My good pal Franz and I have started a blog that is primarly targeted towards physicians. We have a lot of things in mind we want to share with others out there, but it’s mostly going to be about “how to hack medicine”.

Check it out MedCrunch and let me know what you think. There are also very nice people across the ocean who like what we do.

We want to provide a new form of magazine. The range of topics is broad but not too broad. Aesthetics and simplicty is important to us.

Es grassiert (sic!) ein Meme. Ein österreichischer Meme, der den ehemaligen Finanzminister Karl Heinz Grasser als Internet Meme persifliert. Mit einer gesunden Portion Humor begibt sich die österreichische Twittersphere auf dünnes Eis (Ainedter!) und bringt eine Vielzahl an wirklich lesens- und lachenswerten Tweets zum Vorschein.

Die Idee dabei ist es bekannte Filmtitel mit Herrn Grasser und dessen vermeintlich unlautere Geschäftspraktiken (es gilt die Unschuldsvermutung!) zu vermischen und so ein grandioses Lustspiel des Internets darzubieten.

Mein Tipp: Mitlesen!

There is a variety of entities that make up “great people”. I hate to say so, but there are people who are more enjoyable to talk to than others and there are people who are nice and some that are not so nice.

There is a plethora of research and semi-reseaarched books out there that tries to find elements that connect these “good” people. Be it mirror neurons, continuous states of FLOW or a healthy family background. The more studies are conducted, the more elements will be found.

Yet there’s one element that I feel such people have in common and which is a highly underrated one: Asking questions.

People who are compulsively and vehemently insiting on their opinions and views on the world and on certain topics, rarely sit back and listen to others. Not listening to others, although they might know “less” on certain topics, is a failure. Growing and prospering is crucially interlinked to listening to others and not dogmatically imposeing one’s opinion over another one’s.

Whenver I meet new people I feel that the more they listen, the more questions they ask, the more I sympathize with them. This might not always be easy but on the long run you can only win. People who’ve accomplished things in their lives that one might consider aspiring to in western cultural terms (money, love, health, family) are usually the ones that do not need to prove anything and who stopped answering, but started asking.

It seems so obvious and simple but when you carefully watch and observe you’ll notice that only a minority of people actually act that way and I believe if one did a randomized, double-blinded cohor study then I am pretty sure that the results will be somewhat signifcant that people asking questions will be considered as more “pleasant” people than others.

Finally, the long awaited official trailer for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” has arrived. It features Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Mesmerizing cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki.

You can watch it here in HD fullscreen

For a little more than a year I’ve been an occassional contributor to TechCrunch Europe and there are several things I’ve learned. I am miles away from being a professional journalist, largely due to the fact that I’ve never went to journalism school and never learned or studied Journalism’s most valuable and most important aspect: Research.

Michael Arrington, Om Malik and others are masters of research and inherently the reason why they’ve become successful. Researching a market is crucial to any Tech entrepreneur thinking of starting a company, however there is an array of other elements why I think Tech journalists should not only write about startups, but start them. Starting a company, raising money for your endavour or pitching a VC always requires knowledge in certain topics. I argue that these topics are often fulfilled by Tech Journos more than by others.

1. Market

When writing (and more importantly doing research) about a certain Startup a Journalist inevitably has to look at the market. Not only for similar players and competitors, but also its size and current status. There are market trends and those ought be understood for an article of quality.

2. Competition

Whenever you want to start a company or think about writing one, one has to deeply look at your most feared or more beloved players in your segment. Knowing your competitors is essential from the early days on. Caring about your competition and watching them closely how they fail or succeed is what let’s you do better. Writing about Startups requires knoweledge of their enemies and friends.

3. Network

Tech Journalists per se have a strong network. They are being approached by PR firms, Startups and sometimes even VCs (or the VCs PR agencies). People want the Journalist to write about them which gives the editor on the one hand power (Do I write about them or not) and on the other hand there is already a mutual connection between two people, say an Entrepreneur and the Journalist, that is beneficial for both parties. Having a vast network is essentiell when it comes to selling a product, building PR buzz or a exiting your company. Journalists do have this network.

4. Raising capital

VCs or Angels more likely mingle with Tech Journalists than Entrepreneurs (I know, that’s a bold statement there). They see the relationship between the objective, unbiased and profesional writer and themselves easier and with more delight than with Entrepreneurs who constantly WANT something from them. An editor in general doesn’t want anything from the Investor, except for writing about them which makes the VC happy. But Entrepreneurs? They usually pitch, ask for money or ask for more money and advice. That automatically gives the Tech journalist the better and more friendly connection to the VC and for the reasons above it eases the money raising process.

