Christopher Herot's Weblog:

Boston Globe columnist and champion of local entrepreneurs Scott Kirsner took up the cause of Massachusetts competitiveness in his column today, Start-ups stifled by noncompetes.

Since last summer's Berkman panel on the issue a growing body of evidence has shown that non-competes are inimical to economic growth. Paul Maeder of Highland Capital presented a model (right) showing how the negative effect of non-competes compounds over time. More recently Matt Marx of the Harvard Business School documented how Michigan's enforcement of non-competes reduced job mobility there.

There is some hope on the horizon with a bill introduced in the Massachusetts House to restrict non-competes. Unfortunately, it doesn't go nearly as far as the California statute which has outlawed non-competion agreements there.

Consider the law in California:

Except as provided in this chapter, every contract by which
anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or
business of any kind is to that extent void.

The California law does make some exceptions around the selling of a business, but is much more comprehensive than the proposed Massachusetts version, which goes on for several pages and merely requires non-competes not go "beyond that necessary to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests. There's a very informative Web site on this issue at www.prohibitrestrictiveemploymentcovenants.net.

And you can find out how to contact your elected officials at www.wheredoivotema.com/bal/myelectioninfo.php.

21 June 2009 at 08:55 PM in Massachusetts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tags: non-competes

Live from Chad to Washington, DC

Several of my colleagues from VSee were in Washington, DC this week, supporting an event for the UNHCR in which Angelina Jolie and officials from the UN and US State Department talked live to refugees at a camp in Chad.

This event was the kickoff to World Refugee Day tomorrow, in which several more camps around the world will be streamed through the web site.

There much more stuff over at the VSee blog.

19 June 2009 at 07:39 PM in VSee | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tags: #WRD09, VSee, World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day

It's not often that one gets a chance to do well by doing good, but this week's World Refugee Day is a prime example.

One of VSee's engineers, Yuen-Lin Tan, has been keenly concerned about the plight of refugees in Africa, and got a chance to do something about it last April when he brought some equipment to a camp in Chad that was serving as a home for refugees from Darfur. Yuen-Lin got a VSee running over a satellite link from Darfur to the USA, which you can see in an amazing video. That created a lot of interest from VSee customers, but most importantly it led to an event this Saturday, June 20th, which the UN HCR has designated World Refugee Day.

Starting at 9:00 AM EDT, conversations between the US and the Djabal camp in eastern Chad will be streamed live on the UN WRD web site: refugeedaylive.org. At the camp, a satellite terminal will be connected to a WiFi network, allowing a UN volunteer with a portable PC to walk around the camp, connecting people in the US to people in Chad. Here is Yuen-Lin preparing the equipment to be sent to Chad: