Quite simply, the most effective business plan is the one that contains the exact information your target investor wants to hear.
This sounds extremely simplistic, but countless people, especially those writing business plans for the first time, tend to completely overlook the basics.
Forget about formatting and templates and what section headings to include. These will come together later. Instead, put yourself in a VCs shoes. Pretend you are considering risking a considerable amount of money on an idea and a team that will implement these ideas (assuming your company has no existing product or revenue stream, that it is still in the idea phase). The guise is that if you provide x amount of capital, this group of people will employ it to generate x*n amount of capital in a given amount of time.
Ask yourself, what is it about my ideas or plans will ensure an investor that this is not only going to happen, but happen to such an extent that it will generate many times the amount of capital invested. Investors are not looking to break even, they're looking to make a large increase on the amount of money they invest.
You need to be completely honest with yourself and your idea. If, (as would be natural given the forum,) your idea is based on a technology, remember that an investor has absolutely no interest in how cool or exciting it is or whether it's written in Java or Turbo Pascal. What problem does it solve? How are you going to sell it? Who is going to buy it? How are you going to advertise it? How is it going to generate the many fold return on investment I'm looking for? 10 pages on the design and features of your wild new technology does nothing to address these concerns.
Ask yourself, would you put up however many millions you are asking for with complete confidence? People gripe and moan about greedy VCs, but remember, you're probably asking somebody to take of 100% of the financial risk. If it fails, you could just walk away into another job. The VC may be out millions. What's so special about your idea that this financial risk is worth it?
Finally, consider that the process of putting together a business plan is likely to be far more informative to yourself than any investor, as you are forced to consider all of these questions, and consider your idea in the cold harsh light of reality. If you cannot answer, and answer honestly, any of these questions, then it is more than likely your business idea simply needs rethinking.
I've learned all of this the hard way. Perhaps the simple answer to the question 'What's the best way to write a business plan' is 'many, many times.'
They should have built a Coliseum before the city hit population 5 then made a bee line for Monotheism to build a cathedral. At the very least, they could have turned a citizen or two into an elvis as a stop gap emergency measure.
Pah. French AI's a joke.
(It's a joke, I think the real situation is horrible.)
Of course, if you believe that random postings by unknowns embedded in a thread full of gems like "THE WALRUS COMMANDS LONGBAUGH AND SHORTY TO TAKE IT TO FUCKING PM'S" constitutes 'evidence'.
The only fact here is that an investigative body has received a number of complaints about a person from many different sources. It is only natural that whatever person at this institution who receives these complaints is, at the very, very least, going to initiate whatever processes are involved in examining the complaints and the evidence to determine whether there is a need for further investigation. That is all that has happened to date.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that this committee, under whatever guidelines they've set for themselves on these matters, may decide that there is nothing whatsoever on which to build a disciplinary case.
As far as I can see, nowhere in the article does it state that the man is 'under investigation'. All that's happened to date is that, 'according to a spokesperson, the letters and faxes have been received and forwarded to the disciplinary committee.' I have no idea how this body works, but I'd imagine that forwarding a complaint about someone to the committee does not automatically mean the person in question is 'under investigation'.
While we're nit picking, "Via" is quite simply the nominative singular form of "path" or "road" in Latin. It can mean "way" or "a way," but certainly not "By the way of".
The Encyclopedia of Ardacontains many answers to these questions all based on careful studies of all of Tolkien's works.
On the subject of Middle Earth being the same planet as ours, take a look at this
Map of Arda interpolated from Tolkien's maps and geographical descriptions. You can clearly see the emerging formations of Europe and Africa, clearly seperated by the Mediterranean.
I don't remember the exact details, but it's something like this (I'm basing it on my memory of the C64 version):
Have Bernard fix the radio in the cabinet in the same room. You use a radio tube or something on it (I don't remember from where exactly).
In the green tentacle's room, there's a record, that plays a high-pitched tone. (It's a recording of the tentacle mating call!) If you play it in the green tentacle's room, you'll end up with a dead kid, (one of the few ways to truly die in the game, but it's funny). However, you can safely play it in the victorola in the TV room. As you're playing the record, record the sound onto a tape (from where I don't remember) using the recording deck. Then take the tape and play it in the chandelier room. The high-pitched noise will shatter the chandelier and drop the key onto the floor.
And it is indeed for the dungeon, as far as I can recall.
Maybe I should have gotten out more as a kid. Sigh.
When I, or my company tries to innovate, we'll take a small research team, and develop a technology. We'll build up a prototype, and show it to people. We'll see how people react to it. Then we'll refine it a bit and show another version. The eventual idea being that through a bit of small scale experimentation and testing, we'll decide whether the product is a viable and a decent technology.
