Is San Francisco Stifling Innovation By Shutting Down A Parking App?
This week the 3TechGuys Show with (Brent Leary, Gene Marks and Ramon Ray) – discussed parking, potato salad and Wi-Fi in cars. What might these all have in common? Each represents innovation at its finest. You can catch all the action in the video below.
Monkey Parking: The Parking App that has the City of San Francisco Up in Arms
Ever had a hard time finding parking in a major city? Well a new app, Monkey Parking, which allows its users to notify other users when they are leaving a space and then auction it off to the highest bidder, is now providing a solution to this problem, but not everyone is happy about it.
The city of San Francisco issued a cease-and-desist order to the Rome-based startup based on a current police code that prohibits anyone from buying, selling or leasing on street parking. Monkey Parking CEO, Paolo Dobrowoiny is refusing to halt operations and criticized the order saying, “I have the right to tell people if I am about to leave a parking spot, and they have the right to pay me for such information.”
Anything that spurs that kind of innovation and has the aspect of people sharing items like this, just like Uber and Airbnb, is fringing on long standing organizations and rules and disrupting them. Gene said, “I think we need to find a better way to evaluate these types of situation versus just trying to squash them. “. Technology and society are changing and we need to figure out what’s better for the population.
The 3TechGuys feel that the CEO of Monkey Parking said it best, cities and localities should be in the business of regulating and encouraging innovation, but they shouldn’t stifle it. If you are an entrepreneur and innovator, these are the opportunities that the internet and apps have brought us. We don’t want scammers and we want these types of services to be safe, so regulate, but don’t make it illegal.
The $23K Potato Salad on Kickstarter
Speaking of innovation, Kickstarter and many of the crowd funding sites like them, have recently relaxed their rules and are now welcoming projects for just about anything – as long as it’s not illegal or harmful.
Example: On July 3rd, Zach Brown of Columbus, OH started a campaign with a goal of $10 to make Potato Salad. Four days later, he had raised upwards of $23,000.
Brent said, “If people are willing to donate to these types of projects, and he’s not doing anything illegal or misleading people, then more power to him. This is America and Capitalism at its best!”
The lesson to small business: With the rules being relaxed a bit, the doors are wide open for small businesses and entrepreneurs to find funding for innovative ideas, who some may think are crazy, but some may not!
GM Announces All Automobiles Will Include Wi-Fi by 2015
General Motors recently announced that by 2015, all automobiles will include options for Wi-Fi technology.
It’s hard to tell if this is a dangerous innovation or one leading to better productivity.
However, it turns out Gene said that it’s big step towards self-driving cars and it provides a great way to monitor maintenance and repairs.
Overall, if GM is filling our incessant need for bandwidth, it’s a smart move by GM, Brent feels. He does caution that we might be giving too much power to the ‘big guys’ who control the services.
3TechGuys wrapped up with a quick nod to human resource (HR) applications that are booming and having an impact for small business, big businesses and startups. Gene recommends three of them, Zenefits, ZenPayroll and Work4.
Many businesses, including large corporations, are going to online HR and HR management applications to help them manage everything from payroll to benefits to recruiting and these solutions are providing a lot of value and money savings.