DeansTalk - business management education

Going abroad to learn - participate in the online consultation

Going abroad to learn - participate in the online consultation 15 July 2009

The European Commission has just launched a public consultation on how to give young people in Europe more and better opportunities of going abroad for learning, studying or volunteering. You can now participate in this consultation either by filling in an online questionnaire or by sending the Commission a written contribution on the issue.

The Commission published a Green Paper on 8 July to raise a number of questions around the issue and to stimulate a Europe-wide debate. Such questions include: How can we convince more young people to go abroad to acquire new knowledge, skills and experience? What obstacles to mobility do we have to overcome? How can all relevant players - the Commission, Member States, regions, education and training institutions, NGOs - join forces in a new partnership for learning mobility?

The consultation period ends on 15 December 2009. The Commission will then evaluate the feedback and prepare a proposal for practical follow-up.

How to participate?

The Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC)

Non-market strategies making a comeback in West

The Economic Times, 24 July 2009

...Professor David Bach of the IE Business School, Madrid, calls Novartis’ parallel initiatives ‘non-market strategies,’ saying, “Neither fighting for property rights nor giving away life-saving drugs happens in markets — both actions take place in arenas where the exchange is political and social, rather than economic.

Yet, both actions are fundamentally strategic. Novartis defends strong patent protection essential to its business model; while undermining its critics by demonstrating its commitment to India’s well-being . Its non-market strategy is carefully aligned to support its plan for competing in the market via patentprotected , blockbuster drugs.”

Defined as a firm’s action plan for shaping the environment in which it competes, the concept of non-market strategies wouldn’t be new to emerging market corporates . While addressing a seminar in Peru recently, Bach recalls his audience breaking into knowing smiles as soon as he elaborated on the subject.

Job Search Tips for a Jobless Recovery - BusinessWeek

Article of BusinessWeek, July 20, 2009.

When the recovery comes, early job growth will be in health care, education, government, and green business. Here's how to get ready today for the jobs of tomorrow.

New college graduates are facing the worst job market in decades. Hiring is down, salaries are flat, and many grads are adrift. Entire industries have been decimated, from big carmakers to giant investment banks. But there's still hope that recent college grads can launch a rewarding career—it just might not be the one they anticipated.

With the economy headed toward what many believe will be a jobless recovery, the hunt is on for industries where pockets of job growth are a real possibility. Many graduates will be perfectly positioned to take advantage of that growth; would-be teachers and nurses are particularly lucky in this regard. But many others will need to make a few last-minute adjustments to give themselves the training or experience they need to land a job in an industry where they never expected to be working...

A Career in Computing? by Bruce Eckel

Computing thoughts, June 2, 2009
Summary: I regularly receive requests for career advice, and I've tried to capture the answers in this blog, and in a follow-on. For those of you who asked but never got an answer, I apologize. Your questions stimulated me to work on this, and it's taken awhile.

Book: "The Web Startup Success Guide" by Bob Walsh

On Amazon, Apress downloadable ebook

Post of his blog "47Hats (Helping microISVs and startups succeed)" with PDF of Table of Contents, July 27, 2009

Chapter 8, “Getting it Done.”

About the Author

Bob Walsh 47 is the founder of 47Hats, a consulting firm/blog/startup dedicated to helping startups succeed, the author of Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality, podcaster in chief of the Startup Success Podcast, co-moderator of the Joel on Software's Business of Software forum, and creator of StartupToDo.com, a online productivity app and community for startup and microISVs." Bob Walsh on Twitter.

Who is this book for?

If you are a software developer (web, desktop, or mobile—it doesn’t matter) who wants to create successful, revenue–producing web businesses, The Web Startup Success Guide is for you. And if you’re just curious about how someone goes about creating an online business from the ground up, this book is an excellent choice.

