Monday, March 24, 2008

Everything about Tibet

OK, so tibet is a hot topic so I will weigh in my opinion as a Chinese. My point is very simple. I honor everything that is fact based. It's totally OK to report things if Chinese government did kill protesters in Tibet and shame on Chinese government. But it's also a shame for media companies to 1) create story based on assumption rather than fact; 2)find evidence to support the assumption rather than fact; and 3) "innovatively" create evidence to support the assumption if cannot find real one.

So for the 1989 Tiananmen square, the fact is Chinese government did kill students there and western media etc did have people there in the venue to report. No problem. But it's very problematic for the Germany TV station to using photo about a fight between Nepal police and Tibet protester in Nepal as an evidance as if the photo was taken in Lasa, Tibet. Put Chinese aside. Are those guys try to fool ordinary Germany people as well?

I think this is a big warning for the overall media industry. And I think that's why there was a article in the US talking about the loosing of public responsbility of American publishing industry. Everyone is wooing eyeball, clicks and advertising...


No wonder the circulation is decling.

Generalization is dangerous.
Assumption is dangerous.
Taking things for granted is dangerous.

Not only dangerous for entrepreneur but also for every single human being.

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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Social Network Analysis Class by Salvatore Parise

Finally had my last elective course started today at 9am in such a sunshine Saturday morning...The course is Knowledge Management taught by Prof. Salvatore Parise. KM is nothing sexy and actually bit misleading here. Sal's class is more about social network analysis. Much more sexy, is it? Sal had taken my point to rename it to Social Network Analysis and upgrade to be a 3-credit class for next semester.

This class has a surprisingly "large" class, about 24 people or so. We will have two face-to-face classes and three online classes. It's really a hand-on class. In the first class today, we learned the Ucinet software developed by Borgatti, Everett, and Freeman.

It's an amazing software that can generate maps to display connected nodes. The line and the arrows between nodes can tell a lot of stories such as which person is most critical for informal communication in an organization and who could be a bottleneck to hurt the collaboration efficiency etc. You can basically design a survey to collect data by asking questions such as:

- Whom I will talk to when I try to learn X topic?
- For Y topic, who had contacted me for information?

The most exciting thing, however, is from the potential it can analyze income/outcoming links of any social network such as blog/comments and friend profies on Myspace. Not sure had Google try to display banner ad with highest price on myspace user who has most friend connection? Same thing can be applied at Facebook.

I am also wondering, since people with more connection may be more, at least perceived, trustworthy. Thus, will online advertising companies take this into account? This also reminds me the recent Y!combinator startup XOBNI that using software to analyze your inbox email to tell you what new email you should process first etc based on your interaction pattern with the sender.


At last, here is the key part of our syllabus:

Course Objective
Many organizations are now interested in capturing, distributing and applying the knowledge of their employees for business benefit. These practices--often supported with technology and called "knowledge management"---are a good idea, but firms also need to improve the fundamental knowledge work strategies and processes where knowledge is generate and used. In this course we will discuss the current state of the knowledge management movement. We will also discuss emerging issues in the management of knowledge and of knowledge work, including understanding social networks and communities of practice, managing the organizations in which knowledge and knowledge workers are the most important assets, and measuring the impacts of knowledge management investments to individuals, groups, and the organization as a whole.

My objective for this course is to get you excited about knowledge management (KM), to acquaint you with some of the key issues around the topic, and to get you to think about your own jobs and organizations in knowledge management terms. The course will consist of lecture material, discussion of real-world case studies, and interactive group exercises. Another objective is to introduce you to some KM tools and practices, such as social network analysis, that you may be able to incorporate into your own organizations. The course is not enough education for you to become a full-fledged knowledge manager, but it could provide a good foundation for more study if that is your goal.


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Friday, March 21, 2008

Traffic surging causing problem for Google Reader?

