Uninteresting blog post about a web analytics conference

I went to Omniture Summit in Salt Lake City, UT last week. If you're not into marketing and analytics you wouldn't have had a very good time there (unless you're a fan of The Killers which was the main act at the conference party) and you'll definitely find this blog post very boring.


The main keynote speaker was a star only outshined by The Killers: Seth Godin presented nuggets of wisdom from his latest book called Linchpin. Citing Mr Godin: How can you market water better? By saying it's wetter? He encouraged everyone to think of themselves as creative geniuses; but geniuses in a very pragmatic rather than the nutty professor kind of way (citing him again: Einstein gave this genius thing a bad name). His quest for innovating and making a difference is not novel but I must say he's an excellent story teller and he does a good job of invigorating one. He did in my case, anyway. I'm half-way through Linchpin in audiobook which is the second best thing if you don't have a chance to see him live.


Next up Wired founder John Battelle made an interesting point that e-commerce and online marketing wise we're at "fish with feet" stage in evolution. The days of socially isolated purchases that are tied to desktop or good old shoppe on the corner are over (ie. we're not relying on swimming only anymore) but we haven't quite figured out what to do with mobile web, location data and people expressing their intentions in a social fashion. In 5-10 years we'll do things differently, just that no-one knows how exactly.


Rest of the summit was much more practical and took place in specialized tracks (and this is where it gets really boring if you're not in online marketing, and really interesting, if you do). So if you haven't yet then stop reading now, what follows are mostly notes to self.

The sessions I picked revolved around increasing conversion and I can roughly categorize my takeaways into three categories: getting started, making sense of data and recommendations on site.


Getting started


Views were bipolar on whether to start optimizing near the top or bottom of the funnel. All in all it's a simple mathematical equation so it shouldn't matter where you do it, if you improve conversion by 10% somewhere this will increase sales (or some other measure) by 10%. However, the closer you are to completing the purchase the clearer the intent in and thus more valuable any increase is. This presents the case for starting at the bottom of the funnel, a view supported by Robin who responded to my related tweet.


Process wise consensus was that there shouldn't be a separate process for setting up web testing and related analytics. Rather such optimizing should be build into existing processes for creating and updating web content.


Then it's good to keep in mind that testing web content doesn't always increase revenue. Sometimes you want to evolve your design or make the user experience cleaner, without necessarily increasing sales. AB test acts as a hedge that you haven't lost revenue.


And last but not least - start simple. There are many reasons for that but Jared Spool's 300 million dollar button case illustrates this best.


Making sense of data


It's old adage that testing and analytics get you the WHAT, user tests and focus groups get you the WHY and that for best results you should use both.


What I hadn't thought about before is that there is a ton of data available that greatly helps to come up with hypotheses on which bits of your particular landing page are important and thus should be tested. This can be summarized by sort of "existential questions":

Where did I come from?

Top external search terms, Top banner ads, Email campaigns pointing to it, Referrers, Geo-segmentation if applicable, Technology of visitors, etc.


Why am I here?

Top entry pages, Bounce rate of top entry pages, ClickMap, Top internal search terms, Onsite promotions on landing pages, Page layout, Navigation, Usability, Above-the-Fold Analysis, etc.


Where am I going?

Next page flow from entry pages, Conversion rate of entry pages, Campaign stacking, Internal Keyword Stacking, Top exit pages, Previous page flow of top exit pages, etc.


(The above was almost word-for-word from a presentation by Brig Graff of Omniture)


Recommendations on site


Recommedations can be quite wide if not random for the users in the exploring more, such as visitors on your front page. If you get closer to the end of the purchase funnel either make recommendations super relevant or lose them completely. Example from Argos: if users come in and search for a specific product based on catalogue ID then recommendations actually decrease conversion.


When you're creating personalized recommendations to customers, why not tell customers that they're personalized recommendations, and perhaps even add why. Think Amazon.


For content recommendations timeless entertaining recommendations perform better than breaking-news style news that get updated often.


In summary a good theme to keep in mind is Make it work. Then, make it better. (and hey, this perhaps applies in other parts of life, too, not just online marketing.)


Additional reading: 2010 Trends and Challenges in Web Analytics by Econsultancy.


Reading this back this definitely is the most professional and boring blog post ever. I guess I should write the next post about sexual escapades to maintain some level of balance?

Does it make the boat go faster?

I spent the last two days in Prague at our annual company meeting - slides, beer, little sleep and many conversations. A presentation session I very much enjoyed was a talk by Ben Hunt-Davis, 2000 gold medalist from the Sydney Olympic games. Ben shared his story of winning the ultimate sports trophy in Men's Eight race, starting out as little more than an above average rower. The man certainly knows a thing or two about winning.


A couple of his ideas stuck with me. One was the team's principle to look absolutely everything through the lens of 'does it make the boat go faster?'. Taking the boat for a check at wind tunnel did, having a pint at the pub or participating in the opening ceremony didn't. So none of the team members went to the ceremony, for instance, though I'm sure they would have loved to.


Another thing that resonated particularly well with me was the story about men's four finals where one team was jumping up and down to celebrate coming third but three of the German rowers did not have the power to stand up to accept their medals. Golden medals. So the eight team made an agreement before the race never to talk to each other if they lose gold and have the energy to stand up on the pedestal. How's that for commitment?


These ideas work well even if your aim is something other than rowing a bit faster than men in the other five boats. The concept of Does it make the boat go faster? - reminds me of somebody I knew years back who only did two kinds of things - those that made him money and those that got him laid. Perhaps this was a bit too monotonous (or rather bitonous) but hey, he was focused and it worked. All in all nice to have food for thought delivered like this.

Things I've learned from surfing

Last year I learned to surf. Too early for photo sessions yet but I can catch a wave and ride it all the way to the beach (if I don't get wiped out along the way). Oh what fun, but not only. I've realized there are many lessons for life hidden in the surf.




Sometimes, the best thing you can do is wait. On a not-so-good day, when conditions are not good you paddle around, make dozens of failed attempts to catch a wave - and nothing for tens of minutes or even hours. Then, out of the blue a beautiful clean wave emerges, and you better be ready for it. It may be the last one that day, week or even that year.


Pick your battles. When you're a beginner the bigger waves will hit you like a steam train. You barely have time to acknowledge how high you suddenly are and how fast you're moving when you're thrown into a white foamy abyss. Some waves are best left for those that actually know what they're doing.


Get wiped out. Picking your battles doesn't mean you only ride the kiddy waves. You're not trying hard enough and you're not learning much if you don't crash. Making mistakes is good for you, even if you learn just a little each time.


Don't panic. It's a horrible feeling getting thrown into a massive whirl of water without any idea which way is up or down and knowing with certainty that there will be no air to breathe for quite some time. If you panic you may use up the little bit of fresh oxygen in your lungs that would safely last until you're on the surface again. As in life, things will usually sort themselves out if you give them some time.


Looking forward to my next sessions. In surf as well as on dry land.


Photo courtesy of Teller who seems to really have learned to surf. If you're comfortably riding a wave like this your wisdom must be infinite.

The days are long but the years are short

A little more than three years ago, on the last day of 2006 I sat down for twenty minutes and wrote down what I liked about the year, what I thought could have been better and what were my goals or plans for the next year. I've done the same ever since either on the last or first day of the year and even with just a couple of years of doing that behind my belt am finding this incredibly valuable. This allows me to get into a time machine and ride into the thoughts of yours truly last year, or the year before, or the one before that. A great way to see how you've changed and remind you of the things you think or thought are important.


I've written many of my goals down as public (new year's) resolutions which has become incredibly easy after the launch of Pledgehammer. I'm glad to say many of my 2009 goals were successes. I saw six new countries not one (China, Marocco, Andorra, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize), have a new homey home am happy with my sanjuro progress. Professionally I had a healthy balance of hits and misses. I failed miserably on the new kitesurfing tricks front (but learned to wave surf) and Spanish school front (but started learning the language with Rosetta Stone) but hey, no-one's perfect. Now, you may argue these are not uber-important things but the point is I wanted these things in my life. And there's research out there that suggests merely making a resolution increases the odds of achieving positive outcome 10-fold, so there you go.


