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Veterans Day/Week – 2013 What are YOU doing to HELP?

November 8, 2013 by Steven R. Gerbsman

Veterans Day/Week – 2013    What are YOU doing to HELP?
As we begin Veterans Day/Week 2013 on Sunday, we say “Thank You” to the men and woman of our armed services and suggest that it is time for all to “step up” and find ways to support our Veterans. To often we say “thank you for your service” and then do nothing more. Please think about supporting various Veterans groups with donations, food, clothing and moral support. The have “Earned” it and we “Owe” it to them.

In the late summer of 1967, I was on my way back to Basic Training at Fort Dix, N.J. I was in New York City and an older couple came up to me and said “Thank You” for serving and then gave me $ 20 to enjoy a dinner on them. The gentleman said he served in the Korean War and understands and appreciates what men and woman in uniform go through. I said thank you, enjoyed a great dinner and to this day, remember their kind gesture.

On this coming Veterans Day/Week, our family will support the Wounded Warriors program, an American Legion Post and will provide moral support and friendship to Afghanistan Veterans. On 11/11/13, I will also continue to remember that couple and honor them by buying dinner for soldiers in uniform. I will ask them to do the same thing, 5, 10, 20 and 40 years later.

May God Bless our troops and provide our leaders with the courage and strength to do what is Right and what is Just.

Please always remember – FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

What are YOU doing to HELP?

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What Recruiters Look At During The 6 Seconds They Spend On Your Resume by Vivian Giang – Business Insider

November 5, 2013 by Steven R. Gerbsman

What Recruiters Look At During The 6 Seconds They Spend On Your Resume

Vivian Giang

Although we may never know why we didn’t get chosen for a job interview, a recent study is shedding some light on recruiters’ decision-making behavior. According to TheLadders research, recruiters spend an average of “six seconds before they make the initial ‘fit or no fit’ decision” on candidates.

The study used a scientific technique called “eye tracking” on 30 professional recruiters and examined their eye movements during a 10-week period to “record and analyze where and how long someone focuses when digesting a piece of information or completing a task.”

In the short time that they spend with your resume, the study showed recruiters will look at your name, current title and company, current position start and end dates, previous title and company, previous position start and end dates, and education.

The two resumes below include a heat map of recruiters’ eye movements. The one on the right was looked at more thoroughly than the one of the left because of its clear and concise format:

recruiters-resume

TheLadders

With such critical time constraints, you should make it easier for recruiters to find pertinent information by creating a resume with a clear visual hierarchy and don’t include distracting visuals since “such visual elements reduced recruiters’ analytical capability and hampered decision-making” and kept them from “locating the most relevant information, like skills and experience.”

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-recruiters-look-at-during-the-6-seconds-they-spend-on-your-resume-2012-4#ixzz2jXN9jD6k

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Brain Drain Companies around the world are mining for mind power in Silicon Valley from Juliet Rich

November 3, 2013 by Steven R. Gerbsman

brain-drain

Brain Drain

Companies around the world are mining for mind power in Silicon Valley.

Putting it all in perspective (in the US):

  • 462: approximate number of currently active US venture capital firms (investing at least $5 million in companies)
  • 1,022: number of venture firms in year 2000, firms at the height of the tech bubble.
  • $149 million: average venture fund size.
  • $176.7 billion: dollar amount spent by venture firms from 2000-2010
  • $3.1 trillion: According to the 2011 Venture Impact study, originally venture-backed companies accounted for 11.87 million jobs and over $3.1 trillion in revenue in the United States (based on 2010 data). Those totals compare to 21% of GDP and 11% of private sector employment.

FACT: In 2010, venture capitalists invested approximately $22 billion into nearly 2,749 companies. Of these, 1,001 companies received funding for the first time.

Why so many startups in Silicon Valley?

Is there something in the water? Is it Silicon Valley’s water or air that makes its people more creative, innovative or entrepreneurial than others? Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial mindset has been 170 years in the making.

