Jimbo Doig's LiveJournal

New Blog

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 18:31:40 GMT

I'm probably going to leave this LJ behind and move over to Wordpress.

My Diary of a Nobloggy can be found there.

Idea Idol 'Finale'

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 11:19:41 GMT

The mash-up of two popular tv shows Dragon's Den and Pop Idol that was the 'Finale' of Idea Idol rocked Oxford last night for the third year running.

This event set eight finalists -- six commercial enterprises and two charitable organisations -- in head-to-head pitches to a panel of four judges for a total prize money of £12,000.

The selected ideas were pretty varied, ranging from designer cast covers and slings (the eventual winner) through a student betting website and feedback-responsive keyboards to grand visions of private initiative overhauls of NHS blood analysis. Refreshingly there was a complete lack of web2.0 ideas (blogging, IM, and podcasting still yet to be moulded into commercial ideas it seems, Yahoo buyouts excluded), the betting website being perhaps the only idea verging on the vacuous, and the word 'synergy' was mentioned only once (yes, by an MBA student).

Sadly, but maybe predictably, the use of Powerpoint slides by practically all of the contestants was shocking: some fell into the trap of having slides and slides of detailed bullets (unforgivable really in a five minute pitch) and others seem to be taking the new web2.0 wave of clear bold colourful designs to new levels (or had they just made their slides in a shorter time than it took to give their presentation). Over all, one presenter had no graphic aids, one team just had a map, and four pitches used one overhead with just title.

Perhaps disappointing too was the number of MBA business development projects in the final. These were obviously team efforts directed towards developing full business plans, and all certainly gave the most polished and best directed talks. But I thought these went against the nature of the Idea Idol competition of giving people with little business background the chance to consider their mettle and pitch. There were apparently 75 entries altogether and it would have been nice to see some more promising undergraduates up there (the blood analysis and casino guys were the only UGs, if I remember correctly). A little nurturing of the contestants, if possible, could have dramatically improved their pitches and everyone's take-home experience of the contest. Even if the organisers had just sent a five minute email to all the entrants -- or just finalists -- explaining the sort of process that might be successful, then great ideas, such as feedback keyboard, could have been given much better wings to fly on. In these respects the contest was very different to last year, which I'm sure had a number of great pitches from undergraduates, e.g., BOSO, who won that year.

Full round-up

Commercial Enterprise Winner: Medical Style LLC (£5000 prize)
Commercial Enterprise Runner-up: Carbon-Market.com (£2000)
Social Enterprise Winner: 'HIV & AIDS Prevention' (£3000).

Business as Unusual

Sun, 26 Feb 2006 04:12:44 GMT

Anita Roddick spoke yesterday at Said Business School as part of Oxford Entrepreneur's Game Changers series.

In a very different occasion to Alan Sugar's appearance earlier this term, she gave a polished empassionated talk, as might be expected, as this event appeared to be part of her latest book tour.

She started by very fairly turning on the OE's obsession with the term 'entrepreneur'. Describing herself as an activist and agitator, she talked of the media's unbounded obsession with the phrase, the success of which only seems to be measured by profit alone. People were confusing entrepreneurship with opportunism, and success was inflated and depressing.

Challenge Everything

Dame Anita is trying to help the World enter a new era where money is not the end. An entrepreneur, as she sees them, should be more of a social change agent than a business person; following a calling, not a career. They should be like a crazy person and believe the idea so passionately that they talk about it in the present tense; they will it into existence with the zealousness of a religious convert. She admitted that she has learnt a lot from Quaker business models.

The four key things are:
1) Idea
2) Self
3) Money is necessary to make it happen, but should not be the motivator; it is more about freedom [although not as we learnt later in her case with Body Shop's public floatation]
4) INTEGRITY

Critical is the belief that anything is possible; essentially patholigically creative; vomitting ideas.

Bravely she dismissed society's love of business schools, which she saw as being controlling and obsessed with the status quo. What she wanted was a marketplace for feedback and ideas. Her idea: being twenty times bigger is not a goal; being better by being values-led is. This is why the Body Shop, for her at least, was a conduit for areas and issues she believed in.

