What should ITU do?

Posted on May 12, 2012 by admin

According to a memo circulated by the U.S. government, the ITU negotations in Dubai in December 2012 will not be a “Battle for the Internet”. That’s the kind of copy Vanity Fair introduces in an article. If you would believe the talk of the town and the U.S. memo this is not really the case. China and Russia may well take over the ITU, even though Mr Hamadoun Touré is a versatile secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, but the ITU as such may not now turn into a new ICANN. If you believe it, which I currently do. Having said this, one interesting question is – what should ITU do, if it would become the international government of the Internet?

I think the main thing is to appreciate that we have no idea what the Internet is yet. Any regulation will therefore need to be revised very often, probably several times per year. Unless, of course, innovation is to be stifled, which probably some would think is quite a good thing.

The Internet is still an A-ford

In my opinion it is too early to regulate the Internet. I have championed this opinion in public since 2001, but I still think the same. Back then it was ICANN that was controversial (well, still is!). Today it is the ITU.

In an editorial published on Vison’s website on June 7, 2001, Pontus Forsström (now married and named Pontus Schultz) claimed that it is important to put the power stamp on ICANN, “and thus force the organisation to play according to the democratic rules of the game”.

Sweden’s former Prime Minister Carl Bildt (currently foreign minister of Sweden, but we are not a banana republic, promise!) was the Chairperson for ICANN’s At Large Study Committee, whose mandate it was to investigate the democratisation of ICANN. The ICANN organisation is in itself controversial, but it is ICANN’s intention to act as a technical coordinator for the Internet.

In his editorial, Pontus Schultz states that “Carl Bildt’s group, which is presenting a proposal this autumn, plays a key role in that development (of making ICANN play accoring to the democratic rules of the game). The question as to how ICANN’s Board of Directors is choosen is crucial for the credibility of the organisation. A global democratic procedure is an enormous challenge”.

Bildt commented on his own job in one of his weeekly letters of the second week in June, 2001. After the usual international digressions (with Saudi Arabi and Sudan now having replaced the Balkans), he offers interesting thoughts around the future and claims that there are two solutions to “the problem”:
“One is to introduce some kind of global Internet democracy where one e-mail address equals one voice. The other one is to set up a system whereby the more technical side of self-regulation that has dominated Internet since its childhood, is refined.”

In retrospect, I  would like to ask which problems ICANN will solve. Only when this question is answered will it be useful to address how its members are to be chosen. That in itself is an immensely difficult question – just compare it with the United Nations (UN). But it is important to define the game-plan of the organisation. This was never done when ICANN was formed from the work with The International Forum on the White Paper (“IFWP”). The engine of a speeding train was simply exchanged. No one asked where the rails were leading to. The importance was that the responsibility of the now deceased Jon Postel’s IANA, could quickly be transferred. Postel’s terminal illness was lurking like a Salieri in Forman’s drama waiting to harvest the genius’ soul, though no one said so aloud.

The main question of the ICANN has been the new top level domains and the distribution of national top level domains. IANA should ,according to Postel’s vision expressed in RFC 1591, stay away from politics. Postel’s insight is clear in the conclusive sentence: “The IANA is not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country.”

ICANN is today nothing but politics. International politics. The successfull and international renowned (and rightly so!) peace coordinator from Bosnia has been called upon to investigate. Postel’s visions were buried with its author. It is my opinion that it is time to honour Jon Postel by going back to his original ideas and to avoid top-level politics, which Pontus Schultz would like to see come to fruition back in 2001.

The question is whether the Internet should be globally regulated to an extent going beyond the distribution of domain names and, if so, who is to do it?

Lawrence Lessig, professor at Stanford Law School, often states in a well-articulated manner that it is the program code itself that defines Internet’s legal landscape – “code is law”. The program code must therefore be controlled somehow. Lessig’s answer is often “free software” or “open source”, as well as some kind of government regulation. Like the undersigned, Lessig views ICANN’s role as very limited: “Its job is not to become the trademark police; it is not to be the tool of intellectual property; its job is not to set policy for the Internet generally (beyond defending the decentralized architecture of the original Net); nor to create artifical scarcity, or choke points of power. ICANN cannot be permitted to claim a mandate beyond the narrow tasks described in its charter.”

David Post, Associate Professor of Law at the American Temple University School of Law sees Internet more a physical space in a legal sense (“Cyberspace”), which can demand its own regulation separate from that of nation states, governed by the market and preferably by laissez-faire. As far as I am concerned, Internet is already regulated by national legislation. This is because the Internet, as opposed to Post’s claim, is not an isolated phenomenon but part of society with many of its principles having been established in early Rome. A succesful regulation of Internet is, in Post’s world, a lack of regulation. Post’s position is quite libertarian, but if one looks closer at his argumentation, it becomes clear that Post’s position is close to that of Lessig’s. The key difference between them is their view of just how much the nation state should participate in the regulation of the Internet. Lessig has a more positive view of state intervention than Post.

“Internet needs to be thoroughly regulated”, said Björn Rosengren, Minister for Industry, Employment and Communications, to the Swedish Central News Agency in connection with a talk under the Inet 2001.

“But it is a difficult balance when it comes to having both a powerful set of rules and flexibility to enable the Internet to develop in different ways”, he continued. Exactly how Rosengren imagines the Internet be regulated and in which aspects is thus not clear. It is obvious that he has thought of doing something about “the problem”. “Thoroughly”. This was in 2001. Perhaps now he has thought about this thoroughly, but I will not be mean enough to actually ask him.

The Swedish legal visionary Nicklas Lundblad writes in his book Teknotropier about the regulation of the Internet. Lundblad soberly pointed out that laws that are not followed lose their legitimacy, and he mentions the Personal Data Act as an example. Lundblad also sees a need, for example, of reforming the copyright after Napster. I believe it is hard at this point to draw a far-reaching practical solution of peer-to-peer technology, but Lundblad’s reasoning is interesting since it highlights the problem with Internet regulation. This technology is still very young and things are constantly taking place affecting the use and the view of Internet.

It would have been difficult to develop contemporary traffic regulations when Henry Ford realized his first attempt at mass producing a car of a standard model that could be sold at a low price to the general public. The first model. introduced in 1903, was called an A-ford, the second one B, the third C, and so on.

Pontus Forsström, Carl Bildt, Björn Rosengren and others were back in 2001 trying to create a regulatory framework for the Internet when the nature of the beast is still quite unknown.

In 2001, you knew nothing of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinetrest, Tumblr, Bambuser and so forth. Also, The Pirate Bay was not around. What would the Internet have looked like if we regulated it in 2001? Most probably it would have been different. Perhaps not for the bad. We will never know.

Only when the Internet is at the stage of Henry Ford’s T-ford will it be useful to discuss whether we should have left or right hand traffic on the Net. We are still far from the Internet’s equivalent to the airbag. Internet is not even ready for the introduction of traffic lights.

It is primarily for this reason that I think one must be careful with regulating the Internet. At least until we know what the problem that needs to be solved is. Perhaps we can find a few ground rules for which we can find a standard, like the right to Internet access, the right to link, the right to opinions on the Internet, and the right to use Internet anonymously. Such regulation could be established both by business agreements and by international treaties and national legislation. A more sophisticated or detailed regulation is out of the question as far as I am concerned. It is too early, whether one is Post, Lessig or Rosengren.

ICANN may survive. In any event, I do not see ICANN or its substitute as anything else but a distributor of new top level domains. I agree with Lessig that ICANN lacks authority. It should not be changed. The ITU has no business in moving into becoming a government for the Internet, and hopefully the U.S. government is correct in that this is not happening, at least not now. It has the same lack of authority as ICANN. Most importantly, any regulation of the Internet will be flawed, due to the rapid change of it. Of course, thay may in itself not be an argument for not regulating it to some people, but any regulation may stifle innovation and therefore I think one should obtain a pragmatic perspective and keep it as in (unregulated on a global scale, more or less, with some local variations for specific uses, like copyright).

The Internet is still an A-ford. It was in 2001 and it still is in 2012. We must come to terms with this. The regulation of Internet must be given time. If there is a power-grab for the ITU, so be it, but please do leave the Internet alone. The Internet is like Kevin in the movie Home Alone. It can take care of itself.

Mikael Pawlo

Posted in Freedom, Internet, Philosophy, Policy, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

(Sw) Köpa svenskt?

Posted on May 12, 2012 by admin

På en mailinglista (jo, de finns fortfarande) som jag deltar har under någon vecka debatterats huruvida man skall köpa svenskt eller inte. I det här fallet handlar det mycket om att köpa svenska IT-lösningar, men resonemangen kan tillämpas på alla produkter. Jag har själv postat ett inlägg i tråden som jag kommer återge här, dock rensat för de delar som hänvisar till personer eller inlägg i tråden, då jag tycker det bör hållas inom listan (PPlist). Här är sålunda inlägget, lätt redigerat. Skall man köpa svenskt?

Jag tycker huvudfrågan är huruvida man vill leva efter en deontolgisk etik eller inte (eller
pliktetik). Det är alltså frågan om man vill bedöma sina handlingar efter vissa på förhand bestämda regler (“köp svenskt“) eller utifrån handlingens konsekvenser. Kan en maxim som “köp svenskt” vara en maxim? I sådana fall bör den ju den alltid gälla oavsett konsekvenserna. En slags utilitarismens motsats.

Det betyder sålunda att du skall köpa svenskt även om det leder till att ditt företag får sämre internationell konkurrenskraft och till och med går i konkurs.

Jag har svårt att tänka mig att det är detta som NN föreslår. Istället verkar det snarare vara så att NN anser att man skall köpa svenskt “när det går“, vilket i slutändan trots allt är ett utilitaristiskt argument. Det går dock att föra in slamkryparen “rättvisa” i detta sammanhang och kanske anser NN att det är “rättvist” att fördela sina resurser på sådant sätt att närområdet (låt oss slippa att definera detta som en nationalstat) får fördelar framför ett område på längre avstånd och sålunda att det skulle vara “orättvist” att inte “köpa svenskt” när tillfälle bjuds. Det möjligen fortsatt baserat på en känsla av plikt (ge
tillbaka till de som gett möjligheten), men inte som ett axiom.

Jag skulle dock vilja säga att detta på etisk grund känns väldigt tveksamt. Är det moraliskt försvarbart att välja ett mindre effektivt alternativ på basen att det höjer ens egen redan höga levnadsstandard? Vore det då inte betydligt mer moraliskt försvarbart att välja det mest effektiva alternativet (“köp inte svenskt“) för att sedan skänka överflödet som skapas till de sämst bemedlade (i det egna samhället eller annorstädes)?

Personligen funderar jag givetvis aldrig i några av dessa banor utan försöker mest dra in nya och gamla användare .-)

Mikael Pawlo

 

Posted in In Swedish, Philosophy, Policy | Leave a comment

How many hours?

Posted on March 21, 2012 by admin

So just how many hours working is the right amount? We’ve been shooting the question around at Twitter. “We” in this case are Mikael Pawlo, Tom Peters, Peter Sandberg, Petter Weiderholm and Per Håkansson. Mr Peters has argued a strong case that in 2012 don’t “expect professional survival w/o extreme effort.” How many hours?

It all started with an article (I have already lost the link!) submitted by Peter Sandberg, arguing (among other things) basically that the Tom Peters way of adding hours to the workday was counterproductive. I did not agree that this was what meant in “Excellence” by Peters but I was clearly wrong. Peters made a strong case that hours matter and wrote: “You jest?. At age 69, I’ve cut back to about 12 hours per day–16 for last couple days before a speech.”

Per Håkansson did not agree at all and argued: “Measuring work in hours is soon going to be obsolete“. He also followed-up with a blog-post on work named “the beginning of a new humanity“.

In my opinion there are no exact answers, because it is all individual. The problem is that not all individuals may choose for themselves. Some may be productive 40 hours per week, because of their line of work or because of their vast intellect. Others may be productive 2 hours per week. On of them may be a factory worker at Ford, the other Albert Einstein. The only thing I feel quite sure of is the need to unwind and relax. Working too long hours seem to affect the judgment a lot. There is quite some extensive research on this. Creativity seems also to be worsened, even though I have not encountered as much research in that field.

Therefore, taking a sabbatical, a weekend without email or even a walk during office hours may be the best decision you can make. Before you go back to working those 80 hours week needed for your profession .-)

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a few of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Health, Motivation | Leave a comment

Kazaa Carried Malware

Posted on March 21, 2012 by admin

[UPDATE 2012-03-21] Mr Staffan Malmgren wrote me at Twitter that it is harsh to put Mr Zennström to blame for something that happened after Kazaa was sold to Sharman. That may well be true, but even if that sale was at arms length, I do not really know. At the time, I remember this being looked upon merely as a construction, but perhaps Mr Zennström had very little to do with it. I would still enjoy the fireside conversation mentioned below .-)

These days it is very popular in Swedish mainstream media to hail Swedish born entrepreneur Niklas Zennström. I have too. After all, this is the guy who not only co-founded Skype but also sold it – twice! He is also a multi-billionnaire, so what could he do wrong. Well, one thing that keeps nagging me a bit. Kazaa, his first filesharing brainchild, was shipped with malware.

There is no reason for bringing this up now. Nothing happened. I hold no grudge against Niklas Zennström. I met him many years ago, at the time a quite shy (or maybe not, but he had his reasons back then, Kazaa was not popular in some circles) but very brilliant man. I liked him. I might even have to go to him and his Atomico to look for money sometime in the distant future, but then there is this thing with the malware being shipped with Kazaa. That was not good. It was bad practice, even for a program designed to share copyrighted files. Napster did not have this “feature”.

