I recently attended the seminar Internetdagarna here in Stockholm, a big event discussing trends in internet usage.

There were all the usual stats, like 85% of all Swedes having access to internet at home. 97% of the internet users have broadband and 81% of them use internet daily. Mobile internet is increasing rapidly.

The keynote speaker Jeff Cole from USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future talked about the ongoing disruption in the whole media industry sector.
Here is the video from his excellent speech: “Falling Apart or Coming Together: Media and Consumers in a Digital Era”
Some tidbits:
“Now everything is falling apart.”
“Newspapers have 5 years left in the US, 8 in the UK.”
“People don’t live by schedules anymore. Schedules don’t work!”
“Consumers are beginning to abandon subscriptions to print media and have little interest in paying for digital content, at least for the next five years.”
“Advertising is still preferred method. People who opt out might have to start paying.”
“All media will survive, but most will be smaller players in the digital era.”

Many of the other sessions discussed the disruption in the media industry, everybody seemed to agree on:

1. The digital transformation will continue, faster for some types of media and slower for some.
2. Most print media business (especially newspaper and news magazines) will be badly hit by the digital transition.
3. Media consumption is increasing due to ubiquitous internet access and all the new mobile devices.

Pontus Schultz, head of business development at Swedish publishing giant Bonnier’s R&D department outlined it wisely:
“Everything goes digital. Digital is free.”
“People want to pay, but so far we have packaged stuff that people don’t like paying for.”
“You don’t pay for news, you pay for identity and for being part of a community.”
“The challenge is to stop being a broadcaster and become a part of the conversation.”
“Reader interaction: don’t ask what they think, ask what they know.”
“Tablets like iPads is a chance for media to do it right this time.”
See his talk (in Swedish, starts at 18:20)

Strategies are necessary, but they are worthless without action!

Pontus ended by saying that media is usually quite good at creating new strategies, but lousy at implementing them. This is a key insight for me!

All this means that today’s media conglomerates are like ocean-going super tankers. When they see icebergs they have big difficulties changing course due to their massive inertia based on their 100+ years of traditions. Some of them have smart crew members like Pontus and will be able to change course a little quicker and perhaps launch some smaller experimental vessels that will take off. Other will hit icebergs or continue slowly into oblivion.

The time is now!

So there are now unique conditions for small speedboats to run around the tankers and cruise on top of the waves, adapting to the ever-changing conditions in the digital ocean and building new types of media content and services. These speedboats can of course be launched from existing media companies (and some already are) but I think the biggest part of the expanded digital media business many will be built by a new breed of media companies.

They need to be small, creative and agile, populated with a multi-cultural mix of  techies and communicators combined with experienced, open-minded media savvies and some hybrid thinkers like me.

These new speedboats can now be built by small groups of open-minded people anywhere in the world. The tools needed to build a new media service are now far less expensive, faster and easier to use. Sweden is an ideal location for this due to our crop of talented developers and internet-savvy early adopters.

This tickles my mind, what about yours?

Forget everything you have heard about elevator pitches, here is the real, working thing!

Your ability to present yourself and acquire new contacts is at the core of all business networking. For this you need an “elevator pitch”. Here you will find everything you need to know about creating an efficient, personal elevator pitch that really gives you results.

1. What is an elevator pitch?

The expression is derived from making contact very quickly when you meet an interesting person in an elevator. But an elevator pitch should be used in all circumstances where you get the question “What are you doing”. A good elevator pitch should present the advantages of your offering, and open up to further conversation and contact. That is all!

2. What should an elevator pitch contain?

To work well, an elevator pitch should answer three questions:
1. What do you do? Don’t focus on the products/services that you sell, but on how your customers use what you sell.
2. Whom do you do it for? What types of customers are you aiming at?
3. What benefits does it give your customers? How are your products/services helping your customers to earn money, save time, reduce stress, increase productivity etc?

3. What an elevator pitch is NOT

It should not be a mechanical sales pitch, but a time efficient way for you to start a conversation with the other person that can lead to something of mutual value.
You should NOT present everything you can do or sell! You should NOT try to make the other person buy something from you!
You should NOT ask if they use the kind of products that you sell! You should NOT ask whom they are buying from!
Key message here: An elevator pitch is not foremost about you; it is about how you add value to other people’s business.

4. What is the goal of an elevator pitch?

The goal is to stop the other person from saying: ”We don’t need that”, or “We already have people for that”, or “We don’t do that”. Instead, you want the other person to say: “Oh, how do you do that?”, or “That sounds interesting!”.

