richoid.com: Business

Visions of Dot Com

Jan 30, 04:37 PM by admin

I went to a venture conference last week, the first in quite awhile. The last time was depressing. No talk of web or internet, except in a negative sense, no vision, and a generally a complete lack of awareness or imagination.
This time was different. The TechCoire (pronounced like “tech-choir”) conference in Rancho Cordova was full of people with enthusiasm, a sense of a positive future, and an increased awareness of the web.
It’s about time. My perspective on the crash is that VC’s with investment bankers basically bilked investors by forcing companies that had barely formed into going public in order to cash out. It was not that there weren’t plenty of good people working on great products for the web. Instead, it was that there was an emphasis on exit strategy. As a result some bad plans became public (with time they might have worked out their problems) and deserving companies often were left without funding just prior to reaching the stage where they were self-sustaining.
Now, I understand that investors want 10x in 3-5 years. That’s what they WANT. What they can expect to get, is 5-10x in 5-10 years. Historically this is more the norm. In fact, most companies really hit their stride in just over 10 years. Better results happen, but if it takes awhile, they should neither be surprised or skittish.
This is particularly true with emerging technologies because consumers take time to adapt to them.
That aside… the money and the management is tired of playing it safe (or at least some are) and are venturing out (pun intended) into the realm of “trying things.”
The fear is fading. Hopefully this trend towards progressive thought is also happening on the political front. We can’t stay conservative and keep our democracy. Democracy only works if people hold onto a few liberal ideas: Open government; improving quality of life, fair elections, distributed wealth (no, not communism, just economic policies that allow the poor to get educated, get a chance, and succeed), opportunity for minorities, cheap or free quality education, a social safety net, the rule of law (not of individuals), and a government of, by and for the people, free speech, privacy, the right to own and keep property, or be justly compensated in the rare instance it must be taken for the collective (public) need.
As for the private sector, we need to invest in new ideas, great design, improving technology, educating the workforce, and earning our wealth. If executives and stockholders don’t act to retain value, and instead flush all the money down the toilet, the whole system will continue to backup.
Back in the crash days, a lot of good companies got killed by skittish investors. While many failed to adapt to change, many more never had the chance. Now they have a second chance.
I’m personally gratified by this because I have a great business plan that has been maturing in the absence of any possibility of funding. It’s ready, I’m ready, and I’m sure the market is ready. I think maybe the investors might be ready, too.
Yet, there are indicators that the same mentality is returning already. Just because MySpace, etc. sold for big bucks, there’s a sense that the old game is on, again. Ideas that are good still may not fly. Teams that look good on paper, but have lousy ideas will get funded, but will the “little guy”?
The natural reaction to this question is: “It is more than ideas that make businesses.” True. Execution is what makes companies: Getting things done is critical. The market makes companies: What sounds good on paper may not sell, then you have to adapt or die.Teams make companies: Internal dissent and stresses, groupthink, etc. can kill an otherwise good idea with a good market.
But at the root, new ideas keep make and keep companies. The ideas solve problems. Weak execution? Ideas for reorganization or systematization can help. Market not ready? Ideas about adapting to different markets, changing the product, changing the pitch can solve that. Team falling apart? Maybe ideas to motivate, reassign or simply rebuild the team are due. Sitting there, without ideas, is the killer. Recycling old ideas might help, but new ideas are what motivates people. Motivation is what drives all the other elements.
So here’s to the end of “The Great American Stupid: 2000 to 2005” and here’s to new ideas, progress, and renewal.

Leveraging Emerging Tech for Corporate Communications

Nov 26, 12:58 PM by

This is a blog. It is a simple way to create web-based one-way communication. It is a lot like a newspaper column without the infrastructure requirements of printing, distribution, advertising (to pay the high cost). It lacks the benefit of editors, which most blogs could use.

There are also Wikis. The best example is Wikipedia. Any group can whip up a Wiki, with some degree of geek knowhow. But once it is started, anyone can learn to use it. Then anyone can contribute. There are user and group permissions so some areas can be protected, some shown, some locked and some editable. There is automatic notification if a page is changed, etc.

A wiki adds a simple, key thing that I love: I can make a new page just by typing a link like this ”((Page Name|my new page))”. If the page called “Page Name” exists, it creates a link to that page out of the text to the right of the ”|” character, in this case “my new page” becomes the clickable link. It would look like this (without the quotes): “my new page”. If the page doesn’t exist it looks like this: “my new page?”. In this case, clicking on the link opens a web form that allows me to enter content, which becomes my new page. I can also make an external link using brackets like this: ”[http://www.richoid.com|my web site]” and I can do other things too…

The power comes from the quick site building capability. So I can quickly type up a page, including links to any future page I might want to build, then click OK. I can go back at any point to those little ”?” links and spawn new pages, and from those I can spawn further pages, and on, and on.

Or, I can create what I want to create, leave links for others, and let them post their knowledge to the Wiki. They can make their own links, too. This makes for a kind of group communication tool that is self-organizing. Of course, some people will screw it up, but others can come back and fix it. The biggest risk is multiple pages for the same subject. If someone says “navigate to the page on the contract for XYZcorp, and change the amount of the bid.” and their are two such pages, chaos could ensue.

Also, it is too linear. Information needs to be put on pages in different zones for categorical purposes. Most of this just makes single continuous pages. Useful, but not greatly organized. I haven’t dug in deep enough yet, but I think this wouldn’t be hard to resolve. Special purpose wikis should be a minor design issue for those with the programming skills.

The neat thing about a wiki, is that people down in some company can make their own knowledge base without spending tons of money on development or getting major approvals from higher-level execs or IT departments. Just be sure their protected from hackers, or even casual browsers. Proprietary info could easily leak out.