Rowan Simpson

Ummm … I guess

Published August 20, 2010 Trade Me 5 Comments
Tags: Kim Hill, National Radio

I’ve been ticking off a few bucket list items recently. Including last weekend, when I had the opportunity to be on the Saturday Morning National Radio show hosted by Kim Hill, to coincide with the launch of Trade Me: The Inside Story.

It was terrifying at the time, but fun in hindsight.

As I mentioned on air, the podcast version of the show (now online) is unfortunately a little disjointed because they are unable to include the audio tracks for copyright reasons. It’s actually a shame that they can’t include the things we talked about off air while the songs were playing instead – in many ways that was the most interesting part of the interview.

I always enjoy watching people who are experts do their job, and so this was a great opportunity to watch a master journalist and interviewer up close. It was fascinating to see how well prepared she was – especially given the wide range of topics covered on the show that morning. And, to watch her constantly thinking several steps ahead. As I sat down the first thing she said to me was “So are you fabulously rich because of Trade Me?” I instinctively said “It depends what you mean by ‘fabulous’ I guess”. As I watched her scribble on her notes I realised that I’d already answered the first question, and we were still a few minutes away from going on air.

She was very charming and I managed to get through without saying anything too embarrassing. Although, the conversation I had earlier with Mark Cubey, her producer, about verbal crutches did make me doubly conscious of all of the filler words I use – you’ll notice that “ummm”, “I guess” and “sort of” feature heavily though out, as well as a couple of “hmmm”s as I quickly try and think of a sound bite answer to a difficult question.

Either way, take a listen and let me know what you think.

Hear if you can spot the obscure periodic table of the elements reference when we’re talking about athletic challenges.

Enjoy! Listen Online

Download: MP3 | Ogg Vorbis

Enlighten us, but make it quick

Published August 4, 2010 General 4 Comments
Tags: Ignite, Wellington

I spoke last night at the second Ignite Wellington event. It was fun – thanks to Amie, Catherine, Kirk (the true star of the show) and Siobhan for putting it all together and giving me the opportunity.

I spoke about lying and cheating – not exactly a topic that I can talk to with any real authority (while I lie and cheat all the time, just like you do, we all do it mostly instinctively). Somehow I picked the short straw and got to kick things off. But, I think it went okay, and it allowed me to sit back and enjoy all of the other speakers.

It’s a great format, accommodating a bunch of speakers on wildly different topics. My favourites were Emma on wallpaper and Tash on knitting.

Here is the video from my talk:

They are already planning the next one, and I encourage you all to put your hand up to speak.

Here are my five tips for getting ready to speak at Ignite:

Feel the fear. Do it anyway. Yes, it’s terrifying to stand up in front of a big audience and speak. Get over it. It’s a wonderful feeling when you’re finished, not dissimilar to the endorphins you get at the end of a long race. Focus on that, relax and enjoy it.

Choose your subject carefully. The point I wanted to make is something that has been bubbling in my head for a while, so this was a good way to force me to think about it properly and articulate it. You have lots of similarly interesting thoughts, I’m sure, so get them out. The best Ignite talks are often people talking about something they just find interesting rather than something they are necessarily expert in. People attend to be entertained and enlightened, so keep that in mind.

Work with the format. You get just 20 slides and 15 seconds per slide. You need to work quite hard to fit in with that. I recommend writing your speech out in full on paper first. Organise it into 20 sections, so you can start to think about the slides that you’ll use. Then delete at least half the words. You can’t say as much in 15 seconds as you think you can – probably only a couple of sentences. It’s much better to say less than to have to talk like the Micro-Machine Man to fit everything in. And, writing shorter sentences forces you to choose words carefully, which is always for the better.

Make beautiful slides. The last thing you want to do is fill the screen with words – people can’t read much in 15 seconds and, anyway, they will be wanting to listen to what you’re saying. Pictures always work. Choose something that relates to what you’re going to say, if for no other reason than as a useful reminder to yourself as you present, but err on the side of interesting rather than a perfectly relevant (the Creative Commons search and “Interestingness” filter on Flickr are your friends here). If you do use text then force yourself to use a large font so you have to keep it brief. Repeat one of the sentences you’re planning to say, to emphasis a point. Or just use single words on their own. And, there is no rule to say you have to use Ariel, Verdana or Times Roman.

Rehearse. Lots. You only have to speak for 5 minutes. So, you can practice the whole thing hundreds of times, if you need to. Set up a computer with your slides and practice your timing, talking out loud. Yes, that will feel silly, but until you’re actually speaking the words you don’t know how long they take to say and you don’t know how they actually sound. Then, change it so they auto-advance every 12 seconds rather than every 15 seconds and practice again – this is actually much more like how it will feel on the night when the slides can seem to fly by much faster that you expect (thanks to Dave Ten-Have for this tip). Then get a friend or family member to listen and laugh at the appropriate points in your talk (hopefully where you intended to be funny), which will force you to pause and say even less. By then you will have it nailed and will be able to do it in your sleep!

