I have to admit, I’m a huge fan of Movies and TV shows that have some fiction involved. Movies like “Avatar” and TV shows like “Heroes”, “Lost”, and “Flash Forward” are my favorites.

Nowadays we have come a long way to making the screen look real. Remember the first Star Wars movie (and how mind blowing it was) and looking at Avatar now (and how mind blowing it is!). Worlds apart.

If you ever wondered how it is done and are into Visual Effect’s I recommend that you check out the StarGate Studios YouTube Channel. Very good stuff. One of my favorites is below.

Seth Godin had a great idea by gathering the thoughts of over 70 people, each giving you ideas what to think about as we go into a new year. He publishes the book now for free.

Here is one of my favorite ones from Dave Balter:

A long time ago, starting a company that made software for computers was dumb. Microsoft and Apple may beg to differ. A company that manufactures cars: dumb. Putting a college yearbook online: dumb. Limiting updates to just 140 characters: dumb.

But what makes dumb, smart? The ability to look at the world through a different lens from everyone else. To ignore rules. To disregard the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ and ‘never-succeeded-befores’. Then you need conviction, and the ability to stand by that conviction when other (smart) people look you in the eye and say, “no way, nuh uh.”

So, how do you tell a good dumb idea from a bad dumb one? Good dumb ideas create polarization. Some people will get it immediately and shower it with praise and affection. Others will say it’s ignorant and impossible and run for the hills. The fiercer the polarization, the smarter your dumb idea.

Of course, dumb can be just dumb. You just have to be smart to tell the difference.

Here’s what’s easy: to recognize a really smart new business concept as just that. What’s hard is recognizing that the idea you think is just plain dumb is really tomorrow’s huge breakthrough.

Social theorist Jonathan Zittrain gave a very entertaining and enlightening talk about the random kindness on the Internet and how we can all benefit from this worldwide “kindness”.

Listening to his talk, you will also understand why open source works and why people spend many many hours contributing to projects without getting any financial rewards for it. It is the kindness and the good within the human nature to do “good” and to feel “belonging” to a greater good. I guess, open source projects, touch on this very common need of the humans.

I for myself, feel very satisfied to see so many people taking up our Open Source Digital Asset Management and contribute to it in any way possible. At this point, thank you all

Enjoy the talk.

If you are moving on the web and are surrounded by many little gadgets or simply want to be informed where the society is heading you own it to yourself to watch the Fall Edition of the famous “Shift Happens” series. This one is called “Did you know 4.0″.

This is another interesting talk over at the TED website entitled “How to read each other’s mind”. Thought I think the title is a bit misleading, the talk goes into how our minds and perception over time changes as we grow up.

After 10 minutes of her talk you get to a very interesting passage where they stimulate a different answer from their test with giving people small electromagnetic impulses to their brain. Now, just think a minute what this could mean and you see the bigger picture behind this. Guess there are many more things going on behind at MIT…

This presentation of Natasha Tsakos is very well prepared and entertaining. She shows us a new form of theater, coupled with art and technology. My favorite paragraph is “Being human is an artform”. Watch for your self.

Recently at a conference where I was presenting our Open Source Digital Asset Management, I realized that our company was the only one, out of 60 other companies, that was using a Open Source License. Usually, in this surrounding I get asked more then once how Open Source works for us and primary if we make money from it, in short if we are successful.

Success by its definition can be manifold. For some success means to have a lot of money, for others it is adoration and for some world domination. While the decision to publish a software under a Open Source license is not a plan for world domination (thought, open source is on the way to dominate the world…) it might as well be a huge decision for a company to do so.

In my previous company, we developed and marketed our own propriety system. We developed it by ourselves and we also took care of the marketing. That not only meant that we had the overhead of developing the system, but what put more pressure on us, to gain more and more customers and to get them to pay for a license. We did the usual “game” that we charged for each update, which put another pressure on us, that we had to bring a update at least 2 times a year in order to justify the support subscription and the “high” update cost.

Actually, there was nothing bad about this philosophy of software distribution as there are still many companies that still do so. But it just wasn’t what I believed in in the long run and not what I think the “software” world will be heading to. That was 4 years ago.

So, for me the decision to base my next company on a Open Source license was obvious and a natural continuation of my belief system and what I think will be the most successful and lean way to build a company in these days. Since, one should never involve in a project of building a company that you only believe in part, you should not get involved at all. Remember; a 99% Yes, is still a 100% No.

In that sense, going open source was both a economical and a social decision. But don’t get it wrong, to be a open source company does not mean that there is no money involved (Just look at how much the Mozilla foundation or RedHat makes in a year), it is merely another business model. Actually for a software company, it shifts the income from a license cost to a service oriented cost. Previously, you could have calculated your income on the quantity of sold licenses, now you have to count on your service level.

