Enterprise > Projects > Code

Connection to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 with JDBC

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:07:00 +0000

This has taken me a while to figure out, from reading various blogs, so heres a quick post to hopefully make the set up easy.

Connect with Integrated Authentication:

Download and Install MS SQL Server 2005 express
During install check the box to enable integrated authentication
Run 'SQL Server Surface Area Configuration'
Click 'Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections'
In the left hand pane click 'Remote Connections'
Click 'Local and Remote Connections' Radio Button and then 'Using TCP/IP only'
Right click 'My Computer'->Manage
Click 'Services and Applications'->'Services'
Right Click on 'SQL Server Browser'->Properties
In the Startup Type drop down select 'Automatic' then click the 'Apply' then click 'Start'
Install and run 'Microsoft SQL Server Manager Studio Express'
Note the server name for example "MY-PC\SQLEXPRESS"
Download the JDBC driver from Microsoft
Unzip the driver
In the unzip folder find the file 'sqljdbc_auth.dll' for your computer architecture and JVM, in the folder 'sqljdbc_\enu\auth\'
Place the file 'sqljdbc_auth.dll' on your windows system path (this is required for integrated authentication)
Open your favourite java code editor with the jdbc jar in the class path write the following code:


import java.sql.*;
public class test{
public static void main(String[] args) {
try{
  java.lang.Class.forName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver");
  Connection c = java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlserver://MY-PC\\SQLEXPRESS;IntegratedSecurity=True");
  System.out.println("Connected!");
}catch(Exception ex){
  ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

Connect with SQL Server Authentication:

Download and Install MS SQL Server 2005 express
During install check the box 'SQL Server and Windows Authentication Mode'
Run 'SQL Server Surface Area Configuration'
Click 'Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections'
In the left hand pane click 'Remote Connections'
Click 'Local and Remote Connections' Radio Button and then 'Using TCP/IP only'
Right click 'My Computer'->Manage
Click 'Services and Applications'->'Services'
Right Click on 'SQL Server Browser'->Properties
In the Startup Type drop down select 'Automatic' then click the 'Apply' then click 'Start'
Install and run 'Microsoft SQL Server Manager Studio Express'
Note the server name for example "MY-PC\SQLEXPRESS"
In the object Explorer Open Security->Logins folder
Right Click Logins folder-> New Login
Enter a Login name, check 'SQL server Authentication', enter a password
Select 'User Mapping' page, check a tick box next to the database name the user is to be connected to
In the database role membership check: db_datawriter, db_datareader, public
Click OK
Download the JDBC driver from Microsoft
Open your favourite java code editor with the jdbc jar in the class path write the following code:


import java.sql.*;
public class test{
public static void main(String[] args) {
try{
  java.lang.Class.forName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver");
  Connection c = java.sql.DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:sqlserver://MY-PC\\SQLEXPRESS;user=MyUserName;password=MyPassword;");
  System.out.println("Connected!");
}catch(Exception ex){
  ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}

And your done!

I found the following links really helpful:

Sobel Edge Detection in Flash

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:09:00 +0000

The previous post Real Time Edge Detection in Flash shows Sobel edge detection and non-maxima suppression working on a live web cam feed. This post will quickly outline the steps required to build a Sobel edge detector in flash.
Sobel edge detection can be broken down into the following steps:

Greyscale the input image
Smooth the input image
Apply horizontal and vertical Sobel operators
Add the Sobel operators together to create an edge image.

An excellent example of this method can be found here. This implementation can be greatly increased in speed as will be shown.

Setup

First need to set up the bitmapData objects which will store the intermediate and final results, these will all be the size of the inputImage

private var inputImage:BitmapData;
private var greyScaleImage: BitmapData = new BitmapData(inputImage.width, inputImage.height);
private var blurredImage: BitmapData = new BitmapData(inputImage.width, inputImage.height);
private var horizontalEdge:BitmapData= new BitmapData(inputImage.width, inputImage.height, true, 0xff000000);
private var verticalEdge:BitmapData= new BitmapData(inputImage.width, inputImage.height, true, 0xff000000);
private var outputEdge:BitmapData= new BitmapData(inputImage.width, inputImage.height, true, 0xff000000);

Greyscale Input Image

There are a number of different ways to convert a colour image to greyscale, it really doesn't matter which one we choose too much. For this reason a simple greyscale will be used, which averages the three colour channels into one channel. The average of the red, green and blue colour channels will be put on the blue colour channel, this will lead to a 'bluescale' image, which will be used for speed. Flash uses the ColourMatrixFilter object to apply a colour transform (more information here).

public const third:Number = 1 / 3;
public const blueScaleArray:Array = [0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                                     0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
                                     third, third, third, 0, 0,
                                     0, 0, 0, 1, 0];

public const blueScaleFilter:ColorMatrixFilter = new ColorMatrixFilter(blueScaleArray);

greyScaleImage.applyFilter(inputImage, inputImage.rect, new Point(), blueScaleFilter);

Gaussian Blur

A Gaussian is used to smooth the image to reduce noise, larger Gaussians smooth the image to a greater degree. Using the convolution filter a 3x3 or 5x5 Gaussian can be made. The notes from Adobe show that a 3x3 filter within certain limits will work significantly faster on most computers than other filters.

private const GAUSSIAN_3BY3:ConvolutionFilter = new ConvolutionFilter(3,3,[ 1,2,1,
 2,4,2,
 1,2,1], 16);
blurredImage.applyFilter(greyScaleImage, greyScaleImage.rect, new Point(), GAUSSIAN_3BY3);

Sobel Operators

After the image is smoothed horizontal and vertical Sobel operators are applied to the image to create two separate images (again using the convolution filter). The Sobel operators create two edge images, one showing the horizontal edge responses and the other the vertical. The convolution filter is offset by 127 so that both positive (white to black) and negative (black to white) edge responses can be stored in the image. Sobel is analogous to a first derivative function; it records where an abrupt change in grey-level occurs: an edge.

private const VERTICAL_SOBEL:ConvolutionFilter = new ConvolutionFilter(3,3,
  [ -1, 0, 1,
   -2, 0, 2,
   -1, 0, 1], 1, 127);
   
   
private const HORIZONTAL_SOBEL:ConvolutionFilter = new ConvolutionFilter(3,3,
  [ -1, -2, -1,
   0, 0, 0,
   1, 2, 1], 1, 127);
horizontalEdge.applyFilter(blurredImage, blurredImage.rect, new Point(), HORIZONTAL_SOBEL);
verticalEdge.applyFilter(blurredImage, blurredImage.rect, new Point(), VERTICAL_SOBEL);

Gradient Magnitude

The gradient magnitude image is the combination of both the Sobel edge images. Since there is an offset of 127 on the edge images and both negative and positive edge responses are recorded each pixel of the 2 edge images must be iterated over and combined correctly. There are two ways to achieve this (as shown in the Real Time Edge Detection in Flash demo). The first method takes advantage of Flash's built in bitmapData methods but is less accurate, the second is slower but more accurate. In Both methods a threshold can be set, between 0 and (0xff /2), to determine the minimum edge strength which appears in the output image.

