rethink(ip)

Reinventing Rethink(IP)?

Posted by Douglas Sorocco at December 28, 2005 10:15 AM

I am thinking about reinventing Rethink(IP) – I hope Matt and Steve don’t mind….

Instead of posts, I am now going to do all my posting in podcast format – and they are going to be mimed! 

Here is a great post…

 

 

 

….  wow, I am tired out now.  Mimeing is really hard work!

I hope you enjoy the new format, let me know what you think.

— Douglas  

The World Really is Flat, Part II: Now that it's flat, all sailing is smooth, right?

Posted by J Matthew Buchanan at December 20, 2005 08:49 AM

Remember my story about the new IBM (Lenovo) X41 Tablet that I bought?  I relayed the story in last week's post to The World Really is Flat series.  Here's the punch-line -- the computer, once shipped, travelled from Shanghai, China to my front door in Perrysburg, OH in one day.  How's that for a flat world?

I related that example as a personal experience that allowed me to realize that the world really is becoming flat.  After I had that experience, I saw the flat world in everything around me.

So all is good, right?  There's plenty of opportunity and no problems in this new flat world, right?

As Lee Corso would say, "not so fast, my friend."

There are plenty of problems in the flat world.  Indeed, there are plenty of new problems.  The rest of my X41 story illustrates this point...

So there I am, drooling over my brand new X41 Tablet.  As I said before, I have zero patience when new tech toys arrive.  I tore into the box immediately, threw the instruction manual aside, and began setting up the computer.  The out-of-box experience was amazing...the computer is beautiful to look at, and powered up perfectly with a simple plugging in.  Ready to roll.  The desktop wasn't overly cluttered with useless freebies (AOL, etc.) and the introduction software from IBM/Lenovo did a fine job of introducing the amazing utilities provided with the computer.

So now I'm ready to make it mine.  I gathered the discs for my must-have software packages, and prepared for an afternoon of installations.  First up, Microsoft Office 2003...just place the CD in the...hey, wait a minute...where's the CD drive?  I must have missed it in the box....

Nope.  No CD drive to be found (my one complaint about the X41 is the lack of an internal CD drive...but the external drive is so svelte, that I really don't even consider it a complaint anymore).

I checked the packing list...no mention of the CD drive.  It's an "accessory" that costs extra.  I knew I had ordered it and checked my invoice to make sure.  Yep...it was ordered.

I logged into the Lenovo customer service site and checked my order.  Sure enough, it was split.  The CD drive was shipped separately.  OK, I can wait another day as it travels from China to Perrysburg.  (Remember...the world is flat and the shipment takes only a day....)

Sadly, that's just the beginning.  I tracked that package for the next two weeks.  It was sidelined in customs by the FDA (yes, the FDA) on "bird flu concerns" according to the UPS customer service representative.  Compare the tracking results for this package (at left) with those of the computer (in the first The World Really is Flat post).

What an amazing contrast.

The CD drive finally arrived.  I was somewhat hesitant to touch it, considering the whole bird flu thing.  I quickly got over that, though, and finished the setup...two weeks later. 

The FDA/bird flu "problem" completely robbed me of the amazing experience I had after seeing the computer shipped from China to Perrysburg in a day.  I was left with a sense of frustration and angst.  I love the computer...but having to wait two weeks to make it mine really ticked me off.

The lesson I took away from the experience is this.  The flat world brings new opportunities and new problems.  Bird Flu?  Customs delays on computer equipment by the FDA?  Crikey.  Who in the world expected that?  Not me.

While the flattened world presents plenty of new opportunities, it also presents new challenges and new problems.  As businesses establish new business relationships without regard (or with less regard) to geographical boundaries, plenty of issues must be addressed.  Lenovo is obviously taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the flattened world.  Should they have been aware of this problem..and addressed it?  Or do old, non-flat-world attitudes still reign - "Hey, we shipped it....you'll just have to wait..." 

I didn't contact Lenovo about the problem (I guess I censored myself with that attitude...), so I'm not sure how they would have responded.

New problems will begin to reveal themselves as people explore the new opportunities presented by the flat world.  Being an optimist, I view new problems as an opportunity for new solutions...which, of course, bring even more opportunity...

So, on second thought, maybe all is good in this new flat world...

 

The World Really is Flat, Part I: From Shanghai to Perrysburg in One Day

Posted by J Matthew Buchanan at December 12, 2005 07:07 AM

Recognition of a major change has to be, of course, the first step in taking advantage of it.  Often times, you read or hear about a major change in your world but, without personal experience that allows you to recognize the change as real, you wonder if it’s actually happening or if certain people just think that it’s happening.  You may even grow a bit cynical and start to believe that certain people just hope that the change is happening.