Then you have a golden opportunity to make the other person talk more about himself/herself, and then listen to your description of how you can be of help.

5. How long should an elevator pitch be?

The shorter, the better! Many people believe that it should be 30-60 seconds. That is too long; it sounds mechanical and quickly bores people. An elevator pitch should be under 10 seconds!The reason is that you want the other person to talk as much as possible, so that you understand his/her interests and needs. Tip: If you talk mostly about yourself you will be perceived as a bore, but if you encourage the other to talk about himself, he will think you are a brilliant conversationalist! That goes for everybody at all occasions.

6. When should you use your elevator pitch?

An elevator pitch is very useful in many more circumstances than you think. It reinforces your image and makes it easier for people to understand you and your business. 1. At all times when you are presenting yourself to others.

2. On you business card. Surprisingly many business cards do not have any information about the value that the person is adding to customers, or even what business sector he/she is working in! 3. On your web site.

4. When you introduce yourself on the telephone to people you want to connect with. 5. When you leave a message on a potential contact’s answering service. 6. On your letterheads and printed brochures etc 7. In your email signature.

7. After your pitch

When you have managed to get a persons attention with your elevator pitch, you want to extract more information about the other person’s interests and needs. Then you can discover together what you can offer that the other needs. Describe in more detail how you create value for your customers, and refer to a happy customer in the same type of business as the other person. Depending on the circumstances, you can either continue the discussion directly, or agree on a time for a meeting or lunch.

If you are in a hurry, e.g. in an elevator, just ask: “It would be interesting to have lunch together and get to know more about your business. Can I have your business card so that I can call you and set up a suitable time?”

Your goal is to exchange business cards and get permission to call.

Tip: Immediately make a note on the card about what was interesting and when and where you met the person. Another way, if you cannot write on the card, is to fold the upper left corner = “Hot prospect”, or the upper right corner = “Indirect contact”, or the lower right corner = “No contact”.

Happy pitching!

(See also my checklist for business mingling)

Download this checklist as a printable PDF: Elevator pitch checklist (English version) Checklista för Elevator pitch (Swedish version)

Too few businesspeople master the very useful art of business mingling, especially Swedes. So I started to write this check list after my time in the US 1999-2000, where I attended numerous business mingling events in IT and venture capital. Since then I have sharpened the list with my experiences of what works best in Sweden and Europe.

1. Business cards

Bring a stack of business cards and a pen. Far too many people attend events without their business cards! Keep the cards within easy reach. Make sure your business card tells your story, ideally put your picture on it, you want to be remembered.

2. Expectations

Realize that networking is long-term, don’t expect immediate results. You will get the most out of it if you offer your help, your experiences and your contacts without demanding anything back, “Give to Gain”. It is about relations and not about transactions, i.e. you should plant seeds and not be on a hunt!

3. The starting phase

Start directly by approaching the person closest to you, no matter how he or she looks, don’t hesitate! But respect the other person by not standing too close, many people are intimidated by that. Tip: Avoid those that you already know, tell them that you will talk to them later. You are there to make new contacts!

4. The introductory phase

Don’t start by telling all about what you can do, it is not your goal here, (and nobody really cares either). Instead you want to find out as much as possible about the other person, what he or she does, what are the interests etc, and you want to steer the conversation by asking questions.

So start instead by showing your interest in the other person. For example: “Hello, what did you think of the panel discussion?”, or ”Hello, how do you feel about this event?” (Do not ask a question that can be answered with just yes or no!) Listen to the other person, show your full attention, then he or she will soon also be interested in you and ask what you do, which is your goal.

5. Your elevator pitch

As soon as you are asked ”what do you do”, you use your elevator pitch. It should be brief, under 10 seconds, and answer three questions: 1. What do you do? 2. Whom do you do it for? 3. What benefits does it give your customers? (See also my elevator pitch checklist)

6. The decision phase

When the other person has showed you interest and you have acquired some information, it is time to decide if this is a contact that you want to move further with or not.

7. The comprehensive phase

If you want to proceed, say ”It would be interesting to have lunch with you and get to know more about your business. Can I have your business card to call you and set up a suitable time?” Your goal is to exchange cards and get permission to call. Tip: Immediately make a note on the card about what was interesting and when and where you met the person. Another way, if you cannot write on the card, is to fold the upper left corner = “Hot prospect”, or the upper right corner = “Indirect contact”, or the lower right corner = “No contact”.