You’ll be great. I’m already looking forward to it!

We Hate Argentina

Published July 21, 2010 Sport 5 Comments
Tags: FIFA, Football

One of my more vivid memories of our time in the UK is watching England v Denmark in the first knock-out round of the 2002 World Cup at our local pub.

The game was played in the middle of the day on a Saturday, UK time, and England went on to win 3-nil. But, that’s not what I remember.

By the time we arrived shortly before kick-off there was already small but vocal group of keen fans who had been drinking all morning. They were getting ready for the match by singing a song which had the simple lyrics: “We hate Argentina! We hate Argentina!” This was all the more curious because England had already knocked Argentina out in the group stages, so this time around they weren’t going to be able to blame Argentina for their eventual exit.

Why do English fans hate Argentina? It’s complicated, but part of the reason is that Argentina has a history of cheating and getting away with it, whereas England does not.

Cheating and getting away with it isn’t sport, yet the “art” of diving, faking injury, pushing and shoving and pulling shirts to impede opponents, handling the ball and intimidating the referee have somehow become an integral part of football.

At some stage soon FIFA [1] are going to need to decide whether to introduce technology and/or new rules into the mix for future World Cups, to assist the referees and ensure a fair result. There are lots of options, including the status quo of leaving it all to some poor bugger to decide in real time.

I think they could do a lot worse than consider these three changes, based on some ideas proposed by my brother:

Challenges. Each team would be given one challenge per half, which they could use to challenge any decision made by the referee – e.g. if they think the referee has missed a foul, or incorrectly awarded a free kick or penalty. They would be reviewed by a television official. If the challenge is successful then the decision is reversed and they maintain the challenge. If not, they lose the ability to challenge for the remainder of the half. Because they only have one challenge they will need to be careful to use it only when they are convinced the decision was wrong.

Red Cards for Simulation. If a player is caught diving or over-acting where there is a foul then they are sent off. Given the ability to challenge (see above) it will no longer pay to try and play the referee and could be very expensive, so this should significantly reduce this behaviour.

Penalty Goals. If a goal would have been scored but for a foul then a goal can be awarded, rather than just a penalty. (If this rule was in place then Uruguay would have lost the match to Ghana at the 2010 World Cup).

What do you think?

[1] Some trivia: it’s not actually FIFA who will decide on these changes. The laws are maintained by a body called the International Football Association Board which is composed of four representatives from FIFA and one each from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Any changes need to be approved by 6 out of the 8 members. So, all that whining from England about TV replays, but they really have nobody to blame but themselves!

Advice for new parents

Published July 18, 2010 General 1 Comment

If you have kids, or are thinking about it, I recommend this excellent article:

All Joy And No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting – New York Magazine

I think that “a high-amplitude, high-frequency sine curve” might be the best one-line description of parenting that I’ve come across. And “[kids] are a huge source of joy, but they turn every other source of joy to shit” is a very close second.

For what it is worth, this is my advice for new parents…

Don’t lock them in a cupboard
Don’t drop them on their head

It’s pretty well established, I think, that doing both of these things is likely to lead to problems.

Even if you do one of these things, it may still be okay provided you don’t do the other.

Anything else you do or don’t do may or may not help, but probably won’t hurt too much either.

Either way, and most importantly, don’t get too hung up on the advice you’re sure to get from every other man and his dog, because it’s likely based on too small a sample size anyway. :-)

Other Recommended Reading:

What makes a perfect parent? – SMH Blog

Lies we tell kids – Paul Graham

In defense of sibling rivalry – DoubleX

The years are short – Happiness Project

Top Three for iPhone

Published June 23, 2010 Southgate Labs 3 Comments
Tags: Top Three

This is not new, but it’s worth repeating…

Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building an ark counts.

It’s not enough to know what to do, think about doing it, put it on a list. It turns out that all of those are very common.

The only thing that separates you from the pack is actually completing things.

To be successful, it seems, you just have to do the things that most people don’t. And, unfortunately, most people don’t do much.

So, how do you get better at this?

At the end of 2007 I published a post here titled De-clutter. It has become one of the most read things I’ve written. It was a simple list of advice, and included this tip:

“Remove the chaff from your to-do list, and focus on the three or four really important things that you can achieve today.”

The link I included was to a blog post written by Marc Andreessen (the founder of Netscape) which is unfortunately no longer available online. However, I found this Lifehacker article about it which includes all of the important quotes:

“Each night before you go to bed, prepare a 3×5 index card with a short list of 3 to 5 things that you will do the next day. And then, the next day, do those things.”

“Once you get into the habit, you start to realize how many days you used to have when you wouldn’t get important / significant / meaningful things done during a day.”

I think that is a really elegant and simple idea, and pretty much the polar opposite of every productivity system and to-do application I’ve used. Rather than combining more and more complex ways of capturing, storing, sorting and retrieving lists of tasks it starts with a focus on completing important things.