 

That’s where I started with the concept of the flat world.  I had heard about it and read about it, but had no personal experience that allowed me to truly recognize that the change was in process.  As a result, I had little interest in the concept and, perhaps, a little disbelief.

 

Then, out of nowhere, a brick hit me in the head and suddenly I realized that major change was indeed underway.  After that, I saw the flat world in everything around me, much like you seem to hear a particular word more often after actually learning its meaning.

 

Here’s the story. 

 

I had ordered a new ThinkPad X41 TabletPC (which, by the way, is the best computer I have ever owned…despite a few hard drive issues).  I’m like a kid on Christmas morning when I have a new tech toy on order…I just can’t wait.  I checked the status of the order each morning and was disappointed to learn that there was about a two week backorder.  Rats.

 

Finally, I was rewarded one morning when I received an e-mail telling me that my order had been shipped and that I could track it on the UPS web site.  Great, I thought…we’re entering stage two.

 

I immediately clicked the tracking link and was excited to see that the package was ready for shipment, straight from China.  Rats.  Probably another two weeks.

 

Here’s the brick.  The next morning, UPS.com told me that the package was here and ready for delivery.  Holy Toledo!  One day?  Sure enough, at 9:20 AM, the man in the brown shorts delivered my new toy, er, business tool, straight from Shanghai.

 

That’s right.  The computer travelled from Shanghai, China to Perrysburg, OH in a day.

 

Now, I know there's an international date line in there somewhere, and at least one of my fellow rethinkers believes there is funny business in the whole package tracking thing, but, no matter, the effect was the same -- the computer arrived one day after I was told it was shipped.  Very cool.

 

(imagine the effect had Lenovo/IBM been able to get rid of the two week backorder!)

 

I tore into the package even before the man in the brown shorts left.  As I tossed the instruction manual aside, the realization hit me -- the world really is flat.  The day before, a Chinese worker had held the computer in his hands as he packed it for shipment.  Now I've got it and it's ready for business.

 

Suddenly I believed that the flattening of the world…the change…was indeed in process.  I couldn’t ignore it anymore because this one simple example had given me the personal experience that allowed me to realize that.

 

I wondered about the reason for my initial disinterest and disbelief -- this is the only rational explanation I can offer.  I was born and raised in the American Midwest, where manufacturing is King.  I suspect that my initial disinterest in the change to a flat world was at least partially due to a knee-jerk reaction that a lot of people have in these parts of the country.  The reaction is based purely on fear.  Fear of outsourcing, off-shoring and the loss of manufacturing jobs, good manufacturing jobs.

 

But the computer experience had changed something because the knee-jerk reaction seemed to be gone.  Now I had the experience I needed to believe in the change, which, of course, gave me the desire to figure out how to plan for and take advantage of it.

Things We Hate About The USPTO.gov Website: Trademark "Sessions"

Rethink(IP) reader (and frequent commenter on our previous "hate" posts) Adam Rosi-Kessel [blog] brings you his www.uspto.gov annoyance:

The fact that you can't bookmark a trademark search page is a real annoyance. That is, if you go to http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm, click on "SEARCH trademarks," then "Free Form Search (Advanced Search)," and then attempt to bookmark that page and come back an hour later, you'll get a "search session expired" error. Similarly, you can't create a link to a particular search or to a particular trademark record. You are always required to navigate through from the USPTO trademark front page, with no value added but a few additional clicks.

My guess is that it would be a fair amount of work for them to fix this problem fundamentally because they have this whole back end "session based" design. That design, as far as I can tell, is totally unnecessary, but it is the design they have picked.

One workaround would be for their back end to automatically create a new session and redirect you to the page you requested when you attempt to access a deep link that relates to an expired session. They would have to change their URLs to encode information about what navigational steps had been taken to get to that point on the site, in addition to the session information they are currently encoding, but it might be easier than redoing the whole system.

Thanks Adam!

Click here for our previous "things we hate."

measure twice, cut once

Posted by Douglas Sorocco at December 11, 2005 10:09 PM

I like to do carpentry and woodworking – mainly old house rehab stuff but occasionally I am inspired to make a piece of furniture. 

A common adage is “measure twice, cut once” and it is one that while I try to remember it, I often forget and have to recut a piece of lumber.  Acting without planning can definitely be expensive.

