The Green versus Green

I dragged myself into the renewable energy seminar organized by MIT Club of NCA last night. It was very interesting to hear different aspects over the topic from VC, private equity firm, Commercial banking, and Investment Fund (CalPERS). Mr. Winston Hickox's social and environmental driven investment principle shows to what extent fund managers can deliberately "force" companies/industries do-no-evil. But still in the end, for majority investments, it's not the greener environment will make the fund thrive, it's the other green: ROI. His view point did not resonate well with VC penalists. Nonetheless, how to blend making money and drving social and environmental impact together is worth more thinking from both investors and innovators. I guess it's hard to go with extreme in either direction.

Caldendar N.0 and Web N.0

Many techies and fans are waiting for the final release of gCal. All hopes a potential revolutionalization of PIM (Calendar) by google's entry into this field would come true. And the new Calendar may very well supports AJAX, RSS, Any Sync, Tag, vCAL/CalDAV, and Integration with Gmail/Gmap/Gvite/Gevent/Gnetwork. The list can go on forever. Since Google keeps mum on this topic for a long while, it generates even greater market fanfares - Job well done for Gmarketing team. Jeremy Z. led an interesting discussion on what good features should be included in a good Calendar application, by Google, or if no choice, Yahoo etc. It seems all cadendar applications existing are good at solving one set of PIM management issues. No comprehensive one has yet come out. More fundamental issue is $$$. Yes, the money making model of a business centered around a Calendar application. Sure, convenience and usability count. But how much are you willing to pay for that? $5.00 buying a Calendar from Walmart and hanging it on the wall pretty much keep me busy all year around and do the trick of disguising me as a social being. So calendar (online, offline, web based, or embedded etc.) has to be co-existing with other offerings that make sense of paying installment each month. But what are those killer apps that also make Calendar lethal?

I see two potential improvements that may facelift current Calendar status:

First, Calendar tracks History-Now-Future. Our life and values can pretty much interwovened into either time sequenced or event sequenced trails. New Calendar can do a good job of enriching life values and keeping track of memoriable things which can be ZOOMed in and out easily;

Second, Fun to interact with. Calendar is a social playground. It's invaluable for family, friends, and even your work. I treat calendar as a loyal companion, so at times, it may understands me and call/sync/SSM/MMS/email/RSS me for sharing.

And my appetitie for a good calendar may never stop here since I am a needy being as well. So 100 years later, I may have a calendar chip embedded in my head so I do not have to sync with anything. Sending an email, no problem, I think, it writes and sends right away; Searching for events, no problem neither, even before I ask, it gets everything already in my head, I naturely know what's going on. PC, Cell phones, PDA, Sync, etc.? long gone. Could it happen?

OK. Let's see what google is baking this time.

Clean-tech and P&P (peace and prosperity)

I am quite content lately when passing by many gas stations and noticing the price is dropping. Will this only be temporary? Judging by how fast those emerging markets (China and India) are racing us to the top, the answer is obvious. So what can we do? Not much with existing energy resources. We need to explore new ones like Clean-tech and renewable energies. VCs are the first one to act on the opportunity. Recently, firms like DFJ, MDV, KPCB, and VantagePoint etc. are actively putting in considerable sums into those areas. A recent article on Redherring and IPO of Sunpower and Suntech show how positive the market is accepting the opportunity. Countries like China are passing regulations to encourage innovations and manufacturing projects in these areas. We shall see more deals coming out in next few years. Areas like Fuel-cell, new solar cell and panel material and disruptive manufacturing processes, renewable energy from biomass and etc. are going to be very attractive. So hopefully, these new alternative energy resources can quickly catching up so that all countries can enjoy long growth and the tension rising from limited fossil oil resources will be something kids fight over in the backyard.

Another WMD: weapon of market and mass disruption

It has been a couple of days since I posted my previous piece of thought. During the down time, I have been thinking of all the large than life terms: viral marketing, tipping point, cross the chasm , U curve, S curve, L curve etc. etc. Last night, I watched briefly the Super Female Voice concert (the equivalent of American Idol) on Chinese TV and was quite amazed that a grass-root program like it can garner so much popularity. And the organizers were unknown prior to the launch. That did not seem to matter much since now they are well known everywhere in China. The economic power created by this program is enormous. The SMS messages generated alone passed 600M pieces. People in China love this program becaue it gives them a channel for Freedom of Express. Since then many similar online and offline programs are springing up. I call all of them Weapon of Market and Mass Disruption (WMD) since it is more potent than any viral/chasm/tipping marketing. One friend told me recently they are making Chinese version Apprentice and plan to broadcast it on CCTV. It would be very interesting how Chinese version Mr. Trump looks like. I am sure the program is going to be arractive since it fits the prelude of WMD. If you need to know what WMD is currently hot in China, please check out http://www.pacificepoch.com/ or chat with me.