cristina luminea

Paul Sloane

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:22:00 +0000

Last week I attended a presentation by Paul Sloane on becoming a more innovative leader.
I have been a big fan of his work and I really enjoy reading his articles. If you haven’t heard of him before you can find him on Twitter @PaulSloane. When I heard he is coming to Ireland I had to go and see him speak in person. He had a great impact and he reinforced a lot of the concepts I read about in his articles. It was nice to see how they all fit together though.
Here are the main points he touched on:

Have a vision
Fight the fear of change
Think like a VC
Generate many ideas
Break the rules
Empower your people
Look outside
Manage risk and welcome failure
Build prototypes
Be passionate

One of my favourite quotes from the presentation?

“I succeed or I learn but I never fail.”

The last month…

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:51:00 +0000

After quitting my job I imagined I will have more time to dedicate to this blog. As you probably have noticed it doesn't seem to be the case. So here is my excuse for not coming back for a month:

I decided to start a business and I heard from a few friends that the best program in the country to help you launch your idea is the NDRC LaunchPad. So I decided to write a proposal around one of my ideas. I guess luck was on my side this time because after writing the proposal I also found a partner: the amazing Claire Burge. We went on and did a pitch for our idea and we got accepted. (Wohoo :-) Happy days!) However now we have to do something about it. We get 3 months of funding, support and mentoring to research the idea further and build a prototype... so the work has just begun.

Today the first articles on the LaunchPad program have started to appear in the local newspapers. Here is a quote from The Irish Times:

This is the fourth time that NDRC has run LaunchPad and this is the largest programme to date with 15 start-ups taking part. To date 30 companies have completed the programme and 30 per cent of those have gone on to secure further private investment.

Mr Leyden said there had been over 100 applicants for the course and 80 start-ups pitched their ideas to the NDRC. He said international interest was strong with five overseas applicants.

The programme concludes with the LiftOff competition where participating companies pitch to an audience of potential investors and advisors to win a share of an investment pool raised by the NDRC.

At the last LiftOff event the investment fund came to €60,000 and Mr Leyden said there was event more interest from investors in the current programme.

“Angel investors in particular are interested as they see it as us having done some of the due diligence,” said Mr Leyden.

Here are the links to the two articles if you want to read some more: The Irish Times, Silicon Republic. And by the way, the sexy girl in both photos is my business partner.

New beginnings

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:50:00 +0000

I have been blogging less and less within the last few months and I have to say a lot has happened.

In April I have been on holidays to Portugal which was amazing. We visited Faro, Vilamoura, Albufeira, Silves (see picture above), Lagos, Lisbon and Sintra; we ate great food and even been surfing. It was a brilliant experience which I definitely recommend and if you are not convinced you can find all my pictures on Flickr.

Coming back from holidays I decided it was time to finish my Master thesis (and I have to say I am pretty proud of myself for this as most of the time it felt like I will never see the end of it). All I have to do now is hard bind it and attend my graduation ceremony in November. Looking forward to it!

However this is not the biggest news I have: I decided to move on / start over. I left my job for… a “feeling”. I can’t explain it but I just felt that this is “my time”. I don’t know what’s next yet, I don’t have a plan, but it feels like the right thing to do. Sometimes you just have to go with what your heart tells you. So if you have any exciting project ideas and need a hand or just want to say hello don’t hesitate to contact me. You can find all my contact information in the Contact area.

In the spirit of the new beginning I also decided to redesign my blog. I chose the idea of a blank canvas. I think it best describes my life… starting now.

Wish me luck and also let me know what you would like to read about on this blog from now on… I’m really interested in your opinions.

Is a broken down car parked?

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:57:00 +0000

I love this video by Ian Gilbert. He is the founder of Independent Thinking which is one of the most inspirational and effective educational organisations in the UK and beyond.

