Good Ideas – 10 Dollars a Pop

21-November-2011 ~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

Good ideas are great, but there comes a time when you have to be an execution fanatic. So put a jar in the middle of the office and every time someone has a good idea they have to pay $10 (or €10 in EuroLand) to tell someone about it.

Why do this? Because at a certain point in the life of a startup you need to focus on the problems in front of you. Good ideas, even great ideas become a confusing distraction. Its an old saw that 70-80% of your product development effort should be focussed on honing the features that are already in customers hands. Everyone loves the new new thing but most of your customers would quite like the current functionality to work just dandy.

Dropbox is an excellent example of a company who have stuck to the knitting and been 100% focussed on delivering their core vision, stupidly simple desktop to desktop file sharing. Do as they do.

So before you shout out “I have a great idea”, utilise some of these questions to triage you idea before it distracts everyone else in the company.

Is it better or is it just different?
What’s the effort to implement?
Does the user need to be educated?
What is the cost to remove it?
Can we test its utility without building it?
What’s the competition for this feature?
Has a customer asked for it?
Does it suit the design context of our service?
How will you price it?
Is it in the market place already?

If you can answer these questions should be more than happy to pony up the $10 to share it with other people 🙂

Super Slow Motion on Canon IXUS 115 HS

22-May-2011 ~ Joe ~ 3 Comments

Here is an example of super slow motion using the new Canon IXUS 115 HS (HS=High Speed). Any golf pros who want to critque my swing, well thats what the comment box is for 😉

Future Internet Forum – Kilkenny Castle – 1st June

16-May-201116-May-2011 ~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

The TSSG will host, on behalf of the IFIF, the 3rd Future Internet Forum at Kilkenny Castle on June 1st. The Future Internet is one of the key research areas for Europe and is also identified by SFI as one of their 4 core ICT research areas. This conference will support knowledge sharing between Irish policy makers, funding agencies, industrial players and academic researchers. In doing so, this Forum will address the challenges and, more importantly, the opportunities associated with the emerging Future Internet. Two of the key themes for this years conference is Identity and Privacy in a digital world. We are delighted to have a number of world expert speakers including:

Kim Cameron – Chief Architect of Identity in the Identity and Access Division at Microsoft.
http://www.identityblog.com/?p=360 (blog)

Malcolm Crompton – Previous Federal Privacy Commissioner of Australia and current Director of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (view blog)
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mcrompton (LinkedIn)
http://www.openforum.com.au/blogs/malcolm-crompton (blog)

Michel Riguidel – Head of the Department of Computer Science and Networks, at ENST (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications)
http://www.iaria.org/speakers/MichelRiguidel.html (website)

The full agenda is attached. Can you please circulate the information to your staff, and of course it would be great to welcome you to Kilkenny if you can attend.

Registration is via EventBrite:
http://irishfutureinternet2011.eventbrite.com/

Google Storage Available to All

11-May-2011 ~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

Google made its Google Storage API available to all today. This is the service that is likely to make Google AppEngine useful, as the existing BigTable storage system was just too painful for words and not designed for large blobs. Its certainly feels a bit slicker in execution than AWS S3 and has a more polished user experience from a getting started perspective. It was several months after S3 launched before somebody built a third party browser that would allow you to look at you buckets online.

They use a similar model to S3 of unique bucket names, so get in quick in you want a bucket called “test” or “src” 🙂 The naming conventions for objects are restricted, so you cannot expect to upload an arbitrary directory of files and expect it to succeed. The uploading process must perform some kind of name mapping process that converts illegal names to legal ones.

The do make a big deal about allowing developers to specify whether buckets and their contents are located in Europe (where in Europe?) or not but read the T&Cs carefully. Section 2.2 makes it clear that Google can process your data just about anywhere including the US. It’s only “data at rest” that can be specified as stored in Europe. So all your data is essentially available to US agencies should that choose to take a peak. The most lame restriction in the T&C’s is the restriction on using Google Storage to create a “Google Storage like” system. Let’s put a layer in front of Google Storage that is like Google Storage but slower and less resilient and costs more, oh I definitely want to sign up for that service 🙂

They provide a version of the excellent Boto library that has been repurposed for use against Google Storage, this is the best indication yet that the Google API’s must be pretty close to the S3 APIs in structure. The main difference is the use of OAuth to give fine grained access to the storage objects. This is the biggest win for Google and I hope to see Microsoft Azure, RackSpace CloudFiles and AWS S3 following suite fairly quickly.

It would also be great to see the Boto changes for Google Storage rolled back into the Boto mainline.

