Some indications will tell us that Europe missed the [tag-tec]venture-capital[/tag-tec] train. Particularly because investors and those that propose business plan take a long time to put their heads out of the window. Let’s see!
What bothers me most though is the fact that the lagging-behind is really annoying. Let’s hope I’m wrong. Sometime those that are late at a party get the most out of it.
FYI: Europe’s innovation barometer 2006 (PDF)

Venture Blog: “According to figures out this week from Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young, Web 2.0 investment fell in the US to $357m in the first six months of the year. This compares to a doubling of investment in Europe to $51.5m over the same period.”

Wonderful summary of todays [tag-ice]globalizing[/tag-ice] cultures and the needs for businesses and societies to find answers to the new challenges. I particularly like the aspects of the feminine (in design) that contrast the semantics/connotation of the (masculine) term innovation.

CEOs Must Be Designers, Not Just Hire Them. Think Steve Jobs And iPhone.: “[tag-ice]Innovation[/tag-ice] is no longer just about new technology per se.

I spent the last 24 hours (subtract sleeping from that) with first watching very impressive Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “unleashing” the facebook OS then aside from my daily business investigating into standards for e-portfolio applications (helpful node Scott Wilson). So what’s the connection you might ask. Well while I was browsing the specs from IMS yesterday Zuckerberg’s video popped up many times in front of my virtual eye

So what’s at stake in the e-portfolio business?

Writewith, another web-based application that makes it easy to forget that you need to own a computer (plus expensive software) to (for instance) write something.

writewith:
- Upload documents to the web
- Assign tasks to others and share docs with them
- Edit together, chat, and see changes as soon as they happen
- Comprehensive history for each doc

I just think that only those application services will survive in the market that somehow integrate with [tag-tec]storage service providers[/tag-tec].