Quickthink

Here is a thread that might interest young folks looking for opportunities in a growth sector.

Giga is running an interesting article about Bloom Energy, an energy start up with rather impressive credentials. Summing up the article, Bloom has developed second generation fuel cell technology that doubles its fuel cell output capacity in the same footprint. It also is about to double its production, setting up a new facility in the northeast US with a whopper of a new contract to supply energy to Delmarva in Delaware (my home state).  The video interview walks through this background in a nice relaxed way. Impressive stuff. I thought - this is the kind of company that offers interesting job opportunities.

Hmmm … Bloom has been mainly active in California. It is expanding to the east coast. What about international expansion?  Well, from its web site you find that Girish Paranjpe is  Managing Director of Bloom Energy International. Girish has impressive credentials from Wipro. Wipro? Sure. They do consulting (and have experience in the energy and banking sectors) with an emphasis on HR. But as I took a look at Bloom’s website I didn’t see a strong international focus — yet. But I did see this - an ad for an internship in Europe

International Business Development Summer MBA Intern

Interesting. Here is the job description

MBA interns will work closing to create a business model for multiple European countries and business cases for particular clients.  This will include:  understanding of local energy markets and incentives, taxation, assessing deal feasibility, selecting project geographies, the financial structuring of a project, assisting in capital raising process (both equity and debt), due diligence, all the way through to the closing process.

 

The MBA intern will work closely with Bangalore and Sunnyvale and California teams.  The intern will be expected to work out of a European country in a home-office setup, with frequent travel expected.

Sounds like a major challenge for an intern but cool. And there is this posting for a summer legal intern to assist in US expansion. Here is the qualification set

The Intern should be technologically savvy, eager, and motivated to learn. The candidate’s technology background should enable them to quickly learn to manipulate and navigate various software platforms, including SpringCM and Merrill DataSite. Excellent oral and written communication skills are essential for this position, along with great visual presentation skills. The candidate should be proactive, detail oriented, and able to think critically. Certain projects will require the Intern to work independently, and team collaborations will be needed for other projects. Due to various projects being deadline driven, this candidate should have the skills to manage time and projects efficiently, as well as perform exceptionally under pressure.

 SpringCM and Merill Datasite?  Memo to file - get to work mastering those. My point — to get ahead these days, young people need access to this kind of information about where opportunities are and what they look like. Also we need to keep in mind that this type of job market will change pretty rapidly. I wonder what kind of platforms are tracking this stuff …

A quick Google search for

job opportunities international business

produced a nice white paper from Columbia SIPA. Good advice, but it doesn’t look like much of a tracking tool.  Employment News Weekly is number 2. Again a lot of text here but not much tracking. Going down the list, The Riley Guide looks a bit more like a tracking tool. Interesting.

Ok, the title is a just a bit extreme. It is a riff on a 1987 B movie entitled “Surf Nazis Must Die“. But when you read what is going on, you might agree that it captures the spirit of the moment. Read on!

Here is the latest news. The High Court in the UK has ordered British ISP’s to block access to Pirate Bay for Uk users. BBC reports.  Wired Magazine reports as well. What is going on? Well, Pirate Bay has stuck its thumb in the eye of corporate interests whose business models rely on IP royalties. It boldly claims that these interests should not dictate what is “normal” with respect to sharing web content.  It is not surprising, therefore, that those corporate interests have kicked back. They are determined to brand this attitude as “fringe” and better yet, “totally  illegal, dude”. This is a fight that they do not want to lose.

It is not a new fight. To the contrary, the UK High Court ruling is just the latest chapter. But is Pirate Bay and file sharing in general more fringe or less fringe than it was before? It is hard to find evidence that sharing is more fringe. Piracy appears to be lower in France after their three strikes law was enacted. But it would not surprise if French file sharers simply have found better ways to go undetected. And Pirate Bay itself chugs along very nicely even though its leaders face jail time. It is one of the most popular sites in the world. Moreover, now a political party, called the “Pirate Party” has emerged that takes up the cause of sharing. You can get a sense of their “civil liberties” message from Rick Falkvinge’s TED video.  And the Pirate Party is growing in Europe.

My sense is that this conflict will heat up. The IP owners are not about to embrace sharing. So what to do? They can pray that clever entrepreneurs will find new platforms that get people to pay for streaming instead of sharing (like ITunes and Netflix). But I think these will disappoint parties hoping to end sharing.  Sure, a lot of folks will pay for streaming instead of buying CD’s and DVD’s. But that is not necessarily a substitute for sharing — as long as availability is limited and prices are high. So the IP rights crowd will likely schedule more appointments with their lawyers and lobbyists, pay lots of fees and demand tougher laws and more effective litigation strategies. And they will do it “in the name of starving artists” like … err … Beyonce. From the Wired article

Geoff Taylor, the British Recorded Music Industry chief executive, said The Pirate Bay, which makes money via advertising, lines “their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them.”

He left out that pirates also don’t pay the various middlemen that keep content scarce and expensive. But back to the point. Will this “get tough” strategy work? It will certainly work for the lawyers and lobbyists. But for the rest of us? Well, I am not so sure. This all may turn out to be just a rear guard action if Larry Lessig is right that our kids see remix differently than we do.

FOLLOW -  Steve Kettman comments on the recent electoral success of the German Pirate Party. His main point is that the German Pirates use the internet to break down the “disconnect” between average young persons and party positions. You might keep that phrase in mind - “breaking down the disconnect”.