Method 1

Both edge images are thresholded and added together, using the methods BitmapData.theshold and BitmapData.draw using Blendmode.ADD to add the two thresholded images together. There are a number of approximations made with this method: the negative edges are discarded and the positive edges are added, but the result is reasonable.


outputEdge.threshold(horizontalEdge, horizontalEdge.rect, new Point(), ">", threshold,0,0xff,true);
verticalEdge.threshold(verticalEdge, verticalEdge.rect, new Point(), ">", threshold, 0, 0xff, true);
outputEdge.draw(verticalEdge, null, null, BlendMode.ADD);

Method 2

In this method two thresholds are used: lower and upper, the upper threshold is simply (0xff - lowerThreshold). Each blue pixel of both edge images are read in (just the blue channel is used because red=green=blue in a greyscale image). The pixels are then tested to see if they exceed the lower or upper thresholds (positive and negative edge thresholds). The 127 offset is then removed from the pixel so that the edge responses are now positive and negative. The gradient magnitude image in theory is the route of the sum of the square of both the edge responses, this is very slow to compute, so a good approximation is to sum the absolute value of both numbers. The computed value is then converted back from just a blue pixel value to a grey value and set in the edge image.


//--intermediate results storage
var currentHorInt:int;
var currentVerInt:int;
var currentHorUint:uint;
var currentVerUint:uint;
var value:uint;
for ( var y:int = 0; y < outputEdge.height; y++)
{
 for (var x:int = 0; x < outputEdge.width; x++)
 {
     
  //---just use the blue channel---//
  currentHorUint = horizontalEdge.getPixel(x,y) & 0xff ; 
  currentVerUint = verticalEdge.getPixel(x, y) & 0xff ; 
     
  //swap OR for AND for speed
  if (!(currentHorUint > _lowerThreshold && currentHorUint < _upperThreshold && currentVerUint > _lowerThreshold && currentVerUint <_upperThreshold))
  {
      
   //use just blue channel and convert so that they can have positive or negative values by removing 127 offset
   currentHorInt = currentHorUint - 127;
   currentVerInt = currentVerUint - 127;

   //write gradient magnitude minus one because otherwise the max value is 256
      value = uint(Math.abs(currentHorInt) + Math.abs(currentVerInt)) - 1;
      
   //-- greyscale instead of bluescale
   value = (value << 16) + (value << 8) + value;
   outputEdge.setPixel(x,y, value );
      
  }
 }
}

Optimising

There are a number of optimisations which can be made, I found the following increased execution time most: (testing on a 1.8 Ghz AMD with 1 Gb RAM with an input image 1024x1280 pixels)

using a 3x3 Gaussian over a 5x5 (saved half a second)

making function scoped copies of values before looping. This optimisation really surprised me, making local copies class scoped variables and statics before looping massively increased performance

Using a bluescale instead of greyscale

Further speed improvements can be made by not greyscaling or blurring the image, although this will technically give an inferior edge it is often hard to see the difference with the eye. The reason the image is inferior is that the edge is being created just from the blue channel of the input image, which isn't necessarily representative of the other 2 channels and there will be more noise in the image, this can be overcome to some degree by setting a lower threshold value. Below is a comparison of the 2 edge images: with blurring and greyscale (left) without (right).

Hope you enjoyed the post.

Real Time Edge Detection in Flash

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:33:00 +0000

Over the last few weeks I've been working on some image processing in Flash. Heres the first post in what could be a series.

The program above shows 3 types of edge detection:

They vary in complexity, the basic sobel algorithm takes advantage of ActionScript 3's built in convolution filter and bitmapdata thresholding function (its not a true sobel edge but close).

The next option combines the two Sobel edges more precisely to create a Gradient Magnitude image. Each pixel is iterated over to combined using their absolute values.

For a tutorial of how to create the gradient magnitude image see this more recent post.

For non-maixima suppression ~~I had to use the ByteArray Object to manipulate the image data.~~ I've made a new implementation which is about 5x faster without need for ByteArrays. The frame rate slows by about 20% when compared with Sobel.

Non-maxima suppression creates 1 pixel thick edges very useful for other types of image processing (such as the Hough transform to find circles).

The code for the last two is based on an excellent tutorial on image processing here.

Thanks for reading.

Week 18: Kansas City Radio and WinHEC 2007 in LA

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Mon, 21 May 2007 19:00:00 +0000

This weeks the highlights for me have been attending the WinHEC 2007 conference in Los Angeles and being on Kansas City radio with 2 other of the scholars: Simon Phelps and Devin Cheevers.

You can listen to a podcast of the talk here. The show was broadcast live on Hot Talk 1510 AM Kansas City Radio and hosted by Joe Liberman of Spidertel a local web entrepreneur. The talk was part of a weekly series of interviews with entrepreneurs (or in our case aspiring entrepreneurs) about the business and the internet. We spoke about our uses of the internet in marketing and promoting our businesses, our business ideas and plan and differences between the US and UK in terms of entrepreneurship. It was my first time on the radio and I found it fun and interesting to be a part of. Although a few attempts at British humor did not go down well.

I also attended WinHEC 2007 in Los Angeles. WinHEC is a 3 day yearly event held by Microsoft aimed at hardware developers. Throughout the conference there are multiple sessions on various subjects. The most notable sessions I attended, for me, were about Virtualization.

Definition of virtualization: "Decoupling of aspects of the computer which are normally very closely coupled". Think of an old fashioned PC, the hard drive, the Operating System and the Applications are all in the same box, on top of the box is a screen connected only to the box. Every part of the PC is in the same place, but why should it be?

With virtualization I can decouple the presentation layer - by accessing a computer remotely only the user interface of the computer is on the machine I am using. The rest is located else where across the network or the internet.

Application Virtualization - The application, for example Microsoft Word, from the users point of view appears to be on their computer. The user can interact with it in all the usual ways, they can open files on the application which are stored on their computer. However with a virtualized application the program can be stored elsewhere and only the parts of the program that the computer is using are streamed to the computer.

