Some figures

Just found some figures about innovation in PW.

20% of all Dutch companies currently does something innovative: renewing products, services or processes. Between '98 and 2000 34% did this.

8.019.000.000 euros is spend on R&D in 2002. That 0,7% LESS then 2001 and for the first time EVER this number dropped.

87.415 years of work were spend on innovation in 2002.

1,8% of the BBP is spend on innovation, less then the EU-15 average (1,95%), less then the OESO average (2,26%) and even less then the EU-25 average (1,86%).

These are CBS figures, so usually pretty valid. Conclusion: we suck at innovation, time to kick some ***

Philips inventions exclusive for a VC

Emerce reported that Philips is forming a cooperation with a venture capital firm to exploit inventions done at the Natlab. New Venture Partners gets exclusive rights to Philips research and will invest in the research and exploit the spin offs. I think this might be a great move, although it's not new of course. More companies should have similar partnerships, and not only companies, but Dutch research institutions, like TNO and the Universities, should look at this way of partnering too.

Size does not matter

When will you earthlings finally learn that S.I.Z.E. D.O.E.S. N.O.T. M.A.T.T.E.R. (Men in Black).

Today the financial times shows this is totally true. Harley Davidson is worth more on the New York Stock Exchange then General Motors. US$17,7 bil. Vs US$ 16,2 bil. to be exact. This despite the fact that GM sells over 9.000.000 cars and Harley only 317.289 motorcycles. GM has a turnover that's 38 times as high as Harley Davidson, but is now worth less. Why? Because Harley Davidson makes a profit, it has been doing that for the past 19 years, and increases that profit every year. So size does not really matter, finding a good niche and making a lot of profit from it can be much more rewarding. And I've always said the internet is a world of niches.

Ideabroker@cellspace winners!

Everybody that presented a 555 session at the event will be a winner sometime or other! Cause it takes guts, determination, creativity and commitment, to present your precious baby to a crowd of hungry sharks!
For now these were the people that made the top 3:
1st price: Cross Content-Hybrid Media Player
2nd price: Edgar Neo-Lotsov Foundation
3rd price: Boedoe-Boedoe.nl

Runners up:
4th:Peter Kaptein- W2WS
5th:Uphill Battle-Flying Bookmarks
Congrats to all!

Ideabroker Thanx

Dear ideamakers, moneymakers, businessmakers and supporters: Ideabroker likes to thank you ALL for Y'r presence, Y'r presentations, Y'r help & Y'r commitment at yesterday's event.! YOU made the 2nd Ideabroker event an absolut succes! +50 people, great ideas and presentations , good discussions and stimulating comments , advice and tips and even direct help made this a great evening!

Xtra Special Thanx goes to:
Doeko@SOLV for y’r legal support& presentation and Brian @ File-Reg for Y'r presentation & the great File-Reg vouchers! Bob@Cellspace for the cool location @ Cellspace HQ , the hospitality and the genereous food & drink! Boedoe, Cross Content, Lotsov Foundation, Flying Bookmarks & Peter Kaptein for your great ideas, inspiring 555 presentations and Y'r guts! Keep up the good work!

Boris@Preople for his cool and collected & just in time Ideabroker panel Chairmanship! Boris, Maurice@Novem Int, Hans@Indictis, Bob & Thijs@salesexpert for the great & improvised 555 Jury, all done with great dignity, honesty ;-) commitment and great and helpfull remarks and comments accros the board. Bram@Fisq for Y'r support , friendship, beamer , Voipster accounts! and the hands-on help and assistance & Antoinette@Syntens for behind the scene's support ( support your local ideabroker), get well soon!

HVA Students: Sjoerd, Roland & Leon for your improvised hands on help and ideabroker study project! Adriaan@cellspace and Minne@cellspace for the warm and cool support & Bertje@De Houten Kop for the delicious catering!

Invited and uninvited guests for being there and Y'r input& All those that missed it due to traffic or other reasons for at least trying! DDMA board for sportmanship and on time departure ;-)! All our Sponsors for your support& Lunatech for last time..Press for again not being there...Hey we’ll make it anyhow! Digikring board for being there & those we forgot, for not telling us..

See you all next time in May: Ideabroker@Sogyo in Bilthoven (Utrecht) Date and time TBA! Spread the word: There’s a new kid on the block: he’s screaming loud, kicking hard and growing fast: IDEABROKER! Wanna Join ? Tell us why at: info@ideabroker.nl

Ideabroker 2nd event sold out!

