September 2004

Silviu has an awesome post linking to a paper that actually quantifies the hatred and that suggests a model in which politicians with resources and incentives to supply hate-creating stories interact with people who may lack the incentives to properly question these stories. In this model politicians differ in their income distribution policies and can spread hate-creating stories about the dangerous character of a minority group. Voters who hear these stories think they might be true, but only choose to invgestigate those stories if there are private benefits from learning the truth.

Actually this is to some certain extent what had happened in Romania at least 10 years after 1989, when Ceausescu was shot and the neo-communists took the power. Stories like the danger of Hungarian minority, the rumours and would-be threats about the punks (golani) from the University square, the miners riots and the way they were manipulated for so many times, the strikes, the unions, the "we don't sell out country" slogans, or the BCR threat-to-crash are just a few stories that come now into my mind. Actually Romanians have a saying: speak as badly as possible about a person, there will always be some stains remaining.

Now my impression is that things tend to fade away, and Romanians are not as easy to be fooled. We will see in Novemeber. 

It turns out that after all Google made the hiring tests public, so if you feel like applying for a job, just take them and send them on. Good luck!

Speaking of Romanian researchers from abroad - Gabriela has a good roundup of Romanian talents involved in AI (artificial intelligence) research. (in Romanian)

Hilarious.

Kit is mentioning about Brandient's pilot project of putting some number behind the brand name of Capital (a Romania weekly magazine). As I could only find a story in Romanian and as I enjoyed doing similar valuations stuff back in my corporate finance years here is in short what variables their model - Brand Stamina - relies on.

1. the force of the brand (encompassing sub-variables such as loyalty, brand associations, favorability)

2. brand mechanics (brand identity book, aspect, name - mainly image-related attributes)

3. brand support (price, distribution, promotion, management - sounds mor elike the 4Ps)

4. market position (price, share, trends positioning)

5. trademarks

It should be noted that the Brand Stamina valuation was done in addition to the classic financial valuation (involving most likely discounting future revenues/income/free cash flow to the firm). So what is this worth for? When pricing a company it clearly indicates the value of an intangible part of it which sometimes it may be worth more than the total asset value of the company. And this, as Kit is saying, permits quantifying the results of the marketing budgets. And there is a saying within the business community: if you can do the math then it (the business) is controllable and easier to make it happen.

And btw, to my knowledge in the Romanian market Brandient is the first to do it and publicly acknowledging. Congrats guys, I look forward for the white paper. :)

My friend Pope over at Mindstorm is having some thoughts related to offshore development concluding that the main problems may arise from poor communication or cultural differences. I would add to that the knowledge transfer process - if not done right it can cause lots of pain.

My constant readers may already know that I mentioned a few times about the state of the Romanian tourism. The Romanian Academic Society (SAR) released their study about this issue. (pdf written in Romanian) The final recommendation is somewhat amusing though: urgent elimination of the scamming taxi drivers from the Henri Coanda Airport (the intl. airport serving Bucharest) and favorable tarrifs for encouraging the foreign tourists. It just happens that as far as I know the market is the one dictating the price from balancing out supply and demand. :) 

I had an interesting comment exchange the other day with Locacorten about the education in Romania. Besides the below-mentioned interview with C. Barrett check out what Jeff and Fred have to say about the education system in the States.

TJ on his changing communication habits over the last two years. The pace of technology change is really amazing.

Very interesting interview with Intel's CEO in which he suggests 4 things to do in the US for remaining competitive: the education system ("first and foremost"), the R&D spending (the seed corn for products and services of the future), communications and information technology infrastructure and good legislation. Sounds familiar to what I was saying the other day, huh?

Another gem on whoever considers working with VCs by Jeff. Also worth reading is Brad's follow up.

That stands for Google Lab Aptitude Test, if you're interested to learn if you have what it takes for working for Google check out the questions.

