Archive for the 'Media' Category
8W8: Taking Globalization and the Internet to the next Level
Yesterday evening in Munich I listened to a speech from the CEO of Boston Consulting Group Hans-Peter Bürkner about "globalization", an issue that has my natural affinity. Yet, the speech as such I found rather "moderately novel" as its main lines of thought were put forward by Thomas Friedman already 3 years ago in “The World is Flat”. Especially, Mr. Bürkner's part about the role of governments was more of wishful thinking than a reality-based account on the true interests of such a body which is depending on a free electorate.
Anyway, in case someone is interested on more vision and foresight in terms of "what's next" on the global scene, being addressed from an entirely different angle in the shape of a novel, I happily recommend 8W8. The author is Ralf Hirt whom I met in January after moderating the India-panel at the DLD-conference in Munich. It's instrumental to understand the background of Ralf to become clear on both his motivation and insight: He has held leadership positions in the internet industry for a decade and has lived all over the world, in his home town Stuttgart, Hong Kong, Sydney, London and currently New York. In crossing these two lines of experience extrapolating their status-quo plus visioning with lots of foresight, he conceived his first book 8W8. It is worthwhile mentioning that the book is indeed fiction, yet the concept of a "new world modelling engine" are not so far away that this book would fall into the category of "science fiction".
Well, what is it about? The storyline deals with 15 high calibre people from of the "Golden Sky", a community committed with the aspiration to change the world for the sake of good. These 15 people come from a whole array of diverse backgrounds, like Oskar Feller, an editor for a leading internet magazine, Maria who is a doctor developing high-scale programmes to fight HIV/AIDS, Priyanka from India who is an IT-crack working for a global media company or Emanuel, a philosopher and Taoist who has been named for the Nobel Prize. All the characters of the story are here on the 8W8-blog. This group of people is hosted by Winston Chee, a billionaire internet-entrepreneur from China in his island on Hawaii EA-RA.
In this serene and secluded environment, the 15 brains spend a whole week picking each other brains and inspiring each other to solve one crucial problem: How to make the interrelations of economies and people visible in a sort of virtual map-overlay on top of the existing geography. What they come up with is the new world modelling engine "8W8" which can be pictured as a virtual helicopter the "pilot" would use to fly over the terrain of the earth to make these invisible connections visible. Delving even deeper into the concept it transcends into a new form of radical constructivism as the vision the pilot would receive on his dashboard would be a crossover between absolute measurable truths and his set of values/selective perception. What the pilot would get to see is both on “earth level” and on “sky level” the “volumes” of a whole set of parameters. The former range from hard factors like population, GNP, metrics on infrastructure, public institutions to innovation, the latter comprise for example metrics for democracy, human rights, quality of living, level of terrorism and such.
Yet, what is more that beyond statistics on GNP or PPP which are available as top-level data today, 8W8 equally entails a bottom-up approach from the level of the “element” (individual) which will aggregate in “streams” into “Global Space Tribes” according to its interest, e.g. “MBA Jazz Wireless Tribe (MBAJWT)”, “Catholic Fast Food Blue Collar Single Mother of Four (CFFBCSMF)” or the “Taoist Tribe (TT)”. These become even more interesting if one looks at actual vertically positioned Web 2.0 platforms which either try to bring a community of like-minded people together like “Dogster” or provide a tool to define and organize a target group of any shape like Ning. Yet, both of these platforms have in common that they require someone to become a “member” by “registration” and do all these various steps actively online. In that context I do believe that there will be not in too far future a kind of “ambient computing” where the unconscious behaviour patterns will be able to bring people in a meaningful way together. Hence, aggregating this sort of behaviour and making it somehow visible is not that far away from 8W8’s concept of the “Global Space Tribe”.
One thing I had hoped throughout the whole story to occur, is a bit more of conflict, friction, sex: As Oskar and Theresa, a computer scientist, seem to come along very well, I waited for that forbidden kiss, the clandestine quickie to happen under the waterfall of perfectly pristine EA-RA. Not for the sake of sensation, but to portray people regardless of their brains and social status when they become most human: emotional to the extent of irrational. The figures appear prim and proper, and at best tease each other lightly in order to surely succumb to perfect harmony. Irrespective of that, what I liked from a storytelling point of view is the ability to portray a broad set of global citizens who find a common denominator to discuss a topic, be focussed in defining a goal, accepting each other’s variety of viewpoints, being non-judgemental and fully embark on the beneficial concept of diversity.
