It is the labor day weekend and I am feeling kind of lazy. It is very warm in Sonoma and it is time to get back in the pool.   I had expected to be curled up with my iPad  watching the bombing in Syria but  Obama pulled a fast one.  He has now not only place the burden of attacking Syria on that great dysfunctional institution called Congress but he bought some time to actually hear what the UN Inspectors have to say.  Furthermore, he may be able to negotiate something with Putin (of course in secret) next week at the G20.    It was surprising that he did not warn Syria that if they continued to use  chemical weapons, he would not wait for Congress.  Lets see if Assad is stupid enough to continue those actions. Right now, everyone is happy with the exception of the Syrian Opposition, the Israeli Gas Mask Manufacturers Association  and of course the Press who gave up much of their long weekend to be on standby.  By the way, as someone that laid down in front of Dow Chemical Trucks in the 60s, I am curious; can anyone tell me if t Napalm is a Chemical Weapon?

So I thought I would dust off a small interview I had with Fast Company Magazine in 2006 to provide a bit of entertainment. The question was about the most important business idea for the next ten years (2006-2016),  I said it was the End of Time and Space.  I apologize for the use of the word “villagization”.    I also want to point out companies like Elance which are now becoming very effective in letting individual provide services independently.

• FAST COMPANY  3.2006
Avram Miller
CEO, The Avram Miller Co. 
San Francisco, California
Miller, 61, was vice president of business development at Intel and a cofounder of Intel Capital. He played a critical role in launching broadband. He now consults on strategy and business development for consumer-focused Internet companies. First appeared in Fast Company: June/July 1997
“The cornerstone for this millennium is the end of time and space. Most organizations today are run the same way as early-20th-century businesses. Everyone goes to his car, drives to work, has certain hours, has a certain job. It’s all built on the factory model. Moving forward, it really isn’t going to be important where you are in order to do your job. Ideas are being worked on 24 hours a day. Nobody seems surprised anymore if I wake up in the middle of the night and start IM-ing someone in Europe, because the fact is, they don’t even know where I am. And it doesn’t matter.
Fewer and fewer people will want to be employees of corporations, because corporations don’t have anything to offer. Corporations don’t provide security and provide fewer and fewer benefits. People may find new ways to sell their skills. I can imagine eBay or the equivalent of eBay being in the business of letting people bid on work all day long. Office buildings may turn into housing, or maybe individuals will rent office space as you would rent a hotel room.
And those individuals will compete with people from all over the world. This isn’t globalization, because globalization to me feels big. I think it’s the opposite, it’s villagization–making everything smaller and in some sense more intimate. And that’s very powerful. I’m totally capitalistic, but I don’t like large organizations because they tend to want to control. If this reduces the power of corporations and governments to limit what human beings can do, the thing most exciting to me is the potential for everyone to participate.” 

–Interview by Danielle Sacks