Move Over Hyper Local, Micro Local Has Arrived

August 25th, 2010 § Leave a Comment

2010 will be the year that hyper local was joined by “micro local” becoming mainstream (here’s a blog from the always good Read Write blog about recent app launches to find Supermarket products http://bit.ly/c8L37Y #lbs)

There are a whole bunch of these sorts of apps either already launched or in the works.

The life-changing impact of mobile I’ve been excited about for as long as I can remember; but the truly behaviour changing use cases have taken MUCH longer to come to fruitition than anyone with as long a tenure in the mobile industry as me can also confirm.

Things began early on though with SMS changing the way farmers in developing countries can check grain prices in nearby markets before deciding which location to sell their produce. The “cool” stuff – everything from augmented reality benefiting health care and medical practise to child security apps and context related location services (a topic close to my heart with Rummble) have taken much longer to arrive.

A combination of industry strangulation of innovation thanks to mobile operators, combined with under performing hardware and badly designed software (all three actually still featuring as a degrading force in the sector) has meant I’ve started atleast 3 companies which I misjudged and were too early to market and that meanwhile people have grown weary of being told “mobile is the next big thing” ..even investors.

Finally though, ubiquitous location technology, truly ‘smart’ phones (or Apps phones as I think they should be called) are being sucked up in growing numbers by a general public ready for the next big thing.

Take up of software or services with consumers owes as much to whether the market is ready to get their heads around a technology or not as it does to the actually technology itself. I spent over a year trying to explain what a “social network” was to everyone (let along a location based socnet on mobiles) before MySpace and Facebook came along and educated the world (I’d argue that Friendfinder educated the early adopters and the west coast, but not the world!).

So, people have used GPS for years; they’re comfortable with the idea of their device knowing their location, and “check-in” services have been a great stepping stone to allow users to feel they have complete control (although IMHO it is the more automated services like Google lattitude which represent the model of the future for location, with out interaction required by the user).

With that back drop, Micro Local services are set to eventually boom. This year sees practical early users for those for whom “mobile” is already a way of life – a fake prothetic limb to their body (I guess my friends would include me in that category).

Why search the isles in a supermarket when you can be pointed to the right place?

Let your imagination wander a little. Everything from you DHL delivery, to your pizza delivery thru girlfriend, wife, kids … a build in guide of an art gallery with a search pointing you to the exact painting you wanted to see. Trying to rearrange your stock room and wandering what happened to those widgets from warehouse C? unloading 150 shipping containers and looking for one particular item of cargo? New on an aircraft carrier with 4000 people and still getting lost? Structural engineer analysing the design for a building extension on side and wanting a representation of the entire underlying building structure in realtime? What about Google Building view, with views of the insides of buildings not just the streets?..oh hang on, Microsoft is already doing that!

Thanks to the digital equivalent of gyroscopes and clever software, these things are all possible.

What about arriving in a skyscraper to have blips on your screen of which floor and room your colleagues are in, or in a crowded club. Very Jack Bauer huh? ..micro local, it’s coming soon to a mobile screen near you.

Will Capitalisation Die?

July 17th, 2010 § 1 Comment

I’m struggling these days to bother with the shift key while typing emails at 80 WPM. Capitalisation on a touch device is even more annoying. Automation helps of course, but I wonder how soon before this important grammatical rule dies a death along with the header and footer of postal letters and the need to even address someone during an email conversation?

A SocialMedia Experiment

May 13th, 2010 § 10 Comments

I spent two years going to ThirtySeven Degrees gyms. In 2008/2009 I was at the London Bridge 37 degrees gym.

I was a happy if occasional attendee; in truth, I didnt go nearly enough and probably went only 5 or 10 times (work was a little busy at the time..but i digress).

Last May or so, I moved away from London (Tower) Bridge. Giving the gym 30 days notice, both in person and by email. I was assured all was OK.

When they called me (3 times) informing me of special events, I explained I was no longer a member. I even had sales calls asking me to rejoin, but I explained I no longer lived there.

No mention was given of a problem; indeed, why would there be?

May 2010, 9 months+ later I get a call from a debt collection agency demanding 2 months arrears subscription. Now, call me old fashioned, but I’m really f***ed off.  Assured that it was not a mistake and that “we will pursue you in court as it is up to you to prove to us that you told us you gave notice”, I have gone from a recommender and happy customer of 37 degrees, whom I gave nearly £2,000 (mostly clear profit as I rarely went to the gym), to someone who will forever recommend they are avoided.

Lets see how long it takes to respond and what they do, if anything, about it.