Book "Entrepreneur Journeys: Bootstrapping: Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction" Sramana Mitra

Book on Amazon 

Book description on her own website September 9, 2008

Sramana Mitra Biography

Column on Forbes

Review

“Sramana Mitra’s Bootstrapping: Weapon of Mass Reconstruction is a book for our time because it’s something real out of Silicon Valley.  No more stories about legendary VC fundings of startup-to-IPO in six months.  In this, the second volume of Entrepreneur Journeys, her focus is on doing more with less, in tune with the times.  This book has some fascinating histories of the different paths people take to entrepreneurship, and the difficulties they face.  I would only have wished each of the interviews to be longer and deeper, because every story is worth telling.”

-Fast Company

Venture Hacks - Advice for Entrepreneurs

http://venturehacks.com/archives

Start Up Incubators from DMOZ.org, Bob Walsh, Sramana Mitra and others

Incubators in General, US Incubators, Asian Incubators etc.

The Web Startup Success Guide (Part 3): Startup Incubators, Bob Walsh, July 18, 2009

India:

NASSCOM: Infrastruture Tech Parks

India Needs More Incubator Funds, Sramana Mitra (bio), February 27, 2007

Venturewoods.org: Early Stage Technology Entrepreneurship & Incubators in India Nov'07

ReadWriteWeb(RWStart): "Startup 101": Introducing Our Serialized "How to Build a Startup" Book

Click here for the post written by Bernard Lunn / May 6, 2009 1:40 AM / 31 Comments

This post is part of our ReadWriteStart channel, which is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. The channel is sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark. To sign up for BizSpark, click here.

"Startup 101" is a serialized book about the thrills and spills of starting a Web technology venture. It will be a regular feature in our new channel ReadWriteStart, dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs. Startup 101 is for first-time entrepreneurs who want to go through the whole startup life cycle - including raising money, building a valuable business, and making a lot of money by selling the venture or taking it public.

The founding entrepreneur is the hero and primary reader of this how-to guide. Most of what we say will be well known to investors and advisers who support entrepreneurs, but we hope they also find some value here.

We really hope this will be helpful to the early employees who believe in the dream and do the actual hard work of making it real. They are often the apprentice entrepreneurs, learning the game before starting their own ventures. Or they may just want to understand the overall context faced by the owners, so that they can be more effective at their jobs. Not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur or has the characteristics of an entrepreneur, a subject we'll explore in the second chapter/post, "Are You an Entrepreneur?"

This series is designed for Web technology startups...

...The chapters/posts we have planned are as follows. In line with the iterative/agile model of the Web, we reserve the right to change the order and to add, delete, and alter chapters as we progress on this journey.

1. 10 things to be clear about before you start
2. Are you really an entrepreneur?
3. How first-time entrepreneurs can work well with investors
4. Creating your vision, mission, strategy, and plan
5. Finding the right wave to ride (secular trends)
6. Working booms and busts to your advantage (cyclical trends)
7. Building your team pre-financing
8. Building an advisory board
9. Finding a URL and company name
10. Company registration choices
11. The Capital-Raising Ladder
12. How to pitch to a VC or angel
13. How not to get screwed by VCs
14. Understand the scale vs. profitability trade-off
15. Build an insanely great Web service
16. Learn to negotiate and close
17. How to be an effective executive
18. How to hire an A-Team
19. How to fire non-performers
20. How to hit your numbers
21. How to build age-appropriate processes
22. Steps in building a brand
23. How to scale without losing your shirt
24. Maintaining focus, health, and passion during the grind-it-out phase
25. How to build an effective board
26. Planning your exit
27. When and how founders should hire a professional CEO
28. Read some great books for inspiration
29. Negotiating your exit
30. Congratulations! What's next?

