Entrepreneurship In The News: Week of July 26
Jul 29th, 2010 by Lady Liberty
Doomsday scenarios, more spy stories, money, more money, and cool new products. It’s been an interesting week in the world of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs hold the keys to the internet. Literally. Seven people were selected by the internet watchdog organization ICANN to be Trusted Community Representatives. They each have a smart card. In the case of a catastrophe, five of the seven would have to meet and use their cards to activate a master key to recreate the internet’s “yellow pages” database of web addresses. The seven are leading experts and innovators in internet security. The US’ Dan Kaminsky is behind start-up Recursion Ventures, where he’s Chief Scientist. Paul Kane of the UK is the chief executive of internet management company CommunityDNS. And Ondrej Sury is the head of R&D at CZ.NIC Labs in the Czech Republic. The others are Norm Ritchie of Canada, Jiankan Yao from China, Moussa Guebre of Burkina Faso, and Bevil Wooding from Trinidad and Tobago. (CBS news)
INC released its 30 under 30 list of America’s coolest young entrepreneurs. It includes Naveen Selvadurai, co-founder of Foursquare, Sarah Prevette of entrepreneur web tool Sprouter, and Tim O’Shaughnessy and Eddie Fredrick of LivingSocial. There are a bunch of great ideas, new products, and inspiring childhood stories. Check them out. (INC)
Pick up some networking tips from glamorous Russian spy Anna Chapman. In newly uncovered footage from last year’s Entrepreneur Week in New York, she explains how she used sequences of introductions to get closer to more and more important people. Hopefully you use introductions for business purposes and not state secrets. (Telegraph)
Maybe your customers don’t want to talk to you. Companies tend to think their customers value live service more than twice as much as they value self service. But new research from Matt Dixon and Lara Ponomareff shows that customers — regardless of age, issue type, or urgency — are indifferent and value the phone just as much as a self-service kiosk. What’s more, customers who try to self serve, fail, and are forced to pick up the phone are more likely to be disloyal. So when was the last time you waited to use an ATM even though there was no one in the bank teller line? (HBR)
An entrepreneur introduced tax cut legislation for technology start-up investors. They’d get a 25% federal tax credit for an equity investment in a qualifying business. The Innovation Technologies Investment Incentive Act was proposed by five members of Congress: Reps Chris Van Hollen, Jared Polis, Allyson Schwartz, and Betty McCollum. Rep Polis of Denver founded Proflowers.com and Bluemountain.com. (INC)
Could an MBA kill your chance to become a great tech entrepreneur? Katie Cowing of The Journey of Entrepreneurship has an interesting analysis of the educational backgrounds of technology leaders like Michael Dell, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Page. She urges aspiring entrepreneurs to look at three factors when deciding if they should pursue an MBA: short term vs long term thinking, managing companies vs creating disruptive businesses, and analysis vs action. What do you think? (Business Insider)
Entrepreneurs in the education market may get a boost. The University of Pennsylvania wants to create one of the country’s only business incubators dedicated to education entrepreneurs — a “Sillicon Valley around education.” The Department of Education is also introducing a $650 million fund to spur innovation. While schools and institutions spend over $1 trillion on education annually, entrepreneurs face significant hurdles. Different local policies, frequent curricula changes, and cumbersome purchasing processes can make it hard for entrepreneurs to succeed. (USA Today)
The UK is backing a bold innovation universities project in India. Eight British universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, will forge links during the design and creation of the new universities. The Indian government is also looking for mentors from leading universities in the US. The 14 innovation universities will be centers of excellence and are meant to fill a gap in research and tackle new problems significant to India, like urbanization and public health. (The Hindu and University World News)
Austin is known as an entrepreneurial hub. Michael Klug discusses what it takes for a place to attract and nurture entrepreneurs. He mentions a balance of support, culture, relevant resources, and reasonable costs. What would you add? (ABJ Entrepreneur)
Photo courtesy of Ed Yourdon.
Posted in News & Current Events
8/04/2010
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