ItsDevelopmental - content + technology + people

Ewan Macleod - the Big M devil's advocate

 

Ewan Macleod runs Mobile Industry Review and really dislikes mobile operators. He is The Big M devil's advocate.

Macleod spent most of his talk explaining what he would like to see from his mobile device and from his mobile network. It was very entertaining and rammed home the idea that networks do not deliver innovation.

For example, check out operator adverts and note that consumers have choice of  number of texts and calls. That really gets Ewan's goat.

He then reeled off a set of deals that would really interest him - provision your own service, replace phone in 8 hours if you lost it, 5 year contract with new phones as they come out, fastest possible data connections and so on and so on. He came out with a lot of ideas.

Macleod basically wants access to services that are frictionless. He wants the transaction process reduced so many clicks become few. He is not interested in the process he just wants to get things done - and quickly.

This echoes the earlier talk by Aral Balkan on usability. But Macleod is making a bigger point about innovation or the lack of it in the UK. Time to start to think of networks in a different way. 

Macleod offered a vision that sees the network underpinning services which would feed the device. Layered on top of the device is the user interface.

So this is the vision which could take us away from what Macleod calls 'the Fisher Price Age of mobile'.

However, the reality is that we will have innovation from Apple for the next 5 to 10 years.

Why? Businesses tend to stick with what works. From what I can see mobile networks are doing very well indeed so there is no need to innovate.

One question from the floor made the point that Africa is innovating with the use of mobile (banking etc). A great point. It is a hugely growing market, which makes innovation easier. Thought it also put an interesting spin on innovation in the UK - it is all happening at the app end of the market, but as we heard earlier distribution is still a real block to that innovation.

Maybe Macleod has a point . . . 

Here is an interview with Macleod on what he does like about mobile . . .

And here is his presentation . . .

The Big M - Ewan's Presentation

View more presentations from Mobile Industry Review

The history of the world in 100 seconds - awesome visualisation

Gareth LLoyd has put this visualisation together using geo location and historic referneces on Wikipedia. The result: a fascinating voew of how and where we have developed.

This visualisation gives us yet another example of how we can reuse data to create insight with impact. You might like to think of it as a timeline brought to life. It is worth 100 seconds of your time.

[H/T Paul Mason]

A History of the World in 100 Seconds from Gareth Lloyd on Vimeo.

Raam Thakrar on app distribution and monetisation

Raam Thakrar kicks off The Big M conference with a talk on monetisation. It is quite provocative on distribution and how to make apps scale ie if it won't scale it won't make money (so why bother?).

His key message was make sure you sort out the product proposition, find distribution channels that will really scale and watch the money roll in. 

Thakrar was at pains to point out that developers should be earning big bucks (£65,000 with 5 years' experience) - and that they are the real rockstars. But he warned that to become rockstars developers needed to ditch the hobbiest mentality.

This is about ruling the world, he says, which means building apps that will scale. Software, he says, is one of the key inluencing factors on phones and this is where developers can differentiate.

I liked his example of building apps that could help both help distributors and users. His own company - Touchnote - helps people print cards from their pictures. This adds value to camera handsets - it enhances the use of the camera, which phone operators will like - and users like to print images.

• Here is a summary of his main points and below an Audioboo interview
• Identify big picture trends - but timing and execution of your strategy is key
• Distribution is everything 
• The app has to look better than it works - users can be forgiving
• Develop an app consumers love - that influences how they sped their money
• Get in the way of the money
• Develop an app that makes a phone look awesome
• Build an app that sorts out a problem
• You need help of a distributor - OEM and operator
• Know your customers 
• If you can't smell money then find someone who does.

 

Open data discussion at The Big M

Really interesting discussion on open data at The Big M. Missed getting down all the names of those taking aprt in the panel discussion. Some great points being made.

• Open data enables non-tech people to access data and use it
• The Doomsday book was written in an open data format ie Latin
• Following on from the last point - we will all die one day so we need to leave a usable - and non-proprietary - legacy
• Importance of standards in open data - we are all working in the same way
• Useful public sector data becoming available
• Public data = new business opportunities - £6bn mentioned (from a Cambridge University report)
• Transparency and accountability in public sector through open data
• Linkedgov is cleaning data - using many people to help wider society
• Technology is a key blocker to using data
• Institutional lethargy in opening up data to developers a real block too
• Data is seen as a 'techy thing' - somebody else's problem
• Need to shift organisation's view of who can help with this data - other orgs around the world, academic institutions etc
• But orgs do have to make a cultural shift regarding releasing data
• Lawyers are a huge problem - copyright, contracts, licenses for data use etc
• Its easier to ask forgiveness than it is for pernission regarding using content
• Fix my Street mentioned as a good example of opening up data
• BBC Backstage - very successful but has been shut down - its work had become embedded in the organisation
• Need a Creative Commons style of licensing for data

Edited tweet stream of Bruce Lawson talking HTML

Update: Here is Bruce's presentation . . .