Server Virtualization - conventionally 1 server Operating System was located on 1 physical machine. A small businesses may typically have 4 servers each in a different box, each has a different use. This is very inefficient, at any given time 1 server may have a huge usage while an other has a very low usage. With virtualization I can combine all 4 servers onto one physical machine which may have multiple processors and other devices. A virtual server runs as if it is the only server on the operating system, however a layer below the OS controls which server is given which resources at any one time. This allows for much greater efficiencies. Also if a physical part of the machine breaks, with the right equipment the virtual servers will stay running on another part of the machine while the dysfunctional part is replaced. 0 down time.

Client PC Virtualization - An employee may have his/her own laptop which they use in work and home. This can lead to some conflicts. Space on the laptop is limited, the laptop will have both work and home information on it, which could lead to a compromise of work information on an unsecure home network. With Client PC virtualization the employee may use his laptop for home use, when he/she arrives in work he can 'tap into' (words like 'load' and 'install' don't seem to apply in this situation) their work virtual PC from their laptop. Information stays in the work environment and the employee has their own laptop environment too.
As an added bonus administration of such networks is much easier because admins just need to install new software on 1 virtual server template and then all employees can access new software.

Week 17: tools to improve work place productivity

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Mon, 14 May 2007 17:17:00 +0000

This week I have been at Netchemia all week and noticed some tasks performed by the sales people which were tedious and required lots of copying an pasting between applications. In this post I will write about tools to increase workplace productivity. Also I want to share some other apps which Netchemia already use to improve productivity and

MACROs
To improve the processes in sales I created some Macros in Microsoft Excel and Publisher.

This is the approximate process in the sales department:

call customer and agree to a product price proposal
Enter data into SalesForce
Enter some of the same data into Microsoft Excel
Create new folders on company network
Enter some of the same data into Microsoft Publisher
Create a pdf of proposal to send to the customer through SalesForce

I created Macros in Excel with form validation and drop down boxes to prevent inaccurate data from being entered.
The macros also automatically set up the new folder structure and save the completed files into the folders. This reduced the processing time from about 45 minutes per customer proposal to 10 minutes.

RatchetSoft
Ideally I would also like the fields to auto complete across applications. So data entered into Salesforce automatically went into Excel and Publisher. And just the weekend I found a new product offering which enables this to happen without manual copying and pasting: the data only needs to be entered once by the Sales team. The product is by RatchetSoft (see www.ratchetsoft.com) . This product allows tedious tasks to be completed easily by software, without needing to learn to code or change anything about the products you are working with.

Google Notebook
Another good way to improve productivity when researching is to use google notebook, the notebooks can be shared between numerous other people and everyone can work on it at the same time. This is useful when the boss asks for some research.

EFAX
This service was being used by Netchemia when I arrived, it allows faxs to be sent to the company as email and pdf documents. This saves a great deal of paper and allows the right person to recieve the fax much more efficiently. See www.efax.com for more information.

Printing Documents
To save paper in the office you can change the default printing options for most printers to print on both sides. This halves the paper bill and saves the environment.

This is what i've found useful in the office so far.

Sales 101: what I've learnt so far

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:13:00 +0000

It is often hard to contact the decision maker at a company. (S)He is often shielded by a secretary and has 100+ emails a day to deal with as well as all the real work they have to do.

While working for Netchemia I have been involved with a few aspects of the sales process. Also in attending the 'MIT Sloan Sales Conference' I have gathered some more tips. Heres what I've found.

Use Surveys
The key with surveys is that this is not directly sales, there is less pressure on the target prospect.

By Phone
Doing some initial customer surveys I rang 100 people. I got about 25 responses and spent 2 days working to get them: 2 leads generated. Information given by the prospects helped better tailor the survey and if I got in touch with a talkative person I could learn a lot. Response rate 25%. Read my other post on getting past the Gatekeeper for more information.

By Email
I set up the same survey using www.surveymonkey.com and emailed 1500 targeted prospects. I recieved 120 responses and 10 leads were generated. Total time used 4 hours. Response Rate 8%.

Surveying over email is a great way to generate leads quickly if there is a large sample size. However the response rate is much lower. I would first test out the survey on a small sample size by phone and refine the questions. Reading up about survey on this website I found that Wednesday morning was the most likely time people would respond to this kind of marketing.

Use Email
From the conference and though reading up on this website here's what I found to be the most important points in writing emails to potential prospects:

keep the title less than 50 characters
keep the email short
focus on 1 small piece of information which you want to communicate
ask for something which is easy for the prospect to give you, such as a referral
Don't include your title in the message, people discriminate based on title easily
Don't put any images in the email, many email systems block images by default and mobile phones don't display many image types
Don't use any marketing speak in the email, make the email sound tailored to the individual
Always finish the email with a question, otherwise the prospect feels no obligation to reply
Don't start the email with "I have been trying to get hold of you" or "I have left x messages for you" the prospect may think that if thats the case then (s)he doesn't want to speak to you

Use LinkedIn
I have had a linked in account for a while now and have never really figured out what to do with it. Until I heard Jeff Hoffman of Basho Strategies talk. He suggested the following:

Search for a person you want to speak to. This will usually be a decision maker at a company. So search in the Title Field for VP.
Look for a decision maker in the target company , it doesn't to be the desicion maker your looker for but a decision maker.
When you find someone who is connected to you through one other person, then you want an introduction. But how do you get the introduction? Approach the person with an easy offer and proposal.
“Hi x, I was searching linked in and noticed you are connected to Y. I would like a referral to that person. Is there anyone in my network who you would like to meet?"

Use Blogs and Podcasts
Again this tip is from Jeff Hoffman of Basho Strategies. Why do people write blogs? for recognition. How often do others comment on their blogs? hardly ever. Therefore commenting on someones blog through email is flattering to the recipient.

Search Google for a blog or podcast written by someone in the target organization who is in a decision making position.
Read the blog and look for some information you find interesting
Email the author with the title being "I have just read you blog..."
Ask the author for a referral to the decision maker you are looking to contact

Use Analytics
Add analytics to your website. (For example Google Analytics which is free). And track visitors to your website. If someone visits on a number of occasions then they are interested in your product/service. This is a great opportunity to contact them.

Week 16: Netchemia and MIT Sloan Sales Conference

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:09:00 +0000

This week I have been working in Netchemia, spoke with an IP attorney and attended the 'MIT Sloan Sales Conference' in Boston.

