Tag Archive for 'Triple Bottom Line'

Getting things done and keeping peace of mind in a growing business

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/4/11
in GTD and Productivity
. 0 Comments

So today I was in meetings most of the day, but apart from some interesting project meetings, a discussion about the naked CEO came up, and I got inspired. So I’ve written up two blog posts and decided to alter my perspectives on blogging as a person, a business founder, a businessman, a project and account manager and a coder. The last two years have been an interesting ride so far, so I’m going to talk about the past probably here as that makes sense and it’s generally retrospective stuff that I’m interested in as lessons for the future. Today and tomorrow I’ll talk about on the Technovated blog/site, with a mind to talking about daily perpectives that are either interesting or useful to others.

~~~
For now, my absolute frustration is with the whole GTD concept in general - no matter how much I try, how many emails I answer, how many calls I make, how late I stay up to work, nothing seems to bring me closer to Nirvana.

I should be in bed getting my beauty sleep, should have blogged earlier! We’re (brother and I) almost moved out of our house in Wimbledon Park now, so in a weeks time I’ll either be dossing on someone’s couch, or in a new house. Sitting on the floor with a hot laptop warming your bollocks is not ideal!

My only solace is that through the application of the 80/20 principle and an almost religious fervour towards making sure I keep a record of what I have to do, I’m able to make sure that the most importat stuff at any one time is being dealt with. I WANT everything to be done so that on a Sunday or an evening like this evening, I can think about other stuff without that nagging little devil called work on my left shoulder.

Sometimes I think GTD is a great idea in principle, but in a growing business with different systems for different people, it’s almost unattainable. So, I keep my lists, I keep focussing on the important things, and I keep my reminding myself that nothing will ever be totally finished. There will always be emails in my Inbox, and always more project actions to do - so I guess the best I can advise myself to do it to just deal with that and get used to it, ‘cos it aint gonna change! (unless I get Doris, but that’s another story).

So, what do you do to keep peace? How are you managing the growth of your business? What’s your secret?

How to Mount a Geek using SSH and your file system on Mac

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2007/3/29
in General
. 0 Comments

We all know that the “geeks shall inherit the earth“, so since that’s a foregone conclusion, I thought this little post was in order…

Mounting geeks for most girls is not an easy task, ‘cos you need something shiny, complex and preferably remotely accessed, to get into geek wide area networks. Macs are as ubiquitous with Geeks as Google is with more normal people, they come in a few lustfy flavours, have a geek sex-appeal that rivals Paris Hilton videos on Limewire, and most importantly are a topic of endless conversation. So when opening a conversation with a geek, SSH is a sure fire bet to get their attention, since it’s something they both use very often, and are intimately aware of. What you want to do is take the SSH from something they think of as “secure” to something more like “Single Sex-mad and Hot”. To do that, you need to mention your file system, which is of course of great concern to the typical Geek - he’s wondering whether you’re FAT, FAT32, NTFS (Not Thinking Full-on Sex), ext3 (external threesomes) as soon as you start speaking, so if you can communicate that as quickly as possible, you’ll get a better network response times - current thinking is that ext3 is the best filesystem to use for your hard drive, and if you’re willing to get into sharing hard drives, then you’ll find his network much faster.

So, all that in mind, you’re wanting to open with something like this:
You: So, you’re a mac user?
Geek: Umm, yea (looking at his shiny new powerbook with lustful thoughts), I’m working on writing some code. Are you?

You: Yea, I’m busy figuring out how to get our company web hard drive working over SSH, any thoughts? I’d be keen to try over lunch later?
Geek: Ummm, so yea, you just go to Lifehacker, there’s a tutorial there - you seen it yet? You’re delicious’d right?

You: Totally, I’ll check that out. I’ve got this friend, and she’s really into threesomes, and she’s coming to lunch later, you keen to join us?
Geek: Ummm, so yea, I’m busy with this code, so I’ll join you after if it works. I’ve not really done three hard drives over SSH yet, so I’m not sure I can help you?

You: Nope, the way your fingers work your keyboard, I’m sure you’ve got some skills that we could use. Maybe we could share some hard drives for a bit to see if we can get our macs hot?