8. Termination

If you do not want to proceed with this person, just say ”OK, it was nice to meet you. Here is my card, can I have yours?” Exchange cards and then move to another person in the room.

9. Indirect contacts

Every person knows hundreds of people. The person that you are talking to is perhaps not directly interesting to you, but might have other good contacts. Therefore you should exchange business cards with everybody that you meet, and ask if they know somebody that might be interested in you and your business.

10. Time allocation

Never spend more than 3-4 minutes per person. Even if it is a very interesting contact, you can miss other even more interesting people if you linger with the same person too long. This is a very common mistake! Remember, your goal is to set up a later meeting with your key.

11. The follow up phase

Save and catalogue all the business cards. For those that you want to see again, send within two days some information about you and your business along with a suggested meeting time. You can also send a “nice to meet you”-mail to the other contacts, where you include your elevator pitch and a link to your home page. Don’t sell anything, just ask if there is any way that you can be of help.

Download a printable PDF Business mingling checklist (English version) Checklista för affärsmingling (Swedish version)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Updated Nov 27, 2011

 

My name is Henrik, and I’m an Early Adopter.

I don’t see being an early adopter as part of a competition to be first with new stuff. I’m just curious and can’t help that I want to try out and learn new things all the time. And I don’t buy new things until I am convinced that they are useful to me.
It is not an easy life being an early adopter, I don’t recommend it. An old wild west quote: “Pioneers are the ones with arrows in their backs!” And it is usually not the early adopters that make the money.

But I am proud of having adopted several important trends very early and my gut feelings for applications and functions are often accurate, both for successes and lemons.

Interactive media: I became a pioneer when I started the company Ahead Multimedia in 1988.

Elearning: I created an international award-winning elearning program in 1991, and in 1999 I worked in the US with an online elearning portal about parenting.

PDA’s and smartphones: I switched to digital calendars in 1993 and started enjoying mobile email on my Sony Ericsson P800 in 2002.

The cloud: To me this is probably the most important shift in computing ever, moving from local files and applications that are locally stored in your computer to storing and running them online. I started using online word processing in 2005 and immediately felt that this was the future of easy and collaborative computing.

Some milestones:

1986 My first Mac, a 512K, what a difference! Used it with PageMaker 1.0 to produce course materials about script writing and print them on my Laserwriter Plus. A SEK 100.000 investment that paid off! I had previously worked a lot with computers such as the Swedish Luxor ABC800.

1986 AppleLink This was Apples online service for dealers and developers. I got the user ID SW0101, where SW stood for Sweden and I used it a lot for computer support, to download software updates etc. But it was rather primitive and very expensive.

1988 Email Started using QuickMail on our office Macs. This was long before internet, so we could only email ourselves in our 8-people company. Visitors thought we we crazy: “Why don’t you just walk over and talk to each other?”. But I saw the benefits of asynchronous communication: I could email a text or a file to a colleague anytime and he/she could read it when it was suitable, I dd not have to interrupt people and I knew that they would see my messages. That was a very strange thing in those days! Eventually internet came, and we were all email savvy so we had an edge.

1988 CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the US. I signed up for an account and liked being able to participate in online forums and downloading software updates etc.

1990 Mobile phone. I bought my first mobile phone, a brick-sized Ericsson Hotline NMT 450, it cost SEK 17.000 and the battery lasted for an hour or two, but it was good to be mobile!

1992 Philips CD-I Since my company Ahead Multimedia was a leading production house for interactive media, Philips approached me and pitched their new CD-I player. It was a proprietary CD format with added interactivity so Philips hoped it would be a success for games and interactive corporate presentations etc. After trying it for a few days I returned it, feeling that it was not going to work: Slow, proprietary and tied to a processor that would become obsolete, expensive and with primitive authoring tools. CD-I turned out to become a disaster för Philips.

1993 I discovered an new type of magazine that attracted me at the London Design Museum. It was called Wired and wrote about technology and society in a new way. I have been a subscriber ever since. Here is the premiere issue from march 1993, still hanging on my kitchen wall.

1993 Newton Messagepad. Bught it on the launch day Aug 2 at MacWorld expo in Boston. But already on the first day I saw its limitations and predicted it would not be a hit.

1994 Apple eWorld Apple’s first consumer online service was not a hit: I did not like the cumbersome user interface with a “town hall metaphor” that you had to navigate in and the childish graphics that required long download times and few people signed up for it.

