Musings from a startup entrepreneur

These insights from a successful, start-up CEO (Dharmesh Shah of Hubspot) on made me nod in agreement and chuckle: Startups: 10 Things MBA Schools Won't Teach You:

I particularly liked the following points - which I paraphrase:

2. Start-ups need to be clear about what they are not doing.
Everyone knows that a business plan is an extremely creative piece of literature that projects lot of results about lots of decisions made in the future. The purpose of writing business plans to primarily to do lots of thinking about scenarios so that when you reach a decision cross roads, some of the factors to be considered might be familiar to the management team - thereby preventing either paralysis or constantly switching strategy.

5. Pricing is discovered in the market
ie in customer conference rooms in pre-sales, in project planning meetings with customers, NOT in Excel in the office!

6. "Every time you add a new product or product option a small part of your company dies"
It just becomes messier on virtually every front! Treat product extensions with caution!

7. Marketing is about more than .... the right shade of blue for your logo.
Oh, the hours that have been spent on colour palettes, the depth of drop shadowing, the size of the font on the slogan underneath the corporate logo. It makes me want to pound the table and cry!

Weakness of Crowd Funding

Crowd funding is now a recognised mechanism for raising entrepreneurial money. However I remain sceptical of its merits. Raising money in the public domain (or rather semi-public domain - it isn't quite an wide open-access web page with every excruciating detail listed) doesn't fill me with confidence.

At its best, it may well find  a niche for public service initiatives or for social enterprises.

I wouldn't favour crowd funding for these reasons.

1. Too many investors make for a lot of overhead
Having been a co-founder of a start-up, presenting to potential investors, soliciting feedback and answering questions were interesting for the first, second or third time. However, it did become a slog. I was delighted that my fellow co-founder, Simon Grice, led our fund raising efforts. As for dealing with investors, taking their telephone calls, responding (nicely as possible) to their emails was, in general - some exceptions did exist, a massive time soak.

Investors do have a right to question the management team on their progress and their strategy. Given that investment in early stage start-ups is illiquid and investors can't, for all practical purposes, sell their shares, they must pitch into the business and help it out. However, throwing stones at their investment is destructive - it debilitates the very thing that they are trying to nurture and soaks up time from the key members of the management time are really required to focus on the business of making the company successful, rather than fighting 'internal' battles.

Christian Salaman, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP: expressed it elegantly : "The sophisticated entrepreneur does not want dozens of cooks in the kitchen."

This raises an interesting question: is crowd funding useful for an 'unsophisticated' entrepreneur'? In reality no, an 'unsophisticated' entrepreneur would be best to surround his company with a bevy of mentors before going into the lion's den of a crowd funding round.


2. Issue of Confidentially
Crowd-funding means that many more people have access to the 'magic sauce' that makes your business special. If it is a low-tech or a life-style business then the 'magic sauce' is the management team's personnel, their connections, their knowledge of the market etc. High-tech businesses, on the other hand, are likely to build intellectual property which is in greater danger of being pinched by others.

So crowd funding is not suitable if there are first mover advantages in the market.

3. Higher transaction costs
Deals are likely to be smaller and therefore the legal cost of executing an investment transaction are likely to be proportionally higher.

Here's the perspective from the US lawyers.

Attorney Brian Korn, of counsel at Pepper Hamilton LLP said in this article Is Crowd funding Dead On Arrival? A Legal Perspective:

It puts big deal procedures and liability on small deals. The expense of complying with crowd funding, combined with the low issuer maximum that can be raised ($1 million over a trailing 12 month period) will be prohibitive for most issuers.

I would estimate crowd funding expenses would surpass 15% or 20% on many transactions.

Only those transactions that cannot be done by any other means will be done through crowd funding, which potentially will make the crowd funding issuer universe potentially a world of dregs, cast-offs and Hail Marys. This lays the riskiest investments at the doorstep of those investors that can least afford the risk.  

Teens are bored with Facebook, but Mr Zuckerburg needn't be worried

According to this article on Business Insider, teens are losing interest in Facebook and they're seeking a more private, intimate place to share with close friends. (Let's face it if your Dad's on Facebook, it can't be cool!)

Instead they are becoming obsessed by Instagram and Snapchat. Fortunately for Facebook, Mr Zuckerberg personally negotiated the purchase Instagram for sweet $2bn in April 2012 (see TheNextWeb article on the acquisition story).