I mentioned before this very cool initiative for knowledge sharing/knowledge building and where I am honoured to post together with some high profile executives from all over the world. Besides there are offline meetings set up bi-monthly, I hope to be able to make it sometimes. It had a slower start but the last posts are very good - lots of things to read and learn: the challenging world of blog-iquity, or what to do if your company keeps getting shafted by media.

Marc mentions that CEO bloggers' club also got press coverage (in French).

Anita was kind enough to include a review of @rgumente in her weekly Power Blog reviews over at Small Business Trends. Thank you very much for the nice words, it is flattering to see that something I take more like a hobby is appreciated by other people.

A very interesting pdf presentation from which I learnt that the value of the services offshored to Eastern Europe is $0.4 bn. India stands for $7.7bn and China for $1.1bn. America accounts for 70% of the offshoring and the reason is quite simple: the computer programming costs are $80 in US while in Eastern Europe are $24, in India $22 and in China $15.

Also, here are the ingredients mentioned for the future growth of the hi-tech industry in US (California particularly):

1. Competitive costs & Skilled workforce
2. Low tax burden/ Pro Business climate
3. Entrepreneurial Culture
4. Young Workforce
5. Great Quality of life
6. Available Venture Capital
7. Major R & D University / College Training
8. Incentives
9. Engaged Local & State Government

What is the Romanian state with respect to those ingredients? I think we would score high at  #1, #2 - the tax level will probably change soon, the business climate is improving, #3 is also on the upward trend, though in incipient phases. #4 may pose a problem because of the brain drain, #5 still plenty of space for improvement, #6 - there's some, but not enough, #7 - need to improve a lot (the Achile heel IMO), #8 - not too many and #9 - not really.

Doesn't look too great, does it? 

It's called Business Romania and I noticed it in Kit's links. Welcome to the blogosphere guys!

More private equity interests in the home appliances retail - DBG Eastern Europe II (Deutsche Bank is behind) acquires the 33% Flanco shares owned by Danube Fund. Also, it appears that AIG New Europe held talks with Altex and RAEF is still in discussions with Domo. Why so much interest in retail? The Romanian FMCG market is up 27% in the first 6 months of 2004.

Did you know that one Singaporean worker costs as much as 3 ... in Malayisia, 8 ... in Thailand, 13 ... in China, or 18 ... in India?

Did you know that there are 600 foreign R&D labs in China, with an addition of 200 new per year?

Did you know that Tom Peters has a blog? Indeed. It is just fascinating. Besides his posts, I just went through a ppt presentation he is supposed to deliver in Montreal - and the above two questions are a small preview of the gems you may find in it. Also the explanation for GE's strategic decision to exit from the Indian BPO business: 75% of the "admin, backroom and finance" will be digitized in 3 years - Jack Immelt in 2002!

Content is not king by Andrew Odlyzko

Reading Deea's post (in Romanian) got me thinking that the education costs are nowadays higher every year and that in this context the publishing industry makes a good chunk of money by releasing every year more and more expensive textbooks slightly changed from previous editions or simply repackaged. While this sounds outrageuos I doubt that this is a sustainable strategy for mainly two reasons: for once it is simply scaming the students (the proposition is not worth its value) and then there's a good range of substitutes from used books to websites or p2p networks where you could virtually find anything for free. That means the technology is simply allowing people to find lots of alternatively good choices and to make their options accordingly.

Smart professors understood that and they simply publish their courses and research papers on the web (i.e. Damodaran, Espen Andersen), or their textbooks (see Kling) and even keep weblogs in addition to the course (i.e. Gabriela). There are even smart schools that understood that - the classic example is MIT's OpenCourseWare. And I am sure there are so many others.

