Will Apple pull the old chip switcheroo again, and embrace ARM CPUs on its Macs instead of Intel silicon? You bet it might, say new rumors, because it could mean your MacBook lasts pretty much all day on a charge.

Only a handful of years ago, Apple abandoned its long relationship with IBM and the PowerPC line of processors for shiny new Intel silicon. The switch from G5 to Intel caused an upheaval of epic proportions among the user community and for the people who code for Apple software--and even required Apple to nursemaid the transition with special dual-mode compatibility code in its OS X for years. But Apple's never looked back, and thanks to a few early-access treats from Intel, and special treatment like the unique one-off processor designed to make the original MacBook Air such a paradigm-breaking machine, the two have kept working together. That may, according to a new and surprisingly emphatic rumor, all be about to change.

SemiAccurate, a publication that was previously correct in predicting Apple would swing away from using Nvidia GPUs, is the source of the latest rumor. It's based on some insider information, and some smart deductive work: In just a few years, ARM is expected to transition its CPU design to full 64-bit addressing, which would significantly boost the computing power, while retaining the core light power requirements that's a characteristic of ARM's design. A transition to ARM CPUs in two to three years would enable Apple to quickly make use of a whole new class of super-powerful chips that eat batteries much less quickly than competing chip architectures. And it would come just a short while after Apple takes its first steps in incorporating lessons from iOS devices like the iPhone (which runs on an ARM chip) back into its computing operating system OS X, with the latest update into OS X Lion.

And don't forget Apple already has lots of ARM design expertise in-house, thanks to its acquisition of PA Semi for close to $300 million in 2008.

With two more generational tweaks to OS X, and continued development of iOS, Apple could easily make OS X work on ARM chips instead of Intel's. This would also align how code is written for pretty much every device Apple makes. Supplying an emulation system, like it did for the transition to Intel chips inside Macs, wouldn't be difficult, and the fact that Mac apps are now slightly cheaper to buy (thanks to the Mac App Store, and halo effect of the iOS App Store) would mean users wouldn't feel hard done by when, in say four to five years, Apple stopped supporting Intel x68-only software for its ARM-based Macs.

But there's one big reason Apple would want to pull off this trick, which would be timed to the A15 ARM generation: Mobile computing. There's an undeniable move away from desktop PCs that was initially driven by advances in laptop tech, boosted by the netbook phenomenon, and is now being rocketed into the stratosphere by the tablet PC paradigm. Users now expect ever-more powerful portable machines. And though Intel has teased its next-gen low-power 3-D chip solution, the main reason it's currently shut out of the tablet market is that its chip architecture simply can't compete with ARM chips in terms of power consumption.

The iPad works for around 10 hours on a charge, while the new 11-inch iMacs run reliably into four hours of usage, and Apple's existing bigger MacBook Pros can go up to 7 hours with the Wi-Fi on...all with existing tech. Imagine in 3 years' time, with evolutions in battery design, screen technology (so they consume less power when lit) and solid-state memory advances, a MacBook sporting a low-power-consumption, super-fast ARM chip. Hypothetically, that Mac could run for 18 hours or more on a single charge.

If Apple's desktop Macs ran ARM chips, too, then perhaps they'd need much less cooling--leading to quieter, more efficient power needs. And who wouldn't like to run apps on a top-end Mac Pro with four ARM CPUs aboard, sporting up to 32 separate processor cores?

[Image: Flickr user junesey]

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.

Most Innovative Companies 2011: Apple.

If you think machines have liberated us, think again, says film-maker Adam Curtis. Instead we have lost our vision

It was amateur footage of an event involving an early video game called Pong that gave Adam Curtis the idea for his new documentary series.

In 1991, a computer engineer from California called Loren Carpenter organised a mass experiment in a huge shed. Hundreds of people were each given a paddle, and told nothing. But on a big screen in front of them was projected a game of Pong – a very basic computer game, where a ball is knocked back and forth on a screen, like table tennis. Each half of the audience jointly controlled the bat on their side of the screen; they had to operate it together and, spontaneously and without discussion, they successfully played a game of Pong, whooping and cheering at their collective collaboration.

"It was like a switch went in my head," Curtis says. "Carpenter saw it as a world of freedom with order. But I suddenly saw it as the opposite – like old film of workers toiling in a factory. They weren't free – they looked like disempowered slaves locked to a giant machine screen. It was a video game, which made it fun, but it still made me wonder whether power had really gone away in these self-organising systems, or if it was just a rebranding. So we became happy components in systems – and our job is to make those systems stable."

The new series, called All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace, takes complicated ideas and turns them into entertainment by the use of the vertigo-inducing intellectual leaps, choppy archive material and disorienting music with which all Curtis fans are familiar. The central idea leads Curtis on a journey, taking in the chilling über-individualist novelist Ayn Rand, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, the "new economy", hippy communes, Silicon Valley, ecology, Richard Dawkins, the wars in Congo, the lonely suicide in a London squat of the mathematical genius who invented the selfish gene theory, and the computer model of the eating habits of the pronghorn antelope.

You can see why Zoe Williams once wrote that, while watching one of Curtis's programmes, "I kept thinking the dog was sitting on the remote."

Perhaps because of these emotionally engaging techniques, Curtis inspires cultish devotion, and not just from viewers – he has won six Baftas. A former politics tutor at Oxford, and a Tiggerish man of 55, it's surprising to learn that he began his career in TV working on the zany magazine show That's Life! ("It taught me two things," he says. "That people who think they are funny aren't funny. And how power really works in television – through fear. One day I went to film a dog that sang to its owner's bagpipes. The dog refused to sing. After three hours, I rang Esther Rantzen and she simply said, 'Darling, don't come back until you've made it sing.' So I made the dog sing.")

But he says he'd always been interested in the idea that you could "fuse high seriousness with popular culture, and cut out the middle bits". The new series can be seen as a continuation of a theme to which he has often returned in his 20 years in films: that power works through many different channels, not just Westminster or the White House. So Pandora's Box, in 1992, was about how politicians had tried to use scientific ideas to control society; The Mayfair Set, in 1999, was about how entrepreneurs such as James Goldsmith paved the way for the resurgence of the markets; The Century Of The Self, in 2002, looked at how Freud's theories of the unconscious were used to promote shopping from necessity to leisure activity; The Power Of Nightmares, in 2005, was about how politicians were turning to fear to try to restore their waning influence in a society disillusioned with them.

Now he has moved on to machines, but it starts with nature. "In the 1960s, an idea penetrated deep into the public imagination that nature is a self-regulating ecosystem, there is a natural order," Curtis says. "The trouble is, it's not true – as many ecologists have shown, nature is never stable, it's always changing. But the idea took root and spread wider – people started to believe there is an underlying order to the entire world, to how society is structured. Everything became part of a system, like a computer; no more hierarchies, freedom for all, no class, no nation states." What the series shows is how this idea spread into the heart of the modern world, from internet utopianism and dreams of democracy without leaders to visions of a new kind of stable global capitalism run by computers. But we have paid a price for this: without realising it we, and our leaders, have given up the old progressive dreams of changing the world and instead become like managers – seeing ourselves as components in a system, and believing our duty is to help that system balance itself. Indeed, Curtis says, "The underlying aim of the series is to make people aware that this has happened – and to try to recapture the optimistic potential of politics to change the world."

The counterculture of the 1960s, the Californian hippies, took up the idea of the network society because they were disillusioned with politics and believed this alternative way of ordering the world was based on some natural order. So they formed communes that were non-hierarchical and self-regulating, disdaining politics and rejecting alliances. (Many of these hippy dropouts later took these ideas mainstream: they became the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who decided that computers could liberate everyone and save the world.)

Another, rather different kind of fan of the network society was Alan Greenspan, for many years the world's most important central banker. "Greenspan believed that networks of computers, like networks of nature, could stabilise themselves," Curtis says. "And technology could turn everyone into heroic individuals, completely free to follow their own ideas." In his individualism, Greenspan was inspired by Ayn Rand, the Russian-born novelist who abhorred altruism, praised the "virtues of selfishness" and still has a massive following in the US 29 years after her death.

At first, the vision that machines had created a new stability seemed true. On Greenspan's watch, computers allowed investment banks to produce complex mathematical models that could predict the risk of making any loan or investment. If a risk could be predicted, it could be balanced by hedging against it. Hence, stability. There would be no more boom and bust. It was the "new economy".

That stability was, of course, an illusion; it was followed by the greatest economic crash since 1929. But, as Curtis says, the price of the bailouts was paid by ordinary people, via the state, rather than by the wealthy financiers who lost all the money in the first place. That's because, despite the illusion of ordered non-hierarchy, some people have vastly more power than others, and in many cases have had it for centuries.

He draws a parallel with those 1970s communes. "The experiments with them all failed, and quickly. What tore them apart was the very thing that was supposed to have been banished: power. Some people were more free than others – strong personalities dominated the weak, but the rules didn't allow any organised opposition to the suppression because that would be politics." As in the commune, so in the world: "These are the limitations of the self-organising system: it cannot deal with politics and power. And now we're all disillusioned with politics, and this machine-organising principle has risen up to be the ideology of our age."

If you are a component in the system, it is difficult to see how power has shifted, Curtis says. "The power of politicians has been taken by others, by financial institutions, corporations. After the crash, the elite used politicised power to rescue themselves. Politics was seen to have failed, to have been corrupt, empty."

This has cultural expressions, as well as economic. We, and our feelings, are now the centre of everything – from reality TV to confessional memoirs to blogs. "There's no one like, say, Tolstoy, who wrote of both man in his world and the architecture of his world," Curtis says. "Now there is no context, just the feelings of one person. The philosophy of our time is summed up by Bill Murray sitting in a submarine in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic saying, 'We're all a bit shit but that's OK.' We have no grand dreams. So of course we embrace a nice stable order."

Why don't we have big ideas or dreams any more? "Because now that there's nothing more important than you, how can you ever lose yourself in a grander idea? We're frightened of eccentricity, of loneliness. Individualism just wants to keep the machine stable, leads to a static world and a powerless world. Rand is individualism carried to its most extreme form, yet she's very popular, and not that far away from how a lot of people, especially the young, feel today."

All of this, Curtis says, means we're missing the bigger picture. "We never talk about power these days. We think we live in a non-hierarchical world, and we pretend not to be elitist now – which is, of course, an emotionally attractive idea, but it's just not true. And that's dangerous."

He believes that because British politics is now obliged to appear non-hierarchical, it has become managerialist, obsessed with process over vision – a recognisable idea to anyone who lives in this triangulated, professionalised political age. He says this doesn't just affect the political parties (although he singles out Andrew Lansley as managerialist-in-chief), but politics in its widest sense. "Even the 'march against the cuts'," he says, referring to the TUC march in London in March, "it was a noble thing, but it was still a managerial approach. We mustn't cut this, we can't cut that. Not, 'There is another way.' Why are we so frightened of a few bond managers? Why can't we challenge the 'markets'? Why do we treat them as if they're their own precious ecosystem? The idea of proper change, or really shifting things, is alien to us today. We just argue about how to manage a system best. It's a moment of high decadence. And we've forgotten that we do have deep responsibilities to people who really are powerless." (He has fascinating material on this about the west's interventions in Congo, as "a place that generates different kinds of myths about us as human beings, things that the west longs for but that also make us terrified".)

In his films, Curtis draws on recent attempts to overthrow power in autocratic countries, describing the spontaneous revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan as a "triumph of the visions of computer utopians of the 1960s, with their vision of computers allowing individuals to create new, non-hierarchical societies" – just like in that mass game of Pong. "The internet played a key role in guiding revolutions that had no guiding ideology, except a desire for self-determination and freedom." But the desire for freedom itself was not enough, he says. "In all those revolutions, that sense of freedom lasted only for a moment. The people were brilliant at overturning the power – but then what? Democracy needs proper politics, but people have given up on saying that they're going to change the world." The Arab uprisings began after he finished making the films, but he sees these in the same way. "It's as if these people assembled spontaneously on Twitter and they just want freedom. But what kind of society do they want?"

He does not deny that Twitter and Facebook had some impact – at least organisationally. But he has strong views on social networking for anything beyond straightforward organisation; he considers the sharing of emotions online to be the "Soviet realism of the age".

He quotes Carmen Hermosillo, a West Coast geek and early adopter of online chatrooms who in 1994 argued that, although the internet is a wonderful thing, your emotions become commodified. "It is fashionable to suggest that cyberspace is some island of the blessed where people are free to indulge and express their individuality," she wrote. "This is not true. I have seen many people spill out their emotions – their guts – online and I did so myself until I began to see that I had commodified myself." Says Curtis, "On Facebook and Twitter, you are performing to attract people – you are dancing emotionally, on a platform created by a large corporation. People's feelings bounce back and forth – happy Stakhanovites, ignoring and denying the system of power. It's like Stalin's socialist realism. Both Twitter and socialist realism are innocent expressions of the ideology of the time, which don't pull back and show the wider thing they are part of. We look back on socialist realism not as innocent but as a dramatic expression of power; it expresses the superiority of the state, which was the guiding belief at the time. I think sometime in the future people will look back at the millions and millions of descriptions of personal feelings on the internet and see them in similar ways. This is the driving belief of our time: that 'me' and what I feel minute by minute is the natural centre of the world. Far from revealing that this is an ideology – and that there are other ways of looking at human society – what Twitter and Facebook do is reinforce the feeling that this is the natural way to be."

Curtis doesn't tweet or Facebook – send him to the gulag! – but he has an excellent blog, "which isn't about me or my feelings, because I don't think I'm as interesting as the stories I'm telling".

Where will the next big idea come from? He wonders about China. "Is it a stable system? Or a mercantilist economy that's gone too far?" Or closer to home. "If things go really bad, they change. If things get really bad, they say, can we have a dramatically different, better kind of society?"

Since the modern world is all about me, me, me, here's a confession: Curtis's ideas have made me run for my life. In 2009, in the course of It Felt Like A Kiss, the sublime theatre event Curtis put on with Punchdrunk about the birth of hyper-consumerism, I was separated from the audience and sent down a long, dark corridor, which I took to represent the apotheosis of individualism. I remember thinking, I must run because my life depends on it – I knew it wasn't real, but I couldn't help myself. It was terrifying. The ideas in All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace are similarly mesmerising and disturbing, but they're also a provocation: have we really given up on the hope of changing the world in our lifetimes? Or is that in itself an idea worth fighting for?

• All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace begins on BBC2 on 23 May at 9pm. See Curtis's exclusive video for the Guardian.

Earlier this week, we learned that Facebook heavies Jim Migdal, Jonathan Heiliger were headed for the door – probably to cash in their valuable vested options.

We haven't heard anything official, but we've got an idea who the rising stars are that will replace these losses…

• Facebook has already poached an executive named Chris Daniels to replace Migdal as director of business development. Daniels was at Microsoft for a while. His last role was product manager for Bing. A very long time ago, he was an analyst at Lehman Brothers.

• Another riser at Facebook is Vaughan Smith. He keeps getting more and more responsibility – mobile, business development, corporate development, etc. Insiders see him becoming a VP at some point. Smith made a name for himself in the Vally as a corporate development type at eBay.

• A favorite to eventually become VP of tech ops at Facebook – and make everyone forget Jonathan Heliger – is Jay Parikh. That's the role he held at Facebook board member Marc Andreessen's startup, Ning, before he joined Facebook as director of engineering back in 2009.

We expect more Facebook execs who joined in 2007 to quit in coming months. But the exits should slow. The reason: 2007 was the year Facebook stopped giving new employees normal options and started giving them restricted stock units. If a Facebook employee has RSU, he or she can't sell them until six months after the company IPOs, whether or not they are still working there. (If they have plain old options, it's much easier to quit and sell the things on the private markets.)

Related: Mark Zuckerberg's New $7 Million House [PHOTOS] and Photos Of Facebook's Huge New 9,000-Employee Campus

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Suddenly, Top Facebook Employees Are Quitting Again
• Here's Why My Friends Keep Quitting Their Facebook Jobs
• BLOCKED! Zynga Crushes Cofounder's $12 Million Dreams

From the Gold Rush to the rise of the film industry, from the free speech movement to the emergence of Silicon Valley, California has always been a frontier—a place of change and innovation, and today the state is facing some of its toughest challenges yet. Looking ahead, we need to ask …

Will California reinvent itself again for the 21st century? Can everyday citizens be empowered to help transform California? Will California keep growing, start conserving, reinvent itself, or completely collapse?

read more

How does the company that had more global visitors, more cash, more talent, and more dreams than anyone else in the Valley fall so far and fail so decisively?

I sat across the table from the management team of Yahoo! in December 2001 as they sought to buy our company, HotJobs, and got to know them over the next couple months. 

Sue Decker is brilliant, Terry Semel is a wonderful, warm guy, and Jeff Mallett struck me as scarily smart.  With such wonderful people at the helm a decade ago, the most interesting question for Internetologists has to be:

Why does Yahoo! fail?

The standard arguments as to why Google beat them so thoroughly are pretty easy to brush off:

They were dumb.

Really? With all that dough and a head of HR from the cultural utopia of Southwest Airlines, they hired dumb people? That’s not what observation shows, nor does the success of Yahoos at their subsequent companies support this viewpoint.

They hired a non-internet old guy to be CEO.

In comparing the resumes of Semel and Schmidt in 2001, you can’t honestly call either a slam dunk or a “slam-down-the-phone”.  Schmidt, in particular, had just completed a run as the head of the latest company to fall victim to Microsoft, which hardly augured future world domination.

They failed to make / manage a critical acquisition that would’ve changed everything.

With the exception of Applied Semantics and Overture, neither company bought or failed to buy a company that wound up being key to their success or failure.

The unique stew that creates a culture of innovation and success at a web start-up never survives an acquisition unless the business is already large enough to stand on its own two feet and avoid “helpful” recommendations from Corporate. Yahoo! acquiring Google, or Google acquiring Facebook, would have killed the very thing that ultimately made them great. (YouTube is the exception that proves the rule, and is perhaps one of the best-managed acquisitions ever on the web.)

Both have failures in this area, whether its Yahoo!’s mishandling of Flickr or Google’s destruction of value with Dodgeball (where the Founder left to create precisely the 2.0 version of what, presumably, he’d hoped to build at the giant.)

Their products suck! Just look at 360, Music, Autos, Real Estate, or many, many others…

 Yeah, like Wave, Google Video, Buzz, Orkut, Knol, Friend Connect…

They’ve got too much bureaucracy.

Like A/B testing the pixel-width of border lines.

The culture has sagged and the workforce is demoralized.
While true today, this is the result of Yahoo!’s failures over the past decade, not the source of them.

The Peanut Butter Manifesto from Brad Garlinghouse was right: Yahoo! tried to do too much and couldn’t do them all well, creating failure for lack of focus.

 Google, too, has found its way into dozens upon dozens of products and features.  Google has one world-historically-great business, perhaps three good businesses, and a hundred bad businesses.

And, finally, Mark Suster advocates the “Jerry was too nice” argument to explain Yahoo!’s failure.

True, the tales told of screwing early partners, screwing technical co-founders, screwing sick co-founders, and screwing early customers by Zuckerberg, Gates, Jobs, and Ellison do indicate a troubling preference for sociopathology on the way up, but could it really be that a nice guy can bring down the world’s most valuable internet company?

While all of these answers fit the facts for Yahoo! when looked at independently, none of them survive a comparative look at other successful Web properties during the same time period.  It is not simply doing too many things and becoming a jack of all trades and master of none, and it’s not simply that nice guys finish last.

These reasons don’t explain why Yahoo! fails.

The web business is a funny business – it takes 100 user observations to get something useful. 100 pageviews make for one click on an ad.  Looking at 100 home listings creates one call to the broker.  Reading 100 profiles on a dating site generates one email. Reviewing 100 flight options leads to one booking.

On the internet, it takes 100 observations to make one action.  This is the Rule of Two Magnitudes.

In order to get the user to make their 100 observations, you need their sustained attention and dedication to the task at hand.  Distractions work against you.

Think about your ow behavior. If you want to get a date, a flight, an apartment and read the latest news which course of action would you pursue:

Scan 100 headlines on a news site and read some THEN look through 100 profiles on the dating site THEN look through 100 flight options and THEN look through apartment listings on real estate sites, or….

Would you read one article, followed by reviewing one dating profile, followed by reviewing just one listing of a flight followed by reading one apartment listing THEN going back to read another article, another profile, another flight, and another apartment listing THEN repeating this 98 times?

Our human minds require time to focus and get into the context, so of course you’ll choose the first approach.

Now go to www.yahoo.com and then go to www.google.com and tell me which approach is better wired for the human brain? If homepages reveal organizational strucutre, what does each tell you about their respective visions for how to manage a human user’s interaction with the web?

