Mando Group Ltd - dan_prior

My mother is on broadband at last!

This really is the end of an era. Last weekend I installed my mum's new broadband router and hey presto; her dial up days are over.

Over the last 3 years nearly all of us have gone from dial up to broadband and there is significant evidence that now we have broadband, we are not getting bored with the internet, but instead our usage of the internet is growing beyond most predictions. So here are just a few facts that I hope you find interesting.

1 - It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million users, 13 years for TV, 5 years for the Internet

2 - Facebook now has over 50 million users and is growing on average at 3% per week

3 - Facebook's user base is very loyal, approximately 50% login daily

4 - Over 88% of internet connections in the UK are now broadband

5 - In 2005 in the UK, online advertising spend exceeded radio advertising spend

6 - In Q3 of 2007 Google’s advertising revenue overtook those for ITV1

7 - In May 2007, Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau said "I believe online [advertising] spend could overtake TV within the next three to four years"

8 - In March 2007 in the UK there were over 38 million internet users

9 - In January 2007 5.7 million people in the UK accessed the internet from a mobile device

10 - Google is by far the fastest growing brand name in the world top 100 brands. Its recent inclusion as a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary confirms what Google's competitors feared: to web users, Google means search.

More about the rise of broadband usage.

Pandora's Music Box

No, this is not a box to contain all the musical evils of the world; Daniel O'Donnell and the like. Pandora is actually a personalised internet radio service that helps you find new music based on your favourites. It is based on the research from the Music Genome Project, where musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever. They produced hundreds of musical attributes that they call 'genes' into a very large Music Genome which helps to categorise preferences in music and therefore from understanding your preferences Pandora aims to predict what you would like to listen to.

With Pandora you start your new personalised radio station by defining an artist or song. From that first choice, when the track has ended Pandora provides the next track which it provides based on similar characteristics to the first track that you chose. If you really like a track or really dislike a track you can indicate the fact to help Pandora understand your preferences and become more accurate at predicting what you would like to hear. As its bank of music is much larger than any collection that you or I could have access to, it is a fantastic way of being opened up to new music similar to music that you already like.

For legal reasons Pandora does say it is currently for US listening only; and they ask for a US ZIP code on registration, but this is still an excellent idea and one that I hope will be able to be used legally for the rest of the world soon.

Also see Video killed the radio star.

Green ACC

We are really proud to have worked on the design of the website for the new Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool, which is a stunning new venue on the water front, due to be launched in 2008. ACC Liverpool is one of the ‘greenest’ arenas in Europe; the building has been designed to produce half the CO2 emissions of traditional builds and to use 20% less electricity. Yesterday it was also announced that ACC Liverpool have signed up with E.ON, Europe's biggest energy provider which has one of the largest green portfolios in the UK.

It is great to know that here in Liverpool we can develop something of significance nationally that others will look to for an example of best practice.

ACC has also recently announced that it will be hosting the MTV awards, which is fantastic for the city.

www.accliverpool.com

Online applications

A few years ago most common software applications such as word processing or preparing presentations would be installed on local machines, and most of us paid Microsoft for this privilage. However due to increasing bandwidth for the average home internet connection, there is a growing trend for applications to be provided via the web. Here are a few applications I've become aware of, some of which are available for free:

SlideRocket is a web application that provides everything you need to design professional quality presentations, manage and share libraries of slides and assets, and to deliver presentations in person or remotely over the web. Very handy!

Buzzword is an online word processing tool. It is still early days for this application but it looks good so far.

Picnik claim that 'it's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos' - simply it is a good online image editting tool.

The hand drying revolution

Whilst at the FOWA (Future of Web Apps) conference I have made an unexpected discovery; the Dyson Airblade hand drier.

At conferences hundreds of people leave a session at the break and many head for the toilets. Nobody likes queuing in toilets so here at the ExCel centre they have installed Dyson's revolutionary new design of hand drier to get people through quicker and obviously prevent queuing.

It is amazing!! It will do for hand drying what the original Dyson did for vaccum cleaning. Once you've tried it, you get frustrated with every other conventional hand drier.

All conventional driers are just like a wall mounted hairdrier, blowing hot air down on to your hands. I've generally found these fairly ineffective, and the only ones that seem to work are the ones that have a powerful motor and really blast your hands, taking about 30 seconds. Surely this is very inefficient. Dyson's approach is completely different but very obvious once you see it. Simply his system provides an open plastic box which you lower you hands into, which then blows hot air onto your hands from all directions, so that after less than 10 seconds your hands feel really dry. As well as the obvious consumer benefit, the premisis that installed the device will benefit from reduced enegy costs (Dyson say 83% less), and finally the environment benefits!

I expect that within 5 years nearly every new venue will have airblades or a similar copy installed in the toilets.

I love innovation, and I think this may be my favourite of the year so far. Dyson really understands that "Value innovation is about making the competition irrelevant by creating uncontested market space." -- W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, Blue Ocean Strategy

The Future of Web Apps

Five of us from Mando Group are currently delegates at a conference in London, named the 'Future of Web Apps'. We have a good cross section of the company; the MD, Head of Operations, a designer, a programmer, and a flash developer. So we are hoping that we will get some really good insights into what leading thinkers in the industry are expecting to be happening over the next couple of years. We also hope to pick up some inspiring stories of new business ideas or new technology that have made a difference in the last few months.

Firstly, I must say I feel completely nerdy as I sit in a seminar whilst writing this blog entry on a Mac Book; but I fit in, because most people are doing it. People in this industry really love Apple. Most people here have laptops and Mac Books outnumber PC laptops by a ratio of 4:1. People here also love iPods and iPhones; no surprise there.

My hightlight of today so far has been hearing Robert Kalin talk about his successful website www.etsy.com He looks 25 but talks with the maturity and clarity of someone who is 45. Throughout his 40 minute presentation he peppered his talk with points about how important it is to have values behind what you are creating; and I thought 25 year old entrepeneurs were just interested in making money?

Etsy.com is an on-line marketplace thats slogan is 'your place to buy and sell all things handmade'. I really didn't understand why people would use etsy rather than ebay until I understood the community. People who make things by hand take care in and value what they do. Therefore they also value others who do the same, and they would like to buy from people like them. Hence a market of people who don't want to mix on ebay with everyone else as they prefer the smaller and more niche area where they can buy and sell form people like them. Robert Kalin has done a number of things which has tapped into this need for community, and it works! Etsy has only been going just over 2 years, and had limited funding, but now employs 44 people and over 7000 items a day are sold through the website!

Well the session is drawing to a close and battery is a bit low on the Mac Book so I'd better sign off.

Microsoft Silverlight

Yesterday Microsoft announced the release of Silverlight 1.0. If you haven't heard about Silverlight before, it is Microsoft's attempt to rival Flash as a cross-browser plug-in for doing cool stuff on the web.

For years web developers have used Adobe's Flash technology to develop highly graphical, interactive elements for websites, and to view it you would need to download Flash player. However, now there is an alternative, some web developers will start to use Silverlight, and to view their creations you will need to download the Silverlight player to run in your browser.

So the battle has commenced and only time will tell which will come out on top.

Is your team Johari aware?

Recently, as part of a leadership course, 3 of my colleagues, who are also good friends, had the opportunity to fill a flip chart page with a list of my strengths and weaknesses whilst I was out of the room. Then after 15 minutes I was brought back into the room with each of them given the opportunity to explain one of the strengths and one of the weaknesses on the list.

This was new ground for us, and as expected started with suggestions of strengths to avoid confrontation. But we did get on to weaknesses which seemed as uncomfortable for them to say as it was for me to hear.

