FREE Book for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur, innovation consultant and former high-level operational executive in several IT companies, Christine Comaford, wrote a book last year called "Rules for Renegades - how to make money, rock your career and revel in your individuality".

On the web site she has had the first chapter available for free ever since it was launched, but now - in a mixture of a fantastic marketing stunt and, I choose to believe, a real desire to help kick-start the economy again, she is giving away 5,000 copies for FREE. That's right, all you have to do is pay the postage & packaging costs of $7.95 if in the US (with sales tax to be added for CA residents).

I think this is a great initiative, and it looks like a very interesting book - as well as one of the better marketing tactics I have seen in a very long time. It all goes back to my previous post about "moving the free line" and is a very strong way of creating evangelism for your product. If it can also help entrepreneurs develop new products and services for which there will be a great demand, and thereby putting more people into jobs, even better.

Read the first chapter online.
Get your FREE copy of the book now.

Bring On the Subs!

... sub-editors that is.

Am I the only one to bemoan the sad state of journalism these days? Every single major news site seems to be full of factually wrong content, badly written content and broken links. I don't know if the advent of Internet publishing meant the end of the art of sub-editing, but it really does seem like it. Yesterday I was looking at a picture on the Danish financial newspaper Borsen's lifestyle site and saw a chef carving up a duck. The caption had two spelling errors in it and stated that the picture was of the duck AND a fillet of beef. I could see many interesting things about the picture, but it would have been truly weird if there had been a steak in the picture as well - and sure enough there wasn't. Makes you wonder if somebody just hits the "publish" button without pausing for just a second to see what they have written. Simple errors like this really ought to be simple to catch and weed out, but I guess the pressure is now on the journalists to focus on quantity and speed in publishing - and now they are doing their own sub-editing (yeah, right) they really don't seem to care whether what they have written is wrong or right. It is all about getting it out there as quickly as possible. I just wish that somebody would start to introduce some measures of quality control again or it might be the slow and painful end of well written content and we'll soon find entire articles written in text speak.

What do you think? Are you also annoyed/concerned about the dropping standards of online (and off-line for that matter) journalism?

Royal Copenhagen Keep On Firing Cannonballs Downwards...

Recently (October 2008), Royal Copenhagen won the top award in design awarded in Denmark, the annual Bo Bedre "Design of the Year" prize. Unfortunately, they haven't decided to capitalise on this fact yet, and even though they've, finally, decided to open up an online shop, they aren't selling the first completely brand new set of tableware for the 21st century.

It just makes you wonder why somebody at the top of the Xmas tree hasn't figured out the point that the most likely buyers of the new and cool tableware are also the ones who are most likely to be buying online... I hope I can get a really hardcore investor to go in and salvage this company before they go down the drain - and employ me as the Chief Marketing Officer :-). In many ways, as a Dane by birth, this would really be the dream job.

Government Conspiracy?

No, this post is not about a conspiracy theory, but rather the realisation (which happened about 7 - 8 years ago) that BT were responsible for hampering UK competitiveness when it came to delivering broadband to both companies and consumers.

At the same time (or more specifically 6 - 12 months later) that other European telecoms companies introduced broadband to their customers, BT introduced lines at a quarter of the speed (even though the speed available across the copper wires at the time was more than capable of handling the higher speeds). This was down to a combination of pure greed by BT and opportunism by the Labour government at the time, but unfortunately it meant the death of some of the most interesting content companies in Europe such as Tripledash and Sportal, and bombed the UK internet industry back to the Stone Age. We are only just now starting to catch up with from this government induced setback, but we are still massively behind our counterparts in e.g. Scandinavia, where a 20Mbit line is now becoming the norm, rather than the exception. Over here, my 8Mbit line seldom delivers more than 2.5 Mbit performance. This would actually be fine, though, to deliver a standard broadcast signal live on a full screen terminal (e.g. a TV, but there are just too many "drops" in the connection to make it feasible" - something I have found when I have tried to purchase live TV broadcasts from abroad).

