The Law of Web 2.0

I'm on a panel at the upcoming Community 2.0 conference in Las Vegas on legal issues for business "communities" -- sort of corporate use of Web 2.0 technologies -- with blawger Denise Howell. In advance of that conference, Denise and I will be hosting a public conference call on Monday, February 26 beginning at 1:00 p.m. PST [4 p.m. EST], and we'd love your participation to help us hone in on the ownership considerations (IP; attention; identity), and issues of governance and liability, most critical to the creation, maintenance, and long-term health of business communities. The call will be recorded and made available as a podcast from The Future of Communities blog. You can join us as follows:

From Skype: +990008275785861

From a regular phone (long distance costs apply):
US: 1-605-475-8590

In Europe, call:
Germany 01805 00 7620
UK 0870 738 0763

The Conference Room Number: 5785861

(Cross-posted to madisonian.net)

Small Business Legal Program at Pitt

My colleagues at the Pitt Law School are putting on the following program on Saturday, March 3, at the law school, in Oakland:

Legal Strategies for Small Businesses: Helping Business Owners Understand Keys To Success

Presented by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law Community Economic Development Clinic

Featured Topics:
• Choosing a Business Structure
• Investment Strategies
• Agreements Among Owners
• Lease and Code Compliance
• Basic Employee Issues

This seminar offers legal expertise unique to small business owners and strategic plans to put your business on the road to success.

Fee includes lunch and training materials.

FREE LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR QUALIFIED* BUSINESSES!
* The Clinic will only represent businesses that attend the entire seminar, pass a conflicts of interest check, and seek legal services within the Clinic’s areas of practice.

This seminar is intended to provide general information regarding legal issues
confronting small businesses and does not constitute legal advice. An attorney-client relationship can only be made by a written and express agreement of representation signed by you and the University of Pittsburgh’s Community Economic Development Clinic.

Registration Deadline: Feb. 28, 2007

Call 412-648-1300 or Email pitt.ced.clinic@gmail.com
AND send $20 cash, check, or money order payable to:

University of Pittsburgh School of Law
PO Box 7226
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Or $30 cash to register at the door

Date: Saturday, March 3, 2007
Time: 9am—4pm

Location: University of Pittsburgh School of Law
3900 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Room 107, First Floor

Boston's Robo-Envy?

From the Boston Business Journal, last week:

Boston's tech industry has long competed for attention with Silicon Valley. But now it's jealous of a less glamorous rival: Pittsburgh.

While local tech leaders insist Boston is the Hub of the robotic universe, they gripe that Pittsburgh -- also known as "Roboburgh" -- is winning more of the credit. Now locals are hatching a plan to steal the thunder back.

Link: http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2007/02/19/story2.html (subscription required)

[Thanks, Michael!]

Copying

Post-Gazette columnist Brian O'Neill set off a brew ha ha last week (Pittsburghese, I think, for "brouhaha") when he wrote that Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is copying some of Council member Bill Peduto's best ideas -- and then praised MLR for it. I usually stay away from local politics, because to my mind expecting Pittsburgh politicians to be wise and productive on behalf of the citizenry is like teaching a pig to sing. It's frustrating and time-consuming, and it irritates the pig.

In this case, though, the mini-frenzy over MLR's alleged "theft" intersects with my day job, which is the study of copying. And from that perspective, and not for any reason having to do with elections or politics, I think that Brian O'Neill is right. Much as this country pretends to adhere to the mythology of originalism (what you might call a "Dr. Pepper" obsession, after that brand's "Be a Pepper" campaign, but traceable all the way back to Ben Franklin and beyond, to Genesis), copying other people's stuff, and copying their ideas above all, is inevitable, traditional, necessary, and often valuable.

Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb. But he perfected and (most important) commercialized it. Ditto for Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone. Isaac Newton is famous for saying, "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants," but Newton, too, was a borrower, if not a plagiarist. The idea behind that quotation, if not the text itself, has been traced to Bernard of Chartres, who died in the 12th century. If everyone is held only to their "own" ideas, we would never get anywhere -- culturally, economically, and politically. Everyone borrows. One of the most famous borrowers of all? Pittsburgher Andy Warhol, who copied the Campbell's soup can label lock, stock, and barrel and didn't ask for permission or (originally) pay any royalties.

