Archive for the ‘Entrepreneurship & Leadership’ Category
The Death of Ecommerce Startups?
Tuesday, January 15th, 2013
Imagine having to collect and remit sales tax to hundreds of taxing authorities. For etailers, that nightmare may soon be a reality.
The last mentioned opportunity is actually not a startup yet as I am in the information-gathering stage. Whether I decide to promote it to a viable startup depends on the results of what I call my startup due diligence process.
Red Flags A Waving
As I’m going about the process of due diligence with this concept — determining whether or not this opportunity makes business sense — a big potential red flag has become apparent. This year or next, there might very well be a massive headache with respect to collecting online sales tax from out-of-state customers. Read more »
Coders Of The Future Will Not Be Engineers
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012
When most people who read my blog see the word engineer they immediately think of those who write code for a living. In other words, computer programmers who may or may not have actual degrees in computer engineering. This is the definition of engineer that you should be thinking of in the title to this post.
Two-years ago this Saturday, Peter Thiel made a still-controversial announcement that kids are better off dropping out of college — or not going in the first place — and instead starting a company. To help motivate his quarry, and entice (grab) young talent twenty-years old and younger, Thiel offers a two-year mentorship and $100k. However, the thumbing of a college education may be a short-lived trend. Why? Because the next version of hacker will not be the computer whiz kid who is touted as the up and coming coding guru.* The next celebrated hackers will not be able to safely learn how to cut complex code in their bedroom. Read more »
Software With Freedoms, Not Free Software
Friday, October 12th, 2012
I’ve been an open source advocate, devotee, user, and developer for many years. I’m a member of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). I frequently write about the Open Web, Social Web, and Open Source of all types (software, hardware, science, data, Web standards).
Much of my recent work has been licensed under the GPL. The GPL is administered and promulgated by the FSF. Apparently what is now considered the open source movement, actually was the result of a schism from the free software movement. In other words, open source was spawned out of the free software movement, not the other way around.
To some, there are philosophical differences between the two movements. They can best be summed up as follows: all free software is open source but not all open source software is free (although much of it is). You can learn more about the subtleties of this argument in this article on the GNU website, Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software. Read more »
Kaufman Field Guide to Nature of the Midwest
Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
Most of you know me as someone who thinks and writes about, and works and lives in, the Social Web and Future Space. Some of you have noticed my mysterious absence from the various social channels I used to participate in on a daily basis. In fact, since posting my last article on my blog more than four months ago, I seem to have derezzed from the metaverse.
In my previous two blog articles I shared with you another side of me — that of naturalist and ecologist. What I did not share at the time was that I was embarking on a new short-term project. This post describes that project in detail. Read more »
All Rise or A Standing Ovation
Monday, February 13th, 2012Last week I decided it was time for a major change in my working lifestyle. This weekend I made it happen. I spent the entire weekend offline, tearing apart my home office and working on my solution. I now have a beautiful, modern, standing desk.
To be accurate and fair, this lifestyle change was spurred on by my wife. She’s wanted a standing desk in her office for sometime. As I looked into the benefits of such a setup, I decided that I should switch to a standing desk as well. Now, both of us have a standing desk in a home office that we share.
Do You Live to Work, Or Work to Live?
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
At my previous company, my partners and I agreed on many issues. We also disagreed on a number of issues. But perhaps the biggest area of disagreement between myself and my partners was work style.
As a consulting company, we tracked each hour of each employee’s day. We knew what they did and for how long they did it. We could calculate an employee’s total number of hours worked per year, average hours worked per day/week/month, what activities they spent most of their time focused doing, and therefore, each employee’s chargeability. That is consulting slang for how much profit we could squeeze out of each lemon employee. Read more »
The Emerging Global Brain and the Internet’s Future
Thursday, January 5th, 2012A few interesting posts and seemingly-unrelated themes have been circulating around Google Plus for the past few weeks or so. These thoughts have, I believe, been spurred on by the impending threat of the insanity of the SOPA and PIPA legislation.
I see the issues of Internet censorship, access rights, and content reuse as part of a much larger phenomenon that many people are unaware. Whereas the Internet has been a revolutionary force in humanity’s communication capabilities, facilitating numerous societal, cultural, political, and economic changes, I believe that it is the emerging evolutionary changes fueled by the accelerating growth in technology that will bring about the most radical and fundamental transformation.
Let me lead you through my thinking. Read more »
The Ecosphere And the Economy
Friday, December 9th, 2011One of the many joys I periodically experience is that aha moment of seeing connections within and between systems. As a trained scientist with a graduate degree in business, my insights often transcend the myopic blinders of those who remain oblivious to the larger connections on Earth. One such aha moment I had almost 20-years ago was that of the relationship between the economy and the ecosphere.
Life Is About Complex Adaptive Systems
What was the impetus behind this aha moment? In 1995 I read the first edition of the book, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos by Roger Lewin. It changed my perspective on humanity’s relationship to the ecosphere. Read more »
The New Garage: Bootstrapping Your Startup
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011I came across a Google Plus debate awhile back discussing what the new garage was for startups. To give you a brief background, a few famous startups actually started in a garage.
The Apple boys used Jobs’ parents’ free garage. The Google boys used a friend’s garage for free (initially). HP founders used an unattached garage that was part of the home for which they shared the rent (Dave Packard and his wife lived in the house).
