AndyWright

New Lettings agent website in Gloucester Right Choice Lettings

2013-06-23T17:50:00.001+01:00

A new lettings agent based in Gloucester aims to shake up the local market by targeting landlords with a competitive fee starting from 5% for a single fully managed property. Most monthly fees for a landlord are between 10-15%, with a discount only being offered with two properties owned being rented by the same landlord. How is Lee Ellix and his team able to achieve this competitive rate, well unlike most agents they do not have an office and its associated overheads and they have a team of proficient maintenance engineers, able to put any DIY job right at short notice. Right choice Lettings aim to increase their portfolio quickly and match them to well-referenced tenants. Right choice lettings are a lettings agent based in Gloucester and serve the local area. Contact them for a no obligation quote and proposal to take the risk out of letting your property. www.rightchoicelettings.co.uk

Cycling the Strawberry Line, North Somerset

2013-03-11T20:19:00.000+00:00

The Strawberry Line, is an old railway line in Somerset that has been regenerated into a shared pedestrian and cycle path. The route is a few miles long and runs North to South to the east of Weston-Super-mare in North Somerset. The entire scope of the line is in varying degrees of accessibility, ranging from fully operational to route planning. I cycled part of the route from Cheddar to Yatton, with part of the cycle path taking you through the orchards of the Thatcher's Cider farm. The route leaves the orchards behind and turns left onto Nye Road for a short stretch before turning right and back onto the old railway line, heading to Congresbury.

The surface of the line is small pee-size shingle gravel ontop of a larger aggregate. Generally the path is worn to almost powder on the outsides of the path, where cyclist ride up and down. The centre has more of a build up of pee-shingle gravel. The path is about 8 feet wide and popular with walkers and cyclists alike. Cyclists are asked to slow down and sound a bell when passing pedestrians, including errant children and loose dogs. The strawberry line is passable on a road bike with little trouble, obviously the surface is flat, with little pot holes. I was able to cruise at 17mph on 23mm tires no problem. If your tires are susceptible to punctures you may wish to think twice and there is a perfectly good alternative route on Nye Road which turns into Puxton Lane. I would say the path is passable in all weathers including wet conditions, although clay mud will get flung up onto your bike, in anything but dry conditions.

For more information check out the website or just Get on Your Bike.

http://www.thestrawberryline.co.uk/

Competition - 10 photographers SmugMug Pro for Life

2012-10-05T18:13:00.001+01:00

Make your photos happy - @photowhoa is giving 10 photographers SmugMug Pro for Life! Enter here. http://www.photowhoa.com/c/CQcYvRD #photography

Shoot and Share, Simply.

2012-08-09T19:58:00.000+01:00

Want an easy method for Colloborating, Documenting and communicating in your large company offices- Give them all a Digital camera (with a rechargeable battery). Sounds expensive but some cameras just do not allow the average Jo to take good photos easily, they are either slow to focus, grainy as hell (not enough light) or washed out with too much flash. Why? The subject matter. This can be a simple means of recording how you did something to allow you to follow a process to make it repeatable next time you do it. or for someone else to repeat the process, without been shown. You might want to show a colleague a progress update every week and they are on the other side of the world. Photos are easier than writing down a description of what you are taking a photo of. The image provides a memory jog as well. The justification can come from a better outcome, an improved product or service, less downtime, less training and retraining. Of course if you do not have a grasp of just how much you spend on these aspects, there is not a lot to compare to. Next. send some Key staff on a course to take better photos, they need to be taught how to keep the camera steady, when to use the flash or not and basic composure. Those people should be advocates for the Camera idea and that will embrace it. Get them to retrain the other staff. Once your team can do this adequatly, write down a simple step by step process, that allows them to upload the photos to your server. This could be giving everyone a USB cable (that came with the camera) or a docking station (Kodak were big on that). Or better yet an Eye-Fi card that allows the upload of images as the camera shoots, straight to your server via wirelss network. (Avoid the 4in1 multi-card readers and USB SD card readers, these are notoriusly flaky whatever OS you have). Once people have uploaded photos onto the server, make sure they get into the habit of completing some appropriate tags, descriptions and titles to allow others to find them. Set a policy about whether they can or cannot upload images to the internet and social media websites. If you are a funky creative design house and want to build your brand and show off your relaxed workspaces or new projects then you maybe fairly open. If you are constanatly developing projects in a competive market you might be more restrictive with your policy. To be truly collaborative, make it easy for people to see what's new in your business, or what others are working on. Index your servers photos using something like Picassa. Although designed for home, it is powerful enough to support a small enterprise and has some useful features such as face-recognition. Shoot and Share.

Dummies guide to waiter/waitress service in the UK in 8 steps.

2012-07-15T21:52:00.004+01:00

At the entrance to the dining area of a restaurant, place a sign which says “Please wait to be seated” or some restaurants such as Gastro pubs allow to sit down, the menus are already on the table, and have instructions about ordering food at the bar, noting your table number. However this post is about receiving table service, rather than informing people by non-verbal means.

1. Sit the customers down at their table, give them a choice of where to suit if you wish. Hand them the menus drinks section, explain any specials or soup of the day for example.
Having a specials board is not ideal because inevitably it cannot be seen from every seat, some people can have bad eyesight and if they have to remember the choice they will not remember the details and not be able to sell it to their fellow diners for you.

2. Come back within five minutes and take their drinks order. Offer table water to all diners. You should have a basic knowledge of sommelier skills and have tried some of the wines on a staff training night. Remove any wine glasses that are not going to be used (if they didn’t order wine) and place these on a side table within the dining area. (minimise time it takes to reset a table).

3. When you return with the drinks, be prepared to take their food order. Write down the order with the starters first. Up sell any side orders such as potatoes, vegetables or salads. If the portions are too big, than food will go to waste with no up selling. It should be a question of quality over quantity, agreed with the Chef and restaurant owner.
Take the order on an electronic device similar to a PDQ machine, this will save you having to go back to the kitchen to drop an order check off, with your messy handwriting. This also means your bill is made up correctly on the computer ahead of time.
After taking the food order, take the menus with you, so that your colleagues do not ask to take the food order again. If you take a note of which dish was ordered for which table place on a seating plan, this will allow you to deliver the food faster, hotter and more professionally, with no dithering of who ordered what!

Fancy restaurants or corporate functions with silver service have a team of waiters that deliver an entire tables food in one go. They stand behind the diners, look at each other, 3-2-1 then place the food on the table at exactly the same time.

4. When the food is ready at the hot plate, deliver it efficiently as possible, keeping tally of dishes still left to be served, because you will be asked. Have a colleague help you serve up as described above, this way no single diners are left with an empty place setting. Offer to take any more drinks order at this stage, wish your diners a enjoyable meal “Enjoy”.

5. Within a few minutes, ask the diners if everything is OK with their meal. This is instant feedback and gives you a chance to fix something that is not right for the customer, before they complain or not pay you a tip. Top up their wine if this is the sort of restaurant that warrants it, you maybe able to sell them another bottle where normally they would have had just one.
Keep an eye on the diners, make it easy for them to ask for something because it will invariably add to the bill and therefore your tip. When you move from the kitchen to table you hands will be taking food out, likewise when returning to the kitchen clean away glasses or empty plates – look busy and efficient. Its the small details that add value to a dining-out experience and make you look even better at your job.

6. Return when all the diners look like they have finished, ask if they are finished and start to remove plates and clear the table. Ask them again if everything was OK with their meal. Return with the desserts menu/hot drinks or leave it with them before clearing.

7. Come back to take any dessert or hot drinks orders. If they don't want anything, ask if they would like the bill as your table is not going to earn anymore money tonight, and could be filled with new paying customers.

8. Return with the bill and deliver to the top of the table, or the one who looks like they are most likely to pay (to give this person the satisfaction of the buying/ treating of other diners experience). Come back quickly with the PDQ machine to take credit card payments.
The tip...
An increasing trend is for Restaurants, typically chains to add a service charge by default. This can be around 10%+ and more often applies to table of six or more. Not being America, it is not always customary for English diners to tip their servers, and hence it is discretionary. If a company adds a service charge as standard, the staff see it as part of their wages (even though this is legally not the case, and the restaurant does not benefit). The problem with this is complacency by the staff, who continually provide poor service. This is unfortunate for the catering industry in this country, which employs a majority of students, without any aspirations to make the work into a career where you can master the art of service, such as in France. The flip side where no discretionary service charge is added to the bill and, and the diners do not add a percentage themselves, can cause some good staff can lose out. The bottom line is through your dining experience and skills as a cook/host in your own home you will decide yourself what is good and what is not so good, and tip accordingly.

