Incubator possibilities and essentials in the developing world
I came away from TechLeb with some very interesting mixed messages about incubators, science parks, technology trade zones, whatever. (Jacques Masboungi’s talk on the subject was particularly interesting.) On the one hand, they seem to be one of the best things governments can do to foster technology development. On the other hand, they seem to be one of the easiest ways governments can screw up. And since no two projects are the same, it can be hard to generalize from experience.
Given all that, I shall now proceed to theorize about how to construct an environment for fostering technology development. And please note that government does not have to play a leading role. Instead, universities or even private entrepreneurs can and quite possibly should take the lead. Read more
Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | 2 Comments |
Government initiatives that went awry for technology development
The Q&A session to my TechLeb panel did produce a few interesting observations. Perhaps the most instructive were when I asked for “unsuccess” stories of government intervention — things governments tried to aid tech businesses that didn’t work out so well. Most of the answers all boiled down to the same thing — throwing money at ill-conceived ideas. These could be economically-motivated research projects that never produced much of economic value — Japan’s Fifth Generation Computer Project is a prime example, but there are many similar developed-world fiascos. (Basic research and even military research seem to produce more benefits by serendipidity than economically targeted research does in total.) Or they could be incubators and science parks to which nobody much ever came. But basically, most of the answers amounted to over-optimism about specific initiatives.
Most of the rest of the answers were of the nature “Well, in addition to X and Y, government should also have done Z.” But that’s a story for other posts.
Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | 1 Comment |
Government initiatives needed for technology development
There’s a general consensus among those who know more about developing countries than I do that the ideal scenario for technology-led economic development is a public/private partnership. Even so, I think there are only two absolute requirements for government participation:
1. Removal of barriers
2. Education
And of course in some countries, even higher education can be provided by the private or at least non-governmental sector.
To see why I believe that’s all that’s necessary, just look at some success stories. What else did the US government do? Yes, military research, but that’s really just another form of education. Ditto Israel. India’s government didn’t do much except fund the IITs (Indian Institute of Technology) and create some zones in which barriers to commerce were removed a few years faster than they were in the rest of the country. Read more
Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | 1 Comment |
After TechLeb
Well, TechLeb has come and gone. Due to the tremendous effort and talent of the organizers, it achieved its two main goals, which were 1. To have a vehement discussion between the Lebanese tech entrepreneur community and the government, specifically on the subject of telecom prices and 2. To generally pull together stakeholders in the Lebanese tech sector. Minister Azour’s wish that TechLeb prove to have been a watershed event in Lebanon’s history may yet be granted.
My own panel didn’t work out quite so well, because I overoptimistically let the time be divided among five speakers, and furthermore failed to anticipate a variety of interruptions. These ranged from ministerial phone calls (I’ve never seen John Cullinane smile so broadly as when Minister Azour was lambasted by a self-styled “angry entrepreneur”), to an MC who decided to take control of Q&A from me, to a panelist who talked at repeated length about off-topic matters. (Yes, I’m irate about parts of that. No, it shouldn’t affect anybody’s overall highly favorable opinion of the conference.)
Anyhow, there were three talks on my panel in which great, on-topic points were made, by Kevin Carroll (VP of IDA Ireland), Anil Khourana, and John Cullinane. I hope I made a useful observation or two as well. I particularly wish there had been more time for Anil’s talk, as he offered not just the experiences of a huge and hugely important country (India), but also well-analyzed insight into the concerns of developing countries in general. And there were other interesting things to be learned from sessions and private conversations as well. I’ll try to work all this into a series of posts soon.
Technorati Tags: Lebanon, TechLeb
Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | 4 Comments |
Burning issues in an analyst’s life
Below is an actual email I sent to my Computerworld editor, the incomparable Tommy Peterson.
So anyway, I visited Intersystems today, at the insistance of PR lady Rita Shoor, even though it seemed a phone call would have sufficed. Notwithstanding that this was a relatively longstanding meeting, Linda scheduled a dinner for us in Cambridge with my stepdaughter, which is basically good, because Intersystems is in Cambridge, but forgot about my meeting, and wound up scheduling the dinner for 9:30. Rescheduling ensued, but when I drove to Intersystems for a 2:30 meeting, it was still in flux. I was in an odd state anyway driving to the meeting, because I was already rather tired (my sleep schedule oddities), but psyched from having FINALLY posted the white paper online that represented my biggest writing project in almost a decade (because of the number of sponsors).
Despite several wrong turns at the tricky address of 1 Memorial Drive, I arrived in plenty of time, or even a bit early. I’d worn my hooded leather jacket due to the rain, but since I was in a parking garage, I decided to leave it in the car. “What can possibly go wrong that would make me need this jacket, I thought, except for a fire and building evacuation? And how likely is that??”
