Category Archives: Innovation

Mobile is King in Developing Nations

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Young people obviously have way too much time on their hands these days judging by the volume of bizarre content sitting around on servers out there. It must be a great time to be a hardware manufacturer. But is anyone actually making any revenue by hosting and sharing the stuff? Perhaps the trick is to guess which kind of hardware is going to win out and become a reseller or manufacturer?

When you think about developing countries, my guess is that mobile devices like phones, notebooks and i-Pods already way outnumber PCs. That leaves us wondering what kind of content sharing and business applications could be usefully deployed to cater for mobile but connected users. I’m involved with a project in India at present looking at this very problem, having last year successfully assisted a New Zealand digital technology exporter to find a product champion in this market. We find that the number of mobile users to (reportedly) be a staggering 115 million, whereas the number of individuals with direct access to a PC is only about 40 million. In fact if you look up almost any source it’s clear where the growth path lies.

With this in mind, a New Zealand startup venture called Voeveo has set out to corner the market on mobile content by devising a trading portal that allows mobile content producers to market and sell their wares online. It will be interesting to see how this evolves, given the high global growth rates in mobile phone usage.

Making Sense of P2P Content

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Looking around at the proliferation of Web 2.0 applications that involve peer production of content in one form or another, I find I’m still scratching my head and wondering where it’s all going. There are now so many YouTube wannabes that you need a specialised search engine just to index all the crazy video content sitting around on servers out there.

On a more positive note, check out the prophetic and highly rated Worldchanging.com, an internet magazine that connects people with ideas, models and technologies aimed at social equity and environmental sustainability. It’s a thoughtful site that shares knowledge rather than preaches and I predict we will hear more about it in the future. Let’s use the Web to do some good in the World.

I’m also currently enjoying exploring the O’Reilly Radar blog that examines Web 2.0 and other emerging technologies. O’Reilly produce research, publish books and organise technology sector events in the United States. However, the firm has a Kiwi connection in writer Nathan Torkington who has recently moved his family back home to NZ. Torkington is also regarded as a leading light in the Perl developer community and a prime mover behind the New Zealand Foo Camp (another form of peer-to-peer knowledge network). His move lends some more weight to the idea that the peer production of content is breaking down old economic paradigms. You can now dream up good ideas and share them just as easily from Washington as you can from Warkworth.

And with weblogs hovering around the 70 million mark, some commentators are now questioning whether there needs to be some rules and etiquette in place to govern blog usage…if we are to fulfil the democratic potential of peer to peer content. A recent incident, in which Digg had to censor postings because of a legal liability, demonstrates just how loose the protocols around peer produced content really are.

Of course it may be a moot point considering how few of the visitors to Web 2.0 sites actually contribute content. The power of peer produced multimedia still resides with a relatively small group of people for the time being.

[tags] Web 2.0, P2P [/tags]

Opening the Door to Economic Wealth

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Nick Willis, the Auckland inventor who developed the cellphone lock opener, says that if you “make success your dominant thought” that is where you will gravitate towards. His story has captivated the business media and looks like a PR person’s dream come true. Not only has the guy made a lot of money for himself by licensing the technology, but he’s intelligent, articulate and has a highly photogenic family. The fact that he’s on a first name basis with both Sam Morgan and Stephen Hawking is just the icing on the cake.

Willis is very much the poster boy for the government’s economic development strategy right now, illustrating that a little intervention can be a good thing. He benefitted from publicly funded business training and startup programmes and also secured financial backing through the government’s Seed Co-Investment Fund. That’s good news. But we need 100 more companies like this.

Frankly the government needs some good news on the economic front right now! The departure of “iconic” Fisher and Paykel to Thailand came as no surprise, given the current economic settings. However the news that Australia’s GDP per capita is now a huge 38% more than New Zealand is somewhat more alarming. This startling fact received scant coverage or analysis. Where it was reported on, the media got their numbers wrong.

I know F&P have a proud history in New Zealand, but if the global price for an assembly line worker has dropped to $20 a day, do we really need that kind of industry? Wouldn’t it be better to grow some more high value, low density industries such as electronics, optics, biotechnology and software? For that to happen there needs to be a complete remodelling of the culture around research and development. That includes tax treatment, education and incentives on the government side. But it also calls for businesses to underwrite risky ideas and good people like Nick Willis.

