Business Opportunities Weblog

December 31, 2007 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Fast Company:

Brenda Dietrich. Dietrich and her team of math geeks are changing the way IBM works. In the hands of talented mathematicians, data creates an invaluable advantage. Elaborate algorithms reveal a company’s inefficiencies and opportunities–unseen bottlenecks in the supply chain or customers’ hidden buying patterns. “It’s a great time,” Dietrich says, “to be a computational mathematician.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former Mr. Universe is flexing his muscle as governor, incentivizing business to solve climate change. One such move is the Global Warming Solutions Act, requiring companies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 25%. “We get a lot more done when we create a great partnership to tackle problems,” states Governor Schwarzenegger.

Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar’s network funds both nonprofits and for-profits. No matter, as long as they do good. Omidyar Network’s model, which has invested $60 million in nonprofits and $45 million in for-profits, has been emulated by a new class of billionaire social investors. Omidyar’s self-proclaimed mission is, “to help more people connect and work on issues they care about, not the issues I care about.”

Jimbo Wales. The creator of Wikipedia is now taking on Google. He envisions large numbers of real live people — the kind of fervent volunteers that edit Wikipedia — intervening to improve on the machine-generated search engine results that we’re used to. Wales is also emphasizing Wikia’s openness, “It needs to be neutral, and there needs to be an accountable, transparent, public dialogue about how it’s created.”

Michael Jager. Jager’s company, JDK, defies tidy definition. It is not a pure design firm or management consultancy or ad agency so much as it is a combination of the three. This all-in approach extends to clients as well, “It’s amazing how many times the process we use gets people in the same room who have never met or only know each other from e-mail,” Jager says.

For 11 more innovative people, go here.

Photo by spekulator.

In Entrepreneurship, Innovation | 1 Comment