Ian Waring

Simplicity Sells


Ask me anything  


I’m reading Eric Schmidts new book “The New Digital Age” at the moment. There is a neat interview on Wired (following the book launch) that referenced his recent visit to North Korea:And then you have North Korea, which you visited, which isn’t online at all. Schmidt: It’s the last one, right? North Korea absolutely blocks the Internet at its borders, and with the exception of an elite that’s within the government, the citizen has no access to the Internet. We went to North Korea to try to convince them it would be good to let a little bit of the Internet in. Having talked to them for three days, I can tell you that we don’t know what they’re going to do. You think they haven’t already considered it and decided not to? Schmidt: You don’t know until you ask, right?  So what did they say when you made your argument? Schmidt: One of the bizarre characteristics of North Koreans is that they don’t say a word. All the meetings in North Korea start with a scripted report, which always began with a discussion of the extraordinary capabilities of the respected leader, who turns out to have been the world’s best gynecologist, the best computer scientist, the best physicist, the best golfer … Do they believe that? Schmidt: All that I can tell you is that we saw no doubt in their behavior. There were no wry smiles and so forth. It’s partly because when you give a speech there, everyone is watching what you do and writing things down. So we would then give our nice little response speech, which was thank you very much, and then we would talk about the brilliance of the open internet for making good things happen in our society. And they had exactly no reaction whatsoever. Because if they’d nodded their head, that would be a yes, this would be a no, and then someone would write that down, and they’d all go to the gulag. The only person in the country who could make the decision was their respected leader. Were you disappointed that you didn’t see him?Schmidt: We would’ve loved to have seen him.You should’ve brought Dennis Rodman with you (note: Basketball star Denis Rodman had visited the great leader at his request several weeks earlier).Schmidt: It did not occur to us to bring Dennis Rodman.I wonder what it would take to bring the Internet to the citizens of North Korea?

I’m reading Eric Schmidts new book “The New Digital Age” at the moment. There is a neat interview on Wired (following the book launch) that referenced his recent visit to North Korea:


And then you have North Korea, which you visited, which isn’t online at all. 

Schmidt: It’s the last one, right? North Korea absolutely blocks the Internet at its borders, and with the exception of an elite that’s within the government, the citizen has no access to the Internet. We went to North Korea to try to convince them it would be good to let a little bit of the Internet in. Having talked to them for three days, I can tell you that we don’t know what they’re going to do. 

You think they haven’t already considered it and decided not to? 

Schmidt: You don’t know until you ask, right? 

So what did they say when you made your argument? 

Schmidt: One of the bizarre characteristics of North Koreans is that they don’t say a word. All the meetings in North Korea start with a scripted report, which always began with a discussion of the extraordinary capabilities of the respected leader, who turns out to have been the world’s best gynecologist, the best computer scientist, the best physicist, the best golfer … 

Do they believe that? 

Schmidt: All that I can tell you is that we saw no doubt in their behavior. There were no wry smiles and so forth. It’s partly because when you give a speech there, everyone is watching what you do and writing things down. So we would then give our nice little response speech, which was thank you very much, and then we would talk about the brilliance of the open internet for making good things happen in our society. And they had exactly no reaction whatsoever. Because if they’d nodded their head, that would be a yes, this would be a no, and then someone would write that down, and they’d all go to the gulag. The only person in the country who could make the decision was their respected leader. 

Were you disappointed that you didn’t see him?

Schmidt: We would’ve loved to have seen him.

You should’ve brought Dennis Rodman with you (note: Basketball star Denis Rodman had visited the great leader at his request several weeks earlier).

Schmidt: It did not occur to us to bring Dennis Rodman.

