Tim de Jardine | Blog

With all this talk about a recession its very interesting to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of this speculation. We are in a recession because people say we are. Economists point to examples or “evidence” to try to convince you that there is less spending or the mortgage market has crashed or the oil situation or the cost of food or terrorism….

What economists do not take into account in their models is the Entrepreneur. An entrepreneur could come along, create a product and promote massive spending/consumer activity. Where is the recession now?

An example of this is Apple with their imminent release of the Iphone 3G. Alot of people (millions) are most likely to buy one… Economic Model thrown out the window? Yes.

A recession is a mindset and a speculation. It only takes a shift in mindset to become prosperous.Technorati Tags: The future, economics, models

A new craze of many department stores is to brand themselves “green” by offering to NOT provide you a plastic bag when exiting the store.  Though on the surface this seems honorable, its not really the consumer thats generating this problem.

Take for example yesterday when we brought a de-humidifier.  No plastic bag to carry it; environmentally friendly?

Consider the couple of metres of thick plastic to hold the box together,  plastic to cover the de-himidifier that is in the cardboard box and to wrap it in “sold” plus the polystyrene.

I would use a service in a store where I buy the product minus the wrapping.  I dont need a cardboard box/plastic holders & polystyrene.

Its the re-sellers that should be getting this message, not he consumer.

Came accross a blog post based on a survey that mentions that 30% of 18-24 year olds would consider quitting a job if Facebook access was blocked. Ann’s initial and current reaction is “Grow up Punks”.

In my opinion this survey is an example of a trend that we see time and time again with the adoption of a new technology. We witnessed this with instant messaging, personal calls at work, non-work related conversations, getting up from your desk! and heaven forbid, flexible hours! All these concepts are denied initially, ridiculed, accepted then treated like they were always so.

Facebook has many benefits to organizations, at its basic essence it is just another means of communication. The majority just do not realize this yet. Facebook could:

• Increased collaboration internally
• Stimulation of Discussion
• Hyper communicating with friends to avoid personal calls
• Connecting with others in the industry for opportunities
• Increase Employee Satisfaction

Lets not forget: Those 18-24 year olds are the future of business. The trend will continue to grow exponentially with those who have grown up with social networks (the under 18’s).

Apple just announced the new iphone at $199.

Today Apple released the IPhone 2.0, this is truly a ground breaking device and I find it hard that the likes of Microsoft and Rimm to compete.

This is just another example of how a company has innovated to create a remarkable product and a marketplace backed by a community to drive it. This is the point of change.

During the keynote speech a few examples of applications were showcased by various developers. Some of my Favorites:

Loopt, which turns your phone into a social compass.
Some interesting Medical applications from MIMVista, who plan to release a dozen applications for mobile devices. This is a huge untapped marketplace. There were also some body-part learning applications that will be interesting to trial.

Software is available on July, looking forward to trialing it.

We live in ever increasing noise where advertisers, propaganda, companies, politicians and people are competing for your precious and valuable attention.

Do you watch soap operas, news or politics? Are you fascinated by scandal? Does this dominate your life?

Someone is doing the thinking for you.

I’m not sure now your too happy about outsourcing it?

There is one easy solution. The OFF button. Removing noise builds clarity.

Old management style sucks. Thats right, the hierarchical structure that exists that brings petty games, alliances and soul selling does not work anymore. There is a new style of management that is not fueled by ego or career status or getting ahead of your work colleague. In old management you are rewarded by time in the job over actual ability. This will change.

The new management style calls for a flat organization with open channels of communication. An organization where your point of view really does matter, where you are given credit for the work that you do. You are rewarded by ability, not by how long you have been in the same position. Too idealistic?

The new management is open, transparent and flexible. The structure of an organization is flat. There are no games, only the pursuit of a common goal of progress. In the new organization you can talk to anyone (even the CEO!), you can express an idea and people will listen. It is the greater good that is in mind, not simply personal agendas.

The new organization does not suffer from bloat, bureaucracy or mediocrity. At its core is creativity, openness and collaboration.

It comes down to this:

Do you want to keep to the old working style and work 5 days to get 2 days off? (5=2)

or

Do you want to make a difference?

Many are making a difference already

Fascinating video from Alan Watts adopted and produced by the south park creators.

Ideas are the new Gold.  As products, processes and resources  become more plentiful, ubiquitous and easy to create; ideas will become the new currency.  Companies will be made or broken on great ideas that can be executed into great plans.

