Babson Social Eship Event - 11/14/07

-----Original Message-----
From: Ross, Andrea
Sent: Tue 11/6/2007 10:44 AM
To: Ross, Andrea
Subject: Social Eship Event - 11/14/07

Social Entrepreneurship: 

Doing Well, While Doing Good

Babson Energy and Environment Club, Net Impact at Babson College, and the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Sponsored by Mark Donohue (B'88)



When: Wednesday,

November 14, 2007,

5:00 PM - 6:15 PM



Where: Olin Auditorium, Olin Graduate School of Business, Babson College.





Click here for directions <http://www3.babson.edu/visiting/>





Format: A conversation between successful social entrepreneurs followed by Q&A from the audience.



Why attend: Learn about current trends in Social entrepreneurship.

        Wayne Silby, founder and Chairman of Calvert Funds, the $10 billion investment management pioneer noted for its early leadership in socially responsible investment, and Mark Donohue (B'88), Managing Partner and Chairman of Expansion Capital Partners, LLC, a leading Clean Technology venture capital firm, discuss the current state of Social Entrepreneurship, Cleantech and more.

Topics to be covered include:

·         The story of the world's largest Social Investment Fund

·         The Clean Technology Megatrend and its impact on global sustainability

·         Grameen Bank and Micro-credit lending

·         Corporate Social Responsibility in China

·        Sovereign emerging powers of wealth: Abu Dhabi, China, Saudi Arabia, etc., what does this mean for sustainability?

       

About Wayne Silby


D. Wayne Silby is Founding Chairman of the Calvert Funds, a $10 billion investment management group noted for their leadership in the area of socially responsible investment. He also serves as President of Calvert Social Investment Fund and supervises its private equity activities. In addition, he is also the Co-Chair of Calvert Foundation, a $100m investment intermediary that directs capital into communities.

He was also the co-founder of the Social Venture Network, a group of socially oriented entrepreneurs and investors and of Calvert Social Venture Partners, one of the first socially oriented venture capital funds, as well as the Emerging Europe Fund for Sustainable Investment, a $60m OPIC private equity fund focused on Central Europe. He chairs the China Committee of Grameen Foundation, on whose board he also serves, and serves on the board of the Grameen Technology Council which addresses issues of the digital divide. Wayne received his BSE from the Wharton School of Finance, and his JD from Georgetown University.




About Mark Donohue


Mark is the Managing Partner and Chairman of Expansion Capital Partners, LLC, a leading pioneer in Cleantech venture capital. He has been a serial entrepreneur for over 20 years and has depth of management and operating experience in many industries. Mark is also a Babson undergraduate from 1988 and has served on the Board of Overseers for four years. Mark serves as Chairman of the Board for two of Expansion Capital's portfolio companies: SensorTran and World Energy Labs. He is the past Chair of the Membership Committee of the Social Venture Network, which is the leading US organization of socially responsible entrepreneurs. In 1994, Mark founded and funded Babson's first Forum on Socially Responsible Business. Mark serves on the Advisory Board of the Cleantech Venture Network, the leading data provider and conference organizer for Cleantech venture capitalists, for which Expansion Capital was the only venture capital "Founding Investor." Over the years, Mark has been involved in numerous social enterprises and non-profits, including serving as a Trustee for America's oldest interfaith educational organization, his involvement in Bioneers, the Threshold Foundation, the Rainforest Action Network and the Investor Circle. More recently, he is active in developing Babson's Institute for Social Entrepreneurship and a Babson Chair in Clean Technology Management & Entrepreneurship.





Sponsors



                  

5 Tipsfor entrepreneur from Henry Engelhardt

Just read this story from an old WSJ. Quite interesting:

5 Tips from Henry Engelhardt for Finding a Niche in a Mature Industry:

1. Go where they're not - don't fight superior competition directly on day one
2. Don't spend money if you can help it
3. Employ people with intellect and great attitudes over those with lots of experience
4. Learn your business by doig not from reading reports
5. Always take lunch.


Henry is founder and CEO of Admiral Group, a car insurer sells coverage over its phone and Internet since 1993. Following is the story from WSJ. (Shhhhh...)

Managing: How Admiral Group built lucrative niche --- U.K. insurer targets specific consumers with fleet of brands

 

By Ian McDonald

926 words

10 September 2007

The Wall Street Journal Europe

30

English

(Copyright (c) 2007, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Henry Engelhardt's speech pattern -- part Chicago, part Cardiff, Wales -- is as distinctive as his approach to car insurance.

Mr. Engelhardt, an American who attended business school in France and has long worked outside the U.S., is chief executive of Admiral Group PLC. He co-founded the Cardiff-based car insurer, which sells coverage over the phone and the Internet, in 1993.

Mr. Engelhardt borrows ideas from consumer marketers selling cosmetics or shampoo -- targeting specific customers with a fleet of brands. Entering a crowded, competitive market dominated by brokers, Admiral focused on selling directly to customers others shunned: young, urban drivers. Now, Admiral has brands focused on women, commercial vehicles, low-claims drivers and online buyers.

The company employs a different financial strategy from most peers, passing off much of its policies' risks to deep-pocketed reinsurers. This allows Admiral to sell ample numbers of policies without keeping heaps of money in the bank to back them up.

For the first half, Admiral reported profit rose 25%, to GBP 60.2 million ($122.1 million). Revenue after reinsurance costs totaled about GBP 178 million. The company's shares, about 15% of which are owned by Mr. Engelhardt, are up more than 24% over the past 12 months.

How did this executive who stays up late to watch the Chicago Cubs on television carve out a lucrative niche in a mature business? Excerpts of an interview with him follow:

WSJ: What was your initial impression of the the U.K. car-insurance business?

Mr. Engelhardt: At first I thought, "Car insurance? How boring." Then I found out the U.K. insurance market is fascinating and one where counterintuitive thinking pays off. Customers are generally very rational and willing to consider new ideas, but many companies stick with the status quo.

In the U.K., 70% of consumers shop for motor insurance every year. That figure is 20% or less in the U.S. and most other big insurance markets. That creates a big opportunity for someone who is willing to take a fresh look at the business.

