Maryrose Lyons blogging since 2003...

Really Cool Sites I Like

July 23, 2008 at 3:18 pm

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Here’s some cool sites that people told me about at Reboot, and that I like:

• Gelaskins - gorgeous sexy designs to customise your apple kit. Comes with handy “I’m protecting the cover” excuse for use.   I seriously deliberated sharing this with you.
• Song Meanings- bring out your inner teenager and obsess about what music lyrics really mean.  Browse artists or song titles, and get the full lyrics plus a whole load of people’s opinions on what they mean.  One of my favourites is this.
• Urinal Spiders - Schipol airport brought these in in 2005.  Spider is embedded in the urinal in mens toilets.  “Spillage” improved by loads of percent.  Now you can buy the spiders as stickers to add to your loo.  Perfect gift for fathers day!!  I can’t find the link to the shop that sells them.  If you know, please let me know.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Bad Blogger

July 17, 2008 at 10:15 pm

I am one.  Nope, I’ve not been off sunning my body on a warm Mediterranean beach.  Nor have I been exploring interesting little towns in remote hillside places, sampling local delicacies and fine wines….  I’ll stop here before it all gets Too Much.

You see  - I have a Plan. My Plan is to take holidays in the really woeful times of year in Ireland and then get to be here to enjoy our wonderful country and its super chilled out people when the weather is good.  It would be a worthy plan to aspire to if we actually had a summer in Ireland.  Instead, it’s July, I had my light on this morning because it was dark.  Everyone’s off on holiday.  And I have to wait quite some time before I can consider a bikini again.

So while the rest of Ireland battles it out at the check-in desk in the 3rd world airport that is Dublin, I’ve had my head down and been working hard for my beloved clients.  There’s always a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on that I just can’t tell you about or show you… but here a couple of interesting sites that have kept me occupied these last while.

Official Excuses For Not Blogging:

• Kanchi - love love loving this site. When I first met the Kanchi team, they told me that their mission was to change the world.  They mean it.  And they are set about doing it.  I feel honoured to play a little part in this mission.  I also enjoyed working with the finest talent in town - Ray on Design, Ken on Uber Accessible Cut Up, and Jess on Sexy Video Action.
• Atkins Global - sure now even the engineers and road planners are at video content - why aren’t you? If your target market is local authority planners who are jaded with dull and boring engineering websites, then Atkins is a stand-out for its innovation.
• Image Matters - super sexy site and seo for Dublin-based image consultant, Frances Jones.  Got to work with designer to the techcrunch stars, Sabrina Dent on this one.

Posted in Portfolio | No Comments

Meteor Site Map

July 2, 2008 at 10:27 am

I wrote a post recently about embarrassing omissions on Irish sites that should know better. The latest culprit I spotted is Meteor. Large mobile phone company that has probably invested a lot in its online presence. It’s a pity they forgot their site map.

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Thoughts on Reboot 10

July 1, 2008 at 10:46 am

This blog was featured in last week’s ebusiness supplement of the Irish Independent. While I was delighted by the publicity, I noted that the impression I’ve made on the journalist is of a kind of tech-scene party girl! It is with some trepidation therefore that I’m posting below my thoughts on Reboot 10 which I attended last week. I will try and keep them serious and meaty and will not make any mention of the kicking street after-party.

I come to Reboot every year to get my brain pulled out and squeezed and then unceremoniously dropped back in again. That’s not entirely what I got this year. There was less optimism about the future and a sense of darkness was evident from some speakers.

• Howard Rheingold Tor Nørretranders - Share your Shit - was the first message I took from Reboot 10. He made the point that biological organisms exist by consuming the shit of other organisms. So too with us. We must share in order to thrive.
• Stowe Boyd, self-declared webthropologist (I like that title) reminded us that we are living at the end of the Industrial era, the start of the new. Whereas last year, this signalled excitement, this year I detected a dark message of caution. He paints a grim picture of the gap between rich and poor, about the billions of people who live without government in feral cities whose lives are controlled by warlords and criminals. Individuals have discovered that happiness doesn’t come from being a cog in the mass civilisation that’s been sold to us. According to Boyd, the shift to many-to-many communications sees more people living on the edge. So for those on the edge (Edgelanders) with the most connections, we/they owe it to the world to create linkages and build bridges to the ones that are overlooked. The web brings us a sort of freedom, but we must use this freedom to reach out to those people who governments have missed.

