Monitor Group and consulting: Scale matters

Anyone that is remotely familiar with the consulting industry would have heard of Monitor Group filing bankruptcy by now.  I found it quite surprising that the firm had left things so late that it had to end up with bankruptcy (I'd have expected an earlier recognition of the need for some sort of merger). Still, some sort of shakeup has always been on the cards for the mid-sized management consulting firms. More than ever, service companies need to achieve scale at a global level. At 1,000+ employees and 27 offices, Monitor was sizable, but ultimately not nearly the scale required to become a sustainable business in the long term.

The idea of economies of scale (and scope) dates much earlier than Porter's five forces, and has it's roots more in manufacturing than in modern-day service industries. However, I think scale plays a much bigger role in today's businesses than most would imagine, and increasingly so in the business of management consulting. Some thoughts of why I believe so:

1. Business is international, even if revenues come from one specific country/region
5-10 years back, you could imagine large companies only needing to think about business and competitors within one country or region. Telecommunications is one example. Starhub, when launched in 2000, only needed to contend with two competitors SingTel and M1 in Singapore, and this was the case for years. StarHub today generates almost all it's revenues from Singapore, but it has to deal with business threats that are international: YouTube, Viber, Line to name a few. A management consulting firm now needs to be able to articulate the business environment of these competitors (in the US, Israel and Japan respectively) to comprehensively understand strategic options.

2. Blurring of lines across industries
Management consulting firms now also need expertise in multiple sectors as industries converge. It's challenging to be a telecommunications-specialised consulting outfit, if a telecommunication company's business, say Vodafone as an example, now spans everything from media to financial services to healthcare.

3. MBAs, experts and knowledge are easily accessible
The US churns out some 160k MBAs per year. At the same time, expert networks are flourishing, allowing anyone to get in touch with an expert in just about any topic. Further, startups like Quora are making it increasingly easier to find specific knowledge (Want a view of how long a fish would survive in orange juice? or for the more practical,  perspectives from real entrepreneurs on how to stay ahead of startup trends ).
The combination of these factors imply that the demands on management consulting firms are ever higher. They can't just deliver a typical b-school five-forces analysis, or just provide technical 'how-to' recommendations. They now need to deliver -both- in tandem: strategy, plus specific implications to the business, right down to 'how it will happen in practice'. A management consulting firm needs to be able to pick from a large pool of talent to assemble a team that can pull this off.

4. Recruiting and building "T-shaped" talent
The other consequence of the above point is that management consulting firms need to attract and recruit 'T-shape' talent. Folks who are specialized in one area, but also have the broad toolkit for business management. To attract and retain such talent, firms need to provide regular opportunities in the area of specialization and sufficient diversity to build general business skills (e.g. a stream of projects in emerging-market healthcare and also options for pharmaceutical or hospital business ). Only the largest of the management consulting firms can offer this.

5. Exogenous shocks more frequent
The Libya case clearly hit Monitor group hard. But plenty of these happen - unplanned, exogenous events that disrupt a significant part of a business. Everything from regime changes to regional financial crises can cripple a business that's heavily project-based and indexed to business growth. Global scale, and some level of business diversity helps cushion such blows.

So, implications? My guess is that there'll be much more consolidation in the management consulting industry, particularly among the mid-tier outfits. Both between firms, as well as acquisitions by larger multi-business professional firms.

Essential tech travel gadgets for Asia

I have amassed quite a few gadgets that I bring along on my travels in the region, some get quickly retired/replaced, while some make it to the "must-bring" section of my laptop bag. Beyond the regular laptop, smartphone and tablet, here are seven accessories that I recommend, particularly if you're travelling around Asia where roaming data is prohibitively expensive and power plugs can be scarce. 

1. FliteGear Travel adaptor 
I've had many travel power socket adaptors, but this was the only one I've found that has two USB ports, and juices them up to 2 amps, which means that they'll comfortably charge iPads. This is only available on SQ or Tiger Airways flights, but it is good value at SGD55.

2. Nokia Asha dual-SIM mobile phone
Yes, I still use a Nokia (!) The lower-end Asha series is great for use in emerging markets in Asia. It supports dual-SIM, with a hot-swappable second SIM. Great for countries where you need multiple SIMs to ensure you're always within network coverage. Also, has a ridiculously long standby time of up to 30 days or 7 hr talk time on one full battery charge.

3. Huawei 3G MiFi E560
A mifi hotspot device like this one lets you connect your primary smartphone, laptop and tablet to the internet with just one local SIM (see item 7 on prepaid SIM cards) instead of using roaming data.

