thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

I was on Twitter a couple of years ago and terminated my account after a few days as there was no one the network. I should have kept my account but who could have foreseen what has happened.

Twitter has had a huge rise in popularity in the past 6 months as celebrities and wannabes flock to jump on the bandwagon.

Despite the usual reservations that go with engaging in another layer of communications it is worthwhile setting up a twitter account to keep an eye on some of the players in your patch.

In a business context having access to a partially qualified SMS style list of “followers” which are like subscribers certainly has some attractions.

I’m told by some Vodafone customers that twittering via their phones is possible / I thought that was an SMS function but might be a different way.

I use Twitterrific which is a mini application on an iTouch and that keeps it all away from the desktop.

From my experiences the real time aspect works best when there is instant feedback on an idea or a question. There is always crossover between business and personal and many of the best tweeters can mix both.

Especially after work hours it becomes more of a social water cooler and can be an instant alert if for example something is on teev that is amusing or there are some good guests on Jon Stewart for example.

Updates or “tweets” that I hate the most are ones which are “something interesting here go to the link. ” Yeah right you’re off my list buddy.

Originally there was a reciprocity concept – if someone follows you you follow them back but now there are so many time wasters on the system that it is better not to “follow” them.

Note: If you don’t follow someone you won’t see their updates.

Because of the 140 character limit it is mostly impossible to know what that link is and also it it way better if the tweet offers some instant information such as “a status” which is what it was designed for.

One person who has written two very useful summaries on the topic is Lance Wiggs so here they are:

How NOT to Twitter if you are a corporation
(VodafoneNZ account got hijacked by an idiot for a project)
and
How to twitter if you are a corporation
Lance is on the money with both posts but check the comments also as this is a fast moving river.

How to take advantage of Twitter

The real power of Twitter is the 1-1 interactions, and yet there are only so many people that sit in corporate relations units. Moreover their job should not be to look after every tech nerd’s customer complaint, nor to understand every bizarre happening on the internet”

Some NZ related tweets you may want to check out are

@lawgeeknz / Rick Shera

@TeamXero / Team Xero

@VodafoneNZ Vodafone – could be safe again if Paul Brislen has that account back but see How not to link first.

@lancewiggs / Lance Wiggs

@bernardchickey Finance – Interest rates

@gnat / Nat Torkington – conference maestro

@dialogCRM Jason Kemp which is me by way of comparison. As a media watcher my tweets are fairly random and wide ranging whereas most of the others on this list are more business focussed.

Many people operate corporate and private twitter accounts. Best to read the Lance Wiggs posts and comments to find out if that works.

Thanks for comments by Piero – check his stream out below.

@piero_ / Piero – strategic planner http://www.thewhispershop.co.nz/

Looks like you have visited before, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks again

This morning I was one of several thousand people who crossed the Auckland Harbour Bridge by foot and cycle.

There was everyone from babies to grandparents waiting patiently until about 9:45 when 8 break away cyclists crossed from Shelly beach anyway.

Very good to meet @rowsell who is cycling from Bluff to North Cape to raise awareness and funds for the Spinal Unit.  Good luck for the trip Vaughan. 

@ksuyin and @gnat were also there. Apparently Rod Oram and David Slack also. At one point I walked alongside ARC chairmain Mike Lee.

@rowsell on Auckland Harbour Bridge

Here is a photo of Vaughan Rowsell on the bridge from his twitter stream.

Seems like the official words was NO. Which predictably promted the opposite result.

“Wayne McDonald, the Auckland regional director for the New Zealand Transport Agency had repeatedly told those gathered they would not be permitted to cross the bridge, but …”NZ Herald

In my view the NZTA mismanaged this and ended up blocking 4 lanes when they could have kept everyone on two.

If I remember my reading of “The Prince” correctly this could have been so they can say they were outnumbered and keep face as well as hoping that the blowback from annoyed motorists might cause some friction.

Of course I couldn’t possibly say that but considering the smart thing was to say YES it does seem like a natural consequence that might benefit more debate.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge is 50 years old. Despite plans for rail, cycles and foot traffic it has been cars only all the way. Despite reports no progress has been made and so perhaps todays protest might help.

I first crossed Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1985 and most visits I am then I walk or cycle across. It is never crowded but when petrol hist $2 per litre again it will be sorely needed.

