Over the last week or so some of you may have seem my name in the media relating to a blogger challenge to TTC Chair, Adam Giambrone. The issue: improving the TTC's information website and increasing ridership. So far the Star, the Post, the Globe and Mail, the CBC and numerous blog sites have picked up on the story.

On New Year's eve I did something many would consider a simple task. I went to the TTC web site looking for a way to get from my house to the location of a New Year's eve party. Half an hour later I was no further ahead. It took a combination of searching the web and calling a help line to find out the subway and bus we needed to take. The next day on my other blog, Readingtoronto.com, I posted a challenge to Adam Giambrone. Would he listen to Toronto bloggers if they offered suggestions on how to improve the site?

To his credit he said yes. This is where the social-networking comes in. I asked my fellow Toronto bloggers to join in the challenge and we all asked our readers how they would improve the TTC way-finding system. The response was nothing less than remarkable. The comments poured in. Many are near-brilliant. This is what the "Wisdom of Crowds" is all about.

Our next step is to bring these suggestions - in a usable form - to city hall. Open source democracy? Maybe. Let's face it. Social-networking isn't only about connecting with your friends on MySpace, it is about coming together in communities of interest to make the world a little better. That is what Toronto bloggers have done. How many other seemingly intractable problems are waiting to yield to the onslaught of this technology? I think we'll all find (...read more...)

I received an email from the Wall Street Journal today informing me about their new, free service, the Market Data Centre. It is a worthwhile new service to be sure as it is full of useful market information. While I was on that site I followed a link to another service, http://www.stockpickr.com.

Stockpickr boasts that it uses social networking strategies to help users build effective investment portfolios. Here is what the company says it does:

What is StockPickr?
StockPickr is a free stock recommendation site that allows you to receive automated stock recommendations from thousands of portfolios, both professional and amateur, with a similar make-up to yours. Just enter your favorite stocks and within seconds you will receive new recommendations based on our internal algorithm matching your portfolio with the thousands of hedge funds, mutual funds and other peer portfolios (DIY portfolios) that have a similar composition. It also allows you to network, research and discover new great ideas in the financial market arena.

A quick visit to the site reveals a somewhat poorly designed interface with way too much going on. Still, the premise is an interesting one: Does a socially networked investment site give us an opportunity to improve our stock-picking?

Not everyone thinks so. Roger Ehrenberg of Information Arbitrage thinks the trend could be a disaster for investors:

It is particularly interesting to read some of the comments to the TechCrunch article. The diversity of comments pretty much represents that of the investing public - most comments have no appreciation for history or empirical research, a few are so far off the reservation (citing "wisdom of crowds" as the reason why such sites make sense) as to hardly warrant comment while a few actually raise the fundamental issues of indexing, risk management and diversification. The feel one gets (...read more...)

Plastic Logic is the Boston company that is getting closer than anyone to the holy grail of a paper-like digital display. You know the one: It makes printed newspapers and magazines obsolete. They announced a 100 million dollar investment yesterday that will let them build a new manufacturing plant.

Plastic Logic announced today that it will build the first factory to manufacture plastic electronics on a commercial scale. The facility will produce flexible active-matrix display modules for 'take anywhere, read anywhere' electronic reader products. It will utilize Plastic Logic's unique process to fabricate active-matrix displays that are thin, light and robust; enabling a reading experience closer to paper than any other technology.

To fund this comprehensive commercialization program, Plastic Logic has completed a first closing of $100 million of equity finance led by Oak Investment Partners and Tudor Investment Corporation. Existing investors Amadeus, which led the seed financing of Plastic Logic, Intel Capital, Bank of America, BASF Venture Capital, Quest for Growth and Merifin Capital also participated. The financing is one of the largest in the history of European venture capital.

If they are successful in commercializing the product the market size will massive. It may even make Google seem like a small player. Imagine the ecological benefits of removing the need for millions of tons of newsprint. Keep this company on your watch list.

Here is part of what the Financial Times says about the technology:

However, news that a plant is to be built will create a stir far beyond Cambridge. Morry Marshall, vice-president for strategic technologies at Semico, a Phoenix-based semiconductor research group, says plastic semiconductors have "tremendous potential" and add up to a "breakthrough that is waiting to happen".

