Designing better futures

Video RSS Feeds: the revolution will be delivered

itunes lets you watch videos and listen to podcasts.  These experiences get delivered.  I think a lot of people like delivery.  Whether its pizza's or newspapers, there is a market for the convenience of delivered stuff.

Web content is no different, short form video, blogs, music etc.  People are excited to run around and check out the latest YouTube video.  What if it showed up in their inbox as a stream of cool stuff.   

That is what RSS does.  RSS is great idea spoiled by a horrible name.

RSS is going to get a lot better for the average person as it disappears and is replaced by "feed".  Feeds and the concept of delivered content will make this happen. 

The company I work for makes a tool that creates a media inbox in Outlook and Outlook Express.  That means that when you are working with e-mail you can check out that latest film clip, music video or cool blog. 

If you are a content publisher it is powerful to delivery content.  Instead of having to drag people to your site all the time and hope the home page is "cool" enough, people sign up for a media feed they care about.  This feed could be artist based, keyword, thematic, most popular etc. whatever the end user deems quality content, yes even a full media feed of mentos and diet coke videos.

According to the latest data the average major video  site got 17.8  views per month.   If each video averages 3 minutes of consumption that works out to 105 seconds of viewing per day for the major sites.

A single RSS feed can publish many times that many items in a day and they can be Selected channels by the end user say "a keyword Chicago feed" or "european history 1500's" 

Try the inclue! media inbox, the price is right $0.

McDonalds and Mary Jane a Groovy Economics site

If you want to see which country is wealthiest they have it  here

#1  Luxembourg  $66,463.78  per capita

#2  Norway        $54,467.23 per capita

#3  Switzerland    $47,999.07  per capita

#4        Ireland     $45,707.17 per capita

#5     Denmark     $44,742.82 per capita

Now here is one of those silly questions.....is there a correlation between marijuana consumptions and the number of mcDonalds restaurants in a country? 

I created the graph, you kids at home can lift the data points to get the regression.

The answer is here:
pretty Amazing Stuff really.  It appears that there  should be some tweaking of those marketing campaigns to amp up same store sales.

Better turn down those lights and put some doobie brothers music on in the store.

No data available from other franchises, sorry folks,.

Looks like that war on drugs isn't going so hot either, don’t blame me, I gave the stuff up ages ago.  Below is the consumption of Cannabis per country. Wow New Zealand is really smoking.

Of course based on contemporary US policy on drugs the US goal would be to imprison or lock up about 12.3%X300m=36.9 million Americans, then the US can win the drug war….. so far it has been a sterling success.  Hey the US  spent $37.9 billion this year so far have a look 

hmm...according to my math $37.9 billion divided by 300million people.  Thats $126.33 per US resident.  I think I want $126.33 spent on health care and education, how about you? 

Remember that this is money just spent so far in 2006.  We have been at this "drug" war for awhile now.  Just say no...we are spending a lot of money....hmm and the drug losers if we want to call them that (new zealand and Australia) aren't exactly failed anarchic states......

 

Lifestyle Statistics > Cannabis use by country 

Rank     Countries Amount

#1     New Zealand                22.23% 

#2 Australia                17.93%

#3    United States    12.3%   

#4           United Kingdom                9%         

#5           Switzerland                8.5%          

#6           Ireland                7.91%          

#7           Spain                7.58%          

#8           Canada                7.41%          

#9           Netherlands                5.24%          

#10           Belgium                5.01%          

#11           France                4.7%          

#12           Italy                4.6%          

#13           Greece                4.39%          

#14           Germany                4.1%          

#15           Denmark                4.02%          

#16           Norway                3.82%          

#17           Portugal                3.68%          

#18           Czech Republic                3.58%         

#19           Poland                3.38%          

#20           Austria                3.01%          

#21           Finland                2.49%          

#22           Luxembourg                1.94%          

#23           Hungary                1.19%          

#24           Mexico                1.13%          

#25           Sweden                0.98%          

#26           Japan                0.05%          

Weighted average:     5.8%      

Of course the sad thing is our great culture already does imprison more of its people. Are winning yet???

