Inspiration from PICNIC 2009 in Amsterdam #PICNIC09

One great term I really came to understand at PICNIC 2009 in Amsterdam was ‘disruptive technology’ and I realized that that’s really what really works in terms of building successful startups.

Following the sheep is such a hit and miss proposal. Thinking out of the box… opening up one’s mind to the changing landscape of convergence in media is really the key to being a successful entrepreneur.

My interpretation of Disruptive Technology is… it’s technology that turns an old economic model on it’s head and creates a new revenue model and helps change the behaviour of consumers.

Here’s some talks that really had an impact for me.

Niklas Zennström

Skype founder and now-billionaire Niklas Zennström, stressed in his talk that companies that are willing to embrace and develop disruptive technologies are the ones who can really have an impact and succeed financially. He also talked about being so broke between the time Kazaa failed and Skype started that he was back to working out of his apartment. What a long way he has come in a very short time. Kazaa failed because they were too early and could not develop a viable business model around it. They came up with Skype after they started a platform for developers called Jolt – which was an application building space and someone came up with a early idea of VOIP technology and how it can be used – which led to the development of Skype. And we all know how much impact Skype has had, particularly due to the adoption of the product and service with mainstream US TV such as Oprah and Dr. Phil.

He added that building products and services in Europe is a brilliant place, due to the ability to test in smaller markets (Holland, Denmark etc.) first, then reach out to the rest of the continent.

Now Zennström, worth over a billion euro, has a venture fund at Atomico Ventures, where he helps startups with money and advice.

“Entreprenuership is not a job, it’s a lifestyle.’

– Niklas Zennström

The Lewes Pound

There was another talk by the founders of a complimentary currency called the Lewes Pound being used in the UK, which is, essentially, a voucher or token that can be traded locally as a complementary currency and used alongside pounds Sterling. This was part of the event where there was a strong look at alternative money and local exchange and trade systems that are cropping up around the globe. There was also talk about Transition Towns – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_Towns which focus on banding together to create a lower carbon footprint using various methods. Many of these use a local currency.

Money spent locally circulates within, and benefits the local economy. Money spent in national chains doesn’t. The Lewes Pound encourages demand for local goods and services. In turn this builds resilience to the rising costs of energy, transport and food. The Lewes Pound also benefits shoppers by creates stronger and more local shops, increasing a sense of pride in our community, decreasing CO2 emissions and increasing economic resilience. Furthermore, the Lewes Pound benefits local traders by increasing footfall and local business activity, encouraging people to buy local and increasing customer loyalty, highlighting the benefits of local shopping, bringing attention and attracting visitors to Lewesand minimising card-based transaction costs.

The Lewes Pounds is driven by three main considerations:

• Economic: According to the New Economics Foundation, money spent locally stays within the community and is re-used many times, multiplying wealth and building resilience in the local economy.
• Environmental: Supporting local businesses and goods reduces the need for transport and minimises our carbon footprint.
• Social: By spending money in local outlets we can strengthen the relationships between local shopkeepers and the community. It also supports people finding new ways to make a living initiatives

There is nothing new about the Lewes Pound. In fact, Lewes had its own currency between 1789 and 1895. Complementary currencies have existed since the beginning of civilisation, from the bead money of Papua New Guinea, which still exists, to the WIR, established between the World Wars and now used by 16% of Swiss businesses.

Such currencies are often created by local merchants, government and citizens during times of great economic change, inflation or unemployment; recent examples exist in Argentina and Japan. The town of Berkshire, Massachusetts, has issued over $1.5 million Berkshares into circulation since it started a couple of years ago and is accepted by 300 shops and being adopted by nearby towns.

PIXAR Studios – turned inside out.

Michael Johnson of Pixar – who is the guy who ‘defines’ and builds their corporate culture… Well he was way cool. He looked like ‘The Dude’ literally. But he was all about business and not bowling.