WSJ: What have you done differently?

Mr. Engelhardt: There have been a lot of basic things we've done that were totally new in the U.K. One was a free phone line. There were other little things, like comment forms. We asked customers what they thought. All of that seemed pretty standard to us, but it wasn't happening in U.K. motor insurance.

WSJ: How did you start picking market niches?

Mr. Engelhardt: When we started in 1993, the other phone-based companies had gone for the good-driver market. We knew we couldn't compete there. We had to go where they weren't, and that was younger drivers. Brokers were getting about 15% in commissions. So, a premium of GBP 1,000 a year meant paying GBP 150 to the broker. We saw that if we could select good risks among those customers without paying brokers, we could have a big cost advantage.

WSJ: That led to other targeted brands?

Mr. Engelhardt: Yes, and that targeting started because we weren't car-insurance people. We started out with Admiral for younger people in 1993. We added Diamond in 1997, focusing on women, who really responded to that. And we launched Elephant.co.uk in 2000 for people who wanted to use the Internet.

If you said to the people at L'Oreal or Procter & Gamble that we do multibranding, they'd yawn. Look at shampoos in [U.K. pharmacy chain] Boots and you'll see yards of different types. But look at the back and they're all from P&G and Unilever.

WSJ: Every car insurer has decades of accident data. How can you get an edge at underwriting?

Mr. Engelhardt: We ask about 30 questions, compared with about 22 or 23 for our competitors. That might not sound like much, but it actually makes a huge difference. You need that extra information if you want to be better at risk selection. Some of these extra questions have to do with second drivers, for instance. We might sort second drivers by gender, occupation and years they've held a license.

WSJ: You're expanding in Europe. How is that going?

Mr. Engelhardt: Our business [in Spain] started last year and is a telephone and Internet business. We have more than 16,000 customers now. Germany is a work in progress. We hope to launch late this year or early next year. It will be Italy next, in 2008 sometime.

WSJ: How do you choose your markets?

Mr. Engelhardt: Our international expansion is based on a simple premise: The Internet is an unstoppable force. The 21-year-old in [Peoria, Illinois] and the 21-year-old in Bonn are both using the Internet for virtually everything. We know a lot about it and we know how to do it.

WSJ: Do you think you'll be in the U.S. in five years?

Mr. Engelhardt: I hope so, yes. In 2009 we are looking at opening in France or the U.S. The upside of the U.S. market is that it's huge. The downside is that it's 50 different markets [due to state-by-state regulation]. But it does give us the opportunity to pick and choose among states if we like.

Technorati Tags     car,startup,insurance,wsj,enterpreneur,niche,admiral,engelhardt

Wits, Sparkes, from Tarun Talk

I am a talk-talk person and always realized I had some "wit" words when I was discussing interesting topics with others or some sparkles when I was pitching my idea/startup to others. This afternoon I had a long conversatino with a first year, again an Indian (Gee, I am surrounded by Indians), and realized I learned a lot as well:

1. Two criteria to determine how to launch your first startup:
- does this startup add value to current users' life?
- can you do it yourself?

Does this startup add value? The most challenging task for any startup is always sales. My 2nd startup totalled failed on sales. But there is a shortcut. If your product or service could solve a real problem, the more serious this problem is for the customers, the less sales effort you need to make. For example, imagine how an India-based tutor website conquered the US market? American highschool students have a strong need yet too expensive to hire a local tutor or too difficult to find a qualified one. So how? This Indian website cleverly solved this problem by providing Internet-based real-time one-to-one tutor service. No sales effort needed (well, some if you count in Google Adword) since students are behave like this startup's salesperson to spread the message to every classmate.

Can you do it yourslf? As your first startup, you have no credibility (most of the time, unless you had been VP of Oracle then you shouldn't read my blog here) to attract investor nor partners easily. So the bottom line is can you do it yourself? You is the core asset of this potential startup. Here programmers have a clear advantage against others. Even if you are a experienced scintest from Phifzer, you cannot afford the $1M lab which is necessary for any drug development. So make sure you can do it. Otherwise, doesn't matter how promising the idea is.

2. Remember, "A good idea" and "A good idea for yourself" are two very different concept.
Sure I know launching a solar power equipment manufacture in Africa or build a nuclear power plant on the Moon is really good idea by many means. But, not good for myself. Why? back the above point, I cannot do it by myself.

3. The best advice for the first startup? Just do it.
Without doing it, you will never get the experience no matter how many entrepreneurs' exciting books/stories you had read, how many entrepreneurship classes/seminars you may take. The best way to improve your oral English is to speak. The best way to start your own venture is to do one. If you follow the above points, you can easily identify one opportunity. And because the bottom line is you do it yourself, even it failed (with negative cash flow),you can still afford the "failure".

4. Income has a way more broad meaning.

Your first startup may fail but your income may not be negative. Why? because income is more than salary or cash flow. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, may not be able to take a dime from Wikipedia because this website has no revenue except some donations. But because of the success of Wikipedia, Jimmy's income from it may worth $10M if not more than. Talk to any potential IT investor, Jimmy may get the investment he needs.

5. Never follow the rules. Other's rules.
There are two type of rules in the world. Rules that require us should respect everyone regardless his or her skin color or race or wealth. This is social rules and we should respect. There are other rules as well that always people take them for granted as if those rules  are the same as "social rules". For example, every sedan has four wheels or the tea pot has a round bottom. These are NOT social rules. Those actually always mean business opportunities for entrepreneurs. If everyone believe the only way to buy book is from a bookstore near the street, we won't have Amazon today. But back to 20 years ago, everyone may tell you bookstore is the ONLY place to buy a book. Open your eyes. Business opportunity is all around.

6.Vision.
We all heard Fortune 500's vision such as "we want to be the most respectable company in the world" or "we give shareholder's return the highest priority". It's wrong. Vision should be as practical as every employee's daily job. When a CEO never respect a worker in his corporate's warehouse as much as his investor, this company will never become the most respectable company in the world. Many  may challenge Google's vision "Do not devil". But this is very practical.