In another note, it is interesting to see that both Napster-backer Sean Parker and Niklas Zennström became ridiculously rich. And then the music industry claims you can not make money on the Internet .-)

It is just that little thing with the malware that makes the joke somewhat garble and not really exiting my throat, like a cat’s fur ball, you need to cough it up. In some parallel universe I would like to discuss that with Mr Zennström at a fireside chat. Not that it is very likely to happen. But then I would ask him: was it good business practice (might seem like an odd question thinking about the overall business model, but there is honor among copyright thieves too), does he regret it, would he do it again and most crucial – was it necessary to succeed with the business case? Since everyone involved is very reluctant to talk about any of this or even Kazaa as such, it will not happen, but admit it would be an interesting conversation.

Oh well…

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a few of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Dotcom, Entrepreneurship | Leave a comment

No, not all content will be behind paywalls…

Posted on March 21, 2012 by admin

A tweet caught my eye. I almost missed it. There has been some conference in Sweden today, where two leading publishers of printed (naturally) papers have claimed that everyone (!) on the Internet will put their content behind paywalls. Wow, they had a time machine at that conference!

I have heard this argument since 1996. Now, there are technical systems to back up the vision, that was not really the case back in 1996, but still – is there a market for it? There are some nice examples of course: Financial Times, New York Times, The Economist all have nice paying audiences behind a paywall. But small Swedish papers – may they compare themselves to these giants? I think not – for a very easy reason. Their content is usually lacking two things: uniqueness and high barrier to produce. A small aspiring blogger could set up a local blog that may be enough interesting to read to attract enough readers to in turn attract advertisers and henceforth be able to live outside the payment ecosystem. The same goes of course for global content or national content.

Having said that, there is a problem that needs to be solved in terms of journalism. I don’t think we want to have too much influence of amateur journalists. With “we” I mean society at large. And writing that I realize I can’t. Who am I to pass judgement over society at large. Perhaps society at large is perfectly happy with the amateur bloggers of today turning into the professional ones of tomorrow. To some extent this has already happened. And as a result, fewer and fewer will submit behind the paid walls.

In any case – be prepared for an ever more complicated world, where nothing is black and white between publishers, amateurs and professionals.

The audience will just keep on cheering and sharing.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a few of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Compensation, Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Freedom, Innovation, Internet | Leave a comment

Yahoo! and patents

Posted on March 21, 2012 by admin

It was sad to read about Yahoo!’s patent litigation against Facebook. Not because it happened during Facebook’s sensitive silent period just before the IPO and Facebook most likely would have to settle. No, because this was one of my old Internet heroes turning out to be a troll.

I am not going to go all juvenile here, but David Filo and Jerry Yang, what they did with Yahoo! back in 1994 was nothing short of amazing. How they transferred an index into a dominate tour de force on the web and a technological powerhouse – that was inspiring. Yahoo! was a very cool cat on the block around that time. Then came Google, Facebook and downfall. But still, Yahoo! is a huge source of traffic and does carry some substantial revenues and holdings. One of those holdings, however, is a patent portfolio. And this is now used as leverage against Facebook.

It is sad to see one of my former heroes turn into this kind of cheap tactics. The patent system was meant to stimulate innovation, not stifle it. Filo and Yang knew that. However is running Yahoo! now is not longer about innovation, but rather survival and business. That will kill the company, one of the most soulful companies in the web’s history so far. For that, I am sorry. I am also sorry I never worked for Yahoo between 1994 and 2000. That must have been quite a rid.

But all those moments are gone now. Like tears. In the rain.

So long, and thanks for all the links!

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a few of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Inventions, Money, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Ted Valentin’s Trip Birds has got funding

Posted on March 20, 2012 by admin

Suddenly my Twitter feed was full of it. Ted Valentin‘s Trip Birds has got funding. It is in beta. The pads on the back and high-fives flew around like birds in a Hitchcock movie. But why?

Why are we – and by we I am basically talking about the usual suspects in the entrepreneurial posse of which I am at best, a hang-around – so obsessed with funding? Funding is just one step to getting into a real company. As important is your team, getting your code base in order, buying your first server, getting your first paying customer. The last thing is the most important thing. But that very rarely leads to Twitter frenzy. I think that this is wrong. Techcrunch and its likes focus a lot on the funding and the sexiness of it all, but very rarely on the actual business. But it is the business that matters. Even after reading a vast amount of tweets on Mr Valentin’s recent business venture, I still have no clue what it is or if it is something for me. I just know that Mr Valentin deserves our pad on his back for receiving funding. Still, I was around in 1996. And 2000.

I know Mr Ted Valentin as a seasoned entrepreneur in Sweden, despite his young years, why I believe he might well be successful. However, I will wait in cheering him on like he just made a million dollars until the business actually takes off. We would probably be better of if we did that for every funding. Mr Valentin did reach a milestone further than funding, he has a public beta out, and *that* does earn some respect, but still I see this phenomenon all over the place. Just now Tripbirds happened to trigger my reaction.

Celebrating funding like it’s an exit. Too dot com:ish for my taste.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a few of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Internet, Venture capital | Leave a comment

Netbobos – net bourgeois bohemians

Posted on March 10, 2012 by admin

Nothing happened.

Here is a short fuzzy insight (previously posted in Swedish “nätbobos” (nätbohemer)). During the last part of year 2000 the bourgeois have been the rulers of the Internet. The thing counting has been entrepreneurship and measurable, tangible results. Lutheran, useful Internet work have resulted in high status. Success has been measured in number of friends on Facebook, number of followers at Twitter or straightforward in cash. Now you might ask yourself: how do you otherwise measure success? Well, what happens if you do not measure it at all or do not participate in the “competition”?

I think we are starting to see the rise of something new, a sort of new class of net bohemians, who does not regard it as important to take pictures of magazines and comment them on Facebook or to post pictures on Twitter of their mac and cheese dinner.

This must be as provoking as when the classical bohemians, such as Man Ray, laid down and drank the sun an afternoon instead of making his way on the career ladder. I don’t think the net bohemian will take it as far as in Thackeray‘s book, but from an Internet perspective it will be like that.

As none of myself, my friends Niklas Derouche and Patrik Wallström posts pictures of our kittens or children on Facebook -that is just the start. I believe we will see a counterculture this decade, not against Facebook, but rather against the “connected and transparent”. Against kittens and rascals whose snot or pee boxes you could not care less for anyway.

To the vast number, that will continue to like Milan’s logotype or tweet the same Kony 2012 link as 4711 others or give a live Twitter review of the latest X-factor show (and then criticize people for wasting their time watching the Academy Awards) this trend will not show. There are so many others posting in their feed.

Moreover, I think the netbohemians will make as little or much money as the classical net bourgeois. But they will lead a different Internet life. Even this will pass without anyone noticing. It might even be that the bohemian Internet lifestyle spreads to a real bohemian life where the career ladder is less important to the individual than it has been the last ten years. Whereas a potent cultural producer – think: writer (yes, these bohemian tweeps still read books, even if it is at a Kindle Fire) – may be more valued than any Mark Zuckerberg type.

I think that this will happen. And it will mean nothing.

Or maybe we are just what David Brooks once wrote: bourgeois bohemians.

Bobos. Netbobos.

How will you recognize a net bohemian? He usually uses his umbrella when it starts to rain…

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

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Thanks Andreas Ehn for saving .se

Posted on March 10, 2012 by admin

There is hope for Sweden as a nation. The current entrepreneurial stars will save it, but perhaps not in the fashion you gather. I did some contemplating yesterday evening. It ended up in a vast amount of rapid tweets on Twitter. Here I try to better summarize and develop my thoughts. Why Andreas Ehn will save Sweden.

Thanks to the example set by successful entrepreneurial media darlings like Andreas Ehn (Wrapp, Spotify), Mattias Miksche (Stardoll, Boxman (Lovefilm), E-trade), Markus Persson (Mojang, Minecraft, Scrolls), Alexander Ljung (Soundcloud), Måns Adler (Bambuser) and Daniel Ek (Spotify) the generation growing up in Sweden today will know that there are opportunities to build huge IT companies. They will understand that there is an alternative to a traditional career. They might even prefer it.

Back in 2000, “my” generation was taught the same lesson by entrepreneurs like Johan Stael von Holstein, Johan Ihrfeldt, Jonas Birgersson and Ola Ahlvarsson. Unfortunately, most businesses back in the year 2000 dotcom years were crap and also a joke of entrepreneurship and business acumen, but some continued to build nice things. The important lesson, however, was that entrepreneurship is possible.
Of course, most entrepreneurs will ultimately “fail” (whatever that means) but some will not. Those will save the .se nation and build the companies of tomorrow and inspire the younger generation to build their companies of tomorrow.

Moreover, having seasoned entrepreneurs will help the younger fresh ones with know-how, cunning and importantly – cash. Eventually, .se will end up with a tech entrepreneurship eco system not very unlike the one in amazing IT tech hub Israel. No thanks to the politicians of course (unlike Israel). The tech hub will happen in Stockholm and Malmö to begin with, but I guess Linköping, Lund, Umeå and Luleå should not be far behind. In these hubs you will have access to vast networking opportunities, a lot of fresh business ideas, knowledge, cash and the entire ecosystem of developers, businessmen, venture capitalists, marketers, suppliers of all sort of things, cheap offices and everything else you need to start out your own venture.

Furthermore, it is important that the .se society (meaning you and me) don’t hunt down our young IT rock stars with taxes and media witch hunts. Politicians might – together with the tax authorities – want to put levies on the success, but I tell you this – you need this success much more than the tax money for today. The society at large might – with the assistance of the media – want a witch hunt for these media darlings in the name of the principle “what we build, we also break”. Both these things will happen, no question about it, but I hope the entrepreneurial stars stay in the game and fight whatever nastiness we put in their way. But that is another story.

For now, thank you Andreas Ehn for setting an example. You will save us all.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Current affairs, Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Motivation | 1 Comment

Nätbobos

Posted on February 29, 2012 by admin

Ingenting har hänt.

Här kommer en liten flummig spaning. Under 2000-talets senare del har nätets
borgare varit allenahärskande. Det som har gällt har varit entreprenörskap
och rediga resultat. Luteranskt, nyttigt internetarbete har setts med hög
status. Framgång har mätts i antal vänner på Facebook, antal followers på
Twitter eller i rena pengar. Nu kanske ni undrar – hur skall man annars mäta
framgång? Ja, vad händer om man inte mäter den alls eller inte deltar i
tävlingen?

Jag tror att vi börjar se börjar på någonting nytt, nämligen en slags
samhällsklass nätbohemer, som inte tycker det är viktigt att fota löpsedlar
som Hörnfeldt och lägga ut kommentarer på Facebook eller att posta sina
makaroner som Roger Åberg. Detta måste vara lika provocerande som när de
klassiska bohemerna, såsom Man Ray, lade sig och lapade sol en eftermiddag
istället för att göra karriär. Jag tror kanske inte att nätbohemen tar det
lika långt som i Thackerays bok, men nätmässigt så kommer det definitivt
vara så.

Det här med att varken jag, Niklas Derouche eller Patrik Wallström nu postar
bilder på våra kattungar eller barn på Facebook – det är bara början. Jag
tror vi kommer se en motreaktion detta årtionde, inte mot Facebook, utan mot
“det uppkopplade och transparenta”. Mot bilder på kattungar och ungjävlar
vars snor eller lådor du ändå inte har för avsikt att någonsin torka eller
tömma.

För det stora flertalet som kommer fortsätta like:a AIK-märken eller twittra
ut samma länk som 4711 andra människor eller likt Gunnar Årneby recensera
Melodifestivalen i realtid (och i nästa mening beklaga sig över att folk
slösar sin tid på att titta på Oscars-galan) kommer denna lilla trend inte
märkas av. Det är ju så många andra som postar i flödet.

Dessutom tror jag att nätbohemerna kan komma att tjäna lika lite eller
mycket pengar som de klassiska nätborgarna. Men de kommer leva ett något
annorlunda nätliv. Även detta kommer att passera obemärkt. Det kan till och
med vara så att bohemskapet sprider sig till ett äkta bohemliv där även
karriärstegen är mindre avgörande för individen än den varit de senaste tio
åren. Där en duktig kulturskapare – tänk: författare (jo, dessa människor
läser fortfarande böcker, även om det är på en Kindle Fire) – kan vara mer
värd för en nätbohem än Mark Zuckerberg.

Men jag tror ändå att det kommer att hända. Och det betyder ingenting.

Eller också är vi bara som David Brooks en gång skrev: bourgeois bohemians.

Bobos. Nätbobos.

Hur du känner igen en nätbohem? Han brukar fälla upp sitt paraply när det ser ut att börja regna.

Mikael – @mpawlo ibland .-)
I original postad på PPlist. Upplagd på begäran av Joakim Jardenberg, en sann nätborgare .-)

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

10 Ways to Reach 100k followers

Posted on July 19, 2011 by admin

As you might have read before I am concerned over the ROI of Twitter activity. My frustration over this resulted in a tweet where I said I would leave Twitter if I had not reached 100k followers by December 31, 2011. A bit over the top, of course. After all, on my father’s side my family where actors and performers, so sometimes I have a flair for drama. But still, how should one do to reach 100k followers? I am thinking strategy and tactics here, out loud. So here it is – a blueprint of how to reach 100k users in less than six months.

My twitter account is: @mpawlo. I have about 1400 followers writing this. Getting a 100k followers means I need to increase that figure about 70 times, should my maths be somewhat accurate. Why would 100k people follow me on Twitter? I am a nobody, really. Yes, but if I had 100k followers I would care a lot about Twitter and I could achieve great things for my business and ventures I haven’t even started launching yet. It would be like having my own media channel. So the ROI is definitely there. And if @chrispirillo could do it, so should I.

Ten tactics to increase followers:

0. Do not mix languages. Whenever I tweet in Swedish I tend to lose a few followers. If I should reach a 100k followers I must tweet in English.

