Blog
All posts by ling
- March 7, 2014
Desire
Interesting TED talk about The Secret of Desire in a Long-Term Relationship Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want […]
- March 6, 2014
The Unicorn Club: Billion Dollar Startups
We found 39 companies belong to what we call the “Unicorn Club” (by our definition, U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors). That’s about .07 percent of venture-backed consumer and enterprise software startups. On average, four unicorns were born per year in the past […]
- March 5, 2014
The Indian Sanitary Pad Revolution
This story is so inspiring! A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads. His wife left him, people in his village scorned him, and then his own mother left him. […]
- March 4, 2014
How to Get People to Do Stuff
Basically understanding the psychology of what motivated people to take action. Some interesting bits: If you use nouns when making a request, rather than verbs – for example: “Be a donor” versus “Donate now” – it results in more people taking action. That’s because nouns invoke group identity. (people want to feel they belong) Use […]
- February 25, 2014
Waves of Innovation
Innovation comes in waves, and as it has been apparent for quite some time now, we are in the age of Social Media. Investors swarm to put big bucks in startups that can return hundreds of millions of dollars (latest example being WhatsApp’s purchase by Facebook) in less than three years. But is this the […]
- February 24, 2014
Twitterstorm
A textbook example of how a Twitterstorm unfolds. Funny because it is oh so true. The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm
- February 22, 2014
Reach for the Moon
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are […]
- February 21, 2014
Big Data Marketing
We now have a new word for businesses that sell data – data brokers. Third-party data brokers sell all manner of information to businesses, e.g.: Turnstyle, a company that has placed hundreds of sensors throughout businesses in Toronto to gather signals from smartphones as they search for open wi-fi networks. The signals are used to […]
- February 20, 2014
So the biggest news in the tech world now is Facebook’s $19bn purchase of WhatsApp. The founders are now the latest billionaires in the Valley. According to Sequoia Capital (the investors behind WhatsApp), four numbers made the app remarkable: the app has more than 450 million active users. That’s more than Twitter. Note the word […]
- February 19, 2014
Thirty One
The past year has been a steady stream of incremental changes. Like hot lava preparing for rupture, the murmuring bubbles are a premonition of what is to come. You seem to have come to terms with the demise of your carefree youth, and gotten a stronger hold of your insecurities. Good for you. But try […]
- February 17, 2014
The Perfect Refugee Camp
The refugee camp in Kilis, Turkey for Syrian refugees is doing a great job at providing the refugees with a decent shelter, completed with basic amenities, food, security and even some entertainment. Some might say the Turkish government is making a shrew investment, “It needs to be seen in the context of Turkey’s policy to […]