Different credit card machines vary, some allow the server to add the bill, hand the machine over to the paying customer, who has the option of a gratuity. Other machines just allow the input of one figure and it is deemed impolite to ask for a tip. One method of getting round this maybe to ask “how much the diner would like to pay for on the card”, in the hope they would round the bill up by 10% and excusable in that the server may believe the bill is being split or paid in part by cash.

3 tips to Survive in a modern business world?

2012-07-01T20:00:00.005+01:00

1) Find new ways to generate new sales 2) Reduce time to market 3) Increase Profitability

How do they provide fresh, cool and pressurised air in passenger Aircraft?

2012-06-11T19:17:00.001+01:00

I pondered about this issue because it seems like a difficult thing to do at 35,000feet. The 3 elements which are all critical to the comfort of passengers ability to live and breath at altitude inside the cabin of a passenger jet are:

Fresh air: Yes lots of germs circulate inside the cabin, but if the air is not changed to fresh air (m3 per person) then condensation may occur on the heavily glazed windows and more importantly the carbon dioxide rich, second hand air that humans expel must be replaced with oxygen rich air at a rate faster that it is consumed, otherwise we will full unconscious.

The Temperature of the air outside at 35,000 feet is a lot cooler then at sea level, so this needs to be warmed* for comfortable inhalation.

The Pressure of air at altitude is a lot thinner than at sea level, and this also needs to be increased in pressure to allow our lungs to work at normal capacity.

The answer to all of these 3 factors was solved many years ago and understandably involves lots of engineering to provide what is abundant at sea level and unavailable in the correct form at altitude. The following is an explanation from a passenger jet Captain.

"The air is tapped from the engine compressors and then ducted to the air conditioning units for cooling if required. As the air from the engines is very *hot it and so needs to be cooled via heat exchangers that use ambient air for cooling or air cycle machines that operate like turbo compressors. The tapped air drives the turbine, the compressor pumps the air into the cabin. At altitude where the outside air temp. can be 56 deg. C below, the hot air is not cooled as much. The pressurisation is achieved by controlling outflow valves to regulate the outgoing air. On the 747 they maintain 8.6 PSI differential which gives a 5000ft' cabin at 35,000ft. If just one cabin window blew out of a 747, cabin pressure would be lost." and a rapid descent would follow. This is a continuous process and a system with inputs (fresh air) and outputs (old air) and a process (humans breathing).

I found more information available at Boeing www.boeing.com/commercial/cabinair/ or at Lufthansa
www.lufthansa-technik.com/aircraft cabin air

How to get a great deal at Halfords

2012-05-31T22:10:00.000+01:00

How to get a great deal at Halfords.

I am into cycling and wanted to buy some padded cycling shorts and these Azure branded ones came up on the Google shopping results at Halfords. They were the right size and reduced on the website from £19.99 to £12.99. Being a hardworking individual I am never in the house during working hours and so daytime deliveries are not conveniently for me. I checked the stock in my local store and planned to visit the store the next day.

I cycled to the store and found the bike section. I then found the exact shorts that I was after and took them to the counter. "Excuse me, can you check the price on these please?" I said "Yep" replied the spotty teenager, "they are £19.99" Playing naivety to the behemoth of shopping experiences that is the Internet...."But they are £12.99 on your website" "Well you could have them delivered from the website" "But I am never in to receive the item" "Ok, you can have them reserved for in-store collection" I said, "Ok can you give me 5 minutes" Sure, "Ill put these shorts aside for you"

I moved to the side of the counter and got out my Smartphone. I navigated to the Halfords website, found the item and was able to reserve them for collection, without paying anything, at my local store, which was conveniently where i was!!! I then went back to the counter and said smugly "Hello, I have reserved a pair of shorts for collection, do you have them set aside for me" "Sure they are right here!" He took some details, and presumably checked an email confirming the reservation, with a discount code. No only did the shorts go through at the reduced price but a further 25% was taken off and I managed to unbelievably pay just £10.39!!! So for 5 minutes work I basically paid just about 1/2 price.

