opencoffee.gr - Part 89

The LeWeb08 tribes

December 22, 2008 No Comments

Having attended LeWeb08 and after talking and interacting with a few of the people there, here are a few of my insights from mingling with those of the startup community that managed to make it to one of the most important such European events. Hopefully this will provide an indication of what the competition in starting up is about.

The bloggers/content-generating people: Perhaps the most conscientious attendants from the crowd. The first couple of rows before the stage which were reserved for them never really seemed to empty – despite the online connectivity issues. I can only imagine they were able to use twitter during the slivers of internet uptime. A few of them – the more brave or better organised ones – were in the back rooms and quite corners with cameras and microphones holding interview sessions with ‘celebrities’ and others. The whole conference was a cauldron of user-generated content, mainly due to them.

The A-listers: They were quite a few of them and all seemed to share a common characteristic: too busy to do anything. I distinctly remember noticing Mike Arrington talking half-distracted with someone while walking towards the startup booths, breaking off the conversation and literally running towards where he was going – only to be stopped mid-stride by someone else wanting some of his time. I always think it’s a sure sign of intelligence to actually stop and be polite (even if to the point) in such circumstances and he indeed did do that.

The startuppers: Split between the startup booths and pitching their project for a few minutes I suspect their day varied from extreme boredom to absolute anxiety. The lack of an internet connection on stage made their work even more problematic but I think most lived up to the expectations – startup style. Videos and snapshots were introduced as a plan B, while perhaps the startup booth that attracted the most attention was by no coincidence the one that offered free popcorn. Overall, I’d say that a decent number of startups were of above average quality while a few had a bit too ‘corporate’ approach on things. Having said that, I think that if you plan to startup, I’d say that competition is stiff but not mind-blowing.

The PR people: A subset of startuppers and also others playing the role of minions sent to the conference by large companies to evangelise their brand/goals/products. How to recognise them: usually late 30s or older, clean cut or sharply dressed, knowing their lines well but also not showing exceeding enthousiasm about whatever they represent. Perhaps a good PR person is as rare as a really competent programmer.

The faithful: I was amused to find a room in the lower section of the LeWeb venue doubly-curtained off to create an approximately 30 people presentation room with plastic chairs arranged in two neat sets and opposite them a projection surface. Day one held a Google workshop and day two a Facebook one. It didn’t seem like stuff you could not have learned online – I could be wrong though – but the faithful congregated to listen to the preachers of their respective cults. The chapel of Google and the church of Facebook were only a few prayers short of becoming a cult.

(Notice the lack of a speakers category: I didn’t watch that many of the talks – I thought it best to spend my time mingling and talking rather than just listen.)

(last image by DanieVDM)

Uncategorized

1o Ελληνικό Podcamp

December 21, 2008 No Comments

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5o Girl Geek Dinner Athens

December 18, 2008 No Comments

Ακολουθεί guest post από την Μαριλού Τζεμπελίκου, μέλος της οργανωτικής ομάδας των Girl Geek Dinners

Μετά από τέσσερις συναντήσεις, έντεκα ομιλητές, πέντε παρουσιάσεις projects, τα Girl Geek Dinners κλείνουν τους έξι πρώτους μήνες ζωής με το 5ο GGD λίγες ημέρες πριν τα Χριστούγεννα. Έτσι, τη Δευτέρα 22 Δεκεμβρίου, στο γνωστό πλέον Nixon μαζευόμαστε για το τελευταίο GGD του 2008 (στις 18:00) σε μία συνάντηση πολύπλευρης γνώσης, humanity, coaching… και food happening, καθώς, λόγω ημερών, οι συμμετέχοντες θα συνεισφέρουν φέρνοντας home-made λιχουδιές ;-)

Στο 5ο GGD θα μιλήσουν η δικηγόρος Έλενα Σπυροπούλου σχετικά με το “Τι πρέπει να γνωρίζει κάποιος για να ξεκινήσει μία startup, από την πλευρά της νομοθεσίας”, η Εβίτα Παρασκευοπούλου, υπεύθυνη του ελληνικού γραφείου της ΜΚΟ “Κόσμος Χωρίς Πολέμους και Βία”, σχετικά με τη δημιουργία ενός blog για την προβολή των δράσεων της οργάνωσης σε Ελλάδα και Αφρική, ενώ η Χριστίνα Καραβατά, διευθύντρια Marketing της Fujitsu Siemens, θα μιλήσει για την εμπειρία της, μέσα από μία μέρα δουλειάς με μοναδικό “executive assistant”, την τεχνολογία. Τον κύκλο των ομιλιών θα κλείσει ο Στέφανος Καράγκος που θα μιλήσει για τον “Θάνατο των bullets!” εγκαινιάζοντας τα “Ten minutes Pitching”, δηλ. σύντομες ομιλίες από έμπειρα στελέχη της αγοράς εργασίας στο τέλος κάθε GGD. Μετά την κλήρωση των δώρων, ακολουθεί dinner, drinks και… απεριόριστο networking!

conferences, επιχειρείν, presentations

Lessons learned at LeWeb 2008

December 16, 2008 2 Comments

The following post is about advice on how to pitch startups, and on how to best consume the pitches. If you’re looking for a detailed account of the experience, you should definitely read the great guest post by Yiorgos Dedes.

It was my first time at LeWeb, so I didn’t really know what to expect. I was very attracted by the Startup Competition though. I love the energy and freshness that startups emit, so I tried to watch as much of it as I could. Still I’m much better at destroying things than making them, so instead of advice on what to do, I’d like to point some common mistakes.