What's the point here? The education process is about a different paradigm that is totally changed by the use of technology. It is not about reading a darn book and memorizing texts or formulas so that you could be tested afterwards. It is all about interaction, and sharing ideas, perspectives, knowledge and experiences. Hence the book is becoming an overpriced resource in the entire learning cycle. And in addition to the direct interaction the internet is about the right tool for enabling new learning ways and finding alternative resources in the favor of a pricey textbook. With switching costs coming mainly from learning how to create/use an online space - a blog or a wiki for example.

Some food for thought this weekend - mobile content creators need to consider the phone as both a consumption and a creation platform and not only a POS terminal. (also read the comments and pointers for different perspectives)

Also, in the below-mentioned entrepreneurial context check out Russell's thoughts on launching his product - mGuru - into the same mobile content creation space. He says now that his demo is good enough to hit the market and ponders on the business model. Tough but challenging process!

An important trait for for people interested in taking entrepreneurial avenues is persistence. Take this as a minicase study - p1 and p2 - coming from the Excite founders back in 1995. If you want to read the whole Sun story mentioned in part 2 read it from here.

Then read Marc's follow up from the VC's perspective: do you know when to stop?

Apparently it is true - since 2000 the Greeks mis-reported the 3% current account deficit number for being able to meet the EU-zone criteria. Of course the previous socialist government representatives (changed last March) are to be blamed for "creative accounting" and they defend themselves by saying that Eurostat's audit (the European body that discovered it) is "politically motivated" :).

Read the FT story here and IHT's follow up claiming that now Belgium and Ireland are under similar suspicions. (via romaniaeconomics)

I am using @rgumente primarily just as a personal tool for archiving things I am interested in as well as writing down comments and structuring my thoughts about diverse topics. I am trying to be as objective as I can and luckily enough I have a handful of loyal readers whose constant feedback is great and obliges me at the same time to keep a standard. I am not making any money out of my blog and don't intend to, at least not in the near future.

While most of the people take blogging the same way as I do, others use blogs for more than that. As it is a relatively new product it still may be difficult to find commercial purposes and even more difficult to structure a definite business model. Some people use ads as a marginal revenue for covering up their hosting costs, some have become "professional bloggers" (see the below post). I believe that one of the niches that blogs can be used for are focus groups. For instance Yahoo (unofficially) and Audi (officially) are already doing it. Umair had a trial of creating such a platform for more companies by using the innomediation concept a while ago.

Another important purpose is corporate communication with all the stakeholders. And that represents double loop feedback in real time. And besides the PR representatives and/or evangelists more and more CEOs jumped in the blogging wagon and sometimes it is fascinating to see how they think and take hints about what exactly is behind the strategic decisions their organizations take on. This means a whole lot more transparency and it is a great add-on to the big context of the corporate social responsibility concept (most) companies have started to take very seriously since Enron.

Interesting.

The Romanian CDMA provider partnered with an industry complementor - Germanos, the Greek equipment retail chain. This comes a while after Zapp finally realized that cool phones really matter.

Understanding the cultural differences and acting accordingly is clearly one of the sensitive issues on the whole offshoring agenda. For example in India they discovered that fingerprinting the programmers for security reasons touched a very sensible chord on the Indians - fingerprinting is considered offensive in the Indian culture. I think that this is an important card Romanians can play in the offshore project contracting - besides being Europeans Romanians are fairly adaptable and rather open minded.

Actually today I was just talking about this with an industry executive and he agreed that besides the creativity and good education Romanian culture plays an important competitive advantage. As for the setbacks in Romania becoming a regional offshoring pole a problem may be the difficulty to set up big teams (300+) for scaling up big bux projects (billions). Perhaps the industry consolidation both at the national and regional level may soon emerge such a big player - I think I can see IPDevel heading that way.

Some of you may know that Oracle has hunted down Peoplesoft for a while now. Besides being a defensive tactic against Oracle the IBM partnership (a $1bn deal over a 5 years span) fuels up a lot of industry consolidation speculations. Read this first for the context and then this.

