Entrepreneurship – Page 182 – artdiamondblog.com

Mooning the Future

Source of book image:
http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/24530000/24539427.jpg

In an ideal world, a famous railroad mogul like Cornelius Vanderbilt, would be a consistent defender of technological progress. But moguls can differ in their motives and are not always consistent. Consider the following from a new biography of Vanderbilt:

(p. D9) The arrival a few years earlier of the first steamships, clanking loudly and belching flames and smoke, provoked scorn from sailors, who waved their hats in condescension and “sometimes also turned their backs, bent down, and revealed their bare ends to the dignified ladies and gentleman who had paid lofty prices to flirt with the future. Cornelius sometimes made such a salute.”

For the full review, see:
JULIA FLYNN SILER. “The Tides of Fortune.” The Wall Street Journal
(Weds., December 19, 2007): D9.

Why We Need Some Savvy Entrepreneur to Start a Garage-Rating Business

“Henry Schneider found few competent, honest mechanics.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT commentary quoted and cited below.

(p. C1) . . . , Mr. Schneider drove home to Connecticut and undertook a devilish little test.
Over the next few months, he took the Subaru to 40 garages, loosening the battery cable and draining some coolant before each visit. He even wrote himself a script and memorized it, to make sure he was telling every garage the same thing. “We bought the car recently, and we should have had it looked at before we bought it, but we didn’t,” he would say. “It hasn’t started a few times. Can you check that out?” He also asked for a thorough inspection.
Mr. Schneider was trying to answer a question that has occurred to pretty much all drivers who have ever been given the unsettling news that a car needs more repairs than they had expected: Does it really? Or is the garage just looking to make some extra money off me?
. . .
At only 27 of the 40 garages did mechanics tell Mr. Schneider that he had a disconnected battery cable, the very problem to which he had pointed them by saying his car didn’t always start. Only 11 mentioned the low coolant, a problem that can ruin a car’s engine. Ten of the garages, meanwhile, recommended costly repairs that were plainly unnecessary, like replacing the starter motor or the battery. (Tellingly, his results were in line with what the Automobile Protection Association found when it performed its experiments in Canada.)
In all, only about 20 percent of the garages deserved a passing grade. “And that’s with a pretty low bar,” Mr. Schneider told me. “I’m even allowing them to have missed a blown taillight that should have been caught.”
. . .
. . . , Mr. Schneider didn’t set out to study cars. His original goal was to examine the health care system. But he couldn’t very well give himself a heart murmur and then visit 40 cardiologists.
“It turns out it’s hard to get objective measures of people’s bodies,” as Thomas Hubbard, a Northwestern University professor who has also studied the economics of reputation, put it. “It’s a lot easier to get objective measures of people’s cars.”
. . .
Until some savvy entrepreneur starts a garage-rating business, the best solution may be the oldest one: asking for a recommendation from someone who is knowledgeable enough to distinguish between good service and bad. Just remember that a lot of people don’t know quite as much about cars — or their mechanic — as they think they do.

For the full commentary, see:
DAVID LEONHARDT. “ECONOMIC SCENE; When Trust In an Expert Is Unwise.” The New York Times (Weds., November 7, 2007): C1 & C9.

(Note: ellipses added.)

“Schneider sabotaged his dad’s old station wagon to test the honesty of mechanics.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT commentary quoted and cited above.

Co-Working in the Free Agent Nation

“Web entrepreneur Alex Hillman got together with a group of work-at-home businesspeople to create a hip space to work in Philadelphia.” Souce of caption and photo: online version of the Omaha World-Herald article quoted and cited below.

(p. 1D) “I always felt an obligation to the coffee shop. I was taking up precious space,” Hillman said. “I was definitely drinking more coffee than I should have, so I wasn’t sleeping.”

Even before he left his job, he had begun to learn about co-working, not to be confused with job-sharing, where two people take turns in the same stall in the cube farm.

Instead, think of co-working as an entrepreneurial version of parallel play, with owners of their own small businesses working side by side in a drop-in place that looks like a coffee cafe, minus the barista, with all the accoutrements of what’s hip: high ceilings, beer fridge, pool table and Internet access.

Paying as little as $175 a month, they mostly work on their own. But they also trade ideas, help solve problems, and move in and out of loose collaborations.

