Convenient Paste – My inspiration for the week

“Back begging for an alternative to your couch workstation? Tired of coffeeshop stink-eye? Miss the office routine and, well, being around humans? You’ll be right at home at Miso, an awesome coworking space and thriving community of creators.” Related posts: Co-Working CoWorking: profit or non-profit coworking.ie What does your (ideal) co-working office look like?

“Back begging for an alternative to your couch workstation? Tired of coffeeshop stink-eye? Miss the office routine and, well, being around humans? You’ll be right at home at Miso, an awesome coworking space and thriving community of creators.”

A bit of linked-list triage.

Because I’ve been out of circulation, I’m kinda forced to triage some stuff here. If you don’t find anything interesting from this list then you’re at the wrong blog anyway. This project turns prisoners into entrepreneurs. It boasts a cracking success rate on a small sample but it’s that sort of model that interests me. … Continue reading “A bit of linked-list triage.”

Because I’ve been out of circulation, I’m kinda forced to triage some stuff here. If you don’t find anything interesting from this list then you’re at the wrong blog anyway.

Essential ingredients for a Revolution

From Kottke.org The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic genius — a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation. “A genius working alone,” he says, “is invariably ignored as a lunatic.” The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find: a highly intelligent citizen in good … Continue reading “Essential ingredients for a Revolution”

From Kottke.org

The rarest of these specialists, he says, is an authentic genius — a person capable of having seemingly good ideas not in general circulation. “A genius working alone,” he says, “is invariably ignored as a lunatic.”

The second sort of specialist is a lot easier to find: a highly intelligent citizen in good standing in his or her community, who understands and admires the fresh ideas of the genius, and who testifies that the genius is far from mad. “A person like this working alone,” says Slazinger, “can only yearn loud for changes, but fail to say what their shapes should be.”

The third sort of specialist is a person who can explain everything, no matter how complicated, to the satisfaction of most people, no matter how stupid or pigheaded they may be. “He will say almost anything in order to be interesting and exciting,” says Slazinger. “Working alone, depending solely on his own shallow ideas, he would be regarded as being as full of shit as a Christmas turkey.”

I know some of these people. And if they could be convinced to work together, it could change the face of our country. Chances are, you know some of them too.

UK Technology and Business Cluster Summit

From here. Attending a cluster of clusters in digital. It’s quite interesting. Lots of really clever people. Related posts: London, City of the Future Digital Circle going independent and my thoughts on the Future We want to do more. Highlights: Neelie Kroes at the 2011 Digital Agenda Summit organised by the Lisbon Council

From here.

Attending a cluster of clusters in digital. It’s quite interesting. Lots of really clever people.

Wireframing

Code is being written, multi-player being worked on and today I did some UI wireframes. Follow @ConquestDynamic for more. Related posts: EAGLE LAKE cultureTECH: What I did… Kirkisms: Funding by Numbers part 1 RubyCocoa – to_i and to_s

Code is being written, multi-player being worked on and today I did some UI wireframes.

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Follow @ConquestDynamic for more.

TEDxBelfast 2012: Fear; the Enemy of Creativity

For me, the highlight of TEDxBelfast was this talk from Colin Williams – the man behind Sixteen South – Northern Ireland’s biggest and best children’s TV producer. There were other great talks, from a doctor self-diagnosing hypoxia while climbing Everest to a local teacher, originally from Nigeria, who highlighted the effects of poor choices. They’re … Continue reading “TEDxBelfast 2012: Fear; the Enemy of Creativity”

For me, the highlight of TEDxBelfast was this talk from Colin Williams – the man behind Sixteen South – Northern Ireland’s biggest and best children’s TV producer. There were other great talks, from a doctor self-diagnosing hypoxia while climbing Everest to a local teacher, originally from Nigeria, who highlighted the effects of poor choices.

They’re all worthwhile. But this one, for me, is special.

if you won’t make the games we want to play, we’ll make them ourselves

This is about two things. Kickstarter and Day Z. But it’s not really about them, it’s about the emergent culture that has appeared and these two are the most obvious indications that the culture exists. Kickstarter is a natural progression. Just like we saw with Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, folk who have become immensely … Continue reading “if you won’t make the games we want to play, we’ll make them ourselves”

This is about two things. Kickstarter and Day Z. But it’s not really about them, it’s about the emergent culture that has appeared and these two are the most obvious indications that the culture exists.

Kickstarter is a natural progression. Just like we saw with Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, folk who have become immensely successful using the traditional markets are able to pivot this success into the new non traditional marketplace. With the musicians I mention, they were able to sell their music directly. With Kickstarter projects, it’s all about pre-orders. Essentially the same. People tired of formula productions and so we see non-formula productions. Albums a traditional record label may not have published. Games a large publisher would have modified. Because of the faith of a few, many will get to see what the artist wanted to create.