Talking about the Body Shop, she told us of its beginnings: her husband, Gordon, was about to leave to travel through America on a donkey, and founding the business was a way of securing financial well-being for her family. The first shop was in Brighton, in an out of the way location, but drew a committed customer-base: it had to, as it was on a road full of undertakers (apparently). Her early -- and continued -- success is in part due to her uncoventional, inexpensive, eye-catching marketing techniques, what she describes as guerilla marketing. She saw standard marketing as ineffective: we are all nowadays very over-marketed too, and thus have become very cynical. However, working with NGOs she was able to target an idealistic sort of consumer. She described the best marketing as the one that your competitions is either unwilling or unable to follow.

"We were searching for employees but people turned up instead."

But it is clear that her consumers are not the most important people in all this to her. It's her employees. She expressed sadness that businesses are no longer about job creation, only wealth creation. The Body Shop seems to be a conduit not just for her, but she thinks that it's critical to empower her employees; nothing being more motivating as the chance to express their idealism.

Then it came down to her leadership style.

Leadership is Communication

There is no more powerful an institution than business; so it has to assume a moral leadership. It's most effective tool is communication, integral to which is the language of leadership: community involvement and social justice. Activism, she claimed, is the price we pay for being on this planet.

UPDATE: The Independent on Sunday has an interesting profile of Dame Anita in light of l'Oreal's rumoured bid for the Body Shop.

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:08:16 GMT

This idea may be unoriginal but what about a podcasting service for unsigned bands? Wouldn't people subscribe to a daily podcast of new and interesting music from exciting fresh bands?

With feedback about what previous tunes you liked, a tivo-esque podcast suited to your tastes could be built up.

That could be podmusic.us.

CoComment

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 17:58:04 GMT

One of the latest Web2.0 startups, and one of the few with an original, well-executed idea, is CoComment, who kindly offer to track and aggregate all your comments scattered across the Blogosphere.

I'll add to this when I've built up a hefty wad of inane unfunny missives myself.

Idea Idol 2006

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16:31:14 GMT

The countdown to Idea Idol 2006* has really begun in earnest.

This competition is really the showcase of the Oxford Entrepreneurship* Society, where simple ideas can be pitched to judges in an attempt to win up to £5,000. A sort of Dragon's Den for back-of-the-envelope fantasies.

Last year's winners included Boso.co.uk, the first (they say) online student marketplace, which has received a wealth of high-level national media coverage.

The Final is on the 27th February at the Said Business School. The finalists were due to be announced on the 4th of this month, but I suspect that something has gone wrong with the administration, because on the 12th people were asked to resubmit their ideas, suggesting that entries were lost (or not submitted?).

Let's look forward to the canapes, anyway!

* Note about the links: apologies to sensitive souls for including those links, but I include them for good reason. The websites, which -- in case you're too scared to see yourself -- fall into some of the easy traps of Flash (not at all Web2.0):

Fancy transitions, colour effects and fonts are easily seen as a synonym for good design. It's a common aphorism that 80% of the users of MS Office use only 20% of the features (or at least it should be if we follow an interpretation of Pareto's rule), but I think we could easily formulate one for Flash, namely:

80% of the users of Flash should only use 20% of its features;

or going further:

You'll be right 80% of the time if you only use Flash 20% of the time you're tempted to.

Hard to find content. The site has a clear menu, but it's hard to find what you're looking for and to leap from one bit to the next. Of course, none of it is actual text (presumably people of limited sight or using older machines can't have ideas). For example, while writing this I knew I had seen a page of previous winners, but couldn't find it again for ages.

MUSIC! The web was never intended to be a multi-sensory experience.

Now this may all seem harsh -- and I don't want to get into a CrunchNotes/Fooky-esque debacle -- but I've resisted making blink tag gags and I fully accept that I made all these mistakes back in the 90s, before the World had speeded on into Web2.0 clarity. The issue is that OE is supposed to represent a dynamic professional bunch of people, and that is not what bouncewithit.com and ideaidol.com suggest. Sorry.

Best...ad...ever

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 03:46:49 GMT

Best...ad...ever: Ellen Feiss Switch Ad.

If you don't remember back to 2002, Wikipedia can come to your rescue, although Wired has a good contemporary summary of her rise to stardom.

Comedy Central Frustrations

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 01:45:22 GMT

Not only does Comedy Central offer different browsers, but it refuses to work with Flip4Mac, the WMV-QT plug-in.

The only solution at present seems to be to disable the plug-in in the Flip4Mac Preference pane.

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 01:18:09 GMT

Strange fact: there are no words in that OED that end in "sius", apart from two foreign names (Celsius and Cassius). Struck me as unexpected. But then most things do past 1am, I find.

