Thanks

The subject matter is ‘how to better engage with the public through the Web’.

When delivering a keynote, I tend to focus on no more than 2 messages. Less is more. That is, fewer messages will increase the likelihood of people remembering.

I intend to cover general accessibility, Web accessibility and blogs, but would like to solicit your feedback.

Accessibility

• Make local council staff more accessible. This can be achieved by putting names and contact details for every service that Councils offer the public.
• Make it easy for disabled users to access the same information as everyone else. This can be achieved by making sure their Web sites are designed and built with best practice techniques in mind. The W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the defacto guidelines used to help developers build accessible Web sites.
• Make their content more discoverable for search engines so when users can find reliable and relevant content when searching for local information. This also covers internal search. This is automatically achieved when Web sites have incorporated Web accessibility best practice.

Blogs

I intend to explain the benefits of blogs. My aim is to demonstrate the importance of being more interactive and engaging with the end user. It’s important for end users feel that Web site owners care about them. So, whilst I don’t think every organisation should necessarily have a blog, I do think it’s important for them to understand the importance of putting the end user first, by constantly improving what and how it delivers products and services based on their feedback.

Having said that, perhaps local councils should have blogs where nominated staff talk about bullying, drugs, pregnancy etc. as well as talk about local initiatives.

What do you think? I do realise it might be too late to get feedback but I’d appreciate last minute comments as I tend to change my presentations on the fly based on listeners responses (or sometimes lack of).

A much needed ecosystem to enable better collaboration is starting to form in London, with people like Saul Klein kicking off initiatives such as OpenCoffee, Robert Loch and Paul Birch running (compelling) Internet People and informal gatherings for Creative People (supported by me from a BIMA perspective) and Sam Sethi running mashup events. And these are just a few of the networking opportunities that attract an average of 80 likeminded opportunists on a regular basis. Then you have intimate and private breakfast meetings which I’ve attended, along with people such as Paul Birch, Robert Loch, Olly Barrett, Saul Campbell, Judy Gibbons, Judith Clegg, Michael Smith, Saul Campbell, Sam Sethi, Daniel Appelquist and more.

Sam wrote a very interesting post that grabbed the attention of some of the UK’s finest investors recently, most notably Doug Richards, one of the originals from Dragon’s Den. Sam articulated what I’ve been thinking about for a while – about the disconnect between investors, brands that can make a difference such as BT and Microsoft, government initiatives and entrepreneurs.

I was interested in the debate it sparked. Each investor articulated their involvement in various initiatives, all of which were unknown to me personally. That’s not to say they’re not compelling and very worthwhile, but it does highlight the necessity for each community to collaborate and not just each person in each community.

During the exchange of comments on Sam’s post, I raised the question about working with government bodies to seek more support to help build the foundation of such an ecosystem. There were no takers and only Robert suggested something similar.

Whilst Enterprise Ireland does very little, the Irish government has decided to roll out free WiFi access across Dublin city. This is the type of stuff that’s needed, but much more needs to happen if budding entrepreneurs are to, well, blossom. Unlike the dragons, I wouldn’t necessarily expect an inventor to have the business acumen to realise the full potential of their product – you can’t be good at everything.

So, whilst I believe entrepreneurs have the ability to sell, that doesn’t mean they have the time to fill in application forms for innovation type competitions to ensure they end up on the radar of people who count, nor are they likely to have time/money to spend on PR firms to do it for them. Congratulations to Nooked though, they deserved to be on the list! I believe the rest of the value chain should seek and discover such talent and help them realise their full potential. It’s not just about the money; it’s about building an ecosystem where better collaboration can take place.

I work with what I like to call ‘widget companies’ instead of trying to build everything. We now work in an environment where ‘plug ‘n play’ companies work together to deliver compelling products and services that don’t cost an arm and a leg to build.

So, who are the ‘The Digital Pioneers’ and how are they discovered?

So, here’s an example of where a vital stake holder could better engage to make a bigger impact.

I was contacted by the British Council this week and asked if I would consider becoming a mentor to a Hong Kong based mobile games company under a new scheme called the ‘Digital Pioneer Programme’. I have accepted because I think it’s a brilliant initiative.

I will also be talking to them about how to improve the programme itself. I’m impressed by their open-door policy to change where necessary.