From what I can see, Halfords have not realised this would be possible to do in store with a Smartphone for many items. The staff member did not question or refuse the transaction (he was more interested in assembling bikes). The thing is these stores need to compete with the internet to some degree or at least provide a means to encourage people to visit the store (foot-fall) especially at 7pm on a weeknight. Whilst at the store they then hope that I would buy something else as an impulse purchase. Most of the prices of items are at a super-inflated price in store and so hope to take advantage of people that have already made the trip to the store, which is a sign that those customers are almost guaranteed to make a purchase. However if you are keen to get a discount very easily you can repeat the steps above whilst being able to check the produce in store before payment is taken.

China's bubble about to burst?

2012-04-29T13:18:00.000+01:00

"THINK back to when you were a child. You blew a bubble, it grew and eventually it burst. That’s how some of my former colleagues in Hong Kong are feeling about China’s prospects at the moment. There has been very little economic news to get excited about over the past two weeks. Britain is officially back in recession, Spain is on the brink of disaster, and a shrinking manufacturing sector and slowing growth in China are making economists I know ever so twitchy. During a visit to some of my old haunts from the 1990s, I was astonished to find that the shop where I used to buy newspapers (and the occasional cigar) now sold Dior and Fendi. “China’s going to hell in a handbag shop,” quipped one bearish friend." quote from twitter #cityinsider

Royal Mail still hanging on in there?

2012-04-26T21:46:00.000+01:00

I've recently started looking more closely at the activities I do at work, to identify patterns of similarity and streamline repetitive tasks. I try to implement some Japanese methodologies such as Total Quality Management (TQM), the 5s and root cause analysis. Above all else I try to learn from my mistakes at a faster rate, this is one of human's greatest talents compared to Neanderthal chimps. One thing I find myself doing almost on a regular business and I will try hard to refrain my blog becoming a rant. When returning home from work I find more post for other people than there is for me. I’m sure its fairly typical of living in a rental property but is frustrating. I use to right neatly on the front of the envelopes, "Return to sender, not know at this address" and stick it back in the post box. Now I just write "RTS - NKATA" sod it! But what happens to that persons new credit card and bank details that they care about less than I do. The return address is on the reverse and I presume it is sent back to the sender. I question whether it is possible for the Royal Mail to process returned mail to a greater level of detail and certainly record the failed recipients address, as well as the return senders address. If this were to happen over a period of weeks a database can be accessed where it can be assumed the recipient really does not live at that address. This would certainly solve my repeated attempts to flush out all mail with no recipient. In the interest of a balanced argument I suggest that the Royal Mail would say they have a duty of care to deliver the mail in which they have been trusted to deliver. But is is possible they could feedback to the sender a history of undeliverable mail. Its also possible that the Royal Mail gets paid twice, once for delivering the mail and the second time, charging a fee for returning the mail. If the sender has an inability to get hold of their customer by another method and stop sending mail, is of no concern to the Royal Mail. In fact it is possible to suggest that Royal Mail benefits from this inefficiency. Of course the Royal Mail also provide their own redirection service for a handsome fee, but does not catch all. Until the Royal Mail develop, evolve and stop selling profitable parts of their business they may never improve from their position now. They may also not deteriorate any further???

10 Top Resources for Startups

2011-07-03T21:35:00.000+01:00

1. PaulGraham.com
2. http://under30ceo.com/24-top-tools-and-resources-used-by-young-entrepreneurs/
3. ask500people.com (Market Research)
4. aytm.com (ask your target Market) (Market Research)
5. launchrock.com
6. HackFWD Business Framework

HackFwd - Business Models and How Technology is Changing Them - Tom Hulme from HackFwd on Vimeo

7.

From Zero to a Million Users - Dropbox and Xobni lessons learned

View more presentations from Adam Smith

8. The HackFwd Blueprint

9. flyingstartups.com

10. Under30CEO.com

Introducing cool Yacht Designed by E. Kevin Schopfer with Sparkman Stephens, Naval Architects – The Infinitas.

2011-06-27T22:43:00.001+01:00

Cool I want one. It is very different and looks to me like a mammal shaped head. But I still like the renovatio boat in the film The Island.

and to go with the boats I would need to design some custom furniture that made my house look like this:

Idea Validation for Lean #startups

2011-06-25T09:28:00.002+01:00

So you have written your business plan, found some potential investors whom you might approach and think if I like my product then so must others?
Well, from my experience it just doesn't work like that. At some point you are going need to get some feedback on your idea. The first step is to get through the barrier that is the resistance to talk about your idea. For some people this is not a problem and will rave about their newest business idea to strangers and repeatedly to friends and family. For some people, especially if you think you have the next big thing you need to tell somebody.