Sat, 11 Feb 2006 21:11:08 GMT

Thinking about a logo for my new business ideas ... Web2.0 Logos

FIB 2006

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:19:00 GMT

FIB have announced some more of their line-up for this Summer's festival. In addition to the history-making electronic pop of Depeche Mode, we will be joined by the vibrant pop of both Franz Ferdinand and The Rakes, the unmistakable sounds of Echo And The Bunnymen and the smooth elegance of Jay-Jay Johanson.

Franz Ferdinand, of course, appeared during the wonderful FIB 2004, when they were a strong up-and-coming act among a musical "sky of stars". The line-up for 2006 is, though, looking as weak as that for 2005, but it is always difficult to tell, with the very drawn out process of confirming/announcing acts.

Doubtless there will be continued speculation on the eFestivals forums.

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 10:51:42 GMT

All-in-one digital cameras

Top three:

Fujifilm S9500 (S9000 in the US) Reg Review DP Review from $503

Panasonic FZ30 Camera Labs DP Review from $501

Sony DSC-R1 DP Review Camera Labs from $798

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:08:19 GMT

William Rees-Mogg has an interesting Comment piece in today's Times on the future of the fastest-growing company ever entitled Grow up, Google.

He describes his small academic publishing company and claims that Google is threatening to overthrow the whole concept of copyright and thus put him out of business. Not only is the big G on a course to crush poor Lord Rees-Mogg's livelihood, but apparently put and end to all innovation ("No copyright — no revenue — no innovation.")

Much has been written about Google, and more specially Google Print, and their regard to copyright law. In one of the first legal tests of their technology, last week a US district court ruled in their favour in respect to their cache. The use of the material in a cache was deemed fair in a case that has a number of similarities to Google Print: selected copying and holding of copyrighted works where it is up to the author to opt-out.

This strikes to the heart of the matter as I see it: copyright is a privilege granted to creators of works, in that society agrees to afford them certain rights for a period of time, in return for public use after that period has expired. It must have a sensible framework that responds to the needs of society and the artists, and, if last week's ruling is anything to go by, the courts agree on this.

It is not as if Google is actually threatening to end copyright; by employing the fresh technologies and a rather radical approach to information, they are stretching the possible realm of copyright into new paradigms. But, content creators have to realise that there must be limits to their control. There must be possibilities for fair use.

It would be nice to see content creators and artist groups realise that the new possibilities for using and accessing their material offers a realm of new possibilities for them and consumers may be fight back against over-zealous control [Sony?].

Google Print should mean more and more people finding the value in established print media. In the days of misleading blogs and suspect entries on Wikipedia, the public will probably finally get better at judging value and authority. This can only be good for society, informed debate, and quality publishers.

Forgetting about all these grandiose ideas, Google is essentially applying the rules that have evolved in the online world (caching, linking, listing, implied permissions of use) to the print world. That can only be a good thing (dependence on sensible thinking implied).

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 01:45:39 GMT

Cambridge in the 20th Century

Truthiness

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 23:51:57 GMT

The Word: Truthiness.

Fact, as has been often said, is stranger than Fiction. Or that is at least what I feel. In my gut.

Earlier this month, the American Dialect Society announced on that 'truthiness' was being voted 2005 Word of the Year, amazingly beating both 'podcast' and 'sudoko' in the process. The ADS announcement even referenced the Colbert Report, Comedy Central's lastest and greatest 'fake news' show. [For those that haven't seen it, both t's are silent, a la the French pronunciation.]

The scandal is that when AP picked up the news story and released a short piece on it that was reprinted by all the major media, from CNN to Yahoo!, they failed to mention the Colbert Report entirely, citing some (Visiting Associate) Professor, who -- if later investigations by Colbert are to be believed -- hadn't even heard of the Colbert Report. The Prof even denied that Colbert had 'pulled it out of his ass', saying that the OED had citations back to the 1800s.

Colbert replied in a subsequent show, where he proclaimed AP to be the biggest threat to America (naturally just beating bears, at least for this week, in the Threatdown), that it was "like Shakespeare still being alive and not asking him what `Hamlet' is about," and that:

The fact that they looked it up in a book just shows that they don't get the idea of truthiness at all. You don't look up truthiness in a book, you look it up in your gut.

AP have finally covered the whole sorry truthiness tale.