The Digital Pioneer programme is a British Council programme for digital pioneers in the UK and Hong Kong. Six people, three from each country, have been selected following a competitive application process to take part in the first Digital Pioneer programme.

The Digital Pioneer programme 2007 is focussing on content development and an integral part of the programme is mentoring. Each digital pioneer has been asked to outline the area that they would like their mentor to be working in and the kind of input they would like from their mentor.

The Digital Pioneers from Hong Kong will have mentors in the UK and the UK pioneers will have mentors in Hong Kong. The initial visits will take place at the end of March with the UK pioneers going out to Hong Kong first and the Hong Kong pioneers returning the following week.

The UK pioneers will be in Hong Kong 17-24 March and we would like them to have the opportunity to meet their mentors during this visit. The Hong Kong pioneers will be in the UK 29 March – 5 April and again we would like the pioneers to have an opportunity to meet with their mentors during this week.

My role as a mentor will be to work with the Digital Pioneer and help them to access the market opportunities they are seeking in either the UK or Hong Kong.

I will

• put the pioneer in contact with people in industry who might be interest in buying the services/products offered by the pioneer’s business;
• be able to advise on how to access the market for example who is the best person to contact, what form the contact should take for example email or telephone;
• comment on the business they are running and offer advice on how to run the business more effectively;
• be a sounding board for ideas that the pioneer might have in terms of business or market development.

The (lucky) company

The guy from Hong Kong that I’m going to mentor is Wallis Wong.

Walis set up his first start up company in 2004 and has successfully developed and launched more than 20 mobile games and services including two award winning games, 3G Mopas and Hong Kong War. More information can be found at www.3dynamics.com.

So, how do we get all the relevant stake holders to collaborate and discuss how to implement better collaboration? I know this may sound a little silly, but sometimes you need to plan how you’re going to plan.

May I call all of the aforementioned, the DTI, British Council, Business Link and Gordon Browne (and anyone reading this with an interest) to a sit down breakfast? If Gordon is going to pay for it, why don’t we make it the Ivy?

The Lecture will take place at BAFTA tonight at 6.30pm, and will be followed by dinner and questions…

Unfortunately I can’t make it due to doing dinner with a friend, so if you’d like to attend please email Alastair directly. The event is sold out and tickets were £240 each.

The ticket(s) (complementary to you) include a glass of bubbly on arrival, and half a bottle of wine with dinner.

Timings 6.30 – 7.00pm Drinks Reception
7.00 – 8.00pm Annual Lecture
8.00 – 11.00pm Dinner including Q & A

Email Alastair now to get your ticket.

Also in attendance were several deal brokers, investors and venture capitalists who have valuable tips (and not to mention, finance!) to share. After some networking over canapes provided by hosts KPMG, we enjoyed speeches from three entrepreneurs who’ve been there and done it: Yuuguu‘s Anish Kapoor, Accountis and Sanoodi‘s Rhys Jones and Wadaro‘s Robert Wakeling. After sharing their wisdom it was also very interesting to hear Ed French of Rising Stars, venture capitalists who invest almost exclusively in tech startups. He provided valuable insight for any budding entrepreneur to bear in mind when seeking investment.

After a Q+A session, more drinks and food provided the ideal opportunity for the entrepreneurs to practice their ‘Dragon’s Den’ pitches to potential investors. Well done Manoj for organising a great event like this in Manchester.

BIMA has been asked to support this event ongoing, so we’ll post detail about future events here. I look forward to the next one.

Last week I learned that Revolution Magazine mentioned me (in August 2006) as one of 4 people to watch in 2007.

The clincher

Last week I received my personal copy of Digital Marketing for DUMMIES from one of its editors, Gregory Brooks. Thanks Gregory, what exactly are you trying to tell me? Should I study more carefully, the section on blogs or just read up more on digital marketing?

So, am I amongst the elite, or am I just a dummy? Ahem, feel free not to comment because I know what most of you will say

Greg, seriously, congratulations on the book and thank you very much for sending me a copy. I’ve been told a number of times by journalists that I should write a book, but I wouldn’t know where to start, wouldn’t have the time and certainly wouldn’t have the skill to write properly. Suggestions welcome!