There is a lot to write about so I will split it up into 3 short posts

Thoughts on IP

My Sales 101 learning

Takeaways from the MIT Sloan Sales Conference

hope you find it as interesting as I have

Week 15: American Work Ethic

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:55:00 +0000

This week I have been working in Netchemia. What I have slowly come to notice while working here, and hearing stories from other internship students, is the work ethic in American business.

The average working day is 8am-5pm. Often though I have found that many people are in the office before 8 and these same people are still in the office after 5. Compare this to the UK where office hours are 9am-5pm and workers stick to these hours quite rigidly. In previous companies I have worked for in the UK I found that as soon as 5PM comes the office is suddenly deserted.

Does this lead to higher productivity? I am not sure. In America the general practice is to take 1 hour for lunch; in the UK I have found lunch to usually be 30 minutes. I don't feel 30 minutes gives the same amount of down time to relax and unwind as an hour for lunch. This lack of unwinding means that the UK worker doesn't get the same chance to 'disconnect' from their work, which could in turn affect productivity.

Hard at work: source

During the lunch hour American's tend to go out of the office to a restaurant or takeaway. This allows greater socializing with colleagues in a more informal environment. UK workers tend to sit at their desks or the canteen with sandwiches. This could be because of the time allowed for lunch or maybe because in America the number of options and the price of eating out is so much cheaper.

Looking at the figures, America's GDP per capita is $43,500 compared to the UK's of $31,400 (source CIA World Factbook) I wonder if the work ethic has anything to do with it. (Maybe its a direct effect of incentivized employee payment through commission and tips).

On a side note, the US Courts have just had a landmark patent case challenging the meaning of 'obviousness' in a ruling against Teleflex's patent for being to obvious. Maybe the system will now reform! (see Bloomberg coverage here).

Week 14: Its all about Incentives

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:36:00 +0000

This week I met with 'Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus' an Attorney in Kansas City to discuss Intellectual Property. As the business plan for myself and partner Luke, comes together, there is a lot of things we need to discuss and make decisions on. One of the decisions is whether it is worthwhile patenting our idea.

Pro's

A patent can potentially make it easier to get funding: more credibility
A patent gives you the right to sue those that infringe on your idea
A patent allows you to license the technology out

Con's

There a lot of fees associated with patents
Having the right to sue an infringer is often pointless if you have no money to go through with a court battle: a large company can trample all over a small one just because they have more money

The US System
There are also some of patent issues which have arisen in the US in the last 20 years highlighted by the book by Adam B. Jaffe and Josh Lerner "Innovation and its Discontents". The book clearly explains the issues:

The likelihood of receiving a patent has risen
The likelihood of winning a law case against an infringer has risen

Why is this a problem? For the patent holder its not! however for the rest of the economy it is. Individuals and companies have patented the most ridiculous things over the last few years. For example a 5 year old girl in the US owns a patent called: 'A Method for Swinging a Swing' . Amazon owns a patent for '1-click ordering'. (Even better 'Method of Exercising a Cat'). How did the system get to this?

Simple: its all about incentives! 2 Changes in the 1980's Patent Law changed the incentives completely

The Patent Office was no longer Funded by the US government and instead had to fund itself from issuing patents!
In 1984 The Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences consolidated into 1 board.

Now the Patent Office - in order to stay profitable - needs to file more patents. And the appeal board, once a precedent had been set stuck with the precedent rigidly: it had been made in their own building.

Incentives
Its my view that laws, which ultimately characterize incentives control the global economy. If a person has the power to incentivise a market place, they control it. The effect of incentives greatly outweigh any other: culture, intelligence, capital. These things will come to the market if the market has the right incentives. (Look at Dubai - heres links to pictures comparing 1990 - 2003).

What can the UK do to increase entrepreneurship? Change the incentives: change the law.

NCGE-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Fellowship (NKEF) Application tips

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:02:00 +0000

The 'NCGE-Kauffman Entrepreneurship Fellowship 2007' application is now open here. Apart from the stupidly long name this fellowship has given me more opportunities in 5 months than I have had in the last 24 years. Plus its been a huge amount of fun. So thought I would offer some thoughts on what you need to do I think will help.

The selection is in 2 stages: Application and Interview.

The application last year had to be about 3,000 words. So prepare it carefully before writing it up on the internet, have it checked by as many people as you can. The focus of the application should be on the following:

Entrepreneurship, leadership, business

these words mean nothing unless you can give examples showing how they apply to you

A solid technology based business idea

You don't necessarily have to have a technology/engineering background but it helps
the most popular degree out of this years Fellowship is 'Product Design' because their final year projects focused on a real world need and product
Extra marks for having a patent/ actively pursuing the idea but this is not essential

The business plan and the customer is more important than the idea itself

The unfortunate problem for most of us Engineers out there is that we like 'cool gadgets' thats not what the fellowship is about, its about a real business which means a customer and a market. This is most important. Whats the need the product is filling? whose need? why will they buy?

Your enthusiasm
Your desire to want to start a business
Again give solid examples of your experiences in the past

How you're going to spread entrepreneurship when arriving back in the UK

At you university etc.
This was one of Gordon Browne's hopes for the Fellowship

Interview
The interview is split into 2 parts, Q&A and 10 minute presentation.
The presentation is you only, no powerpoint. Make sure you can give the presentation without referring to notes. Some people like to memorize talks word for word; I like to memorize the main points and talk conversationally. Whatever works for you. Pratice normally works for everyone.

The Q&A session will test what you really know about leadership and business (at least it did for me). Knowing isn't the most important thing - although it helps. How you respond and compose yourself is most important. One word of warning Ian Robertson, a former serial entrepreneur and Director of the NCGE is very concerned that you know who the customer for your product is be sure you have worked this out!

And good luck!!

p.s. the profile an average Fellow this year was:
Male, 25, Degree and above in Engineering or Product Design, a prototype of their idea,

Saying that I don't fall into any of those categories (except male ;o)

I think if you're female and have a great idea then you should definitely apply for the fellowship. NCGE and Kauffman are eager to bring on females to the scheme. (And the 16 boys this year would have been equally eager ;o)

Week 13: Netchemia Internship

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 19:18:00 +0000

This week I had a day off work to attend some lectures organized in part by Kauffman. This included 'Angel Investment Term Sheets' at 'Invest Midwest'. What made this talk so interesting was that the talk was being presented to Angel Investors by an Angel Investor to try and educate them on how to go about writing a term sheet.

The bottom line was this: What is good for the Entrepreneur is often the best terms for the Angel investor also. Wow! Not only was this good new for all entrepreneurs out there but also they backed this up with solid data.