In this TEDxDubai video he is talking about teaching children to think for themselves and he is achieving this through Thunks. He defines a Thunk as the noise the brain makes when it's thinking. Thunks are supposed to be deceptively tricky little questions that 'make your brain go ouch!' and here are a few examples:

Is a broken down car parked?
Is there more future than past?
If goldfish forget every 3 seconds but never remember they forget then did they really forget?
If you were to kill an evil person to prevent them from committing evil acts would that make you evil?
If you read a newspaper in the newsagents without paying for it, is it stealing?

You can find a lot more examples of Thunks on the http://www.thunks.co.uk website.

I believe the most insightful moment of the talk for me, is the definition of education. Currently teaching is about students leaving with the lecturer's thoughts and reproducing them while there is a greater power in them thinking for themselves.

Let me know what you think. Did you have that 'Aha!' moment while watching this? Did it get you thinking?

The Future of Work

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:35:00 +0000

Today I came across this interesting SlideShare presentation on The Future of Work. I decided to share it with you because it contains a lot of ideas I was contemplating during the last few years. One of them is: "College is the new high school".

Looking back at my parents generation there were very few people that were accepted into a university. Having an University degree was seen as something admirable. People holding an University degree were respected and valued by society. This has changed a lot in the last few years. Now anyone can obtain an University degree. If you have money and some idea of what you might like to do in the future you can easily become one of the most educated people in society. Even Masters degrees have become very common and it feels like their value is being diminished day by day.

I'm not saying this is either good or bad. I guess there are pros and cons on either side. My question is how do you stand out in a society where everyone has an University and Masters degree? Or better yet how do you recognize the value? What will employers look for in a CV? Are we slowly moving towards a society of over achievers?

The Future Of Work

View more presentations from Jeff Brenman

Making it Gameful

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:15:00 +0000

A few days ago I wanted to answer the two comments that were posted on my SCVNGR’s Secret Game Mechanics Cards blog post and realised that what I had to say could make more sense in another blog post.

First of all I would like to thank Stephen and Justin for taking the time to share their thoughts on the subject of gamification. I believe they are both right as I am also a big fan of Jane McGonigal’s theory of Making it Gameful rather then gamifying it.

I recently watched her talk in the Gamification Summit on “How Games Can Change the World” and this made me buy her book (which I can’t let go of at the moment): “Reality is Broken – Why games make us better and how they can change the world.”

In both the video and the book she makes a case for trying to make it feel like a game rather than just adding points, badges and leader boards to something that is not working already.

The most interesting point she makes is that “The opposite of play is not work, is depression”. Games are unnecessary obstacles we volunteer to tackle and we usually work a lot harder to accomplish something in a game than we do in real life. This usually happens because of 4 quintessential gamer feelings that players get when they engage in a game:

Urgent Optimism – feels like there is some heroic purpose and that we have to rise to the opportunity.
Social Fabric – when we play games with people we get a better understanding of what they are good at, we start to trust them and like them more.
Blissful Productivity – we are happy with what we accomplish and we see the impact of our efforts on the world.
Epic Meaning – we are serving a cause that is bigger than ourselves.

When adding all these feelings together we get Super Empowered Hopeful Individuals and this is what we should aim for when we are making activities gameful.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

Meaningful Play: Getting Gamification Right

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:46:00 +0000

A really good talk from a UX Designer and Researcher that is specializing in Persuasive Design. Sebastian Deterding believes that there are 3 missing ingredients in current gamification:

Meaning
- Connect to personal goals and passions
- Connect to a meaningful community of interest
- Wrap in a visually supported story
- Beware of social context meanings
Mastery
- Provide interesting challenges
- Provide clear goals, scaffolded, paced, varied
- Provide juicy feedback
- Beware of gaming the system
Autonomy
- Play is voluntary
- Beware of curbing autonomy
- Beware of devaluing your product

Enjoy the video and let me know what you think.

SCVNGR’s Secret Game Mechanics Cards

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:06:00 +0000

I’ve been talking about Gamification and game dynamics a lot lately and it seems like most of the companies that decided to add that extra layer of gamification to their business have actually created lists of Game Mechanics that have proven to be successful for them.