An important character strength in life is the ability to take criticism and learn from it, without taking offence. It is also an important leadership strength to be able to tell someone about an area where they are weak with the main motivation being for their benefit and their personal growth. Both giving and receiving criticism well, are much easier said than done. I don't think many people enjoy taking criticism, but a mature individual looks to the long term benefit rather than the short term discomfort. I was fortunate, in that the criticism I received was definitely from a position of my colleagues wanting to help me grow rather than knock me down.

In the leadership course all this stuff was under the heading of the Johari Window. The Johari Window is a concept which was created by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (get it?), and it is all about interpersonal relationships. See the diagram below.

Put simply there are four boxes. Top left is the box of things that are known to you and known to others - obvious stuff. Bottom left is for things that are known to you but not to others; they call this 'facade' and indicates things that could be shared. Top right is for things that are known to others but not known by you - your blind spots. Your spouse or partner can probably real off a whole list of these, but in work often people never share these things, unless you are on a leadership course with a big flip chart! Lastly the bottom right is for things that you are not aware of about yourself and the people around you are not aware of. Often this could be that people can notice a behaviour that is unusual (top right) but don't know what causes it (bottom right).

What I found most interesting through this process was that we found out so much more about each other; what makes us tick, what causes us to get stressed and what motivates us. This has had a number of benefits including making us able to support each other more. It has also quite clearly improved our team performance. So is your team Johari aware?

Shortcuts to heaven

Have you ever been working on something with a colleague and noticed them hitting a key which does something immediately that would take you five mouse clicks and trawling through a number of menus? My usual response to this is "Wow - show me what you just pressed!", and once I am enlightened I have a secret mission to spread the word about this new short cut which will cut down on the dreaded mouse clicks and menu trawling that absorbs our working life. So here are some of my favourite short cuts.

- Windows M - hit the windows key and the 'M' key at the same time and all your windows that are open will be minimised leaving your desktop clear. This one also has the benefit of giving you the same feeling that you get when you've tidied your desk - but much quicker. If you want to undo the minimise just go for shift, windows, and M, all at the same time. This is very similar to Windows D - for more information on the difference see here.

- Windows L - hit the windows key and the 'L' key at the same time and your computer will be locked automatically until you enter your password to unlock it. Great to use when heading out to lunch.

- Windows E - hit the windows key and the 'E' key and Windows Explorer (to manage your folders and files) opens up.

- Windows F - to find files and folders.

- Word: Alt Shift U - do you use automatic table of contents in MS-Word? I do, and for large documents they are a life-saver automatically updating your table of contents without you having to work out page numbers etc... Anyway updating the table of contents normally takes 5 clicks, but once you've highlighted the table of contents a simple 'alt shift U' causes an update of the table of contents.

- Alt T S - whether you are in Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, or another Microsoft product spell checking is as easy as Alt T S.

- Control X and Control V - cut and paste. Very useful for moving text around documents.

- Control Z - undo - pure and simple. Wouldn't it be good if we could use this for things we've said.

- Powerpoint: B - you're running a presentation in an important meeting and your audience keep staring at your complex PowerPoint slides when you want to grab their attention. Simply hit the 'B' key and the screen is blanked, and they automatically (and almost subconsciously) adjust their focus on to you. At this point make sure you say an important line, and say it slowly with a good pause afterwards so that they don't miss!

- F2 - when in Windows Explorer and you want to rename a file or folder just highlight the file or folder name and hit F2.

- Windows R - finally for the aspiring-techies out there; get using Windows R to bring up the 'run' command.

Office perceptions

This week we moved in to our new offices in Liverpool's vibrant city centre.

It won't take long for us to get used to new surroundings; within a matter of weeks what seems special now will become the norm. Therefore I wanted to capture staff perceptions of our new offices before we get too used to them.

