It’s awesome that the issue of whether or not we still have an open web – and that maybe that’s something we wanna save – is vibrating through the meme merchants. Since Scoble mentioned me by name – I guess I get to respond.
I agree with Battelle and Winer.
And I agree with Scoble. That’s why its an open web – no one can tell us the ONE way to work.
The worst thing about Facebook is that 12% of its revenues come from a horrible person and a horrible company – Zynga, who care about nothing but making money and scamming addicted gamblers. In the world today – many people think that’s a good thing. Facebook monetizing people seems to fit into that notion.
But me? We’re trying to game the system = and create some jobs for normal people. To do that we need an open web. That’s why I’M voting for using G+ as an underlying identity layer.
Date: Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 |
Time: 4:50 pm
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Open letter to Joseph Smarr and Chris Messina
Yo dudes – way back when you created (along with David Recordon and John McCrea) a web show about open social networking called “the Social Web TV.” During those 40 or so episodes you produced a clear vision of how an inter-connected distributed open web could evolve, by commenting on the specific building blocks and elements that would be required to build an ‘open web’.
You touched on identity, sharing, authorization, the politics of this world and how we might all “live together.”
When Chris and Joseph went to work for Google and David to Facebook – I was incredibly excited about how your “viruses’ would effect the BORG. Now we had insiders making sure that our open, distributed web would happen!
Jump forward 3-4 years later and I’m hoping that this is all unfolding. Joseph is now the lead developer on G+ and I have said – since the get go – that G+ was a lot MORE than just a competitor to Facebook. The dream has been that G+ will serve as (what’s called) a ‘federated ID layer’ that would connect – not JUST Google apps, content and services – but also everyone else.
The goal would be to offer to brands – such as Nike, United, Ford, P&G, Pfizer, the NYTimes and everyone else – the same sort of comprehensive platform, APIs and protocols that Facebook does – and all that that implies – but in an “open way.”
Every time I see Facebook.com/Nike or Facebook.com/anything - I know that there are brand managers gritting their teeth and entrepreneurs trying to break the ‘strangle hold’ that Facebook has over worldwide brand marketing – as we speak. I believe that stranglehold can be broken by utilizing G+ and its associated set of platform “services” – to offer to worldwide (and local) brands and businesses a ‘Facebook’ style platform – that can reside at the brand’s own unique domain: Nike.com.
With the recent consolidation of Google’s security policies and with the unveiling of a “One Google for all” strategy – I believe that Google is starting to grok what their company has to evolve into. Its not about 30-50 different servcies anymore.
It’s one Google, it’s one ID layer, it’s one set of privacy and security policies, it’s one developer camp and it’s an open web – who are their partners. IMHO
So when you talk about “Easy to work across Google” – don’t forget PBWorks, Dropbox, PeopleAggregator or the entire Ruby community!
When you talk about “Tailored for you“- make sure that means I can put images up onto my own dashboard page, control what content and services I see and completely personalize my own on-line digital lifestyle aggregator.
And when you talk about “Easy to share and collaborate” – lets make SURE it’s based upon Open Standards – which are NOT controlled by just YOU!
Please!
To Joseph and Chris – you know what I’m taking about. Hopefully Brad Horowitz and Vic Gundrota agree and that they can convince Larry and Sergey of this approach. Go for it dudes! And say hi to Dave Glazer for me – as well. And Megan Smith!
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Date: Sunday, February 5th, 2012 |
Time: 11:47 am
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Ray,
I think it very interesting that you and the Jumpstart (JS) board believe that my request for additional information relative to your decisions to fund services as opposed to direct investments should not be answered directly. Apparently we have hit on a question that we believe now needs to be examined vigorously by the ODOD and the Third Frontier board.