Web Anywhere: Mobile Optimisation With HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript

View more presentations from brucelawson

First try with Storify - here are tweets pulled out from Bruce Lawson's talk on HTML 5 at the Big M conference.

Aral Balkan on 'Beyond Usability on Mobile'

Presentation two at The Big M is on user experience.

Opening quote: 'We are now making the new everyday things.'  Aral Balkan tells the audience that app development is all about the making of new everyday things.

I like UX talks because they use great examples - in everyday life - that do not work.  Balkan kicks off his talk with some great examples.

He then goes on to talk about interaction design.

Graphic design, motion design and information architecture make up interaction design, but the key thing about interaction design is interaction. That is the problem, Balkan says.

For example, how many times have you misunderstood someone else? And that is with every cue available to us - voice, gesture etc. On the phone, the physical gestures are removed. Texting and IM is even easier for users to misunderstand each other.

We are losing humanity in the way we communicate, Balkan says, but we try to make up for this bu using devices such as emoticons - that is about the best we can do on text, for sure!

So, if you replace a person with a computer you have lost humanity - the visual and aural clues. Now we try and understand humans using psychology, linguistics, social psychology etc, and these elements are now becoming key in design.

So computing is commoditised. But the question is: why are we prepared to pay a bit more for some commodities? Balkan talks about the growth of Apple here. The differentiator in commoditised markets is user experience ie we pay more for something that looks and feels good.

But what is that? Hard to identify. But we know what a bad UX is.

At the very least we could design apps that don't drive people crazy. Key point: worry about the right thing and that is your users' needs not your needs. Think outside in design NOT inside out design.

User experience cuts across the whole business, says Balkan. Not just the job for one person - but it usually is - or a team. bUT, how much influence do they have?

Design perfection is achieved when there is nothing left to take away. Focus on simplicity.

Usable = edible. This slikde was used to talk about how we describe going for a meal. We expect the meal to be edible and we actually talk about where we want to go, type of surroundings etc. We do not go for a meal to eat edible food, we go out to somewhere nice.

Balkan talks about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - and building beyond edible - we can build something that is delightful. We must build things that are magical - his words noy mine but the sentiment is good - we need to add layers of delight to our apps.

He warns that commonsense is the most dangerous myth in what we do and makes the point that assumption of what is common sense just leads to confusion.

As we shift from an age of 'Features' to an age of 'experience' it will be the little things that make a big difference - a final and spot on thought from Balkan.

Best freebie from SXSW

Just pulled together some posts from TFMA 2011

I do some guest posts for Vaughan over at VG&A Associates and today I pulled together links of content that came out of this month's Technology for Marketing and Advertising show.

That's put paid to any posting I was going to do today. So in the meantime, I'll provide you with this . . .

Reuters curates Japan earthquake content using Scribble Live

I've been enjoying curating the Tru unconferences and so was interested to see this tweet by Peter Bale, International Programming Director for MSN.

I like the Reuters curation of the Japan earthquake - bringing in user generated content alongside their own real-time reporting and displayed simply - and through Twitter established that Scribbel Live is the curating platform.

There's been criticism of the sensational reporting of the ongoing disaster by news networks so it is good to see a news organisation bringing in a range of voices and sources.

It's a paid-for service but looks good.

Give space, get more creative

Yesterday I saw an illustrator friend of mine Mark who has been working on some ideas for my blog design (well, the header).

I was intrigued to see what he had created because of our first meeting. In the first meeting we spent more than an hour chatting about what I enjoy doing workwise and the things I have done. Oh, and I said I needed a design for my blog that would also act as a business card design, avatars etc.

At the end of that first meeting I asked Mark what he needed from me in terms of what this blog is about and what I use it for etc, thinking he needed as much information as possible to get started. He told me he had more than enough to be getting on with and that too much detail would be too much for him to compute.

Fast forward to today when he showed me his design ideas. He described how each one had come about and that he likes to work with word/idea associations to develop ideas. I could see how every idea had developed.

I really liked the ideas and how he worked creating them. This process felt very different to the type of briefing and commissioning of designers I had done in my previous corporate roles.

In those roles the brief was so important that the designer was given little scope to get truly creative - in many senses the job was just a case of filling in the dots. In some instances committees of people were involved in the brief which complicated things even more.

I know why design briefs can be very tight - brand guidelines etc - but these become self-imposed restrictions that only serve to stifle the creative process. 

I have really enjoyed working with Mark and would advocate giving creatives space to actually get creative - that's their expertise and probably not yours.