Smart Economy

Why vaccines, antibiotics and antivirals are now obsolete- surpassed by hydrated fullerenes (C60 HYFN)

When Buckyballs or Fullerenes (Carbon 60, which is a form of carbon, just like coal, activated charcoal, soot, diamonds or the lead in your pencil,) were first discovered several decades ago, they were lauded as a “silver bullet” in medicine. The hype quickly subsided when most researchers realized that both natural and synthetic fullerenes were not very water soluble, hence they only saw weak medical effects. But a team of Ukrainian researchers persisted and a decade ago, they discovered a way to make fullerenes water soluble without making them more toxic. Now, after undergoing clinical trials, they are launching a fullerene-based  water solution (FWS) drink shortly on the Ukrainian market as a natural food supplement, Fullerenes are found naturally in lightening discharges, in nano-quantities in molasses or in some natural spring. spa waters and in shungite rocks.

Governments around the world should fast-track the approval of hydrated fullerenes (C60 HyFNs) or Fullerene Water Solution (FWS) drinks, which are anti-microbial (both anti viral and anti bacterial) and can protect people from all colds and flu. WFS is about to be launched by Ukrainian scientists on the Ukrainian market as a natural food supplement

So why the Ukrainians and not another country-you might ask yourself? Well they all tried (UK, Americans, Germans, China, Japan, South Korea, etc)  to make safe nontoxic watersoluble fullernes but failed except for Ukrainian researchers.

So here are the benefits of FWS over conventional approaches

1) FWS are not viral specific like vaccines -they don't need several months lead time to be manufactured  for each new viral season. The turnaround for FWS is 2-3 days. FWS work on all viruses and bacteria year round, by suppressing the viral or bacterial spread from cell to cell. FWS don't kill microbes but block mobility from cell to cell, due to water clusters formed around the fullerene molecule. Your  immune system then decides which  microbes are invaders and which microbes  are beneficial for the body.

2) People and especially teenagers who have died due to swine flu (due to cytokine cascades or secondary bacterial infections) could have been saved if FWS was on the market today.

3) High risk groups -like Canadian aboriginal Indians, could be saved from flu death by taking a combination of Vitamin D (to tune up the immune system in the winter) and FWS

4) With FWS you don't need annual immunization campaigns and 6 hour long lineups, like we have seen in Toronto this past week. Public health money could be used for other priorities.

5) With FWS, you don't need to distinguish between high and low risk groups like you do in rollouts for vaccines. If  FWS were available from Walmart to corner health food stores as a health drink , you'd have equal access

6) FWS are cheaper to produce then antibiotics and vaccines

7) FWS are safer then vaccines and antibiotics (see http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/and type in "fullerene" under Hazardous Substance Data Bank). FWS don' t build up resistance in bacteria the way antibiotics do.

8)FWS would reduce the work load on hospital ICU's and protect front line staff

9) Feeding fullerne laced water to animals would eliminate the need for conventional antibiotics

10) Dipping plant seeds in fullerene water solutions increases growth, health  and resilience of growing plants

For more information contact me from your corporate email

Walter Derzko

Other medical/biological effects of HyFN's see http://www.fullwater.com.ua/page6.html )

Water-soluble fullerenes (also known as buckyballs) or hydrated fullerenes (HyFN's) appear to possess an impressive list of in vivo and in vitro effects which have been researched by Ukrainian scientists and are summarized below:

The following table was reproduced with the permission of the authors:

Basic biological properties of aqueous solutions of the hydrated C60 fullerene (HyFn) detected to the present time (May 2005)

In vitro experiments revealed that HyFn with C60 concentrations up to 100mM/l:

1. Are non-toxic for cells including hepatocytes;

2. Do not suppress, but promote the growth of isolated micro-organisms (microbes, fungi, etc.) and improve the survival rate and viability of cells (e.g., spermatozoa) and of frozen-thawed cells;

3. Do not inhibit cell respiration;

4. Do not suppress membrane-bonded ATP-ase activity;

5. Possess greater anti-oxidant properties then vitamin E, b-carotene and BHT (2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-kresol);

6. Stabilize cellular membranes and enhance their resistance under adverse conditions;

7. Do not affect blood coagulation;

8. Increase by 5-10 degrees C the temperature of biomolecules denaturation (DNA, albumin, collagen and etc.);

9. Increase catalytic activity of isolated enzymes (e.g., serine proteases).

In vivo experiments revealed that HyFn with C60 total doses up to 25mg/kg of b.w.:

1. Are non-toxic, not immunogenic, none allergenic;

2. Increase resistance of plasma membranes to damaging factors;

3. Positively influence anti-oxidant and energetic systems of organisms;

4. Possess radioprotective properties due to suppression of excess level of free radicals;

5. Possess antihistaminic and allergy-suppressing abilities, i.e., act as anti-inflammatory agents,

6. Positively influence activity of adrenergic, GABA-, hystaminic- and, especially, serotoninergic systems and, as a consequence, enhance adaptogenic functions of organisms; adaptive homeostasis

7. Show positive neuroprotecting effects (e.g., in Alzheimer's disease) and non-specific analgesic effects;

8. Do not kill tumor cells, inhibition of development of cancer pathologies, cancer metastasis,

9. Possess anti-atherosclerotic (anti-atherogenic) properties;

10. Are able to protect against viral infection (e.g., influenza, etc.): (HyFn do not kill viruses and microbes, but do not allow them to incorporate into cells)....(HYFNs plus Vitamin D supplements  could make antibiotics and vaccines obsolete in the future)

Source: Fullerenes, Nanotubes, and Carbon Nanostructures, 13: 363-376, 2005;Is the C60 Fullerene Molecule Toxic?!

When will the recession end? Part 27 The Sun could create a double dip depression

New Solar Cycle 24 Prediction: Fewer Sunspots, But Severe Mass Coronal Ejection (MCE) Activity possible.