The Transport Agency should drop the “Road” part from their name. Might help them find out what their “mission” is. They think it’s roads for cars.

We think otherwise. It was a nice day for a Sunday morning walk.  Thanks to the organisers and the police who for the most part were very helpful.

Update 25th May: I did tell one official telling a child that they’d have something to talk about for morning report. Despite the potential for upsets most people seemed very sensible and restrained all things considered.

Like most of the people there I was unsure if they were an official NO or not.

I assumed that when people moved forward that permission had been granted.

The really big surprise was the way in which most media have reported on a historic event which for everyone there was a celebration of people power and possible change.

I just watched a TV presenter from TV1 here attack the protestors rep, the police and the RTA representative. That kind of reactionary behaviour might make a news programme more drmatic but it is also a key factor in why mainstream media is losing its grip.

Considering estimates of people on the bridge range from 2,000-5,000 there was no shortage of people who could have been asked about their morning walk.

I rather preferred this view in Burn Fat – Not Oil – As David Slack writes

“What we asked for was the chance to ride and walk across the bridge and remind everyone that there are other ways of moving Aucklanders around their city.

We say our way is healthier, cheaper, and kinder to the planet.

We say that it’s time to do some fresh thinking. Time and time again, the only mode of transport that gets the lion’s share of public funding is the almighty car.

Even though it costs a fortune. And even though the oil is running out.

Cycle lanes could do us so much good, and make so much economic sense in the long run, it’s remarkable, really, that we’re having to argue over the soundness of them.”

Thanks David.

A few weeks back I noticed a review on Techcrunch about OpenTable. That company IPO’d last week raising $70m to fund their growth.

“On OpenTable you can search for immediate openings in a given neighborhood. Most online reservations sites have an hour cut off because the systems have to sync together. But OpenTable is the restaurant’s system.

It’s the first time I’ve seen OpenTable actually do something for me as a diner that I couldn’t have done any other way, and the new location-aware iPhone app makes that functionality all the more powerful.”

The idea of being able to have commercial messaging to customers passing nearby has always had huge business appeal.   If my memory is correct it was part of the sizzle around WAP phones in the rush to buy frequencies that never really amounted to much back in 2000.

Not for the first time – technologists had over promised. Still much to the surprise of Telcos SMS messaging really took off since the costs were low enough to encourage all kinds of new uses and since data and voice charges were still too high for most of us.

There is a very good idea that businesses which are set-up to solve a problem often do much better than ones that work around the edges.

I’ve heard this described as the “better to have a pain killer than a bottle of vitamins” approach. (Hat tip to John O’Hara)

Point being the product need/result is instantly understood by a far greater market  size and that makes converting marketing activity to sales results a dream.

So a very good place to start with understanding or creating a new business is to examine the business model. Does it solve an easily identified need or need problem and who would the natural customers be? leading on to how do we get to those people and all the usual marketing and operation delivery challenges.

Open Table offers a service that is not readily available outside US, Canada, Mexico or UK at present but see here for a list which shows a small number in other countries and both China and France are listed so they have licensees but no live sites yet.

So what are the benefits?

• Save time with automated reservations
• Improve service with a powerful guest database
• Maximize efficiency with table management tool
• Attract repeat business with email marketing
• Join the network that seats 2 million diners monthly
• Gain exposure from more than 75 partners

Most of these benefits come from joining a network and the amplification and network benefits of timely information flow on that circuit.

Even though New Zealand is not one of the international territories using OpenTable restaurant booking software it is is only a matter of time before some one here wakes up and sees the opportunity.

I’d guess that there a a large number of restaurants in New Zealand who don’t have any real software based booking system. This is a compelling reason to get one very quickly.

In essence pushing bookings data from other systems out to the web should be that difficult and many restaurant application vendors should be able to do this but the real genius is to push to mobile phones

If you have an iPhone or iTouch you can at least download the free application onto your device and have a look at how it all works.

I did this myself a few days ago and checked out some tables in Anchorage Alaska. I was very impressed until I got to the menu section and realised I couldn’t “pop” that  page out to my Safari browser on the iTouch.

The reason for viewing in a web browser is to view in landscape mode and enlarge text so it can be read. Twitterific does this kind of thing very well.

