Apr 15 2012
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NY Times says “cybercrime” isn’t as bad as people think. And most “cybercriminals” aren’t getting rich. Surprise! http://ping.fm/pimde
Apr 08 2012
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On Hiatus!
Well, it’s happened again.
I’m now spending the majority of my time working on ReadWriteWeb, and that’s where my blog posts are going.
So please, feel free to head on over there, too.
Thanks!
Mar 08 2012
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Israel’s Shimon Peres Talks Tech
So I met the world’s oldest head of state today.
Sort of.
Shimon Peres, 88, is president of Israel. While prime minister Netanyahu holds the real power, Peres has the magic title. And while I didn’t actually “meet” him, I did hear him speak at San Francisco’s LAUNCH Festival for start ups. And I was impressed.
Peres spoke for only a short time, but tossed out some pretty interesting thoughts for entrepreneurs and technologists.
He said the world financial crisis came about because “We had more more money than ideas.” Now, he added, we seem to be “chasing ideas” that could lead to more sustainable prosperity.
We used to make our living from the land, he said, but now we make our living from science, which can’t be conquered.
The Internet and social media are part of that. Traditionally, Peres said, governments negotiated peace. But now there’s a possibility for “people to negotiate peace directly… by talking to each other.”
And even though many people still don’t believe in science, in education, and in personal freedom, that “doesn’t matter… because they’re old. The past is totally unimportant. It’s dead.” And the old are “prisoners of their own prejudices.”
Technology is the greatest provider for peace, Peres said, because it can help fight hunger, make people more secure, and offer new hope and vision for the future.
(Of course, he then launched into a discussion of how we need superior technology to fight terror. Just as we now have an airforce without pilots he said [referring to drone aircraft] eventually we’ll have an army without soldiers. As CNET’s Rafe Needleman observed: beware the new robot army!)
On a more positive note, even pushing 90, Peres is trying to leverage social networking for peace. He’s created a Facebook Be My Friend for Peace campaign (complete with a rap video!) and joked that “Jews used to be the people of the book. Now we’re the people of the Facebook.”
BONUS JOKE: Peres joked that he’s often asked what is the biggest Jewish contribution to the world? His answer: “Dissatisfaction. A good Jew can’t be satisfied.” And that helps drive innovation and creativity.
Mar 07 2012
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Mar 06 2012
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Small Businesses Quadruple Their iPad Use - But Why?
On the eve of the launch of the iPad 3, small business use of the iPad has jumped nearly four-fold since the beginning of 2011. According to a new study from The Business Journals, 9% of companies with fewer than 500 employees used iPads in 2010, but 34% percent used ‘em in 2011.
For Apple, that’s good news on two fronts:
1. Lots of sales to small businesses
2. Plenty of room for even more sales of the new models even if existing users don’t upgrade.
But for me, the interesting question here is what the heck these small businesses are actually DOING with their iPads.
The company’s press release had this to say on that:
Godfrey Phillips, Vice President of Research at The Business Journals, hypothesizes that the growth of the iPad is part of a new phenomenon overtaking the SMB market. “Our research has shown that for SMB owners, productivity and efficiency, which used to be the central benefits of technology, are now declining in importance compared to accessibility. Now, it’s crucial that business owners have access to their business information and data, anytime and anywhere.”
That seems awfully facile to me. Are small businesses using their iPads only to access and view information? Not to create it? To present it to customers? Are iPads really so much better (and more cost-effective) than other options?
I suspect that a lot of small businesses bought iPads because they couldn’t escape the hype and had a really positive experience when they first tried them. And now that they’ve got them, they’re trying desperately to figure out exactly what to do with them.
Don’t get me wrong. I love iPads. I have one and I use it all the time.
But it’s often difficult to figure out what to use it for, compared to my smartphone and my computer. And frankly, if I had to give up one device, the iPad is clearly the least essential component of my business toolkit.
I bet a lot of small businesses are in the same boat. I also bet that won’t stop the iPad 3 from being a massive hit with small businesses and everyone else.
But I don’t think we’ve yet discovered the last, best use of tablets in business.
Mar 03 2012
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Paid sick leave becomes issue for #SmallBiz that fear abuse, says Wall St. Journal http://ping.fm/sHPG2 But why assume the worst?
Feb 29 2012
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Quote Of The Day
Linked In’s Reid Hoffman in the Wall Street Journal:
“Never ambush your users. Your users may not know what you’re doing, but when they discover it they shouldn’t say ‘WHAT!?’ “
Sounds like good advice to me, but it clearly hasn’t been taken to heart by many sites and social networks.
Feb 28 2012
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It’s A Wonderful Life… For Small Businesses
Remember how in It’s A Wonderful Life when all the residents of Bedford Falls come together to give money to George Bailey to save the Building & Loan? Well, it turns out that kind of community support also happens in real life.
It’s called a Cash Mob, and it’s kind of like a Flash Mob only instead of just showing up, people actually spend money to help a local business.
I first heard of cash mobs last week when Patty Orsini, who used to be an editor at AllBusiness.com and is now small business editor for CNBC, wrote a story about the phenomenon: With a Tweet, Cash Mobs Rescue Local Businesses. As that title makes clear, the big difference is that you don’t need “real” friends like George Bailey had, just twitter followers and other social media connections.
It sounds too good to be true, but apparently these things have been happening since last August, and Orsini cites a handful of successful mobs, each generating ” up to “a few thousand dollars” while fostering a “shop local mentality.”
I wouldn’t count on cash mobs as a business strategy or marketing technique, but it’s nice to know that paying it forward into your community can sometimes help when times get tough. And it’s yet another way that small, local, businesses can differentiate themselves from corporate chains.
So if you think it’s a good, the first step isn’t to try to create a cash mob for your business. Instead, think about participating in a cash mob for something in your community.
Feb 27 2012
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Where Jobs REALLY Come From
It’s not really news.
I covered it more than a year ago at AllBusiness:
http://www.allbusiness.com/economy-economic-indicators/economic-indicators/15400096-1.html
And now McNewspaper has discovered it:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/story/2012-02-25/small-business-as-job-creator/53227084/1#SmallBiz
What is it?
Simple.
The fact that despite all the hype, SMALL businesses don’t create more Jobs – NEW businesses do. Not surprisingly, start-ups naturally spin up jobs. Other small businesses? Not so much.
It turns out that while small businesses employ about half of all US workers, most don’t actually create any net new jobs. (Neither do most big companies, either.) The actual engine of job growth is new start-up companies, typically founded by entrepreneurs. (Sometimes, tech entrepreneurs, yay!)
That’s an important distinction that often gets lost in the political debate about the need to support small businesses. To boost job growth, there’s not much payback in helping existing small businesses across the board. Instead, it makes more sense to encourage visionaries to create brand new businesses.
Good luck asking the politicians to be that nuanced, but at least we know the real story.