When Microsoft tries to innovate, they spend 4 billion dollars making wild predictions about the state of computing in five years and telling the entire world how they're developing some great new technology that's going to change everyone's lives. They then seem to throw the entire company behind it, and spend further billions developing something which they ultimately don't know how the market place will react to.
What I don't understand about Microsoft is why they feel they have to bet the entire farm every time try to innovate, and then spend years and billions catching up when their predictions fail. Wouldn't it make far more sense for them to calmly and quitely develop several technologies in tandem to cover various future possibilities, and then find out over time which ones are the ones worth throwing more money into?
It's the same kind of nonsense that goes on here whenever some article about any kind of technical innovation whatsoever comes out. A link to a three sentence article about a group investigating a new technology, and three hundred slashdot replies with all sorts of clever "It'll never possibly work because the engineers have obviously failed to consider condition y Those engineers with degrees in their field and experience who have been getting paid to consider this problem for eight hours a day for the last three years could never have considered possibility y, which I just thought of between writing lines of visual basic code. It'll never work!!!!!"
To these people: You put your lives in the hands of engineers each and every day. Personally, I trust them to have thought of each and every one of these issues, and about eight hundred more that you couldn't think of in a thousand years of browsing slashdot posts. Please, either spend the necessary years learning and gaining the experience to make relevant insights, or stick to your VB.
What happens if voice IP traffic gets mixed with, say, a few Quake deathmatch packets? What happens if a bot starts taking railgun shots at bits of your conversation with your Mother? Or if a L33T D00D pulls down the grid for an entire city with a strategically placed rocket?
I want answers, damn it!
Of course, Caramck's version will involve a device whereby you point the launcher at the ground and fire to propel yourself into upper orbit. It'll never quite work the way you'd think.
Fair play for trying, though.
Your status and fame are tied primarily, or at least began with, your cult status in you know which role. How difficult have you found it to branch off into more 'serious' (for lack of a better word) projects, and have you found yourself running into problems with being type cast when being considered for other roles? Do you feel that the media takes you less seriously than you deserve? More?
Alternatively, If you could be remembered for a single project or work, what would it be?
Slashdot Mirror
This sounds extremely simplistic, but countless people, especially those writing business plans for the first time, tend to completely overlook the basics.
Forget about formatting and templates and what section headings to include. These will come together later. Instead, put yourself in a VCs shoes. Pretend you are considering risking a considerable amount of money on an idea and a team that will implement these ideas (assuming your company has no existing product or revenue stream, that it is still in the idea phase). The guise is that if you provide x amount of capital, this group of people will employ it to generate x*n amount of capital in a given amount of time.
Ask yourself, what is it about my ideas or plans will ensure an investor that this is not only going to happen, but happen to such an extent that it will generate many times the amount of capital invested. Investors are not looking to break even, they're looking to make a large increase on the amount of money they invest.
You need to be completely honest with yourself and your idea. If, (as would be natural given the forum,) your idea is based on a technology, remember that an investor has absolutely no interest in how cool or exciting it is or whether it's written in Java or Turbo Pascal. What problem does it solve? How are you going to sell it? Who is going to buy it? How are you going to advertise it? How is it going to generate the many fold return on investment I'm looking for? 10 pages on the design and features of your wild new technology does nothing to address these concerns.
Ask yourself, would you put up however many millions you are asking for with complete confidence? People gripe and moan about greedy VCs, but remember, you're probably asking somebody to take of 100% of the financial risk. If it fails, you could just walk away into another job. The VC may be out millions. What's so special about your idea that this financial risk is worth it?
Finally, consider that the process of putting together a business plan is likely to be far more informative to yourself than any investor, as you are forced to consider all of these questions, and consider your idea in the cold harsh light of reality. If you cannot answer, and answer honestly, any of these questions, then it is more than likely your business idea simply needs rethinking.
I've learned all of this the hard way. Perhaps the simple answer to the question 'What's the best way to write a business plan' is 'many, many times.'
They should have built a Coliseum before the city hit population 5 then made a bee line for Monotheism to build a cathedral. At the very least, they could have turned a citizen or two into an elvis as a stop gap emergency measure.
Pah. French AI's a joke.
(It's a joke, I think the real situation is horrible.)
The only fact here is that an investigative body has received a number of complaints about a person from many different sources. It is only natural that whatever person at this institution who receives these complaints is, at the very, very least, going to initiate whatever processes are involved in examining the complaints and the evidence to determine whether there is a need for further investigation. That is all that has happened to date.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that this committee, under whatever guidelines they've set for themselves on these matters, may decide that there is nothing whatsoever on which to build a disciplinary case.
