BGNonline Business Growth Network

MacArthur Fellows in Virginia

2007-09-27T07:14:00.000-04:00

Two Virginians were recently recognized as MacArthur Fellows. They are Marc Edwards, Charles P. Lunsford Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at VA Tech, and Corey Harris, blues musician from Charlottesville.

Tenth Annual Business Forum

2007-09-27T06:35:00.001-04:00

The 10th Annual Business Forum will be held in Charlottesville on December 6 and 7, 2007, at the Darden School of Business. Workshops include Transforming Ideas into Enterprises, Delivering Innovation through Social Networking, Information Tsunami – Email to Twitter and Beyond, and Crash & Learn – Anatomy of a Failure.

The keynote speaker will be Frank Cappiello, who will present his take on The New American Economy – A View from Wall Street. The Friday morning panelists for Live Fire - The Angel Round represent three of the top angel groups in the United States, from Connecticut, Ohio and New York.

The Charlottesville Venture Group has put on this conference for the past nine years. This year's event is presented by the combined resources of the Charlottesville Venture Group and the Virginia Piedmont Technology Council. On October 2nd, the group will announce their new name, and celebrate their joint venture.

UPDATE: The 11th Annual Business Forum is scheduled for October 30 and 31, 2008. For more information about the CVG Annual Business Forums see the Annual Business Forum blog. For program and registration, see Virginia Annual Business Forums.

CNE Welcomes New Director

2007-09-27T06:22:00.000-04:00

The Center for Nonprofit Excellence (CNE) welcomes Kerry Dodson, their new Executive Director. Membership in the CNE is open to Charlottesville area nonprofits; the dues range from $100 to $400 annually.

The current CNE calendar of upcoming events includes their Brown Bag seminar, How to Write a Survey, on Oct. 4, and the Oct. 19th FOCUS presentation by Bob Eliason of JMU College of Business Management on the basics of starting an online business from establishing a website to handling payment.

The January 2007 Virginia Network of Nonprofit Organizations (VANNO) report The Virginia Nonprofit Sector indicates that there were 8,537 reporting charitable nonprofits in Virginia in 2004, and that the 1,240 foundations in Virginia held $6.1 billion in assets and gave $388 million in grants.

Another First at IBM

2007-09-21T07:45:00.000-04:00

Italian workers at IBM are planning a September strike in Second Life, according to various sources. The Grid Live says that the event will begin on the 25th; the Union Network site has instructions for participants.

Intel has joined IBM in anticipating "the 3D internet", according to Justin Rattner in his keynote speech at the recent Intel Developer Forum.

Presentations, Zen

2007-09-20T08:32:00.000-04:00

Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen offers Swedish doctor and researcher Hans Rosling as one of the masters of displaying data in live talks. Reynold's Play the Music has several short videos and comments on the components of Rosling's incredibly effective presentation at TED 2007.

New Executive Directors Welcomed

2007-09-20T08:05:00.000-04:00

Two new leaders in the entrepreneurial and technology community in central Virginia have just been announced.

The Virginia Piedmont Technology Council recently joined forces with the Charlottesville Venture Group, and announced the new executive director, Tom Thompson of Charlottesville. On October 2, the new organization name will be announced, and Thompson will be introduced to the members.

The NewVa Corridor Technology Council (NCTC), formerly the New Century Technology Council, announced Cory Donovan has taken over from Gordie Zeigler. Their Fall Gala is scheduled for October 12.

Not Every Nobel is a Prize

2007-09-18T09:36:00.000-04:00

According to the NY Times,

Michael Nobel, who is indeed Alfred’s great grand nephew, approached [the organizers of NanoTX’07] about announcing a new prize for advances in alternative energy. He wanted to be the featured speaker at a reception meant to honor the surviving members of the team of scientists who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for chemistry for the buckyball. ... [However] the organizers received a disturbing fax from The Nobel Foundation in Sweden. It advised them that Mr. Nobel had been voted out as head of the Nobel Family Society at a meeting in August of 2006 “mainly because of his unauthorized activities and involvements in the name of the Nobel Family Society.”

The original press release, a more current one, and comments from the Nanotechnology Law Report.

NextFest 2007 Notes

2007-09-18T09:05:00.001-04:00

Wired NextFest 2007 wrapped up this weekend.

Brian Lam's list of the best of the Fest is at Gizmodo; Molly Wood's video is at c|net news; Phuong-Cac Nguyen has a great summary of new gadgets at Cool Hunting; and Brian Heater has a running commentary at GearLog.

Miscellaneous

2007-09-18T09:05:00.000-04:00

David Weinberger’s (author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto) recent book Everything is Miscellaneous (May, 2007) is about "how we’re pulling ourselves together now that we’ve blown ourselves to bits". Early reviews and related podcasts are on his blog. JD Lasica's Modest Review on Social Media quotes Weinberger:

From management structures to encyclopedias, to the courses of study we put our children through, to the way we decide what's worth believing, we have organized our ideas with principles designed for use in a world limited by the laws of physics.

Suppose that now, for the first time in history, we are able to arrange our concepts without the silent limitations of the physical. How might our ideas, organizations, and knowledge itself change?

Competition and Copyright

2007-09-18T07:26:00.000-04:00

In March 2006, the Cato Institute published Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by Timothy B. Lee.

From the Executive Summary:

The DMCA [Digital Millenium Copyright Act] is anti-competitive. It gives copyright holders—and the technology companies that distribute their content—the legal power to create closed technology platforms and exclude competitors from interoperating with them. Worst of all, DRM [Digital Rights Management] technologies are clumsy and ineffective; they inconvenience legitimate users but do little to stop pirates.

More recently, he noted on Ars Technica that the RIAA seems to want the universities to do its dirty work.

PanImages Search Engine

2007-09-17T09:33:00.000-04:00

University of Washington's Oren Etzioni, Director of the Turing Center, has announced the launch of PanImages, a multi-language search engine for images. (Description here).

Earlier this year, professor Etzioni received the Englemore Memorial Lecture Award for "longstanding technical and entrepreneurial contributions to artificial intelligence..."

Virginia Biotechnology Industry

2007-09-17T09:21:00.000-04:00

Virginia Business magazine reviewed the state's biotechnology industry, noting the research institutions associated with VCU, VA Tech, the University of Virginia, and the new SRI Center being developed in Rockingham County. They quote Randal Kirk, of Third Security: What matters [to biotech] “is the value of the intellectual property.”

The Virginia-based Biotechnology Institute has a short FAQ on the industry, as well as industry and education programs.

Google Funds Moon Robot

2007-09-14T06:34:00.000-04:00

Google announced the Google Lunar X-Prize, $30m in prizes to private firms that land a robot rover on the Moon. The competition to send a robot craft to the Moon is being run with the X-Prize Foundation. The program is also offering an opportunity to send digital photos and humanitarian messages along with the winning spacecraft, through the Lunar Legacy program.

Using Google Earth, one can see a scale model of the solar system superimposed on one's own neighborhood here. Earlier scale models of the solar system were built by the people of Aroostook County in Maine, and by Brian Parks in Madison, Wisconsin. Nearly ten years ago, Mitchell Charity posted links to several scale models of the solar system.

Nuclear Virginia

2007-09-14T06:10:00.000-04:00

According to the Lynchburg News and Advance:

If the nuclear renaissance is on the way, Lynchburg, home to AREVA NP, might be the new Florence, Italy.

Through a partnership with Maryland-based utility Constellation Energy and Virginia-based BWX Technologies and about $600 m in funding from French utility company EDF, AREVA would like to be one of the first to build its Evolutionary Power Reactor in the United States. The new company, UniStar Nuclear, has made its intentions known to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it plans to submit applications within the next 12 months to build two AREVA reactors, the first in Maryland.

