Three scholars

During these week for different reasons I have found articles and books written by Zoltan J. Acs. I have to admit, that I have not read his work too much (until these last days), but I’m currently overwhelmed with his work. Right now, I’m reading his latest book “Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy” (2008) in which he compiles various articles. 

I know I have read things from him, but I guess I’m now in the process that any research goes through, rediscovering authors. 

Another book, that I have in my desk and it’s an interesting reading, (less academic than the previous), is another 2008 book. “The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By”. This book is written by Scott A. Shane. Many things he writes I have already studied and know, but is a nice way how he puts it. He writes very well too.

I’m also deeply grateful to all the material than my former professor and the secondary supervisor of my master thesis, has on his website. I need to write him, I don’t think he knows I started a phd. He’s Dr. Philip Shapira. One of the smartest teachers I’ve ever had. His notes are coming at handy when I start teaching soon.   

p.s. Today is 8-8-8, and it was the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

Google Trend speaks, researchers listen.

The other day I met Google Trends, a powerful tool. I think still some unprecise, but it can bring useful info. I started looking at some of the keywords of my research interest, like “innovation” & ”entrepreneurship”,  

We can comment a few things. First, people are more interested in “innovation” than “entrepreneurship”. Even if some of us, keep saying that “Entrepreneurs or Intrapreneurs, We Couldn’t Innovate Without Them” (Mary Key, today). Second thing is that Copenhague and Singapore, are the  most interested city/regions in the world about innovation (Google dixit). Third thing, is that entrepreneurship is much more googled in developing countries. Which makes sense as they have the highest entrepreneurial rates in the world, and are the ones kicking Europe and US. Last thing to point out, that always in Christmas, people don’t care about these things, that’s funny to see in the graph. I always like to see things from a multilevel perspective.  

The experience economy

I looked at other words, but probably the most interesting is “experience economy“. Notice, that Aalborg (or Ålborg), it’s ranked as the number one place in the world more interested in this concept. My supervisor got quite excited when yesterday I saw her that. Of course that is not only my Department that has been interested in this subject, other in Aalborg also do.

So if you are interested in this issue, stay tuned. In fact, the word in the street says we will soon open a website about it.  

The Committee on Culture of the Danish Parliament visit us.

This afternoon the CCDP or Kulturudvalget in Danish, came to visit us. Here in the official website of the Parlament explains about their trip. It was very interesting to meet this people. I was the only foreign, so everything was in Danish, which it was hard for me to follow as my command in Danish is still shaky
So 10 people from this Committee came and we were 4 academics, my supervisor, another professor and two PhD’s (including me).
My supervisor talked more in general about the experience economy and the projects done in Frederikshavn. The Comittee was very interested, and they asked many questions. My coworkers were very glad how the meeting went.
H.P. my fellow PhD student, also made a presentation they liked. I’m including my presentation, it’s a very small one and it had to very fast as the time was almost consumed, but at least you can see a little of what I talked about.
For me it’s very interesting how these people in the goverment, from different parties, are interested and get engaged in what people are doing in their “Kingdom”. I’m very happy to be in a project that it’s important, not only at local/regional level, but national too.

Well it seems today SlideShare does not work. So I will updated it in another time. I have recently updated the RSA Presentation, today I saw 106 people had view the presentation since I put it, too bad no one has left any comment.

My presentation at the conference.

Here is the power point presentation I prepared for the conference. It was really exciting and I meet many great people in the conference. It’s so exciting to find that many other academics are studying these issues. I also enjoyed the atmosphere of Prague.

In my presentation there were 3 other presentations, and I got 3 or 4 questions that I loved to answer. Many never heard about the “experience economy” so it was nice to see their faces.

Intrapreneurship, and its potential to create a fruitful discussion

Yesterday I presented to my group (2 professors and 3 other phd students) some of the ideas that I have working on. It was my first presentation as a phd students so I have to admit I was a little bit nervous.

I think the idea that most caught their attention was the “intrapreneurship” concept. Today I have been adding some things in Wikipedia about it. Well, I have a deadline to meet this May 10 to submit a paper for the RSA Conference. So, if you want to know more about intrapreneurship and how it can be connected to innovation and the experience economy, then read my next paper (next week) and stay around!