For me, when I first explained my recent business idea to peers with other internet ideas, they didn't really get it, so either my pitch is terrible or i have created something that nobody wants. So rule #1 make something that people want.

Rule #2 is Do not write your Marketing plan as "I will build it and they will come!" You need much more detail and more thought, reasoning and even more detail.

The more people I told, the more average feedback I got about my idea, so I was prepared to share it with even more people I could tell. I listened harder and was able to work on their points to find solutions, I changed my business model to a different angle, I even changed my implementation and then went back on that (This is the trouble of working alone). If you think someone could steal your idea, the likely hood is slim unless you have launched. People have their own ideas and extracting your idea from your head is harder than you think. However in the search for a founder you may wish to be weary of people that are looking at a similar Niche in the market to you. These people are either your best friends or worst enemies, so i would suggest divulging just enough information to engage with somebody but holding back some vital details. You need to get the balance right between sharing your thoughts to get feedback in return, whilst not giving away your idea. Also because people have their own ideas and ambitions, why would they want to get involved or hijack your idea, if there's is much more superior?

Telling friends and family can be a positive or negative experience. Either way as soon as you open your mouth, you are immediately measured on a path or success or failure. You need to build a support network of positive people to encourage and support you. Having a group of negative people can lead to giving up very early, be a drain on your mental resources and lots of "I told you so." Stay away from these people. A typical parenting experience where you were never taken seriously or cannot be trusted is a typical example. Plus a network of friends that are highly competitive will wish that nobody does better then themselves. Secretly nobody wishes you to do well, least of all, get rich if that is what your plans are. You are on your own.

During a recent bout of feedback and conversation at an Entrepreneurial club I met a guy (@jabventure) who focused on marketing and social behaviour, which I have never formally studied. He made the point that to have an internet based idea, it needs to have some form of behavioural element. For example (some big generalisations coming up!) eBay is the equivalent of going to a car boot sale and buying and selling with people. This is replicated online and gives most a kick out of getting a bargain and likewise seeing the auction go up and up. Dating sites is an obvious one, social networking sites allow people to share experiences namely through updates but looking at other's photos is key to Facebook's success. So to have a human behaviour in your internet based idea, takes a little thinking. You have to consider what the interaction is in real-life and then replicate that online.

I'm going to quote some text from Paul Graham here, which answers a pressing question.

I have multiple start-up ideas. How do I decide which to work on?

Work on the one that will cause the most immediate, concrete improvement in users' lives. Don't worry too much at first about competitors, or how users will find out about it, or how to make money. But don't work on something that's going to take ten years, either. (In technology, ten years rounds up to never.)

Google is a good example. Everyone needs Web search, and the founders probably had something that significantly improved their own ability to find stuff online within the first couple months. And once something starts to work (a) it's enormously encouraging, and (b) it's much clearer what direction to take it in.

(text from www.paulgraham.com) Paul Graham is a world renowned internet start-up expert and runs http://ycombinator.com/.

Write a Quesitionnnaire
An example survey is shown below from survery.io. Its a questionnaire designed to be answered by users finding your site, then completing your survey. It also presumes you have developed far enough to have a Minimum Viable Product. This questionnaire might give you some early answers to your product.

The Best (insert your product name here) Survey
Question 1. How did you discover The Best Web 2.0 App?

Blog
Friend or colleague
Search engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo)
Facebook
Twitter
Other (please specify)

Question 2. How would feel if you could not longer use The Best Web 2.0 app?

Very disappointed
somewhat disappointed
not disappointed
Not disappointed (it really isn't that useful)
N/A - I no longer use the Best Web 2.0 APP

Please help us understand why you selected your answer.

Question 3.What would you likely use as an alternative if The Best Web 2.0 App were no longer available?
I probably wouldn’t use an alternative
I would use....

Question 4.What is the primary benefit that you have received from The Best Web 2.0 App?

Question 5.Have you recommended The Best Web 2.0 App to anyone?
No
Yes (Please explain how you described it)

Question 6. What type of person do you think would benefit most from The Best Web 2.0 App?

