The Tache is Back - Still Time to Donate

There is still time to donate to the Movember cause and how could you say no to a face like this?  I have to say I like the 80s porn star aesthetic quality it gives me... and am considering keeping it until Christmas.  According to the Guardian, the Tache is Back so not only will you be giving to a geat cause (raising awareness of men's health issues) but you will be helping to promote a better more fashionable Steve.  Click the link at the top of the page to donate and remember that any money I raise from advertising on this blog during November will also be donated to event.  Finally, big thanks to all of you who have already donated!  If you want to find out where your money will go and how it will be used check out this video and here also check out the promotion video (the'y obviously been taking some marketing advice from Seth Godin and his purple cow -the CowTache?), still not convinced? Check out all the famous people with a Mo below!

Statistics are boring?

The Swedes are an intelligent bunch, as you all know Sweden is the home of the Nobel Prize, it is interesting (and somewhat gratifying) to note then that statistically both Swedish university students and professors know less about the world than chimpanzees.  However, what is even more interesting is this fascinating speech, given by Hans Rosling at the TED conference in 2006, showing the power of visual statisitics in action.  For mine, any statistical representation that warrants an 'instant replay' is well worth a watch - but I'll stop writing now and let the professor talk.  Oh, just one final point - everyone should do themselves a favour and check out Gapminder.org and Ted.com, very inspirational!

A Great Lecture - More Please

On Friday we had a lecture from Jörgen Adolfsson founder of Aspiro a Swedish Telecoms company which specialises in mobile phone applications, was listed publicly in 2001 at a value of around $US1 billion, soon after which Jörgen sold his share and got out of the company.  This was an inspiring and frank discussion painting a picture of the highs and low of what it takes to become an entrepreneur.  What made this lecture great was the wealth of practical information presented in an intellectually stimulating way.  To me, this is the way business should be taught, theory certainly has a place but its place is in textbooks as a precursor to a lecture that use's case studies and real life examples to stimulate your thought processes and enable the student to challenge the theory they have been learning.  Here are some of the highlights from the lecture for me:

• The amount of change a company goes through from initial idea to launch and the continued evolution after launch.
• Aspiro launched in 1998 when there was a lot of VC funding available for this sort of technology - the three founders retained only a 30% ownership of the company.  The share in ownership however did not directly translate to a loss of control over the company, Jörgen estimated that the founders retained a 90% say in the strategy and direction of the company due to the fact that none of the investors had the technical knowledge to challenge them.  However, financial decisions were very much in the hands of the investors and a lot of time was spent by Jörgen  preparing and answering to rigorous questioning on finances "when things are going well its all limosines and champagne but when its not going so well its a lot more standing in a board room answering a barrage of questions.
• The only reason to take your company public is to cash out your shares.  Once a company goes public it almost always starts to perform worse.

Finally, something I found particularly fascinating was his 'back of the napkin' drawing of the initial idea for his company and the way the technology would work.  Unfortuneately I do not have the slides to share with you but some further research on 'back of the napkin' business plans elicited some fascinating finds.  The video embeded below is an interesting lecture from Dan Roam, the author of "The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures." D taking part in an excellent series of videos called authors@google from @google talks which I highly recommend you check out.

Some Great Free Education Online

This is a great lecture from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, being 2006, it is slightly old but still well worth watching. I found this on MIT OpenCourseWare which is a great site full of readings, lectures and other materials from one of the worlds leading universities. Courtesy of Chris Spagnuolo's excellent Edgehopper blog and its regular feature friday freebies, I have found a number of other excellent online educational resources that are well worth checking out.

The Do Lectures - lectures from inspirational people who get things done!

The Oxford University Podcasts - podcasts from some of the world's greatest minds

All well worth checking out.

Brief Update on Movember

Ok, so the polls are closed, the ballots have been counted and an historic decision has been reached... I will be spending the rest of 'Movember' with a 'Sanchez' styled moustache.  There is only one slight problem at the moment which is that I managed to completely blunt my razor getting rid of my straggley summer festival beard.  But don't worry, tomorrow I am going to get out of my nice warm room, braving the icy Swedish winter and buy a razor blade, Sombrero and some beans so I can really do the Sanchez justice.  Thanks to all those who have made a donation to support research in to prostate cancer and depressin.  If you would still like to make a donation please click here.

