The Carsonified team is in central London today for the Future of Mobile, our brand new event. We’re in the BFI MAX theatre, where pioneers of the mobile web are talking to a sell-out crowd of 450 developers, designers, entrepreneurs, marketers and strategists.
Talking at 3pm will be Google’s Dave Burke - he’ll be covering Android and Google’s role in the Open Handset Alliance. It’s the most highly anticipated session of the day, and is being live blogged by Mike Butcher at TechCrunch UK.
One of the things we constantly battle at Carsonified is how to balance our insane amount of ideas with the ability to actually do them.
We’re a small company (soon to be around 10 full time folks) and there just isn’t enough time to do everything we dream up. Right now we’ve got an amazing idea for a new web app, but we just don’t have enough people to do it. In order to do it properly we’d need to hire another developer and a product champion to look after it. With DropSend, Amigo, FOWA, Vitamin, FOWD and FOM, there’s plenty to do :)
That’s one thing we’ve learned with Amigo and DropSend - they need constant attention. You can’t just build it and move on to the next app and expect it to become a smash success.
So in 2008, I’ve actually decided to slow things down. We’re going to hold off on launching any new sites, apps or events. We’re going to hunker down and get to be damn good at what we’ve already created.
It’s weird but I’m actually really looking forward to it. Ahhh, the joy of focusing on one thing at a time :) I think we’ve always been slightly under-staffed for the amount of products we have, so we’re adding three new people and then we’re going to focus on growing what we’ve already got.
I guess the temptation is to be lured away from your current projects by something shiny and new. It’s a false trap though, as that shiny new thing will soon become a drain on your energy and resources.
One way to battle this constant frustration, is to do short and quick projects.
The FOWA Road Trip was a great example of this. We hatched the idea, Elliot designed it (beautifully!), and I hopped on a plane. Then it was over. All in the matter of about four weeks. It was a great way to do something creative and fun, without creating long term comittments on our time.
I’d love to hear how you battle with this. How do you balance launching new ideas versus digging in and getting good at what you’re already doing?
The first day of FOWA was a blast. I’m so proud of our team - especially Mel. She’s done an amazing job organizing the conference.
The quality of the speakers, the new companies on the expo floor, meeting new friends and the live diggnation show were such a fun combination. I’ve never had so many people shake my hand and thank me for putting on a conference! It was amazing.
diggnation was so fun. Kevin and Alex were on fire and we had over 1,200 people packed into the auditorium! It was like a rock concert. I still can’t believe it - crazy. Check out all the photos on flickr.
After diggnation we threw the official Carsonified re-launch party and packed out the bar.
On to Day 2!
We asked one of our customers to pay an invoice and this is part of the email we got back. It’s so absurd that I had to laugh. I’ve bolded the funniest part:
Italy 90 days from the end of the month the invoice was issued in
Finland, Norway, Sweden Net 30 days
Denmark Net 35 days
All remaining EMEA countries Net 45 days (UK is one of these.)
To request payment terms shorter than the standard noted above, complete relevant lines in the template and email it to your Finance Director for their approval. Once the FD has approved, forward this template along with the FD approval to your BU VP and your CFO Staff VP for their approvals.
If you need to be paid before these date, you need to fill the form.
I don’t even know what a ‘BU VP’ is and we sure as heck don’t have a ‘CFO Staff VP’! They’re making it so damn hard to get paid promptly that I’m sure most people give up (including us!). Sheesh.
This just seems wrong - why can’t you pay your bills on time (within 30 days), like everyone else? This strong-arming is just bad business.
I’m helping put together an invite list for a discussion with Steve Ballmer (CEO of Microsoft) here in London on October 1st.
Microsoft approached me because they wanted to invite folks who don’t always agree with Microsoft and their online strategy. It should be an interesting discussion and I’m hoping it will generate some great conversations.
There are only 10 seats left, so if you’d like to attend, please email me (ryan at this domain) and I’ll let you know if we can get you in.
Here’s the schedule:
We are happy to announce the start-ups who have been chosen to exhibit for free at our upcoming Future of Web Apps Expo:
They will be joining an all star lineup of sponsors and exhibitors in the FOWA Expo Hall:
All expo only attendees will gain entrance to the Showcase track, and the Expo Floor presentations from these fine companies. If you can’t come for the full program, make plans to spend a day at the FOWA Expo, Oct 3-4 at ExCel London - it’s going to be fun.
I’m going to be speaking at the ‘iDesign: design for life’ event next Tuesday (18th), and the organisers have given me two free tickets to offer as a competition prize. The event is part of the London Design Festival and focuses specifically on the digital world; details are here, here and here.
To enter the competition, simply leave a comment on this post on my site. That’s it! On Friday I’ll randomly pick two comments’ permalink IDs and and announce the winners on that post.
By the way, the prize includes the free ticket only (normal price £55) and no travel expenses or anything like that. For that reason, it probably only make sense for UK-based readers to apply (unless you’re feeling rich), but if you’d like to enter on behalf of a friend (for instance, you might live in the US but your friend is in the UK and able to attend), that’s absolutely fine - just leave their name in the comment.
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