7. The importance of Internet.
It's that Internet smashed the concept of geography and time. An Indian restaurant in Mumbai may never think of competition with a Chinese restaurant in Beijing. But at website like Yelp.com or Tripadvisor,com, these two restaurants may compete directly when people search for average rating of restaurant in Beijing and Mumbai. Time. Amazon's Web Archive project stores the home page of many website in past 5 to 10 years. and Internet allows global companies work 24 hours a day with offices at different timezone. Internet allows my current startup hired one Russian and one Argentian developer on my demo version.

8. The value of your startup.
I want to emphasize on this. In the just finished Babson Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum, I had attended a panel about "technology entrepreneurship" where an alumni who is working for Monospace, a mobile based social networking site, siad this "....The most loyal and active users are from low social classes..." This striked me so much at that time and during this convesation with Tarun, I realized fully what does that mean.

For example, "untouchable" in Indian may never have the chance to touch a computer nor Internet either due to the price nor their social classes. But with mobile phone, they may also enjoy the same (mostly) effect as other elite class. "Yeah, I can have a firend in the US! even though I may never be able to afford an international ticket to US". This is an inspiring moment I believe. It will diminish the belief that "yes, I am a lower class people" when the individual can enjoy the same as others.

As a side topic, I believe the "untouchable" social class is just as ridiculous as the once-existed racial discrimination in South Africa. And I believe the popularity of

Technorati Tags     entrepreneurship,startup,babson

Website vs. Web Presence

 I am wondering about the real value of a website for business recently.

 

It's so web 1.0 for any company to have a .com website today. As a communication tool initially, a corporate website is really outdated. the channel and conversation happens 99% of the time anywhere but the corporate website. A company should focus on building a Web Presence but not a website. A web presence means many common web activities people are doing everyday:

- put your software driver to CNET's download.com
- run your marketing program at Facebook if targeting Gen Yers.
- do product intro at leading review website
- Sell product at Amazon.com
- setup online support at Meebo.com
...

why you need a website? When others can achieve the same goal with less fixed investment? larger audience?

Technorati Tags     web

RE: opinion as you can..

I think you are actually making a very good point related to Marin's previous Internet game platform. I think Internet is begin to dissembly itself into many parts, very different than web 1.0 when portals like Excite@home tried to be one for all. However, this dissembly is necessary to have a bigger integration. Sorta like web service.

 

Vruz's comment is right about Flock is not an organic integrator and it will fade away.

 

Twitter is a very good example here. By createing a micro-blog platform, it enables twitter to twit everywhere so it's always with you, either by a firefox addon or by mobile or by email. It's immersive.

 

 

Also this is related to the reason I think Yahoo! will just fail because it till now didn't get the reason why it failed the fight against Google. Google is an ecosystem play. By helping all the others making money (startups and blogger using adsense, people use gmail to avoid paying Yahoo! Mail Pro account and the same for Google Docs), Google is gaing fundamental support. Look at Yahoo, who cares? The only user I believe that using yahoo today is for people either used to access Yahoo from the '99 days or trapped by switch-cost such as email account. I could NOT find any reason I will use Yahoo if I dont have a Yahoo! email account. 

 

Look at Google's recent add other search engine links to its own search result page including Yahoo!, Ask etc. That's the best way to show confidence."sorry, I just don't count you guys as my competitor anymore..."

 

Yahoo! had done its thing. Someone else will carry on.

 

 

HONG, Li

MBA Class of 2008

Babson College

Cell:508-333-3616

Skype: cefs99

---

From: John Gorman [mailto:john_gorman@yahoo.com]
Sent: Sun 10/21/2007 2:06 AM
To: Hong, Li; Baraba, Marin
Subject: opinion as you can..

Hi guys,

As you can, Im interested in your thoughts here. I dont comment on blogs much, but i did on this one as it got me thinking given all the points you 2 have made on better information aggregation, visualization etc.. See my comment..

http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/10/is-flock-the-so.html

In watching friends on facebook, myspace, flickr, different IMs, blog networks, etc.. I get totally frustrated in point to point page view navigation,

This concept of a social graph, for me is a bit overplayed. But indeed graphs and tree structures are much better understood and navigated visually. So i envision a sort of CNET big picture service for all the ever increasing web 2.0 open platforms and UG content and actions. To be honest, I even want to see my emails and IMs from you two integrated with your UG trail on the web.. Your activities and messages of interest to me all come from YOU regardless of whether you are addressing me specifically or indirectly.

If this all including my blog comment doesnt make any sense, well dont worry about it ;-)

J




__________________________________________________
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Amazon/Google/eBay/Facebook vs. Microsoft/mySpace/Sony...

I would say that the core competency today is the ability to create a sustainable ecosystem where all(most) participates can gain either monetary or non-monetary benefit. If can achieve that, then as the "god" of this ecosystem, sure you can gain more. Thus, I don't think Yahoo failed because of Google's introduction of AdWord but its failure to create such an ecosystem around its massive property. Microsoft is falling because it's canalizing its previous ecosystem, Windows + 3rd party application developers, while didn't create a strong enough new ecosystem in new territories such as Internet. Microsoft has some reasonable success in the new home entertainment ecosystem with XBOX, to be fair.

That's why Google and eBay are so successful because there are way more people/business making money within their ecosystem. And that's where Amazon is heading to I think. Amazon opened its ecommerce platform to anyone want to do online retailing and now open its AWS system to any Internet company wants to save money. Facebook is heading the same way by launching its F8 platform and what's also where MySpace is lagging behind.

Indeed, the same reason why so many more people care about the environment today.

HONG, Li

MBA Class of 2008

Babson College

Cell:

Skype: cefs99

---

From: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com on behalf of Joseph, Vivek Nicholas
Sent: Sun 10/14/2007 12:30 PM
To: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Babson_TechTalk] News and Information from Factiva

Al:

Thank you.