Crime Statistics > Prisoners > Per capita by country

Rank   Countries per 100,000 people 

#1   United States 715

#2   Russia 584

#3   Belarus 554

#4   Palau 523

#5   Belize 459

#6   Suriname 437

#7   Dominica 420

#8   Ukraine 416

#9   Bahamas, The 410

#10   South Africa 402

#11   Kyrgyzstan 390

#12   Singapore 388

#13   Kazakhstan 386

#14   Barbados 367

#15   Panama 354

#16   Trinidad and Tobago 351

#17   Thailand 340

#18   Estonia 339

#19   Latvia 339

#20   Saint Kitts and Nevis 338

#21   Grenada 333

#22   Botswana 327

#23   Swaziland 324

#24   Mongolia 303

#25   Antigua and Barbuda 278

#26   Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 270

#27   Namibia 267

#28   Tunisia 253

#29   Taiwan 250

#30   Saint Lucia 243

#31   Lithuania 234

#32   Costa Rica 229

#33   Iran 226

#34   Mauritius 214

#35   Poland 210

#36   Uruguay 209

#37   Seychelles 207

#38   Chile 204

#39   Azerbaijan 198

#40   Romania 193

#41   Uzbekistan 184

#42   Czech Republic 178

#43   Jamaica 176

#44   Morocco 176

#45   Guyana 175

#46   Israel 174

#47   Libya 173

#48   Honduras 172

#49   Mexico 169

#50   Brazil 169

#51   Slovakia 165

#52   Hungary 165

#53   Tajikistan 161

#54   Malaysia 161

#55   New Zealand 160

#56   El Salvador 158

#57   Dominican Republic 157

#58   Bahrain 155

#59   Georgia 148

#60   Lebanon 146

#61   Spain 144

#62   Lesotho 143

#63   Nicaragua 143

#64   Portugal 130

#65   Madagascar 130

#66   Cameroon 129

#67   Burundi 129

#68   Bulgaria 127

#69   Colombia 126

#70   Zambia 121

#71   China 119

#72   Fiji 117

#73   Canada 116

#74   Australia 116

#75   Tanzania 116

#76   Netherlands 112

#77   Luxembourg 111

#78   Kenya 111

#79   Saudi Arabia 110

#80   Algeria 110

#81   Central African Republic 110

#82   Rwanda 109

#83   Argentina 107

#84   Jordan 106

#85   Tonga 106

#86   Sri Lanka 105

#87   Albania 105

#88   Peru 104

#89   Bolivia 102

#90   Kuwait 102

#91   Austria 100

#92   Italy 100

#93   Germany 96

#94   Qatar 95

#95   France 95

#96   Philippines 94

#97   Syria 93

#98   Armenia 92

#99   Turkey 92

#100   Andorra 90

All right you economics and soc. undergrads, this site is ideal fodder for that "paper" you need to turn in..

get Happy folks check scandiland

OK video warning here folks, (not my video) this thing is slow and the La Boheme aria while moving and nice was written by an Italian, about French bohemians and best sung by a new Zealand soprano.  It is a bit overkill and very un Swedish.

I have spent about 4 months living in southern Sweden and quite a bit of time in Copenhagen.  Some of the most effective cultures in the world.  Effectiveness here means people being happy.  Most sociological and cross comparative studies of well being put the Danes and Swedes usually near the top.  check it out here

There are always rebuttals to that fact about alcoholism and suicide, but the analysis bears it out.  on average the Swedes and Danes over the years are the most positive in their feelings about themselves, their spouses, friends and future.

When my wife and I are in Sweden (not often enough going on 3 years since last) we hang with our buddies Andy and Paula at  Hybrid State They live in Skurup and are 35 minutes by train from Copenhagen, a very cosmopolitan and beautiful city.

inclue! free video and music via RSS

inclue!  media feed reader is now available.  I am the CEO of inclue and proud of it.  We have launched the only RSS reader that works with Outlook and Outlook express.