The initial products from the factory will be pieces of plastic about A4 size. The basic plastic substrate (...read more...)

It is that time of the year again: time to look back over the last 365 days, admire your accomplishments, cringe at your failures and plan for the new year.

Did you learn anything in 2006? Do you have what it takes to succeed in '07 or are you and your team ready for a hard landing? Business 2.0 is offering advice from 50 well-known, successful people. Gagglescape.com brings you eleven of the best. These are people who recognize that successful businesses need people power and innovative ideas in order to rise to the top. How do you get innovative? Take a look at my story on the key lessons of innovation. After you've done that read through what these eleven success stories have to offer:

Sergey Brin
Co-founder, Google
SUCCEED WITH SIMPLICITY

Chris DeWolfe
Co-founder, Myspace
KEEP SOCIAL NETWORKS SOCIAL

Chad Hurley
Co-founder, YouTube
GIVE YOUR STARTUP A FIGHTING CHANCE

1. Test first. Launch your product or service before you have funding. See how people respond to it before you have a PowerPoint and business plan - have something people can use, and go from there.

2. Seek outside feedback. As you start building the product, don't assume that you know all the answers. Listen to the community and adapt. We had a lot of our own ideas about how the service would evolve. Coming from PayPal and eBay, we saw YouTube as a powerful way to add video to auctions, but we didn't see anyone using our product that way, so we didn't add features to support it.

3. Give partners what they want. Approach your business partners with concepts that they can get their heads around, and try to respond to their needs. An interesting example is what we've done with the music labels. With Warner and others, (...read more...)

A handful of IPOs exploded in Friday's market much like an eruption from a smoldering volcano. They scored an average opening-day gain of nearly 40 percent. But the event that led up to Friday's fireworks didn't just happen overnight.

 

This year's IPO traffic is breaking down into two different markets: Pre-Labor Day and Post-Labor Day.

 

Investors who bought shares of companies that have gone public since Labor Day wound up on the lucky side of the ledger. The numbers tell the story.

 

The average opening-day gain of the IPOs priced since Labor Day is 18.1 percent. That's roughly twice the average opening-day gain of 8.9 percent for the IPOs priced during the first eight months of the year.

 

Here's how the two different IPO markets of 2006 have taken shape so far.

 

Pre-Labor Day:

On Sept. 1, 2006, which was the Friday before Labor Day, the Nasdaq Composite Index, the barometer of the IPO market, ended at 2,193.16, DOWN 0.55 percent from its close at 2,205.32 on Dec. 30, 2005.

 

During those eight months, the new-issues calendar produced 136 IPOs, according to available records. That was an average of about 17 IPOs per month. They had an average opening-day gain of 8.9 percent.

 

On Sept. 1, 2006, the pre-Labor Day Scorecard (excluding unit offerings) looked like this:

• IPOs priced: 105
• Up: 50
• Down: 53
• Unchanged: 2
• Average gain: 4.32 percent
• Nasdaq Composite Index: Down 0.55 percent

Post-Labor Day:

On Dec. 9, 2006, the Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 2,437.36, UP 11.1 percent from Sept. 1, 2006.

 

During those three months and a week, the new-issues calendar produced 76 IPOs. That was an average of about (...read more...)

This is what Dr. Paul Kedrosky says about KP:

You have to give KP partners credit, especially John Doerr: They never see a Next Big Thing that isn't waaay bigger than the Last Big Thing. Some cases in point:
The Internet:
John Doerr (1997-2000): "The Internet is the largest legal creation of wealth in the history of the planet."

Mobile
John Doerr (2005): "[The cell phone boom will be] ultimately be more important and will likely offer a larger wave of investment opportunity than the personal computer."

Cleantech
Ray Lane (2006): "This is bigger than the Internet, I think by an order of magnitude. Maybe two. I'm taking the entire energy industry."

Blogs have turned out to be the ultimate killer online App--haven't they? Maybe not. A Silicon Valley company, Jaxtr, is rolling out a new service that will supercharge blog sites everywhere with an old-world solution: telephony.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Silicon Valley start-up is gearing up to embed free, Web-based telephone services on a variety of popular social networking and blogging services, including MySpace, Friendster and Blogger.