We’ve just paid for some ‘credits’, allowing us to edit the CSS which until now, has been outside of our control. So, please be patient while we continue to improve the look ‘n feel and tidy up some of the edges. All suggestions welcome!

Which of these two images do you think will come true in the coming 12 to 24 months? In short, Mozilla are of the opinion that the first picture is a more likely outcome. However, I, alongside companies such as Apple, Nokia and Vodafone Group believe that the mobile web is soon to be a reality (or at the very least, more real). What do you think?

I was astonished to read (on Dan’s blog) that Mozilla doesn’t think users want to access the Web on mobile devices. Hence my picture above of what Mozilla must have in mind when it comes to the Web on the move, anytime, anywhere.

Dan was commentating on the Browser Panel at SXSW which was run by Arun from AOL (a colleague of mine from the W3C MWI). My buddy Charles from Opera took part too.

Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla is the reason for this post though. According to Dan, Brendan said

I don’t believe people are going to browse the Web on their phone. I don’t believe people want to use Wikipedia from their phone.

I’m absolutely amazed by Brendan’s view and I sincerely hope it’s his personal view and not Mozilla’s. Otherwise this $300m business faces the prospect of ending up in the bin alongside it’s parent, Netscape. For a guy who’s incredibly smart working for an organisation that has gained a market share of 10% to 12% of desktop browsers within 2 years, his comments are a little surprising to say the least. Brendan’s comments in my opinion, lack vision. Hell, they lack logic.

I couldn’t disagree more with Brendan. There are more people in the world who don’t have access to the Web than there are people who do. Of those people, most of them are in developing countries. The vast majority of them are extremely likely to use a mobile devices as their primary access point to the Web as it’s more difficult and more expensive to roll out fix lined networks than it is mobile.

Google announced some statistics recently that back up my view. BANGALORE, India (AFP) – Google vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton G. Cerf has predicted that mobile phones, not personal computers, will fuel growth of the worldwide web as countries like India snap up millions of handsets monthly.

From 50 million in 1997, the number of people who have logged onto the Internet has exploded to nearly 1.1 billion, Cerf, who is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet, said Tuesday.

Yet, the Internet only reaches a sixth of the world’s population, Cerf told reporters during a visit to this southern city, known as India’s Silicon Valley, where Google has a research and development facility.

Worldwide there are 2.5 billion mobile-phone users, whose numbers are growing rapidly in developing countries led by China and India, the world’s most populous countries, Cerf said in his presentation.

India, a country of 1.1 billion people, alone is adding seven million mobile-phone users a month, a powerful enough lure for British telecom giant Vodafone to pay 11.1 billion dollars for a controlling stake in local mobile firm Hutch-Essar this month. Read the original new article.

I feel so strongly about helping to bring the Web to more people, irrespective of their disability, location or hardware, I decided to become a founding sponsor of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI). One of the goals of the MWI is to create best practice guidelines to help developers build Web sites that will work on desktop computers, but importantly, work better on mobile devices too.

Other founding sponsors include Vodafone Group, Nokia, HP, Opera, MobileAware, ftgroup and Volantis. Other active participants within the initiative include companies such as AOL, .mobi, Google and Telefonica.

The mobile web is a hot topic and there’s always room for disagreement. However, I’m still amazed to hear the fastest growing desktop browser say that it doesn’t think people will want to use a mobile to browse the Web. Perhaps they should have a chat with Apple as they have a knack for creating technology to make content consumption extremely easy.

Half way through writing this post I checked my mail to find a note from a close friend. Ian from Glaxstar asked if Brendan’s comments were perhaps taken out of context. In short, I don’t know. I can only go by Dan’s commentary which I take as trustworthy knowing Dan as well as I do – he’s a well respected individual within the Mobile industry. That said, Mozilla is working on Mini Mo according to Ian…

Thanks to Keith Waters (France Telecom) for the picture (with man) above.

There’s a few tickets left so get in quick if you want to network with a cool bunch of very high calibre people. Food is brilliant too!

I was supposed to head to Dublin for a BarCamp organisers meeting but I’ve had to cancel that in the last 10 minutes. So, I’ll be heading to London for dinner instead. Please post a comment if you fancy a coffee and a chat before dinner.

There’s a great list of people attending, the vast majority of which are directors.

Full details can be found on my original post.

Book your ticket now.

