Log Blog And Two Sides Of The Brain

Happy New Year!

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.

Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.

But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,

And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

(Khalil Gibran On Time …)

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Reading a PwC report on Indian Media and Entertainment Industry, triggered these thoughts…

When I was growing up back in India, I always felt fascinated by moving images of Film and Television. I was curious to know more about the mechanics of Film and Television production. With time coming closer to choose  a career path, I broke the news to my parents that I want to go to Pune Film Institute. As expected, it solicited a big no-no from them (considering, when I was young I told them I want to join Circus Troupe). Reason being media industry considered an exercise in vain, given the world of materialism and pragmatism. I had to cave in to my parents’ wishes to join the time-tested field of engineering catapulting me to America. But as the cliche says it was a blessing in disguise, as I realized my dream of getting media education from America and now working for the company most admired by audio and video customers – who range from home enthusiasts to complex media enterprises, and create the most listened to, most watched and most loved media in the world – Avid Technology.

Fast forward, Media Industry today is regarded as the fastest growing landscape of Indian economy. In terms of employment, an estimated six million people earn their livelihood from the media and entertainment industry. And it’s estimated that during this decade another one million people will be placed lucratively in this industry since it is projected to be one of the prime economic driving forces of the country, even ahead of the IT sector.Here is the link to PricewaterhouseCoopers Annual Report on Indian Entertainment and Media Industry for more information:

http://www.pwc.com/in/en/press-releases/indian-entertainment-media-industry-2007.jhtml

There has never been a better time to study media arts. The media industry thoroughly accepts that media artists of new talent will emerge from media schools and that these students are more broadly educated, versatile, and capable of radically developing the media industry than any preceding generation.

So good luck to all young aspirants who want to join this dynamic industry. As they say:

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I did this interview while running my first entrepreneurial venture, PTI Media Networks. Dr. Desh Deshpande has been instrumental in bringing entrepreneurial spirit in the New England Area in general and to the South Asian Community in particular. Few years ago he started Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT (http://web.mit.edu/deshpandecenter/). As an entrepreneur myself I admire him a lot and I hope to learn lot of things from him.

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We did this presentation as part of our group assignment for MBA course “Leading Dynamic Organisation in the Information Age”, for a fictitious advertising agency “Boston Advertising”. We suggested following three Web 2.0 technologies:

Twitter: to get better feedback of the advertising campaigns done on behalf of their clients.

Confluence: to have a better collaboration among its employees who are geographically dispersed.

XProve: to expedite review and approval process which is traditionally done using mail services which is expensive and cause delays in the overall process.

We really spent time talking about User Adoption and Development, Metrics to measure adoption and Risks.

Thanks to all who helped us in answering some of the questions we asked about Web 2.0 adoption and Generation Gap. And all those question were asked … you guessed it right… using Web 2.0 platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

We also made this video which talks about Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, and the opportunities and challenges for the user adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise.

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When I took Business Law for my current MBA semester, my initial thoughts were that reading for this course will put me to sleep very easily. As an entrepreneur, I will patent this cure for Insomnia

But this course not only opened my eyes (instead of closing) but gave me better perspective of business law for entrepreneurs. This course helped me to understand the ways in which the law is a constraint, but also the ways in which it is a tool that can help you create and capture value. The course is taught by Prof. Cheryl Kirschner and she is a wonderful teacher. Babson students reading this blog, this course is highly recommended.

For entrepreneurs I will highly recommend this book, “The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Law” by “Constance E. Bagley“.

The course is coming to an end and now we have to reproduce what we have learned, next Wednesday, in our final exam. Why can’t they grade me reading my blog that I really liked the course? No, Ok.

Today, I took a day off from work and now sitting and reading my notes from last nine weeks. One reading which I really liked is the one I want to share with all of you on my blog, called “Top Ten Legal Mistakes Made by Entrepreneurs“. Not the complete reading but some salient points. Also this will allow me to permanently store these thoughts on the pages which I visit frequently and with every visit it will reinforce me not to commit these legal mistakes. This list is taken from Connie Bagley’s (Associate Professor at Harvard Business School) article published in Harvard Business School’s New Business magazine:

1. Failing to incorporate early enough.
2. Issuing founder shares without vesting.
3. Hiring a lawyer not experienced in dealing with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.
4. Failing to make a timely Section 83 (b) election.
5. Negotiating venture capital financing based solely on the valuation.
6. Waiting to consider international intellectual property protection.
7. Disclosing inventions without a nondisclosure agreement, or before the patent application is filed.
8. Starting a business while employed by a potential competitor, or hiring employees without first checking their agreements with the current employer and their knowledge of trade secrets.
9. Promising more in the business plan that can be delivered and failing to comply with state and federal securities laws.
10. Thinking any legal problems can be solved later.