 

1994 Flickr I have been a semi-professional stills photographer since my teens, so I immediately fell in love with Flickr when they launched. They made it so easy to share hi-resolution pictures with others, and quickly became a very inspiring place to browse great photography. I also fell for their friendly tongue-in-cheek texts. I am still a loyal Pro user, check out my pics here.

 

1996 Palm Pilot Professional, a revolutionary PDA at this time. An instant hit with me and it sure became a big success. I bought all the new versions as they came out until they stagnated in 2001.

1996 Pippin from Apple. We produced all our interactive presentations, games and elearning using Apple Macintosh computers, so Apple wanted us to start developing for their new multimedia platform Pippin. But I decided not to use it, since I felt that it was really just a rather primitive video game console with much better competitors. This was in Apple’s dark days when they where totally out of focus….

 

1997 Joined Six Degrees, the first social media network service. The founder maxed out his credit cards to finance this startup, but unfortunately he was many years to early. I wonder what he thinks of Facebook and LinkedIn now? As I said, it is hard to be a pioneer…

1998 I used Groove Networks for some projects, an early online project management tool that was well executed but way before its time. They were later acquired by Microsoft and turned into Sharepoint workspace.

 

1999 I was a customer the very first day at Letsbuyit.com. I bought a Palm V PDA, and immediately realized that Letsbuyit would become a big flop, since;
A) It offered a confusing array of unrelated products, very few of them of interest to me
B) At the time of order you did not know the exact price
C) At the time of order you did not know the delivery date
D) I could easily find cheaper online merchants by using price-comparison sites like Pricerunner
But the investors did not think so, so they spent 2 billion SEK before it crashed…
But I loved my Palm V for a long time!

2000 Ericsson R320 The first WAP mobile, very slow and clumsy, I immediately realized that WAP was a terrible example of tech hype not based on usability.

2001 I tested online dating and predicted it would become big since I felt it was very time saving and efficient. Most people then thought it was a sign of total failure to use online dating, but only a few years later this became a global success.

2002 Dec I bought Sony Ericsson P800 smartphone on its launch day, immediately liked having mobile email and a calendar that I could sync to my computer.

2003 Skype My immediate reaction when I tested Skype’s first public beta release in August 2003 was “this is going to disrupt the telecom industry”. And it certainly did! Did you know that their original name for Skype was “Sky peer-to-peer”?

2004 Feb I bought a Wayfinder GPS for my P800 and enjoyed having navigation in my pocket.

2005 May, Blogging, I started my blog here on alfabravo.com, first on Blogger, later moving to WordPress. I attended the first little community meeting for Swedish bloggers in 2005, where everybody had read all else’s blogs!

 

2005 June, discovered YouTube and felt that it was going to become a big hit since it was free and so easy to use.

 

2005 Aug, I started using the beta version of the online word processor application  Writely. They were acquired by Google in March 2006 and transformed to Google Documents, which I have been using heavily ever since.

2005 Started using LinkedIn as a business networking tool, still use it every day.

2006 Joined Facebook in the summer and realised it would become very big, it felt like a smart and fun way to increase contact with friends and acquaintances.

2007 April, I bought a Nokia N95 on its launch day. Liked the integrated GPS and the camera.

2007 Oct, I bought an iPod Touch, a milestone in mobile web surfing and video play.

2007 Started using Jaiku microblog before they were acquired by Google in Oct 2007. It is still the best microblog service I think, I am sorry that Google has neglected it.

2008 Started using Twitter and Bloggy microblogs. I have a strong feeling that microblogs will evolve quickly the next few years. We will hopefully laugh in 2012 at Twitter of 2010!

 

2008 Dropbox I was by then already hooked on cloud services, so Dropbox did not have a hard sell to me. I love simplicity, file management cannot be simpler than with Dropbox. Still use it everyday, both for personal backups and for project file sharing with team members.

2008 In the spring I got a beta invite to Spotify and enjoyed their smart and very fast interface. I felt strongly that this kind of streaming on-demand media is the future of music, so I wrote this blog post about why we will not want to own our music files, the headline attracted a lot of readers: “Steve Jobs is wrong”

 

2009 Google Wave  There was a very big buzz in the online world when Google released Wave, it was labelled as the “next big thing”, “email killer” and lots of other hype. I was interested in the advanced interactive functionality, but foudn it complex to learn. So I organized a workshop with some like-minded early adopters where we tested through all the functions. Already after a few hours we all said to each other “this is going to be a flop”, we did not see much real beenfits and found it much to complex to use. And we were right, Wave flopped.