So I go upstairs to the meeting (after walking fruitlessly up many flights of stairs and then back down, in an error that seems common among newcomers to the building). But all is good, and there’s a very pleasant start to the meeting (as well there should be, given the GREAT column I wrote about them last year). Before long, however — you guessed it, there’s a fire alarm. After much noise and disruption, it turns out that it’s a REAL fire, and we evacuate, through the smell of smoke, that is stronger on the lower floors.
So I’m outside in a cold drizzle in my shirtsleeves. After a few minutes of stoic schmoozing, I’m reunited with the meeting folks, including Rita Shoor clomping over in 5 inch heels (her estimate) with somebody holding an umbrella over her. At my urgent suggestion, we decamp to continue the meeting in a restaurant, and they select the nearest one (with Rita commenting along the way about said heels). We’re evidently the first people to have this brilliant idea, and continue the meeting in quiet. But soon a flood of people has the same idea, and the place has techies hanging from the rafters, noisily. We continue the meeting over the din, but with some interruptions. We learn there had been a notice of substantial time before the fire department would let people back in (hence the exodus across the street). We further learn that the apparent cause of the evacuation is a fire in a red Toyota parked in the garage underneath the building, which concerns me, because I indeed arrived in a red Toyota. However, it is clarified that this car was on a different level of the garage than mine, and I relax, and we continue to discuss the glories of Ensemble.
A little while later a young man dashes in, wet from the rain, and inquires whether Curt Monash is present. I learn that one part of the prior information had been wrong; the fire had NOT been on a different level of the garage than the one I’d been parked on. In fact, it is my car that had burned up. More precisely, the engine compartment was burned, the sprinklers had suppressed it, the fire department had staved in the windows, everything was soaked, and the car was almost certainly totalled.
And that, Tommy, is why although you will get a column before I leave on my flight Monday, it may not be as long BEFORE Monday as you had requested, and as I had originally intended.
Categories: DBMS vendors and technologies, Fun stuff | 1 Comment |
The Talent/Innovation Cycle (Keys, Part 2)
Before the economy got truly global, the role of entrepreneurs in economic development was open to debate. If Henry Ford hadn’t created the automobile mass market, would there have been one anyway? Well, he didn’t sell to Europe, and they had one there too, so the answer is evidently “Yes.” But while certain industries’ growth is almost inevitable, any given company’s success is in no way foreordained. Rather, that success is due in huge part to its leaders and/or engineers, and their ability to just competitively clobber all the other company leaders and engineers striving to succeed in the same markets.
And the success of any particular country or region is, of course, hugely dependent on the success of the largest companies in it. First of all, a single company can make an appreciable difference all by itself. Finland has gone from a reliance on forest products to being a technology industry leader, almost solely because of one huge company: Nokia. Second, successful companies (or particularly interesting failures) spawn others, because of the employees they spin out, the suppliers they help strengthen, and so on. Most famously, this is the Silicon Valley phenomenon.
So what can countries do to improve their chances of technology entrepreneurial success? Read more
Categories: Economic development, Public policy and privacy | Leave a Comment |
Spam: the bottom line
David Ferris tells me that his surveys show email users think they spend an average of five minutes a week dealing with spam. (Could somebody please post a link to the study in the comment thread below? David? Richi? Thanks!) On the one hand, that’s a huge problem. If you take the 5 minutes figure literally, that’s on the order of $100/year/user worldwide — i.e., order of magnitude $10 billion/year.
On the other hand, while it’s plenty of reason for enterprises to have good anti-spam, it’s not quite enough to motivate individuals to do a lot about it, unless there’s clever marketing driving them. Putting cash in the end-user’s pocket would be a good start; people like free money, the more so if it’s advertisers who are made to pay.
Thus I stand by my prior opinion: Sender-pay systems are a good idea if and only if some of that pay goes directly to the email recipients.
Categories: Security and anti-spam | 3 Comments |
Keys to technology-driven economic development, Part 1
In connection with a forthcoming panel for the TechLeb conference, I posed some basic questions about tech industry economic development, and promised to also take a crack at them myself.
Well, it turns out those basic questions are pretty hard – especially for me, since I’m going to try to generalize based on what I know of several decades of software and other technology industries pretty much around the globe. Truth be told, I don’t really know much detail about the rise or non-rise of the tech industry in any country but the US, and here in the States it’s being going along quite nicely much longer than the quarter-century that I’ve been an industry analyst. And by the way, in the US almost every region has shown the ability to grow a tech industry.
All disclaimers aside, however, I’d like to suggest a framework for thinking about barriers and aids to technology industry growth. Most of the important factors fit into three categories:
- Cost/risk. Obviously, low costs are good, whether you’re creating intellectual property or physical objects. But low risks are even more important.