Now back to other reading… next on the list … “Agency Law and Employment Law“…

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Check out some “Videos” created by my production company. Enjoy!

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Last week a friend of mine recommended that I should read a book “Art of Possibility” by “Ros and Ben Zander”. Since ordering by Amazon was shipping length away and I wanted to read it “now” I stretched my way to the Barnes and Noble. I went to B&N customer service and asked them I need help to find a book. The lady at the counter asked me name of the book and for whatever I was thinking at that moment I said “Art of Opportunity”. After clicking  words on the keyboard and after the search expedition she  said there is no book of this name. Suddenly, I realized my mistake and gave her the right name. She went to get the book I needed “Art of Possibilty”.

Currently attending Babson College, where major emphasis is on entrepreneurship, this tag line stands out in my mind, “A way of thinking, reasoning, and acting that is opportunity obsessed, holistic in approach, and leadership balanced“.

I am not done reading the book, but it is shaping my new thoughts that:

- Entrepreneurship is not only about Opportunity but it is more about Possibility…

- Art plays a big role in the Science.

Since my blog is about two sides of the brain, the right brain and the left brain, these lines from the book makes a perfect prose equation:

“Historically, artists have been employed by leading institutions to bring emotional truth to established principles. Yet in our new global society, no institutions has the wide acceptance to create values and directions for the majority of people. Markets in free societies are rapidly replacing governments and religious institutions as regulators of the highest authority, and markets perform without values; they do not converse in a human tongue. The arts can break new ground here, bringing human consciousness to bear on these flows of products and capital, energizing our interpersonal connections, and opening new doors for invention and practice.

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Part 1

Prophecy is defined to be a divinely inspired revelation or interpretation. Nostradamus is one name closely associated with prophecies and his book Les Propheties is often credited by his followers for predicting many major world events.

After reading this article “The New Rules for the New Economy” (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.09/newrules.html) I think the title for the Business World Nostradamus can be very well accorded to Kevin Kelly.

This article was written by Kevin Kelley in 1997 at the cusp of the Internet Revolution when he was Executive Editor of the Wired Magazine. Whatever he predicted in 1997 is coming out to be true in the turbulent business world of today.

After reading this article I could not stop myself to draw some parallels between this article and the bestseller book “The World is Flat” by Thomas Friedman which was published in 2005. Where Kevin Kelley articulated the twelve rules to survive in the future Network Economy, Thomas Friedman’s book exemplified these rules in practice in the present New World – A Flat World.

In 1997 Kevin Kelley predicted that New Economy offers new set of rules and opportunities and those who will play by the rules will thrive and those who will ignore will be marching towards the path of extinction. Fast forward today, his Nostradamus like prophecies are coming to be true in the Network Economy as explained in the book “The World is Flat” and specifically looking at new age companies like Netflix replacing old business models like Blockbuster.

In his first rule “The Law of Connection – Embrace dumb power” he mentioned that two underlying seismic forces causing this upheaval in the landscape is the collapsing microcosm of chips and the exploding telecosm of connections. In 2003 this is what Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys, explained Thomas Friedman. The excess availability of network bandwidth created during bubble days and the dispersion of cheaper computers all over the world created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anymore. This rule came into practice as dumb parts properly connected yielded smart results and leveled the playing field for new entrants.

Similarly Kelley’s “The Law of Tipping Points – Significance precedes momentum” was ignored by Blockbuster. Blockbuster paid no attention to early adopters renting DVD by Netflix service because the number of people subscribed to the service was initially small and they ignored it by assuming it is not a sustainable business model. In 2003 when they finally realized that Netflix is a threat to their core business it was too late as the disruptive technology of Netflix Network affect reached its Tipping point. In the old economy companies waited for the momentum to build up before throwing their weight around it, however in the Network economy significance precedes momentum and creates network effect.

