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Today, I had a few moments of synchronicity. On old habit from my army days (taking a moment to snooze) was disturbed on my train journey into London when I recognised a voice from my past. Twenty-two years ago from my past, in fact. The voice was that of Adam Renwick who was my first instructor at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He happened to sit next to me. We caught up, swapped stories and cards, and then went our own ways. It was great to see him.

I went into town for my meeting and then returned to the rail station. Unfortunately, I had some time to kill in the chilly and draughty station amongst the 200 or so other travelers. To keep warm, I was wearing a mac over my suit, a thick woolly scarf and Tweed cap. When not catching up on emails on my Blackberry or being bumped by bustling passengers, I was looking at my temporary companions.

It dawned on me just how few people were wearing a hat in view of the cold weather. Anyone who spends time outside knows that a hat is one of the most important pieces of kit to keep warm. But, it appears that only three of us knew this and were wearing hats.

With my emails done, I fired up the Twitter client on my Blackberry (ÜberTwitter), and sent out a tweet (which also goes to my Facebook profile) highlighting my 'hat watch' findings. A few minutes later, I noticed a reply to my tweet from William Wright (@mrwilliam) who presents on BBC Radio saying he had mentioned my tweet on air (You can listen to the clip in the attached Posterous audio post). Shortly afterwards I received a comment from the tweet on Facebook from another old contact from my army days reassuring me that hats were 'cool'. Another ex-colleague from Microsoft commented on Facebook the fact that she was in her office and wearing a hat too! I reassured her that hats were still 'cool'.

The train was called and I found a welcome seat in the warm carriage and proceeded to do the crossword on a free newspaper I had picked up. I soon became stuck on a clue and resorted to some help from my friends on Twitter who soon came back with some ideas on the answer. A current work colleague who had replied with a clue also put in the word 'iPad' as a joke. Moments later his humourous tweet had been re-tweeted by someone who had picked up that particular keyword but who had not understood the meaning of my colleagues tweet.

By chance, the man who was sitting next to me had a rather nasty personal habit which involved him chewing his fingers persistently from Kings Cross station to St Neots which is about 45 minutes in total. I felt compelled to let people know about the minor amount of suffering I was going through and the replies from my friends were very witty. I also took a surreptitious photo on my Blackberry and sent it out to show the disgusting habit!

So, what does all of this mean? Well, people keep talking about 'web 2.0' being about conversations as if a conversation was a new thing. Of course, it is not. But conversation these days can be far more fluid and they are not just with people close by. They can be with people who are miles away from you and you never know what people will be interested in, no matter how trivial.

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What do people think of the Apple iPad?

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:00:28 -0800

Will speaking on BBC Radio about iPad 27 Jan 2010.mp3 Listen on Posterous

It's barely been two days since the launch of Apple's new device, the iPad. The reactions to it are mixed. Publishers are very excited about it because they can see potential in it for selling their eBooks. Consumers appear to be unsure about whether it is any better than a netbook.

The BBC asked me what I thought of it recently, as well as some other techie people including Jon Moss (@jonmoss) from Hull Digital, and the BBC's tech correspondent, Maggie Shiels. To listen to their opinions, here is a recording.

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Podcast on micro-projectors and wireless charging

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:00:03 -0800

Mon Jan 25 22;30;58 2010.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Micro-projectors and wireless charging devices were two interesting developments from the CES event in Las Vegas recently. William Wright (@mrwilliam) on BBC Lincolnshire asked me to speak about this and other digital topics on his tech slot on 25th January. You can listen to a recording of the tech slot here.

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Will Post Offices become obsolete?

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:33:05 -0800

Will talking about post offices and technology Wed Dec 02 2009.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Post Offices were once a major part of village life. They were usually in the village shop and provided postal services to the local population. As email and the internet have grown as people make decide to communicate with family, friends, colleagues, customers and suppliers, the demand for traditional services from the Post Office have diminished.

