Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: business

  • A tour of Google’s London Campus workspace

    A tour of Google’s London Campus workspace

    Google’s London campus is credited by many in the City’s Silicon Roundabout district as being one of the catalysts for the explosion in the local tech centre.

    One of the features of the London facility is the free co-working space the company offers which has become an important landmark for the city’s startup and small business community.

    Getting into the basement co-working space requires pre-registration and, in theory, you’ll be able to pick up an access card when you first arrive.

    In practice the cards are long out of stock, so just showing your registration confirmation with it’s code to the rather rude and brusque receptionists will get you buzzed in.

    The coworking space takes up the entire basement with four distinct coworking spaces – a courtyard, an array of tables, a lounge area and a shared bench.

      Google-campus-london-workbench

    Immediately inside the door is the communal bench that seats around twenty people. These are probably the best if you’re happy to socialise while you work. Even if you don’t it’s worthwhile grabbing a spot here if you see one available during busy times.

    Google-campus-london-device-lab

    Directly beside the workbench area is the Android demonstration station. This is a clever initiative by Google to showcase their mobile platform and encourage their developer community.

    Across from the Android test bench is the lounge area, this will be your best bet to find a place should you arrive when the coworking space is busy. It isn’t the most comfortable and quiet place in the room though as it gets lots of foot traffic and is across from the café.

    Google-campus-london-cafe

    The café serves a standard range of sandwiches, coffees and drinks with specials on certain days. Prices aren’t dissimilar from most of the coffee shops in the neighbourhood although you might find better range and a quieter spot eating elsewhere.

    One of the missed opportunities in the cafes is the opportunity to sell computer accessories like chargers and cables, during each visit this reviewer noticed how there was always someone asking to borrow other users’ accessories to charge their phones or synch their devices.

    Google-campus-london-outdoor-working-area

    Alongside the coffee shop is the courtyard; on nice day this would be a good place to work or to enjoy a beer and a chat with fellow geeks in the afternoon. During this visit in November, the weather was dark and dank with the outdoor area only being used by people making phone calls.

    Google-campus-london-working-area

    Beside the courtyard is the desk area where the serious workers hunker down. These spaces tend to get taken early and some people seem to arrive shortly after opening at 9am and don’t leave until the room closes at 6pm. Get there before ten if you want a spot.

    Google-campus-london-powerboard

    One of the problems in the room is the fight for power sockets. By mid-morning it’s almost impossible to find a spare plug so if you’re looking to recharge a device you may want to consider a local café.

    Another problem with the coworking space is it gets very crowded and some of the regulars have a habit of spreading out or hogging power sockets. It may be necessary to be quite pushy to get a seat or power socket when someone is taking up too much space.

    Overall, Google’s London Campus is a good facility that many other cities could use. However with its congestion mobile workers may find it easier to set up in one of the many geek friendly cafes in the neighbourhood like the nearby Ozone or Shoreditch Grind right on the Silicon Roundabout itself.

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  • Lessons in crowdfunding from an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign

    Lessons in crowdfunding from an unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign

    “I’d rather eat a bullet than do a Kickstarter campaign again,” says Moore’s Cloud founder Mark Pesce in the latest Decoding The New Economy video when asked about crowdfunding his project.

    Moore’s cloud is an internet of things company that focuses on lighting, “we think it’s interesting and something that expresses emotion” Mark says.

    With their first project, Moore’s Cloud looked to raise $700,000 to build their first project but fell well short of their target.

    Falling short lead to Mark and his team executing a classic business pivot from a static lights to Holiday, a system of intelligent fairy lights.

    “We took exactly the same technology and put it into a different form factor,” said Mark. “It’s as if we took the light and unwound it.”

    The failure of the Kickstarter campaign gave the Moore’s Cloud founders an education on how crowdfunding works.

    Customer focused from day one

    An important aspect of crowdfunding is it’s very customer focused. From day one of the campaign, the venture has to devote resources on relations with those who’ve pledged a contribution.

    Most startups don’t have those resources, or the time and skills, to deal with those relations.

    “People say it’s a better way of getting investors. I would have to say ‘it’s not better, it’s different.’” Mark says about crowdfunding.

    The psychology of investors

    One of the differences is the psychology of investors. Mark was urged by the CEO of Indiegogo, Slava Rubin, to set a low target as participants like to back successful campaigns.

    “There’s a whole bunch of psychology I didn’t understand going in,” says Mark. “If we’d had a goal of $200,000 we probably would have filled it in the first two weeks.”

    “Once a campaign is fully funded, it tends to get overfunded.”

    A truism of business is that banks will only lend to you when you don’t need the money and it strangely appears the same thing applies to crowdfunding.

    We’re in the early days of crowdfunding and there’s more to be learned about the way it works and for which ventures the fund raising technique works best.

    The experience of campaigns like Moore’s Cloud are part of how we’ll discover the nuances of crowdfunding and the psychology of the crowds that contribute.