4. Lifetrons portable 5600mAh charger
This portable charge stores 5,600mAh, enough for ~4 full charges of an iPhone. It also has dual USB ports, which makes it easier to charge two devices at one go. It provides 2 amps of current, so it can charge iPads as well. The kit comes with a full set of plugs to charge anything from Sony Ericsson, iPhones to Blackberries.

5. Multi-head USB plug
I found this while on vacation in Koh Samui. It's a USB cable with iPhone/iPad, mini-USB and micro-USB plugs all in one. I have never seen this elsewhere, but presumably you can buy this at a flea market in Bangkok.

6. Belkin USB in-car charger
This small car adaptor lets you charge your devices in case you're stuck in one of the many massive traffic jams in Asia cities (Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok come to mind). Overlaps with the function of the portable charger, but for it's size and weight, it is worth packing along as backup.

7. Prepaid SIMs
I have collected a bunch of prepaid SIMs from across different Asian countries. They're cheap (~$2-5) each, and typically let you purchase unlimited data in daily or hourly 'sachets'. Keep an eye out for SIM packs with longer expiry periods to prolong the credit value and use of each SIM.

I'm always looking out for new additions to this utility kit. Do you have other suggestions? =)

Singapore vs Malaysia - in numbers

Was searching to figure why Singapore is now reportedly the highest GDP per capita country globally*, and stumbled upon this site called IfItWereMyHome. It's a pretty nifty site that pulls stats from public databases like CIA World Factbook and WHO and uses them to compare countries head-to-head. They do this by positioning you as the 'average' person of one country and painting how your life would be like as the 'average' citizen of another country.   

Since it's midway between the independence days of the two (major) countries I've called home - Singapore and Malaysia, thought I'd post the comparison of the two. Full comparison with source data here.

Few stats that stand out for me:

Babies. Topic du jour in Singapore right now. The underlying data is basically ~9 births per 1000 population in Singapore vs 22 births per 1000 population in Malaysia. That results in 2.6X more babies per person, quite a staggering disparity. To put it in perspective, if Singapore had Malaysia's birth rates, it'd have  half a million more born and bred citizens in 10 years time. Would also mean half a million less foreigners needed in 20 odd years from now.

Income. Also quite fresh in the news that Singapore is reportedly the highest GDP per capita country globally*. This is based off PPP-adjusted GDP per capita of $14,800 for Malaysia and $50,300 for Singapore. In raw terms, the 'average' Malaysian could only afford 70% of the goods and services that the 'average' Singaporean could. Of course, if I recall correctly, the PPP basket of goods exclude property and cars... so the gulf isn't really as big as it seems.

Life expectancy. For Malaysia average life expectancy is 73.5, while in Singapore this is 82 years. Quite a big difference at over 10% longer lifespan. To again put in perspective, this is also in the range of half a million -less- citizens in 10 years if Singapore had Malaysia's average lifespan.
The existential question to pose here is - what should one do an extra 8.5 years?

Class divide. Here the comparison metric really doesn't work for me. The Gini coefficient, while a sound measure, is completely non-intuitive. Not easy to visualize in the same manner for comparing babies, income or life expectancy are. I mean, what does 4% less class divide really translate into? What's clear though, is that both Malaysia and Singapore are have unacceptably high Gini coefficients (46 and 48 respectively). This puts both countries in the same league as Kenya (48), Uganda (44) and Zimbabwe (50) !

A few tweaks I can think of that would make the site more useful, one is doing city-level comparison (i.e. KL instead of Malaysia), and another is to add some more practical livability stats like crime rates, entertainment venues/bars per population, etc. That'd really make it a proper reference site for would-be expats/foreign workers.


* So based on IMF data : Qatar is waaaay ahead of Singapore in GDP per capita, whether PPP adjusted or not. Qatar is at ~$103k , while Singapore is at ~$60k. Luxembourg also pips Singapore at $80k. The same rank order holds in other databases like CIA world factbook. The only reason why Singapore comes up tops in the Wealth Report by Citi & Knight Frank is simple, they left out Qatar and Luxembourg in the research! Singapore actually ranks third, or in Olympics framing- is a bronze medalist

Startup opportunity to disrupt the Singapore taxi industry

The Singapore taxi industry is good by most standards, but is inefficient. This much is clear from the public gripe and news coverage on the woes of taxi passengers. Two quick stats to drive this point through. The number of taxis per population is high compared to benchmarks, and increased growth in taxis on the roads in the past 5 years hasn't done anything to increase total passenger trips. In fact, taxis in Singapore served more trips in 2006 than 2011!