Length of phone call drops and texting will decrease

The Register reports that call duration on Vodafone's network has dropped from over 3 minutes to 1 minute 40 seconds (see Mobile phone calls shorter).

Researching this issue further, fixed line voice minutes (not the same as duration obviously) have been cannbalised by the existance of mobile phones - no surprises there.

This interesting bar chart from the Economist from Hanging up - Reports of the death of the phone call are greatly exaggerated.


Notice that voice consumption - regardless of device - is dropping. The Economist's report notes that this decrease is matched by an explosion in texting. In the future, I anticipate that we shall look back and see that voice and texting have been in decline since 2010 as communication via data mushrooms.

See also this from Ofcom's The Communications Market Report from July 2012 from James Thickett, Ofcom's Director of Research:

'Our research reveals that in just a few short years, new technology has fundamentally changed the way that we communicate. Talking face to face or on the phone are no longer the most common ways for us to interact with each other.

'In their place, newer forms of communications are emerging which don't require us to talk to each other especially among younger age groups. This trend is set to continue as technology advances and we move further into the digital age.'In short, the arrival of each new generation of technology impacts incumbent technology and after a short period of innovation and experimentation, users work out the most efficient / optimal new mix of technologies at their disposal.'

The new kid on the block - 4G
I remain concerned about the potential success of 4G - there is the need for the quantity of data being transmitted, but I don't see the need for the speed. And Network operators do need to do a much better job of data pricing. As I have mentioned before (see Orange (at last) has a common sense data plan) unlimited policies provide no upper ceiling and are open to abuse. And abuse by 1% will account for a disproportionate cost of serving that content (ie video!).

Hybrids unveiled at CES Show in Las Vegas

After my previous post on hybrids (Netbook + Tablets Hybrids) in early December, the Consumer Electroncs Show occurred in Las Vegas at the start of January.

Below are some machines that caught my eye from explosion of tablet-esque devices announced.


4. Dell XPS 12

Basically an better Duo (ie an ultrabook) with a faster processor and Windows 8. For £999 (ouch!). The Register gives it a favourable review.

What I do like is this feature:

The XPS 12 shares a hardware feature with the Microsoft Surface tablet that really improves the Windows 8 user experience: a recessed Windows home button below the screen. Press it and the display swaps between the traditional desktop and the Modern tile-based UI no matter which way the screen is facing.

Also with SSD memory plus Windows 8 boot time is a mere 14 seconds!! (I wander what is the boot time from hibernation?)






5. Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga
This Ultrabook whose hinges allow the screen to rotate 180 degrees to make the tablet - ie the keyboard on the bottom - a feature that I don't care for.


The Register review like it too and mentions:

• Boots in 15 secs
• 6 hours of battery life in casual use
• 1.5kg+ in weight
• Suggested Price: £1000

Exuberance about 3D Printing

I have been passively following the 3D Printing excitement. 3D Printing is a a new method of printing a thin layer of plastic onto a surface - if repeated the layers can build up and a finished object can result. The image above came an article in Forbes:  3D-Printing Firm Makerbot Cracks Down On Printable Gun Designs

Enthusiasm abounds for 3D Printing:

• Here's the story from the Economist of a PhD student at MIT building a grandfather clock. He took it off the printer, hung it on the wall, pulled the weight and it ticked! (The Printed World - Three-dimensional printing from digital designs will transform manufacturing and allow more people to start making things)
• Here's another from the Daily Telegraph: Make your own: the 3D printing revolution.

I have been less than enthusiastic about its potential to radically reshape manufacturing industries + inject trillions of dollars back into the manufacturing industries of the First World.

This article from the Technology Review,  The Difference Between Makers and Manufacturers, (thanks to Tim Minshall for pointing it out) spells out the reason why this technological innovation requires some product management / marketing acumen to bring this advance to market effectively.

.... truly advanced products more typically come about when designers and inventors understand manufacturing processes. “You can create a CAD design,” he says, “but you need to understand what a production process can and can’t do.”