Google and NASA

2007-09-13T09:11:00.000-04:00

The NY Times today reports on the ultimate exec perk - a NASA runway for the use of the Google jet fleet. It's good to be the founders of Google Earth, and be able to collaborate on NASA research.

SL Tender

2007-09-13T08:09:00.001-04:00

Mark Wallace of 3PointD has written something I thought I'd never see: "God bless IBM". He goes on oto say that

an IBM employee [and entrepreneur] with his own private island in Second Life has had some coins minted that are each worth one Linden dollar. That’s right, you can now hold the Linden dollar in your hand and actually spend it — if, that is, you’re on Tender Island, which has been owned by IBMer David van Gent since March.

Only 75 coins were struck, so naturally, they are becoming collector's items, said to be available on eBay. Of course, the coins were reviewed on Smart Lindens, a new blog dedicated to " helping you save by finding sales, deals and savings on the items that you want to buy in Second Life".

Virtual Stuff

2007-09-13T08:09:00.000-04:00

According to the New York Times, Stuff Matters in Virtual Worlds:
When people have the opportunity to create a fantasy world, they can and do defy the laws of gravity (you can fly, and walk under water in Second Life), but not of economics or human nature.

Second Life residents often take virtual jobs, even poorly-paid ones. They are evidently discovering what inheritors have struggled with for generations: It’s not as much fun to spend money you haven’t earned.

Robert J. Bloomfield, a behavioral economist at Cornell University, studies investor behavior in the real world and recently became interested in how investors behave similarly in Second Life. Reporter Daniel Terdiman's book “Entrepreneur’s Guide to Second Life” will be published soon. Not only does stuff matter to residents of SL, it provides rich opportunities for research, analysis and publication.

Avatar Faces, Custom and Whole

2007-09-10T06:54:00.000-04:00

Want an avatar head and face that is uniquely you? Relatively new to SL, CyberExtruder has been producing personalized avatars for a number of games, including Quake from id Software, The Sims for nearly 8 years. Now they have partnered with Cranial Tap to bring their product into Second Life.

Recently, CyberExtruder and Cranial Tap partnered up with Linden Lab to provide a privatized newbie area, as part of Linden Lab’s efforts to improve user retention.

Between making game avatars, CyberExtruder is in the business of facial recognition for security purposes.

With the perfect custom face, a real life version from Fabjectory is next.

Business in SL - Conference

2007-09-10T06:22:00.000-04:00

Conference in London, late September: Achieving Real Business Growth Through Second Life (Note: This conference title is registered) According to the sponsors, The International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC), most SL residents are Europeans over the age of 30. The presenters' list includes head shots of their SL avatars.

Back in April, Mitch Wagner noted that "quite a few Second Life users are network engineers. These are Cisco's customers, and Cisco is aggressively using Second Life to communicate with them." In May, Business Week described SL in terms of Anshe Chung's "booming land development business, which she has built from nothing two years ago to an operation of 17 people around the world today. As we chat, her story sounds like a classic tale of entrepreneurship." And in July, Sheila Yoshikawa of Sheffield University reported on the Blogher 07 SL Conference, including the business and branding panels. Recent University of Utrecht research on business in SL is summarized Browsing the Metaverse (The full pdf report is available online in Dutch)

WTC Memorial to Open on 9/11 in SL

2007-09-10T06:09:00.000-04:00

The World Trade Center sim (SLURL) opens on 9/11, according to Aleister Kronos at 3pointD.

The smooth surface of the wall itself is broken by rivulets of rainwater, trickling like tears down the lists of the dead. Thunder rumbles overhead, as the rain comes down, splashing into the pond. It is a mournful and respectful place.

The sim was designed by avatar Liam Kanno (Odin Liam Wright) of the V3 Group, who was at Ground Zero that day.
Ground Zero Museum Workshop website.

Kiva Update

2007-09-08T07:35:00.000-04:00

37Signals has a nice update on Kiva, the online microloan program for small entrepreneurs in developing countries. (See BGNonline last November for more related links)

Social Edge maintains the Kiva Chronicles, the story of how Kiva came into being, and how it is progressing through the ups and downs of social entrepreneurship. At this writing, they have funded every business request they received.

Oobjects and Gadgets

2007-09-07T07:58:00.000-04:00

The recently launched Oobjects already has some interesting lists, like the 10 Biggest Product Failures, such as the Apple Newton, a personal organizer that required a personal assistant to carry it around for you, based on people mistaking sophisticated engineering for sophisticated design. They also list 21 Futuristic Interfaces, such as the swimming goggles with a heads up display.

Oobjects describes itself as "... like Billboard Chart for gadgets". Of course, viewers are invited to vote their selections up or down.

Passive/Aggressive Launches

2007-09-07T07:55:00.000-04:00

The new blog, Passive/Aggressive Notes, is a display of passive-aggressive notes among roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers. Launched in May, the notes already elicit nearly 100 comments each.

They've used Google Analytics to see what search strings actually bring visitors to the site, and here are the results, which include "how do you spell tennant", "things to do with cookie dough","should nanny sleep on the job?" and "what will the weather be like for the rest of july in saskatchewan?"

Personalized Search, and Cuill

2007-09-06T06:28:00.000-04:00

Geeking with Greg has an interesting series of posts summarizing recent research on online brands and branding (especially the importance of Google and Yahoo! brands). The blog tagline, Exploring the future of personalized information, indicates the focus of the articles. Linden says "[Search] Personalization changes what people see based on their past behavior and the past behavior of others".

He also points to Search Engine Roundtablereports from the recent SES 2007 (Search Engine Strategies conference).

The stealth search engine, Cuill, is reviewed in John Battelle's Searchblog; there's an overview at TechCrunch.

Graham's Advice to Startups

2007-09-05T06:52:00.000-04:00

Paul Graham has some very straight-forward advice for entrepreneurs in startups: Don't Die.

In his words, "The odds of getting from launch to liquidity without some kind of disaster happening are one in a thousand. So don't get demoralized [when the disaster happens]."

He goes on to say that founders seem to succeed when they do cannot fail publicly; "One of the most interesting things we've discovered from working on Y Combinator is that founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of getting millions of dollars."

His advice: Stay in touch with the investors and with other startup entrepreneurs, and try to make something that at least someone really loves. The number one thing not to do is other things. Distraction is fatal to startups.

Graham points to Octopart and its founders as examples, noting that the publicity they have received makes it nearly impossible to fail now. Welcome to Help, which launched the end of August, may be another example. (They are hosts for the current CotC)

After not dying, entrepreneurs may want to consider this advice from A VC, to "hire someone who knows about cash flow forecasting, gaap accounting, bank lines, collecting revenues, and managing your dwindling cash balances" in order to get through ugly adolescence.

Financial Markets

2007-09-05T06:46:00.000-04:00

The Times on financial markets over the summer:

I’ve been away for six weeks. Much been happening?

You could say that. Financial markets have been in turmoil. Central banks have had to extend emergency lines of credit to cash-strapped banks. Hedge funds have collapsed. Institutions have been bailed out using taxpayers money. Scores of planned mergers and acquisitions have been cancelled. Normal service in the City has, for the present, been abandoned.

Thanks to Paul Kedrosky for the pointer.

Journalism and the Burning Man

2007-09-05T06:35:00.000-04:00

Dale Dougherty has an interesting piece on O'Reilly Radar on the difference between news coverage of the Burning Man, and Scott Beale's continuously updated blog coverage, including videos, comments and pingbacks, at Laughing Squid.

BTW, tomorrow is the 83rd annual burning of Zozobra in Santa Fe, so Laughing Squid is ready for it with videos and still images from prior years.

Updating Technorati Charts

2007-09-04T09:32:00.000-04:00

Technorati now has automatically updating charts of recent blog posts containing specific words, such as "entrepreneur". The first chart shows results for all blogs, the second for blogs with a lot of authority, according to Technorati.