Yo all y'r innovative people, today we're gonna hit Springtime! with 6 cool entrepreneurs just sizzling to pop their ideas to the crowd and to our cool and collected IDBRKR Panel led by our Chairman Eminence: mr Boris (Preople me) Veldhuijzen van Zanten... Cell space, water and bread are graciously hosted and introduced: by mr Cellspace himself: mr Bob (Connect me) Stumpel. Enjoy!

Very informative presentations will be held by our distinguished guests: mr Doeko (Solve me) Bosscher of Solv Attorneys, mr Brian (File me) Hoolahan of File-Reg and mr Jan Karel (Idea me) Kleijn of Ideabroker.

Line up 555 sessions:

Uphill Battle-Flying bookmarks
Peter Kaptein- W2WS
Cross Content-Hybrid Media Player
PMP-TBA
Edgar Neo-Lotsov
Innergy Creations-Belastingvriend.nl
Boedoe-Boedoe.nl

Your IDBRKR panel for the evening: mr Brian Hoolahan-File Reg, mr Doeko Bosscher- Solv, mr Maurice Beckand Verwee-Novem Int, mr Bob Stumpel-Cellspace, mr Hans Veldhuizen-Indictis Ventures and mr Jan Karel Kleijn-Youi and is chaired by the honorable mr Boris Veldhuizen van Zanten-Preople.

Ideabroker is sponsored by: Cellspace, Result, Bomega, Youi, Fisq, Syntens, Nextstage, Solv, File Reg, Lunatech Research, Trichis, Red Urban, LVT Benelux PR, PmP, OpenBC , Slogo, Food and Friends, HVA, Junker, Preople and Emerce.

Your Ideabrokers are: mr Jan Karel Kleijn, mr Bob Stumpel, mr Bram Alkema, mr Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten and the lovely ms Antoinette Hoes.

1 dollar

FEM Business today reported that Steve Jobbs, CEO at Apple, still makes only 1 Dollar! a year in salary. The article in Dutch is posted here. He doesn't have shares or options as payment either, he just makes 1 Dollar. Of course he still owns a lot of stock and made a lot of money from that in the past... he founded the company, and with the current shareprice being 400% more than since he started he's no slob. But no salary, the money stays in the firm. Cool!
Eat you heart out all you money grabbin Nina's of this world! Take an example from this guy...

Preople.com - Your Personal Internet Rank

Preople.com is the ultimate ego booster or perhaps the ultimate ego buster. Preople shows you what you are really worth in the digital age. Get your Preople ranking and let the world know were you stand. Developed, initiated and designed by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten. From their front page:

"Preople explained: Who is your global or virtual neighbor? In an age where egocasting, dynamic ranking and global awareness is abundant we present Preople.com. Preople.com will tell you, definitely and undeniable, what your place, your ranking and your relation to all the other people in the world is in one number: your Preople Ranking. Don't hesitate, don't wait, enter your name in the search field en press Preople. All your questions will be answered. So there you have it. Ranking for the masses! Preople me!

There's an idea

Now there's an idea... a new and refreshing announcement. ICT product developer Blue Fox is going to cut their workforce. Ok, it's only 10 employees (FTE), but still. In times where all the others are hiring, when at the national career fair last Friday the ICT companies were royally present again, they are going to cut the workforce. Seems like the right thing to do to show shareholders you are on the right track...

Bullshit Bingo

Why do vendors force their valued customers time and time again to remember their internal used product codes as a product description? A Philips DVD for instance: DVDR520H/00 (HD 80 GB FSS Favorite Show Selection and CSS Smart Chaptering) What the heck?? Why not call this a Philips Relook Blue? Granny can remember you want a Relook Blue for Christmas, but a DVDR520H/00? No way! The problem is not new. A standard for extension cards for laptops, called PCMCIA, was spoofed as "people can't memorize computer industry acronyms" when it launched.... Hey take an example from Sven and Mortson at Ikea.. Ditch a couple of productmanagers and hire a Creative/ Writer/ Philosopher / Foreigner WFA (Waiting for asylum) or anybody with a nice vocabulary instead, to rename all those ridiculous numbered products! Saves time and money plus you can ditch those bullshit bingo sales guys in the shop too. Can somebody please write a program that comes up with scores of cool product names for manufacturers? Thanx!