By contrast with existing Web calling services such as Skype that are typically computer-based, or require consumers to buy special headsets or microphones, Jaxtr plans to allows users to make inbound calls to bloggers from any phone in the world.

Jaxtr, a 14-month-old closely held company based in Palo Alto California, said it is beginning a test by private invitation of its new calling service, with plans to make it widely available to Web users sometime early in the new year.

In the small Canadian companies that make a big impact category, Ottawa-based firm Parliant just won the coveted Editor's Choice Award (Eddy) from MacWorld Magazine for its PhoneValet product:

Parliant's PhoneValet Message Center 4.0 (July 2006) does one simple thing--but does it so well, it's hard to believe that no one else has done it before. Previous editions of the program have established PhoneValet as the premier telephone message-recording system for the Mac; version 4 has cemented that leadership position. The app now does a lot more than answer calls. It can also dial, record, log, and search through your calls; it'll also automatically forward them to your cell phone when you're on the road. Despite all those new skills, PhoneValet Message Center 4.0 is still one of those apps you can set up and never think about again.--JIM DALRYMPLE

Now in Version 5, PhoneValet is an inexpensive phone messaging management system that provides services you never knew you needed until they change the way you work. Does your business need to record entire calls? Before PhoneValet came along this was a pain to accomplish. Now it's simple. Want to leave a custom message for a specific client? Easily done. How about forwarding certain calls to another number? PhoneValet manages that and more.

Consultants will find the product especially useful as it can log calls and their duration to specific projects then export that data to a spreadsheet.

"Parliant products service the needs of small office, home and home office users," says Parliant's Founder and CEO Kevin Ford. "This award proves that today's small businesses can be as global as the imaginations of entrepreneurs. Before Parliant started building product, we started building systems that automated e-commerce, customer service, and support. Beyond that, Parliant outsources manufacturing, marketing, and order fulfillment. Today's Eddy (...read more...)

iTwire has a review of Gartner's 2007 CIO resolutions. Number three on the list offers the most value for companies that wanting to be competitive in the hyper-accelerating world of modern business.

Gartner’s advice on what CIOs should START in 2007

1. Create an IT leadership generation succession plan

2. Track and improve the environmental performance of your IT

3. Identify, enable and provide incentives for true innovators

1. As the baby boomer generation, born 1946-1964, start to retire en masse, IT departments will lose wisdom and leadership. According to Gartner, this also presents an opportunity to clear out some 'dead wood'; for example people that were over-promoted in the early days of IT and some out-dated attitudes stifling progressive thought.

2. Mr Raskino said, “Don’t assume the next generation of IT leadership should look the same as the last. Identify your best generation X people born in the 60s and 70s, then start giving them challenging projects and operational responsibilities to complete their experience. Bear in mind that future IT management will need skill traits more common amongst women, people with experience from multiple disciplines, business skills and proven change management success.”

3. In addition, identifying individuals with the creativity, ability and a determination to overcome corporate inertia and take new ideas to action is paramount for IT to deliver business innovation. In a poll at a recent Gartner Symposium, 80 percent of respondents said this is a priority, however, only 20 percent had a systematic innovation program in place.

It is my experience that in quarter-report driven companies innovation takes place almost by accident and is rarely the result of a corporate-wide strategy. Improved abilities to identify and respond to developing markets is perhaps the key success driver of the 21st Century. Companies that don't have a systemic way (...read more...)

The Canadian Venture Capital Association released its latest performance numbers Monday and the news is not good for the industry -- to say the least. Investment returns in early stage companies -- even with Labour Fund incentives -- is mostly in negative territory. Which makes us wonder why anyone would want to entertain that segment of the Canadian market. Yet we know that without early stage investment many companies will not mature to the point where they can create real wealth for investors. It is a paradox and one that demands some kind of systemic solution. Do we need a system of tax credits for the industry? If so, what form would those tax incentives take? It is clear by the CVCA's numbers that the Labour Fund did not make early stage investment financially rewarding for the sector.

As we reported last month, Canadian tech companies when they do succeed outperform their U.S. counterparts. So there is reason to invest in early-stage Canadian companies. But the way we have been doing it for the past decade or so is not working.

Take a look at the full report here.

What started as a hobby for lawyer Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, a Web 2.0 blog, is now so profitable he's taking time away to think about what the future might hold (Gagglescape aspires to such a fate). The San Francisco Gate has the story.

In the 18 months since he started the blog, Arrington has emerged as a major player in a tech scene that is quickly changing the media landscape. Bloggers, using inside information and posting at all hours of the day and night, are often beating traditional media to big stories and are setting the news agenda from Silicon Valley to Washington.

Are you interested in what the new Liberal leader's environmental policies might be? Here is a draft that is right off the press.

Toby Heaps, Editor of Corporate Knights magazine, was at the Liberal leadership convention and has an environmentalist's view of the proceedings. Go to Gagglescape's sister site, http://www.corporateknightsforum.com for the story.

The surprise election of Stephane Dion to the leadership of the Canadian Liberal party represents a sea-change in our political and business landscape. Recent surveys -- both pre and post this weekend's conference -- show that Canadians want a change in the environmental status quo of this country. The Canadian public is not alone in their view. Europeans have long committed to investment in their environmental sector. Japan and other Asian countries are embracing industry initiatives like ISO14001 to reduce their environmental footprint.

Canadian companies are also embracing these changes. In the building sector, Canadians are world-leaders in sustainable, energy-efficient building technologies. Dion's election reflects that our political mandarins may be getting serious as well.

What does that mean for our VC investment sector? Don't be surprised to see some economic incentives that encourage investment in this sector. We probably will not have to wait for a change in government for that to happen. The Tories will be looking for ways to firm up their green credentials and one way would be through tax incentives in that area.

Get ready for the greening of Canada's VC sector. We don't have to wait for government to offer incentives. The Economist says that the green sector will grow 30% year-over-year for at least the next ten years and represents the greatest wealth-creation opportunity of the 21st Century. Do we need more encouragement than that?

The City of Santa Monica is offering motorists real-time information on something useful: available parking spaces. While the service is somewhat of an oddity, it does suggest that the mobile Internet and related services are just around the corner for many day-to-day activities. We keep hearing that shopping related data will become available but there are far bigger, environmentally related issues that communities can tackle with the new technology. Reducing traffic jams are one potential option. If traffic congestion in U.S. cities could be reduced by even 5%, the amount of fuel savings and reduced air pollution would be worth billions of dollars.

Are Canadians the business world's biggest slackers?

Last Wednesday, the Rotman School of Business hosted the Canadian Business Magazine's Outlook 2007 conference. What were the topics discussed? How to become a high performance business by Accenture Managing Director, Bill Morris; Finding opportunity when the business game you are in changes by John Shackelton, CEO of Open Text; Predictions for Canada's economy in 2007 which brought together economists and a business writer; and, Canada's prosperity gap by Dean Roger Martin.

While all four presentations offered insight into Canadian business, it was Dean Roger Martin's presentation on Canada's prosperity gap that I found most compelling. As many of Gagglescape's readers know, Martin is a leading authority on the value added benefits design thinking brings to business. His research suggests that design is the next big business paradigm. Martin uses his insight into the global business environment along with some strict quantitative analysis to help us understand Ontario's prosperity gap.

What is the prosperity gap? Simply put, it is the difference in GDP per Capita between a group of 16 otherwise comparable jurisdictions. Ontario is 12.4% below the median in this group. Why care? Well, that difference means that we have about $8,000 less per year in disposable income that could go to paying off mortgages or funding an offspring's education, for example. That hurts.

What are the causes of this gap? Some have to do with our business leader's propensity for taking time off. Well-to-do Canadians, it seems, take significantly more time off than do their U.S. counterparts. Taxes also play a part in the disparity. According to Martin - and he pulled no punches - Ontario could not go out of its way to devise a more business unfriendly, non-competitive taxation system. "Taxing businesses at high rates is just counterproductive," says Martin. (...read more...)