I wonder what it would take to bring the Internet to the citizens of North Korea?
How low can you go?Found this great article that explains Amazons pricing strategy eloquently. It’s also the first time I’ve heard that Apple rotate their stock faster than Amazon do, which is an amazing feat for a manufacturing company. Meanwhile, it doesn’t mention Microsoft, but if you try to insert the characteristics of their business model into the picture presented, you can see why Amazon, Google and Apple have them in a head lock and are emptying the room of oxygen needed to grow. Enjoy:http://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2012/11/28/amazon-and-margins

How low can you go?

Found this great article that explains Amazons pricing strategy eloquently. It’s also the first time I’ve heard that Apple rotate their stock faster than Amazon do, which is an amazing feat for a manufacturing company. Meanwhile, it doesn’t mention Microsoft, but if you try to insert the characteristics of their business model into the picture presented, you can see why Amazon, Google and Apple have them in a head lock and are emptying the room of oxygen needed to grow. Enjoy:

http://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2012/11/28/amazon-and-margins



Police: Healers or Dealers?A guy in London got his Mac laptop and credit cards stolen after being mugged at a cashpoint in London. Did all the normal things, reporting it to the police - who as usual in the case of Newbury Police with one of my then neighbours stolen wallet, were chocolate teapots. For those unaware, they didn’t take away any of the video footage at the gym even though all persons there were electronically tagged in and shown leaving; they also waited 2 weeks to ask for video footage at circa 11 stores where his cards were presented within an hour of the theft (and found that no remaining evidence existed; tapes rotated by then).Turns out he guy in London remembered that he’d installed an app called “Hidden” on his MacBook, so went onto the associated web site and marked it as stolen. Then “hidden” started doing it’s work. While switched on, the Mac should update it’s current location, the WiFi details around it, then every 10 minutes take a picture of the person operating it, and a screenshot of what they were doing online. He ended up with over 6,500 photos/screenshots, the exact location of the thief, and showed him actively selling stuff on eBay that he bought with the stolen credit card. And more dubious pursuits! Despite that, the police dropped his case for lack of evidence.Full description of the sequence of events (warning: not suitable for viewing at work, for reasons that will become apparent!) at http://plumpergeddon.tumblr.com/The app can be found at http://hiddenapp.com/Some time ago, I read an article that suggested there were really only two types of business in the world; you either sold a solution to fix something immediately, or alternatively you sold a dependency to keep customers coming back to you, year after year. Aspirins for fixing pressing business problems right now, or Managed Services to treat the symptoms long term (but not to remove root causes). Paraphrased as “Healers or Dealers”.One of the memorable things about Bill Bratton (Police Chief who cleaned up New York) is that he relentlessly drove his force to get to root causes, and to ensure everything untoward got followed up. To ask criminals where they got their guns. To daisy chain folks (in handcuffs) caught jumping over the barriers at Underground Stations until they got everyone processed in one group (in place of having one police officer processing each fare avoider at the station, leaving the barriers unguarded for most of the time). Above all, finding that 70 individuals were the problem in the City at the time, and experiencing how much the City improved as soon as they were off the streets. Everyone noticed.Back in the UK, the measurement and statistics culture imposed by successive governments appears to be so prevalent that the police are not following up thefts with any zeal, as the guy above amply demonstrates. You’ve got to wonder if the core business of the Police are now as dealers of statistics, not systematic healers of crimes such as theft. I suspect the public at large would prefer the root cause removed instead. I also extend that to behaviour in the UK Health system (who are largely goaled the same way by government), but that’s for another day.

Police: Healers or Dealers?

A guy in London got his Mac laptop and credit cards stolen after being mugged at a cashpoint in London. Did all the normal things, reporting it to the police - who as usual in the case of Newbury Police with one of my then neighbours stolen wallet, were chocolate teapots. For those unaware, they didn’t take away any of the video footage at the gym even though all persons there were electronically tagged in and shown leaving; they also waited 2 weeks to ask for video footage at circa 11 stores where his cards were presented within an hour of the theft (and found that no remaining evidence existed; tapes rotated by then).