One of the great points he did raise, was his focus on creating a culture of ‘constructive criticism’. That means he helps people direct people in the right direction so they are not wasting time by hoarding a project for too long and not sharing it.

He also added this great quote by Jason Dreamer of Pixar.

“Pain is temporary, SUCK is forever.’

One other point I liked was the fact that management should try and play the role of ‘being the hero’ and that means being the people that help solve the problems, not create them.

Show up and ’save the day’ when you can.

Try and make the staff more VISIBLY better at their jobs.

Pixar’s policy of hiring is to start with the top and the bottom and then the middle will follow. They also do training during work hours… And sell off old gear and computers to staff for highly reduced prices.

With their roots in Apple, they also love beautiful UI’s on their systems… And backups by the minute are standard – their staff NEVER loses work basically ….

IDEO – Internal Social Media

This was interesting for me because I have touched this space – introducing enterprise social media to a startup of 40 staff… And it was really compelling to see how this company BUILT their own internal collective intelligence social media architecture. One cool thing, is they put screens in their lunch rooms that show status updates from their system. This was so people could check up on how staff were improving things, fixing blogs, adding intel etc.

IDEO has 500 employees that do about 500 projects a year, stretched across the globe. Each member has blog, tags, bio, and project pages. The rewards of their internal project were the following – adoption, culture enhancement, abilities developed and more motivation.

The five principals of internal social software.

1. Build pointers to people
2. Reward individual participation – career development, recognition
3. Demand intuitive interfaces
4. Take road more travelled – feed mail, subscriptions, widgets, status updates.
5. Iterate often and early
They also use an anonymous recommendation engine which allows staff to recommend or thumbs down without having to show who they are.

Microsoft NATAL

Microsoft divulged more details about Project Natal, the gesture-control system for the Xbox 360, which has no need of a physical controller. With Natal, gamers move around in front of a camera which captures their full body movements and translates them into game controls. It also has face and voice recognition technology. This is really about gestural navigation.

This also could make it’s way into social TV or TV 2.0. Changing channels by waving your hands around. Customized TV based on the systems’ recognition of who is sitting in front of the TV. Customised tCommerce widgets based on the viewers mood, personality or profile. They are building in artificial intelligence that is extraordinary which includes things like audio empathy, where it can tell your mood based on your voice and make suggestions based on that. And OCR scanning…. Where you can draw a picture or write a phrase and it scans and understands what you have done.

Yeah… It’s a few years away. But everything is moving fast. Faster. And faster.

Nicholas Negroponte

Founder – MIT Media Labs and ‘a laptop for every child‘ . He was probably the most interesting talker in terms of being an overall visionary.

In 1992, Negroponte became involved in the creation of Wired Magazine as the first investor. From 1993 to 1998, he contributed a monthly column to the magazine in which he reiterated a basic theme: “Move bits, not atoms.” Negroponte expanded many of the ideas from his Wired columns into a bestselling book Being Digital (1995), which made famous his forecasts on how the interactive world, the entertainment world and the information world would eventually merge

“Computing is not about computers, it’s about Life.”
- Nicholas Negroponte

“News is not dead, Paper is,” said Negroponte, at PICNIC 2009. “Soon every surface will be a display.”

Tomi Ahonen – Mobile Technology

http://www.tomiahonen.com/

He spoke at PICNIC on “The Next 4 Billion” and referred it to the number of mobile phones on this earth: 4 billion and claims that that number will double, and explained this with some of his theories (6 M, 10 C and the 7th mass media), supplemented with hard numbers.

What was most interesting about Tomi was his emphasis on the emerging markets in Africa and Asia – where usage is rising incredibly.

In fact, there are over 4 billion mobile phones in use worldwide. Compare that to a little over 1 billion internet users and we can really understand the scale of the market.
While everyone is on the iPhone and cutting edge mobile development circles, he wisely recommends developing on all platforms and thinking strongly about SMS and MMS as important markets to develop for.