Yes, Amazon is helping the small stores & yes, small stores will gain. But what is Amazon getting out of it? It has to invest in infrastructure for all these guys & the same infrastructure can be provided by others like google/ebay also. I don’t think sellers are going to be loyal only to amazon if ebay/google/ms come up with the same idea. What I am trying to see or discover is, what should Amazon do, to get better of the new players who might enter the market? How can Amazon go one up, always.

The biggest advantage AMZN has for now is that they have the customer base. If they can turn more sales revenues from each customer, that would help them immensely. (Wall St would hike its price by another $50 maybe). But how can they do that, for one. Second, if Google/ebay comes in, how can AMZN retain its customer base (both sellers & buyers) & prosper? (Currently they are spending cartloads of money on the infrastructure & I don’t see it giving them a great ROI as of now. How long should they wait for that is another question)

Any thoughts?

Regards

Vivek Nicholas Joseph

(C)

---

From: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Meenakshisundaram, Alagappan
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 12:11 PM
To: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Babson_TechTalk] News and Information from Factiva

Vivek:

Amazon wakes up one fine day and says ‘ok hold on guys, what is our core competency? A robust infrastructure and proven business model. Ok now how can we increase our revenues? We are already selling all products we can get hold of. So lets help others sell a product and convert this into a service model so that we can leverage our biggest expense – R&D and maintenance’.

I think Amazon is taking down a barrier to entry into commodity markets for small businesses – payment / storefront infrastructure.

In effect, they are replicating ebay’s service. But they are also running risk of one big downside – they can potentially dilute / damage the brand image and customer confidence they have built over the years online.

Ebay has also coming up with an interesting social network for buyers. Check it out.

Thanks and regards

Alagappan.

MBA Class of 2008 | Babson Fellow | Babson College

Cell | ameenakshisundaram1@babson.edu

From: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Joseph, Vivek Nicholas
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 11:41 AM
To: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Babson_TechTalk] News and Information from Factiva

Thanks Firat & Li.

First of all, I don’t agree with wall st on valuation. But now I know why the stock prices are insane. That apart, I was wondering if the business models of Amazon and/or ebay are sustainable. (I talked a lot with Prof.Marty about it. He thinks that Amazon’s current foray into AWS is not all that exciting, but I am not sure if I agree with him). What do you guys think?

Background: AWS is a service where any third party (like you & me) can sell products on Amazon. They charge a flat fee of ~$40 a month & also charge a commission/sale. The shipping is the responsibility of the merchant. They have storefronts now for target & the like & they are expanding.

The question I have is, what can Amazon do, to have an advantage over the rest? I ask this because, all they are doing currently is providing an infrastructure for everyone to have their stores. Tomorrow, Google can do it too & ebay is almost there. They would have no problems in coming into this domain. So, what can Amazon do, (other than having the customer base), to have an advantage over others? (International competition just adds to the problem, but this is just the start of a discussion)

Thoughts? Did what I say make sense?

Regards

Vivek Nicholas Joseph

(C)

---

From: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ozpinar, Abdullah
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 2:28 PM
To: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: FW: [Babson_TechTalk] News and Information from Factiva

Following on this, we were doing E-bay for last week’s class and there were several growth drivers. I think they somewhat apply to Amazon to some extent so here they are.

First some industry numbers:

Within the U.S. electronic shopping and auction industry, the growth rate has been in the low teens with revenue growing at 13.1% in 2006, up from 11.4% in 2005. The two major product categories are computer hardware and clothing and accessories, based on percentage of industry revenue. The percentage of online consumer spending that is conducted online as compared to traditional retail is 6.5% excluding travel in the US and expected to increase to 10% by 2011. The global e-commerce growth is expected to be around 15% over the next five years. Global penetration is 2% and expected to double by 2011.

Then some growth drivers:

1- Rising barriers of entry (Although it is relatively easy to form similar sites, E-bay (and also Amazon) has established very strong brands.

2- Increasing global growth and cross border trade.

3- Weaker dollar contributing to earnings of companies with international operations.

4- Increase in the use of social networking sites with potential collaboration opportunities (how is this for BS?)

Best,

Firat

From: Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Babson_TechTalk@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Hong, Li
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2007 1:53 PM
To: babson_techtalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Babson_TechTalk] News and Information from Factiva

Why ebay and amazone stock price are up recently ?

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Ecosystem play

Just thinking of this in the EEM class.

Google won the leader position in the search business by creating an ecosystem based on its search engine. many people can make money upon Google's service and Google gain direct and indirect benefit off it. Amazon seems towards this way by offer its shopping engine, infrastruture service like S3 etc. Bezos is going to build an ecosystem in the ecommerce industry too. Big. Bold.


Who else taking this approach?


How can we achieve?

Technorati Tags     google,ecosystem,eem,amazon

USERS ARE TRANSFORMING INNOVATION

A great post from Financial Times China:

 

Chinese version: 靠谁创新全球经济?

English version: USERS ARE TRANSFORMING INNOVATION

 

"

Unfortunately, these important initiatives undervalue perhaps the most important transformation now redefining the world's innovation economy. Ingenious leading-edge users – not everyday consumers or profit-focused producers – are becoming the economic engines that drive innovation. In sectors as diverse as software, biotechnology, medical instrumentation, telecommunications and sports equipment, users are spurring growth.

"

 

Basically it says that it's the consumer/user, especially the early adoptor or visionary segment, is driving the innovation in the past few years and will continue as a major force in the near future. How interesting it is? I would also add one thing to this is that because most of those early adoptor or visionary consumer are also very entrepreneurial so that the mature technology can easily allow them to launch their own startup to address the opportunity if current vendors failed to respond to their voice.

 

Considering those initiatives from most innovative north european countries like sweden and denmark:

 

"Denmark has been the first nation to turn this into policy. In 2005, the Danish government established “strengthening user-centred innovation” as a national priority. Sweden's tradition of “participatory design” has positioned several of its industries to take good advantage of this phenomenon. Britain's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts has begun funding policy research in user-driven innovation. These early efforts are important and more will follow."