Given the fact, that a open source company is (sometimes) depending of the income from support subscriptions, it will (hopefully) have a outstanding support nature to its customers. Furthermore, the engineering level will obviously be more exposed to the world. But what will decide your ultimate success of your open source project is the community building.

Community building by itself is a huge subject (Amazon finds over 600 books when searching for “Online Community Building”). While I’m probably not a “guru” on the subject matter, I personally think of a couple of Community building efforts you can do immediately without reading any book;

• Find a way for your community to gather together (places like GetSatisfaction are perfect)
• Reply to each question or problem in the shortest time possible, be it in a online forum or by eMail (believe me, everybody is satisfied with a quick answer)
• Try to involve your community
• Honor even the littlest help for community members (say a member answers to another users questions, thank him/her for doing so. If someone contributes to your code, mention them in a blog post)

In order to achieve this all, you should have a person in your company that really loves to engage with the community and sets the customers needs at first priority. This can not be just a part time job, as it is the how people will conceive your company and might judge on getting further involved with your system or not.

In the end you might now ask how “successful” Razuna has been since it’s initial release almost a year ago? In short, Razuna has been taken up very well. We have had over 20000 downloads of Razuna so far. Many people have come forward, in order to help us in spreading and coding Razuna. As a example, we have one Community member (Bruce Lane) from France, who translated Razuna and moreover even developed a complete desktop application in order to interface with Razuna. And yes, we do have customers who are paying for support subscriptions. Mind you, all without any marketing money from our side so far.

I hope this little excursion into my reason to go open source enlightened your day. Whatever will be your decision and argument, there is one thing that is for certain. Open Source software will continue to be a huge impact in the world. It’s time to join the ride.

The recent eMail von Jason Calacanis and his blog post entitled “The Case against Apple in five Parts” brought a little up stir in the Apple world. The recent reply came from Marco.  You can read their back and forth on Jason’s take on Apple and make up your own mind. I have read all the blog posts so far, but I have been missing one simple thing!

The one single thing that makes me use Apple products is that they simply work!

I have used Windows, Linux and MacOS X over the last couple of years. Hell, this blog post is even being typed on a Thinkpad with Windows XP, but nothing has ever been an hassle free experience then with using Apple products, be it hardware or software.

When has there ever been a more relaxed operating system update then with MacOS X? All you have to do is to pop in your DVD, run the update and know for sure that it will reboot safely with the new update. Moreover, with the applications itself you don’t need to run trough a “painful” installations with minimum five “OK” clicks (I know you Windows guys don’t see this as a problem because you are used to!), on MacOS X you simply drag and drop an application to the place you want. Nothing else!

iPhone is another topic that people like to argue about. Sure, the hardware is behind the current standard. Bluetooth does not work with cars and you might have to reboot your iPhone sometimes. But, have you ever used a Windows Mobile and did you every try to sync it with your Windows OS? I hate to repeat myself, but with the iPhone all I have to do is to hook it up to my Mac, sync it with iTunes (including Music, Photos, Videos, etc.) it even takes over my eMail settings and my eMail and Calendar just works. Symbian based phones and Windows Mobile ones require you to spend at least an hour fiddling with setting and try and error attempts. I don’t think I have to start arguing about the usability of the iPhone. Apple has done something, that for many years no one could. It brought a phone that simply works and is easy to use.

Remember the “plug und play” wording? Well, what is a “myth” in the Windows and Linux world is a fact with MacOS X. You got a new digital camera? All you do is connect it and the system recognizes it, iPhoto opens and there you got your photos. No hunting for a updated driver , no installation, no reboot needed, nothing else, just plug it in and start working. Isn’t that worth the little more money you got to pay?

Regarding the price, I do have to say that a Dell Lattitude E6500 with the same configuration as an Apple MacBook Pro 15″ will cost you about the same (at least in Switzerland). Price is not everything. And when it comes down to usability you save a lot more then with the initial cost when you use something that simply just works.

For me, and I’m sure for many other people, it is the Apple eco system that saves us money in the long run because it just works!

Jeff Han has been showing multi touch screens for many years. Very impressive and fascinating to control your own computer like that. We already see, that people love the way how the iPhone can be navigated, just imagine how it would be if the below can become mainstream.

Over at the TED conference this year, Evan Williams gave a 8 minutes talk on Twitter and a short history of it.

He said one thing that should be of great interest for Entrepreneurs, that is that he started Twitter as a side business to their startup and that he learned to give ideas a room event thought they are not part of the core business.