Question 7. How can we improve The Best Web 2.0 App to better meet your needs?

Question 8. Would it be okay if we followed up by email to request a clarification to one or more of your responses?
No
Yes (please enter the best email address to contact you by)
End of survey

Escapethecity.org empower people to quite their 9-5 job and do something totally different. They are a new website and are trying to narrow down their function on the internet. Some of the feedback questions they ask are as follows:

Question) What one thing would you like Escape the City to personally be able to help you with?
Question) What is the one big challenge or question you are currently wrestling with which a community like Escape the City might be able to help you with?
Question) What specific information, tools, or features would you like to see on Escape the City?
Esc.org is a work in progress. We will succeed if what we build actually works for our members... so, tell us, what would you like the platform to do for you?
Question) Anything else you would like to get in touch with us about? Any help v. much appreciated
Eg: Suggest inspirational people to interview, recommend relevant information / websites / books, introduce us to exciting organisations with Escape Opportunities.... etc.

Voting
A system used by many fledgling and evolving websites alike is to have a voting system for product improvement/features, the more votes the more likely the founders are to implement the request. Not only that, the users gain a community feel by a common voice with people of the same idea that is listened to by the websites, which in-turn gains them brand value. This service is dominated by getsatisfaction.com, who provide a discrete feedback tab to the side of your website.

You know when you are onto a good thing when people you tell, say "cool, that is a great idea" But you are still not done yet. It could be literally “cool” to have an idea and implement it, but if the product stinks, this feedback still has not helped you. When you have people willing to pay money for your product, you are onto the right thing. When friends use your prototype website, you are onto a good thing. So what if people don’t get it and it does not solve a problem?

Disruption
One phase I will quote from James Caan which seems highly appropriate to this article is “I have always believed in observing the masses and doing the opposite”. So when you are providing a product which is the opposite to the competition you could also be onto to something. However the statement also has a caveat in that you should observe the competition, which means at least take into consideration what they are doing and analyse it. The phrase also does not mean sell all your gold as the market starts to rise sharply and the masses buy more. I would interpret this along with caution and not do the polar opposite but find the niche and method for doing something slightly different, but different enough. For example:

selling something to a foreign country that has not got those goods or services
or using the internet to sell something that has never been traded online before (method)
or sending goods in the post that overcomes a geographical restriction (logistics) in the past
or trying to change the opinion of consumers about a product to bring it back into fashion (trend)
or creating a whole new product (innovation).
Changing the product's value such as Budget no-frills airlines
Create massive disruption by making something for free, think Napster.com!

All of these methods are proven ways to change something enough to generate a business.

If people just don’t understand your product then the chances are you are not providing a solution to a problem, because the problem does not exist (yet). In other words you could be creating a whole new market or niche in your sector, whereby you have invented something people never knew they wanted? This is true inspiration and has many elements of risk. many ideas are generated by trying to problem-solve a known problem.

Publish your survey - but where?
I have tried searching for online places for surveys and have found one. I came across many such as surveymonkey and getsatisfaction which have varying price plans from free up-to enterprise accounts. The problem they all have is that they are all surveys in relation to an existing product or service and the invitation for the survey is to customers or people related to that company. If you are a start-up, with no blog, no followers, no minimum viable product website or email contact list, you have to find a group of people to sample. One possible answer is to ask strangers and ideally to narrow down this group of people to potential customers or those that have knowledge of the sector you are entering. If the people are random strangers, you may have unreliable results. The website that I came across to ask a single question to is called ask500people.com.

The website is firstly a community where people ask questions about stuff they find interesting such as which Michael Jackson photo is better, or which photo of a girl is hotter.... However they offer a Business question section, where you pay increasing amounts with the amount of responses up to 1000. I used the free service which provided me with 15 responses which did not give me the result I was hoping for, so I have currently parked the result as inconclusive because the sample size was tiny, and it was from random strangers who may have clicked on 1 of my 4 results because that is what they have heard. I am looking to validate the same questionnaire but overcoming these observations. After all you questionnaire is only as useful as the questions you ask. It is an iterative process of getting target market right, then validating your questionnaire, to find out if are you asking the correct questions?