Clearly, what's needed isn't more taxis, but higher efficiency. While there are 7 competitive licensed taxi operators in Singapore, there's been very little impact beyond keeping prices relatively low and introducing some marginal innovations with new booking channels (SMS, apps). There's very little incentive for taxi companies to boost utilization since they all generate revenue through leasing out taxis to individual taxi drivers. They maximize revenues by making sure as many taxis are rented out daily, not by ensuring taxis are fetching as many passengers as possible. 

With such inefficiency, slack incumbents and smartphone penetration at 90%, I believe Singapore is a unique market where a startup could disrupt this space and improve the industry's efficiency.  The general idea would be something like a Lyft or SideCar: a platform to link drivers with passengers in real-time, except for Singapore this would be initially focused on actual taxi-drivers instead of regular car-owners.

Here are some features of this hypothetical "Singapore Sidecar" system and how it could make a difference.

Rating and choosing driver quality 
Currently the LTA tries to enforce service quality through QoS ratings and satisfaction surveys across the taxi companies. This really is not particularly useful. Ratings need to be determined for drivers, not taxi  companies.

The "Singapore Sidecar" application would allow passengers to rate the specific booked drivers at the end of each trip. Over time, passengers can then filter for drivers based on historical ratings and feedback.
This also means an opportunity for drivers to rate passengers, allowing them to turn down poorly rated passengers too.

Dynamic pricing
Taxi drivers optimize their driving schedules around most profitable times and regions of Singapore. This leaves 'black-holes', areas in Singapore at which point getting a taxi is like trying to find a unicorn.

A "Singapore Sidecar" app could allow for passenger determined booking fee and provide suggested booking fees for the given time and location. So if the app figures you're in a 'black-hole' zone, it could suggest a higher booking fee to incentivize taxi drivers to serve the area.

Truly centralized dispatch system across taxi companies
Each taxi operator runs their own booking and dispatch systems. This results in inefficient overall use of taxis. Instead of dispatching the best available taxi across the 27,000 taxis across Singapore, at best you get one optimized from the pool of 15,000+  from Comfort DelGro, the largest operator.

A "Singapore SideCar" system could integrate across a larger pool of taxi drivers over time, and should then be able to optimize much better. In practice, this means that instead of sending a Comfort cab 10 mins away, the system could send an SMRT one that's 3 mins away, and assign the Comfort cab to a subsequent, nearer passenger.


Size of the prize : SGD$20Mn annually
ComfortDelGro reported 2.4Mn bookings a month in 2011. Extending that to the full industry, and assuming a notional SGD$0.50 per booking puts this opportunity at around SGD$20Mn annually. So, the question is, who's best placed to try capture this opportunity? LTA setting it up? a couple of undergrads from NUS? Rocket Internet?

Outlook.com - GMail faces real competition

Microsoft released Outlook.com today to replace Hotmail, and I think Microsoft has something here that Google should be worried about. While GMail leads now on number of users right now (see chart above), I think Outlook.com is good enough for Microsoft to regain its crown within a year, while Yahoo will probably slowly bleed users.

The first thing that users will notice is the slick interface, but it's more than that. Here are five distinctive features where Outlook.com stands out:

1. Skype integration
Microsoft is making the most of its $8.5Bn Skype acquisition here. The web-enabled Skype instantly levels the playing field on in-browser video chat. Thousands of enterprise users globally would cheer this, as this now enables Skype access on enterprise devices (Skype application is typically prohibited on enterprise laptops for security reasons). Google still has the Hangout ace here to play, but I'd say Outlook wins on video just because of the larger Skype base it can now access.

2. Skydrive and Office Web Apps
Outlook.com comes with Skydrive (7Gb) and Office Web Apps. Google Drive is great even with slightly less space at 5Gb, and Google pioneered Google Docs. But Office Web Apps is a much more powerful, and more familiar web app implementation of the MS Office suite, with presumably much less compatibility problems importing/exporting between local and cloud.

3. Attachment size - 300Mb!
The maximum size for attachments is 300Mb if transferred using Skydrive. This leaves Gmail and Yahoo Mail's 25 Mb limit in the dust. How many times have you seen someone asking someone else to create a Gmail account for large file transfer in the past? Well, Microsoft might benefit from this now. I see Google and Yahoo increasing their file limits very soon.

4. Facebook, Twitter feeds into inbox
Without its own social network, Microsoft has opened up Outlook.com to integrate with Facebook and Twitter. So friends' posts and tweets go right into a centralized inbox. I'm not big on this feature though - not clear to me I want to be mixing all different message types in one inbox, but for the hyper-connected, this may make a difference.

