MWC 2016 Roundup

Attendance was over 100,000 people for the first time

Someone, possibly Samsung, grabs the lead from someone else, possibly Apple, or Sony, in the rapidly exploding/fast emerging 360 Degree personal video market.

Many companies claimed the future was IoT.

Lots of press releases were written and released.

Marketing Teams claim the event was a triumph. Secretly, they’re more pleased that they were approached by a headhunter for Vodafone on the stand.

Machina Research wrote a pretty good write up on the main trends in IoT including the increased focus on using data efficiently.

MWC 2016 Roundup

The BLN is now Business of Software

Business of Software runs conferences for people that build great software businesses and products. To access talks online, hear about new events, contact speakers and stay in touch with great ideas, share your email address with us.

Hacking your phone in 2 minutes

Will Robots Take Over the World?

It’s easy to laugh at the notion robots will take over the world…

Proof Positive Work Cultures are More Productive Says HBR

This Harvard Business Review Article mixes some scary stats – health care expenditure is 50% higher in ‘high stress’ businesses etc – with some useful thoughts on what a healthy culture is and what you can do to foster one in your own business. “Proof Positive Work Cultures are More Productive” says HBR missing a very significant point.

A lot of companies don’t care very much. Do you?

Windows 95 Launch.

No wonder Steve Ballmer loved the company!

Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot built the first powered vehicle is 1768. It was steam powered. A fellow Frenchman, François Isaac de Rivaz, built a hydrogen powered vehicle with electric ignition in 1808. It wasn’t until 1886 that Karl Benz built the first production vehicles powered by gasoline and the 20th Century that cars became widespread. It’s almost impossible to imagine a world where cars don’t exist and easy to forget how much they have changed over the years.

This crash test, between two cars produced 50 years apart, is a vivid illustration of some of the benefits of innovation in automotive technology in the second half of the 20th Century.

Lake Superior University just announced their 41st Annual List of Banished words and phrases.

A collection of letters that, when combined, produce sounds and meanings so heinous, they don’t deserve to be uttered any longer.  Some of those listed were ‘vape’, ‘manspreading’, and ‘break the internet’ which frankly, is fair enough. Unfortunately, Lake Superior missed one phrase, and the record needs to be set straight.

What is the most overused, and ultimately meaningless phrase in the world of marketing today?

The 5% Problem

Interesting angle on the problems at Evernote that considers their ‘5% problem’. Of course, there were plenty of other issues for the business many of which, according to people inside, or once inside, the business would point to, many of them relating to the gigantic inflated egos of the founder and senior team, that came with increasingly large valuations. (I predict that 2016 is going see more than a few of these stories).

Content provider. (n).  One concerned with filling media properties with content, any content, keyword rich, SEO friendly content.

Content providers are limited to two main sources of ‘Content’.

• What is in their own heads regardless of sanity or veracity.
• What has been written by other people that can be copied and pasted.

Easily confused with: leech.

Not to be confused with: journalist, writer, human.

The BLN is now Business of Software

Business of Software runs conferences for people that build great software businesses and products. To access talks online, hear about new events, contact speakers and stay in touch with great ideas, share your email address with us.

Inbound Marketing is a great concept with a fatal flaw.

Inbound Marketing, like other technology developments, often promises the prospect of something meaningful. Inevitably, things go horribly wrong.