Mobile Miscellany, 23 May 2013. MoMoLo's Summer Season - Starts June 3! Plus news for capitalists and social entrepreneurs.

In this miscellany: MoMoLo Summer Programme, launch of Capital List (a platform to showcase the best London start-ups to advisors and investors) and call for applicants to Wayra UnLtd  (an incubator for social ventures).

Summer Programme

The word "thrilled" is a bit over over-used in my opinion, anyway, I'm going to try it on for size: Now that Summer is here … you did spot that didn't you … we're thrilled to announce our Summer Programme! We've been working with our lovely sponsors to put together a programme of topical events, as follows.

Next Event. June 3, Mobile Marketing: Truth, Misconception and Wishful Thinking

Mobile is the perfect channel for personal engagement, isn't it? So how come it's so hard to find great examples of who is using it effectively? With the help of our wonderful event supporters Infobip and chaired by Alex Meisl of Sponge (former UK Chair at the Mobile Marketing Association, current board member of the Institute for Promotional Marketing) we'll be looking at the facts, the promise and the success factors for mobile as a medium for marketing.

Registration is open at Eventbrite and there are still some places … http://momolo-2013-06-03.eventbrite.co.uk/ - oh, and if you've never tried Croatian wine, well, your chance to do so during the networking session that follows!

June 24, Mobile, Mapping, Context …

The UK national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, our venerable supporters for this event, are 222 years old this year. Take a 222 year tradition of excellence in science and graphic design and combine it with modern mobile technology and what do you get?  We'll be exploring topics relating to location and other aspects of contextual awareness in our late June event, registration will open mid June.

July 15, Mobile Operating Systems

Just when you thought it was down to a two horse race in the mobile operating system area, along comes a fresh bright crop of new entrants in the field. We love innovation, right? But can we have it without another round of fragmentation, confusion and expense of cross platform development? With the support of our friends over at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, we'll be looking at what the opportunities are for new contenders, and what that means for people commissioning and building mobile products and services.

Capital List Launches

If you were there, you won't have forgotten the excellent presentation and chairing by John Spindler of Capital Enterprise at our March "Finance, Incubators and Accelerators" event. If you weren't there you won't have forgotten it either, unless you think it's possible to forget something you didn't know … metaphysics aside, take it from us, it was brilliant.

John's asked us to promote a new Capital Enterprise platform to showcase the best London start-ups to  investors and advisors, called "Capital List" (see what they did?) which is now in private beta at www.capitallist.co.. that's double 'l' mind, and if you like domain hacks - like me - you'll be wondering why John didn't pick  a .st domain name - John's answer to that is that it's because he isn't like me; fair enough, I suppose). Nonsense aside, John's particularly looking for start-ups and advisors to join the beta. Information is a little scant on the site right now … but it's a great opportunity to get in early - email John at john@capitalenterprise.org to get on the list.

Wayra UnLtd Call for Applications

Moving from Capital Lists to social venture technology entrepreneurs … you know about the Telefonica's Wayra Academy, I'm sure. Well, even if you don't, Wayra UnLtd has launched with the objective of supporting social ventures in a new incubator. There's a press release [http://wayra.org/en/noticia/technology-entrepreneurs-set-their-sights-social-change] and you can apply at http://wayra.unltd.org.uk/ (not the url given in the press release). Perhaps I shouldn't have told you that, you wouldn't make much of an entrepreneur if you couldn't have found that out for yourself, now, would you?

That is truly enough snippiness and silliness for one miscellany, we'd be thrilled (really) to catch you at the next event, but hurry, places are filling fast ...

Next Event, 3 June, Mobile Marketing - Truth, Misconception and Wishful Thinking

Mobile Marketing looks like it is changing and moving on. But separating out fashion and sentiment from hard facts can be a problem. Take the following statements: there's a massive underspend in mobile (compared with other channels, especially print). SMS, once a hot topic in Mobile Marketing is now more or less dead. One is true, the other isn't.

Our wonderful sponsors for this event, Infobip, certainly know a great deal about the mobile space and connecting people through the mobile medium. With their help we'll be looking at what the emerging trends in Mobile Marketing are, what remains the same, what's no longer true. It seems that we have been saying since the dawn of time that mobile is a personal channel, that it's perfect for having a dialogue and that when you get it right, the ROI exceeds other channels. Did that memo ever got circulated? Even now, it's hard to put your finger on who is using these powerful properties of the medium effectively. There are plenty of examples of mobile being used as a replacement for broadcast and push of canned messages. Amazing that "Do Not Reply" might feature in a channel made for dialogue.

