Sunday, April 23, 2006

Web 2.0 for E-Govenance

Blogging, Tagging, Photosharing, Micro Financiang, Stupidity etc from useful to useless Web 2.0 is making a mark in probably every aspect of modern society. Then why not use it for public voice.

Web 2.0 for E-Governance

Voting for Mandate or Ideology
Time has taught us that no party is perfect nor is any single candidate. It is the policies and reforms that they act on that make a difference. Hense
policies and public reforms seem to be more important than parties and people.

A citizen adressal system where people can raise issues of concern and citizens can vote them can be useful in this context.

The Clitizen Addressal System
- A web portal/application that allows citizens to suggest change for public policy and reforms.
- Allows citizens to add sub-sugesstions under major areas.
- Allows citizens to vote for issues of concern to them.
- Involves traditional media in looking at the issue boards and bring to public notice if the issues have been addresed.
- Creates a mechanism to ensure that full participation from all sections of the society is made paossible

As the usage of such a platform increases so will its value. Parties in the democracy will be forced to at least look at the sugesstions from citizens and include them in their mandate. And agendas that do not address major issues posed by citizens will automatically come under public question.

Such of form of interactive democracy can be a good use of Web 2.0, Social Webs etc etc etc


Sunday, April 09, 2006

TIE Networking Meet at Bangalore, India

TIE Networking Meets

This article contains learnings from the TIE meet last week. It was held by the TIE Bangalore Chapter. The meet had a mix of and entreprenures, aVenture capitalist and an Angel Investor as speakers. The talks were very intresting. At times during the meet the entreprenures had views very different from the captialtists. Anyway it was good to know what these guys were thinking and their intrests.

Analysis Paralisis
No idea is perfect and most ideas change alomost 60% or more before the first sale is done. So dont spend too much time Analysing stuff. If you believe that it worth doing this and that someone would be ready to take out their credit card and type in the number , then may be the stuff worth doing.

Advisors
Many VCs and entreprenurs turned Angel investors could be invited to be Advisors to your new startup. These guys can provide valuable advice on shaping the service/solution and more importantly open doors to take the company formward. You may give the advisor a stake in your startup. Say 2-5%

First Round Funding
When the Capitalists enter, as a thumb rule the company if broken up into 50-25-25, where the pie goes to investor-entreprenuer-employees. Seed investing will invalriably be a small amountand
will grow if the company does well.
Disclosure- these statements are based on what was discussed in the meet by the speakers. Please feel free to comment if it is incorrect by any length


A Team with B Idea or B Team with A Idea??
Like it has been suggested many time over, surround yourself with strong people. Who know what they are doing and can make thigs work. The concept that the A team will be able to realise the flaw in the B idea and fix it over time. So, if you ever want to get funded the have the A team with you.
My Take -->
Although this makes sence, it is just a way to play safe by the capitalists. IITs and IIMs have great brand value, but all that matters is wether you know your team and believe in it. At the end of the day you do not want to have high profile people who are not able to appreciate what you are trying to achieve.



My Final Take: "
Screw It, Let's Do It "-Richard Barnson :-)

Refrence:
TIE stands for The Indus Entreprenuers. The organization is a club of entreprenuers, VCs, and people from services industries supporting the startup like lawyers, CAs etc. TIE arranges networking meets regularly. Some of the biggest names in Venture Capital and Entreprenurship have been speakers at the monthly meets. TIE Bangalore. This months meet had Speakers from Sridar Iyengar, President - TiE Global, Ajit J. Deora, Partner - Lightspeed Venture Partners, K. Ganesh, CEO and founder of TutorVista.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Institutionalizing Innovation

I wish it had this one more feature !!
You have bought a new camera and realized that it should have had that one more feature that would make it perfect
. Or thought about this intresting mix for the breakfast cerals while at the table this morining.

Manufacturers crave for such ideas and consumers have no where to go to tell thier ideas to the manufactures. Often manufacturers look for ideas inside thier company and fail to find many really good ones.

In the recent past manufactures have looked towards consumers to help innovate. However these practices seem adhoc. A few succeses were coverd in the economist -> http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3749354. Talks about GE, BMW and Staples benefiting from consumer led innovation.

How are New Ideas Born

1. When people think diffrently
2. The product\service is used is ways other that thought of by the creators
3. When lots of people use it
4. When the consumers grow beyond the capabilities of the product
5. When you see other intresting products and mix and match them in your mind, to create that new imaginary product.


And how can the Sony's and Kellogs of the world know this from their consumers.......... There is NO WAY. At least as far as I have seen on the Internet

The Perfect Macth Web 2.o and Consumer led Innovation
Web 2.0 suggests co-creation of value by the user community and the famous network effect. This simply means that the total value of the system increases as more and more people start using the system. Take Fikcr or StumpleUpon as an example. These applications are only tools but the real value comes from people using it.

While Consumers are the best source of Ideas for any product/service, the web2.0 concept can be used to create an application that can allow consumers to suggest what is right\wrong with the product\service and how it can be improved. Manufacturers\Service Providers on the other hand can work togther with consumers who suggest these ideas to improve their offerings. In the meanwhile the manufactures can provide incentives like gifts\prizes to consumers for providing vauable suggestions. Consider your innovation team of a size of 50 Million people instead of 5-10 people thinks alike and with hugh pay checks.

Creating the next generation Consumer Innovation and Interaction Platform
The system can be a simple web site that
- Allows consumers to suggests good\bad things wrt to products\services
- Allows consumers to suggest ideas that would help create new products and target them to manufacturers
- Allows manufacturers to incentivise ideas and provide the consumers with benefits for their idea


Some one out there intrested in this concept??...... You can get in touch with me if you would like to explore this concept further. Just Leave a note here .....