The tool also supports podcasts, video and audio in the feed.  The world of delivered media is changing and we are helping that in a little way.inclue is also free.
I was in Boston 2 weeks ago  at the Video on Net conference and the mood was exciting. 

Video on the net seems not only hot right now, but also captures the attention of some big media players.  General consensus was that 30 second pre and post roll ad formats won't work.  The video guys want 5-10 second clips.  Madison avenue is still enamored with 30 second spots.  This will get resolved.

Nobody now what to do with UGC (user generated content).  It is exciting, empowering, and dangerous, a veritable sirens cry for major advertisers.  It has appeal but big rocks around it.

Lots of great p2p distribution formats are coming up, but people are still by and large "video" snackers consuming a few clips at a time.  The supply of stupid things to with diet coke, mentos and skateboards seems endless.  Among the dross, however is some compelling story telling and the tools to facilitate and lift this quality media for the masses is arriving. 

New voices and stories are arriving at a breakneck pace and it is fascinating to be a part of it and watch up close.  YouTube is the poster boy for today, but i-tunes, Yahoo, Google, AOL and host of others are working on interesting initiatives.  A brave new world has flickered to life and people are helping make it happen in new ways.

My company inclue! focuses on delivery.  We are the last 1 inch to users.  Every podcast or RSS media feed can be watched, played and displayed inside of e-mail.  We combine short form entertainment delivery with the power of e-mail.  People on average spend 2.5 hours a day with e-mail, we hope to make it a little richer and a little more fun. 

Visit our forums and tell us how we are doing.  inclue! forum

Realizing Property Rights Book part 2

There are some interesting sections to the book Realizing Property Rights , one of the more unique and fascinating chapters comes not from an NGO or field worker but rather some thoughtful individuals working with some of Switzerland's largest re-insurance companies.  chapter with 3 interviews by georg kohler, is a great insite into how big business thinks about these problems.

It is too simplistic and crude a belief that business or business people have narrow interests.  Some mistakenly believe business is inherently evil, it isn't in most cases business is benignly self interested, but happens to throw off loads of positive externalities in the form of improved lives via developed markets, stability and capital formation.

The report by the risk management group of Swiss RE's Rolf Tanner isa great read, it highlights the interest the insurance industry has in the creation of private property and how they percieve those properties are secured.

The interview with URS Egger is interesting as well in that it highlights how an NGO for entrepreneurs works on the ground, very telling how a micro VC places bets on people.

The only sad thing about this chapter is its brevity.  Wish the book would have had more thought provoking sections like this.

A chapter by Naoko Felder-Kuzu was a fascinating story of how a woman with who's husband ran away leaving her with a single room dirt floored house, 3 children and $20 was able to achieve her dreams via micro-finance.  This anecdotal story is the stuff of holywood scripts played out over 12 years of a women's life and brings the real impact of micro-credit and property rights to a powerful human level.  Statistics about the amazing impact of legal reform are great, but a human interest piece like this really reminds one about the importance of improving the human condition for all of us and how property rights can do that.

The book Realizing Property Rights has some gems, but could have seriously used tighter editing and thematic co hesiveness.  Some of the doors opened, IPR (intellectual property rights), Women's property rights, legal reforms impact and personal tales of change are great areas for further publication and research in this vital area. 

The human condition all (6.5) billion of us is improving in Economic terms faster than ever before as measured by global GDP output.  The Economist recently highlighted the developing world's GDP is now larger than the developed world in PPP terms annually.  Accelerating the Developing worlds' growth through sustainable means and evolution to having ever more enfranchised, property owning participants will have rich rewards for all, in terms of peace, stability and an improved state of the human condition.