Critics have questioned why such a large percentage of your taxpayer funded budget is spent on your overhead ($10m+) instead of direct investments into early stage companies ($3m). You have consistently responded that your hands are tied as your main funder, the State of Ohio, dictates how your funds are spent. However, it has been brought to our attention that the State grants you have received require a $1-$1 match to be fully realized. Since 2006, you have chosen to fully match all grants towards your overhead and salaries and have never fully matched the grants for direct investment into early stage companies. In fact, according to the latest public 990 you mention, if JS would have chosen to fully match the State grants for direct investment, you would have had $1m more to invest while still having a $9m budget for your overhead. Instead of using a misleading excuse, you need to answer why, since 2006; you have chosen to prioritize your spending for overhead at the expense of what could be used to invest in startups in our community.
I have left my original question to you below your response to me and am now requesting that Governor Kasich, Mark Kvamme and the Director of ODOD, Christiane Schmenk give their input on why it is that a non-profit organization like JS, which receives the bulk of its funding from the taxpayers of the State of Ohio, can obfuscate and even deliberately avoid direct questions of accountability.
Governor Kasich, Mr. Kvamme and Director Schmenk:
I have asked Ray to provide me with the reasons that he, his staff and the JS board have chosen to accept Third Frontier funding, which requires 1:1 match from other sources, and prioritize the state taxpayer funding and matching funds so that JS can build a bureaucracy delivering “services†instead of doling out direct investments into startup companies? It seems clear to us in northeast Ohio, that by not answering this specific question, JS believes that building an organization trumps actual investments into new companies. This must be stopped!
We suspect the core reason why JS matches their taxpayer funding for services over direct investments into startups is so that they can grow their staffing levels and seek publicity. Allowing this to continue is a travesty and quite frankly, a political mine field for future economic development support from the taxpayers in the state of Ohio.
The current JS strategy was not the original intent for the mission of Jumpstart, of which I was heavily involved in. It is also not a trivial issue! As one of four individuals leading this critical examination of JS and their lack of funding to startup entrepreneurs, we believe it has become time to make this a political discussion. Having been personally involved in the formation of Jumpstart, I am now joined by an entrepreneur who has received Jumpstart funding, another successful serial entrepreneur that requested funding and was denied and a former JS staff member, who has since left to rejoin the entrepreneurial ranks.
Without proper oversight and accountability on the part of ODOD, JS continues to not only minimize its desire to fund startup companies in northeast Ohio, but is also being allowed to boast claims as to its effectiveness by callously reporting job creation numbers and other statistics without any verifiable, independent audit.
ODOD should be familiar with this issue since it was exposed in late December that only 52% of ODOD awardees fulfilled their obligations vs. the 90% ODOD had previously reported. The reason previous figures were so inaccurate was that the data was collected by sending voluntary questionnaires to the companies who received the awards asking them politely if they fulfilled their obligations! This is like asking 17 year olds to grade their own SAT tests. With 3rd Frontier grants, ODOD has used similar methods as they have relied on groups like JS to report on their own effectiveness and impact without auditing or verifying any of the claims. In 2011, it was exposed that reports JS used to secure over $6m in 3rd Frontier grants were dramatically inaccurate and misleading. It has also been exposed that the two independent consultants ODOD contracted to review and recommend 3rd Frontier grants received jobs at JS shortly after they recommend the group receive over $6m in state grants.
These reasons alone scream for ODOD, and by direct responsibility, the Governor’s office to finally become involved and force this state funded non-profit to begin being accountable to the taxpayers and entrepreneurs in the State of Ohio. The problem lies within ODOD as they control the Third Frontier grants. They desire good news so badly to make themselves and their efforts look effective that they rely on groups like JS to produce their own reports on how effective they are without verifying or auditing it. Outside of the well-paying jobs at these taxpayer funded non-profit groups, only a small percentage of the impact they take credit for wouldn’t have occurred if any of these groups didn’t exist. We respectfully request you demand that the Jumpstart staff and board answer our questions noted below and also hire an independent auditor to examine their claims of “job creation†effectiveness.