 

In the past, human populations have survived 7 climate change-related mass extinction events...James Lovelock reminds us...but are we more vulnerable now and less resilient as a society?

 

Now privately, some scientists are quietly predicting two imminant wild card possibilities-a mini ice age, that could punctuate global warming,  if sun spots do not pick up in the next solar spot cycle and the distinct possibility of severe solar storms. At the extreme, both events could cause billions of deaths in a worst case scenario that we looked at last month.

 

Publically, an  international panel of experts has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle, stating that Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013with a below-average number of sunspots. Led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sponsored by NASA, the panel includes a dozen members from nine different government and academic institutions. Their forecast sets the stage for at least another year of mostly quiet conditions before solar activity resumes in earnest [..they hope].

 

 

This plot of sunspot numbers shows the measured peak of the last solar cycle (Solar Cycle 23) in blue and the predicted peak of the next solar cycle (24) in red. Credit: NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center.

 

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Prediction Center, Boulder, Colo.

 It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression. "Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather,"says Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."

The 1859 storm -- named the "Carrington Event" after astronomer Richard Carrington who witnessed the instigating solar flare -- electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their red and green glow. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages to society’s high-tech infrastructure and require four to ten years for complete recovery. For comparison, Hurricane Katrina caused $80 to 125 billion in damage.

 

 

The latest forecast revises a prediction issued in 2007, when a sharply divided panel believed solar minimum would come in March 2008 and would be followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak solar maximum in 2012. Competing models of the solar cycle produced different forecasts, and researchers were eager for the sun to reveal which was correct.

"It turns out that none of the models were really correct,"says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. NASA’s lead representative on the panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected and very interesting way."

Yearly-averaged sunspot numbers from 1610 to 2000. Researchers believe upcoming Solar Cycle 24 will be similar to the cycle that peaked in 1928, marked in red. Credit: NASA/MSFC

Astronomers first noted the solar cycle in the mid-1800s. Graphs of sunspot numbers resemble a roller coaster, going up and down with an approximately 11-year period. Predicting the peaks and valleys has proven troublesome because cycles vary in length from 9 to 14 years. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually brief, lasting only a couple of years, but sometimes they stretch much longer. In the 17th century, the sun plunged into a 70-year period of spotless quiet known as the Maunder Minimum (mini ice age) that still baffles scientists.

At a recent climate change symposium at Monash University in Australia, David Archibald, an expert in solar cycles stated:

“You haven’t seen any sign of the end of Solar Cycle 23 yet and the cooling over Solar
Cycle 24 as a consequence may be as much as 2.8 degrees centigrade. We are due for a de Vries cycle cooling event every two hundred and ten years, and actually even a Bond event because the last one of those was in the Dark Ages. And severe cooling over the next twenty years is now a certainty.” 

Right now, the solar cycle is in a valley--the deepest of the past century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun set Space Age records for low sunspotcounts, weak solar wind, and low solar irradiance. The sun has gone more than two years without a significant solar flare.

"In our professional careers, we’ve never seen anything quite like it," says Pesnell. "Solar minimum has lasted far beyond what we predicted in 2007."

 

 

In recent months, however, the sun has begun to show signs of life. Small sunspots and "proto-sunspots" are popping up with increasing frequency. Enormous currents of plasma on the sun’s surface ("zonal flows") are gaining strength and slowly drifting toward the sun’s equator. Radio astronomers have detected a tiny but significant uptick in solar radio emissions. All these things are precursors of an awakening Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis for the panel’s new, almost unanimous forecast.

 

 

According to the forecast, the sun should remain generally calm for at least another year. From a research point of view, that’s good news because solar minimum has proven to be more interesting than anyone imagined. Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. Space junk accumulates in Earth orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag. The becalmed solar wind whips up fewer magnetic storms around Earth’s poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on the near-Earth environment. There are other side-effects, too, that can be studied only so long as the sun remains quiet.

 

Meanwhile, the sun pays little heed to human committees. There could be more surprises, panelists acknowledge, and more revisions to the forecast.

"Go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013," says Pesnell. "But use a pencil."

Source: Marshall Space Flight Center

Walter Derzko

When will the recession / depression end ? Part 25 New Financial sector Business Models or New Creative Workarounds?

I listened to US president Obama last Wednesday on the White House lawn, just before AIG’s CEO Liddy testified before the American congress on AIG’s bonuses. The significant point that Obama made at the end of his speech, was a fundamental change or shift to the status quo. Coincidentally or not, most mainstream newspaper reports missed this key idea and quote.

“People are rightly outrages about these particular [AIG] bonuses. But just as outrageous is the culture that these bonuses are a symptom of., that have existed for far too long. A situation where excess greed, excess compensation, excess risk-taking have all made us vulnerable and left us holding the bank. And  one of the message that I want to send is as we  get out of this crisis, as we work towards getting ourselves out of recession, I hope that Wall Street and the marketplace don't think that we can return to business as usual. The business models that created a lot of paper wealth but not real wealth in this country and have now resulted in crisis can't be the model for economic growth going forward." said Obama.

The New Yorker magazine featured this cartoon (on the right) earlier this month (March 9, 2009) , which is a more likely scenario for the financial sector….One business person says to the other….These new regulations will fundamentally change the way we get around them…

 

Walter Derzko;

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

When will the recession / depression end? Part 22 Why we are likely to see a protracted L-shaped or double dip W-Shaped Recession?

Collapsed container traffic  and falling electricity demand

 

 

GDP growth or collapse is a poor early warning indicator for the economy. Figures are historic -they are released several months (usually 3 months) after the fact and the are then usually revised. As politicians are fond of saying, we've seen a global symmetric  (I'd argue.. asymmetric) collapse in GDP.

