Kevin Koym

Returning to Chile- moving forward with projects

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You might know of the work that I started in Chile in 2003 – which was to become the basis of Tech Ranch Austin– the “Enterprise Teaming” (trademark!) framework that I originally took to Chile so many years ago.  Well the Tech Ranch Austin has been growing, and we’re starting to duplicate this framework and our more polished insight back to Chile. Last year, I was in Antofagasta, Chile for the launch of Region Fertil– a project that has been started to invigorate innovation and entrepreneurship in Antofagasta.  I’ll be working with my colleagues from G&L and Gulliver– and am looking forward to seeing many of my friends in Chile.

Given as we’ve been unpacking at the new Tech Ranch Austin (we moved a few weeks ago) and we launched the Austin Startup Bazaar with 30 startups presenting, and over 350 people in attendance, I am getting this info out late about my travel plans, so I’d figure I’d share it directly here – for coordination purposes.  Here’s generally my schedule- let me know via twitter, email, or US phone or Chilean phone at +56.9.9.871.5077 to coordinate getting together while I am in Chile.

Sep 25th: Sunday Austin – Santiago

Sep 26th: Monday Meetings in Santiago

Sep 27th: Tuesday Santiago – Antofagasta- Meetings in Antofagasta

Sep 28th: Wednesday Antofagasta

Sep 29th: Thursday Antofagasta – Santiago

Sep 30th: Friday Meetings in Santiago

Oct 1st: Saturday Fun around Santiago

Oct 2nd: Santiago flying out in the evening

Oct 3rd: return to Austin in the morning

What are we working on? We’ll be following up on building teaming opportunities between networks of entrepreneurs both in Antofagasta, Santiago, and Austin.  (We’ll be showing off some of our results at SXSW2012 by the way).  Here’s to strengthening entrepreneurship by working together.  I’m excited to return to Chile, for that’s where this whole process began for me.

Opportunities Connecting Worlds

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Many have asked me what’s brought me to Chile this time.  As I sit here in Antofagasta, Chile, I wanted to share this recent New York Times article that frames in the discussion.  Power in the 21st century is about networks. Over the next 10 years.  The individuals, companies, and nations that have the strongest networks will define the age.  Its critical to continually build these networks. I am in Chile to assist entrepreneurs in Austin, Antofagasta, and Santiago to connect, create strong relationships, and do business with each other… and through this, transform each location.

Opportunities come from all over the world.  In my business, I’ve known this since I started my first company, for my “first dollar earned” was actually a peso from Mexico.  As we forge and create into the future, the world we’re building as entrepreneurs will be about being connected together. Its not just a naive vision of the future, its good business, especially given that $40 billion will be invested in Antofagasta over the next 10 years.

Our conversations are changing; Cooperation is taking hold

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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.”

Social Tech is not a playtoy

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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.

Entrepreneur Town Hall Meeting in Austin March 3, 6 pm

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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.

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