April 27, 2011

How to develop tech products with potential

How to develop tech products with potential

By Agnes Haak

As a mentor and consultant to small and medium sized businesses, I have encountered many IT professionals and entrepreneurs who are developing new technology and are asking for help on how to turn their technology into a viable business. The first step in developing “viable technology” is by developing products with the market in mind.

Agnes Haak

Research current products

The first question I ask an entrepreneur is “is there anything like it on the market?”.  Too often, programmers, developers or entrepreneurs spend too much time on the idea phase only to find out afterwards that this idea is not new, that it is already on the market, in some way, shape or form.

It is important part of the development phase to do the research and find out what is already out there. Current products that should be considered include products that target different markets, have less or different features or are built differently.  An innovative idea does not exist in any form in any market.

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Design for the target market

In the development of technology, it is easy to confuse target market and end users. In simple terms, the target market is the party that is willing to pay for your solution. The end user might like your solution, might use it, but doesn’t necessarily pay for it. In the development phase of the product, it is important to understand the benefits of the product to the target market, so that they are more likely to buy. Target markets could buy for a variety of reasons; cost reduction, increased efficiency or to attract more customers.

Solve a problem

New and innovative technology needs to solve a problem or offer an opportunity. Your market is not willing to pay for a solution that costs money but doesn’t generate additional profit, additional customers, or improved market positioning. The “nice to have” is not good enough. The “need to have” is the only way to go. The right product solves a problem or offers new opportunities for the target market.

Prove it

Entrepreneurs and developers will need to develop their idea to the proof of concept or prototype stage in order to demonstrate the feasibility. It is critical to show your target market, potential partners, and eventually potential funding partners that you can do what you say you can. If you claim that you will link your technology to social media, develop mobile apps, or integrate a multitude of systems, you will need your prototype to show that you can actually do it.

Test it

The critical milestone for any entrepreneur is to test their product on their target market. This is a difficult moment for the entrepreneur. Until now, the assumptions have been from the entrepreneur’s perspective, now it’s time to listen. Market testing will test the entrepreneur’s assumptions; reveal the interest in the market for the product; highlight the features that the market requires; and assess how user friendly the product is. The task of the entrepreneur is to collect as much information as possible in order to assess the product, the features and the feasibility of the product.

Explain it

The next step in the development of products is to gain momentum, to gather support, and to present the product to others. At this point in time, entrepreneurs and developers have spent so much time at the drawing board, programming or building that they have a hard time explaining their product without getting lost in the design details. An entrepreneur needs to provide clear insight in the product, its target market, the problem it solves, the potential of the business, and why they are the best person to run the show.

In our workshops “Building Your Business” we help developers move out of their development phase and become true entrepreneurs by developing their story to take their business to the next level. The true test to determine if they can turn their product into a business will depend on if their market will buy, if they can make a profit, and, most of all, if they can convince others that their product will make it. Entrepreneurs need to learn to tell their story and convince others. Over, over, and over again.

Dr. Agnes Haak is the principal of , a consulting firm for small and medium sized business, based in Toronto as well as a mentor with in Markham.

 





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April 26, 2011

Bookmark php Facebook, not Twitter, is the social network for revolutions

Facebook, not Twitter, is the social network for revolutions

Twitter often gets the credit for being the modern-day digital medium bookmark php that captures disasters, protests as they unfold – 140 characters at a time.

The micro-blogging service that was designed to be simple enough to use via SMS message has been the focus of much media attention over the last couple of years as journalists grapple with the changes social media has made to the way we codify dramatic world events. It’s fascinating to see how easy-to-use digital tools have been embraced by citizens around the globe and become an effective tool for documenting highly important events from the grassroots level. Never before has so much information been available in such a timely fashion, from so many sources, so quickly after the event.

Brian Jackson

There’s no denying social media’s user-friendly multimedia content generation makes it a powerful tool to publish information about disasters such as Japan’s recent earthquake and tsunami, or Egypt’s peaceful revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. But is anyone really paying attention?

