Follow Jeff Sayre on Twitter

Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

The Ecosphere And the Economy

Friday, December 9th, 2011

One 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, 2011

I 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).

Read more »

Putting the Tech Back into Social Web

Saturday, September 17th, 2011

This article was originally part of the fifth installment to my smartup series. As I believe the message best fits in its own article bucket, I’ve placed it here instead.

I want to address an odd trend–although it’s not yet clear if this actually is a trend. Over the past several months, I’ve heard similar statements from several unrelated Internet startups—the notion that they are not tech startups.

Instead of thinking of themselves as tech startups, they believe they have a higher-calling, claiming to be some flavor of socially-focused company. This may be the result of more and more non-tech-oriented business people forming Internet-based startups, but whatever the cause, in my opinion, it must be nipped in the bud. Read more »

Star Trek: The Next Production Frontier

Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Forty-five years ago on this same day and day of the week (Thursday, September 8, 1966), the first episode of Star Trek aired on NBC. The episode was entitled, The Man Trap. So instead of penning a post about the Social Web, cybernetics, or Smartups, I’ve decided to celebrate this important date in entertainment and science history. I want to share with you where I believe the Star Trek franchise must now boldly go. Read more »

Building the Social Web: the Layers of the Smartup Stack

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

<Smartups Series Part 5 of 5>

As a Social Web architect and an open source advocate I frequently write, think, and promote the notion and ideals of the Open and Social Web. My work in the areas of user-centric control (identity, privacy, data portability, and rights), federated Social Web models, future-of-money projects, and W3C standards groups has shaped my views presented here.

Soon after publishing my 4-part smartup series (almost a year ago), I began to think about key parts of what has become this article. I’ve had bits and pieces of this article jotted down in various places. Over the past three months, the ideas have coalesced into a cohesive framework. With a recent and lengthy process of helping a potential smartup try to find its foundation, I’ve been motivated to assemble, clarify, and share my views on what I call the layers of the smartup stack. Read more »

How to Get Me Involved in Your Smartup

Monday, August 15th, 2011

I receive six to eight requests for help from startups each year—from angel investing, to advising, to consulting, to joining as a founder. To date, I’ve never accepted a single offer. Recently, however, I was very intrigued by one startup’s vision, so much so that I spent a significant amount of time exploring that opportunity. In the end, it did not work out. A few of the reasons why this opportunity did not pan out will be encapsulated in my below set of guidelines.

Below you will find what I call my 7-by-7 rules. Whereas this is my current set of criteria, I believe this list is useable by anyone seeking to attract talent or looking to start a smartup. Please feel free to adopt, modifying, or expand upon this list and use it as you see fit. Read more »

Who Should Own the Internet?

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

The genesis for this article came from reading this interesting piece by @novaspivack about his honored invitation to participate in the e-G8 Forum—a gathering of global Internet leaders to be held right before this year’s G8 Summit in Paris. Nova asked his readers what they thought were the key issues to communicate.

As I began to compose a response to Nova’s query, it soon became clear that I had too much to say for a blog comment and decided that it was more fitting to write an article for my own site and then simply point Nova to it. Read more »

BP Privacy: History and Lessons Learned from Developing a Major BuddyPress Component

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Coding great-quality, open source software, while often rewarding, can also be a thankless, difficult task. As many have been asking for an update on BP Privacy–also known as the BuddyPress Privacy Component–I thought I would take the time to write up an exhaustive history of the project and share some lessons learned. Read more »

Web 3.0 Smartups: the New Web Business Space

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010

<Smartups Series Part 4 of 5>

This is the fourth article in my five-part series about Powering Startups to Become Smartups. In part 1, we discussed why Web-2.0 startups were stuck in the box and how in-the-box thinking leads to missed opportunities. In part 2, we discussed the most salient aspect of Web 3.0, the Web of Data and the emergence of the Social Web. Read more »

The Semantics of the Semantic Web: Don’t Confuse the Concept with the Movement

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

This past week, another rash of the “Semantic Web is dead” cries have made their rounds at conferences (at least one) and across the Twittersphere. This is sensationalism at its best—and used quite effectively.

The truth is that the promise and accrued benefits of the Semantic Web are far from dead. Read more »

Archives