So NYT said that the web traffic generated from mobile devices is surging for Google. No surprise, if considering the fact everyday I am reading 20-50 RSS feeds at Google Reader via my Dell PDA. Even though it's smaller screen compare to may laptop, it's more efficient. No other website distraction since IE 4.0 on mobile doesn't support Tab browsing. I can simly mark the feed I like with "star" in Google Reader so that I can follow up later. But is this traffic surging also create troubles? I always got "Page Error" while clicking next feed link in Google Reader throughout this week. But the error was gone if I reload the page. So google doesn't have enough server for handling traffic from mobile? You know Google renders every web page into a mobile-friendly version if you access it from your mobile device.

Any here also had this problem? Not  a big deal but annoying..

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Thursday, March 20, 2008

From Web 2.o to Enterprise 2.0

Been an interesting event this morning at Babson College. It's called "From Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0", co-hosted by CIMS center at Babson and MassNetCOMM. It has a great speaker, Thornton May (whom, frankly speaking, is like a lost twin of Prof. Marty Anderson! both the look and the way they talk), to throw in interesting things to challenge peole's conventional thinking. Then a presentation of MITRE's (MITRE manages Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) for the Department of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration, and Internal Revenue Service.) application of web 2.0 things in its corporate environment etc.

We had been asked to form some small groups to talk about our understanding of web 2.0 and I represented my team with the following:

- Free. yes, everything is free.
- Re-definition of Expert/Authority. I said "We don't count on NYT bestseler column to look for new book to read. We go to Amazon to check the  highest rated book. then go to Google to search for free PDF version of it."

Some other cool things from other teams:

- Option becomes fact/Face&Option are getting similar/Difficult to get consesus
- Trust drives everything
- The chaos created by UGC/web 2.0 etc actually is organizing information more like a human's brain:networked, non-linear...



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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

How to PE a software company?

First of all, it's very interesting to revisit an old report of Internet startups happened 10 years ago. It's about Guru.com that still thriving today and did well among other leading competitors including elance.com, getacoder.com, getafreelancer.com and odesk.com

So I had a conversation with John this morning. He had read my previous post about Opera browser then he asked me "what will you do if you are Opera's new CEO". I am thinking. What to do if it's a software company that losts its steam? Is there a Private Equity firm focus on software firm with problems? What will those companies have compare to those traditional target such as retail shop who may have undervalued real estate asset though main business sucks.

Say, if the target is Opera browser (no offence, Opera folks), what could we do? So Opera clearly has a strong R&D team with browsers on both PC and mobile device for a long time. But on PC, it faces strong competition from Firefox, Microsoft IE and Maxthon. And for mobile, I doubt those phone manufactures suchas Nokia etc and Microsoft and Apple will let Opera grabe the big pie. So what option really does Opera has?

I am thinking leap beyond web  browser into the Internet service portal thing. That means, make Opera the most helpful too for Internet users. FOr example, In the status bar may automatically display new emails from my different account at Google or Yahoo. And it will display the subject/sender of new email, if any, if I move my cursor over. It also should automatically monitor most recent update of best price of a laptop. Keep in mind those browser has potential to ADD way more function than a website. They are desktop software...So go beyond web browsing. There are so many opportuniteis...

This reminds me back to 1999 when I was working at the Open Java Lab cofounded by Rich sight software (later merged with SINANET.com to be Sina.com) and Sun Micro. My team had developed a pure Java based Chinese input system and word processor on Solaris/Linux. Since Richsight also had a team receiving Chinese government funding to develop first Chinese browser, we had thought of embedding the Chinese input with the browser. At the end we had developed a simple pure java based browser with the word process and Chinese input embeded.

Sadly, Sina.com never pay attention to technology anymore after it lost its founding CEO due to different view between him and the board/investors. What a pity to look back...What if Sina didn't dismiss the Chinese browser team...


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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The worst online AD ever!

Spoke.com has one of the worst advertising from Xpantivirus-scanner.com. I am running Ubuntu Linux. Even so when I visited a spoke webpage from Google Search, it pop up a window telling me My "XP" machine may be infected and then redirect me to its website and showing me a FAKE scanning progress bar and a FAKE scanning result. WTF?

So I am not giving any link to those two freaking websites.

