As a part of today’s Tech Ranch Austin announcements- We have been selected by Microsoft to administer a program to give access to technology startups to the full suite of Microsoft tools for free.  Read further details here about the program, and apply through the Tech Ranch Austin website.

There are two important events happening in the Austin startup ecosystem this week and next:

Austin Business District’s Open4Business Conference- November 11- with five high impact tracks including Sales & Marketing, Finance, Human Resources, Business Law, Sustainability

UT Austin’s Ready to Commercialize event November 17th and 18th- reviewing technologies that are coming out of the University of Texas System.

I will be at both events representing TechRanchAustin as we continue to look for tech entrepreneurs to join us on the ranch.  Please let me know if you will be there- I look forward to connecting.

I just posted over at the new TechRanchAustin blog news an annoucement about taking the startup incubation efforts that I have been doing over the last three years to a whole new level.  Come check out what we are up to, and join us in our efforts to take the technology startup ecosystem here in Austin to a whole new level!

Several of my fellow friends that are entrepreneurs were just discussing how we should get together for a happy hour- to share some war stories, reconnect with each other, and informally discuss what we can do to move our businesses forward, even in these troubled times.  Given the number of others that have mentioned interest in this, we are going to open it up to others to join us…  So we’re going to have a happy hour tomorrow (sorry for the short notice!) at House Wine at 5:30 pm. Here are the details:

HOUSE WINE

408 Josephine
Austin 78704-1017
+1.512.322.5210

Here is a map.  This location is very close to the Barton Springs / Lamar intersection.  They have wine and beer inexpensively priced.  Moreover, if you have a good recent war story (whether the outcome was good, or if it created a lot of scar tissue for you) I will buy you your first drink.  (Ok, so I am only going to do this for the first 10 good entrepreneurial-scar-tissue-stories, as we comisserate together.  )  Catch me via twitter if you have any questions, or post a comment here.  I look forward to catching up with you then.

Today I was at The Rackspace Cloud Event- Where Rackspace announced several new products, as well as the acquisition of JungleDisk and SliceHost.  Between seeing many good friends that are entrepreneurs at the event, and what I believe to be some smart strategic acquisitions on the part of Rackspace- I felt like I must be living in a different world than much of the rest of the world concerned with the credit markets.  And then I saw the following interview from Guy Kawasaki about the Care and Feeding of Entrepreneurs.  Here is the most telling question / answer from the interview:

Q. What is your advice to entrepreneurs seeking funding or growth opportunities if the credit and capital markets continue on their current course?

A. My advice is that they melt wax into their ears and go forward. If they are waiting for wonderful credit and capital markets, they probably aren’t entrepreneurs. They’re much more likely to be consultants and bankers looking to quickly flip a company.

It feels like a great time to be an entrepreneur. I am sorry to see so many other people in the world upset about financial doom and gloom.  Maybe at some point I will change my song…. but for now, I am glad to be building a company, and helping other entrepreneurs build their companies.  Yes, all of us entrepreneurs have to be somewhat more conservative right now than we might be during boom-times, but it is a GREAT time to start a company.  If you have been displaced from your previous job, or have the general entrepreneurial itch that you have not been scratching, and you have the entrepreneur jean (not the consultant or banker gene described above) build it now.  Sure, calculate it out… but realize that right now, entrepreneurial businesses will be the first to recover and thrive from the present credit crisis. Damn the torpedos, full steam ahead!

I am honored to be presenting at this year’s Nano Technology Summit in Dallas, Texas- called NanoTX with a number of Nobel Laureates and other technology experts. Following is info on the speech that I will be giving.  Please make sure to call me or twitter me if you happen to be at the event.