Turns out he guy in London remembered that he’d installed an app called “Hidden” on his MacBook, so went onto the associated web site and marked it as stolen. Then “hidden” started doing it’s work. While switched on, the Mac should update it’s current location, the WiFi details around it, then every 10 minutes take a picture of the person operating it, and a screenshot of what they were doing online. He ended up with over 6,500 photos/screenshots, the exact location of the thief, and showed him actively selling stuff on eBay that he bought with the stolen credit card. And more dubious pursuits! Despite that, the police dropped his case for lack of evidence.

Full description of the sequence of events (warning: not suitable for viewing at work, for reasons that will become apparent!) at http://plumpergeddon.tumblr.com/

The app can be found at http://hiddenapp.com/

Some time ago, I read an article that suggested there were really only two types of business in the world; you either sold a solution to fix something immediately, or alternatively you sold a dependency to keep customers coming back to you, year after year. Aspirins for fixing pressing business problems right now, or Managed Services to treat the symptoms long term (but not to remove root causes). Paraphrased as “Healers or Dealers”.

One of the memorable things about Bill Bratton (Police Chief who cleaned up New York) is that he relentlessly drove his force to get to root causes, and to ensure everything untoward got followed up. To ask criminals where they got their guns. To daisy chain folks (in handcuffs) caught jumping over the barriers at Underground Stations until they got everyone processed in one group (in place of having one police officer processing each fare avoider at the station, leaving the barriers unguarded for most of the time). Above all, finding that 70 individuals were the problem in the City at the time, and experiencing how much the City improved as soon as they were off the streets. Everyone noticed.

Back in the UK, the measurement and statistics culture imposed by successive governments appears to be so prevalent that the police are not following up thefts with any zeal, as the guy above amply demonstrates. You’ve got to wonder if the core business of the Police are now as dealers of statistics, not systematic healers of crimes such as theft. I suspect the public at large would prefer the root cause removed instead.

I also extend that to behaviour in the UK Health system (who are largely goaled the same way by government), but that’s for another day.



Sennheiser: Great ServiceA few years ago, I balanced my iPod Touch on the back of my car, which subsequently fell, cracking the length of the screen. At the time, I filled in a warranty return form online, admitting it was my fault and asking Apple to quote the cost of the repair on receipt. They sent a courier envelope, collected the unit, delivered it to Unipart near Leicester and a week later, sent me a note to say a replacement had been dispatched. From China. Free of charge.I had a similar experience with my Sennheiser 218i headphones this week. My iPad fell off the arm of my chair, headphones plugged in. The connector snapped in two. After cutting the 5mm plug off, I failed to find any plausible replacement at a local Maplins. Given the headphones were really nice and only four months old - the warranty for faults is 2 years - I again filled out a warranty form, admitted my fault, and was asked to post them to an address in High Wycombe. Today, I’m told that replacement headphones are en route to me, courtesy DHL, from the Netherlands. No Charge.What great service. Thank you, Sennheiser. And thank you again, Apple. I get to love everything I buy at an Apple Store.

Sennheiser: Great Service


A few years ago, I balanced my iPod Touch on the back of my car, which subsequently fell, cracking the length of the screen. At the time, I filled in a warranty return form online, admitting it was my fault and asking Apple to quote the cost of the repair on receipt. They sent a courier envelope, collected the unit, delivered it to Unipart near Leicester and a week later, sent me a note to say a replacement had been dispatched. From China. Free of charge.

I had a similar experience with my Sennheiser 218i headphones this week. My iPad fell off the arm of my chair, headphones plugged in. The connector snapped in two. After cutting the 5mm plug off, I failed to find any plausible replacement at a local Maplins. Given the headphones were really nice and only four months old - the warranty for faults is 2 years - I again filled out a warranty form, admitted my fault, and was asked to post them to an address in High Wycombe. Today, I’m told that replacement headphones are en route to me, courtesy DHL, from the Netherlands. No Charge.