1. Do not tweet too much about yourself. Even though tweeting about yourself is what most do and what the social media consultants recommend, people that you do not know, don’t care about what you’re eating or drinking. Transparency sucks when it comes to collecting followers, and that’s our goal, remember?

2. Typically, writing about social media in social media gives you a lot of followers and RTs. So that should be a start. I need to write more tweets about Google+, Facebook, Twitter etc.

3. Measure everything. When tweeting, see what subjects give RTs and more followers. Keep those subjects up, chuck the rest.

4. Debate with the hard hitters. Whenever you have an opportunity to discuss something with @aplusk or even @chrispirillo – do. You might lure over some of their fans.

5. Always join the popular, trending hashtags. Even if it is about soccer or Paris Hilton. I am not sure how to combine this with 2 or 1. Spam them with obvious comments.

6. Keep it local. Local gives more followers in that respective locality. But of course this does not at all ring well with the global aspirations of 100k followers. If you write to much about #Malta for example, people in #UK will get fed up with you.

7. Be very funny and creative, which will be very hard to combine with 2, since social media is not very funny. Just check your average social media consultant – how funny are they?

8. Don’t aspire to be an intellectual. Checking the followers of the intellectuals, they have very few followers. Pop culture counts. Discuss how Alexander Skarsgard is doing in True Blood or if Justin Bieber is coming to this and that venue. All your followers be less than 20 (okay, make that 40 and female) years old, but they will at least be there.

9. Be aggressive. Everyone wants to follow an aggressive type. They won’t like you, but they will be shocked and awed. #tigerblood #ftw!

So okay, perhaps I don’t want to be that 100k followers character after all. I just don’t want to be that guy. 1400 might be just fine. But I might leave Twitter by Christmas anyway, since the ROI for procrastinating posts like this one will not do me any good .-)

All the best,

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Current affairs, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Followers vs Lists on Twitter

Posted on July 11, 2011 by admin
Twitter handle Followers July 11, 2011 Listed Ratio Listed vs realtime /Whois?
@MADconsulting 12783 499 4% MEDIUM Management consultant
@briansolis 97280 12205 13% HIGH Social media expert
@tom_peters 39709 3087 8% MEDIUM Management guru (no 1)
@nikkelin 3899 262 7% MEDIUM Search consultant
@mpawlo 1457 60 4% LOW Wannabe Entrepreneur
@eldsjal 7465 514 7% MEDIUM Entrepreneur (the real deal)
@joakimnilsson 1183 42 4% LOW Social media expert
@SpeakerBoehner 168017 6369 4% LOW Speaker of the house U.S.
@davewiner 39456 4044 10% HIGH Blogging guru
@realDonaldTrump 625838 8911 1% VERY LOW Hey, it’s Donald Trump
@martinvars 36805 2183 6% MEDIUM Entrepreneur (big time!)
@JPBarlow 25652 1932 8% MEDIUM Internet legend (and dead head!)
@ariannahuff 676992 15170 2% VERY LOW Entrepreneur
@benparr 28509 3647 13% HIGH Mashable editor
@dangillmor 15688 1826 12% HIGH Internet legend
@SteveCase 426411 5308 1% VERY LOW Co-founder of AOL
@marissamayer 101576 6311 6% MEDIUM Google geek girl
@doctorow 161924 7811 5% MEDIUM SF writer, Boing Boing fame
@google 3310325 65033 2% VERY LOW It’s Google!
@alaindebotton 116033 4513 4% LOW Writer, read him!
@dens 32582 2590 8% MEDIUM Entrepreneur (@4sq)
@hollymadison 843635 8850 1% VERY LOW Smart blonde
@MarthaStewart 2296482 19459 1% VERY LOW Jailbird
Average 394335 7853 6%

So, I sent social media expert @briansolis a question over Twitter as to if there are some numbers and functions explaining the relationship between followers and lists on Twitter. The list is more permanent than the tweet and a way to follow people in other ways than your timeline, perhaps by subject or importance. Hence, lists could be deemed to be more important than followers. However, is there such a relationship in practice? Brian Solis is a bright man, so he had thought about influence over Twitter. Of course he had. But he did not address the issue in numbers. I wanted to explore this, so I have been playing around a bit.

The result is posted above. The relationship is quite clear. When you have around 1000-10000 followers you will have a relationship between 4-8 per cent between followers and lists. Meaning that 1000 followers generate for example 40 listings. If you are a hard hitter like @nikkelin you will end up in the higher part of the array (7%). If you are a Twitter outcast like myself, you will end up in the lower (4%).

However, when you raise in followers over 10 000 followers, you will for a time also increase in list-relations, if you are a hard hitter. People like @tom_peters (39709) ends up in a relationship of 8 per cent. Entrepreneur @martinvars is a great guy but not as famous, but still gets 6% in this relationship.

Finally, the really interesting thing that happens is when you move up the ladder a lot. People may not want to disclose that they follow smart blonde @hollymadison (2296482) which might explain her 1% ratio, the same could be said of the obnoxious @realDonaldTrump (625838) at 1% but @google (3310325) on the other hand. People would not be ashamed of following Google, what it says is often important, still they end up with a ratio of 2%. Just 1 more percentage unit than the haircut that wanted to run for president.

So what to make of this? Well, actually that the ratio between followers and lists don’t matter much. Google is on 65033 lists. That is a lot and the company has a lot of klout in Twitterspace. Still the ratio is not explainable. Why would not more put Google on their lists?

I think the answer is outside of the numbers, but I can not prove this. My guess is that the explanation is that people don’t know about lists. Hence, the hard hitters are followed, but enough users don’t know how to make lists (it’s easy, useful and fun, but someone else will tell you how to do it, use Google). That might also be the explanation why the super-hard hitters like Brian Solis gets such a high ratio, even though they have a lot of followers. His readers know about lists. Speaker Boehner’s followers don’t.

Ok, enough procrastination for one night. Back to writing my revised business plan. Have fun, kids!

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Internet, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Hiatus – the offline bucket list challenge

Posted on June 20, 2011 by admin

I will enter a hiatus from my very connected life for a while. I am not sure for how long, since I will base it on some milestones. From a psychological point of view you should never beforehand tell what you are going to do, since your motivation will decrease. Your brain will actually reward you for just telling about a good deed before doing it. But I will take my chances. I live my life online. I really do. That’s why I think I should do an offline bucket list for the summer. Stuff I should do before going online again. So here it is – my offline bucket list. You should do one to!

Of course this offline talk is nonsense. I will be online. I am the managing director of an online company (Mr Green) for crying out loud and I manage a major mailing list (PPlist). So – I will be online, at least the entire summer, but I might possibly be a few weeks offline in August, when I have some planned vacation. But I am talking about the non-necessary online time, which takes up a lot of my spare time. Tweeting, blogging, surfing (not waves!), stuff like that. Before I go back to that lifestream mode, I should do these things. I will print this list and try to check the boxes. However, I will not post my progresses online, neither code a bucket list app for it (but someone should – that’s actually a fab idea!). Noteworthy is that none of these things cost any money, unless you equal time with money, which I incidentally usually do… Most of the things on this list, I haven’t done for 20 years or more. That is sad and the Zen master would not approve. I am a serious net addict and I fail to do stuff that matters to me in real life. Sounds extreme? This is of course a way of kidnapping myself into a more proper and useful behavior. Letting you know is adding some social control to this spicy soup .-)
Time to get a grip!

The offline bucket list

0. Sleep in.
1. Feel the grass between my toes for more than fifteen minutes without doing anything else.
2. Feel the wind in face.
3. Just lay on my back in the sea for thirty minutes or more.
4. Have a cup of camomille tea by myself letting my mind wander.
5. Read a book without checking reviews or tweeting about it.
6. Look at the ocean without ever checking the watch.
7. Have a walk without goal or direction.
8. Smell the ocean, trees, grass. Walk into a flower shop and smell the roses without buying any.
9. Read and recite poetry (preferably Nils Ferlin).
10. Get lost in a major city. (If I would not leave Malta, perhaps this needs to be a smaller city)
11. Take a walk in the woods. (Very though in Malta, but perhaps the countryside will have to do.)
12. Climb something high.
14. Ride a bike.
15. Prepare a meal for more than 24 hours. (My personal favorite!!! Never did this, though I love to cook.)
16. Sing a song, louder than better (sober).
17. Stretch the body for 45 minutes or more.
18. Master my forehand (okay, you need a tennis racket to do this, but perhaps you can borrow one – however you do not need any tennis balls).
19. Solve some very complicated mathematical puzzle (I just to love to do that, but today the most complicated maths I do is addition and subtraction).
20. Eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation.
21. Think about my personal future for more than ten minutes and with a scope ranging for more than 10 years.
22. Write ten friends a letter. Not an email. A letter.

Well, that’s enough a challenge to get started methinks. To most of you this is a completely ridiculous list. To me, it’s a challenge. But I am going to take it. Let’s hope you don’t see me tweeting for a while.
Have a nice summer and why don’t you too take the offline bucket list challenge!

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Motivation | Leave a comment

Twitter, focus and ROI

Posted on June 14, 2011 by admin

If you regard Twitter as more than an amusement, something you can benefit from professionally, then what’s the ROI on Twitter? If the benefits exceed the costs, you should tweet, professionally and not just for fun. If not – you should not. So what’s the business case here?

Benefits from tweeting

As an entrepreneur, what are the real benefits from Twitter and tweeting? I have been trying to put some of them done, this is not a conclusive list, just some assorted thoughts to get going. Please comment with more input, should you have it. You might also not agree with my conclusions or my simple analysis, then please provide your rebuttal.

Tweet to get feedback on your ideas. Well, most tweets are not responded to and you would need at least 5-10000 followers to get enough feedback for it to be worthwhile. Otherwise – why not just send an email to your closest friends?

Tweet to market yourself or your services. If you market a business to consumer service all is in your figures. Can you get enough followers to make the effort worthwhile. Dell is said to have made loads of cash out of tweeting special offers. Still, getting attention is relatively easy, getting interest, decision and action on 140 characters – that’s tough. You might be better off running different tactics. Having said that, if you are a consultant, I think Twitter is crucial. As a consultant you will get higher paychecks as the followers rise in numbers, no matter what field you are in. You will simply be in more demand. Also, you will get more speaking opportunities. The same goes for journalists and bloggers seeking an audience.

Tweet to learn of trends. Well, Twitter really does that for you. However, you don’t have to tweet to follow, hence it is no case for tweeting.

Monitor what’s said about you or your company and react. Good thing, but still relatively small in comparison to Facebook and the other giants. Twitter is still not really mass media, but it will be. It might be smart to get into the game to learn, but not for immediate benefits when it comes to customer support and reputation management. Comcast is said to have made a turnaround in its reputation by being very good at this. Other companies would have benefit more from just keeping their Twitter mouths shut. So it depends. Still you can be more human. As a business, connecting with your customers can be hard. Through Twitter you can do it better. You may join the conversation.

Mingle. Well, really, do you get to know people you would not have elsewhere? To some extent: yes! I for one matter has tweeted on a regular basis with my old management guru Tom Peters (@tom_peters). Outside of Twitter I would pay EUR 15k or so just to have a coffee with him. Which I would not, by the way, why Twitter is amazing this way. However, Tom would not casually chat with anyone, I just happened to catch him while he was relatively new to Twitter. Steve Jobs never replies to my tweets, but then of course he is fake… Dennis Crowley ( @dens) of FourSquare, occasionally shoots a tweet, which is nice and would not happen outside of Twitter. More than that? Not many new friends, I am just namedropping here .-)
But the mingle factor is a good one – you can also keep up with the Joneses through Twitter. Keep your network alive. And that is good.

Costs of tweeting

Time, time and time. That’s it really.

But there is also another thing and that’s focus. The latter I tend to value more. Twitter tends to draw attention to short-span things and quick-wins rather than lengthy strategic thinking. If you are an entrepreneur, this is very dangerous. Furthermore, you need to be able to relax your brain to think clearly. That is a very major cost of tweeting.

Checks and balances

I think Twitter is a great tool to keep up with what’s going on, drinking from the fire hydrant to speak Slashdot. It is also a fantastic tool to keep the network up.
When it comes to its marketing power, I think it very much depends. It is evident you need to have a strategy as for any marketing channel. Twitter is not the new Facebook, as Facebook was never the new Internet, as Internet was not the new television. Twitter is Twitter and should be dealt with that way. Just another channel ,if a social one.

On average, Twitter is to me slightly not worthwhile. The reason is mainly the lack of focus Twitter fosters. I need to stay sharp and to the point to produce what I need to produce in a limited scope of time. Twitter could disrupt that focus easily, with a debate on stuff that really matters very little to either me or my business.

Hence, I will mostly treat Twitter as a fun social distraction rather than a business tool. And I will use it with caution. As it grows, it will become more powerful and then the ROI will be there and it is time for a change of strategy. Which of course could in itself be a case for spending more time there now. Or as Esther Dyson would put it: Always make new mistakes .-)

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Motivation | Leave a comment

Inbox zero is a sham

Posted on May 27, 2011 by admin

I get slightly annoyed when I see people on Twitter or in blogs or even in my own organization sending hallelujah messages stating their inbox is reduced to zero.

Why is inbox zero a state that people chase? The obvious answer is that it creates a feeling of fulfillment. However, the inbox zero is just a certain sign you probably did not prioritize in very good fashion.

Spending time sorting, replying and deleting emails is as useful to your corporation as tending your garden. Without the fresh air.

So you have an inbox in disarray? Who cares. Focus on your business, focus on your life.

Nothing exciting ever happened in a sorted mailbox anyway.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Motivation | 2 Comments

When to blog

Posted on May 26, 2011 by admin

So Keith Rabois thinks you should not blog if you’re an entrepreneur. Jordan Cooper thinks blogging might be good if you’re new to the scene. I think both of these smart guys are wrong.

