EQ Journal

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Why I Wrote Quantum Entity

Here below is the dedication I wrote for the upcoming release of the first book in my new trilogy, Quantum Entity, which will be available later this year. Below that I include the Foreword. Dedication I wanted to write a great mid-21st Century story, a trilogy as it turned out, focused on five themes—entrepreneurship/science, science [...]

Financial Leverage: A Simple Model

(Is Bootstrap Capital a New Form of Capital?) (What Occupy Wall Street is Really Complaining About) Leverage or gearing means using OPM, Other People’s Money, in one of your projects. Simply put, when your project’s rate of return is higher than the coupon rate (interest rate) on money you borrowed or used to capitalize it, [...]

Private versus Public Ownership

(Why Starfleet is Wrong) (Pre-Conditions for Economic Takeoff in Nations) Private ownership of a ‘thing’ can be viewed as private stewardship of that thing. As a former owner of a National Hockey League franchise, I never felt like I owned it and, frankly, I was always uncomfortable with the notion that hockey players under contract [...]

Case Study: Digicel’s Decision to Enter Haiti Cell Phone Market

(Undergrad Mid Term Exam) I reproduce below a case study we did on Digicel’s decision to enter the cell phone market in Haiti. It was a controversial decision by Digicel CEO Denis O’Brien to go into Haiti, by far the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Digicel already had 11 million customers in 32 other [...]

Excerpt from Quantum Entity: We Are All One: ‘Worry Dolls’

(Performance artist Nell takes physicist Damien Bell and friends to her second home on Ambergris Caye to celebrate Damien’s 23rd birthday. On Day 2, they find themselves at Marco Gonzalez, the site of Mayan ruins on the south end of the island. Take a few minutes to pre-read the Foreword from Quantum Entity: http://www.eqjournal.org/?p=2932. Please [...]

Quantum Entity, We Are All ONE, Foreword

(Here is the Foreword from Quantum Entity, We Are All ONE, a novel to be released on June 20th, 2012. It is the first book in a trilogy. Book 2 is called Quantum Entity, American Spring, Book 3, Quantum Entity, The Successors.) When young Damien Bell, physicist and engineer, and his business partner, the fabulous [...]

Miss Buril

For our recent Xmas party, we decided on a rather unorthodox gift for every invitee. In addition to making wine together at the Wine Garden (see: http://thewinegarden.ca where everyone took home 12 bottles!), having a four course meal, listening to live music, hearing a mercifully short speech from the host (moi), people also got their [...]

Occupy But Measure

I woke up this morning thinking that OWS supporters everywhere might want to find more ways to influence the conversation beyond sit-ins. One thing that occurred to me was that they could adapt LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mission statements to their cause. LEED rates the built [...]

Real Estate Investing Made Simple

I met with a couple in their early 40s last week and they asked me to lay out a program for them so that in addition to building their portfolio of financial assets, they could create a real estate portfolio as well. They agreed that the latter would not include a ‘flip this house/as-seen-on-TV’ approach–they [...]

Rent Curves

How Developers can Make More Money and Urban Design can Improve by Exploiting Vertical Rent Curves It has always amazed me that many developers, those veritable profit maximizers, don’t understand that neo-urbanist principles* can improve their returns while at the same time making them better city-builders and I suppose better corporate citizens. For example, most [...]

Entrepreneurship, Economic Development and Sustainability

(From a speech originally given to: Kiwanis Club of Ottawa, Friday September 12, 2003, Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel) Entrepreneurship is more than just a key engine for economic growth; it is the most efficient means of producing a sustainable community, not just in Canada but in developing nations as well. Countries that have city-state economies [...]

prototypeD

(Urban Workshop and Hacker Studio Surfaces in Ottawa… then goes back underground) (Guest Article by Janak Alford, M. Arch.) Have you ever thought that lurking just below the surface might be another way of working, of using technology or living in the city that nobody has thought of yet? If you live in the Glebe [...]