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  • Building business communities

    Building business communities

    Industrial designers and engineers are probably the last thing most of us think of when discussing online communities.

    Last week two very different events illustrated just how successful businesses benefit from building communities around their products and services.

    Over lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking Sydney Harbour Dassault Systemes launched their their latest Solidworks 3D design software where they described the two million members of their global user community as being key competitive advantage in the industrial design market.

    In the business sector, having that ecosystem of users is the key success as shown by businesses ranging from AutoCAD to Photoshop. Almost every industry has some software package that dominates the sector because ‘everyone uses it’.

    Building social media communities

    At the other end of the scale earlier in the day PayPal Australia launched their latest Driving Business Online campaign showcasing online commerce tools for the small to medium business sector.

    One of the companies they profiled was Brisbane fashion company Black Milk Clothing, a Brisbane based business that has grown from a startup to employing 150 staff in four years entirely through its 560,000 strong Facebook community and 655,000 Instagram followers.

    While there’s risks with relying on social media platforms as a primary marketing channel, Black Milk is a good example of what a retail business can do with building an online community.

    Older examples

    None of this is really new, Apple are probably the best example of a tech community with millions of adoring fans prepared to queue around the block for the latest iPhone.

    Microsoft’s continued profitability despite being in a declining market comes from its army of developers, system admins and IT support services who are deeply committed to the company’s products.

    At it’s most basic, every business needs a core of dedicated customers, committed staff and enthusiastic evangelists — with today’s tools companies like Black Milk are able to build a global brand.

    Not every business can build a global brand out of their communities of enthusiastic customers and dedicated employees but the goodwill in those groups are quite possibly the biggest asset any organisation has.

    With today’s online collaborative tools and social media services there’s no excuse for a business not be nurturing and growing their communities.

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  • Venture capital investors as mentors

    Venture capital investors as mentors

    LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman has a wonderful post on his blog detailing what he wished he knew when he first pitched his business to investors.

    His seven myths of pitching are well worth reading whether you’re seeking capital from Silicon Valley venture capital firms, a sceptical bank manager or your mum and dad.

    The first point is the most pertinent — a successful financing process results in a partnership that delivers benefits beyond just money.

    Raising investor funds is only a step in the journey of creating a successful business, it is by no means the end point.

    Hoffman’s point is something every business founder needs to keep in mind, those early investors are important mentors and their advice could prove to be more valuable than the money they bring to a venture.

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  • Building a business culture

    Building a business culture

    “How can you create a great organisation of people and be that mean a person?” Asks funds manager Julian Robertson about Apple founder Steve Jobs.

    Robertson, who based the decision to sell his Apple shares on the details in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, was largely ridiculed for his decision but the veteran investor has a very good point.

    A company’s culture develops from the top – if the senior management are paranoid, rogues or thieves then those attributes will eventually percolate through the company.

    The Tyco Lesson

    During the 1990s I had the unfortunate experience of working for Tyco International at the time it was led by Dennis Kozlowski, a man listed by Time Magazine as one of the ten most crooked CEOs of all time, senior management’s attitude of treating the company’s funds as their own piggy bank was copied throughout the organisation.

    Tyco suffered badly during that period and subsequent management has had to work hard to undo the influence of Kozlowski and his cronies’ poor leadership.

    One organisation I’ve watched closely over the last few years has been Australia’s NBNCo, the state owned company set up to build the nation’s National Broadband Network.

    In under four years of operation the company has developed a dysfunctional management culture that saw the project miss its targets by over 70%.

    For the NBN, a hands off attitude by senior management allowed bureaucratic silos to develop in a relatively small and young organisation. Those silos then started perpetuating bad habits as managers hired their friends and ignored good management processes. A lack of process and management accountability have been the main reasons the company has failed to meet its targets.

    Apple’s challenge

    In Apple’s case, Jobs created a culture of fear and secrecy with the company going as far as creating its own secret police designed to intimidate staff. The entire company was beholden to, and evolved around, one man’s vision, ego and quirks.

    While Jobs was ahead of the game, all was good for Apple shareholders but the risk was always that Jobs would make a major mistake or leave the company. It turned out to be the latter when Jobs passed away.

    As with any company built in the image of its founder, Apple now struggles to adapting to life without Steve Jobs and his successors have to reinvent the company’s culture around a more collegiate management structure than an often not-so-benign dictatorship.

    Microsoft are facing a similar transition as Steve Ballmer leaves the company. Like Apple, Microsoft is an immensely profitable facing a changing market at the very time they are transitioning to a new generation of leaders.

    Leaders such as Steve Cook at Apple and Ballmer’s successors at Microsoft have a massive task in changing their company’s culture as they try to undo a generation of management habits and this is why Robertson’s reasoning about selling his stake makes sense.

    Culture matters in an organisation. While a positive culture doesn’t guarantee success, it does make it more likely a company will survive its founders.

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