What great service. Thank you, Sennheiser. And thank you again, Apple. I get to love everything I buy at an Apple Store.


Facebook Phone. Meh. Courtesy of a link that Kevin Marks sent to Gina Trapani, I have turned my WiFi only Nexus 7 into a Facebook phone. The shot above is the home screen, which when active, peels through my Facebook news feed just like Flipboard does. If a status is text only, the background picture is one of that persons recently taken pictures. Hold your finger down on the picture, it resizes to fit to full screen, until you release it again. Give the picture a double tap, it increments the like count. The little circular icon near the bottom, when depressed, shows three options. One is the Facebook messenger UI. Another is “Apps”, which leads you to pages of the apps on the tablet; first screen(s) are for all apps, later ones just your favourites. You can have the option of the Facebook status, photo and check in buttons atop all the program icons. Last option is the last program you were using, or if none are in the background, then “Facebook” as the default. That’s it as it stands. Android with a widget less, tidied UI and I guess the future ability to put Google Now type cards or inline adverts in the rolling news stream. Will that be enough to get masses of people over onto a Facebook phone in the future? I think the propensity for folks to do this will depend on Google doing their own UI cleanup in the coming weeks. Instructions to try it out yourself can be found at: http://www.modaco.com/topic/361924-facebook-home-download-including-patched-apk-version/#entry2113130

Facebook Phone. Meh.

Courtesy of a link that Kevin Marks sent to Gina Trapani, I have turned my WiFi only Nexus 7 into a Facebook phone.

The shot above is the home screen, which when active, peels through my Facebook news feed just like Flipboard does. If a status is text only, the background picture is one of that persons recently taken pictures.

Hold your finger down on the picture, it resizes to fit to full screen, until you release it again. Give the picture a double tap, it increments the like count.

The little circular icon near the bottom, when depressed, shows three options. One is the Facebook messenger UI.

Another is “Apps”, which leads you to pages of the apps on the tablet; first screen(s) are for all apps, later ones just your favourites. You can have the option of the Facebook status, photo and check in buttons atop all the program icons.

Last option is the last program you were using, or if none are in the background, then “Facebook” as the default.

That’s it as it stands. Android with a widget less, tidied UI and I guess the future ability to put Google Now type cards or inline adverts in the rolling news stream.

Will that be enough to get masses of people over onto a Facebook phone in the future? I think the propensity for folks to do this will depend on Google doing their own UI cleanup in the coming weeks.

Instructions to try it out yourself can be found at: http://www.modaco.com/topic/361924-facebook-home-download-including-patched-apk-version/#entry2113130



Apples Podcast AppAfter a year of being unusable and as buggy as a dead bison, the latest update has done its job. It now works as advertised. That is all.

Apples Podcast App


After a year of being unusable and as buggy as a dead bison, the latest update has done its job. It now works as advertised. That is all.


