I recently ran into a great new application called cooliris (funded by Kleiner Perkins) from a similar named company in Palo Alto. But much more than just a cool application cooliris is the pre-cursor to a new way of accessing the internet, if the company plays its cards right.

I ran into cooliris when it first launched because of its initial focus on photography, and since then the company continued to dramatically improve its scope and has quickly become an appealing application to get news presented visually.

Stronger put, I predict that in 5 years from now the browser (like Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer) will not be the predominant way we access the internet. But that perhaps is an easy prediction. The majority of applications on an iPhone already use non-browser access (Facebook, Plaxo, eBay etc) and so do a few others on the PC (such as iTunes).

The browser is a very technological way of accessing data on the Internet, with poor navigational attributes. The URL language is certainly not one everyone understands and that relegates the dependency on search, which is still the primary way to navigate the Internet. And as the internet continues to grow in size, search will yield ever diminishing navigational success.

Clearly more companies are looking to improve Internet navigation. AT&T’s new Pogo browser, Google Chrome and enhancements to Firefox are an indication of the awareness of the pain. We will see more examples of improved navigational capabilities, some of which I can’t divulge at this point. But until then - enjoy cooliris.

Tags: FaceBook, Firefox, Browser, EBay, AT&T, Google

As any economist will tell you, a dollar bill is not worth a dollar. And so the real value of that paper bill is defined by the trust we put in it. The trust that you will receive a certain (yet fluctuating; some days a dollar is worth more than others) amount of goods and services in exchange. Simple right?

So given that, trust is the most important denomination in determining the value of a product or a service. And trust builds from consistent delivery on stated promises, which - in turn - requires the unwavering commitment from people with integrity and honesty....do you feel the slide coming?

So:
1/ Why do many companies make promises they don’t keep?
I evaluate a lot of technology companies (about 60 this year alone, public and private) and most are simply lying about, or overstating (decibel marketing) the benefits of their proposition. Because the majority of potential customers and investors are ill-informed about the pros and cons of this specialized industry, technology companies can often get away with sneaky monetization strategies that take advantage of a lesser informed audience.

In Silicon Valley, “success” is often defined by how skilled you are in fooling customers and sucking up to aristocratic investors (to which few have access), rather than the authenticity of your proposition. A mediocre ecosystem is what still remains after the technology bust from 2001 in which self proclaimed “serial entrepreneurs” and investors have been able to dodge real value creation and sell out short.

Not the VC model is broken, but many of the participants are. That noise is severely eroding the trust in an inherently sound technology industry. We need to enforce more transparency and hold ourselves to higher standards to restore the integrity and trust.

2/ Why do we allow short-selling on public company stock?
First, the performance of public stock says nothing about the actual value or outlook of a company, in the same way the dollar offers no guarantee of what you get for it. Public stocks are already a lousy interpretation of the actual performance of a company, as it merely echos popular opinion (and not the company facts).

So, selling short is really a bet on performance of popular opinion and does nothing but undermine the trust in the longevity of a business and cannibalizes shareholder value. Quarterly earnings reports are an absolute joke as many companies move profits around, claim leadership in a market that is defined by themselves and reduce cost rather than improve their marketplace position in order to make quarterly earnings look good. They also force healthy companies to focus on often unpredictable economic aberrations rather than on their long term and macro-economic leadership position.

The ability to sell short creates unrest and undue fear in a system that requires the opposite. Can you imagine holding the president of the United States accountable on a quarterly basis? That would be bad for our country (in most cases).

We should implement a predetermined holding period for the sale of stock, the expiration determined by the company and regulated by the SEC (which can also prevent some nasty insider trader deals) to build back trust.

3/ Why are some allowed to resell securities?
Reselling securities (which was illegal a few years back) based on finagled credit scores are perhaps the double whammy in the erosion of trust in public companies. Company credit scores that are maintained (and marketed) by commercial companies create profit driven scores and unrealistic prices (up and down) for securities. We simply need to stop the resale of securities and regulate the process of maintaining credit scores (both business and personal) vigorously and immediately.

