Category: Misc

QR Code on signage

IMAG0147

I scanned my first QR Code in the street last week. It was on a signage and it lead me to a form to participate to a contest (unfortunately the deadline had passed). Surprinsingly the target webpage was well formated for my mobile device. I guess that’s a sign that both QR Code and the mobile web are progressing… Neat.

Making Freemium Work

(notes to self)

  • Example of freemium successful company: Skype, Linkedin, Dropbox,… they are all consumer services with potentially millions of users.
  • Freemium in Enterprise ? Sharepoint is an example.
  • Convertion rate from free to premium: 2% (to be checked)
  • Benefits of freemium: let the user understand product benefit and benefit from the network effect to get more people in.
  • Any feature that has some “virality” should be included into the free plan
  • User optimizes for the “least surprising” bill vs. optimizing for overall smallest bill (carrier plan as an example). People are scared of what they do not know.
  • Original pricing is likely to be wrong, need to be flexible at the beginning to adapt to the customers
  • Daily/monthly metrics is important. Collect analytics on the users (incl. unsubscribers) is critical. Get it working before launching

Pecha Kucha

PechaKuchaSource: Le Temps: Ecoutez-moi, en 20 images

From the FAQ of Pecha Kucha website

PechaKucha 20×20 is a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images forward automatically and you talk along to the images.

20 seconds x 20 slides (20×20). While this format is targetting more visual works, I am convinced that with some tiny changes it could be applied in other contexts than a gathering of designers and other artistics works. I have been trying to use Pecha Kucha in out team at work without enough traction so far even though the first session had positive feedbacks. This kind of gathering generates discussions and exchanges that can only foster creativity and innovation! even more useful in the enterprise world.

When you think about it a Pecha Kucha is to formal presentation what Twitter is to blogging with a tiny bit of Meetup (gathering) and Linkedin (professional social network)… and all in real life. How can it get better ?

The perfect audio setup at home with Sonos

SonosWhen my old legay Hi-Fi system died a few months back it was time for me to investigate what’s new on the consumer market and at the end take my checkbook. My requirements: I needed to be able to listen to radios, podcasts and occasionaly some of my own music currently on CD (but only very sporadically). While Logitech has some nice offering in home audio streaming I get completely hypnotised by Sonos. Did not do much more investigation and product comparison I was already almost convinced and when I saw it live at a friend’s place the decision was taken… that was all I needed, and while the checkbook was out of the pocket I also decided to buy a NAS which is a good complement for listening music but also much needed as an in-house backup solution.

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Honest Advice on Starting a Company

Mark Suster: Honest Advice on Starting a Company

Interesting talk, here are very few notes mainly for myself:

  • Do basic research about the market (spreadsheet with basic economic, pay -> what am i replacing, 3rd party -> Ads ? what is the CPM ? Clickthrough, History of the Industry)
  • Get a prototype (almost a requirement to show and explain vc and business angel what you are working after
  • Diverse team
  • Vest funding (need to find out more about that)
  • Name = URL
  • “VC is worse than marriage”

Intelligent Agents are backs

Ray Ozzie: Dawn of a new day

[…] We’re moving toward a world of 1) cloud-based continuous services that connect us all and do our bidding, and 2) appliance-like connected devices enabling us to interact with those cloud-based services.

Continuous services are websites and cloud-based agents that we can rely on for more and more of what we do. On the back end, they possess attributes enabled by our newfound world of cloud computing: They’re always-available and are capable of unbounded scale. They’re constantly assimilating & analyzing data from both our real and online worlds. They’re constantly being refined & improved based on what works, and what doesn’t. By bringing us all together in new ways, they constantly reshape the social fabric underlying our society, organizations and lives. From news & entertainment, to transportation, to commerce, to customer service, we and our businesses and governments are being transformed by this new world of services that we rely on to operate flawlessly, 7×24, behind the scenes. […]

Follow-up: Don Dodge gives its own vision

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Ballot

Ballot

A beautiful piece of swiss semi-direct democracy…

1) A group of people wants to change the law and gather enough signature (>100’000) to go into votation process.
2) The government disagree with this new proposal and propose an alternative.

As a citizen, I need to answer to the two questions: “Do I accept Proposal 1 ?”, “Do I accept Proposal 2 ?” and since they are exclusive, can not be applied at the same time, I need to answer to the question which one I prefer if both proposal pass.
Note that to pass a proposal (ie. an “initiative”) needs to be accepted by a majority of people, and a mojority of “cantons”…

Easy uh ?

Ascenseur

Parlant franglais plus souvent qu’à mon tour je ne suis probablement pas le mieux placé pour me plaindre, mais ne pourrait-on pas traduire ce genre de signalisation en français au moins ?