It’s always nice to let people know what you’re working on right? Otherwise people will think I’m spending my days on Twitter scanning the #iot hashtag (ok, I do that too).
I’m the founder of Good Night Lamp, a family of internet-connected lamps. We’re in the long ramp up towards good partnerships to kick off production, that side of things is long and thankless and sadly not something I can talk about right now. Needless to say, it’s one of those things that will get better for everyone with time. This takes up 60% of my time.
As for the 40%:
1. Mapping the industry
Recently I’ve put together a map of #iot startups / consultants which is light on the service provision side of things as I’m more interested in the application / product / startup side of things.
View IOT companies (UK & Europe) in a larger map
2. Retailing the Internet of Things
The Good Night Lamp and all the other projects on that map need a space in traditional retail environments. Big Box retail. Paul & I are putting together a proposal for a pop-up shop in Boxpark, a trendy container mall in Shoreditch, where they can be showcased and we can have a discussion with buyers about the place of these new tech products in traditional retail. I’m not in a position to fund this myself, so we’re looking for a sponsor. This isn’t about making money, it’s about getting a point across and opening up opportunities. Maybe your company likes #iot. Get in touch.
3. Eyehub
I’m going to be helping out Eyehub, a TSB-funded internet of things project by blogging a little on a topic I want to learn about more, which is safety and asset security in #iot. I’ll be helping them organise a couple of hackathons based on an API they are building for a campus and city! Smart smaller cities. It’s a thing you know.
4. Lean startup
Since mid-2012, I’ve been involved in a long piece of lean startup work with a client I can’t talk about. It’s mostly fun and interesting and also challenging. This is all mostly digital and a little #iot but it’s made me think that lean startup methodologies don’t work particularily well with hardware. I might blog about that at some other point.
5. Events
I’ve been helping Xively organise the London internet of things meetup. it’s the biggest one on the topic and there’s always space, you should come along. I’m going to be helping another client with a startup competition in the autumn, more on that soon.
6. Internet of People
Last summer, Rob (who has been a friend and a peer since I started the now defunct Tinker) Martin, Lorna and I met up in Amsterdam and started planning what was announced last week: Internet of People. The idea is simple: there are lots of consultants like myself out there working on various aspects of the internet of things, and lots of companies trying to understand the potential of iot for their business. We act as a matchmaking service based on a few core services. I was involved in helping set it up as a UK company (it’s easier you see) and shaping the general messaging. If you’re a freelancer in iot topics, you want to have a look at this. If you’re a company looking for someone to come in and give a talk or workshop about how iot affects your business (yes I know you only just got round to thinking “digital” but this will really blow your mind) say hi.
7. The Perfect IOT conference
I’ve been scheming with a few people about what the perfect iot conference would be. More on that soon too, but put Berlin in your calendar for February 19th to 22nd 2014. (I know, I know, we just got out of winter).
8. Mentoring
I’m a Bethnal Green Ventures mentor (as well as an advisor to Technology Will Save Us) starting next week.
9. Speaking
I’m also doing my lion’s share of public speaking, mostly about GNL, but you know it sometimes actually pays bills :)