However, the blame does not lie solely with the government and BT. Broadcasters selling live content online have also got to share part of the blame, e.g. Viasat in Scandinavia and TV2 in Denmark, who have previously sold an inferior experience by offering a maximum of 600Kbit streams to customers paying £5 or more to watch a live football match online - and with MASSIVE service outages. With the bandwith available to them, and the prics charged, they should be able to offer a 2 Mbit stream for customers with fast enough connections as a minimum, but this, as always, is one of the areas where traditional TV channels will always try to save money - right until the economic and customer behavioural realities force them to change tack.

If the purely online TV players such as Joost, WiTV, Kangaroo, etc. are pushed out of the running for the (not very lucrative) online TV rights, this move will be delayed even further. It might be that the UK is leading the way in terms of fantastic content for viewing (particularly within the sphere of comedy), but we could still find ourselves left behind by government policies and programme pricing for digital usage.

Flickr Service Outage

It is interesting to see that just a few days after the announcement that Yahoo! has lost one of its principal strategic options, we are starting to see service blips on Flickr. Is this the beginning of the end of Yahoo! or is it just an ISP service blip?

What Now For Yahoo!?

This is the big questions of the day after Google announced its intention to walk away from the advertising partnership. With Yahoo! rebuffing MSN's advances and failing to secure a deal with Google, it is starting to run out of options for a long-term growth strategy and could very well end up failing in the next few years as it struggles to find a clear and beneficial value proposition to present to consumers and advertisers alike.

Back in February, I wrote about how I thought that Jerry Yang had lost the plot and with this recent development he and the board have got very few options left. It will be interesting to see what happens next...

Experience Flying With Cathay Pacific

I just saw Cathay Pacific's new online advertising campaign, which leads you to an interactive experience where you can see what it is like to fly with Cathay in first class, their new business class and economy. It is one of the better presentations of this sort I have seen recently and it just goes to show what can be done in the newer versions of Flash.

Experience flying with Cathay.

Barack Obama Looks Like a Likely Next President

Having sat up until 2:26 a.m. GMT to follow the US election, it now looks very likely that Barack Obama will become the next President of the United States of America.

I just wish that Jesse Jackson would shut up about this being a racial issue and the idea that every country in the world should now elect a black candidate. Finally, the US has entered the modern age and no longer looks at race as an issue (like the rest of the first world has done for years). It is about electing the BEST candidate for the job.

Now the question becomes what Barack Obama will do in order to solve the following issues:
- The economy (will he be an isolationist/protectionist?)
- Foreign policy
- The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan
- Healthcare (lest we all forget the ill-fated Clinton attempt at solving this)
- Ecology/climate change

There are still outstanding questions about Obama's complete lack of executive experience so the importance of assembling a very strong team around him becomes even more apparent, particularly on issues such as the economy, environment, armed forces, foreign policy and healthcare. I wish the new administration the best of luck and hope that they succeed in helping the global economy and promote the idea of a more stable global political system, but really am worried about the potential isolationism which might be displayed by Obama once he is in office. For the last 65 years, the United States have seen themselves as playing the role of global police officer and if they suddenly start reverting to the Monroe Doctrine of isolationism, I wonder how the rest of the G8 countries as well as the developing world would look on that.

The Joys of Plane Travel

Today I read a great little article in the New York Times from Monday, where Geoff Vuleta, founder of innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212, talks about his epxeriences of business travel. There are some very funny moments in there and a lot of experiences that all frequent travellers will be able to recognise.

What's your worst and best air travel experiences?

Moving the "Free" Line

For all of you are looking to sell products and services, which are of value to the customers, it might be worth checking out this article from Free IQ. One of the key problems facing sellers is whether to give anything away for free. The argument in the article is by giving away more of your product or service to the potential customers they will actually be more likely to buy from you as they get a better understanding of what you are offering and can therefore make a much more informed decision on whether it is right for them.

I wouldn't recommend this for everything, but it could be a rather useful sales tactic.

How to Survive a Financial Crisis - And Why It's No Thanks to the Media

Warren Buffett would probably call me a Scaredy Cat, but in the last 11 years I have successfully managed to ride out two global meltdowns, so I must be doing something right.

Warren Buffett argues in his New York Times piece on October 17th that we should look at the fundamentals of the companies that we are looking to invest in and get back into the market before the real value increases start to materialise.

