Calgary DemoCamp 08
I spent last Tuesday at my first Calgary DemoCamp where I gave a presentation of PhoneTag Elite on a Nokia N95.
In case you are not familiar with BarCamps/DemoCamps (From Wiki):
BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats.
I was really impressed not only with the organization of the meeting but also the openness and candor of the participants and demonstrators. It was a great opportunity to display the capabilities of our company and also network with some great companies in the Calgary (and Edmonton) areas. Christian Idicula of CriticalMass out of Calgary provided a great summary of the presenters.
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CTIA Wrapup
Well it turns out that PhoneTag Elite didn't take any major awards at the LBS Challenge . Our continuing curse, of always being a finalist never a bride came through again this year.
I have been involved in the competition for 3 years now and I think that by far this years applications were the most promising. The applications were solid and polished. Each of them looked ready to go to market and all of them included business plans.
Of particular note was a company out of California that produce a product called SpotJots. I'm testing out the product on my Nokia N95 now and it seems like it works really well. Most importantly the application is very fast and very clean. The design work on the site is great and simple. I'll post a full review of the site when I can.
Also another participant, Trapster , produced a user-generated speed trap application. The mobile device tracks its location and when a driver passes a speed-trap on the side of the road, they can trigger a message to the server. This uploads the speed trap to a central server and when any device approaches an existing trap it can send an alert out to the driver. Great idea. After meeting the founder, Pete Tenereillo, and going for a short drive I can attest that he probably created this app out of a personal need.
If you have some time follow-up with all the application that were displayed at the LBS Challenge. You can demo most of them by downloading the Where.com application to your phone. 2/3rds of the applications were run on this platform. I'm demoing the platform now and I'll send a posting out soon.
CTIA 2008
I've made my way down to CTIA in Las Vegas because PhoneTag Elite is up for another award. This time its a big one with the NAVTEQ LBS Challenge. We've placed just missed winning this three times now so hopefully PhoneTag can pull it out and win one.
I'll try to catch part of the show and let you know some of the insider gossip thats happening at the show. More to follow.
Let me know if you are at the show and I'd love to meet up with you and maybe buy you a beer.
Great Article on Rules for StartUps
 I just read a brilliant article on developing the proper environment for fostering growth in a startup company.
Misanthropy Today - 10 Rules for Startups
The most poignant line and probably sums the article up best is when the author states, "Companies will often become top-heavy to disperse responsibility amongst insecure or ineffective executives." I have worked with numerous companies that have gone the route of hiring senior non-technical managers to lead product development and have yet to see it succeed. The most successful teams are led by technical staff that can adapt and understand the technology.
By hiring senior level non-technical managers you are marginalizing the technical staff and diluting your ability to innovate new products.
Take for example the two biggest tech darlings of the week, Google and Facebook. The founders were competent technically and grew into the management portions. They did not have to disperse responsibility because they had the capabilities themselves. Instead, they could focus on growing their position by becoming the leaders in their chosen fields. They chose to hire smart and competent technical staff first.
As a rule, avoid working for a tech startup whose founder or senior management team are technically weak. Inevitably this means a passive approach to new product development. They will always follow a stronger technical company. Most top-heavy companies are unable to rapidly tackle new products.
IGF Mobile Winner
Well PhoneTag Elite did it again! We won the IGF Mobile Award for Augmented Design at GDC 2008. It was a big win as the other two games in the category were excellent.Â
http://www.igfmobile.com/02finalists.html
We picked up quite a bit of press for winning the award and hopefully we can turn it into some commercial success.
1UP (Could have used more coverage here!)
Overall it has been well received but in general the game hasn't been getting a lot of downloads. PhoneTag Elite is now available on the Sprint Network for download. Check for it on the deck.
Congrats to the whole PhoneTag Elite team!
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