The Irish Internet Association Annual Conference, May 12th Aviva Stadium

4-May-201114-May-2011 ~ Joe ~ 1 Comment

In May 12th the Irish Internet Association will hold Open for Business: The IIA Annual Conference 2011 in the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.

The programme for this key industry conference on May 12th in the Aviva Stadium has been finalised. It features among others

Richard Bruton T.D., Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation;
Dylan Collins, Founder, Jolt Online Games;
Josh Holmes, Architecture Evangelist, Microsoft;
Constantin Gurdgiev, Macroeconomist, IBM;
Louise Phelan, Senior Director, PayPal;
Tim Willoughby, Local Government Computer Services Board;
and many more.

Commenting on this unique internet business event, Joan Mulvihill, IIA CEO said, “To acknowledge thebreadth of our membership we have created two conferences in one: the morning plenary sessionsfocus on Irish businesses who are consuming, commissioning and using technology to achieve their business goals while the afternoon focuses on those who are creating and crafting technologies for them as well as workshops for both.”

The term ‘conference’ is being taken literally by the IIA!

con·fer·ence (kOn’for-ens)

n.1. a. A meeting for consultation or discussion. b. An exchange of views.

The theme ‘Open for Business’ was chosen to reflect an open ethos of sharing and communication – an authentic conversation for all internet stakeholders.

The optimisation of new technologies is key to staying open for business. The internet is the recognised driver in growing sales, managing risk and reducing costs.

Being ‘open for business’ is key to economic recovery and knowledge and skills must be in place to deliver. The morning panel discussion will assess the scale of the current skills deficit in delivering a smart economy.

However, to technologists the meaning of OPEN is entirely different and at times sparks opposing views as ‘Open’ typically refers to open source or open data.

The possibilities for an open government, facilitated by technology will be examined with case study presentations from Fingal County Council and an examination of the issues from Tim Willoughby, Assistant Director of the Local Government Computer Services Board. This is a unqiue opportunity for government bodies and web developers to engage in an open conversation in the hope of kickstarting change.

In parallel, throughout the day, breakout sessions will be run allowing delegates to hone in on particular topics – from cloud computing to digital marketing and ecommerce – ideal for all business owner/managers. The morning breakout conversations will be on the topics of Open (data/source/government). The plan is to share ideas and garner a collective view on key industry issues so that this conference is part of an overall process for progress.

The complete programme is detailed below. If you would like to interview any of the speakers or IIA CEO Joan Mulvihill please contact IIA Communications Manager Roseanne Smith at roseanne@iia.ie or 087 222 3614.

The programme includes a full day of plenary sessions as well as parallel break-out sessions and clinics.

8.30am Registration
9.00am Chairperson Address Maeve Kneafsey, IIA Chair
9.15am eCommerce Keynote address: Louise Phelan, Senior Director Global Customer Services & EU Merchant Services at PayPal
10.00am Entrepreneurship Keynote address “Being an Internet Entrepreneur”
Dylan Collins, Founder, Jolt Online Gaming and 2010 IIA & Enterprise Ireland Net Visionary
10.45am Q&A
11.00am Break
11.15am Panel Debate “Have we the smarts?” (a critique of Ireland’s skills deficit for a smart economy)
– Colm Greally (Mobile Entrepreneur, DigitalReachGroup)
– Theo Lynn (Director LINK Research Centre and Industry Engagement, DCU)
– Constantin Gurdyiev (Economist)
– Paddy Cosgrave, Dublin Web Summit
Panel Moderator – Ann O’Dea, Editor in Chief, Business and Leadership
12.15pm Keynote Richard Bruton, T.D. Minister for Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation
1pm Lunch
2.15pm Board Address, “Open for Business” Maurice Mortell, IIA Board & CEO, DataElectronics
2.30pm Open Source – Josh Holmes, Microsoft “Deep Fried Open-Source”
3.00pm Keynote Address, “Open-Data for Open-Gov” Tim Willoughby, Assistant Director, Local Government Computer Services Board
3.30pm Q&A
3.45pm Break
4.00pm Panel Debate Report from conversation break-out leaders
– National Digital Research Centre – Amy Neale
– Irish Software Association – Sean Baker
– Neil Leyden, Winner of Your Country, Your Call.
– Dublin City Council – Peter Finnegan, Director International Relations & Research
5.30pm Close

Warren Buffett on Corporate Compensation – A Lesson for Ireland

1-May-2011 ~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

I quote this directly from Warren Buffett, lest we forget.

Getting fired can produce a particularily bountiful payday for a CEO. Indeed he can “earn” more in a single day, while cleaning out his desk, than an American worker can earn in a lifetime of cleaning toilets. Forget the old maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite, the all-too-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure.

