December 2011
1 post
This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine
My first camera phone clung onto the back of a Sony Ericsson T610. It took grainy 285*250px pics after negotiating the maze like menu and waiting almost a minute for it to turn on. This was back in 2003 when phone were becoming a new age techo swiss army knife with flashlights, flashing lights, matrix style flip down microphones, music players, and spirit levels. And even though it was a virtually...
October 2011
1 post
April 2011
1 post
I wasn't a very good vegetarian
For the past 40 days I’ve been a vegetarian. I’ve been looking to perform this culinary experiment for some time but needed the cover of Lent as an excuse. And (apart from accidentally eating a Bratwurst) I’ve stuck to it for the whole of Lent, something I didn’t think I’d be able to do.
Why, why, why?!
Well:
Firstly it was for a change of perspective, how else are...
October 2010
1 post
5 tags
Palomar 5 one year on
Last winter I upped sticks and moved to a disused malting factory in Berlin to take part in Palomar 5. A global melting pot of 30 young, ambitious, creative, and slightly mad innovators hell bent on investigating new ways of working and innovating. Admittedly a vague and idealistic concept, but with the backing of sponsors Deutsche Telekom, we had the freedom to work as we please making the six...
September 2010
1 post
4 tags
onefinejob
I
am proud to announce that I’ve joined the team at onefinestay to help build the unhotel.
So whats that? Well, onefinestay allows travellers to stay in characterful homes rather than bland hotel rooms. So it’s converted Churches, Mayfair boltholes, and houseboats rather than Hiltons or Holiday Inns. The aim is to lets guests live like a local but with the convenience and privacy...
August 2010
1 post
6 tags
Thoughts on Stuff
How much stuff do we now need to not only function, but work and live life fully?
Last weekend I moved house, or more accurately I’ve carted 20 boxes, two bikes, an ironing board and a desk from Stockwell to Forest Hill. The ordeal of packing, moving and unloading took the best part of a day plus previous efforts to cajole 3 friends into lugging a van’s worth of guff up four flight...
July 2010
2 posts
5 tags
Life Metrics: How do you measure the performance...
As an engineering student we did a simple labs experiment to measure the efficiency of a combustion engine at various operating conditions. With an understanding of the theory, you could improve it’s efficiency by changing factors like the air/fuel mix.
But what happens when you apply that experimental method to improve the performance or, err, me?
How can I measure my effectiveness as a...
7 tags
Moving on: Goodbye Seedcamp, Hello Startup
Over the past 2 years at Seedcamp I’ve met and worked with hundreds of amazing technology entrepreneurs, investors, and experts around the World, via 36 flights, in 14 countries, at 22 Seedcamps. According to Dopplr, my average speed has been that of a duck.
So where to next? My next adventure is building my own startup and growing an awesome business. I’ve...
May 2010
2 posts
The remarkable power of FOCUS
Making a product is tough, and at a startup weekend the teams only have a couple of days to make stuff. At Startup weekend Venice I gave a quick talk based on a morning observing the teams, to try and help them with their (really rapid) product development.
I spoke about how product development hinges on fuzzy and then focused thinking - and to make sure that they don’t take too long...
2 tags
April 2010
1 post
11 tags
Cycling in London - the Fix
My last post focused on the problems of cycling in London, and how fear and poor cycle routes are two of the key issues preventing a mass uptake of cycling in the capital. The comments echoed these concerns with storys of potholes, fractious cycle lanes and nightmarish conditions. This post is about how we, the passionate cycling community, can start making the improvements required. Consider...
March 2010
3 posts
7 tags
Cycling in London is crap - Here is how we can...
Cycling in London is crap. The roads are congested, the air is polluted, the cycle lanes are a joke, it’s dangerous, and navigation of cycle routes impossible. As a result only 7% of Londoners cycle every day compared to 55% of people in Copenhagen. Londoners are scared to get on their bikes, and no amount of picturesque advertising is going to change that.
But cycling in London could...
5 tags
Getting Things Done
Reading David Allen’s personal productivity manual, Getting Things Done, is fast becoming a rite of passage for young entrepreneurs. Some even go a step further and write up their top implementation tips for a GTD system, others have created software to catalogue each and every to-do. In the spirit of getting this blog going I’d like to share my 2 pages of notes which I think do a...
