weekend – time for safari on wildearth.tv
February 28, 2009
friday cleaning patrol
February 27, 2009
we need the best brains and lots of brains
February 27, 2009
Craig Miller just sent me the link to this Amcham/BCG study. A good read if you want some inspiration on the question how Switzerland can maintain its competitive advantage as the best place for innovation. Now where the Swiss banking system is getting kicked around like a half empty can of coke, we should probably give this question more attention than ever.
Near- vs. offshoring
February 27, 2009
Yesterday I set out to learn more about the difference between near- and offshoring in a ciklum‘s short and sweet IT Seminar at Technopark:
Nearshoring: IT development is outsourced to Eastern Europe, time difference is not bigger than 2 hours, travel by plane not more than half a day, European culture, customer orientation, specs can be iterated, intellectual property is subject to EU law (not in Ukraine or Russia though), developers will also handle smaller packages, chance that internal staff will (like to) spend more time on-site is higher, lower costs than Switzerland, higher (direct) costs than in Asia.
Offshoring: IT development is outsourced to Asia, time difference is 4-8 hours, travel by plane 1 day, Asian culture, process orientation, detailed specifications required, no real IP protection, will work for bigger projects only, lower (direct) costs than in Eastern Europe.
Nils Granath from Swisscom Ventures
More interesting of course were the consolidated learnings. These are the ingredients of a successful nearshoring partnership:
Identify and start working with two trustworthy partner companies and a trial project, generally avoid companies that run own products, make sure that your team likes their team and vice versa. Appoint an internal project manager, deliver the full picture to the development team (vision, mission, user experience…), make sure that there is a good initial knowledge transfer, ensure an accurate planning, tracking and reporting, define clear goals and results, meet and commmunicate frequently, make sure that you get a clear development documentation, but probably most important of all: spend social time together and make them part of your own company!
Hendrik Bak from the Danish/Ukrainian Nearshorer Ciklum
Matt Colebourn from CoComment
Being a very happy Romanian/Lucernese nearshorer myself, I very much enjoyed to share your learnings – Thanks Nils, Matt and Hendrik.
Lift Conference 2009 – Day 1
February 26, 2009
Yesterday the Lift Conference in Geneva started. Here a short self-description: Lift09 will look back to look ahead, exploring topics like change, solidarity, love, or design, during three days of intense networking and inspiration themed around a simple question: "Where did the future go?"
As it was the best conference Amazee visited in 2008, we had to come back. And this year even two Amazees are at Lift: Daniel is part of the helper team at the info desk and I‘m simply attending the conference.
I started off my Geneva trip with a very inspiring meeting with Patrick Meier, a real digital activist. I‘m sure you‘ll find out more about his work on the Amazee blog soon. Afterwards I met Mark Madsen and some Geneva startups for drinks and “baaad pitches” and some Lift conference attendees for pre-conference drinks later on. Was nice to see Laurent Haug, Tiffany Rowe, Viktoria Trosien and other familiar faces from the previous year!
Then Lift 2009 finally started yesterday. I attended an interesting workshop on Cyber Volunteering and again talked to many amazing people. In the evening Sandbox organized a nice gathering of about 30 people in the cozy restaurant La Broche. It was an intense and great first conference day. I don‘t know what actually makes the difference, but there definitely is a special spirit at Lift. The mixture of attendees and speakers is unique and just fantastic. People come to be inspired and meet those who want to make a difference. I’m very much looking forward to Day 2!
The ultimate drawing showdown
February 24, 2009
Yesterday the Wualas, Doodles and Amazees met for the first big pictionary battle of the newer Zurich startup history! It was a great evening – full with ambitions and sportmanship. Honourable as we are, we’ll spare any comments on the outcome of the toughly fought drawing and guessing game and leave you to find out what the following drawing represents…
(Solution below)
Zurich Bahnhofstrasse, ok.
Christmas reloaded
February 24, 2009
A startup life is full of deprivations, but very few of us will compromise when it comes to the personal calculator. Check out Luci and Dania with their brand new Macbooks. Looks like one of those rare moments of pure pleasure :)
Nitro injection for your projects
February 18, 2009
As many of you may already have read in the project news on Amazee’s startpage there is a new contest taking place: The Rally Amazee – Facebook.
The starting point for this rally is your project on Amazee, the vehicle you are racing in is our new Facebook application, the finish line is in your facebook profile. The fuel you are running on: the passion for your project. And, not to forget, 1’000 US Dollars in prize money.
Speaking clearly, this means: We are giving away 1’000 USD to the Amazee project which is added to the most Facebook profiles via our Amazee Facebook application by April 5, 2009. The race has only just begun so any project can still enter it and has a good chance to win!
Don’t miss to visit our dedicated project if you would like to learn more on how to add projects to your profile on Facebook!