Regulations do not turn us into a socialistic society, but the reality is that no economy operates without rules to protect trust. Free-markets require a basic set of rules to prevent a few bad apples to create insurmountable fear for the rest of us.

For the technologists amongst us: eBay deploys no less than seven dedicated servers to detect suspicious transactions that could challenge the trust in its free-market model.

In the same way we deploy rigid traffic laws to drive a car, should we deploy rules of engagement to protect our economic serenity. As long as we don’t dictate the destination of our travels or where we place our individual economic bets, we should be just fine in our support of a blossoming capitalistic society.

Trust comes from transparency, integrity and authenticity that builds real value, not from taking advantage of the ill-informed. So, building a successful company does not start with a new product strategy but with a leader who has the drive to win that is larger than his greed. Building disruptive products that truly improve people’s lives will yield personal satisfaction and trust that will keep customers coming back for more.

Trust is the only currency that matters, so stop squandering it.

Tags: EBay, Economy, Eco-systems, Free-market, VC, Stock, Transparency, Securities, Capitalism, Macro-economics, Economy

With that title I just pulled the pacifier out of the mouths of many marketers...and many of them will start crying.

But smart business people know better. Compartmentalization is very fundamental human behavior, in our personal life and business. In business the definition of “The Market” is the currency that aims to provide quick answers to everyday questions. The problem with market categorizations is that they are often incorrect, irrelevant, stale and frankly, the antagonist of innovation.

Here is why:

1/ People buy products, markets don’t.
No matter what the scenario, in the end people (not businesses) make purchasing decisions. And since people are unique, so are their complex reasons to buy. A unique mix of psychographics and demographics aided by free-market access to the Internet further emphasizes the power of “You” over the power of “The Market”.

2/ Markets are bad type-castings.
Customer surveys show that the compelling-reasons-to-buy rarely match up with the predetermined definition of “The Market”. And since many purchasing decisions rely on factors unrelated to the product (such as budgets, approvals, personal relationships, operational planning, risk mitigation etc.) a prospect qualification or disqualification within that market means absolutely nothing.

3/ Market definitions are bad currencies.
Since there are no rules for defining markets and everyone gets to dream up their own, the value of that market definition is meaningless. Imagine the value of the dollar if everyone gets to define how much it is worth and print theirs at home. Market segmentation and negotiations on market positions with analysts further deflate the significance and trust in traditional market definitions.

4/ Time changes everything (but markets).
Market definitions (in technology) change slowly yet products that attract new buyers change quickly. That means the definition of “The Market” (to which much decision-making is attached) is always far behind the adoption rate of new products and therefor far behind the identification of a new set of buyers. The minute “The Market” is defined, it has become irrelevant and ripe for disruption.

So, where does that leave marketing? Is marketing dead?

No, but it is time for technology marketers to grow up. The pacifier is being replaced by something else. Something more substantial and meaningful. Food becomes the new pacifier and customers will be feeding it to you.

1/ Listen before you speak.
Literally. Forget about what you as the marketer think of the product, early-adopter purchasing decisions are much more valuable in determining how the product is perceived and received. The credibility of new customers counts, more so than the ability of a marketer to spin a story. Spend time with your VP of Sales, in online forums, setup a Google Alert and figure out how to market customer perception.

2/ Manage the promise.
Crucial to the impact of marketing is the credibility of the company promise. Marketing, and specifically Product Marketing is vital in establishing that the promise is fulfilled to the satisfaction of the customer. A few bad words from customers on the internet can cost the company millions of dollars to repair, if it can recover from it at all. So, it is important that the promise to customers does not consist of blatant lies, leads to frustration or bleeds hundreds of support calls. Manage the critical success factors of your promise.

