Tag Archives: Upstarta

Other people’s mail is costly to me

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Before I lived at my current address, 4 students shared this location… and from what I can tell, before them some others. A lot of post still arrives in the mailbox for all these people,  even after a few years and me doing a lot of return-to-sender efforts. The same companies just keep sending stuff anyway, not just once but ongoing. Also some post has no decent return address. So what do I do?

The range includes super funds and insurance companies; local, state and federal government; credit card companies and banks; universities. I would be a identity theft goldmine, so what do I do? I apparently can’t make it stop. So I try to shred. After all, leaving someone’s Medicare card lying around in the garbage is not nice, is it. Not that I caused it, but it feels wrong anyway.

Because I have a home office, I have a medium load shredder, and thank goodness for that because my word what businesses send out…. “highlight” today was a cosmetics company that apparently felt the need to put some sachet with some cosmetic cream in the envelope also. Aargh.

Ponderings

  • does return-to-sender have any effect on company-client communications? I’m not talking addressed spam, but things like banks with their clients, etc. If so, how many RTS does it take to make it stick? If RTS doesn’t work, how do you make ’em stop?
  • Companies sending me addressed unsolicited mail… I need to dispose of these items through shredding. The disposal process as a whole takes considerable time, as will asking them to stop mailing me (which apparently is not effective). Can I bill companies for this? Could I sue a company for aiding identity theft?

Update… someone has informed me of details from the Australian Commonwealth Postal Services Act of 1975. Essentially I can neither retain nor destroy the mail, on penalty of up to 2 years of imprisonment. So, no shredding then. The ponderings still apply (and it makes addressed unsolicited mail and unresponsive companies even more costly for an individual!).

And I suppose I’ll just have to hand in un-returnable post to the local post office or mail distribution centre… I can’t keep or destroy it, in those cases I am unable to address it back… so if the post gets me stuck in that way, I’ll have to hand back the responsibility to them. Best I can do?

Upstarta Brisbane meetup group – Wed 17 Mar 6.30pm

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As mentioned at the BarCamp Gold Coast IV last weekend, we’re going to do monthly public meetings with Upstarta in Brisbane from next Wednesday. iLab has kindly offered the use of their facilities.

Please join and RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/upstarta-brisbane-qld/

Announcing Upstarta Camp – Brisbane Tue 24 Nov 2009

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When: Tuesday 24 November (afternoon before first OSDC day), 12pm-5pm
Where: Brisbane, Mt Coot-Tha / Bardon area (near OSDC venue)

What is it? A picnic in the park. Yes, literally! It’s a workshop, but we’re doing a barbecue beforehand. The afternoon (including the barbecue) is $10 for members, $20 for non-members. We haven’t set a firm cap on numbers but we will have to limit it somewhat.

After a joint introduction to get everybody tuned in, we’ll split the attendees into smaller groups, each utilising the Upstarta principles and related strategies to accomplish tasks.
Among other things, we’re going to develop (fictitious but potentially viable) complete products/services including surrounding aspects such as business model, market positioning, pricing, distribution, marketing, etc. Then we’ll recombine, present and discuss what each group came up with.
It’ll be educational, challenging, and fun!

For more info and registration, go to the Upstarta Camp page.

It’s the day before the Open Source Developers’ Conference starts at the nearby Bardon Centre, so if you’re travelling to the conference you have an opportunity to join the Upstarta Camp also. Simply pick a flight earlier in the day!

It’s separate events, but you will want to (also) get to OSDC, earlybird registration ends this week!

OSS Ability to Accept Contributions

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Clayton Christensen has some excellent insights on Modularity vs Integration in “The Innovator’s Solution”. I wrote about this for Upstarta.biz. Particularly in the realm of Open Source, modularity is regarded as a panacea – a product, service or design must be modular. But  modularity is not better (or worse) than integration. Like tools, they each have their place, depending on the state of the market/ecosystem where the process/product/service operates. Part of a system can be in a modular phase, where another part of the same system needs integration!

In this context, think of an Open Source project or company’s ability to handle contributions. If the process of interaction between a contributor and the core is not (for whatever reason) clearly defined and predictable, it won’t work. Jamming an additional [in this case external, but that’s irrelevant to the issue] interface for contributions somewhere in existing business processes can be doomed to fail.

We see the results of this in many projects that are Open Source, but find themselves unable to process contributions, or just don’t get any contributions. It’s quite likely that the underlying cause is not apathy (from the contributor’s end) or malice (from the receipient’s end), but it’s important to understand the underlying processes at work. It’s not necessarily the modularity of the software itself that’s an issue (tightly integrated code can receive contributions too!), but the surrounding business processes.

I had this realisation while camping with my good friend Steve Dalton and our kids this weekend. So a big thanks to Steve! I think it may help with understanding why Sun/MySQL (and MySQL AB before it) have had such difficulty dealing with contributions. And proper understanding could help resolve the problem. Good intent on its own does not suffice, otherwise it’d have been highly effective long ago!

Upstarta.biz – doing it differently

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I’ve found that exchanging ideas and asking questions, even with people some might consider to be direct competitors, is more valuable than risky. Enter…

Upstarta.biz logo

Upstarta.biz is the home of a group of people who run, or are interested in running, their business according to a set of Principles that make them more people friendly (both to clients and self), resilient to recessions, (potentially) better for the environment, and more. A buzzword compliant mission statement could be something like “Business strategy incubation through co-mentoring”.

While being particularly suited to on-line, ICT and Open Source related endeavours, it is by no means limited to that. In addition, the guidelines also apply well to non-profits and other organisations.

The group’s monthly membership fee is currently set at a nomimal AUD 5, sufficient to cover cost and creating a sense of commitment that a gratis service would not have. When you think about it, that’s cheaper per year than many static books! Members actively participate by contributing on the wiki (like a dynamic book) and mailing list, mentoring fellow members, and (where possible) attending live meetings for face-to-face interaction.