 

July 2009 iPhone 3GS Since I had my iPod Touch I waited until the summer of 2009 when the iPhone 3GS was released. What a change from my Nokia N95! My mobile online life grew a lot with all the creative and useful apps.

 

2009 Started using Foursquare and Gowalla, social online location based services for tracking your friends. I find  it useful, for example by checking in at a café in the city other people in my network can see that I am there and I get spontaneous contacts this way.  After testing for 6 months I skipped Gowalla since I find Foursqaure to be more business-oriented.

 

2010 April I bought my first iPad from the US, since I already from the news about it before the launch had a gut feeling that this is a very interesting new platform. After the first day with it I was hooked and I have since discovered many new ways to use it. I am now using my iPad 2 everyday, mostly at home but also during meetings, seminars and during travel.
See my blog posts “Paid iPad Content – Why it’s important”
“iPad Media apps – CD-ROM revisited”
“eBooks vs eMagazines”

 

2011 November I finally exchanged my 3GS to the new iPhone 4S when it was released. Not so much difference on the outside as many had hoped, but certainly a big leap forward in processing power and camera quality. But I find Siri to be the most interesting development. Siri is Apple’s new voice-command function, enabling you to both control your mobile and get information in a new way. I am even more convinced that this is a revolutionary new interface that will change the way we use mobiles when I hear all the skeptics that proclaim: “Siri is useless. I don’t see any benefit of using Siri. Stuff like Siri has been around for years” etc. These reactions always come up when something radical is emerging. Check out Apple’s demo of Siri for yourself.

And I have a strong feeeling that all this is just the beginning.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

I have enjoyed various forms of eBooks since the early 90s (when they were sold on floppies…). But it is not until April this year I have started to really see eBooks and eMagazines replacing some of my boos and magazines in my ever growing piles of things to read.

The reason for this is of course my iPad. It is a delight to use, not only because of its wonderful screen, but because of two features that are not so often mentioned:
1. It start up in half a second. This is changing my behavior a a lot.
2. The form of the iPad makes it usefull in all sorts of “laidback” reading positions, in the arm chair, in the TV sofa, in the bed etc.

Since I have worked since the 80s producing interactive “multimedia” I really like the rapid development of eMagazines and eBooks now. For example embedded videos, animations and various forms of user interactivity.

I have bought and read a number of eMagazines and eBooks and to my surprise I now begin to feel that I enjoy the eBooks more than the eMagazines. I have read both crime novels and business eBooks bought from Amazon’s Kindle app and from Apple’s iBook store.

I find eBook reading on the iPad to be a better experience than reading most physical text books:

1. It is much faster and easier to buy an eBook.
2. I can read my eBooks on my computer, my iPad and my iPhone, and the reader software always directs me to the place in the book where I was the last time, independent of which device I used.
3. I can highlight text, make bookmarks and write notes etc, just like in a physical book, something I always do for my learning.

eMagazines are now appearing in many flavors and I really like this development. But it feels like we are bnow seeing just the frist wave and that there will be a lot of further development needed befor eMags will seriously compete with paper mags.

I wrote about my first impressions of eMagazines in my post “iPad Media apps; CD-ROM revisited, where I complained about the lack of social functions like being able to share articles, make notes, interact with the ads etc.

Now I have spent many hours reading dozens of eMagazine titles, and I still miss all those functions. But also, I still don’t feel as comfortable reading eMags as I do reading eBooks.

I feel that  my vision of the beautiful magazine layout is hindered by looking at it on the iPad screen. The image is sharp and bright, but I have to scroll a lot and I don’t have the overall view that I have with a paper magazine. It is not just that a paper magazine is usually bigger in size than my iPad screen. It is about rapidly turning the paper pages, reading them in any order and get a feeling of how long an article is before reading it.

Am I alone in feeling this? Will I get over it? What do you think?

So I think that we need much more research in user interface design and layout for devices like the iPad before the eMagazine market will really take off. I am convinced that all magazine publishers are now working to address those issues and I really look forward to reading the second generation eMagazines.

Hopefully they will look more like Bonnier’s promising Skiing Interactive concept, which is much more active, lean forward type, scheduled for launch in October 2010. It will be for laptops, hopefully an iPad version will follow.

Enjoy their sneak peak video:

Skiing Interactive Demo Video from Skiing Interactive on Vimeo.

I want to share some thoughts from my recent road trip in California, connecting with many smart people at interesting companies and organizations. California is indeed an important center of innovation and development, not just in IT and media, but also in high-tec and automotive industries, all of which interests me.