The Creative Out networking event organised by Robert Loch went down very well again last night, with a turnout of more than 70 creative types.

Supported by BIMA, Creative Out is a cool, informal gathering of creative people from all walks of life. We had a right bag of jolly mixtures… fashion designers, poets, actors, cinematographers, Web designers and brand owners…

Some of the companies represented included MRM Worldwide, BBC Radio, Channel 4, Reactive, WDMP, French Connection, Proximity London, ITN, Rufus Leonard, Segala, McCann, Cominded and lots more.

The format is simple. It’s open mic. That means anyone can step up to the mark, take the mic, stand under the spotlight and pitch their vision/opinions on future trends within their industry, or of course any other industry. It’s a fantastic way to meet new people with the potential of striking up new partnerships and possibly even win new business!

I’m delighted to support this monthly gathering as I believe there’s an opportunity for cross pollination of talented creatives who before attending the event, may not realise the potential of working within an industry they hadn’t previously thought about.

I met quite a few BIMA members too which was great! In fact, I was amazed by the huge percentage of people who came from BIMA on such short notice.

Hope to see you at the next one! Judging by the numbers, you better book as soon as I promote it. So, why not subscribe to the blog RSS feed, or by email to ensure you keep up to date.

Thanks to pal Scott Rutherford for the photos – not bad quality considering they were taken on a mobile in the dark! I’ve uploaded the entire photo collection to flickr.

Thanks to Lbi, we didn’t have to worry about sore bums on hard seats. The room was nice and relaxed with big comfy two-seater sofas, helping to set the informal tone for the evening. The sofas reminded me of the good ole days of going to the cinema with a new girlfriend.

Mirage Islam, Head of Development Programme, BSkyB (and BIMA Executive) did a brilliant job at facilitating the debate, providing his own thoughts intermittently throughout the evening.

I can only give very small sound bites as BIMA dialogs and dinners are ‘off the record’, providing speakers and members of the audience, an opportunity to have a discussion in an open forum, without worrying about being quoted in the press. So, what happens on tour stays on tour.

Firstly, I’ll explain what a walled garden is in case it’s a term you’re not familiar with. Walled garden refers to the premium content that Operators sell to consumers. The content is either created by the Operator or supplied by a list of preferred suppliers who are obliged to give a cut of profits to the Operator.

According to some of the vocal attendees, this approach has made it extremely difficult for innovative content and application providers to sell direct to the consumer because it generally means they have to spend a lot of money on marketing. Some would argue that it’s not healthy for the consumer either, as it limits their choice; hence one of the reasons mobile content is so expensive.

Could you imagine BT (broadband provider) only permitting consumers to access its content and thereby restricting access to the Web? So, as you can imagine, it’s a sore spot for most providers and it’s a no-go for most investors who feel there are too many obstacles for innovative companies to break into the mobile space.

The theme lived up to my expectations with an interesting evening of direct questions being fired at our esteemed guest speakers, who I may add, provided decent answers under the pressure.

Our 3 speakers gave succinct introductions, leading them nicely into the lion’s den where numerous hungry content providers awaited to pounce. It’s very easy to take a shot at Operators for their control over consumer choice, but as our speakers demonstrated, this is, to a degree, done with good reason. Personally, I think Operators’ control was in the consumers’ best interest, but perhaps it’s now time to share the honey with the rest of the value chain.

The first of our speakers to stand up to the mark was Stephen Wolak, Web Technologies Manager, Vodafone Group R&D UK. Stephen’s main focus was on the user experience. He opened up with a quote from a book he read recently (sorry didn’t catch the name!)

When a person walks into a DIY shop to buy a drill, they don’t buy one because they need a drill, they buy one because they need holes.

This is very appropriate as I believe we sometimes forget what customers actually want and need. We tend to give them what we think they want and importantly, without asking for feedback so we can make further improvements.

In the Operators’ defence, Stephen came out with a great argument that demonstrated why he thinks Operators were (are?) right to control access to content.

We needed portals like AOL in the early days of the desktop Web. It helped to ensure users could easily find the content they were looking for in a user friendly environment. I feel the same can be said for mobile, WAP provided a user friendly environment for users in the early days. Now we can look to providing access to non-listed content.

