Alasdair Bell.com

This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:18:48 +0000

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 useless camera, I still melt when I see photos of my early years at university. My best camera wasn’t my clunky 3mpx Sony beast, but the one I had in my pocket.

Unexpected snow on Cornmarket.

Hundreds of almost unrecognisable photos and it was time to upgrade. After fastidious research I choose the most useless phone ever produced, the HTC TyTn. This jack of all trades promised so much; wifi, email, internet, document editing, a keyboard, and a fiendishly addictive game called bubbles. And yet it delivered so little, most features were poorly designed to the point where you don’t use them, and the phone was so badly made half of it eventually stopped working. The frustration of not having a working directional key is hard to put into words.

And yet having a camera made it indispensable. Especially when you find a way onto the college roof when they are filming a Hollywood movie to get a snap of the action.

Next came iPhone. The technology was already available but Apple’s genius was making it usable. On many occasions I’ve left higher quality cameras at home and relied on the always ready iPhone to take the snap. So when in Berlin, and you’ve crashed a party, you can get that awesome photo.

Your house is on fire. What do you take with you? Assuming your loved ones escape the flames, memories are high on the list to escape chardom. Photos are important. No wonder people develop such a close attachment to their cameras.

Understanding this emotional connection between user and device is how Apple nailed the iPhone, and why the iPhone is now the world’s most popular camera. Apple made it easier than ever before to take pictures with their phones, get them onto their computers, and then shared or printed. They removed all the clutter which got in the way on other platforms.

When showing off the iPhone’s photography features, Apple don’t brag about technical specifications, instead they show the emotional connection between user and phone. One of Apple’s most successful adverts was for Facetime, which shows friends and relatives having video chats. There isn’t any quoting of technical specification which no-one cares about, the technology gets out of the way. Because people care about stories they can relate to and not new fancy technology.

When presenting to Kodak in Mad Men, Donald Draper gives a great summary which I think applies as much to product design as it does to marketing.

“Technology is a glittering lure, but there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash. If they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job I was in-house at a fur company. This old pro copy writer. A Greek named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is “new.” It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond to a product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate but potent.”

Now watch the clip

A few things I’ve been making for my flat: A crate for a...

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:23:00 +0100

A few things I’ve been making for my flat:

A crate for a wardrobe
A pallet for a coffee table
And a shelving unit as a err shelving unit

I wasn't a very good vegetarian

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:48:37 +0100

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 you to discover something new, exciting, and unexpected than to try out new things. I was also influenced by reading about Google engineer Matt Cutts, who has done a series of 30 day challenges like not drinking caffeine and taking a photo a day, which have resulted in some interesting insights.
Secondly I’m a remarkably one dimensional chef, meat sits in the middle of the plate and some veg surrounds it like extras on a filmset. I like lentils and tofu but had never given them centre stage.
Thirdly, I know eating meat is irresponsible. For a calorifically comparable meal of rice and vegetables verses beef, the beef uses sixteen times more fossil fuels to produce and generates 24 times more carbon emissions. Like any good geek with a fear of the eventual collapse of society due to overconsumption, like in Paolo Bacigalupi’s excellent book The Windup Girl, I know we have to be forced to consider alternatives before it is too late.

So what was it like?

Tough, I missed the taste and texture of meat. I even had a dream about bacon.
It was also fairly unfulfilling as I struggled to find foods which could directly replace meat in my diet. Instead cheese, eggs, tofu and fake meat, often filled the gaps. There were also painfully long gaps between finding excellent dishes such as lentil and aubergine curry, and tofu Singapore noodles.
Eating at restaurants was frustrating as your choice was reduced, it was interesting however to try things on the menu I would never normally order.
I had some antisocial dining experiences with friends after being asked if I wanted to stay for dinner but then not being able to join in as they were cooking something meaty.

It’s been a fun 40 days but I’m glad to be back on the meat. I enjoyed the challenge and the change of perspective but struggled to find enough satisfying alternatives become a more permanent vegetarian. That said next year I am considering going vegan…

Palomar 5 one year on

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:49:13 +0100

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 weeks some of the most fun and creative I’ve experienced.