 

Here are the recently released GDP numbers for the 4th quarter of 2008.

 

Canada (-3.4%)

The EU (-5.9%)

The USA (-6.2%)

Japan (-12.7%)

 

Everyone is expecting even worse numbers in Q1 2009.

 

One proxy indicator that I follow is global trade. Back in 2006 and 2007 I was  looking for early signals/signs of impending collapse and now I’m tracking trade to determine if the economy will be in a protracted holding pattern (like the lost decade in the 1990’s in Japan, although it should be called the lost 2 decades) or will we see some resemblence of any recovery of international trade any time soon?

 

Bulk goods and container traffic is a good leading 6 month proxy for the economy. Manufacturers order raw materials in anticipation of manufacturing growth. In America, the container traffic in Long Beach California (the busiest port in the USA)  totally collapsed in 2007, long before there were any signs that the economy had peaked. Container traffic, dry and wet bulk goods traffic and shipping rates have been down and flat ever since-at historic low levels. If you use these indicators, there is ABSOLUTELY NO RECOVERY  in sight for 2009. The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is showing some signs of life, but it's a type #1 error, also known in academics as a false positive. Suppliers are using some creaive accounting by attempting to take their goods "off their books" shifting them into the F.O.B catagory, but these raw materials, assembled cars and even oil supplies are just sitting inside container ships in ports, awaiting for commodity prices to increase. (hat tip to Zavis Zeman for alerting us to this tactic)

Power consumption is another good indicator to watch that signals the health of the economy. (the same is equally true for industrial use of coal, gas and oil, if you can find the data.)

 

Historically, electricity consumption and GDP growth are closely coupled, although there is still debate in the academic literature on what causes what. Does electricity use drive GDP growth or the other way around.Energy conservation efforts are starting to confound the data too.  When I can find it, I use monthly and annual power consumption data as a proxy indicator for economic recovery. The logic is simple. If you are not running a second or third shift, or if you have closed down your factory, then energy use will drop long before we see any GDP changes in government statistics. Likewise, on the way up, energy consumption should be flat and then start to slowly rise before we see any effects in GDP numbers.

China and India have become the world's manufacturers, so their health is a proxy indicator for global economic health. Both China and Indiahave reported drastic energy consumption drops in their industrial sectors. Starting in late 2007 and right through 2008,

China reported a drop in consumption, although relative year-over-year, power consumption was positive, still growing but at a much slower decelerated pace. As the global financial crisis began to take a toll on the real economy, power demand plummeted in China, as enterprises shut down or cut back working hours in response to moribund business orders.

"Power consumption in China grew 5.23 percent in 2008, 9.57 percentage points lower than a year ago and the slowest in eight years, according to Chinese data. The slowing demand was mainly contributed by the industrial sector.  About 3.43 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity was used by the industry last year, up 3.83 percent from a year earlier, slower than the overall social power consumption growth rate for the first time.  Electricity used by the service industry and the rural and urban residents continued rapid growth, as the group was less affected by the financial crisis."

In India, power consumption grew 13.28 % in 2007 (a combination of industrial use, consumer household use, and village electrification) and dropped off the cliff by 16.91 percent in 2008, worse then in China.

 

Walter Derzko

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Related Recession / Depression Posts

When will the recession / depression end? Part 21 Darker days ahead , but not for all

When will the recession / depression end? Part 20 The Dog that Didn't Bark; Economists say don't pay attention to us

When will the recession / depression end? Part 19 Put Infrastructure Where it's Needed; Ontario on the Move

When will the recession/ depression end? Part 18 Hormones and Boom and Bust Cycles

When will the recession / depression end ? Part 17 Recap from the World Economic Forum in Davos

When will the recession end? Part 16 It's all over, well sort of.

When will the recession end? Part 15 Year-end predictions for 2009 starting to come true

When will the recession end? Part 14 Four options for America's race to the bottom

When will the recession end? Part 13 Thirteen economic questions that economists can't answer

When will the recession end? Part 12 Bad times are good times for startups

When will the recession end? Part 11 Bank of Canada optimism

When will the recession end? Part 10, The Conformity Trap or Don't count on your economist for advise

When will the recession end? Part 9 Humor will signal recession /depression bottom

When will the recession end? Part 8 Lessons Learned from the last Post 9/11 recession; designing brilliant winning business models

When will the recession end? Part 7 False signals of recovery

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will this recession end?

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 14 of 28 Which country is the most opportunity savvy in this recession?

Most politicians and economists now all agree that the world is in the throws of a total synchronous recession, if not depression. But which countries are the most resilient and get the fact that change and chaos produces opportunites?

 

Using the number of English language media stories about spotting or designing opportunities in a recession as a very crude proxy indicator, I started looking at several free and paid databases for public stories concerning the recession and opportunity recognition.

 

Which country is the most Opportunity Savvy in this recession? Who seems to be on top?

1)       The UK

2)       The USA

3)       India

4)       Canada

5)       China

The first two results many be biased because the recession /depression is far more advance in these top two countries, and the fact that I was just looking at the English language press only, but if media coverage is a reflection of societal mindsets, then the UK seems to be way ahead as a very opportunity savvy nation-their business people get it.

 

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

When will the recession / depression end? Part 21 Darker days ahead , but not for all

(Credit: This prophetic cartoon on the right appeared in one of the fall 2008 issues of the New Yorker magazine. It delivers several important messages from negative (depression, gloom and doom) to Positive (i.e what's the silver lining behind every cloud, or the opportunity behind every threat;  resilience, and make do with what you got!)

I was reminded of it after reading this morning's news from Canada’s  Globe and Mail newspaper-Dark(er) Days Ahead

The quarterly C-Suite survey was conducted for The Globe and Mail; Report on Business and Business News Network by Gandalf Group, and sponsored by KPMG. The survey interviewed 150 executives between Jan. 29 and Feb. 12. Respondents represent ROB 1000 companies from across Canada.