Part 2

I work in the Media industry and reading Kevin Kelley’s article has given me a new perceived sense of looking at the state of this industry. In the Media industry, like any other industry, digital technology has significantly reduced the cost of producing, distributing, storing and manipulating contents. Today anyone can be their own publisher, journalist, program maker by creating digital contents using freely available tools and by publishing it on YouTube. This created a level playing field for everybody instead of few with deep pockets. On the other hand studio produced contents like TV programs and movies can be replicated instantly at virtually no cost giving rise to piracy and erosion of revenues. The digitization of contents has challenged the established business models and companies are struggling to find new channels of revenues as they embrace this new Network Economy.

As Kelley indicated in 1997, today most of the companies in the Network Economy are learning to move from – optimization to innovation, perfection of the known to imperfectly seizing the unknown, pricing products to think free as a design goal and a bitter truth of relinquishing previous success to try new ones.

Here are examples of two Network Economy companies in the media industry, which I am involved with, trying to borrow a rule from Kevin Kelley’s article.

Content Creation - http://www.videospin.com

Avid Technology is a industry leader in the creation of software and hardware solutions for the media industry. Currently 90% of the Hollywood movies are edited using Avid’s flagship product Media Composer. In 2005 Avid bought Pinnacle Systems to provide media solutions to the burgeoning consumer segment for capturing and editing solutions. Pinnacle is a market share leader in the consumer video editing software with their flagship product Pinnacle Studio.

Proliferation of user generated contents on the popular websites like YouTube created a demand for the tools which are easy to use and can upload finished products to the video sharing websites with an ease. Currently it is estimated that 70% of the contents are still uploaded to these websites unfinished from cell phones and web cams without any titles, background music or composting. This presented an opportunity to practice Kelley’s “The Law of Generosity – Follow the Free” to provide these consumers with free software because value appreciates in proportion to abundance establishing product’s worth and indispensability. The VideoSpin service allows you to download free software for video editing with the same basic functionality as the shrink-wrapped software, with advanced features sold as an upgrade. As Kelley pointed in the article this allows for the company to continue its generosity and maintaining this marvelous circle of network effect. Currently the VideoSpin has 1 million subscribers creating and sharing videos. So if you want to create professional looking video and want to share it with your friends, take this software out for a Spin

Content Streaming – http://www.joost.com

I was an early beta-tester for this service. The company was started by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa). When this service was launched in 2007 it was called revolution in the way TV will be viewed in this Network Economy. Instead of going with the traditional server based video streaming, Joost pioneered the way Peer-to-Peer technology will be used for distribution of contents. Since in the Network Economy content consumption is free and users are averse to advertisements inserted in the programs, only way for this business model to work is by finding ways to reduce cost associated with adding new servers and avoid using content distribution networks like Akamai and Limelight. Joost technology used viewer’s computers to store the contents (called seeding) and serving the contents to the viewers from the nearest peer computers. Further they added social networking to the technology allowing friends to watch TV programs together and sharing their views by chat. In 2007 high profile executive from Cisco, Mike Volpi was brought as CEO of the company.

This brings us to the Kelley’s “The Law of Devolution – Let go at the top”. The fate of individual organizations is not dependent entirely on their own merits, but also on the fate of their neighbors, their allies, their competitors and that of the immediate environment. The promising technology hit a wall as they encountered quality issues using computers on which they had no control, need to download a player for viewing was considered threat by content providers as it allows piracy and TV viewing is considered as a lean back approach (hence the word couch potato) but this interactivity provided lean forward approach which does not went well with all age groups. At the same time services like Hulu which are based on web embedded flash players were gaining prominence in the distribution of long form TV contents and films. It was a decision time for Joost – to throw away a technology developed by 150 engineers over a period of 2 years with millions of dollars in investment or to keep refining it. As Kelley explained the definition of lower adapativity is that you are closer to extinction. Finding the next peak is suddenly the next life-or-death assignment. But there is no alternative to leaving behind perfectly good products, expensively developed technology, and wonderful brands and heading down to trouble in order to ascend again in hope. Joost took this path and revamped their strategy by moving to web embedded flash player model. The jury is still out to find the winner in the online video streaming market, but Joost has taken right approach by showing the expertise in demolishing the ensconced apart from expertise in innovation.

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