Today’s technology — wireless access, cell phones, BlackBerries and laptops — makes a mobile work force possible.

“I think when people work at home they have to come up with new ways to interact with people,” said Daniel H. Pink, one of the first authors to write about independent contractors in his 2001 book “Free Agent Nation.”

For the full story, see:

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER. “Workplace; A step up from working in pj’s.” Omaha World-Herald (Monday, September 17, 2007): 1D & 2D.

The refererence to the Pink book is:

Pink, Daniel H. Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live. New York: Warner Business Books, 2001.

Why Entrepreneurs Are Needed to Bring Important Innovations to Market

Source of book image: http://www.bigbadbookblog.com/wp-content/uploads/Blink.jpg

In my classes I sometimes comment on the failure of much marketing research, sometimes quoting the founder of Sony on using his own judgment on what is useful to customers.

There’s some useful insight into this issue in Malcolm Gladwell’s stimulating Blink book. He argues, and presents examples, that marketing research can provide useful information when the product being evaluated is familiar to the customers being surveyed. But when the product is new and unfamiliar, it may take awhile for the customer to figure out what they think of it. There initial reaction will usually be negative, simply as a reaction to the unfamiliarity. But with time, the product may grow on them as they figure out what “jobs” the product might be able to do for them in the full context of their lives. (The “jobs” formulation is Christensen’s, not Gladwell’s.)

What is worse, it is precisely those innovations that are most innovative, and ultimately prove most useful, that are most unfamiliar, and hence are most likely to be panned by customers in initial evaluations.

This has implications for why an entrepreneur-friendly economy is so important for innovations. Incumbent firms are apt to rely on some formal (a.k.a. marketing research) methods to evaluate new innovations. So if innovations are to be introduced, it is crucial that there be entrepreneurs with the courage, passion, knowledge, and financial means to pursue the innovation through the period of skepticism.

The reference for the Blink book, is:

Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. Back Bay Books, 2005.

The Government’s War on Working Bodega Cats

“Holly scares the rodents away at home, a deli in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A28) Across the city, delis and bodegas are a familiar and vital part of the streetscape, modest places where customers can pick up necessities, a container of milk, a can of soup, a loaf of bread.
Amid the goods found in the stores, there is one thing that many owners and employees say they cannot do without: their cats. And it goes beyond cuddly companionship. These cats are workers, tireless and enthusiastic hunters of unwanted vermin, and they typically do a far better job than exterminators and poisons.
When a bodega cat is on the prowl, workers say, rats and mice vanish.
. . .
To store owners, the services of cats are indispensable in a city where the rodent problem is serious enough to be documented in a still popular two-minute video clip on YouTube from late February (youtube.com/watch?v=su0U37w2tws) of rats running amok in a KFC/Taco Bell in Greenwich Village. Store-dwelling cats are so common that there is a Web site, workingclasscats.com, dedicated to telling their tales.
But as efficient as the cats may be, their presence in stores can lead to legal trouble. The city’s health code and state law forbid animals in places where food or beverages are sold for human consumption. Fines range from $300 for a first offense to $2,000 or higher for subsequent offenses.
. . .
In October, a health inspector fined Mr. Martinez $300 and warned him that if Junior was still there by the time of the next inspection he would be fined $2,000.
“He wants me to get rid of the cat, but the rats will take over if I do,” Mr. Martinez said. “I need the cat, and the cat needs a home.”
Because stores do not get advance notification of an inspection, Mr. Martinez is trying to keep Junior in his office as much as possible. Many bodega owners reason that a cat is less of a health threat than an army of nibbling rats. “If cats live in homes and apartments where people have food, a cat shouldn’t be a threat in a store if it’s well maintained,” Mr. Fernández said.

For the full story, see:
KATE HAMMER. “To Dismay Of Inspectors, Prowling Cats Keep Rodents On the Run At City Delis The New York Times (Fri., December 21, 2007): A28.
(Note: ellipses added.)
“Oreo roams at a deli in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Study Finds Over a Third of Entrepreneurs Are Dyslexic

(p. C1) It has long been known that dyslexics are drawn to running their own businesses, where they can get around their weaknesses in reading and writing and play on their strengths. But a new study of entrepreneurs in the United States suggests that dyslexia is much more common among small-business owners than even the experts had thought.

