The claim that robotics is capital intensive is a myth.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a much-discussed piece, a little over a year ago, on the discrepancy between corporate profits and labor compensation. Krugman’s column sparked a huge debate, and on the Times website alone readers left more than 1,300 comments. In his article he referred to robotics as a capital-intensive technology. The problem is, it isn’t true.
Continue reading… “Biggest myth about the robotics industry”
Start-up Chile
Foreign entrepreneurs are drawn to the U.S. market. However, the U.S. immigration system throws up roadblocks to entrepreneurs. There is no “startup” visa, and the visa options that exist are unwieldy and often impractical.
Continue reading… “The Start-up Chile visa program is a loss for the U.S.”
The home automation market size is around $8.8 billion.
In terms of homes that have a broadband connection as a market for home automation, the market size turns out to be around $8.8 billion at $100 spent per home or $880 billion at $10,000 for the U.S. If we are a little more conservative and say that only those broadband subscribers who use smartphones are targets, the range turns out to be about $5.63 – $563 billion. In order to capture this opportunity a number of business models have come into play. While these are not new business models, it is interesting to see how this opportunity is being captured.
Continue reading… “The home automation business is enabling the Internet of Things”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in all of human history.
By 2030 the average person in the U.S. will have 4.5 packages a week delivered with flying drones. They will travel 40% of the time in a driverless car, use a 3D printer to print hyper-individualized meals, and will spend most of their leisure time on an activity that hasn’t been invented yet.
Continue reading… “33 Dramatic Predictions for 2030”
An analysis by price intelligence firm Profitero on retail pricing habits has revealed a pretty staggering statistic: Amazon changes its prices more than 2.5 million times a day. By comparison, Walmart and Best Buy changed their prices roughly 50,000 times each in the entire month of November.
Continue reading… “Amazon changes prices more than 2.5 million times every day”
Mary Barra will become GM’s new CEO.
General Motors announced that it had chose a woman to lead the company. The same day, new research showed the automaker’s new chief executive is still the exception rather than the rule.
Continue reading… “Women still rare in top leadership positions”
Who has been hiring and hasn’t?
After the start of the worst six months for the U.S. labor market since the Great Depression five years ago, we learned last week that 203,000 new jobs were created in November and the unemployment rate dropped to 7%. Discussion in the immediate aftermath of the news centered on whether the report marked more of the ho-hum same or a sign that, after three years of puttering along, the economy might finally be preparing for a return to something approaching prosperity.
Continue reading… “Who’s hiring and who isn’t hiring”
Downtown Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado has become an entrepreneurial powerhouse. The high-tech startup culture has given Boulder a prosperous economy without the help of oil, natural gas, or any monolithic industry.
Continue reading… “Boulder is America’s startup capital”
The heavy investment of both time and money can be a put off when you want to build an app for your business. But, now entering the mobile market no longer necessarily requires thousands of dollars and months of work. There are many mobile platforms available to help you build an app on a budget — quickly, and with no coding knowledge required.
Continue reading… “Top 10 platforms for building mobile apps”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Every time I delete spam from my inbox, I feel a tiny piece of my life flitter away.
Sitting needlessly at stoplights, or watching the minutes tick away as I wait in some line, or being forced to fill out yet another form, our precious time is being coopted by everyone from inconsiderate businesses, to overbearing government, to painful security checks at the airport.
Continue reading… “When Wasting Time becomes a Crime”
Taco Bell has been killing it on Twitter, creating a hip, fun presence to turn customers into evangelists.
More and more brands are marketing themselves via short-form social media like Vine, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram video and the newer platform Snapchat. They are not marketing by broadcasting their silly old messages but by treating their prospects and customers with respect, engaging with them directly through brief snippets of conversation, personality and humor. But it’s not just for fun: Consumers who engage with brands via social media demonstrate a deeper emotional commitment to those brands and spend 20 to 40 percent more than other customers, according to a report from Bain & Company.
Continue reading… “2014 marketing trend: Small messages make a big impact”
“The Illusion of Choice,” via Reddit, is a chart of corporations that create a chain of smaller brands that can all be traced from the 10 mega companies featured here. We assume that you have heard of the biggest brand names and their products that you bring home all the time, however, it’s incredible to know what these giants own and control. Their influence is staggering as shown in this data visualization.
Continue reading… “The 10 mega corporations that control almost everything you buy”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.