Basic premise of business: Time, Resources and Access.
REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 3:10 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; michael gurstein Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [Dewayne-Net] The internet has created a new industrial revolution As one of the first entrepreneurs to establish a business on the Internet, Handlo Music (months before Amazon), I would agree with Chris Anderson. (In fact, I was provoked into starting the business after one Futureworker said that it would not be possible to start a business on the Internet.) Mind you, it's not so easy as simply having an idea. Most of us have a good idea at least once a month, I'd guess. In the case of my idea (delivering sheet music PDFs to choirs all over the world) I had to learn a quite complex computer annotation system (Finale) to try out the idea because I couldn't afford to employ a professional. Even then I had to borrow two nerdy friends in designing a usable Website and other techie sundries, and also simplify my original concept. (This was to produce four versions of each piece -- with the Soprano, Contralto, Tenor and Bass lines picked out in red for easy reading by each. But I then realized that most choirs would only have access to B&W printers for sizeable runs.) Even so I had other unforeseeable problems (which Amazon and other large outfits didn't meet, I guess). My bank, Barclays, refused to give me credit card number clearance facilities. Even though my architectural business already had thousands in a Barclays account, I was presumably judged not to be reliable or honest (or important) enough to have receipt of people's credit card numbers on the Internet. Try as I might over several months, I didn't succeed. I then learned that Martin Taylor had become the CEO of Barclays Bank. And, strangely enough, I'd had (amicable) correspondence with him some years previously when he was the author of the highly reputable daily LEX column of the Financial Times. So I wrote to him, making it plain in my first sentence that I knew the guy in order to get it past his secretary (a previous attempt had no doubt been binned). To my astonishment, he remembered me (and to my further astonishment he replied with a hand-written letter!). Two days later a senior Barclays lady, all sweetness and light, arrived on my doorstep with all the kit. So I'll modify what Chris Anderson wrote. One not only has to have a good idea (venture capital funds also require you to have a management team in place also) but also who-you-know. In short, you need luck with friends. Although my friendship with Martin Taylor was of the slenderest, it happened to be sufficient. (I later learned that at least two [of the other five] major banks in the UK also had a policy of point-blank refusal to help new businesses on the Internet at that time. Months later than my affair with Barclays I read in the FT that the financial director of Barclays had "resigned" as also senior executives in two other banks. I wonder why! By then, hundreds of new small Internet businesses were appearing on the web.) Keith At 02:02 20/09/2012, you wrote: -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [ mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] On Behalf Of Dewayne Hendricks Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 11:46 PM To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The internet has created a new industrial revolution The internet has created a new industrial revolution Anyone with a good digital idea can create a successful online business. So are the 'Makers', who are harnessing these new technologies, helping to reboot the manufacturing industry? By Chris Anderson, The Guardian Tuesday 18 September 2012 <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/18/chris-anderson-internet-in <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/18/chris-anderson-internet-in %0bdustrial-revolution> dustrial-revolution> Back in the early 1940s my grandfather had a great idea. Noting the obsession Californians have with perfectly green front lawns, he decided that what they needed was an automatic sprinkler system. He lavished time and love on it, inventing this and fine-tuning that, and eventually came up with what was essentially an electric clock that could be timed to turn water valves on or off at given times of the day and night. Patent number 2311108 was duly filed in 1943, at which point my grandfather started knocking on manufacturers' doors. It was a long, arduous process. Finally, in 1950, after endless discussions, the Moody Rainmaster hit the stores. It earned my grandfather a modest income. Recently, I decided to follow in his footsteps, but apply a little 21st-century know-how to the mix. Online I found a few like-minded souls interested in producing an improved water sprinkler. We used open-source software to help us create a sprinkler system not only capable of being operated remotely via an app by worried gardeners on holiday, but also sophisticated enough to factor in the latest local weather forecasts before deciding whether to switch the system on or off. We then sent our designs to an assembly house who duly came up with a smart-looking finished product. It has proved quite popular. It took my grandfather a decade and a small fortune to perfect his device and market it. It took us a few months and $5,000. And that in a nutshell is the Maker movement - harnessing the internet and the latest manufacturing technologies to make things. The past 10 years have been about discovering new ways to work together and offer services on the web. The next 10 years will, I believe, be about applying those lessons to the real world. It means that the future doesn't just belong to internet businesses founded on virtual principles. but to ones that are firmly rooted in the physical world. This has massive implications not just for would-be entrepreneurs but for national economies. The fact is that any country, if it wants to remain strong, must have a manufacturing base. Even today, about a quarter of the US economy rests on the creation of physical goods. A service economy is all well and good, but eliminate manufacturing and you're a nation of bankers, burger flippers and tour guides. As for software and information industries, they may get all the press, but they employ just a small percentage of the population. [snip] Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: < http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress <http://www.warpspeed.com/wordpress> > _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com <http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>
_______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