3/ Enable the dialog.
Orchestrate the interaction between customers and prospects and be sure to listen in. They will give you the marketing messages that truly resonate - on a silver platter.

4/ Manage the conversion rate.
Getting crowds to listen or visit the company website is rather simple, getting them to buy the product is more difficult. The company is only measured on the latter and since marketing is usually the scape goat and the first to be questioned when results are down, implementing a mechanism that detects, manages and reports on conversion rates yields invaluable metrics for improvement.

As long as there is macro-economic benefit to using your product, marketing is a very straightforward process. It requires a new class of people that are not afraid to throw the old-class of market definitions overboard and focus on the extrapolation of existing sales success, by simply listening for and consistently reverberating an honest and effective marketing message.

As Don Draper, the biggest ad man at the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency of the TV series Mad Men explains; I don’t tell stories - I sell product.

Tags: Markets, Marketing, Performance, Promise, Analysts, Google, Psychographics, Demographics

Apparently Digital Railroad, another storage provider of the digital photography market is in trouble. No surprise again, because the company never supported a free-market model for photographers and buyers. We blogged about that topic many times, and recently Dan Heller adds to that fundamental thinking (even though I remain in disagreement with the artificial classification of stock photography).

Since its founding, Digital Railroad primarily supported supply-side photographic capabilities, which if not seamlessly connected to the buy-side provides really nothing more than storage space and website make-up for photographers. A nice service, but similar services from Smugmug or Photobucket already exist to do just that. All these technologies fail to solve the most pressing issue for every commercial photographer: sell, sell, sell.

Photographers are not empowered by a storage service or nice looking web pages, they are empowered when they sell. Photography is an expensive job and if it does not yield $70,000 in yearly revenues (based on 2006 PDA numbers), you will not be able to make a living from it. We have yet to find a true marketplace that connects any seller with any buyer, using free-market principles that truly empowers photographers.

Free-markets are more than a fashion statement or a label you suddenly slap on the website. The implications of free-market principles (as listed in this blog) change a company, its execution and its funding strategy to the core. The devil is in the detail.

Digital Railroad’s and Photoshelter’s demise are examples of why investing in technology, without macro-economic impact - no longer works. The 150-year old photography marketplace, with the introduction of digital photography and the internet, has moved from a premium market model (with many walled gardens) to a free-market model.

Akin to Ratatouille (the movie), where a five-star chef, Anton Gusteau, declares that “Anyone Can Cook”, the photography market and its technology providers need to get used to the fact that in this new age, “rats” will take and purchase great photographs ($22B of them).

The irate response to my recent blog about Photoshelter from a Vice President of the American Society of Media Photographers reminded me of the angry cook in Ratatouille that hires Linguini, a clumsy youth hired as a garbage boy, who can still not accept that great taste in food is like the beauty of photography - in the eye of the buyer.

We should embrace all photography that move people to buy, regardless of who shot it and build a real marketplace to facilitate that exchange.

Tags: Photography, Consumer, Content, Marketplace

I received a lot of feedback and questions on my previous blog posting named Building efficiencies in tough times and the embedded presentation posted there. The danger of attaching a presentation is, that as a reader you may miss the rational that built the words.

Because of that I want to explain my sometimes condensed thinking a little further.



It may have appeared that I only care about the product, but nothing is farther from the truth. The diagram on the left of the chart is what I see a lot in technology companies, early and late stage - across the board. The diagram on the right is what I tried to convey with the words in my presentation. Let me clarify:

Many companies develop incremental innovation (to leapfrog their competitors) without a diligent (re-)assessment of the opportunity to change the battle field. Not surprisingly. Real disruptive innovation requires a certain amount of vision, faith and a compass combined with larger commitments and investments, all seemingly based on untested values.