In the 1840’s it was the northern California gold rush that brought people west. Now it’s Silicon Valley entrepreneurship funded by venture capital.

A timeline of entrepreneurial activity in Silicon Valley

  • 1909: Stanford University’s president David Starr Jordan invests $500 in Lee DeForest’s audion tube, the first major venture-capital investment in the region
  • 1911: Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company is acquired by a new company that will change name to International Bussiness Machines or IBM in 1924
  • 1925: Frederick Terman joins Stanford University to teach electronics electrical engineering and encourages students to start businesses in California
  • 1939: The USA government establishes the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (later renamed Ames Research Center) at Moffett Field (a Naval base)
  • 1946: The first venture capital firms are founded in the USA, American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC) by former Harvard Business School’s dean Georges Doriot, J.H. Whitney & Company by John Hay Whitney, Rockefeller Brothers by Laurance Rockefeller (later renamed Venrock)
  • 1955: Private investors or “angels” (including John Bryan, Bill Edwards and Reid Dennis) establish “The Group” to invest together in promising companies
  • 1957: Dean Watkins of Stanford’s ERL founds Watkins-Johnson, one of the first venture-capital funded companies in the Santa Clara Valley
  • 1958: Draper, Gaither and Anderson is founded, the first professional venture-capital firm in California
  • 1972: At least 60 semiconductor companies have been founded in Silicon Valley between 1961 and 1972, mostly by former Fairchild engineers and managers
  • 1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft
  • 1976: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs form Apple Computer and build the first microcomputer in Jobs’ garage in Cupertino.
  • 1994: The “Band of Angels” is founded by “angels” to fund Silicon Valley startups
  • 1998: Two Stanford students, Larry Page and Russian-born Sergey Brin, launch the search engine Google
  • 1999: Between 1998 to 1999 venture capital investments in Silicon Valley firms increases more than 90% from $3.2 billion to $6.1 billion
  • 2013: 92% of smartphones in the world use an operating system made in Silicon Valley (Android 75%, iOS 17%, Windows 3%, Blackberry 3%, Symbian less than 1%)

Top Silicon Valley (and nearby S.F.) Incubators

  • AngelPad (San Francisco) … specializes in technology startups(2010)
  • Y Combinator (Mountain View, Ca.) … technology, founded 2005
  • Kicklabs (San Francisco)
  • 500 Startups (Mountain View, Calif) 2010

The Department of Defense (the Pentagon)

In 2012, more than $1 billion in venture financing poured into security start-ups, more than double the amount in 2010, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

  • Former Department of Defense and intelligence agency operatives have headed to Silicon Valley to create technology start-ups specializing in tools aimed at thwarting online threats.
  • Cyberattacks have expanded demand for security tools.

The car industry, catching the entrepreneurial spirit, is moving west, trying to shake off years of insularity:

  1. General motors: established GM Ventures, in 2010. Now it is providing critical early-stage funding to entrepreneurs and offering to be the first customer to startups in a wide variety of sectors, from advanced materials to alternate fuels.
  2. GM Ventures has funded nearly 20 startups from a $200 million war chest, including investments in solar energy systems maker Sunlogics, advanced battery developers Sakti3 and Envia Systems, biofuel developers Coskata and Mascoma, and electric bus maker Proterra.
  3. Ford: set up research operation in Palo Alto in 2012. Focused primarily on mobile devices, connectivity and other unspecified transportation-related applications, the lab has concentrated on partnering with local entrepreneurs.
  4. Bill Ford’s Fontinalis Partners has invested in such near-term ventures as mobile apps and peer-to-peer car sharing. Among its portfolio companies:
    • Everyday Solutions, which makes GPS systems for school buses
    • Parkmobile, which makes mobile parking-payment systems
    • Streetline, which uses sensors to track urban parking spaces