English posts that contain Entrepreneur per day for the last 30 days. (all blogs)

English posts that contain Entrepreneur per day for the last 30 days. (blogs with authority)

Get your own chart!

Sermo with Doctors

2007-09-03T08:06:00.000-04:00

Joshua Porter of Bokardo points to the physicians' network, Sermo, as one of the new specialized social networks online. According to the Sermo site, the business model "is one of information arbitrage, the opportunity that arises when breaking medical insights intersect with the demand for actionable, market-changing events in healthcare" and "Sermo technology is the first of its kind to authenticate and credential physicians in real-time. Our state-of-the-art technology is working behind the scenes, re-validating physicians every time they sign in..."

For example, Sermo Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., generally charges $100,000 to $150,000 a year to nonmedical businesses like hedge funds, which use it to research such things as how doctors feel about new drugs. The site, founded by Daniel Palestrant while he was a surgical resident in Boston [was] launched last year... Snippets from the Wall Street Journal

Sermo partners with the American Medical Association, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics, the University of Michigan's School of Information Science, and Northwestern University. "By collaborating with Sermo, these partners have accessed a new research tool, opening the door to more efficient research, and increased opportunities for grant funding and research publications."

Patents and Trolls

2007-09-03T07:30:00.000-04:00

According to Technology Review, patent law is becoming saner due to recent Supreme Court rulings. The cases were Ebay V. Mercexchange; Medimmune V. Genentech; and KSR International v. Teleflex.

Several people left interesting (and some dissenting) comments, including Ronald Riley of the nonprofits InnovatorEd and the Professional Inventors Alliance, Anthony Kuhn of the new Innovators Network, and Gabriel Kent of Future Progress.

Netherlands in SL

2007-09-03T07:13:00.001-04:00

The Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions has opened the first national tourist office in Second Life, according to the World Travel Guide. Here's a description from Your 2nd Place. The main design firm for the site is Brink Media.

Graham on Stuff

2007-09-02T07:16:00.000-04:00

This summer, investor Paul Graham noted that he had too much stuff.

I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. Stuff used to be rare and valuable. You can still see evidence of that if you look for it. For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets. In those days people's stuff fit in a chest of drawers. Stuff has gotten a lot cheaper, but our attitudes toward it haven't changed correspondingly. We overvalue stuff. ... once you've accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way around. ... Nothing owns you like fragile stuff. For example, the "good china"...

A historical change has taken place, and I've now realized it. Stuff used to be valuable, and now it's not.

Bus 2.0 Disruptor List

2007-09-02T06:49:00.000-04:00

Business 2.0 recently identified 10 businesses with the potential to rewrite the rules of existing industries or open up entirely new markets.

Here's their list of the The Next Disruptors :

Bloom Energy wants to short-circuit electric utilities by building a power plant in every home. Zink is trying to create a market for mobile printing, without the ink. Blinkx thinks it can become the Google of video. Virgin Charter is helping to launch the air-taxi industry. Expensr is a webtop application for managing personal finances. Zipcar sprinkles its rental cars throughout urban neighborhoods with the densest populations and lets people book online by the hour. Raydiance has developed the world’s first fully software-controlled, desktop-size USP laser that cuts without heating surrounding material. MFG.COM is an online exchange for the manufacturing industry. PatientsLikeMe is an online community where patients can discuss and track medical conditions. Vanu uses software that allows mobile networks to accommodate devices with different standards.

Smashing Data Visualization

2007-09-01T19:15:00.000-04:00

Smashing magazine recently published a great piece on data visualization. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for the pointer.

Managers See the Future

2007-08-30T13:55:00.000-04:00

The Business Pundit points to a new piece on managers: 90% think they are in the top 10%. He notes that "This highlights one of the major reasons many corporations run lousy operations - they [the managers] don't face reality. Most everyone thinks they are right."
Business Week polled 2,000 managers, and found that:

In a decade, the average person will have better working conditions. Women and minorities will have an easier time getting ahead. And more of us will be on a first-name basis with someone in India. That, anyway, is what we were told when we polled 2,000 U.S. executives and middle managers this summer. Most of us, it seems, are happy and optimistic. Not to mention bursting with self-esteem: an impossible 90% of respondents believe they're in the top 10% of performers.

Firefox - Campus Edition

2007-08-29T09:19:00.000-04:00

The folks at EduGeek Journal note the new Firefox Campus Edition, with Foxy Tunes, Zotero and Stumbleupon already installed. It is still free from Mozilla, "the public benefit organization dedicated to improving the internet experience for people everywhere".

Fortune Lists, 2007

2007-08-29T08:10:00.000-04:00

In August, Fortune Small Business named the finalists for their 6th Annual Business Plan Competition: Calle Soccer from Brigham Young University; SweetRiot (chocolateers) from NYC; Idea Storm Products, from Pace University; Mulligan Stew Pet Food from Wyoming; Green Dragon Pest Solutions from Georgia; and Saatwic Food (for diabetics) from Tennessee.

Earlier this year, seven companies headquartered in Virginia were among the 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2007, recognized by Fortune: Network Appliance, Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One Financial, MITRE, SRA International, Stanley, and CarMax, which is located in central Virginia.

More recently, Fortune identified the Best Colleges for Entrepreneurs; the University of Virginia made that list that for their partnership with the University's medical school.

Favorite Blog Names

2007-08-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

A few of my favorite blog names:

The Perfect Face for Radio, and DaMomma (Motherhood is not for Wimps). Don Ray's ChriquiChatter, where I found the pointer to a priceless eBay auction description, and the old saying:

You need only two tools. WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn’t move and it should, use WD-40. If it moves and shouldn’t, use the tape.

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed, on which one can find the story of the misplaced Maserati. And of course, cartoonist Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void; he's looking at social gestures at the moment.

Virginians receive IBM Faculty Awards

2007-08-28T09:10:00.000-04:00

Three Computer Science professors from VA Tech, Kirk Cameron, Wu-Chun Feng, and Dimitrios Nik, have just received IBM Faculty Awards. The other Virginia professor recognized by IBM was Kurt Maly, chairman of the Old Dominion University Computer Science department.

VA Tech, Updated

2007-08-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

On August 19, VA Tech dedicated a memorial to those who lost their lives last April. The panel appointed by Governor Kaine issued its report on August 22 (Overview on VA Tech Site). An internal report by VA Tech calls for better communication about troubled students, more locks on classroom doors and improved communication to ensure that students are alerted to a campus-wide crisis. The Richmond TimesDispatch summary of the report notes that the shooter was rarely identified in the 200 page report.

A special report to the President was issued in June. They addressed "...the complex balancing of fundamental interests in our communities -- interests of protecting privacy and civil liberties, ensuring that our communities are safe, and helping people get the care they need -- is appropriately calibrated. Carrying out the President's charge, we have met with Governors, legislators, state officials, and experts from the spectrum of mental health, education, and law enforcement communities, who have identified obstacles they face and steps they believe should be taken to address school violence and mental illness at the community level." They offered recommendations for federal government actions in several areas related to preparedness training.

SLCC07 Reports

2007-08-27T08:38:00.000-04:00

The Second Life real-life convention (SLCC 07) in Chicago over the weekend was sold out awhile ago, but Caroline McCarthy of c|net news has two reports on the event: Chicago, the Metaverse's Metropolis and on Philip Rosedale's talk.

The poster for the event is on Flickr. Pacific Rim points to SLCC07 presentations posted on Slideshare and to other media coverage of the event.

Daneel Ariantho's Second Life has a pointer to the Salamander project presentation by Jonathan Richter (avatar Wainbrave).