While both actually give you ready access to search, email, shopping, news, video, calendar, etc., one is better aligned to how people think and take in information.

Yahoo asks the user to contemplate radically different activities within the context of their home page:

• Consume information in the form of news, gossip, horoscopes, which is cognitively different from…
• Showing fellow humans your intention to carry on a conversation, shop, look at their home for sale, etc., which is cognitively different from…
• Spending enough time consuming content like music or movies or books for a computer system to begin making inferences about what else you might like, which is cognitively different from…
• Shopping and spending time scrutinizing certain products but not others, which allows either a sales agent or a sales algorithm to determine what other physical good you might like.

The structure of the Yahoo! homepage lines up with a corporate strategy that is largely well-intentioned but nonetheless unintentionally at odds with how humans think and behave when it comes to information goods. It is at odds with the hierarchy of human cognition of information – intentions – inferences – interactions.

By contrast, Google’s early design choices, technologist’s phobia of flashiness, tremendous business success, and subsequent absence of a need to create other revenue streams at odds with their quirky Engineers’ Philosophy, led them to a strategy that, perhaps unintentionally, is better aligned with how we think.

Whether earned or not, their early success bought Google the luxury of an admirable stubbornness.  Their focus on Google’s mission — “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” — has meant they’ve inadvertently, and very, very profitably, focused on just one area of human cognition – the intake of information – while handing off the subsequent steps to their customers and charging a fee for it in the bargain.

This post originally appeared at TheLadders.com. 

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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See Also:

• Apple Has Nothing Over Google When It Comes To Knowing Where You Really Are

Yesterday, we published venture capitalist Craig Paige's internal dilemma about funding an expectant mother's startup.

We also published Jessica's response at the end, but it's so good we felt it should be its own post.

Here's what Jessica Jackley had to say:

First, thanks to Paige for the honesty, humility, and desire to start a dialogue on this important issue. In addition to him airing general concerns about the dirty little thought (“A pregnant founder / CEO is going to fail her company”) that popped up in his head, I’m glad he asked the specific question he did – specifically: “…how in the hell is this founder* going to lead a team, build a company and change the world for these businesses carrying a kid around for the next few months and then caring for the kids after?”
* “this founder” would be me

I don’t blame Paige for doing his job as an investor by bringing up his concerns about my company or my plans for its future. I agree with sentiments expressed by others who have commented on this post, however, and think the it’s very unfortunate how often this line of questioning is focused on women alone. I’ve never heard someone ask the same of a Founder/CEO/Dad, worrying about a slightly different dirty little thought: “An expectant father / CEO will fail his company.” The idea that mothers are the de facto “foundation parents” to a new baby (or two) perpetuates the stereotypes and structures that make it more difficult for anyone, male or female, to balance work and family in the first place.

But let’s step back a bit. This post isn’t just about a big-picture issue, it’s also about my personal journey and ProFounder. I haven’t responded until now, not because of a lack of interest or desire to participate in this dialogue but because, frankly, I’m busy running said company. I expect to be even busier with not just one but two babies (yes, to be clear, I’m expecting twins) arriving this fall. And as all entrepreneurs know, you live and die by your ability to prioritize. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay or skip the rest. So, while Paige’s post was intriguing and important, it wasn’t urgent – until it came to my attention that my team was somewhat bothered by it. When they saw one of our investors questioning my abilities as a leader, they were confused and frustrated. And so I am now replying on their behalf as well as mine.

Paige and I met before I was telling anyone besides my family and my staff that I was expecting. As is typical, I announced it officially right at the standard 12-wk mark. Nearly all of my 30+ investors responded immediately with enthusiasm and congratulations, and many of them also offered to help think through post-maternity work plans, which I greatly appreciate. Paige is our most recent investor, so he missed the big official announcement a few weeks ago (I told him as soon as I saw him).

From the start, ProFounder was created to make sure anyone could be empowered to pursue their dreams through entrepreneurship. Together with my investors, we agreed on strategies and goals, key milestones, etc. I promised them our team would work its hardest to meet these goals, and we’ve been doing so ever since. I never did, and never would, promise them that I wouldn’t fall in love, get married, have a family at some pt. Why would I? Who in their right mind would actually ask this of a person? And what would it even mean to keep a promise like that?

Parenthood will be a new experience. As with any new experience, with lots of variables and forces beyond my control, it’s hard to know what will happen in the future, or exactly how I will feel when I’m in it. But, I’m comfortable with this – I am an entrepreneur – and this doesn’t mean I can’t have a carefully considered plan, informed by the advice and wisdom of other leaders I respect. I enjoy my conversations with Paige and if we’d had more time to talk live before this blog post, I’d have simply responded in answer to the “how the hell [will she make it work]…” question. I would have said that I have an incredible cofounder and an amazing, talented team. They believe in my leadership, my ability to serve them and our vision – with or without kids. I would have talked about my strong support system, including a husband who is a true partner and my greatest champion. I would have mentioned that I am fortunate enough to be able to afford full-time help if/when we need it. And I would have told him that, like most professional women in my situation, I have been thinking about this season of my life for a very long time. (Disclaimer: I’m just talking about my circumstances. This isn’t a complete or prescriptive checklist for anyone else, or a statement about what all women should have or do if they’re in a similar situation.)

 

There’s another aspect of this conversation about a founder of a company to have the goal of achieving balance at all when in start-up mode, and I’d like to address that too. Do I work long hours? Weekends? Of course. Pull all-nighters when needed? Sure. But working until I fall asleep on my laptop and doing nothing else on a regular basis makes me less effective. Turns out that getting at least a little sleep, exercising regularly, having healthy relationships outside of work, spending time with my family, reading a book for fun now and then, etc. makes me a better Founder/CEO.

 

In fact, this isn’t just how I run my life, but it’s how my cofounder Dana and I run our company. We created ProFounder with the intention of shaping a healthier – and more efficacious – culture that gives everyone on our team the opportunity to be a full person, not just a cog in a machine. We not only encourage but celebrate each other’s victories in and beyond work. At our last team retreat, we reported our proudest moments personally and professionally; on the personal side of things, every single individual shared some detail about how the most important relationships in their lives had become better since they began working at ProFounder. This model is working. Business is thriving. We are flourishing. And we’re trying to give every entrepreneur we work with through the ProFounder platform the same options for their own endeavors, starting with the chance to include investors who care about them as human beings – who are invested not just in their business but in them as people.

When my titles expand from just Founder/CEO to Founder/CEO/Mom, I may have a different kind of load to bear than that of other entrepreneurs, especially if we’re talking about ones who fit the old Silicon Valley stereotypes…[I’ll let you fill in the blank here with the obvious demographics/attitudes that come to mind]. I’ve tried forcing myself to fit more into this profile during other seasons of my life and would like to report that, shockingly, there’s really no correlation between eating take-out everyday or skipping that 30-min jog again and great entrepreneurial success. If anything, I’ve found the opposite to be true.

I have no desire to fit that old stereotype. I desire to live a life that is rich in relationships both in and outside of work. I desire to reap the many different rewards that are abundant in my job, working in this incredible start-up every day. I want to surround myself with a team, including investors, that challenges me and helps make me better. I want to live my life transparently, and if being a happy, successful Founder/CEO/Mom serves as a helpful example to anyone who wants to use me as such, great.

Mostly, I want to get back to my team and work on our business. So, a quick closing thought: what I, and my team, believe – and this is ProFounder’s mission statement verbatim – is that all entrepreneurs should have access to the resources they need to succeed through the engagement of robust, supportive communities. ProFounder exists to champion all entrepreneurs, and we have a special place in our hearts for those who don’t care to pitch their companies to the same old “usual suspects” investors – and this is a great thing for the world! Through our platform and tools, we are changing the way start-up and small business funding can be done, by engaging and empowering communities to invest. We hope these communities might think differently about what makes a great company, or a great leader. I hope we can show more and more people a path that includes sharing their entrepreneurial journey (and, the financial and social upside they will create) with people who know their story, their context, maybe even their families, and believe in them all the more because of it.

Thanks again to Paige and all for the dialogue. Now, back to work!

This response originally appeared at Good Angel and we've republished it with permission.

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See Also:

• 10 Pieces Of Life-Changing Wisdom From Tina Fey
• If There's Any Gender Gap At All, It Favors Women

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Today's headlines

The Guardian

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Analysis of 20 years of Sky Sports. P49
Interview with Russell Brand. Viewspaper, P18

Daily Telegraph

Young value phones and the web over TV. P2
Royal Wedding to be streamed on YouTube. P4
Foreign media fury at Buckingham Palace lights being switched off. P4
Police force tweets live from courtroom. P7
Morse creator Colin Dexter says that if Kevin Whately leaves then ITV
should call time on Lewis. Mandrake, P8
Another celebrity gets court to gag the media. P9
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Nora Batty from Last of the Summer Wine's cottage is for sale. P10
No junk food and less TV for children of the future. P11
Michelle Obama visits Sesame Street set. P20
Why did Nigella Lawson wear a burkini? P29
Rupert Murdoch considers Formula One takeover. Business, P1
Analysis of 20 years of Sky Sports. Sport, P10
Bernie Eccelstone denies Formula One is for sale in wake of reports. P13

The Times

Kiss and don't tell – how the rich and famous can cover their tracks
with gagging orders. P6
Three complaints upheld on BBC Gaza flotilla raid programme. P20
Britain's oldest television fetches £16,800. P20
Young value phones and the web over TV. P46
Happy Days actors file lawsuit against CBS claiming merchandise royalties. P53
Apple takes offence at Samsung's 'imitation'. P54
Sony Ericsson blames Japanese earthquake for first-quarter profit decline. P54
News Corp courts allies to buy Formula One. P79

Financial Times

David Cameron warned on copyright reform by ITV and BSkyB. P4
Does ITV's X Factor need Simon Cowell? P18
Samsung sells disc unit to Seagate. P22
Twitter makes a move for Tweetdeck. P22
Sony Ericsson continues shift towards smartphones. P23

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EU delays tough net neutrality rules. P3 and P32
Silicon Valley: Frenzy returns as investors go after start-ups. P14
Nokia hopes to halt its slide in smartphones. P19
Samsung sells disc unit to Seagate. P19
Sony Ericsson blames Japanese earthquake for first-quarter profit decline. P19

Daily Mail

New celebrity secrets storm over gagging order. P1
Mail Online now second in web news ratings. P2
YouTube to show royal wedding live. P4
Why did Nigella Lawson wear a 'burkini'? P23
Susan Boyle's wax double unveiled by Madame Tussauds. P31
Morale at ESPN hit after it emerged it did not make a bid in second
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Daily Express

Helen Mirren says sorry for swearing on live TV. P3

The Sun

Doctor Who star Elisabeth Sladen dies. P3
Young value phones and the web over TV. P7
Susan Boyle's wax double unveiled by Madame Tussauds. P13
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Local television reporter Saphia Khambalia could not stop her nose
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Britain's Got Talent coverage. TV Biz, P1
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TV Biz, P2
Michael Barrymore falls off a horse during Celebrity Coach Trip. TV Biz, P3
Comedian Paul O'Grady falls out of a tree during a walk. TV Biz, P3
Meat Loaf will not return as a judge on ITV1's Pop Star to Operastar. TV Biz, P3
Only Way Is Essex coverage. TV Biz, P4

Daily Mirror

Crimewatch host Rav Wilding told by BBC to take time out over personal life. P3
Another married celebrity wins gagging order. P9
Doctor Who star Elisabeth Sladen dies. P11
Interview with EastEnders actress Patsy Palmer. P16
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EastEnders stars facing BBC life bans over leaked plots. P21
Susan Boyle's wax double unveiled by Madame Tussauds. P31

Daily Star

Only Way is Essex star Amy Childs fears she is being frozen out of show. P1
Michelle Obama visits Sesame Street set. P2
X Factor coverage. P3
YouTube to stream royal wedding. P6
Gagging order celebrities 'outed on the web'. P9
Susan Boyle's wax double unveiled by Madame Tussauds. P27
Jennifer Lopez turned down American X Factor role. P28

And finally ...

The Daily Express has taken the Daily Mail's favourite seasonal TV repeats whinge story to another level. 'Channel 5 to the rescue with film magic at Easter', trumpets P15 of today's Express. The story claims that from Good Friday to Easter Monday terrestial television will feature repeats of 34 films, while just two new films will air, Tinkerbell and err ... royal romance William and Kate. And guess where you can find those two movies? That's right. Channel 5. Which also happens to be owned by ... Daily Express proprietor Richard Desmond. Daily Express, P15

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When it comes to the tactics shady mortgage marketers use to open our wallets, Tupac Shakur had it right.

“I don't mean to sound sleazy…but tease me… I don't want it if it's that easy,” Tupac once rapped.

Whether it’s beautiful hair, a trim body, easy money, a dream career or a great love life, reality often falls short of the teases thrown at us each day. And when we’re thinking straight and not caught up in the fantasy, like Tupac said, we know it’s not that easy. But when the dream is something we really want but don’t know how to get, something we’ve thought about our entire lives that’ll give us or our families the lifestyle we want and deserve – it’s hard to avoid the hype.

Take one of the most dangerous teases today – it involves the largest purchase most of us will ever make in our lives – a home.  

Mortgage marketers pound us every day with ads featuring dancing people and incredibly low interest rates that are actually available only to a small slice of the national population.  These “bait rate” ads work because most people haven’t a clue as to how mortgages are priced, and they discover too late in the game that they’re going to be paying more—sometimes many thousands of dollars more—than they were led to believe.

And while it’s there, most of us don’t read the fine print next to the small asterisk that qualifies as disclosure, fewer borrowers understand what it really says and means.  Basically, it says that the rate we see is most likely not the rate we’ll get. We want to believe we’re getting a good deal and we know we’re smart.  Right?  How hard could it be? 

In reality, the process of taking out a mortgage remains a confusing, frustrating and sometimes stressful event that most people undertake only several times at most in their lifetime.  So, most of us are sitting ducks.

A recent survey by GfK Custom Research for MortgageMatch.com found that nearly one of ten (9.6%) recent home buyers ended up with a higher interest rate than the one they were promised.  We think many more borrowers experienced the same thing but don’t want to admit they got teased.

The real mortgage rate you end up with is the product of a number of factors.  The most important being the market for mortgage-backed securities, which changes rates daily.  Next, your credit score.  The rates you see advertised are generally based on scores above 720 or 740 out of 800; the national average score is around 692.  A recent analysis of rates and scores for consumers on MortgageMatch.com found that a borrower’s credit could raise their interest rate as much as 40 basis points, or .40 percent. The real rate you pay also will be influenced by the amount of money you put down, where you live, the size of your loan, the ratio of the size of your loan to the value of the property you are buying, the total monthly cost of debt you are carrying, whether you pay points at closing, when you lock your rate, and the type of loan you select.

Not until your lender processes all this information will you know what your real mortgage rate will be.  Don’t be surprised if it’s two points or higher than the advertised rate that attracted you initially. 

Bait rate lenders count on you being too frustrated, lazy, busy, confused or too far down the road in buying the house of your dreams to shop around for a better deal at the eleventh hour.

 As bad as it is, the interest rate bait-and-switch game played by some mortgage marketers today is less dangerous than the teaser rates lenders use to attract homeowners looking to refinance and home equity lines.  This is because these ‘blue-light specials’ offer artificially lower rates for three to six months, only to recoup the discount over the term of the loan. In the housing bubble days, teaser rates suckered punched people into mortgage loans that eventually reset at much higher rates, a low-level form of the Ponzi scheme that contributed to the subprime crash and record foreclosures.

With the public’s trust in lenders at an all-time low, now is the time to stop playing games with mortgage rates.  Bait rates are confusing, misleading and a major cause of consumer distrust.  Let’s play it straight with rates.  Maybe mortgage marketers will discover that honesty and candor bring more borrowers to them who are a better risk because people are wise enough to know it’s really not that easy. 

Here’s to cracking down on bait rates and putting truth back into Truth-in-Lending at the top of the agenda for the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau when it swings into action four months from now.

 

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Software development is all about glamour. The smiling faces of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs bring countless programmers (both good and bad) to the field of software development. The same smiles of successful entrepreneurs have also inspired movies like the Social Network and Pirates of the Silicon Valley.

Every startup story that tells you how a young kid made a million dollars adds spice to the equation.

Glamour is a two sided sword because on one hand it motivates the competent and helps them continue practicing the craft of building software without quitting on the other hand it attracts programmers who cannot program to the software development world.

Any glamour based industry, Hollywood, Music Albums, Writing or Software development has an inherent problem. In these Industry it is easy to overlook the amount of effort that goes behind a success story.

In each one of these industries it is easy to be charmed by smiling faces of startup CEOs, actors, authors, Entrepreneurs and not look at the pain, the hard work, the risk and the mental turmoil those faces went through.

"All we need is an idea! Let's look for a Venture Capitalist! Let's find an Angel Investor! Let's spend time on Twitter and facebook all day long!"

And then when things don't work out blame it all on bad luck, not having the first mover advantage, lack of the vision on the part of the investor or worse.... on your development team.

Perfect recipes for failure. All of them.

The stories of colossal fuckups aren't new in the software development world but we don't hear them as attentively as we watch movies like The Social Network or Pirates of the Silicon Valley.

Your only chance of survival. The only one you have, is that you realize how the quest for glamour, acceptance, attention and power destroys lives. Lower your expectations. Focus on doing something that you love doing and please stop worrying about the outcomes of large scale adaption and success.

Separate out the cash part from the sex part, find pleasure in practicing the art with cheap tools and stop dreaming about being the next Mark Zugerberg.

No you're not going to make the next facebook. No amount of bullshitting and power points presentations will help you become a millionaire. Yes they don't give a shit about you and your product and yes, you are going to be the only user on your product, service, tool or blog for a very long time.

The sooner you realize that and the sooner you drop your expectations, open the IDE and start working on something you love the happier you will be.

I'm sorry I am breaking your cute little dreams, but I hope you realize that shattering them into tiny bits is your only chance at materializing them.

Here is wishing you good luck.

(TrendHunter.com) Startup Fever is a new board game created by Louis Perrochon that lets you and up to five friends compete against one another to see who can build the biggest and baddest Internet startup company. The...

Prior to starting a business, the aspiring entrepreneur must decide what kind of entity they wish to begin. Leave VC dreams to the jaded, and months of useless planning up to the coaches. An entrepreneur can cut his or her options right in half by choosing whether to do a B2B or B2C sales/marketing-based organization.

If the entrepreneur wants to make it to owning a beach house, a couple BMWs, and a diversified portfolio, here is what the small business owner needs to know regarding the two business styles:

B2B vs. B2C: What is the Difference Between the Two?

B2B Marketing, by definition, is the marketing or advertising of a product or service from one business to another businesses. More casually and broadly speaking, you can also call "B2B" any sales or marketing geared toward municipalities or government.

Example: Software sales to hedge funds or to the food packaging services industry

B2C Marketing, by definition, is the marketing or advertising of a product or service by a business directly to the consumer.

Example: Retail clothing sales, or a subscription-based website that ranks colleges and sells tips on applying and gaining acceptance to various high-end universities (targeting the website's visitors before the website's advertisers)

What are the Pros and Cons of Each?

B2B Marketing- and Advertising-Based Companies:

Pros:

Businesses tend to have more money. It is also more transparent which company can write the bigger check: General Electric or Anytown USA Hardware Co.

Typically, a single B2B transaction can yield thousands of dollars for the small business owner, where selling a simple B2C product or services amounts to a much smaller profit.

B2B Marketing services can usually be done from a virtual office and the need for storage and distribution can more easily be circumvented then (for instance, gift baskets).

In B2B Marketing companies, many players can remain in the same vertical and still feed off the target market. In B2C, well, when was the last time you logged into MySpace (assuming you aren't in a band)?

You can turn B2B success into B2C success if you're uncommonly gifted, insanely creative, and even more driven by money. A good example would be when I was in Macy's and saw Donald Trump signature ties. Not a bad gig, turning commercial real estate into neckties.

Cons:

B2B Marketing-oriented companies have long sales cycles and can often see extended periods of cash flow shortages.

B2B Marketing-oriented companies often have to compete against industry giants, thus fighting every inch to make a name for themselves in an industry that's already been defined, and redefined again.

B2B Marketing-oriented companies eventually involve some sort of office leasing. I can vouch that it was not fun receiving hate mail from competitors regarding whether our team was interviewing candidates from the kitchen table.

B2C Marketing- and Advertising-Base Companies

Studies have shown that there is no set pattern of behavior governing why the average consumer buys what they do. We know that U.S. consumers are driven by intangibles such as looks, status, etc., but we don't have individual purchasing down to a science and we probably never will.