And so, I’m pleased to announce Top Three for iPhone, a new app that replaces the index card and helps you change the way you manage your priorities. Every day you get three new slots to fill. Choose the most important things and tick them off as you complete them. At the end of the day, or the end of the week, look back and see how many of your priorities you actually completed.

View today’s tasks

Add a new task

See how you’ve done

This has been an interesting app to build, not because it’s technically difficult¹ but because it’s functionally simple, and as a result there is a constant temptation to add more features. I’ve intentionally left out just about all of the things that you’d normally expect from a to-do app. It doesn’t let you tag and categorize, it doesn’t let you search, it doesn’t let you order and re-order (beyond the three slots you see), it doesn’t let you set due dates and it doesn’t let you schedule tasks for far into the future – you can add and edit tasks for today and tomorrow and that’s all. There are literally hundreds of to-do apps in the app store, and this may be the most simple of them all, but I’m hoping that it’s amongst the most useful as a result.

I’ve been using this myself for a few weeks and while it’s a v1 app I’ve already found it really useful. It has been humbling and a little surprising when I look back to see that I’ve only ticked off about half of those things that I thought were the most important. But the feedback loop that it creates is also motivating me to get better at picking the things I want to work on and staying focussed on completing them (did I mention I’m a big fan of feedback loops?)

I have some free copies to give away to the first people who email support@southgatelabs.com – I just need you to tell me what your existing to-do app is (if any) and also promise to send me some feedback telling me what you think of it once you’ve been using Top Three for a week or two and to post a review on the iTunes App Store, positive or negative – you decide (note: these codes are valid in the US App Store only).

Either way, if you decide to download the app and use it I’d love to hear from you. I hope you find it useful. Thanks in advance for giving it a try.

[1] It’s really not! Although I did choose to use CoreData just for the challenge and learning. :-)

Related Reading:

Hugh’s Daily Quota – Hugh McLeod

“I try to complete four basic tasks every day- the basic M.O. to keep the gapingvoid ship afloat.”

Kill Your To Do List – Leo Babauta

“Those who have to-do lists usually manage them constantly, or if they don’t they fall into disuse and get dusty and become worthless, while the person who’s fallen behind in maintaining the list feels constantly guilty. For those who keep up with the lists, they spend a lot of time on the lists they could be spending … doing something important.”

TimeGT: Method-Agnostic Time Mgmt App for the Masses – LifeHacker

TimeGT is an excellent example of everything Top Three is not:

“Adding tasks is a simple affair, and they’re easily sorted and searched once they’re in your system. Hunt around for action items via tag, context (@home, @work), order of importance, or deadline. Filter tasks according to project, urgency, things your waiting for, or things you hope to get around to one day—the sky’s the limit.”

Productivity Hacks – Fred Wilson

“I’ve never been able to make a “to do” list work for me because it gets so damn long I can never get them all done. I really like the idea of three a day and no more.”

Voice Mail, Folders and To-Dos – Mark Suster

“If you really want to accomplish tasks you need to narrow down the list to the most important ones you want to accomplish and make sure that they take priority to everything else that “comes up” during the day. If you get 3 things done every day it adds up to a lot more within the month.”

Quotes: Discontent

Published June 22, 2010 General Leave a Comment
Tags: Discontent

– Doug Savage

“Restlessness is discontent and discontent is the first necessity of progress. Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.”
– Thomas Edison

“I used to think I had ambition… but now I’m not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They’re easily confused.”

– Rachel Field

“If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.”
– David Rockefeller

“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.”
– Jim Rohn

“I wonder if ambition can be adjusted by teaching someone to live in the future. It feels like an entirely trainable skill. If you spend enough time thinking about how things can or will be, I suppose it becomes a habit. And to the extent that you think you can influence that future, perhaps you become ambitious as a side effect.”
– Scott Adams

The Observer Effect

Published June 20, 2010 Health & Fitness 5 Comments

Just over a year ago I started using an iPhone app called Fat Watch to track my weight and body fat percentage every day. It’s had a big effect.

This might be the most no-nonsense, accurately described app in the store, but probably doesn’t have the viral coefficient that it might have with a slightly less direct name – it can be difficult to find the right words to use when you want to recommend this app to your friends. But, let me try. :-)

It was, at the time and still, the most expensive app I’ve purchased for my iPhone, at NZ$13.99 (since then the price has dropped to $9.99), but still good value I think.

A brief history…

Between 2001, when I peaked at 106kg, and 2004, when I returned to NZ from the UK, I lost about 25kg. Mostly this was a result of eating less crappy food, but also by being more active.

In the five years following I more-or-less maintained my weight at between 82kg and 85kg, although during that time I started to train more consistently for cycling and triathlon and in the process shifted my body composition quite a bit, from ~23.5% body fat to just over 20% body fat.

To be honest, I was focussed more on my aerobic fitness than on my weight. We didn’t even own scales, although I did weigh myself from time to time at the gym. I mostly measured my progress using the belt on my trousers. I thought I’d pretty much lost as much as I was going to and was confident that I wouldn’t fall back into old bad habits and put it back on.

