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]

ION e-Letter – May 2007

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Welcome to the Innovators Online Network e-Letter.

ION 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.

The ION e-Letter is supported by Revera – High integrity I.T. infrastructure.

Capital Raising in the Capital

Capital raising networks are rapidly waking up to the latent opportunities available within the New Zealand technology community. Startup founders in Wellington are welcoming the news that tech incubator CreativeHQ is planning an Angel Network of its own and there has been a notable increase in the number of networking events relating to the tech sector in the city.

Towards this end, young entrepreneurs and investors will be engaged in some serious networking at Unlimited Potential’s aptly named Angels and Demons gig. Joseph Stuart from FRST will be speaking about funding programmes available to the creative and ICT sectors following which there will be a panel discussion, including Peter Dickinson from high tech accelerator AintoG. NZTE’s Escalator programme is also running an ongoing series of workshops and networking events around New Zealand aimed at matchmaking businesses with investors and bootstrapping new ventures into investment ready status.

From Xero to Hero

Serial technology entrepreneur Rod Drury demonstrated impeccable timing by announcing a planned NZX float of his latest venture the day after he cleaned up at the Wellington Gold Awards. Drury scored the ‘Absolutely Creatively Wellington Ambassador’ gong in a nod to his ongoing contribution to promoting the Capital as a destination for technology investors. A successful listing for Xero could mark a sea change amongst investor sentiment in a market where there have lately been very few local technology offerings.

VCs Connect Across the Ditch 

Looking offshore we note that Slattery’s are organising the annual VC Connect event. Attendees can meet investors, learn how to win VC backing and how to evaluate the right VC firm to meet their needs. There will also be sessions outlining the expectations of venture capitalists; funding strategy; termsheets and team building. Best of all the cost of entry is affordable for cash-strapped entrepreneurs!

Investors Leverage Web Technology for Outreach 

About 18 months ago we flagged that North American markets were reawakening to technology venture investment and that trend continues to accelerate. Microsoft are jumping on the bandwagon with a web-based community that mediates between investment ready tech companies in Asia-Pacific and sources of capital. Our friends at IPMarket also provide a global online listing of intellectual property looking for investment and commercialisation expertise, supported by research that identifies potential partners. Even No8 Ventures has a blog these days as investors look to leverage communities of interest.

Getting Your AintoG

AintoG continue their engagement with upstart technology firms around the country later in the month with a number of seminar events discussing business growth. Through taking a stake in a new venture AintoG deploys its team of “battle hardened” ICT industry executives to help with growth pains. The philosophy goes further than simply sitting on a board, but gets some key talent into the target business at ground level to move things along.

Your ION Needs You!

Have you got a NZ technology success story? Can you help new ventures connect globally? Are you an investor, mentor or technology entrepreneur? Do you have a community project that leverages technology or is seeking expertise? We’d love to hear from you. ION is a connector community, with both social and economic objectives, helping New Zealand innovators reach out to the world. Add a comment to this blog article or reply to your email alert.

Crossing the Creative Chasm

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exploreI have often thought that technology entrepreneurs have a great deal in common with artists. They are creative and passionate about their work, they need a healthy sense of self-belief and they must both struggle to have their creative output adopted by the mainstream.

Amanda Tomasoa is an Auckland artist whose colourful work reflects her passion for life and a love for the people that she encounters. Like many artists (and entrepreneurs) she has had her ups and downs as she sought to establish herself on the local scene. Choosing a “go-to-market” strategy can be as difficult for an artist as it is for a technology entrepreneur.

Fortunately her work is highly attractive to the eye, reasonably priced and makes great talking pieces for corporate foyers to domestic living spaces. Her abstracts in particular have received acclaim and sell steadily. She has even been approached by galleries as far away as New York who sense there is a market for vibrant Asia-Pacific works. New Zealand’s reputation for unique brilliance in creative endeavours still carries some weight.

 But you can’t ship artwork over the Internet, airfreight costs a lot and you also want to know you are getting your money up front first. It’s a problem. You can however licence images, create a fashion franchise and export your creativity in other ways – which is what Amanda really wants to do. She just needs someone to help make it happen.

Contact Amanda through her website or meet up with her at the Idealog/AUT Innovation Series launch event.