A report was just released this week that showed Minnesota early stage medical companies secured $233m in VC investments in 2011 vs. Ohio’s $178m. Keep in mind that Minnesota has half the population of Ohio and only one major market while Ohio has the three Cs. Minnesota was able to accomplish this without a $1.4b 3rd Frontier Fund and they don’t have dozens of overlapping taxpayer funded non-profit groups like JS that each have CEOs earning over $400k, large staffs and overhead. Somehow, the early stage companies in Minnesota were able to launch high growth companies without the expertise and assistance taxpayer funded groups like JS claim is important and imperative.
Until this is done, we cannot have a meaningful conversation about the role and strategy this organization should be leading relative to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in northeast Ohio. There are only so many dollars available for economic development and there are tragic opportunity costs when we waste them. We need to measure the true impact all of this taxpayer funded non-profit group and weight it against the funds used to support it. We are confident if this transparent analysis was conducted it would be clear the State’s ROI on funds to prop up all of these bureaucratic non-profit groups would pale in comparison of the ROI the state taxpayers would receive if the majority of these funds were used to provide much needed capital to early stage companies.
There are many more entrepreneurs in our region of the state, working extremely hard on the formation of new businesses and jobs for our residents that cannot find sufficient funding as JS continue to siphon dollars meant to create business into what is now a staff of over 40 people.
Respectfully,
Ron Copfer
ron@copfer.com
Mike Burkons
mburkons@chariteegolf.net
Chuck Birchall
cbirchall@oh.rr.com
Michael Kaufman
michael@6kaufmans.com
[NOTE: Ron is the CEO of Digital City Mechanics]
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Date: Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 |
Time: 9:33 am
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I started off this week dealing with the ramifications of our participation in the Gigabit Challenge in Kansas City last week. A lot of people, including a Microsoft guy – thought we did pretty good. Here’s a video of the pitch:
Digital City Mechanics, Gigabit Challenge Finale from Curt McMillan on Vimeo.
Then we went to Weirton, WV this week – and it looks like we’ll be doing our first true deployment there. Hold onto your hats folks – this is going to be w wild ride. The Weirton Area Port Authority (WAPA) is our sponsor. They’re getting money from DHS and FEMA. And somewhere in there - they’re supposed to help create jobs! “Hey! We know how to do that!”
Next up – President Obama and McKinsey (40 million jobs needed) are now working for us as sales reps. Who doesn’t want jobs? Think a new approach to workforce training might be in order?
——————-
Meanwhile…
The Mayors council is calling for a “New Economy Apprenticeship program” – that’s what Digital City Mechanics does!
Open Science! We can solve cancer if research scientistswould just start talking to each other
Building a technically skilled workforce
Laser embossed pigs help create “Internet of Things” in China. In this case – the things are pigs.
CodeAcademy rising
php vs. Ruby vs. Python
Experiment fund, Onlinephd.org,
Date: Friday, January 27th, 2012 |
Time: 6:26 pm
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If you’ve ever wondered why I moved to Cleveland and what we’re up to – then here you go – in :10 minutes.
[ http://player.vimeo.com/video/35550899?title=0
Digital City Mechanics, Gigabit Challenge Finale from Curt McMillan on Vimeo.
Date: Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 |
Time: 11:40 pm
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From Silicon Prairie News:
Perhaps my favorite personal pitch was by Marc Canter. Marc probably, to those in the technology, startup and investment community, was the most famous individual of all the finalists. As a designer I owe my mortgage to him – he created the first set of tools that let me become an interaction designer. Though he was not one of the three winners, I suspect we haven’t seen the last of Marc – he’s a visionary and his interest in the Gigabit Challenge is a strong testament to the value of the event and the talent that it drew. I also thought his idea, Digital City Mechanics, strongly identified what the difference fiber could mean for a community that’s willing to invest in the services that can take advantage of it.
Thanks Chris!
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Date: Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 |
Time: 12:23 pm
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We’re in a business plan contest on Jan. 18th in Kansas City.
Please go to: www.gigabitchallenge.com/live and check out the proceedings. We’re in slot #10.
15 slides in :10 minutes
VOTE for US!
Date: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 |
Time: 5:34 am
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