Bioanalogy of an agile team

(If) firms are breaking up into smaller, agile units, the economy will resemble the human brain - dense, dispersed clusters of small inter-related units (neurons!) forming transient, agile patterns, constantly being remodelled.

There are 4 components to the system you could copy:

1. be a neuron - basically small firms, startups, road warrior consultants and creatives;
2. be a synapse between neurons: the service that lets neurons talk to one another, form temporary networks and memories;
3. be the extracellular matrix - half incubator, half director, it's the YCombinator of the brain on which every neuron finds its position and develops under its occasional signals.
4. be the blood supply - the main supply of resources (multimillion VC?), but *not* directly involved with neurons. Often aligned with the neurons via the extracellular matrix. 5
5. be the skull (i think government's already got that one figured out pretty good)

This century, if the economy is edge-bound, is certainly going to need some damn good synapses and extracellular matrix. A shakeout is also needed to weed out the underperforming neurons.

src

What if semantic print were to exist?

Today's news about Yahoo embracing Semantic Web got me thinking. What if semantic print were to exist?

From Techcrunch post:

"Yahoo’s support for semantic web standards like RDF and microformats (hCard, hCalendar, hReview, hAtom and XFN) is exactly the incentive websites need to adopt them. Instead of semantic silos scattered across the Web (think Twine), Yahoo will be pulling all the semantic information together when available, as a search engine should."

What I mean by semantic print is application of RDF & microformats like standards applied to components that make up a print publication (flyers, brochures, newspapers, magazines, etc...) Just like semantic web promises to make search engines and mash ups better among others, semantic print would allow content repurposing, new packaging/print products and cost efficiencies in print production.

Google's interactive ads is also a step in this direction where by content also carries intent/action. On the production side there are a lot of print content management systems (Alfresco, Quark Publishing System, Documentum) out there promises this, but no clear winner exists yet in this space.

I guess evolution happens out of chaos only and not every information in the world can be structured.

What if newspapers go purely "distribution" model

After my initial comment about distribution vs destination, I realized what if such a theory is applied to traditional print media?

Traditional print houses have a lot of investment in infrastructure to support editorial, product and delivery. And report after report suggests news print market is shrinking. Idea is to leverage that investment by offering that infrastructure to bloggers, influencers (if there is such a thing), evangelists, what not whose primary channel is web and would like to add print as well.

Advantages:

1. Independent journalists add another medium to their work > reach more masses
2. Opens the door for content monetization besides ad based revenue. Posts/articles that cost less to produce and are time critical may be delivered via web while ones that need lots of research, has high quality editorial analysis and is not time critical may go purely print for which customers have to pay.

Distribution vs Destination

After reading about new YouTube API and Hulu launch, I guess I realized difference between distribution & destination.

As I understand it, a web service is "destination" where people stay there, like yahoo.com. It essentially is a portal which have original editorial and may aggregate external content. Techcrunch noted with new YouTube APIs there is a strong indication that YouTube wants to be in hosting and distribution business as opposed to destination.

On the "distribution" side, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar notes that he is happy to know that that somebody who’s consuming the full episode of 30 Rock was within Yahoo. I guess the main motivation behind "distribution" business model is it is hard to create new destination. a good analogy from physical world is how many malls one can open. So it is in best interest of content providers that they keep open mind towards having somebody else host their content. Of course, one needs to make sure that balance doenst tilt all the way like what Steve Jobs did to music industry.

Half-Assed Startup: Work on a startup while working full time

Excellent points to consider from Venture Hacks. I can attest to most of these.

• You need a co-founder and some cheerleaders < you'll hit a motivation wall
  
• Pick a day or two per week where you always work, ideally in the same room as your co-founders < keeping a fixed schedule helps
  
• Have a boat-burning target - a goal when you can go full steam. < dive in full-time?
  
• Pick an idea that is tractable < No extraneous features
  
• Understand that your first version is probably going to suck
• If you’re going to screw off at work (everyone does), spend it getting smarter about the stuff you don’t know < stealing time
  
• Be sure you own your startup

My work @ Quark Labs

Wanted to send out a quick note. 2 of the the projects that I conceived and developed are live @ Quark Labs. I will be adding more information soon. Stay tuned.


Shared Picture Map for QuarkXPress 7:
Shared Picture Map is a QuarkXPress XTension and Apple Aperture/iPhoto plugins that allows both the applications to exchange images and layouts.

QuarkViewer for QuarkXPress 7:
QuarkViewer is an XTensions module for QuarkXPress 7.3.x that allows users to export QuarkXPress layout pages for viewing in Microsoft Silverlight player. QuarkViewer may run as a pure desktop application or a Web application.

Hello World App using iPhone SDK

Got my hands dirty with iPhone SDK. Here is the code to display Hello World.

UIView *mainView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame: [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]];
UITextView *textView = [[UITextView alloc] initWithFrame: CGRectMake(10.0f, 10.0f, 320.0f, 480.0f)];

[textView setEditable:YES];
[window addSubview: mainView];
[mainView addSubview:textView];
[textView setText:@"Hello World"];

Download code