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Comparison of online outsourcing website

So I am trying to use online outsourcing websites to do a small project. It's a crowd but a marketplace with clear leading runners. Since I only used oDesk before, I decided to give every big player a try. They are:

Guru.com
oDesk.com
rentacoder.com
elance.com
getafreelancer.com

After 12 hours, this is what I got:

oDesk.com: 24 people are interested
eLance.com: 2 bids
Guru.com: just proved my project
Getafreelancer.com: None
Getacoder.com: Said I have to pay for the posting, though initially it said I can post for free as a trial project for new user.

The getacoder and getafreelancer websites are also quite poorly designed. Seems I will just go with oDesk and eLance then.


So this is also a way to save startup significant money, along Jason Calacanis's recent post about "you have to save money",
and Fred Wilson on how to save money
Btw, those are all tips for cash-strapped startups.

Update: Now I got 6 bid on guru.com and still the 2 bid at elance.com. It's very interesting to go over previous completed projects presented by those bidders. Awesome some looks!

Away from the host

While reading new email then new RSS feeds via my Dell Axim PDA, I just got a thought: will the further advance of those distributed technology will cannilibization of the provider's own traffic, for example, Google. After using google find a good list of websites fit my interest, the frequence I am using GOogle search is significant less. While this doesn't hurt Google's branding, and in a way, it even icnreased Google's stickness. But so far, clearly google makes less money from Google Reader and Gmail, compare to Google search.


Accidentally, I found this post "Everything Everywhere" from my Google Reader RSS list, from Fred Wilson, A NYC-based VC.

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Monday, March 17, 2008

Fwd: [Business-events] Babson Entrepreneurial Energy Expo - Register Today!



 

e3banner.jpg

 

E3: ENTREPRENEURIAL ENERGY EXPO

Capitalizing on Cleantech

 

Register today for the second annual E3: Entrepreneurial Energy Expo through the conference website. E3 will be held on Thursday, March 27th at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College in Wellesley, MA.. Registration is free of charge and we encourage you to complete this step today as space will be limited. Complete details regarding the conference can be found on the event website (www.babsonenergy.com/eee) and you can complete the online registration through the link below:

>>>     www.BABSONENERGY.com/eee/registration.html    <<<

We hope you will join us for what is anticipated to be one of the most exciting student events held at Babson this year!

Sincerely,

Babson Energy and Environmental Club


ABOUT E3:

The Entrepreneurial Energy Expo (E3) is an annual event hosted by the Babson Energy and Environmental Club (BEEC) at the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business. E3 aims to connect the energy industry to the Babson community, to provide insight into emerging clean energy solutions, to facilitate networking and to celebrate the growing business opportunities within the rapidly expanding, and entrepreneurial, cleantech sector.

The E3 conference will be preceded by a ground breaking ceremony for the on-campus installation of a residential scale wind turbine. This particular project is the result of a proposal that was created and introduced by BEEC last year. More information about the installation can be found on the Babson College Newsroom website.

E3 itself officially begins with our keynote address by Jesse Fink (Co-Founder, MissionPoint Capital) and is followed by six panel sessions covering:

  • Green Building,
  • Massachusetts' Cleantech Cluster,
  • Energy Services,
  • Renewables,
  • Green Entrepreneurship and
  • Venture Capital.

In total, 19 leading professionals from some of the most exciting firms in the industry will be sharing their insight during this year's E3. Please visit www.babsonenergy.com/eee for bios and additional information.

The 2008 E3 concludes with a business expo/career fair designed to bring 50+ cleantech firms from across New England to Babson to network, demonstrate technologies and discuss career opportunities with attendees. The E3 business expo is open to all firms with operations involving the energy/environmental industries. Companies that would like to participate in the business expo should complete the registration form that is linked below:

>>>     www.BABSONENERGY.com/eee/exhibitors.html    <<<



Sunday, March 16, 2008

03/29 Entrepreneurship Fair at Boston College

On Saturday, March 29th , the BC chapter of Students in Free Enterprise and Entrepreneur
Society will be excited to host Boston College’s 1st Annual Entrepreneur Fair. The fair aims to
showcase student entrepreneurs’ ventures and ideas from around Boston while simultaneously
helping them to find developers and team members. At the same time, the fair serves as
initiative to help connect and educate the community on entrepreneurship through this
valuable networking opportunity.