The report, compiled by Julie Logan, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Cass Business School in London, found that more than a third of the entrepreneurs she had surveyed — 35 percent — identified themselves as dyslexic. The study also concluded that dyslexics were more likely than nondyslexics to delegate authority, to excel in oral communication and problem solving and were twice as likely to own two or more businesses.
“We found that dyslexics who succeed had overcome an awful lot in their lives by developing compensatory skills,” Professor Logan said in an interview. “If you tell your friends and acquaintances that you plan to start a business, you’ll hear over and over, ‘It won’t work. It can’t be done.’ But dyslexics are (p. C6) extraordinarily creative about maneuvering their way around problems.”
. . .
(p. C6) Much has been written about the link between dyslexia and entrepreneurial success. Fortune Magazine, for example, ran a cover story five years ago about dyslexic business leaders, including Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways; Charles R. Schwab, founder of the discount brokerage firm that bears his name; John T. Chambers, chief executive of Cisco; and Paul Orfalea, founder of the Kinko’s copy chain.
Similarly, Rosalie P. Fink, a professor at Lesley College in Cambridge, Mass., wrote a paper in 1998 on 60 highly accomplished people with dyslexia.
But Professor Logan said hers was the first study that she knew of that tried to measure the percentage of entrepreneurs who have dyslexia. Carl Schramm, president of the Kauffman Foundation, which financed the research, agreed. He said the findings were surprising but, he said, there was no previous baseline to measure it against.

For the full story, see:
BRENT BOWERS. “Tracing Business Acumen to Dyslexia.” The New York Times (Thurs., December 6, 2007): C1 & C6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

“The No. 1 Need that Poor People Have is a Way to Make More Cash”

Moving water is easier with the 20-gallon rolling drum. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. D3) . . . , the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, . . . , is honoring inventors dedicated to “the other 90 percent,” particularly the billions of people living on less than $2 a day.

Their creations, on display in the museum garden until Sept. 23, have a sort of forehead-thumping “Why didn’t someone think of that before?” quality.

. . .

Interestingly, most of the designers who spoke at the opening of the exhibition spurned the idea of charity.

“The No. 1 need that poor people have is a way to make more cash,” said Martin Fisher, an engineer who founded KickStart, an organization that says it has helped 230,000 people escape poverty. It sells human-powered pumps costing $35 to $95.

Pumping water can help a farmer grow grain in the dry season, when it fetches triple the normal price. Dr. Fisher described customers who had skipped meals for weeks to buy a pump and then earned $1,000 the next year selling vegetables.

For the full story, see:

DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. "Design That Solves Problems for the World’s Poor." The New York Times (Tues., May 29, 2007): D3.

(Note: ellipses added.)

The photo on the left shows a woman safely drinking bacteria-laden water through a filter. The photo on the right shows a "pot-in-pot cooler" that evaporates water from wet sand between the pots, in order to cool what is in the inner pot. Source of photos: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Puzzle: Entrepreneurial Silicon Valley Donates Mainly to Democrats

Source of graphic: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

Entrepreneurship thrives when government is small, so it puzzles me when the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley embrace the Democrats, who generally advocate bigger government.
Of course, my Wabash professor Ben Rogge used to point out that there are always cross-currents that go in a different direction from the mainstream. And among the Democrats, there are what used to be called “new Democrats” who appreciate Schumpeter, and entrepreneurship, and dynamism.
Plus, some Democrats are more respectful of personal, lifestyle choices, and in Silicon Valley, that may be what is given the most weight.
Or, more cynically, maybe there’s a public choice explanation—that Silicon Valley donates to Democrats as a form of ‘insurance,’ in the hope that if the Democrats are elected, they will refrain from over-regulating and over-taxing Silicon Valley. (Even more cynically, compare the case of Florida’s sugar-subsidy-rich Fanjul brothers, one of whom donated huge bucks to the first Bush, while another donated huge bucks to Bill Clinton.)
(Another factor is that, alas, entrepreneurs often do not pay much attention to what conditions encourage entrepreneurship.)

(p. C4) In a flip from the primary season for the 2000 presidential election, 60 percent of the contributions so far from people in the technology field here are going to Democrats. The Democratic candidates raised $1.4 million from the industry in the first half of this year, while Republican candidates raised $890,000. That total is up from $1.2 million in the first six months of each of the last two presidential primary races.