Many types of manufacturing require a sophisticated series of steps and processes to be done in precise sequence. Selecting the right materials and technologies is key to high-quality, low-cost results. If designers don’t understand the manufacturing processes and materials that are practical, they will never come up with the most advanced and compelling new products. It’s a lesson that has been repeatedly learned over the last decade in the development of new clean-energy technologies. Innovators may create smart designs for technologies such as solar panels, but ignoring the costs and practical details of manufacturing the new products is a sure path to failure.

Real world usage for 3D Printing:

• Rapid Development
• Prototyping
• Rapid Feedback
• One-off of craftmanship

Litmus Test for B2C User Interfaces

A while ago, I was discussing the User Interface (UI) / User Experience (UX) with a friend who was building a B2C internet service. We're discussing the user process flow through the service's most critical feature.

Whilst building a B2C service at Midentity, I was handed some painfully humiliating lessons about the level of (in)competence of my users / what they understood about my product and its features / how much information they retained when they moved from screen to screen.

I emphasised to my good friend the very high standard of the user experience that is required for a B2C service. It has to be crystal clear.

My user experience litmus test

Here's the ideal usage scenario vs the actual scenario

Ideal Usage	Actual Usage
User is focussed on the task in hand	User is insanely multi-tasking: Intermittent interruptions on the computer - possibly Skype logins popping up or irritating pop-ups due to the number of browser taskbars / browser extensions or adware Fanatical Facebook or Twitter usage: following posts, commenting on pictures, Facebook IM etc Constant text messages interruptions - all of which require immediate response. Emails arrive that need to be responded to Possibly telephone calls as well - these might on a desk phone as well as the mobile phone. Background music - or if the user has headphones on, it might be 'foreground' music
Timely Completion of Task User concentrates on the task in hand without huge gaps between each step	Intermittent Usage Significant breaks in usage User walks away half way through registration. They return 30 mins later (ie their machine requires them to log in again). They look at the screen and wonder, 'What on earth am I trying to achieve from this service again??'
User has clear understanding what the service provides	Very hazy comprehension of the service  User skim read the home page and thought the site looks cool, so ploughed into the user registration If it doesn't follow their preconceived expectations, the user will exit and say that 'the service was confusing to use', when, in truth, the user failed to follow instructions however clear they were.
Clear understanding of what parts of the user will benefit from	User discovers the product's benefits by using it, not be reading about it. Access to help must be very close at hand Service must protect the user from their own silliness (ie lots of defensive logic and error checking)

What's the difference between B2C and B2B UX?

B2B users are paid to use your product or service. They are much more compelled to read the instructions / follow the process / get it right. They may have distractions but, in general, these will be much less than in the B2C environment.

 Recommendations 

• Use your product in the Actual Usage mode above - even better get your love one to use your product in the  Actual Usage mode - and prepared to be depressed!
• Every screen needs to be self supporting ie don't conclude that the user knew what button they pressed to get to the current screen OR why they pressed it originally. 
• Revisage constant restarts (eg multiple registrations, forgotten password requests half way through registration). 
• Watch 'virigin' / untouched new users as often as you can.
• Use focus groups.
• BUT be wary, users will say they want X functionality, but once produced never use it.
• Groups are also susceptible to Group Think ie one person makes a suggestion and the group conforms to that opinion, even if all the individuals individually don't profess to have that opinion.
• Track what users actually do, not what they say they do.

Any suggestions from elsewhere?

Trust and Trustworthiness - one begats the other and vice versa

A BBC article poses this question: Which comes first - trust or trustworthiness? It's an excellent article which summarises the major points of the discussion and asks, "How can we restore trust?".

The answer:

1. Be trustworthy.
2. Provide others with good evidence that you are trustworthy.

As Abraham Lincoln pointed out, "You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

So how do you build evidence that you are trustworthy?

Things are harder when we have to decide whether to trust experts, or complicated institutional processes. Here we often can't find or judge the evidence by ourselves.

So the argument runs: 

We need more accountability and more transparency. Both can be helpful, but both can also obfuscate rather than make it easier to judge others' likely trustworthiness. 

Systems of accountability won't make trust easier unless people have reason to trust these systems. If they are too complex or designed for other purposes - as they often are - most of us will find it difficult to follow them, and it's hard to know whether they are trustworthy guides. They may damage professional performance - as a midwife commented recently, it takes longer to do the paperwork than to deliver the baby and that's surely the wrong way around.