I will post pics of my Sanchez within the week.

Everyone's a Winner... (unless you bet on Nom de Jeu)

First of all congratulations to the United states and President Obama - here's to a better world!

Secondly an apology to anyone who followed my link to the 'Telstra Bigpond' Melbourne Cup coverage.  If your experience was anything like mine and the coverage lagged when your horse was winning, cut back in as soon as the race was over and you ran out of your Dorm in your Swedish halls of residence, jumped on the couch and started whooping  'show me the money, show me the money' before realising much to your embarassment (wow a triple Homage to Tom Cruise!), that your horse had come no where near winning... then I am truly sorry.

So it turns out the Melbourne Cup was not as an exact a predictor of the US election as I thought it might have been but I should point out that neither the 'Red Lord' (although this particular horse did make a very eloquent concession speech)  or the 'Prize Lady' came in anywhere near winning but neither did the horse in the blue jersey Nom de Jeu (much to my disappointment).  

However, I was not completely wrong not only did Obama win the US election (You have all probably seen it but in the interest of fair and balanced coverage and because it is a great speech, here is the link), but it also turns out that the Australian media cares more about the winner of the Melbourne Cup.  The heading picture was taken from a great little website called Newseum which catalogues the front pages of Newspapers around the world (for a Wikinomics perspective on this click here). 

If the world could vote?

Here's and interesting little map of the way the world would vote... 

If the world could vote?

Posted using ShareThis

Who Will Win?

As I write this post, millions of people are on the verge of making the most important decision of the year...a decision that will have a profound effect on their lives and the lives of those around them... should they back the older greying gelding running alongside that young buxom Filly or should they back the younger black stallion to lead a nation...to victory in the Melbourne Cup?

As I browse the form guide and Betfair.com, It is interesting to note that in the blue jersey, 'Nom de Jeu' is by far the favourite to win whilst the 'Red Lord' and 'Prize Lady' are well an truly outside running at odds of 0ver 100 - 1. It makes me wonder whether the victor in the Melbourne Cup might be an accurate predictor of that other insignificant event to be decided tomorrow...

Apparently I am not the only one thinking along those lines Keith Thompson, a writer for the Huffington Post a completely online based newspaper which in itself is a fascinating business, wrote a very interesting article showing that 'Hardcore Gamblers' may provide the most accurate election forecasts. Arguing that people are more likely to be truthful and think hard when they let their money do the talking as opposed to when they are merely asked their opinion by a pollster. He gives the example that halfway through 2004 when CNN had John Kerry taking the lead, Betfair had George W at 91% certain to win, not only that but Betfair called all 50 states correctly.

Another blog, Barack by Popular Demand has taken a similar approach to me and yet another similar thought here

With this in mind, I'm going to listen to the bookies and put my money 'Nom de Jeu' and cross my fingers and my toes... if only there was a more effective way for me to influence the race and make sure the good guy wins...

By the way if you are outside Australia and want to watch the Melbourne Cup you should be able to do so via Bigpond at 04:00 GMT.

Movember

'Movember' is probably my favourite charity event of the year, not only is it an excuse to grow a wicked Mo (and what self respecting man doesn't want to do that), but its also a chance to raise some money for a really great cause.

Since its inception three years ago Movember has raised over $8.5 million and has had a significant impact on the state of men's health, prostate cancer and men suffering from depression.

With this in mind I have signed up to be a Mo Bro, clean shaved and handed the figurative razor blade over to all of you to decide what style Mo I should have. Vote on the right hand side for which of the styles below you want me to have (voting closes 08/11/08), make a donation, and I will do my upmost to comply. I will upload a weekly picture of my progress and what is more I will donate any advertising revenue I get from this blog during November to the cause. All you Bro's out there I encourage you to sign up and start growing and raising some money. All you girls out there what could be sexier than your fella with a Mo?