Here's a summary:

• 90 per cent of executives expect the economy to decline in the next 12 months                     (Now here is the flaw with most survey methodologies....They never tell me exactly what I really want to know...I always wonder about the extreme outliers. What do the other 10% think and Why? Why don't surveys ever focus on this "left behind" group?...Their ideas are far more significant then the majority. Are they more optimistic, expecting a quicker turnround? Will the economy  be flat or in neutral gear, anemic but not growing or dropping much? Are they just in counter-cyclical business or industry, that's level or even  growing  in a recession or have they just surfaced new opportunities that the majority of us don't see or can't even imagine yet? Are they just plain contrarians or are they still in the denial stage? or Are they doing something creative / innovative that the other 90 % don’t know about? Do they just see more Opportunity Windows, then the rest of us, because they are now more vigilant for new "opportunity spaces" and "opportunity sensitive areas"? and less gloomy? Are they more Opportunity Savvy then the rest of the other 90%. and more personally, who should I be targeting with the Opportunity Clinic workshops? the 10% who already get it or the 90% who don't and may turn out to be a recession/ depression casaulty?) see Opportunity Clinic  

• Half think it will be more than a year before growth returns ie 2010 

• Two-thirds say it is now more difficult than ever to access credit

• Two-thirds say the economy has forced them to focus on the short-term at the expense of long-term growth plans, 

• (significantly) Half are more concerned about corporate survival than they were six months ago.

• Hunkering down for survival now seems to be top of mind for many executives

• The key, said on exec, is to conserve cash and be ready to expand when the economy improves. But he does not expect a turnaround at least until 2010. (N.B.the concensus used to be end of 2009)

• The goal, for everyone, is to ensure survival.

• "If there is an upside to the recession, it is that some competitors will be "weeded out," said one C-suite exec. There might also be deals that can be arranged with landlords who will be willing to offer better prices on available retail space.

• All companies have to ensure they come out of the recession healthy enough to exploit those opportunities..(see the Opportunity Clinic)

Do you agree? (out of 150 c-suite execs)

• I'm confident our company will weather this downturn: 97% agree

• This is the worst economic environment in my time: 82% agree

• The economy has forced us to focus on short-term at the expense of long-term growth: 67% agree

• I am more concerned about our company's survival than I was six months ago: 53% agree

See survey story here>> 

 

Walter Derzko

Smart Economy

Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Related Recession / Depression Posts

When will the recession / depression end? Part 20 The Dog that Didn't Bark; Economists say don't pay attention to us

When will the recession / depression end? Part 19 Put Infrastructure Where it's Needed; Ontario on the Move

When will the recession/ depression end? Part 18 Hormones and Boom and Bust Cycles

When will the recession / depression end ? Part 17 Recap from the World Economic Forum in Davos

When will the recession end? Part 16 It's all over, well sort of.

When will the recession end? Part 15 Year-end predictions for 2009 starting to come true

When will the recession end? Part 14 Four options for America's race to the bottom

When will the recession end? Part 13 Thirteen economic questions that economists can't answer

When will the recession end? Part 12 Bad times are good times for startups

When will the recession end? Part 11 Bank of Canada optimism

When will the recession end? Part 10, The Conformity Trap or Don't count on your economist for advise

When will the recession end? Part 9 Humor will signal recession /depression bottom

When will the recession end? Part 8 Lessons Learned from the last Post 9/11 recession; designing brilliant winning business models

When will the recession end? Part 7 False signals of recovery

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will this recession end?

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

 

 

When will the recession / depression end? Part 20 The Dog that Didn't Bark; Economists say don't pay attention to us

Why should we be listening to economists, when so few of them saw this whole mess coming? The Canadian CBC TV Sunday Morning program put that question to two top economists - Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, and James K. Galbraith of the University of Texas, son of the famed Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith - and ask: whose predictions should we believe now?

These were two of the small group of "minortity" economists, warning of the coming crash, who I have been tracking since the early 2000's ...[BTW, I track "outliers" on all the emerging issues that interest me...ie. I started warning clients about the imminant US  banking system collapse and housing collapse in 2006.]

Why did so few economists see this economic crisis coming? Asks the CBC TV reporter, or what I call the  Dog that Didn’t Bark question.

 

 

Here’s a transcript of what James K Galbraith said:

“…Well I think the  economics profession over that last few decades has kind of closed in on itself, it ceased to discuss history in a serious way and it basically excommunicated that relatively small number  of people, who worked on problems of financial crisis and financial instability.

So, there was no dialogue going on, the prospect was not being raised, the profession was busy congratulating itself on having solving the economic problems, on having basically come up with the right formulas for stable expansion, for the control of inflation and they had completely forgotten that the capitalist system has enormous vulnerabilities that come from of the financial sphere, and in addition to that, they were just unequipped to deal with the catastrophic malpractice that was coming from the financial sector over the last five years, they didn’t have the tools, they weren’t studying it, they were caught blind sided by it.”…[…]….Until the crisis actually broke, nobody was paying attention to us."

Dean Baker replies:

"…I was actually tipped off by Alan Greenspan, back in 2002. He was testifying before Congress and he said there was no problem, no bubble in the housing market. And I was reading his testimony and everything he said did not make any sense. He was giving explanations to why there was this sudden rise in house prices. The basic story is that we have a hundred year long history 1895-1995 where nation-wide at least, house prices had just kept pace with the overall  rate of inflation. In other words, House prices has risen at roughly the same rate as the average  other goods, car prices, clothes, gas, whatever it  might be. Suddenly beginning  in the mid 90’s, house prices began to substantially outpace the rate of inflation and by 2002 they had outpaced the rate of inflation by about  30%. And there was no explanation for it that made any sense, based on fundamentals. So to my mind, when you see a hundred year long trend broken, and there is no explanation,  that’s based on fundamentals, it was sort of crying out: Bubble! Bubble ! Bubble!  And I sort of had bubble on my mind because we had just gotten through the stock bubble, and stock crash. We had two explanations. One -this is being driven by something in the fundamentals that no one could identify or  two --the stock bubble had fed over into the housing bubble as was the case in Japan. So that was seemed to be a pretty easy call to me."