..perhaps they should have read my post last year on awesome customer service.

UDPATE – 3 weeks later, no reply anywhere

All I get is threatening phone calls from ARC Ltd (5 so far) a threatening letter from Trevor Munn the solicitor and a deadline to have a CCJ issued.

I must say I’m not the only one who feels cheated, http://www.london-se1.co.uk/forum/read/1/55833/page=16

Aside from my personal woes, this is a tragic #fail on brand management nor enagement. A quick look at their Facebook Fan page, shows not only 9 people, but entirely no response or engagement. Seriously, any brands reading this, you’re better off NOT setting up a page to start with than setting it up and ignoring the supposed “fans” on your group!

I’m going to try one more email direct to the gym, possibly to the Director Marketing, and then I guess I’ll see them in court!  Had a bad experience? Feel free to add to this blog post with your comments below!

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MacBook Pro: First 3 Days After Windows 7

May 7th, 2010 § 3 Comments

So I finally switched. Having had my Thinkpad x300 stolen on my 13th trip to Barcelona (at Mobile World Congress) then slumming it with a Netbook after the replacement Asus 3810T which I bought had a hard disk crash, I’ve defected to a shiny new Apple Mac Book Pro 2.66ghz 13inch dual core.

I’ve dabbled with Apple before, as early as a G4 desktop; but it as never been “quite right”. The upside never seemed up enough. I like the fact I can get into Microsoft Windows and configure everything and the glossy shininess of Apple has never been a primary reason for me to switch.

I want power, practicability and need everything to plug into to everything else. I use a Blackberry, but also an Android phone. I want my email and contacts synced, I use a plethora of apps and dont want to be “forced” to do things Apple’s way.

So in short, if you’re trying to decide, how has it gone for me? Well, thank god for Parallels Desktop (or you can use VMWare Fusion) which allows me to run XP or Windows 7). There are still things I need (eg. Quickbooks Accounts) which I cant run on Mac. It is not perfect doing this, but it is about as close as you can expect, with Windows programs running alongside the Mac native programs.

The Keyboard

I LOVE IBM Thinkpad keyboards, and Lenovo have kept them the same since they bought the brand from IBM. The MacBook keyboard, despite resembling Scrabble pieces, is not as bad as I expected, although it is not perfect. The keys ARE too raised and far apart…but I guess I will have to get used to it.

Browsing

It is quick. There is no question. Browsing is faster. Even using Firefox in OSX.

Quirks and Erks

The other software I’m still getting in to. The docking bar and its strange combination of minimisation when you click X on a window but it still keeps the program running; the inconsistent loading/install routine for programs (with Thunderbird being completely weird) is still bugging me. (Thunderbird btw is COMPLETELY unstable and I’m having to defect to Apple Mac Mail which is annoying me, despite it being a fast and clean program.

Screen

The screen is great.

Battery Life

The battery is NOT as advertised; I’ll be lucky to get 5 hours. 11 hours is a myth.

In Summary

Once I tuck into some design work or video editing I’m sure I’ll like it more, but thus far, thanks to Apple Macs, frankly becoming more like Windows machines, in terms of running non-Apple specific hardware (like mice) and supporting more diverse software (Blackberry has finally released a sync program) it has not SO FAR been painful.

However, that is as much because most of my apps are now in the cloud, as much as anything else.

If you’re thinking of switching, ask yourself why. And depending on the answer then make the decision. I’m not yet an Apple-ite and unlikely to be; but the general stability and speed, thus far, is giving me relief. Now I just need to get my remaining software etc setup… wish me luck.

Quick reference stuff to know:

  • The Good
  • My Dropbox works great
  • Parallel Windows works as advertised for XP or W7
  • Firefox plugins work great in OSX
  • Fast
  • Great looking interface
  • Much greater support for software and plugins over last 2 years
  • Inbuilt DVD player with no drawer to break
  • Super smooth DVD/HD playback
  • MACs now work with most PC peripherals (I said most, not all)
  • The Bad
  • Thunderbird is unstable (for me anyway)
  • Skype notification sounds you have to click down through the menu options to turn each one off
  • Growl is a notifications tool loaded into the system which provides popups for Tweetdeck and others
  • Battery does not last 11 hours or even 8
  • No delete key (you have to use Function + backspace)
  • No hash key (you have to use ALT + 3)  ..i mean, wtf?
  • The keyboard – AGAIN; really it is quite annoying
  • Expensive compared to PCs of similar spec
  • MAC mail needs a plugin (!) to show three column view, not two column view (google for it)
  • No hibernate support by default (again you need a plugin, i mean seriously? the Sleep mode uses battery)
  • Edge of the MacBook Pro case slices against my lazy wrists
  • Most control keys are via CMD command key not control, which is uncomfortably close to the space bar and too central
  • Return / enter key is a tad too small

Start-up Valuation & Investment Glossary 101

April 7th, 2010 § Leave a Comment

Just a link today; to an excellent brief on valuations and basic investing glossary for the uninitiated: http://www.thedailymba.com/2010/04/03/how-to-evaluate-a-startup-company/

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Trying To Be Nostradamus

March 31st, 2010 § Leave a Comment

It’s a funny feeling if you manage to predict the future.