It is also a good piece of advice when thinking about legal services and fees… measure your fees twice and cut them once.  What this means to me is that you should always look at or measure a bill, invoice or statement twice — (once as the attorney and once as the client) — and then make a cut of the bill once (i.e. do what is fair to both the attorney and as the client).

Measure twice, cut once.  Good advice – whether it is legal services or carpentry.

Happy holidays everyone! 

Del.icio.us is Gold for Startups

Posted by Stephen M. Nipper at December 10, 2005 11:23 AM

Gold. Gold I tell you!

What am I talking about? There's gold in my del.icio.us account!

The Rethinkers love del.icio.us. Apparently, we aren't the only ones, yesterday it was announced that Yahoo! was purchasing del.icio.us. Congrats Joshua Schachter!

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site with tags that we've covered before. Ignore the social aspect of it...tags+bookmarks is where the gold is. Using del.icio.us, when you find a website that contains useful information...information you want to refer to later, you add a bookmark to it and "tag" it with words you'll remember later. Find a great site, tag it. Find a great site, tag it. (personally, I think del.icio.us' value to Yahoo is the tags....rather than having an algorithm, have human beings determine what a website is about and how popular it is).

I've been using del.icio.us for about a year now. Tagging websites left and right. 296 useful websites later...I have some gold.

Want me to share some gold? How about the best articles on "startups" I read this last year:

Business Opportunities Weblog | How to Raise Money for Your Business
evhead: Ten Rules for Web Startups
How to Fund a Startup
Seth's Blog: The new rules of naming
Startup School transcript
Russell Beattie Notebook » Where’s The Ambition?
wingedpig.com - Mark Fletcher's Blog: Stealth Start-Ups Suck
Process of Forming a Company
How to Start a Startup

And yes, there is an RSS feed of my "startup" del.icio.us page.

Each of these is worth reading, worth forwarding to startups you know, worth adding to your own (NEW) del.icio.us account.

Things We Hate About The USPTO.gov Website: search navigation

Posted by Stephen M. Nipper at December 7, 2005 07:55 PM

Here's one thing that drives me nuts...patent searching on the USPTO site.

Let's say I go to the USPTO's search page and search for patents to Idaho inventors. I would type "is/ID"

and hit the Enter key. That would give me the following results:

Whoa! Too many results (blame it on Micron and HP). I better narrow my search. I'll change the search to include "ic/Boise" and I'll hit the Enter key. What do I then get:

Say what? Result 51 of 100?

What happened? The focus didn't follow my cursor. When I selected the input box and added "ic/Boise" the focus remained on the "Next 50 hits" button instead of following me to the "Refine Search" box. Argh.

To complete my search I can't just hit Enter. I have to physically press the "Refine Search" button:

Is this something that ONLY annoys me?

Click here for our previous "things we hate."

The world really is flat

Posted by J Matthew Buchanan at December 6, 2005 10:09 PM

There has been a lot of buzz over the last few months about the so-called "flat" world. If you think I'm referring to naysayers of Christopher Columbus, you've got some homework to do. But, if you know what I mean, you'll likely be interested in a series of forthcoming posts on Rethink(IP).

Over the summer, each of us quickly devoured Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. Since then, we've had numerous back-channel discussions on the concept of a flat world and its effect on the practice. Our conclusion -- the world really is flat. In fact, we think it has been permanently flattened and the practice of intellectual property law will forever change as this new world is put to work.

The series, so far, includes three posts and will appear over the next week or so. The first post describes a recent experience of mine that showed me just how flat the world is...and highlighted some new problems and challenges of doing business in the flat world. The second post details a theory of mine -- the flatter the world gets, the more important the fundamentals become (you'll have to read it to understand...). The final post details the impact that we believe the flat world will have on the practice of intellectual property law.

We hope you enjoy the series and welcome any comments you have on the posts. If you're still thinking of Christopher Columbus, I suggest a visit to Amazon.

are we born to collaborate?

Posted by Douglas Sorocco at December 3, 2005 10:07 AM

Just a quick post this morning.

Since Rethink(IP) is, at its heart, a collaboration – I found this short post from the b-spirit blog, to be an interesting read.  Entitled Born To Collaborate:

Are we genetically predisposed to collaborate? There may be a biological basis as to why some individuals collaborate and multitask far more effectively than others.

This means that creative people remain more aware of and alert to extra information that comes streaming in from the surrounding environment. A “normal” person would see an object, classify it, and then forget about it, even though the object may be far more complex than he believes it to be. Someone who is less mentally keen needs to filter out extraneous stimuli in order to avoid suffering from overload and a resulting psychosis.

Read more…