Blogging, tweeting, facebooking or what ever is good if the benefits exceed the costs. It is not harder than that. To some, blogging or tweeting will be highly beneficial. They might even use the almost free blogging (time is also money, remember?) as their prime marketing tool. To others, blogging or tweeting might be a complete waste of time. They will get no traction, no money, no customers out of it. The latter should get out of the game quickly. The former should embrace it.

One problem is of course that we have both the gurus selling the gospel of web 2.0 and “social media will save you all”-mantras and the (often) old-school:ers stating that blogging is just a waste of time. They all seem so sure they are right. But as always, the only truth that matters is what works for you.

Everything else you might just disregard. You should not even read this, actually. Just focus on what works for you and never listen to anyone else who believes to know you – the entrepreneur – better…

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se (recent “not fantastic” exit in Piggelino). So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Bloggpost, Blogpost, Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Meta | Leave a comment

Net freedom revised

Posted on April 2, 2011 by admin

Some of you might have read my previous post on A Kyoto style protocol for net freedom. Following a very interesting dinner with some very smart people, I have received feedback and decided to update my post. Instead of five principles, I now only have two. The general idea in terms of process and moving forward is to start with these two general principles top-down and then drill-down to grassroots for ironing out the details. The idea commonly used on the Internet for decision-making, namely bottom-up will not work in this case in practice, because the principles will be caught up in the web of copyright, surveillance and other fine print that kills every debate on Internet policy.

The general ideas that I would maintain in such a Kyoto style protocol on Internet freedom are:

1. The freedom to access without prior censorship. This freedom is not affirmative action, namely it does not mean that the state should pay for your access or provide you with neither Internet nor computers. How you get online is your problem, but no one should stop you if you find the means to go online.

2. The non-censorship and discrimination of IP packets. What ever is sent in the network should be regarded simply as stupid data. What the IP packets contains should not be of the states’ or governments’ concern. If crimes are committed they should be dealt with at the start and ending nodes.

These two principles could form a foundation for a Kyoto style protocol for Internet freedom. The great advantage compared to Kyoto (which was never signed by some major states like the U.S.A.) is that these principles many governments could agree to. Furthermore, it is simple. The details and exceptions could be ironed out by the community at large and all stake-holders.

How to move this forward? I am not sure, but I will place this blog post on Twitter and we’ll see if it gets wings…

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: Peerialism, VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Freedom, Internet, Policy | Leave a comment

Embrace Naysayers

Posted on December 22, 2010 by admin

You have an employee to whom the glass is always half-empty? His or her attitude is at best downbeat? He or she can always find anything bad about every given situation. Annoying, I know, but don’t be put off. Embrace the naysayers.

The thing about naysayers is that they tend to drag morale down in the entire company. This project sucks, that management person is not good, our revenues are up today, but what about tomorrow? Your instant reaction would be to warn this person and over time get rid of him or her. I think that may be the wrong approach. Naysayers are actually an asset. You should not base the foundation of a company on naysayers. That is taking this a bit too far. Naysayers whom are not producing is of course a completely different story. Unproductive people should be regarded as such.

But naysayers have something different that you will benefit from: they will tell you as it is. They will actually provide management with information about real problems. If you just look beyond all the whining and complaining and downbeat attitude there are also facts in what they say. Not everything will be fact-based, naturally, but here you will find someone who will tell you that the glass is half-empty rather than “almost full” as some yeah-sayers would. You should interpret this as the glass is filled to the half with liquid and to the half with oxygen. But now you know, and you can act accordingly. Perhaps you need a refill.

The gathering the information about real problems could sometimes be very hard to management since most people want to be compliant and to embrace the vision and almost wish that everything is going well, rather than facing the truth. This is where the naysayers are useful.

Just don’t get too many of them.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Management, Motivation, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Don’t Listen to Famous People

Posted on December 14, 2010 by admin

If you are about to start your own business, launch your startup, changing strategies or even contemplate the course of your own course of life there is one thing you always should try to steer clear of: listening to famous people. The more followers someone has one Twitter, the less likely it is he or she has any earthly advice that will actually help you. Instead, try listening to your employees, your customers and perhaps the janitor no one ever speaks to. So if he smells, but at least his mind is not polluted with tweets.

Following the herd and its leaders rarely ends up in innovation. Famous people do have something. That’s why they are famous. They have some star quality. Perhaps they are beautiful. Perhaps they have done something great in the past. Perhaps they are great at oneliners and therefore get all the followers at Twitter. But can they really do anything for your business? Or your life? In practice?

The Swedish author Claes Hylinger will never be awarded a Nobel prize. The really great authors never are. But Hylinger has said something which will forever be true: “don’t confuse greatness with celebrity” (Sw: “Man får inte förväxla storhet med berömmelse”). The famous people are not per se great and will change the course of your life. Ordinary people will. These are the ones you need to get in touch with, listen to and understand. Don’t waste your time chasing after celebrity or famous people. It will get you nowhere and you will not get to know your business nor yourself that way.

But if you end up in an interesting conversation with a seemingly ordinary man or woman, then sharpen your senses, because your life might be about to change.The ordinary and mundane is what makes all the difference.

The blog post will be tweeted. But then again, it will not change your life.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Management | Leave a comment

A Kyoto style protocol for net.freedom

Posted on December 6, 2010 by admin

I am a simple man. Let’s establish this. I am a simple man. But still I want to save the Internet. Yes, it is pretentious. Yes, I will fail. Yes, who do I think I am and all that. But still I want to save the Internet. And I want you to help me.

Since a few years I have been thinking about a Kyoto style protocol for net.freedom. I am thinking about a protocol for nations to follow to establish some ground rules to keep the Internet freedom alive, just the way the Kyoto protocol did for the environment. Sure, the Kyoto protocol has so far not saved the environment. But it keeps the issues on the agenda. So will a protocol for Internet freedom.

I am not versed or skilled enough to actually construct a text which nation states would adhere to. I could not even write a proper text that enough individuals would sign up to so it would actually make a difference. But someone needs to start somewhere. I am aware of previous tries carried out by the EFF and others, but I think they all have been too ambitious. A lazy guy like myself, who has given up on all serious career opportunities to be the managing director of an online casino and to do small investment in several dotcom startups, may keep this simple enough to get some thoughts going with more smart individuals. My suggestion involves setting up a task force to actually carve out a text states can sign plus carrying out the diplomacy involved in getting it done.

So, this is an attempt that will fail as many other have before. But every now and then a black swan appears, and I will keep trying. With Wikileaks being more or less thrown of the Internet I thought it was time to actually publish my ideas and see what happens. If my naivety makes you laugh, well, then at least I created some more happiness. Wikileaks is interesting, because I am not even sure I like what it does. But I think it deserves better treatment as a netizen. And so do many more. So here it is. My suggestion for a Kyoto style protocol for net.freedom.

Five basic principles for Internet freedom

I. Freedom to access. Freedom to access should not be compromised by states. Getting online as a user is an absolute freedom. Only very serious crimes should prevent citizens from their online service.

Ia. Freedom to access. Backbone providers should not discriminate. The freedom to access should also put a limitation on the net carriers, not being able to deny providing access to individuals nor corporations. Internet Service Providers could choose their customers but backbone providers should not at all look into the customers or their contents.

IIb. Freedom to access. DNS should not discriminate. At all. DNS is not content.

IIc. Freedom to access. IP should not discriminate. The Internet protocol is a technical protocol and should stay that way.

II. Encryption. The use of strong encryption should be allowed. This should not only be allowed by non-prohibition, but by entering a law stating that encryption is allowed.

IIa. Encryption. Encryption should be sold and exported freely. Even very strong ones.

III. Non-censorship. No censorship or pre-screening for content nor visiting of web sites or similar. This means that filters that stop visits to web sites or other net destinations should not be allowed. The access to certain web sites or other content could be deemed unlawful at times, but that should be punished in arrears based on the facts of the case, rather than on the presumption that the visit or similar would be disallowed in all cases and making it technically very hard to access a certain resource.

IV. No surveillance. The citizens should not be surveilled just because it’s technically possible. Surely, suspects could be monitored, but to have a general surveillance scheme will definitely create more problems in terms of privacy violations than it will actually catch criminals.

V. This is not about copyright. Copyright infringements should be treated in accordance with national laws. But any crimes should be punished in arrears, when they have actually occurred. Not before an actual crime has been committed. The focus on copyright issues in Internet policy and regulation is not called for. There are laws to deal with this already.

So, can you use these five basic principles for anything? I think you can. But it is very far from the actual protocol that nation states could adhere to. If a state would sign up to these five general principles we would get Internet freedom. But even getting this done would be a major challenge.

Therefore I suggest the formation of a council to develop a Kyoto style protocol for net.freedom. Some individuals I think could do a lot of good with various skills are these: Carl Bildt (chairman), Joichi Ito, Lawrence Lessig, Jonathan Zittrain, Yochai Benkler, John Palfrey, Esther Dyson, Hans Rosling, Chris Anderson, Nicklas Lundblad, Andrew McLaughlin, Tony Blair, John Perry Barlow, Siva Vaidhynathan, Danah Boyd, @Clarinette02, Hans Rosling, Tim Harford, Dan Ariely, Charles Nesson, William Fisher, John Palfrey, Hal Roberts, Clay Shirky, Howard Rheingold, John Raulston Saul, Glyn Moody, Linus Walleij, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, John Gilmore, Phil Zimmermann, Ian Clarke, Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Inga-Britt Ahlenius, Patricia Russo, Patrik Hiselius, Hans Blix.

I know – very Harvard centric, but hey, they host the best. What can you do? Also, total over-representation by Swedes compared to our status in the world. But I am Swedish. Too few women? Well, then please comment on this and add more names. This is just an example of a group.

But I hope a few of the names on the list will pick this up and actually do something.

Because the Internet needs to be saved. and you can do it. The ball is in your court now.

Wanna play?

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Freedom, Internet, Uncategorized, Vision | 3 Comments

I’m an addict, so are you

Posted on November 27, 2010 by admin

Being an entrepreneur you need to treat your brain right. It is basically your only tool that may distinguish yourself from the competition. Patents, capital, copyrighted works, trademarks – all nice to have, but without your brain even a legal monopoly (like copyright) might not save you. Therefore you need to treat your brain right. This means among other things to not expose your brain to unnecessary stress. This means limiting your time on Twitter and Facebook. Yes, I’m an addict and so are you.

I can always find a reason to use my computer. Or to go online by other means. There is always something that urgently needs to be checked, valuated, validated. And when online, why not check the email and Twitter, since I am online anyway. Whoops, two hours passed. And the brain is in rush again. I do realize I am addict. But reading this, my guess is you are too.

Being on top of things is of course good. Over the years, many people have expressed awe on how online I am and how knowledgeable I am of all things Internet. However, this is really just giving credit to a junkie on how well he knows his way to the syringe or pill box or the bag of weed. That is not the main problem. The main problem is in doing this, I mistreat my brain and create artificial, or at least uncalled, for stress. Being on top of things crucial to the business is good. Being on top of stuff not even remotely connected to the business is just —addiction.

The brain needs to rest, and it is very rarely done through reading 180 tweets an hour (yes, I could easily do that, after all, it is just three tweets per minute). It is not done through obsessively rampaging through Facebook updates.

To me, but it might be different to you, the solution has been routine. I need to set a schedule for how and when I do stuff like this. I also need to set limits as to how much and what I should do when I do go online. Because I can not go offline for good. That would not be good for business (but probably for my brain). I tend to follow this schedule very strictly, even though, as any junkie, I sometimes fall through. To me, relaxing the brain means going offline and only go online when needed and at scheduled times. It might mean something different to you. But take care and be careful how you treat your most important tool as an entrepreneur.

This is actually how I created my superpowers. My brain works much sharper since I started doing this, I am more present in meetings and in private functions than ever before. I rarely get upset and when I do, it is for good reason. I am more motivated, I smile more and I am overall performing not just double as well, but I would guess ten times better. I might not know all the latest stuff going on over the Internet anymore, but I still can find out very quickly when needed, and when I do, I can act in the correct fashion. Furthermore and probably most important: I do enjoy myself a lot more.

The brain needs to relax, just like your body does, and well – I guess now is this is the time for it .-)

AFK!

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Health, Motivation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

When terminating employees

Posted on November 25, 2010 by admin

Sometimes stuff just don’t work out. You hire someone to do a certain task who is not fit for the task. Or the task is not fit for him or her. Or the company is not fit for him or her. Or him or her is not fit for the company. Or the product is wrong. This is not your fault. It happens. But terminate early and gently. For everyone’s sake.

Can you write a blog post about terminating employees? Sure you can. Is it appropriate? If you are an entrepreneur nothing you do is appropriate. Or at least that is not one of your main concerns. Can it stir up anxiety within your current workforce? I think not. The most problematic leadership is in my opinion the type where everything seems arbitrarily (happening by chance). I prefer to exercise a leadership where people working together with me have a better understanding of how I think and why. It will make things more predictable, and predictable is in my opinion good. So here it is – a blog post on terminating employees.

As an entrepreneur (I still have a hard time grasping the fact that I probably am one!) I feel that one of the toughest but most important thing is to have the right staff. Recruitment is a never ending task. I have been inspired in large parts of our recruitment process from Google’s. I can’t tell you exactly in what ways, but when stealing, steal from the best. Therefore, our recruitment process is rather thorough and it takes not only many interviews both shallow and deep, but also case studies and other things to pass through to become an employee of Mr Green’s.