 

Taking account into Google's recent open bid for wireless spectum to compete with Verizon etc, Open becomes the trend. What if Chinese government re-organize China Mobile and China Unicom to take back the ownership of the GSm and CDMA infrastructure network but lease back to China mobile and China unicom. Then use this state-owned infrastructure network to encourage wireless innovations such as MVNO, WAP, LBS etc etc?

 

Everything here is following the step of Wikipedia. When you have millions of well-educated user that are ready to helping contributing together, the only thing you need is a mechanism. Oh, is Democracy such a thing?

Technorati Tags     blog,innovation,ft,mit,Schrage,Sloan

How/Why Microsoft lost ground for Tablet PC?

A real email from my professor to address a midterm paper thing but has some interesting points of Microsoft:

.........................

We have here an extended enterprise lesson in real time.

The reason for all this is the Microsoft monopoly. By trying to force the world to upgrade to RAM hog Vista, the following 'ant farm' things have happened:

1. Big users are rebelling against the massive hidden investment in RAM and CPU's required for buggy Vista. How - by buying up all the 'old' XP PC's on the market.

2. Some large PC companies have told MS they will continue shipping old XP.

3. Some manufacterers have even started putting Linux on their PC's for free - to provide an alternative to the monopoly.

4. The market that needs Tablet PCs has discovered that Vista stinks for that application, not just because of the RAM hog issue, but because it breaks apart the linkages among Tablet I/O screen, XP for Tablet, MS Office in Tablet, and One Note. It tears apart the de facto standards that users needed - even though all of them were inside the Win-Tel monopoly fence.

5. This is why the XP Tablets are selling out on eBay - as I mentioned in class - and why they are also sold out (but on order) and at most of the resellers, and even at the manufacturers international sites. (Vista Tablets will not run things well, and also require buying about $300 of software, under most circumstances.)

6. Further, if anyone is using Office 2007, I have discovered through experiments this weekend, that they will not easily port over into the 'electronic ink' applications that power Tablet PCs and graphics pen-tablets (like Wacom)

7. And even when I managed to create work-arounds for some of these Vista-disabled applications, they will not PRINT with current print drivers.


Several EEM take aways:

- Notice how complex networked solutions really are.

- Notice how toxic to innovation are monopolies like those held by MS, traditional telephone companies, CATV, etc.

- Even if MS wanted to solve these problems (which it clearly does not - because it has made most of its money by forcing a huge change in social infrastructure with each 'upgrade') - it can't possibly forecast and anticipate all the possible bugs buried in the millions of lines of Windows code, as that code tries to work with literally trillions of user 'transactions' or 'service events'.

- That's what gives Google the entry point.

- That's why Linux and other OS's are still gaining ground in 'less developed' markets.

- That's why MS is not in the world's wirless phone systems.

And that's why you, a new earth-conscious generation of humans, must kill trees if you want me to comment inside your documents.

I tried.

I really was going to invest $1400 on your behalf.

But - my conscience will not let me invest that $1400 in a Windows machine, plus $300 for more MS software, and then all the hassle of integration - just to feed the monopoly.

Best,

XXX
.........

Technorati Tags     blog,microsoft,babson,EEM,marty,tablet

Meeting experience with VC

Had an one-hour meeting with a partner of a local VC for a mixed pitch/discussion meeting. Very helpful. Would like to share but it's already 0:36am here so will follow up tomorrow. G'night!

Technorati Tags     blog,vc

TripAdvisor acquisition story

First of all, recommend a great news website for the travel and lodging industry: Hotel Marketing

I just found a interesting post at Hotel marketing about TripAdvisor acquired 5 small travel community/content website in a roll this May.

I did a quick check of those 5 sites and following are their Alexa status (I know, I know, Alexa isn't trustworth but better than nothing)

IndependentTraveler.com,114,470
travel-library.com, 14,624
BookingBuddy.com, 13,581
SmarterTravel.com, 18,712

seatguru.com, 27,078
Travel Blogs:
travelpod.com, 21,957

All those websites operates in a biz model like this: some UGC + some Other's content + Ticket/hotel search (revenue source)

My quick conclusion:

1. Content is king for online travel and people trust UGC
2. It's very scattered. So TripAdvisor is trying to consolidate to be the No.1


Technorati Tags     travel,acquisition,tripadvisor

Skype experience

I had been an active user of Skype for a long time since moved to US. No such a cheap phone card like in Canada here at Boston. Most of my call is with J at Thailand as an one-to-one calling. Then start doing conference call when M getting introduced. Overall SKype deliveries what it promised and I am an active paid user of almost all skype's premium service such as SkypeIn number, voicemail, $25 for all North America call etc.

Then suddently started talking about SKype after home.

1. K brought the news that eBay just changed (*fired*) the CEO/co-founder of Skype to Chairman due to its poor finance performance. I always wonder why eBay bought Skype in the very beginning. Same doubt for eBay's acquisition of StumbleUpon. No synergy IMHO. Best acquisition target should be the one can adding more auctionable items to eBay such as my lunch time etc.

2. Then our EEM study group tried to do a Skype conference call with 6 people. Turned out to be quite a challenge. We end up with group chat via Skype rather than group talking. Or should we try the free conference call service at all. The service gives you a free 800 number to call in. (So disappointed with Scribd.com for the 1st time that I cannot upload/convert the syllabus file of Extended Enterprise Management so I am with www.box.net this time)


Tomo has no class. Then it means I will be busier...

Technorati Tags     blog,skype,babson,EEM

Blog - Dream and life

From one of my most favorite online newspaper, the Chinese version of Financial Times, I found a recent series of interview of people, ranging from entrepreneurs  in mainland Chinese. one common thing among those people is they are all from villages. Here is one of the interview who is a successfl entrepreneur now. The thing impressed me the most is this entrepreneur's last comment: “我觉着，先有思路，后有出路，没有‘梦想’，如何‘成真’？” In English it says "I think, people should have an idea first then can figure out a way to do it. If you don't have a dream, how can you implement it?" It's so right, if you don't have a dream, how can implement it? So many people just take everything for granted without bothering to change it. It's their choice but it's never my life. That's a major reason I don't believe in any religion because that's a very easy way to find an excuse for people to accept things in their life. "God arrangs it!" I appreciate the fact many people who believes in religion are nice people but I am also confident that being a nice people doesn't need necessarily to believe in any religion.