Now for the original citation. It's actually from the very first Colbert Report, and, from having seen most of the first series, actually one of the funniest sections that stuck in my mind. Here it is in full...

On this show, your voice will be heard....in the form of my voice.

Because you're looking at a straight-shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls them as I sees them. I will speak to you in plain, simple English.

And that brings us to tonight's word: Truthiness.

Now I'm sure some of the Word Police, the Word-anistas over at Webbsters, are going to say, 'Hey! That's not a word.' Well, anyone that knows me, knows that I'm not fan of dictionaries or reference books: they're elitist, constantly telling us what is or isn't true or what did or did not happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my rights.

I don't trust books. They are all fact; no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today, because, face it folks, we are a divided nation. Not between Democrats and Republicans, or Conservatives and Liberals, or Tops and Bottoms. No, we're divided between those that think with their head and those that know with their heart.

Consider Harriet Myers: If you think about Harriet Myers, then of course her nomination's absurd. But the President didn't say he thought about her selection, he said this: I know her heart. Notice how he said nothing about her brain. He didn't have to. He feels the truth about Harriet Myers.

And what about Iraq? If you think about it, maybe there are a few missing pieces to the rationale for war. But doesn't taking Saddam out feel like the right thing? Right here. Right here in the gut. Because that's where the Truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen. The gut.

Do you know you have more nerve-endings in your stomach than in your head? Look it up. Now, somebody's going to say, I did look that up, and it's wrong. Well, Mr, that's because you looked it up in a book. Next time try looking it up in your gut. I did, and my gut tells me that's how our nervous system works.

And I know some of you may not trust gut, yet. But with my help you will.

The truthiness is that anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you.

Churchillians in the News

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 14:47:30 GMT

A pair of second year students -- why is it always second years? -- at Churchill College have been fined for sending a live hamster through the post.

Along with fresh (and misleading) coverage of the whole gay police horse debacle, one wonders what image Oxbridge really paints to the World.

End of Oxford Colleges

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 05:38:28 GMT

End of Oxford Colleges as they have always been known and loved....

Or maybe just the end to Merton (and Christ's).

UPDATE: Letters in response to this article appeared the following Monday.

Double Dragon

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 05:02:43 GMT

The founder of StyleBible, Amanda Zuydervelt, writes in today's Independent about her experience on the BBC2 show Dragons' Den.

She didn't get the quarter million she was after, but says that this was not her primary motivation for appearing. One wonders just why therefore she comes across as so bitter: attacking the BBC and the show's producers, before singling out Doug Richard, chairman of Library House, for some special attention.

This is one crusading, feminist* entrepreneur, who -- for some reason -- thinks that this perfect world owes her something. She seems determined to overlook the fact that society is far from ideal (thankfully), so people, as they are perhaps entitled (it's their money, after all), will make snap judgements; but, crucially, it's up to the 'salesperson' to sell the idea effectively. In the article she criticises the Dragons for not grasping the potential for her idea; is this not, at least in part, her fault for failing to explain and pitch it properly?

Maybe she's cleverer than all that: she admits that she's after PR, so what better way than pitching an aggressive article to the editors of the Independent? Hits a go-go. Or, as they would say on /., Step 2: ???; Step 3: Profit!

She's also written a letter in her company blog claiming heavy editing bias (as there may be) and even more bitterness towards Doug Richard. She even seems to gloat about the poor viewing figures. Admittedly these difficulties may not be entirely down to her: I can certainly see why 4m people (presumeably 2m men, therefore) would prefer the disarmingly charming Sarah Beeny to the impoverished Rachel Elnaugh.

* - I say this only because of her attack that she thought she was being branded as 'blonde', when -- out of some respect -- she may credit those potential investors with the ability to see beyond that.

Facebook

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:08:01 GMT

Facebook or (CIA) Factbook?

I've just come across a rather disturbing article by Marie on Common Ground Sense analysing Facebook.

Not only does she highlight some very strange clauses in Facebook's privacy policy, most notably the collection of 'information about you from other sources, such as newspapers and instant messaging service', but she also suggests the whole enterprise is funded by the CIA. Admittedly, she stretches the argument almost to the full six-degrees of separation, but it still raises interesting issues into this vast database Facebook seem intent on developing.

Another article can be found on Prison Planet.

