Ideas

37Signals and their workplace experiments

Late in May, 37Signals.com had announced a workplace experiment – a whole month to yourself. The big idea was that their employees could take the entire month of June and work on whatever they wanted to work on. Their idea as mentioned in their blog post: This June will be a full month of free time to think, explore, mock up, prototype, whatever. People can go solo or put together a team – it’s entirely up to them. This is a month to unwind and create without the external pressures of other ongoing projects or expectations. We’re effectively taking a […]

Ideas

Next generation of digital books

TED recently announced the availability of TED Books. I quote from their site: Shorter than a novel, but longer than an article — a TED Book is a great way to feed your craving for ideas anytime. A TED Book is to a book as a TEDTalk is to a lecture: It’s shorter and more personal, more direct and engaging. And the new TED Books app (coming soon) lets our authors blend their words with multimedia extras that enhance your understanding. Look for rich images, audio, video and social features, along with links and documentation to provide a broader view. […]

Business Model, Ideas

The book that can’t wait & some more

Argentina-based publisher Eterna Cadencia has released El Libro que No Puede Esperar – which translates as ‘The Book that Cannot Wait’ – an anthology of new fiction printed in ink that disappears after two months of opening the book.   In my opinion, this is a great idea for book publishers. This ensures that once you open the book, you are more likely to finish reading the book. Another idea that has been around since 2009 is the Espresso Book Machine. This was initially launched by Xerox. This is a fully automatic machine, which can print a library quality paper […]

Entrepreneurship, Ideas

Disrupting the paints industry…

What happens if the cement manufacturers start doing research and find a way to add color to the concrete itself? Will consumers accept this approach to color their homes? I do not know if this will disrupt the paints industry, but sure will open up a lot more opportunities for the cement companies to differntiate their offerings (as currently, all cements look the same and the only differntiation is in the branding). Add to this, if the cement manufacturers find a way to create concretes blocks with designs in different colors, I am sure that will make an interesting phase […]

Business Model

European courts allow online re-sale of Oracle software

In a landmark decision, the European Court of Justice dealt a major blow to Oracle on Tuesday, ruling that the software maker cannot block the resale of its software online. More information about the news @ http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d54ff9e6-c515-11e1-b6fd-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1zo4cMsO3 What does this mean for other software makers like SAP or Microsoft? I am truly surprised by the ruling. This does not answer many questions like How does the vendor keep track of who is the current user of the software? What happens to the Support fee? How can you track if a customer has made copies of the software? What happens in a case where […]