Kao, Moore, Metcalfe, Gilder - Four Important Laws Demonstrating the Impact of Technology

Following are four important laws that demonstrate the impact of technology through innovation and creativity:

1) Kao's Law - Creativity - Creativity rises exponentially with diversity; hence, the more diverse a population, the more creative it becomes.
2) Moore's Law - Processing Power - The power of computing will continue to double approximately every 18 months, while the price of computing power will halve over the same period.
3) Metcalfe's Law - Networks - The value of a network is the square of its nodes; applies to social networks as well - hence the disproportionate growth in the power of social networks such as Linkedin and Facebook once a certain critical mass is reached. Also consider the immense power each additional member adds after a certain point...
4) Gilder's Law - Bandwidth - Available telecom bandwidth will triple every 12 months. If we can freely stream video to every household now - what will we be able to do in a decade???

Familiar with any other groundbreaking rules worth mentioning?
Post a comment!

How to Pitch your Idea, Business, Yourself!

Four easy stages to pitch fluently:

1. Take the time to construct a succinct, single sentence explanation of your idea, your business, yourself - whatever it is that you are trying to pitch - this is commonly known as the "elevator pitch"
2. Know your pitch cold, be able to repeat it if wakened from your sleep
3. Show passion when you pitch!
4. Visualize your success!!

83-year-old Billionaire Serial Entrepreneur Dishes Out Business Advice

Mann Power
Los Angeles, California
Smart Business
November 2005

Al Mann, the billionaire founder of Advanced Bionics (cochlear implants), dishes out management wisdom in this profile by Laura Taxel. Mann founded several companies among them Spectrolab (electrooptical systems, 1956 - today a subsidiary of Boeing), Heliotek (semiconductors, spacecraft solar cells), Pacesetter Systems (pacemakers, sold to St. Jude Medical), MiniMed (insulin pumps, sold to Medtronics), Mannkind Corporation, Second Sight, Bioness, Quallion, and Stellar Microelectronics.

Referring to the major elements required to create a successful business enterprise, Mann says, "Capital is most important, I can’t emphasize that enough...The failure of most promising businesses is usually due to inadequate funds for the start-up and early growth phase of the enterprise."

Communicating Vision

A common vision is the key to a productive, efficient and highly motivated team. But communicating a vision to the team is often challenging. The following story, quoted from Annette Simmons' excellent The Story Factor: Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling, helps explain the succinctness of a vision:

A man came upon a construction site where three people were working.

He asked the first, "What are you doing?" and the man answered, "I am laying bricks."

He asked the second, "What are you doing?" and the man answered, "I am building a wall."

He walked up to the third man, who was humming a tune as he worked [not sure why this is relevant, lol...] and asked, "What are you doing?" and the man stood up and said, "I am building a cathedral." (p. 16-17)



The vision brings all of the elements of a project - or of one's work in general - together, providing employees with the roots of their effort. Without vision an employee or team member is much like a tree without roots. I have found the bricks-to-wall-to-cathedral metaphor to be particularly powerful.