Still, sometimes stuff doesn’t work out. It can be misjudgment on both parties. It is rarely (at least in our case) personal, but still you might have to let someone go. It might be that the individual’s competence does not well match the task, company or product at hand. In our case we have sometimes recruited from very large corporations to our startup, then our setup may well not give the candidate the best opportunities. It could also be that the individual is very well suited to sell a certain product but not the actual product that you are working with. Or that he or she needs a certain environment or people that you can not offer presently. It could of course also be that you and the employee communicate very differently and that you therefore are not well-suited to get along. There are as many reasons for tasks not working out as there are people. Sometimes you can overcome the differences or train people out of problems, change tasks or do adjustments to make people thrive. However, sometimes you need to let people go.

In my opinion, the best way to do this is to do it quickly and gently. There is no need for a screaming contest, at least not on the entrepreneur’s part. The employee may well be very sad by having to leave, he or she might end up in dire straits (financialwise that is) should he or she not be able to quickly land a new job. In this market, it might not always be easy. Still, if things not work out, being a startup, you have to make swift decisions. I don’t have scientific research to back me up on this, but my experience tells me that having a well-functioning employee with enthusiasm and drive is worth more than two (perhaps five!) employees that or not performing well and that are gloomy (probably related to their performance).

Your first priority is always the company. It is not being loved. It is not being popular. You have a task and that is to fulfill your dream of building a stellar company. Chances are you will fail. Hence, if someone is not performing in the way you need and you can not correct it by changing your behavior or addressing the problem with the employee (I think three strikes is a good measure), then you should let the person go. In the long run it is best for both you, the company and the employee. Non-performing individuals very rarely love their jobs.

I think you should do this swiftly. Do not keep people that you intend to let go. Or that you dislike deeply. You might end up bullying them. Or mistreating them. It is not good manners and it is poor management. Instead, be very clear what you want and need, measure what can be measured, and if it still does not work, then terminate.

Having said that, you should terminate in the leanest way possible. Most people are employable. But perhaps they can not be employed by your company at this stage with this product or service. Therefore, you can do what you can in providing references, letters of recommendation and also perhaps advice on what kind of job you think would suit the employee better. The latter could be deemed a bit big-brotherish, so that depends on what state the employee really is in. Also, you may if you are able also provide contacts to new workplaces. But this is really not your job or first priority or even responsibility. Joining a startup always means a risk, even though the risk should decline over the years. But do what you can in helping the individual to move on. Furthermore, do always offer a nice good-bye package. If this means that you will have to offer more money than is drawn up in the employment agreement (or similar), then perhaps at times you should. If the employee has been trying to steal information, money or customers this is not the case (but a lawsuit might be!). However, if the employee is a nice fella, it just did not work out this time, then keep him or her on the payroll a little bit longer, give a chance to find some work elsewhere and always be kind. Never do what some companies are rumored to do: locking out the employee and basically throwing him or her on the ground overnight. There is very little need for that for loyal, but non-performing individuals. The energy you eventually get from the replacement will regain the small financial loss it means to compensate the individual(s) that you have to let go. Also, very little is lost but just being civil and nice.

Remember - the employee that you have to terminate today may be your customer or even boss tomorrow.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Compensation, Entrepreneurship, Management, Motivation, People, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Always celebrate victories

Posted on November 21, 2010 by admin

Do you celebrate your victories? I am not talking about the victory of an IPO, a trade sale or a large dividend. The small ones, do you celebrate them? I think you should.

The thing about entrepreneurship is that it never ends. That is if you don’t run into serious trouble, like having to wind up the company when you run out of cash. But if you are lucky, you will do this forever. Or at least for a very long time. Since you will do this for a very long time, you should celebrate all victories. And especially the small ones.

It is very easy to just carry on as an entrepreneur. You always have new problems to solve and new mistakes to make. Competition is fierce, you are behind on strategy, some of your staff is discontent. Therefore it is very hard to take a break and actually appreciate what you are doing. But you should. Remember, you are not an entrepreneur for the money. You are in this for the journey, not for the goal, and you will face hard times. But not always. Sometimes, hopefully not rarely, you will reach your goals and win victories. When it happens, embrace it.

Celebration does not have to include alcohol, but it could. The big thing, however, is to have the ritual of celebration. This is a very powerful tool. Set defined targets and when you reach them, stop for a while and just purely enjoy yourself. Also the small ones. You deserve it.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Management, Motivation | 4 Comments

Scott McNealy was my hero

Posted on November 13, 2010 by admin

If you are running a company chances are you had a hero in innovation, business or programming when you were younger. I know I had. My business hero was not Steve Jobs nor Bill Gates or even Ingvar Kamprad. My hero was Scott McNealy.

Mr Scott McNealy is the co-founder of Sun together with Mr Vinod Khosla, Mr Bill Joy and Mr Andreas von Bechtolsheim (also one of the first investors in Google – he wrote a check before Mr Larry Page and Mr Sergey Brin had a bank account!). They were all Stanford mates and SUN is an acronym for Stanford University Network. The business was built around a Unix workstation that Andy Bechtolsheim developed getting tired waiting for timeslots on the University system. Mr Vinod Khosla saw a business in this and pulled in the others. Multi-billion-dollar company Sun was recently acquired by Mr Larry Ellison’s Oracle, but Mr McNealy was long gone. He did spend 22 years as CEO before he left, though… That is twentytwo. Today most CEOs should be happy if they are allowed to stay on for three years.

My admiration for Mr McNealy was based on a three main factors:

1. He was a real sports buff in a technology world. Mr McNealy actually branded himself a golf player whom ended up in business by accident. In other words: humble man.

2. He had enormous integrity. He always said what was on his liberal mind and even stood up against Microsoft (unusual during the 80s and 90s). This led to problems. For example, Mr McNealy said back in 1999: “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” Some people were outraged by this. Now they post their lives on Facebook…

3. He got technology. Ever heard “the network is the computer“? Sun started using this motto/vision in late 1990s (probably Mr John Gage coined it). Since he got technology he also managed to transform Sun from workstations, chip design, software, enterprise hardware to Jave just to mention a few things. This was not without road bumps, but he did it well. Mr McNealy was not trained in technology by the way. He studied business at Stanford.

There is no biography on Mr Scott McNealy as far as I know. Someone should write one.

Mr McNealy ended his good-bye email to SUN employees after 28 years with the company in a fashion that also serves well to end this blog post:
“Kick butt and have fun!”

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Management, People, Scott McNealy | Leave a comment

Just don’t do it

Posted on November 13, 2010 by admin

How do you know when to jump ship and leave your employment and start a company? Actually, you do. If you want to be rational about it, then you should never leave your employment. What? No entrepreneurship babble and endorsement? Nope. Just don’t do it.

As you might have noticed reading twenty things I have noticed, I am not much of a believer in entrepreneurship being easy. Therefore it is nothing for sissies, you will worry yourself to death. It is nothing for daredevils either, you will take too big risks and fail. So how should a “normal” individual know when to fulfill her or his dreams?

Actually, you already know if you should do it or not. You don’t need to find all the reasons pro and con. Because if you do, nothing will ever make you take the step to found a new company. Very few startups were built on a complete rational foundation. What you need is not capital, it is not a new education, it is not that extra course at the university, it is not more experience from the line of business you want to enter, it is not more market research and you certainly don’t need to read blog posts like this one. All these reasons are part of the perfectly rational reasons provided not to start a company right now.

However, startuping, if there is such a word – there should be! – is something you do in spite of all odds and rationality being against it. It is both a lifestyle and a dream. And it’s something for romantics. You need to do this because you can not live without doing it. It is not like a successful businessman needs passion to succeed in business. But an entrepreneur must have passion, dreams and a spice of craziness in order to actually jump out of a flying airplane without any safety net.

When in doubt – just don’t do it. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone. Just don’t do it. It’s okay to keep your day job and keep dreaming. Just don’t do it. If you have loads of ideas of mashups or new ideas or innovations, but have not acted upon this ever, then perhaps you are too safety searching to enjoy entrepreneurship. Just don’t do it. But if you can not sleep because your idea is just so good, if you don’t care about the money that you may loose, if bringing your company to life and worldwide domination occupies every wrinkle of your brain – then perhaps you should do it!

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Motivation | Leave a comment

The myth of Jolt

Posted on November 11, 2010 by admin

As an entrepreneur few people will talk to you about what you eat. Venture capitalists will spend a lot of time examining your faulty forecasting, but they will never ask you what you had for breakfast. They might even see the long row of Jolt Cola cans in the window as charming. This is a mistake. Jolt Cola will not spark your creativity, it might instead kill it.


It is all about the level of blood sugar. Very few venture capitalists will tell you about the effects of eating poorly. They will however educate you on a number of other subjects (all ending up in Powerpoint or Excel format). Still, this is a very easy way for any entrepreneur to actually create an edge towards the competition, since very few people care about these things, even though the research have been known for many, many years.

Your blood sugar level will vary over the day with your meals. Your energy and creativity will follow. But it does not have to be a roller-coaster regulated by Jolt Cola. Your blood sugar is highest an hour or two after you eat. If you eat about the same time each day, and the same amounts, you can notice how this affects you and plan accordingly.

I am not a doctor nor a nutrition expert, but what I have learned is some basic things to keep your head in place by treating your stomach right:

1. Breakfast is better than venture capital. Never miss it. You can do without venture capital but you can not do without breakfast.

2. Carbs tend to be bad for you in excessive amounts. Pasta and bread is fantastic if it’s well-cooked, but they might screw up your blood sugar levels and destroy your creativity and thinking.

3. You need to eat regularly at three to five times a day. Make sure you have time to eat. Nothing is more important. The coding can wait, food can not.

4. Eat a real lunch, not a sandwich by the computer and do it without Twitter and Facebook too! Lunch is a time to think and enjoy yourself. Sometimes, have lunch all by yourself to sort your thoughts out. People may regard you as strange having lunch without company, but then again you are strange – you are an entrepreneur!

5. Never ever drink sodas during the day. Treat soda as you treat alcohol. You wouldn’t have a dry martini for breakfast would you (Don Draper excluded)? Energy drinks like Jolt Cola or Red Bull will bring you to a quick peak but then bring you down instantly, deeper than you were before.

6. Avoid buns and cookies during the day. Fruit may sound boring but its better if you really need a snack. Buns are not breakfast.

7. Don’t drink excessive amounts of coffee. It might screw up your stomach or bowels. You are under enough stress without inserted poison into your stomach. If you need some kick to get going in the morning, perhaps a tea would be more soothing for you. You don’t need coffee all day, you can actually do with water, it is just a matter of what you are used to.

8. Candy is not for you. Candy is for employees with relaxing jobs. Candy is not for entrepreneurs. If you really need to taste something sweet, eat dark, pure chocolate. But even chocolate is a treat, not something you should eat every day.

9. Alcohol and startups do not go well together. You will be in many situations where you are treated with alcohol, but it will lower you judgment and might possibly give you a hangover destroying an important workday. If you want to relax with a nice wine, do it when you don’t work. You really don’t have to drink beer or wine to go to seven networking events a week. And you won’t last long if you do…

10. Never eat pizza or hamburgers. Or any fast food really. It is fast food – you need slow food. Everything else in your life is fast.

Some more tips on how to balance blood sugar.

The media picture of the whiz kid drinking Jolt Cola, eating pizzas and hamburgers and hacking away all night is not incorrect. It does exist. It is just a stupid way of doing it. Why not doing it more easily with steady blood sugar levels? As an entrepreneur you really only have yourself as an asset, why you need to treat yourself right. You will last longer, be smarter, more creative and succeed! You will also have more fun.

You can run your startup with more energy and creativity by just treating your stomach right.

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Blood sugar, Breakfast, Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Food, Health, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The need of blatantly wrong forecasting

Posted on November 9, 2010 by admin

This Friday evening I got a call from one of our investors. He wanted me to walk him through my forecasting for 2012 (yes, that’s 12) in detail. That was my Friday evening. The bottle of Shiraz was staring at me, without being pilfered at all. Today, I read an interesting tweet from Mr Tim Harford, one of my favorite economists (Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Dan Ariely being my top names currently, Mr Harford is at least number three) that got me thinking of forecasting as such.

The reason the investor wanted me to through our forecasting was actually because I had asked him a few questions and to answer them he really needed more information. So I am not a victim. I just got what I asked for (except for the Shiraz, which I did not get – remember, kids, always be careful what you wish for!).

Back to Mr Tim Harford (follow Mr Harford on Twitter). He sent out a link to an old article he wrote on virtual economies. Old and old, the article was published in 2008. But actually, Mr Harford made a mistake and pointed to an article by Mr Tom Chatfield on Cataclysm. I read it as an article from 2008 (I am not into World of Warcraft as you can tell…) and I thought Mr Harford (but remember, it was actually Chatfield, in a freshly squeezed article from November 5, 2010!) was quite off the mark.

Mr Chatfield writes: (—)”Increasingly, the future is being shaped by existing products, not new ones: by hugely successful franchises–but also by companies who, having won vast communities of users, are devoting their increasingly expert energies to holding on to them.”(—)

This prompted me to reply (incorrectly) to Mr Harford:
“Did not see #Zynga coming did we?”

Mr Harford replied:
“As an economist, forecasting is not my strong suit…”

This prompted me to write this blog post. But doing some research on it, I soon realized that Mr Harford was not doing an incorrect forecast at all. He did not write the article in the first place, and the article was from last week, not 2008. Funny still, that I thought the conclusions were completely outdated, which makes you wonder about forecasting in the first place. If you can not correctly (that is, if you agree that there will be and even are new multi-player games apart from Blizzard and the other big ones and that Zynga is a proof of this) assess the current situation or at least if it is possible to disagree on the current situation and terrain, how should you possibly predict the future? How can you predict 2012? Mr Tom Chatfield is a brilliant man and one of the finest writers and analysts on video games. He wrote Fun, Inc for crying out loud. Still I completely disagree with his analysis when it comes to the future being shaped by existing products. To me it is a statement on the verge of “there is a world market for five computers”. Maybe you agree with me, maybe you agree with Mr Chatfield. But if the future can be that different – how do you predict it?

