Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz

Laurent Edel launches his book on funky business ideas [French]

from the Billaut Show

Laurent Edel is an interesting character. I met him a couple of years ago only, but his Internet heritage is quite long. After talking Jean-Michel Billaut into paying him a plane fare to the US, he stays on there and covers technology for the then hype Internet Think Tank atelier.fr. That experience helped him launch a start-up financing activity when he came back, helping about 30 companies get about 150 million euros in financing. He went on to launch the Republic Alley incubator. I would have interviewed him for you, but Jean-Michel Billaut as already done so in the Billaut show (see above)

Recently, with his wife Chine Lanzmann, he’s been focusing on travelling the world and finding fantastic “New Business Ideas”. He’s already written a first opus, and has just released his new book on the topic “gagner sa vie en se faisant plaisir”.

He’s inviting everyone on his blog to the launch cocktail this week on thrusday in Paris. I expect a lot of bloggers will show up, and I might tape the Mry & Rodrigo Show #6 there, unless I’m elsewhere in Europe that day for something I’ll only be allowed to announce on Monday .

So if you’re into entrepreneurship, new products, or just great fun, make sure you browse his blog, read his books, and come & sip some champaign on thursday.

John Paul Lepers launches his blog on the occasion of his book on Bernadette Chirac !

John Paul Lepers is a very well known French political and sociological journalist in France. He has guts, and treats all his field trips with LOTS of humor, sometimes slight over the border. Impertinent is a word often associated with him. But guys like him make our society freer and his enables free speach.

He has now opened his blog, and is experimenting with video with us at vpod.tv. I’m delighted. If you agree or disagree with him, please do that on his blog.

Oh, he’s releasing a book on Madame Chirac this week. I understand it’s unauthorized and that it was made after the movie he was making on her was censured. Boy boy… do you think he might actually videoblog it ?

Above, is a first extract of the movie indeed…

(there is a slight audio / video out-of-sync problem, but it was edited that way. I’m told the upcoming videos won’t have the problem). Video updated by Jean-Seb with better sync.

The new kid on the block: Julien Codorniou

Julien Codorniou… Don’t know him yet ?

In 2000, the guy used to be an intern in a famous parisian incubator, Tocamak… Later, after business school, he joined the ETF Group as a very young VC. Because he felt he needed to become more savvy in numbers, he became a financial auditor with the entrepreneurs practice at Ernst & Young for 2 years, auditing tech companies. And because he thought that entrepreneurship was not promoted in France as it should, he went on to inspire and co-write one of the best business books this year: the kelbook, or the story behind the great Kelkoo rise.

And because he was not at the center of the action anymore, he joined Microsoft France a few months ago as a business development manager bridging the tech worlds, the entrepreneurs world, and the venture capital world again. Not even a month into the job, a picture of him with Steve Ballmer (Microsoft’s CEO showed up discreetly on his photo stream on Flickr; it’s disappeared dude…). and 3 months into the job, he co-organized a private conference for noone else than Mr. Bill Gates here in Paris, bringing in 500 people in the industry.

At a recent conference of entrepreneurs and VCs at SGAM, his boss, the CEO of Microsoft France, named him as the single point of contact for all entrepreneurs and VCs with Microsoft… Proof in this footage:

Lastly, the world’s #1 blogger, Mr. Robert Scoble himself is giving him a little Google Juice on his blog…

Weakenesses ? his addiction to his mobile phone, he suck at squash, too much sun tan for a serious workaholic, and I beat him on Mario Kart last week!

Oh, and I forgot. He’s 27.

 

vpod.tv likes bloggers

Here at vpod.tv, we love entrepreneurs, and to some extent the venture capital industry because it fosters innovation, energy and passion. We also love bloggers that are creating a new media, from the ground up. Although we are probably all about video, we have to celebtrate of course bloggers who write books.

Here's a little script that we hacked late last night to show the position of a book in the amazon France bookstore. The number is extracted from the amazon page everytime you reload the page, but the arrow is based on yesterday's position (24 hour update).

<iframe src="http://vpod.tv/classement/getMyAmazonStats.php?ISBN=2744061956"
width="142" height="330" align="center" vspace="0" hspace="0" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
</iframe>

You can of course put in any ISBN number for the Amazon France store. As soon as we get more time on our hands, we will add support for your AmazonID so that you can start making money by placing this little script on your page/blog. The objective here was however to promote the entrepreneurs and the books that the monetization of the books... So, as an example, here are the books by fellow bloggers Codor, Bloic and Pierre.

update: and by the way, I'm fully aware that we are not in the standards of the Internet Advertising bureau, will do ASAP.

The Cult of iPod

It seems a book is coming out, available on amazon.com. (via Tuaw.com)

The authors of the Kelbook had a nice word for me

The authors had a nice word for me, originally uploaded by rsepulveda.

Have you read this book yet ? No ? Nooooooo ? Nooooooooo!

OK - let's get serious one minute, because this is entrepreneurship within entrepreneurship: about a year ago, Julien Codorniou, a tech & finance geek by any standard (he read financial reports of tech companies just for fun!!!) was getting obsessed with the idea that there were no books about French success stories in the Internet economy. Bored with the idea that everything had to come out of Boston or the Bay Area.

