New Word of the Week: Blogable
Once you start writing for a blog you look at the world differently. Objects, events and people will be either ‘blogable’ or not. In the last few weeks I have heard several people use the word as qualification for things. When I tell a story at the office my partners at the office will say “Wow, Blogable!” and I’ll know it was good. Turns out that it is a known word. Check it out at the Urban Dictionary:...
read moreNew Word of the Week: Scotoma
Last week I wrote about the word Monocarpic which means to bloom once and then die. How sad. This week I heard someone use the term ‘Scotoma’. I decided to look into it because it is a nice illustration of a common Entrepreneurs problem. But first: Scotoma An area of diminished vision within the visual field. You might not know it but everyone has a Blind Spot, which is the popular name for Scotoma. Your eyes don’t actually see everything in front of you. There is a black spot somewhere but your brain fills in that gap for...
read moreNew Word of the Week: Monocarpic
Last week i wrote about Palliative Treatment and thought about a way to adopt that medical terminology for entrepreneurial activities. This week I found a biological term that might be useful. Monocarpic A term used to describe a plant that flowers and fruits once and then dies It seems that a lot of plants or even trees are Monocarpic instead of Polycarpic. Bamboo can grow for 30 years and then bloom and die. You could say that a Monocarpic business is a one time wonder. You could argue that V3.com (my first company) was a monocarpic...
read moreNew Word of the Week: Palliative
Last week I learned and wrote about Valorisation. This week I learned about Palliative. Tessa picked up this word at work. She works at a scientific publishing house. The word is used in medicine to describe how a drug works. There are curative, palliative, symptomatic and prophylactic treatments: Curative Serving or tending to cure You actually get better Symptomatic Constituting a symptom, as of a disease You feel better Prophylactic A prophylactic measure such as a vaccine You don’t get sick at all Palliative Treatment that...
read moreNew Word of the Week: Valorisation
I received a newsletter today with this word in it and decided to look it up. Invented by Marx and first described in Das Kapital. In my own words: if you hire someone you pay him a certain amount of money. He starts working and earning money. Your goal wouldn’t be just for him to earn his wages back but to earn YOU more than you pay HIM. When that starts to happen your capital starts valorising. This is called the valorisation of capital. Marx didn’t think this was a good thing. I hope I got it right but suggest you look it up in...
read moreEntrench, Entrepreneur, Entropy
From 1995 till 1997 I studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Since then I returned at least once a year for various reasons. A few weeks ago they invited me to talk to the new students about how I felt about being there for two years and what I did since then. I arrived in time and was offered a drink. While I was left waiting I picked up a dictionary and looked up the word ‘Entrepreneur’. The description wasn’t that interesting so I looked at the words beneath and below ‘Entrepreneur’ (and...
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