The path of least resistance therefor is to start with an incremental product and throw inordinate amounts of marketing & sales at it, in order to push it beyond its competitors into the marketplace. That is a highly inefficient model (in any economy). But it is a model to which many companies are forced to comply because of risk adverse management and the stale investment criteria deployed by many Venture Capitalists (VCs).

So, it is somewhat ironic that the VCs are now telling their startups to be more efficient, right after they were pushed through the VC wringer of startup-commoditization.

I believe the market for cheap (bootstrap-to-market) technology companies, that yield a large early exit is gone. That model only worked in a bull market of technology (from the 90s that has not dissipated) and the investors that still cling to that model will get punished for it. The new opportunities are for companies that build real macro-economic value.

The starting point of the next wave of innovation, in my view, is to feed a macro-economic need, as depicted in the diagram on the right. That macro-economic need is directly attached to the way we behave as humans (which is relatively predictable). It is our need to express ourselves, live the life we want and be in control (rather than technology controlling us). Think free-market principles, think social, think benefits, think fundamentals.

The fundamental shift in thinking that needs to occur in Silicon Valley, is to develop technology with a fresh mind, looking from the outside in, and serve a larger, less specialized, constituent.

Apple comes to mind as a company that often completely ignores the current state of the technology industry and connects better to basic human needs than any other technology company. But Apple can improve/be beat at the macro level, but I digress.

We simply need to support human behavior with technology.

With “free” distribution of information through the Internet, psychographics - not demographics - matter. Four-hundred year old free-market principles, The Long Tail, and marketplaces like eBay prove that the traditional rules of marketing do no longer apply. In my thirty years in technology I have never met anyone who truly understands markets. And market definitions have changed, they comprise no longer of buyers that fit an artificial model (I cringe when I hear people debate for hours how many users delineates the SMB segment), but because they subscribe to the pain or gain from which subsequently, marketers can extrapolate a larger pool. Bottom-up.

We do not all need to be economists to create the next successful technology company, the material is all around us. All it takes is a healthy interest in the actual behavior of human beings, compare their offline and online behavior and fill in the gaps. So, stop supporting companies that just build nifty technologies, but focus on companies that create larger macro-economic differentiation. More impact to everyday people.

No company will be more efficient by simply cutting cost (as suggested by the recent doom-and-gloom VC messages), it will just take longer to die. The real efficiency comes from a more disruptive value that attaches more people to better technology. On top of that, macro-economic value is very resistant to economic downturns.

Tags: Performance, Commodity, Consumer, Marketing, Markets, Marketplace, VC, Macro-economics, Psychographics, Apple, Distribution

With the Venture Capital high society dropping doom and gloom economic messages onto the CEOs of their portfolio companies, I wanted to help out and at least do my part to deliver some more operational substance.

Great companies and their resilience is defined by the quality of their products.

Great products make up for an endless amount of sales and marketing deficiencies, but in most cases sales and marketing spend too much time making up for lost product opportunity and becomes an endless money drain. Product definition (from a buyer’s perspective) and quality are the most important drivers for consistent business success, as Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs (both product gurus) have proven time and time again.

But when money is plentiful, yet guarded by aggressive milestones we tend to throw products over the fence early and have sales, marketing and support compensate tirelessly for its in-market deficiencies. Both startups and established companies (trust me, I’ve seen a few) make those same fundamental mistakes. The results are slow sales traction, excessive marketing expenses and runaway support costs. Not things any company can afford these days.

This morning I put together a presentation (in pdf, named TVC_building_efficiencies) that identifies some of the deficiency symptoms, emphasizes the benefits of great products to the cost model, and pulls together new ways to build amazing new products. Thus creating a more resilient company, no matter what the economic conditions.

So, to directly affect company efficiency, keep a close eye on the definition and implementation of the product, its macro-economic impact and how it grows and where it bleeds. Or simply contact us if you need some help.

Update: more on building efficiencies.