TechCrunch Europe Top 100 - constantly updated Index of the most innovative and highest-potential European tech companies

http://uk.techcrunch.com/the-techcrunch-europe-top-100/

Welcome to the TechCrunch Europe Top 100. This is a constantly updated Index of the most innovative and highest-potential European tech companies. The Index is focused on mobile and web companies, although Cleantech and gadget companies will have a presence on the list, which covers the EMEA region. The index has been created in association with startup tracker YouNoodle. The scores and rankings are based on a sophisticated algorithm using information pulled in from thousands of online sources about early stage companies: traffic, mainstream media, funding information sources, the blogosphere, and other key factors. See below for more information.

The Evidence on Online Learning (as better) - report of U.S. Department of Education based on screening of a 1000 empirical studies

Click here for the article of Inside Higher Education, June 29, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Online learning has definite advantages over face-to-face instruction when it comes to teaching and learning, according to a new meta-analysis  (PDF 818KB) released Friday by the U.S. Department of Education.

"A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.

The study found that students who took all or part of their instruction online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through face-to-face instruction. Further, those who took "blended" courses -- those that combine elements of online learning and face-to-face instruction -- appeared to do best of all. That finding could be significant as many colleges report that blended instruction is among the fastest-growing types of enrollment..."

Seven e-Learning and Teaching Resources - ReadWriteWeb

Click here

Open Course/Source: Management and Education

The Manager's Handbook: 80+ Open Courseware Collections to Help You Be a Better Leader

101 Lectures for Your Open Source Education

In the beginning - The Economist

Article of The Economist, July 14th.

Aloysius Fekete, Chief Executive Officer, MaxBips

Business school can give you many of the useful attributes you need to be a successful entrepreneur, says Aloysius Fekete, chief executive of London-based start-up MaxBips. But it can’t give you the only essential one: desire. “You just need that bug,” he explains. “That’s what drives you. Business school doesn’t necessarily give you that. But it does allow you to see the possibilities—and realise them—in a way that is more difficult without that experience.”... ...

Ian Dailey, President and Co-Founder, Husk Insulation

..“You will hear this from a lot of students,” he says. “The university has a high enrolment in the entrepreneurs’ club, but most take a look at the loans they have taken out [to pay for their tuition] and the uncertainty involved in setting up a business and they end up taking corporate jobs. I was in the same boat too. You may have aspirations to be an entrepreneur, but on-campus recruiting becomes such a big thing and everyone’s getting jobs left and right and you get sucked into that world of corporate presentations. But that never seemed right for me.”... ....

Daniel Callaghan, Managing Director, MBA & Company

... But perhaps the most pressing question is why Mr Callaghan felt the need to go to a business school to become an entrepreneur, given that the other successful tycoons in his family had determinedly dodged them. What was it that IESE added that the rest of his family lacked? “It’s the technical and financial skills—the ability to have a conversation with professional investors—and the presentation and document-writing skills. These are the things that you can learn at business school. The things you can’t learn are the courage and conviction to keep pushing it on.”

In this job market, it's all about networking

Article of the Denver Post, 07/23/2009

You spent hours on the resume, even longer on the cover letter. You fold the sheets of paper neatly, and slip them into an envelope. You painstakingly address it, thinking "Flawless penmanship is essential!"

And then you pray.

Good luck with that.

Getting a job is nothing like it was a decade ago, even five years ago. Mailing resumes and letters no longer is the key to the employment kingdom.

Now, it's all about networking, both in person and online. The first thing you need is a good computer....

Apprehending the Future: Emerging Technologies, from Science Fiction to Campus Reality

Click here: EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 44, no. 3 (May/June 2009): 12–29

Apprehending the Future: Emerging Technologies, from Science Fiction to Campus Reality

Bryan Alexander (Bryan.Alexander@nitle.org) is Director of Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). He blogs at <http://www.nitle.org/>.

Comments on this article can be posted to the web via the link at the bottom of this page.

How can those of us in higher education best understand new technologies? The phrases "emerging technologies" and "evolving technologies" remind us that the digital world is largely in flux. New devices, altered applications, and shifting practices keep crossing over the horizon—or quietly appearing in our midst.