First-class Opinions

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:46:52 GMT

I hope I'm not being snobbish, but I really can't see the 'scandal' behind the disclosure in today's Independent that students at Oxbridge stand twice the chance of getting a first. Now, that's twice the chance (22%) of getting a first over a student at Newcastle.

In the days of online application forms that introduce grave prejudice against graduates with 2:2s, or even 2:1s, thanks to inane filtering by HR departments, moves to try to standardise class marks across the country are very welcome. So, while not wanting to put down students from Newcastle too much, it seems reasonable that Oxbridge graduates, who one can fairly reasonably assume are among the brightest in the country, do deserve a better chance of getting a first.

In fact, given the general fears of grade inflation, I would be more interested in the grades awarded by those universities that have to fiercely compete for students in order to survive: an unscrupulous department in such a place could very easily guarantee sufficient numbers by gaining a reputation for inflated class marks.

Rather than focusing on Oxbridge for an easy headline, the article should really have emphasised the disparity between Imperial and King's Colleges, which offered the most firsts (25%) and fifth-bottom (13%) respectively. There is your story Ms Woolf.

Facebook

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 23:05:58 GMT

Facebook me!

The Facebook is an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools. Unlike Friends Reunited it aims to bring present student communities online together with features like party announcements, listing of current classmates for each course etc.

According to their website, they were launched to the public on 4th February 2004, but maybe not at their current address, as the Wayback Machine seems to suggest it was occupied by another company until the end of 2003.

It was initially limited to 'elite' American schools and I joined in May 2004 when it became popular among MIT alums. Since then, it has blossomed across the U.S. and (maybe after my recommendation and submission of lots of student/college information) now over here to major universities in the U.K., including Oxbridge.

Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford 2005

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 19:19:34 GMT

Attended the Oxford Forum on Entrepreneurship and Innovation last night for the annual Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford jamboree. This year's focus was Networks in the 21st Century and there were some impressive speakers and thoughts on business taking advantage of online social networks.

The theme running through the evening was that social networks were simply, like the internet itself, as Bob Young kept saying, a tool, and not an industry or VC-fundable idea. The power of these networks to develop communities, identities, and (something that has plagued the interweb since its populist foundations) trust was discussed. Case studies mentioned included, rather naturally, ebay's feedback system and wikipedia, although, frankly, there wasn't enough discussion of the weaknesses of social networks and collective work as typified by what goes on in those wikis. (Jane Fonda, anyone?)

Mirroring the Q&A with Alan Sugar last week, talk ultimately turned to Apple, and there were some interesting thoughts as to why, when they seem to try to totally ignore the social networks build around the company, they are so successful in developing this community of followers. I think the conclusion was that when you have as good a product designer as Steve Jobs, coupled with excellent marketing, a company can succeed no-matter how little attention it pays to social networking.

Other coverage: Michael S. Malone (abc)

Hols

Tue, 22 Nov 2005 11:16:53 GMT

Off to Szczecin, Warsaw, and Berlin over New Year: strange places, I know, but that is part of the fun of cheap flights across Europe these days.

The popularity of Eastern Europe meant that practically destinations were already very expensive throughout the holiday period -- hence the flight with ryanair to Szczecin, on the Baltic coast, after Christmas.

Travelzoo then presented us with a 75% discount and free upgrade at the Sheraton in Warsaw, an offer one could hardly refuse, so a 12 GBP train-ride there was called for.

Finally, we found our escape route from the East, as perhaps historically has been the case, out of Berlin, again with ryanair.

It was only difficult for us to avoid further complications: ferries from near Szczecin to Copenhagen and Sweden are extremely cheap, and easyjet were offering some cheap flights out of the former

Marriage

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 15:37:57 GMT

On a day when we hear of another engagement between friends, I coincidentally came across this quote from Lupin Pooter in a Diary of a Nobody:

To my mind a wedding's a very poor play. There are only two parts in it --the bride and bridegroom. The bestman is only a walking gentleman. With the exception of a crying father and a snivelling mother, the rest are SUPERS who have to dress well and have to PAY for their insignificant parts in the shape of costly presents.

(Nov 18)

King's Chapel Roof

Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:54:53 GMT

Dr Good was kind enough to take a handful of physicists that visited MIT on the first year of the CMI UG exchange up onto the roof of King's Chapel on a bright but frosty Monday morning.

We were fortunate to be able to enjoy some wonderful views of Cambridge and the surrounding area, capturing this photo of Churchill's Moeller Center in the distance beyond the Senate House flag and St. John's.