I left the camp convinced that innovation is now the most important factor in creating a competitive business, a subject I spoke about in one of our presentation at the culminating camp summit.

Moreover the cost of innovation is decreasing as the cost of tools to create prototypes become lower, and the knowledge of processes required for creation are more openly and widely distributed due to the wonders of the internet.

Simply put. People are making new innovative things more cheaply than before. From furniture, to business processes, books, or research projects – more can be done with less.

The spirit Palomar 5 lives most strongly in Open Design City, a Berlin based workshop which brings together makers with the tools they needs to make products, objects and other tangible things. Jay and Chris, the two members of the P5 camp behind ODC, are firm believers in open design and want this fablab to also be the centre of a community who share their knowledge and processes in an open manner. The initiative is excellently described in this recent article by Fast Company Design.

Sadly I’m not aware of a similar community in London as I miss the chaotic/creative workspace of P5. Plus my collection of tools are looking for a home. Any suggestions?

onefinejob

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:13:00 +0100

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 a serviced hotel would offer such as toiletries, towels and a concierge. There are even some snazzy touches like an iPhone provided to guests during their stay with our app featuring local area information and a home instructional guide activated by pointing the phone at various barcodes located around the property (like on a wii or an oven).

Behind the scenes is a dedicated and smart team working on hard but solvable problems to keep the show running and increase capacity for the future. I’ve joined the operation team to help design and implement systems and processes to make our model work at greater scale. For example how do we accurately and repeatedly ensure that a home is left exactly as we found it? or what is the most effective way to move bedding around town, especially when there’s more than fits on a scooter?

I love the opportunity to work on building and improving a business I previously rated as one of the best emerging from Europe (and I’ve seen a few!). Also onefinestay is a great match for my interests/obsession with technology enabled businesses, good job as to work at a startup you need to be obsessed with what they are trying to achieve because the hours aren’t reasonable and the positions aren’t well paid!

Thoughts on Stuff

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:51:27 +0100

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 of steps. But this isn’t the first time I’ve relocated - In my 2 years in London I’ve done 5 moves due to a mixture of rubbish landlords, enacted break clauses, and intermittent spells of staying at friends’ (I am however, obviously a perfect tenant :-)

At which point does the effort of moving everything become greater than the pleasure the things allow? And what opportunities am I missing by being rooted to the ground by a mountain of possessions?

Location independent living is modern day form of nomadism made possible by technology. The theory is that if you spend 90% of your time working from a computer, that computer (and therefore the worker), could be anywhere in the world.

And then the possibilities really start, travel and communications have never been easier, so why not split your time between Thailand and LA? The price difference averages out to a permanent residence in London…

OK that sounds fun, but aren’t you just replacing the stress of moving lots of stuff once in a while with the stress of moving a small amount of stuff often? Not to mention the continual planning and budgeting to make it all work out.

A few folk have decided that this is the lifestyle for them - here are tales of their experience

Site dedicated to location independent living by two of the early pioneers

Tim Ferriss picked up on the possibility in the 4 hour work week

BBC News Article on the Cult of Less

So am I going to sell my boxes of kitchen equipment, clothes, tools and sports kit and join the jetset? Simply no. I think a permanent life of travel would get tiresome fairly quickly as travel is only fun if it has a purpose or is with people you want to spend time with. Travel should be about adventure, not having nowhere to stop.

Also I don’t think having minimum possessions is particularly satisfactory, in-fact it is a lecherous, as when at home possessions are useful, to cook food, fix items, build new stuff, brew beer, play sports and whatever other activities make up your lifestyle. When you don’t have your own stuff you have to borrow other peoples or do without.