Enterprise Tribes: Supporting Emerging Tech Startups In the Age of Web 2.0

Failure to receive support early enough in the startup cycle is a challenge that has kept many promising technologies from ever making it to the market. Venture capital and angel investment have their place, but most financial capital cannot invest in high-risk ventures at the earliest stages. The fate of the typical entrepreneur has been to build his business through sweat, credit cards and friends-and-family investments. But now, social networking technologies are making increasing amounts of social capital available – significantly reducing financial costs faced by entrepreneurs. Mr. Koym shares stories of startups that use social capital in place of cash and the principles that benefit emerging technologies companies – whether bootstrapped or investor-backed.

One page abstract:  for Track 5:  Business & Economic Development

The sad truth standing in the way of getting many promising technologies to market is that most startup support programs don’t work early enough in the startup cycle to be significant at the times of entrepreneurs’ greatest need.  Venture capital and angel investment certainly have their place, but most financial capital cannot invest in high risk at the earliest stages. Until recently, the typical entrepreneur stood alone in building his business through his own sweat, credit card and the cash offered up by friends and family. However, social networking technologies now are creating opportunities to significantly reduce the financial cost of building a business, by making social capital more widely and easily accessible.  In this speech, Mr. Koym will share examples of startups that are leveraging social capital in lieu of financial capital and the principles that work for companies in the emerging technologies arena.

As a technology visionary, including predicting and ushering in web based eCommerce in 1994 and building the startup company that subsequently leading Dell Computer Corporation’s billion dollar eCommerce site in 1996; Predicting the usage of Linux in embedded devices in 2002, subsequently leading the deployment of this startup’s products across Schlumberger’s world wide network; Mr. Koym now is charting where social networking technologies are opening up opportunities to change the face of entrepreneurship, culminating in four conceptual shifts that he sees will drive change across the five domains of the individual, the corporation, the enterprise tribe, on demand services, and governments.

The Four Conceptual Shifts that Mr. Koym is predicting will show up in the following ways:
1.    Superempowerment of the individual, where individuals exchange the mythical stability of a corporate job for the stability of self-employment, producing an entrepreneurial mindset that creates a truly resilient workforce.
2.    New open corporate structures that allow much greater flexibility by coordinating many outside players in an open, yet not vulnerable, value chain
3.    The rise of the Enterprise Tribe- a presently emerging social structure where entrepreneurs connect and support each other much in ways resembling America’s agrarian past
4.    A “Chinese menu” of on demand, robust, Internet delivered services, organized by vendors large and small
5.    Governments that become agile, and in many times, partially replaced by grass-roots community efforts organized through social networks.

You’ve heard me chime in before about unemployment levels across Texas.  I believe that the financial crisis that we are seeing is adding to this more than ever before.  It is in this time of chaos that we, as entrepreneurs can create the biggest impact (and many times have some of the most interesting opportunities.)  Constraint creates innovation.  Large groups of unemployed workers make for difficult times, yet, it is in this environment that entrepreneurs still have opportunity to create.  I am not saying creating in this environment is (or will be) easy, but we, the entrepreneurs, are in a position to create jobs, technologies, companies.  Go startup something today!

Texas unemployment claims remain well above 2007 levels - Austin Business Journal:.

Not sleeping well?  Me neither. As it ends up, there might be a technology reason for this… and after doing a bunch of research looking into the root causes of my condition, I believe that I have have found something- so much so that I was quoted on CNNMoney.com website about it.  Research that has been sponsored and published in Europe has shown that adults that use their cell phones close to bedtime might get to sleep fast, but sometimes don’t enter into the most restful phases of sleep for an extra hour.  I posited in my own case that my insomnia was possibly caused by working too late- yet it was not untill I started limiting my wireless internet usage that I started noticing that wifi might have something to do with this as well.  A key quote from the aritcle by the original research that I uncovered:

Bengt Arnetz, the Swedish professor who led the study, says there is no doubt that cell phones “have measurable effects on the brain.” He believes that the radiation from phones activates the brain’s stress system, making people feel more alert and decreasing their ability to wind down and snooze.

I have noticed over the last few months that when I stop using the ‘net by 10 pm, but even if I still work on non-computer task, I am able to get to sleep and sleep much better.  If I allow myself to do computer related work after 10 pm, I have significant problems falling to sleep, and I don’t sleep as well.

I can not conclusively state that wireless internet signals create the same issues as noticed by the researcher concerning cell phones- but I do believe that there is some connection both based on the research, and my own personal experience.

If you suffer from insomnia- I have included my original email to the writer of the article in the more section of this post.  Post a comment- and I can point you at more information as well.

Continue reading ‘Not sleeping well?’

For SXSW Interactive 2009, Matt Genovese of Door64, Sarah Cooke of Net Impact Austin, myself, and one other yet to be announced Austin community builder will be speaking at SXSW Interactive 2009. We need your vote to have these talks added to SXSW Interactive’s 2009 Lineup. Can you spare a moment to vote for these talks?

First, to do so you will need to sign up for an account here:
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/users/register

Here is the first talk to vote for:
The Rise of the Enterprise Tribe
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/1207
Social networks are creating fundamental shifts in the opportunity to start / grow businesses. New social organizations are creating real business impact in getting work done, and helping entrepreneurs succeed. Kevin will share insight based on his book, and work with Bootstrap Austin and entrepreneur networks in Mexico and Chile.

Here is the second talk to vote for:
Building Austin: Best Practices For Growing Our Community
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/1181
Austin community leaders are leveraging social networking to actively build Austin more than ever before. We’ll bring several of Austin’s cutting-edge community leaders, including NetImpactAustin (non-profits), Door64 (employment), Bootstrap Austin (entrepreneurs) together in dialouge to share how they are building the Austin community, and not just holding networking events.

Thank you for your support. By getting these messages out, we will continue to build Austin into an entrepreneurial powerhouse!

Kevin

Lawrence Lessig has produced an informative, short video in which he compares McCain’s and Obama’s technology policy. In the spirit of full disclosure- historically I have not made any political statements on this blog, but this year for the first time I have actively gotten into supporting the Obama Campaign, including being a State of Texas Voting Delegate to the Democratic Convention. There is much hype by both candidates and political parties right now about the other. Lessig, though, has always thoughtfully dug into the issues… in the following video he critiques McCain’s technology policies. I have not seen this information shared wider in the press, which is disconcerting. Instead of worrying about the candidates minor social faux pas on the stage, I offer the following video to inform debate on substantial issues that affect where the US is going.

As you might know- I spent a good portion of 2003 in Chile, collaborating and learning with some of the best design experts in the world. When I speak of “design” I specifically am meaning “ontological design“- in a few words, that is to say what are the fundamental building blocks, or perhaps even dispositions of how we might look at an issue.

A simple demonstration of this insight can be found in my friend Felipe Contreras Haye’s statement:

Hemos venido a hacer una invitación a varios establecimientos educacionales a sumarse junto a nosotros a un proyecto de Innovación Educativa basada en los principios (NO EN LAS HERRAMIENTAS) de la Web 2.0. (emphasis added by Kevin)

For my friends that don’t read Spanish, I will translate, adding my understanding and interpretation to his statement- “We are sending invitations to various educational establishments around a innovative education based on the principles of Web 2.0, not the tools of Web 2.0. ”

This is a profound insight… why ? Many times the focus of entrepreneurs that I work with in the US, especially because of our technological prowess- we sometimes are drawn to think that technology is driving the dynamic growth of the Internet. Hardly. The social disposition of Internet users drives the net… and education should be directed at the social underpinnings and changing users perceptions of the net- not just training individuals on tools. Tools will change, within 6 months. The ability to “see” opportunities and how to respond to them in the world will stand, no matter what changes in the domain of technology. This need to “see” opportunities and not be blinded by shinny-object technology is essential for all entrepreneurs.

Much has been said about Web2.0 about being a “conversation” between parties on the Internet- shifting from the “broadcast” model of radio and TV where listeners were passive receivers of information to listeners being actively engaged in conversation.  Web 2.0 conversations are happening many places, have been enabled by many service providers, including Austin’s own Bazaar Voice.  Yet there is a shift happening, a major shift.

Just like the Internet was not “just like TV, but better”, the shift that is coming is not “just like Web 2.0 but better”.  A fundamental shift is occurring.  Do you see it?

Activities on the Internet are shifting from (1) broadcast to (2) Web 2.0 conversations to (3) cooperation (taking action together).  Greater than at any point in the history of the Internet cooperative behaviors are taking place- where people are not just talking with each other, but an even greater amount of collective action is happening…. and in this, what is significant is not the large system collective action (as an example, political campaigns like the Obama campaign) but the small scale activities.  What is unique about these new small scale activities, compared to grass roots activities of the past?  This is not just grass roots happening, but the fact that these small scale activities are producing real business impact.  Small groups of entrepreneurs around the world are connecting together, getting real work done, and creating better economic outcomes.

For myself, I have been doing this round the world with working with software developers world-wide- and other business people both in Austin as well as at considerable distance.  Constraints- whether they be financial,  skills, or resource limitations are being more easily overcome than at any point in the history of the world.  Cooperation, not just conversation is the new, coming language of the Internet.  We see this already in open source software projects and in the remix of certain parts of the music industry… but cooperation is not going to stop there.  Although risk abound, a new language and new practices for cooperating world-wide is emerging.  We’ll keep around Web 2.0 just like we have kept around our old TV’s… but it is time to make space for the cooperation-economy, and realize that it is not going to be “just like Web 2.0 but  better.”

I am back from a three week blogging hiatus- during which I traveled to five different cities across Mexico and the US.  Part of this time was for catching up with friends and family, part of this time was for professional opportunity in connecting other groups into the tribe, and part of this time was for finishing the next draft of my book, which is very close to completion.  Upon entering to my office here at the Bootstrap Incubator I ran into a long term friend and publishing expert Matt Cohen, who asked about the status of my book. The power of being in an incubator environment (and not just having an office) is for chance conversations like the one that I had with Matt.  Matt, who has always been very supportive of the direction that Enterprise Teaming is going and the writing of my book and the growing Enterprise Tribe told me about Robert Heinlein’s rules for writing.  They are valuable, and I know several of my readers are writing as well, so I share them below.  If you want to read more about these, you can find more analysis of Heinlein’s statements here.

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

Update on my book:  one section of 10 or so pages remains to be done.  It is a major section- about how the Enterprise Tribe and social networking will effect the Individual.  I am looking forward to getting your feedback about this, and please do continue to share your stories with me- they have been extremely effective in helping flesh out the book and the concepts that we are developing…. Now back to Rule #2, finishing what I write.

As I have been writing a section of my book over the last few days, I thought that the following insight was too valuable to hold for the book… and wanted to share it here with an immediate wider audience. The Four Conceptual Shifts that social networks are bringing are going to have profound effects on country economies. Here’s evidence, from the analysis of Eric D. Beinhocker in The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics. Beinhocker analyzed the work of William Easterly of the Institute for International Economics and Ross Levine of the University of Minnesota who had conducted a detailed study of seventy-two rich and poor countries and asked “What makes one country richer than another?”

“…the most significant factor was the state of a nation’s Social Technology. The rule of law, the existance of property rights, a well organized banking system, economic transparency, a lack of corruption, and other social and institutional factors played a far greater role in determining national economic success than did any other category of factors. Even countries with few resources and incompetent governments did reasonably well if they had a strong, well-developed Social Technologies. On the flip side, no countries with poor Social Technologies performed well, no matter how well endowed they were with resources or how disciplined their macroeconomic policies were.”