Geek: Ummm, yea sounds good. What do we need your friend for again, we’re just doing ssh?

You: Yea, totally, I’m into the ssh thing. I’d love you to mount my friends drive as well. This friend, she’s really into threesomes, and she’s coming to lunch in a bit, so if you join us we could definitely get our macs hot!?
Geek: Sounds cool, lemme check this code for bugs…

You: OK, so I’ll see you later then?
Geek: Yea, see you later. I’ll be there if this code works out…

Inspired by Lifehacker

Tech 4 Africa - Gaining momentum

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/11/28
in Uncategorized
. 9 Comments

Technology for Africa '07

And so it begins…. We’ve started getting some really good feedback for the Tech 4 Africa conference (last check we were up to about 30 replies after a day or so of being up and emailing to an initial beta group for testing) which has totally surpassed our expectations. When the automated notification emails started coming in, you shoulda heard the shouts of joy! ;-)

Almost surprisingly, the feedback has been along the lines we were expecting:
people would be willing to go to JHB,
wanna know about stuff around web2.0 primarily,
want to hear international speakers, and
think the conference would benefit the African web community.

On top of that, we’re getting some good coverage on the blogosphere so far:
Update as of 27/11/2006:
David Duarte
Cowboysengines (business site: http://www.virtualworks.co.za/index.asp)
Hash @ Whiteafrican.com
Update as of 28/11/2006:
Coda.co.za
Scott.za.net
Muti.co.za
http://digitalafrica.blogspot.com/

Anyone else we don’t know about yet? (If you’re going to blog about it, then please use the following Technorati tags: tech4africa07,T4A7 or T4A)

Which is all good. ;-)

Some people have asked why we’re not just launching with dates and relying on “if you build it they will come” to make it a success - in short, 2 reasons:
1. We are speaking to some really, really high profile international speakers, who naturally want to allocate time to a conference on the other side of the world if they feel there are going to be enough people to make it worthwhile. We’ve invested the time up front to collect some real data, that goes beyond a thumbsuck, to show we’re serious.
2. We believe that business rules should apply - we need to at least break even, and we need to justify further time put into the project, so it makes sense that without real data we can’t make any assumptions beyond that we reckon 10 - 20% of people we email should respond to the initial email asking for feedback.

So, if you’re reading this and haven’t filled in the feedback form on the site then please do, just to prove us wrong ;-) The more data and feedback we have, the more likely we are to actually hold the event and make it something truly special!

I’ve also been asked what I’d personally like to see at the conference, so for posterity, here goes:
1. Web app dev in Africa - what it takes, how to do it, what markets are ripe
2. How the web can help Africa lift itself up - technologies that come into play, mindsets that need to change, strategies that work
3. What Africans need to do to compete internationally - once we’ve gotten over the bandwidth issue, what needs to happen for Africans to create more Thawte’s and PayPals.
4. What web 2.0 really means for business - technologies, trends, people -> how can it be leveraged?
All underscored by a good vibe, good music, good networking, and some good ‘ol fashioned fun of course ;-)

If you want to stay tuned to what’s happening, then watch this blog, and/or our business’ blog category wev’e setup for the conference (yes, I know the theme is still default K2 - something about the cobblers shoes I think…;-( - so it will change soon enough, as well as being an addition to our shiny new site which is being designed as we speak).

Also, we’ve been asked what to do if folks are interested in helping out:
1. Email us to say so whether you think you can help with something small or big - the more help we get the better - and we’d really appreciate it. Up front, we don’t have cash to pay people now, but as and when that happens then we’re all about getting the right help, so that may be an option. Right now, telling 10 of your mates would be the best help in the world!.. and…
2. Blog it - please blog it and help to moibilise the troops ;-)
3. If you have a speaker you would really like to hear, then please do email us to say so - being able to tell speakers they’ve been asked for by people is good motivation for them!