However, despite all of the good things I was doing there was a persistent amount of body fat that I just couldn’t shake, especially on my upper body. Then at the start of 2009 I broke out of the top end of this weight band, so I decided it was time to start paying more attention and seeing what changes I could make. When I first installed the app and weighed myself in May 2009 I was 88.6kg.

Measure Everything

My first goal was to get back to 80kg. Even when I was running fit in London I never got below this level. I guess I assumed that this was my asymptotic limit. I was wrong.

Since I started measuring, as the graph below shows, I’ve lost about 15kg, and skipped right through the 80kg barrier. As I type I’m about 73.5kg.

The red line is a moving average of daily measurements, taken at approximately the same time each day using the approach described in The Hackers’ Diet. You can see there have been a few flat points, which all correspond to times when I’ve been traveling. But, in general, it has fallen reasonably steadily during this time.

The green shaded area is the “normal” range based on the BMI scale. I remember calculating this when I weighed ~90kg and thinking it was absurd to think that 76.5kg was my target weight. I’ve now been comfortably below that level for a few months.

When you aggregate these changes over a long period of time they seem quite big, but actually they are small. Over the last 12 months I’ve lost about 0.25kg per week. If you do the maths (or let the app do it for you!) on average I have been burning ~277 calories per day more than I have consumed – less than one Moro Bar – not such a big sacrifice when you compare it to the positive effect that it has had.

Feedback Loops

In physics they talk about an Observer Effect – that is, when you observe something you will change it. This is how I think of these changes. It’s all about creating a feedback loop between what you do (inputs) and the effect it has on you (outputs); creating a game that you win by following the behaviours that you want; and getting a much better understanding of the impact of all of the little decisions you make.

If you eat an unnecessarily big lunch and weigh yourself a couple of weeks later it will be difficult to create a cause and effect relationship, but when you weigh yourself the next day and can compare that to previous days and see the increase immediately then you can start to work out what not to do. Or, perhaps even more importantly, if you know that you’re going to weigh yourself the next morning and be disappointed in the results then perhaps you choose a better option from the menu or eat a smaller portion in the first place.

When you measure your weight every day you also get to see how much it jumps around of its own accord. This graph from the last three months shows the daily readings in black.

Again, the red line is a moving average. You can see there are many days when I was 1kg or more above or below the trend line. There is generally an explanation – too many snacks or not getting enough sleep (bad) or a long bike ride or hard session at the gym (good). There is only one way to learn about all of these different factors.

You also see the importance of taking regular and consistent measurements, so as not to be unnecessarily disappointed or unrealistically encouraged by a single reading in isolation.

In mid-April there was an updated version of the app released which added tracking for body fat percentages. This can be difficult to measure accurately using scales, but again using regular measurements and a moving average you will at least get a sense of the trend. This graph shows my total body fat measurement over the same period.

According to ACE an “ideal” range for a fit male is between 14% and 17% (at the moment between 10.3kg and 12.5kg for me), so I’m now in that range, and probably only have at most ~2kg more to lose.

What am I going to obsess about then, I wonder?

Related:

Replete – my previous post about weight loss

“If you want to be healthier or lose some weight it’s very easy to complicate things. But, in my experience at least, it’s mostly the simple things you already know you should or shouldn’t do which make the biggest difference.”

Fat In A Can – NYC Health (via @presentationzen)

“1x can of soft drink per day = 4.5kg fatter per year”

One Tasty Pie Chart – DataVisualisation.ch

This is a bit of a gimmick – but still an interesting concept. If you’re trying to reduce the portions you eat then one easy solution is a smaller plate.

Exercise, weight loss and common sense sensationalism – Science of Sport

An excellent series of posts.

“This market is enormous, a multi-billion dollar industry, and it borrows from science to pitch a dizzying array of exercise machines, programmes and diet plans at consumers, who, desperate for an answer (in a short space of time) will jump at anything that promises to meet their need.”

Withings – WiFi enabled body scale

If the hassle of data entry is the main thing stopping you from tracking your weight then perhaps you’re lacking some of the core motivation required to sustain something like this, however, this is nifty technology.

Everything you know about muscle is wrong – Men’s Health

This is probably a lot more than you wanted to know about muscle. I recommend you try the knee life experiment he talks about – a useful reminder that your body is something you can maipulate.

“Every move you make is a physical experiment. If the experiment works — say, you swish a jumper while cocking your head to the side — it becomes a habit. All those little habits become locked in as posture. Over time, posture becomes structure: The man who accidentally nailed a three while his ear was itchy now feels comfortable only when his head is slightly off kilter.”

LOAD * ,8 ,1

Published June 18, 2010 Technology 3 Comments

“Took my iPad out into the outside world earlier. Was weird, I felt like I was from the future.”
– @majicDave

“The iPad is bad for computer science in the same way that the availability of aspirin in bottles has killed industrial chemistry.”
– @bos31337

Atari 2600

The dark ages, circa 1985, from memory…

The state of the art, in our house at least, back then was an Atari 2600, a simple game console, with a slot for game cartridges which were sold separately.

