Despite the fact that O’Donnell laudably experimented with to emphasis the audience’s attention onand hopefully last, Charlie Sheen trainwreck interview, courtesy of the tragic undertow that threatens to pull Sheen underneath for good, I used to be overtaken, not by the pulling about the thread, and then the voracious audience he serves. It didn’t make me sad, it produced me angry.
On the subject of celebrities, we are able to be a heartless region, basking within their misfortunes like nude sunbathers at Schadenfreude Seaside. The impulse is understandable, to some diploma. It might be grating to pay attention to complaints from people today who get pleasure from privileges that many of us can not even picture. For those who can’t muster up some compassion for Charlie Sheen, who would make even more funds for any day’s operate than most of us will make inside a decade’s time, I guess I cannot blame you.
With all the quick speed of events on the web and therefore the info revolution sparked by the World wide web, it’s rather simple for your technologies business to assume it is different: always breaking new ground and undertaking points that no person has actually accomplished earlier than.
But there are other kinds of company which have by now undergone some of the exact radical shifts, and also have just as fantastic a stake inside future.
Get healthcare, as an illustration.
We sometimes believe that of it as being a enormous, lumbering beast, but in reality, medication has undergone a series of revolutions with the previous 200 years that happen to be at least equal to all those we see in technologies and information and facts.
Much less understandable, but nonetheless within just the norms of human nature, may be the impulse to rubberneck, to slow down and look into the carnage of Charlie spectacle of Sheen’s unraveling, but with the blithe interviewer Sheen’s existence as we pass it while in the right lane of our every day lives. To be straightforward, it could possibly be difficult for persons to discern the variation concerning a run-of-the-mill attention whore, and an honest-to-goodness, circling the drain tragedy-to-be. On its very own merits, a quote like “I Am On a Drug. It’s Known as Charlie Sheen” is sheer genius, and we can not all be anticipated to get the complete measure of someone’s existence every single time we hear a little something funny.
Quick forward to 2011 and I am seeking to investigate usually means of currently being a bit more business-like about my hobbies (mainly new music). From the conclude of January I had manned up and started to promote my blogs. I had generated several totally different blogs, which have been contributed to by close friends and colleagues. I promoted these pursuits as a result of Facebook and Twitter.
Second: the little abomination the Gang of Five on the Supream Court gave us a 12 months or so in the past (Citizens Inebriated) essentially comprises a bit bouncing betty of its individual that may incredibly very well go off within the faces of Govs Wanker, Sacitch, Krysty, and J.O. Daniels. Considering the fact that this ruling prolonged the principle of “personhood” to both equally businesses and unions, to check out to deny them any correct to operate inside the legal framework that they had been organized underneath deprives these “persons” with the freedoms of speech, association and motion. Which implies (the moment yet again, quoting law college skilled household) that either the courts have to uphold these rights for your unions (as person “persons” as assured from the Federal (and most state) constitutions, or they have to declare that these attempts at stripping or limiting union rights ought to utilize to big corporations, also.
With the rapid pace of events on the web and the information revolution sparked by the Internet, it’s very easy for the technology industry to think it’s unique: constantly breaking new ground and doing things that nobody has ever done before.
But there are other sorts of business that have already undergone some of the same radical shifts, and have just as great a stake in the future.
Take healthcare, for instance.
We often think of it as a huge, lumbering beast, but in truth, medicine has undergone a series of revolutions in the past 200 years that are at least equal to those we see in technology and information.
The first stirrings of modern chemistry and biology were only just beginning in the 19th century, but by 1967, Christiaan Barnard started transplanting hearts. Similarly, it was only in the 1950s Watson and Crick discovered DNA. Less than 50 years later, the first draft of the human genome was produced. If that’s not rapid, world-shattering change, then what is?
Pharma has also faced other challenges the web industry is only now starting to realize. Products are slow to make, and drugs can take years to design, test and manufacture. Accordingly, R&D spending in pharmaceuticals is very high overall; according to the European Union (PDF), five of the world’s top 10 companies by R&D spend are in drugs or biotechnology (among traditional technology companies, only Microsoft, Nokia and Samsung feature in the list). And it’s a far greater proportion of total turnover (Pfizer spends around one seventh of revenues on research, Apple spends around one dollar on R&D for every 13 it brings in).
And where the planet’s electronics giants spend billions attempting to end piracy and patent infringement, pharmaceutical companies are rapidly adjusting to the fact that they only get 12 years before patent protection ends and other companies can introduce generic drugs. Imagine a situation where Windows 98 was already old enough to be forcibly open-sourced, and you get the idea of how disruptive that might be.
So, what does the pharmaceutical industry have to teach us?
First, be careful. Your property and ideas won’t be yours for long.