Realizing Property Rights (book)

Realizing Property Rights is a collection of papers put together by the esteemed Economist Hernando de Soto and Francis Cheneval.

Hernando de Soto has probably done more good work for property rights and poverty than anyone alive today.  The qualifier good in the previous sentence, I refer to study and action that will lead to positive change and improvement for millions of people.

Unfortunately, land reform and property rights is associated the dreadful failures of communism and other forms of forced state collectivism.  This is sad as co-erced collectivism has probably led to more death and unhappiness than almost any other concept.  The purges of Stalin and Mao alone led to 10's of millions of deaths and generations of poverty.  Smaller, but no less tragic incidents have occurred in many part other countries and parts of the world.

Property rights, namely private, individual property rights are one of the fundamental bedrocks of the development of the modern world, Western, Eastern, Northern and southern.

The book Realizing Property Rights isn't as effective as Hernando De Soto's earlier and more important work, The Mystery of Capitalism, Why capitalism Triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. 

Realizing Property Rights unfortunately fails the test of being a good book in this area.  As a book it is a disappointment in an important subject.  The book has too many weak submissions.  The collection of submitters is a list of the great and good in this area, but unfortunately a good activist, policy wonk or field researcher doesn't implicitly make one a good author.  This is sad, the stories and opinions of these people count and the lack of editorial or ghost writing gets in the way of these people getting their messages across. 

There are some solid gems here that make the purchase worthwhile for a few nuggets, should the reader be so inclined.  the Chapter on women and property rights by Robin Nielsen is especially informative on the weakness of Women in developing countries.  The inability of women to secure, hold or transfer property in many countries is a disaster.  In many rural areas, women's property is held by the head of the household almost without exception her husband.  In the event of death or divorce the woman's property is gone.  This means a home, land, small business or children can be whisked away based on familial or village decision.  Culture and tradition is a deep and difficult to understand problem in this area and deserves more field work and attention. 

In my own academic study and personal research over the years, I came to the conclusion, however crude it may be that investing resources in women had the highest payoff in terms of development Goals.  Women invested more in family, education and collective well being.  Women perform most of the labor in the developing world and reap few rewards.  According to Nielsen's research Women produce 60-80% of the developing world's food resource.

Invest in women! I say this not as a gender issue, but as a hard nosed investor.  Women yield the higher development ROI (return on investment).

Fortunately a UN general assembly passed a CEDAW (convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) in 1979.  2 and half decades later 180 nations have ratified CEDAW.  Legal ratification and change on the ground can be different things, but this a step in the right direction.  This isn't just a poor world issue after all Switzerland only granted women the right to vote in 1971 

I won't go into the issue here, but female property rights and culture is a fascinating topic, everything from dowry, to collective ownership makes for fascinating reading about the human condition and the evolution of cultural norms.

Costs of doing business make people poor

The Worldbank has just produced it new Doing Business report.  There is clear evidence that economic freedom and commercial development have a high degree of correlation with human development.  Have a look at William Easterly's work

The world bank puts out some data on the cost of business in various countries.  I decided to "normalize" the data so that people could appreciate it more.  Many people think that poor countries are poor due to apathy or cultural limits of their citizens.  This is rarely the case.  Government bureaucracy limiting property rights and the formation of business play a huge part.

I have taken the costs from the Worldbank database and adjusted them to US and other countries incomes.  For this blog post, I will refer to US adjusted cost basis.  In Ethiopia a small entrepreneur wanting to start up a business has to secure $26,951 just to set up a company versus $207 in the US.  No surprise there aren't many small businesses registered in Ethiopia.  It costs $32,005 just to fire someone in Ethiopia.  Not surprising that many don't get hired in the formal economy.  These costs have nothing to do with computers and technology, they are old fashioned red tape.

What ends up happening is that the black market or informal economy is 40% of the Ethiopian economy as a whole.  That means 40% less taxes for the government and limitations to growth as "black market" companies can't scale, get capital and are subject to extortion.