Next up was Andrew McGrath, Director, Design and Usability, Orange. Andrew talked about Orange’s position in the market as a media owner and not just an Operator. According to Andrew

We simply want to give customers want they want. We believe Orange is in a position to do this as we have a trusted brand.

Last but by no means least, Peter Ford, Alliances Director, EMEA, ATG was under the spotlight. Peter, like the previous speakers, was very articulate with his answers. He was probably the most vocal (and to the point) of the 3 but perhaps that’s because Peter doesn’t work for an Operator. He came across as a very honest guy, so I’m confident he wasn’t there to agree with his peers for the sake of it.

Peter was also focused on the user experience. I don’t think I’ve been to an event where the customer is centre of attention for everyone. Is the customer at the centre of attention in reality though?

One of Peter’s comments which stuck out in my mind was

I don’t want to watch TV on my phone, I just want to do simple things.

This is almost ironic as Ken Blakeslee demonstrated to Adrian McMahon how he accesses his sky box using a pair of glasses and a mobile phone.

I’m sure there are lots of people who don’t want to do anything other than make voice calls. However, there’s huge chunks of revenue to be gained through data and users do consume massive amounts of it through music and video downloads, amongst other services.

Amongst the audience was Jeremy Flynn, CEO, D2SEE. Jeremy was vocal throughout the evening making some excellent comments and raising tough questions. One of Jeremy’s points was

Standards and standardisation are two different things. I don’t care about standards as long as we have access to standardised APIs. At present [company x] makes it virtually impossible for us to provide content to their customers. They don’t provide standardised APIs and their age verification system is virtually impossible to work with.

We need all Operators to work together.

There were other members of the audience asking plenty of questions but as I’ve said, I can only provide a few sound bites.

The networking afterwards was relaxed and informal. Hooking up with pal and veteran mobile expert Ken Blakeslee from WebMobility, was of course great. Ken never ceases to amaze me with the gadgets he pulls out of his pocket. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the rest of the attendees and hope to see them at future events.

You can see all the photographs on Flickr.

It’s an Open Forum on future trends where guests are invited to give their thoughts on future trends in their or any industry.

Date. Monday 12th March 2007
Time. 6:45
Venue. The Rehearsal Room at Adam Street Private Members Club
9 Adam Street, just off The Strand
Entrance is FREE.

BIMA is supporting this event – it should be an excellent evening. I’ll be attending and hope to see you there for a chat over a glass of wine (or many).

If you would like to attend please let Robert Loch know as soon as possible at Robert@creativeout.com as places are limited to 50. Please provide your job title, company and area of work for the attendees list.

BIMA is delighted to be able to welcome as guest speaker
Scott Gallacher
Director of Online & Partner Marketing, BSkyB
Who will talk on

Moving from talented amateur to a mature professional: The challenge for Digital

Reserve your place now to participate in this discussion and take advantage of the great networking opportunity.

Date. Wednesday 14th March at 7 p.m.
Venue. Vasco & Piero’s Pavilion, Poland Street, London W1
Members. £64.63 including vat. Non-members. £88.13 including vat.

Price includes: wine reception, three-course dinner with wine

BIMA Dinners are very exclusive with a limited number of guests and are always over subscribed. Reservations will be confirmed on a first-come-first-served basis and you are therefore urged to book as soon as possible.

Dr. SCOTT GALLACHER
Director of Online & Partner Marketing, BSkyB

How does online become a core business driver for a FTSE 100 company? While the industry is growing dramatically, activity in mobile web, Web 2.0 and social networking remains a distant thought from the owners of the balance sheet. Scott’s talk will focus on how evolve digital to make this connection.

This has been a key element of his responsibility for managing BSkyB’s Online sales & marketing activities. With expanding product range and an increasingly convergent & competitive market, online bears increasing requirements to deliver results.

Previous to BSkyB, Scott worked at OgilvyOne as Client Services Director for the American Express International Online account covering 38 countries, during which period his team performed a global redesign & rollout of American Express’s online presence. Prior to this he served as a Vice President for Digitas handling various roles from Technology Consultancy to New Business development and working on numerous clients including Ericsson, RBS, Kingfisher & Sony.

He strongly believes in the need for solid education & training to develop digital and holds a PhD in Multimedia innovation & social learning and a M.Sc. in Human Computer Interaction.