On the other hand – if I knew the restaurants and was really a local I would be less interested in the menu than can I get a booking which is the primary service being offered.

Net result  - the Open Table business model is transparent and easy to  buy the story so $70m of funding at a time when there is a lot of doom and gloom in the business community.

I also couldn’t help thinking about Open Source versions of this kind of software and I know that could be done.

Being in New Zealand and Australia I wondered what  other kind of project might be around of this kind. There is a list over at secret sauce* and Taggle looks very interesting in this regard

“A Taggle is a very low-cost tag that enables consumers, enterprises and governments to use the internet to track the location and status on almost any asset.

Taggle Systems (formerly Widentifi) was founded by some of Australia’s leading wireless technology entrepreneurs and is funded by two venture capital firms and private investors.

Secret Sauce has provided a CEO that has led the company through product definition, design and development of a complex hardware and silicon chip solution, business planning and multiple funding rounds.”

I remember reading about bicycle security in Amsterdam many years ago and how there were small GPS devices that could be installed ina  bike and used to trace them when stolen.

Last time I was in Sydney I had my worst ever taxi ride.  I needed to go 3 km to a venue and the driver got lost numerous times.  The car had GPS but only for security reasons.  Can I suggest the most important asset for a tax driver especially in Sydney is GPS for navigation!! After 90 mins I finally got to the location but that trip ruined the day  totally.

An excellent example of going for the vitamin rather than the pain killer.

*Secret Sauce is also a brilliant looking company. On their website they describe themselves as:

“Secret Sauce is an entrepreneurial partner for the commercialisation of intellectual property.

We find intellectual property that has commercial value, determine the best path to market then generate revenue through licensing deals, IP sales and the creation of new ventures.”

I have also been very impressed to reacquaint myself with the people at EveredgeIP who are based in Auckland.

Please we need more Open Tables  in ANZAC land – lets get some more useful applications into the Appstore.

Update: A version of this is also over at Idealog Magazine Blog

Most of my work is online and so once a new activity is in train the follow on step is to find ways to speed up the process so that I can scale up my work.

Sometimes this is because I can offer a new service if I can reinvent a process in a smart way but more often than not it is just to fit everything in.

Here are 4 ways that I get to work a bit smarter and faster during the day. It would be great to hear what works for you.

1. One trick I use is to have two computers going most of the time. I use a PC and a Mac as I often have to test online content in different ways but really some things just work better on a particular combination.
2. For web browsers on the PC I have Internet Explorer8 which I only use for testing as it chews all of the system resources and I used to prefer Firefox as it was better and then it too got a memory leak. I also tried Safari and Chrome on the PC but most of the time I use Opera which is little known but doesn’t seem bloated and is faster most of the time.  I use Safari, Opera and Firefox on the Mac – mostly Safari.
3. Use iTouch (or iPhone) applications on wireless for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter* and Joost plus numerous other device tuned applications. This is much faster and keeps ram and other system resource on your computer available for other applications.
4. Use iTouch for email on IMAP so I can delete (from server) and fast respond to emails on the fly when I wandering around or taking a break from the desk.

I was very late to get an Ipod mainly because I’ve had a good stereo for ever and I can never get comfortable with any earplugs.  I even use SKYPE with the inbuilt mic and speakers on the Mac because I don’t like normal headphones either.

* So many twitter applications. The impression is that most twitter innovations come from people like twitteriffic and others on mobile platforms. I’m using the Version 2 in premium edition which has no ads but the free versions seems fine as well.

However the second generation iTouch has speakers and a very nice screen for video podcasts from TED or Joost. I use wireless broadband rather than a phone data connection because I get 25GB allowance every month and its just smarter to use that first when I can.

From time to time I still login using a web browser for Facebook or other social media type applications but much of the value comes from a frequent and high level view of events rather which is faster and easier on a mobile device.

BTW I’m most impressed with videos from the Joost platform. There is an iPhone / iTouch application for Joost which is very impressive for video streaming. Much better than YouTube which is all clogged up.

Joost tends to get overlooked  with much of the buzz coming from Hulu (although we can’t view that outside the U.S) but I’m picking it has some clever back end systems which make it smarter and less traffic helps as well.

So, would any of these approaches work for you? or do you have some online productivity tricks to share?