There is a gold-rush happening.  That gold rush is the commercialization of innovation.

As more skills, specializations are either off shored or become commodities the creative economy will rise.  And I intend to be right in the middle of it.

Where will you be?

Entrepreneurship is not a zero sum game.  A zero sum game is like poker where at the end of the hand you have one winner and everyone else loses.  Markets do not work like that.  A popular misconception is that if someone else has already thought about an idea, patented it, or incorporated a company around that idea then you are too late! The market has been taken!

This is false.

There are always more customers, parts of the market your competitors cannot touch.  No product is identical.  If IT IS a zero sum game then explain to me the 150 different types of salad dressings I can buy at the local supermarket?

That should prompt some thinking. 

Apple has achieved success with its closed model of computing. Apples vision of computing as an appliance (hardware + software) calls for a closed system.  This approach could be creating one of the companies greatest catch 22 situations.

With the released of the Iphone and the consumer reaction to the closed system of providers and software platform, this has seen an uprising in an open-source community creating thousands of applications for the Iphone at little or no charge.  The consumer reaction to the device was positive, but to AT & T and a closed system; quite the opposite.  

Now Apple faces itself with a catch 22 dilemma. Psystar a company that has just started up in California now offering reverse engineered cheap hardware that will run Apples operating system. In other words Mac clones.  This opens up Apples software and takes away Apples control.  Naturally Apple will file suit with Psystar.

Perhaps this approach is not the best?

The future will be Open Systems and I see parallels in the Iphones hyper adoption and Apples latest OSX issue.  If Apple wants to be a large player they could simply certify other hardware providers to run OSX and increase their marketshare.  To keep their niche Apple would reject the notion of open and play the way they always have; closed.

Only time will tell.

Al Gore gives a moving and inspirational speech to update his ground breaking inconvenient truth speech:

We must ALL act now. More to come from me.

Cleared the mailbox today at NZPost and was greeted with the usual sight:

Why on one hand talk about corporate responsibility and sustainability and on the other hand bombard mailboxes with junk mail? NZPost earns money from advertisers (real life spammers) so they let it happen.

What a waste of resources.

Walk your talk.

Was checking out some of the latest software as a service (Saas) companies at simplespark when I noticed that many offer a “free 30 day trial”. That got me thinking.

A free 30 day trial used to be worth something as it was a means of re-assuring the buyers confidence before making a purchase.

I don’t think this method works now. 30 day trials are disappointing and not really worth anything. If I see a 30 day trial and I do not know the app, I will close the page. Why? Because there is no trust between me and the company. In order to gain my trust, I need free. The cutting edge SaaS providers give away free versions of their software and sell pro versions. E.g Flickr, Salesforce, Gmail, Basecamp etc etc

30 days builds a trial, free builds trust

Jawdropping to say the least, love the “wallet card” at the end.

Marie-Claire Andrews writes an interesting blog post about this. This is so true.  Often people are so precious about their ideas, believing the idea itself is the worth.

The outdated romanticism of the mad scientist working away in the basement to only be discovered is not the case. It is the execution of the idea and the pleasure from creation that should motivate an entrepreneur.

A true entrepreneur wants to change something for the better, for the masses. The true entrepreneur is not motivated by credit or fame or their own benefits.

It is societies benefit that motivates the entrepreneur.

2 great posts from Kevin Kelly and Chris Anderson.  Meaty posts, but well worth the read.

Free as in Gmail, Flickr, Digg, Facebook, Wikipedia only touch the surface.  More to come soon.

There has never been a greater time to bridge gaps:

• The Injured to the Recovered
• The learner to the learned
• The mentor to the apprentice
• The seeker to the provider
• The lost to the found

A couple of months ago I visited a doctor and explained to him  a vision of a health system connected through computers, databases.  How I owned my file and it should be freely available to anyone.  He did not agree with me.  Seems like things are heading this way with healthvault from microsoft giving users the ability to port data anywhere.  Google now has its own health prototype.

The trend is this:

Pick an industry and ask yourself what has not been centralised?

Does anyone know of any Venture Capitalist software out there?  What do VC’s use to monitor their companies performance, track their leads, collaborate on investment ideas, review proposals.  Google cannot find any examples for me therefore it makes me think this is this an area that is not being served?