I am now planning to trial a survey of 10 questions based on the basic question template listed above from survery.io. I plan to use the website AYTR.com (ask your target market) to ask the survey to a sample size of 100. I have included a pre-requisite question at the start of the questionnaire and because my start-up idea is web-based, it simply asks if you have a Facebook account. If the recipient answers no, they cannot complete the question and do not count. The answers have come at a reasonable price of $175 (£106) and the panel is completely US based recipients. However I am trying to establish whether my idea will work not who my demographic target market is.

You could use Facebook Polls or Yahoo answers. But I find Yahoo answers deletes questions very easily because their guidelines are so tight. As for Facebook Polls, this is a new feature which I have not experimented with and I would guess the content for the poll needs to be engaging to your audience (your friends).

As for asking the right questions, I still believe a customised questionnaire based on the survery.io questionnaire I quoted above is a good starting point. Although this is written as a feedback questionnaire to be embedded into your website, you can get round this by explaining the context of your idea first. This has been well-thought out as a template with skip answer logic and you can customise it to explain the who why, what, when and how of your idea, or better yet, you can write it so that your users can tell you that.

During the weeks of thinking about this subject, I changed my efforts to learn more coding and develop a minimum viable website. However with the knowledge I have now, I can complete my market research chapter and send out my Business plan with more confidence. So with constant learning you change your viewpoint of priorities and therefore your actions. As long as you keep doing, you should eventually get there. Please feel free to comment below or contact me @iamandywright

Free resources that are straight to the point and saves reading a whole book:

For further reading this I recommend this Frankly written White Paper provided by aytm.com. http://aytm.com/press/WhitePapers/MarketResearch_101_for_Startups.pdf

Shell-livewire.org have written a paper on doing Market research for the fist time.
http://www.shell-livewire.org/store/1291025975.080LID0.pdf

Andy Wright Flickr Page

2011-06-18T13:41:00.000+01:00

If you have not checked out my Photo pages before.Click here (Flickr).

The post-PC future with Facebook and Google as your partner???

2011-06-14T23:09:00.000+01:00

Looking at the future with the Post-PC world, the smartphone is tipped to be the interface between the user and the built-environment. Google and Facebook's plans are to index and create algorithms to analyse your “Likes” these facts are already setting the wheels in motion for Facebook and Google to become vital parts of our lives, where we wonder how we survived without them.

Facebook will know that you like a certain TV programme at 8pm on a thursday and will have recorded for this for you. Meanwhilst Google will have indexed your shopping receipt and checked with your fridge (which will work more like a Vending machine with stock-control) and monitored your proximity to home with the use of your smartphone, to turn the oven on and start cooking dinner for you.

In fact both will achieve the same function by automatically learning more about you either by consentual "clicking Like" or passive analysis by indexing and identifying patterns from your internet/ search activity.

Social search is already taking hold whereby Google can match similar searches to your friends and suggest other searches. How it plans to monitise this i dont know yet, but i can see the social element whereby Google could connect you with a friend with a similar interest.

To me Facebook and Google already seem to be on diverging paths and will overlap, squabble, agree or whatever. However a more powerful partner maybe found in Apple who now know a lot of personal information about you because a lot of how you interact with the world is on an iPhone in the shape of Applications. Applying social sharing of these apps is far from advanced currently and only exists in terms of app sharers such as Appsfire. You can share your music choices through iTunes but no apps as yet, but Apple are working on this and are contunuing development and integration of Facebook Connect to leverage Facebook's social graphs.

The question is not why we will all be characters on futuristic Sci-Fi movies, but When?

Abusive Maldives wedding ceremony

2010-11-28T21:04:00.000+00:00

click Here to the BCC World News website - Maldives Wedding ceremony

Max Totty???

2010-11-28T20:58:00.002+00:00

My Ex-colleague is going to work for an MD called Max Totty???

Lagos

2010-11-28T20:47:00.002+00:00

My colleague told me a story about what a dump Lagos and the airport was. When they got on the return flight home an American stoodup and in front of everyong said "When I get back i'm going to get a T-shirt printed and it will say "I know i'm going to Heaven because I've already been to Lagos!!!""

LoveFilm but hate Lovefilm.com, Arghhh!!!

