MobileCampNYC: A Saturday with Mobile Enthusiasts
Last Saturday I attended MobileCampNYC at the Microsoft office in midtown Manhattan. According to the website, the goal was to bring together “mobile enthusiasts, explorers and professionals from the NYC metropolitan area to share the current state and their visions for the future direction of mobility”. As with all BarCamp events, it was an ad hoc gathering where the presentations were determined that day based on who showed up with a presentation in hand.
This was my first BarCamp event, and I was fascinated by how structured this ad hoc event actually was. The day’s schedule was organized on the fly over coffee and doughnuts an hour before start time. Anyone who showed up ready to present wrote the name of their presentation on a piece of paper, and the organizers taped each presentation name on a wall under an open time slot and room. The attendees picked what session they would attend based on the options on the wall, and just like that the slots filled up and we were off to learn about the current state of mobility.
Below is a quick recap of some of the sessions I attended. I don’t have all the presenters names because, as I mentioned, there was no official schedule, and some people said their names too quickly for me to jot down. Oh, and please pardon the quality of my photos. I took them with (you guessed it) my mobile phone.
Introduction to Developing Apps for the iPhone
In this first session, the presenter walked us through the steps on setting up a “Hello World!” application on the iPhone or iTouch. He showed us the basic registration process and how to download the SDK. He showed us the drag and drop interface and other WYSIWYG features. Then he demoed the device simulator, which lets you preview your application on an iPhone or iTouch through your computer screen.
This was definitely an introduction for beginners (he actually did an advanced session in the afternoon), but it allowed us to get a good overview of the process so we could know what to expect. (Plus I ate a cream-filled doughnut during this talk, so I was happy.)
Location-Based Marketing
The next session I attended was on how to market to people through mobile devices. For example, companies are exploring ways to deliver real-time messages based on where people are at that moment. So if you’re walking by a coffee shop, a coupon to buy one coffee and get a free donut (so I still have donuts on the brain) could appear on your screen. Ideally, these would even be personalized or behaviorally targeted, so a vegetarian wouldn’t get a $1 off a cheeseburger coupon.
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Inspiring Women Series - Female Internet Heros
Recently I wrote about my experience at the all things media venture capital forum where I was inspired by women being who presented their companies to venture capitalists. Are you a woman who is or wants to start a business and venture into the UK & European markets? Make sure you check out the Inspiring Women series: Female Internet Heroes event in London on December 3.
The event will include talks on setting up an online business, business models, raising finance, pitching your business and developing the UK and European market. The event will offer an overview of internet companies led, founded and funded by businesswomen.
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Future of Web Design: crowdsourcing is community with a point
Jeff Howe, a contributing editor at Wired, and author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business defines crowdsourcing as
the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.
At the Future of Web Design Conference this week, Derek Powazek gave a great presentation about how to use and leverage “Crowdsourcing”.
Derek’s simple definition of crowdsourcing is ”community with a point”. In his presentation, he gave us information and tips on how to manage the Wisdom of Crowds and what makes crowdsourcing work. Here is an overview:
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All Things Media Venture Capital Forum
Last Thursday I attended a Springboard All Things Media Venture Capital Forum at the Paley Center for Media in NYC where twenty women-led media companies (from TV and Radio to Digital Media & emerging technology) who are looking for capital presented their companies to corporate, angel, and venture investors.
I was really inspired! The women making the presentations were impressive…they were prepared and had amazing business ideas and business models. They presented what their companies are doing now, their target audience, who their competition is and what their competitive advantages are. They also talked about their current & future revenues, what the new funding will be used for, & an exit strategy. Here is a list of the entrepreneurs that presented their companies in the order of they presented:
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Cloud Summit Executive: Can anyone define cloud computing?
Last week I attended the Cloud Summit Executive at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, which is a great venue for a computing conference. I went into the conference with only a nebulous idea about cloud computing (pun not intended) and SaaS (Software as a Service), so I was looking forward to getting a clearer idea of what exactly that means.
The chairman of the conference started by saying that he asked 20 people what cloud computing is, and he got 22 different answers. I thought I heard that wrong, but he repeated those numbers later, so I guess some people were either so enthused about cloud computing that they gave two definitions, or they were that confused. In any case, he promised that we’d get a real definition later.
The first speaker showed a scrolling list of companies already “on the cloud.” They went by so fast, but here’s a list of the few I caught: Flickr, Wikipedia, Skype, Gmail, Basecamp, Pandora, digg, and Remember the Milk. It was quite an impressive list which definitely gave the cloud concept more weight. But the speaker still gave a warning about considering the cloud to be the panacea for all enterprises. He reminded us of the time when e-commerce became the big buzzword and people were speculating that soon we wouldn’t have anymore brick and mortar stores, but we see now that wasn’t the case. E-commerce is an important part of business, but it isn’t the only part.
While all this was fascinating, I wasn’t sure I really understood it all since I was still waiting for a definition of cloud computing, but the speaker promised that we’d get it by the end of the day.
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