Tags: Performance, Consumer, Disruption, Free-market, Growth, Marketing, Markets, Quality, Resilience, Software, VC, Macro-economics

I understand the need for a greener environment (and enjoyed the fantastic video presentation from Google CEO Eric Schmidt at Corporate EcoForum), creating more renewable energy and perhaps making us less dependent on foreign countries.

That promise sounds good, albeit I think it will just redefine what we as countries fight about. Today it is oil, tomorrow it is probably about green technology and resources. In the near future, green technology will also find its core competencies and attractive pricing in countries other than just ours. Yet if we don’t learn how to resolve our differences and respect each others cultures, the subject of our debates is irrelevant. New leadership is key, so go out and vote.

But the part I don’t get is why many investors, like Kleiner Perkins, “flee” from information technology at the shimmer of rising oil prices, financial instability and tax incentives and dive head first into a completely new, and may I add completely different line of business. A line of business that often has more similarities to farming (with all of its intrinsic risk factors) than effortlessly moving bits through thin air.

The reason why information technology remains an interesting investment category to me is:
1/ The innovation of information technology is cheap, a few smart people in a room behind a computer and voila, a new star is born.
2/ The distribution of technology is cheap and immediate, there are virtually no borders (except to China perhaps).
3/ The monetization of technology is well understood, and is either direct or indirect but almost always single source.
4/ The enormous left-over possibilities of information technology that has yet to percolate many other industries.

Contrast that with green technology where I see:
1/ The massive costs associated with early foundational development.
2/ The costly implementation and distribution that requires safety, governmental, social approval processes (literally lasting years).
3/ In most cases the requirement of multi-source monetization, involving grants and many regulatory constructs (requiring a longer sales cycle).
4/ A limited time-to-market benefit for early adopters and therefor lack of urgency to buy. The adoption of green technology is generally believed to lengthen the time-to-market, aiming to produce a return on investment spread out over many years.

Again, I do see an enormous need for green technology to save our planet and a justification for investments supporting it. I am just not confident that the current Venture Capital model (born out of the technology era, and driven by information technologists) will lend itself to that segment. I am very curious to see what vintages will produce viable returns for the Limited Partners in the green-tech funds.

I hope I am wrong, as carefully applied Venture Capital has the potential to change industries, countries and the people in them.

In the meantime I’ll stick to my core competency, creating and managing growth of innovative information technology companies.

Tags: Green Tech, Innovation, Investment, Distribution, VC, Limited Partners

I still edit all my photographs (thousands) in LightZone, and have always vehemently made statements against Adobe Photoshop. Not because of the lack of photographic capabilities but primarily because of the proprietary language it forces you to understand before you can use Photoshop effectively.

Photoshop remains the “vi”- editor of photo editing, powerful yet very cumbersome to use. No secretary uses “vi” today, and the future of Photoshop is moving further and further away from the mass market Adobe should be trying to attract. Nothing new there.

But Photoshop CS4, after a long track record of rather meaningless innovation and UI revamps now includes some very nifty innovations worth looking at, as the videos demonstrate. Content aware scaling (from a company Adobe acquired last year), panoramas and the new 3D capabilities are very cool. So, if you’re interested in rudimentary 3D capabilities before you jump into Maya, check out Adobe’s website where the nifty new capabilities of Adobe’s Photoshop Extended are available for roughly $1,000. But, perhaps this time around, the premium price is worth it.

Credit where credit is due.

Tags: Photography, Photoshop, LightZone, Maya, Photographers, Adobe

Facebook, one of the fastest growing social network sites has really screwed up User Interface (UI) design with its new look. Take a look at the screen capture above. Now you tell me in 5 seconds the intuitive difference between clicking on: [Facebook] and [home], [home] and [profile], [profile] and [Georges van Hoegaerden], [settings] and [profile], and [settings] and [Georges van Hoegaerden].

But more importantly, Facebook has clearly not read my blog on removing the technology language to appeal to consumers, an issue that prevents many consumer technology companies from maximizing their growth potential. But who’s counting at Facebook these days?