Reserve your place now

The walled Garden …will mobile operators’ walls tumble in 2007 (or do they know something the rest of us don’t)?

Join BIMA’s expert panellists’ debate about how mobile operators continue to have a walled garden. Is there potential disruption of the apple iPhone as an apple walled garden experience? What attitudes surround consuming operator content versus premium content providers versus portals provided by the manufacturers themselves? What is the impact of premium content consumption on operator branded handsets versus vanilla handsets?

Even though there are opportunities for advertisers to subsidise content why is it not mainstream? Are there threats to premium content providers playing alongside operators with triple play and quad play offerings – sharing and consuming content over integrated web and mobile offerings? What will the impact on broadcasters entering the mobile space really look like?

Date. Tuesday 6th March 2007
Time. Arrive at 5.45 for a 6:15 start
Venue. LBi, 1 Naoroji Street, WC1X 0JD Map
BIMA members: £23.50
Non-members: £39.95

• Steve Wolak, Web Technologies Manager, Vodafone Group R&D – UK
• Andrew McGrath, Director, Design and Usability, Orange Group
• Peter Ford, Alliances Director, EMEA with ATG

After the debate, continue the discussion and network over a glass of wine (or 2, or 3).

Email Janice to book your seat now!

Speaker profiles can be found by clicking through to the full post

Stephen Wolak
Web Technologies Manager, Vodafone Group R&D – UK

Stephen has worked in the mobile industry since graduating from Imperial College in 1985. His career kicked off at Motorola Communications in Basingstoke where he helped get their mobile exchange working with BT’s System X exchanges. Next stop was also in Basingstoke, Orbitel Mobile Communications – which later became Ericsson – working on the software for the new digital base stations. There followed a short diversion into academia as a Senior Lecturer in Software Engineer at Portsmouth University.

Software development was resumed at NEC Technologies in Reading, where he worked as a Software Group Leader on NECs GSM mobile phones and in particular the new WAP stack before joining Vodafone.

At Vodafone Group R&D in Newbury Stephen set up the Service Enabling Technologies Team to research into new technologies for mobile services. Projects have included; IMS, NFC, moblogging, mobile communities and more recently Vodafone Betavine (see www.vodafonebetavine.net ) and online collaborative R&D space for Mobile and Internet Communications.

Andrew McGrath
Director, Design and Usability, Orange

Since June 2006 Andrew has run the Orange Global Design and Usability team based at Paddington Basin in London. The 18 strong team has a remit to deliver Group design solutions and specifications for the whole of Orange. Current design activities encompass Mobile Handset UI, Mobile application UI, WAP, Web and TV experiences.

Prior to joining Orange in 2004 Andrew ran the UI team in 3 UK for 4 years and before that he worked for 9 years in BT as a Designer in their Research and Development activity in Adastral Park Suffolk

Andrew studied Product Design at Glasgow School of Art and then at Manchester Metropolitan University

Peter Ford
Alliances Director, EMEA with ATG

A 25 year industry veteran, Peter joined ATG in January 2006 and has been at the forefront of developing the go-to-market strategy with the Partner Community in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The transformation has been rapid with significant revenue returns to ATG Europe inside the first 12 months. Balanced between conventional Alliances and Sales Management/Business Development disciplines, he’s spent the last 12 years in International Alliances and Channels, of which the last 8 years has been in the Internet and Web Services market with organisations including management roles in the European Operations of OpenMarket and Interwoven.

At OpenMarket, the Alliances strategy there saw the European Operations outgrow those of the US with a 350% increase in revenue. At Interwoven he developed the Partner model in Continental Europe to increase revenue contribution by over 600% whilst restructuring the business across the EMEA region.

Prior to this Peter held a number of Senior Sales Management positions in organisations including Comshare and Xerox.

Register now!

My 13 executives and I have been working very hard for the past 9 months, putting in place new processes and tools to help us better operate internally and communicate with you. It’s now time to tell you about all the additional benefits available to members. Stay tuned!

Please subscribe to the RSS feed to automatically receive updates.

There’s a lot of work needed on this blog, but it shouldn’t take long. New BIMA Web site on the way too!

I’m attending the next BIMA event so why don’t you sign up if you fancy a chat over a glass of wine afterwards.