Bubbles Everywhere: Speculative Bubbles in Financial Markets and in Everyday Life

Prof. Dr. Bernd Ankenbrand

Bubbles are everywhere! Over the last centuries we have seen many speculative bubbles and it seems recently frequency has increased. We will start this course with identifying historic economic bubbles. Building on this knowledge we will discuss their sociological, psychological and economic causes. As there are numerous other bubbles in our world, we will go far beyond financial bubbles! For example we will examine the hype around a brand, fashion style, movement or just a simple story. By applying the findings of behavioral economics, we will deepen our understanding both of speculative bubbles and bubbles in everyday life.

Please vote for the Bubbles Everywhere MOOC.

Enjoy a 10% off Admission to the Crowdfunding California Conference. Your Discount Code and Registration Link are below.

The Crowdfunding California Conference provides a unique opportunity for non-profits, entrepreneurial and creative communities to learn about the options to raise money for their projects.

 https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108003558646876212824

Thanks to all 270+ of you for making the AngelList User Group (ALUG) pilot an enormous success. As we transition from the pilot phase to full production, among the important questions is the technology and community platforms we use. This message helps you understand our strategy.

Meetup (MU) - this an ok site for ad hoc gatherings. It leaves a lot to be desired. While it meets some needs today, and will continue to be used, it is not the long-term strategic choice. This is due to significant limitations.

AngelList (AL) - we all use and love AngelList and that's why we are here. Remember, AL is a social medium first and foremost. It is important that you are always active in AL. It’s good practice to maintain your profile. It is also important to follow your other ALUG Members [https://angel.co/jheuristic]. To get the most from AL strive to nurture, reveal and serve your social networks vis-à-vis AL.

Google Plus (G+) - is the strategic community platform for the ALUG. It makes expanded sharing and discovery very easy. You are urged to join the ALUG G+ Community today. G+ helps optimize and develop the productive networks beyond AL and MU. G+ provisions video conversations and exchanges with Hangouts. Simply put, G+ is the future of communities like the ALUG.

Some or even many of you may be skeptical of G+ and other social media. That's smart. Facebook train wrecks are legion. Even mighty Google has had major flops like Orkut and Wave... G+ is different. It's for business. Online community technology has been my specialty for decades. G+ is here to stay. Join your ALUG here...

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108003558646876212824

and start sharing!

By special arrangement with Naval Ravikant and AngelList your AngelList User Group (ALUG) is pleased to announce the ALUG G+ Hangout-on-Air with Ash Fontana.

Your Hangout-on-Air with Ash Fontana is Tuesday, April 30, at 10:30AM PST.

To participate in this ALUG Meetup please join your Google+ ALUG Community. Please also RSVP to this Meetup.

http://www.meetup.com/AngelList-User-Group/events/114149392/

G+ Hangout-on-Air is the broadcast technology for your Webinar. It's important to join your Google+ ALUG Community to participate.

Ash Fontana runs the core fundraising products for AngelList. These include investor/company matchmaking, company profiles and Invest Online. In your ALUG G+ Hangout-on-Air with Ash Fontana we'll execute the following agenda…

1. Personal Introduction
2. AngelList Status, e.g., # of deals, users, employees, and other metrics
3. Newest Angel.co features including talent, API, etc., and Coming Attractions
4. Next Practices – how to make best use of AngelList, case studies
5. Asynchronous Q&A
6. Conclusion

Please join your AngelList User Group colleagues for your ALUG G+ Hangout-on-Air with Ash Fontana.

Please post any questions on this Meetup or for Ash Fontana in Google+ ALUG Community.

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and walked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." -- Editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what ... is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." -- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." -- Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbie Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -Decca Recording Studio, rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." -- Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

"Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." -- 1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work.

“You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." -- Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus.

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duel Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

'The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British 'surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

"640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981

Social Network Analysis (SNA) is the methodical, mathematical and rigorous study of social networks.

Below please find links to open SNA wikis for --

• Business SNA
• SNA Courses

You are welcome, encouraged and expected to edit these open wikis. The data are curated-by-the-crowd.

