Upendra Shardanand

Recent Updates RSS Hide threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Et Tu, Harvard? 

  upendra 4:00 pm on May 30, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  

  In the spirit of my last PaidContent column, this piece in the NYT:

  At Harvard and other top business schools, there has been an explosion of interest in ethics courses and in student activities — clubs, lectures, conferences — about personal and corporate responsibility and on how to view business as more than a money-making enterprise, but part of a large social community.

  However, it seems only 20% of the graduating class has taken an oath to act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their “own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others.

  And the other 80%? Next time I interview a Harvard MBA, I’ll add “did you sign the Ethical M.B.A. oath?” to my list of interview questions.

   

  Reply Click here to cancel reply.

  Name (required)

  Email (required)

  Web Site

   
• 

  upendra 5:27 pm on May 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  

  From the New York Times Magazine, The Case for Working With Your Hands:

  A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Nor can big business or big government — those idols of the right and the left — reliably secure such work for us. Everyone is rightly concerned about economic growth on the one hand or unemployment and wages on the other, but the character of work doesn’t figure much in political debate. Labor unions address important concerns like workplace safety and family leave, and management looks for greater efficiency, but on the nature of the job itself, the dominant political and economic paradigms are mute. Yet work forms us, and deforms us, with broad public consequences.

   
• 

  Questions I Wish VCs Would Ask Entrepreneurs 

  upendra 1:48 pm on May 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: paidcontent (2)

  Column number two up on PaidContent.

   
• 

  Storytelling Is Stuck In A Rut 

  upendra 11:49 am on May 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: columns, paidcontent (2)

  A short column (by me) on PaidContent (thanks to PC for the opportunity).

   
• 

  Ideals are the New Business Models 

  upendra 11:40 pm on March 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: quote (11)

  Umair Haque:

  Reconceiving value creation depends on new ideals. Ideals shape what we wish to achieve in the first place: freedom, peace, fairness, justice – all are ideals vastly more powerful than mere business models. That’s because they are what ensure the value we are creating is authentic, deep, meaningful value – not just the shabby, threadbare illusion of value.

   
• 

  Every Site *will* be a News Publisher 

  upendra 1:50 pm on February 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  

  

  Image by Getty Images via Daylife

   

  Some time back I posited that every site will be a news publisher. If it’s as easy to add “news” to your site as it is to add AdSense, then every site, being about something, will add relevant news. (And think of news in the broadest sense of the term – fresh content, whether it’s hard news of the day or news about diabetes, archaeology or Sussex spaniels. For example, Purina and its Petcharts site).

  Looking at our client list today (including those not yet live/announced) – only a fraction are traditional newspaper or magazine companies. Another fraction are traditional media companies, but not specifically print or news. The majority are services that purely online or non-news. Including sites as varied as financial services companies, e-commerce sites, and NGOs. And this ratio is even more true of the companies in our near-term pipeline.

  While Daylife still isn’t as easy (or as free :), as AdSense – it’s getting there. We’ve seen portals of thousands of pages built using Daylife in one day (thanks to Daylife Select).  Stay tuned.

  (Cross posted to the Daylife Blog)

  
   
  • 

    ambrose 9:46 pm on March 10, 2009 Permalink
    

    Upendra,

    I’m intrigued with your Daylife service and considering using it.

    Could you please post the algorithm that the Daylife platform uses?

    Thanks.

    -Ambrose

• 

  The Kindle and a new Digital Book Divide 

  upendra 6:53 pm on February 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  

  

  Image by Getty Images via Daylife

  A lot of excitement over the Kindle 2.  I’m not a Kindle user, but as an avid book reader and book buyer (more buying than reading these days), I find it hard not to be excited about the convenience and superpowers the Kindle bestows. (Not to mention access to Kindle-only books!)

  However, what becomes of libraries, research, and the sharing of books? Libraries (and just simple act of being able to lend a book) did more to democratize knowledge than arguably anything in history. (I will not rush to coronate the web, it hasn’t been around for even one generation yet).  Will libraries be permitted to “lend” in an era when books are digital only, and DRM’d or locked in a device? What happens to access to books for the poor and those in less developed countries?  Will economically-distressed book publishers embrace enabling sharing for their electronic books, or will they go the way of the RIAA and the recording and movie industry, and use their new found digital IP powers and fight tooth and nail to keep the dissemination of their books tightly controlled? Will sharing books be “illegal?”

  Thoughts? Has there been any comment by Amazon or the book industry on digital books, libraries, and person-to-person sharing?

   
  • 

    Derek Gordon 3:40 pm on February 12, 2009 Permalink
    

    I think Google’s response would be: “we’ve scanned all the books from some of the world’s most extensive libraries and those are available to all.” So, if you accept this as an answer to “what happens to libraries”, the question becomes: what devices are ubiquitously available to the poor; the disenfranchised; and those living in developing nations that enable them to access this new digital library? The rising generation of smart cell phones is one answer. Mass-distributed Kindles could be another. And the rising generation of “cloud” laptops yet another. For those who can’t afford to buy any of these devices, centers, such as libraries, can be a place where laptops, for instance, are located and available for free use. It’s not as awesome as carrying a dog-eared novel from the local library on the subway or into your favorite cafe, but it’s a start.

  • 

    upendra 6:25 pm on February 12, 2009 Permalink
    

    Google certainly covers a segment of literature. And that may be part of the answer. Assuming we as a society are comfortable being reliant on the charity of a single private company for providing that service. Given the longevity of companies, particularly tech companies, I don’t think that’s an answer. We’d be better with libraries as public institutions or with the diversity of several benefactors starting libraries, as did the robber barons of old.

    But those books aside.. how do one borrow Stephen King’s Kindle-only book? Or trade it. Or even buy it for a dollar second-hand?

• 

  Bill Gates, markets, doing the right thing 

  upendra 2:41 pm on February 5, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: quote (11)

  Bill Gates at TED:

  The market does not drive scientists, thinkers, or governments to do the right things. Only by paying attention and making people care can we make as much progress as we need to.

   
• 

  Roussel: To Prepare for the Future, Skip the Present 

  upendra 2:44 pm on February 2, 2009 Permalink | Reply
  

  

  Image by Getty Images via Daylife

   

  I’m a bit late to come across this visionary and prescriptive piece by Edward Roussel, editor of the Telegraph online. Among his several insights:

  The future of journalism is selling expertise, not content.

  News organizations have to radically fix their cost structures, which clearly aren’t sustainable online. And the web is exposing a lot of inefficiencies in the industry that weren’t visible before.

  News organizations sometimes get in the habit of asking “how do we get our news to readers” and sometimes forget the question should be “how can we best serve our audience’s news and information needs.” Or rather, how can I help our audience best navigate the world, whether it’s “our” content, or someone else’s.

  Part of the solution for both fixing cost structures (technology, content creation, curation, deployment, trafficking) and for offering a better user experience will be in smart aggregation – but done with your own your own voice, your own hand, and your own content as king.

  (Examples and shameless plug: see http://davos.wsj.com and http://obama.wsj.com, powered by Daylife)

  
   
• 

  On Democracy and Religion 

  upendra 1:05 am on December 31, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: quote (11)

  

  Image by Getty Images via Daylife

  “Of the world’s three largest democracies, the overwhelming majority of their populations have different religious faiths: Hindus in India, Christians in the United States, and Muslims in Indonesia.”  -  Jimmy Carter