entrepreneurs

On August 19, 2008, Microsoft was granted a US-Patent:


Dave Lewis claims this means that Page-up and Page-down is hereby patents owned by Microsoft. I think Microsoft now also have patented using arrows to navigate - if you use your arrow-up or arrow-down in MS Word, you are taken one line up or down - or you are "scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document...".

The same happens using the elevator shafts - moving left/right, or up/down. It may also apply to the shortcuts to jump forward/backward to pages, columns, tables and images.

I agree with Dave that the US Patent system is long overdue for a revision. If it continues like this, anyone with a bit of cash and a way with text can claim patents for anything and everything.

What does this mean to your business? You may risk that someone shows up one day and ask you to pay a license fee for using things you take for granted - like your keyboard. But the most likely scenario is for someone to take your technology - the technology you have spent time, money and effort on developing - and register a patent on it. Using that patent, they own the rights to the technology you developed, and they will cash in on it.

How can you avoid this scenario?

Be sure to register your patents as you go. Spend the money - as it is the only way to ensure that no-one else does it. To SME's the cost of patents may seem high, but consider it an investment - if you fail to register, the whole value of your development is gone (since if your technology have any chances for making money, someone will register it as a patent, and you will pay them to use your own technology...).

What are your experiences with patents?

Sources:
ZDNET
Liquidmatrix (Dave Lewis)

entrepreneurs, small business, patent, microsoft, liquidmatrix

If your venture fails, it is vital to look back and evaluate what went wrong. It may be painful, but if you do not try to learn from the mistakes, you are likely either to never try again, or to create another failure.

It is a common mistake to forget about evaluating your mistakes. But, Roger Ehrenberg, former CEO at Monitor110, does not forget. In his post, he analyzes the different aspects - from leadership and management, to money issue - who would have thought that too much money actually would cause the failure of a venture?

I found this post very valuable, and did recognize failures I have made too.

For any business, failure is an option. It is a possibility. And ultimately, risk management is about reducing that possibility to the barest minimum. But, as any entrepreneur will know, failure is knocking on your door constantly unless you keep focusing. And many entrepreneurs simply does not have enough time to do it all.

How can you avoid failure? What are the steps you can take to ensure success?

I have a strong interest in entrepreneurship. As my followers know, I am a long-time member of JCI, and I am a serial entrepreneur myself. I developed companies in both Norway, and in France, and I have had my share of success and failures.

I have decided that this blog - the Roer.com Information Security blog will change and narrow it's focus a bit, and focus on information security for entrepreneurs and start-ups. I hope that this small change in focus will not drive away my current readers, while continue to grow my readership.

By doing this change, I hope to fill what I think is a gap in the Security blogging arena - to help start-ups and SME's to adequate security. As far as I see it, most security bloggers out there are in one or more of these three groups:

• vendor or service provider, focusing on promoting their own products/services
• (enterprise) risk management, focusing on what many SMEs will consider theory and not very relevant to their everyday focus
• IT-security, focusing on technology, hacking, and "geek" stuff

I think they all have an important role to play, and that they are needed. But for myself, I do not belong directly in any of the categories, plus I am very interested in entrepreneurship. Thus, I will try to fill this gap :)

But worry not, my readers! I will continue to dish out my opinions on global security, TSA, other bloggers and whatever else even remotely securtiy related that I feel an urge to comment upon!

On a side note, I have also established a new blog, focusing on another area I love - trainings!

Do you think this is a good move? Or am I walking into a dead end? Your thoughts are highly valued!

entrepreneurship, jci, security

One year ago, I wrote about Jamparii and their (IMO) bizarre method of raising funds for their business. As it turns out, the company was not able to profit on the rise of social networking websites, and failed to get the required funds.

According to Jim Tuffin, CEO and founder of Jamparii, they have now put the project on hold due to lack of funding. He says that all funds received are returned. I have no reason not to trust his words.

Jamparii serves as an example of how good (or bad) ideas need a critical mass to survive. Building a business is hard work and high risk. I usually see two main reasons young business fails:

• Lack of funding
• Lack of patience

Lack of funding is usually due to the fact that things takes much more time, and costs more money than first imagined. I have seen, and been part of, this kind of failure. It hurts, and it is not fun. The only way to deal with this is to get the funds in time, and enough of it.

Lack of patience is different - this happens if investors, or key members, stop trusting the product. This creates a downward spiral where all energy in the venture goes away, and takes with it the passion that is required to succeed.

Happily, way too few business creators know this. And if they know, they are able to push it aside and get their venture going anyway.