As a trained economist, in almost every single way, I agree with his aggressive investment strategy in that you should look to go positively into a volatile market and be much more cautious in a raging bull market. However, there is one part of the equation missing in the entire argument: the speed of information. The previous examples he cited happened in a world where it took days - or even weeks - for news to reach around the world. This time, we are dealing in a truly global marketplace, where movements in stock trading prices are transmitted instantly to the far corners of the globe. Today, day traders in Fiji can get in on the action as quickly as a market maker in London, and this now has one additional factor: the media!

The BBC's Robert Peston has become a global celebrity for his "ability" to forecast developments in the financial meltdown. Personally, I think it is vanity before the fall and I can't help but think to myself: "Apres moi, le deluge!" We only need to think back to the original dotcom boom and the case of Henry Blodget and the dubiousness of some of his recommendations, including my former employer Quokka Sports, Inc. ...

However right Peston has been in some of his predictions, he - and his ilk - have also been a major cause for the entire eff up in the financial markets at the moment. In a world of complete information (something we gave up on in economics theory about 200 years ago, even though we still had to rely on it to try and simplify our thoughts into something that resembled common sense), people who are not trained economists or professional investors are likely to be swayed by the media. After the stock market crash in 1929 and what followed in the early 1930s in the US, leading to the need for the bank closures and Roosevelt's New Deal, people were queuing to try and take out their assets from the banks - something which would have toppled the entire economy. Even before this meltdown kicked into full swing, we saw something similar happen to Northern Rock a year ago.

However, the nationalisation of this bank and the government's intervention to ensure that Bradford & Bingley was bought by Grupo Santander without the need for yet another nationalisation putting another strain on an already strung out economy also threw the British economy a lifeline. But, the big issue this time around was not the savings accounts, but rather the fact that most individuals over the last 70 years had evolved into "investors" rather than just plain "savers". This suddenly meant that they were subjected to much higher market volatility and risk. In itself this should not be a problem, but once the forces of the modern global media machine start setting into motion their huge "scare campaign" about what was happening in global markets it affected the man in the street - and, unlike in the 1920s and 1930s, this time around he has money to spend.

The media generated hysteria helped induce the market into an absolute selling frenzy, which increased the rate of the downward spiral in the financial markets. As long as we have "proponents of doom" in the media, who can reach out to a large percentage of the populace in next to no time, we also have a problem with restoring parity and common sense in the markets. The basis of all economics is rational behaviour and complete information - none of which have ever existed in any trading markets (except, bizarrely enough, for some Communist ones). This time around, we actually have complete information, but I would have to argue that the analysis is off-key and becomes a self-fulfilling doomsday prophecy more than anything else. All rationality (normally it's only about 85% (;-))) has gone out the window and everybody is reacting in a panic. Many sound financial analysts look at the prospects of snapping up stocks at a a huge discount, like Warren Buffett argued, but the only question is? Who is going to borrow the money to buy it - and where from? The prospect of buying everything on credit and being hit by a margin call when the market reverses another 10% tomorrow is just not a very attractive proposition...

Right now, you will hear a lot of positive voices around thw world financial markets... rest assured they're the ones who've made the gambles and who'll be willing to dump everything if they can make 3% in a day. My advice to private investors, though, is to stay well clear of this type of pressure selling as it is very close in nature to the unsolicited pushing of OTC stock (a practice banned in many mature market) and where you are likely to get caught out.

I agree with Warren Buffett that it is a good idea to go back into the market before everybody hears that all is dandy and the markets have risen for three consecutive months to the tune of 30%. However, I would also argue that the current volatility is so extreme that even the so called "experts" have absolutely no clue what is happening. If we predict that it will take another 3 to 5 years for the markets to recover to their previous peak levels, I would argue that you will still find bargains in 3 - 6 months. You might not hit the absolute jackpot from an investment point of view, but you are also decreasing your risk massively, and you will still be able to find great global companies for sale at very reasonable P/Es.