5. User interface
Microsoft beating Google at usability? No way!? But it looks like they've learnt a lot since their Windows XP days. The Windows 8 Metro-style interface is super slick and snappy. Microsoft really took a page out the Google/Apple design book, went even more minimalist and nailed the UI.

So what next? It'd be interesting to see how Google and Yahoo respond to this over the next months. They can't afford to sit still, especially for the easy wins like mail attachment size. 

Meanwhile, I'd recommend that you head over to outlook.com now and migrate your old Hotmail account or set up an Outlook account before your choice username is taken! 

Next Issue App - Unlimited magazines for a monthly fee

Ever wondered what owning a magazine shop would be like - having the full breadth of magazines to browse and freedom to just read the 2-3 articles with catchy headlines? 

Now you can have this on the Ipad with the launch of Next Issue. For USD$9.99 per month, the app allows you to access the latest from 39 different magazines - including back issues up to Jan 2012. The partnership of 5 publishing giants - News Corp, Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith and Time Inc. provide a great spread of quality magazines, including Time, Wired, Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest, GQ and Conde Nast Traveller. 

The app - meets the bar

The app itself is pretty good - but not exceptional. Basically it provides digitized versions of the physical magazines, although some have good interactive elements like video and mini-games. The major shortfall for me is that the text are images rather than vectors, so on the Ipad3, the text isn't as sharp as it could be. It also means that you can't adjust font sizes. It does adjust layout dynamically for portrait or landscape use though.

Pricing model - a winner, particularly for readers in Asia 

What's really great is the all-you-can-eat pricing. For USD$9.99 a month, you get access to most of the magazines. For USD$14.99 you get additional premium weeklies like Time, Entertainment Weekly and New Yorker. This means USD$120 - 180 per year, which is steep if you're living in the US where subscriptions are in the USD$20-40 range annually and you usually get both physical and digital versions for that price.

However, for readers in Asia, this pricing is fantastic. A single physical issue at the magazine store in Singapore could cost up to USD$8 due to shipping overheads, while subscriptions cost USD$140/year for Time Magazine and USD$110/year for Fortune. Readers of just these two titles alone would save money and reduce environmental damage with this app.

The app is only for US ITunes accounts at this point. If you don't already have a US account, I'd switch to one just for this.

The business strategy - traditional media finally gets it

Overall, this is a great strategy for the magazine publishers. If they get the pricing right, the incremental revenues from volume uptick should easily offset the lower prices, even accounting for leakages in international sales. But that's not all. The real kicker for the publishers is that they now have full access to consumer behaviour - which magazines get read, how long, which ads get clicked, etc. As the the WSJ puts it. your e-book reads you! While all the ads are now the same static ones as in the magazines, it won't be long before the ads are customized based on reader profiles. 

Learning branding at the Koh Phangan Full Moon Party

Just got back from a vacation to Koh Samui in Thailand where I managed to make it for this month's Full Moon Party at the neighbouring Koh Phangan. Got a bunch of photos, a nice body paint motif on my arm and the usual Foursquare check-ins. Also took away some interesting observations on marketing of commodity goods, applicable in both the physical and digital world.

One of the features of the Koh Phangan full moon party is the 'bucket' concept of selling and consuming alcohol. Basically the vendors sell the partygoers a 250-300ml bottle of hard liquor and accompanying mixers, served with ice in a 1-litre plastic bucket- see image. They come in different 'mixes' of alcohol and different brands and are priced from 200Baht for local you-might-go-blind whiskey brands to over 400Baht for 'premium' labels. For all means and purposes though, every stall on the beach sells exactly the same product, at pretty much the same (likely cartelised) price points.

So with some 60-odd makeshift stalls lined up at the beachfront, how does a stallowner differentiate? Well, the usual volume-discounting happens, some marginal product differentiation (extra fresh piece of lime) and some cross-product bundling (comes with neon body paint).

What was most interesting for me though was the branding of each stall. The Thai stallowners would take on a caucasian name for their stall. This helps the mostly Aussie and British crowd remember the stall names, but more importantly, this brings them over to pose and take photos either because the stalls are named after them, or after their friends back home. From there, the stallowners' sales skills takes over and establishes as the customer's 'favourite bucket stall' (e.g. the 'Emma' stall snagged this blogger). To maximize traffic, the most popular names are used - Alex, Jack, Jamie, etc), with some targeted stalls going for more Russian sounding names. Photo below illustrates best -this was taken early in the evening before the crowds came in. 