The guys from SCVNGR don’t want to settle for only adding the gamification layer to their product, they aim to add it to the world. Their “Chief Ninja”: Seth Priebatsch is talking about this in his TED talk: The game layer on top of the world.

In the video above Seth is mentioning four game dynamics that can be used to influence behaviour:Appointment Dynamic, Influence and Status, Progression Dynamic and Communal Discovery.

Apparently these are not the only game dynamics they work with at SCVNGER. They actually have the longest list I cam across so far. This contains almost 50 game mechanics which apparently every new employ has to memorize. Among these you can find Virtual Items, Ownership, Loyalty, Pride, Achievement, Avoidance, Behavioural Momentum, Envy, Free Lunch and even Jane McGonigal’s Blissful Productivity, Social Fabric, Urgent Optimism and Epic Meaning. If you want to read more about each of these you can find them here.

My questions are: Will we end up living in a society that won’t do anything without an incentive? Will we end up surrendering our privacy to any company that gives us points? How will this impact on our daily lives?

Let me know what you think.

The World’s Most Typical Person

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:18:00 +0000

Before you watch this take a moment and see if you can guess what the world’s most typical person looks like…

Internet Usage Statistics of 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:13:00 +0000

A Phone as the Brain of a Laptop

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:31:00 +0000

Lately we are all getting used to carrying around different pieces of technology that host pieces of our lives: laptops, iPads, eReaders, iPods etc. But the mobile phone is the one gadget that our lives seem to be revolving around. In the recent years we rely on our phones not only for calling or texting people but also for organizing, scheduling, entertaining, reading news and so on…

One of the problems most of us face is trying to synchronise our work on all the devices we now own in order to be able to access it anywhere and at any time. Motorola came up with a solution to this problem by releasing the Motorola Atrix G4 phone.

The phone can be inserted in a slot behind the screen of a sleek laptop that has no processor, memory or storage of its own. In other words the phone is the brain while the laptop acts as a docking station playing the role of a more convenient viewer as well as a giant battery giving you almost 10 hours of working time.

I believe this is quite a good idea and can be useful for conferences as well as on planes or trains. It allows you to keep organised with all your data and documents in the same place. Unfortunately one of the downsides is that we still have to carry the extra pieces.

What do you think of this new concept? Would you see it taking off in the future as our mobile phones become smarter every day?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Is publishing dying?

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 10:53:00 +0000

I just found this video on the future of publishing. I believe it is a year old but it still makes some really good points. It makes us think… and not only about publishing but also about our day to day perception of the new generations... About our day to day perceptions of our customers.

Have a look and let me know what you think. In my opinion it is really eye opening.

Teaching vs. Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:37:00 +0000

I just came across this cartoon that I believe accurately describes a lot of today’s classroom experiences.

What do you think?

The Gamer Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 11:53:00 +0000

I just came across a really good wiki on gamification and I found the chart below very interesting. The wiki is called gamification.org and it talks about everything gaification related.

According to Rob Benson the picture below shows the areas of the brains that become engaged through brain mechanics. It appears that different people enjoy various types of game design. Here are the 7 types of reward centres in the brain that Rob Benson identified: Socializer, Conqueror, Achiever, Mastermind, Seeker, Daredevil, Solver and Survivor.

In case you can not read the chart above here is a transcription of the descriptions of each reward centre:

Conqueror (Defeat): Science: Some players are not satisfied with winning early – they want to struggle against adversity and fight tooth and nail for victory. When we are up against impossible odds, the body produces both epinephrine (adrenalin) and norepinephrine. This later chemical riles us up, gets us angry and motivated, and when we eventually earn victory the result is especially rewarding. Story: Gamers will retell and retain stories about a hard struggle in a game. This kind of play creates great stories of conquest and triumph that gamers may not experience in reality.