How not to pitch

Don’t look like a bartender, greasy hair doesn’t help. First impressions, and of course appearances do matter. This might sound shallow, but when you have almost no time to evaluate someone you’re seeing for the first time, everything counts.
Don’t try to look thin by wearing tight clothes. This is actually a life lesson. Don’t make me pull out French Vogue editorials on this.
Don’t stay too much on the stupid UI that you can’t find designers for, insisting it’s revolutionary simple. Some companies may get away with it, but a newcomer won’t. Even though feature creep is unpleasant, it’s consistently the main thing that drives adoption of a product.
Putting emphasis on each and every word that you say won’t make any of them right. They have to make sense. Non verbal decorations come second.
Making slow and end-accelerating gestures won’t convince anyone either.
Saving people from 1 click isn’t significant, unless this 1 click is part of a process that they get into very often. If you what you’re selling is optimization, then you need to start counting how many clicks you save people per day, month and so on.
Preparing a video that substitutes you entire presentation isn’t a bad idea at all. In every major conference the network is broken and this will probably effect your presentation. Putting a lot of effort on an excellent plan B might sound tedious, but will make you glow in comparison to those other people that now only have slides.
Throwing slides that have big photos and single words can’t convince. They can drive up enthusiasm, but they can’t convince logical people. It turns out that judges are likely to have been pitched-to a lot, and aren’t easily swayed by charm.
If you’re the CEO of the company, you’re very likely unfit to make the pitch. This is a speaker’s work. Not a marketer’s, not a designer’s, not a developer’s and certainly not the CEO’s.
Slides presenting the team are good for the soul™. The audience won’t like them, but substantiating the skills and the experience of the team looks good to judges.
If you’re not design conscious stick with the defaults in fonts and layouts. Otherwise your slides will very likely look ugly.

How not to evaluate a pitch

This is strange, but I really feel that people watching presentations, focus more on the pitch than the product itself, and then rate the pitch instead of the product.

This is a profoundly troubling way to approach the rating proccess.

It really shouldn’t matter if a pitch is efficient or not. You need to start seeing behind the marketing skills of the person in front of you. If you willingly allow yourself to be swept away by their charm, then you really are doing a disservice to yourself and to others, because you are creating a false perception of reality.

All in all, even if the person delivering the presentation makes all of the mistakes I mentioned, that shouldn’t matter.

When evaluating if something is good or not, either because

you want to rate it as part of a game,
you are evaluating a possible collaboration,
maybe you will buy it,

it’s very important that you learn to peel the onion and look at the true value behind the proposition.

meetings, patra

Παρουσίαση του Play247.gr στο Open Coffee Πάτρας 2

December 13, 2008 2 Comments

Ακολουθούν οι διαφάνειες παρουσίασης του Play247 στη 2η συνάντηση Open Coffee της Πάτρας.

Το Play247 είναι μια κλασική επιχείρηση εμπορίας μέσω Internet, που όμως μέσα από την επιτυχία του αποδεικνύει ότι οι απλές ιδέες έχουν γενικά πολύ μεγάλες πιθανότητες επιτυχίας.

Οι διαφάνειες ξεκινούν από τα δύσκολα χρόνια, και συνεχίζουν στη σημερινή ημέρα όπου το Play247 έχει πια ετήσιο τζίρο 2.2 εκ €.

conferences, english

Le Web 08, the review

December 12, 2008 3 Comments

a guest post by Yorgos Dedes, winner of the contest for a semi-free LeWeb ticket

Another LeWeb has reached its end. LeWeb 08, Paris – the major annual international internet conference in Europe, organized by Loic Le Meur (founder of Seesmic) and his wife Geraldine, has been a controversial event. More than 1700 participants from all over the world, a cast of international names, a start up competition, big sponsors, demo rooms-workshops, two French government ministers and two after-show parties can sum up what Le Web 08 was all about.

Criticism

This event didn’t meet the expectations of many of its participants. That was obvious. Some people called it “No Web” since you had to pray for some minutes of internet. Room temperature for the first day was too low to survive without wearing your coat. The food was really tasty if you had the luck to taste it. Loic describes the problems much better than me and I really like the way he does it. Except for the infrastructure issues, Loic got critised about his softball interviews, especially these ones regarding the sponsors.

But still, Le Web is about networking. Le Web is people from around the globe, gathered in the same place in order to meet old friends and make new ones. A place where you can meet in personal people who you only know through the web, pitch your ideas and get feedback. So, for a newbie like me, Le Web was a great experience! The content may not have been always of high level, but there were times that I really enjoyed being there. I feel really lucky for attending Le Web and I want once more to thank opencoffee.gr who gave me this chance.

Highlights, Day One

So, let’s go through the highlights of Le Web 08. On day one, David Weinberger with his presentation entitled “leadership at the end of the age of information” pointed out that leadership is property of a network. In the past information naturally flowed up to the leaders, at the top. Now information is everywhere and available for everyone. So, a leader nowadays has to get the best of the best network.

Helen Fisher gave a long presentation trying to explain how love works and how important it is for us to clear this out. One thing among the many points that caught my attention was that after experiments, love and coccaine activate the same part of the brain!

Then, Paulo Coelho, the famous Brasilian author and blogger, made clear that “You’ll have to share in order to get some revenue”. He has tested this policy, against his publicers willing, and he found out that people download the book but don’t read it, they just wait for the hardcopy.

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