You are now welcome to freely access and The Social Enterprise. Please maintain the Rights Notice of the sponsor as follows:

Copyright © 2012 Society of Information Management.

Access The Social Enterprise on SlideShare.

- john maloney
http://colabria.com/

Here is a noteworthy development reported by TechCrunch last Sunday in case you missed it...

SEC Greenlights AngelList

"The Securities and Exchange Commission is making way for a number of startups and online investment platforms to enable startups to crowdsource investment."

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/31/sec-angellist-greenlight/

This is a positive development. It advances the goal of frictionless flow of capital, innovation and talent. It also aids the mission of AngelList and the AngelList User Group.

The next Bay Area AngelList User Group Meetup is Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in San Francisco. This Meetup is full.

You may join the AngelList User Group here…

http://www.meetup.com/AngelList-User-Group/

The Google Plus AngelList User Group community is recommended. G+ Hangouts will augment the physical Meetups. 

Join here:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108003558646876212824

Next month is my 10-year Anniversary on LinkedIn. It is interesting that it has some special meaning.

Here in Silicon Valley credibility is important. Some flash their LinkedIn Serial Number as a form of street cred: a measure for commanding a level of respect in an urban environment due to experience in or knowledge of issues affecting those environments.

The meme is the lower your LinkedIn Number the higher your street cred.

So, how do you find out when you joined LinkedIn? Simply login to your linked LinkedIn. Then press your profile picture in the upper right to reach the ‘Privacy and Settings’ menu.

‘Privacy and Settings’ page list your join date as follows…

Now, how to find that all-important Serial Number? Easy, just click on your Picture to reveal your Profile. Ta-da! Your LinkedIn Serial Number is revealed. The ID= Number in your profile URL is your LinkedIn Serial Number.

In this case, for me, it is 4381. Hope the 200M+ that joined after me have enjoyed it as much as me.

Read more from #4381 --

http://networksingularity.com/2011/03/26/4381-amp-108.aspx 

Know your street cred. What’s your LinkedIn Serial Number? 

Noteworthy interactive graph on immigration reform from the Sunlight Foundation. As with all gridlock in outsized government, ‘follow the money,” is a reliable axiom. Since 2008 over $1.5B (sic) has been spent by immigration lobbyists.

Interactive Graph

Method: (from article)

“To create issue categories we used Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) -- a form of natural language processing commonly used for text comparison -- to measure the conceptual similarity of the bills. We then clustered the most similar bills together with hierarchical agglomerative clustering. To highlight significant activity, we filtered the network visualization to show only the subgraph with a k-core of 3. The graph layout was done using the Gephi implementation of the OpenOrd algorithm, which employs aggressive edge-cutting to promote clustering.”

- Sunlight Foundation

Modern enterprise leadership is rife with oxymora. Some are amusing figures of speech such as deafening silence or irregular pattern. Others are harmful. Among the most harmful is codified culture.

Too often business write down banal claims about culture. ‘People Are Our Number One Asset” is a classic chestnut.

On the contrary, organizations with this claim, and most organizations in general, always see people as their Biggest Expense. Codifying culture is a fool’s errand.

Culture is a complex adaptive system, or, more simply, complex. Culture is only served. Culture is not built, crafted, created, codified, changed or even defined. Codifying culture in PowerPoint is a confident farce. Strive for cultural comprehension -- not tortured clichés.

Boundaries and intentions of the human system are elaborated through example, practice, conversation and narrative. Prosperous outcomes are not determined by some platitudinous blowhard and their vacant rhetoric. 

One manager went so far as to create a painful analogy as follows:

“Product is to marketing as culture is to recruiting”

This is wrong on so many levels. The most obvious is the backwards logic. In reality marketing creates product; people (recruiting) creates culture.

Product determining marketing is a huge and common mistake: “Gee, we built the product… now let’s go see if anyone wants it!”

Like codified culture this inexcusable blunder is still made over and over. The purpose of business is to create customers, not products. Businesses don’t fail because of lack of product; they fail from a lack of customers.

Thus, the far more sound analogy, again, on many levels, is:

Marketing is to product what people are to culture.

