David C. Bloom's industry-keynote address from the 2008 Michigan Oracle User Summit

1. Entrepreneurialism 3.0:
The Network Is The Corporation
David C. Bloom
Factotem Inc
1

2. Agenda
• Release Notes
• Entrepreneurship
• Report Card
• Flatteners
• Networks
• About Spark
2

3. Release Notes
• Entrepreneur v1.0:
“Build the Corporation”
• Legal entity, limited liability
• Issue Shares to Stakeholders
• Sustainable Value Proposition
• Entrepreneur v2.0:
“Network the Corporation”
• Value Chains / Value Webs
• JV’s, Licensing, Outsourcing
• Entrepreneur v3.0:
“Remove the Corporation”
• Talent trumps Capital
• Singles, not Dingers
• Cluster Economics
3

4. Test your Entrepreneurialshipitudenessity
• Name three hot new
businesses in your community.
• Tell your friends, “Hey, I’m
starting my own business.”
• Tell your parents.
• Your company closes.
Now what?
• You have to sit through some
boring economic development
presentation with words like
Entrepreneurialshipitudenessity.
4

5. Reality
• Employees are Contractors
• Products are Services
• Vendors are Partners
• (This is the only slide that really matters.
If you have to go out in the hall to make
an important call, you can leave now.)
5

6. Attributes
6

7. Entrepreneurial Report Card
• Technology
• Talent
• Capital
• Infrastructure
• Culture
7

8. Technology
• 1998: B
• 2008: A
• Progress with U-M
Technology Transfer
• Named one of the 10 Best
Communities for Innovation
8

9. Talent
• 1998: D
• 2008: C
• Management Talent lags
Scientific Talent
• Innovation is a Team Sport,
not a game for Individual
Contributers
9

10. Capital
• 1998: D
• 2008: C
• Ranking improved!
Was #37/50 states
Now #20/50 states
• Pre-Seed, A-Round ok
B/C round is still a problem
10

11. Infrastructure
• 1998: D
• 2008: B
• Then: hard to find an
attorney who could even
draw up a term sheet
• Now: Michigan Business Tax is
a big improvement over the
former Single Business Tax
11

12. Culture
• 1998: E
• 2008: C
• Then: toxic cocktail of risk-
aversion, judgmental attitude
and sense of entitlement
• Now: Economic Reality is a
Mutha of Invention, still too
much discuss, not enough do
12

13. Friedman’s Flatteners
• #6: Outsourcing -so companies can focus
service functions
splits manufacturing and
• #7: Open Sourcing - “the most disruptive
force of all”
• #8 Workflowcollaboration
platform for
Software - creates a global
• #9: The Web - lowers barriers, intimately
culture - broadly, instantly and
disseminates
• #10:the economicWar - Former Soviet states
join
End of Cold
mainstream
1
13

14. Friedman’s Flatteners
• #1 quot;The Steroidsquot; - mobilefor the message
PDAs, IM,VoIP - the media
phones, iPods,
• #2: “In-forming”make “research” mainstream
search engines
- (another Friedmanism)
• #3: Insourcing - shifting workloads between
trading partners
• #4: Supply Chaining streamlines sales,
distribution, and shipping
• #5: Offshoring - creates the impetus for
global economic integration
1
14

15. Design Specification
15

16. Over-built, Under-tested
16

17. Topology is Physiognomy
17

18. Nodes and Vectors
18

19. Nodes and Vectors
• Particle/Wave Duality
• Ford vs. Cisco approach
• Challenge #1: focus
on the connections -
“what flows, grows”
• Challenge #2: avoid barriers -
“route around damage”
• Challenge #3: identify
emergent opportunities -
replace “wtf ” with “what if?”
19

20. The Network is the Corporation
20

21. The Network is the Corporation
20

22. Network Design
21

23. Network Design
21

24. About Ann Arbor SPARK
• Merger of Washtenaw
Development Council,
IT Zone and SPARK
• Public-Private partnership
among academia, business,
government, and not-for-
profit organizations
• Governed by a dynamic
board of directors
• Powered by 15.4 FTE
economic developers and
support staff (I’m the “.4”)
22

25. Guiding Principles
• High-value, knowledge-
intensive workforce
• Innovation in products,
services and delivery
• Proactive, not reactive
• “Ann Arbor USA” brands
the entire region
• Statewide programs in
Open Source Economic
Development
23

26. Targeted Industry Sectors
• Automotive Manufacturing
and Materials
• Aerospace Engineering
and Manufacturing
• Cleantech
• Homeland Security
and Defense
• IT / Software
• Life Sciences
• Optics / Measurement
• Printing and Publishing
24

27. Thank You!
David C. Bloom
david@annarborusa.org
25