Now it would nice, perhaps, if Mayor Luke gave Bill P. some credit, but politics rarely allows for that, and turning this into a flap over credit just shows how silly the flap really is. Ritual appropriation of the ideas of your adversaries is the norm in American politics, not the exception; pointing this out is one of the central functions of the political media. The media accuses, forcing the politicians to respond, and a trivializing, escalating circle of credit denial and blame assignment is the result. Thanks, Brian O'Neill, for trying to head off that problem.

Criticize MLR all you like, but don't criticize him for being the politician that he is, or for not following the Dr. Pepper mandate. The usual reason to be concerned about attribution and plagiarism is that the reader/consumer/voter is misled about something. As a voter and taxpayer, I don't care whether I've been misled about who thought of the policy first ("thinking of it first" is highly imperfect proxy for "being a better leader"); what I care about is whether the policy is the right one, and whether the right policy is being handled the right way. "Mayor Luke stole my ideas" is playground stuff. Instead, ask: Is he appointing new and experienced faces to important City positions, or is he recycling Pittsburgh political retreads? Ask: Can the man execute? And if Bill Peduto were in the Mayor's office, ask if anything would be different.

Development Czar

The City of Pittsburgh again has a development "czar": Pat Ford, recently head of the Planning Department. Reading the P-G report and summaries in the Business Times and the Trib, it appears that the job of the "czar" isn't really so imperial. Pat Ford will try to make it cheaper and easier for businesses in Pittsburgh to build stuff and hire people.

A good thing? Sure; why not? But he's not a czar.

Places and Persons

At Null Space, Chris Briem notes a long-standing divide in the planning literature: Which is better -- place-based community development, or person-based community development? Chris isn't taking a strong position himself; he's reminding us of the historical character of the debate (i.e., Richard Florida did not discover it) and pointing to a longer and thoughtful blog post by Professor Randall Crane at UCLA. Professor Crane writes:

Planning debates over the relative merits and consequences of place-based (e.g., policing, enterprise zones, business improvement districts, neighborhood investment strategies, infrastructure, the gamut of supply-side urban development strategies, downtown redevelopment) versus people-based (e.g., training/education, some housing assistance programs, welfare as we knew it, means-tested transfers generally) are omnipresent, yet so far as I can tell there is no recent account of the overall status of these analyses, or systematic comparative assessments, or what the associated research or policy agendas might be.

As a non-planner, and as a skeptic when it comes to economic analyses of social and cultural phenomena (like this), I find it odd (understandable, but odd) that planners phrase the question in "either/or" form. Both public and private resources are limited, so in any particular case the question may come down to where to put one's money. And there are interesting historical and contemporary questions about priority -- which came first, "people" or "place." (My money is on "place," but that's a debate all its own.) But in the broader sense, and priority aside, it's difficult for me to see how "people-based community development" can be successful without attention to place-based issues, and vice versa.

The "people" in "people-based community development" are never indifferent to where they are located, whether location means block or neighborhood or city or region. (and see Tiebout, Charles.) The chronic anguish over the future of Pittsburgh and each other small city is a signal that place matters terribly. Should the City of Pittsburgh or private real estate developers put development dollars Downtown, or on the North Shore or on the South Side or in Eastside (sorry; that should be East Liberty, of course) or anywhere else? Good planning and economic research doesn't make error of ignoring differential demand for different "places," but posing a "people v. place" hypothesis invites it.

Wiz Khalifa and the Pittsburgh Sound

Wiz Khalifa is becoming Pittsburgh's first major hip hop star. Check out the Pittsburgh Sound.

Links:
Nice coverage here in Rolling Stone.
The video is directed by Adam Buncher (www.bunchluv.com).
Rostrum Records, the label.
Wiz Khalifa's MySpace.
Ed Masley in the Post-Gazette.
New Pittsburgh Courier.

(Thanks, Christian!)

Pittsburgh's Entrepreneurial Culture

I'm late in highlighting Harold Miller's recent post on the importance of entrepreneurial culture. But it's a point that bears repeating over and over:

The lesson in this is if we want the Pittsburgh Region to grow, we need to encourage entrepreneurship - not just among people who might start a company, but among those who might work for one, too - and we need to insure our financial and economic institutions welcome and encourage entrepreneurial companies, rather than resist them.

What, exactly, is "entrepreneurial culture"? I think that understanding and accepting risk is key. That means embracing risk thoughtfully in a variety of senses: What do you think when you contemplate founding a business? What do investors and partners think? What do employees think? What will your friends and family think? Will failure be held against you down the road? At each of those levels, entrepreneurial culture means risk is OK -- even good. So, consider this quotation from Cori Shropshire's feature on local networking tech startups:

Pittsburgh's selling point, these entrepreneurs say, is the ability for newcomers to the city's business scene to find open doors to money, advice, workers and customers -- not to mention the exposure that being connected to the universities provides.