We had a few of the classics – Pac Man, Space Invaders, Missile Command.

This was hours of fun for all of us. You just inserted the game you wanted to play and it magically appeared on the screen. It had a grand total of four switches – on/off, colour/black+white, game select and game reset. In other words you could pretty much turn it off and on, start and stop games and not much else, so there was no learning curve and it was pretty bullet proof.

However, I naturally started to wonder: how does it all work on the inside? (as I am now discovering for myself, little people can be annoyingly curious beyond their station, and I was no exception). Who made these games we were playing? And, how? I enjoyed using the games we had, although to be honest I never was and still am not much of a gamer, but it felt like it would be more fun to try and make my own.

Around the same time I was given some old BYTE magazines, which were full of articles about “computers” like the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. At the back there were pages and pages of goobledegook which were apparently the instructions you could type into these machines to make them do different and interesting things. That all sounded intriguing to me, so I started thinking of all of the things I could build and tried to convince my parents to let me buy one. However, they didn’t see the need for another “game machine”. The distinction between a console which you could play games on and a more expensive computer which you could type the code for games into and then play was a bit subtle and I struggled to make the case (something I’m still pleased to remind them of whenever I get the opportunity, given how things have worked out for me since!)

Eventually I saved up enough money to take the decision out of their hands. I purchased a second-hand Commodore 16 off a family friend (he was no doubt upgrading to something even more powerful like a Commodore 128 or maybe even an Amiga?) and started to teach myself BASIC.

It was pretty slow going to begin with. My first project was to try and build a system that would emulate the statistics shown on TV during a one day cricket game, with run rates for each batsman and manhattan graphs and worms etc. It turned out to be far too ambitious. I eventually got it to work for a full 50 overs, but it would always crash at the change of innings. In hindsight I suspect that I may have needed more than 16K of memory to achieve my vision. But either way I never let it defeat me. There was always a new technique to learn (discovering if statements and while loops was a revolution!) and I enjoyed the challenge of creating something of my own from scratch.

iPhone 3GS & iPad

Fast forward a few years…

The state of the art, in our house at least, today is an Apple iPhone or iPad. These are simple mobile devices, running applications which are sold separately.

We have a few of the classics – Flight Control, Skype, Shazam.

This is hours of fun for all of us. You just tap on the icon of the application you want and it magically appears on the screen. It has a grand total of four switches – on/off, volume and mute and a home button model. In other words you can pretty much turn it off and on, start and stop applications and not much else, so there is no learning curve and it is pretty bullet proof.

However, I naturally start to wonder: how does it all work on the inside? Who makes these applications we use? And, how? I enjoy the applications we can download, to be honest I’m pretty addicted to and dependent on some of them, but it seems like it would be more fun to try and make my own.

I found a few websites with articles about developing applications. They were full of square brackets and semi-colons that you could type into a computer to create an application that you could then transfer to run on your device. That all sounded intriguing to me, so I started thinking of all of the things I could build. Thankfully this time around I didn’t need to convince anybody other than myself that this was a good idea. :-)

Eventually I saved up enough time to begin experimenting. I installed XCode and the SDK and started to teach myself Objective-C.

It was pretty slow going to begin with (it was a few years since I had to allocate and deallocate memory, for goodness sake!) My first project was to try and build the Flower Power Meter Reader (download now). It probably took me about 10x longer to get it working than it should have, while I came up to speed with some of the unique problems of designing and developing for a mobile device and a touch interface. But, either way, I haven’t let it defeat me. There is always a new technique to learn (discovering autorelease was a revolution!) and I continue to enjoy the challenge of creating something of my own from scratch. My second project, by the way, is called Top Three and will hopefully be approved soon – stand by for an announcement on that.

The Post-PC Era?

At the recent D8 conference Apple CEO Steve Jobs compared a PC to a truck – i.e. a heavy duty vehicle that has its uses but is not the standard transport mode of choice for most people (watch the video). Is he right? Are we at the beginning of the post-PC era?

It doesn’t seem to me to be an either/or situation.

A couple of years ago I got fed up with providing tech support for my parents and replaced their PC with an iMac (yes, they eventually realised that computers are not only about games but also useful for sharing photos of your grandkids!) This is much more of a controlled computer experience than they were used to – maybe a minivan, to extend the analogy? They love it. I imagine that the next computer they get, when the time comes to upgrade, will look a lot more like an iPad than like a PC. A car will suit them much better than a truck.

So, there will no doubt be more cars by popular demand. The iPhone a couple of years ago, and the iPad more recently, are both so simple to use that a much broader group of people have inadvertently started to carry a computer around wherever they go. In terms of putting more useful functionality in more hands, that has to be a good thing, doesn’t it?