Charlottesville Podcasts

2007-08-27T08:06:00.000-04:00

The Charlottesville Podcasting Network has a great new look. Recent podcasts include Part Two of an interview with Dean Robert Bruner talking about the future of the UVA Darden School of Business and the upcoming academic year. (Part One of the interview)

Earlier this month, Coy Barefoot interviewed Michael Belfiore, author of the new book, Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots Is Boldy Privatizing Space. They discuss the future of the emerging private industry of space exploration, and competitions like the X-Prize. The October 2007 X-Prize competition is the Northrup Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge.

University of Richmond Campus Trees

2007-08-25T09:42:00.000-04:00

An interesting project from the University's biology department, an online record of the trees and shrubs of the campus at Campus Trees

Search Crystal

2007-08-25T09:09:00.000-04:00

SearchCrystal is available now.

Thanks to Fred Wilson at A VC for a pointer to this new aggregating search engine.

A Few New Web Sites

2007-08-24T09:02:00.000-04:00

This quirky site, Should Do This, offers everyone the opportunity to advise ... everyone else. (They also offer an integrated suggestion box for companies.)

Other interesting new startups at Killer Startups include the un-enclopedia, EnWikopedia, the entrepreneurship interviews at Hatch That!, the Damsels in Success, and a potential Craigslist competitor, OddBark.

Is a Virtual Business Life Worth Living?

2007-08-24T08:53:00.000-04:00

Entrepreneur Magazine had a recent piece, Virtual Life Worth Living? about the experiences of businesses who tackled a presence in SL.

According to their experts, especially Steve King, lead author of the recent Intuit Future of Small Business Report: Technology Trends (pdf), there aren't enough users, it's not attracting the mainstream, businesses haven't figured out how to translate the physical into virtual worlds, and businesses haven't figured out how to successfully market in virtual worlds.

There's a rather different perspective in ComputerWorlds's What Second Life Business Exodus?, the Business Communicators of Second Life, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute's The Coming Second Life Business Cycle. There's also a collection of articles about SL and virtual worlds at Business Week.

AltLaw Launch

2007-08-24T08:31:00.000-04:00

The Columbia Law School’s Program on Law and Technology, and the Silicon Flatirons Communications Program at the University of Colorado Law School just launched AltLaw, a free full text of the U.S. Supreme and Circuit Appeals Courts.

The Program on Law and Technology at Columbia Law School was founded to publicize research on the legal problems created by technological innovation, and to design and disseminate technologies that might serve the public’s interest in law and legal change.

The Silicon Flatirons Telecommunications Program brings to campus individuals from legal, technical, regulatory and business backgrounds to discuss issues facing the telecommunications community.

Thanks to BoingBoing for the pointer to this new site.

Innovation Challenge 2007

2007-08-23T09:40:00.000-04:00

The 5th annual Innovation Challenge returns to the Darden School of Business in November. The enrollment is open now, and ends on September 28, 2007.

The international panel of judges this year includes Charlottesville entrepreneur Elizabeth Pyle.

See Innovation Challenge for more information about this year's event and winners from prior years.

IBM on SL Potential

2007-08-23T09:17:00.000-04:00

According to Reuters,

Computer giant IBM now wants you to walk into three-dimensional Web worlds to browse virtual libraries. Starting tomorrow, IBM sales representatives in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia will staff the company's virtual Business Center in Second Life. "... we're doing this is because we do feel the beginning of a major transformation on how people are going to interact on the Web -- going from a flat to an immersive experience," said Maggie Blayney, director of Global Web Strategy & Innovation for IBM.

Thanks to Jason Hull of Open Source Connections for pointer to this.

Cold Hearted Web 2.0?

2007-08-23T06:31:00.000-04:00

William Davies writes in the Cold, Cold Heart of Web 2.0:

The same technological zeal and business acumen that once was applied to improving the way we buy a book or pay our car tax is now being applied to the way we engage in social and cultural activities with others.
In short, efficiency gains are no longer being sought only in economic realms such as retail or public services, but are now being pursued in parts of our everyday lives where previously they hadn't even been imagined. Web 2.0 promises to offer us ways of improving the processes by which we find new music, new friends, or new civic causes. The hassle of undesirable content or people is easier to cut out. We have become consumers of our own social and cultural lives.

Thanks to Joshua Porter of Bokardo for pointing to this, and related pieces: Gong Szeto on the subprime meltdown and Nicholas Carr on the Automation of Social Life.

Accelerating Inovation

2007-08-23T06:09:00.000-04:00

The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation has announced a new contest, for a short video on innovation.

Deadline is September 10. According to the Task Force site:
The video should illustrate how scientific discoveries resulting from federally funded research in the physical sciences have changed our lives. The video can focus on past transformational research or showcase what the future might bring ... to help celebrate American innovation, now and for the future. The top prize: $1,000 and a trip to Washington, D.C.

The rules (pdf) provide for Task Force use of any of these three-minute videos in its activities, including Capitol Hill presentations and posting video on the Internet. Expect to see the winning video on their site by October 5.

The Task Force also initiated the American Innovation Proclamation (pdf) last March. Here's the photo of the signing of the America Competes Act (HR 2272) In related news, it's good to see that Joe Meredith, of VTKnowledgeWorks and Virginia Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra have joined the board of the Accelerating Innovation Foundation.

State of Play V Update

2007-08-22T08:35:00.000-04:00

Thomas Malaby's notes on the panel discussion at the State of Play V conference, Building Businesses in Virtual Worlds are available now. He especially notes the tension faced by real world organizations operating in virtual worlds: how to maintain control over their brands while tapping into the innovation that virtual world users can provide.

Workshops today, the final day of the conference, include Educational Applications, Law and Regulation, Managing Identities in Virtual Worlds, Commercial Applications, and Online Poker.

Podcasts and videos from the event should be available here.

Notes from the Nonprofit Commons Launch

2007-08-22T08:21:00.000-04:00

If you missed the opening of the Nonprofit Commons in SL, you can see a video of Anshe Chung's talk and avatar Rik Riel's notes on the event at The Click Heard Round the World. For links to pictures from the event on Flickr, see NetSquared. For print media coverage, see the Victoria Times Colonist.

The New World Notes piece on the event is entitled SL as a Nonprofit Incubator. They also have a recent post on Mixed Reality Headcount by avatar Tateru Nino, looking at how well the corporate world engages SL residents.

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in SL

2007-08-22T07:55:00.000-04:00

According to C|net news, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is preparing for SL concerts in a replica of its real life concert hall. They plan to perform works by Rachmaninov, Ravel and two contemporary composers from Liverpool. The concert is scheduled for September 14 at 7:30 PM. Tickets are free, but limited - register here.

U of Richmond in SL

2007-08-21T08:32:00.000-04:00

Last March, Joe Essid, director of the Univerity of Richmond writing center, began blogging about his experience in SL as avatar Ignatius Onomatopoeia (Iggy). Among his interviews with SL avatars, I was pleased to see his profile of Milosun Czervik, developer of the ICT library on InfoIsland, and aka Ross Perkins, PhD - Office of Educational Research & Outreach, School of Education, Virginia Tech. (Milosun's blog).

And here is Iggy himself, at the six month mark, in the University of Richmond's SL island.

TR 35 for 2007

2007-08-21T07:01:00.000-04:00

The TR 35 Innovators for 2007 were announced in the recent issue of Technology Review. The 2007 Young Innovator is David Berry, seeking renewable petroleum from microbes. Tapan Parikh of the University of Washington is the Humanitarian of the Year. The full list of young innovators under 35 is here.