One our famous prophets of doom, Nostradamus (more recently aided by the email chain letters of our modern age) must turn in his grave with glee every time he gets something right. These days we never know which are his original predictions, or convenient folly’s constituted moments before by a nerd exercising artistic license. I find the blogosphere pretty similar – you’re never quite sure where the predictions come from or their validity without checking first.

Nostradamus was a 16th century French pharmacist and astrologist, forecasting the doom and gloom of  disasters, but there have of course been many foresighted fellows in history predicting events far sooner and with greater accuracy.

Our enigmatic war leader Churchill, not only predicted Hitler’s aggression, but in a report to the newly involved Americans in 1942 outlined many of the major elements of the entire war to President Roosevelt in report ironically entitled WW1

This of course begs the question to what extent we predict but more so, influence, future events?

Walking to work this morning I noted all the website addresses on the doors of the shops and offices. I remember in 1997 confused to the point of despair why clients I spoke to (whose first website my then company was building) didn’t want to emblazon URLs on their shop fronts. It was the early days of the worldwide web, the future explosion of which young Andrew J Scott had no influence on; but other innovations I just may be contributing to.

Those unfortunate enough to know me well, have heard me bark on about location based services and mobile since 2002. After that it was how ‘who’s nearby is a commodity‘, more recently about the inevitable domination by Android (despite being labelled a virtual heretic by incensed Valley geeks drunk on iPhone cool-aid), and since 2006 I’ve been blabbering on about trust networks, filtering the noise and personalisation. People are certainly starting to talk about “context” the last two years, but Rummbles trust network technology (and its peers) is yet to make the real impact I know it will.

The point is throughout my peddling of these beliefs (most often over pints of beer after industry events) what actual impact do we have on their realisation? Clearly Mr Zuckerburgers belief in social networking has been at the epicentre of its own realisation. If it wasn’t for the lacklustre name it might even have become a verb as ‘Google’ has; being “Facebooked” sounds simply painful or expensive.

As for Nostradamus, he was doing a 1550 re-tweeting of a lot of other peoples work, based on a mix of classical and bible sources plus some circumstantial observational evidence of planet alignment, sort of when there was last a disaster they were in this position .. so next time they’re there we can surely expect another catastrophe.. sort of predication. Sounds like rock solid science to me.

Cartoon credit: unknown - please email me if you do!

At least in all his foresight Nostradamus rejected the label ‘prophet’ claiming: “Although I have used the word Prophet, I would not attribute myself a title of such lofty sublimity”. Of course, I have no prophetic gifts either. I have made some timely predictions but I simply chose to envelope myself in something very early on which is turning out to be important.

After all, if you’re working in the kitchen, it’s a whole lot easier to predict accurately when the lunch will actually be ready.

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How How To Avoid Making Mistakes Starting Your Own Business

March 16th, 2010 § 2 Comments

You guessed it, you can’t.  The point is, one mistake even if very very serious, rarely means a company will fail.

I was reading Mike Taber’s (@singlefounder) post about “The Single Most Important Secret To Success” and found myself writing this retort. My single most important secret must be: Surround yourself with awesome people. This in turn, also maximises your chances of making fewer mistakes.

Surround yourself with awesome people

I’m not one for management gurus or training particularly, but Tom Peters said it with more conviction and clarity than anyone else I’ve heard: [paraphrased]

A CEO has just ONE role in life: the recruitment, motivation and retention of awesome talent

He rightly sights that even if you do that but nothing else, you’ll not go far wrong. It’s hard finding great people, but you have to keep going until you do; and follow your gut instinct: for people atleast, it’s nearly always right.

Even with the best team, you’re going to make mistakes and so are they.