- Convenience. Being convenient for your customers to deal with is hugely important. This has more ramifications than may immediately be apparent.
- Innovation/talent. Having the right people may not be a sufficient condition for success, if other prerequisites are lacking (economic, legal, physical, etc.) But it is completely necessary. And in the most successful cases, a huge fraction of development can be traced back to a relatively small number of talented, innovative, and lucky entrepreneurs.
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German libel law gets scary
A few days ago I argued that the chilling of online discussion via libel was less of a threat than it might appear. However, it appears that in Germany there’s indeed a problem. A court ruling has held that forum operators are liable for anything illegal posted on their forums. While the actual case referred to an anti-spyware script, the ruling also seems to be regarded as applying to instances of commercial defamation.
Hopefully, this will get overturned on appeal, or else in the German Parliament, and things will end up more in line with US law. But for now, it’s worrisome.
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An “Apollo Program” for energy
Charles Cooper whined (his word) at length about President Bush’s speech on R&D and energy independence. And he rightly pointed out the hypocrisy of Bush praising DARPA’s track record and then starving it for funds. Finally he called for a “Manhattan Project” for energy-independence technologies; I think this is a good idea, although I’d use the “Space Program” or “War on Cancer” analogies instead (more spinoffs in each case, for one thing, and each led to huge returns even though decades afterward we have neither an effective space program nor a reliable cure for cancer).
But here’s the thing he forgot to add — a lot of the startup technology community is already looking toward sustainable energy and the like. To mention just two names, I’m pretty sure that’s the current career focus of both Jesse Berst and Beryl Hartman; I think you’ll also find it cropping up in classic venture portfolios as well.
With the proper seeding to overcome the obvious massive subsidies given to the traditional energy economy, an alternative energy technology industry could have four huge benefits:
1. Economic growth from the industry itself (including worldwide export)
2. Further economic benefit by lowering the demand for and hence price curve of current fossil fuels.
3. Easing of geopolitical/military pressures associated with competition for and security of oil supplies.
4. (Depending on the technology used) Possibly huge environmental benefits.
Few of you know this, but I spent a fair amount of time working on energy policy during my public policy post-doc, and took a nuclear engineering course even before that. And PaineWebber initially interviewed me as an energy analyst, before hiring me to cover the technology industry of my choice (which turned out to be software). So while I’m hardly an expert, I’m speaking from a little experience when I suggest the following:
A 3 1/2-pronged government initiative focusing on:
A. Synthetic fossil fuels
B. Fission/fusion power
C. To the extent they can contribute, truly clean/renewal energy sources
D. Infrastructure to support electricity-centric transportation, to be ready if and when B&C are successful.
Why synthetic fossil fuels? Because nothing else is sure to work, given the political concerns about fission (including proliferation) and the technical issues remaining with fusion. Why not only synthetic fossil fuels? Because they do nothing to help with global warming (probably they even exacerbate the problem a little bit due to the energy cost of their creation), and otherwise they’re not great environmentally either.
Frankly, I think the right answer for a number of decades is fission power. There should be a very limited number of utterly standard reactor designs, each of which comes complete with a rigorous set of standard site requirements (especially in the areas of geology and security). There should be no pretense for the next 50 years or so about a truly permanent solution for nuclear waste disposal; in the short term it should be processed into a stable, solid, transportable form (“bricks”) and left in a few big toxic brick piles near the processing plants. (Possibly these even need to be part of the standard reactor-compound design.)
That’s if the reactors are to be privately owned, as they are today. A perhaps even more sensible alternative is to have them be Federally owned and operated, just as (say) aircraft carriers are today. That would help a lot with security issues; what’s more, while the government generally isn’t too good at getting the best out of its employees, one area where it (specifically, the military) excels is in training and managing people to do boring, repetitive, somewhat technical, life-and-death-important work.
Where does the “Manhattan/Apollo Program” aspect come in? Well, on the nuclear side, it’s getting those reactors designed and then built ASAP. In synfuels it can be a reverse auction, offering to buy “X” amount of fuel during period “Y” in the future at cost “Z”, with Z being what is bid on (the lower the better). Possibly the auction should be preannounced, only being actually held after environmental regulations and the like are more fully addressed. On the electric transportation side (hydrogen, batteries, whatever), a good point of attack might be trucking. Trucks are regulated, not as fashion/consumer-oriented as passenger cars, not as needful of maximum acceleration as cars, and more tolerant than cars of parts being a bit oversized. Getting the trucking fleet off of fossil fuels is probably achievable in a shorter term than it would be to wean cars from gasoline.
Categories: Public policy and privacy | 2 Comments |