For the full story, see:

LAURIE J. FLYNN. "In Primary, Tech’s Home Is a Magnet." The New York Times (Fri., August 24, 2007): C1 & C4.

Unhappy Italians: “More Fear than Hope”

"A priest passes an abandoned garage covered with graffiti in Milan. Italy’s malaise, an economic, political, and social funk, was summed up in a recent poll: Italians report themselves to be the least happy people in Western Europe." Source of caption and photo: online verison of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A1) ROME — All the world loves Italy because it is old but still glamorous. Because it eats and drinks well but is rarely fat or drunk. Because it is the place in a hyper-regulated Europe where people still debate with perfect intelligence what, really, the red in a stoplight might mean.

But these days, for all the outside adoration and all of its innate strengths, Italy seems not to love itself.   The word here is “malessere,” or “malaise”; it implies a collective funk — economic, political and social — summed up in a recent poll: Italians, despite their claim to have mastered the art of living, say they are the least happy people in Western Europe.

“It’s a country that has lost a little of its will for the future,” said Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome and a possible future center-left prime minister. “There is more fear than hope.”

. . .

. . .   In 1987, Italy celebrated its economic parity with Britain. Now Spain, which joined the European Union only a year earlier, may soon overtake it, and Italy has fallen behind Britain.

Italy’s low-tech way of life may enthrall tourists, but Internet use and commerce here are among the lowest in Europe, as are wages, foreign investment and growth. Pensions, public debt and the cost of government are among the highest.

. . .

(p. A18) . . .  entrepreneurs complain that they are alone. Politicians offered little help making Italy competitive, and this remains a major impediment to making their gains grow. Businesses want less bureaucracy, more flexible labor laws and large investments in infrastructure to make moving goods around easier.

. . .

. . .   Many worry . . . that Italy may share the same fate as the Republic of Venice, based in what many say is the most beautiful of cities, but whose domination of trade with the Near East died with no culminating event. Napoleon’s conquest in 1797 only made it official.

Now it is essentially an exquisite corpse, trampled over by millions of tourists. If Italy does not shed its comforts for change, many say, a similar fate awaits it: blocked by past greatness, with aging tourists the questionable source of life, the Florida of Europe.

. . .

. . .   “We have reached a point where hoping for some kind of white knight coming in saying, ‘We’ll sort you out,’ is over.”

“We Italians have our destiny in our hands more than ever before,” he said.

For the full story, see:

IAN FISHER "In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment." The New York Times (Thurs., December 13, 2007): A1 & A18.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Marconi Matters

Source of book image: http://palmaddict.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/big_larsonthunderstruckdrm_1.jpg

Larson’s book plays off a murder mystery against Marconi as the innovator who brought us communication through the air.

I’m most enthused about hte Marconi part. It shows how he proceeded against the theorists of the day, whose theories told them that what he was trying to do was impossible. He was more entrepreneur, than scientist. And it turned out that it was a good thing that the theoretical scientists did not rule, as they might if all decisions about technology were made by the government.

What happened here is an example of what Taleb would call a Black Swan.

Source:

Larson, Erik. Thunderstruck. New York: Crown, 2006.

“Freedom and Prosperity Are Highly Correlated”

Source of graph: http://www.heritage.org/Press/ALAChart/images/ALC_017_index_econ_freedom_3col_c.jpg

(p. A13) . . . the evidence is piling up that neither government nor multilateral spending on education and infrastructure are key to development. To move out of poverty, countries instead need fast growth; and to get that they need to unleash the animal spirits of entrepreneurs.

Empirical support for this view is presented again this year in The Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom, released today. In its 14th edition, the annual survey grades countries on a combination of factors including property rights protection, tax rates, government intervention in the economy, monetary, fiscal and trade policy, and business freedom.

The nearby table shows the 2008 rankings but doesn’t tell the whole story. The Index also reports that the freest 20% of the world’s economies have twice the per capita income of those in the second quintile and five times that of the least-free 20%. In other words, freedom and prosperity are highly correlated.

For the full commentary, see:

MARY ANASTASIA O’GRADY. "The Real Key to Development." The Wall Street Journal (Tues., January 15, 2008): A13.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Source of table: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.