Day Z still fascinates me because it’s a situation rather than a story. Ordinarily this should have writers of game backgrounds shaking in their boots – but this game is describing something new. A game which is borne of games. It’s not a toy or a puzzle. It’s not a grinding engine or a jury-rigged television or movie plot. It’s a sandbox: it has limits but within those limits you can do anything you want. It bears more homage to childhood games of Cops’n’Robbers than to the hyper-violent activities in Modern Warfare. I’ve not logged in for days and when I do I know I’ll be starving. And death just that one step closer. And death, as we know, is permanent.

It’s fair to say that my own thoughts for Conquest Dynamics are changing. And why not. I doubt I’ll ever go the Kickstarter route (I just don’t have the résumé – despite publishing The 23rd Letter, SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO and Zombi a decade ago.). But I feel like any game designer can learn from what is happening now. Change is happening right now and it’s both exciting and unsettling.

After a decade of intervention…

Got this in iMessage just now. Describing frustration with trying to kick off a startup in Northern Ireland. I’ve met with a few private investors, a couple of angels, a few venture capitalists, lots of public sector funding managers and a few deal brokers. I’ve read a few term sheets – enough to realise when … Continue reading “After a decade of intervention…”

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Got this in iMessage just now. Describing frustration with trying to kick off a startup in Northern Ireland.

I’ve met with a few private investors, a couple of angels, a few venture capitalists, lots of public sector funding managers and a few deal brokers. I’ve read a few term sheets – enough to realise when I need help but also, thanks to three friends in particular, read enough to realise when someone is being shafted. We’re a long way from having this fixed. And, if I am honest, after a decade of intervention, I don’t think we’re any closer to the answer.

Why?

Because the intervention was In the wrong direction. It was top down and not bottom up.

BBC Creative Collisions – Future of Media Technology #CC2012NI

Friday 8th June 2012 10am to 2pm includes lunch and refreshments BBC Blackstaff Studio 62-66 Great Victoria Street – Belfast – BT2 7BB Creative Collisions 2012 is an opportunity for you to engage in the cutting edge of media technology and innovation. Whether you want to harness technology for practical media solutions, diversify your innovative … Continue reading “BBC Creative Collisions – Future of Media Technology #CC2012NI”

Friday 8th June 2012
10am to 2pm includes lunch and refreshments
BBC Blackstaff Studio 62-66 Great Victoria Street – Belfast – BT2 7BB

Creative Collisions 2012 is an opportunity for you to engage in the cutting edge of media technology and innovation. Whether you want to harness technology for practical media solutions, diversify your innovative ambitions or simply enhance your knowledge, Creative Collisions 2012 is the place to be.

BE INSPIRED

BBC’s Stephen Nolan will host a ‘Live’ studio debate exploring the future of media
technology – Suggest hot debate topics NOW using Twitter #CC2012NI

Key Speakers:

  • Peter Johnston (Director) BBC Northern Ireland
  • Mervyn Middleby (Head of Technology Operations) BBC Northern Ireland
  • Alistair Hamilton (CEO) Invest NI

SHAPE THE FUTURE

An exciting opportunity to develop the broadcast technologies of the future with support from Invest NI, DCAL and BBC Northern Ireland – details revealed on the day!

Demonstrations from a top team of experts, including:

Perfect

Instagram was the topic of conversation in the office yesterday. Date Event Revenues (Cumulative) March 2010 Received $500K Seed funding and founded company. Launched 6 months later. 0 February 2011 Received $7M in Series A on a valuation above $20M 0 April 2012 Received $50M in Series B on a valuation of $500M 0 One … Continue reading “Perfect”

Instagram was the topic of conversation in the office yesterday.

Date Event Revenues (Cumulative)

March
2010
Received $500K Seed funding and founded company.
Launched 6 months later.
0
February
2011
Received $7M in Series A on a valuation above $20M 0
April
2012
Received $50M in Series B on a valuation of $500M 0

One month later they were bought by Facebook for $1.01B. Based on $57.5M of funding, two years of activity, zero revenue and millions of users.

The conversation revolved around not how to create the next Instagram but around how far behind we are in terms of an investment environment. Taking Instagram as a perfect result – investors are happy, founders are happy, employees are happy and presumably the buyer is happy.

It’s obvious that the environments are completely different between San Francisco and Northern Ireland but how different are they? There’s no way you could get $500K seed money in this province and to even get $7M in Series A would mean just leaving these emerald shores. It would be maybe not too much of a stretch to declare that it would be impossible, with public or private intervention, to get the sort of result that Instagram got. But the analysis that interests me is …

…if I came with an idea and said I wanted funding to build a company that is kinda social like Instagram and I didn’t necessarily have a revenue plan, nor did I have anything more than single product on the shelf and though it’s a deliciously simple idea, it doesn’t go far beyond tapping into a market of real geeks. It’s not for photo-nerds because they’re using DSLRs. It’s not for happy snappers because they’re just going to use the default app. It’s for a demographic that takes pictures and then applies filters and then show’s them off. (like Flickr, but for people who want weird effects). I’m building this company to flip, to exit like a swan. Risky eh?

So, armed with that idea, what would I get in Northern Ireland?