L. Gordon Crovitz Says Venture Capitalists Are Too Market-Oriented for Bailout Money - WSJ.com
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Bloggers
It is required that I point out a simple but often overlooked fact.
Bloggers are Bloggers.
A Blogger will tell you that you absolutely must, no matter what you do, you must become a Blogger or you will fail in your endevours and find a Blogger defeated you. The out of balance part is they tend to imply or outright state the reason for sucess or failure was BECAUSE of blogging or failing to blog. They make the blog a rather grandious and powerful weapon to use in the face of any challenge. More to the point, not A weapon but THE weapon which determines victory.
It sounds rather insane.
Care to join me for a walk around the grounds to see if we can figure what the hell is going on here?
Let's start with Bloggers at the very root of the thing. They blog, the care about their blog, they are invested in the blogging culture so they see the imprtance of bloggin in all areas of life. This is a style of delusional thinking: It works for me, so it must work for everyone else followed by a grander delusion that it must work to the exclusion of everything else.
Blogging of itself is of no particular nature and either has or does not have value based only on either the Blogger or the reader. It is, after all, a glorified version of gossip. The quality of a blogger or the content of a blog is often based on the subjective measure of how many people read the blog.
Sometimes there are facts and actual measures that need to be stated in their actual form including the uncomfortable pieces of data that may fail to align with the agenda or even provide evidence of a contradicting the stated argument. These facts are often left out for the sake of convenience. There is no external body applying a set of norms and procedures that help verify the accuracy of content.
So, I may blog but I am deeply skeptical of the importance of blogs. The most interesting, or shall I say - fascinating (some will understand the difference), are the blogs that give advice about relationships, careers, school, and other places of participation where advancement is an aspiration.
These blogs are the worst offenders. I have read a number of "how to get into business school" and "how to get a job in venture capital" and "the path to the law firm of your choice" and various other topics of social advancement. I can say that Bloggers giving advice on everything from the Rotary Club to Hedge Funds passionately advance the notion that having a Blog and a presence in the virtual world of the Web is mission critical.
Let us apply the negative as determine if this assertions holds together.
Are their highly successful Venture Capitalists, Lawyers, Rotary Club Presidents, and Hedge Fund Managers that did not use Blogging or online presence in their ascension? I posit that most if not nearly all of these rose to the top of their respective positions without these tools. I do concede that they likely used the most advanced technology available to achieve their personal and professional goals. With the advent of almost instantaneous access to information via online services I am equally confident that the aggressive utilization of such a tool is mission critical to the next generation of these leaders.
That does not mean, however, that a blog or blogging is a mission critical mechanism. What these folks are really speaking to is the ability to have a newsletter immediately available. Yet, they are more like digital rags than actual information. With the advent of the printing press and more efficient forms of paper production there was an explosion of small Daily publications that were mostly nonsense.
There are only two ways for a rag to become a newspaper and they are to either be so shocking that people must read them or so full of reliable content that people must read them to stay at least in pace with their peers. Simple presence on the Web does not mean anything.
This fact seems to escape the Bloggers. Other people must either trust the content or be entertained by it. The problem is that far too many rags exist to have any hope of engaging with enough with any depth to determine their value.
So, we end up with a number of problems.
First, these folks that could be utilizing their talents and resources in other ways are spending them creating Blogs that have little value and essentially unread. There is wasted efficiency and productivity that should make any true Economist cry.
Second, there is no ability to trust content because the authors are not held to any standard. The reader must figure out what the intentions are. The content is often verified by citing like minded blogs. That feels far too much like the relatively recent event of planting false information in a new column and then referencing the column as verification of the false claim. It's a bit like very young children trying to make sense of multiplying negative number. They transpose the thought: I lied twice so that means I'm telling the truth. = NO!
Third, the flood of information does not mean the decisions being acted upon is of any higher quality than a decision based on less information. Indeed there are many studies that show people freezing from too much information. This is often most easily identifiable in the other virtual world of securities trading. Brokers with gobs of information often make the wrong choice. The problem is not the volume but the quality. Sometimes less is better for a host of reasons.