In addition to academic and corporate researchers, entrepreneurs on the list include Sanjit Biswas of Meraki Networks, Garrett Camp of Stumbleupon, Tariq Krim of Netvibes, Jeff LaPorte of Eqo Communications, Christopher Loose of Stericoat, Neil Renninger of Amyris Technologies, Kevin Rose of Digg, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

Hype Cycle Definitions

2007-08-20T11:33:00.000-04:00

Gartner's Hype Cycles provide a snapshot of the relative maturity of technologies, IT methodologies and management disciplines, comparing overhyped areas against those that are high impact. They estimate how long technologies and trends will take to reach maturity, helping organizations decide when to adopt.

Snippets from the Five phases of the Gartner Hype Cycle:

Technology Trigger: The first phase of a Hype Cycle is the "technology trigger" or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.

Peak of Inflated Expectations: ... a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.

Trough of Disillusionment: Technologies enter the "trough of disillusionment" because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable.

Slope of Enlightenment: ... some businesses continue through the "slope of enlightenment" and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.

Plateau of Productivity: A technology reaches the "plateau of productivity" as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted... and stable.

The Priority Matrix supplements the vertical visibility or "hype" axis of the Hype Cycle with a focus on the potential benefit of the technology, rated as transformational, high, moderate or low.
2007 charts, with links to Gartner, the Gartner media industry blog.

Inspiring Entrepreneurship

2007-08-18T06:29:00.000-04:00

VC Brad Feld is planning to sponsor a bathroom at the ATLAS Institute of the University of Colorado, after his similar offer was declined by MIT. To that end, he is looking for a good quote related to entrepreneurship for the plaque.

Perhaps the new table at Patently Silly would be a helpful addition to the facilities.

VA Colleges and Universities

2007-08-17T16:56:00.000-04:00

US News and World Report has published their college and university rankings for 2008, and three Virginia institutions are among the top national universities: the University of Virginia (23), the College of William and Mary (33), and Virginia Tech (71).

Of the Liberal Arts Colleges in the country, two Virginia colleges were among the top 50, Washington and Lee University (15) and the University of Richmond (40).

In the Universities-Masters Degree (South region) category, Virginia schools among the top 50 are: James Madison University (4), the University of Mary Washington (9), Mary Baldwin College (23), Hampton University (25), Longwood University (31), Radford University (38), Shenandoah University (41), Lynchurg College (43), and Marymount University (45).

New Visualizations

2007-08-17T08:24:00.000-04:00

Designer Manuel Lima's Visual Complexity site points to numerous related books available through his Amazon aStore. Thanks for pointers to several of the pages below.

Ink Trails by Robert Hodkin. Thanks to Future Feeder for the pointer.

The 32nd America's Cup Circling Galaxy display. Thanks to Great Map for the pointer.

Chris Harrison's projects, including the Clusterball visualization of the three levels of of wikipedia.

Paul Dunn's Visuwords, an online graphical dictionary.

Lee Byron's Lisening History posters from Last.fm software.

Finally, Walk2Web creates a visualization of your own web activity. (An example of an opening page to begin visualizing your history, below)

Miscellaneous Getting Real in the Colossal Cave

2007-08-17T07:32:00.000-04:00

Late August - time for some book notes.

Last year's Getting Real by the folks at 37 Signals is still available as a paperback book, a pdf file, or free for online reading. The table of contents demonstrates their mastery of making information available online; it is easy to navigate to any section of the book, the sidebar advertisements makes sense. For example, their job board and gig board are on the sidebar for the About Us section.

Published this spring, David Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous is about how we’re pulling ourselves together now that we’ve blown ourselves to bits. Sample sections are available here, a list of online sources to buy the book are at ISBN.nu. To his credit, Weinberger posted the many comments requesting sample sections before purchasing the book.

The Digital Humanities Quarterly, a peer-reviewed online journal, was launched last spring. The Summer 2007 issue includes a wonderfully rich piece of gaming history, Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave, by Dennis Jerz, about the old favorite, Will Crowther's Adventure.

Editing Wikipedia

2007-08-16T08:25:00.000-04:00

Thanks to for TechDirt for pointing to the new Wikipedia scanner service by Virgil Griffith. It lists anonymous Wikipedia edits from interesting organizations.

Wired is maintaining a running tally of the most Shameful Wikipedia Spin Jobs. One might have expected such efforts from Scientology, and both national political parties, but ... employees of the New York Times? Disney? MySpace? Diebold? Microsoft AND its PR firm, Waggener Edstrom? the National Security Agency?

Red Herring Redux

2007-08-16T08:19:00.000-04:00

Josh Catone at Read/Write Web reviews the up and down history of Red Herring magazine as their website relaunched this week. He especially notes their new social networking elements.

Red Herring might want to note the O'Reilly Rader review of HarperCollins new initiative to make 14 new books available for download to the iPhone. A quick look at the thousands of posts in the Lulu Community Forum might also be informative.

The HP marketing blog recently changed its name to Digital Mindset. The long running joke Mintz mentions, that HP would have marketed sushi as "cold dead fish", no doubt came to HP by way of Compaq, nee Digital Equipment Corporation.

Startup Matchups

2007-08-16T08:05:00.000-04:00

The WSJ's Startup Journal has an interview with serial entrepreneur Wil Schroter, of GoBigNetwork, which bills itself as the world's biggest community of startup companies.

Other entrepreneur/investor matchup sites mentioned were RaiseCapital and FundingUniverse.

Organized groups that bring together investors and entrepreneurs include Astia, for women technology innovators; HYSTA for Chinese entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley; the BrainGain Network, a world wide network of Philippine technopreneurs; the Northwest Entrepreneurs Network, dedicated to helping entrepreneurs succeed in the Northwest.

Open Source Retreat

2007-08-15T11:38:00.001-04:00

The folks at Open Source Connections have just announced an open source Retreat in Charlottesville, beginning at the end of August. Their course description for Multigen Creator, by visualization master and course instructor Dean Abernathy, is exceptional. Professor Abernathy is best known for overseeing the modeling for Rome Reborn.

The Friends of BGN get a $750 discount for the August courses. There are more details at BGNentrepreneur.

Virginians in the Inc. 500

2007-08-15T09:52:00.000-04:00

There were 34 Virginia companies among the 2006 Inc. 500 fastest growing companies. The 2007 list will be announced next month.

Doug Tatum, founding chairman of Tatum Partners, will deliver his talk on No Man's Land at the Inc 500 Awards ceremony in Chicago. He spoke on this zone at the Charlottesville Venture Group last year.

For the record, Central Virginia companies recognized in 2006 Inc. 500 include:
University Instructors at 139; ActCom Security Solutions at 345; and Rosetta Stone at 431.

Robins School Momentum

2007-08-15T08:45:00.000-04:00

According to the Richmond TimesDispatch, Dr. Jorge Haddock, dean of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond, is focused on momentum.

Momentum to hold a lofty position among the top 25 undergraduate business schools in the nation, as measured by BusinessWeek magazine.

Momentum to complete a $16.8 million capital campaign -- about $10.5 million has been raised -- so the business school can add a new wing.

Momentum to help new UR President Edward L. Ayers keep his pledge to provide more service to the Richmond community.

The Robins School offers 38 student exchange programs in 29 countries; this summer about a dozen international MBA students from Brazil and Angola attended a five-week session at UR. Newsweek magazine just recognized the University of Richmond as one of the 25 Hottest Schools in America for international studies.

The new wing of the business school, for which fundraising is well underway, will increase the size of the school facilities by a third, including 33,000 square feet for new classrooms, a 225-seat auditorium, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a Wall Street-style trading room.

Current faculty research grants are outlined in the Summer 2007 newsletter.

Fall Conferences, 2007

2007-08-14T06:19:00.000-04:00

Fairfax County, VA, is sponsoring the inaugural Conference on the Creative Economy to be held October 24 and 25. Speakers include Richard Florida, Thomas Friedman, Frank Sesno, David DeLong, Anne Fisher, and Alvin Toffler. Registration is now open.

