Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Coaching the Team (Blog text is in German)


Zuerst: wird doch wohl Simonetta Sommaruga gewählt, was absolut in Ordnung geht, ja, zu begrüssen wäre. Sie ist eine tüchtige, dossiersichere Parlamentarierin und man traut ihr den erforderlichen Veränderungswillen, die Gestaltungskraft sehr wohl zu.

Zwischenstand: eine Bernerin und vier Frauen im BR, die Ostschweiz nur noch mit Maurer und Widmer vertreten. Jetzt muss man sich zuerst mal die mögliche Departementsverteilung überlegen. Die Gunst der Stunde wird ergriffen, Leuthard wechselt ins UVEK, Widmer übernimmt das EFD vorerst für ein Jahr, das ist vertretbar. Die Neuen sind somit als Vorsteher für das EVD und das EJPD zu wählen.

Also: nähme Sommaruga als Erstgewählte das EVD, so verbliebe das EJPD. Für dieses Departement wäre Karin Keller-Suter gut positioniert, obwohl sie seit langem die erste Nicht-Juristin in diesem Amt wäre. Aber auch Juristen liessen in der jüngeren Vergangenheit erhebliche Schwächen bezüglich ihres juristischen Sachverstandes erkennen. Es wäre nun eigentlich erstaunlich, wenn Schneider-Ammann a) als Berner bei bereits gewählter neuer Berner Bundesrätin b) als eigentlich in der Wirtschaft unentbehrliches Schwergewicht noch für das EJPD im Rennen bliebe. Nähme Sommaruga aber das EJPD, was erstaunen würde, so wäre Schneider-Ammann als Chef EVD bestens möglich. Er würde um ein Vielfaches bessere Voraussetzungen ins Amt mitbringen, als die aktuelle Amtsinhaberin. Er ist und bleibt aber immer noch Berner, was ja auch nicht schlecht ist. Theoretisch könnte Sommaruga helfen diesen Knoten zu durchschlagen, indem sie sich als Bürgerin von Lugano für den Ticino wählen liesse (Dreifuss hat uns den Trick gelehrt).

Nun, dann: wäre trotzdem wohl dem Land und dem Kanton Bern allerbestens gedient, wenn Schneider-Ammann seine bisherigen wichtigen und herausragend wahrgenommenen Rollen bei economiesuisse, Swissmem, sowie in seinen Unternehmungen beibehalten sowie als Nachfolger von Sommaruga mit guten Aussichten für den Berner Ständeratssitz kandidieren würde. Ein ausgezeichneter Wirtschaftsmann bliebe damit an oberster verantwortlicher und einflussreicher Stelle der Wirtschaft erhalten. Ein moderater, ausgleichender neuer Berner Ständerat würde zusammen mit dem BDP Vertreter für eine ungeteilte bürgerliche Standesstimme sorgen. Ein weiterer FDP-Vertreter könnte in den Nationalrat nachrücken. Win-Win-Win-Win-Win. Wirtschaft - Nationalrat - Ständerat - Bundesrat -FDP.DieLiberalen.

Schliesslich: gäbe es auch noch andere wählbare FDP.DieLiberalen Köpfe, sollte das Parlament einer Kandidatur Keller-Sutter nicht gewogen sein, was bedauerlich wäre. Man denke an Fiala, Malama, Dürst, Bührer, Gut, Vollenwyder, Cassis, Pelli (nichts ist unmöglich, die Aufzählung ist keineswegs abschliessend). Die Ostschweiz hätte wieder einen dritten Sitz oder vielleicht sogar das Tessin, Zürich wäre zwar je nachdem weiterhin übervertreten, das 'Team' könnte nach den Wahlen 11 zur arithmetischen Konkordanz zurück bereinigt werden.

Man rechne.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

A Chance for South Africa


No doubt, the FIFA 2010 World Cup is a huge chance for South Africa. The country is in the focus for all football (also called soccer) friends globally. Millions of eyeballs on any news from the nation of Nelson Mandela. Huge attention during the games in the qualifying round and during the finals. Planning, designing, building the new temples of football, roads, energy and water supply as well as other infrastructure has hugely increased investments, employment, awareness, visibility. Obviously, this was also a good learning experience for everyone involved in the huge projects.

As I write this, at this very time, be sure millions of French are looking at the RSA : FRA game, and they are asking themselves: how is it possible, that they (RSA!!!!!!) are in the lead, as it is the case right now. This is the true Madiba Magic for Bafana Bafana! What a joy! What a day!

I hope that this great impulse will help many, many South Africans, the whole lovely nation. This may be in the form of more tourists visiting and admiring the spectacular scenery, the parks, the coasts, the vineyards and very friendly, soft speaking people. Or in the form of additional investments, more job opportunities, more exports, more trade in general. The country really has deserved this.

For now, I look forward to the next weeks, during which we will hear and see much more from South Africa, about football, but not only ....

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Mobile Internet users in China will grow fast to reach a over 900 million!! http://ping.fm/2qRt9

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Will SuperFan make it into the top ranks?

SuperFan is the name of the social media site SuperFan.com. It's a very interactive site that allows users (called Fans) to register their favourites (faves) from a variety of sectors like celebrities, schools, movies, gadgets etc. Users can become fans or even superfans of the already registered items, organisations, groups or personalities. Joining is very easy as one can use the Facebook profile and an own profile in SuperFan is created within a minute or two.