Pros:

In B2C, you can begin with a better knowledge of who the consumer is than the young entrepreneur just getting into an industry.

For instance, you can relate with the 20-somethings on your dating website. The business owner selling alarm systems to hotels probably cannot relate to the day-to-day job of the hotel's security manager and procurement or purchasing manager.

This detachment can be due to various reasons such as age difference, lack of professional respect on the veteran's part, or the professional dress of the budding entrepreneur.

In B2C, there is less maintenance. Once things are truly up and running, a B2C success story can sit by the pool at the Venetian worrying whether his margarita is going to melt before his sushi arrives, while the B2B success story can sit by his son's cubicle trying to instill enough motivation so he can pass the business on.

Cons:

B2C failure rate is high. With B2C marketing-oriented companies, there are so many players focusing on simultaneously beating away newcomers and growing sustaining current market share that entrance is quite difficult. You're going to have to produce more than a blog about NYC culture -- unless that blog is one-of-a-kind.

In B2C, you're dealing with an unknown beast. Unless the entrepreneur has B2C marketing experience, they will have to battle with the blatant lack of intelligence that is inherent in nearly each and every U.S. consumer.

That may be phrasing it in the extreme, but in a niche B2B field, the business owner is, more often than not, dealing with another business owner who is equally well-informed about the subject at hand. Not so in B2C.

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Posted by Laura Lippay

Music selection to enjoy with this post: The Unforgiven (Metallica)

In October of 2007 I was standing in front of a full house at the Yahoo Sunnyvale headquarters. I was on a mission to try to explain, with very little actual evidence, that SEO is more than just site “optimization”. I could see what was coming down the pipeline loud and clear. SEO isn’t SEO anymore, it’s different. SEO (especially for enterprise-level sites) equals a damn good product.

Here’s a slide from the presentation:

See the point here? It’s the epic frenemy battle of SEOs vs. Search Engines that whittles the SEO techniques down to what eminently points to no other option but to have a great product. What is a great product? It’s a site that people want to go to, return to, share with their networks, email their friends, etc., (aka building natural links and “buzz”). Get it? Great content and natural links and buzz = the new SEO.  But it’s not actually new, it just hasn’t always been adopted very well. 

Until now. Remember what it’s like when an algorithm shift changes the rules of SEO? Of course you do.

Since this timeline I threw out there in 2007, not a lot has changed on the “spammy methods” side of things (and doesn’t that just tickle the “SEO is dead” funny bone). But wait, do you know what popular widely-preached tactics since 2007 are missing since this chart?  C’mon, think Panda/Farmer update. In the current days of black-hats-gone-grey, what’s the spam tactic to be battled at this point?

If you’ve ever bothered to follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines or anything that Matt Cutts has ever said anytime in the last x years, you’ll see that you, my build-content-for-search-engines friends (I still love you, you tried), have had warnings sitting out there as clear as day. Might I show you a select few?

And I quote: “Great content has to be the foundation of any good site, because mediocre content tends not to attract exceptional links by itself. And if you’re trying to get exceptional links on really really crappy content, you’re going to be pushing uphill.”  “You want to have a well-rounded site, and one of the best ways to do that is to have fantastic, interesting, useful content, great resources, great information, and then that naturally attracts the links.  And then search engines want to reflect the fact that the web thinks that you are interesting or important or helpful.”

But I build exactly what people are looking for in search, how can that be bad?

There’s a difference between building content to attract your audiences and building content to attract search engines. But, your audiences are doing the searches in the search engines, right? So what is the difference? Someone asked me recently why ‘content-rich’ Suite101.com was on the Farmer update loser list. Here’s exactly what I sent back to him in an email:

1. Its obviously created for *search traffic*, meaning the company goal isn’t to invest everything into creating something rich and meaningful for their audiences, but instead the primary goal is to create content for search traffic, THEN maybe throw a little investment into the rest of the site experience.  That's a Google no-no.
2. When there's "shallow content", the site likely isn’t the best resource for anyone researching something through search. Do you want your search results for how to cope with your depression to be this article plastered with ads from Shauntee Jackson (mother of two rambunctious toddlers in Ft. Worth, TX) who even says in the article "I'm no expert in depression" or would you rather have a site that not only has experts dedicated to helping you learn about and cope with your depression issues, but also provides hotlines, medical information, community support and resources, maybe even tools for diagnosis or self-treatment options.

Get what I mean?  Suite101, like every client that says their number one company goal is to get search traffic, is doing it wrong.  Their number one goal needs to be providing value to audiences.  Which in turn provides valuable content for search results. And on top of that, it provides a cleaner, less spammy and more useful web overall. Leave it to Google.

Learn from past mistakes

You’ve heard about the “quality content” mantra, right? If you’ve been in SEO for ten minutes you’re preaching it. So where did we all go so wrong? How can an entire innovative, on-the-ball SEO industry have let this go right over our heads? How can the warnings of the Do No Evil Silicon Valley giant have been so blatantly ignored as if nothing would ever come of them?

If you sit back and think about it (and if you’re old enough), you might get an eerie sense of those dotcom bubble burst days when millions of investor dollars were thrown into internet companies with no staff, no experience, no plan, and only existed as an overblown trend-following idea on paper. Some people had some new ideas and made some money online and all of a sudden everyone’s building online businesses, with dreams of (being) sugardaddies dancing in their heads, forgetting a very basic, fundamental core of a good long-term business model – providing actual value to their audiences. Shallow much?

The 2011 spin on quality content

This is the deal. We know that search engines want to provide sites that people (aka audiences) find valuable. We know that they use signals like social mentions and influence, and clickthroughs from search, and potentially dozens of other buzz-measuring indicators that go into determining if a site is something that people are really into or just some shallow content hanging around the web trying to feign legitimacy like Snooki at a Mensa convention. How to be one of those sites that people are into, that seeps of naturally linkable, sharable, emailable, tell all your friends, come hither, and come hither again content is fodder for another article. But as you create any content online ask yourself this question: “Self? How will this be more valuable to my audiences than what my competitors are doing?”  If you are lucky enough to not have any competitors, then just take that part off the sentence.

But I don’t have to tell you that, because if you’re listening…

…Google already told you so.

Stay tuned for my next post on how this update doesn't just change an algorithm, it changes the web.

xo, Laura

å

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When it comes to choosing political parties I have been Democrat since the time I was allowed to vote. My family has different party affiliations and the people in my life choose one party over the other for reasons of their own. Ultimately no one forced me to become a Democrat, it just happened.

Under George W. Bush the Republican Party reminded me of exactly why I choose to be Democrat yet the Obama presidency has left me to wonder why I choose any party at all.

Politics may be very well about choosing a side and making sure the stars line up to have your side collectively come to a decision but when it comes to getting things done we need someone who has experience on the street, after all how worse can things get?

When the Yankees are down 3-1 in the 9th inning you can bet a designated hitter may be called up. Well, we are down 16 Trillion dollars so don’t you think it’s time to vote someone in office who has a hit home run or two?

Donald Trump may not be the best candidate for president however do we need another politician in charge or someone who is actually aware of the financial mess America is in and has a personal interest in making the country whole again?

Some of the most successful political and global leaders in the world have all come from men and women with entrepreneurial backgrounds yet in America we hardly ever ask questions about a political candidate’s actual experience and vote based on how they make you smile, what party they are affiliated with and more unrelated factors to the actual ability of the person to do the job.

"American no longer needs a figurehead – we need a designated hitter"

The only way to getting people more interested in politics is to bring somebody in we all want to be. There is not a single person in America who would not want to be a part of the Trump lifestyle and that alone will get people talking politics again.

The housing market is essentially gone in many areas of America, we are a bankrupt nation and the government was actually even talking about shutting down. Personal consumer bills like car insurance, gasoline, property tax and food all continue to escalate however unemployment is still at the highest levels in decades.

This is not the American Dream

So many people are having their own personal crisis they simply can’t get mad about the country’s financial mess. Sadly the reaction among many seems to be a common “of course we are in a mess” feeling but everybody goes on with their day since somewhere, someone will just create new credit for the government and life will go on as normal again. If only life was that easy for citizens and small business.

What is the Plan? Continued “prosperity” created by adding to a national debt? This bubble has already busted - The country needs to change.

Donald Trump is well known to everyone. He has had many public failures but every time rebounded with the glory we all wish we had. His successes are so well known that the Trump family name is not just a name but a brand of power, luxury and dreams.

If America, Inc. was part of the Trump family we certainly would not be as broke as we are today.

At the end of the day Donald Trump may be republican but he is also an undeniable leader, a respected businessman, a financial wizard and a global brand.

This time around it’s a wise decision to bet on the man, not on the party.

On the other hand, if Mr. Trump decides not to run I wouldn’t blame him either. After all, who really wants to be in charge of this mess?

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City of San Jose Business Tax Certificate No. 0795347042

Silicon Consulting, Inc. is currently looking to fill ENTRY-LEVEL sales and marketing positions in the San Jose metro area. Silicon Consulting, Inc. is searching for individuals possessing a will to learn, a sense of humor, a competitive spirit, and who display an exceptional work ethic.

Silicon Consulting, Inc. was founded in June of 2005 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Since that time we have added office in Kansas City, Baltimore, Portland, San Francisco, 2 locations in San Jose, and Sacramento. We will be opening another new market next month. We are looking to continue our rapid growth throughout 2011 by adding another 4 markets by the years end.

All candidates begin at the entry level sales position. Highly motivated individuals can expect:

To develop skills related to:
•Public Speaking
•Training
•Personal and professional growth
•People/Communication skills
•Team management
•Human resources
•Problem solving
•Campaign management
•Sales
•Marketing and Data Capture

Benefits Include:
•Travel opportunities
•Paid training
•Health benefits
•Competitive Pay + Incentives
•Weekly pay
•Enthusiastic and fun atmosphere

Take control of your life by joining the team at Silicon Consulting. No experience is necessary as on the job training is provided. Any positions offered will be contingent on passing a background check. We require that a candidate have a valid driver’s license and that they can provide proof of current vehicle insurance. A degree is preferred but not required. Current client needs are exceeding our wildest dreams and immediate expansion is a must! Apply now by sending a copy of your resume to hr@siliconconsultinginc.com or contact Maria at 408-894-0770 Monday through Friday between 9:00am. and 5:00pm.

Thank you and best of luck with your job search!

www.siliconconsultinginc.com

• Compensation: 35-50K
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Phone calls about this job are ok.
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Google dominates not just search but also our lives. Whether its locating movie times, checking weather, shopping for car insurance, looking for a good book, spying on a neighbor or just about anything else legal and semi-illegal the big G is there to accommodate our instant pleasures. However when it comes to social media can Google ever overtake Facebook or Twitter in their respective social media roles?

The answer is no however that’s assuming social media will stay the same. Social media needs to evolve and Google has the power to do just about anything. It’s not of a question of if Google can become the leader in social media but how.

In some ways this challenge is almost the equivalent of betting on BING to surpass Google in search share or a Microsoft media player surpassing iPod Sales. Impossible to think of but actually very possible indeed – well, except in Microsoft’s case.

What Google needs to do is focus the brilliant talent they retain on creating something new - a better version of the wheel one could say. Facebook, Google and Twitter have all benefited from first mover advantage (although GOTO and a few others did try to conquer search before the G guys) however the main ideas of social media have been established and its now time to create something special. There is no need to reinvent the wheel but it is critical to develop something that is less related to search and primarily on social media.

Google Buzz, for example, is more or less an addition to your Gmail or Google account but not viewed as an independent platform for social media by many. Facebook, Twitter and Google are not just separated by what they do but also defined as individual brands. Anything Google does to compliment existing Google Account services may never ever become the awe-inspiring social media tool they dream of.

What can Google do to conquer social media?

In my opinion they need to first create a new brand primarily for this social media project and not focus on complimenting additional Google services to it. Although the roads are lined with gold when you have users undertake everything within one Google account the exclusivity and uniqueness associated with Facebook and Twitter have been core principal factors to their success. Google needs to view this next jump to social media as an independent project and create a new brand (powered by Google) but with a look and feel entirely independent from the typical Google feel, much like YouTube.

Secondly, Google needs to go all in and take the best of Facebook, add more functions and allow users to do everything Facebook wants to do but do it now. Facebook is such a simple idea yet upgrading the platform takes time. Dedicating the Google resources to develop an independent brand which does not just what Facebook does, but what they want to do, can be replicated practically overnight and having a system in BETA for years or months on end simply continues the journey of chasing market share.

Thirdly, Ignore your data. New users do not want ads for cheap car insurance, low mortgage rates, or how to find singles. Deep down we might but Zuckerberg had it right, build it first and people will come. You can find a way to monetize later. The good news is you already have this piece so just put it aside for a moment and build the platform specifically as you would use it at home.

Social media is not just about sharing pictures, commenting, poking or friending people but it’s a mixture of news, love, friendships, charity, celebrity and more. If Google could take the power they have to embrace all of these things and do it better than Facebook or Twitter then they will win. However, a brand needs to be separate and solely dedicated to this venture.

Google is so well established as the search leader in this world that the challenge to conquer social media is uphill but unlike the possibility of Nike ever leading the sale of digital cameras, Google is synonymous with the internet and when it comes to social media Google should be king.

Larry certainly has his work cut out for him when it comes to building the social media empire but unlike other people who have dreams all the data and dots are there on the walls of Mountain View, CA.

My only advice to Google.

Become a new you.

For the latest tech news, visit SAI: Silicon Alley Insider. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

On The Bubble

Okay, a few more thoughts on this Chris Dixon article and whether it’s a bubble, since going and reading the article, I am surprised to see Dixon arguing that not only is it a safer bubble (private investors, discussed in my last entry) but that perhaps it’s not a bubble at all. 

That, to me, seems incorrect. It’s a bubble. Absolutely no doubt. Some thoughts on his arguments for it not being a bubble:

First, Dixon points out that bubbles are the decoupling of valuations and underlying economic fundamentals. This is true, definitely, but bear in mind it is the decoupling of individual companies, or assets valuations and the individual company’s economic fundamentals, not the economy’s as a whole. A strong or growing economy doesn’t make this less true. It’s on an asset by asset basis. Dixon correctly points out that it’s hard to pin the value of the current crop of assets, so he can’t say whether or not they’re overvalued. However, this lack of ability is actually a characteristic of a growing bubble. I don’t know Facebook’s economic fundamentals (aside from rabidly reading the rumors) but I would still love a piece of it. That should be of concern. 

The argument that bubbles can’t happen so long as the economy is growing, because there’s always someone left to hold the bag, is incorrect. Bubbles, almost by definition, decouple from the rest of the economy, and you can very much have a bubble burst when the rest of the economy is doing just fine. In fact, this is more or less what happened in the first dot com bust, though like many bubbles, it got so big it effected the rest of the economy. This is an important distinction. This last housing bubble was inextricably tied to the economic meltdown that occurred in the banking sector. The two were linked, so it’s easy to say all bubbles are that way, but it’s totally not true. The 91/92 real estate bubble bursting (mainly in the south) was not tied to the larger economy. The Japanese asset price bubble in the late 80’s. The 97 financial crisis. In fact, by and large, bubbles happen in improving economies.

Okay, second point, where perhaps my trade and job might shine a unique perspective. Dixon says:

“The forces that drive the internet economy are strong and will probably only get stronger. I argue this regarding online advertising here so won’t repeat it. Since I wrote that post we’ve also seen a number of tech companies emerge that are generating significant revenues through non-advertising means – “freemium” (e.g Dropbox), paid mobile apps, virtual goods (e.g. Zynga), transaction fees (AirBnB), etc.”

I’ll leave the freemium/non-advertising revenues off the table since I’m no expert, but I get the strong sense they are still ancillary. The online advertising economy growing issue, however, I believe, is a red herring. And one I know a bit about.

Brands don’t actually want or need any more media channels. As far as they’re concerned, the internet can stop now. We have enough channels. We were happy when we had like seven (TV, print, outdoor, radio, in-store, direct and theater), got a little interested in the first few new ones. Urinals? Uh, okay. Banners? Interesting. Google? Yes. Groupon, Farmville, GroupMe? OKAY I AM GETTING TIRED NOW. Silicon Valley seems to think that advertising’s appetite for new media channels is unending. It is not. Marketers are changing. They are not the daft old man who doesn’t understand the new thing but knows he needs it and spends money on it. It’s a woman and she is getting smarter. Even she knows there’s a point where they’re reached their customers enough.

And yes, every time I talk to a Valley person about this they go on about how marketers want more data and they’ll pay for it, and they want to know everything about a person and oh man do you know how much advertisers would pay for this data? Well, yes, I do. But I guarantee you, YOU DO NOT KNOW. They have fixed budgets. I could tell you EXACTLY how much they will spend, because I spend that money. It is not bottomless. The endless quest for advertisers to know everything about their customers may never end, but its budgets will not increase forever.  We will pick the best 3-10 data sources and stick with them. And in the meantime, the VCs will have effectively funded a massive R&D effort to radically improve those sources (THANK YOU) but in the end, we’ll still be paying about the same amount a year for the same 3-10 (say 100 if you’re P&G or WPP). 

Then there’s the media money. The money agencies spend on placing ads. Though the valley can’t usually articulate it, this is the other big batch of money they’re going for, because it’s what Google and Yahoo! did. They got big brands to spend some of their giant media money on them instead of yellow pages or newspaper ads. You look at Google, and you think to yourself “oh man you can make a giant business out of advertising!” This line of thinking is usually accompanied by a chart showing the migration of advertising money from traditional channels to online channels, and they say “look how much more there is! It’s moving over at the rate of $6 Billion a year!”

Okay, stop. No it’s not. This is going to level out eventually. Do I have a chart to prove it? No. But it’s just common sense. Advertisers are going to stop advertising on Glee? Mad Men? American Idol? Viewership erosion has ebbed, TV has stepped up to the new competition and started making awesome shit. The first, easy places for innovation - yellow pages, classifieds - are levelling out, and while brand advertising spend is growing online still, it will never get all of it, since, well, the net still sucks for brand advertising* compared to TV and Outdoor. Pew Internet will track the changes now between web and tv in media consumption habits over years and decades - nothing will move fast enough to have an impact on this bubble. 

Next, the olds. And that’s the other chart these people usually trot out - some chart showing how many old people are on the internet now. No they’re not. And they’re not going to be any more than they are right now any time soon. Look at the rate they’re increasing their use of the internet. It’s not increasing. It’s holding steady, yes, but there’s no big shift in the immediate horizon. 

Plus, even if there was, the olds cost less to advertise to. Ads on Glee cost about $272,000 for 26 million viewers. Penny a viewer. Those ads on 60 minutes cost $92,000 for 14 million viewers. two thirds of a cent per viewer. Daily show? $28,000 for 3 million viewers or so. .93 cents per viewer. And that’s cable. Advertisers spend less on advertising to the olds on a per viewer, per show basis. 

Do you know how much those Facebook ads targeted to you cost vs those targeted to the olds? EXACTLY THE SAME. At first you think, “hey great, when they advertise on the web instead of TV, we’ll make more!” But no, it doesn’t work that way. First, it is a massive disincentive to migrate that advertising spend to the web, and secondly, it means we already got the good part of the spend. There is no reason to think that advertisers won’t just keep spending on the olds on TV until they die, then advertise on the web to the next set of olds who will be on the internet. But either way, nothing’s gonna happen with it in any big way in any time frame that’s going to impact this bubble. 

I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe strongly that as money migrates from traditional to digital it will decline. Part of it is due to what I outlined above. Part of it is because of the perceived lack of inventory limitation. And part of it is because we told marketers for years we were cheaper. 

It gets worse. IF (big if) Silicon Valley ever actually delivers on the snake oil dreams of perfect information and perfect targeting that they promise the ad world (and, by the way, for the record, I doubt I’m alone in advertising when I say I don’t want it, and I don’t need it, but that is totally a different article), why would I need to buy a bunch of ads on the 1,000 or so new ad-funded startups to reach my audience? The very efficacy of the products the Valley is building will utterly disrupt the economics they are purporting to claim will sustain them. Will it work for the better for the Valley or the worse? Just because it worked for the better for Google does not mean it has to happen that way again. 

You know what? Fuck it. Hey Silicon Valley. You can have EVERY SINGLE PENNY the US spends on advertising. $200 billion. Forgive me, I’m mixing figures here, but it will still be broadly be true. You know what? TAKE THE WHOLE WORLD. Hey internet, take every penny spent on advertising in the whole, wide world. $450 billion. You already have just over $100 billion of it. You only get 350% more growth. At all. Ever. Google’s revenue? Let’s call it $36 billion. YOU ONLY GET NINE MORE GOOGLES. Worldwide. If you get it all. And you will not, ever, get it all. Yes, the world economy will grow, yadda yadda, and ad spend will increase as the world economy grows, but not at the rate to make one bit of impact on this bubble, and not at any rate comparable to putting your money in a savings account. 

