Upstarta.biz

Slow Advertising – pureland

arjen — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:53:30 +0000

http://pureland.blogspot.com/2011/12/slow-advertising-if-you-were-to-pluck.html

How sake brewing is advertised in a Japanese village.

Bless the toolmakers – Snarkmarket

arjen — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 11:47:12 +0000

http://snarkmarket.com/2011/7320

“Bless the toolmakers… but I’m worried that everybody wants to be one.” writes Robert Sloan.” Interesting thoughts about exploring the liberal arts (actually being involved in using the tools) and I think there are valid lessons for other realms too. Not all tools need to scale, and never forget about who uses your tools.

Living Beyond Limits – Amy Purdy TEDx

arjen — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:21:37 +0000

An inspirational lesson of how something that is often seen as a limitation actually becomes an enabler, triggering imagination and exploration of new avenues. This talk by Amy Purdy is from TEDxOrangeCoast. TEDx was created in the spirit of TED‘s mission, “ideas worth spreading.”

Amy Purdy talks about the power of imagination. She explains how our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but by the choices we make. Imagination allows us to break down borders, to move beyond our circumstances, to create and constantly progress. Amy Purdy has been through hardships that most of us will never face — or can even fathom. But what makes her story so incredible is not that fact that she lived a “normal” childhood and spent her high school years as a passionate artist and snowboarder, then traumatically lost both her legs at age 19, but how she has persevered, taking implausible challenges and rising above them. Today, Amy is an athlete; currently the top ranked adaptive female snowboarder in the world. Amy also spends a good amount of time helping others; specifically those with physical challenges get involved with snowboarding, skateboarding, wakeboarding and other action sports through the organization she co-founded Adaptive Action Sports. Challenging herself while making a positive impact on the world is a true testament to Amy’s spirit.

Libraries: Where It All Went Wrong – Nat Torkington

arjen — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:55:22 +0000

http://nathan.torkington.com/blog/2011/11/23/libraries-where-it-all-went-wrong/

“It was my pleasure to address the National and State Librarians of Australasia on the eve of their strategic planning meeting in Auckland at the start of November this year. I have been involved in libraries for a few years now, and am always humbled by the expertise, hard work, and dedication that librarians of all stripes have. Yet it’s no revelation that libraries aren’t the great sources of knowledge and information on the web that they were in the pre-Internet days. I wanted to push on that and challenge the National and State librarians to think better about the Internet.”

Surgeon Uses 3D Printer To Make Models Of Bone – plus Open Source Software use

arjen — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 01:22:35 +0000

http://singularityhub.com/2011/11/15/surgeon-uses-3d-printer-to-make-models-of-bone-%E2%80%93-and-saves-hospital-bookoo-bucks/

Using readily available cheap hardware and free/open software tools for commercial CT equipment, this surgeon came up with a quick and affordable solution to prep for helping his client. Company now created to help other surgeons do the same. Of course they could do it themselves with time&effort, but convenience is a good thing to sell.

The Myth of Shareholder Capitalism – Harvard Business Review

arjen — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 02:04:56 +0000

http://hbr.org/2010/04/the-myth-of-shareholder-capitalism/ar/1

[...] in an important 2007 article in the Journal of Business Ethics, 31 of 34 directors surveyed (each of whom served on an average of six Fortune 200 boards) said they’d cut down a mature forest or release a dangerous, unregulated toxin into the environment in order to increase profits. Whatever they could legally do to maximize shareholder wealth, they believed it was their duty to do. Why are directors so convinced of their obligation that they’d make decisions with such damaging results?

Start-ups and Safety Nets

arjen — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:52:31 +0000

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/11/10/start-ups-and-safety-nets/

The countries with significantly higher start-up rates than the USA are those with stronger, more comprehensive, and more centralised social safety nets, along with correspondingly higher taxation. It pays off.

Unlicensed Wireless vs. Licensed Spectrum: Evidence from Market Adoption | Berkman Center

arjen — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:39:15 +0000

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/7211

Authored by Yochai Benkler. Market evidence suggests that unlicensed wireless strategies are becoming the primary approach for implementing wireless communications technology. Actual market deployments of wireless technologies suggests that unlicensed follows the innovation model of the Internet, applied to wireless communications. Licensed-spectrum, by contrast, replicates the telephone system model. [...] The most immediate implication is that any authorization for the FCC to conduct incentive auctions, and any plans to permit civilian use of federal spectrum, should include substantial discretion for the agency to provide adequate room for unlicensed strategies to develop new generations of innovation.

Technology chiefs investing in

arjen — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:00:57 +0000

http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/technology-chiefs-investing-in-hype-20111028-1mn5t.html

A new Australian survey has found what CIOs think and what they do are not necessarily the same thing. The new CIO Trends survey by Connection Research has found few surprises in the perennial issues troubling chief information officers in Australian enterprises. But it did reveal that even though CIOs believe tablets, bring-your-own and cloud computing trends are over-hyped, they are madly gearing their enterprises to embrace them.

Clean Energy legislation in Australia

arjen — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:15:13 +0000

Today the Australian Clean Energy legislation package passed the senate. What it does is change the tax system (in line with the Henry tax review recommendations) so that companies/products using non-renewable energy sources see higher costs – this works through to citizens of course, and the other end of the change is compensation measures for them (such as a much higher tax free threshold) as well as initiatives for wider deployment of renewable energy sources. In focus it’s fairly similar to what’s been happening in Europe over decades, moving away from taxing income towards taxing consumption. So in a nutshell, if a consumer picks cleaner alternatives, they’ll be much better off than before. The opposition is still harping on about it, including vows to repeal it (even though they’ve quietly already conceded that a number of related laws would stay – so if they were to repeal, they’d have a budget hole). I find that vow more of a threat, and very problematic. What business tends to like more than anything is certainty about the environment they have to operate in. Stability. So whether they liked the new laws or not, having them now is a clear state and they can work with it – the laws also create new opportunities for existing as well as potential businesses, and there too having the certainty is very important. As an entrepreneur myself, I don’t want bet my business initiatives on having a low energy price – since regardless of the above mentioned legislation, the price of energy is going to keep going up, and likely quite significantly. I could, as others have done, go out lobbying for lower prices – but I see that as a less efficient way to spend my time. Instead I aim to make sure that any business model preferably works independently of things like energy price, but at least works out even with a much higher price. I believe that’s the sensible way to go about it. I set up Open Query before the GFC, and because of its Upstarta way of operating it was in much better shape when other companies and independent consultants ran in to trouble. So the concept has been proven in that respect also. On a psychological level, I reckon it must be hard to on the one hand oppose something and on the other hand build your business to deal with what you oppose. It’s a conflict that will compete for your time and attention, and from my observations the opposition work tends to win and the business work loses – then particularly if the opposition fails (which is always a real possibility) the business is in a much worse position than if it had focused on dealing with the issues. Somehow the chance of a favourable outcome is grossly misjudged and/or the cost of the business change is over-estimated. Either way, that strategy is damaging. Think carefully before you go such a route. What do you deal with external change (such as govt legislation) in your business environment, what are your strategies?