It seemed to be quite retrospective. I heard too many speakers start off with ‘the history of things’. Even Howard Rheingold did a piece on how the invention of the printing press opened the way for a wave of transformations, and how it’s the same with the web today… yada yada…Maybe I liked it because it was at the start and I was feeling fresh and open. But Lee Bryant gave us a history of how industrial practices have changed. Jeremy Keith’s talk was billed as ‘a starting point for discussions on ideas such as public domain, copyright, and the emergence of the reputation economy on the web” whereas it was in fact, him talking about the history of Irish traditional music! The art appreciation vibe was carried on by Cennyd Bowles who gave a talk on “Beauty in Web Design” in which he referenced not one website but talked instead about what art is and Don Norman’s cognitive science on beauty.Who was briliiant and inspiring?

• JP Rangaswami the coolest CTO that’s ever walked this earth! He got up and talked on topic (yes folks, the theme this year was free!!) and obviously straight from the hip. He made several succinct points:
  • Value is what drives the decision of where something is free and not free. It is the customer who decides that. They are always willing to pay for something they value. He gives the example of his kids who’ll pay £4.99 for a ring-tone but not £9.99 for a music download.
  • Artificial scarcity - for each and every artificial scarcity there is an equal and opposite artificial abundance. Hacker culture is simply about trying to get at stuff with artificial barriers. People are fundamentally not thieves. What some companies call stealing/hacking, is where they created an artificial barrier and others are simply trying to overcome it.
  • Figure how what people want to pay for and apply it. Stop trying to charge people for what they have an aversion to pay for, and charge them for things they value.
• Chris Messina raised my awareness of the fact that there there is no ‘view source’ in Silverlight. The ideology is that we don’t want to share (either bugs or ingenuity). The ability to view source is necessary for our evolution of migrating from A to B and something better. This Olympics will see around 2 billion people get Silverlight because all the web content for the olympics is on it. That’s developing the web?

• Jyri Engestrom who just is Rock & Roll! His background is sociology and I like the way he approaches technology from that standpoint.
  • He talked about social objects, they are what connect people. So you’ve always got communities of interest based around a thing. He talked about communities of potato growers in Italy. I thought about all the social networking groups that I am active in are all around areas of genuine interest to me - books, travel, photographs… I’m not an avid FB’er because that’s just about collections of friends. Mine aren’t all online, so it doesn’t hold the same interest to me. “Good web apps take that thing and add value to it. What makes an item interesting is what people say about it and do with it.
  • Social peripheral vision. How in the next 2 years we’re going to see services that make us more socially aware, eg. Maps that show where my friends are. Photos with facial recognition, etc.
  • When asked the question “Is privacy still dead?” he answered that it’s going more in the realms of audience management.

All up, I enjoyed. And I will be back for Reboot 11. It got me thinking and that’s what counts. Surprised that I was the only one in the Irish delegation. Took it upon myself to take good notes and party with the best of them as a result. My heartfelt thanks to the organisers who are stars. Big love to Copenhagen which wins my heart more every year. (And it’s got cheaper cocktails than Dublin).

Posted in Reboot 10 | 7 Comments

Ups & Downs of Being a Kenyan Web Entrepreneur

June 27, 2008 at 11:54 am

Reboot tends to be an almost exclusively white affair, so it was with great delight that I kicked off day 2 listening to Segeni Ng’Ethe of Mamamikes.com tell us about the ups and downs of running an internet business in Kenya.
Mamamikes facilitates payments from Kenyan expats who want to transfer vouchers back home. Check out their youtube vid.

This can be practical gifts eg. Shopping vouchers, electricity bill, sentimental gifts like roses, cultural gifts eg. Cow (to your granny!). I think that’s a great idea because it overcomes the difficulty of sending money to a home with perhaps an alcoholic parent. They’re seeing a huge growth in vouchers for mobile phones. And ring tones are huge – of local music of course!