To ensure the best return as an Angel Investor the lecturer talked about tee-ing up the Start-up company for the next round of investment: trying to make the terms and conditions as easy as possible to stomach for the next round investors. Often if the angel investor doesnt consider the next round and tries to give him/herself terms which are too ownerous on the entrepreneur then one of 3 things happens:

the entrepreneur can't find an investor who can tolerate the terms of the previous round and so doesn't invest
the next round investor says that they will invest ONLY if the terms which they dont find favorable are changed
the entrepreneur must find an investor who has money but not much sense

The second talk was at the Kansas City branch of 'Polsinelli Shalton Welte Suelthaus' an IP attorney. The talk was by Rob Sweeney founder of TextCaster. Rob talked about his experiences in business and what he learned when founding a company. At the time he spoke to Ewing Marion Kauffman and asked him for advice. Kauffman replied:

"Find the best person you can in your field, hire them and pay them well"

What great advice. Rob's company textcaster has patented the concept of "Permission Based Text Messaging" (see Patent US7197324). At first I was amazed this was possible. The 2 key points about patents are that they are:

original
not obvious

And too me this seems to be neither of the above. Even more surprisingly to me was that the patent has been extended to Europe, as originally i assumed this would be a business process patent. Looks like nearly anything can be patented these days!

For Rob the patent is great news as it provides his business with at least theoretical protection against competitors copying him. But I would bet that there are many companies who have infringed either unknowingly or before Rob filled his patent. And what small company can afford a patent lawsuit? So the patent at least at a glance seems useless.

Week 12: Netchemia Internship

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 15:30:00 +0000

This week my main task has been to create a marketing survey for Netchemia's newest product. Then call the target prospects in Kansas and Missouri and get results to the survey. This is the first step in the 'Sales Funnel' which slowly whittles down the number of prospects till you find a prospect who wishes to buy the product. The funnel seems to involve about 5 main stages.

Survey
Indepth discussion
Product Demonstration
Pricing
Purchase

The number of potential prospects diminishes rapidly as the sales process continues; the potential value of each prospect increase.

Conversion funnels like this appear everywhere in business. Just do a quick Google image search for 'funnel' and you'll find:

student enrollment funnel
marketing funnel
selling funnel
Funnels occur in personal life: for example dating.

Ideas also create a funnel. And this leads to the product development funnel, for example: many product ideas, lots of computer designs, a few prototypes, one final product. And the product development funnel is just apart of a larger funnel, which is the consumers product choices in the market place.
The funnel is where entrepreneur's have both an advantage and disadvantage.

Advantage: entrepreneur can go with Gut instinct ignore many stages of the product development funnel and create the product which they feel will fill a niche best in the marketplace, this short circuits the funnel and gives the entrepreneur a huge time and money saving compared to well established companies, also allows entrepreneurs to create unconventional products.
Disadvantage: If the entrepreneur's instinct is wrong: the product fails in the market place, most likely their business will go bust. The large company can afford to fail and try again. The large company can also afford to invest more resources into the processes between the top and bottom of the funnel potential increase the value of the outcome.
In effect the entrepreneur funnel is very short bypassing many of the conventional big business process', leading to one offering: just like the big business.

Which is better? Who can say. It comes down to in the individual entrepreneur, the individual company, luck, connections, the list goes on.

Most business seminars today, in any field, will be showing to the audience how to improve the process between the start and end of the funnel, be its Sales, Marketing, product development etc. etc. (and for personal seminars this could be dating ;o).

Week 11: Start of Internship at Netchemia: Sales

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 18:52:00 +0000

My new Internship is at Netchemia. A 6 year old start up with 20 employees and 4 person partnership at the top. Netchemia provides school districts with web based software which allows them to streamline office processes by making them paperless. These process' include recruitment and learning plans for students.

I've been placed in the Sales department, where I will learn about Sales, Marketing, a small amount of Technical Development and making proposals for potential clients (in the UK called a 'bid' or 'tender' in America called an RFP: Request For Proposal).
Having only been at Netchemia for week I feel this will be a really useful placement for me, and also like the Kauffman course so far has missed out on a very important subject: Sales. You don't have a business; you don't have a customer without first selling.

The course has covered pitching for investment. I feel this is different. In a pitch I already have the listeners permission to sell to them. In a sales office getting this is just one of many steps involved: getting the permission to speak to the right person. This is a difficult challenge and a very worthwhile skill any entrepreneur should learn.

No matter who you are selling to the first few steps of the process are the same:

Target the right company.
Contact the company.
By default be put through to the company's gatekeeper.
Get permission from the gatekeeper to speak with the target customer: the prospect.

Step 4. to me, is what defines one of the key differences between an average and a great salesman (there are many more key differences but this is the first important one). The gatekeeper is often a receptionist or special assistant to the prospect. One of the jobs of the gatekeeper is to shield the prospect from 'unsolicited calls'. So as a sales person, one of the gatekeepers jobs is to not let you past. The gatekeeper is an interesting position, they have all the power to block you, but not necessarily the understanding to know if you will benefit their boss or not. Trying to sell to the gatekeeper is often a waste of time: what influence do they have in the decision making process to buy? Probably none and yet you must convince them that their boss would appreciate speaking to you.

Heres a few basic tips I have learnt.

Don't have a set script: it makes you sound like another seller in a call centre (center).
Don't waste to much time trying to explain to the gatekeeper why you are calling: the longer you're on the phone with them the less chance you have to speak with the prospect. Often you get to a point in the conversation where the penny drops the can almost hear the gatekeepers thought process: "oh hang on this is a sales person I don't want them to waste any time of my boss".
Just say in a confident polite way "X Please" where X is just the first name of the prospect (as if you know then on a personal level).

Then your through to the prospect! The first call you make to a prospect is never a sales call, all you want is 5 minutes of their time to see how they are currently dealing with issue 'x' and whether they would benefit from your system. Try to see if your product and their needs are a fit. Then arrange an appointment to call: a next contact: where you take a step closer to the sale.

Hopefully as the weeks go by I'll be able to close a sale!

Week 10: Inbetween placements at Kauffman Foundation

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:04:00 +0000

This week I have been in between placements which has given me an excellent opportunity to work on my business idea. I have teamed up with one of the other Kauffman Scholars: Luke Jefferson (see his profile here). Together we are working to start a web company which will monetize social networks.