But trucks aren’t going away either, as long as there are people like me who want to find out how things work and are tempted to create things of our own. If you believe that the relatively closed platform of the iPhone and iPad is a threat to computer science all you need to do is ensure that people generally, and kids especially, remain curious.

Distribution, Distribution, Distribution

Chris Dixon recently tweeted:

“In video game industry, it is widely believed that Atari died because of explosion of crappy games. Hence platforms have been curated since then.”

Is that correct? I don’t know. But, either way, it is true that the iTunes App Store is tightly controlled by Apple (is “curated” the right word?), and that is a source of frustration for many developers who are forced to wait for them to approve every application and update. Brad Burnham from Union Square Ventures recently compared the system to a “monarchy”, which I thought was a good description, although I guess nobody likes to think of themselves as a serf or worse, find themselves banished from court for befriending a rival kingdom.

On the other hand, I struggle to get angry about the app store. It’s an amazingly popular venue full of people who have already demonstrated a propensity to pay for software. It’s an awesome opportunity for developers to tap into, and a significant step up in many ways.

Chris Dixon again:

“The people griping about Apple’s “closed system” are generally people who are new to the industry and didn’t realize how bad it was before.”
– Steve Jobs single handedly restructured the mobile industry

If only there was such an accessible and well trafficked distribution channel for web applications. Many of the early stage companies that I’ve been working with over the last couple of years would certainly benefit from something equivalent that makes it easier to reach the customers they are targeting with their products. If you begrudge paying Apple a 30% success fee, consider how much you would spend on sales, marketing, distribution, payment and fulfillment via any alternative channel.

I don’t know what the future of getting applications onto mobile devices is. Perhaps it’s iTunes? Perhaps it’s a decentralised and more open equivalent of the app store, without the oversight of a single company? Perhaps it’s just the web? Who knows?

Google recently announced the Chrome Web Store, which will be a place for developers to distribute (and sell?) applications. It will be interesting to see how they approach the job of curating listings within the store when it launches. If they get it right they could well end up doing for web applications (both desktop and mobile) what they have spent the last several years doing so successfully for web content: separating the wheat from the chaff.

History Only Ever Repeats

Here is a quote I read recently, from a 1996 issue of Wired Magazine:

“The Web reminds me of the early days of the PC industry. No one really knows anything. There are no experts. All the experts have been wrong. There’s a tremendous open possibility to the whole thing. And it hasn’t been confined, or defined, in too many ways. That’s wonderful. There’s a phrase in buddhism, ‘beginner’s mind.’ It’s wonderful to have a beginner’s mind.”
– The Next Insanely Great Thing, Wired 4.02

That’s Steve Jobs 14 years ago talking about the coming wave of web applications, as he saw it then.

I was lucky enough to be part of that wave. It’s been a fun ride so far, and has some distance to run yet, I think.

But, let me revise the quote sightly, for these modern times:

“Mobile devices, and the iPhone and iPad especially, remind me of the early days of the web. No one really knows anything. There are no experts. All the experts have been wrong. There’s a tremendous open possibility to the whole thing. And it hasn’t been confined, or defined, in too many ways. That’s wonderful. There’s a phrase in buddhism,’beginner’s mind.’ It’s wonderful to have a beginner’s mind.”

Amen. Or, namaste, if you prefer ;-)

Related Reading:

When I was searching for Atari 2600 links I found this great post by John Gruber, who makes a similar point…

The Kids Are All Right

“40 years ago you could open the hood of your car and see and touch just about every component in there. And you had to, because many of those components required frequent maintenance. To properly own a car required, to some degree, that you understood how a car worked. Today, you open the hood of your car and you see a big sealed block and a basin for the windshield washer fluid. You can buy a new car, drive it for years, and never once open the hood yourself. That’s the iPad.”

I <3 EFT-POS

Published June 10, 2010 New Zealand , Usability 18 Comments
Tags: EFTPOS

Here is an idea:

An EFT-POS terminal with card scanners on both sides of the slot, so it doesn’t matter which way you swipe your card.

I’m always interested to see the lengths that the people who make the terminals and the retailers who use them go to in order to try and educate people how to use them successfully. The little pictorial representations of the magnetic strip, or the line of numbers are my favourite. But they are worse than useless – perhaps it’s just me, but I seem to swipe the wrong way around 100% of the time, when pure chance would suggest better odds than that.

I’m not an expert, but I’m guessing that my solution would add a trivial amount to the cost of a terminal and would eliminate the problem completely.

While I’m at it, here is another idea:

An EFT-POS terminal with account buttons for “Cheque” and “Savings” but no “Credit” option – especially for those retailers that don’t accept credit card payments.

Not accepting credit card payments is pretty common, and yet the state of the art solution for these users is a bit of sellotape and a piece of cardboard saying “No Credit!!!”

Seriously, is this a 3M conspiracy?

For good measure, a third idea:

An EFT-POS terminal which doesn’t take twice as long to process Chip & PIN card transactions

If your bank has not already upgraded you to a Chip & PIN capable card, and you have any say in the matter, then I encourage you to resist as long as you can. At least until they can explain a benefit that accrues to you rather than to them (if there is such a benefit, I’m not aware of it).