I have compiled a database of countries and comparisons.  Here is a screen shot

I am also making the data available to anyone who wants to share quote or forward it.

Download DoingBusinessAlldataupto2006.xls
 
If you do make improvements or have suggestions please contact me at nick (at) inclue (dot) com

Consider the document under a Creative Commons license. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5  License.

Book: Origin of Wealth

The origin of wealth is over 450 pages written Eric D. Beinhocker a McKinsey consultant on sabbatical.  The book has some interesting points to make about economics and the sources of wealth.  In general the book critiques many of the approaches and crude tools that economists have used to "measure and manage economies". 

In general there is a fairly good discussion albeit well known critique of how economics started using mathematics to justify itself as a "scientific" study.  Unfortunately the math got way ahead of the reality and ever grander economic models became ever more removed from reality.

An old joke goes that if you want to scare an economist, sneak up quietly and present him or her  with real world data.  Not all of economics is devoid of reality, but much should be taken with a grain of salt.  Sadly as with many scientific disciplines and scholarly pursuits, ego and self satisfaction can give practitioners a serious disconnect from reality.  This would be fine except for the fact that policy makers quite often amplify the thesis or models economists put forth without the qualifying caveats.  Thus suspect hypothesis become multi-billion dollar policy impacting millions.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then a few paving stones may be from the economic brickyard.  Eric Westerly in his book The White Man's Burden does and excellent Job of highlighting flawed work by the world bank and IMF over the years.

Origin of wealth covers some good ground and can be a good starting point for many who wish to get a better grasp of economics.  The tome does feel a bit over reaching in that it posits almost to remake the discipline with a concept entitled "complexity economics"  Complexity economics to a mathematical economist is equivalent to non-linear math to a mathematician.  It is such a huge range of problems and solutions as to be effectively meaningless.  The equivalent of a complexity economist is a "non elephant" biologist.  The title complexity economics is a nice, but too reaching in that it isolates flaws in earlier approaches and tools and indicates the somewhat mathematical "irreducibility" of many of the problems approached by economists.

Economically speaking we are getting wealthier as we continue to specialize in ways to make ourselves happier.  Economies innovate and diversify to ever pursue various human forms of happiness.   Cars get faster, cheaper more efficient.  Our food comes from ever farther and is prepared in more exotic ways.  Our health care preserves our lives for longer.  We increasingly do all of this more efficiently.  It works well we are "all" getting wealthier and materially happier.  Ironically not mentioned in this book is that fact that in many developed countries the "state of well being" or happiness has only moved up a bit since the 1950's.  read "happiness economics"

Ideally more public sector economists would have their feet held to the fires of empirical data, which is starting to happen with the emerging field of "behavioral economics".  For all of our sakes lets hope the trend of reality and accountability entering economics continues and that exploration of this field continues fast and furious.

Many exciting areas of economic behavior at the small, medium and large "read" national and international level are yet to be discovered.  Like an social science economists deal with people and behavior.  This means that many economic "truths" should be taken with a grain of salt.  Caveat emptor.

Inbox media via Video RSS…just imagine the channels.

I happen to be the CEO of a technology company exploring the boundaries of media delivery called inclue! inclue! is launching a new product that’s lets people get video and music delivered to them in a spam free inbox from many of the largest sources on the web

We make a plug-in tool for Outlook and express that lets people get video delivered right into their email software. We deliver. That means people can get the most popular videos from a friends blog or from YouTube sent to them everyday.

We are looking forward to serving a lot people and helping to get more communication and sharing online.

One of the most exciting things about the web today is that companies are starting to realize that they are a part of the community and as such need to listen and share with users. We are big believers in that. So if you have any thoughts on video, RSS, inclue! or where the web is going mail me at nick [at] inclue[dot]com.

So you want to help????

Here is a great site for helping people out:  GlobalGiving.org  where else can take on a sizable meaningful project, that ranges in value from a few thousand and up.  This is pretty interesting stuff, make a village or group of people around the world a part of your lives.

