Category: Thoughts Page 2 of 6

How Not To Do it: the Fallacy of Big Data & CRM (@slideshare @linkedin)

So today I receive an email, subject line "your expertise is requested". The sender? Slideshare. Now, if you read this blog regularly (and, yes, I know that I haven’t been blogging muchly in recent times), you will know that I am an avid user of Slideshare. I have clocked up nigh 100,000 views with the various decks from my talks that I uploaded.

So far, so good. It sounds quite right, doesn’t it? I am a regular (and early) user with a fair number of views. Sounds reasonable that the company operating the platform would be reaching out if they want to carry out some research into improving their product. I reckon I am in the sweet middle of their user base: not one of the rockstars but not one of the infrequent users with few views either.

The email then goes on like this:

"We are inviting you for a survey to find participants for an upcoming study. […] If you are selected, you’ll be compensated for your time (our thank-you gift to you!)."

There is so much wrong with this sentence that I even find it hard to start! Here goes:

I am invited, they say. What they do not say (or not in so many words) is that they are "inviting" me to do their work (find participants). Unpaid. Right.

If selected (what? is that a price?), I will be compensated for my time as a "Thank. You. Gift." Are you effing kidding me? A brief look at your very own bloody site would have shown you what I do for a living (and I’m afraid I am yet to hit levels of wealth that would allow me to do all this for free). Slideshare is owned by LinkedIn where I am also quite active and have a fairly large network there as well as a profile that LinkedIn considers "All-Star" (I think this refers to the tender love and care I applied in completing the profile rather than my actual achievements).

So the data LinkedIn / Slideshare hold on me suggests that they have a pretty darn exact image on who I am (professionally). And they *might* compensate me for my time *as a gift*? Really?

What they achieve is a few things:

  1. They give a hoot about me as a customer;
  2. They demonstrate that they are other careless or incapable when it comes to communicating with me;
  3. They show their utter and complete disrespect to their users (since when is compensation a gift?).
  4. They show they have not understood the first things about customer relationship management (which, particularly in the case of LinkedIn, is somewhat irritating);
  5. They piss me off so much that I write this post.

Grrrreat! Mission accomplished then.

Beat(s) It: What’s Up, Apple?

Hello again.

I am writing to you whilst listening to Metronomy on Spotify streaming from my iPad Mini using a Bose headset. Musical zen, so to speak. Earlier, I had the whole thing running via my Denon RCD-N7 with the Airplay patch (but using Mordaunt-Short speakers). Life is good.

Earlier today, I got my new iPhone 6. Spotify works on it. My Bose headphones fit into the headphone jack (but, why, of course).

What is my gripe about then, you ask? Well, you see, I hold about 5 Apple shares (that’s about it, honest). And said company has recently (well, not so recently anymore) spent some $3 billion on acquiring Beats, “that” company fronted by the much (and rightly) revered Dr Dre and Jimmy Iovine, which sells mediocre (sorry, I meant to say, totally friggin’ awesome, headphones to sports superstars (and their fans). Oh, and they also have some sort of streaming service, apparently.

Mind you, my shiny new iPhone 6 nor my equally shiny new iOS 8 show any sign of a music streaming service. Or Beats. Or both. Or either. And today, the formidable (erm) TechCrunch ponders whether Apple may shut down the Beats streaming service (because of said absence of it on the new iPhone and iOS). And the mind boggles.

Let’s have a look at the lay of the land then:

There are a number of streaming services in the world. Spotify tops the charts, undoubtedly (unless your worldmap starts and ends in the US, then it’s probably Pandora). Their valuation is pegged somewhere at North of $10 billion. I do not know a single person that uses Beats streaming service (but then, I know, I am a middle-aged white European). However, my American friends, have you heard of Deezer? No, thought not. Alas, it has 20x the subscribers of Beats though (5m vs 250,000). Could you have bought them for $60 billion? I would guess so. But they don’t have the hardware or brand value, you say. And right you are. But, come on, a difference of nearly $57 billion for this? Really?

I would posit that the Beats acquisition was – a British technical term – complete bollocks. Let’s look further:

Here’s what Apple said (BTW, that Endgadget piece is enlightening on so many levels):

It was a no-brainer for us,” said Cue, outlining the three reasons in more detail. First, Cue says the Beats team is sensational, and will be a perfect fit for Apple; additionally, Dr. Dre is an incredible artist with an incredible ear.

$3.2b for a sensational team with an incredible ear. Yeah, right… Eddy Cue, you rule (or not).

Beats hardware is middle of the road at best (I know Dre would disagree, but he’d have to, no? He’s HipHop’s first billionaire because of it, doh…). For how much could you have had, say, Sennheiser (surely a good fit on hardware), a conservative, German, family-owned company? Would a bid of $3.1b have sealed it? Of off-shore money (which would’ve, what, halved that cost? Mmmh, I wonder (that’s a yes). See, the main (and a super-impressive feat at that) of Beats was its marketing and branding prowess. But Apple really doesn’t have anything it needs in that department, does it? It is the world’s most powerful brand (more than 2x its nearest competitor).

