Innovation Toronto » money

Economy Has Become a Drag on Silicon Valley

innovation2 — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:07:25 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO — Housing prices in Silicon Valley remain defiantly high. New BMWs and Saabs cruise Highway 101. But for the first time there are signs that the current economic downturn is taking its toll on the country’s cradle of technology and innovation.

Job growth has slowed, start-up companies are hiring and spending more cautiously, and early-stage investors who nurture the start-ups with money and expertise are growing more frugal.

Most of the investors, entrepreneurs and innovators who build companies in the Valley do so with the hope of taking them public or selling them — the rainmaking opportunities that people here call exits. But with gloom pervading the financial markets and the business climate, the exits are hard to find.

Money Buys Happiness When You Spend On Others, Study Shows

ron — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:22:12 +0000

photo credit: Randy Son Of Robert

ScienceDaily (Mar. 21, 2008) — In a series of studies, UBC Asst. Prof. Elizabeth Dunn found that individuals report significantly greater happiness if they spend money “pro-socially” — that is on gifts for others or charitable donations — rather than spending on themselves. Her findings will appear in the March 21 edition of the journal Science.

Improving innovation

ron — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:26:45 +0000

Search engines could be the answer

OVER the past decade, innovation has emerged from the shadows to become a new industrial religion, worshiped by public figures, investors and businessmen alike. Around the world, the rhetoric of innovation unites politicians on the left and right, having replaced the post-war language of welfare economics.

Board members see it as the key to increasing profits and market share. Governments hurl money at it when trying to fix failing economies. But despite being responsible for something like half of all economic growth, and the topic of countless government studies, innovation remains essentially a black art.

Zombies and Scrabble Knock-Offs to Invade MySpace

ron — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:18:03 +0000

MySpace is about to join Facebook, Bebo, Meebo and so many other stars in the Web 2.0 firmament in opening up its platform and giving developers a set of tools with which to build applications that can run, and make money, on its site.

What is Mobile Weekend?

ron — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:43:41 +0000

That’s a great question. Mobile weekend follows in the tradition of Startup Weekend. I was lucky enough to have participated in Startup Weekend Toronto and Facebook Weekend Beta (and to have been one of the organizers). We’ve thought for a long time that Mobile would be a great forum for such an event. Here, in point form, is what the weekend is about. We will be putting up more details later tonight.

The idea behind Mobile Weekend is this:

Get a bunch of brilliant, passionate and motivated individuals together over a weekend
Have that group come up with and select an idea for a mobile application (most likely Java based or web based)
Build the application over the weekend with the goal of launching a fully functional prototype by Sunday night
Maybe, just maybe end up with a company to carry forward the idea. If nothing comes of it, we will probably release all code to the open-source community (assuming the participants all agree)
The key is, this is community driven. The participants are the ones that make it happen (we’re just helping organize the event)

Mobile Weekend hopes to be able to provide the following to the participants

A great event where we can all have lots of fun and learn
To grow awareness of the tech community locally and beyond
A great opportunity for networking within our tech community
Provide all needed infrastructure for the weekend (servers, wireless, source control)
Feed and water the participants (we hope to be able to provide all food and drink for the event through sponsorship, might also raise some money by selling tickets to the event)
Swag (You know you want it)

More to come… Dan