Credit where credit is due

The Monopoly Pub Crawl in London

I know that 'credit' is a dirty word at the moment but this has nothing to do with the US election, unpaid credit cards, mortgages, Iceland or the current economic turmoil (unless you happen to be on the brink of bankruptcy in a game of Monopoly as you're reading this)...  

Anyway Some of you may remember that I criticised exam techniques in a post a while back.  Well it seems that the Lund University Economics Faculty were reading my blog (well maybe not but I'm going to take some of the due credit) because our last exam was great!  The exam was emailed to us, we were able to sit in the comfort of our homes, access the net and any other resources we needed to come up with what I believe were much more creative and interesting answers (although I may be jumping the gun because I haven't got my results yet... maybe the professor is reading this post and will up my mark accordingly :-) ).

The questions and my answer are below. I actually want to make my monopoly game! Although it may not be as original as I thought at the time check out Monopoly live, My Monopoly. and my personal favourite Monopoly Pub Crawl.

By the way if anyone else in my class wants to upload there answer or if anyone wants to come up with there own  please email it to me and I will publish it here.

Entrepreneurship Marketing Exam - Get more Business Documents

Top 4 - Bottom 1 - Advertising - Me No Fry!

Ok so I have been a little slack with my updates lately but here is the second in the series of the Top 4 - Bottom 1 advertisements of all time.  It's the 'Me No Fry' commercial which featured a number of eggs dancing and rapping in the street and trying to avoid being fried by the sun!  I'm not sure why, but this ad 'cracked' me up and the song and corresponding message has stuck with me since my childhood.  Even more impressive this ad was put out by a non-profit anti-skin cancer organisation proving that you don't need a lot of money to make a great ad - all the giant corporations who consistently put out tripe take note!  To tie this all in to my marketing course, I found that the whole campaign was followed up with much research into its affect on attitudes toward skin cancer and skin protection (see here, here and here).  A great example of following up your advertising campaign with some sort of research as to whether it has achieved its goal (this goal may be slightly more noble than trying to increase the obesity of the general population...)

Ok so enough of my rambling let's see the commercial... well this will teach me for starting to write a post without having the video to back it up!  But unbelievably I can't find this online anywhere despite having spent the last hour or so looking for it!  Now I know I'm not alone as the following quotes from a 2003 study would suggest 

“... me no fry with the egg. I used to love that ad”.

(Year 11 male)

"The ‘Me No Fry’ campaign was also recalled by participants in half

the groups, which could be considered surprising given that the

campaign took place during 1990-1996."

So I'm issuing a challenge to all you readers (or Mum as the case may be),  find the commercial and send me the link so I can embed it here and share the brilliance!  I have already emailed the Cancer Council Australia who do great work (and who you can donate to by following the link) to see if they can provide this for me.

The Top 4 - Bottom 1 is back...

Some of you will be familiar with the Top 4 - Bottom 1 format which ranked my experiences as I travelled around the US and South America. I had completely forgotten about this until one of my class mates sent me a link to the Times - Top 50 websites of 2008, reading this list I found a few great sites I'd never heard of before (e.g. Askmen, Afrigadget), a few great sites I knew about (e.g. WikiTravel, Open Source Food) and a few I didn't really agree with (e.g. PopSugar, The Nest) which may portray my personal interests more than the quality of the sites themselves so anyway check out the list and decide for yourself... Or if you don't want to decide this or a bunch of other entrepreneur related things for yourself and you trust me, I am going to be posting an authoritative Top 4 - Bottom 1 lists for a number of different categories - scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, green technologies, websites, companies and Dragon's Den pitches.

To kick it off, given that I am currently studying marketing, over the next 5 days I will be posting the Top 4 - Bottom 1 advertisements of all time. Starting at number 4 (although I haven't yet completely thought this through - so I reserve the right to change its ranking at anytime) is this absolute gem starring Brain from The Thunderbirds.