Cool - more soon - time to go to bed ;-)

Rest in Peace Steve, we’re going to miss you…

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/9/5
in General
. 0 Comments

As a zoologist, I was always enraptured by Steve Irwin, and his approach to conservation in general. His death is a great loss to everyone, and makes me sad - one wonders what he would have gone on to do given the opportunity, but also realises what he had already contributed in such a short time.

Rest in Peace Steve…

Web app laser focus

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/7/27
in GTD and Productivity
. 2 Comments

Today was a good day - we sat down and really thrashed out the user case and benefits thereof, for the app we’re building, over a bit of lunch. One of the things that came up continually was the importance of staying focussed on the task at hand, which is “the credit card test“. We’ve all worked for many years in this industry, and all worked in all sorts of environments, but the one thing that is common to all of them is the desire to continually add new features and new functionality, either at our own behest, or at the clients request. The upside in the service model is that since your time is money, you earn more money. There doesn’t seem to be much of a downside as long as you deliver what you promise, apart from stress of course ;-)

In the product side of things, however, not having a laser focus is both deadly and foolish. So what we’ve done is create a list of “nice to have’s” which we’ll keep track of and add to as we grow into our app, but for now, they’re just going to slow us down and add more work, more time and more frustration.

So we’ve really cut back on extraneous features, nailing things down to the absolute essentials - we’re not making any assumptions about what users will want or need, and we’re not going to deviate from that. We have a core offering and that simplicity is what will allow me to go to sleep tonight a happy man - safe in the knowledge that we can build up rather than have to build sideways and backwards.

My current other frustration is that things in the US seem to be blowing up, literally every day. I only have to sync my feeds in the morning to get at least 1 to 3 posts about this or that company getting funding, or releasing a new app.

OK, I’m not in the US and I’m not in the business of creating an unsustainable venture, but I am in the business of siezing on opportunities, and it just seems like the eternal adage of “it will always take longer than you think to get it done” won’t go away - balancing client work with web app development (even when you’re essentially directing, there is loads of business and marketing stuff to think about) doesn’t make for lots of time to try out new ideas.

So, the upshot is that the web app is progressing thanks to some very cool people who are working on it, but the downside is that I’m pushing back my social and relaxation time to get things done. It’s a short term fix, but will hopefully have long term benefits [I'd love to talk to you if you are in a similiar situation or have experienced this situation before] thanks to staying true to the absolute laser focus and staying true to our ideals of providing value over gimmickry.

G8 Reboot this year? Feedback would be great!

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/7/4
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Last year amidst the Live8 concert and the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, I set up G8Reboot with Damien, in an effort to raise the profile of the G8 Summit and it’s importance. Our position was that there are a lot of web sites, and there are a lot of web users, and probably a high percentage of them are either apathetic or simply don’t know enough about the G8. Also we’re African, and with the focus of last years Live 8 concert on poverty, and some of the G8 focus on Africa, it made sense…

So the idea was to get people to do a reboot of their web sites / blogs / home pages the day before the concert and the summit began, to highlight the issue to the people that visited their sites. During the time before that we asked site owners to add a button to their site, to get more people involved.

All in all we did about 12k hits to the site in the 10 days leading up to the Summit, with traffic coming from various sources, and about 60k hits up until I stopped counting late August last year.

So in my book the initiative was a success although there’s no way to really tell whether the message was gotten accross - we can only hope that the message of “Every single day, 30,000 children die, needlessly, of extreme poverty.” hit home with some people.

This year, I’ve wanted to get it up again in time for the G8 Summit in Russia, building on what we did last year, but I’ve just not had the time needed to dedicate to it and neither has Damien. So I feel kinda guilty and a little bit like a loser - I had hoped to get things moving by the start of June, which then moved to end June / start July, but client work has just had to be the priority (unfortunately keeping a roof over my head, food on the table and building a business has been more of a pressing priority).

My gut feel is that I should pick my battles, and do what I’ve got planned instead for the summit next year in Germany (In the summer of 2007, the annual G8 Summit comes to Germany. The meeting will take place in the Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, an exclusive health resort on the East Sea. Heiligendamm is about 20km west of Rostock, 200km from Berlin.), so that there is time to do it properly and to do it the justice that I would really like to.