So here are some unsorted tidbits and impressions from a Swedish visitor in California. I lived in Los Angeles 1999-2000, during the peak of the internet hype, so I was of course curious to see what has changed over there in these 10 years.

We went to Los Angeles and from there flew to San Francisco, with lots of car driving around both these areas.

Traffic

The first thing I noticed was that it is true what my friends in LA told me before the trip; that the traffic is much worse now than in 2000. I  did not believe them, since I thought it would be impossible, but they are right. To me it feels like the traffic situation in the vast LA area will soon reach breaking point, since the 4-6 lane highways are now crowded more or less 24/7.

We met with several experts in the automotive industry who all said that “electric is the new chic” in California, with massive projects and lots of political interest too to bring out electric and plug-in hybrid cars. They expressed concerns about the environmental total impact of that, for example how the electricity is produced. But we missed discussions about the bigger problem: if all the cars on the road are electric, the congestions will still be as bad!

I could not help noticing also that American cars are still not up to the European/Japanese standards We rented 3 similarly sized cars during our trips; two Chevys and one Toyota. The Toyota was by far the best of them, comfort, responsiveness, driveability etc. But I as impressed by the car rental agencies, enormous operations with reasonably prices and mostly very speedy customer handling, due to vast number of employees.

Television

I noticed one big difference: there are now High-Definition TVs everywhere. This development is clearly much faster than in Sweden. I think the main reason is that we have the PAL TV system which offers quite good image quality from the start, but the US is evolving from their ancient NTSC system, to them the difference is much more dramatic. Most other aspects of TV such as numerous channels are now more similar in Sweden, due to cable and satellite etc. And we now also have obnoxious commercials every 10 minutes…

Mobile phone networks

Being used to ubiquitous mobile telephone and mobile broadband in Sweden, it was painful experience in California. I very often did not have coverage even in metropolitan areas and certainly not on the highways. I understand there are many causes of this, such as difficult to get building permits for cell towers, the vast geography and having several technical standards.

Newspaper formats

Both LA Times and USA Today have very tall, narrow paper format that is very hard to read on a breakfast table or an airplane, what’s the reason for this? And I still don’t understand why not all newspapers bind their pages together, like in Sweden.

Food

I was glad to discover that California still has the very best burgers and much fresher produce and fruit than we do in Sweden. Such a lovely variety and quality!

But why on earth are the servings so enormous? If I order a regular main course, I get food that would be full dinner in Sweden for at least 3 persons! And even though California probably has the best vegetarian food in the world, most courses consist of ridiculous amounts of meat. Standard soft drinks are now around 60 cl, twice the size compared to what it used to be. What a waste and health problem.

Half a pastrami sandwich for the lunch soup…

iPad media apps – the revenue solution for media publishers?

The extremely sucessful iPad launch (3 million iPads sold in 80 days) has created a tremendous buzz and excitement in the media industry. I am certainly one of the very happy iPad owners.
Many publishers see the iPad as a solution to their main headache: How can we charge for our media content when our web site users don’t want to pay for it and there is such an abundance of free content on internet?

With the iPad, the argument goes, we can deliver an improved user experience that looks more like our print media but with some added features like video, then people will want to pay for it.

But are we really seeing improved user experiences with the current iPad media apps? We are now seeing the first generation media apps from big publishers, like Bonnier’s Popular Science, Time magazine, Wired magazine, Washington Street Journal and many others.

Many people react against paying for these apps, some with the rather strange argument “but there are ads in it, so I should’t have to pay for the app”, as if print media were ad-free. Well, that reaction of course stems from that we are so used to free media content on the web.

I don’t mind paying for interesting media content, provided that:

1. I can’t access equivalent content for free as nicely packaged somewhere else (hint: build your brand and work hard on your interface design and user friendliness)
2. I feel that my money goes to an organisation that I want to support (hint: tell me your corporate story and mission)
3. The payment process is simple and quick (this is one of the iTunes Store key success factors)

But I don’t want to pay for media apps that I feel are giving me a worse experience than online media.

Today’s media apps feels like CD-ROMs

I and many others also react against the walled garden of these apps, most of them are not connected to internet at all. We are suddenly back in the 90′s world of interactive CD-ROM media that looked great but were all one-way communication that could not be updated.