Other companies that have set up offices in Silicon Valley include:

  • Target Corp (Technology Lab in San Francisco)
  • G.E. (Global Software Center)
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • BMW (BMW Group Technology Office)
  • Walmart (@WalmartLabs)
  • Motorola Advanced Technologies and Products Group (owned by Google)
  • Dwolla, a payments network (based in Des Moines)

 

http://www.topcomputersciencedegrees.com/silicon-valley/

Sources

  1. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/technology/the-pentagon-as-start-up-incubator.html?hp&_r=0
  2. http://carlosbaradello.com/2013/06/24/mining-the-silicon-valley-mind-part-ii-a-perspective-for-foreign-entrepreneurs/
  3. http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-detroit-carmakers-rassle-silicon-valley-vc-model-213036394.html
  4. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323610704578626123357642626.html
  5. http://digiday.com/brands/why-target-set-up-shop-in-silicon-valley/
  6. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/08/23/0346203/the-pentagon-as-silicon-valleys-incubator
  7. http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=119&Itemid=621
  8. http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=344&Itemid=103
  9. http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/silicon.html
  10. http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2013/04/30/dwolla-raises-16-5-million-will-open-silicon-valley-office/article

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How To Find Great Business Ideas From All Over The World by Julie Bort Business Insider

October 31, 2013 by Steven R. Gerbsman

mickeys-brain-1How To Find Great Business Ideas From All Over The World by Julie Bort

YouTube/Mickey Hart

Do you want to start a company or come up with that genius idea for your current company?
Of course you do.

But if it was easy to come up with the Next Big Thing, we would all do it. So here’s a secret. There are two websites created by the same guy, Reinier Evers, that have some 17,000 thousand people worldwide scouring the world for the coolest, most creative business ideas and reporting on them for all to see and be inspired: Springwise and trendwatching.com.

For instance:

Former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart is using a mind-reading EEG headset to create thought-controlled visuals and music for his Superorganism tour.
A smart scale and Kickstarter project called the Prep Pad is a chopping board and weighing scale that can determine the exact nutritional content of the meal being prepared, and tracking users’ eating habits.
Yahoo! Japan has created Hands On Search, a machine that allows users to search by voice and receive a result in 3D-printed form.
A new 3D printer called LumiFold is designed to be folded, so it can fit in a backpack.
A clothing designer Elizabeth Fraguada, founder of the Jorge & Esther studio, has created a collection of clothing that embeds LED lights into the fabric (like color or cuff) and these lights can change color via a smartphone app.
We recently caught up with Chris Kreinczes, managing director for the Springwise blog, to ask about the business of trend spotting.

Business Insider: Why have two sites that seem to do basically the same thing?

Chris Kreinczes: The companies are actually very different in what they do. Trendwatching.com focuses on trends, offering free monthly trend briefings and, as part of their Premium service, access to their Innovations Database, Industry Bulletins, Trend Reports and an Apply Toolkit.

Springwise differs in both its content and its delivery of that content. The site is designed as an online magazine for daily viewing, and we deliver free weekly and daily newsletters (170,000+ subscribers total). The content consists primarily of overviews of innovative startups (we feature three a day), and we offer an interview series with founders.

We also offer a service for professionals called Springwise Access, giving access to our database of over 4,000 innovative business ideas, a personalized homepage tailored to our clients interests, and bookmarking and folder sharing features.

BI: How many spotters/Trendwatchers do you have currently?

CK: There are now slightly over 15,000 Springspotters and 2,500 Happy Spotters (the trendwatching.com equivalent).

BI: Can anyone be a spotter/trendwatcher, or are these contract, trained, paid jobs?

CK: Anyone can sign up to be a Springspotter and they will be automatically accepted. To become a Happy Spotter, applicants must first meet certain criteria. Both sets of spotters can earn points for accepted spottings, redeemable in our gift galleries.

BI: In 2013, what would you say are the big tech trends that define the year so far?