This looks like it's going to be a wide ranging discussion, I would not be at all surprised if we touched on Apps as an engagement channel, the role of mobile operators, and how mobile marketing and the retail shopping experience are shaping up to be the next big thing.

I know that our chair for this event, Alex Meisl of Sponge, won't take offence at being described as an Industry Veteran! Former chair of the Mobile Marketing Association in the UK and current board member at the Institute for Promotional Marketing, Alex will be joined by an eminent panel featuring:

Rube Huljev - Global Operator Partnerships at Infobip
Ben Scott-Robinson, Sapient Nitro
Ilicco Elia, LBi
Douglas McDonald, Independent Consultant


Agenda

6.00 pm Doors Open
6.30 pm Panel Session
8.00 pm Networking
9.30 pm Close


As usual the event is free to attend (but registration is required at  http://momolo-2013-06-03.eventbrite.com and as usual it will take place at the CBI Conference Centre at Centre Point.  In a departure from the usual, though, as Mobile Marketing is mostly about personalization, we will try to personalize this Mobile Monday night with some Croatian flavours in the form of great wines and food, straight from the coasts of Adriatic!

Mobile Miscellany, 3 May 2013. Win a Samsung Galaxy S4... Next event 3 June.

In this miscellany: A chance to win a Samsung Galaxy S4 and a book on Tizen, but hurry! Also a link to our last event on BYOD and info about our next event on Mobile Marketing.

Last Event, BYOD, 15th April

We received very nice feedback on our last event, held in partnership with ICT KTN, in which we looked at the security, commercial and societal  problems (yes, really!) of Bring Your Own Device. This is not a question that is limited to large corporates, but they are the ones that have probably spent the most time thinking about it. Most wonderfully chaired by David Rogers, of Copper Horse, our illustrious panel of representatives from Telefonica, BlackBerry, Azenby and Mubaloo examined this topic together with a highly engaged audience.

One of our lovely volunteers, Manfred Bortenschlager wrote a blog post (http://www.mobilemonday.org.uk/2013/04/what-happened-on-15th-april-boyd.html) summarising the event, and a link to the podcast created by the folks at The Fonecast. As an added bonus there are various contributed links to more information on the topic at the end of the blog, which you should check out if you want to know more about this tricky subject.

Samsung Developer Survey

Our friends at Samsung, who we are proud to count as one of our annual sponsors, want to hear from you! They are running a Mobile Developer Survey which takes about 5 mins to complete (I just did, so can vouch for that!) and you get a chance to receive a copy of Tizen for Dummies, if you complete it.

Better still, as an exclusive inducement to the Mobile Monday London community, if you fill in the survey using this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/samsung_survey there is a chance to win one of two Galaxy S4s. The survey doesn't say so, but if you check the page title you'll see that it is a special survey for Mobile Monday London. Must say I would like to get my hands on one (I have the S2 and S3 and love them) and Samsung tell me that they too are waiting to get their hands on some, but as soon as they do they will send out to two lucky winners! Get filling out that form, they want to hear from people by Tuesday next week!

Next Event, Mobile Marketing, 3rd June
We're working on the final details of our next event, which will be supported by our new friends Infobip from Croatia. An event on Mobile Marketing is long overdue, and we'll be focussing on emerging trends and things that used to be true, but looks like they aren't any longer. Chaired by the irrepressible Alex Meisl, we also have some interesting twists to the event which we are working on … I'll  leave it at that, for now. More to follow!

Developer Economics Survey

A closing note that Vision Mobile is working with Mobile Monday globally to survey opinions on matters mobile. They too have prizes and the deadline is likewise Monday next week. Without wishing to turn Mobile Monday into a kind of Eurovision, it would be good if we got some entries from London, we are the pre-eminent mobile centre in the world, aren't we? The link: http://www.visionmobile.com/DS13MoMoLond.

That's all this time, looking forward to announcing the next event. We have quite a programme lined up for the remainder of the Spring and early Summer, but I'll save that for next time. For now keep the evening of 3rd of June free for a Mobile Marketing evening with a Croatian twist!