In Africa, the mobile phone is the primary communications device because many people don’t have laptops and the bandwidth required to connect them to the internet. As a result, more SMS’ s are sent per day in Nairobi than in New York City. And kids are addicted to Facebook there just as they are everywhere, the only difference is that Kenyan kids access it by mobile phone.

What’s it like to be an entrepreneur in Nairobi?

Challenging. The Internet is still a growing concept in Kenya. Bandwidth is difficult, so you’ve got to plan around that – for example, my email is set up so that everything with more than 1.5mb goes straight to the server, because it would block every other email coming in. When you’re planning on uploading development or even just a simple youtube you’ve got to plan in advance.

Internet Costs in Kenya
56k connection speed costs $400 per month. Now they’ve moved to satellite, they have hooked up with others in their building and now pay $150 for 128k connection. There is no fibre in Kenya. But it has become political, and is on the agenda, but don’t be expecting too much too soon. (Sounds like Ireland)

Recent Violence in Kenya
How the phone was used and his service during the violence in December. What happened was that the elections socialised people to be tribal. So when the results came out, people went to war.

• If there’s violence in your area, people were asked to send an SMS. This was then added to a Google Map so people could see where the flashpionts for violence were.
• Crackdown on tracking hate SMS’s including viral
• Scratch card for phone credit is distributed physically. When the fighting was on, people were unable to leave the house and the shopkeepers weren’t there. Showed the people how reliant they were on the phones. Mamamikes was used by people sending credit to loved ones.

What he expects in the coming years from Africa is innovation the way phones are being used.

It’s like the phone is our version of the internet.

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10 Things Customers Would Tell You If You Asked

June 26, 2008 at 3:30 pm

Great talk by Eric Reiss. Someone should get him to Ireland to talk on customer service. Passionate, engaging and very very entertaining.

1. don’t tell me how great, be great
2. go the extra mile
3. don’t get in my way when I’m trying to shop
4. if I know what I’m looking for help me find it
5. if I have questions, I want answers, not salestalk
6. tell me you’re looking for my size, don’t just turn and leave
7. if you expect me to buy something tell me what it costs
8. are your own affairs so important that you feel justified in ignoring me
9. don’t make me feel stupid
10. if you make a mistake admit it. (EXTREMELY)
he goes through wine.com as a case study of the above being done badly.  I’m thinking - he’d have a field day going through the Golden Spiders nominees!
If we do not demand good service we are never going to receive it.
People of Ireland are you listening?

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7 Ways to Make User Experience Count

June 26, 2008 at 2:31 pm

Reboot 10 is on. The annual meeting for ‘practical visionaries’. Rather self congratulatory, but apt. I go for inspiration, as a gift to myself to think about the really big topics addressed by the keynotes, to find out about new apps, services, and ideas in the breakout rooms, and to catch up with friends and see what they’ve been up to for the past year.

Best of the morning was Andy Budd , quintessential Brit user experience designer.

He introduced his user experience graph - time and pleasure plotted on x and y axes. (Am trying to get a pic to add here) and his lively presentation was peppered with real life examples and how to carry them over into the online experience.

1. First impressions count.

Unwrapping your apple product is like undressing your girlfriend for the very first time.

Research shows that women take under 30 seconds to make their minds up about a man. (Men take slightly longer).

To a packed room fuil of designers, he proclaimed that design counts! We all know that fancy product packaging in everyday products can entice us to spend that extra couple of cent.

People can tell the quality of a website in 50 milliseconds. This is based on design.

Nice examples of first impressions:

* First screen of Basecamp, little video to up your skill level and not bombardyou.
* In situ tours on Yahoo. Doesn’t take you outside that experience.

2. ATTENTIVE SERVICE

Real life examples include the waitor refilling your glass, the supermarket opening a new checkout because there’s a queue, etc.
It’s all about process efficiency. Again Apple as an example. They built a protoype of their flagship store. And when they started using it, they realised that it was based around the business model of ie. laptops, ipods, etc. That’s not how users use the products - so they re-engineered it by how users use the products - with a section for photographers, then videographers, musos etc.

