Commerce – Page 341 – Public Intelligence Blog

2010/09/302010/09/30

How the “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” class launched several internationally known start-ups

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Health, 12 Water, Civil Society, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Gift Intelligence, International Aid, Methods & Process, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence, Strategy, Technologies

Working through partners, getting to market faster

The Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability class has launched several internationally known start-ups (including Embrace, Driptech and D.Light.) But main route for student teams to get their life-changing products into the hands of people in the developing world is by working with NGO partner organizations.

Working with partners is the quickest way to market: it eliminates the need to create a business model and distribution infrastructure, so that students can focus on getting the best possible product to people who need it.

Professor Jim Patel, who founded the class, and Erica Estrada, who teaches the class and directs our Social Entrepreneurship Lab, discuss why this is such a critical route-to-market for students in the class:

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2010/09/292011/01/03

VMyths: Truth About Computer Security Hysteria

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Computer/online security, Cyberscams, malware, spam, Government, Hacking, Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests

http://vmyths.com/about

Vmyths traces its roots to a “Computer Virus Myths treatise” first published in 1988. It evolved into the critically acclaimed “Computer Virus Myths home page” in 1995, then it moved to Vmyths.com in 2000. Its name has changed over the years, but Vmyths remains true to its original goal: the eradication of computer security hysteria.

Vmyths sells the truth about computer security hysteria. We take no prisoners; we pull no punches; and we refuse computer security ads in order to maintain our independence.

Our editors:

Rob Rosenberger edits Vmyths and writes as a columnist. He is one of the “original” virus experts from the 1980s, and the first to focus on virus hysteria. Red Herring magazine describes him as “one of the most visible and cursed critics in computer security” today, and PC World magazine says he “is merciless with self-appointed virus experts and the credulous publications that quote them.” Rosenberger was one of only a dozen industry experts invited to the White House’s first-ever antivirus summit meeting in December 2000.

George C. Smith, Ph.D. serves as Vmyths‘ editor-at-large. He also writes as a columnist. His seminal book, The Virus Creation Labs, documents the insane early history of the antivirus world. He also published the critically acclaimed Crypt newsletter. The San Jose Mercury News recommends Smith’s work to “those who insist on at least a modicum of fact, accuracy and clear thinking in their tech news.”

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2010/09/272010/09/27

“The Century of the Self”: Must-See Documentary on Psychology, Advertising, Consumerism and Control

03 Economy, 04 Education, 07 Health, Academia, Civil Society, Commerce, Corporations, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Power Behind-the-Scenes/Special Interests, True Cost, Videos/Movies/Documentaries

FULL VIDEO HERE

Century of the Self (ADAM CURTIS)

DOCUMENTARY DESCRIPTION
Episode 1: Happiness Machine
Episode 2: The Engineering of Consent
Episode 3: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed
Episode 4: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

CENTURY OF THE SELF asks the deep questions about the roots and methods of consumerism and representative democracy and the implications of the two. The foundation of this documentary is the idea that public relations and politicians have used the theories of Sigmund Freud to engineer a society of consent.

This series is about how those in power have used Freud s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy. Adam Curtis

For more information about this series, visit its Wikipedia page.

Keywords from imdb.com: Propaganda, Public Relations, Consumerism, Capitalism, Media, Advertising

Related:
Documentary – “The Corporation” (full movie in 23 parts at YouTube)

2010/09/262010/09/26

Reference: 21st Century Leadership-12 Guidelines

Blog Wisdom, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Methods & Process

The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500

Gary Hamel

….in the future, any company that lacks a vital core of Gen F employees will soon find itself stuck in the mud.

With that in mind, I compiled a list of 12 work-relevant characteristics of online life. These are the post-bureaucratic realities that tomorrow’s employees will use as yardsticks in determining whether your company is “with it” or “past it.” In assembling this short list, I haven’t tried to catalog every salient feature of the Web’s social milieu, only those that are most at odds with the legacy practices found in large companies.

1. All ideas compete on an equal footing.
2. Contribution counts for more than credentials.
3. Hierarchies are natural, not prescribed.
4. Leaders serve rather than preside.
5. Tasks are chosen, not assigned.
6. Groups are self-defining and self-organizing
7. Resources get attracted, not allocated.
8. Power comes from sharing information, not hoarding it.
9. Opinions compound and decisions are peer-reviewed.
10. Users can veto most policy decisions.
11. Intrinsic rewards matter most.
12. Hackers are heroes.

Read full post in glorious detail.

Tip of the Hat to Steve Denning at LinkedIn.

Phi Beta Iota: We've been skirting all of these since 1988, and even more so since we opened Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) in 1994. Please do read the full articulation, and pass it on. It's is the single best summary we have found to date.

Graphic: Principles of War versus Principles of Peace

2010/09/242010/09/24

Journal: The Time-Warped World of Harvard…

Academia, Commerce

How not to get the best from your people: doing things to people vs doing things with people

I’m normally an optimistic kind of guy. Each month when I receive Harvard Business Review, I open it up thinking that maybe, just maybe, there’s been a change of heart. Maybe they have moved on from 1965. Not much to ask, after all. I become even more optimistic when I read the headline like this month, “Get the Best From Your People”. This, I think, is certainly timely, given the studies that show that only one in five people are fully engaged in their work.

But then I go to the article to which the headline refers. As I read it, I have a growing feeling of horror. There has been no change of heart. There is no heart at all. We are right back in the world of manipulating people with numbers. In fact, we are no longer in 1965. We have regressed back to 1911. We are now in the world of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Read More…

Phi Beta Iota: The dehumanization of the enterprise will be recognized by history to have been one of the most costly failures of leadership and errors of management in all time. We strongly recommend the author's new book, which can be bought now on Kindle or advance ordered in hard-copy at Amazon.

2010/09/24

Journal: When High-Cost is GOOD

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence

Home Page

Cost reduction for high-end markets

If you sell at the top of the market (luxury travel, services to Fortune 500 companies, financial services for the wealthy…) you might be tempted to figure out ways to cut costs and become more efficient.

After all, if you save a dollar, you make a dollar, without even getting a new customer.

Resist.

The goal shouldn't be to reduce costs. It should be to increase them.

That voice mail service that saves you $30,000 a year in receptionist costs–it also makes you much more similar to a competitor that is more efficiently serving the middle of the market.

Go through all the ways you serve your customers and make them more expensive to execute, not less. Your loyalty and your market share will both grow. People who can afford to pay for service often choose to pay for service.

Phi Beta Iota: What Master Seth is not making explicit is that HUMANS costs more than devices, and the REASON humans cost most is because at the high end, HUMANS offer creative adaptability, instant understanding of nuances, emotional calibration, and a deeply HUMAN connection to the client. Call centers are the high end of the low end. Capitalism took a wrong turn in commoditizing humans and treating labor costs as something to be reduced. It is the human web of knowledge that undergirds the advance of civilization, NOT the “things” that we buy and trash.