Spotting Trends The picture above is the next generation of thought leaders yet to take their skills and brand preferences into industry; I understand there is one Windows PC in that room. I suspect next years will have iPads and MacBooks everywhere in equal measure, but still few PCs. But Uni Lecture theatres aren’t the only places to look for inevitable trends as they emerge. I had the opportunity to go talk to a couple of senior channel people at Tableau Software last week. This largely came about, not by asking a VP outright for a job, but by saying it was a great shame that they were having their arses kicked in the UK by competitors with far inferior products. As a proof point, I did an “ecosystem health meter” based on how many UK jobs with specific skills were being advertised by 3 of the large recruitment agencies here; these searches were based on terms that highlighted all the companies listed in a Gartner Magic Quadrant report that Tableau’s own management kept citing: Vendor/ProductTotalShare MS SSRS1256 26.7% SAS1074 22.8% SAP Business Objects 821 17.4% IBM Cognos 385 8.2% SAP Crystal Reports 338 7.2% IBM SPSS 263 5.6% Qlikview 233 5.0% Oracle Essbase 98 2.1% Tableau 92 2.0% Microstrategy 69 1.5% Tibco Spotfire 36 0.8% MS PowerPivot 15 0.3% Pentaho 8 0.2% JasperReports 7 0.1% Targit 7 0.1% Actuate/BIRT 2 0.0% LogiXML 2 0.0% Panorama Novaview 1 0.0% Total 4707 100% So, nominally 2% share, which given the quality of the product, I regard as a travesty. I did try to decode the selling strategy, which appears to be an  eclectic mix of volume direct (tele)sales of client licenses to most organisations, and a specialist data consultancy reseller channel. That the Server product seems to be something you sell up to once they have the volume of installed clients installed in an end user account as a bridgehead. Then the thought that there was an unexploited channel that already knows the IT folks where most storage hardware and database software is sold into Enterprise accounts - and which would be ripe for the Server product as a lead in. I did get asked how i’d managed to get a Microsoft business up from £1m per month to £5m per month in 4 months (at doubled margins). This follows the same set of disciplines as how you behave in a price war, and I described the sequence I followed in that case. Alas, I think they have different priorities and in need of geographic coverage elsewhere at this stage, so don’t think our discussions will go much further. I nevertheless wish them well; they have a real gold nugget of a product set that deserves to be a fantastic success for everyone who uses it.

Spotting Trends

The picture above is the next generation of thought leaders yet to take their skills and brand preferences into industry; I understand there is one Windows PC in that room. I suspect next years will have iPads and MacBooks everywhere in equal measure, but still few PCs. But Uni Lecture theatres aren’t the only places to look for inevitable trends as they emerge.

I had the opportunity to go talk to a couple of senior channel people at Tableau Software last week. This largely came about, not by asking a VP outright for a job, but by saying it was a great shame that they were having their arses kicked in the UK by competitors with far inferior products. As a proof point, I did an “ecosystem health meter” based on how many UK jobs with specific skills were being advertised by 3 of the large recruitment agencies here; these searches were based on terms that highlighted all the companies listed in a Gartner Magic Quadrant report that Tableau’s own management kept citing:

Vendor/ProductTotalShare

MS SSRS1256 26.7%

SAS1074 22.8%

SAP Business Objects 821 17.4%

IBM Cognos 385 8.2%

SAP Crystal Reports 338 7.2%

IBM SPSS 263 5.6%

Qlikview 233 5.0%

Oracle Essbase 98 2.1%

Tableau 92 2.0%

Microstrategy 69 1.5%

Tibco Spotfire 36 0.8%

MS PowerPivot 15 0.3%

Pentaho 8 0.2%

JasperReports 7 0.1%

Targit 7 0.1%

Actuate/BIRT 2 0.0%

LogiXML 2 0.0%

Panorama Novaview 1 0.0%

Total 4707 100%

So, nominally 2% share, which given the quality of the product, I regard as a travesty. I did try to decode the selling strategy, which appears to be an  eclectic mix of volume direct (tele)sales of client licenses to most organisations, and a specialist data consultancy reseller channel. That the Server product seems to be something you sell up to once they have the volume of installed clients installed in an end user account as a bridgehead. Then the thought that there was an unexploited channel that already knows the IT folks where most storage hardware and database software is sold into Enterprise accounts - and which would be ripe for the Server product as a lead in.

I did get asked how i’d managed to get a Microsoft business up from £1m per month to £5m per month in 4 months (at doubled margins). This follows the same set of disciplines as how you behave in a price war, and I described the sequence I followed in that case.

Alas, I think they have different priorities and in need of geographic coverage elsewhere at this stage, so don’t think our discussions will go much further. I nevertheless wish them well; they have a real gold nugget of a product set that deserves to be a fantastic success for everyone who uses it.