Culture is about acting in the situated present. People reveal culture; marketing reveals value (product) for customers.

Remember, cultural advantages, constraints and agents are perpetually evolving through engaged conversation and thoughtful narrative. They are not pinned down by soaring hokum or inane slide decks.

Companies don’t fail because they lack artifacts on culture; they fail from a lack of engaged, spirited behaviors. There’s no need for more corporate baloney.

Recruiters often look for candidates with a ‘cultural fit.’ That’s patently absurd. People don’t fit to culture like a transmission to a driveshaft; people are the culture.

The far more appropriate recruiting question is, ‘Will this candidate help us continuously reveal a more prosperous culture?’ Allow new people to engage, embrace and expand the culture through their own behaviors. Never try to correct people to fit the culture. That’s crazy talk. 

Stay away from ALL written cultural platitudes. These sappy bromides are harmful. Here is a universal, one-word position of slides on corporate culture: Forgetaboutit.

Remember, culture is revealed and served, never created. In short, be the culture you want through narrative, conversation, example, self-control, engagement, introspection and consistent practices. The rest will take care of itself.

Don’t waste your time trying to codifying complex systems – it will never work. Rather, focus on leadership. Above all, avoid another classic business oxymoron: management science.

Have you ever wished that your organization was smarter (and less like a Dilbert comic strip)? That the people in it could share what they know more easily, learn faster, and innovate more? Are you already working towards that by using internal social networking, collaboration, knowledge management, learning, leadership development or culture change?

Here is an opportunity for you to connect, share, and learn from others about how to make your organization smarter. Come to this one-day conference to be held Tuesday, May 14th, in Toronto; or join the LinkedIn group conversation (click here).

Some of the presenters at this intimate, interactive, one-day event include:

• Dan Pontefract, Head of Learning & Collaboration, Telus - talking about his new book The Flat Army: Creating a connected and engaged organization
• Sandra Montanino, Director of Professional Development, Goodmans LLP - 'Expediting learning for smarter organizations'
• Arna Banack, CEO, Arbacus -  'Culture = the bottom-line'
• Heather Colman, Knowledge Management Specialist, Hicks Morley - 'Increasing collaboration and communication @ Hicks Morley'
• Vince Molinaro, Managing Director, Knightsbridge - 'A community of leaders = smarter organizations'

To  register click here. To learn more and see the program click here.

Early bird pricing until April 19 - you pay only $299 plus HST. (Full conference fee is $350 plus HST.)

Benefits

• Smart ideas, smartly connect – to challenge and expand how you think
• Fast-paced, interactive format – so you can learn three practical things to make your organization smarter
• Intimate group of participants – increase your boundary-spanning network

Who
Leaders, knowledge managers, technologists, learning / training experts, innovators, business designers, strategists, social business gurus, communications and human resources specialists.
When /  where
Tuesday, May 14th; Bram & Bluma Appel Salon, Toronto Reference Library (map)
Sponsors

We hope to see you at the conference or in LinkedIn. And please let us know if you have any questions.

Gordon and Jane

Gordon

www.DynamicAdaptation.com

Mobile: +1.416.565.3217

Skype: Gordon.Vala-Webb

@DynamicAdaptatn

When: August 11-13, 2013
Where: Santiago de Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Papers: Paper submission deadline May 15, 2013
Workshops: Proposal submission deadline May 15, 2013
Artifacts: Proposal submission deadline June 1, 2013

Web: http://www.coinschile.com

The Collaborative Innovation Networks Conference (COINS) invites you to submit your papers, workshop proposals, and artifacts to the 4th annual international conference to be held in Santiago de Chile, hosted by Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile from August 11 to August 13, 2013. COINS13 brings together practitioners, researchers and students of the emerging science of collaboration to share their work, learn from each other, and get inspired through creative new ideas. Conference activities will take place throughout the historic cities of Santiago and Valparaiso. Attendees will be encouraged to engage with the community, meet local entrepreneurs, artists, and designers, take a guided tour of the city, and participate in hands-on workshops and interactive sessions.