Some services like eBay have benefited the Post Office as people selling products from home need the local Post Office to dispatch their parcels. However, businesses and government organisations are using email to communicate with their customers because it is cheap, effective and highly measurable.

The net effect is that rural Post Offices are closing down rapidly because they are leaking money out of the Royal Mail in an unholy fashion and the Post Office is struggling to replace services they used to offer, such as pensions, with other financial, banking services and utilities.

BBC Lincolnshire asked me to comment on some interviews they carried out recently with the Post Office. You can listen to recording here.

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Multi-touch Technology Podcast

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:03:12 -0800

Will with William Wright multi-touch screens Nov 09.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Will speaking on BBC Radio Lincolnshire about cloud computing and online job seeking

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:19:28 -0700

Will speaking on BBC Radio - 10-08-09.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Print on Demand, Self Publishing and Digital Stitching

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:11:00 -0700

Print on Demand is not a new initiative. It has been around for a number of years. But recent news that more new titles are being printed through Print on Demand (PoD) than through traditional printing methods shows how the PoD industry has come of age. It allows out of print books to become available again. It allows authors of new books to publish them themselves without risk and for custom books to be printed quickly to respond to demand.

Digital photography is prolific and free software enables people to create panoramas and 3-D worlds easily by stitching their photographs together quickly and easily.

Will was recently on BBC Radio Linclonshire with William Wright talking about these technologies. To listen to the show, you canplay or download the podcast by clicking the link below.

Will speaking on BBC Radio - self publishing and photo stitching.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Twenty Uses for QR Codes & Tags for Marketing

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:06:33 -0700

Twenty_Uses_for_QR_Codes.pdf Download this file

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Mobile Marketing Gets to the Point

will@digitalbusinessblog.co.uk (Will Hawkins) — Tue, 05 May 2009 23:11:00 -0700

The next time you are standing at a bus stop, or you are waiting for a train, take a look around at anything that interests you and take a photograph of it with the camera on your internet enabled phone. For instance, that poster advertising a film that you have heard good reviews about, or perhaps the advertisement for a chocolate bar. Chances are that you will just have photograph of an advertisement on your phone and a pretty shaky one at that unless you are a professional photograph specialising in photos taken through phones.

But wouldn't it be useful if that photograph led to you finding out where you could see that film in the cinema nearest to you, at what time and buy tickets for it then and there? Or by photographing the chocolate bar on the poster you received a digital voucher which you could redeem in your local corner shop on one of those chocolate bars? Another useful application of your mobile phone could be when you are driving around an area looking for houses you might be interested in buying.

Currently, you have to get the details from an estate agent or an online service about houses and then plan a tour around the area to see which ones you want to view. But, if you see a house on your tour for which you had not printed off the details you would have to mess about calling the agent or logging onto the web to get the details. It's frustrating and the speed at which you find details on the internet at home or at work makes it all the more so because you cannot find them so quickly when you are away from the web. It would very useful if you could take a snap of the outside of the house on your phone and see details about it immediately to see whether it is in your budget.

Well, this capability is now available through your Nokia mobile via their 'Point and Find' service. It allows you to find information like this now. All you need is the 'Point and Find' software on your internet enabled phone to get instant information. The service is quick and easy to use. For marketers, it gets around a major hurdle with mobile marketing which is the fact that people don't like having to tap out more than basic messages on their phones. The three keys activities carried out on mobiles are search, social networking and photography. But search is limited by people's reluctance to type on their keypads so Google is developing a voice driven mobile version of their search engine.

With services like 'Point and Find' or 'Amazon Remembers' you just need to photograph what you are interested in to get the information you want about the product or service you have seen. The possibilities are endless. And they both meet the 'Want It Now!' feeling that we all experience now. Consumers hate having to wait.

Marketers will be able to understand which of their off-line marketing collateral is most effective and which locations are most productive. Marketing investment can be targeted more effectively and efficiently. Mobile marketing will become more mainstream with the reality of instant gratification as the database of products and services are increased in these services.

Will speaking on BBC Radio - Nokia Point & Find.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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