The simple takeaway here is that companies need to think about the target customers when branding and naming themselves or their products. At minimum, do no harm with the name. There are plenty of funny examples of this mistake - Aass Classic Beer anyone? It takes incredible product quality and execution to save a poorly named product, the IPad for instance is an exception, not the rule. 

Companies should choose names that gives them an edge within their target market - this implies being clear upfront on who that is! In the digital world, this then also needs to meet all the other requirements like ease of search, length and domain name availability. Not an easy task at all when all the constraints are considered. 

(For those keen on seeing more of what a Full Moon Party looks like, this photoblog by Asher Floyd has some very good shots and commentary)

ITunes Match - 5 reasons to subscribe, and how to do so without a US credit card

I've finally managed to get subscribed to ITunes Match and have it set up on the multiple iOS devices at home. For $24.99 per year, I think it's a bargain, here are 5 reasons why:

1. All songs are uploaded (not just ITunes-purchased ones) and upgraded to 256kbps quality: This has to be one of the biggest plus points, all the music is auto-magically recognized by Apple and the high-quality AAC 256kbps version from ITunes is stored in your ITunes Match 'locker'. So low-quality rips now get upgraded and the fresh, high-def version are loaded on the devices.

2. Quick syncing : Since Apple has most of the songs already in their library, there's no need to upload the full library of songs - it identifies ITunes songs that should be accessible, and only uploads songs that aren't on the ITunes music collection.

3. All my music, on all my devices: All music I have is now in the 'cloud' and can be downloaded or streamed to all my devices. That means that I can now reach my full music library from my laptop, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. In my case, that's ~2,000 songs but ITunes lets you go up to 25,000, excluding the ones you purchase from ITunes directly. Even if there's not quite enough space on some devices, you just need a fast-enough internet access to stream the music.This, in practice, unfortunately means wifi - performance on SingTel 3G in Singapore was erratic when I tried it over the weekend.   

4. Storage peace of mind: While I won't be formatting my external storage drive that holds all my music, it is reassuring to know that all the music I have is now backed-up to Apple's servers, presumably with industry-strength security and disaster recovery procedures. In a while, I can also imagine chucking away all the physical music CDs.

5. Album covers: This isn't a big point, but I like the auto assignment of album covers on all the devices. Some songs/albums still need manual intervention, but you get a slick looking digital collection - not just a text list ala Winamp of the 90s.

For folks that are outside US at this point, there really isn't too much of a choice right now - Grooveshark, Spotify, Google Music and Amazon Music are mostly inaccessible from here and they can't meet one or more of the 5 features above.

Still, to get ITunes Match up and running without a US credit card, you'll need to jump a few hoops. Loading the account with ITunes prepaid gift cards isn't enough. 


There are two ways to resolve this:  
(a) You can get a prepaid debit US card - e.g. from Greendot   
(b) or you can try to make your local credit card pass off as one issued from the US. This procedure is more complex (and I'm not clear about it's legality) but it is fully explained at this link. 

Increasing costs of online anonymity

You've met them before - the folks who declare proudly that they're not on Facebook. The ones who say "I share photos through email, and I send monthly updates to my family". LinkedIn? "No thanks, my headhunter has got my pdf resume already" . Twitter? "Nah, I already forward SMSes and joke emails"

While a completely legitimate choice, I argue that online anonymity and being disconnected from the major online social networks comes at a cost, and this will increase over time. More companies now use your online social graph, to verify your identity and to determine your value as a customer.

There are already signs today that those who aren't connected are disadvantaged in real-life. Many examples out there, here are some selected ones:

1. Party somewhere else - no entry into clubs without FB verification

That's right, without a Facebook account, you can forget about partying it up at some clubs. In the UK, some clubs have started to verify patrons' age through their Facebook accounts and tally it against their ID.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/club-bouncers-are-now-checking-your-facebook-to-confirm-identity/


2. Get in queue at the cafe, while those with Klout check in at the first-class lounge

At SFO and a number of other airports, a Klout score of over 40, measured by your social network size and influence, gets you into Cathay Pacific's first-class lounge, regardless of the airline you fly on.

http://thepointsguy.com/2012/05/klout-offers-some-free-cathay-pacific-lounge-access-at-sfo/


3. Stay in hotel-chains, unique homestays only for those proper online personas

Opening up your home to a stranger can be quite terrifying, but knowing if you have a common friend or if the person has sizable online social network helps verify that you've got a legit guest. AirBNB reflects the social network of potential hosts and renters to allow both parties to validate each other before confirming transactions. Without this, your chances of getting accepted by a host declines - and it's back to booking from the good old hotel chains.  

http://www.airbnb.com/social

But wait, even at hotel-chains, social media users get extra perks - anything from extra loyalty points to F&B discounts. Starwood is a pioneer in this area, linking up with Foursquare and Facebook.

http://www.spgpromos.com/socialcheckins/


Where does it go from here? By and large, staying disconnected today implies more of 'perks lost' rather than being 'denied services'. But you can imagine more companies getting onto this act: banks offering personalised interest rates , insurance agencies offering differentiated insurance premiums, telecom operators providing special price plans  - all based off your online social network.