Where science, design, business and art meet, COINS13 looks at the emerging forces behind the phenomena of open-source, creative, entrepreneurial and social movements. Through interactive workshops, professional presentations, and fascinating keynotes, COINS13 combines a wide range of interdisciplinary fields such as social network analysis, group dynamics, design and visualization, information systems, collective action and the psychology and sociality of collaboration.

The best papers will be selected for a special issue of the International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering (IJODE; http://www.inderscience.com/jhome.php?jcode=IJODE).
Program Chairs: Marisa Von Bülow (UC) & Cristobal Garcia (UC)
Proceedings Chair: Peter Gloor (MIT)

Learning from the Swarm

The COINS13 conference committee seeks original paper submissions, creative workshop ideas and concepts, unique artifacts or installations, and engaging rapid-fire presentations celebrating the theme “Learning from the Swarm”. This year we are asking what is relevant with regard to the innovative powers of creative and civic swarms, what are the observable qualities of virtual collaboration and mobilization, and how does the quest for global cooperation affect local networks. We invite both theoretical and practice-based dialogues, case studies, scientific papers, technological solutions, research studies, and interactive artifacts that thoroughly reflect this year’s conference theme.
We invite researchers and designers to submit their latest scientific results and experimental design solutions as full research papers, workshop proposals, and artifact demonstrations in the following conference themes:

To engage with the broader COINs community, follow us on twitter @coinschile and join our Facebook page (Collaborative Innovation Networks: COINs Conference).

Papers:

Submission Deadline May 15, 2013

COINS13 seeks original, high-quality papers that reflect the full breadth and scope of collaboration science and design including: bold research ideas, conceptual developments, research investigations, methodological & theoretical advances, design ideas, development experiences and more. Submissions should report original research, reflections on theoretical concerns, methodological advances, or other insights that contribute to our understanding of all aspects of collaboration and help advance the state of knowledge for the community. We encourage perspectives from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.

Papers should be submitted in .doc or .pdf format.

Authors are required to attend the conference to present their work.
Submit papers by May 15, 2013 on EasyChair: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=coins13

Important Dates:

May 15, 2013 | Deadline for Paper Submissions
June 15, 2013 | Author(s) will be notified of provisional acceptance of the paper
July 30, 2013 | Final copy for conference to publications chair
August 11-13 | Paper presentations at COINS13, Santiago, Chile

Workshops:

Proposals Submission Deadline May 15, 2013
Workshops will take place during the conference and will form part of the main program. This year we are accepting proposals for both two-hour and four-hour sessions.

Workshops are intended to provide a forum for exchanging ideas, sharing experiences, fostering conversation and research communities, learning from each other, exploring controversies, engaging in debate, envisioning future directions and elaborating new methods and perspectives.

Workshop activities can range from open forum discussion, to demonstrations or presentations with discussion, to collaborative activities such as structured brainstorming, illustrative games or role-plays. Whatever the focus or format, organizers will be required to schedule time for conversation, reflection, discussion, and debate. Although we envision most workshop activities to take place in one setting, let us know if your workshop will venture out into other sites in Santiago.

Workshop proposals should include:

●    a summary of 500 words describing the theme(s) of the workshop
●    a longer detailed description of the workshop structure, activities and goals
●    the names, contact information and background of the organizer(s)
●    the maximum number of participants you'd like to attend the workshop
●    anticipated A/V requirements.

Please be as specific as possible as it helps us in selection, and in helping you plan the workshop.

Workshop participants will be registered on a first come first served basis by the conference committee, so the workshop organizers will not be able to select their participants.

Accepted workshops will be publicized via the COINS13 website within a month after organizers are notified. Workshop organizers will also be encouraged to promote COINS13 and their workshops.

 
More information: http://www.coinschile.com

Thanks to all for making the AngelList User Group pilot a great success. Expect more events coming soon. In the meantime here are some tips and suggestions...