Transparency is another fashionable remedy, and has become technically easy. It can be achieved merely by pushing information into the public domain. But as lots of people will not find the information, or will find it obscure, or will not be able to work out whether to trust it, transparency is no guarantee that others will be more likely to trust.

Web 2.0 functionality of user ratings (eg ebay ratings) is certainly a great way of demonstrating transparency. These systems work well when trading commodities, when one is assessing the individual trader alone and not the product or service. When the products or services become more complex or more subjective, Web 2.0 opinions can merely muddy the transparency puddle further.

Internet Trends from Mary Meeker

Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, published her '2012 Internet Trends Year-End Update'



The full presentation is on Slideshare, first seen on Venturebeat.

Here are some of the figures that caught my eye:

• 2.4 billion Internet users with 8% year on year growth. 500 million of these (ie 20%) are in China - this only represents 40% of penetration in China.
• Let's contrast China's figures with the US: 250 million users with only 3% annual growth with a penetration of 78%.
• 29% of adults in the US now own either a tablet or an e-reader.
• Mobile devices now account for 13% of worldwide internet traffic - 4% in 2010. In India, mobile Internet traffic now exceeds desktop Internet traffic.
• The graph above shows the dominance of Windows and Intel in the 90s and early 2000s - and the explosion in Android devices.
• The number of landlines peaked in 2006 with 1.3 billion.
• In 2102, it is estimated that 2 billion bluetooth devices were shipped (up 87 times in 10 years); 1.5 billion Wi-fi devices were shipped (up 5 times in 4 years)
• By Q2 2013 it is esimated that the number of Smartphones + Tablets will exceed the number of PCs in the world.
• If 2,000 zettabytes was created and shared in 2011 then 8,000 zettabytes are estimated to be shared in 2015. (1 zettabyte = 1 trillion zettabytes).
• In 2006, Nokia Symbian operating system was shipped on 65% of smartphones (globally). By 2012, 65% of smartphones were shipped on Android and another 20% were shipped on iOS

Linux Mint - the best Linux Desktop

My enthusiasm for Linux Mint has many other admirers.

I declared that 2012's Best Linux desktop was Linux Mint 13. I've changed my mind since then. Now, I think the best desktop Linux is Linux Mint 14.1. I'll be telling you more about it in the next few days.

said by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on ZDNET

In their usual style, The Register declared, The year GNOMES, Ubuntu sufferers forked off to Mint Linux.

Great Questions to ask when being interviewed for a product manager position

I read this post post, 5 Questions Great Job Candidates Ask  and thought about the great questions a product manager candidate might ask their interviewer. (FWIW, this article was linked from another one, The Perfect Job Interview in 8 Simple Steps.)

1. What do you expect me to accomplish in the first 60 to 90 days?

A cracking question because this frames the deliverables in a reasonably tightframe. It also gets the interviewer to think about how practical it is to start the job:

1. What processes are in place today (ie existing deliverables / answers, processes and coherence)?
2. What is chronically missing (that you'd be expected to put in place) - and how easy is that to fix?
3. What training exists?
4. W|hat support can be anticipated from the rest of the organisation?
5. And how important does the rest of the organisation consider your position?
   
   

You might want to compare the answers that you receive with this Cambridge Product Management Session - 'What a Product Manager does on the first day / week / month / quarter in their new role' which I lead in March 2011.

2. What are the common attributes of your top performers?

This answer indicates what gets respected as individuals: flashes of inspiration, technical genius, landing whale-sized deals, customer service and support, diligence and attention to detail or slogging one's guts out??

Great candidates want to know, because

1. they want to know if they fit
2. if they do fit, they want to be a top performer.

3. What are a few things that really drive results for the company?

This sniffs out what's important for the organisation as whole. In many ways, it's better question than 2, because it indicates the organisation's current strengths and weaknesses.

4. Can you give me an example of a new product that didn't live up to expectations? And what happened next?

So, the interviewee is uncovering how are failures / sub-optimal events handled

Lots of things can be inferred here:

1. Fame or fire culture?
2. Does the company collect and use (and reuse) data? Does it know what to collect? And from whom? How frequently is this done? Is data collection / analysis a one-off event or welded into the day-to-day business?
3. Does the company learn from mistakes?