Facebook and Google generate over $1Mn in revenues per employee annually

Among the tech giants, Facebook's average revenue per employee is the highest, at $1.16Mn/employee, just marginally ahead of Google's. 

So what does a high revenue per employee indicate? Basically, it indicates the revenue generating efficiency of a tech business, where the primary cost driver is really the employees - engineers, managers and sales people. Of course, this is not a perfect measure. Amazon for example, wouldn't technically be as comparable due to their costs of physical goods, but by and large, this works for most tech and knowledge-based companies.

This metric also indicates how much the company can invest in talent. With over $1Mn of revenues per employee, both Facebook and Google can both offer employees better direct compensation. More importantly, they can also invest in top-notch infrastructure, support and perks for each employee. Being able to cream off the best talent in the industry and supporting them well would go a long way in sustaining competitive advantage. 

The open question of course, is whether Facebook can scale revenues by10x to Google's $38Bn while maintaining the same employee revenue efficiency, or would it do even better. My guess is that Facebook's revenue per employee would decline from here - mainly because they'll start to employ more people into adjacent areas of growth where monetization won't be as effective as the core business (e.g. a recruiting a full division for Instagram where there's still no revenues...)

Motivating the killer zombie game designer: Valve Software

Valve is the company that is responsible for many hours of sleep deprivation during my time in college. Instead of running simulations for my GPRS thesis, I'd be up late at night fragging my fellow hostel-mates on Counterstrike over the LAN. It set a new bar for FPS games and has continued to do so with new titles, including the super fun Left4Dead that pits you and your buddies against the zombie apocalypse.

Valve's employee handbook was recently published on the internet and it is a humorous, well-illustrated and  well-written document. It shows what it takes to run a company that relies on creativity and innovation. Much of it resonates well with what Daniel Pink writes about  in his book Drive. The core idea is that businesses in the new economy need to think about new ways to motivate (and implicitly, attract) employees. Carrots & stick approaches work well for repetitive tasks where efficiency matters, but not for spurring creativity and innovation. Daniel anchors around three elements of motivation : Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. I've highlighted how Valve puts this in practice, at times quite radically:

Autonomy : Freedom to direct own work

- It starts off with self-directed project involvement. While poking fun at Google's famous 20% time, Valve allows full autonomy for employees to sign up for projects

"We’ve heard that other companies have people allocate a percentage of their time to self-directed projects. At Valve, that percentage is 100. Since Valve is flat, people don’t join projects because they’re told to. Instead, you’ll decide what to work on after asking yourself the right questions. Employees vote on projects with their feet (or desk wheels)."

- Informal teams instead of hierarchical org structures, titles and job descriptions. Teams and roles are formed and structured organically and are temporal to the project. 

"Project teams often have an internal structure that forms temporarily to suit the group’s needs. Although people at Valve don’t have fixed job descriptions or limitations on the scope of their responsibility, they can and often do have clarity around the definition of their “job” on any given day. "

Mastery: Getting better at something that matters

- Explicitly calling out the need for broad skills and expertise within an area. 

"The most successful people at Valve are both (1) highly skilled at a broad set of things and (2) world-class experts within a more narrow discipline."

- Evaluating performance closely based on mastery. Instead of performance metrics that are team-based (e.g. sales), evaluation is based on individual contribution and mastery plays a large role. Valve gets the teams to rank their team members based on (i) Skill/technical ability, (ii) Productivity, (iii) Group contribution and (iv) Product contribution. 

Purpose: Contributing to something that is larger than oneself

- Being part of top-rated games played by millions of people already should be an impressive purpose, but the handbook goes further in painting out the purpose.

"Valve will be a different company a few years from now because you are going to change it for the better. We can’t wait to see where you take us. The products, features, and experiences that you decide to create for customers are the things that will define us."

All very Utopian... and raises questions to whether if all this is all nice internal PR. I think what makes this real though, is that they recognize what they'll not be good at by taking this path. 

