I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the Boston entrepreneurial scene and creative economy since commenting on Chase’s blog post in which he discussed the need for “weak ties” in Boston. In a nutshell, I was sharing my experience of getting a degree at Babson College (I’ve also written about how Babson’s curriculum and community work to “breed” entrepreneurs), but not having any idea what was going on at MIT or Harvard or BU or Northeastern for entrepreneurship and startups. I’ve heard the same from students and alumni at these schools about Babson and Olin College of Engineering, which sits right next to Babson. Students want to connect more, and recognize the power in diversity of minds.
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This weekend I coached students as part of Babson College’s Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program. The program is designed to help first and third year students hone their oral communication, listening, teamwork, leadership, ethics, and decision-making skills. It’s one of the many distinctive programs Babson offers in addition to it’s truly unique, cross-disciplined business education. I’ve recently more keenly appreciated how Babson’s education fosters entrepreneurialism — regardless of if you decide to take specific classes in the entrepreneurship academic division or not.
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This week I spoke with Lucas Martinez. Lucas first used Pinyadda in it’s early stages in the summer of 2009, and has since watched the platform and user base develop. He now uses the site just about every day. I really enjoyed chatting with Lucas about how Pinyadda fits into his life because he explains it as having truly transformed how he finds and receives information. That’s mission accomplished for us here at Pinyadda.
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John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, once stated that, “Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds.” After Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent comments about the death of privacy, one has to wonder whether Barlow’s statement may be more relevant to the times if phrased: “Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking Facebook to respect the private information of its users.”
While there are plenty of smart people arguing the pros and cons of the effects of Facebook’s new privacy changes and Google Buzz’s auto-following model on users’ private information online, I am more interested in the business implications of these developments. The industry powers like Facebook and Google seem to be in a mad dash to make more information public; however, I wonder if this push for extended network connectivity is smart for all networks.
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Every time I read about or return to