The easy answer is that you can not. But you can have an idea. And you can do your very best to execute that idea. The idea can be transformed into a plan, you can do a SWOT analysis, add some figures, do a write-up on competition, plan operations, marketing and all of a sudden you have a business plan – your map in the strange terrain we sometimes refer to as business. This is why we need the blatantly wrong forecasting.

But then of course, the terrain will change and you will have to adjust the map. That’s the only thing we can be very certain of. Sometimes the terrain changes dramatically. Like when you read an old article by Mr Tim Harford and it turns out to be a recent article by Mr Tom Chatfield. Always make new mistakes .-)

Mikael Pawlo

I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field and love to discuss with academics. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com You will also find me at Twitter trading under the name @mpawlo

Posted in Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Forecasting, Vision | Leave a comment

Is innovation important?

Posted on November 3, 2010 by admin

When you speak to people about entrepreneurship, they often focus on the strive and need to innovate. I am personally no different in this respect. But is innovation important to business? Do we really have to innovate to be successful as entrepreneurs?

Let’s start with the Wikipedia definition: Innovation comes from the Latin innovātus which means to renew. Innovation does not have to be the introduction of something new, it could simply be renewal.

Many businesses start out as innovations or is based on innovations. It is not a necessity though. It is quite possible to start a me too-business and be a successful entrepreneur. You can do exactly the same thing as the guy next door, if the market is big enough for both of you. But if you add some innovation to the mix, you might also be able to sell for lower price, at better quality or better adjusted to what your customers actually request.

Hence, I would say that a innovation, no matter how small, is a good foundation to start a business. The innovation could be very simple. If you discover that you can charge in advance for language travels you may earn a lot in interest and other financial benefits so that you can overtake the rest of the established market and create EF. Innovations do no have to be ground-breaking to provide great results. They do not have to be patentable. Yet another social network, could have an open API and therefore get picked up by external developers, contributing a lot to Facebook’s success. A search engine could skip the annoying banner ads on its front page and overtake the ever ruling Altavista and with the added spice a new way of ranking results become Google.

But that may be it. Do you need to continuously innovate following the start of your business? You might have to do slight adjustments to the model and you might have to introduce small things adapting to the world around you (credit card payments instead of cash, mobile payments instead of credit cards), but that may or may not be innovation. You may have to renegotiate all your contracts to become more profitable, but that certainly is not innovation.

From a business perspective innovation could actually be even harmful. When you have established your company and have steady revenue streams you should not change stuff just to change it. You will now enter a different stage, where marketing your current offering, keeping customers alive and skewing the different parts of your machine into perfection will be more important than being innovative as such.

This is also where you need to ask yourself if you are still the right person to lead the company. If you are an entrepreneurial innovator, is innovation important to the company? If not, it might be time you move on to your next project. I am sure you are more than welcome in the board, since you are a major shareholder, after all. From the board you can throw ideas of innovation into the CEO’s lap, but from an operations standpoint, perhaps not all innovations should be carried out. If it is not broken – then don’t fix it!

After all – the machine is working now and you are making a lot of money. Relax.

Mikael Pawlo

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Inventions | Leave a comment

When the shit hits the fan

Posted on October 27, 2010 by admin

Being an entrepreneur sooner or later you will do something that might end up in the papers. Not in a good fashion, but something you wish your mother did not end up reading at breakfast. This is a blueprint of what you could do when the shit hits the fan. Print it and keep it in a pocket close to your heart .-)

Okay, so you screwed up and now you think some journalist might want to scandalize you? First, let’s see how bad the situation really is.

1. Did you do this on purpose? That’s pretty bad if this is the case, I must say. But if so, what where your reasons? Can you explain your behavior?

2. Was it some kind of mishap (administrative or technical)? Have you discovered exactly what went wrong and corrected it?

3. Is this of interest to the papers? Does it affect a lot of people? Is it close to your territory? Does it have a scandal element to it? Have you, being an entrepreneur, had a high profile in the media (trying to get some free publicity are we?)? Any celebrity connection? Is there an element of surprise in the situation (man bites dog, not dog bites man)? Does the action go opposite to the public’s moral(s)? If not at least one of these criteria is fulfilled, maybe this is just a mistake that you should correct with your customers.

When you have estimated your damage and damages and decided that indeed, you will end up in the papers, why don’t you do the following:

1. Find out all you can about the situation at hand. What exactly went wrong and how do you correct it? Can you compensate affected customers in some fashion? Is it reasonable? All the research you put in will pay off, I promise.

2. Correct the error. Even if you did this deliberately you must rectify the situation. Perhaps you did not care enough for some security matters (did not encrypt passwords and now a hacker /ex-employee stole them all). Have you changed your routines for password? Did you change all passwords for your customers? Etc. Even if it was just a technical error that you had no control or foresight over, the error needs to be correct in a fashion that makes it never to appear again.

3. If you believe this really will end up in the papers – be proactive. Why don’t you yourself tell all your customers and the media what happened? You know it best, after all, and can probably explain the situation quite well. Write and distribute a press release. Do not forget to inform your employees, investors and relevant partners. They are very important in this and will end up getting a lot of questions.

4. Do not disappear from the face of the Earth. We know, you did something bad, perhaps you even did it through being sloppy, not paying attention or on purpose. But mistakes are made every day and we should always be making new ones. Hence, it is better to fight this one out rather than to bury yourself under the blanket of self-pity. More or less all entrepreneurs end up in situations like these sooner or later. It’s no fun, but it’s not the end of the world, either.

5. Do not try to keep the story out of the media by not sending out your press release. If you think the story has some wings, it certainly will fly. It is better to be able to actually set the agenda and be sure you get some quotes and parts of the story out rather than to hope for your customers and the journalists to give a correct and fair and balanced view (no Fox reference here!) of what happened.

6. Publish the information everywhere you can. Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Press releases, Customer sendouts. Maybe you should be ashamed, but you better roll in the dirt well, rather than trying to keep out of certain channels. However, you do not need to reply to customers individually in all open channels. This might not be an optimal way of communication. It is enough and probably even better that you make sure that you contact all individually as quickly as possible. Document everything. If you did something really wrong, you might need it to prove exactly what happened in arrears.

7. Write yourself a questions and answers-sheet and the three most important messages you want to come across. This is an important rehearsal for when the media starts calling you like crazy. If possible, try to practice with a friend (or consultant) – if you can find the time, even on camera. What the message should be depends totally on the situation. Perhaps you need to make an excuse, perhaps you need not to.

8. Stay honest. Give correct, precise and accurate answers. If you do not know the answer to a certain question, say so, and ask to call back with the information. The worst thing you can do is to try to lighten things up or trying to oblige by giving inaccurate or inexact answers. This could be very hard when you are under fire from a very persistent journalist, but if you try to oblige by answering something you really do not know, you might end up destroying your credibility.

9. Do not trust journalists. Yes, they might lie. They might publish stuff without merit. They are not your friends. It is not that they are evil as a species, it is just their modus operandi. Anything you say might end up in the paper. Even stuff you did not say might end up there. Hence, always ask to see your own quotes before publication. Not all journalists will agree to do this, but most ethical ones will. The journalists are there to inform, alarm, educate and entertain their readers. They might also – depending on the situation, feel like bringing you down. Therefore, be nice, but careful.

10. Get help. Get help. Get help. It could be a PR consultant or crisis manager, but also it should be from your colleagues or investors. It is easy to take the full blame personally, but you are (probably) not in this alone. Being the entrepreneur you might have to face all the heat, but still you need second opinions.

Finally, you should know that the readers or viewers are actually smarter than you would think. Most people would recognize a scandalizing article for being just that, and rather look for the facts than how the piece is slanted.

…and when you are done, prepare for the next disaster. If you think this problem ended here with this one PR scandal, well, ask Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Eric Schmidt. You will be back. With new dirt. Welcome to entrepreneurship .-)

Mikael Pawlo

Posted in Crisis management, Entrepreneurship, PR | Leave a comment

The Noble art of Procrastination

Posted on October 25, 2010 by admin

Hanging out on Twitter instead of doing the forecasting and budgets for 2011/2012 (I’m @mpawlo by the way)? Updating your Facebook profile instead of doing personal development talks with the staff? Checking in on Foursquare when you should have done your bills? Writing/reading blog posts (errmm…). Chances are you are procrastinating.

Procrastination is an old phenomenon. The word has some Latin origin, namely pro for forward and crastinus for tomorrow. Except for being an old term, this is also a very dangerous thing to entrepreneurs. An act of procrastination is defined in Wikipedia as an act that is counterproductive, needless, and delaying.

It could be a sign of some serious underlying psychological illness, but in lighter cases this is really normal, if still not very useful.

One very common reason for this behavior is a strive for perfection. Actually, I would say this is not a real strive. It is just a good excuse for not doing the stuff you ultimately dread.

There are three main types of procrastinators (source: Psychology Today):

  • arousal types, or thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush.
  • avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability.
  • decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision. Not making a decision absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events.

    • Procrastination is really bad for you, even though Mr Paul Graham of Ycombinator thinks there are good and bad versions (I don’t agree at all!). The reason is that it creates stress, reduces productivity and ultimately may lead to failure. Even though you in the latter case will tell yourself that you could have done it, if you just had a clean apartment, done more research, had 14 uninterrupted hours to work on the project, was not ill on Wednesday and so forth. Furthermore, you will destroy your team, your reputation, your friends, your family if you do this a lot.

    When I worked at IDG many, many years ago I learned two things that might have been posted on a brick by the elevator or not (I don’t remember anymore): first things first and do it now.

    Personally, when the day starts, I try to write down two-three things that I know will annoy me and that I might feel like procrastinating during the day. I do this on paper. No email that might turn me in a different path. Then I start out by doing these things. When they are finished I feel like escaping prison. And it happens every day. This might work for you, or not. It all depends if you are a hobby-procrastinator or a heavy user of it. I am no psychologist, of course, but I have noticed that in the entrepreneurial sector, procrastination is almost turned into an art. Perhaps that could be one reason for actually doing entrepreneurial work – since procrastination is more accepted from the lonely business genius than from an M&A specialist at Ernst&Young.

    If you are hard case, don’t give up. Cognitive behavior therapy might help you. And if you do this a lot – you might need help.

    Filing that tax return should be done today, not tomorrow. You know it.

    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Entrepreneurship, Motivation | 1 Comment

    How (not) to compensate creative people

    Posted on October 25, 2010 by admin

    So you’re an entrepreneur and you want to boost creativity in the workplace? What do you do? Add a fat cash bonus for creativity? Wrong.

    This weekend, I spent a few days away from the computer (recommended!) and read a very interesting chapter in Professor Dan Ariely’s book Upside of irrationality. The chapter dealt with compensation and creativity. Professor Ariely quite convincingly proved that adding too much bonuses or fat cash prizes to a creative challenge may actually lead to worse results.

    In a pure brick-and-mortar job, adding a bonus might lead to increased physical output, but when the brain is involved the opposite may occur. Adding fat bonuses may lead to more hours worked, but it may also lead to less creative and problem-solving output. Medium- or low-level bonuses can lead to increased creative output (even though I am not sure this was really proven in the testing in the experiments in the book), but adding high-level bonuses make people sort of lock to the bonus target thinking of the great cash prize rather than thinking about how to solve the problem at hand.

    An entrepreneur wanting to make his or her developers to work faster and more creatively may jump to the conclusion that a fat bonus at the end of the year whilst targets are met or overtaken will solve the problem. The case is that adding such a bonus may kill the entire project.

    Rather, try to motivate people by explaining all details in the strategy and tactics and why this is important to solve in time. Empower your colleagues with information. Adding money to the equation – it is not money well-spent. And really – if they were only in it for the money – would they really work for your startup company?

    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Bonuses, Compensation, Entrepreneurship, Internet, Money, Motivation, What to read | Leave a comment

    20 things I have noticed

    Posted on October 16, 2010 by admin

    You can read all the books you want on motivation, self-help and making a buck, but very few of the authors will tell you what the real implications are of starting your own venture and what kind of tools you will need to have a chance of succeeding. Most advice you get is also the piece of advice provided by someone whom read all the motivational books but never really started a successful venture. So here are some scribblings from the trenches on stuff I have observed regarding entrepreneurship and setting up new ventures. I have very little formal training in this area and the observations are just my personal ones. Please be aware that I still have not made a billion dollars, so you should probably disregard all of this if you want to be really successful (and focus on your business instead of reading dull blogs like this!).

    20 things I have noticed on entrepreneurship

    1. You will fail. It will not help you to think about it, but ultimately most ventures are not there anymore five years from starting them. Also you run a major risk of entering entrepreneurial coma, where you neither grow nor make any substantial money. You might have a few employees, some users, some cash coming in, some cash going out and you can make a living, but nothing ever happens – what I would refer to as entrepreneurial limbo. That is the worst nightmare in my opinion, I’d rather fail and go down in flames than not taking enough risks to succeed. Anyway, since you will probably fail, you should plan your life accordingly.

    2. You must have a lot of luck. Sure, in arrears, all you did was according to plan, but really, without a major component of luck you will not succeed. However, most venture people are exposed to luck, but they may not seize the moment. Opportunity knocks, but you must respond. The first, second and even third time around you may not be experienced enough to understand this. Which brings me to number 3:

    3. Bring help. Also: make sure the help is diverse in ages, experience and approach. You need both risk averts and risk takers. You need financiers and hands-on marketeers. Even Mark Zuckerberg had help, and he got help from the best. Larry and Sergey had a lot of help. MySQL’s Marten Mickos is a fantastic guy, but without Benchmark capital and Index Ventures, the exit would not have been so great. And probably Mr John Wattin was a very large part in the success (he was also important in Betsson, Cherry and several other major corporations with Swedish origin).

