Friday, 27 September 2013

Ssssh!..It's a secret

Beware: Dastardly cads

One of the main worries of many young would-be entrepreneurs is having their genius idea stolen by some dastardly cad. You wake up in a sweat soaked bed and have the epiphany of the century, you keep it close to your chest until you have to share it with somebody and BAM! next week one of the big companies have produced the home bread slicer and you are back at your day job.


Intellectual property is a big deal and after the wranglings between Apple and Samsung in USA and more recently James Dyson taking action against Samsung for breach of patents relating to the steering technology on one of his vacuum cleaners.  Two things become clear, one that it is very important to get your patents in order and two, patent or not, companies can and will come along a take you invention or brilliant business model and sell it as their own if they see enough profit in it.    

Sunday, 22 September 2013

Death of a Madman


The modern age of Google-based advertising promises to be a very dreary affair. Google has spent so long farming our online habits with analysts pouring over their every nuance that they know more about what makes us tick than we do ourselves. Let’s not just demonise Google, everyone is in the business of data mining now, Facebook, linkedin, Amazon anyone who has a click to be clicked, a date to be marked, a friend to be made is interested in your choices. Kinda makes cookies lose their sweetness, eh?  Those who track our online trawling have such a well-rounded profile of all our habits and weaknesses they only need to produce a handful of clickable images to trap all of us to such a high degree of accuracy. This is the science of conversion rates.

Wednesday, 11 September 2013

Punk Rock entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are the new rock stars. I may not be the first to draw that analogy and entrepreneurs will not be the last group to be allegorized in this way; TV chefs , footballers and even scientists have all had a similar comparison made. “… are the new rock-stars” is the vocational equivalent to fashion’s “… is the new black”. Rock stars are the benchmark of wild and glamorous. Rock stars have to beat the girls off with a sweaty guitar; rock star means success in excess.   

I wish I was coding
There was a time when every teenager wanted to master the guitar, synthesizer or a pair of decks and play Wembley, Shea or headline Glastonbury. There was a time, and not so long ago, when teens wanted to be getting the action that Steve Tyler, Robert Plant or Tommy Lee were getting. But, now instead of a band many bedroom barons are trying to form a plc.

From Under Dark Clouds

  • Episode 48: A Saviour is Born
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
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  • Episode 47: Confession
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
    More »
  • Episode 46: Alternative Honesty
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
    More »
  • Episode 45: Tell it like it is
    You know me. You followed me around the country. You loved me on the TV when I had you in stitches with jokes about my penis. You followed me in the tabloids, you supported my charitable works....
    More »

The Century of DIY

  • Are you qualified for Democracy
    Keeping your head in politics Every nation gets the government it deserves (Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite), so said Joseph de Maistre after the French revolution. Plato (see, I...
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  • Do we understand work anymore?
    WORK: for many a four-letter word, for others the epicentre of their existence but for most of us just another necessary evil. Work is how we get the stuff we need to buy stuff and keep the kids in...
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  • Back to a very dark age
    So much progress was made in the last century. Huge leaps in technology, great advances in equality, despite what many believe, education and health care for great swathes of the population. We put...
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  • Why Austerity IS Working
    Ok, let’s start with a revelation. Austerity doesn’t work, that’s a no-brainer. Economists have been saying this for centuries and anyone living at the thin edge of the wedge in Europe will be...
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