Socialiser (Relate): Science: People are fun to the Socializer – they like talking to then, they like helping them, they like being around them. There is a part of the brain known as the hypothalamus which serves as the social centre of the brain. When relating positively with other people, a chemical known as oxytocin is produced from this region, which gives a feeling of unity. Story: When gamers play together they become co-authors of the story of their experience. This bond creates a metastory about the relationship in the context of the game.

Mastermind (Solve): Science: A fiendish puzzle that defines solution or a problem that requires strategy to overcome is the essence of fun to this class. Whenever we face puzzles or must define strategies the decision centre of the brain (the orbito-frontal cortex) is involved. Success in your strategy releases dopamine, rewarding you and encouraging you to play again. Story: How you come to a decision is a story in itself. The steps and routs of logic in your mind are just an inner journey to the destination of victory or achievement.

Seeker (Explorer): Science: Finding wonderful and curious things is what the seeker enjoys. This stimulates the part of the brain that processes sensory information (the sensory cortices) as well as the memory association centres (hippocampus). This produces a chemical called endomorphin whenever we see something interesting or curious. Story: Every story ever told involves some sort of exploration or discovery. Gamers create long intricate stories every time they play.

Daredevil (Rush): Science: This play style is all about the thrill of the chase, the excitement of risk taking and generally living on the edge. Excitement of any kind involves adrenalin, which is technically known as epinephrine. Story: Every story should excite you, get you to the edge of your seat. Gamers seek this climatic moment as the character, responsible for the outcome, and not an observer enjoying the ride.

Survivor (Escape): Science: Some people hate feeling terror, but some people really enjoy the intense excitement of escaping from a terrifying threat. Fear is an experience produced by a particular part of the brain known as the amygdale. Story: Games are the best medium for telling a scary story. The player actually has a stake in the outcome of the story, magnifying the fear factor.

Achiever (Collect): Science: The Achiever is the most goal-oriented of all the classes, and players who enjoy this play style will collect and complete everything they can find – no grind is too arduous for such a player! During play, their pleasure centre (nucleus accumbens) is releasing dopamine, which is especially rewarding, and hence addictive. Story: This balance between struggle and success is the key to every story. This feeling of accomplishment can be of individual achievements or a culmination of achievements throughout a story or game.

What makes you tick? What engages you within your day to day activities? Which types of game mechanics do you find appealing?

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Gamification - If you do it… Do it right

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Many companies are looking at Gamification more and more lately. If you are new to this concept, according to Gabe Zichermann (youtube link):

Gamification is the process of using game thinking & mechanics to engage audiences & solve problems.

Games are very good at influencing behaviour and they get into our primal response patterns. Amy Jo Kim (youtube link) is describing really well the basic building blocks of Game mechanics:

Collectables – these can be anything from badges to your friends on twitter
Points – which can be normal game points that a player is earning from the system but they can also be social points that we see more and more of. These are points allocated by people and one of the examples is Flickr with their intrestingness factor.
- Along with the points come the leader boards which drive competitiveness.
Feedback – good feedback accelerates the player’s drive to mastery and drives engagement.
Exchanges – many games have trading built in: it’s called explicit exchange. The implicit exchange is when gifts or comments are being exchanged. In this situation the players don’t have to give back, but they usually do.
Customization can be either interface customization or avatar customization. This makes the page/game more personal and the player less likely to leave the space because they invested time.

Actimel had a pretty good idea of using gamification in their new competition. They are giving away €10.000 along with some other prizes for the pictures that are voted the most. If we are looking at it closely they implemented a few of the game mechanics that I mentioned above, but something is missing…

As you can see they have the points system (these are awarded by other people) but they don’t have the leader boards. There is no way for me to know how the other players are doing and where I am situated (unless I will take my time and go through all the 2700 pictures that have been uploaded).

They also tried to implement a social aspect where you are asking your friends to come and vote for your picture every day. But at the same time they don’t allow other interaction on their website. I believe some feedback from the people that have voted would keep me more engaged and would drive me to promote my photo more. At the same time the people that have voted once are told they can come back and vote again tomorrow but there is no incentive for them to do so.