Entrepreneurs will be able to set up booths to present their projects while the community is
open to walk around, mingle, and chat about opportunities over plenty of free food and drinks.
Boston College entrepreneurs will be guaranteed a spot; students from other universities will
be able to request a booth on a first come basis.


The Entrepreneur Fair will take place from 1pm to 4pm in the Lynch Center in Fulton Hall,
located on BC’s main campus quad. Startups will be able to set up their booth from 12pm to
1pm.


If you are an entrepreneur who would like to showcase your venture, please send the following
information along with a brief description (a couple of lines is fine) of your startup to
alexjlindahl@gmail.com.

Name:
School:
Year:
Email Address:
Phone Number:
Startup Name:
Brief Description of Startup:
Please send the information before Monday March 17th to AlexJLindahl@Gmail.comin order
to reserve a booth. Boston College entrepreneurs must also have their form submitted by the
same date as well. If you have any questions, call me on my cell (203) 449-4207. Everyone is
welcome to attend.

The Fair is also being sponsored by Boston Young Entrepreneurs, a group of Boston
entrepreneurs that meets once monthly at Town Hall (hosted by ONEin3 Boston and the
Redevelopment Authority at City Hall).
EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO COME!
Looking forward to seeing all of you there!

Ubuntu - Switch between Dual Monitor and Single Monitor

We have study room in the Olin Hall at Babson College that equiped big LCD monitor mounted on the wall. Cable had been provided to allow us connect our laptop to it for project meeting etc. But my Ubuntu laptop simply cannot send signal to the external monitor. After some search, I found this solution quite neat.


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Saturday, March 15, 2008

Opportunity on the road

Got up at 6am this morning, driving in a heavy raining weather to drop my room mate offer in the Logan airport. Just my second time there, so I still need to pay special attention to the roadside signes along the way. Aweful. On highway, dark raining before dawn, you can imagine how bad the sight is. Wondering why Boston isn't using those special paint that can ignite automatically  at night without external power supply?Or simply using the LED technoology like products from Fluxgen Lighting Systems. I'd learned this company from a Nov Boston ENET meeting. News said quite some startups have product to replace the traditional rodeside light with new LED bubble that cause much less energy but last longer and are brighter.

Maybe for local Bostonian, you should know the road to airport by heart. But, because of this "should" or many other assumptions, people are ignoring the opportunities passby. And that's also why many revolutionary startup have founders from outside the industry.

Take nothing for granted. Now plus one more phase: Never think consumer "should". THe "should" is responsibility for suppliers.

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End of Browser War?

So Opera browser long had been a powerful challenger to Microsoft's IE. But Opera quickly fade into the
3rd (or 4th I doubt) after Firefox (or Marathon). I tried Opera recently on both Vista and Ubuntu as well as my Dell Axim PDA running Windows Mobile 5. Overall, the experience is just so so. Most surprisingly, Opera on Ubuntu (Linux) does not support Google Docs well. 
So Google Docs is displaying warning that "this browser is not supported by Google Docs" so just a basic version of Google Docs is available.
Wondering at this G-time, is it a suicide for Opera lacking of the necessary support for Google Docs? Also I found out I cannot upload files to Scribd via Opera nor insert URL link at this ZOHO writer app while writing this blog...

I hope it's not too early to say but are we loosing one once-powerful alternative browser? Then if taking into account the fact Facebook had acquired another web browser startup in 2007. Where Opera will be?

Since Opera browser doesn't support insert links at ZOHO, so this will be  pure link-free post.