If every penny of advertising in the world came to Silicon Valley, out of these thousands of new startups, there would be only nine Googles. Worldwide. In China. In Europe. It sounds like a lot, but how many companies are out there being funded on this premise? 

One last way to look at the baked in absurdity: say everything I’m saying is too negative and every year, like clockwork, SIX BILLION DOLLARS of advertising spending arrives in the internet economy. I think that figure is off by an order of magnitude, but so what. Six billion bucks. That’s it. How many companies can that fund? How many are going to get their piece of that pie? We are fighting over a pie that is roughly the size of the cupcake industry.

I will leave you with a final thought, that’s really best for another post. Despite the Valley’s obsession with advertising, they still massively misunderstand it. They think it can be solved with algorithms, and not people. They also thought this about lawyers at one point. LegalZoom is doing great I hear, but so are lawyers. Not every penny of advertising will ever go to computers. 

Okay, okay, I am done. But to recap:

1) A solid economy does not mean a bubble can’t happen

2) Marketers aren’t going to pay much more than they do now for all this awesome new customer data

3) TV ad money will not turn into internet ad money at the same revenues

4) The worldwide ad spend is not enough to fund a hundredth of the companies that are being funded to pursue it. 

Happy weekend! 

* this was an edit - it used to say “brand marketing” but I meant “brand advertising,” as Noah pointed out. Thank you.

This post originally appeared at Rick Webb's blog.

Join the conversation about this story »

www.siliconconsultinginc.com

Silicon Consulting, Inc. is currently looking to fill ENTRY-LEVEL sales and marketing positions in the San Jose metro area. Silicon Consulting, Inc. is searching for individuals possessing a will to learn, a sense of humor, a competitive spirit, and who display an exceptional work ethic.

Silicon Consulting, Inc. was founded in June of 2005 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Since that time we have added office in Kansas City, Baltimore, Portland, San Francisco, 2 locations in San Jose, and Sacramento. We will be opening another new market next month. We are looking to continue our rapid growth throughout 2011 by adding another 4 markets by the years end.

All candidates begin at the entry level sales position. Highly motivated individuals can expect:

To develop skills related to:
• Public Speaking
• Training
• Personal and professional growth
• People/Communication skills
• Team management
• Human resources
• Problem solving
• Campaign management
• Sales
• Marketing and Data Capture



Benefits Include:
• Travel opportunities
• Paid training
• Health benefits
• Competitive Pay + Incentives
• Weekly pay
• Enthusiastic and fun atmosphere

Take control of your life by joining the team at Silicon Consulting. No experience is necessary as on the job training is provided. Any positions offered will be contingent on passing a background check. We require that a candidate have a valid driver’s license and that they can provide proof of current vehicle insurance. A degree is preferred but not required. Current client needs are exceeding our wildest dreams and immediate expansion is a must! Apply now by sending a copy of your resume to hr@siliconconsultinginc.com or contact Maria at 408-894-0770 Monday through Friday between 9:00am. and 5:00pm.

Thank you and best of luck with your job search!

www.siliconconsultinginc.com

• Compensation: 35-50K
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Phone calls about this job are ok.
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Filed under: Sedan, Lexus, Reviews, Luxury

A Vanilla Sport Sedan In Need Of Some More Sprinkles



Your available options in the entry-level luxury sedan segment rival the variety found at your local Baskin-Robbins. Interested in all-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive or front-wheel drive? Nearly every automaker has you covered. Want to row your own gears, or sit back and let the silicon chippery do the work? The car of your dreams awaits. There's an option for all of us, and if you prefer a good vanilla to rocky road, then you're going to love the 2011 Lexus IS250 AWD.

Continue reading Review: 2011 Lexus IS250 AWD...



Photos copyright (C)2011 Jeff Glucker / AOL

Continue reading Review: 2011 Lexus IS 250 AWD

Review: 2011 Lexus IS 250 AWD originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the risk of sounding like a Grumpy Old Man, and with near certainty that this post will be roasted by many who read it, I am about to make the case that there is such a thing as too much entrepreneurship--or at least too much excitement about becoming an entrepreneur too early in life.

I know, I know. This blog, and all of my work over the last 15 years, has celebrated the spirit of innovation, disruption, and changing the game. But last week, when The New York Times published one of those bound-for-the-time-capsule reports on the culture of Silicon Valley, I for one had had enough. Anything in excess is a poison, after all, and in America we've made the phenomenon of taking every good idea to excess our new national pastime. That's what we may be doing with entrepreneurship today. The startup bug has become a startup fever, and that fever may be driving many people to hysteria.

The Times piece was all about the new "War for Talent" in Silicon Valley, a replay of the battle waged more than a decade ago to recruit top-flight young engineers and coders from elite colleges and assorted countercultural pursuits. "The atmosphere is brutally competitive," one executive said. "Recruiting in Silicon Valley is more competitive and intense and furious than college football recruiting of high school athletes."

Talk about partying like it's 1999: Zynga, the red-hot game maker, "dangles free haircuts and iPods to recruits, who are also told that they can bring their dogs to work." (No word if the dogs get free haircuts too.) At Integra, a photo-sharing site, "workers take personal food and drink orders from employees, fill them at Costco, and keep the supplies on hand for lunches and snacks."

All of this is pretty familiar, if slightly ridiculous, stuff. (I guess I am a Grumpy Old Man.) But what is truly new, and to me, at least, rather worrisome, is that companies have agreed to teach new employees how to start their own companies virtually from the minute they walk in the door. The hot new perk, for people who have barely spent a day working inside the company they have been recruited to join, is training and advice and lessons on how to leave that company and start one of their own. As the piece concludes, "Many of the most talented engineers want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, not work for him."

I suppose I'd like to be the next Mark Zuckerberg too, if only to get Jesse Eisenberg to play me on the big screen. But to me, this cult of the young entrepreneur runs the risk of becoming just another business-culture fad, the Silicon Valley version of every East Coast smarty-pants who aspired to be the next Gordon Gekko (a Hollywood-created crook, who, bizarrely, inspired countless young people to flock to Wall Street).

Here's my major beef with what's happening. The real metric of business success is whether you have a positive impact--on your industry, on your community, on (in a small way) the world at large. That doesn't always mean starting your own company. Most of the time, in fact, it means becoming part of a company that you love, with a purpose you believe in, and people who you can't imagine not working with. It's all about the cause, the mission, the values you embrace, and the value you create. I've always admired talented people who want to be part of something bigger than themselves, rather than those who think it's all about them, even when they're in their mid-twenties.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against teaching people at a company how to be entrepreneurs. And, unlike say at Bloomberg, where people who leave the company are banished forever, I'm all for encouraging people to try new things with the hope that they will return. But I think it's incredibly wrongheaded to compete for talented people based on pitching a company as a training ground for someone's individual dreams, as opposed to a place where individuals can't imagine not being--because the product is so important, the values so robust, the culture so engaging. Business ultimately is a team sport. As someone building a company, I'd much prefer people who genuinely want to be part of the team for the long haul, rather than "free agents" who are willing to suffer through a brief stint on the roster before they field a team of their own.

Malcolm Gladwell looked at this very issue a decade ago, during the last War for Talent, in a long New Yorker piece called "The Talent Myth." The object of his attention (and scorn) was a company that vowed to attract the brainiest and most high-powered people in its field, and who promised that spending a few years there would give them the skills and mindset they needed to do whatever they wanted with the rest of their lives. That company was Enron, and we know how that turned out.

There's a difference between attracting brilliant stars, Gladwell argued and building a brilliant systems for the long term. The most successful organizations, he said, "are the ones where the system is the star." Indeed, he asked, "What if Enron failed not in spite of its talent mind-set but because of it?" he asked. "What if smart people are overrated?"

That was a heckuva question 10 years ago, and it's a heckuva question today. Does it really make sense to move heaven and earth to recruit young people to your company whose real commitment is starting their own company? How about focusing on people (even if they are a little less young or a little less talented) who believe in your company and are committed to its success?

Follow @FastCoLeaders for all of our leadership news, expert bloggers, and book excerpts.

Reprinted from Harvard Business Review

William C. Taylor is cofounder of Fast Company magazine, author of Practically Radical, and coauthor of Mavericks at Work. Follow him @PracticallyRad or at WilliamTaylor.com.

At the risk of sounding like a Grumpy Old Man, and with near certainty that this post will be roasted by many who read it, I am about to make the case that there is such a thing as too much entrepreneurship — or at least too much excitement about becoming an entrepreneur too early in life.

I know, I know. This blog, and all of my work over the last 15 years, has celebrated the spirit of innovation, disruption, and changing the game. But last week, when the New York Times published one of those bound-for-the-time-capsule reports on the culture of Silicon Valley, I for one had had enough.

Anything in excess is a poison, after all, and in America we've made the phenomenon of taking every good idea to excess our new national pastime. That's what we may be doing with entrepreneurship today. The startup bug has become a startup fever, and that fever may be driving many people to hysteria.

The Times piece was all about the new "War for Talent" in Silicon Valley, a replay of the battle waged more than a decade ago to recruit top-flight young engineers and coders from elite colleges and assorted countercultural pursuits. "The atmosphere is brutally competitive," one executive said. "Recruiting in Silicon Valley is more competitive and intense and furious than college football recruiting of high school athletes."

Talk about partying like it's 1999: Zynga, the red-hot game maker, "dangles free haircuts and iPods to recruits, who are also told that they can bring their dogs to work." (No word if the dogs get free haircuts too.) At Integra, a photo-sharing site, "workers take personal food and drink orders from employees, fill them at Costco, and keep the supplies on hand for lunches and snacks."

All of this is pretty familiar, if slightly ridiculous, stuff. (I guess I am a Grumpy Old Man.) But what is truly new, and to me, at least, rather worrisome, is that companies have agreed to teach new employees how to start their own companies virtually from the minute they walk in the door. The hot new perk, for people who have barely spent a day working inside the company they have been recruited to join, is training and advice and lessons on how to leave that company and start one of their own. As the piece concludes, "Many of the most talented engineers want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, not work for him."

I suppose I'd like to be the next Mark Zuckerberg too, if only to get Jesse Eisenberg to play me on the big screen. But to me, this cult of the young entrepreneur runs the risk of becoming just another business-culture fad, the Silicon Valley version of every East Coast smarty-pants who aspired to be the next Gordon Gekko (a Hollywood-created crook, who, bizarrely, inspired countless young people to flock to Wall Street).

Here's my major beef with what's happening. The real metric of business success is whether you have a positive impact — on your industry, on your community, on (in a small way) the world at large. That doesn't always mean starting your own company. Most of the time, in fact, it means becoming part of a company that you love, with a purpose you believe in, and people who you can't imagine not working with. It's all about the cause, the mission, the values you embrace, and the value you create. I've always admired talented people who want to be part of something bigger than themselves, rather than those who think it's all about them, even when they're in their mid-twenties.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against teaching people at a company how to be entrepreneurs. And, unlike say at Bloomberg, where people who leave the company are banished forever, I'm all for encouraging people to try new things with the hope that they will return. But I think it's incredibly wrongheaded to compete for talented people based on pitching a company as a training ground for someone's individual dreams, as opposed to a place where individuals can't imagine not being — because the product is so important, the values so robust, the culture so engaging. Business ultimately is a team sport. As someone building a company, I'd much prefer people who genuinely want to be part of the team for the long haul, rather than "free agents" who are willing to suffer through a brief stint on the roster before they field a team of their own.

Malcolm Gladwell looked at this very issue a decade ago, during the last War for Talent, in a long New Yorker piece called "The Talent Myth." The object of his attention (and scorn) was a company that vowed to attract the brainiest and most high-powered people in its field, and who promised that spending a few years there would give them the skills and mindset they needed to do whatever they wanted with the rest of their lives. That company was Enron, and we know how that turned out.

There's a difference between attracting brilliant stars, Gladwell argued and building a brilliant systems for the long term. The most successful organizations, he said, "are the ones where the system is the star." Indeed, he asked, "What if Enron failed not in spite of its talent mind-set but because of it?" he asked. "What if smart people are overrated?"

That was a heckuva question 10 years ago, and it's a heckuva question today. Does it really make sense to move heaven and earth to recruit young people to your company whose real commitment is starting their own company? How about focusing on people (even if they are a little less young or a little less talented) who believe in your company and are committed to its success?

Let the debate begin....

This post originally appeared at Harvard Business Review.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• How Do You Determine Your Target?
• Small Companies: Lead, Grow, Or Get Out Of The Way
• 11 Businesses You Can Start In Your Pajamas

It’s a Tuesday morning in February 2011. From an exhilirated Cairo, a correspondent on BBC radio’s flagship news programme Today reports on the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. Then Anouar Swed, a young Libyan expatriate living in London, talks to the co-presenter James Naughtie. BBC and other western journalists are not yet able to enter Libya from newly liberated Egypt and Tunisia. But Anouar is in contact with her friends and family inside the country, mostly by SMS, and on the basis of their accounts says that people in the capital Tripoli are being shot “left, right and centre”.

At the end of the interview, Anouar asks listeners to visit Facebook and search for World Medical Camp for Libya, or to email wmclibya@gmail.com with “anything they can participate with as soon as possible”. In an instant the appeal puts the incipient turmoil in Colonel Gaddafi's Libya into the same context of internet-driven and technology-supported protest that had in previous weeks been sweeping through its neighbours.

The degree of influence of these tools in the popular risings that started in Tunisia and Egypt and have since spread eastwards to Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen and even Syria remains in dispute. But that many Arabs - often young, educated, ambitious, idealistic, and frustrated - have been able to use them to share information and coordinate protest against authoritarian rule is indisputable.

In Tunisia, the self-immolation of a despairing young market-trader in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid sparked local riots which were brought to national and international attention by the combined use of mobile-shot videos, Facebook and broadcasters like al-Jazeera - as well as the spiking of the hashtag #sidibouzid on Twitter. In Egypt, the Facebook page “We are all Khaled Said” - named after one of the many torture victims of Egypt’s brutal police - helped galvanise nationwide resistance to a corrupt regime. Wherever there is protest elsewhere in the region, from Iran in the east to Morocco in the west, the new-media tools are part of the scene.

In this respect, Anouar Swed’s intervention - a dissident (albeit proxy) voice from inside Libya when broadcasting giants were still stranded at the border - looks part of a great historical tide.

Open door vs closing window

There is no certainty and a lot of debate about just how much the new tools have contributed to the ongoing process of political change in the middle east (or elsewhere). The vacuum of understanding is filled by endless speculation, whose probable overall effect is to overstate the role of Twitter, Facebook and the rest in the Arab renaissance.

Why should this be? In part because such speculation is a fun and lucrative business; in part because so many of those in the west doing it - even if our general understanding of the Arab world is a broken patchwork of neocon propaganda and Indiana Jones pastiche - use Twitter and Facebook every day, and are tempted to inflate the power of our compulsive toys. But also for the more forgivable reason that new technology - like any immigrant into our imaginations - perfectly fulfils the alternating roles of god and scapegoat humans seem to require to explain (or ignore) complex social and political issues.

To explore this intimate ambiguity a little further leads away from the great events across north Africa and the middle east and towards core political, technical and commercial and arguments about the capacity of the new technologies to advance freedom. The difference of context may be less than it appears, and in a larger perspective prove less important than the underlying question faced in each case: whether the most powerful of the current tools are less a door to the future than a window of opportunity that is now closing.

The new gatekeepers

“Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.” These words, written in 1996 by the scribe of the then-infant worldwide web (and lyricist of the rock-band Grateful Dead) John Perry Barlow, are the inspirational banner under which old-school cyber-utopians still march.

Their enemy was/is the intermediary, an enduringly important concept in the movement’s vocabulary for its ability to convey the stifling character of those institutions which, so the theory goes, are destined to crumble before the all-powerful yet benign force of the global network. The precise identity of these intermediaries - or gatekeepers - will depend on each cyber-utopian group’s preference, but they are bound to include empires of informational power such as governments, corporations, and the “legacy” media (from the emasculated BBC to the rampant Murdoch empire).

The utopians go by another, often misunderstood, name: hacker. A hacker likes to take things apart, to see how they work. A sub-group of hackers work only for their own interests. But many seek the public good. They act like a volunteer building inspector, trespassing on society’s digital architecture to ensure it is fit for public purposes. They dislike intermediaries, especially ones that keep information from them or stop them disassembling things to understand how they function. You could say that a hacker wants control, and that might be true of some. But most hackers are driven by a desire for autonomy and self-determination, for the freedom to create; to do more than consume what is offered to them by powerful institutions.

Hackers are an inclusive bunch, and usually don’t object to extended use of the term. In their own way the dedicated, self-motivated activists that helped seed Egypt’s revolution are also hackers. This is reflected in the media’s resort to the jargon of the techno-utopian world of the 1990s to describe them: “small pieces loosely joined” in a “network” that is “connected”, whose news and appeals spread “virally” in a way that allows them to act in an “agile” yet “loosely coordinated” way, organising protests that become a “meme” and ultimately even the revolution - a “network effect” itself.

Yet the promiscuity of language is also a trap, in that the web tools of the Arab renaissance are very far from those of the cyber-utopians. Facebook is a hierarchy, not a network. Twitter is a hierarchy, not a network. Gmail is a hierarchy, not a network. Yes, those of us who use these tools are “networked”: we are, as the utopians would say, loosely joined. But we are also fused to the corporate giants that provide and profit from these tools, through whose buzzing servers our intimate or banal exchanges pass.

Arbor Networks, itself a giant in the world of network security, estimates  that about 60% of all web traffic terminates at about 150 companies, and 30% of all web traffic terminates at about thirty companies: Google, Facebook and Twitter. These US corporations are the hypergiants, the new intermediaries or gatekeepers, and they are beginning to dominate the net.

The dream for sale

It was not meant to be this way. My first website was hosted in a machine in the basement of a house-share in east London. It served lovingly html-coded screeds on the techie issues of the day, screeds which in turn got me my first job on a magazine. The day a popular blog posted a link to something I’d written, it brought down my home internet connection, prompting an angry call to my place of work from a housemate trying to finish his PhD. They called it many-to-many communication, and that’s exactly what it was.

But much like those back-to-the-land communards of the 1960s who gave up farming after one season showed them how hard it was, communicatory self-sufficiency turned out to be...well, hard. First, the rise of spam drove even those hackers who knew how to set up their own mail client to shelter under the collective protection of email providers like Google and Yahoo. Then, the need of people like me to avoid the ire of studious housemates led us to move to commercial providers as a way of keeping separate the connections that served home and website. The real buzz-kill, though, was when the message joined the medium - and that happened when the worldwide web became Web 2.0.

Web 2.0, rather as did the “third way” of ambitious centre-left political leaders in the 1990s, betrayed the early purist ideologues in favour of wooing a mass market. Instead of Indymedia, it offered social media. Instead of unbounded communicatory possibility, it offered checkboxes and character limits. Instead of full exposure to the perils and pitfalls of human nature, it offered a series of walled gardens, neatly cultivated and weeded of unsavoury elements. The new gates to these walled gardens were inscribed with their keepers’ names: Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Foursquare and MySpace. They were insanely popular, and in many cases made their deeply relaxed Silicon Valley owners filthy rich.

Before 11 December 2010, just a week before Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in Sidi Bouzid, the hacker’s lament at this “re-intermediation” of the network would have been largely theoretical. But on that day, Amazon responded to political pressure by removing  Wikileaks’ website from their servers, erasing the whistleblowing project in an instant (albeit temporarily).

This appeared a clear case of extra-judicial censorship by the United States, the supposed first defender of the right to free speech. The problem for this view is that Amazon, a commercial company, has every right to choose what travels over their wires - and no responsibility to maintain the openness, inclusiveness or health of public discourse.

The point of control

The Arab awakening that was inspired in the same week as Amazon wielded its own weapon is to some the next major realisation of the hacker-utopian dream. The fact that the vigorous protest movements in north Africa that have written themselves into the history of their societies are, in their cyber aspect at least, fuelled by three US corporations may matter less to participants facing an authoritarian power-structure of another kind. But as they develop further, the limits of these virtual “pseudo-public spaces” are bound to become more apparent.

It was against the corporate transformation and undermining of public space, detailed by Naomi Klein in her millennial polemic No Logo, that John Perry Barlow’s “citizens of the future” hoped the net would push. Instead, a technology that gave citizens the ability to retrieve public space and public discourse from corporate control has turned into something beyond the worst imaginings of Klein’s anti-globalisation movement: a vehicle of corporate hypergiants possessed of unmatched efficiency in selling back to citizen-consumers their own expression and desire.