So what about a third way, allowing location independence without the tradeoff of becoming a lecherous nomad? Thankfully the internet yet again has the solution. With One Fine Stay and Air B’n’B you can keep your home base to enjoy when you are in residence, but rent it out for the days you are travelling. Similarly you can choose someone else’s home to stay in anywhere in the world full of their wonderful, useful stuff, so you can take up their lifestyle where they left off whether that is cooking a local delicacy or swimming in the ocean.

Life Metrics: How do you measure the performance of, err, me?

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:54:34 +0100

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 knowledge worker and, armed with the relevant theory, improve it?

Given my newfound freedom to live/work as I please, I’m willing to give it a try.

So what are some good performance parameters which relates to factors in my life I want to monitor/improve?

Rescue time performance - Rescue Time measures the time spent on your computer using different applications/websites and rates your productivity based on how productive you rank those applications/sites. (eg Excel = +2, gmail=+1, Facebook = -2)
Number or percentage of weekly to-dos which are achieved - I always give myself a set of tasks I *have* to do that week. What percentage of these am I actually getting done?
Resting pulse rate - This is closely related to general fitness so a good one to keep check on.

Thats a good set of metrics to start with which I can note weekly. More suggestions in the comments please.

Next step is to measure, experiment, and then measure. But what experiments should I conduct?

I’m looking for ways to improve concentration, effectiveness, fitness, and effectiveness. Time to get hunting for theories…

Moving on: Goodbye Seedcamp, Hello Startup

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:56:28 +0100

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 a particular passion for building engaging experiences and plan to design interactive guides for museums/attractions/galleries which focus on the compelling objects and stories which make them so great. For example, imagine a mobile application which allows you to go on a safari at London Zoo where kids (or big kids :-), are the photographers aiming to capture animals from different continents. I’m starting up from scratch so If that sounds interesting, get in touch!

At Seedcamp, I’ve really enjoyed working with and helping build the Seedcamp network of teams and mentors, It’s rare to meet such a smart and knowledgable bunch. From them I’ve learned so much about building a smart businesses, and the technology space in general. I’ve seen that the best startups keep their network up to date with progress and ask for help when when it’s needed - I look forward to following their lead.

The Seedcamp application process (with X Factor style efficiency) has whittled down thousands of applicant companies to 23 investments. This batch of startup teams are obviously at the top of their game, and after hanging out with them you quickly realise that to get to that position they not only had to be supersmart, but work harder than the other guys to understand their industry and the gather the skills needed to build a great company.

The characteristics of great entrepreneurs are often debated as if they are innate characteristics with which you are born. Having read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, I’m convinced that these characteristics can be learned through painstaking study and practice. That means they are no longer characteristics but skills, which turns the question into, what are the skills of a great entrepreneur?

I would start the list of important skills for entrepreneurs with sales, negotiation, concentration, and tenacity. Specifically for tech I would add lean product development, online marketing, and infrastructure planning. (please add more in the comments)

So, equipped with this curriculum, I’m starting my apprenticeship in startups. Watch this blog for field notes and progress….

The remarkable power of FOCUS

Tue, 18 May 2010 22:25:39 +0100

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 hypothesising rather than making their product.

FUZZY

The first stage of produce development is fairly unconstrained creative thinking. Thoughts need to come and go, be added to, mixed up, and thrown around to come up with the unique entity which your startup will become. This took place over the Friday night and continued over the Saturday morning of the Startup Weekend.

One of the teams was looking at making mobile search more personal to your tastes. Around that topic they thought about searching for gigs, shops, regional facts, how users search when out and about, their interests, and business models - before deciding to focus on locational marketing based on offers specific to a users tastes. Textbook brainstorming based around a fairly well defined topic (to avoid overly vague thoughts), with the avoidance of making the process too output driven which makes folks scared to share.

In brainstorming not much is physically achieved, but that isn’t the point, these ideas and visions will eventually provide the foundations and plans for the building.

FOCUS

The tough bit, converting the big ideas into stuff people want, in errr, a couple of days. My advice was to focus, like reallllly focus. I felt it important enough to illustrate with a 6 step plan on how to focus.