5. If the same thing (ie failed product launch) happened today, what would happen tomorrow?

I'd recommend that this question is asked after you've got the answer to the first one!
This indicates the maturity of the organisation and its recognition of the constant need for improvement.

It would be OK if the answer to question 4 and 5 are wildly different if the organisation is young or in a rapidly moving market.

Mainframes to client server to Web to mobile & apps

The Register carries a thought provoking article called Mobile devices bring back that old client-server feeling.

The article notes the parallel between today's mantra of "any time, any place, anywhere", referring to access on desktops and mobile devices to the trend in the late 80s / early 90s of client-server which shifted applications from mainframes and green screens to elegant Windows GUI rendering.

In both cases, the server (or the cloud, if you will) holds the data and the end device accommodates the rendering and the user experience.

The article mentions two problems of client-server era.

Problem 1: Over the years, of course, the realisation dawned that client-server brought with it as many problems as it solved. As client machines multiplied, developers ended up having to develop and test for a whole range of workstation specs and environments, and whenever something changed operations staff had to worry about getting new versions of software out to every desktop.

Problem 2: As support became more complicated and users discovered that an intelligent client with local storage meant they could create their own little offline empire, the overhead, costs and risks began to escalate. 

Neither of these have gone away. In fact Problem 1 is significantly worse today. With more Operating Systems (desktops and mobile devices) and much shorter release cycles (with the expectation of backward compatibility) and Bring Your Own Device. Oh and then throw in SaaS and complex interactivity between multiple data stores.

Problem 2 still exists - but I think it has generally been cracked as replication / synchronisation is so commonplace now. (BTW, I'm delighted to be corrected by those in the know - please comment below)

The rise of the Web

And do you remember the craze that lampooned client-server? Why, internet + web + HTML, of course, which in its early implementation, the client was dumb (or 'thin' in the parlance).

'So much easier / faster to develop and deploy' was the cry from the development trenches.

History is repeating itself again.

Instagram and Facebook mess up on digital ownership

Two days ago, I mentioned Facebook's desmise in my post about Digital Lockers and Personal Digital Identity, most probably due to its clumsy / haphazard approach to users' privacy.

And lo, barely had I hit submit, when Instagram (owned by Facebook) changed its T&Cs to grant Instagram licensing rights to sell all photographs taken by the application. (From the Register: Don't use Instagram, it'll sell YOUR photos)

The reactionary vitriol from its user base demanded that Instagram did an about turn within 24 hours:

Instagram users own their content and Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos. Nothing about this has changed. We respect that there are creative artists and hobbyists alike that pour their heart into creating beautiful photos, and we respect that your photos are your photos. Period.

Blog post by Kevin Systrom co-founder, Instagram

Sigh - what a horrible embarrassment. Will Facebook ever learn???

Digital Lockers and Personal Digital Identity

Last week's Economist carried an excellent article last week, 'Know thyself - Data lockers promise to help people profit from their personal information'.

This reminds me sooo much of Midentity's business concepts (see previous blog posts on Midentity) from over 10 years ago.

The time is getting closer for Personal Digital Identity Management. When I first met Simon Grice (Twitter, LinkedIn, ideas.org) in February 2002, I guessed that these concepts that he was talking about back then were 10 years away from viability. I still think they are another 3, 4 or 5 years away from becoming a necessity.

If / When Facebook falls over (most probably due to its repeated inability to manage individual's personal data properly), Personal Digital Identity Management Services will be its replacement and the services that Simon and I sketched out will become reality.

Difference between American and British Product Management

Having worked as a Product Manager both in California (see Webmetrics case study) and here in the UK - and this point in time, I'm in search of a new Product Management position in Cambridge - it is become more and more apparent to me that there is a difference between the expectations of Product Manager in UK and the US.

I'm sharing my thoughts with other British PMs, there has been some nodding heads of agreement, although no-one quite knows what those differences are.

So here's my attempt to define the differences. And this commentary is full of huge sweeping and biased generalisations....


US Product Management
From my experience in the US, a role of Product Manager is very commercial. He / she closely tracks the Sales Teams and particularly Sales Engineering / Pre-sales. The conversation with the market is bidirectional: consuming market requirements and positioning the product and the executing the full product marketing gamut.

In product based companies, the marketing function focuses more on corporate marketing and partners with product marketing to do the product leadership / positioning.

