Elevate Lives of the Poor - Marie and Carol, co-founders of Ventures in Development

I have just become a big fan of Marie So and Carol Chyau, co-founders of Ventures in Development, grads of Harvard KSG (Kennedy School of Government). Their Ventures in Development is a "social enterprise that seeks to elevate the lives of the poor through growing the spirit of entrepreneurship".

My better half and I were amazed by the wonderful work of Marie and Carol featured in the 2007 August episode " 創 富 濟 貧" by RTHK (see episode info at the end of this post). Their actions and hard work really show they want to help the poor in rural China while ensuring their help is not simply charity but to help them become self-sustaining business entrepreneurs. It was wonderful to see the Ventures in Development team positively affecting the lives of many poor people living in harsh existence.

I've found this 2006/12/8 Harvard Business School piece quite informative, "Business Plan Contest Looks East: Risk, Opportunity Define China's Economic Landscape".

Here is their "home-made" YouTube video ad of one of their business - Mei Xiang Yak Cheese. Their other business is Shokay, maker of luxury product using yak down (the Tibetan word for yak down is "Shokay").

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAN2bzdZCTk]

P.S. I wander how much trouble will I get myself into, if I comment that the team members are ladies and all very charming and cute? (smile) Incidentally, Marie did comment in the RTHK program that they had to work extra hard to overcome some of their business partners' initial prejudices that they were too young to be taken seriously as entrepreneurs. At the end, I think VID's results in such a short time speaks volume (based on what was shown on the RTHK program).

P.P.S. Following are info for the 2007 August " 創 富 濟 貧" episode by RTHK,

社 會 企 業 的 定 義 ， 是 以 協 助 弱 勢 社 群 等 作 為 目 標 ， 以 商 業 運 作 的 企 業 。

Marie 與 Carol ， 一個 香 港 人 ， 一 個 台 灣 人 ， 在 美 國 讀 書 時 認 識 , 還 有 一 個 社 會 企 業 夢 , 她 們 的 概 念 在哈 佛 大 學 一 年 一 度 的 商 業 企 劃 比 賽 中 脫 穎 而 出 ， 不 但 獲 得 校 方 頒 發 的 1.5 萬 美 元 獎金 ， 還 得 到 不 少 創 投 基 金 垂 青 ， 成 立 了 公 司 ， 現 時 在 中 國 雲 南 和 青 海 地 區 ， 進 行 兩個 社 會 企 業 項 目 ， 包 括 建 設 犛 牛 奶 酪 廠 ， 研 製 犛 牛 毛 製 品 等 項 目 ， 幫 助 牧 民 脫 貧 。

事 實 上 ， 中 國 西 部 雖 然 有 豐富 的 資 源 ， 但 卻 缺 乏 市 場 資 訊 和 銷 售 渠 道 ， 蘇 芷 君 希 望 可 以 擔 當 起 橋 樑 的 角 色 ， 好似 將 收 購 自 牧 民 的 牛 毛 製 成 圍 巾 ， 質 量 可 以 媲 美 茄 士 咩 ， 而 引 進 海 外 的 牛 奶 加 工 技術 所 製 成 的 奶 酪 ， 更 受 大 型 酒 店 和 餐 館 的 歡 迎 ， 直 接 增 加 牧 民 收 入 是 短 期 目 標 ， 長遠 而 言 ， 希 望 能 增 加 受 助 的 牧 民 家 庭 ， 並 把 盈 利 盡 量 投 放 在 當 地 的 社 區 建 設 上 。

特 首 曾 蔭 權 的 扶 貧 大 計 之 一， 是 要 推 動 「 社 會 企 業 」 ， 但 很 多 香 港 人 都 不 清 楚 社 會 企 業 與 非 牟 利 組 織 或 慈 善 團體 有 甚 麼 不 一 樣 ， 本 集 將 會 透 過 兩 人 的 親 身 經 歷 ， 講 述 她 如 何 將 扶 貧 的 概 念 ， 以 商業 運 作 的 形 式 予 以 實 現 。

編 導 : 李 君 萍

The Last Lecture - read it in April

After watching and felt deeply touched by Prof. Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture, I check up on Randy’s site once in a while to see how is he doing and happy to see him well at his last update (Feb 15, 2008) jokingly holding up a copy of the New York Times.

I noticed that his book is done and will be published by Hyperion in early April. Read it. I know I will.