I've make pledges on the more important fronts as well, and these I've kept to myself. It's not like making these goals public would increase my motivation to reach them, I want them bad as is. When it comes to progress there definitely was some but not quite the way I had imagined. Lesson learned, all's well that ends well and many other cliches sum it all up very well. No-one ever said that fulfilling your dreams is easy.


What's perhaps worthy of mentioning is that I've never made financial resolutions. Guess I'm not that hung up on depositing a certain amount of money in my mattress in the same way I'm very particular about seeing new places or practicing the sports I love. I think that's a good thing.


2010 will see me learn more, kitesurf more and do a little more for the society. Again, I've made some of my resolutions (where I might need a little nudge) public and others not.


If there is just one idea you take from this blog this year then be it about the value of 'annual wishlist inventory check' or however you want to call it. Many people do it already, some even publicly, for instance see wolli's here. And I don't mind if you choose to write it in a small black notebook instead of the said website.


I wish you a truly happy new year!


Update a week later. I realized I haven't given myself too much of a kick in the butt now. So in addition to everything said above I pledge to get more shit done and diversify my income streams, this year and by the end of this year respectively. So if you see me just pottering around some time this year, or not doing anything about the number of different income streams, please poke me with a stick.

Katki, broken, kaput

Rough translation:

9:11 Pledgehammer is broken

9.12 I made a promise there but it didn't hold

On behalf of Pledgehammer I'd like to apologize for this horrific malfunction, this appears to be a software bug. Will try to fix it for next year.

You are what you share

Or so the wise saying goes. This means that today I am reading tips because reading tips is something I'm about to share (and ask).

I quite enjoyed reading Anthony Giddens' The Politics of Climate Change if 'enjoyed' is the right word. It's not easy reading but if you're confused with the range of conflicting points of views on climate change in articles here and there it's an easy way to get a basic understanding of energy security, global warming and related politics. Bits of information about gas pipes or energy stations in space make much more sense after reading this book.

A few nuggets to give you a flavor. I hadn't heard about using GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) instead of GDP as a measure of how well a country is doing. In addition to economics it looks at health care, crime rates, life expectancy and how clean the environment is to determine how well a country is going. In GDP terms the US is twice bigger than in 1970's, in GPI terms it has stood still for 30 years.

The concept of backcasting was also interesting. Instead of projecting today onto the future it asks what changes have to be made in the present in order to arrive at alternative future state. Or the blindingly obvious fact that developed countries may frown upon pollution growth in China or Brazil but actually this is pollution that has been sort of exported. If you account the pollution to countries where goods are consumed rather than produced it's evident it's a global issue to tackle, not something that Chinas and Brazils of this world have to sort out locally.

Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel was a similarly good overview of how equities markets work and how your average small investor should go about investing, or not investing. For some reason I had brought it along to my summer holiday in Ibiza and for some reason it fit into the very hedonistic reading setting very well.

On a lighter note Matthew Polly's American Shaolin is a well written story about an American bloke who goes to Shaolin for a year to learn kung fu. There's a guy with a good sense of humour, and a good story. If you've been away from home for a long time or done any martial arts training yourself you'll enjoy it double.

And thanks to my father's influence I've enjoyed a few good sci-fi classics as audiobooks lately. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is a story about a super powerful computer that has developed consciousness and helps to plan a revolution on Luna (Moon, that is) out of boredom. And Dark Universe takes you underground on our planet Earth where a group of people have stayed so long they've forgotten the sense of seeing. All available in Audible.

And then of course Naine by Olavi Ruitlane, a book that has been praised enough times. All I can say is echo everyone that has recommended it.

PS. Pardon the very serious, almost morbid tone. These fine pieces of reading deserve better but last night's halloween festivities have taken their toll.

PS2. All links here were affiliate links, so in case you clicked any of them you've in effect made me obscenely rich. Photo borrowed from internet from someone called weeping-willow.

PS3. Have holidays coming up in a few weeks and need to stock up before I set off. Any reading tips?

Raha ka nagu ei tahaks anda - õieti põlegi teist

City24-st jäi silma ühe toreda väikese Kadrioru korteri kuulutus, mille peale tekkis mõte oma kodupanga käest uurida, mis tingimustel selle ostmiseks laenu saab. Ettevaatlikult lisasin juurde, et olen valmis omafinantseerima 20-25%, panganduses ikkagi keerulised ajad. Laenupakkumise asemel sain ühelauselise vastuse, ilma vähimagi sisse- või väljajuhatuseta:

SEB panga poolt laenu väljastamise üks tingimusi on maksustatud töötasu Eestis.

Ei sõnagi rohkem. Igaks juhuks pärisin edasi, kas aitab suurem omafinantseering, käendus, mitte-regulaarne sissetulek Eestis või kasvõi seegi, et minu töökohal on Eestis sõsarettevõte. Uus vastus oli natuke pikem, aga jälle ühelauseline:

SEB pank arvestab siiski Eestis maksustatavat regulaarset töötasu ja suurem omafinantseering ei kompenseeri paraku sissetuleku vastuolu.

Sel moel sain teada, et minu sissetulekus on vastuolu. Tahtsin avada akna ja Eesti poole hüüda, et mu sissetulekutes pole minu teada mingit vastuolu, kui minu rahaasjades mingisuguseid vastuolusid esinebki, siis vahest harva sissetulekute ja väljaminekute vahel, aga ei tahtnud teemast liiga kõrvale kalduda. Jooseptootsiliku jonniga pärisin veelkord, et kas seda laenu ikka kuidagi ei saa (ja natuke irooniliselt küsisin juurde, kas ohus on minu olemasolev kodulaen). Vastus oli nagu otse raamatust Catch 22:

kindlasti ei ohusta see, et kolisite välismaale, Teie olemasolevat kodulaenu SEB-s. /.../ Teil on võimalus taotleda laenu koos kaastaotlejaga, kelle töötasu on piisav laenu teenidamiseks. Eeldusel, et kaastaotleja on sama leibkond.

Ma ei ole küll suurem asi leibkonnaspetsialist, aga niipalju ma tean, et see peab olema üks päris vägev leibkond, mis suudab koos minuga välismaale kolinud olla ja samal ajal ka Eestis palka saada ja laenu teenindada. Olin saanud eitava vastuse.

Tegelikult ei ole muidugi aus ega ilus, et inimene oma kirjavahetust pangaga internetti üles riputab. Kui vastused oleksid olnud vähegi mõistusepärasemad, oleksin suutnud kiusatusele vastu panna. Ja kompensatsiooniks luban pangal minu kirjad SEB blogisse ka panna. Siis oleme tasa.

Spammers gone crazy

The amount of blog comment spam has increased lately. Which is no big news but spammers seem to have gone bonkers. In the good old days they just wanted you to buy Viagra, Cialis and such. Now they want to populate this honest blog with pure insanity. Like this one:

Hi guys. Fresh clean sheets are one of life's small joys. Help me! Please help find sites for: Magazine there is attempt on yet how generous variety is taken through earth.. I found only this - (link to a site that doesn't exist). Diaper bag accessories, as the credit crushed during the poisonous example, bit built alongside. she could n't grind the team on her cloth, or donate it against a smoke where the example could stay her while she completed businesses or patients. Thanks :o. Tovi from Faso.

Or how about:

Good evening. Things are only impossible until they're not. Help me! Need information about: Of stable, falling conventional samples will ignore network use as instantly.. I found only this - (link to another site that doesn't exist). Rodeo is exposed up to get her submarines with megan. In the urethra collection motility use rags and dumps became transactions were biological. Thanks :rolleyes:. Kane from Bahrain.