Not everyone has the spare income to do this, but it is a very interesting site none the less.

Hats off global giving for using the internet in a highly effective way.

Pick a theme you are interested in and check it out.

                                                                                                                                            

Democracy

Econ Development

Education

Environment

Gender

Health

Human Rights

Technology

They even have smart buttons to promote a project.

Let's hope some of these show up on myspace. 

         

Income-Generation Skills for Battered Mothers     Unable to provide a safe home for themselves and their children due to domestic abuse, these 25 women who were all teenage mothers learn necessary income-generation skills in order to be independent.     Theme: Economic Development |   Location: Brazil | Need: $2,840

Great World Bank Site

The World Bank has published a very intriguing site called DoingBusiness.org Benchmarking business regulations.  The title sounds boring, but the potential for positive impact in the developed and developing world is anything but.

Many charities have strong emotional appeal, feeding starvation victims, minimizing conflict, fighting disease etc.  Many charities are very successful due to their appeal to basic emotions.  The ability to reply to cry for help is powerful.  these organizations can and do perform much good.  There is however a set of work that has less "sex" read emotional appeal, but can make things better for everyone.

For example one of the leading causes of death among children and infants in the developing world is diarrhea, this is a sad fact.  Another sad fact is that most famines, and other "TV quality" issues are actually preventable.

The Nobel prize winner, Amartya Sen has stated that no widespread famine has ever occurred in a "functioning pluralistic democracy", this is due to the fact that democracies usually have feedback mechanisms that allow for mitigating small crises, before they manifest themselves into humanitarian disasters.

Another issue that is popular currently is anti-globalization.  Unfortunately, the anti-globalisers end goals of better lives for the poor aren't really served by either the protests or anti-capitalist positioning they espouse.  Many studies and reports indicate that development, increased living standards and personal security most often go hand in hand with rising GDP in an economy.  Exceptions do occur for easily extractable mineral or oil resources.

Business creates jobs.  Jobs and property ownership improve people's lives and help the cultivation of a middle class, which usually seeks education and improved say in the national affairs.  Many theories of democracy assume a "Stable" middle class is a key component to a sustainable mature multi-party democracy.

The doing business site from the world bank indicates, some of the legal restrictions that hinder economic and therefore personal growth within various countries around the world.  Better business practice is usually a function of better legal procedure and effective bureaucracy.  This is hardly sexy stuff and most certainly not suitable for the evening news. 

The results of improved business policy and procedure however is truly amazing.  The estimate is 2.3% of growth per year  DoingBusinessReport for the lowest quartile economic performers.  This means $10's of billions of dollars and 10's of millions of lives improved just by changing policy and procedure.  No miracle drugs, flights of AID, foreign intervention or billion dollar wasteful projects.  Change from within countries can create billions in value and change millions of lives.  Now that is sexy.  The payoff from changing a policy relative to the payoff is truly impressive and exciting.

In the next few years, I will be seeking to build an open source website and PR campaign to highlight the opportunities and potential for improving throughout the world.  The core philosophy is that 95% of solving a social social solution, which poverty is, is getting people to agree on the nature of the problem. 

Therefore the first part of my project will be a series of tools to make the Worldbank statistics more media and individual digestible and friendly.  The Worldbank has done a fantastic job of compiling and presenting the data from over 3,000 sources.  My belief is that an open source "wiki" approach which allow open collaboration and access to the data and the related issues, can radically accelerate the rate of change from within the various countries that have the most to gain from improving the policies and procedures relating to property and business at levels ranging from the individual to the small enterprise.

So let's get started framing the opportunity to make things better....

If anyone wants to help out contact me: Nick (at) gogerty (dot) com.

We will need wiki experts graphic experts, flash gurus and many multi-language skilled people.  The oppurtunity create billions in value for millions of people means each volunteer will indirectly have a profound if immeasurable influence for bettering the lives of many.