Perhaps we need to take Nick’s advice and make success the predominant thought for the national economy.

[tags]globalisation, export, technology, New Zealand, innovators[/tags]

Going Global from New Zealand

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Rod Drury, a well known New Zealand technology entrepreneur, runs a great weblog talking all about the challenges and rewards of taking NZ technology to the world. Rod is passionate about the subject and is committed to adding value when he works with technology ventures.

Drury has also become a self-titled “digital socialist” because of his strong views on how the current digital communications network model is failing New Zealanders and why we need to open our digital trade routes. There was also a recent discussion on his blog about the role of mindset in overcoming the challenges of geographical separation.

From an organisational researcher perspective, I agreed that the discourse/mindset, within which an organisation frames its global strategy, does make a difference to how it projects itself. But I also thought that we should not downplay the challenges of small size and geographical isolation. For example, if we truly aspire to increasingly become an exporter of digital knowledge, then we need to sort out some fundamental structural issues like bandwidth and network peering – and fast. 

As a nation I think we tend to lack a collective sense of self esteem. Outside of rugby and the haka, we don’t quite seem to know what we stand for – it’s cringeful at times. On the other hand, I’m fascinated by the biographical accounts of people like Peter Jackson, Burt Munro and Bruce McLaren. All examples of hero innovators from our recent history who (in some way or another) crossed the Valley of Death and went on to build dominant positions in a global niche, based on their creative talents. We don’t give these role models nearly enough public exposure at home. 

There’s a funny TV ad for theft insurance running here at present that implicates “foreigners” who swipe all our Kiwi icons eg. Dame Kiri, Split Enz, Coutts and Butterworth etc. It sums up our current inwards looking mindset. In fact these iconic characters saw opportunities to go global with their talent and were cocky enough to do so.

[tags]globalisation, export, technology, New Zealand, innovators, organisational discourse[/tags]

ION e-Letter – March 2007

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dubai.jpgION is New Zealand’s leading innovation and entrepreneurship online community. ION provides an informative and interactive virtual knowledge sharing forum plus a private business matchmaking service for emerging technology enterprises.

www.ion.net.nz

We are hosting this newsletter on the GeniusNet blog to allow participants to opt in and engage in the conversation. GeniusNet is project manager for ION.

Auckland MBAs to Look at Dubai Marketplace

A group of MBA students from Auckland University are heading to Dubai shortly as part of their research practicum. The group are keen to make connections for Kiwi tech businesses and to dig up some inexpensive market research. Notwithstanding the troubles in other parts of the Middle East, the UAE is booming with huge investments in infrastructure planned and a rapidly increasing standard of living. Dubai itself is also a key trading post in the region and garners most of its revenues from trade, finance and tourism – rather than oil.

NZ technology firms interested in receiving research from Dubai should post a response to this thread prior to the end of March, 2007.

ION Connects Mobile Developers to India

We can report that ION has brokered a valuable relationship with one of India’s leading mobile content aggregators that has led to Christchurch company Zodal to break into the world’s second fastest growing mobile market. New connections are around the 5 million per month mark!

The company is capitalising on the Indian love of cricket by providing a nifty multi-player mobile game with the sport as its theme. The revenue-sharing partnership provides access to one of India’s most popular short code service portals.

We are currently in the process of introducing a Wellington company to the same provider, a subsidiary of one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in that market.

Forum Assists Skilled Migrants to Acclimatise

There has been a lot of discussion recently about concerns that skilled migrants are experiencing problems integrating themselves into NZ society. There is a good chance your immigrant taxi driver has a PhD, but cannot find other work. Some give up and return home frustrated. At a time of skilled labour shortages, it seems like a wasted opportunity.

Because of the importance of this issue to the economy, ION has been hosting an online forum aimed at skilled migrants and migrant entrepreneurs. The aim is to provide a collegial environment for knowledge sharing and to tap into migrants’ stories about both the obstacles and successes on their journey to New Zealand.

Danes Leverage Networks to Top EU Innovation Stakes

The European Commission reports that Germany and the Nordic states are leading the charge in terms of rapidly catching up to levels of innovation in the United States. Interestingly, around 40% of Europes business enterprises consider themselves as innovators, with suppliers and customers perceived as the main partners and collaborators, rather than research or educational institutions.