Hugh McLeod over at the gapingvoid: The company is divided into two parts - a smaller one called creative and a bigger one which is outsourced. :)

I went to Binary this morning, I was curious to take the local software industry's pulse as supposedly this year there are more people participating than in the previous editions. I was a bit dissapointed as I couldn't feel the energy that should justify the huge opportunities in an industry supposed to grow by 20% this year. I did see smart products, met a few interesting individuals but that's about it on the positives. The word that was striking me while looking at most of the materials (brochures, fliers) was mediocre, though I also saw some very good stuff (and not very expensive - rather creative).

There were also some company presentations supposed to take place but curiously enough they were suspended due to the poor attendance levels. Actually, as far as I could tell the overall attendance was very-very low for one of the three main software fairs taking place every year in Bucharest. (soft21 and ROCS are the other two) I think that Binary is the least focused on the b2b side. Or at least I saw it positioned this way.

Definitely not the best software event I have participated lately, it left a sad taste in my mouth. I doubt it's worth the marketing effort, besides the money for the booth and the marketing materials you have 2-3 people stuck for three whole days and they may have a big opportunity costs.

Oh well, for people not really aware of what is going on in the Romanian society nowadays this generation gap represents one of the problems in several layers - government, ministers, industry, education, etc. Some of the older people don't understand what democracy or the right of free speech is, others are simply inadaptable to the new rules of the society after having lived for most of their lives under communist regime. Most of them however simply find it difficult to change and hand it over to younger generation while teaching them not to make the same mistakes they did while they were younger. For a very good exemplification read this interview with Razvan Theodorescu about the people who dared to contest him (as minister) and Iliescu (as president) while they were in Montreal at the beginning of this week (unfortunately the interview is in Romanian). Theodorescu pure and simple labels them as cretins for this simple fact of expressing an (opposite) opinion vis-a-vis of the actual Romanian regime. The matter is even worse considering that Theodorescu is heading the Ministry of Cultural and Religious Affairs.

Anyways, to a certain extent I think this generation gap is not a singular matter - neither in Central Eastern Europe nor in Europe or even elsewhere. Take Laurent's comment for example on older CEOs from France: "the problem is the old spirit. Young people are ready for action. Just give them a reason to fight." (last comment at the end of the posting)

What would you do without internet in your daily life? Perhaps it'd be easy for most of you, certainly very difficult for me. :)

Very nice initiative coming from the European Comission delegation in Romania: a live chat with Daniel Daianu, a former Romanian Finance minister. Among the things discussed: what exactly is "the functional market economy status", acknowledging that Romania still has an "imature" capital market though it had growing rates for the last two years in the desinflation context, Romania becoming an attractive place for offshoring & outsourcing but unfortunately the education is not keeping the pace with the need of experts.

For people who understand Romanian, read the entire script dialog from here. 

Remember the EU vs. USA study I mentioned a while ago? Leaving from a similar study made this time by Proudfoot Consulting Barry Ritholtz has a pertinent comment saying that actually Europe is lagging due to the lousy management. That's true - my impression though is that besides that Europeans have a laisez-faire attitude as compared to the Americans who are more work-oriented. And if we also consider the cultural differences that now are allegedly under the same umbrella in Europe...

While Romanians from abroad are restricted to only vote at the embassies (as opposed to consulates and cultural centers as it was the case before), apparently the Americans living abroad are restricted to access the U.S. Department of Defense Web site designed to make it easier for them to cast absentee ballots. "The problem concerns blocks placed on access to the Web site of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, a Defense Department division to help expatriate American voters, including servicemen and women."

New strategic moves in the search engine industry - Ask Jeeves just launched a service that permits saving and managing the search history in folders. More interestingly, they announced at the end of the year the launching of a desktop product that will connect the hard disk with the web search. (Battelle calls it PersonalWeb) I guess it's just a matter of when until Google will launch it's rumoured browser, virtual operating system or messaging system. At the moment Google is heavily recruiting high caliber industry people from Microsoft, Sun, or BEA Systems.

