20th January MoMoEdi: Mobile as an Entrepreneurial Opportunity

[Geoff Ballinger]

Our next event is kindly hosted by the Edinburgh Entrepreneurship Club at the Business School, and is focussed on the new opportunities created by growth of mobile.

While the mobile channel is becoming much more widely used these days that doesn’t mean it can be simply lumped together with the more traditional digital channels in the design of interactive services - though unfortunately many people currently approach it that way!

It is both a highly personal and contextual bridge into the digital world that people have at their side 24/7 which leads to increased sensitivity about security and privacy, and much more challenging from a UX perspective due to a diverse range of small screens and fiddly input methods etc.

Taking a more positive view many of these unique features of mobile can be used creatively to enable new opportunities which weren’t possible before. To illustrate that we will hear from two local entrepreneurs in the food&drink sector, who are using mobile creatively to solve real world problems and create new opportunities:

* Ronnie Forbes, QikServe, http://www.qikserve.com/

Have you ever been in one of those airport restaurants where you queue up to order at the bar and the food is then brought out to your table? When you are travelling alone you face the inconvenience of taking your bags to the counter coupled with uncertainty of having a table to go back to once you have ordered, or risk leaving luggage unattended. QikServe solves that problem using the smartphone many travellers now have in their pocket.

* Nadine Pierce, Chefr, http://www.chefr.com/

Local food blogger Nadine noticed that very few restaurants made good use of that moment at the end of the meal when the diner was sitting back in a positive glow of good feeling about the food consumed etc. What better time to sell them some recipes so they can try to recreate a particular dish at home - and again the only practical channel in that situation is mobile.

The event kicks off at 6.30pm in the Business School, and will be followed by a networking reception. Places are limited so please sign up via the eClub’s site:

http://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/about/events/52aa07ee26382c5526dc7b81/momoedi--mobile-as-an-entrepreneurial-opportunity

Thanks to the eClub (http://www.business-school.ed.ac.uk/eclub) and Games Analytics (http://www.gamesanalytics.com) for supporting this event.

[Geoff Ballinger]

Thanks to all those who came along! We managed to overflow the Business School's LT4 and have folks sitting in the aisles so a healthy 75 or so folks present - and a good chat over wine afterwards - including seeing my first view of a Google Glass in the wild!

I have posted the slides from the event on slideshare:

http://www.slideshare.net/geoffballinger/mobile-as-an-entrepreneurial-opportunity

The next MoMoEdi is pencilled in for Monday March the 3rd and is likely to mainly focus on Analytics, though there may also be some post MWC reflection and chat. More details in the next few weeks.

Regards,

Geoff.

[Geoff Ballinger]

Julie Nixon of MBM Commercial has since posted an excellent overview of the event on their blog:

http://mbmcommercial.co.uk/blogs/startup-blog/%E2%80%9Cpie%E2%80%9D-oneering-apps-served-on-a-plate-mobile-creates-new-entrepreneurial-opportunities/

G

On Monday, 16 December 2013 07:39:33 UTC, Geoff Ballinger wrote: