a powerful link between technology, learning, and a growth of moral purpose- better expressed by Paolo Friere in "Cultural Action for Freedom".