The two questions I know I still haven't answered in this post are:
1. How did I ride it out in 1997
2. What am I doing now - and why?

ad 1) 2 weeks before it all went topsy turvy I shifted all of my Asian investments from shares/stocks into bonds, which held up and actually increased in value
ad 2) my trading account was based 100% in USD and I therefore profited from the rise in the dollar in the initial confusion. I had everything in cash before the crash and therefore was at anywhere between 0.2 and 0.5 per month in the black. However, I believe that the dollar will be hit very hard over the next few months and to ride it out I have shifted 50% into gold futures (that might be worth another article on its own at some stage) and since this is based in USD, I have hedged the investment by moving the remaining 50% into Swiss Francs (CHF), which I believe to be the most stable currency at the moment.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, particularly from all of the trained economists, and what you're doing. That is, everybody except Thomas B. since we've already spent hours discussing and agreeing on this :-).

PK33: The Killing Stool

I have just learnt a very valuable lesson:

I should not try to close my windows upstairs without the lights on... Along the way I pretty much tried to kick through an iconic Danish piece of furniture, Poul Kjaerholm's PK33 stool (seen below). Fantastic if you want to wake your neighbours up by screaming like a Banshee... not so great if you just want to close the window to ensure the rain stays out!



Hope that all of the readers out in the Blogosphere are having a good night. Please tune in soon to hear some thoughts on everything from the American democratic process to a very long rant against the British government and British Telecom and how they are to blame for a lack of global competitiveness of British media companies.

Why I Dislike American Political Adverts

This is just sad... As I can't vote in the US election, I know that I'm not the target audience for this inane drivel, but it really is a classic example of how bad American political advertising can be.

The Sarah Palin Rap

For those of you who missed Sarah Palin's appearance on SNL, here are the two segments which she appeared in. Very funny.

Ecademy? Steer WELL Clear

A couple of years ago, I was invited by a friend to join the Ecademy networking site (they don't deserve a link). I joined and was very disappointed by all of the two-bit, jobless so called "power networkers" who kept on contacting me. They all had 500 or more contacts. This is very easy to do when there is constantly a list in the left hand navigation saying the members who have most recently been online. They will email you a bog standard copy/paste email about how they can help you network - and a contact is automatically established if you respond to an email, even to say "go away, I'm not buying your £10 guide to networking". I also got all kinds of requests from homemakers who were trying to sell their services in everything from licking envelopes to cleaning my home - NOT what I want or expect from a business networking site, which isn't cheap if you want a paid membership.

In light of all of the above, I decided to cancel my paid membership, but even as a free member I got inundated with all kinds of junk mail. I finally took the drastic step of writing 6 times all across my profile: "DO NOT CONTACT ME. I AM NO LONGER USING ECADEMY!" Lo and behold, the next thing that happens is that I get inundated with the next round of emails from sad and dodgy characters, who obviously can't even be bothered to read the profile. This actually made it quite funny reading emails starting: "I read your profile and it looks like we would be able to do some very interesting business together". I tried blacklisting people, but that requires you to first connect with them so I wrote telling them to buzz off and that they would be blacklisted. However, when you then blacklist them all of the emails you have sent (i.e. 1) gets deleted so the user at the other end then starts writing to you again... thereby showing that even the blacklisting function doesn't work.

In the immortal words of Bart Simpson: "Ay Carumba!"

I've now just decided to ignore anything that comes in through Ecademy, and hope that the company will just go and sit in the corner and wither away.

If you would like to connect with me from a business networking perspective, please contact me on LinkedIn with a clear and concise email describing why we should connect (you should have something on your mind rather than just trying to build your database of contacts).

If you are a long lost friend, please go and find me on Facebook instead.

Project Dubai

As some of you may know, I have recently been involved in a couple of projects working in Dubai for one of the big real estate players. I thought I would just share the first web site to come out of the project (launched in 7 weeks from scoping of work), Downtown Jebel Ali. It was a great pleasure to work with the team at TribalDDB, who really did come up with some good creative ideas and where able to very quickly understand my vision for how we could both build a platform for all future real estate projects as well as be able to launch the first site on it in less than 7 weeks - oh, and in both English and Arabic.

The beauty of the site is that each section has been built in its own Flash container so as more content becomes available, we will continue to let the site evolve - including some very snazzy animations.

I hope you enjoy it!