Today was the second day of the Web Summit and also the day I did my talk on the developer stage about numbers, context and how we can use data for decision making, the design process and in product design.
By chance I ended up sitting next to one of the girls presenting just before me during the speakers dinner. Another incredibly friendly person who made the conference a real pleasure to be at.
It was the first time I did my talk about numbers and data. Big data is a hot topic at the moment but it’s not just about the big data and how to tame it. It’s also about the smaller more manually manageable data and how everything that has to do with data, big or small, can be used to design better products and offerings. However, in order to do so we really need to understand the the data and the context it’s going to be used in and that’s part of what I talked about today.
Some people have asked me how come I’ve started talking about data. The reason for this is that both of the products that we’re working on at byflock, and the other ones that are lying in the queue, are focused on delivering curated experiences by understanding users, contexts, task and content and making the most of the insight and value that big data can bring. We’re not alone in believing that we can become much better providing curated experiences that help cut through some of the noise that we’re bombarded with on a daily basis. But there is also a lot of potential in using data to provide delights in design and that’s what we’re really hoping to achieve.
To return to the Web Summit there was one session in particular during Thursday afternoon (apart from Cindy Gallop and Barry Sonnenfeld) that I really wanted to go to which was called ‘Curating the e-commerce revolution’. It was moderated by Matt Cowan from Thomson Reuters and the panel consisted of Chris Morton (co-founder & CEO of Lyst), Diego Berdakin (President at Beachmint), Shauna Mei (Founder & CEO of AHAlife, Carl Fritjofsson (Co-founder & COO of Wrapp) and Olivia Gossett (founder of ILWYW). As just the panellist themselves are a testament to, there are numerous players that have entered this market during the last year and even 6 months and it’s not without a slight “hmmm…is it still worth it?” popping in to my head. But so far no one is doing what we’re doing so for now we’re ploughing on. But hearing them speak and looking at what they’ve done, more than ever I’m so keen to get something out there that we can bring to a few trusted people to help gauge what they think regarding the product’s potential. I’d rather fail fast on this one than spend the next 6 months working part time on it only to find that someone else beat us to it, or that no one is interested. Somehow, however, I doubt that is the case but we shall see.
Tomorrow – Day 293 | On not leaving things too open
Image: Photo of the speakers list for the Web Summit
