Today I received a Christmas Card from the Maastricht Center for Entrepreneurship. It was sent to me by Réné van Hees. I just wanted to share it with you because I love this card. It's funny and shows how entrepreneurial the people at the MC4E are. The card explains how it is that Santa Clause is a social entrepreneur. But read for yourself. On a Personal Note Also at this point I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas (in case Christmas isn't your thing: Have a great Holiday Session) and a Happy New Year (in case Happy New Year isn't your thing: enjoy the crazy celebrations of people around you).

The iPhone App post inspired me to share some of the blogs I read on a daily basis. At the opening of the academic year 2009/2010 at Maastricht University Dutch entrepreneur Marc van der Chijs said: "Dont read the news, read stuff from the source as it happens." His statement made me think about the power one has in being up to date. Since technology and entrepreneurship are two fields that I like to be up to date. Here are some of the blogs that I can only recommend reading: Entrepreneurship

• Retire at 21 - Offers some very nice interviews with young tech entrepreneurs and a nice brag list of the top earners
• FastCompany - The online content is just as great as the magazine content and I like to use the feeds to forward stories that I found interesting.
• Young Entrepreneur - Great content for up and coming businesses from the perspective of young entrepreneurs and those who want o become such.
• Inc. - Another great magazine with terrific content to stay ahead of the business game.

Technology

• Scobelizer (Robert Scoble) - Best tech blog with a personal opinion touch. Robert's content is always great and informative.
• Mashable - Just the greatest resources on social media developments, rumors, and trends. Also, I like the format and the writing style.
• Silicon Alley Insider - Great news resources to see what is going on at the "other side". Very informative and often funny content.
• Wired - My favorite geek, gadget, and geniuses magazine. That is all.

People

• Marc van der Chijs - Marc is - among many things - the co-founder of China's largest video portal. I really like how he is using Twitter and his Blog to keep people in the loop on what he does.
• Jason Calacanis - Jason is probably one of the most respected people in internet entrepreneurship. He is one super active internet entrepreneur and I like everything that he is involved in.
• Paul Graham - Paul is the co-founder of Y-Combinator, an incubator that has brought up more than 140 start-ups.
• Matt Mullenweg - Matt is the founder of WordPress and a true tech-startup idol of mine. The projects that he is involved in are awesome and inspiring.

The Software I Use Most of the blogs I read through RSS feeds. My favorite prog here is NetNewsWire for Mac. I love the Google Reader sync ability so I can the exact same feeds on my iPhone and PC. The program works just fine on all three platforms.

On 20th of April 2009 the Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship 2009 started for the very first time and I was one of the lucky ones to attend the premiere. The overall intent was to promote the entrepreneurial spirit at Maastricht University since it is still a topic that plays a rather small role. There is a newly created Master program done by the Department of Organization and Strategy but the driving force behind the topic is the Maastricht Center for Entrepreneurship. The week started as a “joint venture” of the MC4E and a group of very motivated and eager students. The wealth of ideas by the students and the strong support by the center were amazing when I witnessed it the first time at a meeting about the week. Having this strong team definitely made the event the success that it was. The “week” was able to draw some top-notch speakers, entrepreneurs, and interested students to Maastricht, which enabled everybody to experience the topic of entrepreneurship first hand. "The Four Day Workweek" In contrast to other events the “week” really was almost a whole week. The event was kicked-off on Monday with an introduction to the topic and a rather diverse offering; workshops, interviews, lectures, and networking sessions just to name a few segments. In the morning a keynote speech was delivered by professor for entrepreneurship, Head of the MC4E, and CEO of Maastricht University Investment Fund (UM Holding), Prof. Dr. Jan Cobbenhagen. He talked about the importance to recognize entrepreneurial opportunities everywhere – not just in business – to make the world a better place. He immediately convey his enthusiasm for the topic onto everybody. This was especially valuable for all students that came to explore the topic for the very first time. My Favorite Speakers On of the most interesting speakers for me personally was Mark Korzilius the founder of German restaurant chain Vapiano. Vapiano combines freshly made authentic Italian cuisine with semi-fast-food approach of delivery. There is a video (only in German) that describes the concept very well. Mr. Korzilius’ speech was remarkable since he also added personal side notes, which allowed the audience to look behind the scenes concerning Mr. Korzilius’ approach to business. He told the audience not only about Vapiano’s great success but also how he decided to sell the long-standing family business (150 years!!!) and end the family tradition to the displeasure of many. Mr. Korzilius made it very clear that some decisions are very hard to make. Furthermore, he gave some real life, applicable business advice like not to conform too quickly to advice of other but always to ask for it. His main mantra for managing a firm is to believe in your ideas and be very attentive when people tell you that something is not possible – according to him if people bash your idea you are on to something. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxjPVQdwNEc] Dieter Stempel was another business person who definitely left an impression with everybody. His casual and light-hearted style of talking about his business certainly reminded or showed everybody that business is serious but it does not mean that you have to let it get to you. His main advice was to go out in the world and find something that you are convinced of and that you have a passion for before locking yourself up in a 9 to 5 job in which you cannot grow personally and professionally. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJeWnZw3ayM&feature=related] My Favorite Workshop I have never seen fellow students more moved by a workshop or presentation before in my time at Maastricht University and other universities. The workshop done by Boris M. Riek about life and entrepreneurship challenged the participants to re-think what they know, assume, and learned. This exercise was very intense in the way that a lot of people were confronted with their own assumptions and the finding that maybe often there is more to it than what things seem at first sight. Although this might sound very basic and straight forward it is for sure easier said than done. The highlight of the workshop was the ripping of a student’s 50 Euro bill by Mr. Riek just to show how much “value” we attach to a piece of paper. For me personally this went hand in hand what Mr. Korzilius said about finding new ways and doing things that everybody opposes. To explore new opportunities one has to go beyond what one knows and feels comfortable with. So, would you go next time? I can only answer this question with a crystal clear “YES”. Since the 2010 edition of the event is already in preparation I am very much looking forward to it. This time the students are actually organized in a newly created organization called Momentum Maastricht. The team now counts more members than ever before and I am certain that it is going to be a valuable event for everybody. For that matter Momentum Maastricht also has a cooperation with both, prestigious and longstanding “Idealab” from German WHU and RWTH & AC.E’s tech-oriented “Aachen Technology and Entrepreneurship Conference”. (Photos: courtesy of Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship 2009)