Listen to the full interview..a real eye-opener…

 

And what are most of the mainstream economists saying now..don't worry, it will all be over soon...depending on how you take that....that's what I'm worried about--Walter Derzko.

 

Walter Derzko

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Related Recession / Depression Posts

When will the recession / depression end? Part 19 Put Infrastructure Where it's Needed; Ontario on the Move

When will the recession/ depression end? Part 18 Hormones and Boom and Bust Cycles

When will the recession / depression end ? Part 17 Recap from the World Economic Forum in Davos

When will the recession end? Part 16 It's all over, well sort of.

When will the recession end? Part 15 Year-end predictions for 2009 starting to come true

When will the recession end? Part 14 Four options for America's race to the bottom

When will the recession end? Part 13 Thirteen economic questions that economists can't answer

When will the recession end? Part 12 Bad times are good times for startups

When will the recession end? Part 11 Bank of Canada optimism

When will the recession end? Part 10, The Conformity Trap or Don't count on your economist for advise

When will the recession end? Part 9 Humor will signal recession /depression bottom

When will the recession end? Part 8 Lessons Learned from the last Post 9/11 recession; designing brilliant winning business models

When will the recession end? Part 7 False signals of recovery

When will this recession end? Part 6 The USA Paradox; Cheer vs Fear vs Transformation

When will the recession end? Part 5 Stop Auto Industry Bailouts, start buying Electric

When will the recession end? Part 4 The double dip housing crash in the USA

When will the recession end? Part 3 The coming collapse of the American Middle Class into an Underclass

When will this recession end ? Part 2 Do you listen to the Optimists or the Pessimists in 2009?

When will this recession end?

82 Signposts to the current Recession Depression Summary from 2008

 

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 13 of 28 Thirteen Recession wild card scenarios

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 13 of 28 Thirteen Recession wild card scenarios

 

Most people acknowledge that we are heading into uncharted waters in this recession / depression. Expect unexpected events seems to be the rule of thumb. So how is business supposed to function and plan for the near-term future? One way to reduce uncertainty is the use scenario planning and test “wild card’ assumptions. Here’s one that we offer to clients in the Opportunity Clinic:

 

Recession Wild Card #3 -Second global run on American banks ... What would your business do, if we saw a second global run on American banks?

 

Now just wait a minute? At this point, you are likely asking yourself….”I didn’t hear about the first run on US banks…when did this happen?

I bet 99.999% of North American didn’t hear about this either, unless you are a member of the UScongress or a political news junkie and watching the American  C-Span cable channel all day long. (hat tip to several Smart Economy blog readers from around the globe, who alerted us to this meltdown event, that’s been kept secret from most of the world…) see C-Span video entitled: Rep. Kanjorski: $550 Billion Disappeared in "Electronic Run On the Banks" below.

At 2 minutes, 20 seconds into this C-Span video clip, Rep.  Paul Kanjorski from Pennsylvania explains how the Federal Reserve told members of  Congress about a "tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars, back in September 2008." According to Kanjorski, this electronic transfer occurred over the period of just  two hours, before it was halted.

Here is a transcript of what Kanjorski actually confessed  in the video:

”Look…I was there when the secretary and the chairman of the Federal Reserve came those days and talked with members of Congress about what’s going on. .  It was about Sept 15 here are the facts and we don’t even talk about these things…. On Thursday  [Sept 15, 2008] at about  11 o’clock in  the morning,  the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA, to the tune of $550 Billion dollars… was being drawn out, in a matter of an hour or two. The treasury opened up its window to help . It pumped $105 billion dollars into the system. …and quickly realized  that they could not stem the tide….we were having an electronic run on the banks…they decided to close the operation....close down the money accounts, and announced a guarantee of $250,000 per account, so there wouldn’t be further panic out there and that’s what actually happened. If they had not done that, their  estimation was that by 2 o’clock that afternoon,  $5 and a half  trillion dollars would been drawn out the money market system of the United States, would have collapsed the entire economy of the United States and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. Now, we talked at that time about what would have happened if that happened….. it would have been the end of our economic system and our political system”..

After some deep digging on the net and through various databases, we only found two sources that mention  this "secret financial meltdown, See full C-Span video clip here 

and Kanjorski: We came so close to complete financial collapse

 

Paul Kanjorski, who  serves on the US House Financial Services Committee and chairs its Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises, does not provide further details.

 

Not a hint officially from the US government or the Treasury about this e-run on banks..The only sign that something was wrong, in hindsight we see in the following press release, the day after the bank run:

 

September 16, 2008 HP-1142

Remarks by Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs David H. McCormick at Future  of Consumer Payments Conference

Washington

– Good afternoon. Thank you for that kind introduction, Martin. And thanks to you, to Bob and to Ken Chenault for the invitation to be here today. I am pleased to join with you for this conference on "the quiet revolution in money," the implications for our citizens, our economy, and financial system of the dramatic change in consumer payments. I'd like to begin by passing along the regrets of Secretary Paulson who is focused today on market developments and has asked me to speak on his behalf.

 

 

Remember-this was right after the Leahman Brothers and AIG affairs. Who got spooked? who panicked? and who was taking their  money out? The Russians? The Asians? The Gulf Petro-Sates? The Sovereign Wealth Funds? All four? Who had a total of $5 and a half trillion dollars invested in US money market accounts? We may never know for sure.