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Surging message from Scribd

Seems Scribd's traffic rocks recently. Got tens of notification messages from Scribd about someone liked files uploaded by me or added me as friend etc. Following are the status of my Scribd account:

You've uploaded 70 documents


that have been viewed 29244 times


Then if you check this Alexa traffic map of Scribd, it does show a clear growth. Cool


Wednesday, March 12, 2008

VETI - Second Life Incubator Project at Babson College


OK, So finaly another 1.5 credit elective class I'd signed up will start today as it's a half-semester class. The class is called EPS & SECOND LIFE:BLDG VIRTUAL INCUBATOR
As you can see, it's all about Second Life. Plus, it's funded by the NCIIA.
You can find more information about the course, instructor and fund source below:


Virtual E-Team Incubator (VETI)

and

Social Networking System for Entrepreneurship

 

A Proposal to the

 National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance

From The Sloan Consortium and BabsonCollege

 

Dr. John R. Bourne

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, OlinCollege

Professor of Technology Entrepreneurship, BabsonCollege

Executive Director, The Sloan Consortium

Director of the Olin-BabsonCenter for Online Learning

 

Erin McCormick

Director of Curriculum Innovation and Technology Group, BabsonCollege





The syllabus is below:

3. The Syllabus will be something like:

Week 1: Face-to-face - what the course is about and how we will teach it, what the outcomes are to be and what we will do. Computer checking - getting up to speed.
The incubator idea.

Week 2: Starting a business in Second Life. Research on this topic. Assignment is to go talk to business owners in SL and bring back their information to class. First mention of topic proposal by students to start a business.

Week 3: Each student (individual or team) presents idea for business. Presents what they need to know that can be incorporated in an incubtor. Incubator team (the group of students building Babson's incubator) takes advice. (gives options).  Riverside presentation?

(each of the following weeks has a guest + an hour of discussion about progress of each of the teams)

Week 4: Marketing in SL - guest speaker.  MSGiro discusses marketing/or Charles Babson/
Each group reports and discusses their progress.

Week 5: Creative in SL - guest speaker
Each group reports and discusses their progress.


Week 6: Linden's in SL - guest speaker
Each group reports and discusses their progress.

Week 7: Final reports.

Deliverables:
1. business teams - what they have done
2. incubator team - what they have done (LN Freenote heads)


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Re: BC Entrepreneur Fair

Hi Guys,

Please find the upcoming entrepreneurship fair at BC.

Thanks,


Li Hong
MBA Class of 2008
Babson College
Cell:508-333-3616
Skype: cefs99
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lihong

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Alexander Lindahl <alexjlindahl@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Li,

I wanted to let you know that I will be holding an entrepreneur fair at Boston College on March 29th.
I am basically mimicking the one that we both went to at Harvard because I thought it was such a
good idea. If you are interested, I would be happy to see you showcase your startup. I have attached
a document giving you the details. If you know anyone else who may be interested, or someone who
can send it out to a list serve at Babson, then that would be amazing as well. Thanks.

Let me know either way. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Alex

--
Alex Lindahl
Co-Founder, Textworks, LLC
President, Students in Free Enterprise
Boston College, Class of 2008
Telephone: (203) 449-4207
Email: AlexJLindahl@gmail.com



-- 

Monday, March 10, 2008

Fwd: [Entrepreneurs] Entrepreneurship Events for This Week at Babson College & Other local universities

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Babson Commerce Committee <>
Date: Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 1:55 PM
Subject: [Entrepreneurs] Entrepreneurship Events for This Week
To: entrepreneurs@lists.hcs.harvard.edu, business-events@babsoncommerce.com, oeg@lists.olin.edu


Entrepreneurship Events for the week of March 10

March 10, 5:00-6:15pm

Babson College

Peter Bailey of Jones Lang LaSalle

Location: Babson College, Olin Hall, Needham/Wellesley Room; map

Organizers: Babson Real Estate Association & Babson Buyout Association

Details:

Please join the Babson Real Estate Association and the Babson Buyout Association for a discussion with Peter Bailey, International Director of Jones Lang LaSalle. Mr. Bailey, who is a Babson MBA, will cover trends within the real estate industry as well as discuss the merger transaction between Jones Lang LaSalle and Spaulding & Slye. Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the largest real estate firms in the world with 170 offices in over 60 countries, merged with Spaulding & Slye, which was one of the dominant commercial real estate firms in Boston and Washington, DC. Come listen to Mr. Bailey who served as CFO of Spaulding & Slye at the time of the merger and was responsible for much of the transaction's valuation and negotiation discuss the reasons for the merger and explain the merger transaction from the perspective of a services firm. All are welcome and please pass this invitation on to anyone who may be interested.