Just this week I visited ATEC (Aachen Technology and Entrepreneurship Conference) with distinguished members of Momentum Maastricht. The event took place at Schloss Rahe, which was a great choice for this event. The Maastricht delegation was especially invited by the organizing team of AC.E as part of a cooperation of the ATEC and the Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship. The conference offered many workshops, lectures, presentations, and opportunities to network. A participant could chose between three tracks, namely Mobile Technologies, Automotive, and Energy. The Mobile Track I chose the mobile track and had the opportunity to hear and get to know a very interesting speaker and personality, Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers. His presentation about usability and how the topic should be approached by companies, especially engineers, was funny and very well structured. He gave great examples of Dos and Don'ts when designing a new product and showed the audience some hilarious product design disasters. It was a very valuable speech since he showed the different perspectives (R&D, production, marketing, sales, user, etc.) on product design. Overall, I enjoyed his restless enthusiasm for the topic and the way he talked about it.  His presentation was definitely the best of the track and possibly one of the freshest of the whole ATEC. One version of his presentation is available at his departments website. Other speakers of this mobile track included a representative from Metro AG, who showed a new concept that Metro wants to implement in their stores which makes the consumer's cellphone center of the focus. With an everyday mobile phone customers will be able to scan their merchandise and use a quick check out. In essence a system that Albert Heijn uses in its stores but instead of the "Albert gun" the cellphone will do the job. Another presentation was given by a representative of business consulting firm McKinsey & Co. about mobile trends - yes great consultant charts that left no doubt that the proper resources like Gartner, Datamonitor, etc. were harvested in countless hours of all-nighters... To give some credit, it was very informative though if you spoke consulting. The fourth speaker was an entrepreneur (the first and only one in this track) who presented the history of his chip manufacturing business and had the great ability to convey some entrepreneurial spirit to the group. He shared his experience and gave some great advice on how to get started and how to fight the fear of going on "alone" if you are a non-business student. His presentation had among all the highest perceived value since it was as real-life as it could get and very personal. The interesting thing about the conference was the schedule. The morning kicked off with the workshops without one real word of welcome (we were greeted very nicely though) and only after lunch the opening ceremony began. This had an up and down side. The good thing was that you started off immediately after you arrived but the downside was that without the opening ceremony in the morning the feeling of a united conference start kind of got lost. The location and the students organizing the event did everything they could to be very hospitable but to me a conference should start with everybody and should end at some point with everybody. Maybe this is just a matter of habit, nevertheless, quite noteworthy. StartUp MeetUp In the morning I participated in the StartUp MeetUp session which brought together four founders and their start-up story. Here is my twitter feed from that session to give you an impression of what was said:

Just heard a presentation of Felix from #conangel cool iphone app for conventions and fairs - def. bright future, great job #atec09

Just checked out the iphone app from @conangel after hearing a pres from founder Felix. Awesome tool that every event should use!#atec2009

Joerg Meyer of EUtech biz advice: have fun at work, watch for quality, watch your liquidity, choose your own project, think longterm #atec09