The broader trend is that the “internet freedom” proclaimed by everyone from US secretary of state Hillary Clinton downwards is becoming a cargo-cult. The response of many non-western leaders is to seek ways to resist a trend whereby US intermediaries present the US government with a single point of control - and to establish that single point of control for themselves.

As Evgeny Morozov observes, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has already used the fact that the US state department coordinated with Twitter during Iran’s failed “Twitter revolution” of 2009 to douse revolutionary zeal with anti-American sentiment. Since then, Vladimir Putin has issued a decree that all software used by public bodies in Russia should be open source, in order to guard against real and imagined back doors engineered in proprietary US products like Microsoft Windows at the orders of the US government. China’s “national net” is an image of the internet’s possible future: an archipelago of mutually isolated worlds.

The reverse switch

Could there still be another way? Around the same time Anouar Swed was talking on BBC radio, the legal academic Eben Moglen was telling the New York chapter of the Internet Society about an innovation he calls the “freedom box”: a low-power plug-server running free and open-source software that every internet user could install at home. The point of the box is that it is contained within the four walls of the person(s) whose privacy and autonomy it affects. Your social-networking profile could be served from the box, your server logs kept safely encrypted on it. In effect, the freedom box is the equivalent of the server that ran in the basement of my east London houseshare - a recovery of the days when the many-to-many communications network was just that.

For Moglen, the freedom box reverses the “server-client” image that has led networked computing down a wrong path where it catches up with a politics and geopolitics going in the same direction. To some, the reversal looks a near-impossibly ambitious hacker-utopian dream. But it might just work, not least as Eben Moglen has form. Together with Richard Stallman he is one of the founders of the free-software movement and one of the long-term custodians of free-software’s success.

That matters, for today more web servers run the free operating system Linux and the free server client Apache than any other competing products (including Microsoft). Apache serves around 60% of the world’s busiest websites. Without free software Google, Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t exist. The web wouldn’t exist without free software. And insofar as social movements owe much of their growth to free software, the Arab renaissance - or at least its web component - might not either. This historical tide may be a quiet one, but it has an honourable place in the struggle everywhere to define what freedom in the 21st century can become.

Sideboxes

'Read On' Sidebox: 

Becky Hogge

Little Atoms

Internet Society

Freedom Box Foundation

Open Rights Group

Electronic Freedom Foundation

Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (Public Affairs, 2011)

Sidebox: 

Becky Hogge is a freelance writer and broadcaster. She is the former executive director of the Open Rights Group, a London-based campaigning organisation that fights for civil and consumer rights in the digital age. She was previously the managing editor, and then technology director, of openDemocracy. She blogs here, and co-presents acclaimed London radio show Little Atoms. She is currently finishing her first book, Barefoot into Cyberspace, which will be released in summer 2011

Related stories: 

The internet's fading promise

Arab democracy rising: international lessons

Campaigning in cyberspace

Saudi ferment, and a king’s choice

Egypt: from revolt to change

Colombia: networks of dissent and power

Arab third way: beyond dictators and Islamists

Consumer or citizen?

The Moroccan exception, and a king's speech

We are the web

The Arab rebellion: perspectives of power

Iran: the double-edged world

The Arab revolt: transformation to transition

Information between old and new worlds

Mightiest for the mightiest: “The Net Delusion”

Libya, Bahrain, and the Arab spring

Microsoft: closed windows and hidden vistas

The internet's fading promise

There's a (likely apocryphal) story of a demonstration by a famous solar pioneer -- who takes a powder material, places it into a printer toner cartridge, runs off a few pieces of paper with this material upon it, and produces a photovoltaic device.

The point of his exercise was to suggest that it's one thing to demonstrate photovoltaic activity and it's a completely different challenge for the innovation to be scalable, reliable, efficient, and cheap.

That's the challenge that a firm like NextGen Solar (not to be confused with NxgenSolar) faces in the coming months and years.

According to the CEO, Mil Ovan, NextGen uses an earth-abundant material, doesn't need clean rooms and is able to use "conductive nanoparticle self-assembly to create a new kind of solar absorber material." Many investors have learned to tighten their grip on their wallets when they hear "nanoparticle self-assembly."

It's very early days for the firm which has all of three employees -- CEO Mil Ovan, investor Len Batterson, and braintrust and CTO Richard Brotzman. Brotzman is the former CTO of Nanophase and according to the CEO, has "taken materials from beaker to boxcar -- he knows how to scale these materials."

CTO Brotzman, still an employee of Argonne National Labs, has filed the patents for the technology. NextGen and the the investors are liberating the science from the lab through a Cooperative Reseach and Development Agreeement (CRADA). In a brief conversation with Brotzman, he mentioned that the technology has been developed with an eye towards manufacturability.

According to an article in Chicago Business, NextGen is "aiming for at least 25 percent, and possibly as much as 40 percent, efficiency at a third of the cost."  The best crystalline silicon solar cells boast a 22 percent efficiency, the best thin thin film cells are in the 15 percent range, triple junction solar cells are flirting with 41 percent efficiency and the best organic solar cells reach around 8 or 9 percent. Startup Alta Devices uses a GaAs absorber material and claims a hero experiment efficiency of 27.6 percent.

The article also quotes the investor, Batterson with this gem: If the technology works, "it has a good chance at being the largest venture-capital deal ever done. It would put Chicago venture capital right on the map." 

NextGen has enough challenges ahead of it without Google-, Groupon- or Cerent-type of expectations from investors with little solar experience. The firm has yet to complete its first prototype.

The startup is not revealing much about its technology, although the CEO had this to say, "It's a novel solar system that combines inorganic chemistry with organic polymer chemistry in one system." Ovan spoke of an "inorganic 3-D material with a polymer on top."  Ovan said the materials are not toxic and can be deposited on glass, plastic, or foil in a non-vacuum environment at low temperatures.

The road from materials science development to competitive PV product with a low levelized cost of energy is a long one. Many firms, some no longer with us, held up similar promises for their thin film or organic solar cell or CPV technologies. We'll keep an eye on NextGen's progress in light of their lofty claims.

I think that patent applications—where human ingenuity meets dreams of profit, within the straitjacket of line diagrams and legal prose—might be my favorite literary form.

A tour through the year in food patents reveals several understated gems, from this "Grater for Gratable Food Products" to ConAgra's "Proportional Length Food Slicing System." The consistent format creates an equalizing effect, as products of massive corporate investment in R&D, such as Sysco's "High Protein, Reduced Carbohydrate Bakery Product," are shelved alongside the inventions of a lone, obsessive-compulsive salad lover whose new container design ensures that no element of the salad touches any other element until such time as the salad lover is ready to eat.

I assumed that a quick browse through the year's patents might serve as a guide to the future of food. It does —but as with all futurology, it works even better as a diagnostic of our prevailing food anxieties and obsessions. Thus anti-obesity techno-fixes, in both pet and human food contexts, were a recurring theme.

Meanwhile, in a year of food recalls and safety reform, several patents claimed to fight bacteria and other pathogens through innovations in food processing, packaging, and preparation devices.

Food journalists may have spent 2010 writing about urban agriculture, backyard chickens, and heirloom vegetable canning, but there was no corresponding boom in window farm, chicken coop, or vacuum sealing patents. Instead, I found a device for inserting a "shrimp-like product" into a buffalo chicken wing and a process whereby a multiple textures of cream cheese (or "other dairy material") could be combined into a single snack format. Even the simple activity of boiling an egg can be improved through the application of technology, it seems.

Browse selected highlights of the year in food patents in this slideshow, and then dive into the full glory of Google Patents search here. A warning: although it is addictive, the overall effect, I find, is simultaneously awe-inspiring and vaguely depressing—something to do with the witnessing the boldness of scientific invention as applied to speeding up the molding of flame-grilled patties, perhaps.

Call it a hometown kick, but lately I’ve found a lot of inspiration in all things Chicago. Even in a tough economy, the Windy City is poised to take the reins as the next Silicon Valley. And its past shows me how planning big, along with playing big, nets big results.

Take this quote from Daniel Burnham, the city planner largely responsible for Chicago’s 20th century growth and very successful 1893 World’s Fair:

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will themselves not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die.

Big ideas are what push people in motion. Put a man on the moon. Connect 500 million people across the globe on one website. Run payroll in 2 minutes a pay period — my own humble offering. So start 2011 thinking about your big ideas — ones that stir men’s blood and include the noble, logical diagram.

I think Burnham is right that your plan won’t die, but developing the big idea is only half the battle. Once you plan big, you have to play big. You can find countless examples of entrepreneurs who play and win big on the New York Times Bestseller List, but you really don’t have to look any farther than The Shawshank Redemption.

Andy Dufresne, the main character, has what every small business owner who wants to play big needs: hope and tenacity. The combination is essential.

Andy is committed to improving the Shawshank prison library. He writes a letter every week to the Maine legislature asking for funding. After a few years with no replies, he receives a few boxes of donations and a check for a couple hundred dollars. Mission accomplished, right? No. If you’re looking to play big, here’s where hope and tenacity pay off.

Andy increases his writing campaign to twice a week. After a few more years, he receives enough money and donations to build one of the biggest prison libraries in the nation. He never let anything deter him from mailing his letter every week — or twice a week. Playing big means making a firm decision that other projects will not interfere with your big goal.

So how can you start planning and playing big? Think of one big thing you’d like to focus on in 2011. Maybe it’s a few smaller things that coalesce into something big. Either way, you should be able to articulate it in a simple sentence.

Once you’ve settled upon it, devote one hour every day to nothing but working on your big plan — maybe that means “forgetting” your BlackBerry in the other room and going offline. The novelist Jonathan Franzen modified his writing laptop by removing the wireless card and superglueing a small piece of plastic inside his Ethernet port, making his computer physically incapable of connecting to the Internet. Maybe that’s a little much, but the fruit of his labor, Freedom, is a top-seller that earned him a Time magazine cover.

Create a timeframe for when your goal will become a reality. Burnham had until May 1893 to prepare for the World’s Fair. President Kennedy gave the nation until the end of the '60s to land on the moon, and we did it with five months to spare. Monitor your progress weekly to keep in check with your goal time.

Sometimes, though, plans change. There’s a fine line between persistence and hubris. For all the examples I’ve listed of people who played to win, many end up playing to lose. If your evaluation shows things aren’t lining up like you need them to — or the goal you wanted six months ago doesn’t reflect how things have changed — stop. Don’t quit, instead pivot. Revise your plans to reflect new learnings that will help you meet your goal.

Like Andy, your hope and tenacity are the foundation of how playing big helps you win big. And you have the advantage of pursing your dreams without being behind bars.

Do you have a purpose in your business that goes beyond making money? Consider these companies:

Harley-Davidson’s mission is to “fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling.”Southwest Airlines is trying to “democratize air travel so that all Americans can visit a loved one or relative at a happy and sad time in their lives.”Nike is attempting to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”

I first learned why a company needs a core purpose from Randy Komisar, who wrote the book The Monk and the Riddle, which was published just as the dot-com market went bust in 2001.

As peopled sobered up, Komisar became the conscience of a generation of start-ups that he encouraged to build businesses with a significant purpose beyond just making money.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the release of The Monk and the Riddle, I spoke with Komisar, now a partner at Silicon Valley–based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, about how things have changed since he first released the book and if he sees any parallels between today’s business environment and that of the period after the technology crash.

Warrillow: How has the world of entrepreneurship evolved in the past 10 years?

Komisar: I think today you have two kinds of entrepreneurs: mercenary and missionary company builders.

Mercenary entrepreneurs—today disproportionately running consumer-web businesses—are young, aggressive and ambitious people, which are all good qualities, but they have no broad picture or purpose. They are getting lots of “eyeballs” and “users” but aren’t delivering any significant value.

Missionary entrepreneurs—more often found running life sciences, green technology, infrastructure or deep sciences businesses—have a bigger goal beyond just making money. For missionaries, it is not about buying low and selling high or getting out quickly; it’s about building something sustainable so that you can have the kind of impact you want and accomplish your greater purpose.

Warrillow: How do you sniff out the mercenary entrepreneurs who come to Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers for a venture capital investment?

Komisar: When you probe a mercenary entrepreneur on their purpose, you get nothing substantive or a bit of jargon. You don’t hear a motivating purpose. It’s not that these people are trying to hide something or pull one over on me; they simply haven’t taken a deeper look at what they are trying to accomplish.

These days, the game a lot of mercenary entrepreneurs are playing is to get a product out, get a lot of people using it, get a lot of hype online, turn that into a lot of hype in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, raise a lot of money and sell out.

It’s leading to the “game-ification” of the business world, where everything has become a gambit with a focus on superficial metrics as opposed to building a business that will make the world a better place.

Warrillow: When you meet mercenaries, do you try to coach them?

Komisar: Sometimes. But a lot of the time, they are not receptive to coaching on the bigger picture. For many it’s a control thing. They say, “I’m the founder, I’m 23, I want to be the CEO, I’ve been told that’s important, (Facebook founder) Zuckerberg is still the CEO.”

The time I can reach somebody is when they have stumbled. That’s when they are more open to the realization that there is more they could do or know.

The purpose can become so core to your business that it can survive well after you have left the company. William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson started their motorcycle company 100 years ago, and it has thrived through multiple ownership groups—in part, because of their big compelling vision that acts like a magnet for each new ownership group who wants to be part of the Harley-Davidson story.

Why do you do what you do?

John Warrillow is a writer, speaker, and angel investor in a number of start-up companies. He writes a blog about building a sellable company at www.BuiltToSell.com/blog.

California has hit the federal stimulus lottery and we Californians are blowing it all on speed.  Not just any kind of speed either.  High-speed, man.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez is jazzed about the U.S. Department of Transportation's decision to steer hundreds of millions of additional dollars in high-speed rail funds into California.

Rep. Sanchez and the California Delegation recently sent a slew of letters to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood requesting that high-speed rail funding turned down by other states be sent to California.

The Golden State now has an additional $624 million in funding to help build a top-notch high-speed rail line from Disneyland to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Californians are dancing in the streets, but we do that anyway.

"I am thrilled with the Department of Transportation’s excellent decision to make additional funding available for California's high-speed rail line," exclaimed Rep. Sanchez.

"We are now one step closer to making our dreams of cleaner, safer, and more efficient mass transit a reality."

$3.18-billion in federal funding has been approved for California's high-speed train proposal so far, the largest amount for any pending rail project in the USA.

With matching California state funds, the total available for construction is $5.6 billion.

The OC has taken local steps to make high-speed rail a Southern California reality.

Last July, the City of Anaheim was awarded $5-million to assist their Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) project.  It will handle bus, rail, and shuttle connections to the Anaheim Resort Area, plus high-speed trains.

The state of California's high-speed-rail plan calls for an 800-mile system from San Diego to Sacramento.  The main phase, a 520-mile span from the SF Bay Area to LA/Anaheim, is to be done by 2020 at a cost of $43-billion.

High-speed trains in California will reach speeds of 220 miles per hour --- outpacing all passenger trains in America and rivaling European and Asian trains.  Way cool.

The governors of Wisconsin and Ohio refused a combined $1.2 billion in stimulus money to build rail projects.  Now the big bucks will be distributed to train projects in other states, with our Golden State getting the most.

Chalk one up for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.  Good work.  California may soon need a little more funding, though.

We're still working on that Star Trek "beaming-up" tele-transportation thing in Silicon Valley --- and we're getting close.

Once more my blogging efforts have fallen into a deep black hole. This time it is the Black Hole of Vaccination Sickness, Head Colds and Revisions, which are not, if you’re interested, a combination I recommend.

The revisions, actually, are quite mild. (The head cold less so, and the Vaccination Sickness not at all, although it was at least mercifully brief.) I am performing what suricattus refers to as a commaectomy. Also a semi-colonectomy and a long-sentencesectomy. But both the editor and the agent gave me what are essentially line edits, which is a far cry from the last set of revisions in this series (“please throw out a third of the book and rewrite the rest”), so, y’know, that’s grand so. I’m halfway through the book. I’d hoped to finish tomorrow, but somehow I don’t think the second half is going to take 3 hours when the first half has taken 12-15. :)

Our Irish Anniversary Party went off nicely on Saturday last. Given the weather, more people than I expected showed up, and it was lovely to see them all! Possibly we will have a pre-Mardi Gras party next, the Thursday before P-Con. Consider yourself warned.

I have made chocolate mousse with leftover whipped cream from the party. With, as it turns out, far less whipped cream than I expected; I thought it was the major component, when it turns out it’s really significantly about the egg whites, too, so I still have to figure out something to do with another cup of cream. Soon. Anyway, the texture is very nice but I couldn’t tell you about the flavor, because while I can tell it tastes like chocolate, it doesn’t taste very strongly of it. Nothing is tasting very strongly right now. I made stew earlier, and when I sat down for dinner, thought, with genuine dismay, that it was the least flavorful stew I’d ever made. Then I remembered I had a cold and was less worried about it. :)

I have an unusually large number of bananas with which I must make stuff. I’ve already made banana muffins. I’m out of eggs thanks to the mousse, so I can’t make the banana bread tomorrow I’d planned to, and since it is suddenly coming up on the weekend I may have to wait until Sunday night to make the banana cake so it can then be sent to Ted’s work so I won’t eat it all. The bananas, which are of an age to make perfect banana bread, probably need to go in the freezer if I’m going to be delaying baking them any longer. Hrm.

The other day I needed bus fare because I had a 2 euro coin and it’s only 1.15 to get home. In an attempt to get the correct bus fare, I bought 1 lottery ticket (3 euro) and 3 candy bars (2.45).

My mother and sister thought this was inordinantly funny. :)

Anyway, I needed the bus fare because I’d been off at an eye appointment, the first one since we moved to Ireland. My vision hasn’t changed, but I got new contacts. They make contacts out of silicon now, who knew? And actually the ones I’ve gotten are quite amazing. They’re like not having contacts at all. Can’t feel them at *all*. That must be what seeing is like. Of course, I keep forgetting to wear them, but that’s okay, I can’t while I’m working anyway, so they’ll last a really long time. Which is why I hadn’t had an eye appointment in 5+ years….

While taking a nap the other day (a different other day; I have noticed that as I get older “the other day” can mean “twenty years ago”, but this was more recent than that) I had dreams about not getting enough sleep. I couldn’t remember things, either, like whether our former roommate still lived with us. (He hasn’t for five years.) I need more sleep. And so what am I doing? Writing a blog post.

But now I am going to bed.

(x-posted from the essential kit)

Twice a week IOVOX staff have a 6am "Fight Club". Its founder, Ryan Gallagher, has a pastlife in Silicon Valley, bricklaying, martial arts and as a security guard. His current preoccupation is to "KO the broken telco model".

The three-year-old startup today launched its "voice as a service" platform which will allow entrepreneurs to create voice applications, offline advertising and accompanying analytical tools.

It counts among existing customers none other than News International. NI uses IOVOX to create a number to put in traditional print advrtising, enabling them to give away advertising space free to clients as long as they pay a commission on each call generated.

Oh, and its investors include Peter Dickson, the announcer for the X Factor and E4. Quite. Here's founder Ryan Gallagher:

• What's your pitch?
"Without information, commerce is impossible. Companies like Google realised this as they monetised the web. IOVOX gives phone calls analytical value allowing users to monetise more than minutes.

"IOVOX has developed a voice platform that opens up voice to everyone in a similar manner as the web did to the internet. The platform opens up a world of creativity and provides the tools to optimise businesses, create innovative voice apps and boost revenues in ways that were never before possible."

• How do you make money?
"We charge fees per number per month and also per minute per call, it is similar to a traditional telecoms model with an unprecedented level of functionality.

"Using this methodology we work with our larger customers to ensure that we are not a cost to their business but a revenue generating service which makes everyone happy."

• How are you surviving the downturn?
"We are thriving in the downturn, in the modern marketplace corporates from small to large are keen to find new ways to refine existing services and create new business models on the skeletons of old. We help by allowing our customers to analyse, productise and commercialise voice, up until now a relatively barren area for commerce unless you are a telco."

• What's your background?
"Before founding IOVOX, I was the chief technology officer of Silicon Valley start-up Vazu, funded by Globespan Captial Partners and winner of the Demo-God award. Prior to Vazu I held a wide variety of positions in over 15 years at international companies such as KPN Qwest, Compaq and Alstom Holdings.

"I worked extensively in the streaming media field during the first bubble with technology partners like Inktomi, Cacheflow and NetApps. In my early years I studied psychology before moving to Australia and funding my further studies in IT by working various security jobs in the evenings from bouncing, to body guarding."

• What makes your business unique?
"The team and the vision we follow, which is to give easy-to-use tools to create business services on the telephony network to the general public. We are doing to the stuffy old telephone network what the web did to the internet. Providing the tools that enable people to realise the true potential of their ideas on a global scale with no technical knowledge.

