FreeRisk: Crowdsourcing Credit Ratings?

Kermit Pattison — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:07:46 -0400

The recent financial meltdown demonstrated that credit rating agencies were blind to the dangers ahead. Toby Segaran of Metaweb Technologies and Jesper Andersen of the Open Data Group hope that crowdsourcing and transparency can help fix this mess. They launched an online project called FreeRisk, that encourages users to generate algorithms for analyzing credit risk and anyone can view the results.

Powering Down: Q&A With Saul Griffith, Makani Power

Kermit Pattison — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:28:04 -0500

Forget about a new gym membership or diet. The most important New Year’s resolution for 2009 may be slimming down your energy footprint. Saul Griffith, a MacArthur genius grant winner and president of Makani Power, believes that a mass movement is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change. To that end, he and his colleagues created WattzOn, a personal calculator that allows users to track energy consumption down to the last apple they eat.

Crowdsourcing Innovation: Q&A with Dwayne Spradlin of InnoCentive

Kermit Pattison — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:48:17 -0500

In recent years, corporations have turned to open innovation to solve their toughest research problems and reduce runaway costs of R&D. Now non-profits are beginning to see prize-based innovation as a strategy for humanitarian causes too, such as developing medicines to fight tuberculosis in the developing world, cleaning up oil spills or designing solar technologies for villages in rural India and Africa.

The Twine that Binds: Q&A with Nova Spivack

Kermit Pattison — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 11:54:47 -0500

Half a century ago, management guru Peter Drucker introduced the concept of the knowledge worker. Today his grandson, Nova Spivack, is trying to turn their knowledge into something more than the sum of the parts and boost their collective intelligence. Spivack is founder and CEO of Radar Networks, which recently launched Twine, which bills itself as the first consumer Semantic Web application. Twine has raised more than $20 million from some big names in the venture capital world, including Velocity Interactive Group, Vulcan and DFJ.

What BlackBerry Addiction says About Obama's Brain

Kermit Pattison — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:00:06 -0500

Obama may have won the election, but he’s about to lose his BlackBerry. During the campaign, Obama’s device was at his side more often than Joe Biden. Alas, change is coming: many expect that Obama will have to surrender his BlackBerry when he enters the Oval Office. We feel your pain, Barack. For many of us, going offline feels like cold turkey. Can email be addictive? Princeton University neuroscientist Sam Wang, co-author of Welcome to Your Brain, weighs in.

Building Trust with Transparency

Kermit Pattison — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:30:10 -0500

What do you have to hide? So asks John C. Havens, co-author (with Shel Holtz) of the new book Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand. He argues that the market and customers will increasingly demand that companies become more transparent--and punish those who fail to do so. Havens previously worked as a film and TV actor and appeared in The Thomas Crown Affair, Law & Order, and Spin City and now finds himself in the role of vice president of business development for BlogTalkRadio.com.

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What Obama Can Teach You About Your Business

Kermit Pattison — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:30:05 -0400

Memo to CEOs: Yes You Can. The Obama campaign can teach businesses a few things about using technology. The campaign changes the game just as much as the introduction of tracking polls or focus groups, and is perhaps the most prominent example yet of Net Roots, a combination of Internet and grassroots strategies.

How well has the Obama campaign used technology compared to others?

Obama's use of and understanding of technology is better than any campaign I've ever seen -- ever. Certainly better than any campaigns in this cycle.
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How Innovation Led HTC to the Dream

Kermit Pattison — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:30:06 -0400

Last week's unveiling of the new HTC Dream, the first handset powered by Google's Android platform, represents more than another innovation by the mighty Google. It also marks an important chapter for HTC, the Taiwanese company that manufactured the first Google phone and has quietly built itself into one of the world's leading manufacturers of mobile phones.

How did HTC come to build the first phone powered by Google software?
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Selling Wine the Web 2.0 Way

Kermit Pattison — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:30:11 -0400

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The Social Capital Investment Strategy

Kermit Pattison — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:55:13 -0400

Can't get that VC firm to return your calls? Don't despair! Startups can increasingly scale up by taking advantage of another type of capital -- social capital. Litman, a prominent entrepreneur, says it's easier than ever to leverage relationships into business success, and you have to spend social capital before you can profit from it. In fact, such networking helped him launch his new company in six weeks.

Why is social capital so valuable?
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