Claus Overbeck from RedTeam Pentesting talking about his biz: playing the bad guys (hacking) and getting payed for it - awesome!#atec2009

Sven Wilhelm from #collectiveiq: you dont have to be an IT guy to run an IT company, find great support, think about your biz model#atec2009

The AC.E Invitation The organization of the whole event was remarkably well done. The subscription online was easy and quick and the day itself was perfectly executed. At this point I want to thanks all the people over at AC.E - who invited us - to make this such a special, meaningful, and informative day. The Highlight The highlight of the day was probably the speech done by Microsoft Germany CEO Achim Berg, who presented some of the latest Microsoft brew, which will hit the markets very soon. The focus of their R&D seems to go further into the direction of artificial intelligence and cognitive learning. He showed some videos and figures which paint an interesting future.

A recent article titled "The Unlikely Mogul - Can Jason Kilar and his hit site Hulu save traditional TV from itself while remaking it for the future?" from American entrepreneur and tech magazine "Fast Company" has brought me to think about something that came to my mind years ago already. This time it is just about another, though related, industry: Television. The Music Industry, Still up to date? I remember that years ago when I read about the first lawsuits initiated by record companies against the people who created illegal copies of pieces of music I thought that since the evolution of P2P software and the continuous build-up of sharing networks it would be soon an unstoppable movement. In deed the outcome was something like this. Although right now the movement is back to hosted solutions like Rapidhare or Netload the idea of the (P2P) networks lives on. People want to share information - in this case - music for free. Apparently, nobody wants to pay for music, films, etc. anymore. On the one hand many people will claim that the work an artist put into the creation process needs to be rewarded. In addition to that there are of course production and logistical costs. Fair enough. On the other hand, to me it seems rather to be a matter of perspective. What if the main good is not the actual CD but more the artist itself? What if the CD actually does not matter but the presence and/or actions of the artist is the actual new money-maker? Many things can easily be copied - such a CD - and are therefore very hard to protect. The artist itself is almost impossible to replace under the condition that people like him/her and his/her music. Thus, the prime objective for the artist should become to reach as many people as possible. Many companies use so-called "White papers" in order to spark the interest of their (potential) customers. A good white paper usually outlines how the company works, gives detailed insights in the technology or processes that they use, and gives relevant, to-the-point, applicable advice or solutions for different scenarios. To a certain extent the company is giving away valuable information that can be used immediately. It can be copied and distributed but one thing it cannot. It does not replace the actual service or product that the company can deliver. If the business is set up intelligently and a fair competitive advantage exists the company becomes irreplaceable. It is unique and could be compared to an artist. So what if the music is actually a white paper? In this sense I think the music industry missed out on changing their business model in a timely fashion and many of the involved firms have to pay the steep price for it now. The Business Model Idea This discussion obviously triggers the question of what the new business model is. To be frank I do not have a one-fits-all solution. If I did I might not put it on here but rather be meeting up with record company executives. One thing is for sure though. Concerts of all kinds, live-venues, interviews, meet-and-greets, private sessions are increasingly more important. I am certain that many artists could make similar amounts of money through innovative ways of delivering and distributing their music and performances. Radiohead is probably one of the most recent examples of how a step ahead can bring is huge success. The band not only got lots of free marketing through their spectacular move but also made it a financial success. To come back on the "Fast Company" article I see some strong parallels with the Television industry. When I lived in Texas for half a year I was able to enjoy the services of Hulu.com. Hulu streams TV series legally to US consumers via its website. It does not require but offers registrations for personalized service. All major US TV shows are on there and can be watched at any convenient point in time. The service is like YouTube but with feature shows that run on all major networks. So far, the service is unparalleled in the world. In Europe some internet providers have taken on the challenge to integrate TV into their internet delivery. The idea is to give the customer a box that can do it all. Since this is rather new and customer acceptance is rather slow, not many people have signed up for it so far. No doubt that the market is growing though. In the US a previous invention that sort of revolutionized the market was TiVo - a box that would record the requested show when it was on and that made it available later on even with the option to skip commercials. The hurdles to make a project like Hulu  go global are perhaps preexisting contractual obligations. So far it is not possible for people outside the US to access the Hulu offerings. Since the main revenue generated by Hulu comes from advertisements it is not really a technical issue to let it go global. Assuming Hulu was available globally, there would be  a lot of money to be made for everyone; the platform, the networks, etc. Offering a new business model next to the other one does not necessarily mean that the old one would die immediately. On the contrary.  If there were other things like paid subscriptions things would be different. I trust that in Europe many companies would be willing to pay top-dollar, because Hulu has something to offer that no TV station can give you: a perfect profile of nearly every individual viewer. It must be every marketing manager's dream to be able to custom tailor his message to the individual audiences with maximum effectiveness and efficiency. Hulu offers this for anyone involved with television. Also the chance of getting immediate customer feedback should erase any doubt that might be left. Since the technologies for real-time customer interaction are already there companies have to learn to use them properly, too. One other example of how a global implementation of a video streaming service was successfully carried out is the offerings of South Park (www.southparkstudios.com). Not only are they offering localized mini-sites for many countries but views from non-English speaking countries are also able to view the program in English. This is a very important feature to most young people who like to watch the show in its originality. Translated jokes are mostly not very funny. The show, however, is still running on TV and is probably not going away for some time. In this three-minute interview with Hulu CEO Jason Kilar he explains that Hulu also is a long-term business [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HO-4ZoNBEY] And now? A remaining question of course is what other, non-related businesses can take away from this example. To me the message is quite clear. To change the business model or to explore new ways to distribute a service or product should be one of the top priorities of business owners and entrepreneurs. Constantly working on the business concept is an absolute must since the dynamics of the market should not be underestimated. Especially in a connected world as the one we are living in, a market-changing innovation or innovative approach will most certainly be highly rewarded. Examples for this can be found in every industry, for every product, and in any organization. Making sure that every possible way to reach your target audience is explored is essential. Maybe this might not be the cheapest way since failures can happen but not daring to try it might be the last mistake of your organization. In my opinion if there is any decent or crazy idea to create new sales it should be tried. Giving away customers (and money) - maybe even to your main competitor - will never be acceptable. Even more shocking is that most of the tools that enable a business to explore new ways are freely available at no extra cost. Many businesses are not using them so far. Facebook and Twitter are just two out of hundreds of examples. Is it possible to sell a pizza, accountancy services or a haircut through Facebook? I claim that if you can sell taxi rides through twitter it must certainly be.