Deciding which technologies to support for teaching and learning—and how to support them—depends, first, on our ability to learn about each emerging development. Selecting a platform without knowing what is coming right behind it can be risky. Similarly, it is folly to grasp onto a technology without seeing the variety of ways that the technology can actually be used. If William Gibson was right—"the street finds its own uses for things"—then academic computing needs to be sure of its "street smarts."¹

NYT - Laptop? Check. Student Playlist? Check. Classroom of the Future? Check.

Article of The New York Times, July 21, 2009

The seating arrangements are compared to airport traffic patterns. The student schedules are called playlists. And lesson plans are generated by a complicated computer algorithm for the 80 students in the class.

This could be the school of the future, according to the schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, who visited Middle School 131 in Chinatown on Tuesday to promote a pilot program, the School of One.

The program, conducted in a converted library, consists mainly of students working individually or in small groups on laptop computers to complete math lessons in the form of quizzes, games and worksheets. Each student must take a quiz at the end of each day; the results are fed into a computer program to determine whether they will move on to a new topic the next day...

McKinsey Quarterly 2009, Top Ten Articles Q2 2009

 1. STRATEGY
Strategic planning: Three tips for 2009
Even in these tumultuous times, strategic planning doesn’t have to be an exercise in anxiety—or futility.

 2. CORPORATE FINANCE
The crisis: Timing strategic moves
Timing is key as companies weigh whether to make strategic investments now or wait for clear signs of recovery. Scenario analysis can expose the risks of moving too quickly or slowly.

The Chronicle of Higher Education: The college of 2020 Executive Summary

Download The College of 2020 Executive Summary (88KB) June 2009

"Students’ convenience is the future. More students will attend classes online, study part time, take courses from multiple universities, and jump in and out of colleges. Students will demand more options for taking courses to make it easier for them to do what they want when they want to do it. And they will make those demands for economic reasons too"

After Declining Job Offers, Considering an Entrepreneurial Route - WSJ

Article (and Commets Tab) of Wall Street Journal Blog, Laid off and Looking, July 16, 2009

After many months on the job search roller coaster, I recently found myself with multiple promising opportunities. One prospect was a start-up for a service I loved. It was closely related to a passion of mine, health and fitness, and the prospect of having a job that seemed fun was beyond alluring. In fact, everything about the job was appealing except for the company’s lack of capital and a founder who didn’t want private investors.

After two weeks attempting to justify how I could accept the job, I begrudgingly faced the fact that it was not right. Ultimately, I concluded that if I were to assume the level of risk that was involved with it and work without pay, it would be for my own business and not someone else’s...

BusinessWeek - Business Schools Viewpoint

BusinessWeek's "Business Schools Viewpoint":

The Road from Business School, Less Traveled

I've been reading lately about the plight of the MBA Class of 2009. Many are coming out of school with changed expectations and having to hustle to find work, any ...

Reversing the MBA Stereotype

In the midst of the current economic crisis, it seems that some of the ire and at least a modicum of the blame for Wall Street's rippling effects on the ... 

Business Schools Need a Broader Mandate

Searching for scapegoats is understandable in times of crisis, and business schools have not escaped the blame list for the dismal state of the global economy. ...

...

Cheesed off - The Big Mac Index - The Economist

Article of The Economist, July 16th 2009

Burgernomics points to uncompetitive currencies in continental Europe.

Techcrunch: The Squeeze Continues: Venture Fundraising Shrinks 82 Percent in Second Quarter (E.Schonfeld)

Entire Post of by Erick Schonfeld on July 13, 2009

Venture capital keeps getting squeezed as an asset class. The second quarter of 2009 saw the lowest level of capital going into VC funds since the first quarter of 2003, according to the National Venture Capital Association (NCVA). During the second quarter, VC funds in the U.S. raised only $1.7 billion, an 82 percent drop from the second quarter of 2008, when $9.3 billion was raised. The amount raised is 63 percent less than than the $4.6 billion raised during the first quarter of 2009 (see interactive iCharts below).