Funnily enough, he also got into blogging about that time, and soon met with Cyrille de Lasteyrie (he has another name on the blogosphere) at one of the bloggers event. They connected, and Julien offered Cyrille the idea to write a book together. If you are not aware of this man, I've mentionned many times on my blog the admiration I have for his writing talent.

Another example, after the guys at JobMeeters of a venture created through blogging (yes Loïc, they both are on Typepad :p ).

Well here we are: about a year later, the day after tomorrow, this saturday, the book will be sold nationally at every good bookstore (they are already #69 in sales at amazon.fr, and the book has not yet been sold). What's it about ? About passion, visionaries, entrepreneurs and technology. Should you get yourself a copy ? Not if you are a fan of the sports section of your daily newspaper, although I hear that if Julien reads it avidly, you should maybe consider reading this book as well.

I was lucky enough to read it completely before the summer, and hand back a completely annotated version of the manuscript. The guys thanked me by sending me a full copy of the book and mentionning me in the credential somewhere near page 249 (last paragraph :)).

For some extra insight, check Pierre Chappaz' blog at kelblog.com, and the guys' blog at kelbook.net.

Something tells me I have some funky footage of the 2 authors telling me about the book. Should I publish that too :))) ?

Handbook for Bloggers & Cyber-dissidents

The NGO ‘Reporters Without Borders’ has just published a handbook on how bloggers should behave in the spirit of freedom of the press:

“ Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they’re tremendous tools of freedom of expression.
Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles. ”

You may download it here or buy it.

 

Forget traditional trigonometry, use 'rational trigonometry' from now on

Via Digg:

“Mathematics students have cause to celebrate. A University of New South Wales academic, Dr Norman Wildberger, has rewritten the arcane rules of trigonometry and eliminated sines, cosines and tangents from the trigonometric toolkit. “ – read the rest of the article on physorg.com. It looks fascinating stuff.

Too bad it’s not yet available on Amazon.com, but you can get it from the publishing house directly (book to be launched on Sept 20th). Chapter 1 may be downloaded online: it’s on my reading list tonight.

“ Rational trigonometry

This remarkable new theory, revealed here for the first time, dispenses with all the usual complicated trigonometric functions and relations and establishes a trigonometry based entirely on elementary arithmetic and algebra. The essential quadratic aspects of geometry are brought to the fore, with the key concepts of quadrance and spread replacing distance and angle. The two subjects of geometry and periodic motion are cleanly separated; it is neither necessary nor desirable to have a theory which merges the two.

In Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry, Associate Professor N J Wildberger of the School of Mathematics at the University of New South Wales shows how to solve even complicated geometric problems without tables or calculators, with more accurate answers. Many engineering, surveying and physics problems are solved in this book, illustrating in detail the advantages of this new approach. For large scale problems, rational trigonometry harnesses modern computational power more efficiently.”

Now playing: Gabe & Gabe - FORUM.XOLO.TV 2005 "Anil de Mello from Mobuzz TV"

Great review of The Art of the Start

Charlie: you got to the gist of it. I heard Guy Kawasaki talk back in 2000 at EuroDisney at a Tornado Insider event. He does have charisma indeed, and although his content is very simple and obvious, it’s great material. Thanks for the review of Guy’s latest book, The Art of the Start. I’m quoting some of your nuggets:

 And here are some notes I made while reading The Art of the Start:
- For partnerships, find an internal champion who can keep the partnership alive, don't use a committee. <<< Very crucial in any endeavor.
- Learn the art of schmoozing: circulate, ask good questions and listen, follow up, make it easy to get in touch, be passionate, read voraciously, give favours, return favours, ask for favours in return. <<< It's a give and take.
- Branding: simplify simplify simplify the product. <<< Yes.
- Recruit evangelists:ask, look for believers, let bloom,assign tasks and expect them to get done, nurture and support, give them tools <<< That's why I had an outreach program.
- Make sure everyone can talk the walk. <<< Every employee represents your company.
- Some fun advice on marketing shirts: Not white, little text, large fonts, make it cool, and consider kids' sizes. <<< True Kawasaki Wisdom
- Seminars for lead generation. <<< This ties back, somewhat, to the Marketing Sucks recommendations.

Now playing: Mashuptown.com - Mash the Casbah

What have you been reading this summer?

What have you been reading this summer?, originally uploaded by rsepulveda.

Summer always seems to be a great time to catch up on huge piles of unread books.
On my side, I've been reading 3 books on Microsoft (Hard Drive, Showstopper, and one on the Multimedia Frontier), finishing a book on Game Theory, re-read the Tipping Point, and in the middle of a good textbook on how to valuate tech companies.

The picture above captures the gist of the book 'The Dark Side of Valuation': it's basically a discussion on the pros and cons of each variable  involved in the DCF formula. Good stuff.

Just got Blink and Wisdom of Crowds from amazon.com this morning. Add at least that to my August readings. And I have 3 more somewhere in the post... Update: and Only the Paranoid Survive, Winning and Microsoft Rebooted just came in in the post this morning.

So what have you been reading this summer?