Morven walk 2003

Join me on a walk up Morven Hill, Deeside, Scotland.

The media makes everything entertaining

The media, broadcasting, stuff on the tele to the web try to make everything entertaining? Not entertaining then no one watches. It's just a take on information. Take the weather. We watch weather forecasts, but the level of personalization in minimal. However, you can go to the source of the information that the Weather 'experts' use to make us the weather entertainment. What is the weather like this afternoon. Lets look up the paper or twich on the tele. It will come but why not switch on the local radar piciture to see if it rain near by and see if the wind is blowing it our way. We can do this today but for me very few do. Inertial is with the media. Is entertainment what we always want? Not the reality that is personal?


And an add on point. I have realised that social weather casts will becoming along. We need all the source weather forecasting informaiton and more as technology allows. However, I guess that one of the best sources of informatoin someone visiting Aboyne in Royal Deeside could do looking for a weather forecast and linking it to the outdoor things they want to do or any activity would be to ask me. Why I have lived here all my life. I can map the information to the experince of life. I have the most informaion on the subject.

Aberdeen OpenCoffee Club

I have setup up an Aberdeen OpenCoffee Club event on Upcoming.org. While in Silicon Valley I attended the Palo Alto, OpenCoffee meetup which is part of the OpenCoffee Club community. They are great places to talk to fellow entrepreneurs, Internet developers and all those interested in startup businesses, Internet or other wise.

If you are interested, sign up to upcoming website and I'll see you there.


The opencoffee club are also promoting the SEEDCAMP unconference in London in September.

The Industrailist The Digitalist

I have observed that as an entrepreneur you will be swept along or crushed by prevailing trends in society. Now your vision may be to create one of these but the total game is a lot larger than a vision.

I read an interesting slide and document linked in this blog posting. It describes how we are at an impasse between The Industrialist and The Digitalist. The former driven by scarcity and the economics of Adam Smith and the latter driven by abundance and of a new 'adam smith' science that is just starting to be understood. The article uses history to show that when such shifts in society take place, the incumbent, in this case The Industrialist, will fail to see the new world, even if they are looking directly at it. Conversely, The Digitalist will be discounted.

We are living in such times. The Digitalists do exist, the author lists, CEO of Google, as an example of how they drive a different message to the State (Government) and the rest of the corporate world.

As a startup entrepreneur and visionary I put myself in the Digitalist category and have been so for 10 years or so. I am not sure I knew or appreciated this until very recently. Looking back on my experiences it easy to see some repetitive lessions and feedback. I can see the way to how tomorrow will be but virtually no one around me would see it, they didn't even understand the vocabulary I use, words they know but in combinations foreign to their thinking.

Moving to silicon valley surrounded me with Digitalists. Conversations can be engaged with no schooling required. But its not just a case of moving to find like minded people, I need to learn as an entrepreneur new ways to communicate and show a stable and sensible or business case to encourage industrailists large and small to change. I feel more equipped to do this.

comparison shopping entrepreneurship lesson: never waiver

In 1998 I turned my startup energies to comparison shopping. This involved moving to Edinburgh to live for the first time. After a couple of years of bootstrapping I raised some angel funding and Prosumer Solutions was incorporated. I used my primative graphics skills to illustrate my thoughts on comparison shopping for financial services. The business quickly moved into content management tools and eventually the business stopped trading.

Today, just some 7 years on, comparison shopping websites are selling for hundreds of millions and romnours of $4bn UK floatation. The industry is profitable.

As an entrepreneur you have the vision to see these times, ahead of time. That is the easy part. The part I failed in back then was sticking to my guns, using my creative abilities and engery to guide a team throught the tough and often dark times to see the market opportuinty realised further along the line. You learn from failure and are better equiped to lead next time on the startup rollercoaster.

The Greens of Aboyne

A range of greens fuelled by all the rain and some sun.

aboynejames TV live?

I set up this ustream account a few months ago. I am working out side today, as the sun is out, two days in a row. This allows me to share it.

A dry day in Aboyne, at last

No rain today!

Image029, originally uploaded by ecotorch.

active aboyne

Its July and time of the Aboyne and Mid Deeside Festival. I noticed this website, activeaboyne that list more active activies, walking, water sports or even geocaching. Some evening event too that have a more social focus.

Craigendinnie Hill Trees growing tall

The hill was cut bare, the tree saplins were inches high when planted, years add on, knee high, shoulder to shoulder and now way over my head.

Image012, originally uploaded by ecotorch.

all the greens and noise quiet

Deeside is full of all the colour greens of the world right now. And the whole valley is full of quietness, well relative so silicon valley.

aboynejames back home trip 4

Image064, originally uploaded by ecotorch.

best trip

This is my fourth trip to Silicon Valley and by far the best. Last year was all about putting out the vision: lifestyle linking, learning and meeting people. The most notable difference with this trip is that people I had not met last year but had seen me demo mepath.com or heard me talk would come up and ask how we are getting on. That provided much positive energy to our venture.

Mountain View is a great place to live, my 'Aboyne' of Silicon Valley. I have swam and trained more on this trip, still not consistent but enough for me to compete in a master short course championships and my first ever competitive open water swim. Not every thing went to plan but you learn and let the vision guide you forward.

All the above is possible because of the great people I have met and now call friends from co-founders, entrepreneurs, swimmers, co-workers, event organisers, people that have listen to me pitch, and many more. Thank you all for making my time here the best.

interesting

no.1 word used to describe mepath.com on this trip to silicon valley.

Lake Berryessa Open Water Swim

Image008, originally uploaded by ecotorch.

the great health mashup

I attended a Stanford healthcare event last week, the guest speaker pointed out the importance of the mix of people present, medicine, engineering and computer science. This is great to see and many other participants are required, the food industry, pharma, biotech, fits, wellbeing, car, travel etc etc. The great health mashup is required to re-purpose the economy on life.

We created healthcamp to help in getting those conversation going.

smiling on the streets

I was walking towards downtown San Franciso yesterday when a girl passed running, in a skipping motion, clearly in a hurry. Ahead was a homeless man, street coloured. As the girl approached he extended his had in slow motion. But just quick enough for the girl to high five his palm. Watching this brought a smile to my face. One character full of the beans, one in shock of the speed of what had just happened.

p3, s3 and WAR as a constant

I have taken in a couple of movies in the last three weeks. The third episode of Siperman and Pirates of the C. S3 wasn't as good as the other two, however, P3 was better than P2. However, what has taken me is the constant theme of war in movies right now, the trailers are full of battles, the ad's were of real war and new releases will focus on war.

His Dark Materials, will launch in December, with The Northlights for us UK readers, The golden compass or something like that for the US. Why the name change, will lords of the rings, ring gold, gold compass. Some producers behind both films. Looks like they are making a good adaptation of the book.

War theme, I have also been reading more history than usual. War is a constant happen there too. Are we bound to follow this trend. Inevitable?

healthcamp TV live

I will try streaming live video from healthcamp2 Saturday 26 May, 10.30am US Pacific Time Zone.

healthcamp2 tomorrow

healthcamp2 is tomorrow in Palo Alto, all info. is on the wiki.

For those that can not attend, I am going to experiment with the websites that allow you to stream video live. If I get it working I will post the link on the wiki.

Looking forward to meeting all you health2.0'ers tomorrow