Now to be fair I love this ad but I have never bought a bottle of Drench water... Maybe it's because I never buy bottled water or maybe its because I have never seen it in the shops but I'm sure if I was going to buy some bottled water and it was available I would buy it - hence I can justify putting it in at number 4

6 Seconds of Thought

Ok so the basis for this entry was the following quote from one of the girls on my course 'For you, I'll give it some thought...maybe six seconds of thought...' Clearly a very flattering and generous offer :-)

Later that night whilst waiting for a Pizza to be delivered, I got to thinking about just how generous that offer was, what could someone accomplish in 6 seconds of thought and more importantly where the hell was my pizza.  Anyway in the next 6 seconds this is what I thought. 

1. Pizza delivery in Lund is remarkably slow
2. The city is tiny and full of students
3. Students want to earn money and they ride their bikes everywhere
4. Why doesn't the pizza shop take advantage this, hoist a flag outside everytime it has a delivery to send out and get a passing student to take the delivery for a small fee?

In 6 seconds I had come up with maybe the greatest business idea in the history of Sweden (Ikea who?)... or had I?  As I ravenously tucked into my Pizza half an hour later I thought about the delicious smell of pizza wafting up from my bike basket on its way to someone elses home and wondered how many of these student delivered pizza's would reach their final destination....

Change the World 1 Grain of Rice at a Time

Free Rice is one of my favourite ever charity websites its so simple, so addictive and a great cause.  Basically it is a vocabulary game (there are now also other subjects including geography, chemistry and languages) where you get a word, four potential meanings and you have to know the right one.  For each correct answer 20 grains of rice are donated to the UN World Food Program to help end hunger.  

I have decided to set a challenge.  I want all you loyal readers to play this game as much as possible (its a great way to procrasinate at work - and then bamboozle your boss with your new vocabulary when explaining why you haven't finished that project) keep track of how many grains you have donated (go to options and select 'remember my personal rice donation...') then by the 20th of December I want you each to send me a screenshot of your total rice donated - along with a picture of yourself.  I will make it my personal mission to go onto Free Rice and equal the total amount donated as my Christmas present to the world...Clearly after this my posts will get a lot more sophisticated and less accessible to the non-charitable reader :-)

Good luck and I'll post a reminder closer to the time.

The ultimate in self reflection? DNA mapping for under $5000

DNA 11 - hang this above your bed and make an informed decision about contraception?  

An interesting article published in the New York Times yesterday 'Dawn of Low-Price Mapping Could Broaden DNA Uses'  (you may need to sign up to see this article - but its free), talks about, as you might have guessed from the title, the significant lowering of the price of complete personal genome sequencing.

Complete Genomics, a start-up company in where else but Mountain View California, will next year begin offering complete personal genome sequencing for around $5000.  Initially they will not be offering the sequencing technique directly to consumers but rather will be targeting pharmaceutical companies and research laboratories.  According to the article, the cost of Genome Sequencing has been coming down by a factor of 10 every year with the average cost currently at around $100 000 per genome.  Complete Genomics expects to have 1000 genomes sequenced by the end of 2009 and 20 000 done by the end of 2010 - this is particularly impressive given that the total number of sequences completed to date is 'at most in double digits'.

This gives them a pretty impressive potential revenue stream - over $100mil in turn over by the end of 2010.  They are currently in the process of raising funding and finding partners to help them build 10 sequencing centres at a cost of $50mil each.  How could they raise such money and who are there potential partners?

Well my first thought was this: a) Iceland has been hit very hard by the global credit crunch (see numerous articles in the Financial Times ), b) deCode Genetics which currently owns the rights to basically the entire Icelandic populations genetic data (BBC article) has is basically in dire straights and has just been hit with a Nasdaq deficiency notice relating to market value (see here), c) surely this provides the ideal opportunity for some sort of take over bid by a pharmaceutical company (Roche has already invested $200million making them an ideal candidate) or a consortium of venture capitalists, utilising a partnership agreement with Complete Genomics?  

Anyone who reads this and gets rich on the opportunity, I want in!  Actually I have about $2000 dollars saved, with deCode's stock declining at the rate it is, maybe I can buy them...

I'll be following developments with interest (you can follow the news on my blog list) and am just about to send an email to Complete Genomics asking for a job - with stock options...