You’ll make mistakes..just try & spread them out

Mike Taber sighted running a startup like flying a plane: making lots of small adjustments to the instrument readings towards a set goal. Largely, I’d agree. His analogy went on that making a big mistake when flying (not fueling fully when going transatlantic) might be fatal, but other errors might not be:

You can recover from most mistakes, while others are going to be catastrophic. Forgot to refuel the plane before heading overseas? Probably catastrophic. Didn’t do the best SEO for your website? It will probably cost you more to acquire customers by using AdWords, but ultimately is probably not going to kill your business unless you screw that up as well. If you compound your mistakes, your chances of failure increase dramatically.

This is indeed, almost without exception, the same for plane accidents. Surely sometimes wings fall off or planes just crash? err, No. Here’s a good example. One of the best known crashes in recent years was Concorde.

Urban myth maintains that it was the metal from an American DC10 which was run over, jumped up and punctured an under wing fuel tank, while it took off from Paris, full of German tourists on a chartered trip of a lifetime.

That incident did indeed happen, but what the official reports didn’t highlight were that also 1) the plane was carrying too much fuel (it was overweight, that means slower acceleration down the runway, harder to climb to a safe altitude) 2) it was overloaded with luggage (overweight again, see previous) 3) the maintenance team had left critical guide runners off the undercarriage so the plane skewed left down the runway on take off (lower speed, more dangerous, see previous) 4) Air France had not fitted the new improved tougher tyres to their Concorde’s that British Airways had.

If Concorde had not been overweight at takeoff, the catastrophic accident might have been averted

Only now do we see the real picture. Had one or all of these other errors not occurred, the Concorde might well have been able to climb clear and ultimately land, on 3 or even 2 engines of its 4.

So very rarely is one error or even one human error the cause of a fatal accident. In nearly all cases it is a whole chain of problems or bad decisions, usually 4 or 5, which culminate in a crash. The same is true with business.

Mistakes can even be beneficial

Crazy as this sounds, I’ll give you one example. With customers you can actually create more loyalty from solving a mistake effectively with them, than if they never experienced a problem to start with.

So next time you make a mistake, don’t fret or self harm- just learn from it and try to prevent similar situations and look out for the silver lining…there usually is one hiding somewhere.

ou can recover from most mistakes, while others are going to be catastrophic. Forgot to refuel the plane before heading overseas? Probably catastrophic. Didn’t do the best SEO for your website? It will probably cost you more to acquire customers by using AdWords, but ultimately is probably not going to kill your business unless you screw that up as well.
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Le Web Enters Puberty

December 11th, 2009 § 2 Comments

With a funny mix of Frenchman in suits, Brits in jeans, Valley types in slacks and everything inbetween, Le Web has grown and grown since 2005. Like all things that grow it is changing and improving, along with a few teething troubles, as it finds its identity.

Preface

I was all psyched up to write a quick blog about the pros and cons of #LeWeb 2009; encouraged by @cathybrooks who righty reminded me that I must blog about it otherwise it wont actually improve. The hardcore blog community have pretty much covered it off (as if they ever weren’t going to).

NB: One of the best overviews I’ve read is David Sparks Cool / Not-So Cool Le Web @dspark who was one of the Travelling Geeks, over again from the U.S, alongside some European colleauges such as the ever cheerful @robinwauters who since I met him a couple of years ago when he first started Plugg, has become an omnipresent feature on the European tech scene- good thing too.

Overpaid, Over-Sexed and Over Here

The frequent visits from the U.S. by the travelling geeks during 2009, alongside @olibarrett ‘s Web Mission (which I was part of in its first year in 2008 and which has since spawned Digital Mission and others) is really helping bridge the digital atlantic. Europes and America’s Internet interactions are a spaghetti junction of crossover (and even more so between UK and America).

There is still no replacement for human interaction though – the relationships made through international attendance at Le Web and other outreach “missions” is vital for the West Coast to see outside it’s own bubble and critical to Europe becoming less risk averse. Might sound obvious, but I’ve never seen this many U.S. geeks, investors, angels and net Founders in Europe so regularly- let me know if I’m wrong!

It is helping Europe be able to build the biggest online and mobile success stories of the next decade. Whenever I mention we’re not building enough succesful start-ups, someone shouts “What about Skype!” .  Well, when the majority of you can reel off 10 similar successes (as most people can for U.S. internet successes) then I’ll pipe down.

This Europe versus USA debate has -as ever- been raging on, a subject which I’ll post on next week – meanwhile the wonderfully British humoured @paulcarr ran a European Gang panel (link to videos) which did what it was intended to do: create debate. Both Mike Butcher and Brent Hoberman gave good contributions.