5 Pages of Lighthouse, FCC, and Social Cost

Sometimes 69-page journal articles may seem overwhelming even to the most avid readers. (smile) So I’ve decided to read a few classics, 5 pages at a time. Currently on my 5-page list are three articles by Ronald Coase,

1. “The Lighthouse in Economics”,
2. “The Federal Communications Commission”, and
3. “The Problem of Social Cost“

Special thanks to Law Librarian Susan at University of Calgary for her great help in tracking down Prof. Coase for me. Thanks Susan.

Ronald Coase - Great minds of our time

It is my great pleasure to finally fulfill my earlier promise to blog about professor Ronald H. Coase in my Great Minds of Our Time series.

As I blogged earlier, “Here is prof. Coase’s 2003 Coase Centennial Speech (500MB QuickTime file, recommend downloading it before you watch it) from Ronald Coase Institute’s online material section.” I now can say I have watched or listened to the video more than three times now, and I am sure I will still learning from it when I watch it again.

I am going to use a different approach to blog about professor Ronald H. Coase for this Great Minds of Our Time entry. Here is my Top 10 list,

1. Ronald is a really funny and sharp witted man as we clearly can see from his 2003 Coase Centennial Speech.
2. Well, he does have a Nobel Prize in Economics.
3. Ronald’s “The Federal Communications Commission” has helpped governments around the world “make” billions from Frequency Spectrum Auctions. (including the latest round of auction by the FCC in U.S.)
4. When describing a ground breaking discussion where his idea in the FCC paper fundamentally shifted the thinking of University of Chicago, he said, “I could not understand why a statement, the equivalent of 2+2=4, should be treated on the par with e = m c square.“
5. His 1974 “The Lighthouse in Economics” not only shed light in economics but also taught us an important lesson in not to take things for granted and the fruits in doing research from the ground up with real data.
6. Have I already said that he is a funny (and humble) man? (smile)
7. And he was 93 years young when he gave the speech in 2003!
8. Millions of Chinese have learned about Coase’s work even before he won his Prize in 1991 because of Steven Cheung. (As an aside, Steven Cheung bid $25 (in an used books/magazines auction) and bought a copy of the 1958 first issue of Journal of Law and Economics which contains Ronald’s “The Federal Communications Commission“.)
9. I want to thank Prof. Steven Cheung again for introducing ideas from great economists like Professors Coase and Friedman to millions of Chinese over the years.
10. Ronald, age 93 then, said this at the 2003 Coase Centennial Speech, “New ideas are most likely to come from the young. Who are also the group most likely to recognize the significance of those ideas.“

Happy Year of the Rat - with Cheung, Friedman & Coase videos

I want to wish everyone a happy and prosperous Year of the Rat.

Please consider the following videos of professors Steven N.S. Cheung, Milton Friedman, and Ronald Coase my Chinese New Year gifts to you. May you be prosperous in the Year of the rat.

1. For those that can understand Mandarin or read Chinese, here are some interview videos of Prof. Steven N. S. Cheung as I discovered from his blog.
2. For those that are more comfortable with English, I highly recommend the late Prof. Milton Friedman's "Free To Choose" series being freely streamed on the idea Channel.
3. Here is prof. Coase's 2003 Coase Centennial Speech (500MB QuickTime file, recommend downloading it before you watch it) from Ronald Coase Institute's online material section.

In my humble opinion, professors Friedman, Coase and Cheung are great minds to learn from. And if we are to advance, improve, revise or refute the ideas they originated, it makes sense for us to learn and understand what they are trying to say. And to me, it is fun and more engaging to see them explaining their ideas in their own voices and style. Quoting prof. Coase in the above wonderful video, "It is strange for me to give a Coase Lecture. After all, every lecture I give is a "Coase Lecture". (big laughs)" The 97 years old (93 when the video was shot) is a humorous man. (smile)

Wishing you a happy and prosperous Year of the Rat.

Healthiest dying man in America scuba diving

I just want to see how Prof. Randy Pausch is doing and then I saw these two pictures of him having fun scuba diving on Dec 1st and calling himself in the running for “healthiest dying man in America“. (note: I have previously blogged about his “Last Lecture” and “Time Management” videos and you can check them out.)

With the usual Randy’s sense of humour, he wrote,

When I asked my oncologist if I could go scuba diving, he thought for a while and said, “Medically, I can’t think of any reason you can’t …. but I have to admit, it’s not a question that comes up very often for metastatic pancreatic cancer patients!“

Now, if you are not living life to the fullest, then what the #$%@& are you wasting your life for? Do you think you will live life twice? Or are you thinking you can do it again?

Video of The Day: The Road to Serfdom

My economist friend Angela has put a spotlight on an interesting documentary on Friedrich Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom“. Hope you enjoy the YouTube Videos.

Potential insight on Sub-prime crisis insight from Free to Choose

Thanks a lot to idea Channel,

In honor of Milton Friedman, we are streaming the ground-breaking Free to Choose series as it originally aired in 1980 as well as an updated 1990 version. If you missed the PBS premiere of “The Power of Choice” it is available here.

Pay special attention to Volume 3 - Anatomy of Crisis where Milton expertly discussed many issues including the sequence of unfortunate events (including what the US Fed did) that lead to the fall of Bank of United States. Fascinating stuff.

P.S. Not to be ungrateful, I just hope “Free to Choose” will stay free on the streaming network for good. And I love to ask my economists friends if we are indeed seeing “Free Lunch” here? (smile) Of course, in the age of Creative Commons, may be some rules are to be rewritten, including the “Free Lunch” hypothesis. (big smile)

P.P.S. Rather than plagiarizing myself, I am going to just quote myself, “Here is something resembling a transcript of episode of Milton Friedman’s part 3 of Free to Choose, “Anatomy of Crisis”. I don’t know how accurate is this transcript but one may learn something from it.”

The Future of Ideas is now Free

Thanks to Prof. Larry Lessig and his publishers, his book “The Future of Ideas” is now free to download. With this addition, all four of Larry’s books are now Creative Commons licensed. “Code (v1) was licensed under a BY-SA license; so too, Code (v2). And Free Culture and now The Future of Ideas are licensed under BY-NC licenses."

Quotes I Love

Here is a collection of quotes I love and use once in a while,

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
- a quote I love by Margaret Mead

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
- Thomas E. Lawrence

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
- Winston Churchill

A Reluctant Activist’s Apology

I found it a fascinating read when I first discovered the 1940 essay “A Mathematician’s Apology” by British mathematician G. H. Hardy some years ago. (smile)

Just like Hardy, my use of the word “apology” is in the sense of a “formal justification or defense (as in Plato’s Apology of Socrates), not in the sense of a plea for forgiveness.“

Some people in the media and my fellow volunteers found it convenient to see me as an “activist“. To me, “activist” is such a loaded word and I would be more comfortable being seen as a simple “concerned citizen” trying to effect some positive changes.

My individual involvement and voicing of my opinions publicly in the Fair Copyright for Canada movement (and its Calgary Chapter), and in working to bring to Calgary the Darfur/Darfur project - an international multi-media touring exhibition about the crisis (genocide and atrocity) and culture in Darfur, and my work on Demo Camp Calgary and Bar Camp Calgary conferences are my efforts to effect some positive changes in Calgary and Canada. Just my individual attempt to try to help.

As a “blogger/concerned citizen/film maker/businessman/…“, I strive to add something to knowledge, and help others to add more; and try to effect changes in some positive manner. Only time will tell how effective I am but I will try my best.

Armen Alchian

I finally finished the 19-page book chapter “In Celebration of Armen Alchian’s Eightieth Birthday” from “Uncertainty and Economic Evolution: Essays in Honor of Armen A. Alchian”.

I have read about Prof. Alchian for many years from his famous Chinese Ph.D. student Prof. Steven N. S. Cheung. So it is really nice to read from other prospective.

I was particularly touched by this quote in “In Celebration“,

Armen is an extremely clever man, but I count as one of the great virtues of his work that it contains no cleverness for the sake of being clever.

Here is Alchian’s insightful article about Property Rights.

Lack of Canadian edition of MIT Open Courseware initiative?

I have been an admirer of MIT Open Courseware initiative since it was first announced. I remember talking to a professor of mine (who also happens to be a former President of the University of Calgary) about the MIT Open Courseware initiative
and naively expected that MIT was starting a world trend.

Well, after reading this insightful article by Prof. Geist, “Why Is There No Canadian MIT?“, I guess the world’s educational institutions still have a long way to go, and including some of those in Canada.

P.S. After reading some of the comments in the post, looks like some Canadian Universities are trying a few things but they are not as wide-known as they can be or should be. For example, I am having some fun learning from a free video from McGill’s continuing medical education department. I am fascinated with eyes and here is an “interesting” video by Dr. Michael Flanders to check out. (Dr. Flanders is funny so watch out for what he compares Filet Mignon to. LOL.)