• Post the link to your AngelList startup in your AngelList G+ Community. This aids sharing, visibility and connection. See:

http://bit.ly/ZftHMk

• Join the Harvard Club event on 20 March 2013. Learn and register:

http://www.harvardclubsf.org/article.html?aid=515

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today there is a wide range of funding options for startups. More are on the way. There is rapid innovation in entrepreneurial finance. Many funding innovations are offered as online services. They are fundamentally altering the landscape of startup capital formation. These innovations are welcome.

These reforms are also introducing big changes. They are driving out many of the long-standing practices and myths of entrepreneurial finance. Here are five myths of startups being killed by innovation.

Myth One – The NDA.

Startup finance reform is the death knell of the ridiculous non-disclosure agreement (NDA). For years the first sign of an incompetent entrepreneur was asking anyone to sign an NDA. Ironically, today’s Web-based startup sites for raising capital online are really a full disclosure agreement. They are a big, global megaphone for startups. Entrepreneurs plead for introductions to share their ideas. Some pay to get there idea out there. Not that the NDA was ever even considered by serious investors, it is good that it is now dead and gone.

Myth Two – The $500K Seed Round.

A few Web-generations ago, around 2000, the standard startup ask was for a $500K seed round. This was a counter-productive sum. It created many failed startups and disappointed investors. Sure, maybe it was more costly to develop a prototype or a minimally viable product (MVP) back then. Thing is, $500K is an odd sum. For most startups, it’s way too much for proof of concept; for all startups it’s way too little to scale a company. Good riddance to the reflex request for the $500K Seed Round.

Myth Three – The Long-term Consultant.

Too often founders and entrepreneurs believe they can run their firms with so-called ‘consultants.’ It’s not so. Startups may not claim technical talent as consultants. (The IRS is excited about startup finance reform too.) If you pay anyone more than $600 in a year they are your employee. If you ever supervise or otherwise tell the person how to do the work, they are no longer an independent contractor – they are your employees. For employees, of course, you need to pay withholding, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and other taxes. Sorry, filing the IRS 1099-MISC form, year after year, for startup talent, won’t cut it anymore. There is an IRS crackdown on startups. You need to make your loyal people employees sooner-than-later. You’re still not sure? Use convenient IRS Form SS-8. Note that if you have been using so-called consultants in your startup for a long time, you may have a HUGE bill for back-taxes. 

Myth Four – Dog Food.

Eating your own dog food or ‘dogfooding’ is using what you build internally. Today’s investors don’t care if you use your own products. Dogfooding is narcissistic. In Lean Startup it’s waste. Remember, the purpose of business is to create customers. Usually means getting out of your chair and in front of prospects. Today’s investors require and measure traction, social proof and testimonials from real, breathing customers. It’s okay to use your product, just don’t overdo it.

Myth Five – You Can Go It Alone.

Startup finance reform is killing the myth of the lone genius entrepreneur fighting gallantly against all odds. Rather, the unwinding and democratization of capital formation demands hyper-collaboration. Not surprisingly, the online sites for startups raising capital have discovered they are first and foremost social network services (Gasp!). Fluid, proximate interactions help compose novel configurations of talent, capital and ideas for collaboration and entrepreneurial achievement. If you think you can go-it-alone in today’s fast-moving, transparent entrepreneurial capital markets you are on the path to oblivion.

The frictionless flow of capital, innovation and talent is important, ambitious and underway. Over the last 24-months novel Web-based applications have achieved fundamental advancements in the curation and widespread syndication of startups, investors and talent. Startups are discovering entirely new methods of capital formation. Favorable government policies are easing regulatory requirements. As these developments unfold at breakneck speed, the myths and practices of the past crumble away. Both are propelling the future of entrepreneurial capital formation.

What Startup Myth are you busting?

Colabria announces the AngelList User Group and Reception on Tuesday March 12 2013 in San Francisco, California USA

San Francisco, California February 27, 2013 ( PRWEB ) -- The AngelList User Group http://goo.gl/j4hDU is an after-work reception and Meetup on Tuesday, March 12th 2013 in San Francisco, California USA. It is for entrepreneurs, investors, talent and all users of AngelList. AngelList is popular website and platform for raising money for startups. All are welcome.