Not that many Canadians are, according to a recent poll conducted for ITBusiness.ca by Delvinia Data Collection. When asked how they were staying informed about ongoing protests in the Middle East, 60 per cent of Canadians say they used only traditional media (such as radio and TV) to follow the events. One quarter of Canadians used both social media and traditional, and just two per cent used exclusively social media. About one in 10 Canadians said they “don’t follow the events at all.”

This poll of 1064 respondents was conducted for ITBusiness.ca.  The data was bookmark php collected from March 25th to March 28th. AskingCanadians is an online survey community with a panel of more than160,000 members across Canada.

It seems that media invented in the 20th century is still the most popular method for tracking how events unfold in the 21st century. For those that do, you might assume Twitter is the preferred social network to glean information about protests. After all, the medium was built to deliver real-time updates to a mass audience.

Twitter started getting a lot of attention for its usage as a tool of protest in 2009 during Iran’s protests to the reelection of President Mahmoud Amhadinejad. The revolution is now often called “The Twitter Revolution.” But, according to Canadian opinion, it looks like that may be a misnomer.

For those that do use social media to follow the Arab Spring, Facebook was by far the most popular, with bookmark php 68.7 per cent of Canadians saying they used it specifically to follow the protests. The next most popular was YouTube, being listed by 46.9 per cent, and Twitter came in third at 27.9 per cent, followed closely by blogs at 22.8 per cent.

Facebook did get some credit for being a medium of dissent in the recent Egyptian revolution. One Egyptian man even named his newborn daughter “Facebook” to recognize the social networking site’s role in organizing youth protests. This stuff can only happen in the 21st century.

Joining the AskingCanadians panel is free to Canadians who are in the age of majority in the provinces they reside, or have the permission of their parents or legal guardian. is the sister community in Quebec.   is owned and operated by Delvinia Data Collection for more information go to .



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April 11, 2011

Anycom hcc 250 bluetooth car kit retail packaging The mobile ‘push’

The mobile ‘push’

By Nestor E. Arellano

At one moment the giant video billboard on Time Square in New York was showing the picture of a nondescript building. The next moment, Toronto developer Adi  Isakovic fiddled with the touchscreen of his iPhone to replace the image with a video clip of his miniature French Poodle, “Cookie.” A few second later, the image was replaced by a live stream video of Isakovic which was shot by anycom hcc 250 bluetooth car kit retail packaging his wife Tania with her own iPhone.

Nestor Arellano

The application, called , was developed by Isakovic. It allows people using a smartphone or computer to control YouTube video playback on another machine. For this to happen, the target machine needs to be connected to the users TubeMote video account which contains the video.

It was not that the small screen of the iPhone itself is controlling the billboard, Isakovic explained, but rather the mobile device acting as a bridge between the TubeMote channel and the billboard.

Despite this explanation that appears to tone down the role of mobile anycom hcc 250 bluetooth car kit retail packaging devices, there is no denying how the tiny screens we hold in our hands daily are rapidly changing how the daily occurrences of our lives play out.

“The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”

That was from an internal memo from Western Union in 1876. Today one of the major anycom hcc 250 bluetooth car kit retail packaging initiatives of the former U.S.-based telegraph company is revitalizing its money transfer business with the use of and .

Mobile phones today command an unprecedented predominance over our lives. Mobile phones now number more than 5 billion worldwide. There are more than 24 million cell phones in Canada today and about 50 per cent of phone connections in the country are wireless.

In a recent poll of cell phone users, – Marketing to your consumers in a world gone mobile, found that more than 36 per cent of mobile phone users never turn off their phones anycom hcc 250 bluetooth car kit retail packaging and always have the devices beside them. Last year, Canadians sent more than 163 million text messages a day.

The public’s love affair with cell phones is amazing. We spend more time with them than our significant other and perhaps convey our thoughts to them more often.

Just as spouses tend to alter the way we perceive things and react, our mobile devices, in a span of 30 years or so have altered consumer behaviour.