3. PERSONALISATION & CUSTOMISATION

Real life examples are going into the pub and the barman remembering your name. Starbucks took this and built it into their processes - they take your name, shout back your order with your name. They’ve even gone further and allow you to customise your drink.

* On the Wii – most popular best feature is “mii” - tiny characters you can customise yourself. Beautiful social interaction.
* Gamers and their characters exhibit a high degree of attachment to that which they’ve created - . World of warcraft gamers post pics of their chars on flickr!
* Second Life – people pay real money for fake designer shoes! Don’t want to look like a newbie.
* Flickr does it well. Welcomes you back using your name… (and I like the hellos in difference languages)

Conclusion: personalisation and customisation works! A 12 year old’s bedroom really does look like a myspace page. No boundaries, no borders, create what you want! Freedom to experiment.

4. ATTENTION TO DETAIL
My favourite one. It’s details that make me smile that resonate.

Real life examples - car companies design the sound of the car door going thunk. They know that we perceive that sound as the quality of the machine.
Disney – even the trash cans are themed. A regular bin would break the magic.
Innocent smoothies – ’stop looking at my bottom!’ on the bottom of their cartons.

Conclusion: if you can build delightful experiences into your service/app, youll will make a difference in people’s lives.

Online:

* Threadless – if you add something to your shoppoing cart and you forget it, they email you if it’s about to sell out. Win win. I feel ilke they care. They might make a sale.
* Moo email confirmation email - beautiful - “Remember I’m just a bitr of software. So if you have anuy questions please contact customer services who are real people… ”

5. GIVE THEM FEEDBACK

Real world example is slot machines/pokies. They’re very responsive, you put your money in and it makes a thunk sound. You press button it beeps. You get immersed into the feedback cycle. Even include speakers in the tray to make it sound like you’re winning more. Or another example -if you press a button in a lift, you think it’s not working if you don’t see a light.

Online:

* Apple .. genius bar in stores where peole can get help to solve their problems based on hotel concierge desk. Take offline nuggets to make online exp better.
* Buttons that look like buttons.
* Process completion bar - Lined in
* Kayak – shows you immediately that the system is working, shows you what it’s doing and updates as you wait…page changes to show you it’s done. (Except I have never bought a flight from kayak because they are always the most expensive. An example of where good design doesn’t entice me to pay more!)
* Google maps ingenious.. people love to play with it. It’s fun to use. Because of the feedback mechanisms built in.

6. MAKE IT FUN
We love having fun. (In fact I think this point has stimulated a little break out chat later today on fun and play). We love collecting especially if there’s a payoff, like free coffee! But beware - as points can lead to leaderboards. And if you show people where they are in the system, they might not want to play anmore.

Real life examples:

* Fly on the urinal in Schipol airport. Reduces spillage by up to 80%! You can now buy your own fly for your loo at home here. urinalfly.com !!

Online:
Collecting photos on Flickr (or I might add Pixie)
Colecting friends on Facebook

Conclusion: we love collecting, but don’t go with leaderboards (like Digg did and that has impacted on the quality as leaders on the diggerboard are digging for position rather than content).

7. CREATE THE PERFECT ENVIRONMENT
Real life: Starbucks… sofa, cd, mug…
Virgin lounge, … make you want to pay ..
Vegas – the centre of design with the purpose of imparting people from their money.

Right now we have too many sites that create negative curves in terms of user experience. We have frustrating sign up processes and spaces you can’t escape from.

A great presentation from www.andybudd.com. I had all the links in above, but the damn connection here is flicking in and out, so I lost it all!! Go find them yourself, use Google!!