Lots of press about Google providing a network of delivery “drop off” points, much in the same way Amazon are doing with their Amazon Lockers (we have one in a Newsagents around a mile from our house). The theory being that if you’re out at work, you can at least go fetch your goods when you’re back close to home - or wherever is convenient. Most of the articles are alleging lack of focus on Googles part. I don’t think the writers have thought their positions through.Googles core business is monetizing purchase intents. That’s where they make almost all their money. 5% of the worlds retail traffic may eventually buy from Amazon, but Google are covering the other 95% of the retail experience open to consumers. Strategically, this prevents anyone else becoming “man in the middle” to tax the purchase knowledge flow. Seems a smart move to me.

Lots of press about Google providing a network of delivery “drop off” points, much in the same way Amazon are doing with their Amazon Lockers (we have one in a Newsagents around a mile from our house). The theory being that if you’re out at work, you can at least go fetch your goods when you’re back close to home - or wherever is convenient. Most of the articles are alleging lack of focus on Googles part. I don’t think the writers have thought their positions through.


Googles core business is monetizing purchase intents. That’s where they make almost all their money. 5% of the worlds retail traffic may eventually buy from Amazon, but Google are covering the other 95% of the retail experience open to consumers. Strategically, this prevents anyone else becoming “man in the middle” to tax the purchase knowledge flow. Seems a smart move to me.


Brilliant, brilliant Training


I’d heard some time ago of a couple of Stanford Professors running an online course in Machine Learning, with over 100,000 students registered for their course worldwide. Fortunately for me, 10gen - the company behind the wildly successful MongoDB database - started doing free training using the same delivery method.

I joined over 6,600 other hopefuls to do their free, 7 week long, 10 hours/week M101P “MongoDB for Developers” course. This included examples in Python, which we learnt as part of the syllabus. I also joined over 6,400 other students doing the equivalent M102 “MongoDB for DBAs” course.

What a fantastic experience. You can learn from short videos with frequent knowledge test quizzes each week, in gaps around your other commitments. You then have a set of homework exercises to run on your own machine, which have to be completed and answers posted on their portal within a week of issue. New weeks videos were released every Tuesday morning at 4am UK time, and the matching homework had to be in within a week. At the very end - week 7 - you had a final summary and a final 10 or 11 final exam questions to answer that week.

There was plenty of help on hand from the instructors and a small number of teaching assistants on each courses forum, though many of the queries were answered by fellow students.

Some weeks, it was mad. I was sitting there on my dining room table with a database split over 3 different replica sets and multiple shards, all running on my MacBook Air and running very impressively. This from having no experience of MongoDB, JSON syntax, Python code or JavaScript at all when I started the course.

I was delighted to have finished both courses with 100% ratings - something achieved by 2.2% of the intake of the programming course, and 5.1% for the DBAs. 10gen, after 7 weeks, now have an extra 9,000 or so professional advocates who’ve passed their exams since they started last year (this was the second time they’d be run). There is another Developers Course (for Java programmers) in progress as I write this.

The product itself is very, very impressive, built to scale out as your needs grow. I was no less impressed with 10gen’s execution of this training on the edX platform, as described eloquently by VP Education Andrew Erlichson in his blog at http://ed-blog.10gen.com/. That’s him in front of their New York Office above (he took the Developers Course). The other person in front of the lecture equipment is 10gen Chairman and Co-founder, Dwight Merriman, who took the DBA lectures.

Class work, and I can do no less than tell you they will shortly be re-running new versions of the same training:

April 1: M101P MongoDB for Developers, taught in Python but no previous Python Experience rqrd
April 29: M102 MongoDB for DBAs
May 13: M101J MongoDB for Java Developers. Java experience is a prerequisite for this course.

Thoroughly recommended by me! Register away (all free) at http://education.10gen.com/. Good Luck!


10gen MongoDB for Python Developers and MongoDB for DBAs Certified, final assessment 100% in both. Really pleased ;-)