Altogether, I liked the book a lot as it is coherently able to explain the road ahead in globalization by the force of the internet and the road ahead of the internet by the force of globalization. What gave me food for thought via the concepts of “Global Space Tribes” was the decreasing influence of governments, because free people in a free world are able to cross-pollinate their ideas and aspirations regardless of the strangulating rigidity of what we call a country today. For someone like me who happily articulates his despise of today’s governments, the vision of 8W8 is one which deserves active pursuit.
Who is interested in buying the book, Amazon has it, either in print or for the Kindle.
Guest at SeoFM.com in Munich: SEO-Outsourcing to India
All my 10 years of being a radio-presenter till 2003 slightly re-appeared yesterday night when I was guest at the radio show at SeoFM.com, a weekly online-format of Germany's leading Search-Engine-Optimizers (SEOs) Marcus Tandler (a.k.a. Mediadonis ) and his "partner in crime" Ralf Götz (a.k.a. Fridaynite). It's a one hour talk format which is about the latest development/gossip from the SEO-scene mixed with a lot of infantile jokes - to which I contributed gladly :-) In addition, Mediadonis interviewed my on my business of offshore outsourcing to India for projects revolving around SEO, which could be either building some content-centred apps, some BPO driven tasks for e.g. ad-campains or content-production. Here is the link to the show for time-shifted listening (German language).
So one after the other:
- Sure, surprise, surprise, India is good at software engineering, yet as I have written already on this blog a few times, it's always a number game, hence: If you have 5 people for at least 3 months, it's worth considering. The more and the longer - the better.
- For BPO also big numbers pay off and it always will be much easier, maybe only feasible, if the task is not to a large degree dependant on German language.
- Content-production can work, again in English language. The challenge will be in recruiting and quality assurance, and again, will only pay off with scale.
Mediadonis charmingy titled this show "Rent a Jobkiller", no wonder as I had explained plainly : "My business model rests on two pillars: One is slashing German jobs and increasing unemployment, the other exploiting poor Indians and taking away their future". As there are really people who argue such nonsense with fully conviction, I have made it a virtue to repeat it ironically as often as possible …
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10 Years Ahead: Vision from Innovative Market Research
Came along this very interesting observation from Delphi , an "innovative market researcher" from Germany who is looking today at society in 2017. The focus is Germany with a tangible bullet-point list on the various aspect of change, like my favourites
- The retreating state prompts an enhanced self-responsibility of the individual for health, private pensions, continuous education, etc.
- It is about "re-conquering" one’s own sovereignty about when and where to make a decision.
- People start interpreting the gaps and blanks of the retreating state as their own creative spaces: empowerment instead of accepting deficits.
- To reach their goal of a self-determined life, people form situational alliances: cooperation, dialogue and networking are the key principles people will live by.
- The "New Social Responsibility" combines public spirit and self-interest in a win-win-situation.
Other countries in Europe, but also Russia and the United States are displayed here. Not too surprisingly, globalization gets perceived predominantly as a threat where the reaction ranges from patriotism to denial to retreat into the local community. Looking a bit at the comparison between Germany and the other countries, my old joke seems to get confirmed that fortunately Germany in its own shitty state maintains with France and Italy two other countries it can still look down to ;-)
Overall I picked those 5 bullet-points above as I feel they reflect pretty well my own values according to which I try to live in 2008. My disbelief in Vater Staat (=Father Goverment, as a German proverbs tend to say) is tremendously profound and although the strangulation by tax and even more tax, besides other intrusions, are not coming to an end, people with sufficient flexibility will make their own choices about where and how they want to live and follow the old valid principle "You better have a plan for yourself, before someone else has his plan for you".