The venue is Runway, 1355 Market Street, Suite 488, in San Francisco. Runway is a new startup tech incubator located in the Twitter Building. The AngelList User Group begins at 5:30PM with a reception.

The format is speakers, panel discussions, open conversation, Q&A and networking. Refreshments are included. Event dress is business casual.

The AngelList User Group was formed to accomplish all the goals of traditional users groups. In addition, and unique to entrepreneurial finance, the group fulfills the need for developing the personal relationships and productive interactions that propel startups, capital formation and talent discovery.

The AngelList User Group is sponsored by participants. A modest administrative fee covers expenses. It is organized by Colabria. The AngelList User Group Event is staffed by volunteers.

Registration in advance is required.

AngelList User Group benefits include:

• Helping you get the most from AngelList
• Hearing firsthand accounts and success stories from users
• Extending your AngelList profile with proximate interactions
• Nurturing productive interactions and prosperous relationships
• Understanding of crowd funding, the JOBS Act and online intermediaries

You are invited to RSVP to the AngelList User Group and create the future of entrepreneurial finance.

About Colabria

Colabria is a 21st Century action/research network. Founded in 1999, Colabria develops business leaders and professionals worldwide. Colabria’s worldwide mission enables participants to prosper in the network age. Revealing networks of experts, leaders, technologies and methods propels fundamental advancements in productivity and innovation for all.

For the past three years, Charities Aid Foundation has released the World Giving Index, a study of worldwide charitable behavior. In 2012, this study included more than 140 countries and 155,000 interviews conducted by Gallup. These numbers are based on three key factors over a particular month:

1. The percentage of people who donated money to charity.
2. The percentage of people who volunteered their time.
3. The percentage of people who helped a stranger.

It's interesting to see where the U.S. falls among the rest of the world. While we no longer sit at the top of the list, it's refreshing to see that more than half of Americans participate in some sort of charitable activity. At the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and Greater Horizons, we're fortunate to work with charitable givers who choose to support causes in their own communities and beyond through donor-advised funds every day.

Source: Greater Horizons

SIMPLEX 2013 -- CALL FOR PAPERS

5th Annual Workshop on Simplifying Complex Networks for Practitioners

In conjunction with the 22nd International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) May 13-17, 2013, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

URL: http://www.simplexconf.net/

Network science, sometimes also called "complex networks science", has recently attracted much attention from the scientific community, mainly due to the almost ubiquitous presence of complex networks in real-world systems. Examples of complex networks are found in living organisms, in engineering systems, as well as in social networks. Most of the real-world systems have the required degree of complexity to be called "complex systems". Complexity may have to do with the intricate dynamics of the interacting components, with the non-trivial properties of the underlying network topology, or with the sheer size of the system itself.

Despite the numerous workshops and conferences related to network science, it is still a set of loosely interacting communities. Those communities would benefit from better interactions.

Simplex aims at triggering different computer science communities (e.g. communication networks, distributed systems) to propose research areas and topics that should be tackled from the network science perspective. We also seek contributions from network science that are relevant to solve practical computer science problems. Two types of contributions are foreseen from prospective authors. The first type would consist of use-cases of theoretical tools and methods to solve practical problems. Such contributions should be as usable as possible by practitioners in the related field. The second type of contributions would come from practitioners that have identified a problem that may be solved by tools from network sciences. The point of such contributions is to make the network sciences community aware of the importance of a high-impact problem, and to suggest means by which the problem may be solved by the network sciences community. Both contributions should stimulate interaction between theoreticians and practitioners, and also have high potential impact in either field.

Topics for the workshop include, but are not limited to:

* Application of complex network theory to the design of web applications;

* Data mining of large scale networks;

* Analysis of dynamic and time-varying networks;

* Network robustness to failures and attacks;

* Machine learning and network science;

* Complex network theory applied to forwarding/routing problems;

* Application of social network analysis to communication and computing system design;

* Mobility and connectivity modelling;

* Network science and data and information retrieval;

* Complex network theory and security applications;

Submission Guidelines

All submitted papers will be carefully evaluated based on their originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of expression. All papers will be reviewed by at least three members of the technical program committee.

