This month’s event was different from previous SuperMondays events for a few reasons, not just because of the fact that we held it on a Tuesday. This month we changed the venue, the format of the event and the topics of the speakers. We hope that you liked it!
During the first hour we were encouraged to walk around ‘Space 2’ of the Culture Lab to speak to various product designers about their research projects. This including presentations from Tom Martindale and his multitouch surface computer, John Dawson and his interactive computer application and Guy Schofield and the rapid prototyping facility that Lab uses.
The second part of the evening was in a more traditional lecture environment. The event was opened by Professor Atau Tanaka, the Chair of Digital Media and the Acting Director of Culture Lab. After a brief introduction to the facility, its place within the university and a synopsis of some of the work that is undertaken there Mr Tanaka passed over to Patrick Oliver.
Patrick described the Culture Lab as a place to research the interaction with computers in everyday life. Projects such as the ‘Ambient Kitchen’ push the bounds of pervasive computing and apply them to everyday tasks in a normal domestic kitchen. The kitchen has many computers and sensors placed in the floor, walls and inside the appliances which collect data to be relayed to a collection of computers which analyse the data and provide feedback on a collection of displays around the room. The Ambient Kitchen is typical of several of the projects at the Culture Lab in that it captures the users motions and actions with a view to understanding what they are doing so that helpful prompts can be given if necessary. The work has many applications but it is most powerful when it’s applied to provide ambient assisted living for older people or people with dementia. The ultimate goal is to help people with everyday tasks such as making a cup of tea or preparing a meal.
Dr Jayne Wallace also introduced us to her work at the Culture Lab. Jayne is a digital artist with a background in contemporary jewellery. The core of her work considers how jewellery can act to play a role within what we each consider personally meaningful for us in our lives, in an emotional context, and how the expression of fragments of this can be enriched through the integration of digital technologies. Developments already exist in wearable electronics and digital product design that have taken the body as a location, but in many cases such digital objects miss many of the subtleties and inimitable qualities associated with jewellery. You can find more information on the work that Jayne undertakes here:
http://www.digitaljewellery.com/
Our final speaker of the evening was Andrew Waite who introduced us to the concept of ‘honeypotting with Nepenthes. Nepenthes is a low interaction honeypot which emulates several known vulnerabilities across multiple services and protocols. It’s ultimate goal is to capture live malware samples as the honeypot is being ‘exploited’.
A honeypot server should have no legitimate services installed upon it and as such it is assumed that all of the traffic that is targeted at it is considered malicious. Running a honeypot gives you an insight into how systems are being probed and as part of a broad IT security policy they can help you to secure your network against attacks. If the honeypot is placed externally, it can provide an early warning system for attacks. Placed internally they can help identify any internal infections.
Andrew has been running his honeypot for over a year and in that time it has had over 2000 recorded attacks with over 900 unique malware specimens, the first of which was recorded within 30 minutes of gaining a live network connection!
Andrew uses this data, in combination with server logs and intrusion detection software to help predict, prevent and secure his IT network. Doing so gives him a fully rounded understanding of his IT security needs. You can read more here:
http://infosanity.blogspot.com/2009/05/may-supermondays-presentation-aftermath.html
‘If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles’ – Sun Tzu
We are very grateful to Atau, Paul and Jane and all the staff at the Culture Lab for opening their facility for such an inspiring event. We would also like to thank Northern Film and Media for sponsoring the event. Finally, thank you to Shuoling Liu for all his hard work with the video recorder!
Our new image was chosen by 56% of the voters as their favourite. The image was designed by James Rutherford from Creative Nucleus. The full results are:
The results
Roxy Bramley from Northern Film and Media was first to the podium to tell us about the Digital Dockyard (www.digitaldockyard.com). The dockyard is a new social network for the North East’s new media and gaming sectors. Created in partnership with Northern Film and Media and 4iP the dockyard hopes get developers working together and perhaps pitch on some exciting projects that can be funded in part or in full by 4iP and Northern Film and Media.
Sarat Pediredla from Hedgehog Lab was next up and he told us about the journey that he took when he decided to leave his well paid job and start developing a new suite of enterprise products, the first of which (fixx) was released a few months ago. Sarat described his seven pillars to product development (from a business side):
- Market research – get it done! But take the results with a pinch of salt. In Sarats case the research told him that there was no need for another product like Fixx…Sarat felt that this was incorrect and went ahead anyway but he did so with open eyes!
- Funding – developing a product takes several months, usually 6-9 months. To cover the costs of this work you will need some sort of funding, this can come in a few ways, including:
- Debt funding (loans from banks etc)
- Equity funding (business angel or the POC from NStar)
- Bootstrapping (money generated from other activities such as consulting work
- Patent – Many companies waste time and money on this area…Sarat feels that you should have a look at this area but get on with your product development rather than spending too much time and money on this area.
- People – They are the hub of your business, choose them wisely!
- Execution – Many product development projects fail to reach their true potential because of a lack of direction towards the end…often due to the boredom of working on the same project for such a long time. To truly succeed you need to drive through this boredom and deliver the project with enthusiasm!
- Quality – Every aspect of the product development cycle must be developed with the highest levels of quality. Everything from the product literature, the installation process, the user interface and the reliability of the product must be perfect!
- Customer support – this is often overlooked, but at your peril! Fanatical customer support is an extension of product quality control. If performed properly it will make your customers feel ‘warm and fuzzy’ and this will lead to more business through referral.
Rob Mathieson from Tipstar then brought us through the steps he followed to raise the £150,000 that he needed to get Tipstar off the ground. The process started fifteen months ago when Rob came up with the idea. After some market research he found that the project needed significant development work and had some particularly expensive licensing costs. Raising cash was the only way to get his product to market.
If you need to raise money you MUST develop a business plan. No investor will even look at your project if you don’t have a very comprehensive and well researched plan. Things to consider are:
- Market research is of paramount importance. You must understand your market and your competitors. You must find out who your customers are, how much they spend, what services they currently use and who their suppliers are. You must then use this information to locate your competitors (real or preseved) and find out everything about them. Rob recommends that you get a copy of their accounts from Companies House to look at their finances. All of this information is needed so that you can market your product and get your potential customers to move to your services.
- Project Plan, how are you going to deliver this? What are your milestones? These should be for development and finance.
- Money, how much and when? Can you do this on a shoe string? If not then you need to understand how much money you need and how you are going to raise it (loan, debt or bootstrap).
- Staff, who will you invite along your journey? True success comes to people who build a team around them. Rob recommends the “Beermat Entrerpreneur” by Mike Southon, which suggests that a business needs four people, and entrepreneur, a techie, a sales person and an accountant. Choose these wisely as you will be spending quite a bit of time with these people over the next few years! In order to get the best people it is often a good idea to give them shares in your business…this will give them the enthusiasm to deliver beyond the call of duty! Rob also recommends that you get a good accountant and pay them well for their services!
Many inventors take months developing their products and they don’t release them until they are finished. Rob believes that you should get a proof of concept up and going immediately so that you can show potential investors and business partners what you are talking about…rather than spending your time talking about vapour.
Product Architecture is key…but remember that your trade partners and investors only care about system stability and scalability…they will look at you with glass eyes if you tell them what operating system you are using or what development methodology you use. Keep it short and simple, all you need to do is convince them of your abilities without boring them with jargon.
To raise money in this market you need to be approachable, sociable, reliable and above all you must deliver upon expectations. Newcastle is a small place and the community of investors and professional advisors is very small…be careful out there!