The teams needed to rapidly produce a product which they think will solve the problem they are tackling, and by focusing they are more likely to crack the key part of the puzzle. The hypothesising over what that might look like or feature is done, and more theorising is unlikely to produce additional insight as customer data is required to prove/disprove your product concept. Borrowing from the current wave of lean startup thinking, I spoke about how a minimum viable product is a great way to gather this insight and therefore a good aim for the startups weekenders.

“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.” - ERIC RIES, Startup Lessons Learned

This product can be anything from a mockup, to an adwords campaign to demonstrate people are searching for what you aim to make. This social proof is then used to iterate your product and ensure that you achieve product/market fit. Making this first prototype is an amazing achievement for these fledgeling companies, in previous startup weekends companies have even generated revenue by the end of Sunday!

Lean startups are all the rage at the moment and there are some great articles about them written about by folk far smarter than myself - Sean Ellis, Eric Ries and Stephen Blank.

The startup weekend was a great success with GoWar (Risk type war game using the locational social network Gowalia) as the eventual winners. Well done all who took part!

My new desk, lovingly crafted from a Victorian church door.

Sun, 09 May 2010 19:15:37 +0100

My new desk, lovingly crafted from a Victorian church door.

Cycling in London - the Fix

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:57:00 +0100

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 it an open design blueprint which needs feedback, support, and iteration - all this can be added at the bottom.

Vision

The project aims to collect data on the quality of cycling routes all over the capital. This ranges from hazards, traffic density, surface quality, and usage. This data can then be used to help experienced and new cyclists make safe and convenient route choices. The data can also be used to encourage city planners to fix and improve the most urgent issues with the network. The end vision is to use the data to create the ultimate set of routes in London which can then be properly signposted and marked so that anyone can navigate London by bike using a simplified tube style map.

Problems the “London Cycle Map” aims to solve

Users are unable to find and follow suitable cycle routes
City planners are unaware of the major issues with the network

Features

A Google maps style cycle map of London which can be viewed on the iPhone (initially a scaled down version of Open Cycle Map)
A mobile route planner to find and follow the best route from A>B according to the users criteria (avoid major roads, hazards etc)
Tagging of routes: User can easily add information about; hazards, traffic levels, quality of road surface, the location of cycle facilities, and the quality of cycle lanes (much like fixmystreet). Location and images can easily be added with the iPhone.

Minimum viable product - Because a good product is a quick product.

Map of London cycle routes on an iPhone application
Tagging

The Plan - How is all this going to happen?

The London Cycle Map project has its first developer! Welcome Ian Kynnersley, app developer extraordinaire. He is starting to looking into creating an iPhone version of OpenCycleMap and the tagging interface. Great to have him on board.
Meetings and partnerships: This is a community project and to be effective needs to get feedback and support from some of the major figures in London cycling and blogging. Introductions and meeting with OpenCycleMap, Dave Hill, CycleStreets.net, Londonist, RealCycling, LdnBuzz, LondonNet, Bike Biz, Road.cc, and The London Cycling Campaign are crucial. Supporters for the project already includes The London Cyclist.
Survey to find the best way to tag. It is important to have a good system to assess the quality of cycle routes - the criteria which constitute a good/bad route can probably be found by conducting a survey. Each route/location tagged can then be rated against these criteria and a good/ok/bad grading.

Help Required - Apply within…

User interface/user experience - as the app needs a mass uptake this needs to be done well.
Survey - experience designing and conducting surveys.
Openstreetmap - has anyone got experience incorporating openstreetmap in an iPhone app? Ian would like to pick your mind.

Cycling in London is crap - Here is how we can make it beautiful

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:51:00 +0000

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 be beautiful. There are plenty of quiet residential roads, it’s flat, we have a temperate climate, and many already have a bike.

So why isn’t everyone cycling?