Surely they're not making any money out of this if the content is meaningless and links broken. This means they're doing this for fun. Mad, mad world.

Price perception (or should I say deception)

One is bound to spend quite a bit of time pondering over prices (especially if you work in marketing). If you want to know whether Virgin flight to San Francisco on September 19th is cheaper than BA it's easy to look it up, but when it comes to Tesco's vs. Sainsbury's, Orange vs. O2 or Avis vs. Hertz - who knows. There are people in these companies who get paid to make sure their customers don't understand how much exactly they are paying. And then we're left to make educated guesses about price points.

Found myself hiring an Europcar hire car the other day and reasoning to myself and friends: well, Europcar always have the longest waiting time to get the car and their service is shit, therefore it must be the cheapest.

Btw, went to Cotswolds and Wales, Taavet snapped photos, my notes coming to an Eesti Ekspress near you soon.

Another new design for wonderwall

I was surprised and slightly disturbed to see my favourite wall boring and blank a week ago.

This didn't last too long luckily. The wall has been helped to its artsy state again.

Shanghai travel tips

This is the blog post I never found that includes some tips what to do in Shanghai (when you go there for work and have a bit of spare time to see the city).

A technique that worked well was to have a list of about seven things to see and do in your pocket along with addresses written in Mandarin. Then, whenever I had some a slot to fill I just picked a random destination and a cab driver would take me there for two to three pounds. Cabs in Shanghai are cheap and plenty.

A definite must is YuYuan Garden which is very touristy but also very nice. There's a market where you can buy superb tea and very cheap crap surrounding the garden. Also, there's a touristy restaurant that does heavenly dim sum just next to the garden entrance.

I'd say the urban planning museum is also a must. In any other city or country this would be a boring dusty place. In Shanghai it's a temple to planning and manifestation of ideas. Let the greatest car industry hub in the planet be on this piece of land by 2011. Consider it done! (US and Japan who?) Let a green suburban town with 200.000 inhabitants rise on this marshland in 5 years. Voila! Impressive as well as scary stuff.

(Quite a bit of the museum was out of order eg. one escalator and the thingie that tells you about F1 in China. How very illustrative of the fact that plans don't always pan out the way they should...)

Then there's the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre. Or rather a small space in an apartment block basement that feature two rooms full of the art of propaganda. It's a bit tricky to find, just drive to the address, find the right gate and look a bit lost (it should come quite naturally at that stage). Then, the security guard will come and point you to the right direction. Once inside, you'll find the full history of China from 1940's to 1970's condensed into seventy or so awesome posters. Tauno, thanks for the tip!

If you're into art and such you'll also enjoy MoGanShan Road, a block of old warehouses which is now home to dozens of art galleries, workshops and studios. It's wonderful to potter around in this 3D maze and get acquainted to the hip Chinese modern art. Take Zengguo Li, whose horse painting pictured above is now forever haunting me. Other notes to self: PEI Lian-zhi and Shi Jian and PengPeng. Highrisers are closing in on the MoGanShan area, though. Even on a Sunday, there was intense construction work going on next door. I'd be surprised if this lovely part of the city is still there in five years time.

The tourist/expat nightlife happens on the Bund. There's plenty of nice restaurants and bars around which are all very nice but there's not much 'Shanghai' there, these venues could be anywhere. There's also Xin Tian Di area which is full of 'international' bars and restaurants and Heng Shan road which is less glam and more local. Except for a bar called Soho there which appears as if Apple's Jonathan Ivy had designed it, after consuming a large quantity of LSD.

And naturally don't forget to have a cheap good massages whenever you can, and enjoy the food. If it's summer go eat at YongFoo Elite where the food is nothing to write home about but the 1920's ambiance is awesome, especially in the garden terrace. A bit of like Ammende villa in Pärnu, Estonia.

Oh, and I was warned about 'tea ceremonies' or 'showing exclusive art work' at the back of a bar. Apparently a good way to part with your money, though I wasn't offered a chance.

Reading recommendation: 279 days to overnight success

I quite enjoyed reading 279 days to overnight success by Chris Guillebau. It's a useful guide to people that want to earn their income from blogging. And if this is not your aim (as is the case with yours truly) it contains some useful ideas that apply to many fields from writing to building online businesses. Here's a few ideabytes that I took the liberty of elaborating on:


Instead of targeting the 'general audience' choose a specific niche instead. Or even better - create a totally new niche.


Quantity begets quality. Chris recommends to write a thousand words a day, if writing is where you earn or want to earn your main income. If not, the same principle applies. Some successful salespeople focus on making a certain numbers calls or client visits per day, no matter what. This 'input metric' is a hundred percent under your control and if you reach it every day then not only do you probably reach your 'output metric', whatever it is, but you'll also get closer to Malcolm Cladwell's 10.000 hours.


Spend as much on marketing as you do on writing. Again, this is true no matter what you do. Unless you work in marketing, because you'll probably get fired if you only work half the time.

Keeping track of my favourite wall in Shoreditch

This wonderwall near my home is a good example of immaterial benefits of living in East London. This was before.


Then one morning late last summer it had been replaced by this:


And now it's this:



This clearly outweighs having to dodge armies of pissed people on weekends and streets filled with kebab wrappers, no?

No frills, and no thanks to Ryanair

Last week I had the opportunity to experience two very different no frills concepts. First was Riders Palace, a snow hotel in Laax, Switzerland. The owners obviously know what's important for boarders who travel without kids - a bed, a good shower, proximity to ski lifts, a lobby bar. Period. There's no real need for a telephone, 24H room service, minibar, TV or horrible kitsch art on the walls as you'll anyway be sleeping the whole time you're in your room. It cost less than 160 pounds for three night including a three-day ski pass. And it's cool, using only concrete, wood and glass as materials. Brilliant, if not no-frills chic.

I also experienced a Ryanair flight to Friedrikschafen that cost less than a hundred pound on paper and 200 pounds when including luggage, payment fee and a 10-pound online check-in fee. The total price and first two extra items are reasonable but the last is tricky to categorize under "no frills" as you just can't board a plane without checking in. Anyway, I had forgotten to check in and had to do it at the airport. My bad, and I kind of understand I had to pay 20 pounds extra to check in at the airport without being refunded the 10 pounds I had paid for online check-in. This is according to our terms and conditions as a lady trying to get a queue of people like me organized explained to me in a bored manner. But I also lost my right to check in online for the return leg and had to pay another 20 euros extra on the way back to London. Also brilliant, but in a very different way. In a way where you think: gosh, they must have a team of lawyers and extremely creative product managers to figure out more ways to fuck your wallet in the ass, no lube. (Mom, I only use this kind of language when talking about Ryanair, I promise). What's next after charging for using toilets? Charging for life jackets under your seat and pilots that have had their eye-sight checked in the last 24 months? Despite loving low airfares (and 200 pounds for a 2-hour flight is not that cheap, is it?) I guess I have to say no to the thrills and chills of flying Ryanair in the future. If you ever fly them, make sure you don't forget to check in beforehand.

Obama, I know how to save your country

When over at California two weeks ago, I couldn't help but notice what an incredible opportunity this financial crisis-ridden country has missed. The answer lies in TV, or rather geniuses whose ideas local channels so kindly mediated.

They have these wonderful programs and books that are _guaranteed_ to work. Take the real estate program that makes anyone rich even without putting in any personal money. One doesn't even need to leave the house. And your credit rating can be as bad as the songs of Eurovision.

Who needs a trillion dollar rescue package when you can a book for each American for 29.95? (19.95 if Obama acts right now.) Once that's done, buy every citizen the lactose and gluten free diet program that will solve every health issue. And there's still money left over from the trillion dollar purse for wars and foreign aid!

It's really a shame I haven't had a TV for eight years and I can only be enlightened when staying at hotels.