Probably one of the most interesting and inspiring characters in the German business arena is Wolfgang Grupp. Apart from is entrepreneurial talent to turn-around textile manufacturing company Trigema, which he took over highly indebted he is also one of the most prominent and extravagant business owners. Grupp not only makes the news regularly because of horribly done commercials involving talking chimpanzees selling the brand but also because he deeply belives in the mantra only to produce in Germany. While other companies are busy finding the next best (cheaper) country to produce their goods, Grupp rather worries about the jobs of his 1200-something employees. Why is this so interesting? I had the pleasure recently to be directed towards a documentary about Grupp that ran on German television station SWR (Südwest Rundfunk) in early 2008. The video is available on YouTube and a must watch for anyone interested in entrepreneurship and an acceptable ability to understand the German language. One thing that is commonly, publicly criticized about Grupp is his way of presenting himself. As it becomes evident in the documentary there are certain qualities of his personality that - in my opinion - make him a successful business person and a peculiar individual; which might easily mislead people what he is about. Yes, Grupp takes the milk for his lunch-muesli from a golden "gral", and yes, he likes to take his helicopter to inspect his stores, and again - yes - his mansion is conveniently located across from his manufacturing site. The documentary is titled "Der König von Burladingen" (German for "The King of Burladingen" - Burladingen of course being the city of his production facilities), which makes it quite apparent what position he has in that area. Undoubtedly, there is not a living soul in this region that does not know and respect him. The title, although seeming ironic, is quite well deserved as Grupp achieved something unparalleled in Germany. According to news reports he never had to let people go because of economic reasons and in addition to that he guarantees a job or traineeship for the children of his employees. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGZ968iuGFY&feature=PlayList&p=88869804F4621AE2&index=0] But what is it that makes him so successful? In the film Grupp mentions one core principle of his management style. He declares that the most important thing is to the decide. He says: "You always have to make decisions, if you do not make decisions that is the worst decision of all". I could not agree more. Having started two businesses one lesson I had to learn "the hard way" is that you have to keep on keeping on. Once you stop deciding or to initiating activities - may they be operational or strategic - the business stops as well. As we all know what does not grow, dies. This is also true for a business. Looking at the Trigema track record there are no signs of demise. The other side of the decision medal is most certainly character and integrity. Grupp obviously is a very self-confident and powerful authority figure. Since I do not know him personally I can only guess that this is not something he was from birth on but that he had to work hard for. Not in the sense that he is limited in his capacity but more in the sense that once you take that role you will most certainly also experience some fair amount of head-wind. People that make decisions quick and "decisively" will often also make themselves target of other people's displeasure. I named this post "Idol Entrepreneur: Wolfgang Grupp" because his ability to really lead his business this way can be a great example for any kind of entrepreneur or business person. Obviously there is more to Wolfgang Grupp than just this quality. Perhaps one is that Trigema since years has no debt and is 100& self-financed...