P.P.S. Pediatric and Adult Strbismus online information resources (with videos) from McGill. Warning: These are medical videos for instructional purpose, not everyone want to watch them.

Magazines Subscriptions

Over the last 20+ years or so, I had some fun in subscribing to different magazines and reading them on a regular basis. These magazines included - Time, Newsweek, Business Week, Canadian Business, Ivey Business Journal (I paid good money for it until they turned it FREE and never return my unused PAID subscription money), many computer magazines, Communications Arts (probably my most expensive mag sub and it worths every penny! some great free content), The International Design Magazine (I fell in love with Dyson Vacuum since it was covered in the April 2000 issue of I.D.), Psychology Today, and the more exotic ones like the University of California at Berkeley Wellness Letter, plus The New England Journal of Medicine (I did enjoy my one year subscription and tried to think and read like doctors (big smile)). I read a lot of Wired and Fast Company but then they set a stupid high Canadian subscription prices, plus most of their stuff are online even a few years back.

Now, how many magazines do I subscribe to? Well, not even one! My friend Margaret is brave and she subscribes to and reads The Economist! I know The Economist is a great source of information and supposed to be “Good For Me” (like Cod Liver Oil) but I could never stand reading more than a few articles in it at a time (leaving 99% of the magazine to waste).

So here is what I do these days. Like this morning, I spent 90 minutes just browsing the magazines section in the library and then borrowed a stack of 8 magazines to read one (or may be two) articles in each magazine. Ha ha, no wonder many magazines are trying hard to re-invent themselves (e.g. Business Week).

When I find some time, I will blog about the 8 magazine articles that I borrowed to read. I will see if I can find the link to them for you as well. Happy reading.

To me, library is the greatest equalizer of knowledge (thus “power”, if you want to think of it that way) and experiences. I paid my $12 per year. And then, I periodically clean up their magazines, their books, their DVDs, etc to find stuff that I enjoy and find interesting.

With borrowed materials, one thing I missed is the ability to mark up the magazine/book while I read but I can make a photo copy for personal research if I need to. (smile) I will later try to blog about the 8 articles I borrowed today, possibly with links to them so you can read them as well (if they are available online).

Happy reading and learning.

Boasting Corner - sharing some fond memories

In Albert Einstein: The Human Side, I read that Einstein has a “Boasting Corner“. So I am going to start one myself to keep track of a few fond blogging memories and have some fun sharing these memories with you. (smile)

Note: Einstein’s story is much funnier as he hid most of the awards and honours except one. You can use Amazon’s “Search Inside” function to search for the word “Protzenecke” and read why he picked one to frame on page 7 in Einstein’s words.

Some friends I got to know from blogging

1. I’ve been reading Kevin Roberts‘ ideas (articles, interviews, etc.) and learning from Kevin for over 10 years now. (Kevin is the CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi.) At one point, I even had his quote “ideas are the currency of the future” on my professionally printed business cards (until I ran out on that 500 cards). So I was thrilled to receive and review Kevin’s wonderful book Lovemarks (and later Lovemarks Effect) from his PR company. And then one day out of the blue, I accidentally discovered that Kevin has kindly linked to my blog (see right column under “LINKS”)! And in one entry, he even personally spotlit three of his regular blog readers including me. (smile) So I guess it is nice to gain a new blog friend in Kevin.
2. Angela Wang and I are just like old friends these days, even we only knew each other since April 2007 after Angela left me a comment in an entry about my documentary “Long Hair Revolution”. Later, it was only with her introduction that I finally got to fix up Prof. Steven N. S. Cheung’s Wikipedia article with a few economists. I have been a big fan of Prof. Steven N. S. Cheung for over 20 years and it was an honour for me to help fixing up his Wikipedia entry. (Incidentally, Angela and I both love Gilmore Girls!)
3. Austin Hill, Canadian entrepreneur & angel investor, and I started to notice each other after our somewhat heated online comments/debate over the merits or problems with of CBC Dragons’ Den (I have changed a tiny bit to closer to Austin’s view now (smile)). And we became friends after we had lunch when he visited Calgary. And then he helped instigated DemoCamp and BarCamp in Calgary at his following visit to Calgary.
4. With Mike Dillion, Sun Microsystems’ General Counsel, I’ve been reading his blog since day one as I read about it from the Wall Street Journal Law blog in 2006. Later, I was thrilled when I got email replies from Mike answering my questions and reading his praise of my blog. And Mike and I have become blog friends (and friends), even we have not met nor talked on the phone. Well, that will change as I have scheduled a phone interview with Mike for my blogs. Stay tune as it should be fun.