    4. Don’t postpone happiness nor health. You can not wait until your exit until you start exercising or take that walk in the woods with your dog or family. Read number 1 again. Your venture may very well fail. Or you might end up in entrepreneurial limbo. Therefore you need to make sure that your life works well in all aspects even during your most pressing entrepreneurial times. Exercise regularly – you will make better decisions. Also, take care of what you eat (pizza, cola and hamburgers are not recommended food). Finally, make sure that you sleep at night.

    5. Plan cash-flow. This is your most important task. What happens if banks hold payments, customers are late, invoices arrive early, you get unexpected costs because of a server failure?

    6. Don’t live your business in email, Twitter or blogs. Picking up the phone or having meetings over Skype or physical saves you a lot of time, really.

    7. Be prepared to make serious mistakes. It is not possible to make perfect investments  (ever). You might invest in  a technology, computer, software that really is not doing what it should. You need to be able to make mistakes also from a cash perspective.

    8. Be prepared to exchange individuals. This is in my opinion the toughest thing. If you are a startup you really can not afford having people onboard not delivering as you have planned. I am not talking about the salary as such, sure you can afford that, but a stellar person might deliver 8-10 more than an average person. In the starting phase, you really need to make sure your team is spick and span.

    9. Be prepared to upset and annoy customers, competition and your friends. No one will really understand what you are doing and you might be doing it too wildly or pursuing your results too aggressively. Well, that’s why your disruptive new business model works, right?

    10. Measure everything. You might not analyze what you measure, but when you start out you have no idea what you really need to be looking at six months from the start. Hence, make sure you measure more than you think you need. Google Analytics is a start, but also make sure you track all the business side of things. I use Excel and hard, tiresome, boring manual work. It might work for you as well, who knows.

    11. Your service might make a scandal and actually hurt someone. If you have a social network, someone will be tarnished. If you have a dating service, someone might get raped. If you offer discussions on psychology, someone might try to kill himself. If you offer diet tips, someone might get anorexia. If you offer storage, you might lose someone’s content. Think about the consequences of your actions and services and try to do what you can to limit the bad effects. It is really only a matter of time until the worst case scenario is what you call Monday .-(

    12. Don’t mix your personal finances with the company’s. It is the road to hell, just don’t do it! So your neighbor has a new boat that he bought “through his company”? That is his problem, not yours.

    14. Yes, I skipped number 13. Read number 2 again .-)

    15. Don’t use consulting as a mean of financing your venture (Sw: “grötkapital”). It will slow you down and destroy your focus. Rather give away more of your company and make sure you can focus. Why? Well, read number 1 again, will you? .-)

    16. Be very certain that you do your accounting and file all official papers. Get help! Being an entrepreneur you are probably lousy at these things. Plus – you need to focus on the business. Let’s keep yourself out of jail and the tax authorities, shall we? Read number 12 again, will you? Stop thinking about that boat!

    17. Keep an active dialogue with your key investors. They know all about number 1 above and expect you to fail so keep them in the loop at all times and tell it like it is. If you have good investors and advisers they might actually know what to do about a certain bad situation. Think of them as well-meaning parents. And just as parents they might eventually throw you out, but that’s part of the game .-)

    18. You need more money than you can possibly fathom. Maybe it’s just me being lousy at calculus (I’m not, by the way) but every venture I have been involved in needed more money than specified in the original business plan. If you multiply your original figure by five you might be more correct.

    19. Don’t boast your success in advance in the media. Really, read number 1 again and please redraft that press release stating you will overtake Facebook and Google in 2 years.

    20. Have fun! If you are in this for the money, don’t! Please read number 1 again. You will most probably fail and not make any money from this. If you want to make money, have a real career instead, climb the corporate ladders somewhere. Be a stellar consultant. But don’t start a venture. If you think that starting your own venture, making your idea and dream come true is more important than money – then do it. But have fun doing it. If you are not having fun when you do this, please do something else. Life is short, and remember, you will fail anyway .-)

    All the best,
    Mikael Pawlo

    I wanted to be an author really, but since I never got a publisher of my novel(s), I ended up becoming co-founder and managing director of the online casino Mr Green instead. I am also involved in a number of other companies. To name a few: VoxBiblia.com, Loadimpact.com, Wemind.se, Piggelino.se. So far: zero bankruptcies. But then again, not than many stellar exits either .-) I also run an old-school mailing list on IT, Internet and entrepreneurship for Scandinavians called PPlist. I was once very active in the copyright reform debate, but decided life was too short .-) Very happy to support new entrepreneurs entering this field, as long as you have read the list above. You can reach me at mikael at pawlo dot com

    Posted in Dotcom, Entrepreneurship, Venture capital | 6 Comments

    Restart

    Posted on October 16, 2010 by admin

    So it seems I am never finishing that thesis on Machiavelli. Maybe this Christmas, when I will stay in Malta instead of going to Sweden. But until that is done, I am rebranding this blog into —anything .-)

    I will to some scribblings on the Internet, tech, nerdism and entrepreneurship whenever I feel like it. No pressure .-)

    M

    Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

    Teachings of Machiavellian Scholar

    Posted on March 27, 2008 by admin

    One of the more insightful scholars on Niccolo Machiavelli is actually Swedish. Dr Mikael Hornqvist has published several articles on Machiavelli and one very impressive book. Dr Hornvist is currently a fellow with the Stanford Humanities Center.


    Dr Hornqvist’s major opus is titled Machiavelli and Empire and is published by Cambridge University Press. Dr Hornqvist moves away from the traditional (i.e. negative) view on Machiavelli and drives the thesis of Machiavelli’s work being the result of the “tradition of Florentine imperialist republicanism dating back to the late thirteenth-century, based on the twin notions of liberty at home and empire abroad”.


    This is an important work, packed with new insights and theories. It is evident that Dr Hornqvist has moved into the primary sources and read more than The Prince. The one downside with Machiavelli and Empire is that it is a very fact-filled volume. Hence, it may turn out to be too complex for certain readers. Still, you will most probably not regret reading it. Dr Hornqvist is a true master behind his keyboard and the prose is well-read.


    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Machiavelli, What to read | Leave a comment

    Sokrates 2.0

    Posted on March 15, 2008 by admin

    This posting only in Swedish, I am afraid. Originally posted in the Springtime blog.


    Sokrates 2.0


    Vissa av oss har en tendens att upprepa oss. Därför är det ibland tillfälle att damma av de gamla grekerna. Redan de gamla grekerna visste att de flesta anföranden som börjar med “redan de gamla grekerna” brukar vara dåliga. Det finns emellertid tillfällen när det går att dra lärdomar av de gamla grekerna. Sokrates formulerar exempelvis en stark kritik mot skriftkonsten i Platons dialog Faidros och Platon tycks ansluta sig denna kritik till i Sjunde brevet. Låter det som pretentiöst dravel? Kanske – det bestämmer du – men det kan finnas anledning att fråga sig vad de gamla grekerna och då särskilt Sokrates skulle tyckt om nätet.



    Det skrivna ordet saknar interaktivitet


    Sokrates första kritik går ut på att det skrivna ordet saknar interaktivitet. Det skrivna ordet kan, likt en staty eller ett konstverk, inte svara på våra frågor utan upprepar bara det som den först sagt för det fall vi vill ha ett resonemang förklarat eller utrett. Det här störde den resonerande Sokrates som inte gärna använde skriftliga källor. Den kringvandrande filosofen Sokrates hade förvisso en egen verksamhet som ifrågasättare och hans synpunkt att ett liv utan ifrågasättande inte var värt att leva bör nog särskilt beaktas i detta sammanhang.


    Det skrivna ordet har särskilt på senare år blivit synnerligen interaktivt. Först genom att boktryckarkonsten och det ökade utbudet av tidningar, tidskrifter och böcker gjort att man kan gå i polemik med författare och skribenter, om än långsamt, sedan genom den ökade hastigheten på kommunikationen genom digitaliseringen. Datorer har mycket hjälpt till med att göra det skrivna ordet interaktivt. Med hjälp av Internet och dess applikationer e-post och world wide web har det skrivna ordet inte blivit ”hugget i sten”, vilket ju ofta var fallet på Sokrates och Platons tid. Den senaste utvecklingen med ”bloggar” och kommentarssystem som många massmedier tillämpar har gjort det skrivna ordet synnerligen interaktivt. Man kan ofta kommentera den som uttalar någonting direkt, men om inte annat kan man online publicera en egen kommentar eller skicka en fråga till författaren.



    Skrift ger inte kunskap


    Sokrates andra kritik går ut på att skriften inte kan förmedla kunskap, att kunskap måste komma inifrån. Då den är fixerad och statisk kan den inte ge nya insikter. Den kan endast ge stöd för sådant vi redan tror oss veta.


    Med hypertext och e-learning och andra medel för interaktivitet tycks denna pessimistiska syn på kunskapsinhämtning via text till viss del ha grund för modifiering. Tekniken har emellertid idag inte nått så långt att man kan säga att Sokrates andra kritik helt faller. Det torde vara så att de flesta trots allt har lättare att lära sig och verkligen förstå ett fenomen genom att studera det enligt en sokratisk metod jämfört med att läsa in kunskapen ur en bok. Det finns få elektroniska hjälpmedel idag som är jämförbara med diskussion med en lärare.



    Anpassning till läsaren saknas


    Sokrates tredje kritik går ut på att texten inte gör skillnad på olika typer av läsare. En läsare kan helt missförstå en text utan att texten kan försvara sig eller rätta till missförstånd.


    När det gäller den tredje kritiken så torde Sokrates invändning förutsätta en mycket aktiv elev. Så var säkerligen fallet med de flesta Sokrates mötte, men när det gäller andra elever och även lärare kan det säkert finnas fall där lärare fungerar som en talande lärobok och eleven som en passiv mottagare. Det Sokrates säger blir då närmast en pedagogisk invändning mot ut- och inlärning i form av korvstoppning och inte en kritik av just det skrivna ordet. I vilket fall är kritiken mer allmängiltig än just att hänföra sig till det skrivna.



    Minnet försvagas


    Sokrates fjärde kritik går ut på att skriften försvagar minnet. Det ger artificiellt minne, men riskerar att försvaga det verkliga minnet.


    Denna fjärde kritik är svårare att ta på allvar än Sokrates första tre kritiker. Det ligger här nära till hands att ta fasta på Sokrates ord: ” Och nu må det vara slut med vårt skämt om talarkonsten”. Den historiska kontexten ger emellertid vid hand att Sokrates ansåg minneskonsten vara synnerligen viktig. Idag kan det vara svårare att se värdet i denna, men om vi tänker oss att man skall vara snabbtänkt och en god retoriker är ett gott minne att föredra framför möjligheten att slå upp svaret på en given fråga i en bok. Minnet var viktigt för Sokrates, men hans kritik mot skriften som minnesförsvagare ter sig svag idag. Inte minst sedan det är en känd och använd minnesteknik att skriva ned saker för att komma ihåg dem (det så kallade skriftminnet).


    Jag bör kanske även i detta sammanhang nämna Platons Sjunde brevet där Platon framhåller att skriftens funktion är begränsad till minnesstöd. Platon tycks sålunda mena att Sokrates varit allvarlig i sin kritik av skriften, men också att han till skillnad från Sokrates ser ett värde i text som minnesstöd (det något problematiska förhållandet att vi känner Sokrates skriftkritik genom just Platons skrifter lämnar jag därhän).



    Sokrates skulle gillat Web 2.0


    Fenomenet som Tim O’Reilly kallat Web 2.0, med utvecklingen kring så kallade sociala medier gör webben ytterligare interaktiv och användaren genererar sitt eget samtal och innehåll på ett sätt som torde tilltalat till och med de gamla grekerna.


    Det kanske inte är den fullständiga demokratiseringen av ordet, som man lätt kan förledas tro vid det första intrycket, då det fortfarande krävs att man kan nå en publik för att göra sig hörd, men det är betydligt mer interaktivt än vad som Sokrates kritik ger vid handen skulle vara möjligt.


    Sokrates kritik mot skriftkonstnen blir alltså mindre och mindre relevant i en värld där interaktiviteten flyttar in i texten och texten flyttar ut i interaktiviteten. Eller för den som tycker att den sista meningen bara var pretentiöst dravel:


    Redan de gamla grekerna gillade web 2.0.


    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Essay, In Swedish, Internet, Plato, Socrates | Leave a comment

    Rhetorical Learnings from Shakespeare

    Posted on March 15, 2008 by admin

    This posting only in Swedish, I am afraid. Originally posted in the Springtime blog.


    Retoriska lärdomar från Shakespeare


    Kolonialismen förstör indianernas ädla tillstånd. De värsta bovarna är engelsmännen. Denna salva levererar elegant Montaigne i sitt verk Essays under renässansens högperiod. Européerna är giriga, startar krig i jakt på titlar och ljuger. Indianerna krigar aldrig orättfärdigt och har en naiv ärlighet. Hur skall man bemöta ett sådant påhopp? Svaret leveras av Shakespeare i det retoriska mästerverket Stormen. Det kan vara värt att jämföra renässansens stora retoriska mästare Shakespeare och Montaigne och se om det finns någonting att lära sig av dem på temat storytelling.


    Indianer i ädelt, naturligt tillstånd


    Indianerna framställs hos Montaigne i Essays som levandes i ett naturligt tillstånd vilket, enligt Montaigne, är mer ädelt och moraliskt högstående än vad som återfinns i den europeiska civilisationen. Den senare ägnar sig åt kolonialismen av fel skäl. Indianerna kan också kriga, men det är enligt Montaigne aldrig orättfärdigt, medan européerna startar erövringskrig av avundsjuka, girighet och i jakt på titlar. Européerna har karaktärsdrag som girighet, lögnaktighet, svek, förtal och avund, medan indianerna endast har en naiv ärlighet och är vaksamma mot fiender och uppmärksamma mot sina respektive.


