December 2007
126 posts
Venturing on the frontier: requisite attention →
Venturing on the frontiers requires distinctly holding attention on two discrete aspects of any venture: - Productive, iterative, exploration of the complexity dynamic - Core venture viability Simple to say but in practice, venturers who aren’t stuck in perpetual analysis and thought, are pulled toward focusing on linear, or hopefully exponential, growth of the most promising aspect at hand...
Venture investing shake-up? Really? →
An interesting article about a new way of doing deals http://mobile2.wsj.com/beta2/htmlsite/html_article.php?id=1&CALL_URL=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119889558568757053.html (thanks to Fred @ USV http://avc.blogs.com for the pointer). What this article really seems to be dancing around is value of relationships in finding and doing deals and in venture success. What also comes is the...
The dynamics of the frontier: complex ambiguity →
The frontiers of venturing are the places where conventional venturing and planning approaches become least effective. It is the effective limit of conventional approaches to venturing that define the edge of the frontier with the deepest depths of the frontier being the pre-concept stage of a systemically focused venture. Conventional approaches loose effectiveness the earlier a venture is in...
Venturing on the frontiers - Inquiry #1wrap-up →
A little over a year-ago I began considering what’s next in my journey and exactly 3 months ago I initiated my first inquiry into what’s needed on the frontiers of venturing and venture investing. It hasn’t been a linear journey of course, with a good deal of my attention going towards getting Causeway going over the last year. While that was ongoing, I had about a dozen...
The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard →
Worth the watch… even after the season of consumption.
Canadian jazz great Oscar Peterson dies - Yahoo!... →
Goodbye to a great… may the music live forever.
Bug Labs Update
There are so many things I love about this… particularly ‘community electronics’. Looking see where bug goes… thanks Bijan for the summary update. +++++++++ Peter and the gang over at Bug Labs are working extremely hard on a big idea. They are creating the long tail of consumer electronics or as Peter says “community electronics”. When Bug came out of stealth...
“One thing I do know is that boredom, like necessity is the mother of invention....”
– Joe Pitti, on why overstimulation is a bad thing for kids’ imaginations. I remember feeling bored a lot when I was little, at least enough to stage home plays and write notebooks full of stories and invent several other worlds to disappear into. His whole post on “cultivating creative...
“Working with entrepreneurs is a lot like being a parent. If you are attentive,...”
– A VC: You Get What You Give
WatchGore’s Noble acceptance speech. The last 5 minutes even worth watching. Standing ovation. Thanks to desmogblog for the hatip. (via Google Video)
“I think the second thing that is really important is that the entrepreneurs are...”
– Jason Mendelson, Managing Director at the Foundry Group » The Creative Connector
“We call ourselves “thematic investors.” Historical themes include things like...”
– Jason Mendelson, Managing Director at the Foundry Group » The Creative Connector
Black Swan or Limited Vision
Wikipedia defines Black Swans this way http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory In Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s definition, a black swan is a large-impact, hard-to-predict, and rare event beyond the realm of normal expectations. Taleb regards many scientific discoveries as black swans—”undirected” and unpredicted. The September 11, 2001 attacks are often referred to as a Black...
Unintended Consequences
In Robert Ludlum’s book The Bancroft Strategy several players are on the Bancroft Foundation. there is a dialogue about whether investing is easy. The isue raised is “downstream consequences” or “perverse effects”. “Sometimes an effort to ameliorate poverty results not only in more poverty. You dump fre grain on an area — and put the farmers out of...
“Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking.”
– Robert Stephens, Geek Squad (from JV’s article)
“But (and here’s the important bit) Twitter is assiduously less than all of...”
– Paul Kedrosky: Twitter: Email-Less Email. Or IM-Less IM. Or Something. Yup!
Twitter Signal to Noise? Overwhelmed by Facebook?... →
I had the same reaction as Charlie after reading Scott Karp’s post about Twitter today. Long Twitter. — bijan I can appreciate the ‘real’ friends only motivation and have wrestled that as i’ve been on a tumblr and twitter adding binge. the exploration of the unknown through track (twitter) and tracking reblogs (tumblr) has lead me to some people I don’t know but...
“What defines a system? An agreement that it is.”
– The beginning of an interesting conversation last night calling at the importance of purpose and values particularly in early-stage venturing and remiding me of what Porras and Collins wrote so well about.
“This model can be described as having three sides/legs/arms/spokes - pick your...”
– diso - Google Code originally pointed to by soxiam will be interesting to watch this…
“http://blog.whatfettle.com/2007/10/31/the_web_is_agreement/”
– Internet Archive: Details: The Web is Agreement Download of the Web Is Agreement image I originally reblogged from Gina (scribbling.net) and originally released by Paul Downey at http://blog.whatfettle.com/2007/10/31/the_web_is_agreement/
WatchUsed the camcorder on my blackberry to make this. Also testing out the vimeo + tumblr integration at the same time. What do you think? (disclaimer: yeah, I know, this is a new level of geekness) — bijan Thanks Bijan for testing this and putting it out there. It’s been on my mind… I’m really wondering about video as a communication medium. As a consumer it asks for my visual...
Chat by Reblog Experiment
joelaz: Tumblrs, let's chat. Reply by reblog, adding your response to the bottom of this running dialogue. I'll start with a question, but feel free to change topics if you like. What's your latest obsession (aside from Tumblr of course)?
rach: Luc Sante's book "Low Life" and Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel...
stevenphibbs: Canon HD cameras under $1000 blow my mind
peteski(nevver): bleach (the series) and the x818.com xmas card design, tick tock.
michael (igniter): 'complex ambiguity' - what the heck am i trying to say...
Gimme wifi in the air!
I’m putting out there for all airlines to hear it, loud and clear: I’d gladly be willing to pay extra on my ticket if you enabled wi-fi access on your planes. A lot extra, actually. And as someone that took over 50 flights last year, that’s a lot of money in your pockets. — vasta