For fun, the wife of one of the richest couple in China belives in a rare religion：Baha'i . But after I check the religion in Wikipedia, it sounds like an amazing one. The philosophy is much simplier and much more meaningful.

Technorati Tags     religion,chinese,china,dream,FT

Creditcard lost

While I was buying a gift for J's birthday yesterday, I had lost my two creditcard from bank RBC and BoA at Bentley College without knowing that untile I got a phone call from bank R today. Surprisingly, R's security system detected a unusual pattern of my creditcard and called to verify. I learned Bentley kids who got my card just had a good lunch at Boston Legal Seafood. Anyway, the call took about 5 minutes. Then I called bank B. This call only last 15 seconds. I am so surprised that I can finish these 2 calls since my cell is running out of power.

What I had learned is:

R's customer service is the best of the best. And seems their IT system is also very great. while it's unfair to compare with B since Bentley kids haven't use the B creditcard to buy/pay anything yet. This reminds me a tv show "Numb3r" I had seen in this July and an IT system is drawing all the spending activities of any individual at FBI headquarter so detectives can clearly identify if there is any outliner spot in the screen. Say, you live in Boston but there is a bill spent in Ohio.

And also seems US is used to hear the news about creditcard lost...

Customer service is always important. This quick response from R certainly further improved my confidence and willingness to do more business with them afterwards. And the poor customer service of those online businesses is yet another big obstacle for them to conquor the world. Actually, recent research from Forrester named poor customer service no.1 thing failed traveler's online shopping experience. For example, if I bought a ticket of Northwest airline from Expedia and I want to change the schedule later. Whom should I call?

I think this type of offline business could be a big factor to determine the fate of startup's effort to leap from early adopter to mainstream. Sometimes early adopter is so supportive for online startups that they even ignore the poor customer service but for mainstream consumers, it's key.   WIll there be a customer service outsourcing opportunity to serve massive offline business activities for startups like call center etc? Or will there be an advanced software solution to automatically do voice-recorgnation and give consumre the answer automatically?





Technorati Tags     service,visa,rbc,bankofamerica,boa,creditcard,forrester

Babson Elective Classes

Alright, sadly I didn't keep up my goal to post daily. The only excuse I could find is that schooooooooooooooooool finally started! Had 1 or 2 classes of those courses already and just 10 minutes ago I finished updating my selections. Dropped one since my gut feeling just doesn't feel there is a good fit. And surprisingly found one of the best class that I didn't pick up in the very beginning because the title is sorta boring suddently has one seat available. SO I grabbed the chance quickly so I have to drop a great "negotiation" class due to schedule conflicts... Anyway, here is what I have for the fall semester and official class description:

Entrepreneurial Finance

Instructor: Leslie Charm,

EPS7510 Entrepreneurial Finance formerly titled Financing the Entrepreneurial Venture Focuses on raising seed and growth capital from venture capital, business angels, investment banking, and commercial banking sources; and financial problems unique to the small- and medium-sized firm undergoing rapid growth. Examines actual proposals made to venture capital firms, particularly in terms of their financial viability. Course also examines financial management for entrepreneurs over the life of a business project. Includes financing start-ups, financial planning for the nonpublic smaller enterprise, going public, selling out, bankruptcy, sources of capital, and other related topics. Prerequisite: NONE This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Fall and Spring

 

 

Management Consulting
Instructor: Michael May

The objective of this course is to communicate the basic skills and functions of the management consulting industry and to make students aware of the key issues and factors driving the future of consulting. This will be accomplished by inculcating the perspective of the client and helping students consider some of the career and lifestyle issues inherent in a consulting career as well as to allow students to experience some aspects of consulting itself in the course. The course will be conducted using outside experienced consulting leaders and guest experts.

 

M&A for Entrepreneur
Instructor: Kevin Mulvaney

This course focuses on the strategies and process entrepreneurs and business leaders employ in various types of acquisitions or divestitures (leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, ESOPs, etc.). The course is centered around $10-500 Million revenue companies and its content is applicable for students pursuing either entrepreneurial opportunities or corporate positions where they may be called upon to acquire or divest a division or product line. We take a strategic view throughout the course discussing and evaluating all phases of the acquisition process: Acquisition planning and targeting Valuation alternatives Leveraged Buyouts ESOPs/Partnerships Financing buyouts Tax, legal and accounting issues Letters of Intent Due Diligence Negotiating an agreement International markets Lessons to be learned from failed acquisitions Managing the leveraged company Course Prerequisites: A basic knowledge of accounting and finance will be helpful in understanding valuation, income statements and balance sheet issues.

 

Extended Enterprise Management
Instructor:  Marty Anderson

 

Extended Enterprise Management Examines the design and management of complex supply chains and market demand systems in a global, rapid-response business environment. Major focus is understanding industries as large systems of many organizations that now depend on complex networked alliances. Will focus on how traditional strategies and operations are changing rapidly. Subjects include market drivers of the supply chain, role of logistics and distribution in the networked economy, information technologies that links markets to supply and demand chains. Will analyze wide variety of industries. A major objective of the course is to understand how to manage the shift from PUSH strategies to PULL strategies across the entire supply chain. Targeted at general managers. Also core to the consulting and other career paths, and is a strategic companion to OPS7572. Prerequisite: NONE

 

Marketing for High-Tech Product
Instructor:  Anirudh Dhebar

 

Marketing High-Technology Products Building on the students' knowledge of the marketing fundamentals, the course focuses on the special challenges of marketing high-technology products in dynamic contexts fraught with significant technological and market uncertainty. The course is structured around three modules: bringing new high-technology products to market, managing product maturity, and transitioning from one product generation to the next. While the focus of the course is "high technology" in the general sense, the reading materials - cases, notes, and articles - are drawn from the computer hardware and software, consumer electronics, telecommunications, and life-sciences industries. Prerequisite: MKT7000 or MBA8520 or completion of one-year or two-year modules This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Fall and Spring