There also hasn’t been much press about the 2006 Summit in the UK, but there does seem to be a lot more going on online about the Summit in 2007, for what reason I’m not entirely sure.

That said, my gut feel is based on my current situation and on no external input, so it’s not too late to do something, even if it’s something small, but I don’t have the time over the next two weeks to do it all on my own. We don’t live in a perfect world, so I’m happy to concede that something is better than nothing at all…

So, I’m asking you in earnest - what do you think? Should we do something? Would you help me by giving half an hour to an hour of your time to get the word out? Any comments or feedback would be much appreciated ;-)

South Africa heading for economic crisis?

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/6/27
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

An interesting train of thought over at www.southafricandiaspora.org/, about a possible looming economic crisis.

Personally, my take is that if your growing midlde class spending power in a growing economy is coming from people in the goverment sector, financed by debt, and your education success rates are not growing correspondingly, then you’re in for a rough ride as that just does not seem to be sustainable.

Surely the long view would be more pragmatic?

But then, I’m not an economist (just a lowly zoologist who understands ecological models that mirror supply and demand models everywhere) so I may be totally and utterly wrong. In which case, I’ll eat my mouse-cover ;-)

What do you think?

Web 2.0 and customer relationships

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/6/16
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Posted my first blog entry for e-Consultancy earlier today, on Web 2.0 and customer relationships.

There seems to be this disconnect between what’s happening with Web 2.0 on the social / consumer front, and what business is doign with it - they key to moving forward (IMHO) is to start small and grow as your community / stakeholders push you - if you’re feedback loop is always open and you’re willing to listen, you should be fine - happy buying customers is better than unhappy buying customers right?

Here’s the intro for you:
Web 2.0 isn’t all about rounded corners and social software – there are real benefits to leveraging the Web 2.0 philosophy and technologies in business, but the key is selecting the right entry points to start conversations with your customers, and then to grow from there, using the community you’ve developed as your sounding board.

There are many ways to look at Web 2.0, and it strikes me that within the UK business sector there is either a reticence to get started, or people simply don’t know how and where to start. It seems that for the most part, the business community is dismissive of the change that is happening on the web as we speak, why I don’t really know.

Read more…

Going to Web 2.0 for Good

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/4/27
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

_ Web 2.0 for Good will explore how Web-based tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasting and social bookmarking can be used to promote social change and innovation. These new tools offer unprecedented potential for campaigning organisations, charities, public sector bodies, social entrepreneurs and CSR practitioners to extend their reach, prominence and impact.

I’ve always believed that the web should be an instrument of good, of change and of sustainability, so this event is refreshing. Looking forward to going to it.

Science, tagging and the future of web apps?

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/4/24
in Productivity
. 2 Comments

Last night I was watching the national geographic channel with everyone at home, and I caught a glimpse of what the future of the web could hold.

Many years ago (like, mid-2003) I had this idea that the internet was actually a bit dysfunctional (imagine that) and that there were things that could be done to improve its usefulness.
For example:

  1. Google search results are not dated reverse chronologically, so that means that sometimes you get search results that are clearly old or not up to date - so that doesn’t help if you’re researching something online and you get many search results that still have to be sorted for recency
  2. Search engines as a general rule search for words in pages. Because they’re not human, they can’t do the horizontal matching and processing that humans can make. So for example, a page I create may be useful for botanists as well as biochemists… but my page may be created on a site for botanists and might have botany specific keywards. That may be because I’m writing a paper for a botany journal, but that doesn’t exclude the fact that my findings are not relevant to other researchers…

OK, so I’ve harped enough and I’m sure lots of people will tell me I’m wrong, but in my mind the fact remains that search engines are good, but not good enough, yet.

75 000 years ago there was a cataclysmic event on earth that had a devastating effect on life for at least 1,000 years. It was a supervolcano, and it’s eruption created a layer of sulphur in the atmosphere that blocked out sun, and created acid rain; the effect of which was a mini-ice age. Wikipedia | National Geographic

This in itself is not really related to this post, but what is related, is that it took 3 different scientists working in 3 different fields in 3 different parts of the world, to figure this out. I won’t go into the details (add a comment if you want me to mention it) of what they were researching ‘cos it will take long and I don’t have the time, but the bottom line is that all three scientists were working on the same problem without knowing about it - what happened on earth 75 000 years ago?

