Happy New Year!

As I look back on my first calendar year of blogging, I am reminded about the paradox of the Internet. The infrastructure that makes it possible to broadcast your ideas to potentially millions also makes it equally possible for others to broadcast their ideas to millions. The infrastructure that makes it easy to be heard makes it incredibly difficult to be heard. As a result, everyone is inundated with communications, from email to blogs to Twitter to Facebook to Google Plus to Tumblr to Pinterest. Not to mention voice communications.

Most people think that the most difficult part of a start up is to think up the idea itself and to develop the idea. A blog is like a start up, except that you have to come up with and develop a new idea every week.  To gain readers, the ideas must be interesting and worthwhile.  Even then, the challenge is finding those readers.  People will spend time on a subject that interests them or addresses a problem they have. The key is to find a way to match people with applicable content. If this concept is ignored, then that great blog or idea will echo, unheard in the vast world wide web.

The same issues apply to e-commerce.  When we launched our first e-commerce company four years ago, One Stop Dorm Shop (OSDS), we naively thought, “if you build it, they will come.”  That is, customers would find us, if we build a better web site, with superior functionality and product selection.  We were satisfied that our web site design and functionality accomplished our objectives.  (Ultimately a major national retailer was so impressed with our proprietary, patent-pending interactive checklist that they copied it and used it on their dorm site this year.) But the OSDS site did not generate much traffic.

Our enterprise morphed from dorms to office products.  Group Office Buys has a better business model, but we are still challenged by the difficulty of being heard. So we hired an experienced marketing person to develop a comprehensive plan, including social media and an email campaign.  We also explored the use of Google ad words with Heath Hyneman, at his Hypepotamous co-working space.  Heath and two partners launched H.M. Wallace almost a decade ago with $2,000 of seed money. They sold toilets over the Internet through Google ad words.  Now H.M. Wallace sells hundreds of millions of dollars of plumbing fixtures. Heath is our hero. But the optimal ad word strategy for Group Office Buys is not obvious.

Group Office Buys has had a successful first year, but customers have come primarily from networking and human sales, rather than through the Internet or social networking. To grow quickly, we need to “catch fire,” through a combination of social media, Google ad words, search engine optimization and email. Our marketing director admonishes us that we will have to spend more money to become an online success.  Even so, adequate funding is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to success.

We are not the only ones to face this issue. Like tens of thousands of independent dealers, we license an e-commerce platform that is dedicated to the sale of office products.  Our provider’s platform facilitates electronic order entry by customers, but has limited capabilities as an Internet site.  To position ourselves for Internet marketing, we have had to build a proprietary web site around the platform. Many of our competitors use “off-the-shelf” order-entry web sites but still completely lack the capability of being found.

Whether you are blogging or engaging in e-commerce, you can benefit from expert advice. South Korean B-list pop star Psy is known for the billion hits on YouTube received by his video Gangnam Style (talk about catching fire!) but less well known is the support he’s received from his country’s thriving pop music industry.  My blog was introduced to thousands through the Saporta Report. A structured and established delivery vehicle like the Saporta Report can save the time of finding and connecting with followers, recognizing that readership can be expanded further through emails, commenting on other blogs, Tweeting and using social media strategies.

Whether for blogs or e-commerce, the lesson is that success requires not only good ideas but also a way of having those ideas heard. Next week we return to the ideas themselves, as I synthesize the themes of my 2012 blog postings.

What can a tech company learn from the Rolling Stones, who are celebrating their 50^th anniversary? After reading Keith Richards’ autobiography, Life and watching the recent documentary, Crossfire Hurricane, I learned almost as much about building a business as I did from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs.

Know Your S**t.  In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell cited the Beatles’ 10,000 hours of practice and performance (especially all-nighters in Hamburg) as a prerequisite for outstanding achievement.  The Stones scored some hits well before reaching that milestone, by mastering the blues idiom. This set the stage for their bigger successes staring with 1965’s Satisfaction, one of the greatest songs of all time.

Differentiate Yourself From Your Competitors.  The Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, encouraged them to embrace a “bad boys” image to contrast with their principal rivals, the Beatles.  Maybe the Stones went a little overboard with drugs and generally outrageous behavior, but the differentiation worked.

Exploit What Makes You Unique. The Rolling Stones have a recognizable sound, deriving primarily from Keith’s open-tuning of his guitar.  Also, drummer Charlie Watts explained that, unlike most drummers, he follows the rhythm guitarist, rather than the other way around. As a result, the drum beat is a unique half-second behind.

Intellectual Property is Essential.  The Stones started as essentially a cover band focused on the blues.  In 1964, they had a number one hit in the UK with Willie Dixon’s Little Red Rooster, a blues tune.  But to become great, the Stones had to write their own songs, with their first original hit, The Last Time, charting in 1965. Keith and Mick (the Glimmer Twins) wrote many of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (according to Rolling Stone Magazine).

Collaboration is Key.   Like Lennon and McCartney, as well as Jobs and Wozniak, Mick and Keith likely would have accomplished much less without each other.  And the Rolling Stones may never have gotten off the ground without their founder, Brian Jones.

Be Willing to Fire People.  So much attention has been paid to the death of Brian Jones that it is often forgotten he was pushed out of the band for nonperformance. Jones’ departure is a reminder that even a founder can become unproductive. At a recent “live chat,” Pardot’s founder, David Cummings, cited “quick to fire, slow to hire,” as an important policy.

