Entrepreneurship : Advantage America?

Had some useful, constructive feedback to the post at the weekend about why I believe TED Talks are a bad influence on many European startups. Several people pointed out that Steve Blank has just made a series of 10 videos for the Kauffmann Founders School. And, I must say, the first five are excellent. They seem to be taking the narrative about the Lean Start-Up into a new phase. Well worth watching. Do check out all the resources on Steve's home page.

Other feedback pointed me in the direction of a video by Clayton Christensen about the dire state of US innovation. Prosperity seems to be the enemy of education, at least the beta-streams.

In the meantime, my friend Gerd Leonhard has released another episode of "Meeting of the Minds", a pilot video discussion series made with Ross Dawson on several topical subjects. This included the rise of European entrepreneurship.

Next steps for the digital economy- and for me

The energy is definitely inside small companies - like Startupbootcamp

I'm currently doing more and more work with start-ups, especially tech startups, working on the Internet of things. That seems to be where the future lies, as more traditional businesses have a hard time adapting and making it through the very severe economic downturn in this part of the world. 

What most people I talk to fail to realize is that 99% of the all European businesses are SME’s providing 2 out of three of private sector jobs. What’s more 9 out of 10 of these enterprises have less than 10 employees. So the future of this part of the continent is really in the hands of micro-businesses. 

Still one third of businesses in the Netherlands are still not on line. I'd like to see campaigns like the one Google launched in the USA to reach out to SME's and get them into the digital economy. Have not been able to find a European equivalent campaign - yet that message urgently needs to get out.

Times are tough, so we’re seeing other countries like the UK and Germany giving all kinds of tax breaks. They go to founders of tech companies as well as generous tax incentives for angel investors. Hope something similar will be introduced here. 

Few people realise that the future of Europe is in the hands of small companies, not large corporations.

This change in direction has also prompted me to do more with the excellent Future's Agency founded by futurist Gerd Leonhard. As Critical Distance enters it's tenth year, it's time to shift in a different direction. Watch this space.

Privacy versus Publicy Debate: the next 3 years

I'm currently experimenting with various online services to see what's the best way to organize an on-line discussion and capture it for later use (i.e. in a YouTube channel). I admire what TWIT.TV has built in Northern California. They make extensive use of Skype. But I don't understand why they don't make more use of the technology that sponsors them, GotoMeeting. Experimenting with my colleague and friend Gerd Leonhard, it appears that you can't record the HDVideo in GotoMeeting, only the presentations being shared. That means you need to mess around with other software packages like Screenflow to capture the conversation. There are challenges in syncing the sound later.

The next phase of the experiments in the Critical Distance MediaLab (for want of a better name) takes place on Friday October 26th. "Digital Vertigo" author Andrew Keen and Futurist Gerd Leonhard will debate the next three years of our networked society. And if you sign-up for their live session at 1600 hrs UTC (6 pm in Central Europe, 5 pm London), you can contribute your own questions, either in the chat or via your webcam. If you want to participate then sign-up now because space in the chat room is limited to 100. The live debate will be recorded and posted on YouTube for others to see.

Need to Prep up on these guys?

Andrew Keen at The Next Web Amsterdam, April 2012. 

Andrew Keen, is a British-American writer and entrepreneur, currently based in California. He is sometimes referred to as the Anti-Christ of Silicon Valley, often fiercely attacking social media, the 'cult of the amateur' (also the title of one of his books), crowd-sourcing and the so-called wisdom of the crowds. His latest book is called 'Digital Vertigo' and can be found here. I actually bought the Audible version because Andrew reads it himself.

Gerd Leonhard on a trip to Critical Distance HQ

Gerd Leonhard is a futurist, keynote speaker, author and CEO of TheFuturesAgency, based in Switzerland. He is a proponent of what he calls 'The Networked Society', the SoLoMo internet (social, local, mobile) and freemium business models. He foresees great opportunities in the global empowerment of creators and consumers powered by digital technology. His latest book is 'The future of Content" and can be found on Amazon.

What's going to happen this Friday?

Andrew and Gerd will present some of their key insights for approx. 10-15 minutes each, and will then debate the most crucial issues such as what privacy means in a connected world, whether 'the crowds' are actually being empowered or not, what the future role of social media will be, what the true meaning of a networked society is, and what the media landscape will look like, in the future.

Get ready for some serious sparring - which will also involve the participants, both via messages and chat as well as via audio intervention (audience members in the chat room will be invited to contribute by the moderator).

This seminar will be recorded - please be aware of this fact if you are invited to speak during the session. You can view some of the previous recordings here:

This session is limited to 100 people so please sign up early; most importantly please log-in at least 30 mins prior to the starting time.

More about Andrew:

http://www.ajkeen.com/bio/

https://twitter.com/ajkeen

Even More about Gerd

http://www.gerdfuturist.com

CEO www.thefuturesagency.com

The Future of Business blog http://www.futureof.biz/

Videos: http://www.youtube.com/gleonhard

http://www.twitter.com/gleonhard

http://about.me/mediafuturist