Some of my fond blogging memories

1. The wonderful report by the tech website Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow in “Canadian DMCA rally in Calgary — photos, videos, reports” was fun because a spotlight has been shone on the embedded challenges in the new Copyright law for Canadians across the land and also let tech people around the world to know about the issues.
2. I feel really warm & fuzzy & proud to be mentioned and discussed in the wonderfully titled “The Canadians Again Show us how to do things” by William Party, Senior Copyright Counsel, Google (note: Google is doing some great work in the Copyright front, e.g. Google’s book scanning and book search project).
3. Having CBC Radio Search Engine reporter Danielle reporting on the Copyright rally in Calgary (mp3 audio file available for listen).
4. Writing the pair of postings “AAA game with philosophical twist” and “Followup on the AAA BBB CCC DDD game” to try to shine some light on the chain-mail/virus of the terribly time-wasting AAA BBB CCC DDD game (which was very popular on Internet and Facebook, etc.)
5. And me taking apart arguments written by a national newspaper columnist in Deconstructing “The Telecom Trotskyites”
6. To write and create my own Great Minds Of Our Time series of people. Thinking about this, I should create an entry for one of my most admired former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour. She is just great and gutsy.
7. After attending Banff as a CTV Fellow in 2006, I was excited in providing extensive blogging reports on the 2007 Banff World TV Festival where I reported on and video interviewed Broadcasters and content creators from around the world.
8. Getting to know the CBC anonymous blogger Ouimet a little more. Mind you, I still couldn't tell whether if a post was a practical joke or not. (smile) Assuming this wasn't a joke, it was my pleasure to be mentioned in an Ouimet-style positive post. How can I complain about a post that talks about my increased chance of getting some action (Copyright becoming sexy). (smile)

The above are some of my fond memories in blogging. Now, I want to end this entry on a personal note. I want to dedicate the Cat Stevens’ song “Father and Son” (YouTube video) to my dad who reads this blog.

Dad, I know you are both “proud of” and “puzzled by” what I am doing and trying to do these days. (big smile) Dad, may be I am trying to change the world one small thing/goal/objective at a time. Just may be.

P.S. Kevin, thanks for the Cat Stevens’ song “Father and Son” (lyrics). I think I am growing to love it more and more every time I listen to it.

Change The World - a small secret

Many people

have changed the world

and many are

trying to change the world.

I know I am changing the world positively.

How?

Here is a small secret.

Just aim low! (smile)

By aiming low, and

keep on changing the world positively

one small step at a time,

it will add up eventually.

If not, heck, you’ve given your best shot!

P.S. To borrow from my friend, well, this is my brand of poison. I have no guarantee that my poison will work well but I think it should be fun trying to change the world for the better. Don’t you think?

P.P.S. I am not being modest (nor trying to brag) but I do see my involvements and work in

1. Starting and help organizing all five DemoCamps in Calgary from camp 1, camp 2 all the way to camp 5 (click on these links to see demo videos at DemoCamps, tech gatherings),
2. Help launching a successful first BarCamp in Calgary (a tech conference),
3. Playing a small role in Fair Copyright in Canada (36,638 Facebook members strong currently) (for more: see my two reports here and here), and
4. Trying to bring the Darfur/Darfur multi-media project to Calgary to shine a spotlight on the genocide in Darfur,

as small steps that someone else could have also done. But what I did do was spending the time and taking the initiatives in getting myself deeply involved in all of these endeavours and doing my best in them.

What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Thanks to Tim O’Reilly’s blog entry, I started looking at the long list of people and their answers to the 2008 questions from Edge,

“What have you changed your mind about? Why?“

Here are links to the top 27 of my ranked favourites (out of a list of 160+),

1. Alison Gopnik - Imagination is Real. (I find this piece unexpectedly insightful even it may seem a bit abstract. And Gopnik just bumped Dyson off the top of my list!)
2. Freeman Dyson - when he speaks, I listen and think. And here, Dyson tries to demolish the myth that “the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring World War Two to an end” in order to take the “useful first step toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons“. I will find some time to check out “The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima” from International Security.
3. Daniel Gilbert - “The willingness to change one’s mind is a sign of intelligence, but the freedom to do so comes at a cost.” (Check out his master class videos - session 1, s2, s3, s4, s5, s6)
4. Frank Wilczek - The science formerly known as religion
5. Howard Gardner - view about Jean Piaget. I love Piaget’s study of children (including his own).
   