 

 

Are you shocked yet?  Did you hear about this in the mainstream American or Canadian press? Well, I didn’t either. Just goes to show you that openness and the truth were the  first casualties of this recession / depression.

Thirteen Recession wild card Scenarios

“Chance favors the prepared mind said L Pasteur.  

 

So, in the Opportunity Clinic we’ve conceived and  offer 13  “Recession wild card scenarios” that every business person, entrepreneur and entrepreneur want-to-be  should devote some thinking time to,  explore the consequences of  and consider alternative courses of action in advance of the event hitting you.

 

If  “Recession wild card scenario #6” were to happened:

• what early warning signals could I look out for?
• what circumstances could trigger each wild card scenario?
• how do I mitigate its negative impacts?
• how do I identify, cease and leverage the opportunities?
• do I have a “game plan” drawn out in advance, should each of these wild card scenarios come to pass?

Walter Derzko

Smart Economy

Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

 

Related posts in this series:

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 13 of 28 Recession wild card scenarios

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 11 of 28 Pretending and Deception as an Opportunity Space

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 10 of 28 "First Impressions” trap

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 9 of 28 The dichotomous thinking trap

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 8 of 28 Industry Architecture Opportunities

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for managing your business in a recession Part 7 of 28  Geopolitical Opportunities;

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for managing your Business in a recession Part 6 of 28 What's in your Recession Playbook?

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 5 of 28 Category Killer Innovation-India's $10 laptop

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 4 of 28 “Left Behind “Opportunities- Go Green & Go Slow

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 3 of 28 Design Opportunities- Hope or Nostalgia

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 2 of 28 Innovation or Efficiency?

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business (& surviving and thriving) in a Recession Part 1of 28

28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 12 of 28 more on the "First Impressions” trap

Last week we introduced Part 10 of 28 "First Impressions” trap. Today I'd like to offer some more examples of how to address that perception oversight.

As mentioned last week...new ventures often do not correctly anticipate real market opportunities or the best strategies of addressing them, so they are forced to adapt and modify their approach over time. This is even more critical in a recession /depression and is illustrated by a classic 1985 quote by Peter Drucker.

 “When a new venture does succeed, more often than not it is in a market other than the one it was originally intended to serve, with products and services not quite those with which it had set out, bought in large part by customers it did not even think of when it started, and used for a host of purposes besides the ones for which the products were first designed.”--Source: Drucker, P. (1985). Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles. New York: Harper & Row. ( p. 189)

Tactics for Overcoming the "First Impressions” trap.

The first step is a mental and perceptual one--to admit that you were wrong and go back to the drawing board to explore alternate opportunity windows. Here are some more examples from the Opportunity Clinic, which has over 350 Opportunity Scenarios or Windows in its database.

Opportunity Scenario # 92 End User Challenge

An innovation designed by a medical doctor to detect elderly patient falls was found to be too expensive ($1000) by nursing homes, and the immediate nature of the signal was seen as of limited benefit. A more extensive analysis identified the benefits to fire services involved in fighting forest fires – especially the immediate notification of a fall. Fire fighters now have this as standard equipment

(Source: Andrew Maxwell, Canadian Innovations Center (CIC) in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada)

Opportunity Scenario # 28 Primary Customer Focus Challenge

“A wireless company, interested in integrating paper and electronic systems, initially targeted hospitals in Ontario as the first (and largest) application. While this market is still the one with the most potential, the longer then anticipated sales cycles and the long lead times on decision-making in hospitals – was increasing the company’s cash burn rate and was bring in no actual revenue. This caused the company to shift focus and challenge their underlying assumptions. They started to look at  providing a solution to other segments – they chose  independent trucking companies, who could make a decision to buy the system in less than two months. They had the same paper integration concerns, when truckers were crossing the boarder and had to deal with paperwork burdens.”

(Source: Andrew Maxwell, Canadian Innovations Center (CIC) in Waterloo, Ontario Canada)

Bundling two or more Opportunity Windows

Opportunity Scenario #341 Secondary Offerings Opportunities and Opportunity Scenario #29 Circumstance Shift Opportunties

A company who was developing a commercial water purifier system, decided that the water should be store in stainless steel water bottles – due to concerns about polycarbonate bottles. While the water purifier is still in development, the water bottles themselves turned out to be of great interest to retailers, then their original product idea (the water purifier system) – and this product range became the core of a successful new business. Over a million bottles were sold in one year, when concerns about bis-phenol A surfaced in the media.

(Source: Andrew Maxwell, Canadian Innovations Center (CIC) in Waterloo, Ontario Canada)

 

OpportunityScenario #84- Channel Fit and Opportunity Scenario #86 Channel Challenge

An innovation designed for the general consumer market was planned to launch through major retailers – such as Canadian Tire, Shoppers Drug Mart etc. Upon investigation, the entrepereneur found that initially most consumers would not see the immediate benefits – limiting market success. However – individuals with comprised immune systems (such as AIDS) would immediately see the benefits – but would not create enough demand to pull the product through traditional retailer channels. As a result, a web store and web marketing campaign was seen as the initial launch strategy.

(Source: Andrew Maxwell, Canadian Innovations Center (CIC) in Waterloo, Ontario,Canada)

 To incorporate the Opportunity Clinic into your class,  business planning process or to arrange for a key note speech on Opportunity Recognition for a future meeting, conference or forum, call us at 1-416-819-9667

 

Walter Derzko

Smart Economy

Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

Related posts in this series:

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 13 of 28 Recession wild card scenarios

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 12 of 28 more on the "First Impressions” trap

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 11 of 28 Pretending and Deception as an Opportunity Space

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 10 of 28 "First Impressions” trap

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 9 of 28 The dichotomous thinking trap

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 8 of 28 Industry Architecture Opportunities

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 8 of 28 Industry Architecture Opportunities

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for managing your business in a recession Part 7 of 28  Geopolitical Opportunities;

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for managing your Business in a recession Part 6 of 28 What's in your Recession Playbook?