Youth comms

Feel left out when you watch y'r kids sms, msn or talk on the phone?" "N'aimean"? Cu2 W8 ? What the hell is he or she saying? Well there's online help for ya! Or try one of these and these dictionaries.. But what about T1: a new feature on all Cellphones/email and MSN: it translates your outdated defunkt digital immigrant lingo in fluently digital native speak to y'r kids, students and grandchildren..Handy!.. YO Son, PITA! T2Go CYR MA ASAP or i CUB L8R! Dad..

Starving game developers

If you're a game developer in Silicon Valley the thing to do is: max out your Creditcards, sell your home or second mortgage it, and move in with the other members of your team in one apartment living on a dollar a day! "There were four of us working out of my condo at the time," one game developer said. "Two desks in the kitchen, and two in the living room." Why? "One of the main reasons is because creative control," said another. "I don't like working for other people.... I'm not interested in working as a small part of a huge game, and having no control over it." It's about creativity and vision. Now that's determination! They're not stupid though, gaming is already bigger than the movie industry with a gross turnover of 25 Billion and growing fast! A lot is to be made for those developers if they can land their game with a big player like Sony, EA games etc. Innovation climate? Missed a innovation voucher? Heck, stop nagging and Just do it! Look where it got that small company....

Innovation platform

Today again a lot of articles and discussion about the innovation platform. SER chairman, and member, Herman Wijffels suggested stopping it all together. Philips says we need to act and the general conclusion is that the ONE MILLION EUROS spend every year is money down the drain. My suggestion to the government and the platform: stop trying to DIY. Just come and listen to the people in the field. Minister Brinkhorst gives speeches at innovation meetings, then leaves when others are planning to speak. And so on... Come to an ideabroker meeting, come to an IPAN meeting, come to an I-Portal meeting. Just... listen.

Update: Today the prime minister responded that he was sick and tired of the negative comments on his platform, and that it was useful and did a lot of good things. The two key issues: the knowledge workers immigration and the innovation vouchers. (15 march deadline for the next batch) But it was more a mentality thing and that would take a lot of time. He's right about the last thing, it's a mentality thing, and that won't change with him as pm.

Next generation copy control

After reading yet another article in the newspaper on Macromedia's next effort to restrain illegal copying of content: Ripguard, I was pondering on how this race would evolve. Just like with viruses, it's a continuous battle.
Since most appliances will be always on in a few years time because of Wifi, UMTS, and IPv6, why not create a central login/control mechanism? For example: like a polling security device that halts once it doesn't receive a control signal anymore.

Should you want to brain storm on the subject, feel invited to do so.

Don't covet your ideas

Give away everything you know and more will come back to you....It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be...When it can't be done do it, if you don't it doesn't exist....The person who doesn't make mistakes is unlikely to make anything... it's often better to be wrong than right.....just a few examples from a small booklet by Paul Arden (Saatchi&Saatchi) i find truly wonderfull in it's simplicity. Only € 7,50 at most bookstores, i make a habit giving it away to friends and businessrelations.

Social Sexworking site's

Where do you go when you've got plenty friends at Orkut and business contacts in abundance at OpenBC or Linkedin, and like to spice up your online experience? Well, to Britain's AdultWork for instance, they're plugging into a growing niche industry of sex-work dilettantes, people who spend a few hours a week in front of a camera, or in bed with a client, to augment their income, or just because they like it. And there are plenty other sites where you can hook up for this type of networking: AdultFriendFinder is the world's most popular "no-strings" sex site, with almost 17 million!! users. Others like Swingers Europe, Naughtynightlife.com and Swinger Zone are far from unpopular too. Plus a slew of specialist sites: Gaydar and Gay.com for gay hookups, URNotAlone for transsexuals and Alt for bondage and sadomasochism ....now where's that site for dwarf loving, swinging, bondage transsexuals enthusiast i wonder .....hmm

2nd Ideabroker Event Thursday March 17th

After our very succesfull first kick-off event @ Lunatech's in Rotterdam it's time for a follow up. Graciously hosted by Cellspace we'll firestart some businesses in Amsterdam (Noord @NDSM Wharf) this time! Presenting in our 555 format ( 5 min presenting, 5 min questions, 5 min feedback) will be a good selection of young entrepreneurs with UIC's (Ultra Cool Ideas), plenty of CCIS (Cool and Collected Investment Seeders) plus an MG (no no not the car.. a Mystery Guest)...Limited seats available, so book 'm early , ladies and gents: info@ideabroker.nl
There's still room for one or two presentations, but be quick about it, they're in great demand!

Welcome will be at 18.00 hours and we start at 18.30 sharp. See ya'll there!