Additional information regarding the transaction can be found here:

http://www.joneslanglasalle.com/en-GB/news/2005/Spaulding+and+Slye.htm

Monday, March 10, 8:00-9:00pm

Babson College

E-Tower Mondays

Location: Babson College, Van Winkle, C-Tower, 2nd Floor; map

Organizers: E-Tower

Details:

What's your next big idea?

Rocket pitches, brainstorming sessions, business games, and much more.

E-Tower's location is represented as orange star

Tuesday, March 11, 6:00-8:00pm

Babson College

A conversation with Jane Magpiong

Location: Babson College, Olin Hall, Needham/Wellesley Room; map

Organizers: Center for Women's Leadership

Details:

Jane formerly served as president of The Private Bank of Bank of America, accountable for more than $2 billion in revenue and $170 billion in assets under management. In addition to her duties as President, Bank of America Massachusetts, Magpiong is also the Northeast Region President for the Private Bank. The Private Bank is part of Bank of America Wealth & Investment Management, headquartered in Boston. The Private Bank is focused on building and preserving the wealth of high-net-worth individuals and families. Jane also spent 14 years at Wells Fargo in San Francisco, most recently as a regional managing director in Private Client Services.

Register at http://www3.babson.edu/CWL/events/Jane-Magpiong.cfm.

Tuesday, March 11, 4:00pm

Harvard College

A conversation with Jay Sidhu, Chairman and CEO of Sovereign Bank (2002-2006)

Location: Harvard College, Lowell JCR; map

Organizers: The Harvard South Asian Association

Details:

Mr. Sidhu was responsible for expanding Sovereign from a small banking institution with an IPO value of about $12 million to the 17th largest banking institution in the United States with a market capitalization of almost $12 billion at year end 2006. Along with his business accomplishments in the a variety of sectors, including non-profit work, Mr. Sidhu has promoted the development of the next generation of business leaders through establishing the Jay Sidhu School of Business and Leadership.

Email Russell Rennie with questions at rrennie@fas.harvard.edu.

Tuesday, March 11, 7:00-9:00pm

Harvard College

Master Class Workshop on Elevator Pitches with consultant Jeffrey Korn

Location: Harvard College, Lowell JCR; map

Organizers: The Harvard College Entrepreneurship Forum

Details:

A sought-after consultant and lecturer, Jeffrey Korn coaches business leaders around the world in the art of Leadership Presence. By mapping the skills of the professional actor to the life of the executive, Jeffrey teaches corporate visionaries to inspire, lead and connect authentically with those around them. Jeffrey teaches at the Harvard Business School, the CIA, Coca-Cola, The U.S. Federal Reserve, CitiGroup, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Johnson & Johnson and Cadbury/Schweppes. Recently, Jeffrey has brought this presence work to the prisons and inner city schools of Boston.

Thursday, March 13, 5:00-6:00pm

Harvard College

Boston Globe columnist Scott Kirsner talks about the past, present, and future of innovation in New England

Location: Harvard College, Sever 103; map

Organizers: The Harvard College Entrepreneurship Forum

Details:

Boston Globe columnist and blogger Scott Kirsner will offer an illustrated overview of the past, present, and future of innovation in New England, in industries like life sciences, software, hardware, and cleantech. He'll discuss some of the most promising companies and sectors, answer questions about entrepreneurship in the region, and talk about how students can plug in to interesting start-up opportunities, or launch their own ventures.