As Michael Porter puts it "Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different". Too many companies say they want to do empower employees and remove hierarchy, etc. but in designing their org and policies, also start introducing elements for maintaining consistency, structure, etc. - leaving them with no HR strategy at all and nothing more than a set of hollow new mission and vision statements. 

Ad blocking

Two parts of this post, one on AdBlock, the product. 

The other part with my thoughts on the potential implications of online ad blocking. 

I installed the popular AdBlock extension to my Chrome browser and realised how much difference it makes to the browsing experience on some sites. 

The extension seamlessly removes ads off any websites you browse, reducing the clutter significantly. It also does the same for video ads, so YouTube pre-roll ads are skipped and it removes the in-video text ads too. 

It comes with a simple but good-enough set of options, including which sites to apply ad-blocking, temporary pause ad blocking and lets you edit and add advertisement filter lists.

For Firefox users, there's Adblock Plus.

For Safari users, there's Safari AdBlock.

For IE (why are you using this??) , there's Simple Adblock. 

Here's an example for Facebook before and after:

Here's an example for Google search. I've set it to allow ads for Google search though, since the ads tend to be quite relevant and aren't as intrusive as display ads. 

Few thoughts as I use this... 

Probably not a significant threat to the digital advertising business in the near term 

There's already over 4 million users of AdBlock for Chrome and 12 million active users for the Firefox version. However, I don't think there'll be a significant enough usage of such blockers in the near term to really threaten the industry directly, plus the folks who have ad-blockers installed are likely to be those who don't click ads anyway. 

"Independent" browsers could win in the longer run if ad-blocking becomes popular 

In the scenario where ad-blocking becomes more mainstream, the browser wars would then tip in the favour of browsers like Safari and Opera where their parent companies don't rely as much on advertising for revenues.
I'm impressed that Google has allowed this ad-blocking extension on Chrome, even though this directly threatens advertising revenues (over 98% of their 38Mn revenues last year). Still, I'm not sure they can do so if there is truly significant use of this - imagine the conversations between the Chrome product manager and the Search/Display ads product manager..

Arms-race between ad-blockers and advertisers in video ads space
The conflict between content-providers and ad-blockers could be more pronounced in the video ads space. These tend to be the ads that are more intrusive (e.g. pre-roll videos) and user would be more willing to pay to skip these. Meanwhile, for video content providers, these are the ads where number of impressions and length of engagement matter most since they're designed to build brand/product awareness for advertisers, very much in the same vein as traditional media advertisements.
This would then lead to competition to out-fox each other from technology perspective, with advertisers looking for ways to detect and prevent content delivery if blockers are found, while ad-blockers keep searching for new ways to provide the service while remaining undetected to content providers.

What Facebook is getting for 1Bn

There's already a slew of coverage on the 1Bn price paid for Instagram by Facebook, and some views on what triggered Facebook to do this - mainly focusing on Facebook panicking at the growth of a potential challenger:
- Here's why Facebook bought Instagram [GigaOm]
- Did Facebook panic? [CNNMoney]

Price aside, does this purchase make sense? What is Facebook actually buying here?
They get 13 employees who know a thing or two about social & mobile photo app development and a ~50Mn mobile installed base. I think what really makes the case though, is the 1.5Mn photos posted daily by Instagram users. While this pales in comparison to the 250Mn posted on Facebook daily, these are the types of photos that delivers the user engagement that Facebook can monetize.
1. They're current - taken and uploaded on the go
2. Instagram photos are the ones that generate the most comments and interactions on FB, much more so that, say, full album uploads from the desktop
3. In most cases, you reveal location with these photos - more data for targeting ads

If Facebook is valued at $100Bn, then Instagram is fair value at 1bn as long at it increases users' time spent on FB by over 1%

AirBNB, Wimdu and Roomorama in SE Asia

Triggered by the news of Roomorama merging with Lofty, and having a lot of time over this Easter break, I took an interest in looking at AirBNB, Roomorama and Wimdu recently to see how they are doing in South-east Asia and which would be best for a traveller to these parts. For those unfamiliar, these companies are all short-term rental platforms - allowing travellers to rent from people who are willing to rent out their rooms or homes. 

Actual traffic and users for each site are not easy to find, but it's relatively straightforward to check out how each of these sites perform from a supply perspective. 

AirBNB

AirBNB leads overall listings in major SEA markets, with ~35% more listings overall to the next site. Besides Malaysia, where they have a clear lead, they're neck for neck versus either Wimdu or Roomorama in most of the major markets (see chart). 

They have a significant lead in user reviews though, implying higher user engagement than the other two sites.