TEDGlobal2009 (Oxford) - July 21-24 - (sold out)

http://conferences.ted.com/TEDGlobal2009/ 

www.ted.com

Summer Reading List: The B-School Edition - BusinessWeek

Article of June 29, 2009

Looking for a little light reading to while away the hours? These books might be just the ticket...the list

EFMD - The latest issue of Global Focus is now online! Volume 3, Issue 2 2009

Volume 3, Issue 2 2009

• 01 In focus
  Read more (PDF)

• 04 Talking Shop
  2009 International Deans Programme (IDP)
  1st Global Peter F Drucker Forum
  EFMD-EURAM launch joint programme on research leadership in Europe
  Quality Services to hold first accreditation seminar in Latin America. Read more (PDF)

• 08 Separating the wheat from the chaff
  Should business research have its social implications made explicit? Scholarly journal publishers John Peters and Rebecca Marsh think so. Read more (PDF)

• 12 A question of priorities
  The global economic crisis has raised many questions about the current state of management education. Sandra Waddock has some suggestions for how it should respond. Read more (PDF)
• ...

Book: "Free" (free) by Chris Anderson

FREE for free: first ebook and audiobook versions released (On Scribd and Audible)

The priceless rollout continues: Google Books

The Welch Way - official website of Jack and Susy Welch - www.welchway.com

www.welchway.com

Fast Company´s 100 Most Creative People in Business

"A Lesson in Virtuous Values for Business School" Linda A. Livingstone dean of Graziadio School of Business and Management (Pepperdine University)

"A Lesson in Virtuous Values for Business School" for BizDeansTalk

Linda A. Livingstone, Ph.D., Dean and Professor of Management
Graziadio School of Business and Management www.bschool.pepperdine.edu
Pepperdine University www.pepperdine.edu
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International Board of Directors

In recent months, MBA programs and a few of their less-than-savory products – John Thain, Richard Fuld, Stanley O’Neal, Vikram Pandit and John Paulson to name a few – have been paired together like a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.      

That some senior-level business executives were able to create and carry out elaborate Ponzi schemes for decades is beyond comprehension.  That large bonuses were doled to senior level executives who brought their companies to the verge of bankruptcy is equally reprehensible.  That graduate business school was a common thread is disturbing.    

The current tenuous business climate coupled with unprecedented changes in the American economy furthers the case that executives must employ a more ethical decision-making framework.  I believe business school has an important role.  

It has become clear that generating revenue, maximizing profit and increasing shareholder value cannot take precedent over reasonable, ethical decision making – in business and business school.  Certainly, employing sound business skills such as marketing, accounting and finance will remain at the core of business school.  However, through activities such as thought leadership and accreditation, business school leaders need to lead the way to advance quality global management education that includes greater ethical consciousness.  

Even though they may have received an MBA, many senior level executives aren’t prepared for the weight or consequences of the decisions they make. 

Endeavor.org - "transforms the economies of emerging markets by identifying and supporting high-impact entrepreneurs."

www.endeavor.org   ("boards & team" shows it's globality)

Mission statement: Endeavor transforms the economies of emerging markets by identifying and supporting high-impact entrepreneurs.

One of FastCompany´s 2008 45 Social Entrepreneurs who are changing the world.

Fast Company in 2008 on Endeavor:

Goal

To date, Endeavor has supported over 320 entrepreneurs from over 190 companies. Endeavor Entrepreneurs have created more than 80,000 new jobs, paying on average ten times the national minimum wage, and generated approximately $2 billion in new revenue. Today, 95% of Endeavor Entrepreneurs' companies are still operating in countries where entrepreneurial ventures typically close within 42 months. Just as importantly, Endeavor Entrepreneurs have become role models, inspiring others in their communities to start businesses. This is Endeavor’s "multiplier effect," which spurs economic and cultural transformation.

educationtoday - OECD’s education lighthouse for the way out of the crisis

educationtoday
 
Bookmark this page:  www.oecd.org/edu/lighthouse 

We welcome you to register to join this collaborative space and help chart the way for the education sector to navigate through the current crisis and shape the post-crisis economy and society.