What community leaders of all stripes (local, state, government) should see in this statement is that the opportunity for using social networking technologies can have an even more profound effect for amplifying more general social technologies for supporting entrepreneurs. Clearly community leaders that embrace the adoption of these new tools for supporting their entrepreneurs will win. The entrepreneurs (and communities!) whose leaders ignore these trends will lose out.

Thank you to my colleague Greg Hennessy for bringing Beinhocker’s work to my attention.

Here’s evidence of Conceptual Shift #2- Shifting towards a Knowledge Ecology. Clay Shirky’s recently released book, called Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations, is making a big splash, and for all of the right reasons. In this video from the Berkman Center, Clay talks about how “ridiculously easy group forming” is opening up whole new opportunities in using social software for actions of all types. In this video, Clay talks about how sharing opens up the opportunity for conversation, which opens up opportunities for collaboration, finally resulting in many times opportunities for collective action… and most importantly, this collective action is not just happening around open source software projects anymore- but has pervaded business, social, and governmental institutions. My colleague Jon Lebkowsky has a further interview of Clay at WorldChanging.

The trends that Clay has spotted in his talk and his book are the general idea behind the specific focus of the Rise of the Enterprise Tribe that you have been reading about at this blog. Collective action of coordinated entrepreneurs are supporting the group getting better in the entrepreneur community of practice called the Enterprise Tribe.

Despite the recent news about layoffs in Austin, Americans are still thinking about owning their own businesses… Why?  “The most popular was individuals’ desire to be passionate about what they’re doing.” Yahoo Small Business commissioned a national poll showing that “nearly two-thirds of the adults surveyed have thought about owning their own business in the past year.”

As you have heard here at this blog, the shift towards the superempowered individual and the attitudinal shift towards work will drive entrepreneurs to create businesses that follow their passions.  No matter where the economy takes the US in the short term, this long term outlook of aligning individuals with their passions in their work bodes well for the future.

What is needed most, though, are structures to support these entrepreneurs.  In the coming days and weeks I will be blogging about new initiatives that we will be doing to create large scale efforts of supporting entrepreneurs.  Get in contact (through email or comments on this blog) if you are interested in being a part of these efforts in your community.

Tuesday’s blog post has created a number of questions around Austin saying essentially

“O.K., but how are loosely organized workers going to replace and compete with companies like Dell? Can hundreds of I-build/support-PCs-in-my-bedroom companies make it in Austin? What other things are these people going to do?”

This is a good question, and there is no simple answer. No, I am not recommending that a number of loosely connected entrepreneurs try to go head to head in the computer assembly business with Dell. What is needed, is creating whole new types of connections and organizations of companies, to create and release whole new levels of value through innovation. A very timely article just came in from Fast Company, called The World’s Most Innovative Companies:

[P&G created the] Connect Develop program, which allows outside developers to get their concepts and designs into P&G’s product pipeline. An applicator developed by Cardinal Health (now Catalent), for example, helped P&G launch Olay Regenerist Eye Derma-Pods, now its top-selling skin-care item. Today, 42% of P&G products have an externally sourced component. And this giant is growing: Revenues rose 8%, to $78 billion, last fiscal year, while profits climbed 14%, to $11 billion.

P&G is showing that it has learned the need for leveraging a knowledge ecology around its business- they are leveraging the brains outside of their corporate walls…. with profits climbing.

The opportunity for entrepreneurs in the future is not just in “sourcing of components” but also the sourcing of new ideas, and creating even higher value add activities than what they might have previously done at former employers. Over this past weekend, I had the opportunity to talk with a P&G executive- who is actively exploring how to enhance P&G’s marketing programs- by identifying companies that are (1) sourcing of ideas, (2) placements of advertising or (3) media outlets… with one unique strategy: engage companies that are one or two of these types, but not companies that are trying to be all three (which by the way, allows smaller companies to play a part in P&G’s go-forward marketing strategies).  For the sake of this blog post, the key thing to glean from this article is that what I am talking about- moving to ecology strategies of organizing work- is already happening. This article about P&G confirms that this is already happening.
As a community (whether that community is Austin, or Texas, or the US, or the world), we need to support the timely transition from employee/former employee to entrepreneur, and supporting companies like Dell transition from command-and-control strategies to “ecology” strategies as quickly and smoothly as possible.  No, this won’t be easy, but the reality of massive layoffs are not creating many other choices…. but in the end, it is my belief that this transition will lead to healthier workplaces, with more direct control over one’s own work, resulting in people actually doing what they love.