 

The class I wish I could have but can't due to schedule conflicts is:

 

Negotiation

Instructor: Elaine Landry

 

Negotiations Explores formal and informal ways that managers negotiate differences. Treats negotiation with peers, supervisors, subordinates, suppliers, customers, outside agencies, and others as a core managerial process. Examines research and concepts developed in a number of academic fields, and looks closely at personal skills and experiences. Requires intense involvement in negotiation simulation exercises, and thoughtful application of theory and research. Prerequisite: MOB7010 or MBA8500 or completion of one-year or two-year modules This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Fall, Spring, Summer I and Summer II

Technorati Tags     babson,mba,elective,landry,mulvaney,charm,anderson,dhebar

Shang YeXin

I am a big big of Lu,xun, a great Chinese author in 1920s and who is famous for his straightforward, cold humor and great passion to encourage youth to pursue the good thing etc. His style significantly formed my preferrence of straightforward communication etc that benefits me so much.

And seems I found another person shares many with Lu Xun. He is Sha,YeXin. Here is his  blog (in Chinese). In this post, you can find his words ...


沙叶新在自己的博客中这样写道：“使我不趋时，不趋势，政治不能淫，资本不能屈。”


In English, he said "... so that I won't simply follow the fashion, follow the trends. (the power of )Politices etc cannot change my mind and capital cannot alter my belief".



Technorati Tags     blog,luxun,shayexin

United Syndication

A nice but annoying problem. I am reading RSS feeds on my Dell Axim X51 Windows mobile 5 PDA via a freeware called Axim (Thanks,David!) and using Google Reader with my laptop. Then the thing is for every post I had read on my Dell PDA, I have to check it again in google reader so that the post is marked as read. Would be great to have prssreader automatically sync or simply there is a new extension to the RSS thing so that the feed knows which reader I am and what RSS reader program I am using so that it can automatically tell Google Reader that I had read this or that post already... But I understand this may damage the simplicity or anonymirity of RSS.

This is the good part of Microsoft Exchange. I use pop3 client in my Dell PDA to read emails and since it's web based so when I login later through a web interface to my babson email the email I had read will be displayed as read.


Technorati Tags     blog,email,dell,rss,pda,axim,prssreader

My love for Dell Axim X51

While Fred Wilson doesn't like iPhone, he is a big Blackberry fan. On my side, iPhone is too pricy nor do I like the fact to be locked to one carrier as well. My toy is a dell Axim X51 with embeded WiFi support. I use it for everything from email, RSS and Internet to notepad, todo list and music player. I even bought it a Belkin external keyboard. While sadly Dell discountinued this product line, I believe Windows Mobile will have a space in this mobile computing world (sorry G-fans or i-fans...)

D-LINK DI-524 802.11g WIRELESS ROUTER/4 SWITCH & 2 wireless USB card - $70

Yeah, I am sell some D-Link wireless things. Check it out

Widget/Blog vs. App/Facebook

I played with widget a few months ago then stopped after I assumed I know enough of it. And I found this little article I wrote before about my experience with it.

...


OK. I had played with widget since I believe it's a key distribution technology today and in near future. I tried Yahoo! widget and the Spring box Widget. I always intend to use service from start-ups than from established players since I am doing start-up myself. But theSpringbox disappointed me by not providing search function in their website. Yeah, maybe you only have a few widgets available at each category. But, hey, I want to search for widgets. OK?

So, Yahoo! widgets wins my desktop.

...


Accidentally, I checked those widgets things again and find out The Spring Box does support widget search now. That's cool.

And just a little more rumbling about widgets:

1. While everyone is crazy about Facebook applications, I see it's the very similiar craziness about widgets a few months ago. It's all about a platform + application play. widget is basically "application" built for blog platform, no matter you are Google Blogger, Wordpressor Drupal. While Facebook app is built for Facebook platform. Also I read the recent news that Apple had released a quizz plugin for its popular iTune software. I am wondering when there will be a high time for that ...(For developers, here is the API)

2. Widget is also a distribution platform. And for content wanna fit well into the widget platform, it has to be very simple. Rss is clearly a good fit here. It also promotes Fred Wilson's future media play.


3. There are three stages about Internet in my mind. 1st is to generate content when there is nothing. So we got web 1.0 and now we have a everyone-blogging phenomenon. 2nd is to help people find it when there are too many content so we have Google, yahoo and powerset etc. 3rd in my mind is content utilization, visualization/presentation that anything helps people to best leverage the existing content. For many people, whether a Google search can return 1M or 100K links are all the same. Information overwhelming...Yeah, this is the foundation for my upcoming startup! So this widget/distribution thing is a backbone underneath it? Then it should have a bigger impact than Facebook applications which only exists on Facebook platform.


Btw, for Facebook, per their recent bookswap application, wondering are they inevitably will fall into the same trap as Microsoft had done before: competing with other application developmen companies. A sad thing, is it.

Babson is Going to Asia

If you are considering Babson, Let me know.
-------------------------
Greetings from Graduate Admissions!!!

I will be traveling to Asia with The MBA Tour (http://www.thembatour.com/events/tokyo.shtml) from September 3rd - 17th to meet with potential MBA candidates. You may recall from your process of considering programs, interviewing, and applying that these types of fairs are a very effective tool in the recruiting process.

We need your assistance in recommending candidates for 2008/2009. If you have any friends or colleagues that are considering an MBA please have them contact me directly.

Along with participation in the fair, I will be setting up admissions interviews in each city. The above link has my entire schedule for Asia - Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei.

If you know of any potential candidates, they can email me at dlomanno1@babson.edu or call (781) 239-6160.

Please help spread the word through your networks.

Thank you and have a great day,
Domenic


_____________________________________

Domenic Lomanno, M'06

Babson College

F.W. Olin School of Business

Associate Director Graduate Admissions

p (781) 239-6160

f (781) 239-4194

e dlomanno1@babson.edu

Give me the choice

After installed the Chinese version(www.baofeng.com) of Media Player Classic (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Player_Classic ), Not(?) surprisingly, I found a few more software had been installed without any notification before or during the installation process.