UPDATE: btw, Kottke signals that Google already reserved the gbrowser.com domain. (via Umair)

It looks like the e-related stuff is sometimes differently understood than one would expect in Romania. Take for instance the E-post service offered by the Romanian Post Office - Posta Romana (link in Romanian):

"The CONT-CONT correspondence takes place between two account holders - namely electronic accounts (could it be emails?). For being able to send a message, the sender should go to the postal office and fill out a form typed by an operator. Similarly, for being able to receive the message one should also go to the post ofice where he opened it up at and can solicit to have it printed for a fee. This fee is subject to the message's words number."

If I understand it correctly this means that you go to your post office, kindly ask the clerk write an email for you and send it to your friend. Your friend will go to his post office (not to ANY office) and kindly ask the clerk to print his messages. And he pays for the length of the message.

I can understand that this service may be targeted to computer illiterates, but I find it a bit odd to charge money for a service that is simply a burden for both the end user and the service provider instead of making it easier for everybody with the use of technology. If Posta Romana charges for this model instead of setting up a point where the end user can simply use a computer for exchanging mesages (either email, IM, or voip, etc) then this is a clear lack of understanding/using technology and its benefits hereof. (note: paying a clerk a monthly check is MORE expensive than setting up such a point) If this service was seen just as a profitable product expansion with the clear intention of speculating people's lack of internet knowledge, I guess that it is a just a simply social iresponsible strategy.

In the context of "islamisation of Europe" threat and three weeks before the time EU should decide whether to start or not the membership discussions with Turkey, the Turkish government cannot decide if adultery should be considered as a crime and leaves the whole penal package reform in limbo. Would those be reminiscences from the past or just one of the most important cultural diferences separating Turkey from the rest of Europe?

A story about Romania, which is to say, it's a story about change - by Ian Curry and Maria Mayer (thanks Michael)

It appears Iliescu is not very popular within the Romanian community from Montreal. I guess it'd have been too much for the presidential advisors to think why the hell those guys emmigrated in the first place.

Apparently GE put its Indian BPO (business process outsourcing) business for sale. The price: $1bn. Potential buyers: HP (a non-BPO company) and Convergys (a BPO company). 

Why would GE sell? Keep in mind Jack Welsh's legacy: GE's staying in businesses that it can achieve the number one or number two positions. Otherwise exit. Why would there be interested buyers? Because of a good infrastructure and team in an industry with big skill shortage. 

I just discovered an interesting site maintained by the World Bank providing interesting tools for analysis of diverse economic indicators from all world countries. Very good resource with plenty of interesting observations, go explore it in depth.

Diversification strategy in an industry that is one of the engines of the GDP boom. Oh well, better later than never - this time the PR gig belongs to the German HVB.

By the way, other industries with significant growth this year are wine and furniture - Romanian traditional industries I may add. The dudes who invested heavily a few years back now can see some handsome returns.

More spillover effects - DURA Automotive Systems opening a production facility in Timisoara.

Michael points to the 44 proposals from which the Euro bills were chosen. I remember my Dutch and German friends complaining at that time that the bills are so ugly. :)

If you have the time check out the beer game initially developed by the MIT guys - it is a simulation for demonstrating the value of integrated supply chain management. Something similar to the Markstrat taught in grad school. Also, if you like this kind of stuff, you could also check out DrKW's webtrader which is a stock exchange trading contest with real data (1st prize 2500 euros, 2th-10th -150 each). You can enroll in the latter only if you're a student though.

Interesting business exploiting a segment that is currently booming in Bucharest - restaurant industry. Local-i provides restaurant location and reviews with very easy searching by categories such as style, ambiance, cuisine, neighborhood or price. It is a web-based business, and the revenue model comes from advertising of course. Notice that they only serve 3 areas - local search is one of the hot things in the search industry nowadays.