Here are the main comments:

- Calm and peaceful.
- Very disorientating. Didn't realise how comfortable you get when stuck in the same place for a while. Overall though, a massive improvement.
- Nice meeting rooms; really light and spacious.
- Sophisticated, modern, stylish, spacious, more natural light.
- Superb location for lunch and town, well run, well lit, nice bathroom.
- Bright, clean and the best view in the house.
- I love the white chairs in reception (we might be one short by the end of the week!)
- Great location, need colour on the walls to create visual impact.
- Love the amount of space around the desks, like the sense of peace. I love the natural light. I love the view from all the rooms. The boardroom feels like it could be the creative epicentre of the company.
- I like having swipe access rather than a key.
- Good view, bright, clean, shiny, new corridors - I've been getting lost.
- I feel like there is life and culture all around us.

When is a leader at their best?

I've been reading a great book recently by a chap called Bill Hybels that posed the question 'When is a leader at their best?'. It is a good question and one that intrigues me.

Is it when the leader is performing the functions of leadership; when they are casting vision, building teams and planning? These must be essential because leaders need to have vision to know where they are going and also get others to follow.

Is it when the leader is demonstrating inner strength, character and integrity? These are also essential, because good leaders, I believe, must have some moral goodness as well as the ability perform the functions of leadership.

One example that comes in to my mind is Winston Churchill saying "We will fight them on the beaches."; a seminal moment in the leader's life when they say or demonstrate something that inspires other people and is not forgotten.

Bill Hybels' interesting conclusion is that a leader is at their best when they are raising up other leaders around them; and after some thinking, I tend to agree. Good leaders must be measured by what continues when they are not there as well as what they personally achieve. Leadership is about inspiring and training others so that they too can lead. This model of leadership means that the vision won't die; it may change and evolve, but it will always be carried by someone who believes in it.

Oh yes, I almost forgot, the book is called Courageous Leadership.

Change is here to stay

A good friend of mine often says 'One thing is certain; change is here to stay'. Like it or lump it, change happens and it affects us all.

As a technology organisation we are very aware that how we manage change is key to our business. There are new exciting things happening all the time that drastically change the environment in which we operate. Who would have thought 5 years ago that my mother in law, and possibly yours too, would spend hours every night auctioning the contents of her loft through the internet?

As the internet develops there are so many new things out there promising to change your life; so which of them may actually live up to this grand billing? Here are my suggestions. This isn't trying to be an exhaustive list, just one that may make the less adventurous internet user try something new.

Photobox. In 2006 Nikon announced that it would stop making the majority of its film cameras. Digital photography will soon be the only from of photography for the vast majority of people. Therefore we will all need companies that produce decent prints of our digital snaps. Photobox is one such company. You simply upload your photos, choose which you wish to purchase as prints, select sizes, quantities and pay on-line. Before you know it, your photos are delivered. Even more useful is the ability to publish your on-line photo album to friends and they too can order prints.
Blogging. Nearly every corporate website has news, which gets old very quickly. I think people are more interested in what you are thinking than what your company did a few months ago. Since putting this blog on our company website we have had a significant increase in comments from clients. In fact we spent the first 10 minutes of one client meeting discussing the merits of the 'Interrobang' from them reading about it on our blog.
The iTunes music store. It only takes a second of reminiscing to download one of your favourite songs from the 80s and pop it on your iPod. You can send iTunes vouchers as presents. I recently received a voucher and spent a very pleasant half an hour scouring for old singles that I listened to as a kid but never owned.

Some of my other favorites include:

MySpace. Information, pictures and music tracks from un-signed bands through to U2.
YouTube. Millions of random videos posted by members and ranked by viewers.
Digg. Articles submitted by users are ranked by how many people 'digg' the article. Once logged in you can click to say which articles you 'digg', therefore you should never have to read a boring article again.
eBay. No matter how strange the contents of your loft, the miracle of eBay is that someone somewhere will probably pay something for it.
Freecycle. Ever just wanted to give your old stuff away? Try Freecycle; which now has over 3 million members. It is a nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free locally.

Of course we can't forget Google, the undisputed king of search engines. Google has changed the way we live life by making billions of pages of information readily available to billions of people on a daily basis. They are also constantly innovating; bringing new products to our attention. Have you tried Google Maps, Google Earth or Google Desktop?