Nesmith's Notes

Entries for February, 2004

2004 IT Spending Trends

IT investment trends for 2004 via a few key articles.
CIOs Still Have A Cautious Outlook For 2004 IT Budgets
Forrester Business Technographics
November 7, 2003
Outlook for 2004 App Budgets: Conservative Growth
Forrester Business Technographics
December 1, 2003
Tech Resurrection Will Be Accompanied by Significant Structural Change, According to IDC Predictions 2004
09 Dec 2003
See full report. Registration is required.
Gartner Sees IT [...]

Productivity Improvements Come in Many Shapes

and on the whole they are all a good thing. The NY Times had an interesting article in the most recent Week in Review, titled The Bright Side of Sending Jobs Overseas. The article takes a hard look at the current political rhetoric around the transfer of jobs outside the US and throws [...]

NVCA Model Financing Documents

The National Venture Capital Association has prepared this set of model legal documents:
Term Sheet
Stock Purchase Agreement
Certificate of Incorporation
Investor Rights Agreement
Voting Agreement
Right of First Refusal and Co-Sale Agreement
Management Rights Letter
Model Opinion Letter
Model Indemnification Agreement
According to the site, “the model documents aim to:
reflect industry norms
be fair, biased toward neither the VC nor the entrepreneur, consistent with industry [...]

David Galbraith’s weblog aggregator wishlist

My aggregator top ten wishlist items:
1. Search
2. Ability to pick a selection of blogs from a limited list of categories, not too many – prob like Google news.
3. Ability to do scoped search within these categories.
4. ‘More like this’ recommendations.
5. ‘People who linked to this blog’ button beneath selections.
6. ‘People this blog links to’ button [...]

  

    • RSS Green Tech News

      • Industrial-Strength Kites Could Pull Floating Power Plants
        Take a huge oceanic catamaran, stick a hydroelectric turbine underneath it, and hitch it to a 6.5 million-square-foot parafoil flying nearly a mile in the air. That's a Korean research team's new proposal for generating gigawatts of clean energy. Read more: Korean Kites, Wind Power, Kite Power Plant, Green Technology, Parafoil Power Plant, Clean En […]
      • Mystery Electric Car Maker Wants to Take Over Toyota’s Nummi Plant
        Aurica? Isn’t that the bald guy from Goldfinger with the laser? […]
      • News Wednesday: Revenue, Losses Grow at A123; EnerNoc Bundles its Apps; Algae Soap and Smart Meters
        Battery orders should zoom in 2011, 2012, says A123. […]
      • NC Utilities and Regulators At Odds Over Smart Grid Reporting
        Commissioners to decide whether deployment plans, interactivity details must be disclosed. […]
      • Cornell Professor Develops Cotton Fabric That Charges Your Electronics
        Juan Hinestroza, assistant professor of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, has developed cotton threads that, while remaining flexible and comfortable to wear, can conduct electric current as well as a metal wire. Read more: Renewable Electricity, Cotton Fiber, Cornell Cotton, Cornell University, Green Technology, Juan Hinestroza, Cotton, Fiber Science, Cotto […]
      • Underwater Skyscraper Harvests Renewable Energy, Grows Own Food
        Ocean levels are rising around the globe, so rather than tethering our buildings to the sinking shoreline why not suit them for a life at sea? That's the approach behind the Water-Scraper, a futuristic self-sufficient floating city. Read more: Underwater City, Evolo Skyscraper Competition, Rising Tides, Sustainable City, Floating City, Green Technology, […]
      • Green Kingpins Part 3: VC John Doerr of KPCB
        “We need a clean energy Netscape moment.” […]
      • Green Kingpins Part 2: Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics
        “We are at the early stages of seeing what biology can do.” […]
      • David Melcher: Making Our Skies a Little Greener
        If you've spent any time recently waiting for a delayed flight in an airport terminal or found yourself sitting on the tarmac for a few hours, you know first-hand that air traffic congestion in the U.S. is a growing problem. Without significant improvements to the nation's current air traffic control network, the Federal Aviation Administration (FA […]
      • Devon Swezey: Beyond "Buy American": The U.S. Needs a Clean Energy Strategy
        By Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey The introduction of "Buy American" legislation in the Senate in response to a report that more than three quarters of funds from a clean energy stimulus program went to foreign companies is understandable and probably good politics. Unfortunately it will do nothing to solve the root of the problem, which is that fo […]
      • $100 Million in Stimulus Funds for Green Tech
        The Department of Energy announced this week that $100 million in stimulus funds would be distributed to help accelerate innovation in green […]
      • Shari Arison: Celebrate Good Deeds Day
        Good Deeds Day by Shari Arison, author of Birth -- When the Spiritual and the Material Come Together How easy it is to do a good deed! Every one of us can do a good deed, almost anytime and anyplace. When an elderly woman gets on the bus, in hospitals that are crying out for the help of volunteers, in nursing homes where lonely older people are desperately i […]
      • Figure out Toyota's problem: Win $1 million
        Nobody knows why Toyota cars are having issues with "unintended acceleration". […]
      • Green tech seeks its 'Netscape moment'
        Entrepreneurs and investors at a clean-energy conference say they are hopeful that new technologies can shake up the energy industry but are […]
      • Green Tech Gone Fake
        […]
      • The Greener Gadgets Conference (PHOTOS): 10 Notable Gadgets Of The Future
        Each year, the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York awards the most innovative product concepts out there in terms of energy efficiency and sustainable design. The competition this year included everything from a mobile phone food app to an automan/sound system. According to Treehugger, the judges were not as impressed by certain gadgets that didn't n […]
      • Inhabitat's Week in Green: Solar cars, solar boats, solar... gold?
        ...the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. This week Inhabitat peered into the future of green tech as we... […]
      • David Becker: It's Alive! That Roof is Alive!
        You want to do the right thing. Eat locally and sustainably 12 months of the year. Easy enough in California, but you live in Vermont or Minnesota or even New York -- where winter settles in early and leaves late. As currently deployed, New York State's 36,000 farms can supply perhaps 40% of local food needs, so unless all New York residents become vict […]
      • Greg Selkoe: Grand Theft Auto- Part 1
        What is the most overlooked key issue of our time? A nuclear Iran, America's failing education system, the need for better dental hygiene? The answer is no, no and no. Now I am not saying that these aren't important issues facing us, but there is one massive, destructive issue plaguing this country like no other, an issue that just doesn't see […]
      • Gregory Unruh: Sustainability Management vs. Sustainability Leadership
        In the hallowed halls of B-School academia there is an ongoing debate over the meaning of management versus leadership. The distinction turns out to be really important for business sustainability. In an earlier life, I was an environmental consultant managing remediation work -- a fancy word for cleaning up the industrial pollution of the past. But after co […]