Notes from Marketing Tailormade seminar

Today I attended Marketing Tailormade, a seminar where you can choose your own program depending on your interests and needs. I love the idea and warmly recommend attending, despite one of the sessions being an absolute waste of time today (you can just pick another session if this happens, capisce?)

Random ideabytes aka notes to self:

Sta Travel: widgets such as Travel countdown clock, travel check list and weather widget are highly successful. Also, their RSS-feeds drive 10% of traffic to their website.

Ticketmaster: Content for their weekly newsletter is highly dynamic, their 6M subscribers may actually get 6M different creatives, past transaction history is the best basis for segmentation.

Argos: Reviews are one of the most powerful campaigns so far - users are encouraged to review a product about 10 days post purchase, information is used on site in different ways. (This ties very well with this article). Also, 80% of email revenues are coming from a relatively small number of email recipients. Does this call for email activity segmentation on top of normal segmentation?

John Lewis: Using RFM model for segmentation as does Ticketmaster. About to roll out programs for loyal users to reward desider behavious ie. premium shipping after purchase vs. industry norm of giving incentives to dormant users to become active again.

Follow-up program performing very well - sending an email to users that click through to a section on the site that don't purchase immediately. For many categories consideration cycle is several days and one can't expect same-session purchase.

Tests for skin cream category to send emails when a user has likely run out of product. Optimal follow-up time is 4 months. This is different by product and can easily be identified by testing.

Pure: Replies to newsletters are usually ignored if not neglected. However, this is a natural way for users to engage with email. Are marketers missing opportunities to get feedback as well as upsell?

Do I sound like a bloody marketer?

Tallinn Music Week and how do we market Estonia

Yesterday I was invited to a panel at Tallinn Music Week along with the Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür, director of London Jazz Festival John Cumming and others to discuss whether it matters where a band is from or not. The discussion turned out to cover more, with topics ranging from the birth of reggae to specifics of Nordic jazz.

I was surprised how many times the word infrastructure was mentioned when talking about something as creative as the music industry. You need to have the systems in place to grow and spot talent and promote it the home country and abroad before you can expect to see truly big stars. Anna Hildur from Iceland Music Export said Björk would probably not have made it so far so fast had Sugarcubes not woken up the Icelandic music scene first. Tallinn Music Week will definitely become part of such platform for Estonian artists. The festival rocked, even based on the little I saw of it. Kudos to the Helen and the rest of the team that made this happen, and kudos for Skype for supporting it.

The panel briefly touched upon marketing countries, too. One thought that occurred to me only after the panel was that the concept of Estonia as a technology country is losing steam. True, we've had the government meeting room with very pretty computer screens, mobile parking, Skype and some other cool things going on. Is that enough to claim us to be technologically advanced or does it come across as a "one hit wonder" if I may borrow the music analogy here? We may need another technology chart topper before continuing to talk about e-stonia. If this doesn't materialize in the next couple of years maybe we're better off defining Estonia through events like song festivals and TMW instead. Or perhaps a compromise: the country with hi-tech folks that can sing in tune.

Google Street View found me

When I walked out our office door one lay last summer I spotted the Google Street View car driving up Tottenham Court Road. It seems they spotted me, too.

I'm not giving Google any points for photography, but they sure can make useful map and location-related applications. See what the front of our office looks like on Street View or wonder virtually to other places in London.

In defense of U2 and in praise of magnificent sound systems

Prologue*. A colleague that had bought 700-euro headphones about four years ago said this was his only way to really listen to music because he couldn't afford proper speakers. Coming from someone driving a brand new Audi A6 and living in a design apartment in the centre of Tallinn, that felt like showing off to me.


I'm writing this post as I'm listening to the new U2 album through the 25-euro Sennheiser headphones. It sounds exactly like the 6 out of 10 review I just finished reading gave it. And yet the new album may actually be worthy of a 8 or 9 out of 10 review, if listened right.


By "listening right" I don't mean opening the right kind of wine before putting on the CD nor staring out the window expressionless in a semi-trance state while listening. You have to have the necessary short circuits, lamps and kilowatts for something like U2.


I learned that about a month ago when listening to music at a friend's place through his state-of-the-art sound system that probably costs about as much as a German family car. A vinyl player that weights 70 kilos to ensure smooth rotation of the disc, voltage stabilizer, three amplifiers and speakers the size of an overweight 12-year old kid surely look impressive. But it's the sound these boxes are capable of producing that blew my mind. I put on a CD and was surprised to learn this was the first time I heard these tunes, though I had listened to a disc with exactly the same name and album art before. Music sounded completely different, especially U2 (which I have never really been a huge fan of, by the way). I've rarely felt more out of words than I am now, trying to explain how exactly this sounded. Maybe 3D soundstream that filled the room with armor-penetrating waves of pleasure sounds about right. Or that "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was the closest manifestation of flames expressed through music I have ever felt.


Anyway, you don't really have to have a sound system that costs the price of a car to listen to No Line On The Horizon. But if it costs less than a Vespa scooter you have every right to believe the critics and not buy it. And if you are one of the unfortunate with a stereo that costs less than a bicycle (as is the case in the rental flat of yours truly) I recommend sticking to electronic music and in addition turning down every offer to comment on music.


I have no idea what the music critic mentioned in the beginning of this post used to listen to U2. He was perhaps using the bestest audioporn technology out there and he just didn't like the album. I am merely recommending here to give it ago on a Vespa- or BMW-class sound system before declaring an album average.


* Thanks for pointing the mistake out, Jaanus. Copied this from the end to the beginning and didn't change the word.

Time to update your RSS-feed

You are what you share, said the mood message of a good colleague the other day.


I now share more. If you update the RSS-feed for this blog to http://feeds2.feedburner.com/andrus you'll not only get a feed with less CO2-emissions, but a range of unwanted goodies on top.


Namely the occasion photo on Flickr, a few timeless quotes, some tried and tested links and Pledgehammer blog posts. I used Yahoo Pipes to mash it all together, added salt and pepper, cooked for half an hour - and so far all seems to work nicely in this feed casserole, mind the initial chronological mess after subscribing.


Let me know if this feed doesn't work for you (and advise how can I fix the bloody thing).

Dinner conversation gone horribly philosophic

Had a truly enjoyable dinner conversation with a friend this Sunday evening. You know the kind where you start from random trivia but somehow make your way to the very important topics in life. We started from snowboarding destinations, made our way to the economy (as you do these days) and then ended up defining the pillars that support the sanity of a man past his 65th birthday. Four things are worth being written down here as notes to self and as my endevour to win the title of The Most Random Blog Post of 2009:

Defining yourself in more than one way. It's great if you love your work but that doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue additional 'careers' - academic, relating to a hobby, playing a role in society; whatever makes you tick.

Having kids.

Staying physically active. Just look at our fathers. My father can still probably beat me in rollerblading and his father has been featured on posters of Tartu cross-country skiing marathon. Say no more.

.

Continuing to learn new things. My 82 year-old grandfather is regularly improving his vocabulary in English (a language he never learned at school) and can use Skype better than most people. It's only a matter of time he posts his first tongue-in-cheek comment here.

Let's see in about 40 years whether we were right or not.

A quick book review - Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers is a book about people that achieve outstanding things, about what sets them apart from everyone else. It doesn't give you "5 proven techniques that will guarantee success" but it highlights some very useful ideas . My quick notes to self:

It takes 10.000 hours of work become outstanding at something. Almost anything. And these 10.000 hours go easiest if you're enjoying what you're doing.

It doesn't matter whether your IQ is 115 or 170 to be successful, one just needs to be 'smart enough'

IQ or skills of a genius can't be put to use without social intelligence ie. expressing oneself clearly, solving tough situations etc.

The environment plays a hugely important role. Where, when you are born, family situation and the wider social arrangement around it eg. Jewish immigrants in New York in the beginning of the twentieth century. (While you can't change this for yourself you can do so for your kids.)

My blessing to this book. Read or listen as I did (read by Gladwell himself).