Everything is based on a points and credits system. Fans have to spend credits to become fans or superfans. On the other side they can earn points when their faves are picked up by others. It is also possible to set up battles between faves and let the other users vote on who's better or worse. An interesting feature is writing or taking quizzes on the faves. Finally, as here, one can write blogs on the faves or any other subject. Status updates can be sent also to Facebook and Twitter.

Sounds very interesting, doesn't it? You learn more about other fans or friends likes and dislikes and you can see the ranking of your faves based on the battles. In quizzes you test what you know about your faves and learn more about them through the feedback on correct or wrong answers. This should be something everyone is interested in.

SuperFan grew it's user base very quickly over the last few months. From virtually zero in 01/2009 to over 51k unique monthly visitors in 09/2009 measuerd by compete.com. It more than doubled the unique visitors over the last month. As in all social media sites everything depends on how enthusiastic the users will be in spreading word of mouth to their friends and contacts and to invite them into SuperFan. Therefore the next few months will be decisive about whether the site makes it to the big names league. Will SuperFan be able to cross the chasm (I explained in another blog)? And what will the business model look like? Will it be based on ads or on user paid premium content? Tune in. And stay tuned.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Silicon Valley everywhere?

Why are almost all of the great websites and internet applications created in the Silicon Valley? Think of Google, Amazon, PayPal, Digg, eBay, Facebook etc.

Is it the proximity of the universities, Stanford and Berkeley? The venture capital powerhouses residing there? The inspiring environment? The multiple founder phenomenon (founders starting their 2nd or 3rd website)?

Probably it's a combimnation of all these. Certainly the universities have contributed a lot by fostering an entrepreneurial and creative climate. And the money was there to make the entrepreneurs think big. As well as the trial and error approach to founding companies. Many successful websites are the consequence of ideas taken from others that were not so successful or even went bust. Serial founders like Marc Andreessen, Max Levchin, Kevin Rose contributed a lot by being the living examples of entrepreneurs making dozens or hundreds of millions out of multiple companies founded by them. Very attractive and inspiring for other young talent to join their firms, found their own, having the ambition to make it there, too.

Will this climate also emerge elsewhere on the planet? Will the next big thing come from the Valley again? Or from Russia, India, China, Bresil, South Africa? Anyone could do it, anywhere. Web 2.0 makes it easy. Little investment is needed. So, let's see what comes next. Hot spots are the Web 2.0, the iPhone, the social networks, ...

Friday, July 31, 2009

Response to 'Time for a Twitter Reality Check'

In response to a question around 'Time for a Twitter Reality Check' asked in LinkedIn I wrote the following (you may want to have a look at the original article first):

I look at Twitter as a startup with huge potential, like Google or Facebook were a few years ago. Personally I use Twitter as a marketing channel to bring people to my website and blog. Some make direct money of this by generating enough traffic to their blogs to be attractive for AdSense to place ads. Others are looking for jobs and find offerings, or they can attract recruiters to their CV / LinkedIn / Xing / Viadeo / Hi5 webpage. Still others get user feedback and support requests (like Dell). Or they distribute coupons, 'secret passwords', promotions like Starbucks and generate massive physical traffic to their outlets. Some use it to attract people to their Craigslist ad extending reach. CNN and many other media bring traffic to their websites and news channels. The British and Swiss Government use it to distribute information about events, politics and legislation. Churches distribute bible verses. etc. etc. So there are many faces and uses of Twitter.

You can't really say that users are only interesting if they're active. It is the normal business model for broadcasters to have passive users and still they make money out of the business model (news or entertainment against suffering commercials). Similar for 'gurus' and celebrities who give some little stuff or nice words to their fans. The user activity lies in consuming the information, just like reading a newspaper. Listening to the global chat. And sometimes this becomes very active like during the Iran elections, where even the White House asked Twitter not to interrupt the service, as it gave voice to the Iranian opposition (and channels to CIA and NSA, probably).

Is no one 'using' (what do you mean by 'using') it? Have a look at Alexa stats: yesterday 3.45% of Internet visitors (most from US) used Twitter (Google: 34.35%; MSN: 11.69% sinking; Facebook: 21.93%; AOL: 2.34%). With this Twitter is on rank 15 of the top sites accoring to Alexa. Not bad. No one??

'Using' for evil? NO. Most 'users' are listeners, spectators, consumers. Personally I've found huge value and insights from using Twitter. I found stuff and made connections with interesting people I didn't know about 5 months ago, and I'm a rather senior guy.

Numbers lie? You trust Nielsen? Have a look here http://en-us.nielsen.com/main/news/news_releases/2009/june/time_on_facebook . 3712 pc year on year growth in the top 10 social networking and blog sites list.

And just thin of the combination potential if Twitter did join forces with Amazon, Goole, CNN, Facebook or whatever. Does Twitter as a company have a value? Yes? Well, the founders already founded Blogger and sold it to Google. Why would anyone want to buy it? Think.

Ok, nuf 4 now. Sure, I do agree with some of what you say, BUT, I'd advise not to underestimate the power of Twitter. I think it will become or already is a major force on the web. And the potential is by far not exploited. Creative firms and users have found and will find ways to build new businesses, marketing approaches, distribution models based on Twitter.

What do you think?