Facebook is a technology company that exposes social networking capabilities in a very technological fashion. The examples are plenty: the workings of the UI described above, the categorization of data optimized to suit their internal data-models and the very complicated way to add applications to the platform, and we can keep going on. But for now, they’ll get away with it. Other consumer technology companies won’t be that lucky.

A great user interface can never be an objective by itself as that just presents a pretty face, try living with a person that only has that. The ultimate user experience (and this is where I politically depart from the previous analogy), is defined by an ecosystem of capabilities, cost and ease-of-use that creates the real and sustainable appeal.

BMW figured out early on that the Ultimate Driving Experience™ is what sells cars albeit their engine capabilities and timing was their initial core strengths. Today they sell the sum of all parts, The Ultimate Driving experience: great engine capabilities, spiffy performance, practical design and excellent comfort - a thrilling way to drive from A to B.

Facebook currently has a horrible “Ultimate Social Experience”: good (but no longer unique) social networking, so-so performance, impractical design and pretty bad comfort. Those are probably the reasons why 90% of my Facebook friends never use any Facebook features but simply create an account.

Many of Facebook’s recent poor decisions (including ad network issues etc) are evidence that user growth is outpacing their ability to grow up. And that could be catastrophic. Facebook is a great social networking platform with a lot of potential that many people rely on.

Facebook better watch out and prevent that too many people will start hating it. Those same users may use Facebooks own social networking capability to turn it off as fast as they initially turned it on.

Tags: BMW, FaceBook, Performance, Platform, Consumer

Two days ago we got word about the demise of the Photoshelter collection marketplace. Not surprising because Photoshelter was not a marketplace. Technologists have a tendency to slap the marketplace label on anything they build, without understanding what it truly means.

Marketplace models, criteria, funding and execution are fundamentally different from premium market models. Photoshelter was really nothing more than a replica of Getty Images without Getty’s money to buy inorganic growth.

Here is how Photoshelter failed to meet marketplace rules:

Marketplace violation 1: Photoshelter artificially arbitrated supply, through a lengthy subjective signup process in which Photoshelter arbitrators determine whether you get to play.

Marketplace violation 2: Photoshelter artificially arbitrated demand, as it aimed to sell it to “the industry’s top buyers”, not to everyone.

Marketplace violation 3: Photoshelter gave preference to images they liked, rather than simply connecting any supply with any demand.

Marketplace violation 4: Photoshelter deployed a sales-force (from Getty and other photo agencies) that promoted a premium market model, like any sales-force driven by quotas would.

But CEO Allen Murabayashi makes a few damaging statements in his blog on why they failed and tries to blame that on the market as a whole:

“Licensing photography is fraught with clearance issues”
150 Years of photography exchange has resolved the fundamental issues of rights management quite effectively. Getty-Images, Corbis and others have gone through a well defined process in order to clear rights in their move from analog to digital exchange. Photoshelter has relied too much on a model that requires people intervention, while the majority of rights and enforcement can be embedded in and enforced by technology and made the responsibility of the asset owner. In the same way eBay sellers are responsible for the fulfillment of transactions. That enforcement guarded by a true meritocracy will quickly weed out bad behavior (that plagues any marketplace).

“Stock photography is a slow growing market dominated by a single player”
Nonsense, the term stock photography is an artificial classification (made up by its current participants) that bares no value. Today $22B of photography is exchanged of which less than 10% is transacted electronically. Growth through the premium market model of Photoshelter is limited because the photography market requires a free-market.

“Research Requests move too quickly for individuals to react in a timely fashion”
Perhaps they do in the “top buyer” segment, but certainly not in all. Since Photoshelter artificially limited the demand characteristics, any assessment of market traction and behavior should be taken with a grain of salt.