Blood, sweat and viral marketing

Shit doesn't happen. Shit takes time and effort.

I was recently in a meeting where co-founder of a next-big-thing-startup, when probed about marketing plans, said something to the line of we'll do something viral so we don't need to worry about marketing too much. Right. I'm in no means a viral marketing expert but this much I know: viral marketing does take time and effort.

There seems to be a widely spread misconception that viral marketing doesn't cost anything and that if you do even tiny bit of it, customers will turn up on your door or website like zombies. In my view this is only true on four occasions. First, companies like Skype or Facebook whose product is so viral in nature that they seem to grow "just like that". Second, brands like Apple or Obama that have such loyal followers that every step they take is echoed on blogs, social network profiles and T-shirts of fanboys across the world. Thirdly there are those whose idea is just so spot-on that no-one can refuse to pass it on to a friend. Blendtech's Will it blend? campaign is a good example of that. And lastly, some just get lucky because a celebrity blogger somewhere happens to like it.

That leaves 99% of folks to make viral marketing happen with their sweat and/or marketing dollars. I've seen the behind the scenes of quite a few viral campaigns, and none of them have been super cheap or super easy to do. Take my recent task of generating blog coverage for Pledgehammer. I now know I have to do about a dozen units of work (this can be an email, blog comment or a guest blog post) to receive one unit of coverage. I've made north of 250 contacts to get about 20 people interested and writing about Pledgehammer. That's good many evenings and weekends spent on creating "something viral". (Luckily the weather has been rubbish). See here, here, here (got to love this one) or there for results, more links are available on Pledgehammer blog.

Long story short - viral marketing is a powerful thing, definitely worth some experiments, it just takes time and effort to work.

Want Tartu Entertainment?

This text ad is fresh off my Gmail account. It left me somewhat confused. Targeting works - I'm in UK and probably have quite many Estonia-related emails in my mailbox. But what's Tartu Entertainment? And what does Visit Online! really add? That I should visit the country online, not in person?

Visit Estonia folks, if you ever read this and wonder who was the one person that clicked on that ad, it was me.

Behind the scenes of the T-Mobile ad

By now you've surely seen the new T-Mobile ad. Such a great idea! A friend who was in the video told me they had five full days of rehearsal, at first in some huge building in North London where the life-size plan of Liverpool Street Station was drawn onto the floor and at night in the station itself thereafter. They shot the thing six times with 16 (or was it 14) cameras, with half-hour breaks between the shoots. Dancers were carefully choreographed to leave corridors between them so no-one would miss their train and there were station official present to green light the beginning of each take. Which all makes it a great idea that is also executed brilliantly.


The only thing I couldn't understand is that the guy I spoke with reckoned that 40.000 pounds was paid out to the dancers. With 400 dancers involved, can it really be just 100 pounds per hard working dancer?

In 2008 I travelled at the speed of a butterfly

Dopplr is a nifty little web tool that helps you bump into people that travel a lot. I've added it to my profile, too (mind the photo). Dopplr just sent me my annual travel report. It says: You took 21 trips in 2008, which added up to 76,089 km or 20% of the distance to the moon. You spent 116 days travelling. I was surprised at this relatively large number, even with Tallinn, which almost doesn't count as travelling, being my number one destination. And what's funny - my personal velocity for 2008 was 8.68 km/h, which is about the same as a butterfly.

A few ideas sprang to mind

I'm feeling I'm bi-domiciled now. Or bi-homeless, whichever way to look at it. I feel at home both in London and in Estonia. Boarding the familiar blueish aircraft which is familiarly late is like stepping from living room into my bedroom.

Ma carbon footprint calculated by Dopplr is almost as much as leaving a Hummer running for a year. What are my best options to set it off? And if I mostly travel for work, should I expense it accordingly?

If we're not yet connected on Dopplr please share your trips with me.

I updated this post a day later. Note to self: writing stuff down in a hurry can miss the point of writing.

God bless California

It's difficult to do injustice to a country like the United States but I think I have managed to do just that. I hadn't been to the States a while. One the one hand because there was no good reason to go but on the other hand I sort of thought that even if there was a reason to go, that's not a good enough reason to actually go. Having been to New York and Miami, arguably the hotspots of that great country, and having been unimpressed by both, I was feeling strongly neutral about travelling to USA and was absolutely sure there were about a thousand better places to go to.

This turned out to be injustice. I had come to that conclusion before I had been to California. It was very refreshing to be there, and not just because of the weather. Because it was a short work trip I couldn't see and do enough to write a travel journal or even a travel memo but I did make a mental note not to rule out California as a holiday destination.

Still, one thing that was impossible to miss was that everyone in the States seemed to be talking about Obama, almost as if he is the Messiah. Looking at the state of the country he has to do miracles of similar magnitude, too. First he has to feed about 300 million people (and a few banks and auto makers) with two fish and 5 barley loaves. Then he has to calm the stormy seas of US foreign policy. I wish the man nothing but good luck.

The only time media didn't only talk about Obama was when the commercials were on. In a very non-American way the commercials were mainly about how to turn excess gold jewelry into cash, get a free consultation on credit card debt or advice on paying taxes. On my previous visits they had mostly been about buying a bigger car that would get rid of the existing car's problem of not consuming enough fuel. And hey, maybe it was this shift in the mentality that made this country more appealing to me. Might even try Utah next time.

Bring on 2009

It probably doesn't come as a surprise that I've made my resolutions for 2009. Among other things I pledged to become more serious about learning Spanish, keep on training sanjuro, travel to see another (probably awesome) country and impress myself with new kiteboarding tricks yet to be learned. So if you see me skipping my Spanish or sanjuro class please do apply some good old peer pressure. This is what friends are for.

There are a few other more personal resolutions that I didn't want to make public, relating to (storm-ridden) finances or private life. I guess I just don't need the extra kick of motivation for these ones.

Wasn't 2008 awesome!

So much to look back at and smile. And there are quite a few resolutions I managed to keep : Pledgehammer is up and running, I managed to attend as many sanjuro trainings as I intended and I travelled enough for my liking. Then there's the slightly weird resolution about my private life where I either wanted one thing or the other but I sort of achieved both. But I did fail several resolutions, some for good and some to be reached in years to come.

As you may have already guessed by now I like to set goals for myself, and not just on New Year's Eve. If you don't know where you're going you may not get there, as the old saying goes. If you haven't done so yet, I warmly recommend sit down and ask yourself what you do want to get from 2009? And what do you want to give to 2009, or the people you care about. I of course recommend to write it down on this great site for making resolutions (sorry, just had to link one more time) but you can also share it in your mood message, blog or a bumper sticker on your car for that matter.

Talking of which, it's great that Pledgehammer has gotten some nice coverage and that there are now more other people's resolutions on the site than mine. If it becomes useful to a few people and helps a few charities get more donations, that's another one of my resolutions for 2009 done right there.

So bring on 2009 and a happy new year to you all!

Welcome Pledgehammer

It gives me ridiculous amounts of joy to present a new nifty tool for making (and keeping) pledges. Welcome to this web two-dot-oh filled world, Pledgehammer.

According to any dictionary a pledge is a solemn binding promise to do, give, or refrain from doing something. It is also something given or held as security to guarantee payment of a debt or fulfillment of an obligation. We just put the two together. The idea is very simple. First you make a pledge with a firm deadline and a financial incentive for keeping your resolution. For example, I will not smoke until May 1st 2009 if you want to make one of the most popular new year's resolutions or I will not invade any Middle Eastern countries until February 2010 if you happen to be the president of a powerful Western country. Pledgehammer then makes your pledge public and asks you how you did upon the deadline.

If you kept your pledge, well done. We'll be proud of you and probably so will you. But if you didn't you have to pay up (you had to pick a financial incentive, remember?). However, the money doesn't go to greedy people behind Pledgehammer. It goes to a charity you pick yourself. So either way the world will be a little bit better. Or a lot better, because who needs people that can't quit smoking, invade other countries or don't donate money to charity anyway.