In my opinion most of them represent a step backwards compared to web media:

• I can’t copy text in the articles
• I can’t comment the articles
• I can’t share  articles with my friends via email, Facebook, Twitter etc
• I cant’ search for keywords in the articles
• I can’t bookmark or write my own comments in interesting articles
• I can’t interact with the ads
• I have to wait for apps to load
• I find the user interface unintuitive

Interface standards

The current breed of iPad media apps are using a multitude of different interface standards. Even basic functionalities get confusing when you don’t know how they work.

Two examples:
We are used to reading articles in columns from top to bottom. This is the way all our printed media have always worked. Still, Washington Street Journal manages to introduce a horisontal article layout, it even has another column to the right of the story which hides the continued story to the right, making it difficult to find. This also forces them to repeat the headline on each screen, a clumsy and unintuitive solution.

Menus: Publishers want an uncluttered interface design, so they hide the menu buttons, and they all do it differently. Some make you tap anywhere on screen, others use more obscure tricks. Worst so far is Bonnier, introducing a totally incomprehensible two-finger vertical swipe from the bottom to reveal the menu buttons. Sorry guys, I think the only way is to have small, constantly visible, easy to interpret menu buttons.

App download time

I don’t mind downloading utility apps, but when I want media content, I want it immediately. The current crop of iPad media apps weighs in at 150-500 Mb, which takes a loooong time to download. I just bought Wired’s July issue at 375 Mb, it took 25 minutes to download. Bonnier’s Popular Science July issue, 147 Mb, 51 minutes to download! Both of these magazines’ web sites load in about a second… This is somewhat like comparing apples and oranges, sine their websites don’t contain the same content, but the user experiences the app download as a pain that does not exist on the web.

What should be done?

I see two paths of development:

1. Since users are still so reluctant to pay for online content in a web browser, apps will continue to grow for some time. The second generation of apps will soon be connected and solve most of the problems described above.
2. Meanwhile, HTML5 and other emerging web standards and tools will enable publishers to improve media sites with smarter interfaces and functionality. In this process they will experiment with new types of online revenue models, (see my post “Experiment or die“). This will also eliminate the problems of adapting your content to multiple mobile platforms like iOS and Android. Eventually this will to a large degree replace downloaded apps, but it will take a few years.

The key here to media publishers is that they have to be more innovative and develop smarter interfaces and functionality that all the other free online media sites cannot offer.

Things like:

1. Connect the apps to internet, link them with social media and have moderated and well designed comments and discussion forums
2. Reinvent the navigation
3. Develop smarter personalisation tools, letting me create a dynamic media app according to my interests and mood for the moment
4. Work with the advertisers to increase the user value. I want to see ads that are relevant to me and my needs, and I want to be able to access more information and buy products easily via the ad

The best way to find out what will work best is to be innovative, start experimenting with all sorts of solutions. I am convinced that the development pace will be very fast in the next couple of years and look forward to enjoying media like never before.

At our latest TEDxStockholm event we experienced what almost all event organizers also do: a lot of people have signed up to attend just don’t arrive for the event.

We had 150 seats available and since we were met with lots of enthusiasm when we announced the event, we were worried about having to turn away many. So we clearly wrote in all invitation posts and emails that you had to apply for a seat and we would send out confirmations on the Friday before the event on Sunday, June 13.

Shelby Bonnie speaking. What you don’t see here are the empty seat rows in the back…

We had calculated with 10% no-shows, so we sent out confirmation emails to 165 people on the schedule.
Here is what happened:

During the weekend, we received 12 emails or twitter messages with cancellations, so we still had 153 reservations.

We also received 9 new requests to get a seat, even though the registration was closed. I turned away these people, since I was afraid that we would be over our capacity of 150.

At the event on Sunday evening, only 112 of the 153 confirmed people showed up.
So we had a no-show rate of 27%!
Another 6 people showed up at the door and said that they had heard about the event and wanted to attend.

We were a bit sorry for this since we had turned away people that wanted to come. But there was still great energy in the room and the event was a big sucess. And the local police was happy since we gave them our remaining food plates…

So what did we learn?
My conclusion: People don’t read instructions so we should have sent our remindersearlier and in more ways. We got explanations like these:
“Since I did not hear from you a week before the event I made other plans” (We said in the sign-up form that confirmation emails would be sent out on the Friday)
“I thought the registration started at 19.00″ (we said 18.00 in the confirmation email and on the web site)
“I could not find the venue” (we had very clear information in the confirmation email and on the web site)

People forget about their plans:
“I completely forgot about the event.”
“I thought it was next Sunday”

My guess is that this is because we now live in an information overflow society with a lot of buzz in many channels. There are many smart tools to handle this with online calendars and reminders etc, but most people don’t use these, there is too much choice. We rely more on being buzzed and reminded all the time so we can re-negotiate continuously. The main problem is that there is no single way of communcation that works for all. We all need to take this into consideration when we communicate.