But Mr. Martin cautioned that Pittsburgh's close-knit coziness can also bite. "You don't want to burn bridges ever in Pittsburgh. It lasts a lot longer than it might in other cities."

Is that last bit -- that you get one chance to screw up here -- an obstacle to creating a true entrepreneurial culture?

Biotech and Real Estate

So the city of Pittsburgh is betting tens of millions of dollars in local tax money on a real estate development that will max out at 400 high-paying, and terribly scientifically sexy, jobs. Is the money worth it?

Pro: For years and years, Pittsburgh has desperately wanted the cachet that comes with being a high-tech R&D powerhouse, and especially the cachet that comes with being a biotech powerhouse. The startup economy is surprisingly buzz-dependent; buzz begets cash. Creating lab space for a few of the university biotech startups coming out of Oakland can help sustain a bit of the buzz that accompanies a cluster of firms. And if Pitt, UPMC, and CMU can offload some of their tech transfer startup costs onto private real estate companies and the public sector, then the cost/benefit equation favors a higher rate of university spinouts. It takes money to make money, and -- sunk costs be damned -- given the research base that Pittsburgh has in Oakland already, it would be foolish not to pull out the stops to make the most of such a concentration of talent.

Con: Biotech is a long-range, capital intensive play that has never -- anywhere -- matured into a real regional player on its own. Maybe the biotech economy is about to turn -- at least in some sectors (here's a link to a recent Economist story about the coming breakdown in the Big Pharma drug development model). Well-timed and well-placed bets on small companies there may pay off big -- some day. But if the city and the state -- cash-strapped as they are -- are going to put public money into economic development, and they want to put it into speculative high tech sectors, why not put it somewhere where the upfront capital costs are a lot lower -- like specialized software?

A Colosseum for Pittsburgh

Yesterday's Next Page feature, on re-purposing the shell of the Arena, was fabulous. This would create a usable Colosseum of the Alleghenies, and an instant landmark. Linking it to a renewed axis for the Hill is brilliant. Why not extend that axis through Downtown, and all the way to the Point? It's not possible to rebuild the streets themselves, but as Rob Pfaffmann notes in TNP, the Fifth Avenue corridor can and should be part of this vision.

You Are My Density!

From yesterday's NYT, Pascal Gregg Zachary writes in "When It Comes to Innovation, Geography Is Destiny":

Google’s astonishing rise and Apple’s reinvention are reminders that, when it comes to great ideas, location is crucial. “Face-to-face is still very important for exchange of ideas, and nowhere is this exchange more valuable than in Silicon Valley,” says Paul M. Romer, a professor in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford who is known for studying the economics of ideas.

In short, “geography matters,” Professor Romer said. Give birth to an information-technology idea in Silicon Valley and the chances of success seem vastly higher than when it is done in another ZIP code.

No wonder venture capitalists, who finance bright ideas, remain obsessed with finding the next big thing in the 50-mile corridor between San Jose and San Francisco. About one-quarter of all venture investment in the United States goes to Silicon Valley enterprises. And, according to a new report from Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a regional business group, the percentage has risen, to 27 percent in 2005 from 21 percent in 2000.

Many times in the past, pundits have declared an end to Silicon Valley’s hegemony, and even today there are prognosticators who see growing threats from innovation centers in India and China. Certainly, great technology ideas can come from anywhere, but they keep coming from Silicon Valley because of two related factors: increasing returns and first-mover advantage.

The paradox, which the article doesn't really address, is that Silicon-Valley-as-place remains constant while the mix of industries and companies is in constant flux. The Valley's success depends on both: a keen sense that everyone shares a common, bounded geography (more or less from Redwood City in the north to Morgan Hill in the south), and the ability to move extremely freely from firm to firm (and from university to firm) within that geography. Eventually, I will explore this in a separate post, but it is worth remembering that Silicon Valley success owes a lot to the fact that noncompetition agreements are all but uneforceable under California law.

Pittsburgh-Style Sandwiches

I did a Pittsblog doubletake on my drive in to Oakland this morning. On Banksville Road, I saw a King's Family Restaurants billboard advertising a "Pittsburgh-style" sandwich. (The image at left is borrowed from the King's website.) What is Pittsburgh-style? As you can see, it's fries-in-the-sandwich, made famous by Primanti Brothers.