So please make a pledge. And if you spot anything that shouldn't be there or should be better please let me know. We want to get everything just right for the time when people rush in to make their new year's resolutions.

Thanks go out to Priidu for his design geniuseness, Malthe for his common sense and advice plus a good many other people without whom Pledgehammer would be just an idea left undone. Merry pledging to you all!

Baby, it's dark outside

Call me a tourist, but I had completely forgotten how dark it gets in Estonia in December. Bring on the snow!

Don't cry for me, Argentina

Don't cry for me, Argentina
Slovenia said it'd do it
Turkey, you can stop the song
Thailand will sing it later

No need to open doors, my Poland
It's Belgium's turn today
Tansania, leave my soul alone
To Sweden I have sold it

I'm off to my next odyssey. You guessed it, Argentina this time. Travel journal on its way, and hopefully better than this poem.

Other people's thoughts

If you think it’s right to lie, you’ve got to deal with the hard work of ass-covering, so the best thing is to tell the truth. If it’s a legal situation, don’t do it before you talk to your lawyer. But there’s nothing in lying. It’s always a manifestation of being frightened of something.

The interview with Jack Nicholson in the December issue of GQ UK is pure gold. Platinum, even. Or whatever the most precious metal is. If you don't read that magazine too often, as is the case with yours truly, that's the issue to read.

Started posting good quotes on Tumblr.

PS. Any tips on how to aggregate my different RSS feeds into one? I can't figure out whether Feedburned can handle random feeds eg. those coming from Tumblr or Edicy.

I don't read. I listen.

I love Audible ever since I signed up a few months back. (Btw this is a very special link; if you click it and sign up I will earn Audible credits. So if you don't click and sign up there will be no audiobooks for me to eat or warm my house in the winter.)

But I would write about Audible even if I didn't earn any goodies. I'd probably write even longer as now this may appear as shameless paid advertisement which it is not.
Audible is an awesome service, you see. If there was no Audible I wouldn't know the age of the Earth. Not that I care too much about the age of the Earth but I'm a curious person and like to know how things have come to be and how they work. But as much as I would have loved to read a book such as Short History of Nearly Everything I know that I would not have done that in a sensible time. It's kind of too heavy material for holidays or bed time reading. And at times when my brain is alert for facts and concepts of different sorts I'm either working, writing or reading online which would have left very little time for reading that book. So I never bought it.

Enter Audible. (Same affiliate link, again in case you didn't click before.) Since signing up a few months ago I've listened through most of the Short History, started a book about pre-Enlightenment philosophy and gotten a third-way through one of Seth Godin's books. I've had the latter for a year already but due to my no-time-for-serious-reading syndrome had only read the first 30 pages or so.

To my great surprise it is much easier to read that kind of stuff with my ears. Or in other words, listen to it. I hope this recommendation will not land on deaf ears, quite literally.

Ignoring basic health and safety regulations - in Scotland

They call me Ishmael. I will probably never read these words first hand, though I would very much like to read Moby Dick. There's just not enough time to read every book you want to read. Scotland has so far been a destination equivalent of literary classics for me. In my view Highlands would surely be beautiful, wild and almost romantic - but I just had no good reason to go there.

So it is without a good reason that I landed in Aberdeen one beautiful evening just after the sunset and headed off to Royal Deeside, about 50 miles away. The landscape on both sides of the road was beautiful. It's a pity as it was dark as the humour of Scottish comedian Jerry Sadowitch outside and none of that beauty was to be seen.

Travelling with three British lads you would expect a weekend of football shirts, drunk shouting on streets and slapping of waitresses' asses. None of this was on our travel agenda however. It were majestic outdoor activities like swimming in refreshing mountain rivers, golf, clay pigeon shooting and other such awaiting us. Perhaps a whisky distillery or a few thrown in as well.

We stayed at Hilton Craigendarroch. Judging by the name you'd expect a castle where you can feel the centuries gone by, exchange polite formalities with the butler and expose myself to spookiness of local ghost stories. What we got was Duran Duran, Blondie and bright coloured silk ties. The hotel just outside the small town of Ballater is a prime example of eighties yuppie culture. I bet that back in the day its dry slope, pool filled to floor level and ensuite Jacuzzy sparked standing ovations. Now it sparks little more than smirks. We downed our mandatory glasses of scotch, smirking and hit the bed to be in good shape for our morning adventures.

First we went swimming. You can find absolutely picturesque places for swimming in the River Dee. Unfortunately none of them contain even superficially warm water. It's so cold that the more experienced people we met were swimming in wetsuits. Heck, I wouldn't have been surprised had I met a few trout dressed in these.

After a quick swim (I mean it. Quick. Very quick) and a lengthy lunch we thought we'd go ask the tourist information centre about local swimming facilities. I guess we were expecting at least one of the rivers or lochs to be warm enough to swim for more than two seconds at a time. Swimming in Scotland? The clerk dressed in the ultimately old-fashioned suit and who was yet barely 16 was genuinely surprised. He said it'd be very dangerous to swim in these and he couldn't possibly take the responsibility for leading us there. His face expressed concern if not fear so my imagination quickly produced images of underwater currents, needle sharp rocks or even good old Nessie herself. But when we asked about the source for these great dangers he just went: It's very cold. Basic health and safety, this oldest 16 year-old boy ever lived added. My understanding of Scots as fearless wild bunch shattered to pieces so violently it was almost audible.

We returned to the river on our own, without any words of wisdom from the tourist information dude. We thought we'd seen interesting places for swimming when driving around. Or rather interesting places, period. The thing is, the River of Dee passes through a 300 metre gorge at one point and it just happened to be the place which had looked swimmable. There actually were a few places there that didn't seem to involve immediate dangers. Our only concern was that despite the water being the clearest on the Northern hemisphere there was no bottom in sight. The rocks begun about six metres above and blurred into blackness just ahead of us. Still we pushed ourselves off the edge to take a swim above this abyss. When a second later two snake-like creatures started to spiral upwards I set the new record of getting out of the water, at least for people with only nine functional toe bones, the crippled man I was back then. Must be eels, we thought later but suddenly basic health and safety sounded a much more reasonable expression.

A round of heads and tails decided clay pigeon shooting was to be our next entertainment. Being a man, shooting a real gun was obviously fun. I just wasn't sure about the fact that it's not clay discs they were shooting when they invented this noble activity. It was more like real pigeons. My observations of the density of pigeon population seemed to confirm this theory. I saw no pigeons during my four days in Scotland.

We spent our afternoon on a 9-hole golf course in Aboyne. I've never been much of a golfer. Maybe back in the day, when bored shepherds were rolling pebbles down rabbit holes it made all the sense but there's just not enough meaning in the activity for a grown man. Instead of chasing a tiny ball along a huge field one could go surfing, go for a ride of mountain biking or even mow a lawn for lack of better plans. However, walking in a landscape shaped after postcards with the sun shining, it seemed like a pretty reasonable activity. Surviving the water hazard suddenly seemed much more important than the wind forecast, global warming or wars around the world.

The weekend of our majestic stay in Scotland coincided with Highland Games. Games for rugged-looking men in kilts to throw huge stones, logs and other inventory around. During shot put, which as we all know need revolving around one's axis, which further raises some requirements for clothing I discovered that the legend that Scots don't wear underwear with kilts is true. There wasn't even a hint of underwear. Just don't ask about sports shorts under kilts, Adidas seemed particularly popular.

Over the centuries a perfectly normal athletics competition had developed in addition to throwing big things around mindlessly. Maybe just the democracy involved was a bit out of the ordinary - everyone could compete. And perhaps the level of competition. One of us four signed up for running the mile in a condition that probably wouldn't have allowed him to drive - and won third place.