Here is how a typical Chip & PIN transactions goes, in my experience:

You hand the card to the checkout person (let’s call her Sherl).
Sherl swipes the card in the normal fashion.
The terminal says something like “Please insert card”.
Sherl looks confused and tries to find the correct place to insert said card, or says something along the lines of “oh, you’ve got one of those fancy new cards, have you!” and much hilarity ensues.
Eventually she finds the slot and you enter your PIN number.
Sherl removes the card and hands it back to you, at which point the transaction is declined because the card was removed too early.
You explain that you need to leave the card in until it tells you to remove it, and after a bit of confusion you repeat steps 1 thru 5 again.
Minutes pass. Meanwhile everybody behind you in the queue starts to get restless.
Finally the transaction is approved. Sherl can remove your card from the terminal and you can get on with your day.

Please, in the very least the terminal should display an obvious message telling operators they need to leave the card in place, or (even better) build in some tolerance so that if it is removed too early it can be re-inserted without having to start the whole dance over.

I was interested to notice our closest supermarket have disabled the Chip & PIN feature on their terminals – so if you try to insert your card in the slot it just tells you to swipe in the traditional fashion. I guess they have discovered that the additional faffing around is not a price worth paying in order to get the benefits of additional security? Either way, it ironically adds yet another failed step, as I’m just getting in the habit of inserting rather than swiping and now they’ve introduced an element of doubt because I don’t know which stores support it and which don’t. Look out for more sellotape soon, I predict.

Last but not least, while we’re on the topic, an idea for the banks:

Why not load my cheque account details onto my credit card, so I don’t have to carry two separate bits of plastic around with me?

Back in the last century I was a customer of BankDirect and they did exactly that – a combined VISA & EFT-POS, which came in any colour you like as long as that’s black (I liked). So, it’s obviously not a limitation of technology, just one of inclination and motivation.

I realise that criticising EFT-POS is almost unpatriotic in New Zealand – we’ve had it here since the 80s, before just about anybody else in the whole world, don’t you know!

There have been over 8 billion transactions processed through the system. Per capita we use EFT-POS twice as much as anywhere else. According to the Reserve Bank 60% of transactions use this system, and the volume and value of these transactions are reported as general indicators of activity in the economy.

For each of individually, having a detailed record of your purchases makes it much easier to keep track of your spending, if you’re so inclined.

I’m a huge fan of EFT-POS, to the point of being mocked about it on occasion. I love not having to carry cash. Three years living in London nearly got me back in the habit, but I quickly reverted once back in NZ. Recently I’ve even scanned my other cards (drivers license etc) onto my phone and ditched my wallet altogether for a funky leather iPhone case which has a pouch for my EFT-POS cards.

So, given all of this, it’s pretty disappointing to see how little innovation there has been. And, depressing that the “improvements” that are coming actually make it much worse.

What do you think? Is there anything we can do?

PS thanks to all of the people who replied when I tweeted some of these ideas earlier in the year – you made this post much better than it would have been otherwise:

@clubturps http://twitter.com/clubturps/status/9130870691
@nzkoz http://twitter.com/nzkoz/status/9130675459
@barnaclebarnes http://twitter.com/barnaclebarnes/status/9128659142
@nzben http://twitter.com/nzben/status/9128688224
@avon http://twitter.com/avon/status/9148026863
@nzigel http://twitter.com/nzigel/status/9129312513
@amatix http://twitter.com/amatix/status/9127993731

Trade Me Browser Stats

Published June 10, 2010 Software Development , Trade Me 6 Comments
Tags: Browser Stats

I’m pleased to see Trade Me have started posting their browser stats again, something I used to do here, way back in the day.

Here is the latest update, for May 2010: Browsers and Operating Systems

http://images.trademe.co.nz/tm/announcements/full/132922040.jpg

When people talk about Open Data they are nearly always referring to government data. But, I think there are also lots of examples like this, where private companies have data which has a public good, and which they can open up at no material cost to themselves.

Trade Me is such a popular site that their audience can pretty much be used as a proxy for the internet in New Zealand, so this gives developers working on smaller or less popular sites a good idea of the sort of browsers they should be targeting.

Remember, if the equivalent numbers for your site are different from these there are two possible explanations:

Your audience is a subset of the population which has a browser bias (e.g. if you attract more technical people you’ll probably tend to see a higher proportion of newer browsers and also some lesser known browsers that are not widely used in the mainstream)
Your site makes it difficult for people with older browsers to use your site, so they choose not to.

Just about everybody assumes #1, when #2 is often more likely.

Remember that the 5% of Trade Me visitors using IE6 is still 31,500 unique visitors per day, or nearly one Westpac Stadium full. Are you happy to turn all of those people away with a message telling them to upgrade their “browser”, what ever that means to them?

The real cost of free

Published June 8, 2010 Business 2 Comments

Why not make it free?

