Is regular society a form of knowledge sharing? The difference between general society and open-source is the ease with which you can obtain information. If we break down Leadbeater‘s assertions on the essential components of successful open-source software we can draw the following parallels: Ease of access to information = schools, universities, libraries… Central network [...]
Here is an interesting article on Graham and Dodd's (Warren Buffet Mentor)P/E ratio philosophy. They argue the ratio should be taken over a longerperiod than the current 12 months. This fits well with Nicholas Taleeb'sphilosophy of being fooled by randomness. Long Term Long Term Long Term. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/14/business/view.php?page=1
More action on the open source front. I was watching the movie layer cake and one key line I retained was, “Being good at business is being a good middleman”. That is exactly what the open-source gurus have done. Wikipedia’s Walsh, eBay’s Skoll, Linux’s Torvald, Craigslist’s Craig, Facebook’s Zuckerberg… Its all about providing tools for [...]
Pooling ideas from multiple disciplines and creating a coherent picture is at the heart of genuine progress. The greatest contributers are often people working outside their apparent expertise – Einstein, Ghandi, MLK, Yunnus, Picasso, and all the ones who never made it through school, Hughes, Gates, Jobs…. Hence the renaming of my blog to “The [...]
Open-Source systems are projects where people can build on existing work without the worry of copyright infringement. Open-source projects and online communities have taken off in the past few years. Linux, Wikipedia, and Joomla have driven software and collaborative work, MySpace, Facebook and Youtube have become beehives of cultural activity and World of Warcraft, Dungeons [...]
I am not easily impressed. In fact, I would say that it takes something truly remarkable to impress me. The new airline, Porter, that currently services Montréal, Toronto and Ottawa has brought back what flying used to be: civilized, courteous, beautiful flight attendants, great food (snacks really), beverages in glasses – not plastic. Essentially, it [...]
Identifying my favorite book, music, movie, or female hair colour remains a challenge. Recently visited subjects or people often occupy more prominence in your thoughts than events that occurred years ago. That being said, there are three books that help define the way I see society at large, humans at large and success in the [...]