The Life Sciences in New York State

This makes me one in a million...

I've been Skype-less since I opened the shop this morning. It's an odd feeling when the phone systems are not working, and this is no different. It's the quiet that can be unnerving. I'm sure this will be resolved quickly.

Skype Users Unable to Make Calls

Skype, the popular computer program that lets its users make long-distance phone calls over the Internet, said Thursday that software problems have left many of its millions of users without service worldwide.

The Future of Work

The 20 August issue of Business Week has a series of articles on The Future of Work. On the surface, this may appear to be old news, that is, using the Internet, VOIP, IM, etc. to coordinate workers around the world. Any number of books have covered this topic. But this series of articles stresses the challenges embedded in this novel way of doing business. One of the key themes, in my view, is that coordinating global teams may lead to a loss in efficiency due to time zone differences, other (unknown) demands on worker time, etc.

Where I think these articles fall a bit short is that they are overwhelmingly focused on multinational companies such as IBM and Dow. Precious little space is devoted to entrepreneurs and small companies. Yet many of my clients struggle with these very issues, i.e., how to coordinate drug development teams in the US and India.

Regardless, I think these articles are worth a poolside read.

A Guide For Multinationals

For global corporations, the borderless world of Willy Chiu offers a glimpse of what's to come. International success once meant having bodies and factories on the ground from São Paulo to Silicon Valley to Shanghai. Coordinating their activities was a deliberately planned effort handled by headquarters.

The challenge now is to weld these vast, globally dispersed workforces into superfast, efficient organizations. Given the conflicting needs of multinational staff and the swiftly shifting nature of competition brought about by the Internet, that's an almost impossible task. And getting workers to collaborate instantly—not tomorrow or next week, but now—requires nothing less than a management revolution.

My Squidoo page

I set up a page on Squidoo. I'm not sure how this will overlap with the blog, but I like to experiment.

Business Planning and Consulting for Pharmaceuticals and Biotech on Squidoo

Tough to compete against free...

Skype continues to pressure the telcos, this time with free calling. All you need is the software.

Unreal...

How to get calling

Calling any phone within the US and Canada is free until the end of the year.

Report from The Summit

I attended the Summit in Tech Valley today. A few quick comments:

1. The three finalists in the business plan competition were all excellent. BullEx won, but the consensus around our table at lunch was that Celery was the winner. It was a tough call.

2. The entire program was quite interesting. All the speakers were very good. It's rare to attend a conference where every single speaker is interesting, but that was the case here.

3. I thought Walt Robb was going to cry during his acceptance speech.

4. I think the Summit has 2 flaws:

a. The term "tech" conjures up images of the internet, computers, etc. I saw very little on nanotech, and nothing on biotech. Their own copy says "Our economy is strong and thriving and our momentum in high tech fields – such as nanotechnology, semiconductor and biotech – is pushing it even further." The most interesting technologies being developed in Tech Valley, in my view, are in nanotech and biotech. I think the organizers need to think more broadly, and organize their summit accordingly.

b. "Tech Valley" is supposed to encompass 18 counties from Rockland County all the way up to the Canadian border. Yet there is a definite Albany-centric focus at the Summit. I think the Summit should rotate to different locations every year. Yes, the Desmond is a nice hotel, and the attendance may be lower if this were held in Poughkeepsie, for instance. Regardless, there has to be more outreach, in my view. Maybe the organizers can have mini-conferences throughout the region.

Overall, I think it was a good conference. I'm glad I went.

Interesting supply/demand perspective on VC today

Although I'm not convinced this extends to other industries.

Why Aren't VCs Happy?

The number of buyers is shrinking in virtually every market except the Internet—that is digital conference, e-media kind of companies. So any market other than that, the number of public companies is shrinking. As a consequence, whereas you might have gotten five or six deals done in a market segment, two or three of which are huge wins, you can now look forward to one, maybe two huge wins in three or four deals. In other words, there are fewer high-multiple deals happening in aggregate because of the propensity of buyers. That is compounded by the fact that there is an over supply of companies. Because of the large number of venture capitalists, there are too many companies in virtually every space. So if you build a winner, you're going to be thrilled. But your probability of being saved from mediocrity, your probability of being saved from failure, is zero. Your probability of turning a mediocre company into a double or a triple is very low.

"Top Five Mistakes..." published

My article, "Top Five Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Seeking Funding" has been published in Lab To Wall Street (registration required).

I'm in the process of expanding the list to 10. Ideas or comments welcome!

Small is in

Another example of a trend I discussed at the beginning of the year. That is, the emergence of smaller, highly focused venture capital funds. Patricof could have raised one 10x this size, yet he chose to keep it at $50 million.

Patricof Closes New Digital Media Fund

"The fund's controlled size will allow us to be disciplined about who we ultimately invest with, ensuring we partner with the very best young companies in this emerging industry."

Search is primitive

Fred's correct. Search is definitely primitive. One feature I would like to see is better handling of results sorted by date. Many sites have today's date and time on them, but the content may be from 2002. Sorting results chronologically brings those pages to the top, which is useless. The latest information should be on the top of the list.

One thing I don't do is try different engines for different types of searches. I default to Google purely out of habit. Perhaps I should revisit that habit.

A VC: In Search of a Better Algorithm

Because as great an experience as searching the Internet is on Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, or Ask, Internet search is still a very primitive technology. Rarely is the first result of a search the best result for my needs, regardless of what engine I use.

Seeking book recommendation

Last year, I read Three Billion New Capitalists, an excellent treatment of the opportunities and challenges we're facing in a global environment. I recently started reading The World is Flat, which I think is an excellent primer on these issues.

So, I think Flat is the primer, and Three Billion is the in-depth analysis of the drivers of these challenges and opportunities. What I need is a book that looks forward and addresses how businesses (especially small businesses) can exploit these trends. It's very easy to say "outsource the grunt work to India," but actually executing is an entirely different matter. How does one select a vendor or partner? What are the risks, legal and otherwise? What are the implications, organizationally? Financially? Are there alternatives, such as the JetBlue "home sourcing" model described in Flat? What about other countries, e.g., Australia? What about Canada?

I don't think a book can answer these questions. Indeed, I don't think one should try. However, I think a good book that describes a framework to help business owners analyze these issues could be quite useful and valuable. 

Any suggestions?