So, imagine being able create a page, and tag it with a date as well as descriptive words, in an application that allows researchers around the world to collaborate on the problems of our time.

This could be an end in itself, but it could also be indexed by other search engines too. In the instance above, the scientists could for example tag it with “75 000 years ago”; “supervolcano”; “cataclysmic event”; and anyone looking for help or already working on problems with keywords like that could find out who else on earth is working on similiar problems.

I cannot understand why in this day and age, researchers around the world still rely on journals to find out what other people are studying? (I am a bit out of it, so perhaps things have changed but I somehow don’t think so…)

So, the question is, why all the fuss about web apps and social networking, when we could be creating web apps that help to make the world a better place?

Anyone with thoughts / ideas / comments / criticisms?

NASA’s top climate scientist says NASA and the Bush Administration have tried to silence him

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/2/4
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Global Issues

The scientist said there were fresh efforts to silence him because he had said that significant emission cuts could be achieved with existing technologies, particularly in the case of motor vehicles, and that without leadership by the United States, climate change would eventually leave the earth “a different planet.” Reporting this, The New York Times also notes there have been other such disputes recently whereby “many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone.” Scientists whose points of view are aligned to administration lines, however, see few signs of such restrictions. Aside from the concerns to stifle such scientists ability to speak out, this latest episode also reveals the extent to which such a top scientist is concerned about the impact of climate change.

Interesting… I’m hearing stuff like this a lot more lately. Makes me pretty worried - no matter your personal standpoint - where there is smoke…

Is America really still the home of the free, land of the brave?

The Revenge of Gaia

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/1/19
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

_ Amazon.co.uk: The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity: Books

Lovelock’s unique authority and original perspective sets this book apart from other books on environmental change. He speaks as a planetary physician with more than forty years’ experience of thinking about how to respond to the Earth’s needs as a living organism. Illustrated with examples drawn from his experiences around the world, Lovelock draws many radical conclusions, most controversially a passionate advocacy of nuclear energy. This, he argues, is not only a secure, safe and reliable source of energy but also the only way to counter the lethal heat waves and rising sea levels, which will increasingly threaten civilisations. Lovelock argues that the only way for humankind to come to terms with Gaia now, and have a chance of surviving, is to embrace science and technology, not reject them. This is his passionate manifesto of how to do that and so lessen our impact on the Earth before it is too late.

Continue’ing the Gaia theme, I passed the newspaper stand today while getting lunch and I came accross a story in the Independant about James Lovelock, and his current thinking. The article he wrote in the book seemed to be a very short precis for this book, so it’s in my list of Amazon books to buy, and one day soon I’m gonna read it.

❀ spreading goodwill ❀

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2006/1/16
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

_ ❀ spreading goodwill ❀

Do you also not trust politicians or religious leaders to be able to bring peace and harmony to the world?

Do you feel that if something can be done to stop humanity tearing itself up, it would better get started today than tomorrow?

Are you convinced that each and everyone of us can actively contribute to create a better world, regardless how large or small each contribution would be?

Then, welcome, you are one of us.

Not sure where I came accross this, but I’m blogging it anyways since I signed up and agree with what they’re doing… In many ways, we live in a screwed up world, so it’s nice to see folk using this neat thing called the “interweb” to connect people that have similiar ideas…

Go sign up, spread some goodwill ;-)

Trees or Humans? – A Battle of Survival with Increasing CO2 Levels - Environment Blog

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2005/12/17
in Uncategorized
. 4 Comments

_ Trees or Humans? – A Battle of Survival with Increasing CO2 Levels - Environment Blog

An interesting piece on CO2 levels and their effect on forests… “A new finding reveals that forest productivity may be significantly greater in an atmosphere enriched with carbon dioxide.“