Why? For many reasons. Here's my take on the social networking:

Epitomized by the dot com bubble a lot of web start ups thought that if they could get enough page views they could figure out where the money would come from later. 'Eyeballs over earnings'. *
Just look at the number of websites on the internet and compare that to website revenue. I think the internet has a long tail of very low earners and maybe 100 winners (and then the anomaly Google).
Now narrow the market down to just Social networks. Of the top 100 sites on Alexa only 10 are true social networks. Compare that to the 10,000's of social network startups this year which have faded into obscurity.
How much revenue do these sites make? There is very little solid evidence to confirm this as there are no published figures, the only real solid figures are the prices that the web companies were acquired for. (And theres only 1 big social network acquisition: Myspace by Newcorp for $580,000,000).

So it appears that most social networks don't wish to disclose earnings, and yet its very easy to find approximate page views (like Facebook's staggering 5.5+ BILLION page views per month and rising). It would seem like conversion of adverts into click-through/ sales is phenomenally small.

Despite this, businesses are still turning more and more to the internet to target their audiences. It would seem like internet advertising is either:

more successful than traditional media
potentially more successful than traditional media

Yes I agree targeting of the prospect in the right situation is much better on the internet than traditional media, but engaging the prospect to look at the advert and take it in is still very very difficult.

To combat this problem, and to exploit what Luke and I see as a huge gap in the internet advertising landscape, we aim to launch a new type of innovative advertising platform which will focus on earnings for the advertiser and ourselves from day 1. With our focus in the area of social networking.

*In a way I also think Google has spread this false model: "if we build it they will come: if they're here then we'll figure out how to make money" but what they have that no one else has is the best advertising platform on the earth. This huge financial security allows them to try and fail at many things until they hit another great idea (like Gmail). The founding entrepreneur simply doesn't have this money cushion.

Week 9: Start of 3 month internship

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:14:00 +0000

This week has been a very interesting one for me. All the Global Scholars have been placed on internships throughout America with leading high tech companies: often start up companies, where they can get an understanding of American business and entrepreneurship and contribute their skills to the company.

These internships have been careful chosen to suit the Scholars needs and that of the host company. I was placed in Black and Veatch a Kansas based Civil Engineering company which provides solutions to business and government for their power station, water works and building needs (amongst many other functions). This is a very well known company in Kansas, with offices worldwide and about 8000 employees.

However over the time on this course my expectations and aspirations had changed considerably. The business I want to found has changed to a different field, and the sheer quality of the course has lead me to want and expect a different focus of business activity. Myself and my boss at Black and Veatch came to the mutual agreement that what I was doing at Black and Veatch was no longer right for what I wanted to achieve. And I have to say Black and Veatch were very helpful in understanding my needs and helping me to find something else. They are a great company to work for who have real respect for their workforce.

Leaving Black and Veatch taught me some really valuable lessons:

trust your instincts; if it doesn't feel right act on it
Pursue your own goals as best you can: don't have regrets about not going for it
In doing so people will respect your decisions and the outcome is more beneficial to both parties although sometimes it can be difficult to get to that point

In the meantime I have been back at the Kauffman Foundation who have been incredibly helpful in finding me another placement.

Week 8: Final week in Boston

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:18:00 +0000

Boston is home of 2 of the most famous educational institutions in the world: MIT and Harvard. And out of the places I have seen in America so far, Boston reminds me most of a European city.

The most memorable events of this week, for me, were the 'Negotiation Skills Workshop' by Mellisa Manwaring, the day spent at Harvard Business School where we had a talk by Prof. Tony Stuart and in the afternoon attending a HBS Case with a 2nd year class. Finally we had a leving meal in the Harvard Faculty building, where our Harvard Coordinator Paul Bottino, gave us a fairwell talk and a commemorative photograph.

At Harvard we all also took part in a business plan competition, where the top 4 plans won $150. It was with great satisfaction that all the prizes went to the Global Scholars, who fended off competition from top MIT and Harvard students.

As a student who has never taken a negotiation lecture I found the art of negotiation fascinating. There are 7 key elements to negotiation:
In many ways these elements are interdependent, however the one which needs to be evaluated fully before every negotiation is 'Alternatives'. This is simply what can I do if this negotiation doesn't happen. Having listed all the alternatives you then choose your BATNA (Best Alternative To Non Agreement). The BATNA often determines the flow of the negotiation and ask one of the most important questions: "Do I need to negotiate".

Another very interesting concept which Melissa explained to us was 'anchoring' this is the well documented psychological effect where the first offer given by one of the negotiating parties acts to anchor the further offers and has the greatest effect on the outcome of the negotiation out of all the offers. No matter how ridiculous!

A day later we were able to see a master negotiator at work when the writer of the definitive guide to negotiation "Getting to Yes" Roger Fisher gave us a role play example of negotiating.

The opportunities available to Students at Harvard, Stanford and MIT is just incredible. If only I had known what was available at university when I was still at school, maybe I would have worked harder ;)

Week 7: Leave Stanford arrive in Harvard

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 05:32:00 +0000

Flying from West to East coast of America takes approximately 3500km and 7 hours, almost the length of the trip to get from the UK to America.

Highlights this week included Northbridge Venture Partners: a chance to network over free food and drink with local entrepreneurs, a Harvard Business School Case by David Ager focusing on IDEO and quite possibly the highlight of the whole experience in America meeting Dean Kamen of DEKA.

Its difficult to describe Dean Kamen; we arrived at DEKA for lunch and sat in the board room to wait for him. In the mean time a multi millionaire from Switzerland came to join us along with 2 people from a well known web company. Dean entered the room, a short to medium build man who always wears a Denim Shirt and Denim jacket (there are pictures on the wall of the boardroom of him shaking hands with various past presidents wearing the same outfit) and for the next 2 hours captivated the audience talking about his history and what he is working on now.

To say that Dean Kamen is a prolific inventor is an understatement. By the time he was my age (24) he had created the lighting for the New York City Christmas lights, made a kidney dialysis machine which revolutionized the way diabetes were treated. He has also invented a heart stem, drug dispenser, iBot and the shame of it all is that the one invention he is known for in the UK (if any) is the Skegway.

And the story doesn't end there, Dean has also solved drinking water problems in the 3rd world. Poor drinking water is the worlds biggest killer. National governments and intenational bodies have thrown huge amounts of money at research to try and solve the problem (some estimates at $trillion!!) without resolving it. And now Dean Kamen has a solution. As a group of 16 engineers we walked round Dean's company in awe.

I really think it was a life changing experience to find out that there really are people in this world who have the drive, genius and money to make big changes happen: another great example of this being Ewin Marion Kauffman and the legacy he left in the Kauffman Foundation.