2010-11-28T20:43:00.000+00:00

Lovefilm.com has publicised its streaming service on the Playstation 3 but it has taken a few weeks for it to show up on my system. I checked for updates to my PS3 on a daily basis aswell. I was looking forward to this feature, but have flicked through the 20 or so offerings are found myself woefully disappointed with the list. Ok so they are not going to be the latest releases but not only are thse films old, they are also well-off the beaten track of mainstream movies. You would have to be very lucky to find a film you want to watch out of the "top picks" section because they are so Niche.
This brings me onto another rant about Lovefilm. The question is to have the next film on your list or no film at all. Lovefilm allows you to specify your next rentals in priority order but i consistantly find myself being stuck with "Medium" titles and missing out on "High" priority films. It is infuriating but Lovefilm say they prefer to give customers a film as appose to none at all. This applies especially with Games and i pay extra to rent these but still don't get a choice between a film or a game, i have to get lucky. SO if you plan to have some friends round and watch a certain movie, when you want, its probably not going to happen. I still have my Lovefilm account but am considering dropping down to a lower pricing plan because im just not getting what im paying for. In fact Lovefilm if you are listening one idea would be to allow you to prioritise films in the "High" priority category by dragging and dropping giving more specific requests to hopefully get the movie you want. Oh and by the way, when it says "Reserved" at the bottom of your list, this does not mean reserved just that the item has not been released, and because Lovefilm do not have that many copies of some titles (especially games) you would have to be very lucky to receive soon after release day.

Gran Turismo 5 game data

2010-11-28T20:11:00.003+00:00

I have finally been able to play Gran Turismo 5 after four years in development. It gives you the option to store 8GB of track and car data onto your PS3 hard drive. This is definetly worth doing as it runs much quicker in the game. When you enter into the game, it gives the option to do so. If you have not got enough room remove GT Prologue's 8GB file!!! To do this go to Saved Game and scroll upwards to Game Data Utility, find the GT Prologue image and delete the file.

2010-11-28T20:02:00.000+00:00

Hilarious Sheap Shearing sketch from Family Guy on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n49U1BxZ2M

iPhone app Hovercraft Simulator

2010-11-28T19:49:00.003+00:00

There is a gap in the market on the itunes App store for a Hovercraft Simulator app. App-writers - contact me and ill talk you through it.

Solidworks 2D Editor Crashes on purpose

2010-11-28T19:33:00.004+00:00

Solidworks 2D Editor is not a replacement for AutoCAD it is designed to crash to make the software unusable and atleast very frustrating. How do i know this? 2D Editor asks you to save your open drawings before it crashes!!!

An alternative is Draftsight from Dassault (the French giant that owns Solidworks). This system is their preference in terms of which software they want people to use. It does have a more moderen look and feel but does not offer any more than 2D Editor. The lastest release of Draftsight is a Beta version and should not be used for Commercial applications. Of course both of these offerings are free.
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/draftsight-overview/

Audi A4 Cabriolet 2004 Roof/Hood stops working

2010-11-28T19:32:00.000+00:00

Audi A4 Cabriolet 2004 Roof/Hood stops working

I pressed the roof-down button on my Audi A4 for a few seconds and allowed to it to get 10% through its cycle and it stopped working. It showed a fault on the dash saying "Roof not secure". I checked on the internet and a few other people have had this. I did have a suitcase in the back seat which the roof may have hit slightly but not enough to damage anything so i thought it was a sensor that had reported a jam and therfore shut the system roof hydrualics down and refused to restart. I read through the manual and found the instrucfions regarding the Key. This is stored away in a panel on the drivers side, with the fuses where the door closes into the car and dashboard.

After trying to interpret waht the manual was talking about i took the key and twisted it in the front key position near the rear view mirror. This locked the front down, however the warning was stil on. I used the key again in the rear Key slot and locked the back of the roof down. I checked the warning and it had gone. Then i pressed the switch to drop the roof automatically to fully open and back up again and all is fine.

Leaving your phone on by accident in a plane

2010-07-19T21:54:00.002+01:00

My friend recently returned from a trip to China on business. He took his personal mobile phone and a company phone. He turned the phone Off that he had in his shirt pocket but left the other phone on in the locker. Of course you should comply with air regulations which is generally to turn your phone off or over to Flight mode.

When my friend landed and checked the phone, he had welcome messages from phone networks in over 5 countries that he flew over but never landed at, including the Netherlands, Swizterland, and other eastern European countries. It's proof that you can get a signal, whilst moving at 500mph at 35000ft!