"With the backing of diverse range of expert and technical investors such as Chris Burke (ex CTO of Vodafone and ex-MD of RIM EMEA) and Peter Dickson (the voice of X-Factor and E4) we really see the true range and potential for voice applications."

• What has been your biggest achievement so far?
"Having one of our biggest clients cut short a pilot against six other competitors because there was no need to continue since the competition was so far behind our product offering. It made us stop and realise how much we had achieved in such a short time, it's one thing to look at your own product every day and another to see the welcome it receives in the open market."

• Who in the tech business inspires you?
"My development team who work day and night to make my dreams become a reality. In the wider world Bill Gates has my respect, he gets a lot of bad press but he has always proven to be a true visionary."

• What's your biggest challenge?
"Adding more people to the gifted and hardworking team we already have in place. It's easy to grow a company but it's very hard to make sure that the quality stays at such a high level."

• What's the most important piece of software or web tool that you use each day?
"Subversion, without it we would be lost in a quagmire of changes and have no clue how we got there. It allows us to track what we do and to roll back if there are any issues and to monitor the evolution of what we are building. On top of that it is used to let everyone else see what you are doing and to work alongside you in a true team environment."

• Name your closest competitors
"Twilio and CallFire. Most of the competition will come from new companies, the older larger companies will struggle to keep up and most of the new ones are aiming at the developer space. We see this as a half step in the evolution of the web. For us, unless an average web user can use our services to build something truly unique, we have failed."

• Where do you want the company to be in five years?
"In five years we want the company to be a global household name, to be the first name people think of when they have an idea which involves innovating on voice. I want to look at successful companies and to know that they built that business on the IOVOX technology, that we helped change lives and built new businesses from the seeds of someone's imagination.

"Today we are well on our way to that goal with customers such as Zoopla, GumTree, News International, TouchLocal and Livebooking who all use the platform in different ways."

• Sell to Google, or be bigger than Google?
"I can see the huge long term potential of the IOVOX platform, with such a diverse range of possibilities and the unlimited potential for growth, I see no reason to sell the company fast and make a quick buck.

"We are definitely in it for the longer term, to build a true world class business which stands on its own two feet without the need to be folded in to a parent company. With the partnerships we already have, coupled with revenue generating partnerships with tier one telecoms carriers we can provide a service which is unparalleled in scope."

College quest is the child's, not the parents' Washington Post A lot of us tend to let our dreams of parenting a future Silicon Valley billionaire or a president of the United States get the better of us. ... and more »

The end of Big Brother was supposed to signal the death of reality TV, but more of us than ever are tuning into the X Factor and its like. Now, an extraordinary piece of research has revealed why our need for community has helped Simon Cowell become the king of Saturday-night entertainment

It is a Saturday night in the northernmost fringes of London, a place where the streets are lined with Golden Nugget Chicken outlets. Outside an anonymous building with blanked-out windows, a discarded plastic bag swirls in the breeze, and in the distance the arches of Wembley Stadium soar against the darkening sky.

At first glance it seems a doleful place. But in fact, this is where dreams are made and broken. Inside that reinforced-concrete building, men in black T-shirts and microphone headsets are swarming around like worker bees, ushering a constant stream of shrieking teenage girls to their seats, testing the sound levels and the autocue, ensuring that the audience is primed to clap and scream as loudly as possible once the lights go up. Because this is where, every weekend, the X Factor goes live.

As the theme music is pumped through the studio speakers, it is as though the entire crowd has been electrified by a giant cattle prod. We leap out of our seats as one, arms waving maniacally in the air as each contestant takes to the stage in a blaze of strobe lighting and sequinned backing dancers. When the judges deliver their verdicts, we boo as soon as Simon Cowell says anything remotely negative and cheer wildly when Cheryl Cole gives a twinkling, encouraging smile.

We are indiscriminately supportive of all the contestants. We empathise with them in a way we never normally engage with actors or celebrities precisely because they are real and because – at the touch of an interactive red button or the dialling of a phone number – we can have a say in their future. When Mary Byrne comes on stage, swathed in a black evening gown, we cheer loudly because we do not want her to go back to her checkout till at Tesco. When Rebecca Ferguson takes the floor, all sparkly eye shadow and pretty smile, we clap until our hands sting. When One Direction performs an upbeat love song in matching suit jackets, those of us who are not teenagers regress shamelessly to our adolescence. If the security guards had allowed us our cigarette lighters, we would be brandishing them now. At the back of the auditorium, several schoolgirls become breathless with excitement. "We love you Harry," they shout out in unison.

This is the X Factor, brainchild of Simon Cowell and the most popular programme on Saturday night. Each week, hundreds make the pilgrimage to the Fountain Television Studios in Wembley to be part of the live audience, and millions of us tune in at home to watch. Each week, the front pages of the tabloid newspapers will be emblazoned with headlines about Cher Lloyd's supposedly diva-ish antics or Louis Walsh's backstage meltdown.

As a result, many of us will spend more time in the virtual company of Mary, Rebecca and One Direction than we do with our real-life friends and family. In a modern world in which local communities have become increasingly fractured, where relatives live further apart from each other than ever before and where one in five of us will never speak to our neighbours, Cowell's creation seems to be filling the void.

And yet despite the fact that more of us seem to be tuning in than ever before, relatively little is known about who watches and why. All we know is that the X Factor – whether it signifies the reinvigoration of weekend family viewing or the disintegration of civilised society – is a reality-television phenomenon.

WHEN BIG BROTHER ended in August this year after 11 series, there were confident proclamations that this would mark the terminal decline of reality TV. But our enthusiasm for Simon Cowell's prime-time talent search shows no sign of abating. In fact, the audience has become bigger: the opening episode of this year's X Factor attracted a record 11.08 million viewers – an astonishing 48% of the total viewing audience – while the finale of last year's Britain's Got Talent reeled in more than 14 million. On the BBC, the latest series of The Apprentice and Strictly Come Dancing are routinely getting viewing figures of 8 million each. (Adding all these viewers together comes to 41.08 million, compared with the 29.6 million who voted in this year's general election.)

The audience has not only expanded in quantity but in social base, too. Whereas previously, it was always assumed that the X Factor, and shows like it, primarily appealed to teenage girls voting for a new celebrity heartthrob, a major new piece of research seen exclusively by the Observer shows that the programme is increasingly crossing social, class and gender divides. According to the survey of 3,514 people conducted by the research and strategy agency Brand Driver, it is actually male viewers who are more likely to vote – with 20% of men aged 18-34 voting multiple times for the same contestant.

This year almost everyone seems to be watching: from politicians (Michael Gove is said to be rooting for Matt Cardle; Ed Miliband for One Direction) to actors (Benedict Cumberbatch, the Sherlock Holmes actor, is a Cher Lloyd fan) to highbrow cultural commentators – a spoof YouTube video of Stephen Fry backing the bearded Brazilian Wagner has already attracted more than 500,000 hits.

Simon Cowell, the high priest of reality TV, seems to be manipulating the nation's psyche more successfully than ever before, despite the perennial scattering of media commentators who decry the genre as exploitative and socially destructive. So why are we so engrossed? After a decade of phone-in rows, vote-rigging accusations and celebrity-hungry wannabes with egos more bloated than their silicon implants, why does the British public remain so in love with reality television?

"It's always going to be popular," says Peter Bazalgette, the former creative director of production company Endemol and the man who brought Big Brother to UK screens. "The average show takes members of the public and sends them on a journey. We love to follow that because it's a cracking story which engages our emotion. It's not unlike a soap opera, except that these are real people and you get to vote them out one by one. That simple premise dominates everything from Britain's Got Talent to Big Brother and The Apprentice. What it creates is an extraordinarily powerful story arc where we get involved in the characters. That's why we watch it."

By now most of us know that the version of reality on offer is one shaped by a multimillion-pound business with slick production values, and yet we willingly suspend our disbelief week after week, month after month, in the name of entertainment. Is there something lacking in our daily lives that draws us so inexorably into Cowell's web?

Beverley Skeggs, a professor of sociology at Goldsmith's, University of London who has conducted studies into the representation of class and gender on reality television, believes it is, at root, a question of human connection. "I think the community feeling is part of the appeal of this kind of show," she says. "It's expressing a form of social value – people connect to other people who have the same values, who behave in the same way. We do get swept up in it, wanting to be behind somebody, wanting them to do well. That's why producers will milk the hard-luck story – those little snippets of someone working in Tesco – because all that intertextual stuff enables us to feel we have this sort of connection."

And perhaps, in a world increasingly dominated by Facebook and Twitter where friendships are made and broken at the click of the computer mouse, we feel more comfortable engaging with someone on the other side of the screen rather than chatting to them over the garden fence, as our grandparents might once have done. If we are already sharing the details of our private lives in Tweets and status updates, are we also becoming more accustomed to the notion of putting our intimate selves on display for the entertainment of others?

According to the Brand Driver research, which is one of the first substantial examinations into the allure of reality television, the key to the X Factor's appeal is precisely this ability to tap into the notion of personal relationships, into the idea that we want to form an empathetic bond with contestants and feel part of an extended social network. The survey found that almost a third of viewers stated that they watched the X Factor and felt "part of a community". One in 10 of those who had voted for a contestant claimed that they would miss a friend's wedding to watch the programme, and in many ways our connection with the X Factor appears to parallel the course of a romantic affair, with all the heightened emotion and irrational feeling that comes with it – 45% of viewers cry at contestants' stories, while 39% are left feeling that "anything is possible" after watching. When contestants are voted off unfairly, 73% of viewers get "annoyed", while 30 respondents actually claimed to be depressed when the show ended; almost half of viewers (49%) went on to have a rebound relationship – with Britain's Got Talent.

"The X Factor has a telling and unique ability to provoke extreme emotions in its viewers, from shouting at the judges to crying at the contestants' stories and journey," explains Tim Julian, the chief executive of Brand Driver. "This begs the question as to whether we are becoming a nation more able to relate to characters on the screen than in real life.

"I don't think it's any coincidence that our love affair with the X Factor is so potent right now, more than ever before, as Britain endures a period of relative austerity," Julian continues. "Although the X Factor is a thoroughly modern phenomenon, the show occupies the same social and emotional territory in consumers' lives as the silver screen did for cinemagoers during the depression of the 1920s."

And it could be that in a time of economic hardship, we are seeking out the simple and cheap– family entertainment that makes us feel part of something bigger. But the Australian academic Dr Bridget Griffen-Foley traces back the popularity of such shows even further – to the emergence of 19th-century periodicals which relied on reader contributions and "invited [them] to feel a sense of connection with the otherwise impersonal structure of the mass-market press".

The historian Dominic Sandbrook, author of State of Emergency: The Way We Were, Britain 1970-1974, sees reality television as a descendant of "1950s quiz shows and holiday-camp contests for things like Most Beautiful Baby. Almost the whole camp would turn out and lap it all up. Beyond that, you go back to the Victorian freak shows. I think reality TV is merely a manifestation of a very, very old craving that we have for imposing narratives [on events]. We love sentimental stories, such as Dickens and Little Nell; we love a tear jerker, and I don't think shows like the X Factor are any more crass or exploitative than those 19th-century penny dreadfuls."

Yet it seems that 21st-century viewers are looking for more than just simple entertainment. Part of the attraction is the sense of control the X Factor gives us: the sense that we can put right wider social wrongs by voting for our favourite contestants and that although our lives are being shaped by forces beyond our control – such as government cutbacks, widespread job losses or social deprivation – the ability to have a say in what happens to others in reality TV shows gives us back a much-needed sense of agency.

The most popular contestants almost always have a backstory of personal triumph over adversity which enables us to feel that we are helping them succeed, that we are giving them a break even if no one else will. "It's a fantasy of another life in a country where social mobility is nonexistent," says Professor Skeggs. "The idea that people like Susan Boyle can overcome hardship because we're voting for her makes it look like meritocracy is really possible."

According to Skeggs's research, the viewer reaction to someone such as Susan Boyle – whose note-perfect rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" on last year's Britain's Got Talent racked up 500m hits on YouTube and prompted Time magazine to name her the world's seventh most influential person – is markedly split between middle- and working-class viewers. "The middle-class viewers thought it was getting something for nothing," she explains. "They thought that hard work and discipline were connected with doing well in education and should be rewarded with traditional rewards, not reality-television success. The working-class viewers saw it as a structure of opportunity when all other opportunities have closed down. It's another way of making something of your life."

And perhaps this is why Boyle, who grew up in a council house and was bullied as a child for her learning difficulties, or Alexandra Burke who came from an impoverished background, have proved such enduring figures.

"We like the idea that we can help someone like that make something out of nothing," says Gladeana McMahon, a psychotherapist who co-wrote the UK's Ethical Guidelines for Reality Television. "It makes us feel: if they can do it, so can I. It's uplifting. Part of us wants them to be successful and is urging them on."

It certainly seems that we are just as motivated to vote for positive reasons as negative ones – the Brand Driver study found that, among lesbian, gay and bisexual viewers of the X Factor, nearly 80% think that the programme has helped people come out as homosexual and the same number believe it has promoted the tolerance and acceptance of gay people generally.

Of course there are less noble motivations for watching, too: for every Susan Boyle or Leona Lewis, there is a caterwauling teenager who cannot hold a tune and yet remains convinced they are destined for stardom. "A part of us just loves it when people are awful and embarrass themselves – but human nature is contradictory like that, and reality television allows us to have it both ways," says McMahon. "We love reality TV because it gives us power, and it's absolutely true that this kind of programme – where we are so involved in what happens – gives our lives a dramatic narrative they might otherwise lack."

It also allows us the chance to participate in human relationships, both in terms of a shared audience experience (half of viewers say they watch the X Factor as an opportunity to spend time together as a family) and because we can influence what happens to a particular contestant we like.

A 1999 academic study by the University of Oslo claimed that reality television arose out of "the powerful urge for a sense of contact with the real" in an age defined by the chimeric interactions of the internet. The irony, of course, is that reality television is in itself a construct: a facsimile of real life designed by television executives to ensure that viewers keep coming back for more.

THE IDEA THAT Simon Cowell and his ilk are manipulating an unwitting public in order to line their pockets has been grist to the mill of those who sniffily view reality television as the end of civilisation. The Radio 4 presenter John Humphrys has been one of the most vocal critics, condemning the genre's "coarsening effect" and "sheer vulgarity". In his 2004 MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Humphrys claimed that programmes such as Big Brother "turn human beings into freaks for us to gawp at. This is not just bad television in the sense that it's mediocre, pointless, puerile, even. It's bad because it's damaging."

But the underlying implication of Humphrys's diatribe – that the majority of the British public who enjoy watching such programmes simply cannot be expected to know any better – is comprehensively challenged by the recent research. The Brand Driver study found that a third of all X Factor viewers have a degree and a further 40% are postgraduates. The majority are affluent professionals – the household income of a regular viewer is around £3,000 a year more than a non-viewer, while 40% describe themselves as professionals or in management. And in what might come as a particular shock to Humphrys, a substantial proportion of X Factor watchers also regularly tune into Question Time (31%) and Newsnight (14%).

"All popular entertainment is dismissed by snobs," says Bazalgette. "It's the same attitude as they have towards food or sex – if you enjoy it, it must be bad for you. It's a kink in the Anglo-Saxon character, a Calvinist throwback."

In fact, most of us know we are being manipulated and that our emotional buttons are being shamelessly pressed every time there is a lingering close-up of a tear-stained contestant's face recounting the traumatic time their grandmother's budgerigar died. But because we have become so accustomed to such televisual shorthand, we are increasingly willing participants in the charade. We become, along with the contestants, part of the performance.

"There's an assumption among the middle classes that: 'I can see through this stuff be-cause I'm intelligent and educated, but the proles can't'," says Dominic Sandbrook. "It's incredibly patronising. A lot of people watch it slightly tongue-in-cheek. They can see the joins, but it doesn't matter."

Do we care that reality television is not actually real? Not according to Bazalgette: "That question misses the point. Reality television is a completely constructed premise. None of the people would be in it if we were just showing their normal lives. But what it does do is take human flesh and blood and challenges it in situations that bring out a person's true personality. So what flows from this constructed premise is extremely real. That's why shows work, because the public is after authenticity… They want to support people with talent and for them to win, but they punish pretension and two-facedness. On the whole, the public is positive, but they are judgemental."

It was TS Eliot who once said: "Humankind cannot bear very much reality." Perhaps this, in the end, is the key to Cowell's success: he acknowledges that we crave the appearance of reality, but that we also want the reassurance of a happy ending for those who deserve it and retribution for those who do not.

Either that or we just want to laugh at the man with the comb-over singing an out-of-tune Mariah Carey song.

Elizabeth Day's debut novel Scissors, Paper, Stone, is published by Bloomsbury in January

The California Dreams contest, sponsored by Silicon Valley's Institute For The Future, is challenging you to imagine the future.

What Is California's Future?

Through either growth, conservation, reinvention, or collapse, the Golden State's future is in your hands.  Your ideas are valuable.  What are they?

Here is an opportunity to put yourself in the future of one of these paths, and to show what a day in your life looks like and how you are living in this new world.

Why should we care?  Because California is in crisis, and because pioneers with brilliant ideas live here --- and that includes you!

Dreaming The Future Changes California's Future

You are invited to enter the California Dreams contest today:

1. Send the IFTF your vision by January 15, 2011. The earlier you enter, the more time you have to gather votes for your dream.
2.  Vote for your favorite dream.  Do you think it's more likely that games will take over education, fast food will be taxed, or police will be privatized?  Which dream do you like best?  Make your voice heard.  Cast your vote.
3.  The IFTF will help you build a better California.  Up to FIVE winners will be flown to the Institute For The Future in Palo Alto, California in March 2011 to present their dreams and connect to mentors and resources. One of these dreams will also win the $3,000 Roy Amara Prize for Participatory Foresight.

Good luck, and may those who dream most vibrantly win.  In the end, we all win if we plant a seed for the new California dream.

Different Future Paths for California

• Growth will be business-as-usual with more innovation. Imagine you live with lots of technology and automation that strains natural resources. What would your life be like with a widening rich-poor gap between leading researchers and people who can't afford college education?
• Constraint will abandon growth for growth's sake, use less natural resources, and focus on the state's well-being. Imagine you live with taxes as a new definition of freedom: taxes that ensure access to education, health, and public infrastructures. What would your life be like with more environmental regulations? 
• Transformation will reinvent the way institutions work. Imagine you live with new kinds of communities that reorganize the flow of money and resources in education, health, food production, and manufacturing. What would your life be like if games were used to solve the education crisis?
• Collapse will start with a natural disaster, like an earthquake or wildfire—or both. Imagine you with the high costs of recovery draining wealth from the public sector. What would your life be like if the private sector protected its own resources in wealthy, walled metropolitan areas, while everyone else lived in slum-like conditions?

The Institute For The Future (IFTF) is an independent nonprofit research group.  They work with various organizations to help them make better, more informed decisions about the future.  They provide the foresight to create insights that lead to action.

The IFTF brings tools, methodologies, and a deep understanding of emerging trends and discontinuities to important work with companies, foundations, and government agencies.  They take a global approach to strategic planning, linking macro trends to local issues in such areas as:

• Work and daily life
• Technology and society
• Health and health care
• Global business trends
• Changing consumer society

The IFTF is based in Northern California's Silicon Valley, in a community at the crossroads of technological innovation, social experimentation, and global interchange.

Founded in 1968 by a group of former RAND Corporation researchers with a grant from the Ford Foundation to take leading-edge research methodologies into the public and business sectors, the IFTF is committed to building the future by understanding it deeply.

The Roy Amara Prize for Participatory Foresight

The grand prize for the California Dreams competition is the $3,000 Roy Amara Prize for Participatory Foresight.

Dr. Roy Amara worked with the IFTF in the 1970s, and he was instrumental in bringing IFTF to California.  Dr. Amara's dedication to bringing 'futures thinking' to the Golden State has been a part of the IFTF mission ever since.

As a forecaster and former president, Roy Amara's professional roots were as a California public educator and his memory is honored with this participatory contest.

The California Dreams contest is a public call for ideas to imagine the future of California in the next 3-10 years.  Everyone gets to vote, and the final winners will be ones that vividly show a day in the life of a California that keeps growing, starts conserving, reinvents itself, or collapses.

The Institute For The Future is a 42-year-old nonprofit research organization that uses forecasting to help public, private, and nonprofit organizations address the most pressing issues of the times, including youth, seniors, energy policy, science, technology, education, health care, nutrition, and sustainability.

The goal of the Roy Amara Fund for Participatory Foresight is to translate foresight research into concrete actions that address future social challenges.