And the last thing that I believe they didn’t really think through is the fact that people usually hate to spam their friends (especially every day) and their whole campaign is based on people asking their friends to vote for them (every day).

What is your take on this? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:18:00 +0000

The Power of Accessibility

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:15:00 +0000

I think I’ve addressed this subject before, when I moved my blog from Live Spaces to Blogger. The reason I moved was because people had to login in order to leave a comment. Today I came across the same problem with someone else’s blog. I really liked the subject of his blog post and I wanted to contribute by leaving a comment. Unfortunately I needed to be registered to comment on the site. This completely put me off.

A lot of companies these days are functioning the same way as they did 10 years ago. Even start-ups are adopting the same model: you have to be an existing customer in order to participate. I believe this doesn’t make sense anymore, not in today’s society where the competition is so high. Customers have certain expectations and if you are making it difficult for them to interact with your business they won’t stay around for long. Make your system accessible to everyone, give everyone the same opportunities and you will have time to hook them in at a later stage.

In my opinion every contact counts. In this case the main purpose of a blog is to inform people and encourage them to interact by leaving comments. Why would you make this difficult for them? Why would you ask them to go through hoops in order to do you a favour?

Make interaction with your system as straight forward as possible.
Make it accessible to everybody… you’ll get the chance to convert them into a user later.
And remember, the first point of contact counts.

What’s your take on this? I’m looking forward to your thoughts.

Cristina

Cellphone Usage

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 12:44:00 +0000

I just came across this crazy infographic on cellphone usage for America. Some really powerful data.

Via: Online IT Degree

My Yoga Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:55:00 +0000

Last week I tried Yoga for the first time. Throughout the month of January iYoga ran Open Thursdays sessions where everyone was welcomed to attend. This was a great opportunity for people like me to experience and gather more information on something I wasn’t too sure about. Having a friend that is actually taking the classes regularly and that joined me also helped.

Upon arrival we were welcomed by Margaret, the owner of the studio. She is definitely a person you would want to meet. A great energy surrounds her and she inspires calm and confidence. She is the one that taught the class as well and I have to say that all my nerves and anxiety was left outside.

The class itself reminded me of the gymnastics classes I used to take in primary school and I have to say I was surprised to still be able to do some of the poses without feeling a great pain. It’s hard to accept but I still felt a bit rusty.

The evening ended with an amazing yoga demonstration where the teachers showed us what we could be able to do with a few (cough… 10) years of experience. After the demonstration we got the chance to socialize over some really nice carrot cake and drinks/juices which some may say defeated the purpose of the exercise but still were very welcomed.

All in all the evening was a success and I have to say it was an experience I strongly recommend.

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 14:26:00 +0000

Great Customer Service

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:52:00 +0000

A while back I decided to buy most of the Christmas presents this year online. Whoever knows me probably also knows that I hate shopping so this seemed like a good way to do it. I also came across an website called Gruupy which does daily deals of “cool cheap electronic stuff”. As I had a few geek friends to shop for I kept an eye on this website and I finally found some perfect presents for them (I’m not going to tell you what they were as Christmas is not here yet and this information is completely irrelevant to the story). So I went ahead and ordered the goods and couldn’t wait for them to arrive. After a week of waiting I started to get worried (as this was my first time using this website) and was considering to write them an email and see what happened. Almost at the same time I received the following email:

Dear Cristina
I just wanted to drop you a very quick note to let you know that your item is currently in transit on its way to you. You should have received it a few days ago but unfortunately it was held up by one of our delivery partners. I wish there was a better excuse but it’s actually as simple and frustrating as that.
The GOOD news is that I can confirm your item is definitely en route to you right now (it should arrive by Tuesday at the very latest). I’d like to personally apologise for this delay-we’ve removed that particular delivery partner (and stolen their shoes) and we’ll do our best to make sure this kind of problem doesn’t happen in the future. In addition, over the next few days we’ll be rolling out our delivery tracking system which will give you much more visibility on where in the world your item is.
A huge thanks for your patience and if there’s anything else that you need to know please mail me directly and I’ll do my best to get you an answer asap.
Kind regards
Phil
CEO, Gruupy.com