The next SEBIO Investor Forum will take place November 7 and 8 in North Carolina. Winners of the year-long SE Bio/Plan competition will be selected during the event, and will awarded unrestricted, non-dilutive venture funds to launch the enterprise and implement their business plan.

The 17th annual Pegasus Conference will be held in Seattle, November 5 - 7. This year's theme is Amplifying Our Impact: Strategies for Unleashing the Power of Relationship. Speakers include Peter Senge, Debra Myerson, Van Jones, Peter Weertman, and C. Otto Scharmer.

LA is host to the Internet Telephony Conference and Expo conference September 10 - 12. Billed as The World's Ultimate IP Communications Conference!, an event blog and speakers list are available.

The next Trends in Nanotechnology conference will be held September 3 -7 in Spain. Speakers include several researchers from American universities.

The Third Annual Podcast and New Media Expo will be held in California, September 28 - 30.

The next Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo will be held Oct 10 and 11 in San Jose. Speakers include Edward Castronova, Beth Coleman and Susan Wu.

One can still request an invitation to the Fourth Annual Web 2.0 Summit, Discovering the Web's Edge, to be held in San Francisco October 17 - 19. Speakers include John Battelle, Steve Ballmer and Tim O'Reilly.

Finally, the engineers of the IEEE have scheduled their 11th Annual International Conference on Computer Vision for Oct 14 through 20 in Rio de Janeiro.

Singularity Summit

2007-08-14T06:14:00.000-04:00

Tickets are still available for the Singularity Summit for Artificial Intelligence to be held in San Francisco in early September.

The 2006 Singularity Summit, the first academic symposium focused on the singularity scenario, was held at Stanford.

Speakers include academics from MIT, Stanford, and Yale, as well as business people from IBM, Powerset, Google and Teknowledge and representatives from several foundations and institutes. Abstracts of the talks are available now.

SL Financial Messes

2007-08-13T09:56:00.000-04:00

Financial issues have been plaguing the Second Life economy recently, according to Technology Review, and TechDirt.

Perhaps the founders of these financial institutions in SL could have used some real-life corporate guidelines for virtual worlds, as discussed recently on Terra Nova. They are not all about etiquette. Cornell University's Robert Bloomfield and other bloggers at Terra Nova have pointed to the unregulated nature of financial institutions of Second Life.

While we are looking at financial messes, here's the mortgage lender Implode-O-Meter, and the hedge fund Implode-O-Meter. The taglines are great: Tracking the housing finance breakdown: a saga of corruption, stupidity, and government complicity, and Hubris, extreme leverage, and other people's money. Thanks to Paul Kedrosky for pointers.

Dresden Museum Opens in SL

2007-08-13T08:45:00.000-04:00

The Dresden Museum's Old Masters Gallery launched in Second Life in June.
According to Wired magazine:

Second Life [Museum] representatives say it's the first real-world museum to "clone" itself online, although virtual versions of other collections (most famously "Second Louvre," which has no official ties to the Paris museum) have popped up.

All 37,700 square feet of the 150-year-old building, plus the grounds outside, have been recreated, down to the trash cans and fountains in the courtyard and ceiling moldings, staircases and furniture within. The highlight, of course, is on the virtual walls: 750 paintings spanning 300 years of European art.

And Dresden isn't the only historical site to move to the net. The city of Cologne already has plans to open a virtual version of its famed cathedral, which has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1996, this month.

NASA PAV Challenge Winners

2007-08-13T08:07:00.000-04:00

Accordng to c|net news, winners were chosen Saturday in the NASA-sponsored competition of Personal Aircraft Vehicles, the first annual PAV Challenge. The Cafe Foundation, a nonprofit group of flight test engineers, held the race at the Charles Schultz Sonoma County Airport.

The winner was the modified short-wing Pipistrel Virus, a Slovenia-built sport aircraft. A highly modified kit plane, Vans RV-4, won the speed challenge and the low-noise challenge. A Cessna 172, the most popular small plane in production since the 40s, won the handling competition.

The PAV race is part of the NASA Centennial Challenges, a series of competitions that support space exploration and aviation technologies in private industry. The Beam Challenge and the Tether Challenge are coming up in October. (full Challenge list and descriptions)

The blog, Space Prizes has detailed information about space-related competitions, past teams and winners, and annual competitions like the National Space Society's Art Prize (November 30 submission deadline). No doubt the Society's sponsored art work will grace the rooms of Galactic Suite, the space hotel scheduled to launch in 2012.

Another Inconvenient Truth

2007-08-12T06:44:00.000-04:00

The following online discussion and debate is an example of the power of the web to bring both wide public participation and deep expertise to bear on the detailed mathematics involved in research and simulation, the public policy debates that rest on that work, and collaborative contributions by widely dispersed individuals.

According to Wikipedia, Stephen McIntyre found an error in the surface temperature record kept by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). GISS has acknowledged the error and incorporated a correction in their data set. The error affects the surface temperature record from 2000 through 2007. The US Annual Mean Temperature Chart from GISS, last modified on 2007-08-07, is below.

McIntyre is the primary author at the blog, CimateAudit, which is said to be under a denial of service attack at this writing. His most recent comments, as a guest blogger, are available here.

Thanks to Daily Tech for a pointer to this online discussion, and to Anthony Watt's Watt's Up with That? blog for a historical summary and annual charts from the revised data. The mission of Watt's newest online endeavor, SurfaceStations, is the creation of a publicly available photographic database of weather stations and weather station metadata through collaboration.

More from Gartner

2007-08-11T09:37:00.000-04:00

These new-era brokers use the Web as a transformational — rather than a supplemental — channel and leverage Web 2.0 functionality, including new programming techniques, blogs and social communities. Traditional brokerages use the Internet simply as a different channel through which to provide the same content and services that they provide through branches, telephone and regular mail.
Snippet from Gartner press release. Additional information from “Early Efforts at Web 2.0 Brokerage Will Challenge Existing Providers.”

Gartner's Financial Services Technology Summit 2007 will be from August 27-29 in New York City. Hon. Michael Oxley, former Congressman who is now vice-chairman of the NASDAQ, will be a keynote speaker. In mid-September, Gartner will present the new CIO Summit in Barcelona.

Startup Junkie Show

2007-08-11T07:57:00.000-04:00

According to the WSJ's Startup Journal, the new reality show "Startup Junkies" will focus on serial entrepreneur Ron Wiener, founder and chief executive of Earth Class Mail, seeking venture funding. Earth Class Mail makes postal mail available online, acting as a virtual post office box. Before agreeing to do the show, the company ensured that camera crews would not interfere with daily operations, and that Earth Class Mail could decide when cameras would be present and would have final control of the edit button.

Starting in January, "Startup Junkies" will be featured on MOJO among finance-focused shows like "Wall Street Warriors." MOJO, which targets young, professional men, was formerly called INHD.

Perhaps the experience will eventually be reflected on TheFunded.com, which was recently covered by BGNonline and by the Startup Journal.

Library of Congress Preserves New Media

2007-08-10T07:45:00.000-04:00

According to Gamasutra, the Library of Congress has announced a $2.5 m initiative, Preserving Creative America, which targets preservation issues across a broad range of creative media, including movies, digital photography, and video games. This project comes from the Library's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program.

The Library of Congress announcement notes that the Second Life community will play a vital role in the project, with online groups such as Life to the Second Power, Democracy Island and the International Spaceflight Museum tapped to participate in the project. The University of Maryland, Stanford University and the Rochester Institute of Technology are partners in this effort.

