The relevant news to me can be summarized this way: In Denmark unemployment nearly doubled in one year (numbers confirming what people know about the crisis), bankruptcies are skyrocketing and the government is worried about jobs among young people and will consequently dump 1 Billion DKK to facilitate 5000 interships by 2010.

I know that Denmark is quite liberal/capitalist about businesses, that the Social Security system (public+private) is supporting lots of unemployed people during this phase and that this may only last some time (whatever “some” means)… [1] I also believe that the current numbers (6% unemployment rate) are not sound, as they will change quickly

Even so, I believe that 1 Billion could be better used. Assuming there are 10% for running costs (not sure how (in)efficient public services actually are) that’s an incentive of 180,000 DKK per employee. This incentive only lasts the timeframe of one internship if the company is not interested in renewing the contract with the intern [2].

The current governmental plans are partially done to protect some issues regarding compulsory interships in some academical degrees. Even so, what if this money could be spent on early-stage innovation? Young people can have low burning rates when starting a new business (personal expenses and commitments are lower) and this money could help a team of 2-3 entrepreneurs sustain a small business for 1/2 years. For the sake of reasoning what if that money could generate 1 or 2 thousand lightweight, agile and money-sensitive companies? Which impact would that have in a 3-5 year time frame, even assuming conservatively that only 10% would be a sound success? This would certainly result in long-lasting effect with the creation of even more jobs and a very reasonable economic impact.

I am not arguing for high risk ventures. I am trying to contextualize this into concepts like Services, where companies can start generating income faster. The truth is that 1Billion DKK, put in the hands of some early stage investors, would generate a lot more return.

When I was in Portugal it was common knowledge that crisis situations (like companies closing down) would tend to create a spike on the creation of small local companies as people move to create their own jobs (specially relevant in countries where the economy is not able to re-absorb those people). What Denmark could do now was to create that same business creating effect. This crisis doesn’t have the same meaning as it does in less dynamic economies but by doing so the Danish government would artificially create the same conditions that can generate small businesses , with a very relevant impact.

I can think of different areas where new business initiatives are needed in Denmark: If you travel and see the price disproportion between different goods (not tourist prices but normal day-to-day prices) or the things that Denmark doesn’t have, you’ll get some ideas…. The web  is full of opportunities, not only for IT geeks…

Footnotes

[1] I actually think that this is mostly over and people are now watching to see: my feeling is that Q4 2009/ Q1 2010 will see the beginning of the rebound.

[2] It would be nice to know in detail some stats about “intern turnover rates”, ie if they statistically continue in the company of it the company will get another intern to replace it (being cheaper)

To make sure this meant something, i set myself to track and ask 2 renowned brand experts, trying to find out what google means to normal people… Welcome the every-day-life brand experts: my mom and my gramma!

My mom: “Google is something that your sister opens, then she puts a thing and she gets several sites with that thing”

My gramma: “I dont know child, that’s something from the internet that they spoke on the TV”

Quotes are not very strick, but the meaning is there. It has to be said that web literacy don’t exactly rime with my mom and my gramma: and that’s the power of it! A brand to be powerful has be an utility, like electricity. The few  who don’t use it know what it is. It has to be embeded in everybody’s lifes, even if they are not aware of it.

Interesting the generation gap on these… HUUUGE can’t really describe it. I wonder how the next generation will kick our buts

Congrats Google

The graph attached shows clearly that it is hockey sticking.

It may look like, but it will be for (very) a long time, and way more than now. Why?

Well, some guy called Ashton Kutcher [1] reached 1,000,000 users and now has 1,4Million which, assuming that Twitter really had 19Million users, would be more than 7% of the total users base.

So, either Twitter is a thing for teenage girls that watch MTV (which is not) or Twitter already has way more users than that.

Assuming it was actually true then Twitter’s future will be something plain unpredictable, because this disproportionate repreentativity (7%) can only be leveled back trough a huge growth that will lead consequently to a more reasonable ratio.

Be ready to see the rest of the stick, this is just the beginning of the curve. Techcrunch points to 50Million users in the summer. I believe it will be at least 80-90 Million. If numbers are made public, people will be surprised by how far low they were aiming. [2]

On a web concept perspective, it is impressive how it can grow so fast. These Hockey Stick kind-of-effects are the beatuty of Online Business Models and their ability to scale.

NOTES

[1] He’s famous because of some insignificant stuff but mainly because of Demi Moore

[2] I also believe that some statistics based on samples from twitter search could be drawn to show that the relevancy of Kutcher’s followers is in fact way less than 5%. Using the 5% assumption, it would demostrate and directly correlate to a more approximate measure  of the real number of registered users in Twitter. Would be fun to spend some time demonstrating this…

Muhamed Yunus, from Flickr (CC)

Recently on the news was the interesting idea about funding entrepreneurs entry into the States. This idea is being led by Paul Graham, a big name in the Valley and the head behind YCombinator‘s innovative approach for micro VC funding [1].

But the idea may not be a good one. Why? ‘MOTIVATION’.

The idea

The idea behind is that the American government should create visas for entrepreneurs like they do for student visas, which would feed existing startups with the best brains available in the world. There would be an approval process like in the case of student visas. You can read more in his blog. This initiative is included in WhiteHouse2 [2].

While most of the Valley WoW’d his idea, i will try to reason some issues it may raise. It may help shedding some thinking on the downsides, to make the idea even stronger if it goes ahead.

Motivation is a huge issue

The idea seem to fail on motivation behind the involved parties motivation. The benefiting startups would do it based on cost per competence basis, therefore downgrading potential American candidates just because they are more expensive. But for me the most important is the target group. They are again treated like the ones applying trough the Green Card lottery, a system already in place that handles immigration issues in a Lotto-like way (need not to explain why this is devious to say the least).

Maybe Mr. Muhammad Yunus [3] would agree with me. The Bank of the Poor sustains it model in people’s motivation while joining micro-credit, namely: survival, peer-pressure and the consequent honor attached to the respect for the loan and circumstances involving it. There is a reason why most of the borrowers are Women.

In Mr Graham’s case, motivation is mainly working in the States followed by the related to working in a startup environment (not as big motivation as going to the States for less priviledged people). This would probably happen at lower conditions than the job market average (expected due to the power differences of visa holder and boss and the reason behind the idea itself) .

Summing up

Motivations that are not basic on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will tend to discrepancies and an inneficient process. Consequences can be diverse and easy to imagine: use the Visa to entry The States only, escape for a better paid job ASAP after,…

A must read

Everybody should read Banker of the poor by Muhammad Yunus. It is an inspiring case of Humanity, a Business case and a eye-opener for what’s out there, behind our “pink and perfect little world”. To me it also contains an underlaying manifest of respect for Women’s role in society (present and future).

Notes

[1]If you like entrepreneurship and web concept innovation, you should know Paul Graham and YCombinator’s, inovative VC model. Briefly they invest small amounts in garage-like entrepreneurs (usually very young people) alognside with knowledge sharing and influence.

[2] WhiteHouse2 is  a great and innovative idea itself, an effort by the new Obama administration to open legislation needs to the people by leveraging the power of Crowd-Sourcing

[3] Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts on erradicating poverty trough Microfinancing