CK: According to the trendwatching.com team, a tech trend we highlighted last December as being key for 2013 was “Mobile Moments,” how consumers would look to their mobile devices to maximize every single moment.

We’ve since seen an explosion of innovations that tap into micro pockets of time, from the boom in mini video sharing (including Vine and Instagram), to the high adoption of ephemeral messaging platforms such as SnapChat or Frankly.

Another trend that broke from the lab and into the consumer market was what we call “Emotive Tech,” technologies that read and respond to emotions. It is a strand of the larger trend of “Intuitive Interfaces” where devices are designed to be natural, and therefore more pleasant, to use.

An example of Emotive Tech would be the Japanese-developed Mico headset, a pair of headphones that measures the wearer’s brainwaves and selects music to fit their mood. Another is the recently funded Kickstarter project PIP, a stress detecting biosensor that helps users relax through gameplay.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/find-great-ideas-from-all-over-the-world-2013-9#ixzz2jJc4p9kA

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BOOK CLUB: Workin’ it in the workplace – by Teri Schlichenmeyer, Times Leader.com – StyleBible by Lauren Rothman

October 30, 2013 by Steven R. Gerbsman

BOOK CLUB: Workin’ it in the workplace

October 30. 2013 1:42AM
By Teri Schlichenmeyer Weekender Corrspondent


‘Style Bible: What to Wear to Work’

Lauren A. Rothman

240 pages

$22.95

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This morning, you were stylin’.

You left for work, in fact, feeling like a million bucks in your favorite shirt, your most comfortable suit, and your lucky undies. Yessir, it would be a good day – and it might be even better if you didn’t have missing buttons, a stain on your suit, and undies that played peek-a-boo.

Nobody at work dresses like you do… for a reason. In the new book “Style Bible” by Lauren A. Rothman, you’ll learn how your workplace wardrobe may be holding your career hostage.

One of the first important decisions you faced this morning was made when you rifled through your closet and got dressed. But what do the clothes you wear to work say about you? Do they tell the world you’re put-together or slapped-together? Professional or probationary? Well-regarded or well-worn?

That’s important to know, since first impressions are “formed in less than five seconds,” says Rothman. That’s about how long it takes for “an eye roll,” which is not desirable when you’re trying to impress a prospective employer or client. The good news is, you can look great at any stage of your career without busting the budget.

To begin, identify your personal style. That’s the “most challenging” thing, says Rothman, but understanding is necessary so you know where to start. Also, know the dress code for your workplace, which may vary from industry to industry.

For the professional woman, there are seven “basics” you’ll need to have, whether you purchase them or shop your closet: “the third piece,” suits, pants, skirts, tops, dresses, and coats. Look for a good fit, some trendiness without faddishness, a good length and good coverage, and accessories that “make” the outfit.

Basics for men are a little easier: shirts, pants, suiting, and outerwear, including sweaters. Don’t be afraid to go with a little color here, advises Rothman. Do be aware of wearing the wrong item in any of these categories. And if you have a closet full of pleated pants, “run home and throw them out.”

Know office-fashion dos and don’ts. Watch how you accessorize. Don’t forget skin care and hygiene. Use a full-length mirror before you leave the house. Watch for “skin belts,” peek-a-boo underwear, and cleavage. And remember: “just because it zips doesn’t mean it fits.”

When I first picked up “Style Bible,” I figured it was just for college grads and workplace newbies. Otherwise, who doesn’t understand how to dress for success?

Then I started to think of all the Style Dont’s I know, and that made me a new convert to this book. Indeed, author Lauren A. Rothman makes it pretty simple to get your style on without making too many errors. She offers advice from the POV of an expert, but she keeps it light without beating readers over the head with mandates.

This book may not be the cure-all that some professionals could need, but it’s a great start. If you’re stymied by style or have no real feel for fashion, “Style Bible” will suit you just fine.

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