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:07:00 +0000

Kauffman Lecture Series

While on the program one of the core focuses has been on receiving lectures from some of the best lecturers and entrepreneurs in the country. Kauffman has gone to great lengths in selecting people to speak to us and flying them in from all over.
Some highlight for me include:

Noam Wasserman: Harvard Business School Lecturer
Eugene Fitzgerald: MIT Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Founder of Amber wave
Ted Zoller: Executive Director, Center for Entrepreneurial Studies UNC, and founder
Nick Franano: Kansas city Entrepeneur and Founder of Proteon Therapeutics
and Ken Harrington: Managing Director, The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies

I hope to write a brief summary of all the lectures I have received while being on the program. Hopefully some will find it informative and useful.

Week 6: Silicon Valley California

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 05:09:00 +0000

From the snow of Kansas city at 6 in the morning to warm bright sunshine in Silicon valley 5 hours later: America has a diverse set of climates. This week the pace and number of activities hasn't slowed down at all. We were hosted by Stanford University who helped set up a number of great experiences. Highlights for me include going to "Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati" the law firm which looks after clients such as Google and Youtube, visiting 3 biotech start ups, hearing their stories and Visiting Burril and Co. Venture Capital firm.

Whats really hit home for me this week is that Silicon Valley really is a different kind of environment to anywhere else I've ever been. From Stanford university and their unparalleled innovation, Sandhill Road with a huge density of Venture Capital Firms (of all the VC firms in America 40% are in California) to the incredible community of Entrepreneurs, both aspiring and those who have made many millions. Its truly a unique environment for high tech start up business.
To put in perspective the wealth of the state of California, they have the same GDP as France, but half the population! In my opinion this is down to the entrepreneurial economy (and possibly the complete anomaly which is Google).

So far we have made a lot of contacts with local entrepreneurs, investors and VC's. There is a huge amount of experience in the valley waiting to be tapped who in the general case are more than happy to help and answer questions.

A model which all countries should follow to develop their entrepreneurial economies, and ultimately grow the GDP.

Week 5: Last week in Kansas City

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 03:15:00 +0000

This being the final week at the Kauffman Foundation, before we travel to California, we've been asked to prepare presentations on our business ideas; as a 15 minute pitch. So I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the rest of the Global Scholars and their business ideas.

Scholar

Business Idea

Aaron Mannis

A product to dramatically improve firearm safety.

Ade Bamidele

Web based platforms for Image Retrieval

Chris Mitchell

Automated sound genre classification system

Craig Hellen

Video design production company specialising on a new UK sport mountain boarding see www.fnkydesign.com

Daniel Currin

Patented and is now hoping to license/create company around an innovative balloon product

Devin Cheevers

Create mobile phone features to aid developing countries such as his home town in South Africa.

Georgios Diamantopoulos

An automated quality checker for Video Codec which creates a metric of image quality.

Gerhard Symons

Co-founder of CamStent: a bioscience company aimed at revolutionizing a particular surgical treatment for coronary artery disease.

Joshual Seal

Patented a energy saving product which reduces power consumption of devices in stand by.

Luke Jefferson

Assistive technologies for colour blind computer users.

Manu Bhardwaj

Funky wheelchair that has a novel folding mechanism

Scot Devlin

A non-destructive subsurface mapping provider that uses a unique 3D Ground-Penetrating-Radar system in the European construction industry

Simon Phelps

Started company ‘Fluvial innovations ‘ which is based on IP developed at university: a unique demountable flood barrier which can be constructed by one person.

see more at www.fluvial-innovations.co.uk

Wasim Bhatti

Has a number of inventions which he wishes to develop under his own brand starting with an Unmanned Aviation Vehicle for the civilian market.

Will Griffiths

Has business Interests in social innovations focused on energy saving and green devices

So there was a brief introduction to all the other scholars. Next week I'll be in California and the heart of Silicon Valley: San Antonia.

Week 4: KC

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:50:00 +0000

Like the constant snow (I don't think I have seen the grass yet in Kansas City!) the quality of speakers has stayed at its incredibly high level with talks from David Aldridge, Bob Litan of Kauffman and Catherine Mann. As well as this we went on a visit to an established local entrepreneur: Danny O'Neil the Founder of the Roasterie a Kansas coffee supplier.

Bob Litan is one of the smartest people I have ever met (and this is after meeting the MIT and HBS lecturers) his background in Economics. Here is a quote from his biography on the Kauffman website:

"Litan has had a distinguished career in public service. He served on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers (1977-79), as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department (1993-95), and Associate Director of the Office and Management and Budget (1995-96). He also has been a consultant to the Treasury Department on financial policy issues."

And what he had to say to us in the 1 hour informal chat he had with our group was fascinating. Bob wrote an essay on what was required of the US to sustain and develop its Entrepreneurial economy in the future: effectively what were the primary concerns of an entrepreneur.

After a first draft of this essay he gave a talk on his findings to a audience of entrepreneurs and found that their thoughts on the issue compared to his and the governments were different.

"What would you expect an entrepreneurs primary concern is?.. Tax right?.. well it isn't, its the workforce"

After discussing this with these entrepreneurs and other he rewrote the essay and came to the following 4 concerns for a future entrepreneurial economy to be sustained and show growth:

Ensuring a skilled workforce
Reforming health care
Promoting Innovation
Limiting overly burdensome regulation and liability litigation

Interestingly 2 of these concerns, health care and litigation, aren't so important in the UK as health care is paid for by the state and litigation isn't so rife.

So why isnt the UK more entrepreneurial?

Week 3 in KC

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 20:31:00 +0000

This week has been very busy and exciting.
Highlights for me include lectures by Eugene Fitzgerald from MIT and Noam Wasserman from Harvard Business School.

Listening to a lecture from an MIT proffessor has been aptly discribed as 'drinking from a fire hose' and I really couldnt say it any better than that. The lecture by Eugene was titled: "What is the Connection between Fundamental Science and Market Growth". However the lecture fast and furious with many very interesting asides from the main theme. It was difficult to keep up but incredibly useful to me as next year I have to choose a final year project for my masters. The ultimate takeaway of the lecture was this: 'Go about choosing the right problem in the right way'. For more about how read my post on Eugene's lecture.

The second memorable lecture was by Noam Wasserman who gave us a case from Harvard Business School (HBS). HBS is renowned as one of the best business schools in the world, and they do things a little differently there: all their lectures are case studies of real businesses. I found this a fantastic way to learn and one day I would love to go to HBS to achieve an MBA.
Heres a few interesting facts about Harvard Business School:

30% of all Venture Capitalist in America went to Harvard Business School
George W. Bush studied at HBS
Jeffrey Skiing now jailed former CEO of Enron studied there!