Although I feel bad for the delivery partner (it’s not easy to survive this winter without shoes) I believe this is great customer service. The company took the initiative to contact the customer – me, regarding the delay in my order. This inspires trust and made me recommend the website to all my friends.
And because it’s Christmas, I’ve decided to offer a small gadget as a gift to the most interesting comment posted on this blog post. I’m thinking of keeping it a surprise but if you really want to know what it is let me know in your comments. (Competition ends 1st of January 2011.)
Looking forward to your thoughts.
Cristina

Olympus e-pl 1

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:48:00 +0000

I finally decide to invest in a new camera. I got frustrated with the bad quality of pictures that I was taking with my old camera and started to do a bit of research. I wanted something that would have the same capabilities as an SLR but at the same time that would be compact, easy to carry and easy to operate.

I don’t know much about photography but the Olympus e-pl 1 makes everything very easy. I fell in love with this camera when I first saw the menu. I can clearly say that it has been developed with the user in mind. It targets users that want to take the next step from compact cameras to SLRs and it makes it so easy to take professional pictures with a minimum understanding of photography.

The menu provides the user with instant feedback regarding all the changes they are making to the iAuto settings. This gives you an instant preview of the picture that you will be taking and walks you through all the actions from how to change the saturation to blurring the background of the picture.

The camera also gives the user 6 different art modes that allow you to take professional photos with just a point and shoot action.

As I said I am delighted with the camera and if you want to see some of the pictures I have taken so far, I have decided to set up a Flickr account.

Let me know what you think.

Cristina

Movember

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:16:00 +0000

This year I decided to support Movember and became a Mo-sister. According to the website:

The Mo, slang for moustache, and November come together each year for Movember.
Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month. The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men.

I know I am not a man but if you want to have a laugh and see how I would look like with a moustache here is the link to My Mo Page. Don’t forget to leave a few pennies behind as after all everything is for a good and serious cause.

How not to do business

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 11:40:00 +0000

Last night I found a 50% off deal for custom created calendars. I thought it would be a good idea to buy one and customize it with my photos from China. I believed it could make a great present for my parents for Christmas, as they are always asking me for pictures and we don’t see each other so often. (Sometimes is hard to be so far away from home.)

I was all enthusiastic and started to look through all my pictures in order to find the best 12. I uploaded the pictures and double checked everything for printing. According to the website I should pay €7.99 as the calendar is half price. I went on and decided to start the checkout steps:

Step1: Input my details ( name, address…)

Step 2: I was being asked if I would like to order any other objects with my pictures printed on them (mugs, key chains, mouse pads…) I said fair enough, they are trying to sell their products / giving me more options. As I only wanted the calendar I just decided to move on to the next step

Step3: Some more objects with my pictures on them. (This is getting annoying. I thought I’ve been over this step before.)

Step 4: I was offered a customised email address (I still don’t know what this has to do with my pictures and my calendar)

Step 5: I am asked to recheck my details

Step 6: I am being showed an invoice and asked how I would like to pay: through PayPal or by credit card. The invoice is for €12.98. I check it again and I see that a Photo Calendar Upload Fee of €4.99 has been added. I don’t know what it is or why I have to pay for it but I decided that €12.98 is still not that bad as I believe my parents will really enjoy the calendar so I chose the credit card option and move on to the next step. (by this time the steps are not traced at the top of the page anymore so i have no idea how many steps are left in the process)

Step 7: Insert credit card details. (finally a ray of hope that I could be almost done)

Step 8: I am being asked how long I am willing to wait for the parcel to arrive… I am being given 4 options from 21 days to 1 day with prices ranging from €5.25 to over €12. ( I am getting frustrated… I am almost giving up… this is the 2nd extra amount that is being added to my bill and I am not too happy about it)

Step 9: I am being asked if I would like some ‘Christmas Return Address Labels’ with my name and address printed on them. (this is getting painful… all I wanted was a calendar) I scroll down and I finally see two invoices; but, to my amazement, none of them match either the €7.99 that I thought I was going to pay for the calendar or the €12.98 that I was announced I have to pay because of the €4.99 Photo Calendar Upload Fee or the €18.23 amount which included the €5.25 Shipping and Processing tax.