5. What type of business, in which genre, at what time and with which people

When you always have to keep up with the hottest startups, the deadpool, the Super Angels, crazy valuations, PR Pitches and Startup advice presentations you somehow, over the years, are more likely to answer the questions above better than any successful seriel Entrepreneur because the Journalist will always be on the intersection of the people who drive the Tech business: Entrepreneurs – Companies – Investors. These three are solely, and even more importantly, neutrally, connected with the Tech journalist. The editor must not only know one genre (Gaming) but usually has to cover a broad range of topics. More experienced Journalists often focus on certain genres, which gives them even more power and understanding in the respective market.

When looking at what successful Tech Entrepreneurs have, then I see a lot of similarities between successful Tech Journalists.

I hate Television but most probably know that also people who hate TV should watch Mad Men. People should watch Don Draper smoking cigarettes 24/7, kicking off the day with Whiskey in the office and listening to RJD2 at the very beginning.

It’s a perfect blend of everything. Style, story, playing with the viewer’s wishes, strong characters, great acting, well dressed, intense….and the best opening sequence in a long time (Curiously disabled for embedding by AMC).

Das heisst wenn man Alter und Tod wie ein Kuchenrezept verstanden hat, dann hat man auf einmal unheimlich viel mehr Zeit und unendlich viel mehr Lebensqualität und ist unendlich viel mehr entspannt…So, ganz einfach ist das.

via Rest in Peace

Also be sure to check out his site with the latest stuff from Arranofsky’s Black Swan: clintmansell.com

wie etwas schreiben, wenn wir nur noch fühlen können? Und was können wir fühlen? Wir sind so unbeschreiblich traurig über deinen Tod. Und doch ahnen wir, von welchen Qualen er dich erlöst hat.

Du bist so viel für uns. Und genau so viel hast du uns gegeben. Dich kann uns keiner nehmen. Du hast uns gegen die Laufrichtung in deine Gedankengänge geführt. Dort sind wir mit dir die Wände hoch gegangen, auch mal an und durch die Decke. Du hast uns mitgerissen. Wir sind deiner Leidenschaft, deinem Mut und deiner Verletzlichkeit gefolgt. Du hast uns auf den Kopf gestellt und wir haben gesehen, wie schön die Aussicht ist.

Deine Arbeit hat uns bereichert. Deine Menschlichkeit hat uns reich gemacht. Wir baden in einem Meer aus Erinnerungen, aus Bildern. Erinnern heißt Lieben. Wir betrauern nicht den Künstler. Wir feiern ihn. Wir beklagen den Menschen, den Freund, den Ratgeber, den Ratsuchenden. Wir vermissen dich – und wissen dich doch ganz bei uns.

Du bist uns jetzt vorausgegangen, durch den Reißverschluss, den Charlotte dir an einen sattblauen Himmel gemalt hat, und der dir Hoffnung gab, dass alle Schwere und aller Schmerz ganz einfach sein könnten.

Es muss schön sein im Himmel, wenn du dort bist. Lebendig. Kraftvoll. Unruhig. Wir sind hier unten. Einsam. Still. Wir sehen uns wieder. Wir lieben dich. Wir fühlen mit dir. Ohne Worte.

VOXI, TOBI, THOMAS, SOPHIA, SIBYLLE, PATRICK, NICOLE, MEIKE,
MEIKA, MATTHIAS, MARTIN, LEO, KLAUS, KIRSTEN, KERSTIN,
KATHRIN, KARIN, JULIA, JÖRG, JACOB, HORST, HETA, HELGA, FRIEDER, FRANCIS, EVA, CLAUDIA, CHRISTOPHE, CHARLOTTE, CELINA, CARL, BERND, ARNO, ANTJE, ANNA-CATHARINA, ANNA, ALEX

via schlingensief.com

I’ve recently written an article about an initiative by a bunch of entrepreneurial students in Vienna, called STARTeurope, on TechCrunch. I attended one of their events for the first time and had been positively suprised by their efforts and enthusiasm when it comes to Startup Life. Now they’ve partnered with another ambitious, yet already long-standing, project called Forum Alpbach, which assembles bright minds from politics, economics and science in a small austrian village called Alpach.

StartEurope is bascially injecting some “Startup Mojo” into the minds of grey-templed gentlemen, bankers, opinion leaders and like-minded indviduals. By doing so, they attracted some well-known and sought-after individuals from the area of tech and VC. An illustrious round of VCs, successful Entrepreneurs and Industry people. To be precise here’s a list of people that are on the panel and will be available to advise Startups and soon-to-be-entrepreneurs:

Markus Wagner, founder and president of i5invest
Daniel Mattes, cofounders of JaJah
Reshma Sohoni, CEO of Seedcamp
Selma Prodanovic, founder and chief networking officer (CNO) of Brainswork
Christopher Kahler, founder of Qriously and urbian

Moderation: “Die Presse�

I highly recommend any Startup or Tech-interested people living in Austria (or wherever you live) to attend. This thing is entirely free of charge! There’s just one thing I a missing : Aesthetics and Design when it comes to their Logo and CI.