In what could be a defining milestone in Indian entrepreneurial development domain – GrowVC, the ‘Virtual Silicon Valley’ software platform and world’s first-ever ‘Crowd-Funding’ and interaction platform for startups announced the launch of a local funding network in India, in association with Springboard Ventures – an ensemble of experts dedicated to promoting start-ups. Based around the same model as the existing global funding network Grow VC offers, the Indian local funding network will be the first of many “local” networks the company looks to launch within its wider global network in the coming months. Grow VC’s community platform for entrepreneurs who are looking to grow their early stage startups through the “crowd-funding” has already gathered considerable interest with hundreds of new sign-ups each month and active participation of  investors, startup service providers, advisors and entrepreneurs within the online community. Satish Kataria – Managing Director at Springboard Ventures, is quoted as saying,

It would be the first ever single platform to bring together the various entities which revolve around the creation and growth of start-ups while allowing them all to interact and work together with each-other. Besides uniting angel investors and entrepreneurs, this platform offers a first-time opportunity to various experts and consultancies to now come forward and offer their services to start-up community through innovations such as ‘Service Investments’.

More on GrowVC (here)

Like nature, we are diverse

It was Noam Chomsky in the 60’s that developed a view that we (humanity) was programmed with a universal language DNA. But what if the very diversity of languages is the key to understanding human communications? This is a question asked by Christine Kenneally. Linguists Nicholas Evans and Stephen Levinson, who argue that languages do not share a common set of rules. And that, this extraordinary range of diversity is a defining feature of human communication.

There are no universal traits, only tendencies says Evans and Levinson. Kenneally writes,

Focusing on language diversity also highlights the tragedy of language extinction. In the old model, all languages are merely variations on the same underlying theme. In the new model, however, each of the worlds 7000 languages contains its own unique clues to some of the mysteries of human existence… in the diversity of the worlds languages we find facts about ancient human history, the path of languages through time, and deep knowledge of the planet.

And what does that mean, from a media and or culture perspective? Well – if we insist on creating a monoculture, don’t we destroy the thing that makes us what we are? Henry Jenkins writing in Joshua Green and Jean Burgess book YouTube makes the observation that, one of the reasons YouTube is so universally successful is that, “we” were ready for YouTube, a means by which we can return to our participatory roots, and, explore and express our unique diversity, which is also part of our identity, perhaps its no accident we live in an age defined by social story telling, culture making, and individual entrepreneurship?

Jane Jacobs argued in The Nature of Economies, that to accept the truth that human nature exists wholly in nature, is difficult for example for economists, industrialists, or politicians – they preferring to believe that human capability, our ability to reason and create things; culture, industry, complex government etc., in ways that the rest of the natural world cannot, seduces us to see ourselves as different to nature, falsely superior.

I find that in the networked and connected society this type of question can lead to some very short conversations

“;+)

So if you cannot truly give value back to your relevant community and stay relevant then you become irrelevant instead. Simples. The only thing I would say is where is mobile in all of this guys? And lets see some of that innovation this side of the pond! Question – really is anyone in the UK doing some good stuff on local news and journalism? As I would happily champion their cause.

John Underkoffler speaking about the way in which ui will change how we interface in the world

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7577137@N04/2923238790

The economist Herbert Simon, once wrote,

What information consumes is rather obvious. It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention… The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.

May I have your attention please? – Linda Stone – SIME 09 from Ayman van Bregt on Vimeo.

Someone comments on Linda’s presentation,

Technology sets me free and enslaves me. Look at us. You read this message and I get your partial attention. But don’t blame yourself. I wrote this message with partial attention too. My phone was ringing, the music was playing, my neighbor was commemorating a soccer game his team won. I guess. Another message. Tomorrow we have two meetings and some of my colleagues will be during the meeting answering mobile messages and emails. It is normal, and they don’t think it is disrespectful at all. Do you? I watch this video with my partial attention. A minute, a colleague is calling via MSN. Oh, shit, my mother is writing a blog and I can’t keep up with it. My friends are throwing a movie and food party next weekend. Another message. And my partial attention. That moment, our moment, and your partial attention. What is personal? What is private? What is intimate? When everything matters nothing matters anymore. Do you connect with me? Do I connect with you? Hey, you only add me and I add you back in a list of noise. We live in a really noisy world and we are trying to stay in the top of it, like a bunch of hyper-alert anxious multi-taskers who are constantly over stimulated. What is next? This noise is overwhelming. Can you keep up with it? Am I a better person? Are you?

What would be good she says, is “engaged attention”…

Do Tent in the background aka Ted in a tent

Last year I had the privilege to speak at The Do Lectures (my review here) (more Do stuff), and though I will not be able to make it this year, I wanted to share my enthusiasm for the 2010 event. There is a great speaker line up - which is designed to do what it says on the tin – to inspire people to go and do something with their lives.

Also I might add – The Do Lectures is an event that is cross disciplinary, and brings in my view an alternative view of how we make business, art, love and life in this networked world. And it is this diversity that makes the experience so rich and rewarding. It is the rule of No Straight Lines vs. the straight line one. As Proust said, the real voyage of discovery is not to seek new landscapes but to look upon the world with fresh eyes.

So from the future of publishing presented by Craig Mod, to John ‘Jay” Burton Rogers from Local Motors, Maggie Doyne building schools in Nepal – these are people as Ivan Illich says are leading a life of action. So unlike other events, if you want inspiration, and hang out with some great people, where speakers sit and have breakfast with you, lunch with you and dinner with you and chat, where you talk to others that have asked the question, ‘why?’ what comes next? What is the alternative, where you will be moved – then Do is the place for you. You can by tickets here. Don’t just stand there, Do something.

http://thedolectures.co.uk

It was said that Alan Moore sounded like a character from a Guy Ritchie movie at his SXSW keynote. Skyping in from Over, England (a village outside Cambridge), Suz and Alan talk about our collective responsibility to leverage open social systems, global connectivity, consciousness and lightweight (green) business practices to the way we strategically create companies in the future. More on No Straight Lines. My SXSW presentation. Do Lecture (Video)

Immutable Law #1—Value Over Culture
Immutable Law #2—The Law of the Ecosystem
Immutable Law #3—Mobility Empowers
Immutable Law #4—The Value of Time Zones
Immutable Law #5—Mobile-Specific Business Models Are Essential
Immutable Law #6—The Future Is Simplexity

I found this to be a very insightful read especially Law #6 – Simplexity. When a service or device becomes more powerful but simpler to use because of the increasing ‘intelligence’ of the hidden back-end. They point to the iPhone (though the engineering of the iPhone according to some does suck up bandwidth), and of course we can add, I suggest, the BBC iPlayer to that list as well, as businesses like, TxtEagle, Layar, GrowVC, Local Motors and Ushahidi, which all use the harnessing of data and distributed intelligence to play a critical role in the performance of those businesses and services, as well as being ‘easy to use’ powerful tools and services. That is my personal opinion. I also very enjoyed the point they make that value in mobile is what counts, not culture. As many like to dismiss Japans mobile culture as an aberration. I would urge anyone thinking about the business of mobile to buy this book, read it, study it, re-read it and understand its message. I was speaking and running workshops in Helsinki last week at the Nokia Siemens Networks Marketing Forum and it was interesting to see a more engaged international audience looking for solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

Lots of case studies and insight and the authors will tell you that Mobile Social Networking started in Japan.

The authors are Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder and Ludovico Ciferri. (more info here).