    Montaignes indianer har tror på evigt liv, men är inte begränsade av kyrkan som maktfaktor. Indianerna har överhuvudtaget ingen överhet, inte heller handel eller skriftspråk. Trots detta är deras naiva naturtillstånd att föredra, enligt Montaigne. Montaigne uppvisar därmed en otidsenlig respekt och beundran för andra kulturer fri från värderelativismens bojor (“den andre är alltid barbar”), men är samtidigt kritisk mot sin egen europeiska civilisation på ett sätt som väcker frågor. Är det verkligen kolonialismen som Montaigne kritiserar eller är det kolonialismens föremål och värdegrund som är problemet? Skeptikern Montaigne tycks antyda att vissa värderingar är bättre än andra.



    Shakespeare arbetar med vilden


    Hos Shakespeare finner vi en omarbetad Montaigne-vilde. Caliban framstår inte som någon “god” vilde i Shakespeares fantasiland. Det kan även tilläggas att vildens namn Caliban är ett anagram av “can(n)ibal”. Det finns, såsom hos Montaigne, inledningsvis en dröm om en naturtillvaro utan vinstintressen, handel, lagar eller kyrklig makt. Till skillnad från Montaigne väljer emellertid Shakespeare att favorisera ett antal relativt aristokratiska karaktärer framför vilden och den naturliga ö-tillvaron. Ferdinand och Prosperos dotter Miranda är välutbildade och födda in i aristokratin. De blir också historiens stora vinnare, jämte Prospero och anden Ariel, i den monarki som föds ur pjäsen. Caliban inleder med att beklaga sig över att hans ö tagits ifrån honom (av Prospero), men frågan är vilken integritet Caliban uppvisar när han strax därefter svär trohet till en ny herre som söker föda?


    Caliban framstår som en något korkad karaktär som villigt låter sig ledas, först av Prospero, sedan av Trinculo och Stephano. Det visar sig att Prospero tagit sig an uppgiften att försöka utbilda Caliban, men det låter sig knappast göras. (Här kan det nämnas att bokstäverna i Properos namn lätt kan kastas om för att bilda ordet “oppres(s)or”.) Magikern tycks gå bet på att utveckla vildens kulturella och själsliga förmögenheter. Beror detta på en inneboende kärlek till det naturliga á la Montaigne, eller beror det på dumhet? Det lutar åt att Shakespeare vill få oss att tycka det senare, särskilt sedan Caliban förbannar de kunskapsgåvor han erhållit av Prospero. Caliban är en av de få karaktärerna som går genom pjäsen oförlöst och framstår som oförbätterlig.



    Naivt tro på naivt grundtillstånd


    Samtidigt finns det en annan “vilde” på ön, nämligen anden Ariel. Han är en av historiens mest positivt målade karaktärer och inte lika tydligt en “vilde”. Han är dock lika uppenbart koloniserad som Caliban är. Ariel gör brott på sin integritet, men endast så mycket som krävs för att Prospero skall befria honom. Shakespeare låter oss förstå att det kanske kan finnas olika typer av vildar: sofistikerade som Ariel och brutala som Caliban. Ariel är dock inte mänsklig!


    Shakespeare tycks säga oss att indianerna må vara naiva i sitt grundtillstånd, men när de träffar på européer så blir de inte mycket bättre än européerna. Indianerna låter sig förtjusas och förtryckas av moderniteten – vi är alla lika “goda kålsupare” och det naiva grundtillstånd som Montaigne målar återfinns endast hos andarna.


    Shakespeare har med Stormen på ett elegant retoriskt sätt tillbakavisat Montaignes populära verk och därmed minskat kritiken mot den engelska kolonialismen.


    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Essay, In Swedish, Shakespeare | Leave a comment

    The History of Florence Published Online in Full-text

    Posted on March 14, 2008 by admin

    About.com has published Niccolo Machiavelli’s less-famous work The History of Florence online. It is not a widely spread fact that Machiavelli was indeed the first great Italian historian.


    The first book deals with the Middle Ages and is not too interesting. The actual history of florence starts in Book II. It is a very straightforward narrative and quite captivating. It may extend your understanding of Machiavelli as just not a guide to tyrants and terrorists.


    The new introduction to the work is written by Dr Hugo Albert Rennert of the University of Pennsylvania. It is in itself a good read with great insight into the Machiavelli production.


    Read The History of Florence.


    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Machiavelli | Leave a comment

    The Power Paradox

    Posted on March 13, 2008 by admin

    Dr Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr Keltner has written a very interesting piece on the so-called power paradox, published by blogger The Leisure Guy, where Dr Keltner investigates both theories presented by Niccolo Machiavelli and Mr Robert Greene’s U.S. bestseller, The 48 Laws of Power.
    Basically, Dr Keltner proves that the skills “most important to obtaining power and leading effectively are the very skills that deteriorate once we have power“. Dr Keltner’s argument could also be put “power corrupts”.
    Dr Keltner has a very interesting take on Machiavelli. However, Dr Keltner completely disregards the other works of Machiavelli (other than The Prince that is). This makes Dr Keltner’s analysis flawed, at least when it comes to Machiavelli. It is hardly arguable that The Prince is manual in how to obtain power. But to maintain the state it is more advisable to seek guidance in Machiavelli’s Discorsi. Still, Dr Keltner’s piece is a very interesting read.
    Read more in The Leisure Guy.

    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Blogpost, Current affairs, Machiavelli | Leave a comment

    Sfumato and Photoshop

    Posted on March 12, 2008 by admin

    What would Mona Lisa look like if Leonardo da Vinci had Photoshop?

    One possible answer is provided in the very funny blog post The Many Faces of Mona. Blogger “Oz” claims to have the secret pictures from surveillance cameras shooting the Mona Lisa painting outside of office hours.

    See the many faces of Mona.

    Posted in Blogpost, Comedy, Leonardo | Leave a comment

    Deepak Chopra Ignorant on Ignorance

    Posted on March 11, 2008 by admin

    In a blog post published at Huffingtonpost, Mr Deepak Chopra examines the war in Iraq and the ignorance in the public debate. Mr Chopra states that the “shallowness of political debate that allowed the public to be fooled in the first place” and thus “fooling” the American people into Iraq. He moves on to state that Mr Karl Rove, a former (?) Bush adviser and known avid Machiavelli reader, used tactics to manipulate the public through fear and capitalizing on ignorance.


    This is, according to Mr Chopra, tactics used where “any question of morality and ethics is beside the point, as Machiavelli long ago informed his prince”. Again, Niccolo Machiavelli is misrepresented in the public debate. I do not have all the facts to judge whether Mr Karl Rove and the Bush jr administration did delibrately fool the American public when it comes to the Iraq war. However, I challenge Mr Chopra to prove that Machiavelli taught his Prince that “question of morality and ethics is beside the point”.


    What Mr Chopra probably is referring to is the realpolitik side of the Machiavellian advise in The Prince. However, Machiavelli is very reluctant to make the kind of blunt and always-true judgements as suggested by Mr Chopra. On the contrary, the Prince must have virtue or virtu. In every given situation, as discussed by Machiavelli in respect of the church in Chapter XI, virtue does not fall under a moral imperative. This is, however, not a call for the Prince to act immoral. If Chapter XI is read together with Chapter XV it is quite evident that the Prince should not focus on “being good”. If being good means that the state is ruined, the Prince should instead focus on maintaining the state. The overall goal for the Machiavellian Prince is to maintain the state and this superseeds the goal of being good. However, Machiavelli does not deem good deeds as something bad as such or bad deeds as something good as such. Remember the times when The Prince was written. It was desperate and unsafe times to Italian states (this was really pre-Italy).


    Maybe, Machiavelli would advise the Bush administration to invade Iraq on the grounds that the specific case calls for an invasion even if such an invasion would violate some moral standards. I am sure Mr Karl Rove has thought about what Machiavalli’s advise would have been. Still, the broad sword on Machiavellian thought delivered by Mr Deepak Chopra is nothing but being ignorant when debating ignorance.


    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Blogpost, Current affairs, Machiavelli | Comments Off

    Picture of Cosimi I’s Villa Petraia

    Posted on March 10, 2008 by admin

    Swedish fashion blogger Lucy Honeychurch has published some great pictures of one of Cosimi Medicis’ villas. Cosimi I loved his Villa di Castello. Lucy Honeychurch has published a picture of the Villa Petraia. Villa Petraia is a smaller neighbouring villa. Cosimo I bought it to one of his sons. Please do not miss the picture with the detail of grotto. I hope Lucy Honeychurch continues with more pictures of her Florence surroundings.


    The Medici family is worth a more in-depth analysis and I will return with more information on every illustrous family member respectively.


    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Medici | Comments Off

    Leonardo Exhibition in East-Germany

    Posted on March 10, 2008 by admin

    Between March 9 and June 15, The Industrial Museum in Saxony, East-Germany, will host an interesting exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci. Da Vinci’s machines will be in the limelight. 40 wooden models will display the genius of Da Vinci.
    More information at the Museum’s web page.

    Posted in Inventions, Leonardo | Comments Off

    Leonardo’s Mystery Machines

    Posted on March 10, 2008 by admin

    The Museum of Science has published a very nice representation of Leonardo da Vinci’s mystery machines. Eight so called mystery machines, i.e. blueprints, are represented. You are asked to try to describe what they are. Very nice and interesting.
    Visit Leonardo da Vinci’s mystery machines.

    Posted in Inventions, Leonardo | Comments Off

    Fear and Love Machiavellian Style

    Posted on March 10, 2008 by admin

    Swedish blogger Mr Jöran Gemen of Vasomfolk states that “Machiavelli considers it better for the Prince to be feared than loved”.
    Machiavelli actually spends an entire chapter in The Prince, XVII, on the subject of whether it is better to be feared than loved.
    Machiavelli does not, contrary to popular belief, answer the question of what is the best. Instead he puts it this way:

    (—)“Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted.”

    That is, The Prince should do what is best to achieve the goals in every given situation, no matter if it means being loved or hated, however, The Prince should always avoid being hated. Machiavelli is not so concerned with love or fear as such. It is more important to discuss options when measures of love fail and cruelty rebounds. Machiavelli is often quoted and represented as a judge on morality, when in most cases, he is just opportunistic. I would say that chapter XVII on love and fear is a typical representation of Machiavelli as an opportunist.
    Blogger Mr Jöran Gemen states that “Machiavelli did not know better”, since he published his writings in “the dark ages”. Well, Machiavelli did know better and he published his work in the Renaissance, not the dark ages. I would consider this a minor detail, but getting an entire era wrong, that’s at least worth mentioning in this context.
    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Blogpost, Current affairs, Machiavelli | Comments Off

    Machiavelli misrepresented in Swedish blog

    Posted on March 10, 2008 by admin

    The Swedish blogger “Rolf” writes in a February posting that “Machiavelli affected Hitler“. No historical proof is added to this fact, why I can not comment on the validity of this claim.

    The author then moves on to make a case for a Machiavellian attitude at reign of the Swedish prime minister Mr Fredrik Reinfeldt as well as Mr Anders Borg, his minister of finance. The blogger states that Mr Reinfeldt and Mr Borg rules Sweden with a disregard for public opinion, “just as Machiavelli suggests”.

    I will not jump on the debate wagon when it comes to the current affairs of Mr Reinfeldt’s and Mr Borg’s, but when it comes to the Machiavalli legacy I would like to challenge “Rolf” in finding an episode in The Prince where Machiavelli suggest a complete disregard for the people as a rule for ruling.

    I would say that Niccolo Machiavelli never would suggest that the Prince choose such a road. On the contrary, Machiavelli may suggest a disregard for the general opinion on occassions, but never as a general rule. If you look into Chapter IX Of Civil Princedom you will find Machiavelli’s take on public opinion. I quote some passages:

    “But this is the sum of the matter, that it is essential for a Prince to be on a friendly footing with his people, since otherwise, he will have no resource in adversity.”

    …and later on in the same chapter:

    “a wise Prince should devise means whereby his subjects may at all times, whether favourable or adverse, feel the need of the State and of him, and then they will always be faithful to him.”

    These are just quick quotes and are of course presented out of context. I suggest you to read chapter IX Of the Civil Princedom to make up your own mind. Do not buy into the easy to grasp prejudices on Machiavelli.

    As a general rule, Machiavelli is never easy, and Machiavelli is never simple.

    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Blogpost, Current affairs, Machiavelli | Comments Off

    Machiavellian mis-qoutes

    Posted on March 8, 2008 by admin

    Collections of quotes often display one or two Machiavellian quotes. However, they are always taken out of context. If you do not know if a quote is from say The Prince, La Mandragola or Discourses you will have a very hard time interpreting it. Well, actually you will have a very hard time intrepreting it even if you know the context. Mr Niccolo Machiavelli is no easy subject.

    Still, one collection of quotes doing an honest job in collecting quotes is this one on the FreeRepublic web site.
    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Machiavelli, Quotes | Comments Off

    Machiavelli essay

    Posted on March 8, 2008 by admin

    Finally, I am going to work again on my Machiavelli thesis. It has been postponed for too long. Soon it is Easter time in Sweden and this will provide me with the time necessary to finish up my thoughts on Machiavelli’s double nature. I will write the essay in Swedish, but will definately still post it here, should it turn out well.

    Mikael Pawlo

    Posted in Essay, Machiavelli | Comments Off

    What is this about?

    Posted on October 5, 2007 by admin

    I am a novice when it comes to the Renaissance. This blog is an experiment in exploring the 14th – 17th century with means from the 21th.


    Have fun!


    Mikael

    Posted in Meta | Comments Off