The final really memorable event of the week was visiting the Kansas State Capital (which surprisingly isn't Kansas City) Topeka. In Topeka we went to the Capitol building and met the Governor of Kansas State: Kathleen Sebelius. Who it is rumored could be a future president of the USA (first woman president).

What a week!

Weak 2: Kansas City

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:25:00 +0000

The snow just doesn't melt here in Kansas, the weather is so cold that it stays 5-6 inches deep all week. Which is great for snowball fights but not so good for learning my way around the city: everything looks the same: white and bland.
This is our first full week of lectures and visits. First I want to briefly introduce the Kauffman Foundation. The Kauffman Foundation was founded in the late 1960's by entrepreneur and philanthropist Ewing Marion Kauffman. Ewing set the vision of the Foundation to be:

"a society of economically independent individuals who are engaged citizens, contributing to the improvement of their communities."

Practically this means promoting entrepreneurship with a particular focus on youth. However this is only a small part of the Kauffman's reach in and around Kansas and America. Kauffman is one of the most prestigious foundations in America, employing many serial entrepreneurs, former Government advisor's and science magazine editors. One of the first things I noticed about Kauffman was the gravitas given to its name, speaking to Americans I met as I was out and about, they would ask what are you doing here in America and as soon as I mentioned Kauffman their eyebrows raised and I almost felt like i'd been given an extra level of respect just for associating myself with the name.

The most memorable speakers of the week were Ken Harrington, Howard Aldrich and Scott Shane.

Ken Harrington, who is the Managing Director at the Skandalaris Centre for Entrepreneurial studies, set us a task of evaluating our business based on scoring different aspects of our business development. For the whole lecture he put one slide up on the project- the slide showing the matrix of business aspects versus scores - and then we held a discussion on what it all meant. The interesting points which came out of this lecture were:

There are 3 motivating factors for a business founder: Control, Impact and Money.
It is good to first be aware of where you stand, which factor(s) motivate you the most to help determine what you want out of a business.
Often the founder who likes control, creates a company which slowly but inevitable seeds control from him/her
The Founder effectively creates a company he/she doesn't want to be a part of!

This is not a bad thing. There are different roles required of the company leader throughout the company's lifetime, and sometimes one leader isn't suited to all these roles.

This has really helped me re-evaluate why I want to start a company and what I want to get out of starting a company.

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:45:00 +0000

First Week in Kansas City USA

I arrived in Kansas city after 20 hours of traveling to the sight of snow everywhere, which covered the ground for the following week. First impressions: cold, white, sprawling.

The week began on Tuesday with a tour of the Kauffman Foundation, an introduction to its CEO Carl Schramm and the rest of the Kauffman directors, including the program organizer Wendy Torrance. Wendy explained to us that over the course of the next 5 weeks we would go through an intensive training course in business and entrepreneurship. In the first week we received lectures from Carl Schramm, Ted Zoller, Craig Armstrong.

Carl Schramm explained to us why we are here learning entrepreneurship in America: because Americans do it best! but the interesting thing to me is why Americans do it best. In Carl's mind is that it practically an accident that it turned out this way, heres his take:

American law changed pensions liability from company to individual.
American law changed to allow pension fund holders to put money into venture capital.

The reason these laws changed at the time had completely different political motivation but the effect was dramatic towards entrepreneurship.

Moving liability to individual made the workforce more mobile as they were no longer tied into one company, they could work where they wanted to more easily.
Pension funder holders could choose to invest there capital into high risk high return VC market, which gave Venture Capital Funds a huge boast in money to invest in start up companies.

One final piece which makes the American people entrepreneurial is that employment is at 95%.

If I'm an American employee and I want to start a company there's very little risk (compared to other countries).

First I can be practically guaranteed a job should my venture fail due to the very high employment rate.
Second should my start up require funding there is plenty of Venture Capital available.
Third my pension is still fine, as its connected to me personally and not my company.

So the American Entrepreneurship culture is an accident? I certainly don't think America has been engineered to be this way; but there is certainly more to it than just these 3 chance factors, otherwise it would be straightforward for other countries to copy.

And there'd be no reason for me to be here ;) Thank goodness thats not true!

noreply@blogger.com (wal5hy) — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:58:00 +0000

Where Ideas Come From

One of the reasons for being accepted on the Kauffman Global Scholar program was for a business idea I had. Recently I have found that this idea may not be possible because it may have already been done before. Which puts me under a little pressure to have another great idea.

But where do they come from and what makes great ideas truly great?
I don't know if I have quite the ability to answer those 'profound' questions but I'll try to explain what I think is the best process to go about having ideas.

There's no pressure
Ideas don't (generally) come in a flash
Capture it
Sometimes ignorance is bliss
Let it grow
Constraints enhance creativity

There's no pressure
There is no situation I know of where people perform better under stress. I can remember plenty of times when I certainly performed worse because of stress. It's exactly the same with ideas. Let your mind wander around onto whatever it chooses.

Ideas don't come in a flash
The best idea I have had was conceived over a few years, piecing together different parts of it sporadically when my mind came back to it. Often just one idea by itself won't solve the whole problem and may be pointless.

Capture it
When an idea, or a piece of an idea arrives in my mind, its best to capture it. How many odd thoughts do you have over the course of a day? Can you remember any of them now? How many have you forgotten? It's the same with ideas, your brain is good at generating them but not retaining them. Find some sort of capture device: paper by the bed, a notebook in the back pocket, a mental association to remember it later or try a mindmap. Later write up your idea in an 'Inventor's Logbook'.

Sometimes Ignorance Is Bliss
Often what are perceived as the 'really hard problems' are left unsolved because an expert has decided that its too hard to solve. This expert has essentially denied anyone the ability to solve the problem. However looking at the problem without being trapped in the expert's mind frame allows creativity which would not otherwise be possible. The bottom line is have a healthy disregard for the impossible, but don't be detached from reality.

Let it Grow
This relates to my second point: ideas don't come in a flash. Don't let an idea escape you just because you currently think it has no use, doesn't quite work or is stupid. Capture it, and then carry on. Sometimes what you write down and capture will be stupid, not quite work or have no use, and thats okay. However other ideas with a little time may turn out to be brilliant. The same idea may solve a totally different application perfectly, or with an extra tweak may provide a factor of 10 improvement on whats available today.

Constraints Enhance Creativity
Maybe somewhat opposite to the first point: 'There's no pressure'. In the right, stress free, environment constraints will multiply creativity exponentially. It forces the brain to examine many different alternatives, often improving elements of the idea which were overlooked and had nothing to do with the constraint.

Hopefully you can offer some great examples of any of these points, or more tips.