[tags] New Zealand, art, marketing, entrepreneurship [/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]

Distilling NZ’s ICT Exports

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The recently released  New Zealand ICT Supply Survey may not be everyone’s idea of bedtime reading, but  bear with me, because it does give us a useful snapshot of growth patterns within the industry. Up until 2004 Statistics NZ compiled a slightly different set of figures, but the new data set has now been realigned for easier comparison to figures from surveys in other OECD nations. So this years figures (2005/06) are the first by which we can draw any meaningful conclusions under the new regime.

Perhaps the most significant change is that data from the electronics industries is now included. Consequently, nearly a third of all ICT exports fell into the “electronic devices and equipment” category, comprising over $500 million in export returns. So sales figures from high growth hardware exporting companies like Rakon, Endace, Tait and 4RF may have actually inflated the figures somewhat. Whether you consider them to be manufacturers or ICT firms, it doesn’t really matter – it’s all good news.

Notwithstanding this, the value of ICT exports still only equates to about 5% of our total commodity export trade or about the same value as our (declining) fruit and vegetable exports. New Zealand remains near the bottom of the OECD ladder based on ICT export value and (like most nations) we are a net importer of ICT. Interestingly, two comparably sized exporters, Finland and Ireland, are amongst a small number of nations who actually export more ICT than they import. This demonstrates that agility has more to do with being successful at selling technology than does size.

ICT export revenue grew almost 20%, compared to a growth rate of 7.9% across the entire industry, but 90% of New Zealand’s ICT revenue comes from domestic sales consisting largely of telecommunications and sales of computer hardware. An optimist would say that this shows there exists a huge growth opportunity. A pragmatist might suggest we have done a poor job of articulating our value proposition globally.

Why aren’t we exporting more of our good ideas?

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]

Wired.com experiments with ‘crowd-sourcing’

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Speaking of e-collaboration, Wired.com and some partners have created a project called Assignment Zero by which they can experiment with the concept of peer production of media content. Through a website, hundreds of global contributors will be assigned small parts of a very large topic, then professional editors will mash it all together.

For the first story they have chosen to explore (wait for it)  – the scope and nature of peer production of media content. Well I guess that’s a logical starting point, but wouldn’t it be great to eventually see a ‘crowd-sourced’ story on Iraq or corporate corruption emerge for example?

Anyway, it will be a bit like a self-validating journalistic Wiki. That’s the part I still worry about when I wonder where Web 2.0 is going. How much is truth, how much is useful knowledge and how much will be urban myth or just plain lies? Under the ‘crowd-sourcing’ model it seems like if enough people validate a claim then it becomes socially acceptable. But that in itself does not guarantee truth. Some critics have also complained that employing an editorial board will skew the outcome according to whatever agenda Wired wishes to promote.

A project like this tests traditional models of ownership and verifiability for sure. But on the other hand it’s a step towards far greater democratisation of the media. Creating a formal framework for a creative, collaborative endeavour is a vast improvement on having no guidelines at all. The Internet is still very much a ‘Wild West’ scenario, so any improvement has to be a step forward. Doesn’t it?
[tags]e-collaboration, crowd sourcing, culture, knowledge[/tags]

The Namesake – Crossing the Cultural Chasm

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namesake.jpgI’m picking that a movie called ‘The Namesake’ will be one of the quiet cinema successes of 2007 and well worth a look see. The storyline centres on a migrant Indian family who move to America to make a better life for their young children. The elder child, played by Kal Penn (he blogs too), yearns to reconnect to his Indian roots and returns to the mother country in an effort to console himself after a relationship breakup. Directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) the film has a downunder connection featuring emerging Aussie actor Jacinda Barrett as the American girlfriend struggling to bridge the cultural gulf.

The plight of migrants who have transplanted into a foreign culture is a theme that resonates when I think about how many of the hot technology startups out of Silicon Valley were founded by first or second generation migrants, particularly from Asia. Cultural crossover and the ability to have skilled migrants and migrant entrepreneurs integrate into the economy is an important issue here in NZ too and worthy of a little more research perhaps. So with the support of the AsiaNZ Foundation we have been hosting a skilled migrants forum on ION over the last few months to gather some data on migrant experiences. [tags]Namesake, India, America, film, culture, migrant[/tags]