Roomorama

Despite the Roomorama's base in Singapore and its Asia-focus, Roomorama lags AirBNB in terms of inventory in SEA. It does however, lead in the main market of Thailand, and has carved out a strong lead in the niche country of Cambodia. 

The listings aren't always true 'B&B' and tends to feature budget or boutique hotels. This puts Roomorama in competition with the Expedias and Hotels.com of the world. 

Wimdu

I had expected more from Wimdu, given the big push by its parent owner, Rocket Internet into South-east Asia over the past few months. From the job listings on its site, Wimdu seems to be mainly run out of Berlin now and in the region, there is only focus on Singapore, and oddly enough, Philippines, which I can't quite explain. 

In conclusion, I'd probably use AirBNB on my next in-region vacation, but if I were to list a room, I'd list on all three sites as they all seem professionally done up, seem to have sufficient traffic, and have minimal cost differences. Roomorama is the cheapest for hosts - 0%, while the other two charge 3%. 

2X data usage of Iphone 4S users vs Iphone 4 users - it's not Siri, it's likely not the 4S either

There's been a lot of coverage about the increased data usage on the IPhone 4S recently. All sources track back to the original report by Arieso, a network planning consultancy (completely unbiased I'm sure) 

I'm a big believer of the impending mobile data usage explosion scenario of the world, but I've got two issues  with the many reports out there now. 

1. It's not Siri!

The first is that a lot of the data usage increase has been pinpointed to the Siri feature. Although the original report doesn't do so, a number of quite reputable new agencies have gone on to place the blame entirely on the Siri feature of the 4S. E.g. Bloomberg has gone on to report it as "Apple Siri Feature Doubles IPhone data usage" . 

To get a sense of Siri data usage, I ran a number of queries and checked the data usage monitor to see how much each consumed. Varies quite a bit on download consumption - with much large downloads occurring, as you'd imagine, with web searches compared with just returned text transcriptions. Simple average puts it at ~20Kb download per query, see chart below. Artechnica has it at ~63Kb total data usage, but I assume that includes upload or had a much higher proportion of web-search queries. Combine this with a high-end estimate of 15 queries per day you get to ~9Mb per month, or 28Mb if you use 63Kb per query. 

That is tiny compared to a couple of benchmarks I dug up:

Using MacFormat's June 2011 online survey, average Iphone cellular data usage is 720Mb per month, so

a 9Mb increase is a tiny 1.3% blip.
Using O2 UK's June 2010 quote, overall average (not just Iphone) data

usage is ~200Mb per month. Even against this underestimate, a 9Mb increase only accounts for a 18% jump.

Net-net it would seem that Siri's answer is a clear "No" to "Are you a data hog that'll double my data usage?"

2. The Iphone4S enables, but does not cause data usage increase

The second bit that bugs me about the reports is that a number of news sites have simplified the research finding of "Iphone 4S users consume double the usage of Iphone4 users" to "Iphone 4S doubles data consumption" - which is quite a different from the first. The latter implies that the phone itself causes or requires 2x data usage, and this isn't true. Culprits include WSJ: "New iPhone doubles data consumption -study" and good old Asiaone : "Iphone 4S doubles data consumption".

The nuance is important because the real explanation of 2X data usage of the Iphone 4S vs the iPhone4 is likely to be caused by factor external to the handset itself, including:
a) The Iphone 4S, bought through an operator, typically comes with the largest data plans both in data allowances and speed.
b) As a new handset, the early-adopters are also the heavy data users, hence the process is self-selective towards data-hungry users
c) Some research methodology impact (hypotheses only, I don't have the raw research) - e.g. comparing recent 4S usage vs historical Iphone4 usage, not adjusting for the Xmas spike in usage.


So, some conclusions:
i) You shouldn't be holding back a Iphone4 to Iphone4S upgrade because it'll cause a spike in your mobile bill, you should be holding back because there's few incremental features it provides =)
ii) operators shouldn't specifically worry about the transition from previous Iphones to IPhone4S, they should be worried about the broader smartphone capabilities and data-hungry features they enable (wifi hotspots, cloud synchronisation, alternatives to voice and SMS)

Hello World 2012!

As these things go, I've decided to revive this blog as part of a new year's resolution to write more and provide commentary on technology and telecommunication topics.

This blog originated as a website on technology in 2001, hosted on my own PC/server and running off Wordpress, it later reincarnated as a proper Blogger blog in 2006, covering my b-school exploits. Facebook then came along and I found it much less time consuming to update friends and family over status updates.

With Twitter and LinkedIn only providing limited wordspace, I've decided to reactivate this blog to allow for lengthier commentaries and essays on my pet topics of tech and telecoms.