The Fund uses participatory tools, from workshops in local schools to online challenges like California Dreams and BodyShock, to achieve this goal.

Visit the official California Dreams website for much more information.



California Dreams Video 1 from IFTF on Vimeo.

"There's little obviously unusual about the drab Moscow suburb Arnold Schwarzenegger visited last month. That's because Skolkovo has only just been selected as the planned site for a new Russian Silicon Valley, the crown jewel of a vaunted project President Dmitry Medvedev promises will modernize his oil-dependent country. The California governor showed up with a small army of bigshots from Google, Microsoft, and other technology companies the Russians hope will provide the crucial technology they need to realize their ambitious plan...."

By Gregory Feifer There's little obviously unusual about the drab Moscow suburb Arnold Schwarzenegger visited last month. That's because Skolkovo has only...

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Russia's Silicon Valley Dreams May Threaten Cybersecurity RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty That's because Skolkovo has only just been selected as the planned site for a new Russian Silicon Valley, the crown jewel of a vaunted project President ... and more »

That's because Skolkovo has only just been selected as the planned site for a new Russian Silicon Valley, the crown jewel of a vaunted project President Dmitry Medvedev promises will modernize his oil-dependent country. ...

There's little obviously unusual about the drab Moscow suburb Arnold Schwarzenegger visited last month. That's because Skolkovo has only just been sele...

The Kremlin is seeking foreign investment and technology for its plan to create a new Russian Silicon Valley. But that's raising concern among those who believe Moscow was behind two recent cyberattacks against its former Soviet neighbors, and could use Western know-how to help wage cyberwar.

Eurasia Review publishes news and analysis, emphasis on security, business, terrorism and geopolitics.

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

Russia's Silicon Valley Dreams May Threaten Cybersecurity RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty That's because Skolkovo has only just been selected as the planned site for a new Russian Silicon Valley, the crown jewel of a vaunted project President ... and more »

A few weeks ago I saw this recruiting poster previewed on Twitter by @Shopify and it stuck with me. Kanata, for those not local to Ottawa, is Yet Another Beige Suburb™, a bedroom community about 20 minutes West of Ottawa. I should know: I lived there for almost five years. And then I escaped.

Kanata also serves as Ottawa’s vaunted Silicon Valley North, housing a large number of technology firms, both big and small. Most of these firms are situated in the doldrums of North Kanata, arrayed around March Road, somewhere adjacent to The Middle of Nowhere. It’s a terrible place to work unless commuting to lunch or chain pubs are your idea of a good time. I should know: I worked there. And then I escaped.

There are many reasons why people move their families and business to Kanata, but the primary one is that it’s cheap and there is lots of parking. As it should be: it’s relatively cost effective to level cornfields or raze forests for new construction than it is to redevelop urban space. And you can put in lots of roads, huge rivers of asphalt, which you need because you have to drive everywhere. However, cheaper is not always better.

Other than the obvious jab at the joylessness of working in an expanse of concrete boxes that all look the same, this poster told me that Shopify understands the people they are trying to recruit. Note that I say people and not employees. People have lives, dreams, like sunlight, drink coffee, eat Thai food on Wednesdays, and might bike to work; employees are crammed into cubicles under buzzing fluorescent tubes and wonder if it’s okay to do online banking while they eat their lunch at their desk.

So I took a look at the linked careers page and they list some interesting stuff above and beyond the standard HR rah-rah jargon. They make a huge amount of hay about the equipment you’ll be using (shiny Apple goodies), the office space (heritage post-and-beam construction), generous parental leave and childcare benefits (babies are expensive and inconvenient) and the location (in the restaurant/bar/coffeeshop/shopping district). I think it’s a compelling pitch because people actually care about such things: nobody dreams of working in a poorly ventilated 5×5 cubicle on a wheezing PC with a 17” CRT and driving 10 minutes to get lunch or coffee.

The term ‘Corporate Culture’ gets casually tossed around so much it has become almost meaningless. The reason: the people who use/abuse it the most are usually the very people who chart how many kilo-keystrokes are being extracted from the cubicle farms. They draft policy manuals full of “open door policies” and “work:life balance” without irony, failing to realize that corporate culture is not something companies do, it is something that companies are.

You can’t create a corporate culture, but give your people light, air, water, a few Mac Book Pros, and a place to grow and it will happen.

---

David Hicks (@affinityclick) lives and blogs in Ottawa where he is the Marketing & Social Media Manager for AffinityClick.

This week marks the third anniversary of ROS (Robot Operating System), an open-source software platform for the robotics industry developed by Stanford and Silicon Valley robotics research lab Willow Garage. In that short time, ROS has skyrocketed in popularity. Robot hardware manufacturers, commercial research labs, and software companies are all adopting the platform. And ROS is just getting started.

"We set out at the beginning with a commitment to open source," says Steve Cousens, President and CEO of Willow Garage. "In order to get an industry going in personal robotics, it's going to take the ability for a lot of people to experiment. An open platform makes it easy for people to tinker and innovate."

ROS has succeeded beyond Willow Garage's wildest dreams. There are more than 50 public ROS repositories featuring open-source libraries and tools, more than 1,600 software packages, and at least 50 robots around the world using the platform, including underwater vehicles, boats, space rovers, lawnmowers, helicopters, cars, indoor robots, outdoor robots, and more (the Anybots QB robot recently covered by Fast Company doesn't use ROS, however).

The platform probably won't stop growing anytime soon. "When you're growing exponentially, the future is really hard to predict. One of the really powerful things about open source is that by giving up control, you allow the community to do much more than you could possibly do yourself," says Ken Conley, a senior software engineer at Willow Garage.

Willow Garage does have one big hope for ROS: that it will take on a life of its own, outside of the nurturing Willow Garage environment. The company is in the beginning stages of developing an independent ROS Foundation inspired by the Mozilla Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, and the GNOME Foundation. "We're talking about this with a number of government agencies and robotics companies," Cousens says. "It will be an independent organization funded by the community, chartered with moving ROS forward."

Want to see ROS-powered robots in action? Check out the clip below.

[youtube 7cslPMzklVo]

East London's silicon dreams Financial Times Shoreditch may have some of the buzz of San Francisco in the 1990s, but is there a Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page or Sergey Brin there? ... and more »

Brian Groom on whether David Cameron's Silicon Valley plan for east London will generate private sector growth, reduce dependence on financial services and spread growth around the regions

Some said it would be slow, boring and expensive, but spending 15 days covering 6,511 miles on an epic Amtrak journey across America's heartland was "soul calming"

Slipping through rural Louisiana, with giant grain silos and water towers sliding silently past the window, my boyfriend and I were in the middle of a hand of cards. Then the whistle blew, the carriage jolted hard, and the massive silver train ground its brakes. As it squealed to a stop, the reason behind our sudden lurch came sliding into view on either side of the tracks. On one side sat the front of an articulated lorry, the bemused driver climbing out of his cab, cap in hand, scratching his head; on the other side of the train was the back half of the truck, grain spilling down the embankment. The lorry had been torn in two like a piece of tin foil. And people say that train travel in America is boring.

In fact, they tend to say a lot more than that. American friends we talked to before our epic rail trip around the west had generally one reaction — that we were certifiably insane. Rail transport, they told us, was prohibitively expensive and painfully slow. If we wanted to get somewhere, people said, domestic airlines were a cheaper and safer bet.

But we didn't listen. As travellers who wanted a journey more than a destination – and craved the room to work, read and relax on the way – the train seemed an obvious solution.

And it was surprisingly affordable: $389 covers you for two weeks of train riding. Or, more specifically, it covers you for eight separate segments of travel within 15 days.

Careful planning meant we could make a loop that would take in 17 states, with stops along the way in cities as far flung as Seattle, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Chicago. It was a journey of 6,511 miles by rail, using four major lines; there would be six nights spent sleeping on trains, and 147 hours in all would be spent on the rails if everything went to plan (and everyone we spoke to about the trip assured us it wouldn't).

Many Americans suggest that the best way to see the heartland – a blank space between major cities – is through the bottom of a cocktail glass from 30,000 feet, as if we were all George Clooney in Up in the Air. These are dismissively referred to as the "flyover states" that out-of-towners would only visit under duress or if you paid them enough.

And there's certainly some truth in that: there were times on the longer legs of the journey when I wanted to take a prairie, snap it into quarters and make it magically four times shorter and four times prettier. The one thing you couldn't do is make it four times flatter, but this is what you get for skirting the borders of the west.

The first leg had brought us from San Francisco down to Los Angeles – from the low suburbia and cities of industrial estates that lined the track as we skirted Silicon Valley through hundreds of miles of fields, where temporary workers under canopies picked fruits and nuts in the midday sun, and then out to the Pacific coast, alongside the beaches, dolphins and whales dancing in the ocean beside us.

After the jumbled chaos of Los Angeles, the chance to strike out across great desolate plains and untouched prairies was soul calming. Skimming the southern border of the US, we spent one whole day looking at Mexico some hundred yards away on the other side of the window. Once we cut through the swampy, sticky bayous of Louisiana's Gulf Shore – with a short delay to cope with our brief train crash, though thankfully nobody was hurt – we turned a corner at New Orleans and cut up to the rail hub of Chicago. Here the flatness remained, but the aspect changed. One day we were in 35C and 80% humidity, lying on the floor in our underwear in front of the air conditioning; a few days later we were trudging through the snow in Montana, watching hotels making preparations for the winter, shutters down and the fluorescent "Rooms" signs switched off for the season.

Riding a train through the west provides a feeling that the other more perfunctory routes in the east do not offer. You get a sense that you're cutting through a slice of American history. The idea of a transcontinental railroad was an engineering dream of early America – and in 1869, after a lot of politicking, land-finagling and hard business nous, the first route opened from New York to California.

Though we did not take the route that skims the original transcontinental railroad, it's hard not to feel like a pioneer sitting on board trains with wildly romantic names – the Empire Builder, the California Zephyr, the Sunset Limited – and striking out across land that looks untouched, even though you know how tightly guarded it all is now.

American criticisms of the service are, to some extent, well-founded. While America owes a huge historical debt to the train (the country's dramatic growth in the late 1800s was largely built on the back of rail expansion), the modern inheritor of US railroads, Amtrak, has long been pilloried. Set up in 1971, the service was intended to protect passenger rail from a collapse caused by the primacy of the car. Today, despite heavy subsidies, it's one of the least-used rail systems in the developed world and the network – around half the size it was at its peak – is used primarily for freight. Though there is a slight renaissance (Amtrak has posted record passenger numbers over the past few years), the vast majority of Americans consider train travel only for the aerophobic or the retired.

Riding in these great silver beasts, though, passing slowly across hotly contested lands and wildest wests, you gaze across the prairies and start to imagine the possibilities they hold and realise the drive of those pioneers.

Each of these expansive, sky-filled stretches was punctuated with the great palaces that are America's grand rail stations, empty these days but still impressive. Among the grandest was Chicago's Union Station, a huge vault filled with gilt lampposts and flags large enough to drape the coffin of a patriotic diplodocus. While not all America's stations retain their sense of history, the best are outstanding: elegant, classical halls with marble floors and hardwood, high-backed benches that smack of grand dreams and high drama. You can't escape the feeling that you're inside some classic film noir or a Raymond Chandler novel. Simply walking around makes you want to run across the floor (tears streaming, heels clacking, fur stole dragging) straight into the arms of your long-lost lover (who would, of course, be Don Draper from Mad Men).

Once you're on the silver trains, the sensation of passing through the pages of a novel is amplified by Amtrak's arcane eating arrangements. On one, passengers are instructed to make a timed reservation with the dining car steward and wait for their name to be called – generally either mispronounced or in a pitying tone of voice. Or, if you're lucky, both. "Pickuuuuurd! Pardy-of-one!" they shouted, just to ensure that everyone realised I was eating alone that particular evening. Except you never are: guests are expected to dine with strangers. If this was the UK, I would expect to be ushered to a table (probably grumbling inwardly about the empty tables I passed on the way), then, once seated, make a curt nod and "hullo" to my table mates before either engaging in quiet conversation with my companion or looking pensively out of the window, trying hard to look like I'm thinking of Very Important Things.

But not in America, where friendliness is a prized stereotype. We met a couple travelling from the 100th birthday party of a parent, a woman whose boyfriend makes telescopes for national parks as a hobby, and a man who teaches a poker masterclass.

At night the sleepers go back to their dormer carriages – if they've paid the sometimes extortionate price to upgrade. Everyone else, meanwhile, goes back to their seats which, since they are wide and deeply reclining, feel more first class than economy. Sleeping in a room might afford a sliver of privacy, but the sight of stars hanging in a perfectly clear sky above a prairie with no light pollution for 100 miles in any direction, or being woken up by the sunrise over new mountains, makes it all worth it.

An Amtrak Rail Pass is available for 15, 30 or 45 days. A 15-day pass that covers eight segments (ie eight single journeys) costs $389 (£260). Visit amtrak.com or sites such as internationalrail.com

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Stuttgart, Germany, Oct 28, 2010

With more than 80,000 patent applications in the space of around 125 years, Mercedes-Benz has defined automotive progress more broadly and sustainably than any other vehicle maker. Dedicated processes ensure that many of these ideas are turned into reality at Daimler and Mercedes-Benz. In 2009, too, the company made more initial patent submissions than any other premium manufacturer. More than half of them fall under the heading of “green” technologies, primarily related to driveline. In terms of safety, Mercedes-Benz plans to introduce its radar-controlled Brake Assist BAS in the new B-Class – one example of our consistent cascading of high-tech.


“The passion for inventing never ends,” was the guiding principle of Carl Benz. His conviction that it is always possible to make something good even better is fundamental to the work carried out by Mercedes-Benz to this day. The power of innovation was and is one of the most important elements driving the company, which has managed to submit more than 80,000 patent applications over the course of almost 125 years. Among those are many that have been decisive in the ongoing development of the automobile.

“New ideas are the product of the human mind. And Mercedes-Benz has always been home to highly creative and motivated people,” notes Dr. Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG responsible for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development. “As a company, we encourage them by giving them room for free and creative thinking and working. And, where expedient, we support them with the necessary systems and processes. In so doing, we ensure that the source of our innovative power never diminishes.”

In order to protect its assertion of innovative leadership, the company has established a global knowledge network, which sees around 19,000 individuals from the Research and Development function contribute their knowledge and expertise from a wide range of disciplines. The company is represented around the world where there are centers of competence in relevant fields of expertise – with highly qualified researchers and the associated scientific community. In 1995, for instance, Mercedes-Benz was the first vehicle manufacturer to open an office in Silicon Valley.

Further local development centers are located close to key production facilities, such as those in Germany and the USA. There are also research offices like those in Ulm, Berlin, Palo Alto (California), Bangalore (India) and Beijing (China). Alongside the “classic” automotive professions like engineer or designer, this network also includes physicists and other scientists, as well as psychologists and sociologists. All these technicians, analysts, researchers and lateral thinkers work hand-in-hand in this interdisciplinary think tank.

More than 2,000 new patent applications in 2009 alone

Last year, the company was once again the premium manufacturer with the most patent applications. More than half of the overall total of 2,070 new developments submitted are related to “green” technologies, with 720 of them apportioned to driveline alone (35 percent). Significant progress was made particularly in the fields of energy efficiency, exhaust gas after-treatment, fuel cell and battery technology. The equally high number of initial patent submissions made in the area of production technology and new materials underscores the leading position held by Mercedes-Benz in “green” technologies. 14 percent of all new developments are attributable to lightweight materials and production processes, e.g. CFC, and to environmentally friendly manufacturing processes.

With extensive investments ongoing in Research and Development, the company is laying the groundwork to ensure that the already high level of innovation is not only maintained over the long term, but expanded.

Mercedes-Benz continues to demonstrate its traditionally outstanding expertise in the fields of safety and comfort with a host of innovations, including pedestrian protection and PRE-SAFE® systems, with Mercedes-Benz vehicles in all market segments benefiting from these developments. The planned introduction of the radar-controlled Brake Assist BAS in the new B-Class is just one example of our consistent cascade approach to high-tech. For models in the luxury-class segments, the camera-based MAGIC BODY CONTROL system is a further innovation in the field of chassis technology that will soon be ready for series production and will celebrate its premiere in the next S-Class.

Intelligent innovation management ensures maximum customer benefit

In order that as many ideas as possible are actually implemented as quickly as possible to the benefit of the customer, Mercedes-Benz has established a process of innovation management which combines creativity and customer benefit. Future research and technology monitoring ensure that new solutions anticipate changing conditions and future customer desires. Customer research such as monitoring product acceptance at the Customer Research Center (CRC) guarantee that customer feedback and innovative ideas are fed into the development of new Mercedes-Benz automobiles from the very beginning.

Driving simulators – the perfect complement to real-life testing

The next phase in the development and testing of vehicles will see the application of a wide range of simulators. With the assistance of “digital prototypes” of a vehicle created by very powerful computers it is now possible, for example, to conduct fully integrated testing of a new model in a wide range of driving situations before an actual vehicle has been built.
Just a few weeks ago, Mercedes-Benz opened the world’s most advanced driving simulator in Sindelfingen. With its 360° screen, high-speed electric operation and twelve-meter rails for longitudinal and lateral movement, it is the most powerful moving simulator in the automotive industry. This is in addition to the intensive practical testing conducted over many millions of kilometers that will remain an indispensible element of the development process.

“The best or nothing” is always the objective at Mercedes-Benz – and, when it comes to innovation, rapid implementation stands shoulder-to-shoulder with high quality and real customer benefits.

Dr. Thomas Weber: “The aim of our work is more rapid technology transfer into series production. To this end, we conduct results-oriented, not knowledge-driven, research. The priority is concrete benefits for the customer, not quantity. Focusing at an early stage on significant innovations facilitates acceleration of the innovation process. The real challenge in this is to bring the right innovations to market at the right time. You see, today more than ever, innovation is the key to success.”

The Mercedes-Benz development strategy

Innovation: The Key to Success

Innovation has always been the key to success for automakers, and it will be even more important in the future. Without the courage to launch new ideas there would not be any automobiles, and without a capacity for innovation there would be no progress. Mercedes-Benz is the inventor of the automobile, and it continues to be the driving force behind its development. The company confirms its claim for technological leadership again and again by registering more than 80,000 patents since Carl Benz presented the “Patent Motor Car” in 1886 and Gottlieb Daimler presented the “motorized carriage” in the same year. The focus of the company´s holistic commitment is the technological refinement of the automobile, and here Mercedes-Benz is setting the standards in all the relevant areas, from design and comfort to safety and drive systems. The pioneering developments from Mercedes, which in many cases benefit not only our customers but also those of other brands — ABS and the Electronic Stability Program ESP® are examples — are the result of a consistent innovation strategy that our highly motivated employees put into practice every day and implement with the help of state-of-the-art development methods.

Smart solutions for new mobility requirements

The world is changing at a rapid pace — and so are the overall requirements for automobiles. Among the most important influencing factors are the new mobility requirements people have in times of ongoing urbanization. In order to offer the right answers to challenges such as the current and future mobility needs in megacities and conurbations, the company is also forging ahead with the development of smart mobility concepts for metropolitan regions. Exemplary for that are the successful car-sharing concept “car2go” as well as an especially customer-friendly web-based ride-sharing service called “car2gether.” Both of these initiatives aim to make individual mobility in metropolitan areas flexible, environmentally compatible, and affordable, and thus to safeguard it over the long term.

“The best or nothing” — in the past, present, and future

Carl Benz once said, “The passion for invention never ends.” And Gottlieb Daimler phrased the famous maxim “The best or nothing.” Mercedes-Benz has been pursuing these objectives for almost 125 years. The spirit of innovation is one of the most important driving forces, and it is firmly embedded in our corporate culture — always with the objective of safeguarding individual mobility in the long term and offering every customer the vehicle that optimally fulfills his or her personal requirements. The foundation of this capacity for innovation is the systematic research work done at Mercedes-Benz, which resulted in the official establishment of an own research unit in the early 1970s. Today Mercedes-Benz can rely on a global knowledge network consisting of approximately 19,000 researchers and developers all over the world. It is an interdisciplinary think tank full of pioneering spirit, expertise, and the ambition to continue in the future to build the best automobiles in the world.

From the vehicle to the mobility concept

Stocking Up on Ideas: New Ideas for the Mobility of Today and Tomorrow

What will the cars of tomorrow look like? And how will people’s mobility requirements develop in the future? The development experts at Daimler and Mercedes-Benz find answers to basic questions like these with the help of such activities as market research and customer feedback, technology monitoring, and futurology research. The company can look back on a long tradition of such activities. For over 30 years, interdisciplinary and international research teams have been working to anticipate long-term trends and social developments and to apply their conclusions to the area of mobility. This future-oriented way of working — which involves stocking up on ideas — generates new solutions that anticipate changing conditions and new customer requirements rather than merely reacting to them.