Well established business networks are critical to the task of innovation, hence networking is an area that Denmark has put a lot of effort into. Copenhagen (one of my favourite cities) has a well established ICT Cluster and pitches itself as an enabler for the nearby ‘Medicon Valley’ cluster of biopharmaceutical firms. Medicon Valley is regarded as the poster boy of cluster success in organisational research circles.

But around 91% of all businesses in Europe have less than 10 employees. ‘Mikronet’ is another Danish network established to link knowledge and arts based micro-enterprises. Similar to ION, it runs an online community forum and weblog. Encouraging collaboration amongst smaller firms is seen as an important part of driving innovation and business growth in the region.

Kiwi Steers Canadian Software Venture Towards Success

An ex-pat Kiwi is applying his knowledge of capital markets and technology commercialisation to guide a Canadian software firm to success. Darren Sissons already had a very solid track record as both a VC investor and tech startup guru when he was asked to step in and assist with a new project. Log in and read how he took a technology venture from zero to hero in the highly competitive North American market. This informative article is exclusive to ION. Post comments on the forum or reach Darren here by adding a comment to this blog thread.

Need more info? Lost your password? Want to profile your New Zealand based technology venture? Post a reply to this weblog thread and we will endeavour to help out or to connect you to someone who can.

Entropy and Entrepreneurship

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I was, at best, only an average student of physics much to the disappointment of my professors at Victoria University. They were however sufficiently benevolent to award me a pass at 100 level. I wanted to understand, but it seemed to be mostly about calculus and less about actually describing the (more interesting) theoretical physical models that define our universe and that I later went on to explore in other courses.

One foundational concept that I do remember (ok I’m a wee bit hazy) is that of ‘entropy’. It came up in a conversation with my son recently after we had been sharing a book about space and time (little boys love stars and planets).

I recalled that entropy relates to the distribution of energy throughout a closed ‘system’ and that it tends to increase throughout the universe over time. This has significant implications for thermodynamics. I think it has some philosophical implications as well, especially when you consider that the universe is apparently expanding. Sociological research often draws upon parallels in the natural world, which got me thinking about some possible analogies.

One way of looking at the problem is that, in nature, systems have a tendency to move from uniformity to chaos. By systems we could mean our universe, a refrigerator or even a glass of water falling onto the floor. Mathematicians call it ‘system complexity’.

I explained this to my son by asking him to consider his own bedroom. After Dad does the housework, the bedroom is in a pristine state. However, over time the room becomes gradually more disordered until chaos finally ensues. He seemed to be able to grasp this concept. It then occurred to me that we could also apply this idea to social systems such as business organisations, marriage and political parties. Think about it.

Of course this thought occurred to economists a long time ago, especially when a fellow called Schumpeter wrote something about “creative destruction” and the role of the entrepreneur in disturbing economic equilibrium through innovation.

[tags]entropy, entrepreneurship[/tags]

Virtual Collaboration

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I’ve just rediscovered a neat Blog by Roger Dennis, who I met last year.

One of his articles links to a useful case study about running a virtual workshop. Something we have long dreamed about doing on ION. Whilst the tools employed in this case were not highly sophisticated, it proves the point. You don’t have to burn up carbon credits to share knowledge across international borders.

Last year, as an extramural post-grad student at Massey University, I was involved in trialling an online tutorial application called Breeze. The technology allows the tutor to guide the discussion using text and audio, as well as pushing out artefacts to the students such as images and diagrams. One of our classmates was on dialup Internet from Fiji and managed to get most of what was being delivered. Still has a few bugs to iron out, but a tool with huge potential for conducting remote learning.

So the message is that yes we can learn and collaborate using computer aided interactivity.

[tags]innovation, e-collaboration, e-learning, Web 2.0[/tags]

Is open source the new model for collective innovation?

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I read an interesting article about a former BMW employee who is designing a new car by inviting hundreds of engineers and designers to post contributions online and work collaboratively on the project. The idea is to test the hypothesis that the open source methodology can transfer into spheres other than software. Like all good virtual forums, subject matter experts moderate the content and guide the discussion.

But what happens if someone steals the design and actually builds the “OSCar”? Who will own it? Does ownership really matter? If it doesn’t then that represents a huge threat to some really powerful global business enterprises.

[tags]open source, innovation[/tags]