As far as I can see, nowhere in the article does it state that the man is 'under investigation'. All that's happened to date is that, 'according to a spokesperson, the letters and faxes have been received and forwarded to the disciplinary committee.' I have no idea how this body works, but I'd imagine that forwarding a complaint about someone to the committee does not automatically mean the person in question is 'under investigation'.
Your search for pub near Dublin Ireland did not match any locations.
Super Mario Cease and Desist
You obviously haven't been in Dublin city centre recently. You'd be lucky to get change from a single pint for that amount.
Oh, you mean nose-uppy and nose-downy?
I don't think this is worthy of an X-Prize so much as a Darwin award.
"an extensive office in rural England" Is this opposed to downtown England?
While we're nit picking, "Via" is quite simply the nominative singular form of "path" or "road" in Latin. It can mean "way" or "a way," but certainly not "By the way of".
Anyway your translation is very very off.
How did he find the time to defend Linux against SCO AND direct all of those ring movies? Wow!
On the subject of Middle Earth being the same planet as ours, take a look at this Map of Arda interpolated from Tolkien's maps and geographical descriptions. You can clearly see the emerging formations of Europe and Africa, clearly seperated by the Mediterranean.
Have Bernard fix the radio in the cabinet in the same room. You use a radio tube or something on it (I don't remember from where exactly).
In the green tentacle's room, there's a record, that plays a high-pitched tone. (It's a recording of the tentacle mating call!) If you play it in the green tentacle's room, you'll end up with a dead kid, (one of the few ways to truly die in the game, but it's funny). However, you can safely play it in the victorola in the TV room. As you're playing the record, record the sound onto a tape (from where I don't remember) using the recording deck. Then take the tape and play it in the chandelier room. The high-pitched noise will shatter the chandelier and drop the key onto the floor.
And it is indeed for the dungeon, as far as I can recall.
Maybe I should have gotten out more as a kid. Sigh.
When I, or my company tries to innovate, we'll take a small research team, and develop a technology. We'll build up a prototype, and show it to people. We'll see how people react to it. Then we'll refine it a bit and show another version. The eventual idea being that through a bit of small scale experimentation and testing, we'll decide whether the product is a viable and a decent technology.
When Microsoft tries to innovate, they spend 4 billion dollars making wild predictions about the state of computing in five years and telling the entire world how they're developing some great new technology that's going to change everyone's lives. They then seem to throw the entire company behind it, and spend further billions developing something which they ultimately don't know how the market place will react to.
What I don't understand about Microsoft is why they feel they have to bet the entire farm every time try to innovate, and then spend years and billions catching up when their predictions fail. Wouldn't it make far more sense for them to calmly and quitely develop several technologies in tandem to cover various future possibilities, and then find out over time which ones are the ones worth throwing more money into?
I'll take the word of the NASA guy over the slashdot rants.
It's the same kind of nonsense that goes on here whenever some article about any kind of technical innovation whatsoever comes out. A link to a three sentence article about a group investigating a new technology, and three hundred slashdot replies with all sorts of clever "It'll never possibly work because the engineers have obviously failed to consider condition y Those engineers with degrees in their field and experience who have been getting paid to consider this problem for eight hours a day for the last three years could never have considered possibility y, which I just thought of between writing lines of visual basic code. It'll never work!!!!!"
To these people: You put your lives in the hands of engineers each and every day. Personally, I trust them to have thought of each and every one of these issues, and about eight hundred more that you couldn't think of in a thousand years of browsing slashdot posts. Please, either spend the necessary years learning and gaining the experience to make relevant insights, or stick to your VB.
Original Title:
Lobbyists Urge South Australia To Drop Open Source Bill
After Slashdot discussion:
Open Source Lobbyists Urge South Australia To Drop Bill
What happens if voice IP traffic gets mixed with, say, a few Quake deathmatch packets? What happens if a bot starts taking railgun shots at bits of your conversation with your Mother? Or if a L33T D00D pulls down the grid for an entire city with a strategically placed rocket? I want answers, damn it!
I only know of two standards that have ever been of lasting use to me:
0
and
1
Everything else is probably just hype.
Of course, Caramck's version will involve a device whereby you point the launcher at the ground and fire to propel yourself into upper orbit. It'll never quite work the way you'd think. Fair play for trying, though.
"Avoid the BBC"
Ahh... so that explains the three voices in my head!
SID chip forever!
Alternatively, If you could be remembered for a single project or work, what would it be?
Don't they mean Kruschev instant moments?