One of these innovations is the NAFA two-seater concept car (“NAFA” is the German acronym for “short-distance vehicle”), which Mercedes-Benz developed in the 1980s. Even then, the company was taking into account the trend of urbanization, which is proceeding at an ever faster pace today all over the world. The concept behind the NAFA was the starting point of a parallel development that resulted in two successful series-produced models in the 1990s: the Mercedes-Benz A-Class, as the founder of the segment of compact premium vehicles, and the smart, the pioneer of intelligent urban mobility. Both cars — as well as the Mercedes-Benz B-Class — were designed for alternative drive systems from the very start, and today they are pioneers of electric mobility with zero local emissions: as smart fortwo electric drive and Mercedes-Benz A-Class E-CELL with battery electric drive and as Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL with electric drive using fuel cell technology. These vehicles are being used for purposes including “e-mobility” projects, for instance in Berlin and Italy (the smart fortwo electric drive and the A-Class E-CELL), and are thus helping to pave the way toward mobility with zero local emissions.

Customer Research Center with Innovation Workshop

An Idea Factory for the Cars of Tomorrow

The Customer Research Center (CRC) provides the foundation that enables Mercedes-Benz to turn automotive dreams into reality. The three focal points of the work done at the CRC are (1) systematic customer research designed to determine customer requirements, (2) the generation of ideas in the Innovation Workshop, and (3) the monitoring of product acceptance. This approach makes it possible to ensure that the wishes of the customer and innovative ideas are included in the development of new Mercedes-Benz automobiles in a targeted manner — right from the start.
Basically, it is all about asking the right questions and discussing possible answers with the customers in as detailed a manner as possible. Combined with market research findings and studies of trends and the overall environment, this results in a set of coordinates for interesting market segments. After that, the CRC experts generate and test the appropriate possibilities for products and solutions.

The Mercedes-Benz Customer Research Center is unique in the global automo-tive industry because it conducts psychology-focused customer research in a seamless manner and with a holistic approach. Mercedes-Benz thus has at its disposal a one-of-a-kind interconnected laboratory landscape, one that incorpo-rates all the aspects that people perceive and can form an opinion about. This laboratory network includes everything from a tactile lab to laboratories for acoustics, light, and long-distance driving trials. Given its complexity, this topic is viewed both holistically and from an intercultural perspective.

The intercultural approach ensures that regional customer requirements, which in some cases are very different, are taken into account. In the past, the focus was primarily on countries like Germany and the U.S. — our traditional core markets — as well as Russia and the UK. In the future, we will be looking just as closely at growth markets such as China, India, Brazil, and the Middle East.

In line with vehicle development cycles, the CRC employees look at customer requirements far in advance, taking into account the aspects that will be important in five, seven, or ten years. This process combines qualitative methods such as discussions and interviews with quantitative techniques that include in-depth real-life analysis. For these long-term tests, customers are given a vehicle to drive for up to one week. They can contact us at any time via a call center in order to report their real-life experiences with the car.

The Innovation Workshop is an “idea generator”

The Innovation Workshop is a separate unit within the CRC that is responsible for generating new ideas. Between 60 and 80 workshops attended by about 1,500 participants take place here every year, with the goal of finding new initial ideas and working on new products. The most important factor for assessing an idea is customer acceptance, which is therefore examined in great detail.
To this end, the unit has developed a four-stage model that simulates the process by which acceptance gradually begins to grow. Starting with the first stage of acceptance, which is based on hearsay, this process chain then extends to (2) “look-listen-and-feel” — in the showroom, for example. It then moves on to (3) “drive-and-feel” during a test drive and culminates in the most important stage — (4) acceptance over a long period of actual use. This process should end with the customers concluding that they have made the right decision and would make it again the next time around. This stage of acceptance is typical of Mercedes-Benz customers — and that can be empirically proved.

Driving Simulation Center

Digital Prototypes on Digital Roads

The new Mercedes-Benz Driving Simulation Center brings together the world’s most advanced facilities of their kind. Over a period of five years, Mercedes-Benz is investing €160 million in the infrastructure, the driving simulator, and the climate and wind tunnels. This will result in direct benefits for the customers of the brand.

Using digital prototypes created with powerful computers, a new model can be thoroughly tested in many driving situations at a very early stage of development. These digital representations of the vehicle in question can be taken for virtual drives at an early stage of series development and thus comprehensively evaluated before the vehicle is actually produced. This process enables real-life prototypes to reach technological maturity more quickly so that they can undergo even more in-depth testing. The best development results are therefore achieved by intelligently linking state-of-the-art simulation methods with extensive real-life testing over millions of kilometers, which will remain an indispensable part of the development process. So simulation and simulators are not considered substitutes for real tests; instead, they are regarded as the best possible supplement to actual testing.

Another key advantage of the Driving Simulation Center is that all the simulators are under one roof there. This allows to use them for their specific purposes with high efficiency in terms of time and costs. Also unique in the automotive world is the fact that the Driving Simulation Center is located so close to the other research and development areas in Sindelfingen, including design. The intensive interdisciplinary sharing of knowledge contributes a lot to our ability to shorten development times while significantly boosting the maturity of our products. In the end, that means greater efficiency and even higher quality in every respect — and that is how the Driving Simulation Center makes a vital contribution to the future competitiveness of Mercedes-Benz.

Design

Design Idiom Developing through the Interplay between Tradition and a Future-oriented Approach

At Mercedes-Benz, design develops as a result of the interplay between the brand’s consciousness of tradition and its orientation toward the future. The star brand is therefore pursuing a long-term design strategy which ensures that a Mercedes is always recognizable as a Mercedes. In the process, the designers use a distinctive design idiom in order to give each vehicle an individual sensual tone that meets the highest aesthetic standards. In all of the model series, the vehicle design reflects the brand’s basic attributes of safety, quality, performance, dynamism, and innovative strength.

The continuous development of the Mercedes design idiom is a shared mission performed by more than 450 employees in Sindelfingen and four studios in Italy, Japan, China, and the U.S. They refine the stylistic attributes and come up with new ideas to build “design bridges” into the future. As a consequence, the Mercedes-Benz design idiom remains alive in every detail — always modern, but never faddish.

Reinterpretation of the typical Mercedes-Benz brand design idiom

A glimpse of the future design idiom of Mercedes-Benz is provided by the F 800 Style research vehicle, which is both a technology platform and a design statement. The F 800 Style was created through close cooperation between the technical research and advance engineering departments and the advanced design studios in Sindelfingen and Como, Italy. Its exterior appearance is marked by a long wheelbase, short body overhangs, and a sensually flowing roof line. The exciting coupe-like roof line, and in general the vehicle’s balanced proportions, lend it a stylish sporty look that reinterprets the Mercedes-Benz design idiom.

Operating comfort

Intelligent Systems and Solutions Improve Drivers’ Physiological Well-being

At Mercedes-Benz, maximum comfort means much more than pleasant driving and high-quality features. All of our comfort solutions are intended to improve the driver´s condition and to consistently relieve driving strain by means of many individual measures that are painstakingly coordinated with one another. Operating comfort, ergonomics, air conditioning, low noise levels, handling properties, and many other factors affect a driver’s condition behind the wheel, and thus also his or her ability to keep an overview of the traffic situation. After all, only a relaxed driver is also a safe driver. Mercedes-Benz researchers have been investigating this complex topic, called “physiological well-being,” for many years, and Mercedes-Benz has consistently applied their findings to improve its series-production vehicles. As a result, it has been proven that Mercedes drivers stay for a longer time fit and concentrated.

Prime examples of the progress achieved in this field are the carefully designed, intuitive control and display concepts and the intelligent Driving Assistance systems, which turn the automobile into a partner that thinks along with the person behind the wheel.

DISTRONIC — looking ahead and setting the pace

One example is the DISTRONIC PLUS Traffic Jam Vehicle Follow Assist introduced in the latest Mercedes-Benz research vehicle, the F 800 Style. The success story of this system began in 1962, when Mercedes-Benz became the first European automaker to offer a mechanical speed control system. This comfort feature was subsequently enhanced so that the cruise control system could keep the vehicle at a constant speed even after the gears were shifted.

In 1998 Mercedes-Benz launched the world’s first “electronic copilot” — the DISTRONIC proximity control — on the market. A radar sensor in the radiator grille enables the system to monitor the traffic situation up to 150 meters in front of the vehicle. If the gap between the car and the vehicle up ahead decreases, the DISTRONIC proximity control automatically decelerates or operates the brakes if necessary.

Mercedes-Benz consistently enhanced this high-performance assistance system and introduced the improved version as the DISTRONIC PLUS proximity control in 2005. By combining the previous DISTRONIC radar (77 GHz) with the newly developed short-range radar (24 GHz), Mercedes was able to further extend the working range of the proximity control system and increase the speed control range from 30-180 km/h to 0-200 km/h. This has the advantage that when the traffic tails back, DISTRONIC PLUS automatically brakes the vehicle to a standstill and then accelerates the car back to the set speed as soon as the traffic situation allows.

In combination with the PRE-SAFE® brake introduced in 2006 and Brake Assist PLUS, DISTRONIC PLUS effectively helps to prevent accidents. For example, DISTRONIC PLUS automatically reduces the car’s speed when the driver approaches the rear of a traffic jam. If the driver fails to respond or reacts too slowly, the smart braking systems can prevent a rear-end collision or at least reduce the severity of the accident.

The world’s first system that allows a car to automatically follow the vehicle ahead of it even when driving along curves — the DISTRONIC PLUS Traffic Jam Vehicle Follow Assist — made its debut in the F 800 Style research vehicle in spring 2010.

This system takes over both the distance control and the steering effort at speeds up to approximately 40 km/h. Drivers can, of course, override the system at any time by turning the steering wheel. When the 40 km/h mark is exceeded, the steering torque that keeps the vehicle in its lane is gradually reduced to a point at which the system smoothly disengages.

Chassis technology

Using Electronics and Cameras to Achieve the Ideal Level of Driving Comfort

Driving comfort is a classic Mercedes area of expertise. One of the most important innovations of recent times was the world’s first actively controlled suspension system, Active Body Control ABC, which was introduced by Mercedes-Benz in the CL coupe in 1999. The system reduces body vibrations caused by bouncing and rolling movements when cornering or pitching movements when braking. The ADVANCED AGILITY package made its debut in 2007, when it appeared first in the new C-Class. The package offers two shifting modes: Sport and Comfort. As part of these shifting programs, each wheel has its own shock absorber with an infinitely variable electronic control.
In 2007 Mercedes-Benz also unveiled the revolutionary PRE-SCAN chassis, which it presented in the F 700 research vehicle. The system can register road conditions in advance, react very sensitively to bumps and potholes, and compensate for them more effectively than other chassis. The PRE-SCAN chassis uses two laser sensors in the headlights as “eyes.”

The MAGIC BODY CONTROL chassis that Mercedes-Benz presented in fall 2010 is an advanced system that literally looks ahead — a highly sensitive stereo camera mounted on the windshield, above the rearview mirror, “observes” the road in front of the vehicle from two different perspectives, enabling the system to recognize uneven road surfaces in even greater detail. Fast onboard computers process all of the data in real time and control the active ABC chassis, which can adjust the forces at each wheel separately. This allows the vehicle body’s movements to be largely compensated for, compared to those of today’s standard chassis.

Safety

On the Road to Accident-free Driving

For decades, Mercedes-Benz has been setting the standards for the development of new technologies for boosting active and passive safety in automobiles. All of these systems have demonstrably contributed to making road traffic safer and to considerably reducing the numbers of road users injured or killed in accidents. Mercedes-Benz defines the benchmarks in active safety technology with intelligent assistance systems that turn the vehicle into the driver’s “thinking partner.” These systems, available since 2009 in the CL-, E- and S-Class and starting this year in the new CLS-Class as well, go into operation specifically in the situations that are responsible for the most common types of accident, such as those due to lane changing, overtiredness, or restricted visibility at night.

ESF 2009: The future of automotive safety

The focus during the development of the numerous safety innovations in the Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESF) 2009 was on the critical phase immediately preceding an accident. The systems presented in the ESF 2009 improve the safety potential within the extremely short period of 600 milliseconds between the recognition of an unavoidable accident and the accident itself. In this way, accidents can either be prevented or their consequences can be significantly reduced.

Selected milestones in Mercedes-Benz safety development

1939 – Start of safety development for passenger cars
1959 – Safety body
1969 – Establishment of Mercedes-Benz accident research
1978 – ABS Anti-Lock Brake System
1980 – Airbag, seat belt tensioner
1989 – Automatic rollbar
1995 – Electronic Stability Program (ESP®)
1996 – Brake Assist (BAS)
1998 – DISTRONIC
1999 – Active Body Control (ABC), tire pressure monitoring system
2002 – PRE-SAFE®
2003 – Active light function
2005 – DISTRONIC PLUS, Brake Assist PLUS, Night View Assist
2006 – PRE-SAFE® Brake, Intelligent Light System
2009 – Speed Limit Assist, ATTENTION ASSIST,
Lane Keeping Assist, Blind Spot Assist
2010 – LED high-performance headlight, Active Lane Keeping Assist, Active Blind Spot Assist

Increased efficiency

On the Road to Zero-Emission Mobility

Today’s automobiles are caught in a situation marked by ever-increasing, more and more varied, and in some cases conflicting requirements. Customers want safe, comfortable, and powerful vehicles that are also extremely efficient and environmentally friendly. The central challenge is to make motor vehicles even more efficient and cleaner without compromising safety or comfort. In order to make possible sustainable mobility with great variety at a high level, Mercedes-Benz is consciously taking a multilane route to ever more environmentally friendly and eventually zero-emission vehicles:
– Lane one involves optimized vehicles equipped with high-tech internal combustion engines – Lane two features hybrid drives in various output ratings – Lane three comprises electric vehicles with batteries or fuel cells

Mercedes-Benz has taken the entire spectrum of innovative technologies and vehicles that enable especially clean and efficient mobility and brought them together under the name BlueEFFICIENCY. At the same time, BlueEFFICIENCY also designates an intelligent package of measures, custom-designed for each vehicle type, that exploit all of the possibilities in and on the vehicle.
These possibilities include lightweight construction and aerodynamic optimization as well as the central key to more efficiency and environmental compatibility — the electrification of the vehicle and its drive, from ancillary components to the ECO start/stop function. Mercedes-Benz is consistently rolling out BlueEFFICIENCY in all model series — from the A-Class to the S-Class — and it will be available in 85 models by the end of 2010. The new CLS is a good example; here, the combination of innovative direct injection gasoline engines (BlueDIRECT) with the standard ECO start/stop function and other BlueEFFICIENCY measures ensures that fuel consumption is up to 25 percent lower than for previous models.

Powerful lithium-ion batteries

Daimler is working with its partners on the development of state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries. This work forms the basis of made-to-measure solutions for Daimler’s unique product portfolio, which covers all mobility requirements. Daimler benefits here from the expertise it has accumulated through many years of research work. Indeed, the company has filed more than 600 patents to date for battery-powered vehicles — and more than 230 of these involve lithium-ion technology. Targeted cooperation with capable partners ensures that the battery systems optimally meet all vehicle and application-specific requirements. Daimler now has its own battery manufacturing capacity for state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries at Deutsche Accumotive. These batteries can be produced to conform to any type of hybrid or electric drive system, whether for passenger cars or commercial vehicles.

Lightweight construction

From Aluminum to Carbon Fiber-reinforced Plastics

The targeted use of lightweight engineering can help to considerably reduce the fuel consumption of automobiles. Here too, Mercedes engineers are taking a holistic approach and using all available means to make Mercedes-Benz vehicles lighter, and thus even more economical and efficient. The brand is using every opportunity to reduce the weight of all components — from engines and transmissions to the vehicle interiors and electrical systems.

Special attention is given to the automobile body, which accounts for most of a vehicle’s weight. Most body shells in the past were made of steel. However, as early as the 1970s Mercedes-Benz became one of the first automakers to use aluminum in a production vehicle — in this case the SL series. The new SLS AMG is equipped with a fully aluminum body, and thus points the way forward for future model series. Today, however, extensive use of lightweight engineering is not limited to Mercedes sports cars; it is also found in the brand’s sedans. In fact, Mercedes-Benz is now one of the biggest users of aluminum among automakers. At the same time, though, the brand intentionally avoids focusing on one specific material. Instead, it relies on a mixture of high-strength steels, light metals, and plastics.

The doors, hood, trunk lid, and fenders of the new CLS are all made of aluminum. This has led to a weight reduction of 24 kilograms just for the doors, which are also frameless. The front end of the CLS consists of an aluminum-plastic material mix.

Furthermore, Mercedes engineers are increasingly working with so-called composites — carbon fiber-reinforced plastics, known as FRP for short. Mercedes-Benz demonstrated its expertise in this field ten years ago in the form of a complete vehicle — the SLR. The carbon fiber-reinforced plastics, or CFRPs, used in this model are the premier fiber materials in the industry. With approximately 2,000 SLRs produced, Mercedes-Benz has put more vehicles with these materials on the road than any other automaker. This also shows that carbon fiber-reinforced plastics are well able to meet the stringent safety requirements for automobile bodies. The carbon fiber-reinforced plastic technology is today being used in series production throughout the Group. Carbon fiber-reinforced plastics are used in many different products, including buses, Unimogs, and AMG vehicles.

Mercedes-Benz is also working intensively on the advanced development of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic technologies, primarily with the objective of reducing its still-high costs so as to enable a broad-scale rollout of the technology. Here the company is also making use of the experience gained in the aerospace sector and successfully adapting it to its vehicles.

Daimler has established a development partnership for improving the technology with the world’s leading supplier of carbon fiber, the TORAY company of Japan. This is the right basis for beginning a new chapter in body development. Mercedes-Benz plans to begin using further CFRP components in series-production applications in 2012.

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I'm a fan of Max Levchin and his fellow Paypal alumni because this group has spent the past five years creating many of the more interesting Silicon Valley startups.Mr Levchin recently sold Slide to Google and he is an investor in Yelp and several other startups. And he is still young and has a lot more to add to his wikipedia page before he is done.Mr Levchin writes on his blog, but only very occasionally. One such occasion was fairly recently, his first since mid-2008, a critique of Silicon Valley's angel community. Angels have done very well for themselves over the past few years and this includes many of his former Paypal colleagues.In his latest post: On ambition « You've gotta be kidding me he writes that the Angel method of investing in startups is considered a better method, "an antidote" to traditional VC investing.Silicon Valley Angels have done well by choosing companies that can exit (sell themselves) fairly quickly, at fairly low values, $10 million to $20 million. While this approach makes money for the angels and their investments, it tends to discourage building breakthrough companies.Angels advise startups to take smaller and earlier exits, which minimizes Angel risk but does little to develop startups with big dreams. It's an astute observation and it is something that I've been thinking about over the past couple of years. I meet with a lot of startups and I remember meeting with Mr Levchin when I was at the Financial Times, and he was at Paypal; and hearing about Paypal's ambitions. Similarly with the founders of Yahoo, Salesforce, Google, Facebook and other groundbreaking companies.Today, it is rare to find startups that think beyond being lucky to survive two years and be sold. Yet even a few years ago we did have startups with grand designs. For example, I was an early admirer of Ribbit, a plucky startup that had the potential to disrupt the Telco industry. Yet in mid-2008 it agreed to be bought by BT, the British Telecom giant. I was very disappointed: Are we seeing a disturbing trend in "blackmail" innovation...? | ZDNetSince that acquisition Ribbit has launched a cool iPhone app but not much else. It has been dead quiet under the ownership of BT -- yet at one time this was an ambitious team taking on the world. Mr Levchin sees the rise of the Angel and "Super Angel" investors as the key factor in the lack of "significant innovation" today.At the moment, what amounts to lack of visible significant innovation seems to correlate with abundance of angel-funded startups shooting to get picked up for a fistful of dollars.We should aim higher.I agree. It's easy to understand why Mr Levchin takes this position. He and his team built Paypal into a formidable company that eBay was happy to acquire for $1.5 billion. That's a hundred times more money than the $10 million to $20 million exit rounds of Angel investors.Because Angel investors are investing smaller sums of money there is little incentive for them to take larger risks. However, traditional VC firms will invest at higher valuations and therefore will be less willing to sell for a "fistful of dollars." The VC firms require a larger exit, and that's why they set a greater goal for their startups: to own markets of $1 billion and more -- this creates startups with far higher expectations. And that's what Silicon Valley needs if it is to produce the next Paypal, Google, Salesforce...Mr Levchin makes an important point in correlating the rise of the Angel investors, with the fall in innovative startups.