My favourite Indian Song: “Bulla Ki Jaana Maen Kaun”
I remember when I heard this song for the first time in the back-seat of a car driving through Mumbai, it's humid heat, it dusty streets when hardly any traffic moves forward, I was taken in immediately. It came from a CD which I understood was from the same artist, and as distances in the speed of snail in Mumbai provide ample time, the song came at least three times. I must have heard it a few times on random occasions, but never "got a grip on it". Untill I recently bought a compilation of "Top 50 Bollywood Songs". And as I lost it, so I found it. "Bulla Ki Jaana Kaun", by the Indian artist Rabbi Shergill. My phantom pain of missing out on the songs got more than alleviated by the additional detection of the video on YouTube. Here it is, and it is as stunning as the song, it's very much like India, it's kind of also a bit of "my India".
"Bulla Ki Jaana Maen Kaun" actually means "I don't know who I am" and pays tribute to the famous Urdu poet Bullae Shah, a beacon of peace between rivalling Muslims and Sikhs in Punjab. It's worthwhile noting that the poet wrote at the beginning of the 19th century, yet his message hasn't lost anything from its relevance today. In sync with the lyrics, the video shows what the mystery of India is about. Many people, different people who in spite of their various background form a "unity through diversity" as writer and diplomat Shashi Tharoor explains in his fluid book "The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone". And the pre-eminent statement "I don't know who I am" serves much less a confession of one's disorientation or, worse, lack if identity than the acknowledgement of one's humility during the pressing quest for truth.
Hope you like the song, too, along with the video, the entry-scene of the magic Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay, with it's fast cuts, it's deliberate blurs, it's changing places, colours and faces. In all the possible abstraction of a song, its whole mood reflects precisely that India is a never-ending stream of discovery. Where now knowing who you are, is both a starting point and and end in itself.
Thanks EO Mumbai for your Hospitality
Who has ever been in event management, knows how much effort it takes to get an event for 250 people rolling, especially if it takes 4 days. And besides a perfect “organization” still make it feel natural and authentic so that everybody parts his way with a noble feeling of inspiration and enrichment. And that’s exactly what EO Bombay managed to put together in the last four days from Thursday to Sunday for the “Regional Integration Event” (RIE 2008) where all the chapters of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization meet annually. The entire picture set on Flickr is here.
One of the highlights was the “Bollywood-Night”, with a fashion show of India’s premier designer JJ Valaya. Here the video of the grand finale with the master himself briefly stepping on stage.
For the motto “Dream Big”, the speakers were absolutely outstanding and in the overall very complementary in what they had to convey. Shashi Ruia from Essar, estimated at a net worth of US-$ 10 bn made a good start, a bit like a father explaining in a very seasoned way to his children what matters, what to look for and what to avoid in business and in life generally.
Zia Mody, a prominent legal consultant and lawyer described what it takes for Indian companies to acquire companies abroad. Ms. Mody is known for her hard work and dryly began her presentation with “Sleep is for Sissies” :-) A panel discussion with industry captains from private equity have a good insight on the thought process and the nuances of the players in this field.
For the most fascinating speaker, however, was the juvenile Sunjay Reddy from the infrastructure developer GVK, the company which on the bid on reforming the notorious Bombay Airport. More information on what it will be is here.
I have never seen a person in my life who has to put up which such piles of shit in his work from a hugely complex construction project in the first place to a community of slum dwellers to be relocated, to opposing populistic politicians to the Shiv Sena for displacing a sacred statue, and so on and so on. At in spite of all this, still remaining not just a good mood, but even spreading a contagious enthusiasm up to the point where he authentically and without irony speaks about “a dream I am following”. After his 90 minutes presentation we all got up and gave him what he deserved: standing ovations.
On Saturday morning after everybody had re-assembled from the previous night’s party with bollywood film producer Karan Johar, we eagerly listened to Dr R A Mashelkar’s “lecture” on “Innovation – to make the Impossible possible”. Undoubtedly a unique source of inspiration for the gentleman being India’s most recognized scientist who is also an advisor for the Prime Minister of India.
The later afternoon ended with an exciting ride on a speed boat in east in the bay of Bombay west from the Taj Mahal Hotel. And this was my favourite, our highly esteemed fellow member Takeshi Izuka fighting the wind and Mehool Bhuva coming to his help. Yep, we did not fall short of fun at all …
So thanks again to EO Bombay, spearheaded for the event by Javed Tapia and all his other fellow-members who put all their time and heart into making this generous hospitality happen.
