Archive for 2008
Love the Gaps
Interstitial time is a wonderful thing, used wisely. In today’s action-packed world, gaps and pauses are increasingly rare things. A gap in a market often signals an opportunity, although sometimes the gap is there for a good reason. Either there isn’t a demand, or the economics don’t work out. Gaps between projects or jobs can be [...]
Pitching A Business – TechCrunchTalk
This week’s TechCrunch event was a rare treat: 8 European startups pitching. TechCruncheMike Butcher gave the start ups 90 seconds to pitch their business. The ‘Tech Factor’ panel then responded to the pitch – in very civilised way. Finally the pitcher had 10 seconds to even the score… Erm… I mean clarify their pitch. I [...]
Dunbar’s Number – Groups, Language and Social Media
The Dunbar number regularly gets bandied around in social media circles, and for good reason. However, it is usually misunderstood. In today’s hyper-connected world, where technology lets us have hundreds (if not thousands) of ‘friends’, people are increasingly interested in understanding what the human limits on maintaining human friendships might be, and why. Real world relationships have [...]
Crowds Are No Wiser Than They Ever Have Been
Malcom Muggeridge once said, “All new news is old news happening to new people.” Economic times are tough and many people are rightly concerned about what 2009 holds. This is at least the third ecomonic down turn I have experienced so far, and they don’t get any easier. What is to be learnt? Every time [...]
Social Media – Do Conversations Scale?
I should start by explaining how I come at this problem space. By history I am a network guy. I spent most of the 90′s thinking about networks, breaking networks, building networks and alternating between creating the mess and clearing it up as the Internet grew. More recently I’ve buried myself in the human aspects of technology, leading [...]
On Startups and Hiring – Michael Smith
It is always good to get an experienced opinion, so when Hermione Way asked if I had some questions to put to Michael Smith on Techfluff.tv I got typing. Michael Smith is co-founder of firebox.com (turnover £12m) and CEO of Mind Candy. I squeezed two questions into my 140 characters of twitter message: @bmje: What defines the difference between a good and a [...]
We Are Amplified
Guitars, historically, weren’t a loud instrument. To become the loud things we know today they had to be plugged in to amplification. Cunning bits of electronic wizardry that took a tiny signal and made it much much larger. An amplified guitar is definitely heard! These days we (at least those of us reading this) are plugged in. [...]