The essential reason for writing this Blog entry is to point out that no matter what a Blogger says, any technology is only useful if it contributes to the quality of and ability to form relationships with other human beings.
In the end getting the job, securing a spot at a school, or advancing in a social circle is perhaps assisted by an online presence or a Blog but it is far from mission critical. I would further suggest that those who do engage in Blogging with such intentions at the center are creating a partially false self in the hops of being accepted.
The reference of blogs or of online activity is, in many instances, really a way t o see if a person will fit in with their social circle. The problem is that it is decidedly one sided and often unfair. We all know the social dramas of the social elite. Private lives are important and often irrelevant to the performance in other roles.
That is the point really now isn't it? In the old days a company, school, or social set would ask some general questions like schooling or hometown but the mission critical aspect of such events was when the person was introduced to the rest of that social set.
I suggest the hyper public nature of the online community is a danger to those attempting to utilize it as a tool to determine acceptability in a particular setting. It makes me wonder what will happen as this process embeds itself. Firms, schools, social groups will all begin looking for copies of themselves and the diversity that brings innovation will be lost in neatly segmented groups of human copies.
This would be deeply unfortunate to the businesses, schools, an groups that unwittingly rely on a degree of randomness provided by the more porous social systems.
From the other side the use of a hyper public information pool requires decisions that are equally unfortunate to the individual in question. If one has the hopes of securing a position as a lawyer or with a venture capital firm they must be attentive to an online presence. We all filter to some degree, but an unnecessary burden is created by the need to sensor more deeply into a personal life because of possible visibility.
Oh a whole host of problems begin t appear that would take many a virtual page to cover. For this Blog entry it is only important to remember to be very suspicious of those that assert a thing they find valuable as universally mission critical.
Meet the person otherwise the Blog is irrelevant.
As for me, I will leave this Blog unedited. Make of it what you will and see either charater and tone or awkwardness and verbosity. You will likely see some spelling and grammatical errors...I grew up in the age of Word so afford me some latitude as the "Blog" does not remind with wavey green lines...LOL
Bloggers are Bloggers.
A Blogger will tell you that you absolutely must, no matter what you do, you must become a Blogger or you will fail in your endevours and find a Blogger defeated you. The out of balance part is they tend to imply or outright state the reason for sucess or failure was BECAUSE of blogging or failing to blog. They make the blog a rather grandious and powerful weapon to use in the face of any challenge. More to the point, not A weapon but THE weapon which determines victory.
It sounds rather insane.
Care to join me for a walk around the grounds to see if we can figure what the hell is going on here?
Let's start with Bloggers at the very root of the thing. They blog, the care about their blog, they are invested in the blogging culture so they see the imprtance of bloggin in all areas of life. This is a style of delusional thinking: It works for me, so it must work for everyone else followed by a grander delusion that it must work to the exclusion of everything else.
Blogging of itself is of no particular nature and either has or does not have value based only on either the Blogger or the reader. It is, after all, a glorified version of gossip. The quality of a blogger or the content of a blog is often based on the subjective measure of how many people read the blog.
Sometimes there are facts and actual measures that need to be stated in their actual form including the uncomfortable pieces of data that may fail to align with the agenda or even provide evidence of a contradicting the stated argument. These facts are often left out for the sake of convenience. There is no external body applying a set of norms and procedures that help verify the accuracy of content.
So, I may blog but I am deeply skeptical of the importance of blogs. The most interesting, or shall I say - fascinating (some will understand the difference), are the blogs that give advice about relationships, careers, school, and other places of participation where advancement is an aspiration.
These blogs are the worst offenders. I have read a number of "how to get into business school" and "how to get a job in venture capital" and "the path to the law firm of your choice" and various other topics of social advancement. I can say that Bloggers giving advice on everything from the Rotary Club to Hedge Funds passionately advance the notion that having a Blog and a presence in the virtual world of the Web is mission critical.
Let us apply the negative as determine if this assertions holds together.