The initiative will also include historical games such as those in the Digital Game Cannon, and electronic literature. For the record, the first ten games included in the Canon are:

Spacewar! (MIT, 1962); Star Raiders (Atari, 1979)
Zork I: The Great Underground Empire (Infocom, 1980; PDP-11 version)
Tetris (Alexey Pajitnov, 1985), Sim City (Maxis, 1989)
Super Mario Brothers 3 (Nintendo, 1990), Civilization I/II (MicroProse, 1991-1996)
DOOM (id, 1993), Sensible World of Soccer (Sensible, 1994), Warcraft I/II/III (Blizzard, 1994-2003)

Nonprofit Commons Opens in SL

2007-08-10T07:36:00.000-04:00

From Nonprofits in Second Life (NPSL), comes the news that the Nonprofit Commons SL sim will hold its grand opening hybrid world event on Tuesday, August 14, at 5:30 PM PC/SLT in SL and in San Francisco. According to New World Notes, the sim dedicated exclusively to providing free office space for non-profits was donated by Ms. Anshe Chung, and is managed by TechSoup.

Here is the wiki, and Rik's announcement in The Click Heard Round the World. NetSquared offers registration for the San Francisco event on Meetup. The SLURL goes to the SL event location.

Advertising and Social Networking Sites

2007-08-09T06:38:00.000-04:00

According to TechDirt, it's common for companies to not know each and every place online where their advertisements appear. Advertisers are being to notice that their ads sometimes appear on profile pages for organizations or initiatives they oppose, and some are beginning to withdraw from sites featuring user-generated content.
This has not stopped the big media companies from buying up smaller social networking sites, according to Giga Om. He says that "This is a strategy not without risk. Big media companies have to leave the acquired, and their communities, alone."

Stumble Upon is an interesting take on social networking. Joshua Porter of Bokardo looks at Del.icio.us and feature creep in social web applications.

Emerging Technology Hype Cycle 2007

2007-08-09T06:00:00.000-04:00

The Gartner Hype Cycle diagram for emerging technologies, below, reflects the major themes from Jackie Fenn's latest report: Web 2.0 innovations, the commercialisation of user interaction techniques and mobile technologies and applications. Ten of the 36 emerging technologies they considered are viewed as having transformational impact on business.

The Gartner emerging technology Priority Matrix is below.

Dion Hinchcliffe of ZDNet provides a Checkpoint on Web 2.0 in the Enterprise.

Chaos in East Germany

2007-08-08T08:35:00.001-04:00

John Borland of Wired will be reporting live from the Chaos Communications Camp, taking place this week on a former Soviet airfield in East Germany. The Chaos Computer Club, one of the oldest and most well-known hacker organizations in the world, sponsors this event once every four years.

Spook Country and Cyberspace

2007-08-08T07:55:00.000-04:00

According to a c|net news interview with author William Gibson, who coined the term "cyberspace", about his new book, Spook Country:

The thing that has affected me most directly during Pattern Recognition, and subsequently, is the really strange new sense I have of the Google-ability of the text. It's as though there is a sort of invisible hyperlink theoretical text that extends out of the narrative of my novel in every direction.
And on his recent reading in Second Life: What I find most interesting about Second Life is that I've noticed now, very occasionally, I'll see on the street someone who looks as though they have escaped from Second Life. There are people who look all too much like Second Life avatars and I don't know if they were there before or whether I just hadn't notice them.

On being asked how well his earlier novels, such as Neuromancer (1984) have stood the test of time, Gibson noted that he had completely missed mobile phones, and that the Soviet Union was another whopping anachronism looming in the background of the book.

OneWebDay 2007

2007-08-08T07:20:00.000-04:00

Last August we noted the first OneWebDay on September 22. The OWD Wiki is available now.

This year, there is a Google map of One Web Day events world-wide. Email Dan (at) onewebday.org if you know of a missing event location.

Jinglei's Blog

2007-08-08T07:07:00.001-04:00

According to Entrepreneur.Com, MSNBC reports that the most-read blog in the world is by a Chinese actress/director named Xu Jinglei. In July, Jinglei became the world's most popular blogger with 100 million page views within about 600 days. Outside China, Jinglei is best known for "Letter From An Unknown Woman" at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in 2004 (Best Director). Her blog, began in 2005, focuses on her work and daily life.

Sino-Angle of the UK graciously offers an English translation of a portion of Jinglei's blog, and pointers to other sources of Chinese podcasts and dictionaries.

Metaverse 2.0 by Jackson

2007-08-07T08:20:00.000-04:00

Clive Jackson of Pelican Crossing, creators of Blink3D software, recently published The Metaverse 2.0 (pdf). Snippets follow

I believe that the Metaverse 2.0 will be cosmopolitan, meaning: it is not a single, monolithic 3D environment like Second Life or There.com. Rather, it will be a vast collection of millions of interconnected 3D environments built using various 3D authoring products.

Metaverse 1.0 started around 1995’s with VRML 1.0 (Virtual Reality Markup Language), continuing with VRML 2.0 in 1997 and Adobe Atmosphere in 2000 and culminating with Active Worlds and Second Life. ... Non-web products like Active Worlds [were] closely followed by Second Life which languished until ... they added an economy and the concept of Intellectual Property. A more recent entrant has been There.com.

In 2007, we are starting to see problems... People are beginning to wonder what’s next and the answer is Metaverse 2.0.

VA Business Schools in The 282

2007-08-07T07:49:00.000-04:00

The Princeton Review ranks the 282 best business schools in America.
There are 11 separate categories in which the schools are ranked, including The Toughest to Get Into, The Best Overall Academic Experience, The Best Professors, The Best Campus Facilities, and The Greatest Opportunity for Women.

Among Virginia business schools, The University of Virginia Darden School was highly ranked for Best Campus Facilities; both UVA and William and Mary were highly ranked for the Best Professors. For example, Darden's Dr. Mary Margaret Frank just received the Teaching Innovation Award co-sponsored by the Deloitte Foundation and the American Taxation Association. In 2007, the University of Richmond Robins School was included in The Princeton Review list for the first time.

For information about the ranking process, see The Princeton Review FAQs.

Entrepreneur Magazine's Hot 500 for 2007

2007-08-06T09:56:00.000-04:00

The Daily Progress reports that 24 Virginia companies made the Entrepreneur Magazine Hot 500 list of America's fastest growing companies in the South Atlantic Region this year. They include Outcomes, Inc. of Charlottesville, Stoker Construction Management LLC of Midlothian, Log.Sec Corporation of Manassas, and PBM Holdings, Inc of Gordonsville.

Other ranked Virginia companies are Four Points Technology, Nexius, and Valador, Inc. of Herndon, A-T Solutions, Inc. of Fredericksburg, Patner Construction, Inc., Webster Data Communications, Inc. and Winn Design LLC of Fairfax, Morgan Franklin Corporation and Aquarian LLC of McLean, Government Support Services, Inc., Acuity Consulting, Inc. and Orion Worldwide Travel of Alexandria, Integrity Applications, Inc., Nonstop Delivery, Inc. and JRC Logistics, Inc. of Chantilly, The Goal, Inc. of Ashburn, Platinum Solutions, Inc. of Reston, ICI Services LLC of Dumfries, MCG Capital Corporation of Arlington, and kmG Hauling of Potomac Falls.

VA Nanotechnology Partnership Revisited

2007-08-05T07:36:00.000-04:00

Last year BGN pointed to the new Virginia Nanotechnology Partnership Initiative, funded by the National Science Foundation for 2006 - 2008. Since then, George Mason University established a graduate certificate program in nanotechnology and nanoscience. This summer, Virginia was recognized by Small Times among its “Next Top 10” states, ranking the Commonwealth #13 among all states.

The Virginia Joint Commission on Technology and Science (JCOTS) formed a 2007 Nanotechnology Authority Advisory Committee to study and make recommendations on the structure of a Nanotechnology Authority, focusing on non-general fund revenue to fund the authority. JCOTS has also initiated a nanotechnology blog.