Today’s news in Austin bemoans the restructuring of the American economy… The following clipping from today’s Austin American Statesman tries to put a happy face on a cold hard fact: 900 people just lost their jobs at Dell. Furthermore, I have heard an early rumor that more jobs are being cut today across a number of other companies. These are the trends that are driving Conceptual Shift #2- the shift from a “knowledge economy to a knowledge ecology”. First let’s look at a direct quote from the article today:Dell cutting 900 jobs with North Austin plant closure:

First and foremost, I recognize that this is a business decision, that Dell is making in order to survive…. Yet recognize, how is it that Dell has had to make such a drastic decision- when there could have been other options previous to this choice?

What options? This is where the opportunity to transition from a “knowledge economy to a knowledge ecology” is happening… if not by strategists at Dell, certainly by some of the disaffected workers that are losing their jobs today. Some number of these former employees are going to recognize the false illusion of the stability of the “job” of the past, and start transitioning to becoming entrepreneurs- making their own employment. And in the end, this will benefit both Dell and Dell’s former employers- for the ecology of work will become much more resilient…. (right now, as an example, 900 workers hitting the unemployment lines at the exact same time. This will make finding the next job for each one of them very, very difficult. Moreover, many of these workers will not have yet developed the skills to become entrepreneurs yet )

And to the former employees that just lost their jobs… make sure that you wake up when you read the word opportunity in the line above “We believe we have a $3 billion opportunity to drive both productivity and efficiency“. When a former employer looks at cutting your job as an opportunity, it is time to change your outlook on the idea of a job.
What needs to happen is we, the Austin community, need to start working together at a level that we have not done before- and fight the recession that we are in head on. I am hopeful, that although this economic downturn will be very hard on the workers that are displaced, that through the shattering of the idea of long term employment, better entrepreneurial outcomes will come for all.

Moreover, it is time to stop coddling companies like Dell. From the article above:

Dell also received almost $280 million in incentives from the state of North Carolina to build the plant, which is not operating at full capacity.

This is a shame…. If you remember that over 50% of the jobs created in the US last year were created in firms of 10 people or less. It is time that US economic policies start promoting our entrepreneurs to create resilient business ecologies. $280 million dollars would have gone a long way to create opportunity for entrepreneurs, whether through the programs that we are doing through Bootstrap Austin or Door64 here in Central Texas. 900 people lost their jobs today. Let’s do something to ensure that we support our entrepreneurs into the future to create resilience in our job marketplace, and to fight this recession that we are in.

We will be holding an Entrepreneur Town Hall Meeting in Austin on March 3rd at 6 pm as part of RiseAustin’s entrepreneurship week. More details can be found about the event at this link.

To take advantage of the conceptual shifts that I have written about my forthcoming book, a number of Austin entrepreneur support organizations are meeting together at the University of Texas’ IC2 Institute. I will be facilitating the session, following the design of some of the meetings that we used while I was in Chile- focused on facilitating dialogue between entrepreneurs. Here is a map to the location.

Please sign up here and join us in making Austin’s community of entrepreneurs stronger.

At the Bootstrap Austin blog I have just posted an article about how businesses in Austin are organizing, helping each other build their businesses together- despite whether or not the government steps in to help out startup and small business in the present looming financial downturn.  The secret, which you have heard here before at this blog- is that research shows businesses that organize themselves together- have the  best chance of innovating and growing, despite having limited financial resources.  It is my hope that as article is sent out to a few thousand Austinites through the Business District Daily that we take this conversation beyond Austin’s tech elite startup companies, and further engage other businesses in building an even more rich, innovative business ecosystem.