Lots of start-ups have to answer this question when considering what they charge for their new products or services.

Here is a good answer, as re-told to me by an NGO worker I met in Africa, who faces an expectation of providing things for free both from the poor people he is trying to serve and the rich donors who enable him to be there…

“When you ask me to give something to you for free, you are giving me all the power – to choose who gets what and when. And, to be honest, I don’t believe you really want to give me that power.”

“When you pay me you create an expectation that I will deliver value for money. I may or may not, and that is the risk you take, but the expectation exists nonetheless.”

There is no such thing as free!

Yet, just about all of the web services I use most frequently appear to cost me nothing: Google, Gmail, Reader, Twitter, TripIt, Connect, DropBox, Delicious, not to mention all of the free news sites. Would I pay for any of those? I don’t know. In the very least it would probably cause me to reconsider the value I’m getting in return.

WordPress is a good counter example. While there is a free version, I choose to pay a few dollars a year to use my own URL, which effectively buys me freedom to switch this site to a different provider in the future if I choose to. In a tiny little way, and a much larger way when you aggregate across millions of users, that keeps them on their toes.

It’s worth thinking about what you’re giving up next time you appear to get something for nothing.

The penny gap, by Josh Kopelman

Free: How today’s smartest businesses profit by giving something away, by Chris Anderson [Book]

The freemium company lifecycle challenge, by Mark Cuban

Mike Brown channeling Sam Hunt

Published June 6, 2010 General , Wellington 1 Comment

Here is something to entertain and inform on yet another wet Sunday …

Mike Brown on being small and fickle, cycling and serendipity:

http://www.ignitewellington.co.nz/search/label/Mike Brown

This talk is from the first Ignite Wellington event held back in February.

Unfortunately I was out of town and wasn’t able to attend in person, so I’m pleased to see some of the videos from the interesting list of speakers have been posted.

Hopefully the rest will be online soon?

Like Moldova Beating England

Published May 31, 2010 Sport 2 Comments

In December last year I wrote:

“Italy are ranked #4 in the world and are defending champions. Expectations will correctly be low when we play them.

But, I fear, by the time the matches actually start there will be a number of people who will expect to see the All Whites compete against the other two teams in our pool.”

– Olé Olé Olé

And, sure enough… after the stunning win against Serbia on the weekend some journalists here are starting to dream the dream.

For example, Tony Smith, in this mornings Dominion Post:

“Serbia are a better side than Slovakia, New Zealand’s first-up opponents in South Africa on June 15, and are probably at least the equal of Paraguay.

Could Ricki Herbert’s class of 2010 become the first New Zealand team to win a game at a Fifa senior tournament and qualify for the second round?

You wouldn’t have thought so a week ago. But bookmakers around the world may be rapidly revising their odds.”

– Serbian millionaires made to look like paupers

Dylan Cleaver in the NZ Herald, with tongue firmly in cheek, goes further and outlines the All Whites’ path to glory:

“The All Whites’ path to the semifinals is relatively straightforward.

A 3-0 win over Slovakia (they’re not even as good as Serbia), in the opening group game will be followed by a gritty, Ryan Nelsen-inspired, goalless draw against an Italian team resting its best players. Paraguay will be no match for the aerial assault and are brushed aside 3-1.”

– All Whites’ path to World Cup title

I think it’s usually better to have low expectations and exceed them. And, especially when it comes to World Cups. You’d think that sports journalists, of all people, would have learnt that lesson by now. Or, perhaps, the headlines they can write when the team falls short of those massively inflated expectations are better as a result – who knows?

Either way, comparing this result to “Russia beating the All Blacks” (as Tony Smith does in the article linked above) seems fanciful if not hyperbolic.

Is it? Here are some facts:

FIFA ranks 202 countries – from Brazil at #1 to Papua New Guinea at #202.

IRB ranks 95 countries by comparison – from the All Blacks somehow at #1 (how?) to mighty Finland at #95.

So, the All Whites (current FIFA ranking: #78) beating Serbia (current FIFA ranking: #15) is the football equivalent of Moldova (current IRB ranking: #36) beating England (current IRB ranking: #7) in rugby. Imagine that!

Or, if you want to consider the gap in the rankings between the two teams, then it’s the equivalent of Tunisia (current IRB ranking: #29) beating the All Blacks. Russia by comparison has an IRB ranking of #19.

Either of those would be an outrageous result, even in a friendly game, and especially a couple of weeks prior to a big tournament, would be big news.

And yet the All Whites remain 1000-to-1 to win the World Cup. :-)

Bring on Slovakia, I say! I’ll be watching. You?

(*) On the outside chance that you’re interested in and/or confused by my maths… I just adjusted the FIFA rankings to take into account that there are less than half as many teams represented in the IRB rankings, so a FIFA ranking of 78 out of 202 teams corresponds to an IRB ranking of 36 out of 95 teams, and a gap of 63 places out of 202 teams on the FIFA list corresponds to a gap of 29 places out of 95 teams on the IRB list.