Huge severance payments, lavish perks and outsized payments for ho-hum performance often occur because comp committees have become salves to comparative data. The drill is simple: Three or so directors – not chosen by chance – are bombarded for a few hours before a board meeting with pay statistics that perpetually ratchet upward. Additionally, the committee is told about new perks that other managers are receiving, In this manner outlandish “goodies” are showered upon CEO’s simply because of the corporate version of the argument we all used when we were children: “But Mom, all the other kids have one.” When comp committees follow this “logic”, yesterday’s most egregious excess becomes today’s baseline.

CloudFoundry: The New Kid On The PaaS Block

15-April-201118-April-2011 ~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

CloudFoundry launched this week with a lot of hoohah. It certainly puts it up to Azure and Google App Engine in the PaaS space, but I don’t think Amazon have much to worry about. The ability to build a concrete implementation of a hybrid cloud with the same stack running inside the firewall as outside is the most compelling aspect.

My belief is that the company to crack hybrid clouds will be the big winner in the cloud space and this is the best shot yet (as long as you are using Java, RoR or Node.js).

They didn’t say much about their messaging/queueing offering and I think this is because the integration points between the most popular messaging platforms and CloundFoundry’s supported programming environments is not cleanly defined i.e. can RabbitMQ be used with Java and can can SwiftMQ be used with RoR, more importantly, are they used in this way?

The critical success factor for CloudFoundry will be how easy is it to add new core components. The Open Source approach means that the private cloud guys can hack their own components in, but how easy will it be to get VMWare to allow other components into the mix. Conspicuously absent were, Cassandra, PHP, Python/Django, Oracle and Postgres. Of course anything from Win32 stable was persona non-grata leaving a lot on the field for Microsoft to pick up.

The dirty little secret of course is that CloudFoundry is actually the best invention ever for selling vSphere and vCenter virtualisation to the private cloud gang. Even if, for instance, RedHat were to port CloudFoundry to KVM it would be an implict endorsement of VMWare’s strategy, and RedHat doesn’t like endorsing competitors strategies.

Of course the real vendor in a quandry here is IBM. Late to the private cloud party and desperately rebadging the last decade’s technology as cloud (P690 anyone?). Late to the public cloud party and finding it impossible difficult to sell a retail product (ever watch an elephant try to use chopsticks) . Now blown out of the water by an Open Source offering in a space which IBM would consider its own personal high ground when competing against Azure.

Expect a flurry of acquisitions as the also rans play catch up. Nice dice VMware!

More jobs for those that already have them

13-February-201115-April-2011 ~ Joe ~ 9 Comments

Silicon Republic had a great article recently reporting on the explosion of jobs in the tech sector. The IDA chief appears to be postively crowing about his success. Well that’s great, but it won’t move the unemployment needle one basis point.

Why? Because The tech in Ireland sector has virtually 100% employment, take a look at the indeed.ie search for software engineers to see the indigenous requirements.

It takes 4 years to make a new graduate engineer and the current intake of computer scientists and engineers is a fraction of what it was ten years ago. This means we get the same number of technical experts chasing a vastly expanded universe of technical employers.

The last time this happened was in the previous tech boom in 2000. Then, TCD was stamping out over 150 computer scientists a year from various different disciplines (Maths, Computer Science, Engineering). Today I think the total output each year is less than 50. Other colleges has experienced similar downturns.

The net effect of this is a spiralling wage inflation for technical staff, which is good if you are an engineer, but rotten news if you are an employer and an absolute disaster if you are a start-up competing for technical expertise.

Foreign Direct Investment companies (think Google, Oracle, Intel, IBM etc. etc.) who are moving here because it is a “low cost” development centre are in for the same surprise that companies who opened up in India got. Huge velocity of staff between jobs, sign on bonuses and rapidly inflating salaries.

In the noughties we could address shortages by importing expertise from overseas but who wants to move to a country that everyone in the world thinks is an economic basket case?

What to do? First of all understand that bringing in FDI companies that pay practically no tax revenue to the Irish government are of little utility to Ireland inc. from a balance of payments perspective. Second of all they create an unbalanced market as they can continue to afford to pay inflated salaries which squeezes the price up for indigenous companies competing for staff. Those companies are generally in worse shape financially and less able to withstand the stress of these salary increases.

Secondly we need to make more techologists and make them faster. In the 80’s companies like Nixdorf ran conversion courses for the thousands of arts graduates who couldn’t find jobs in our devastated economy and the tech colleges provided a huge array of cross training. Their is a huge opportunity to retrain those that are capable of switching to a technology career (like most career choices its not for everyone).

Pity our training agency FAS is a such a busted flush, we could really do with them right now.