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 5 of 28 Category Killer Innovation-India's $10 laptop

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 4 of 28 “Left Behind “Opportunities- Go Green & Go Slow

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 3 of 28 Design Opportunities- Hope or Nostalgia

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 2 of 28 Innovation or Efficiency?

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business (& surviving and thriving) in a Recession Part 1of 28

Related Posts over that past year:

·         Opportunity Recognition in Difficult Times

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn – June 25, 2008, Ontario College of Art Design, Toronto, ON

·         Recession-Proofing your Business-Strategies and Tactics for smoother sailing in turbulent seas

·         Master Class in Opportunity Recognition for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs> May 30th 2008> University of Toronto

·         Turning Misery into Opportunity

·         Vacuum leaves pullout opportunities;

·         How will baby boomers handle the recession? Zoomers, Doomers, Gloomers, Opportuneurs

·         Recession, Depression and Shortages as Opportunities

·         Restructuring of American Business-A New Business Model?

·         Using New Yorker Cartoons for Opportunity Recognition /Sense-making & Pattern Recognition

·         Text Mining for S&T Scouting, Foresight and Opportunity Recognition

·         The Opportunity Clinic-swapping opportunity scenarios 08-002

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page

The Opportunity Clinic- 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 11 of 28 Pretending and Deception as an Opportunity Space

Harmless white lies and more damaging forms of deception are increasingly more frequent events in society and in the business world, if you follow the business press. Consider the following joke:

 

 

An elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years. He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%  The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, "Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again."

The gentleman replied, "Oh, I haven't told my family yet.  I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I've changed my will three times!"

 

 

This form of deception or white lies is often more frequent in society then most people suspect. Does this dress makes me look fat..asks a wife or girlfriend? Well you know the answer to that one.

 

Start-up entrepreneurs are often forced to pretend (to be something they are not yet or to know someone that they don’t to gain customer acceptance and to develop a needed perceived reputation) . Deception is not a single point but a continuum along a spectrum. It can range from supposedly “harmless” white lies and deception on one end, where no one is hurt  (see Canadian billionaire example below) to deliberate deception and scams where there are real victims (Think Ponzi schemes and Bernie Madoff, who made off with billions of clients’ dollars) . It also surfaces a range of ethical questions, such as.... Under different circumstances and cultures, will these tactics be more or less acceptable?

 

 

Several professors are studying the question of entrepreneurial deception or pretending. The research was initiated by Miroslav Pivoda in the Czech Republic, and joined by Frank Hoy and Santiago Ibarreche in the U.S.A., and latter by Dan Mosher in Canada. They published partial results of their research at the 2007 ICSB conference in Turku (Finland) and 2008 ICSB conference in Halifax( Canada). (see “creative” lateral examples of deception from the surveys below)

From a paper called Tricks of Creative Entrepreneurial Problem Solving (2007) Pivoda and his colleagues remind us:

“New ventures are difficult to start because customers and business partners prefer not work with companies in the initial, risky, developmental phase. Entrepreneurs use creative techniques to overcome this such as: “Optical enlargement of a business”, “Fictitious location of a company” or “Spying on competitors”. These techniques are forms of deception and may be ethically questionable. However they represent effective tools for starting entrepreneurs.” claims Pivoda […these tools are often recommended by consultants and small business advisors, when  talking about “bootstrapping” or guerilla marketing —Walter Derzko”. ]

Pivoda adds:

“To understand this issue, we initiated an empirical study. Our long-term intention is to create a “playbook” for the major types of tasks of a starting entrepreneur. Here, we focused on the ethical dimension in our survey.”

 

They are asking for your help in exploring this field and identifying cases. See 2009 Questionnaire at Survey Monkey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=spYpmR9vwj1PO7_2f6m61ZfA_3d_3d

 

 

 

Entrepreneurs in Pivoda’s business class are asked to evaluate these tactics. Is it ethical? Moral? Well, the answer depends which culture you live in. I love one of their examples:

 

“In 1994, in a post-communist economy of the CzechRepublic, entrepreneurs Peter and Mark rented a large parking space for their future 120-car auto-bazaar. Unfortunately at that time, they only had 4 cars. They visited a few local banks but without collateral, they were dismissed. As they were unable to obtain any additional financial support to buy more cars, they had to find a new "creatice" way to fill in the empty parking spaces, which is a precondition to make an auto-bazaar more attractive both to prospective buyers as well as to sellers.

Next to the Auto-bazaar, there was a big company. Peter and Mark offered employees free parking in the Auto-bazaar under the condition that while parked, fictitious price tags would be placed on their cars. Fortunately this offer was accepted. From early mornings, Turbo Auto-bazaar was full and by the afternoons most of the cars were gone. Passers-by probably got the impression that these cars were sold there like on a production line. Within half year, Peter and Mark had 20 cars in their auto-bazaar and success followed.”

[Shady entrepreneurs and scammer practicing criminal schemes deserve to charged and jailed but they should also be studied and admired for their creative lateral thinking skills, pattern recognition ability and opportunity recognition savvy. If only they would apply their skills and aptitudes in a positive fashion in society..-Walter Derzko]

 

Other examples from Pivoda's recent survey/questionnaire:

 

Optical enlargement of an existing or even non-existing business

• Answer from the U.S.A.: “I know of a billionaire who started out selling life insurance and offering financial advice in Toronto, Canada. When he started he borrowed money from his family and spent on $1000.00 suits, leased a Rolls Royce just so people would think that he is very successful. His trick worked, because today he is a billionaire on the list of Forbes Magazine, richest people in the world. When I spoke to him recently, I told him that it is possible that the suits and car was not the trick but his loyalty to his customers; he however swear by the original way he presented himself.”

