iCities is a Conference about Blogs, e-Government and Digital Participation.
Here come my notes for session VIII.
Round Table: Eager Citizens. Entrepreneurs.
Chairs: Oscar Espiritusanto
Lorena Fernández
In the “web 2.0 gold rush”, are we constantly looking for gold? And what happens when one finds gold in a bed? How many Youtube clones? How profitable those clones?
But… what’s profit? Money? Only an entrepreneur if wins money? What about the benefits of linkonomics (link and being linked)?
The engine of the Net is people, not money.
What’s an entrepreneur? Is an entrepreneur someone that starts up an enterprise… to be sold to Google?
The (typical) Entrepreneur — builds an enterprise for… — vs. the Social Entrepreneur — builds an enterprise with… — (Mak).
If people and data are the wealth of the network… why not be a social entrepreneur that builds an enterprise with these people?
Let’s not forget about Freeconomics: people won’t pay for what they can get for free. How to pay your bills?
- Ads
- Sponsorships
- Donations
Though it is true that a virtual entrepreneur has less costs: no physical headquarters, most software is free, a contributing community (e.g. translations), standards, etc.
Not the strongest survive, but the ones that better adapt to the changing situation (though the latter are afterwards bought by the former).
Edu William
How can we apply the Web 2.0 to tourism? How to customize at the individual level tourism services?
It should be possible to generate networks of tourists that can exchange experiences, impressions and information about their trips. But also networks between tour operators: not only demand will be generated as a network, but also supply will be generated in a distributed way, in a network.
Open tourism: collaboration between all stakeholders.
Ildefonso Mayorgas
The idea can be good, but most probably it is not original: it is the good entrepreneur that makes the idea really good and drives it towards success.
Flexibility and capacity of adaptation are key, more important that a mint business plan.