Are their highly successful Venture Capitalists, Lawyers, Rotary Club Presidents, and Hedge Fund Managers that did not use Blogging or online presence in their ascension? I posit that most if not nearly all of these rose to the top of their respective positions without these tools. I do concede that they likely used the most advanced technology available to achieve their personal and professional goals. With the advent of almost instantaneous access to information via online services I am equally confident that the aggressive utilization of such a tool is mission critical to the next generation of these leaders.
That does not mean, however, that a blog or blogging is a mission critical mechanism. What these folks are really speaking to is the ability to have a newsletter immediately available. Yet, they are more like digital rags than actual information. With the advent of the printing press and more efficient forms of paper production there was an explosion of small Daily publications that were mostly nonsense.
There are only two ways for a rag to become a newspaper and they are to either be so shocking that people must read them or so full of reliable content that people must read them to stay at least in pace with their peers. Simple presence on the Web does not mean anything.
This fact seems to escape the Bloggers. Other people must either trust the content or be entertained by it. The problem is that far too many rags exist to have any hope of engaging with enough with any depth to determine their value.
So, we end up with a number of problems.
First, these folks that could be utilizing their talents and resources in other ways are spending them creating Blogs that have little value and essentially unread. There is wasted efficiency and productivity that should make any true Economist cry.
Second, there is no ability to trust content because the authors are not held to any standard. The reader must figure out what the intentions are. The content is often verified by citing like minded blogs. That feels far too much like the relatively recent event of planting false information in a new column and then referencing the column as verification of the false claim. It's a bit like very young children trying to make sense of multiplying negative number. They transpose the thought: I lied twice so that means I'm telling the truth. = NO!
Third, the flood of information does not mean the decisions being acted upon is of any higher quality than a decision based on less information. Indeed there are many studies that show people freezing from too much information. This is often most easily identifiable in the other virtual world of securities trading. Brokers with gobs of information often make the wrong choice. The problem is not the volume but the quality. Sometimes less is better for a host of reasons.
The essential reason for writing this Blog entry is to point out that no matter what a Blogger says, any technology is only useful if it contributes to the quality of and ability to form relationships with other human beings.
In the end getting the job, securing a spot at a school, or advancing in a social circle is perhaps assisted by an online presence or a Blog but it is far from mission critical. I would further suggest that those who do engage in Blogging with such intentions at the center are creating a partially false self in the hops of being accepted.
The reference of blogs or of online activity is, in many instances, really a way t o see if a person will fit in with their social circle. The problem is that it is decidedly one sided and often unfair. We all know the social dramas of the social elite. Private lives are important and often irrelevant to the performance in other roles.
That is the point really now isn't it? In the old days a company, school, or social set would ask some general questions like schooling or hometown but the mission critical aspect of such events was when the person was introduced to the rest of that social set.
I suggest the hyper public nature of the online community is a danger to those attempting to utilize it as a tool to determine acceptability in a particular setting. It makes me wonder what will happen as this process embeds itself. Firms, schools, social groups will all begin looking for copies of themselves and the diversity that brings innovation will be lost in neatly segmented groups of human copies.
This would be deeply unfortunate to the businesses, schools, an groups that unwittingly rely on a degree of randomness provided by the more porous social systems.
From the other side the use of a hyper public information pool requires decisions that are equally unfortunate to the individual in question. If one has the hopes of securing a position as a lawyer or with a venture capital firm they must be attentive to an online presence. We all filter to some degree, but an unnecessary burden is created by the need to sensor more deeply into a personal life because of possible visibility.
Oh a whole host of problems begin t appear that would take many a virtual page to cover. For this Blog entry it is only important to remember to be very suspicious of those that assert a thing they find valuable as universally mission critical.
Meet the person otherwise the Blog is irrelevant.
As for me, I will leave this Blog unedited. Make of it what you will and see either charater and tone or awkwardness and verbosity. You will likely see some spelling and grammatical errors...I grew up in the age of Word so afford me some latitude as the "Blog" does not remind with wavey green lines...LOL
Sunday, December 14, 2008
What's Wrong With Cleantech VC
Check out this SlideShare Presentation: Hmmm, this is a problem!
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