• “Our business innovation center (BIC) is located inside of a big building. In our promotional materials, we present a photo of the whole building, although our office occupies 4 rooms only there. Then, namely foreign clients may get an impression that the whole building belongs to BIC. We used this trick in latter stages of our business.”

• “We operate our business in a group of companies. Our company can be perceived as the whole group, as the whole network.”

• By aligning your self with another company you can share their brand name. Example: Ask whether you can post a link on a larger company’s web site or become a member of the better business bureau.

• In the total number of our employees, we include also employees of our partner firms as well as our external collaborators.

• “A Czech entrepreneur who owned a few diverse restaurants decided to hit the Czech market also with his own network of coffee bars. He named the prospective network according to a luxurious car model, and decided to place it into an attractive part of Prague. When dealing with a local developer (who was responsible for renting the building space in the attractive place), the entrepreneur successfully pretended that the network had already existed and had been operating under the “world-wide roof” of the well-known car trade mark.

Fictitious location of a company

• "My brother and I at home, we started to manufacture a tapping equipment for the computer keyboard. At that time, it was a unique product in the Czech market. We established a fictitious company located in the U.S.A.and started to sell the equipment on the Internet auctions. Our Internet presentation of the product was more than persuasive. In spite of some inconsistencies concerning identification of our company, we managed to sell a large quantity of our product to unaware customers."
• After signing an exclusive contract with another company, we managed that our product has been offered in various internet shops. Increased sales of the product helped our company to innovate it further and to start new business projects.
• I have nothing against these innocent tricks if they do not break law and, first of all, do not make any harm to customers. Entrepreneurial tricks are fully justified by current difficulty to grasp even a small fraction of the market.

Copying know-how from competitors

• When starting a new restaurant, and also in later stages of our business, we often copied menu of our competitors. To prevent competitors to do the same to us, we forbid taking our menus out of restaurant.

• An entrepreneur who wanted to start his own book store investigated the market preferences in a competitor’s shop. In the morning, the entrepreneur walked into the competitor’s shop, and pretended to be a curious customer. He calculated numbers of selected titles on shelves and left the shop. In the evening he walked in the shop again, and did the same calculations. From differences in numbers, the entrepreneur was able to identify the best selling books in the competitor’s shop, and order them without risk for his own starting shop in the opposite part of the town.

Spying on competitors

•  Answer from the U.S.A.: When we were interested in buying a piece of property or building, I have done the same tricks (as you describe in your questionnaire), calling for info and giving a different name. One time it back fired when I gave him a different name as he knew the person.
• In another case, we wanted to raise prices of our services. We called others in the same service business. We found that they would do the same to us when we were not there. We were in the dry cleaning business and Real Estate in a small family business with about 75 employees.

Giving incomplete information

• Answer from the U.S.A.: One respondent said that he used either just his name or the title of vice-president.  The reason given was that in that way he could get out of making decisions under pressure by saying that he had to consult with “his people” before making a decision because he was the vice-president NOT the President of the company

Makes me wonder....Will Obama's "Yes we can !" campaigne lead to not just to more and bigger ligitimate dreamers but also  more schemers, scammers and ponzi artists?

 

Walter Derzko

Smart Economy

Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression features 45 opportunity scenarios.

 

Related posts in this series:

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 8 of 28 Industry Architecture Opportunities

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for managing your business in a recession Part 7 of 28  Geopolitical Opportunities;

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for managing your Business in a recession Part 6 of 28 What's in your Recession Playbook?

The Opportunity Clinic; 28 Tactics for Managing your Business in a Recession Part 5 of 28 Category Killer Innovation-India's $10 laptop

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 4 of 28 “Left Behind “Opportunities- Go Green & Go Slow

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 3 of 28 Design Opportunities- Hope or Nostalgia

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business in a Recession Part 2 of 28 Innovation or Efficiency?

The Opportunity Clinic - 28 Tactics for Managing Your Business (& surviving and thriving) in a Recession Part 1of 28

Related Posts over that past year:

·         Opportunity Recognition in Difficult Times

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn

·         Recession - Proofing your Business - Spotting & Designing Opportunities in a Downturn – June 25, 2008, Ontario College of Art Design, Toronto, ON

·         Recession-Proofing your Business-Strategies and Tactics for smoother sailing in turbulent seas

·         Master Class in Opportunity Recognition for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs> May 30th 2008> University of Toronto

·         Turning Misery into Opportunity

·         Vacuum leaves pullout opportunities;

·         How will baby boomers handle the recession? Zoomers, Doomers, Gloomers, Opportuneurs

·         Recession, Depression and Shortages as Opportunities

·         Restructuring of American Business-A New Business Model?

·         Using New Yorker Cartoons for Opportunity Recognition /Sense-making & Pattern Recognition

·         Text Mining for S&T Scouting, Foresight and Opportunity Recognition

·         The Opportunity Clinic-swapping opportunity scenarios 08-002

© 2005-2009

Walter Derzko -"Changing the world, one idea at a time"©

Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "

The Smart Technology Blog: The Smart Economy -- Read, enjoy, explore, speculate, comment !!

To arrange for an in house presentation or briefing on smart technology see here

To explore the opportunities and threats of any new smart technology in your industry - Contact Me or explore how we can work together

• ".....Strategy without action is a day-dream; action without strategy is a nightmare"-old Japanese proverb
• ".......Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to." -- H. Mumford Jones
• ".......Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems we created with our current pattern of thought."  --A. Einstein
• ".......Change is difficult, but complacency and stagnation are surefire showstoppers..." --Walter Derzko

• ".......Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  -- Margaret Mead

• ".......Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas; --Anon

P. S. if this is your first visit to my blog, please go to our Welcome page