Daily Archives: November 16, 2005

Searls: Saving the Net: How to Keep Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes

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Doc Searls:

The subjects covered here are no less enormous than the Net and its future. Even optimists agree that the Net’s future as a free and open environment for business and culture is facing many threats. We can’t begin to cover them all or cover all the ways we can fight them. I believe, however, that there is one sure way to fight all of these threats at once, and without doing it the bad guys will win. That’s what this essay is about.

Here’s a brief outline of the article. If you want to go straight to the solution, skip to the third section:

  • Scenario I: The Carriers Win
  • Scenario II: The Public Workaround
  • Scenario III: Fight with Words and Not Just Deeds

More here.

Tax Burden in America’s Largest Cities

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Natwar M. Gandhi:

The reports contain information about the rates and burdens of major taxes in the District of Columbia compared with states and other large cities in the United States. This publication contains two reports: (I) Tax burdens in Washington, D.C., Compared with Those in the Largest City in Each State, 2004 and (II) A Comparison of Selected Tax Rates in the District of Columbia with Those in the 50 States: A Compendium of Tables. This information is requested annually by committees of the U.S. Congress and the District of Columbia Council and is provided pursuant to Public Law 93-407.

Drucker’s Intellectual Compass

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Carole Matthews:

Drucker had an amazing ability to predict what was coming next, and distilled management into actionable terms for entrepreneurs, eschewing fads of the day. As George Gendron, Inc.’s founding editor-in-chief, once said in a 1996 article, “Both the man and his work have been my intellectual compass for the past two decades.” Gendron wasn’t alone, and Drucker’s works are sure to continue to guide businesses for years to come.

Drucker’s four entrepreneurial pitfalls:

  1. The entrepreneur doesn’t realize that a new product or service is not successful where he or she thought it would be but it is instead successful in a totally different market. (This, Drucker says, is much more common than you might imagine.)
  2. Entrepreneurs believe that profit is what matters most in a new enterprise. Cash flow matters most.
  3. As a business grows, the person who founded it becomes incredibly busy. Rapid growth puts an incredible strain on a business. You outgrow your production facilities. You outgrow your management capabilities.
  4. When the business is a success, the entrepreneur (who is perhaps bored) begins to put himself and his needs before the business.
  5. For a fuller explanation, check out the complete text of the article here.