The Highland Games was obviously filled with the sound of bagpipes. There's something great about a large orchestra marching between mountains and playing a Scottish tune. But if many bagpipe players play many different tunes around you the greatness turns into something that drives you mad, as if a fly had flown in your ear. Scottish soldiers apparently always played bag pipe before a battle - no wonder they were considered a wild and crazy bunch.


Talking of soldiers it's an interesting factoid that Scotland has never ever been conquered. The above mentioned fighting spirit and the mountainous terrain probably played a key role in this. But I reckon the reason can be something much simpler. Perhaps at some point the invaders realized that why bother when the food gets progressively more tasteless and rain as well as women get progressively stronger.

The nightlife of Ballater, or rather the total lack of it, is something to be seen and experienced. It is about as lively as a wounded sloth. In one of the two bars there was karaoke on Fridays and there was beer available. In the other one some guy played bagpipes to a bunch of other guys in kilts, and there was beer available. In small town bars like this, where air is filled with above average curiosity towards strangers you'll start noticing details such as knives in socks that apparently are part of traditional Scottish costume.

In such vibrant atmosphere it was only logical that the three pounds we won from the "Who wants to be a millionaire" terminal became one of the highlights of the Saturday night. Who needs Las Vegas when such festivities and rushes of endorphin to the head can be experienced in Highlands!

And the fact that we ended up at an after party both nights probably deserves a medal. Both of them reminder me of a large family reunion. No-one was actually invited, there was some old beef in the air - and yet everyone was conversing, smiling on the outside. Parties to remember, definitely. Especially for those of us that had to escape through the window. (Not to mention any names, but don't worry Tim - what happens in Ballater, stays in Ballater)

We absolutely could not have left Scotland without visiting a whisky distillery. This hour left my personal health exposed to great dangers. You see, I like calvados and cider since my visit to Normandy, I smoke a cigar every now and then ever since I've been to Cuba and I like bubbly, especially after staying in Champagne with a friend from school a few years back. I wasn't sure my liver could take on yet another guilty pleasure. Nevertheless we bravely entered the Royal Lochnagar distillery and I'm relieved to announce that so far so good - just a few sips have disappeared from the bottle I bought back.

And that's it really. In conclusion Scotland is a gentleman's paradise in which to play golf, shoot clay pigeons, take long walks in fresh air and discuss global (or should I say colonial) matters in old castles. It's not so good for stag nights. In fact, the latter would probably be much more fun in an empty car park.

Reklaambannerite teine tulemine

Reklaam tekitab häirivalt palju jäätmeid, kirjutas Evelin Pullerits mõni aeg tagasi. Osaliselt sellest inspireerituna, osalisalt niisama rohelisi mõtteid haududes tekkis mõni aeg tagasi idee teha kasutatud reklaamist midagi ... kasulikku.

Äraütlemata hea meel on teada, et alates sellest nädalast on Rimi hüpermarketites müügil kandekotid, mis on tehtud Rimi enda välireklaami plakatitest. Kui muidu rändavad PVC-st reklaamplagud peale kahenädalast kampaaniat prügimäele, siis nende sõnumikandjatega saab peale väikest õmblustööd koju viia näiteks kuus suurt joogipudelit, umbes kümme veini või hunniku konserve näljasele kassile. Sangade pikkus on valitud selline, et kotti saab kanda nii käes kui üle õla. Kotid on valminud käsitööna ja igaüks neist on erinev.

Minu sügav kummardus Rimile ja Evelin Mägiojale, kes oli seda toorest ideed valmis kohe katsetama. Ja veel sügavam kummardus Inga Liivile firmast Ambient Marketing, kes vaatamata esimestele tagasilöökidele õmblusrindelt vankumatult asja edasi ajas ja Rimil reklaamplagud kandekottideks taguda aitas.

Kui Rimile ideepakkumist tegin, pidin seda tegema mingisuguse organisatsiooni nime alt, ja nii sündis 361 Thinking. Kahtlustan, et see ei jää viimaseks roheturunduse ideeks, mis teoks saab ;)

English summary

This is too good not to have a synopsis in English. This week Rimi stores in Estonia started to sell carrier bags made out of recycled outdoor advertising banners. Kudos for the Rimi folks and to good people at Ambient Marketing that made this happen. I meanwhile founded 361 Thinking. Or should I rather say I built a website (10 minutes), designed a logo in Keynote (3 minutes) and had an interesting discussion with a friend and Pantone, Inc about naming (20 minutes). Let there be more green marketing.

How to get funding for your startup

Moderation was ended in London OpenCoffee (that's a group or web entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other geeks of this kind) email list this week, which resulted in a lot of spam but also a lot of wise words.

The following is my selection on what people in the discussion related to funding a startup, unedited. Too good information not the be shared. (Also I wanted to store this in a place that's easy to find).

Nick Light:

I am starting a new kind of social shopping site  and would like some help/advise on the best methods to get some VC.

Brian Milnes:

Hi Nick,

In an attempt to create some serious content, I’d briefly state the following in regard to your need for funding.

1. Venture Capital firms rarely invest less than a £1m or in pre-revenue concerns, so your most likely source of funding is from Angels, who will often syndicate to spread their risk.

2. You need to work hard to prepare yourself for the pitch to any investors. I recommend thinking along the lines of seed, seedling, sapling, tree for your:

a. Elevator pitch – the single sentence that describes your project

b. Two paragraph description that will appear in the Angels notification of investment opportunities

c. One page exec summary that fills in some of the who, what, where, how questions

d. Three page Investment Memorandum that fills in more details including exit strategy(ies) that show how the investors will get a big return on their investment

e. A proper, well structured Business Plan incl. Financial Forecasts that shows you know where you’re going and how much it will cost to get paying customers handing over their money...

Chris Padfield:

Nick,


I would agree with Brian’s comments; there are a relatively small number of VC funds in London that look to invest below £1m, and two of these (The Capital Fund and London Seed Capital) have recently reached the end of their investment window. There are a number of EIS funds out there that do invest at this point, London Technology Fund, NESTA, The Creative Capital Fund are others. Beyond those, your best bet is likely to be angel networks. You can find a full list of angel networks at the trade body http://www.bbaa.org.uk (British Business Angels Association).

Jonathan Markwell:

Hi Nick,

Congratulations on getting your site launch ready.

You might find this article useful: A Fundraising Survival Guide

Probably the best thing for you to do is to demo it to a few people at the next OpenCoffee and get some feedback. You might even find yourself talking to an investor.

Great ideas

Coming across great ideas is so ... great. Here's another piece of copy from Blik packaging:

Seeing your room with blik for the first time is kinda like seeing a guy with a mustache. Come to think of it, it's nothing like seeing a guy with mustache. Although both are cool and make a statement about who you are, our wall patterns don't hurt when you kiss them. Not that we'd know...

Or consider Beauty Engineered Forever, this Greenpeace ad or this no smoking sign. I know I run the risk of sounding like a cheap copy of Seth Godin now but anyway, kudos to these people that come to work, drink their coffee and do great things rather than bland mediocre ones. And kudos to the bosses of these people, and owners of companies that have hired such people for asking them to do so.

And a sanity check to end this rant - do you know of any truly great ideas that have failed miserably?

Travel report

In the last month I've ticked two names off my would-be-nice-to-see-some-day travel destinations: Scotland and Ibiza. You'd think they are diametrically different but there are quite a few similarities. Mountains, beautiful nature and lots of not-so-wanted Brits around. Contrary to my prejudice Ibiza can be a nice chillaxing place. My two cents on that island:

Stay away from the concrete jungle that is called party town San Antonio.

Rent a scooter or a car and check out the more remote beaches. A yacht if you can. (We couldn't)

Go dine at Bambuddha Grove. Don't let the own-brand clothing line store and embedded sex shop fool you - the food as well as the ambiance are very nice.

More on Scotland soon, the travel journal is already with Eesti Ekspress and a team of twenty linguists are busy translating it into English.