So what is our conclusion, half-way? Apple bought a brand (it didn’t need) that produces mediocre hardware (the one part where Apple always excelled and led everyone else) with the add-on of a also-ran streaming service. $3.2b worth? Erm,  no! And now we are hearing that they’re going to shut down that streaming service (which desperate Apple lovers had quickly termed the main rationale of the genius Apple pulling off another one), You see, Apple has never been great in M&A. T (I’m available). <sigh/>

Israel Mobile Summit

How long have I been waiting? It must be a good 5 years since I have last touched down at Ben Gurion Airport. Alas, no more. Tomorrow evening, it will be time again, and how timely it is, too. The Israel Mobile Week is on, and there is tons of super-interesting stuff happening. MoMo Tel Aviv – one of the most active and well-run Mobile Monday chapters – is in full swing, the Israel Mobile Summit, Droidcon Tel Aviv, the Microsoft Ventures Demo Day of its 4th Israeli cohort plus a few parties here and there of course…

I will have the immense honour of delivering one of the opening keynotes at the Israel Mobile Summit. Specifically, I will be speaking on “Capturing Users” – isn’t it all important how you find them (and keep them!)? Without users, you (or rather your business) is nothing. I have had the pleasure (and challenge) to try and have a crack at this challenge a few times in my professional life, and I am hoping to be able to share some of my hard-learned experiences with the audience on Tuesday (10 June 2014). The event will be on at the YesPlanet Rishon, a snazzy new cinema complex.

There will be talks from the leaders in mobile today, including:

  • Facebook
  • Wooga
  • Intel
  • AVG
  • Waze
  • Paypal
  • Amobee
  • Amazon
  • Deemedya (yes, my very good friend Doron Kagan will talk about his 100m+ game downloads; I can only imagine how that must feel)
  • AppAnnie
  • SingTel
  • HasOffers
  • Grow VC
  • Twilio
  • DragonPlay
  • Hunter & Bard (you should not miss Shira’s talk; she is one of the wisest women in marketing today!)

and many, many more!!!

Join us if you can! It will be worthwhile. And if you don’t think so, I’ll buy you a drink! Promise!

Capturing Users / StartUp Next Sofia [Slides]

These are my slides from the talk “Capturing Users” I delivered on 30 Nov 2013 at the most excellent StartUp Next conference in Sofia (Bulgaria). For those who were there: the “missing slide” is now included… 😉

Game Changer: my slides from the Mobile & Tablet Gaming Summit [slides]

Last week, I had the great pleasure of delivering a keynote at the Mobile & Tablet Gaming Summit in London. It allowed me to reminisce: I spoke at the Mobile Gambling Forum in – bloody – 2004! And how far have we come since then, huh? So, the slides are image-heavy and text-light as usual but you will get the gist: the competition is in volume and it is in F2P folks who deliver a lot of fun without the real-money component whilst making tons of money through virtual currencies and goods. This is – gasp – still news to some people…

Here are the slides. Enjoy them and let me know where I went wrong (if I did…):

The State of Digital Learning

Here’s an interesting infographic I came across from The Next Web. It serves as the right backdrop to a lot of my activities these days. Let it sink in…

A New Thing: Emerge Venture Lab

Some of you might have seen it (OK, most won’t have) but I have a couple of new gigs going, one of which is Emerge Venture Lab‘s Emerge Education programme. It launched last week in style on L39 in Canary Wharf (yes, we were looking at you, you bankers).

Be it as it may, I am now a Venture Partner there. And I am thrilled to be there. Swanky title, you say, what else? Here’s what: Emerge merged (oooh) a couple of rather sweet things into one coherent offering, namely:

  • The guys come out of Oxford University’s prestigious Said Business School and have hence, per se, a pretty awesome pedigree AND network. But these are not your usual millenials. They put their talent to hard, hard work and assembled a team of mentors that is mind-bogglingly good: you will find a network of insanely gifted (and successful) entrepreneurs there that comprise the true heavyweights of today: tons of entrepreneurs, investors, big corporates (yes, Google is also there) and public ventures (like NESTA) are there.
  • I would suggest (but of course I would say that) that your chances of finding follow-on funding are better here than anywhere else because of the above. Why (besides that bloody awesome advisor list)? Oh, just read on…
  • Emerge have managed to compile a list of top-tier educational institutions that will work with you to hone your application or service before it hits the market. So the next time Mr Big Investor asks you if you have any proof it works, you will just coolly whip out that Oxford Uni study. Not bad, huh? And if you think that this still is all my usual BS, just think of the sell-in cycles in education. Then pause. Then think of what Oxford University on your PowerPoint might actually do for you. With me?

Everything aside, I am truly excited by what Emerge has achieved in a very short space of time. They have managed to navigate the insanely complex and dangerous seas of the educational minefields to assemble something that should accelerate aspiring ventures in the field in the true sense of the word. If you come out of this programme, you will have had your product vetted not only by passionate entrepreneurs but also by real clients. And that, my friends, is pretty astonishing for an accelerator programme, don’t you think?

And, yes, that’s why I am excited, and, yes, that’s why I am here! Get in touch, talk to us, apply to the programme here!

Godspeed!

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