Scott Kirsner's column "Innovation Economy" appears in the Boston Globe every Sunday. Scott's writing has also appeared in BusinessWeek, Variety, Wired, Fast Company, Newsweek, CIO, Salon.com, the San Jose Mercury News and the New York Times.

Food will be served.

http://www.scottkirsner.com/index.htm

Sunday, March 16, 8:00am-6:00pm

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School India Conference

Location: Harvard Business School; map

Organizers: HBS South Asian Business Association

Details:

The 3rd Annual Harvard Business School India Conference will be held on Sunday, March 16th in Boston. The India Conference at the Harvard Business School is a unique event that brings together experts on India and individuals who have questions about and interest in the country. We feel that India is at the cusp of her second tryst with destiny and we want the conference to have an action based agenda which addresses the following questions: - What does India need to do to make sure that GDP growth is high and sustainable and that there is an end of poverty? - How can businesses contribute to this? - How do the students at Harvard both Indian and non-Indian grasp the India opportunity? - How do we as individuals contribute to making sure that growth and prosperity happens especially as we take on leadership roles in the business world?

Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/79101595


_______________________________________________
Harvard College Entrepreneurship Forum
http://www.harvardentrepreneurship.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe to this mailing list, visit http://lists.hcs.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/entrepreneurs



--
Li Hong
MBA Class of 2008
Babson College
Cell:508-333-3616
Skype: cefs99
http://www.linkedin.com/in/lihong

Friday, March 07, 2008

Print file from Ubuntu laptop to windows printer at Babson

Babson is using Windows for its campus network. Making things more complex, Babson is also using Pharos system to manage those expensive Xerox 4100 printing station. Never had the need to print file from my laptop, I never bother setup the printer system at my Ubuntu laptop, till today.

So I first googled for the Linux solution to work with Pharos system. A nice post here.
But since I don't know the Pharos printing queue name, I gave up. Then I tried to connect the lonely HP laser jet 4100 in the corner of Olin study room area.  

The key thing is figure out what network protocol printer is using. In my case, I assumed it's "Windows Printer Via Samba" but it doesn't work. So I went to the printer, play with its configuration menu, printed out the configuration details page. It's JetDirect! Aha. Now it's easy. Go to Ubuntu, System=>Printing, Add new printer, in the pop-up window, type in the IP address of printer, done!

Yeah, not a very meaningful post but hey, it's a


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Wednesday, March 05, 2008

the Next Generation in China

Just met J the other day who is a classmate of my wife in Bentley College. She just finished her undergraduate study in Shanghai a year ago and now is in Boston. She is quite a nice girl. But the most interesting things I find from her are some distinguish difference between her generation vs the other such as mine and the others that older than her:

1. She wants back to China as soon as finish study at Bentley. Why? Much easier to find a job and enjoy good friend and good friends are all around. The American dream may mean much less to her generation. It reminds me other Chinese immigrant in Canada who were used to be senior manager or has Ph.D/Master etc degree from China or Canada but choose to work as a labor worker so that they may stay in Canada and meet the requirement of joining Canadian citizenship asap. Will J change later once she has more social burden such as family and kids and feel regret about her decision not staying in the States? I dont know but my gut feeling is much less likely. Why? Because if you are a talent, China can offer you much more than ever before.

2. She just had attended the first event of CSSA (Chinese Student and Scholar Association) at Bentley. She told me she had sing a song and received very good feedback. Someone even took a video shot of it and uploaded to Tudou, the biggest video website in China. Is this expressionism? I guess so. One key thing about expressionism I believe is the self-confidence. No one, or very few, wants to demomonstrate their not-that-great part to the public, right? This also reminds me the KTV experience with my three cousin in my hometown upon my visit last Dec and two years ago in Beijing. My cousins are all in their highschool or university age. They love singing. They want to try the newest song. They don't care how terrible their voice is. They just want to have fun. [idea: KTV manufactures, when would you add feature such as real-time video recording=>automatically DVD burning=>Ringtone generation service in your KTV machine? I doubt if the decisoin-makers of KTV company is really in their 50s, 60s. How they can capture the new opportunity represented by the generation cultural shift?]

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