Video-Conversation: Seesmic looks good to me
Just registered for the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco end of April. I was there last year and although some sessions tend to be lengthy and masturbative, overall I liked the workshop and "hands-on" approach. So I decided to go again this year. Who is there as well, please let me know to catch up.
Apart from that I just checked out a service which is not entirely new, but still in closed Alpha, Loic LeMeur's Seesmic , a crossroad of Twitter & YouTube. I guess this is the best description for it. And it's really nice and somehow with lots of unassuming Flash-elements something like "Web 3.0". A conversational platform, asynchronous where most members just sit in front of their computer and speak some statement into the webcam. I started off with something about Castro stepping back from power in Cuba.
Others can reply so that a thread would evolve. What is smart: One can once enter one's Twitter access data and distribute every new post into that channel, too. I really like the ease of the service where it becomes immediately clear what to watch, what to do and how to join the conversation. And ultimately, one can rehearse a statement as often as desired before putting it really live. The only thing I was missing so far was the possibility to distribute the video e.g. in a blog by embedding it, at the moment really everything happens (apart from the Twitter-twist) in a world within. But maybe that's why it's actually called "Closed Alpha" :-)
Darjeeling Limited: A Non-Indian Movie
After many friends had advised me to watch the movie Darjeeling Limited , I finally had the opportunity to view it during a long-haul flight to India. I really liked the rather bizzare plot of three American brothers who rejoined in an Indian train to find each other and themselves again. A nicely told story on human limitations, caught in their own patterns and struggling to reach beyond. At the same a heart-warming example how differences can be overcome if one tries hard enough to make important relationships work. Here is the trailer for a sneak-preview.
Overall I liked the movie a lot and would recommend to see it. On the other hand, as a Westerner living four years in India, I could see a few flaws how India and Indians are depicted. Not to mention that this movie would be perceived as insulting for the typical Indian audience which is used to cheer to the prim & proper Bollywood-world of the Sharuk Khans and Aishwarya Rays. There, even a movie-kiss is unheard of to the family cheering to their heroes. Especially, the role of the extremely pretty train-attendant Rita who voluptuously seduces one of the brothers in the toilet, would be considered entirely impossible in an Indian movie, not to mention Indian society. Although I can assure that "everything is there in India", Indian women are way-way-way more conservative and restrained in the interaction with men than depicted here. Yet overall, India is depicted in a sympathetic way, sometimes with its chaos indeed as it is, and provides the essential breeding-ground for this lovely story.
Inspiring DLD Conference in Munich
Even after returning from "down under" in Australia, I was a bit "down under" with my blogging. But today is a good opportunity to come back to light after an amazing 3 day DLD-Conference in Munich which ended yesterday. On the eLAB-Blog, I wrote a bit more on it, especially about 23andMe, a "Web 2.0 genetics" company which was showcased. The mix of the panels and participants was phenomenal which such high-calibres like Craig Venter, Paolo Coelho, Martha Steward or Marissa Meyer being around. Lots of extremely networking opportunity by talking to a whole lot of extremely smart, positive and energetic people. My photo-set of the event is here.
This year, I was not just a participant, but felt very honoured when Rupert Schäfer , die producer of the DLD; asked me if I wanted to moderate the India-Panel on Monday morning. I guess it was a real sucess with my two guests Farokh Balsara, partner at Ernst & Young India, and Vishal Gondal , founder & CEO of Indiagames and a friend whom I've known for 2 years by now. Here a picture of us two after the panel.
We had a good conversation about the major differences in India compared to "the west" in terms of demographics, media consumption, pick-up of mobile usage and on the other hand some insights how to enter the Indian market in the role of an entrepreneur or a manager in charge. Both guests had lots to say especiall as they were coming from quite a complementary background. Here is also a brief video with the first 2 minutes about this India panel.
From the feedback I got the audience really liked it and I feel India should be way more promoted in Europe. Thus, I also talked to Loic LeMeur and we found it a good idea to work on an India panel at his conference LeWeb in December. Let's keep the fingers crossed that it works out, would be really cool.
