Plate Techtonics - When unstoppable forces meet immovable objects
Monday May 14, 2012 by Jesse Waites - Founder, PNTHR.com
Aloha. My name is Jesse Waites, and I am going to be communicating to you regularly, through text, via this column for a little while. Why, you may ask? The answer to that is that we are living in a very exciting time. Old business models are crumbling before our very eyes (the newspaper industry is just one of hundreds of examples) and some very powerful people are really freaking the hell out. There are a lot of people in expensive suits having daily meetings with "consultants" trying to figure out how to continue selling newspapers when people simply do not want them anymore. The MPAA (That's the official organization of all of the film production companies, the same studios that brought you Jack and Jill with Adam Sandler) would rather spend money on lobbyists to pass dangerous, economically harmful laws like SOPA and CISPA that attempt to regulate the entire internet rather than to simply stop making exceptionally bad movies.
Yes, the old system is in shambles, but not everyone is worried about this.
I am a technology entrepreneur, and I work out of the Cambridge Innovation Center in Kendall Square. I can report to you first hand that there are a lot of very smart young men and women out there that "get it". Rather than stand by and watch greedy people attempt to resuscitate dying business models with mountains of cash, these people are creating their own economic realities. Filmmakers are using crowdfunding to raise money for documentaries that people actually want to see, and inspired Makers are creating hardware prototypes with 3D printers in their own garages. The economy isn't dying, its just finally getting around to being networked.
With that, I bring you full circle back to the original question: Why am I writing this column? The answer is because I "get it", the people I know "get it", and if you're reading VentureFizz, chances are that you get it, too. I interact with a lot of different entrepreneurs all day and have a unique aerial perspective on these shifts in technology and attitudes towards funding and business. The VentureFizz team and I are committed to documented this changing world for you simply because this story is important and it needs to be told. Now I am certainly no better or nearly as experienced than my friends Scott Kirsner or Robin Wauters, true tech reporters, but I am honored to work towards the same goals that they seem to strive for, which is to tell the stories that need to be told and to provide a voice to those entrepreneurs that need it the most.
I intend to conduct myself in a completely transparent manner and I answer to nobody but myself. Not to advertisers, and certainly not to the MPAA. Some of the businesses I write about may in fact be owned by some of my friends, but that will be disclosed every time. After all, entrepreneurs in Boston are a tight knit community and to be honest I can't throw a stone without hitting somebody I know in this town. With that being said, If you're an entrepreneur and you are working on something cool, tweet to me @jessewaites or use the hashtag #techtonics and tell me about it. I can't promise you that I'll write about it, but I can promise you that I will look into it. I am looking forward to showing you the perspective from the ground and telling your stories. Consider me an embedded reporter in the entrepreneur battleground.
Now let's make some noise.
Jesse Waites is an animal lover, writer, technology activist, and the founder of PNTHR.com. You can usually find him walking his dog Finn in and around Boston or reading physical novels made out of actual paper in locally owned coffeeshops. He can be reached @JesseWaites on Twitter.
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