6. Kevin Kelly - How Wikipedia changed his mind
7. Esther Dyson - “What have I changed my mind about? Online privacy.” Interesting discussion re: Facebook Beacon. I had similar thoughts. And yes, Esther is daughter of Freeman Dyson. I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to her once in Bruce Mau’s Massive Change conference. And I should also mention we have one of the best and smartest privacy commissioner (with a blog) in the world!
8. Terrence Sejnowski - “I have changed my mind about cortical neurons and now think that they are far more capable than we ever imagined.“
9. Nassim Taleb - The Irrelevance of “Probability” (author of The Black Swan)
10. Daniel Engber - It’s hard to perform ethical research on animals
11. Alan Kay - Vacuums Don’t Suck.
12. Leo Chalupa - Brain Plasticity and more
13. Marti Hearst - Natural Language processing
14. Helena Cronin - Why men are at the top - More dumbbells but more Nobels. A pretty good read.
15. James Geary - Neuroeconomics really explains human economic behavior
16. Bart Kosko - The Sample Mean vs. the Sample Median. (Quite statistical but very insightful.)
17. Karl Sabbagh - the views of the experts vs non-experts. quite a good read.
18. Irene Pepperberg - the fallacy of hypothesis testing. a bit technical but insightful
19. Tim O’Reilly - “social software”
20. David G. Myers - on psychological science
21. Robert Sapolsky - Adult brain making new neurons
22. John McCarthy - (AI pioneer, LISP inventor) Attitudes trump facts
23. Xeni Jardin - co-editor Boing Boing about online community
24. Linda Stone - on healthy breathing patterns
25. Daniel Kahneman - the sad tale of the aspiration treadmill
26. Danny Hillis - (He is just neat. not a great entry though.)
27. David Gelernter - (I just want to tag and remember David as people I think are smart (Bill Joy, Danny Hillis, Cliff Stoll) think David is smart.)

A Brief History of ideas Cloud

Inspired by A Brief History of Time, I promise to not include even one equation in this blog entry. (smile)

A Brief History of ideas Cloud

The following is a short creative journey in the naming of this blog.

The idea of "ideas Cloud" originated from the term "Tag cloud". The word "ideas" has become a core part of any brands/lovemarks that I create for my own use. For example, ideas Revolution for the group name, ideas Vacuum for the film and video division, etc.

To me, Cloud is so versatile as it can rain, snow, hail, etc. And we have Chinook cloud/arch in Calgary that just looks spectacular (my title photo is one example).

The term "ideas Cloud" is new and unique enough that,

1. As of this morning, there were only 2,890 Google search results,
   
2. No one has used it in the way that I plan to, and
   
3. I am getting the 9th Google ranked search result for "ideas cloud" (as a pair of quoted words) at the moment and I haven't even started. (smile)
   

Once I settled on the name of "ideas Cloud" for the blog, I went about to create a catch phrase that will go well with it. I started with "ideas Cloud rains ideas" and liked it for a few days until I played around with a few other phrases a bit more and looked at the following,

• ideas Cloud makes ideas
• ideas Cloud creates ideas
• ideas Cloud dreams ideas
• ideas Cloud generates ideas

and then a friend suggested the most scientifically correct one (thanks Gwen),

• ideas Cloud precipitates ideas

At the end, I realized I love this phrase the most and I am using it,

• ideas Cloud dreams ideas

The word "dreams" evoke a lovely feeling and also this quote to me (emphasis mine),

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
- Thomas E. Lawrence

As it has been with my company blog for the last 17 months, I plan to blog about Business, Sci. & Tech., Law, innovation, Film & TV, Medical Science, Politics and whatever interests me. Just so you know, I aspire to make mistakes faster.

My friends, welcome to ideas Cloud!
It's turtles all the way down!
I hope you will have fun
exploring,
learning,
and
making mistakes
with me.

P.S. I actually started writing this post on Jan 3, 2008 but I backdated it to January 1st, 2008 so it flows and explains things better. I am in no way trying to create the same option backdating SEC problem as Steve Jobs. (smile)