And you just gotta love Ryanair, even with their website looking butt ugly and pricing policy as transparent as a tin coffin filled with mud. This week they're selling tickets at ridiculous prices. A return ticket to Dublin or Newquay, Cornwall costs 10 pounds, including taxes and such. That's so little I got tickets for both for the same weekend. If the surf is good I'm off to Cornwall. If not then the capital of Ireland it is.

Travel report

In the last month I've ticked two names off my would-be-nice-to-see-some-day travel destinations: Scotland and Ibiza. You'd think they are diametrically different but there are quite a few similarities. Mountains, beautiful nature and lots of not-so-wanted Brits around. Contrary to my prejudice Ibiza can be a nice chillaxing place. My two cents on that island:

Stay away from the concrete jungle that is called party town San Antonio.

Rent a scooter or a car and check out the more remote beaches. A yacht if you can. (We couldn't)

Go dine at Bambuddha Grove. Don't let the own-brand clothing line store and embedded sex shop fool you - the food as well as the ambiance are very nice.

More on Scotland soon, the travel journal is already with Eesti Ekspress and a team of twenty linguists are busy translating it into English.

And you just gotta love Ryanair, even with their website looking butt ugly and pricing policy as transparent as a tin coffin filled with mud. This week they're selling tickets at ridiculous prices. A return ticket to Dublin or Newquay, Cornwall costs 10 pounds, including taxes and such. That's so little I got tickets for both for the same weekend. If the surf is good I'm off to Cornwall. If not then the capital of Ireland it is.

Your marketing budget as an investment portfolio

I made a presentation at a marketing seminar organized by Äripäev, Estonia's business daily. My topic was treating marketing budgets like investment portfolios, a simple idea that stuck with me years ago.

A financial investments portfolio usually includes some assets that preserve capital (such as cash or government bonds) and some that grow it such as stock funds. An aggressive investment portfolio would also include a risk fund, a small share which can finance riskier but at the same time potentially more profitable investments. If it works out sour, the loss is capped at only being a tiny bit of your portfolio. And if it works, the tiny bit of your portfolio can quickly grow to be a large bit. Simply there is more to win than there is to lose.

What does this mean for marketers

In marketing it's exactly the same. Some of the things we do are very basic, like using point-of-sale materials when selling fizzy drinks or placing an ad on a classifieds paper when selling real estate. These involve very little risk, but they don't guarantee a successful result.

Then there are things like having a snappy product name or a great media campaign. These involve a little more risk, and they're also more likely to generate returns. The unfortunate thing is that competition is very likely to do the same things, so you'd need to be slightly cleverer to do better than them.

Which neatly brings me to the third kind of possible investments into marketing. The risky but potentially very rewarding kind. A different niche as target audience, a completely different media strategy or messaging that stands out like a Bruce Lee in a sea of Steven Segals. And I'm not saying marketing should go all wacky. Not at all, it's just that there should be a small "risk fund" in every marketing budget that can finance novel trying out new things. Think iPint or the Mynthon outdoor ad that also served as a samples dispenser.

Time is money

The size of your risk fund can vary based on your marketing goals, size of your budget, conservativeness of your business (or boss) etc. I reckon 10 per cent is minimum. The good people at McKinsey go further:

marketers must push to ensure that they spend 75 to 80 percent of their money on proven messages that are placed in proven media vehicles and supported by proven dollar levels. The remaining 20 to 25 percent of spending should finance well-structured experiments.(Thanks, Robin, for pinging me this)

The mistake I've sometimes done there is not allocating enough time for experimenting. Having a creative idea is the easiest thing on the planet. Selling it internally, executing, measuring, analyzing effectiveness and reporting it back to people involved is a different story. I say the rule of thumb is that 10% of experiential budget needs 20% of time to handle it properly. YMMV.

This sounds good but how to measure it?

Touché! Measuring usually proves to be the difficult bit, especially in non-internet channels. But unless your budget or risk fund of that budget is gigantic I wouldn't go anal with measuring. Paying attention and any reasonably-easy-to-set-up measures are enough. If it works brilliantly, you'll know. The outlets in the proximity of your outdoor ad/dispenser will be sold out, competition will start to copy it or there will be a divine thumbs-up from between the clouds. And if it's a complete waste of money, you'll know too, and probably in a not-so-pleasant way.

Grass is greener online

Measuring becomes much less of an issue online, provided you have taken the time to dig deep into numbers. Also, experimenting is usually much cheaper money wise but not time wise. Carling knows exactly how many people have downloaded the iPint. At Skype we often create several versions of the same email or web page because that's the best way to know whether something is working or not. Duplicating the "buy" button at the top of the page and at the bottom of the page may result in twice as many people buying from that page. Starting an email with a photo rather than an illustration may get you more people clicking through. Talking about a discount as 50% off may work better than half price - at least with Skype users. With users of other types of software, of financial institutions or of porn it may be a different story. Experiment, and you'll know.

Surviving in the UK - thanks to and despite NHS

It's summer and I've been on a blog holiday, neither writing nor not reading blogs of others. Until National Health Service (UK's biggest employer, NHS to friends and family) gave me an urge to write a little, or should I say it inspired me.

People with good manners don't talk about their health in public. Talking about NHS should therefore be perfectly fine as this has nothing to do with health, as I have found out. Anyway, I hit my middle toe against someone's knee a few weeks back. My sparring partner was fine, the toe unfortunately not so much. It got slightly swollen and had a nice range of pastel colors on it almost immediately. I thought I'd just bruised it and kept on doing what I was doing. Walks on Estonian islands and Scottish mountains, swimming, a rock concert and such. It did hurt a bit but hey, no-one said life was supposed to be easy. Finally this week I thought that my foot has been sore too long for a simple bruise and that was time to bring on wonders of modern medicine.

Ironically, the only place to get someone to take a look at your foot is a walk-in clinic. (In my case hobble-in clinic.) The other option was signing up with a local doctor aka GP or General Practitioner. I reckoned a domesticated doctor may come handy one of those days so I better go all the way. Having lived in the UK for some time now, I wasn't at all surprised that you can't just go there, flash your ID and get whatever body part examined and fixed. That would be unreasonably time efficient, wouldn't it.

On first visit I indulged into some paperwork. Only 24 hours later was I entitled to schedule an appointment. But not to have my foot looked at - no, not so fast. This is just to complete your registration and have a nurse measure you and ask about diseases in the family, quantities of fruit I eat and units of alcohol I drink per week. Only after that would someone actually get to examination of my limb. I was lucky as well as persistent though, so I managed to schedule initial check and doctor's appointment within 20 minutes of each other.

Your middle toe is broken alright, said the doctor finally. And added it should heal itself in about three more weeks if I gave it some rest and minimized my walking. Probably, he added, as only an x-ray would tell with 100 per cent certainty. Unfortunately x-rays could only be done in one of the big hospitals and it would usually take two weeks to get a response back from them. Or alternatively I could have gone to an x-ray unit (x-ray monger? x-ray parlor?) a few tube stops away that would have given me results immediately had I been prepared to spend four hours in a live queue. This all seemed quite unreasonable and contradicting the advice to go easy on walking, so here I am, still x-rayless, but quite immobile nevertheless.

I don't know what I was thinking but I also showed a birth mark on my chest to the same doctor (in the same NHS system) and asked whether someone could remove it as it's situated exactly where backpack straps rub against the body and then there's the thing with birthmarks and sun not getting along very well. No problem, he said and proudly explained that the internet based patients handling system would make this very easy. All he'd need to do is enter my details in the system and presto! soon a letter would come from GP's office, stating that I could go and pick up a card with a phone number that I could use to make an appointment with a dermatologist. I stared at him blank, not understanding why getting a simple medical procedure had to involve more planning than robbing a bank.

I turned around and as I walked out I saw this sign on the inside of the door. Not all customers leave happily, the doctor said while I got my camera-phone-calculator-alarm clock out and took the photo. Why was I not surprised.