O2 Innovation Day

I was hoping to write this up sooner, but just a few thoughts on the recent O2 Innovation Day that was held at the rather nice Matter Club inside The O2 complex in London on the 16th March 2009.

This was the second year in a row that my team had organised the Innovation Day.

The idea behind the day is to get O2 people out of their day to day working environment. Bring in leading companies that are shaping the agenda of ours and adjacent industries, share knowledge, make connections and stimulate the creative juices.

We learnt a lot from last year's event, and judging from the feedback I have seen I think we successfully applied a lot of the learning's. We brutally chopped the Powerpoint, we focused on panel debate and interactivity, and most importantly we opened up.

This year saw a number of companies invited in to demo and network with O2's senior leadership team. O2 Litmus played its role, with two competition winners (Ribot and Fring) taking their place alongside more established O2 partners like Microsoft & Nokia. I hope this provided some interesting conversation and business development opportunities.

You can read the thoughts of Antony from Ribot here.

You can also watch a couple of Antony's video's:


O2 Innovation Day - morning hello part 1 from ribot on Vimeo.


O2 business strategy innovation from ribot on Vimeo.


James Parton introduces O2 Litmus from ribot on Vimeo.


James Parton on O2 Litmus part II from ribot on Vimeo.


James Parton on O2 Litmus part III from ribot on Vimeo.


O2 Innovation Day - Sesson 1, Mobile application and services from ribot on Vimeo.


O2 Innovation day - session 1, Mobile application and services part 2 from ribot on Vimeo.

Hopefully events like this reinforce that O2 Litmus is helping to drive cultural change inside an Operator like O2, and shows we are willing to air our dirty laundry, wrestling with key challenges in an open and collaborative way.

It also tangibly demonstrates we don't know all the answers, but by using vehicles like O2 Litmus we are genuinely looking to the market and our customers to help shape the future.

O2 Litmus Video Tour

Here is a world exclusive :-)

Before it even makes it onto http://www.o2litmus.co.uk/ itself, below you can finally watch the long awaited O2 Litmus Video Tour, let me know what you think...


O2 Litmus Video Tour from O2 Litmus on Vimeo.

#himum

“My mum told me she is now following me on twitter so she knows what I'm doing as i don't ever tell her, lol. Hi Mum if you are reading this” 8:51 AM Mar 11th from web

So I posted what I thought was a rather unremarkable tweet back on the 11th March.

I’m so busy at work, and spend my life talking to people about what I do, I always fail to devote as much time and effort in communicating with my parents as I should. It has become a bit of a running joke in the family. “How can you stand up and present to hundreds of people, yet when you speak to me you can’t manage more than a mumbled sentence”, you must know the kind of thing I’m talking about?

I do often feel like Chandler from Friends, where no one quite understands what he does for a living.

Anyway a few weeks ago I was literally stunned when my Mother tells me, “Oh I’m following you on twitter as it’s the only way I can see what you are up to” This from parents who are not exactly technology leaders, and only had Broadband installed in the last few months.

Quite how she had discovered Twitter, and then found me I’m not quite sure. I will have to quiz her this weekend. (Mothers Day and all that). May be we can tweet each other from across the table when we go out for a meal!

I was equally surprised yesterday at the O2 Innovation Day when @tonyfish said he has starting seeing people including “hi mum” in tweets after my original message. I’m not sure if I truly am the trend setter Tony positioned me as, but thanks Tony anyway! If this is all old hat with you Twitter Vets, then apologies, I am fairly new myself to the Twitsphere. (Is that a term??!)

Still, spurned into action by my cyber stalking Mum, I will be including #himum in all my whereabouts status updates from now on.

So I wonder how many of you find yourself in a similar position via your use of social media, and I guess examples like this reinforce Twitters move into the mainstream.

30 Top Albums

Lifted from my Facebook profile...

Don't try to be cool, tell the truth...Think of 30 albums (shrink it to 15 if you like) that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 30 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea? Good.