Second, while new discoveries are important, revolutions can be reliably predicted, most of the time. From the outside, Barnard’s transplants were a radical shift in surgery. From inside the profession, it was the next obvious step after previous organ transplants.
Third, the way money is being spent will inevitably change. It’s already happening: an issue addressed by the latest VC bulletin from Go4Venture, a London-based advisory group for European entrepreneurs and investors (you can sign up here). Their latest dispatch outlines the state of deal-making in Europe (more of them, but less valuable, as reflected in figures we wrote about last month), and they also point out Europe’s technology financing system is undergoing a significant shift:
[there is a] major structural change in European venture capital financing where corporates will play a more prominent role going forward. Corporates are facing a lasting ex-growth market environment (courtesy of debt-laden Western economies) and realise that internal R&D is rather expensive and just cannot cover the whole front of innovation.
For corporates, investing in start-ups has the added advantage of encouraging a more entrepreneurial culture inside and creating a stream of acquisition opportunities.
Pharma has been there before, in an early move precipitated by proprietary drugs coming off patent, and we are now seeing the pharma model spreading to other IP-driven sectors.
Spending more of the R&D budget on other companies doesn’t just mean acquisition, of course — although the startup world is very familiar with the process and it’s clearly the most common option. Just yesterday, Google spent $60 million making the slightly odd move to buy British price comparison website BeatThatQuote. It could also mean more early investment in small companies, like the $100,000 Microsoft is putting into Moscow-based anti-piracy startup Pirate Pay.
But what it does mean is, ultimately, the growth in the number of deals we’re seeing is going to get faster, and there will be more opportunities for innovative startups and smart entrepreneurs. Twinned with the aggressive, high valuation investing strategy of a company like Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies, it seems more likely than not we’ll see things explode, in Europe and elsewhere, over the next year or two.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):
- A 2011 NewNet Forecast
- A 2011 Mobile Forecast
- A 2011 Connected Consumer Forecast
I’m back. CPAC week came and went. Then another week came and went after the horrible cold I got at CPAC. But now I’m healthy again and it’s time to start catching up. Though there’s no way I’m going to post on every tidbit I’ve run across in the last two weeks, I can try to hit the highlights.
And let’s start with the fact that the Internet Kill Switch is back under a new name. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman have reintroduced the bill under a new name. They think if they put freedom in the name that we’ll ignore the problems inherent in giving the President emergency powers to wage economic war on America. The Internet Kill Switch is a broken idea. We don’t let the President close supermarkets nationwide if one butcher in one city has an e. coli outbreak. We can’t apply the same overreaction online.
Also while I’ve been out of it, House Republicans have been busy. As I understand it, we’ve not only grilled the administration on the “Stimulus” spending on communications, but we’ve also passed an amendment to the continuing resolution in order to defund Net Neutrality. I love it. Our Energy and Commerce leadership in the House has so much going on, including Obamacare, but they seem to relish the opportunity to strike back so much and so hard at the administration’s illegal overreaching. From the cheap seats, Greg Walden, Fred Upton, and others are doing a great job.
Fun fact: when the House debated Net Neutrality defunding, the Democrats very strangely started making arguments that government should leave the Internet alone. Anna Eshoo said “I would not fool around with an open, accessible Internet.” Hey, for once we agree.
By the way, fun fact: Net Neutrality is so terrible for innovation and customer service that ISPs turned down ARRA money to try to stay away from it. Yes, they turned down free money from the government because regulation is just that costly.
Further, the Net Neutrality coalition continues to crumble. Collin Petersen, Democrat of Minnesota, flipped sides by voting for defunding NN after voting for NN last Congress. Perhaps he noticed the total wipeout in 2010 of PCCC candidates pledged to support Net Neutrality. Every single Democrat who signed the PCCC Net Neutrality pledge went on to lose in November.
Meanwhile, Julius Genachowski and the FCC still don’t get the message. He thinks he’s entitled to debate the Congress instead of taking orders. Greg Walden announced plans to pressure him on transparency, which should help teach him who’s boss, you’d think.
Though we have to give Genachowski credit on one thing: He admits the Netflix/Level 3/Comcast issue is not a violation of Net Neutrality.
Michael Copps, pet commissioner of neo-Marxists everywhere, deserves no credit though. He’s now pushing for more speech controls in the name of “disclosure.” It’s about control and gathering power in Washington.
The FCC still needs lots of oversight, though, as conflicts of interest continue to crop up, this time with an FCC official having PBS as an employer.
I have more to write on in the coming days on Google and Copyright, especially the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) which threatens to continue the criminalization of copyright law in America and expands government online in the name of protecting a few big companies. Watch this space.
Source: http://removeripoffreports.net/ corporate Reputation Management
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