I watched the speech and thought it was very inspiring. President Obama has a difficult challenge with the Economy at the moment. He has to:

• Set Expectations realistically
• Show he knows people are hurting
• Inspire America to rise to the challenge
• Prepare sectors of business and the population for more pain
• Avoid talking the markets down further
• Get past the blame game
• Get unregulated markets back under control so they can be deleveraged and lower exposure

I thought there was a good balance of all of these. America is a great country that has proven its ability to rise to huge challenges. Many in the population have the drive and capability to deliver when called on. I think linking patriotism to the way forward is sensible but risks a swing toward protectionism and a focus on "buying American". This would be a mistake. China won't like that and might stop buying US paper. That would be a huge problem. Whilst China has no incentive to see its savings decline in value, they have deeper pockets at the moment and are still growing (even in at a declining rate). China holds many of the cards at the moment. It will be interesting to see what price they extract for cooperation. I'm my opinion increased interdependence and coordinated actions will lead to a quicker recovery and in all likelihood decrease the chances of animosity between the major powers of the world. The last thing we need now is Russia, India or China to pipe up and count on US weakness or unwillingness to take on more responsibility in international affairs. The republican response was interesting. It tried show the difference in the big picture view. It kept on with a call for tax cuts (surprise surprise) and reinforced the big government vs small argument which separates the parties.  I'm not convinced that the way forward is just returning money to people via tax cuts. They will save it, pay off debts and wait and see. Those aren't bad things but they won't create jobs at the rate needed fro recovery and increase tax receipts. That will also not solve the bigger issues that must be acknowledged (e.g energy independence, US carbon emissions and global trade). America need more and better quality infrastucture and more research and development. That won't come from entrepreneurs and corporate america (in this climate at least). As ever it isn't a black and white situation and the solution will most likely involve a mixture of all the suggestions/policies. The markets are struggling to find equilibrium and aggregate demand/supply is in flux. This will take time to settle down. Price discovery will be rocky and reactionary. The markets will need several quarters of positive corporate earnings and a higher confidence in financial stability and consumer confidence to call a recovery in process. Here are two other ways of looking at the 2 speeches (From wordle.com):

We live in intersting times. The next year will determine much more then the fate of economies of the world.  New opportunities and risks will present themselves. I'm keeping an eye out...

Do you have a favourite TED talk or site that inspires you? Leave a comment below a share it with me.

Hi there, I've finally managed to get some time and start my blog.  Its not been a big priority for me before now but now I feel its time to walk the walk and share my thoughts, notes and ideas with the web. A little late to the party but hey, better later then never. I've been watching the evolution of the web with fanatic like regularity for about 10 years now and over that time I spotted some trends, made some great connections and been involved in some cutting edge projects. Most of the time I left the shouting (or bragging) to others but now its different. I feel I have a lot to offer and this blog is my way of acting on that. You can check out my resume, see what I'm reading and observe my twitter conversations all via these pages. By the way, please  get in touch if you want to connect or if you think I can help you with something. I'm involved in lots of projects and do most (but not all!) of them for fun, to learn and for the challenge so ask away - what's the worst that can happen? At the moment I'm in Chicago, Illinois and loving it. I'm doing some networking, working on some ideas and generally taking a breath after a crazy 8 years of being involved with Oncampus which I founded in 2000. I am looking at several new opportunities at the moment and should they come to the boil I'll jump straight back in. In the meantime I intend to think, write and connect with like minded people. Over the next couple of weeks I intend to blog about a number of subjects which are generally themed around:

• The best products on the web (which I had experience of)
• Web strategies that work or don't work in the digital space
• Cool Mashups and applications (mobile and Iphone)
• Great content that you can get for free
• Current events and interesting things that don't make the news
• Commentary on/around some of the arguments/debates taking place on other blogs
• Events I've attended

I hope they are useful to you. Here we go!

I got this today from a friend. I wonder if there is anything behind it. I'm going ask them. I'm only posting it for that reason.
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I love this picture. I worked here for a year in 1997/8. It was one of the best experiences of my life and taught me a great deal. I learned from some great mentors and made some great friends. I also spent a lot of time laughing. There were some real characters down there.