As internet is still in its infancy in Romania (online advertising industry is no more than a couple of millions I guess) perhaps the trick here is a pioneer that makes a first move and builds up a reputation that can be leveraged into (contextual) advertising. Something like softpedia for restaurants. Currently the competition is very low and segmented b24fun or sapteseri or even the weekly column from Catavencu (sub. only or see the paper) - they are paper-based - and few other online presences which can be googled of course. Sapteseri has also an online listing but lack reviews and updates which are mandatory for information to be relevant. (or worth searching / worth paying).

Also check out the latest update on the online commerce in Romania. Even though it took ages for a company(ies) deciding upon a structure and approach, once Romanians get the taste of it I am sure the industry will take off quite rapidly. And in the above-mentioned context (consumer reviews and ratings platform) if interested in a complementor that may be a lucrative business soon check out epinions, a business which was sold a couple of years ago to shopping.com (shopping engine). But, hey, this is in the States, where internet is not something fancy but part of a daily routine.

Interesting website funded by EU for people willing to learn about education or training opportunities anywhere in the EU states.

Besides the coolness of having a status name indicating your mood, state or whatever, apparently there is another niche being exploited nowadays in the Instanty Messaging industry - 3D IM (IMVU). It is an application that stands on top of the IM client and transforms the discussion into an avatar chat. The revenue model means selling the avatars, getting an account for setting a chatroom or being able to customize the chatroom. There's also a free trial (guest) version. (via Rodrigo)

One of the most respected festivals in the world is starting from tomorrow. I had the chance to be there two years ago, am really jealous of my friends from Toronto who're able to attend. In the meantime in Bucharest we have the Arts Festival.

I was mentioning a while ago about Constantin's initiative of launching a wiki listing the CEOs with a presence in the blogosphere. In the meantime, besides the list getting larger and structured by countries, I ran into into another one - CEO bloggers' club.

This year's number of international students enrolling in US business schools decreased by 28% in applications and by 18% in admisions. Reasons: tougher process for visa granting, a perception that the USA has grown less welcoming of foreigners and increased competition from other unis.

I believe that student diversity is one of the strengths of any respected school nowadays and I personally am aware of some good people who chose Canadian or European schools over Americans for reasons #1 and #2 above-mentioned. At the cost of having to atend a less reputable school. Collin Powell himself - "We have to do a better job of attracting them here." Well, perhaps from the next mandate on.

[via Marginal revolution]

I got another 6 yesterday, after a batch of 9 last week. I guess the service will become public pretty soon. Anyways, if you're interested let me know.

I had an interesting comment exchange with Kit the other week about maximizing shareholders profits versus balancing stakeholders interests - one involves a strictly bottom line business approach while the other means considering the needs of all the players that affect your business (i.e. customers, employees, or suppliers BESIDES the shareholders).

Here is a very nice exemplification of the latter coming from an interview with Craig List's CEO, one of the few internet companies that surviveed the dotcom bubble. He says that "Management has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. That much is true. But there's nothing to say the company needs to maximize profit at the expense of other goals."

Good review with the context and the main points of the revised new law (297/july 2004) on the capital market in Romania.

This means it will become mainstream all around pretty soon. Looking forward to industry hicups especially among some European fixed line operators. If they haven't made the switch it may be already late, as the disrupting driver has become a commodity.

Forbes magazine is looking into the world of Microsoft with a story for each of Msft's unit on the close 30th anniversary. Also, in a related context don't miss Espen on why Microsoft has become the IBM of the 80s and OM's $7bn question.

If you're following the US elections this is a link with close coverage on what is going on and with what state supports Bush or Kerry.

Loic is pointing to a very interesting blog kept by this guy who's a VC located in Paris. Very-very interesting read.

If Romania's GDP increase was 6.6% June03-June04, the Philippinese one grew by 6.2% and the Malaysian by 8%. [link]

A reminder and a lesson perhaps - link. (via Mahashunyam)

I had 9 gmail invites, still 3 more are available - if you want one just let me know, first come, first served.