However, I am not very angry at this time because it had given me options to remove those additional software. Option. It's so important. It's like the fact supermarket offers 30-day refund policy without any condition.

Give me the choice. SO I would like to give your product or service a try as well. When you give people the right to walk away, people may just find the excuse to walk closer to you. Reminds me the scenes in the great great Matrix. "Free you mind, Neo. then you will be the one".


Give people an option.

The only alcohol I enjoy ...

The almost only moment I really enjoyed an alcohol drink is to have a heated Chinese traditional alcohol(HuangJiu or Yellow Alcohol) with brown sugars and gingers added with my father on my annual Chinese New Year vacation with my father. But now price is rising? I don't need those branded but the cheap one made in my hometown...

BTW,it's called Yellow Booze or Rice WIne.


中式黄酒为何变贵了？ 英国《金融时报》中文网特约撰稿人：张翼轸 2007年2月14日 星期三 [Photo] 昔 日鲁迅笔下穷酸书生孔乙己最爱的绍兴黄酒，正在悄悄转型，挤入高端酒品行列，甚至成为酒类产品的新奢侈品。
虽 然从来就被视为最具中国神韵的国酒，虽然富含的氨基酸远高于日本清酒、红酒等酒种，黄酒在中国酒类市场从来不是主流地位。05年总销量仅占酒类饮品总量的 5%，远落后于啤酒的83%和白酒的10%。事实上，黄酒欠缺的不仅是销量，更在于“档次”。虽然红酒销量还低于黄酒，但因为是舶来品，再加上众多法国奢 侈红酒宣传的推波助澜，发展前景无人敢小觑，而黄酒由于发源于江浙沪地区，在其它地区则一直被视作烹调用酒和低端饮用酒。
然而，伴 随着和酒金色年华、石库门上海老酒、古越龙山东方原酿等一众新兴黄酒的推出，消费者对于黄酒的刻板印象正在悄悄改变。相比高酒精度，口感带苦味的传统黄 酒，这些新黄酒除了降低酒精度外，还通过加入枸杞、蜂蜜等辅料来改善口感，其中石库门红标黄酒更是获得女性消费者的青睐。除此以外，新型黄酒更是抛弃传统 的棕色玻璃酒瓶或古典陶瓷瓶，在包装上向洋酒看齐，其中东方原酿不但在外观上与威士忌等洋酒极其类似，更起用法国干邑世家第五代传人西里尔·卡慕 （Cyril Camus）担任代言人，带出黄酒的时尚气息。
　在改变口感同时革新包装加大宣传的同时，黄酒的定价亦同步提高。传 统黄酒定价一般在10元以下，而新型黄酒则将定价提升至10-50元的水平，比如石库门黑标和红标售价便分别为32元和20元，而东方原酿则在28元至 48元。部分礼盒装的黄酒定价更是100元至200元不等，大大改变了消费者对于黄酒是低端廉价酒的偏见。
要说服消费者掏出几倍以 上的价格去购买新型黄酒，自然必须有附加的卖点。除了强调黄酒的营养价值和保健功能，“年份酒”亦成为黄酒营销的新杀手锏，比如石库门黑标以及和酒金色年 华都采用了八年陈的基酒。黄酒虽然不似红酒，不同年份的原料对于成品的口感大有影响，但是深入人心的黄酒“越久越陈”的观念，使得“年份黄酒”更易于推广 ——毕竟相比红酒必须知道哪个年份好，黄酒只需知道年份越大越好。
当然，黄酒要向白酒、红酒看齐，光有八年陈是远远不够的。古越龙 山推出的30年、40年、50年陈黄酒则真正让黄酒向奢侈品酒类发起了挑战。以最贵的古越龙山50年陈黄酒为例，超市里最低销售价是2850元，而在普通 酒店消费则定价在3800至5180元不等，一旦进入香港半岛酒店，价格就直上云霄可达1.2万港元。
价格大大提高之后的黄酒，如今已冲出中国国门，进军全球高档酒市场。目前在法国卡慕旗下众多的全球免税商店里，古越龙山的“金龙”黄酒和茅台白酒一起被陈列在中国国酒专区供全球消费者选购，前者的零售价为50美元，略低于后者的60美元。
伴随新型黄酒的兴起，市场对黄酒业亦极度追捧。中国股市A股市场中第一食品、古越龙山等黄酒概念股在最近几个月中涨幅超过100%，也从一个侧面证实了黄酒的潜力。

1st encounter with RSS embeded video

For the first time inside my Google Reader, I just watched the following new video blog from Morgan Webb, after reading two posts about it from my other daily-reading blogs, TC and Fred Wilson at Union Square Parnters.

1. Since all it news come from major technology websites like TechCrunch or VentureBeat or VC's blog, those websites have an incentive to cover this vblog since it's mutual benefitial.So this vblog can start having traffic immediately!

2. The flash player (Castfire) it used is so interactive! click the "more" button then you see really very relevant functions for the audience: download the video, subscribe the vblog feed etc. I am wondering how far is this flash play away to have a feature called "buY' so when it displays an promotion ad I can just click to receive the coupon code or directly input my creditcard info to complete the transaction.



This is very cool idea because:

1. Since all it news come from major technology websites like TechCrunch or VentureBeat or VC's blog, those websites have an incentive to cover this vblog since it's mutual benefitial.So this vblog can start having traffic immediately!

2. The flash player (Castfire) it used is so interactive! click the "more" button then you see really very relevant functions for the audience: download the video, subscribe the vblog feed etc. I am wondering how far is this flash play away to have a feature called "buY' so when it displays an promotion ad I can just click to receive the coupon code or directly input my creditcard info to complete the transaction.

MB doesn't think it's that great but I disagree. It would save lots of time for busy people by watching it over iPhone directly on their commuting to office or airport etc. Podcast can do the same but video is always more appealing, is it.

Technorati Tags video,vblog,webbalert,webb,castfire