Technology

May 17, 2010

The iPad Prototype circa 1990

Twenty years ago, I worked at a firm called Wang. Long forgotten now, Wang could have been Microsoft or even Apple … but that's another story, and one that should make for a classic case of how to screw up a good firm when the founder leaves. Anyways, Wang led the world in office automation…

May 13, 2010

Let the iWars begin

Inspired by three events this week, I focused on apps for my panel discussion today … and got shot down in flames for talking bollards. Harrumph. Here are the events, the logic, the proposal and why it got shot down. First, the events. Event number one: my first iPhone My Blackberry has just been switched…

May 10, 2010

Accenture’s marketing team strikes again

After Tiger Wood’s disastrous PR with golf clubs wrapped around teeth, Accenture had to rapidly come up with a new campaign to reignite their brand. So I arrive at Heathrow this morning and here it is: Brilliant. Inspired. Bodacious. Not. Quantum leaps are all well and good, but my immediate thought was Quantum Analytics. The…

May 10, 2010

Another P2P Payments system

With the general frustration folks appear to have with bank fees – not sure why as banking has to cost something, doesn't it? – I just got wind of the new Currency Exchange for P2P transactions. Here's how it works: Or, if you prefer, in text form: "CurrencyFair is the people's exchange." For example, "Jim…

May 7, 2010

Not an ash cloud, but a cash cloud

Overheard this week, a conversation between a bank’s CIO (the Technogeek), CFO (Mr. Bean) and CEO (The Governor). TECHNOGEEK: So times are tough and we need to manage costs. I suggest we do that by using cloud computing and software-as-a-service tools. THE GOVERNOR: Can you talk English, technogeek? TECHNOGEEK: Sorry, Governor. What I’m talking about…

May 4, 2010

Why payments innovations are rubbish!

Here's my latest retail payments focused presentation. It's premise is that there's loads of innovation out there, with micropayments and iPhone apps being hotbeds of innovation for developed economies whilst microfinance and 2G GSM messaging being creative fields for developing economies. However, all of these innovations are just froth on the cake of the payments…

Apr 26, 2010

Spanish Banks leading in innovation – now the iPad Bank (UPDATE)

It surprises me how often I find Spanish banks surprise me. First, BBVA launch the first really cool Bank 2.0 apps two years ago. Then Caja Navarra launches a fantastic hybrid Zopa-Bank styled P2P lending service. More recently, Santander created a really interesting head office campus full of robots. And now Banco Sabadell is one…

Apr 23, 2010

PayPal, Microsoft and Google’s visions of the future

Today seems to be a day about future trends. For example, I stumbled across a great discussion about the future of the internet with Google CEO Eric Schmidt: This is a 45 minute interview with Mr. Schmidt at a Gartner Symposium in the USA last year. Key comments from the interview, identified by Read-Write Web,…

Apr 23, 2010

Your soul is mine

I know that many of you will have read the story already but, just in case, it is worth posting here for posterity and for the record. LONDON, ENGLAND, April 03, 2010 /24-7PressRelease/ — Gamestation has discovered that more than 88% of the British public do not read the terms and conditions of a website…

Apr 21, 2010

Branches are dead, the future is social (Part Two)

After my post last week about my latest presentation with an audio file, my keynote in Bahrain this week was going to be a variation of the presentation. Due to being unable to fly to Bahrain, I mentioned on Monday that most of the day had been spent editing a video file for the conference…