I’ll begin with a story. My ride to work is about 4 miles from Stockwell to Piccadilly via Vauxhall Bridge and Victoria. My first few attempts were unpleasant gnarly affairs: I got caught in the gyratory at Vauxhall, stuck on a busy two lane stretch into Victoria, and Victoria itself is the third circle of hell with buses, lorries and congestion clogging every churning lane. I’m a hardened cyclist and it was still too much. Determined to improve the experience I studied OpenCycleMap and experimented with different routes (ie deliberately getting lost): since then I’ve found a far more pleasant route which cuts off soon after Vauxhall bridge taking a quieter speed bumped, cycle friendly route towards St James’s Park.

That first trip would have scared off a more casual rider, and fear is the main barrier to cycling in London. Make the whole experience less daunting and you will soon see a cycling revolution.

Lets look at the ideal end vision for cycling in London and where the current approach is falling short. The three essential elements to encourage mass participation of London cycling are:

Routes which are safe and free of scariness (ie heavy traffic, major junctions, HGVs etc).
Convenient and fast routes into and around the capital.
A system of easy to navigate cycle routes.

The Mayor’s current strategy has had limited success on all three fronts. Here are some broad brushstroke stye analysis of efforts in in these categories.

(and 2) Early indications are that the cycle superhighways are fairly ineffectual. The routes are narrow and don’t protect an area of the road exclusively for cyclists making them little more than a blue streak at the edge of the road. I admire their intent and understand they aren’t completed, so perhaps they will be better than these early indications suggest.
(and 3) There are some cycle routes which stick to quieter routes (like the no. 3), leading to a pleasant ride. It has taken me two years to discover these routes and even with a GPS I struggle to keep to the track! Signage, mapping and promotion needs to significantly improve to make routes like this popular.

It seems clear that the strategy of the mayor isn’t doing enough to make cycling in London open to all. Only Lycra clad young males brave the streets when we should be seeing young and old, girls and boys, popping to the shops, visiting friends and going to work by bike.

Cyclists need to get organised to make cycling in London work

Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

London cyclists are a passionate bunch. Cycling to and from work is almost a religion. Whenever I meet another London cyclist, a conversation about bikes, cycling routes and tall stories usually starts. By coordinating this group’s knowledge and dedication, many others can be encouraged to get on their bikes.

I would like to start a community project to trickle down the knowledge of the hardcore cyclists to the casual riders in an easy to use form. This would at first be an iPhone app which hardcore users can use to rate cycle routes, highlight dangers, and use as a convenient cycle map of London. This would then be digested into an easy to use tool which everyone can use to plan the best cycle route in London. The end vision is to use the data to create the ultimate set of routes in London which can then be properly signposted and marked so that anyone can navigate London by bike using a simplified tube style map.

This data could also be used to help the planner make better decisions to improve the cycle network, much like fixmystreet has been doing for street repairs. Aggregated data on the most popular routes and problems would help town planners make the best decisions when upgrading cycle facilities.

Later I’ll post some more thoughts on how this app would function and leverage Londons current cycling community to help everyone onto the road, but first I want to hear your thoughts. Which features would be key? How would you want to use it? Which other problems could this solve? Just add your comments below.

Getting Things Done

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:17:00 +0000

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 fairly good job of wrapping up Allen’s 258 pages - who knows, maybe he started with 2 pages of notes and the publishers felt it needed a bit of padding…

Or if you are impatient/can’t read my scrawl, here are the key insights.

Write down everything which you need to do in an actionable form (ie butter toast rather than make breakfast) and add it to an organised to do list.
Have other lists for longer term goals / responsibilities / life plans / anything you want to keep check on.
Keep you lists tidy and review them every week (or month for longer term ones).

I’ve made sure everything I need doing is captured for quite a while now and can vouch for the piece of mind created by having a feeling of control over your tasks. I’m going to start regularly checking my longer term goals, I’ve sometimes let these slip as I haven’t created actionable items which can fit into the daily actions list.

I’ve still got a long way to go, has anyone (ever) mastered:

Emails - that dangerous todo list which anyone can add to
Capturing todos when on the move (my notepad doesn’t fit in my pocket…)

Photo

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 20:39:35 +0000