Listen to Your Customers.  In his 1971 Rolling Stone magazine interview, John Lennon said: Every f***ing thing we did, Mick does exactly the same thing- he imitates us….You know, Satanic Majesties is Pepper.” The Stones may not have been as innovative as the Beatles, but they have always understood and exploited musical trends, from psychedelic in Satanic Majesties to disco in Miss You. Now their fans demand the hits, and the Stones oblige, notwithstanding Mick’s public protests that he doesn’t care what the fans want.

Create the Right Culture. David Cummings said that Pardot’s success depended on creating the right culture. Likewise, the Stones’ work-hard/play-hard culture, emphasizing collaboration and musical excellence, has inspired great performances and loyalty from band members.

Inspire Passion. How passionate was my recently deceased friend George Long about the Stones?

[H]is dedication to the Rolling Stones sent him catapulting over a six-foot wall, in cast up to his knee, and eventually landed him in a new cast. It was 1975 when Long and his bosom buddies took a midnight road trip from Atlanta to Greensboro, N.C. to a general admission Stones’ concert. They wanted to be first in line so they could claim front-row seats, said Mike Egan, a friend since junior high school. “When the gates opened, we wanted to be the first in, but George was lagging a bit behind because of the cast,” said Egan, who lives in Atlanta. “But he was not going to let that wall stop him from getting there. Of course when he jumped and landed, he cracked the cast open, and he had to go get that ankle reset, but after the concert when we got back to Atlanta,” he added with raucous laughter.

Talk about inspiring passion!

Built to Last. Since the Stones first appeared, countless bands have come and most have gone, from Herman’s Hermits to Grizzly Bear.  Like Apple under Jobs, the Stones used to be innovative.  Their incomparable run of Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St. reminds me of the iPod, iTunes, iPhone and iPad. Apple recently released the iPad Mini (a smaller copy of the iPad) and the Stones released One More Shot (reminiscent of their early 70s heyday).  Although current creations are inspired by past innovations, Apple is still the world’s most valuable company and the Stones are arguably still the world’s greatest rock and roll band!

What effect will Nanotechnology innovations have on our economy?  Will they be “Empowering Innovations” or “Sustaining Innovations” that create or sustain economic growth?  Or are they more likely to be “Efficiency Innovations” that lead to the loss of jobs?  This week’s posting continues to analyze the effect of technology innovations on job creation.

Nanotechnology “is the manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology works with materials, devices, and other structures with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres.”  In the United States alone $3 billion is invested each year in nanotechnology research and development, according to a Georgia Tech study by researchers Philip Shapira and Jan Youtie.  

The impact of the nanotechnology revolution is expected to be far-reaching. According to the Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), nanotechnology will not only benefit mankind but also create jobs, presumably through commercialization.

In addition to improving our fundamental quality of life as a result of positive developments in nanotechnology-related medicine, energy production, national security, environmental protection, and education, the commercialization and adoption of new technologies resulting from nanoscale R&D are expected to yield a positive economic return in the form of benefits such as the creation of businesses, jobs, and trade.

Innovations from nanotechnology are expected in manufacturing, medicine, electronics and even green energy.

It is easy to imagine that nanotechnology could have a significant effect on manufacturing. As discussed in my previous posting, one example of commercialization of nanotechnology is 3D printing, which Disney is now using to produce innovative illuminated toys.

There are many other areas of potential impact.  For example, someday nanotechnology could generate green energy. The Shapira and Youtie Georgia Tech study cites the following examples of green nanotechnology:

• Nano-enabled solar cells;
• Nanogenerators;
• Energy storage to improve existing batteries and fuel cells;
• Thermal energy insulation;
• Fuel catalysis; and
• Safe drinking water through improved water treatment, desalination and reuse.

Another far-reaching innovation was raised by the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank: “Nanoelectronics has the potential to replace the semiconductor and have a major impact on the U.S. economy by continuing Moore’s law of doubling data storage and processing capacity every 18 months.” Ray Kurzweil and other scientists believe that Moore’s law is responsible for most technological innovation.

The APEC Center for Technology Foresight observes:

If nanotechnology is going to revolutionize manufacturing, health care, energy supply, communications and probably defense, then it will transform labour and the workplace, the medical system, the transportation and power infrastructures and the military. None of these latter will be changed without significant social disruption.

But because nanotechnology underlies many different industries, assessing and forecasting its impact won’t be easy. The Shapira and Youtie Georgia Tech study observed:

“Compared to information technology and biotechnology, for example, nanotechnology has more of the characteristics of a general technology such as the development of electric power,” said Youtie, director of policy research services at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. “That makes it difficult to analyze the value of products and processes that are enabled by the technology.

The value of nanotechnology must be considered in light of its risks:

Potential risks include environmental, health, and safety issues; transitional effects such as displacement of traditional industries as the products of nanotechnology become dominant; military applications such as biological warfare and implants for soldiers; and surveillance through nano-sensors, which are of concern to privacy rights advocates. These may be particularly important if potential negative effects of nanoparticles are overlooked before they are released.

Nanotechnology might be one of the purest agents of destructive capitalism. And like other agents of destruction, we hope the effect will be creative and beneficial, generating net jobs and economic growth.