The Atlantic NanoForum sponsored a conference in 2006, and provides nanotechnology-related news feeds. The Northern Virginia Tech Council Nanotech Committee is chaired by Kent Murphy of Luna Innovations.
The National Nanotechnology Initiative has several events coming up on the environmental impacts of nanotechnology.

More BarCamps

2007-08-04T08:43:00.000-04:00

The BarCamp wiki has a list of BarCamps scheduled to date.

BarCampRDU is underway today at the Red Hat offices in North Carolina. (Registration for this event closed at nearly 250 participants) The Second Life event, Web3DCamp is scheduled for September 8 at the Corecon Convention Center.

Orlando Unconferences

2007-08-04T08:23:00.001-04:00

The unconference BarCampOrlando is scheduled for September 23. Registration opens this Monday. The BarCampOrlando wiki includes a list of potential topics and participants.

BlogOrlando, sponsored by Hyku and the Society for New Communications Research, will take place on September 27 - 29. Registration for this event is already open. Both events are free.

European Entrepreneur Cullen

2007-08-04T07:43:00.000-04:00

Aodhan Cullen, founder of StatCounter, was recognized by Business Week as the Young IT Person of the Year, recognizing outstanding achievements made by a recent entrant into the IT profession. The StatCounter blog has details, and celebration snapshots.

Wallstrip Reviewed

2007-08-03T07:04:00.000-04:00

Startup Review profiles Wallstrip this week:

Wallstrip, which produces short online video pieces covering stocks, is a fascinating and unusual business. Born of the blogosphere, founded by a venture capitalist who says he never intended to run it as a long-term business, funded with seed capital and sold less than a year later, the company fairly screams “test project”. The fact that it was sold to CBS for $5M ... a mere nine months after launch proves that the test was successful.

Wallstrip carries material from other sites as well; Howard Lindzon's recent piece on Canadian oil is probably typical.

BarCamps Continue

2007-08-03T06:56:00.000-04:00

The 2007 BarCamp returns to Palo Alto in mid-August, as a block party among SocialText, Edgeio, IDEO, and iMeem. Additonal information on NetSquared

BarCamp is an international network of unconferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies and social protocols. Snippets from Wikipedia.

BarCamp rules are admirably clear:

When you come, be prepared to share with barcampers.

When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

Give a demo, a session, or help with one, or otherwise volunteer or contribute in some way to support the event.

If you want to organize a new BarCamp, Clever, Clever Girl Crystal Williams has updated her Ten Steps (now available in German and French).

Startups are Harder than They Look

2007-08-03T06:39:00.000-04:00

Glenn Kelman has a slightly different take on entrepreneurship, especially startups. Most recently he founded of Redfin, an online market for houses.

If you aren’t doing something worthwhile, you can’t get anyone worthwhile to work on it. I often think about what Ezra Pound once said of his epic poem, that "if it's a failure, it's a failure worth all the successes of its age.”
I remember the Venerable Bede’s complaint that his eighth century contemporaries had lost the fervor of seventh century monks. Even in the darkest of the Dark Ages, people were nostalgic for...the Dark Ages. Snippets from Guy Kawasaki's blog, where Kelman was guest blogger.

Virginia's Young CEOs

2007-08-02T08:17:00.000-04:00

Virginia Business Magazine has a great new article on young, web-savvy CEOs in Virginia.

CEOs profiled include Joel Erb, interviewed by BGN last May. In 2001, cuts in NYC advertising budgets affected about 80 percent of his business, Inet Network and forced him to rethink college. "We went from a staff of 12 in the beginning of 2001 to a staff of two, and I quickly realized I have to do something about this," he recalls.

Erb immediately enrolled at the University of Richmond. He calls his degree a $160,000 "insurance policy." It's helping him grow his business smartly, he says, rather than just aggressively. "I don't think I need college to make my business run," adds Erb, "but I need college to refine the skills I had to make it run smoothly." Snippets from Virginia Business Magazine.

Wired and NextFest

2007-08-02T07:09:00.000-04:00

NextFest 2007 is scheduled for September 13 - 16.
WIRED's vision of a new World's Fair is a four-day festival of innovative products and technologies that are transforming our world. This year's NextFest in Los Angeles features more than 160 interactive exhibits from leading scientists and researchers around the world.

ThingM will be presenting its new WineM RFID wine rack. The ATLAS Rope Ascender, designed by MIT students is part of the Security exhibition sponsored by Northrup Grumman. The Brasilian WheelSurf, available to try out in SL, will be in the Transportation pavilion. The LifeStraw will be in the Health pavilion. The Exploration pavilion will house a skin-tight space suit in development at MIT, and the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.

Most of these innovative products, even those originating in research universities, are being developed and brought to market by entrepreneurs such as PayPal's co-founder, Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002:

SpaceX aims to ... develop a family of launch vehicles which will ultimately reduce the cost and increase the reliability of space access by a factor of ten. Coupled with the newly emerging market for private and commercial space transport, this new model will re-ignite humanity's efforts to explore and develop Space.

Hardware Sketching

2007-08-02T07:08:00.000-04:00

Mike Kuniavsky of ThingM on hardware sketching: Sketching may begin with an idea, but the process fundamentally changes that idea. Sketches identify both what an idea is, and what it is not.

Presentations from the June Sketching in Hardware 2 conference are available now. The third workshop will be in December. The 2007 series theme is Boundary Conditions.

we will examine the boundaries in developing physical computing: boundaries between components, between standards, between making objects and creating experiences, between cost and sustainability, between the expected and the unorthodox, and between creator and toolkit.

Traveling Telecommuters

2007-08-01T08:16:00.000-04:00

From CNN Money comes a report on Extreme Telecommuting. As they put it:

Telecommuting, of course, is hardly a new idea. Nearly everyone knows someone who works at home. But relatively few ask the next logical question: Why stay at home?

Anthony Page's WorkingNomad, has become a clearinghouse for those who aspire to being "white-collar nomads". Surprisingly, he notes that the downsides of this nomadic life include limited opportunities for socializing and no real vacations, not to mention the temptation to spend one's time sightseeing instead of tending to business.

Sean Aiken has a slightly different approach at OneWeekJob. He's traveling across Canada working a different job each week, and donating his wages to the Make Poverty History campaign.

New College Institute Update

2007-08-01T07:45:00.000-04:00

The recently founded New College Institute of Martinsville now offers tuition assistance to qualified students.
A brief history of this new collaborative institution notes that NCI will be evaluated in the future to determine whether it should remain as the unique educational entity it is today or whether it will become a stand-alone four-year college or if it will become a branch campus of an existing college or university. At present, collaborating institutions include the University of Virginia, Patrick Henry Community College, Averett University, Ferrum College, Radford University, Longwood University, Old Dominion University and Virginia Commonwealth University.

COVITS 2007 Registration

2007-08-01T07:17:00.000-04:00

Registration is now open for the 9th annual Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium (COVITS).

Featured sessions include:
The Strategic Plan for IT in action
Breakout sessions on intergovernmental cooperation – federal/state/local
Breakout sessions on the intersection of R&D and IT in Virginia
A special breakfast policy briefing on opportunities for SWaM vendors
Showcase of innovations resulting from the Productivity Investment Fund
Monday evening reception hosted by the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC)

Some speakers have changed, so an updated program is available. Vivek Kundra, now CTO for the District of Columbia, will return to talk about Homeland Security and Interoperability, and to join Mark Warner in a "town hall" style meeting introducing the Broadband Roundtable, which includes Dr. Ted Rappaport, founder of Virginia Tech's Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), one of the world’s first university research and teaching centers dedicated to the wireless communications.

Customized Exec Ed

2007-07-27T07:31:00.000-04:00

Virginia Business Magazine profiles several specialized executive education programs at Virginia universities. Programs include the LandAmerica Leadership Academy at the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business, and the AES Corp. that has worked with the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business since 2004.