Podcasts

Lost for Words (yes I was, several times…)

This little fella wants you to be...
In which Jeannine Saba of Lost for Words meets the world’s worst audio interviewer and is mysteriously compelled to tell him the story of her amazing business [parental warning: contains repeated & annoying mmmm-ing, uh-huhing and one explicit reference to cheesecake].

This is the first in an occasional series of interviews I’m doing with friends of mine who have cool businesses.

I think this is just the sort of business that cries out for a blog – a high-value bespoke product range made with great passion. It’s a testament to how hard Jeannine’s worked at getting good press that she’s got so many customers through that avenue, I’m sure that a blog would add another stream of people queuing up for these gorgeous (and I’ve told her so, but I repeat it here to ram the point home).

So if you’ve a special someone to buy something unforgettable for, and you want them to be lost for words fire up your e-mail and get on to jeannine AT sabadesigns DOT co DOT uk

[Disclosure: Jeannine’s been a good friend of mine for a couple of years now and we give each other mutual advice and support in business however she didn’t have to pay or give me anything to get me to say nice things about her products]

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Podcasts

Podwalk 009 – South Bank

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Blackfriars BridgeThe Podwalk009 podcast was meant to come to you earlier, hot off the minidisc as I ended the walk in the land where the baristas wear black and green. But I had a Starbucks wi-fi malfunction and then I needed lunch and nothing in Tate Modern tickled my fancy. There will be a visit to the former Bankside Power Station in the near future, but not yet folks, not yet.

Meanwhile you can follow along on the Podwalk 009 flickr photo set (if flickr is working – it’s seemed slow and clunky for a couple of days – paying the price of success?)

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What I've Seen

Odear

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Evan Williams is interviewed at Ipodlounge (says Dave Winer on his newly minted podcatch.com) and quoted thusly:

“…More good ideas in the world. More knowledge. Less ignorance. Less conspiracy. Less corruption. And more funny. That seems important to me.”

Mmmmmm… “More knowledge. Less ignorance” – hey you know a great way to deal with that – talk to people direct about what you’re doing instead of chatting to an invited audience of people you know in advance are going to agree with you, and write a blog (yeah 10 contentless posts in as many weeks is fine) that’s so poorly maintained that archives from a two months ago throw a 404. Now *that’s* funny!

You know what would make this oh so much better? Can you say “Here we are folks with the first Odeo podcast”? Obviously not.

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What I've Seen

Apprentice

I’m amazed at how many people continue to end up here looking for stuff on Alan Sugar and BBC Two’s The Apprentice – surely other people are blogging about this more than me?

Anywho – I’ve missed a couple of episodes (goodbye to the dreary Rachel and Sebastian) but just saw tonight’s Farmers Market show. It really showed how people just don’t listen to what they’ve been asked to do. This week’s task – as Alan Sugar so graphically demonstrated (while subtly reminding us that he’s still in the computer manufacturing business) – was about ADDING VALUE.

This was a task where you really had to do some thinking up front, starting with the end in mind – work out how much you thought you could possibly sell, of what, from a Market Stall at Ally Pally and then go all out to get the ingredients for the cheapest possible price, all the while thinking about the biggest possible margin – presumably bottling tap water wasn’t an option.

Then set prices very aggressively at the start of the day, working the numbers as you go and cutting the price to squeeze every last drop out of the market. But most of all ENGAGE with your customers – what a privilege to get the opportunity to speak directly to every single person!

And at the end of the day, the winning team were the ones who’d kept costs right down – negotiating free professional cooking in return for promo work on the day, for example AND were out there talking to people, offering generous samples and going oooh aaah isn’t it lovely, buy some now madam, show me the money.

