meweek-blog

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Bubble or no bubble? - Scoble says "no bubble".

Robert Scoble said in an interview with Silicon Allee that there is no bubble in tech right now - "only growth". Should we believe him?

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How are we going to prosper entrepreneurial and creative mindsets for future economic success? 

Education is most probably the one environment, where we can change things in the most sustainbale way - creating critical, open- minded and self- acting mindsets of young kids... the future potentials of our economy.

Great article on how to start in this topic. The MeWeek#12 will have more of this topic... Ines Silva, a female entrepreneur, made this topic her goal and started a little start-up just recently!

It will be great!!! 

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MeWeek'12 is on fire! booyah :D 

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Celebration @Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship

MeWeek team is thrilled to announce that we are doing fabulously well! We have an amazing line of speakers from everywhere, a program that is almost flawless and a team that is working hard to make it COUNT!  We are throwing a small get together tomorrow night at Take Five @ 2130 to celebrate the work and our supporters.  Join us, chill out and feel that energy!  Game? Let us know! Look forward to meeting you all.  Cheers,  Team MeWeek'12

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It's this for that

Need a startup idea? Try itsthisforthat! ;)

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YES, THERE'S A DUTCH TECH SCENE OUTSIDE OF AMSTERDAM, ESPECIALLY THIS MAY! 

-- JOHANN QUASSOWSKI WRITES ABOUT MAASTRICHT WEEK OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP 2012 for VENTURE VILLAGE. 

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This is a BOOMCHAKALAKAKA BOOM Thing! (Times Square Art Square Project)

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Mark Pincus on essential start-up lessons: HOW TO FAIL

One thing I learned is that while your vision should never change, you should keep trying different strategies until one works. If you can fine-tune your instinct and have confidence in it, then you can keep taking different bites of the apple and keep approaching the problem in different ways until you get it right. I did that with Tribe, pursuing the social opportunity from multiple angles. I invested in Twitter and Facebook and bought a social networking patent in 2004.

I think failing is the best way to keep you grounded, curious, and humble....

Pincus is the founder and CEO of Zynga.

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Very interesting narrative article on the need of work- life balance for entrepreneurs.

But to be honest... I am often much more interested in the comments below as they are the ones who enhance your critical reflection upon it. 

There is one comment I found really interesting, as he experienced the exact opposite of what the author was so passionate about

Here is the comment: 

Im an entrepreneur and im balanced. I make sure im home everyday to hang out with my kid and tuck her into bed. I hang out with my wife, If i have to work late, i do it after everyone has gone to bed. I have sacrificed a lot of revenue, networking opportunities and meetings to make sure im there for my family. Sure , my company has grown a lot slower. But thats because my goal is not just the money. I value my family beyond my company. I dont want to build an empire then be stuck with it like the 80 year old you mentioned and no family to enjoy it with. Im balanced, and proud of it. I totally disagree with your opinions

How do you guys think about work- life balance? There are so many beliefs and research out there believing that alignment of the two makes you more authentic, wholesome, satisfied, powerful etc.

So, is this just the beginning of a complete re-definiton of what work and life are doing with and to each other?

Lets talk about it! What are your experiences?

And of course: good luck with all those still dealing with Maastricht's exam maniac!

[meweek-blog]

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Instruction manual for a social network?!

Appearantly Guy Kawasaki has written a book on how to use Google+ - probably because nobody does and nobody knows how to.

According to this review, it's worth a read though:

http://www.businessworld.in/businessworld/businessworld/node/6439

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Why.

15.000 UM students all rushing through another exam period

100.000 locals rushing through another work week

16,6 million Dutch people looking forward to another Easter holiday

6 billion people all wrapped up in days, goals, circles, projects, plans, terms, life...

Take a few days to reconsider.

We're calling the ones who already started. Bold game changers who are ready to challenge you - take the opportunity! 

Yours truly, 

MeWeek'12 Team :) 

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Week 7 - and what we all could..should have done in the last 7 weeks..and now all those night shifts or extreme studying hours.