UK Product Management
In UK, a product manager is more of a technocrat and a project manager. He / she conducts market research in order to determine product requirements - a rather one-sided market survey approach. He closely shepherds / nurtures / protects the product through development and testing phase. He is the guru of the project plan and task interdependencies.

However product marketing and general communication with the market is generally a secondary function. The Product Marketing function is likely to be pinned to a junior marketing assistant, but the task really being intermittently executed by a more senior marketing representative. This is really the turf of marketing function and the product manager treads lightly over this area for fear of treading on any marketing toes.

Using Pragmatic Marketing's Triad 
To borrow the concept of the Triad of Product Management (credit due to Pragmatic Marketing and its famous  Pragmatic Marketing  framework):

Function	UK Product Management	US Product Management
Technical PM	Strong	Moderate
Marketing PM	Weak	Strong
Strategic PM (*)	Unknown, but strong domain knowledge	Unknown or Moderate

(*) As noted in my critique of the  Triad of Product Management,  quite where strategic product management fits into fabric of an organisation's decision making is very variable.


Example - Booth Duty
One example is conferences. In the US, booth duty for a product manager (and certainly for the product marketer) is considered mandatory / bread and butter. In the UK, conference attendance is a glorious honour for executives which a (technical) product manager might only be invited to attend if an exec had to drop out.

What do you think??

LinkedIn's Skill Endorsements

LinkedIn added the ability to add Skills to one's profile a while ago - I can't recall when. Recently, they have added the ability for members of one's network to endorse your skills.

Previously, one endorsed a colleague who shared a common workplace and one wrote 30-50 words about why your colleague was a good bloke / gal. I used my recommendations with care and only added them to people that really valued.

Too many times, other people's recommendations are cut 'n' paste':

I had the pleasure of working with XXXX at YYYYY. He / She was excellent. I would recommend him / her to anyone.

Hmm, very considered.....

Endorsing skills

Endorsing Skills has added a level of irritation to LinkedIn and may devalue its core offering, as the process has become very slutty. 

Here's the process:

1. You receive an email from LinkedIn, saying that a colleague has endorsed you for a particular skills
2. You click to view it and to add it to your profile.
3. You are then presented with four colleagues with a skill next to each of their names underneath a banner above it that says 'Now, it's your turn...' and a big button that says 'Endorse'.

Conclusion: it is hardly difficult to do.... which therefore devalues its act.

Peter Cochrane espresses my sentiments well: LinkedIn endorsements: I’m not sure I approve.

Netbook + Tablets Hybrids

Tablets are the sexy must-have device. Apple' iPad is creaming off profits in this sector - every other vendors is struggling to catch up .... unsuccessfully at the moment.

However, alternative sizes are starting to proliferate: iPad Mini, Google Nexus 7, for example. This will be an exciting sector for the next 18 months or so.

Netbooks, had a massive growth, but tablets have now cannibalised this growth, with shipments plummeting.

Source: GigaOm Nov 2010.

So the concept of slapping together yesterday's burnt out product with today's hottest consumer gadget might sound like a bizarre one.

However, I'm convinced of the merits.

I was very disappointed (after months of rumours) at the time of the iPad launch. It wasn't a form factor for me:

1. Yes, it's great for consuming content.
2. Yes, I value portability
3. But in general, when I'm on the move, I'm also producing content. I find the keyboard on the iPad to be irritating: (a) you have to lean over it to type and to see the output (b) I haven't learnt to touch type on a virtual keypad.

Alternatives

The problem (a) might be solved by devices like Toshiba Libretto W105 (above), with its dual touchscreens (one of which could be used as a keyboard), but it doesn't solve (b) and I don't value the additional screen extension.

My want
So what I want is fundamentally a notebook. However, there are occasions (not that many I admit,) when I would value a tablet purely for consumption:

• one handed operation eg when commuting
• or watching BBC iPlayer in bed. (Actually a laptop is great for this, because I can put the laptop on my knees and the screen is at the correct angle. Dunno how to manage a iPad in these circumstances.)

So a netbook with a detachable tablet part would appear to be perfect. Another advantage is that a netbook with a touch sensitive screen is amazing - feature that I adored when I had an NEC MobilePro 780 twelve years ago. The MobilePro really was a device ahead of its time.....