OECD’s education lighthouse offers you:

• Up-to-the-minute information, evidence and analysis on the impact of the crisis on education, with concrete examples of how governments and institutions in different countries are coping with the crisis.
• Information on high priority issues such as education budgets, education in stimulus packages, how unemployment affects motivation and learning attitudes … and much more.
• An opportunity for you to contribute to this information sharing platform with other members of the fast-growing OECD social network.

Register now by following these instructions

If you do not already have a MyOECD account

1.   Go to MyOECD

2....

UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education opens With Call to Address Global Challenges

 06-07-2009
The World Conference on Higher Education, gathering close to 1,000 participants from 148 countries, opened on 5 July at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris with a call for higher education to address global development challenges.

“Higher education institutions play a strategic role in finding solutions to today’s leading challenges in the fields of health, science, education, renewable energies, water management, food security and the environment,” said UNESCO’s Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura. 

Speakers at the opening ceremony highlighted the importance of education as a response to the global economic crisis and stressed equity, quality and international cooperation as critical challenges for all governments.

“President Obama sees higher education as critical to the administration’s plans to revitalize the American economy and he has moved quickly to support students and their families,” said Jill Biden, wife of US Vice-President Joe Biden and a community college teacher...

05-07-2009
World Conference on Higher Education webcast links More

Inspiration: "The World's Best Quotes in 1-10 Words."

Inspiration: "The World's Best Quotes in 1-10 Words."

Richard Branson blog - Calling all entrepreneurs – introducing PitchTV

Calling all entrepreneurs – introducing PitchTV, March 31st, 2009. 

As part of it’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, Virgin Atlantic is launching a new show, PitchTV, which will air onboard and will also be available online here.

We’re now inviting entrepreneurs in search of investment and exposure for their business ideas to upload short video pitches.

Allen & Company´s Sun Valley annual conference starts today

Wikipedia: Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference

->Sun Valley Buzz: Tough Times and Twitter

New York Times - ‎06/07/2009‎

Moguls and bankers are packing their bags to attend Allen & Company's annual media conference, which starts Tuesday in Sun Valley, Idaho. ...

->Herb Allen's Sun Valley media summit a-Twitter about tech

USA Today - ‎06/07/2009‎

By Michael Liedtke, AP Media company executives once were the power players at investment bank Allen & Co.'s annual media summit in the Idaho mountains.

->Geeks double as scourges and sages at media summit

The Associated Press - ‎05/07/2009‎

The media moguls attending an annual powwow staged by investment bank Allen & Co. used to be able to rest comfortably in the Idaho mountains as they mulled ...

Digital Family Trees 2009 (Advertising Age)

Download the poster (PDF 535 KB)

About the Digital Family Trees 2009
Ad Age's DataCenter created this database in conjunction with the Digital Family Trees 2009 poster in the March 30, 2009, Digital Issue. Call 1-888-288-5900 to order print copies.

Fortune´s Brainstorm TECH conference in Pasadena, California. July 22-24, 2009

Book: "The Art of the Start", by Guy Kawasaki.

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

Why Business Plans Don’t Deliver - WSJ

Click here for the article of the Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2009.

The five most common flaws—and how to fix them.

An economic downturn is a great time to start a business.

It sounds paradoxical, but think about it. Costs are lower, and more talent is available, thanks to layoffs. Prospective clients are more likely to try a new supplier who can help them cut costs or increase their competitiveness. Established players, too, are focused on cutting costs instead of increasing market share...

"Venture Day 2009" 9th July - IE Business School (www.ie.edu) - Business Plan Competition

        

Program

Techcrunch - The Top 100 Networked Venture Capitalists

Post of Techcrunch, June 27, 2009.