Posted in Reboot 10, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Pre Reboot 10

June 24, 2008 at 8:28 am

Am off to Reboot in Copenhagen tomorrow. Looking forward to inspiration, some relaxation (!), and some mind-bending talks and chats to cool people. The theme this year is FREE, here are my thoughts on that. Note that none of these thoughts have been ‘influenced’ by the website because I have given up trying to learn how to use that piece of crap. Reboot is a brilliantly organised inspiring event but the website sucks. I was horrified to find that my profile is still showing as attending last year’s events. And as a mark of just how bad it is - you have to register to attend the boat party drinks - and I have not been able to do so!

Free spirit.  Free love.  Freedom of choice.  

That’s what I think of first.

• The web started out free - should we have to pay?   If we don’t pay, then who owns?
• If we give too much for free, then is it valued?  That was my learning from last year.  No more freebies!!  Because freebies aren’t valued as much as even a nominal fee. They tend to get abused and taken advantage of.
• Free delivery and how contentious an issue that can be.

Last year’s theme was human and I have spent the 12 months since last Reboot noting how much more humanity surrounds us in business life these days than before.  I’m curious and excited to see how Free works it way into my head, and I’m thankful in advance to those who are responsible.

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Firefox 3 Launch Party

June 20, 2008 at 10:10 am

Was great craic. Lots of people there - new faces and old hacks alike! Novelty of the night was Quest.ie who were taking pictures against a greenscreen. Some interesting poses involving power drills. But here’s one for family consumption - all the bloggers who were in attendance on the night. I think the smiles on the faces sums up the general camaraderie and niceness amongst the blog community here. In my opinion that’s a good thing.

Bohoe’s pics of the night really capture it. Well the pre-Lillie’s bit…

Have a great weekend.

Posted in Blogging, Business Culture Ireland | 3 Comments

Curry 2.1 - Part 1

June 19, 2008 at 1:01 am

Tonight I braved rain and miserableness to attend the inaugural Curry 2.1. Am not sure if that’s what it’s going to end up being called, but it’s a Paul Walsh networking affair, a step forward from Curry 2.0, Jaipur, you know it’s going to be good, and I wasn’t disappointed. Thanks to sponsors Microsoft and BT.

This blog comes in two posts because the format of the night was that we went around the table (16 people) and after intros, we all got to shout out what subjects we’d like to discuss. The worthy ones got approx. 10 mins, and I’m delighted that my topic “Free” started off.

FREE

The reason I raised this is because I’m heading off to Reboot 10 next week and last year’s Reboot topic (Human) has been very much on my mind. I believe that we are in an era where humanity is OK in business. I rejoice in that and get a kick when financials and telcos include words like ‘energy’ and ’spirit’ in their content! Human-ness and all that means is current. I am grateful to the people who put on Reboot 9 for helping to plant that in my consciousness.

I asked the group for their thoughts on FREE, the theme of this year’s Reboot:

Marcus Mac Innes of Pix.ie, photo sharing software (I’ve recently transferred my paid membership and longevity with Flickr) said:

It’s almost impossible to ask people to pay for a product or service they are accustomed to getting for free. You’ve got to get the right balance of free vs. paid from the start in order to maximise any future revenue opportunities.

Martha Rotter of Microsoft said:

Space isn’t the problem. It’s when you’ve got to deal with security breaches. etc

Conclusion: “free” is good. It’s not the problem. It’s when you’ve got too much free. When there’s always someone out there who’s going to offer more free. Then it’s goes beyond having value.

Discussion Topic 2 :(Tech) People in Ireland are Shit

Paul Walsh made the point that it’s not companies that are shit in Ireland, but the people and the traditional track record. Much debate followed, including comments that Irish VC’s just don’t get it. But as Brian Caulfieldpointed out, it’s a two way street as far as slagging off VC’s goes - and in fairness, it’s not that easy to find a backable business in ireland.

Dylan Collins pointed out that it was a lack of good seed investment five years ago that leaves us in the situation we’re in today. Talk then turned to whether or not there is a case for raising capital off high net worths facing into the property downturn these days.

Conclusion: there is an opportunity to include high net worths/business angels in Ireland?

More on other topics tomorrow including: a) how to decipher my own writing on the side of a napkin b) how to quantify social networks c) hiring talent in Ireland today

Posted in Business Culture Ireland, curry 2.1 | 3 Comments