Hybrids (Netbook + Tablets) Shopping List

Here's a list of the devices that have caught my eye:
1. eee Transformer TF101

• This was the Stuff Magazine's Gadget of Year in November 2011.
• Look at the video at the bottom of Asus's product page. Is the snap and disconnect really that instantaneous??
• eee Transformer is Android based. This would most probably work as a second device - the primary device being a Windows laptop.
• Retails around £400 new, but used seems to go down to £250.

2. HP Envy x2

• This is Windows 8 device, just released for Christmas with price tag of £800 (ouch!)
• All the reviews of Windows 8 indicate that Win8 is really designed for the tablet experience and is less good for the desktop experience. (I presume that this hybrid would have to flick between the two modes, based on whether it had a keyboard attached or not.) This sounds confusing, but I haven't had the experience.
• HP Product Page

3. Dell Duo

• The Duo has been around for a while, so it's Windows 7 based. 
• It is a netbook whose screen can flip so that it is on the outside - ie you don't actually disconnect the keyboard. 
• Having had a try of it, it feels much more like a netbook with a tablet screen, when you want it.
• Retails about £400.
• Dell's Product Page

Conclusion

• I suppose that the Dell Duo looks like the best fit for my requirements, but the eee Transformer looks soo appealing.

Steve Jobs - the world's greatest ever product manager

Last month's excellent Cambridge Product Management Network's excellent session debated Steve Jobs - the world's best product manager.

Clearly, I was biased as I wrote this article a year ago:
Steve Jobs - the world's greatest Product Manager and Product Marketer, shortly after SJ died.

Rob Davies proposed the motion and did an excellent job of rating Steve Jobs performance on the essential skills that a Product Manager should display.  Apple financial returns were massive - which ultimately is the only empirical measure that matters if you're developing products - see my blog post 'Apple - the most valuable company in the world'.

Elizabeth Ayer puts forward a very persuasive counter argument. She agreed that Apple's products were superb. Her key persuasive argument was that Steve Job was notorious dictator / autocrat and perfectionist. For those that have read his biography (I haven't), it is apparent that he was very difficult to work with - you definitely worked FOR him.

For this reason, I eventually disagreed with the proposition, when it came to the vote. 

SJ  created great products, but that doesn't mean he is a product manager - he didn't work in the classical definition of a product manager. Therefore he is an exception on many axes, but a classical product manager fundamentally works through others - something that Steve just didn't do.

Great debate - and definitely made me think. Thank you!

GSM Phones - 20 years old

El Reg has written a great article charting the history of GSM digital mobile phones.

On 9 November 1992, Nokia launched the world's first commercially available GSM digital mobile phone (with text messaging on a two line display!).

This awesome event was preceded by GSM technology being harmonised European mobile networks in 1991.

The Register's article takes us on a tour of European mobile phone technology. (Photo credits to The Register.) Below are some iconic phone of this period:

 

Motorola StarTAC from 1996

Motorola Timeport (1999), Nokia 3310 (2000), Ericsson T36 (2000) and Nokia 6310i (2002)

NEC e606 (2003), Motorola Razr (2004) and Nokia N95 (2006)

From the same article:

Nevertheless, according to recent research from YouGov carried out for Carphone Warehouse, a third of those over the age of 45 still use their first mobile phone, which highlights just how quickly the market has developed. And perhaps how well-built the handsets of yesteryear, like the Nokia 1011, were.

I concur: my parents still use a pair of Nokia 3310 - and although I have had to replace them (replacing them is cheaper than flashing the ROM which was in the problem on two occasions), I admire the usability of the interface and the user experience.

Windows 8 - what's the driver for adoption

Last week, I read two articles about Windows 8, one article from Cambridge Network said:

Unless you are looking to take advantage of Windows 8 for some specific feature, we suggest that you wait until Windows 8 SP1 before looking at Windows 8 seriously. If you are switching from Windows XP and Office 2007, then your learning curve will be very steep. Windows 7 and Office 2010 users will have less of a learning curve.

The other, from the Register, takes a different perspective:

the software giant has apparently elected to take a much riskier, and gutsier, approach: turn Windows 8 into a serious gaming platform.

Not exactly compelling to the business user (and to a lesser extent the consumer), is it?