"The future of retail banking belongs to banks that emphasize personal service, not just for owning numerous ATMs and offering online bill paying [...] ...banks must understand the effect that technology is having on their business." (link) Right, tell that to the Romanian banks which, besides using the internet as a marketing tool, just discovered the online billing. (link in Romanian) And, yes, I am a bit malitious - the good news is that apparently online banking has a steep adoption curve in Romania.

After NY and Philadelphia, Amsterdam seems to be on the route of becoming the first European city providing wi-fi all over. "The idea is to prove to the big boys that it can be done and that consumers can live with a mobile phone and mobile Internet. The landline is dead". Heh!

UPDATE: More on that as well as links pointing to cities such as LA and Cleveland doing the same over at Ronald's blog - Technology Futurist.

Rajesh after his 8-day trip in the valley: "The Silicon Valley remains the hub of innovation. The freshest of ideas and work continue to happen there. In part, it is due to the ecosystem that is already in place - the entrepreneurs who are on their second, third or even fourth venture, the angels who provide not just the seed capital but also the mentoring, the venture capitalists, the university backdrop (especially Stanford), and above all, the culture of risk. It is this mix that makes Silicon Valley unmatched. We may have more engineers in Bangalore, but the ecosystem needed for innovation and start-up entrepreneurship is missing and will take time to build."

I think we lack this in Europe as well and this is one of the trumps USA has for the best performing economy.

Interesting piece -  give yourself time to read and think it through, I still have to digest it.

I am sure that some of the entrepreneurs from Romania reading this blog may already know or heard about it, anyways, just for the records or more and accurate info the law is Ord. 94/26.08.2004, Cap. 2, Sect. 2., applicable from October.  

That's Tom Wilson's rant in the context of Republican National Conference held these days in NY (where GWB officially announces his running for presidency) - America is divided in three: those who support the administration, those who oppose it and those who don't give a damn. Isn't it like this everywhere? :)

Increased pressure from second-tier players competing on price - Romanians are still price sensitive. I am expecting more market segmentation and an increase in the product range offered now that the phones have more features and functionalities. And of course in the below-mentioned boom context.

Good signs of economic boom - 6.6% in the first half of this year. Doug says the rate is unsustainable as a chunk of the growth comes from the agriculture - while this may be true, I believe that growth comes rather from a combination of foreign investment injection and local consumption (coming from the increased bank lending). And I think this will continue in the next 12-24 months. Just consider Altex with already 82m Euro in sales or Metro with 410 mil.

Also, have a look on the EIU's August edition (pdf) on Central Eastern Europe - they say that if the ruling party loses the elections in November the opposition may be less effective. I think they're onto something here, I personaly see too few strong, capable and younger characters in the Romanian public scene nowadays (perhaps this guy's an exception). It's still the same 14-year old theater play - same actors with the same script. Btw, just for the records, you know what the age of the Estonian finance minister is? 29.

The same story all over again. If you don't like it don't use it, it's your choice, right? (via Dragos). On a funny note, read about the banality of Google.

Though Europe has a rather fragmented technology competence compared to the American counterparts if you're into technology and look for networking at the European level it is worth having a look at Europe Unlimited which has a good database of technology companies and technology-oriented funds from all over Europe. Also they organize several networking events, the next three are the Nordic Venture Summit in Copenhagen, the European Tech Investment Forum in The Hague, and Biotech & Finance Forum in Barcelona.

Think global, act European - that's the message for multinationals (MNCs) in a challenging context of the newly 25-state EU with a mix of cultures, histories, trends and economies. The single market presents obvious advantages but also has some certain obstacles to be overcome. Worth a 10-minute reading.

It's been more than 2 weeks since the guys from Y Search launched a weblog. On the link section from the left there's also Google blog - a nice gesture.