View of the main hall Le Web 09

Main hall at Le Web 09 (Photo credit: @rougefrog)

Back to Le Web. Rummble (my company) had a presence with Microsoft in their BizSpark lounge alongside Huddle, WAYN and companies from the U.S. such as Xobni. There were start-up sessions, a main room, a side room and appropriate French finger food; but I’ll round off with a quick fire list of the good and the bad, just incase @loic or @geraldine bump into this post…

#awesome

  • WiFi
    Seriously, this must be the ONLY European conference to have got this so right all year. Fast, free and worked anywhere in the building. Congrats.
  • Continous, free, streaming of event
    Available at www.leweb.net streaming to the world. Brilliant.
  • PR
    LeWeb is now officially a BIG event of the year in the tech sector worldwide. Arguable, almost over-hyped as it has too much to live up to now…well, better than under-hyped, right? ;-)
  • Badges
    Double sided badges, ‘nuff said.
  • Enthusiasm
    Loic and his possie are always enthusiastic and despite his scuttling off to the goldmines of the west coast (and why not?) running Le Web, while I’m sure profitable, can only be great for Europe.

il était bon

  • Food. Although no plates and a toothpick to stab jambon is a little tiresome. I didn’t mind eating with my fingers but I hear some grumbles. 2007 the food was #awesome and people complained it was too good..so I guess you cant win.
  • Screens. Big film on screens, good sound system, big room and generally enough seats.
  • Timing. Things ran pretty much to time and there was enough time to network too.

devons faire mieux

(must do better)

  • Audience Q&A.
    Simply was not enough, if any, on the main conference stage. A room full of bright tech savvy people who’ve paid lots of money to be there – atleast 50% of the stage time should be based on audience input IMHO.
  • Sponsored speeches.
    I dont care if someone gets stage time for sponsoring, but ffs say something of consequence of ensure the speaker knows how to speak. The first day sessions after Jack were not only boring but like watching an upmarket shopping channel but without the energy. Awful.
  • Wasted screen time.
    Lunchtime had a cycling animation. Why not have 2 minute pitches of all the start-ups playing which didn’t make it into the competition final? .. just one use for the screen time and captive audience sat there than some silly cartoon.
  • Not enough Euro-Startup coverage.
    There are TONS of European start-ups desperate to get coverage. You could ram them in Techcrunch50 style in a row of pods and make it free for them to come.
  • Cost.
    Speaking of startups, it is expensive. I spotted a 750 euro ticket (750!!!) a couple of weeks before, for start-ups. I wasnt sure if I could go so had to wait, then luckily managed to get a discount to 895 euros; but that is a LOT of money. It is the most I’ve paid for any conference and I’m not sure with hindsight it will be worth it. We’ll see. Of course, these things cost a lot of money to hold and Geraldine is not a charity – Le Web is a business. I’d just like to see more imaginative discounts for start-ups. Sure, we’re a “we want everything free” bunch are we not … weren’t you when you ran a start up?

I have to thank @loic and Microsoft personally for arranging me a last minute ticket when Microsoft invited me to take BizSpark space (although before you all email Loic next year for a freebee, I was a paid up attendee – see above). BTW, start-ups reading – apply for BizSpark as this sort of support is just one of many benefits…

So onward next year to Le Web 2010.  Big name speakers bring the press and get coverage; but content must maintain its quality. Innovation comes from the grass roots and I think Europe would do well to better showcase it’s star up talent to the main audience more boldly.

Think about it: If you’re a Silicon Valley citizen and you’re travelling all the way to Europe, you want to learn and see what you dont back in the bubble. Be bold Europe—let’s showcase our own talent and what WE believe the next big brands are—it’s great to bring Jack (and his very innovative new start-up Square) to a European audience, but the majority should be the names of the European space, not a busmans holiday for the U.S. bloggers. We need their attention, indeed we want their contribution- but in the context of our own digital leaders blasting a path on stage, imho.

Photo of Andrew J Scott and Andy McCloughin from Huddle

Catching up with the internet superhighway opposite @bandrew, Founder of Huddle (Photo Credit: http://rougefrog.com/ )

Et enfin ..

Most importantly and what I missed most – let the audience contribute. You have a room of 500+ CEOs, though leaders and entrepreneurs at any one time, all listening to the questions of 1 person to the verbal prose of 2 or 3. 500 people will come up with better questions than any one person could…and anyway, we paid. It is our questions we want answered.  EVERY session should have 30-50% of it’s time Q&A. Keeps people awake, increases chance of original content, questions and answers. Let’s democratise Le Web just a little bit more….in real-time ;-)

So much for not writing a full blog post. See you there next year.

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