The first invoice was for €22.06 and the second one for €30.46. As I wasn’t going to pay any more than I had to, I went through the €22.06 invoice again:

€7.99 – calendar
€4.99 – Photo Calendar Upload Fee
€5.25 – Shipping and Processing (Slow 21 days)
€3.83 – Tax (I thought this was already included in the prices that I have been given)
Total: €22.06 (almost 3 times the amount I thought I would have to pay at the beginning)

At this point I closed the browser window and gave up!

Dublin Web Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Cristina Luminea) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:14:00 +0000

Last Thursday and Friday I attended the Dublin Web Summit, a two day event with subjects that would interest everybody from SMEs to Designers, Developers, Marketers, Sales people and many more.

Thursday started with the presentation of Alan Colman, founder of Brite:Bill, who gave a few good pointers to start-up companies. His advice included: be your own harshest critic, innovate constantly and be ready to pivot. As part of the Spark of Genius competition, 5 start-up companies were invited to pitch their business ideas to the audience. The next speaker was Dylan Collins, founder of gruupy.com, who talked about some of the mistakes he made along the way when starting his company: he didn’t raise enough capital, he realised that the size of the market does matter and communication is important and finally that it is easy to mismanage the first customer and hard to control consultants.

The evening ended with a panel Q&A session between the audience and Chad Hurley (founder of YouTube), Dylan Collins, Sean Seton Rogers (General Partner at PROfounders) and Brian Caulfield (Partner at DFJ Esprit).

Friday’s schedule included 8 parallel streams from Start Up BootCamp to The Developer Summit. There was something for everybody; whether small or big businesses, marketers or sales persons, designers or programmers.

I decided to follow the Developer, Designer and Mobile Summits which started with JD Fitzgerald talking about the scaling of Hostel World technology, David Rook from Realex speaking about secure development principles and emphasizing that the biggest app security issues date from the 1990s, Paul Campbell telling us a story on how “easy to use software tends to be fast and fast software tends to be easy to use” and Oren Michels from Mashery talking about the past, present and future of APIs. This was followed by a short coffee break before the Designer Summit started with Brian Flanagan which emphasised the blend of skills that designers need to have in today’s society, Colm Brophy talking about gamification and the way games are a series of meaningful choices, Josh Williams speaking about the founding of Gowalla and where they are going from here and Guru Banaver the CTO & VP at IBM talking about smarter cities and changing human behaviour through design.

The Mobile Summit was the last and busiest session of the day where Vinny Coyne unveiled his iPad & iPhone developer experience through the following App Store Tips:

Learn the ropes – by reading the guidelines and building some test apps
Join the Community
Go Native – choose native compilers rather than cross-platform compilers
Be Compatible – by targeting older devices as well as new ones
Experiment with Pricing – sometimes lower prices result in lower ratings
Keep Updating – adding features
Use Reminders – remind users to review/rate your app.

The next presentation was given by Damian O’Suilleabhain from OS3, who recognised that all mobile apps fit into one of the following 3 categories from the user’s point of view:

I’m Bored, Entertain Me
I want to do something specific – productivity apps
I’m new to this place, Help! – for users that are finding themselves in a certain location for the first time and in need of directions.

And finally the surprise speaker of this session was Matt Galligan, the CEO and Co-Founder of SimpleGeo who talked about the use of geolocation in our day to day lives. I must admit some of the concepts he presented were quite scary from a privacy perspective.

All in all, the event was entertaining and informative, being one of the best conferences I attended in a while.