Dreamtime - The Cult
Construction Time Again - Depeche Mode
Songs From The Big Chair - Tears For Fears
The 12" Album - Howard Jones
Under A Blood Red Sky - U2
October - U2
The Doors - The Doors
First And Last And Always - Sisters Of Mercy
Talk About The Weather - Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Never Another Sunset - The Rose Of Avalanche
Gods Own Medicine - The Mission
First Chapter - The Mission
Pornography - The Cure
The Real Thing - Faith No More
Attack Of The Grey Lantern - Mansun
Friends - The Bolshoi
Badmotorfinger - Soundgarden
Disraeli Gears - Cream
Dirt - Alice In Chains
Exit Planet Dust - Chemical Brothers
Twice As Nice - Fantazia
Diamonds Are Forever - Salvation
II - Orbital
Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz
Rage Against The Machine - Rage Against The Machine
Screamadelica - Primal Scream
Ten - Pearl Jam
Tinderbox - Siouxsie
Through The Veil - Claytown Troupe
Vivid - Living Colour

Mobile Monday London, 9th March, Write Up

A quick wrap from last night Mobile Monday London Event, which posed the question “What have Mobile Operators done for us?”

As I was speaking and on the panel I didn’t have a chance to write many notes, but thankfully a few audience members did, and @ribot recorded the presentations for prosperity.


James Parton presents O2 Litmus at Momo London from ribot on Vimeo.


Terence Eden of Vodaone on Operators and Operands, a Love Story - MoMoLondon from ribot on Vimeo.

Check these out for reviews of the evening:

Pudding Relations
Expanding Horizons

You can view my extended 12” remix O2 Litmus presentation here

I felt the evening went well.

There is always a degree of frustration in the room when the Operators get up on stage, and I totally understand why. In the past we haven’t done enough to help the developer community, and it is understandable there is a healthy dose of cynicism when Operators claim they are listening and trying to change for the better.

You can read some of that sentiment here.

I certainly welcome the opportunity to have a more open dialogue between Operators and the Mobile Monday community, and I think we should have a follow up session including some of the other Mobile Operators, especially Orange who invest heavily in Orange Partner.

I think in the main the O2 Litmus message was well received, but you tell me ;-)

When I set out with the concept we deliberately spent a lot of time researching what was wrong with existing Operator developer communities, trying to get under the hood of the frustrations of trying to work with us.

The fact that I was getting similar questions, and may be a sense that the O2 Litmus story was too good to be true, reinforced to me that the insight we gained must have been on the money, because I genuinely believe O2 Litmus can be the breath of fresh air the community has been crying out for.

However O2 Litmus is not the silver bullet to all the problems the world has to offer. We need Developers to join to tell us how O2 Litmus should develop. We can’t hope to get it right without the community taking an ownership role. As I mentioned last night, our thoughts on the O2 Litmus roadmap and API evolution are all public domain in the forums, so please feel free to join and engage in the debate.

My key take out from last night was there is still much to do to reduce the fragmentation in the mobile industry. We as Operators need to do much more to collaborate more closely and reduce the complexity and pain of creating successful mobile applications, and successful businesses.

The green shoots of this new thinking are appearing in initiatives like the GSMA OneAPI project and I will be taking a proactive stance with my colleagues at the other Mobile Operators to put some energy in bringing us closer together. The days of wall gardens are gone, and I don’t intend to be competing with other Mobile Operators for Developers, O2 Litmus is not about that.

It was great to hear Betavine is now promoted from Vodafone Live, I think that is a big step forward, and you should check out their Widget competition where £20,000 is up for grabs.

So a positive evening I felt, and hopefully a platform to build an ongoing dialogue with the Mobile Monday Community.

What did you think of the event?

If you have any questions that didn’t get answered last night, feel free to contact me via Twitter, LinkedIn or james@o2litmus.info

Photo's from MWC 2009

Presenting in the Business Models of Mobile 2.0





Chilling with our buddies from Mob4Hire...