So which venture investors have the best networks? Here are the top 10:

1. Draper Fisher Jurvetson
2. Sequoia Capital
3. Accel Partners
4. Intel Capital
5. First Round Capital
6. Dag Ventures
7. New Enterprise Associates
8. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
9. Benchmark Capital
10. Ron Conway

Vijay Dondeti, a graduate student in bioinformatics, applied the analysis in the Hochberg paper to about 2,700 investors in CrunchBase who participated in over 3,300 startup funding rounds between 2006 and 2008. He scored each investor based on how well connected they are to other investors as well as how well-connected their co-investors are to other investors. “In summary,” says Dondeti, “to get a high score, you need to co-invest often with others that also co-invest often.”

Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance -

Entrepreneurial Impact: The Role of MIT - post from www.startup-book.com (blog and book) of Hervé Lebret

"Start-Up: What We May Still Learn From Silicon Valley"

Links

• Voir la version FRANCAISE

Pages

• Start-Up: the book
• Content and summary
• Media and “Start-Up”
• About the author

Product Description
Although start-ups represent a major phenomenon in the USA, they also create skepticism and even suspicion, perhaps because of the excesses of the Internet bubble. Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Yahoo and Google were all start-ups and these success stories show that the phenomenon is not mere speculation. The goal of this book is to show start-ups from a different angle. Start-ups are created by individuals who are passionate and who have dreams. Therefore this work should not only be read by specialists of innovation or by high tech entrepreneurs, but also by anyone interested in the history and economics of start-ups. The book is presented in two parts: it begins with a presentation of Silicon Valley start-ups, which ends with a description of the ecosystem of this region. The second part is dedicated to Europe, where the start-up phenomenon has failed in comparison. The main message is that it is absolutely necessary to take more inspiration from Silicon Valley.

---

Post from www.startup-book.com March 12th, 2009

A new report has been published about the Entrepreneurial Impact of MIT

It is full of data and even if obviously self-serving, it remains very interesting. Let me just quote what I noticed:

- Growth: the number of “first-time” firms has increased from about 2′000 in the 70s to 6′000 in the 80s and 10′000 in the 90s.

- Origin: Non-US founders had slight visibility in the 40s, grow to 12% in the 90s and 17% in the 00s. 30% of MIT foreign students founded a company at some point.

- Age: Before and during the 70s, 24% of first-time entrepreneurs were under 30, growing to 31% in the 80s and 36% in the 90s. There is no real difference between industry segments.

- Serial entrepreneurs: I have a small disagreement on that point as I am not sure serial

AdAge - Malcolm Gladwell (in The New Yorker): Chris Anderson Is Wrong About 'Free' (book 7 July release)

The Stuff You Really Want Will Still Cost -- a Lot, Advertising Age, June 29, 2009.

by Henry Blodget

Finally, a smart person who is widely considered cool calls B.S. on Chris Anderson's popular argument that everything should be free.

Here's an excerpt from Malcom's New Yorker piece pointing out the flaws in Chris's argument. Malcolm was paid to write the piece, of course. Handsomely. As was Chris for writing his bestseller:

There are four strands of argument here: a technological claim (digital infrastructure is effectively Free), a psychological claim (consumers love Free), a procedural claim (Free means never having to make a judgment), and a commercial claim (the market created by the technological Free and the psychological Free can make you a lot of money).

The only problem is that in the middle of laying out what he sees as the new business model of the digital age Anderson is forced to admit that one of his main case studies, YouTube, "has so far failed to make any money for Google."

---

Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity (includeds video)
By Chris Anderson 06.22.09

---

Free: The Future of a Radical Price

This title will be released on July 7, 2009.

Amazon: The New York Times bestselling author heralds the future of business in Free.

In his revolutionary bestseller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never been possible before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company's survival.

School of Everything

http://schoolofeverything.com