As you have heard here before- there is an attitudinal shift that is occurring towards work, largely driven by the Millennial Generation. Here is what Seth said recently on this blog about this new class of jobs and workers:

A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and curiosity, not fear.

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

We are seeing a new class of worker emerge. This worker is taking advantage of Conceptual Shift #1- the Superempowerment of the Individual. Passion is what is driving “superempowerment”. It is also what is driving a massive shift in how work is being done- and this will force a major change among individuals and companies into the future.

Over the holiday weekend, I had the honor of meeting a man that has catalyzed an economic miracle for a part of Chihuahua, Mexico. Spencer MacCallum discovered the work of Juan Quezada, and over 30 years took the little town of Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, Mexico creating “the fairy tale of Mata Ortiz”.

Spencer spoke of how Mata Ortiz went from a poverty stricken dust bowl to now a hopeful place of over 500 potters among the town’s 2500 citizens. Moreover, the town has galvanized together an industry that anyone of the town’s members are invited to be a part of. Juan Quezada’s artistic influence has been an open door to the whole town- giving others the skills to pull themselves out of poverty. And the pottery that they are creating is not the run of the mill stuff that you might have seen in some random flee market- many of Juan’s art pieces go for over $4,000 USD when sold in Mata Ortiz- or much, much more when sold in the US market.

What I found so profoundly interesting is this community created social capital with each other- building their own “business ecosystem”, and with this pulled each other out of poverty. And even more so- great acknowledgment goes to Spencer MacCallum in recognizing what this community had to offer to the world- and how he catalyzed this community out of poverty.

In the following article in the NY Times, the rapid development of knowledge ecologies can be seen happening between industry and academia.  Large corporate labs are on the way out.  University research is being brought closer to industry through new relationships- that are looking much more like the ecologies that we have been talking about.

In the bygone days of innovation, large corporations — like RCA, Xerox and the old AT&T — maintained internal laboratories like Bell Labs. These corporate labs were essentially research universities embedded in private companies, and their employees published academic papers, spoke at conferences and even gave away valuable breakthroughs. Bell Labs, for instance, created the world’s first transistor after World War II — and never earned a dollar from the innovation.Almost no corporate labs based on the Bell or Xerox model remain, victims of cost-cutting and a new appreciation by corporate leaders that commercial innovations may flow best when scientists and engineers stick to business problems.

The one item that I believe the New York Times misses in this article, however, is the role of how smaller organizations and even individuals will fill out the ecology, bringing many of the technologies  to market much faster than large industry can.  NY Times writer Pascal Zackary hints at this when he says: “Will these partnerships produce products you won’t get from two people in a garage?” Mr. Birgeneau asks. “We don’t know that yet. It is an important question.”  Yet, it will take not just industry and academia… but also startups and skunkworks to bring these technologies to market in an efficient, time-realistic manner.

This article is further evidence of the shift from a Knowledge Economy to a Knowledge Ecology.

Several friends have asked me “What do I mean by a shift between a Knowledge Economy to a Knowledge Ecology?”  In the Knowledge Economy the Internet was being used to just make labor more efficient.  In an Knowledge Ecology the best ideas come from many different places… and when they are implemented, they can dominate their industries.  Prove it you say?  Here is an exceptional interview from the product team behind the Nintendo Wii.  The Wii has come to dominate the game console market place, which is especially evident when I speak with friends that have kids.  From the interview:

This is my emphasis- business partners presenting Nintendo with new technologies and ideas… not just the fairly predictable 10% improvement that most companies rely on.  Knowledge Ecologies are going to dominate successful products and services into the future as we can see happening with Nintendo!

Tags: innovation, enterprise2.0, ExponentialEntrepreneurship