Yearly Archives: 2005

Venture Capital in Wisconsin/Milwaukee

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John Schmid takes a look at a proposed Venture Capital Fund for inner city Milwaukee.

Venture capitalists, a clique of financiers obsessed with risk and exponential growth, incubated the Internet, seeded the bioengineering boom and propelled the likes of Google, eBay, Microsoft, FedEx and Starbucks out of their infancy. Now, for the first time, they intend to apply the same approach to Milwaukee’s inner city.

VC in Wisconsin is very much a chicken and egg problem. My view is that Wisconsin lacks a risk taking, entrepreneurial environment, which is ironic because it used to exist here, in the days when manufacturing was the rage. We see evidence of this everywhere, from The Madison School District’s annual “same service” approach to budgeting in an era of constant change to our very slow adoption of the critical assets for the next generation of entrepreneurs: broadband (wifi and fiber networks to the home). Wisconsin is not a player politically in these initiatives, unlike other areas.

The truth, in my view, is that there’s plenty of money in Wisconsin. We’re simply lacking the will, and perhaps people – though I wonder about this, to apply it to new businesses.

Finally, any VC discussion must include internet entrepreneur Paul Graham’s essay: A Unified Theory of VC Suckage. (I know some venture capitalists and believe they can play an important role. The idea and execution, however are critical).

Finally, why not look at results? Madison’s fast growing (now – started in 1978) Epic Systems never took venture capital, while Berbee did (started in 1994). Judy Faulkner has run Epic from the beginning while Berbee founder Jim Berbee hasn’t run the company for years, and recently left. Foodusa, hypercosm, guild.com (apparently 40+M, including over 2m of local funds) and sonic foundry all took venture capital. A number of local biotech firms are also vc financed.

In Vitro Meat

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New Harvest:

a nonprofit research organization working to develop new meat substitutes, including cultured meat — meat produced in vitro, in a cell culture, rather than from an animal.
Because meat substitutes are produced under controlled conditions impossible to maintain in traditional animal farms, they can be safer, more nutritious, less polluting, and more humane than conventional meat.

Jean Feraca’s Here on Earth on Podcasting

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Wisconsin Public Radio’s Jean Feraca hosts a weekly program called Here on Earth. Driving around between events Saturday, I heard a bit of her program on Podcasting. A list of participants can be found here. However and unfortunately, WPR’s podcasts, like our dear Airport’s WiFi, is non-existent.
I did chuckle a bit as both Jean and the BBC’s Peter Day speculated about their job security as a result of Podcasting’s growth. Times are changing. I would agree that some radio stations have reasons to be concerned. Advertising overkill and the same old same old playlists have pushed more and more listeners away – to ipod’s attached to their car radios or ipods and short distance fm transmitters. Wikipedia on podcasting.

Mad Cow Database

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Reuters:

Last month’s discovery of the second U.S. case of the brain-wasting disease has renewed calls for the quick implementation of a trace-back system.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the database would enable federal and state animal health officials to track down herdmates of an infected animal within 48 hours of an outbreak.

Gorgeous Western Australia Beach VR Scene – with a Dolphin

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Peter Murphy shares a gorgeous Quicktime VR Scene from a beach Western Australia Beach, with a dolphin!

these dolphins btw are very curious about cameras and people and this one made its way slowly along the line of people half rolled on its side looking at everyone … when it came near to me I put down my camera nearer the water to get a closeup view and it came closer … and then spouted water thru its blowhole onto my (precious) lens! — something they quite regularly do to cameras apparently
(… but with a bit of cleaning it was ok)

Howard Dean to Speak in Madison 7/13

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WisPolitics: “Keeping his promise to help build state Democratic parties, Howard Dean, the Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), will visit the Badger State for a grassroots fundraiser benefiting the Democratic Party of Wisconsin on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 at the Orpheum Theater in Madison. It will be Dean’s first trip to Wisconsin since becoming Chair in February 2005. ”

Future of News from the Media Center

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The Media Center:

It’s mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it. This briefing summarizes key findings from Media, Technology and Society, a multi-disciplinary research project on the media landscape conducted for professionals engaged in strategies, research, thinking, education, policy and philanthropy related to the future of journalism and media.

3.8MB PDF

New Bankruptcy Law: Chilling Effect on Entrepreneurs?

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Louise Witt:

Mr. Girard’s experience is apparently much more common than the policy makers in Washington might think. A study commissioned by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., which supports entrepreneurial education, found that almost one in five Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy protection in recent years had operated businesses – small companies, home enterprises or start-ups – within two years of filing for bankruptcy.
Many of them had incorrectly filled out their paperwork, so the government mistakenly counted them as individuals, not businesses. In many more instances, the study showed, they had been classified as individuals by a computer software oversight.
The study’s findings raise the possibility that the bankruptcy law President Bush signed in April, and which is to take effect in October, may have damaging ramifications for the nation’s entrepreneurial culture.
Instead of cracking down almost entirely on careless consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, the study indicates, the legislation threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs and small-business owners caught in financial setbacks.

Wisconsin Senators Kohl & Feingold supported the bankruptcy reform law. The Kauffman report can be downloaded here.