A New York Times article questioning the business model for open source. MySQL, RedHat, SpringSource are some of the company names mentioned in the article.
There’s only one company making real money out of open source, and that’s Red Hat
— Simon Crosby, CTO Citrix Systems
Makes you think twice in case you were planning to go with the open source business model.
Brands are wonderful assets when they capture the essence of a product, service, or event succinctly, meaningfully, and with endurance over time.[…] But when branding becomes a fad, it can reduce communication.
[…]
Branding should start with an authenticity test. (nb avoid putting “lipstick on a pig”)
— The Downsides of Branding by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Discover your brand by pinpointing your unique service and identity.
— Build Your Brand by M.J. Ryan
How many companies can you name that do not live up to their brand? Or would it be easier to count those that live up to their brand?
Kathy Bloomgarden:
we’ve identified intent as the key driver of social media. To use these tools more effectively, companies need to step back and look at why consumers are going online. Traditional notions of demographics no longer apply in the online space, where it doesn’t matter where you live or what you make or how old or young you are. Intents have become the new demographics. And better understanding online intent will help in aligning business objectives with what consumers want.
From VentureBeat:
A group of entrepreneurs have created a new community center for hackers in the heart of Silicon Valley called Hacker Dojo, where coders can come together and work on projects any time of the day or week.
I think this is purely a brilliant idea! And a good answer for one of the problems my friend Vladimir was mentioning about the Romanian tech stage (n.b. my translation from the article):
You can count the Romanian teams that have built “huge” sites on the fingers of a single hand. Tech faculties are a joke and they are not able to address this issue.
But before fabulating about a Hacker Dojo, we’ll need to understand that:
Good products create value. Good biz models capture value. Good companies have both
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