What did we do wrong?

In hindsight, I think we should have:

1. Sent out the confirmation emails at least 5 days ahead
2. Sent out another confirmation email the day before or on the morning of the event day
3. Sent out an SMS text message on the morning of the event day (surprisingly many people said that they did not access their email during the weekend)
4. Overbooked with 20%

What do you think? Please share your experiences.
Some people told us that we should charge a SEK400 fee for no-shows, like they do at other seminars. But this is a non-profit event, so I am not sure that would be OK, besides, does that really work?

I have now expanded and updated these two posts:
Presentation skills Do’s and Don’ts
and
Conferences Do’s and Don’ts

In these new versions I have added lots of tips based on my recent participation in big conferences like Rework the World in Tällberg with 1700 attendees, where I also moderated one of the workshops, and TEDxStockholm LOVE2010 with 150 people.

I want to improve the formats of conferences and the way we present and interact at them.
So please read my updated posts and post your comments!

I am now trying to digest all my impressions from 4 days in beautiful Leksand at the Rework the World conference, organized by the Tällberg Foundation and YES (Youth Entrepreneurship & Sustainability)

I am still suffering from information overload, but here is a brief summary:

Rework was one of the most inspiring events I have attended. As usual not so much because of all the keynote speeches and workshop sessions, but becuase of the people attending.

There were 1700 very different types of people from 120 countries, but they all shared on important thing: they had passion in their eyes! Passion to want to rework the world, to meet other people, exchange ideas and learn new things!

It’s about the people!

All the keynote speeches by famous people and all the workshops and panels are of course important to attract this audience, but the biggest value is created in all the meetings between the attendees! I met a lot of my existing contacts and made many new friends.

The main hall was the big ice hockey rink in Leksand, where Carl Mossfeldt did a very professional job as the main moderator:

This hall was even equipped with a sauna VIP lounge with a giant glass window overlooking the rink!
I did not understand why it was not open for us, imagine all the fun discussions we could have had in there!

Keynotes

My favourite keynote speaker was Majora Carter, you can see her amazing talk here about how she transformed South Bronx in New York from a war zone to a living community. (Why on earth is there no embed function for the videos?!) She had great passion in her story, it was very personal and she illustrated it with her own pictures.

Majora’s way if giving a talk should serve as a role model, too many of the other keynote speakers stood paralyzed behind the podium, reading an article-style speech and showing Powerpoint slides with lots of bullet texts and complex diagrams. Some speaker coaching would have beeb great, and Powerpoints should be banned.

The most interesting event in the main hall was the investment panel. I have attended many events  where entrepreneurs pitch to a panel of investors, but never with so many really hot products. Note to Rework: please publish the list of the 10 finalists on the site!

Workshops

A small sample of interesting workshops that I attended:

Fredrik Hären talked about the explosion of creativity in what we stupidly call “developing nations” and why we in the “developed world” need to rethink and start moving. (The program said Teo Härén, but he was sick so he called in his twin brother who is just as excellent as a speaker!) Unfortunately his talk was not filmed, but you can see another talk by Fredrik here.

Dev Patnaik talked in two panels and did a brief appearance on the main stage. His US company Jump Associates works with creating growth strategies for big corporations like General Electric, FedEx and Nike. He was not filmed either, but check out his short video about empathy and why it is important for your bottom line. After seeing this I immediately ordered his book “Wired to Care“.

Experiences

It was great for me to meet my “adopted” changemaker, Gbenga Adenuga from Nigeria. He is a talented musician with a mission to inspire the youth in Nigera to vote in the upcoming general elections. I learned a lot from him about this great country and the struggle to improve conditions there. We will stay in touch for sure, and one day I will visit him in Nigeria.

There were also several great outdoor events, like this “Nature experience to empower change makers”

A big challenge for all organizers of events like this is to maintain some form of dialogue after the event. Rework has a community site where you can see the videos shot in the main hall and join online discussions. But to me the user interface in this forum is way to old-fashioned and there are very few discussions there.

I now have a lot of new contacts to follow up during the summer, many of them in corners of the world that are unknown for me. So my list of interesting places and peopel to visit keeps growing. Networking works!