Legally speaking, King's may be on safe ground. Fries-in-a-sandwich isn't a registered trademark, and while lack of registration alone doesn't prevent Primanti Brothers from making a trademark infringement claim, Primanti Brothers would have to prove that fries-in-a-sandwich isn't "functional" as that term is used in federal trademark law. And I doubt that Primanti Brothers could meet that burden. Federal trademark "dilution" law might give Primanti Brothers more leverage, if it can prove that fries-in-a-sandwich is "famous" as well as associated with the restaurant, and Pennsylvania trademark and unfair competition law may provide Primanti Brothers will additional options.

As usual, though, the law isn't the most interesting angle here.

Primanti Brothers aside, King's advertisement seems consciously designed to appeal to groups *other* than the so-called Cupcake Class. That's neither a good nor a bad thing, since Pittsburgh can be a big food tent, but note how the ad defines and targets the market -- "Yinz" in the headline; a huge sandwich for only $5.99; fries and cole slaw. This isn't farmers' market-style or slow-food-style or even Whole Foods-style. This is a slab of cheap, high fat food. And King's wants to call this "Pittsburgh," as if high fat food defines the region.

Does it? Really? Or is this another stereotype that belongs in the dustbin of history? That's what bugs me about the ad: The conscious appeal to the old as a way of defining new ("look at our old sandwich, which is really new!"); the conscious appeal to the old as a way of defining all of us. Primanti Brothers is just fine for what it is, but "Pittsburgh-style" it may not be.

Wonder Boy

I'm having a difficult time finding anything interesting in Pittsburgh these days -- hockey arenas, Gino and Sid, casinos, tax increases, falling floors, ice on the rivers, Grant Avenue soap operas -- it's mostly business as usual and cold as hell. Did I mention that it's Black History Month?

But Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman were in town on Monday night as part of the Drue Heinz Lectures. While I missed the "lecture", the event created some of the best buzz I've heard in a while. Welcome back to Pittsburgh.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh helped to keep me in Pittsburgh years ago when I was offered the chance to move back to San Francisco. The Wonder Boys is a fabulous book, and Curtis Hanson turned it into my favorite Pittsburgh film. The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay repays, many times over, the investment that Chabon solicits from the reader. And now I've gotten hooked on his serialized novella, Gentlemen of the Road, running in the Sunday New York Times.

Ah yes, Michael and Ayelet live in Berkeley, and their "lecture" had little to do with Pittsburgh aside from the fact that they happened to perform here. But with the books and the history, the Pittsburgh connection is indelible. Jim Russell at Burgh Diaspora talks about the worldwide distribution of former Pittsburghers whose energy remains emotionally linked to western Pennsylvania. Michael Chabon is a wonderful example of what Jim means: someone with strong Pittsburgh ties, who continues to energize Pittsburgh even from the West Coast.

Onion-burgh?

Does anyone know if there is a Pittsburgh connection for anyone writing for The Onion (a watered down version of the Carbolic Smoke Blog). There seems to be just a little more focus on us than you would expect. In the "News" today is this "headline": Pirates GM Begins Making Frantic, Haphazard Moves After Realizing It's Almost Spring Training.

Battelle on regional biotech

Worth a read if you have not seen it.. Battelle has recently put out the report: Growing The Nation's Biotech Sector: A Regional Perspective. Need to keep in mind that this has a lot of good data, but is limited to commercial biotechnology industries for the most part. Thus it does not really capture the direct impact of university based R+D nor even biotech activity that is embedded in much of the health care sector... From the numbers it's safe to say that overall the core issue remains for Pittsburgh: research great, commercialization needs work.

Energy Issues

On an unusually cold day, here are three energy-related notes from Pittsburghers that came my way while I was out of town last week:

First, Chris Schultz has started the Green is Good blog, focusing on conservation issues. His Feb. 1 post focuses on Pittsburgh's poor air quality.

Second, Dan Bednarz, who has been working with Portland, OR on a plan to deal with anticipated chronic energy shortages in that region (the problem of so-called "peak oil"), noted in an email that Pittsburgh needs to wake up and pay attention to this problem.

And third, Herb wrote to announce his new blog: Pittsburgh Weather Watch, at http://pittweatherwatch.blogspot.com/index.html. I'm not sure that I need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind blows. It's cold. Nothing but cold. But here you go, Herb, and thanks for the tip.