Turning a Problem Upside Down

Entrepreneurship is all about taking a problem, turning it upside down and creating an opportunity.  The process is poigniantly demonstrated in the video below a political advertisement which was aired in Argentina.

Sweet Home Alabama... unless you've been arrested

For any of you who were reading my previous blog, you might remember me talking about my visit to the Tuscaloosa County Jail... for any of you who I might be doing business with in the future, no I didn't get arrested, it was part of my exhchange program (yep that's how exchange programs work when you come from the convict nation...).  Anyway among the plethora of incredibly disturbing things we saw at the jail (blood covered shanks, Alabaman prison guards and a particularly delightful smelling home brew...) potentially the most disturbing was their website which offers any user the opportunity to access an arrest inquiry database which gives you access to the full name, a photo, what they have been arrested for and how much bond they paid... Wait a minute you say, surely you made a mistake, surely they if they were going to list people they would only tarnish the names of those that have actually been convicted! Nope anyone that has been arrested whether falsely or not will appear.  

The reason I started thinking about this was in the context of generating business ideas and thinking about Google Map Mash-ups, I thought of a great concept which I am going to call Possebook basically it allows the user to access a map of convicted or non-convicted 'fellons' and a social network through which they can organise a good old fashion Posse to get out there and exercise some Cowboy style justice.  Obviously the aggrieved can post rewards with the site taking a commission for all successful captures/kills and the network would provide the ideal advertising platform for weapons manufacturers and distributors thus there is a definite revenue stream.

Now obviously (I hope) this is a ridiculous concept but take a look at the next link down on the website and you can access something almost on a par - the sex offender map.  Now I am not entireley certain where I stand on this - if there is a convicted sex offender in my neighbourhood a) do I want to know about it, b) do I have the right to know about it considering they have served their time and been released - indicating that they are reformed?

Now let me just me put this in perspective with a quote from the Tuscaloosa County Jail Website 

"On August 5, 2002 the Tuscaloosa County Jail received Accreditation from the American Correctional Association. This makes the Tuscaloosa County Jail the first and ONLY county jail in the State of Alabama to receive Accreditation."

Clearly this is an exemplary institution demonstrating best practice for correctional facilities.  If this is best practice, then Possebook which at first seemed like a ridiculous and unethical use of Web 2.0 technologies seems to be middle of the road in terms of unethical uses of a technology that has the potential to change the world for the better (see the social entrepreneurship links section for examples).  Perhaps a better use - particularly in Lund would be some way of tracking bicycles, theft of which seems to be exponentially out of proportion to any other form of crime in the city...  

However discussions in class (and over a few beers after class) one topic that continues to come up is the ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills that criminals apply to their trade.  Which made me think what nefarious uses could criminals make of Web 2.0 technologies and wikinomics principles?  Could increased connectivity and social networking represent a boon for drug traffickers?  How would wikifraud help ur average scamster?  

I'd love to hear your suggestions (don't worry I'll ensure your annonimity...)

The Future of Exams

Calm before the storm... ok so its a somewhat tenuous link to the image above taken at the wonderfully named Lake Titicaca in Bolivia... but having just sat my first exam in over a year I was struck by just how antiquated the examination process is - filing one by one into an examination hall, sitting in silence and handwriting the answers you have memorised the night before!  To quote our teachers advice prior to sitting it 'you don't have to understand it - just remember it'.  

With the advent of the internet enabling students to access information almost instantaneously (whether this is a positive or not is the subject of another debate)  it would seem far more important to test the student's ability to find quality information and apply it to the problem at hand.  Online examination (that is examinations allowing students access to the web or a modified version thereof) is surely an option that educators need to consider.

What would need to happen before exams could be taken online?  Would all subjects be amenable to online examination? Could wikistyle development of test questions and marking systems improve standardisation?  Should there be a change from memory testing to problem solving?

To me online examinations are inevitable and institutional change will inevitably take a long time nevertheless questions such as these need to be addressed.  As always I'm interested to hear what you think?

Mind Maps

Work

Hobbies

Education

As promised, I have now uploaded 'Mind Maps' which I created using Freemind, if they give you any ideas please let me know or please feel free to email me any mind maps of your own.