I invested in Cosmotourist
Happy to announce my latest investment into a great company: Cosmotourist, with its English and German sites respectively. Especially as I am in a bunch of the finest folks of the German internet-industry who all co-invested, as this or that blogs are already writing about.
Undoubtedly my own affinity for travel has been a great reason to invest, especially as I know how valuable up-to-date information from other travelers is who are sharing their own personal experience. And that's pretty much what Cosmotourist is about. A community of like-minded people interested in sharing advise on travel and leisure time anywhere in the world through a trusted network. Would be great if you joined the platform, too, and add me to your Cosmoutourist-network here.
A bit from the technical perspective, this site offers one of the cleanest and well thought architectures which I have seen for a long time, once you get in the intricacies "under the hood" which make it fast, performant and well scalable. From the business standpoint, I do believe that particularly in Germany there is still a huge untapped market which Cosmotourist will be able to capture via its superior product and distribution strategy which will allow for a variety of robust monetization levers.
Moreover, and that's what every investor will emphasize, markets and opportunities will change, but a strong management team will have to be steadfast and flexible at the same time. With Frederik Kraus, Christoph Röck and Constantin Wunn, I found a formidable and complementary founding team, whereby Frederik as the MD is in charge of the day-to-day operations. Knowing and valuing Christoph since our "old joint days" at Lycos Europe was a natural inroad for this kind of relationship.
I will keep posting on Cosmotourist here and wish the team all the best for the joint exciting journey ahead.
Half around the World in 20 Hours: India & Web 2.0
After 20 hours onboard 2 turbulent flights I just made it from San Francisco to Bangalore. The good thing is always that temperatures never disappoint here in South-India. 22 degrees at midnight is something not to take for granted. So I feel like bringing the good vibes with me which I had the last week in the U.S. and especially I was till yesterday noon enjoying sunny California at Pier 39 in San Francisco with a beautiful view on Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Having plenty of time on the flight I reviewed parts my notes and documents from the Web 2.0 Summit and thought how the latest learnings relate to India.
- India is growing strongly in terms of internet usage, like whole Asia is as this slide from Morgan Stanley shows (entire presentation for download here). The country has even moved up one place and lies now ahead of the U.K.
- All big VC-firms from the Valley have already made inroads, either by setting up shop like Kleiner Perkins who are invested in Naukri or like Sequoia who made the so far unsual move in the industry to acquire Westbridge Capital from KP Balaraj, a fellow EO member of mine in Bangalore, and renamed it, well, Sequioa India .
- However, from rather anecdotal evidence than from profound research, Indian online users have broadly populated services like Facebook or GMail. Given the the non-existent language barrier for the current online-population this does not come by big surprise. It will be interesting to see what sort of web applications come for those Indians who are not in the (minority) 140 mn English-speaking bracket of a 1.05 bn nation.
- Even more so when it comes to accessing the web via the more 200+ mn mobile handsets (growing at a rate of 5 mn per month!) and see the usage explode on a scale of unprecedented magnitude.
- At the same time, to be straighforward, the nature of homegrown Web 2.0-services in India is not overly sophisticated. The high-end concepts of particularly usability have not yet percolated through the domestic community of internet entrepreneurs and developers.
- Sometimes I get requests from German companies with respect to my company Level 360 to outsource development in Web 2.0 domain in the start-up phase. With my next question "How many people do you need?" and the subsequent answer "2-3" I can happily bury the plan after 30 seconds. For an offshoring assignment to India such a headcount is entirely, completely and uttely sub-scale. I wrote about this phenomenon already here. Also, given my last point, it is not just a matter of missing quantity which makes the plan unviable, but also a lack of quality where a product responsible dearly requires input on the concept-level though the technical lense.
The last thing in an internet start-up you want to do is document each and every tiny little function on the hightest level of abstraction. This will kill you and take out any momentum which is critical in the initial stage. Hence, my clear recommendation: Develop at home, hire a good CTO who sets the course and who can manage e.g. capable software engineering-students at equally reasonable rates. When your company got traction and you need a bunch of at least 8 people, come back to me and I will happily help find the right partner.
I hope to observe the Indian market a bit more in the future and come up with more posts on that exciting subject where my bets are clearly geared towards this huge mobile opportunity.
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