I read this article a while ago and was always wondering how this would work in an environment like ours, here in Maastricht.

What are your thought? Can we live without goals or does no goal- setting uncover our yet (uncovered) intrinsic motivation? It might scare us in the real beginning to let go, but might also show us what we really like to do and what we are passionate about??!

Good morning everybody and happy studying...

maybe it s not the right time to start leaving out your goals...or would it help it even more?! Decide yourself. Let us know if you tried :) 

--Submitted by Franzi Becker

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Facing a generation where self- determination importance increases.. where social change is (often) seen as the new career path to go for.. where entrepreneurship becomes a crucial GDP influencer..

Where are the traditional sectors heading?  

What is your guys' view on it?

Submitted by Franzi becker 

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The Speaker(s) you dream of having...

Guest Post by Johann Quassowski, Co-Founder of MemoBoo SC and student in the MSc I.B. Entrepreneurship track at SBE.

Last Sunday, I had a rather interesting conversation with one of the organisers of this event. We mainly talked about other things, entrepreneurship more generally, but at some point we also talked about the MeWeek. I have been around the MeWeek since the beginning: There have been three editions so far, the fourth is coming up in May.

During the first, in 2009, I was the "speaker buddy" of Nelly Kostadinova, the founder of Lingua World, a translation service company. (If you are really good with languages and enjoy translating, apply to work for her company!)

The second time around in 2010 I was "just" a plain-regular participant.

The third time - I missed it! I had my not-so-abroad semester in Berlin at the HU and I couldn't get myself motivated to go back to Maastricht for this event. Also, my room was sub-rented and...

Anyways, if you see a pattern of declining engagement here, you may be right. Right in the first edition, we had Suhas Gopinath of Globals Inc as a speaker. As his claim-to-fame was being "The world's youngest CEO", and he's a "quite a big deal" for that, that was enough to hype me up, the first time around. I thought that he must be quite awesome, at the time, and he probably is - for achieving what he has achieved. Even though I later heard from a friend that he allegedly used some spam-like emails in the beginning to build his customer base. And that's not really "awesome" at all, in the minds of most people. But maybe it's clever, maybe it was the only way to get started, maybe it's not even true that he did that, I don't know. (Maybe I should ask him that myself, what do you think?) In any case, this is not the time to talk bad about the speakers of previous years - let's be positive, we are trying to be enthusiastic here! (I am back to "engaging") ;)

Let's think of the ideal case: Which speaker do you dream of having at the Maastricht Week?

For this year, the speakers are more or less "set", as I heard. I am quite excited that Edial Dekker ofGidsy will come, because just like Alex Ljung of Soundcloud (who I "met" - more or less, we didn't really talk - at WHU's Idealab last year), he is one guy in the growing group of "buzzworthy" foreign entrepeneurs based in Berlin. While I don't really understand how Gidsy will ever make the kind of turnover or profits that would be needed to justify their investments (Feel free to try to convince me of your business in May, Edial! ^^ ), I am quite excited about this development of entrepreneurs coming from abroad to start their companies in Berlin. Maybe next year, we can get the American part of the Amen team to come here? That would be cool.

My "conversation partner" from Sunday dreams of a different speaker though. Unfortunately, I can not tell you who it is right now - she's really going to try to get him to come and maybe that would jinx the effort! ;) - but I can tell you my "dream speaker": Richard Branson. While saying "Richard Branson" on this question now sounds a bit like saying "Jessica Alba", on the question who you think the "hottest chick" is at some time, I got some "justification": I read his autobiography and another one of his books. Everyone knows about Virgin - Virgin Music, Virgin Airlines, Virgin Galactic and so on. That's what he got really famous with (and rich, too), but that's not what I would like to hear him talk about, or - ideally - want to talk with him about. I would like hear more about the first venture he started, a magazine called "The Student", and his current (political)activism with The Elders.

So, tell me: Who is your "dream speaker" (for the Maastricht Week, or just for any entrepreneurship event in general)? And why?

(Bonus question: You can also try to guess her "dream speaker"!)