The proceedings of the workshop will be published by the ACM International Conference Proceeding Series (ICPS), and will be a part of the companion volume of the WWW 2013 proceedings. Paper submissions should not exceed 6 pages in the ACM SIGS Proceedings Template (http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates; MS-WORD template is here: http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/pubform.doc).

Submissions are now accepted at easychair

(https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=simplex2013)

Important Dates

* Submission deadline: March 1st 2013 (midnight, Pacific Standard Time)

* Authors notification: March 13th 2013

* Camera-ready: March 28th, 2013

* Workshop date: May 13, 2013

Submission site: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=simplex2013

Organizers

General Chairs

* Pan Hui, HKUST/T-Labs, HK

* Nishanth Sastry, Kings College London, UK

Technical Program Committee Chairs

* Fabricio Benevenuto, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

* Stefano Ferretti, Universita di Bologna, Italy

* Abedelaziz Mohaisen, VeriSign Labs, USA

Technical Program Committee

* Young-Yeol Ahn, Indiana University, USA

* Azer Bestavros, Boston University, USA

* Ozalp Babaoglu, University of Bologna, Italy

* Yang Chen, Duke University, USA

* Daniel Figueiredo, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

* Amir Houmansadr, The University of Texas Austin, USA

* Matthieu Latapy, LIP6, France

* Matteo Magnani, Aarhus University, Denmark

* Cecilia Mascolo, University of Cambridge, UK

* Raul Mondragon, Queen Mary University of London, UK

* Mirella Moro, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil

* Mirco Musolesi, School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK

* Jonice Oliveira, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

* Eric Osterweil, VeriSign Labs, USA

* Bruno Ribeiro, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

* Salvatore Scellato, Google, UK

* Duc A. Tran, University of Massachusetts Boston, USA

* Udi Weinsberg, Technicolor, USA

* Artur Ziviani, National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC), Brazil

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Stefano Ferretti, Ph.D.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering - University of Bologna Mura Anteo Zamboni, 7

40127 Bologna ITALY

URL: http://www.cs.unibo.it/~sferrett e-mail: sferrett@cs.unibo.it

A Pivot to $1mil in Transactions at Soldsie with Chris Bennett

Thursday, February 21, 2013

6:30 PM To 9:30 PM

PARISOMA

169 11th Street, San Francisco, CA (map)

Price: $20.00/per awesome person

Refund policy

500 Startups graduate Soldsie.com started out as Central.ly before they started talking to customers and found a business doing over $1 mil in transactions with e-commernce on facebook that many people said would never work.

How did they find this business model? Soldsie rocks customer development every week, including the engineers.

Chris Bennet will tell Soldsie's story of life before and after lean startup principles, their pivot, and how he took a trip to the deep south to bang on doors and meet his customers face to face.

We'll also kick off with lightning talks by Francisco Guererro of Shopinterest (500 Startups / Mexican.vc) and more.

(Want to do a lightning talk? Contact me)

Lastly, we'll end with our panel and open mic MVP format. Anyone can present their MVP to get feedback from our panel! Show up at 6:30 sharp to signup.

(Contact me for details on the format and how to present your slide or demo.)

About Chris Bennett

Chris is the face, as well as the heart and soul, of the Soldsie team. Having started his first business while studying at Wharton Chris is serial entrepreneur with expertise in finance, operations, and team building. You can follow him @8ennett

About Arrel Gray

A coder and entrepreneur creating products that make technology powerful for non-techie people. Arrel has founded three companies including 17FEET, Yolk, and Solsie. You can follow him @arrel

About Francisco Guerrero

Francisco is a serial entrepreneur, bringing over 10 years of ecommerce, marketing and business development experience to ShopInterest. As VP Marketing, he helped launch CareDox at TechCrunch Disrupt, and has managed marketing and ecommerce at Gap, HP, McAfee and YouSendIt among others. Francisco has an MBA from Christian Brothers University. Follow him at @Guerrero_FJ

Beer, (real non-pizza based) food, and a good hang with great people is included thanks to the price tag. After expenses, extra proceeds go to building out LeanStartupCircle.com for the community.