The other team may have run more smoothly in the buying and production phase (putting aside some horrible spending mistakes) but none of that counted when they couldn’t sell for toffee (except for Paul – I have to say that ‘cos someone might read this to Paul and he might get cross – it has been known)

This is only going to get better in the last four weeks. My money’s on James or Saira (although neither of them really need a job with Sugar) – Miriam has just about used up her nine lives, and Paul’s close to the edge – Raj and Tim are actually dull and inexperienced enough to be natural management trainee material – but this ain’t Reality it’s Reality TV

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What I've Been Doing

Aaaah the sweet taste of self-ridicule

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banjoboyI’ve tried all morning to think of something witty to say about this picture – I guess it speaks for itself.

However to anticipate the obvious questions: It was an awayday, it was about 1 o’clock in the morning, I was stone cold sober, and that’s not my hat.

If you don’t want awaydays that include such things, don’t hire me.

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Thanks to Angela Morgan for the pic.

[Update: I’m reliably informed, by our Loughborough correspondent, that “daft apeth” should read “daft ‘ap’orth”. I apologise unreservedly to any daft ‘ap’orths to whom I have inadvertantly caused any offence or distress.]

Uncategorized

Paris in April – haven’t we seen enough of this girl’s RSS?

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Thanks to Sam Curtis Coutin on the yahoo podcasters list for this not very permalink which leads to this

and lets us know that one of the finest minds of the 21st Century is about to start podcasting, no doubt fired up by the success of her previous forays into decentralized media. Turns out it’s part of the promo for her new movie “House of Wax”. As Eric Weaver followed up on the same list, “Podcasting just got very UNCOOL :(”

You still have time to head for the hills, it’s not officially starting until April 29th but till then there’s a teaser on the House of Wax site.

Pass the sick bag.

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What I've Seen

Now that is cool

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I’m on the switchback this morning that is Google’s GMail April Fool offering.

Blah Blah Blah, it’s our birthday and we want to do something special, blah

“The result?… starting today, we’re beginning the roll-out of our new and top secret Infinity+1 storage plan. The key features are:

* Write, don’t worry.
You want to stop caring about storage. We want to keep giving you more. Today, and beyond.

* The gift that keeps on giving.
1126.096746 megabytes of storage (and counting) for every user.

* No complicated equations. No tough algorithms.
Just this one graph: ”

with the meg of storage counter rapidly shooting upwards and then a cute scribbled-napkin graph showing Google going beyond the theoretical limit and giving us infinity *plus* one MB per user.

Ha ha, funny joke for nerds and non-nerdy maths students alike.

So check out the new features page and you see that they’re actually giving us 2MB. Thanks guys – you still have some evil tendencies, but giving us a present on your birthday and making a funny April 1 joke shows part of you still cares a bit.

But what stopped me getting in the shower and got me posting was the fact that that storage counter is actually telling the truth. Everytime I refresh my inbox, the counter at the bottom tells me I’ve got another few kilobytes of storage, exactly in line with that counter on the front page. Oh nerd heaven.

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What I've Been Doing

Blogs in Action from Six Apart

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Suw Charman pauses from transcription Suw looked up long enough for my camera to capture her, but the rest of the time she was clearly tapping away.

Johnnie Moore, Minkmedia , Luke Razzell and Connected Blog(with pictures) have all covered the Blogs in Action seminar at the Polish Club, courtesy of Six Apart & Nokia last night too.

All the panel had very cool, interesting stuff to say, but John Dale blogmeister for Warwick University came over, as others have noted, as the star turn of the evening.

John Dale wows 'em

I’m with Johnnie though on the style and format of the seminar – I thought the panel was great, I really enjoyed listening to them, but I’d have loved to have more chance to hear what others had to say and to engage in conversation with them. There are industries and communities where a top table talking to the crowd and revealing their arcane mysteries to the great unwashed is appropriate, but the blog world is much more democratic and is decentralized by its very nature – this form just didn’t work, for me, last night.

My frustration was exacerbated of course by my recent personal injury which meant that after two hours of sitting still, with a sore face and a numb bum, the last thing I felt up to was what Suw called “speed-mingling”. But even had I been 100%, I would have found a more interactive evening even more stimulating.

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I'm the founder of the Tuttle Club and fascinated by organisation. I enjoy making social art and building communities.