Back when we didn’t have cell phones, I remember setting up a primary meeting place and a back up meeting place (just in case I run late) when going out with classmates. Today time and place appear so fluid with my teenaged kids. Nobody seems to have a plan or if they do it could be changed with a simple text message. Not one of these kids appear to need any directions, they have a map and GPS apps on their phones.

If Internet access, Web services and computers gave rise to a generation of multi-taskers, mobile phones are creating a generation of multi-taskers on the run.

Not more than five years ago, interactive and social media experts began harping about the need for companies to . “Your customers are in the social net and you need to be there to reach them,” the marketing mantra.

The social network is rapidly moving from our computer screens to our touchscreen devices. Businesses now have to refocus their efforts to include . Gone are the days, when marketers had the sole power to “push” their message out to the consumer.

“In the mobile world consumers are no longer waiting for marketers to tell them what they should buy. Consumers are the ones ‘pulling’ in information they want through mobile devices,” according to Martin.

But this ability to “pull” will no longer be enough, as Isakovic’s demonstration illustrated.

Many surveys indicate that Canadians are predominately sticking to the phone, texting and alarm clock features of their cellphones. I believe that attitude is quickly changing.

Today’s smartphone users will soon grow weary of pinching and sliding their touchcsreens. It won’t be long when mobile users will want to be able to “push” as well and deliver more of their own content to whomever, whenever and wherever they want. The business than can help consumers facilitate this will hit a goldmine.

After all, the screen space of 5 billion mobile phones is a whole lot bigger than the screen in Times Square.

April 09, 2011

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April 06, 2011

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April 04, 2011

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April 01, 2011

Moshi codex 13 red for mbp Twitter comes of age but still has room to grow

Twitter comes of age but still has room to grow

By Gadjo Sevilla

The ITBusiness.ca staff has written a moshi codex 13 red for mbp great  piece on   as well as produced a neat  to celebrate Twitter’s 5th  birthday.

Gadjo Sevilla

It is hard to believe that a nerdy social media service that forced people to think in “140 characters or less,” has outlived a lot of its contemporaries like Google Buzz, Jaiku, Plurk and Pownce and created such a vibrant, speedy and robust micro-blogging ecosystem complete with link shortening services and photo and video workarounds.

What started out as a rather mundane way for people to share what sandwich they were having for lunch has, for the most part, evolved into the world’s best leveler and given hundreds of millions of users a voice. The culture of celebrity has  taken over Twitter as the best way for personalities to stay in touch with their public and for their public to communicate back.

Twitter has also made it possible for consumers to whine about poor customer service or unfair business practices and get a quick and public response from companies. Small and large businesses have responded in part by hiring staff to man their Twitter feeds and provide customer moshi codex 13 red for mbp service via Twitter.

Twitter has  also been the best service for taking an “opinion pulse” or crowd source certain topics and ideas. It is also the fastest way to get news. By the time you’ve turned on your TV and fumbled your way to CNN, you could have all the news headlines on display on your Twitter client.

The instantaneous nature and hyper-fast speed of disseminating information has been Twitter’s greatest strength. It has also proven to be an indispensable tool for social change helping people organize and keep in touch during the recent calamities in Japan and New Zealand as well as mobilize during the political unrest in Egypt and Libya.

On the flip-side, Twitter has also been ground zero for the propagation of hoaxes, spam, morbid death rumours and wholesale trolling and hate messages as well as fake accounts.Then there’s the inevitable outages and “Fail Whales” that let users know the service is overloaded and inaccessible. 

Twitter has been improving but we feel it is still the Wild West out there with moshi codex 13 red for mbp a lot of room for improvement.

What are your thoughts about Twitter? Has it been a useful tool or a time waster? We would love to know, in 140 characters, or less.

Gadjo Sevilla is a who reports on technology and writes reviews on consumer and business gadgets. He is also a blogger and community manager for ITBusiness.ca.

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