“Buyers desire more diversity, but convenience (aka subscription deals) triumphs this desire”
Absolutely, buyers deserve diversity, and buyers should be presented with the ultimate experience (subscriptions are not the answer). What has fundamentally changed in a 150 year old analog photography market is that demand does not come from a few buyers, but a highly fragmented buyer market that will want to use an image for any purpose (not just for your average advertising purposes).

“A crowd-source model for stock will likely never work”
Absolutely disagree. Photoshelter deployed a premium market model on a market that requires free-market principles. It failed for the same reason Getty Images fails to become a market-leader in the un-arbitrated exchange of digital photography (identified by roughly 30% market ownership). Getty Images grew by inorganic growth and acquiring other photo agencies with staff photographers that create the majority of images it sells (less than 7% come out of third party supply according to a statement by its CEO in 2006).

Photoshelter, as lovers of photography, seemed to have their hearts in the right place but not their execution. And they neglected to respond to our offer for help one year ago, when we saw their demise coming.

Tags: Photographers, Photography, Getty-Images, Growth, Free-market, Marketplace

From time-to-time I hear from investors: what if Google decides to build it?

My replies are as follows:

1/ Google is the king of web-based advertising derived from search, and it does so extremely well and profitably. Yet Google is a pretty monolithic animal. While the company is capable of building virtually any technology outside of its core competency and brings a bright sparkle of innovation to Silicon Valley, it is consistently unsuccessful in turning that innovation into great Billion dollar businesses (which reminds me of Oracle, before Chuck Phillips came on board).

2/ Google is not a true marketplace, nor does it seem to understand free-market principles as witnessed by their actions. Google is a premium market for search-based advertising placements and it will continue to drive premium market DNA to the adoption of technology. Nothing wrong with that, unless they portray a more liberal character. So, you’ve got little to fear if a free-market platform is what you are building.

3/ Google does not understand any software category that doesn’t derive its revenue from advertising. While there may be a great future for software (as a service) that no consumer ever pays for directly, today that is not the reality. Desktop software, proprietary enterprise applications, software-as-a-paid-service are examples of what Google is highly inexperienced and generally unsuccessful with.

4/ It would be a great sign if Google decides to build a similar product or service, as it would produce a rhetorical blessing of the proposition and an impromptu acquisition play by its competitors. Isn’t that what you want as an investor.

Google’s relatively young age, massive growth and company DNA are probably the best reasons why it hasn’t succeeded financially in many areas it operates in. But I greatly admire their drive to invest a large part of the difference between their (Wall-street) valuation and real value in new technology development.

Beyond search, Google is in essence a giant research institute with the limited financial successes that come with that model. But Google lays important development groundwork that has and will continue to do us all good. They also provide valuable incubation of new technology ideas a commoditizing VC market rarely picks up on.

My startups have a different charter; turning great technologies into great businesses, now!

Tags: Google, Wall-Street, Innovation, Markets, Marketplace

Photography is a fantastic craft to which now, with the introduction of digital photography, many more people have access. Great photography relies on an ecosystem of factors (technical: shutter-speed, exposure, aperture, depth of field, ISO etc. and non-technical) to turn a simple scene into a compelling vision. Just like in business.

The similarities between photography and business are remarkable:

1/ The Art of Seeing
Great photography starts with an ability to see in the same way great innovation starts with an ability to imagine. Spotting a scene and finding extraordinary simplicity in detail is what lays the foundation for a great photograph and business. More so than the ability to master the camera, time is of the essence. Shoot it - now - with whatever camera, as that scene may never come back. So do the great opportunities in business. Carpe diem.

2/ Establish Focus
Every photograph needs a clear focal point, just like a business. One, and not more than one. But focus is not always obvious and in the middle of the viewfinder. Focus in photography and business is achieved through experience of knowing what that focus yields. In business that defines how you are percieved by your customers. As a photographer, you determine where the focus is and set the right angle. As a CEO you establish the focus and direction.