Matthaus Krzykowski

Quick Update, Back from SF

Just back in Berlin from a trip to SF. Still heads down. However, there’s a tons of exciting updates which I will likely start post on from next week on or so.

The Passion Of Creation

As you see in the “about me” of the website I have “a passion is to help creative people, be it for example software engineers or designers, succeed.”

When we are young, our energy is raw and our passion seems limitless. As we grow older and “more professional” we become more conscious of the creative energy within us. If our job has creative parts to it, we need to find a way how to tap into this energy at the blink of an eye and create “results.” Our profession demands it.

This, in fact, is already hard to do so for yourself, day by day, and achieve excellent results. It is even harder to do so in teams. I remember, back in 2008, being inspired by a presentation by Adaptive Path on the Management of a Creative Environment. Some of the lessons in here - like cross-train the entire team - is something I have been implementing ever since in my teams.

But back to the inspiration to this post. A couple of minutes ago I heard that Lamb will be coming to town for a concert. I bought tickets within the next 10 minutes. In moments like this I wish I had the eloquence of a John Peel to express my feelings about some of the music out there.

Lou Rhodes, the singer, is the only public figure I had ever a crush on. Back in 1999, in my days as a wannabe music journalist, I set up an interview with her. Midway through, as I even did not pretend to hide my blushing anymore and clearly everyone in the room was seeing we were waaaayyyy off topic, she changed the topic of the interview herself. She started to talk about her feelings, her passion for creating music and how this is a source of energy she needs every day. An epic day in my life.

Anyways, happy to see her again on stage. If you haven’t ever listened to it when you were young in the 90s, the Re-Birth of the Cool series is just awesome. Back in high school in Swaziland (96-98) this was one of the albums I heard most frequently with my buddies.

The difference in ambition with the London/Valley folks right there. Startup Berlin represents.

via getamen:

Introducing the Amen team one by one.  Here’s Caitlin Winner, who quite possibly has the best Amen team photo ever. 

Find her @caitlinwinner.

(Source: getamen)

“I, Albrecht Durer of Nuremberg portrayed myself in everlasting colours aged twenty-eight years.”

Sorry No Entry for Hipsters from the U.S.

Via Anthony Barba: Sorry No Entry for Hipsters from the U.S.

The cockiness of these notes is really nailing what I am trying to describe Berlin’s energy when I talk to non-Berliners. I’ve got no clue what the beef between Portuguese vs Spanish vs US vs US-looking hipsters is - and I likely would not spot the difference between either. 20 and 30-somethings from all over the world are drawn to this energy and are creating their playgrounds here. There’s nothing comparable going on in London, Paris, San Francisco at this moment.  And even the local New Yorker vote is split, based on my circumstantial evidence.

The Best Piece on the iPhone 4S Launch comes from Dean Bubley

Dean Bubley: “The real story of the iPhone 4S is under the hood. It’s all about Apple’s chipset strategy for the next few years.”

“To sum up - in my view, the iPhone 4S is all about the hardware platform shift. Stuff like Siri is window-dressing in comparison, to give the fans at least something visible…

This might be disappointing for some, and could possibly give Microsoft and Nokia an opportunity to profit from a temporary lull in external iPhone evolution, but it’s likely set the scene for continued growth and profitability from Apple’s mobile devices for a few more years.”

One big lesson I learned as I have become part of the Valley tech blogger scene is that, amongst the so-called mobile influencers , there are less than 30 (and yes, this ‘30’ is the result of a popular vote; folks who have a hard time to get on a record  aka Google/Apple execs were excluded )who frequently come up with an independent opinion that takes more than the user experience element of the mobile stack into the account. User experience, of course, is what most tech bloggers (and most startups and investors) concentrate on.

Source: Lars Kamp

In contrast, few of the 30 names which came up in my vote are widely heard. I learned, however, they are influential with people who want to get things done.

Back in 2009, as an advisor to my MobileBeat conference, Sprint’s VP of Strategy, Russ Mcguire, pointed me towards Dean as a source for key issues around the network, hardware and phone middleware.

Back at MWC in February I talked to my friends at ARM, Marvel, Nvidia, Qualcomm and asked them what innovation this year will be about, - in plain marketing ghibberish - “distribution to new low level consumer segments” aka the under $100 Android phone as good as an iPhone 3G that will be available by the end of year. The pricing seems familiar ? This is what Apple just announced and is just part of the industry trend. Still, at the same time our notion what we think we can do with superphones will continue to be pushed.

The bottom line for us, who professionally read tech blogs, is that we may have another year or even two of futile iPhone speculation ahead of us:

“It’s also possible that Apple sticks with another iteration of the current 4S platform for another year, before adding in a “perfect” LTE option in 2013. My prediction from June 2010 was that Apple support LTE was most likely in 2012 or 2013 (I’m glad I dodged the bullet on the 5% 2011 chance). An October 2012 launch would make sense - and would also fit in with future timelines of both Qualcomm and Intel (and possibly others like nVidia).”

I cringe at the thought of that.

Box Names Bizmo and TouchDraw as Top Mobile Dev Challenge Winners

Box Names Bizmo and TouchDraw as Top Mobile Dev Challenge Winners

I was judging on this one. Both Bizmo and TouchDraw were my favourites, together with Silolinks. Great insights into what’s going on in enterprise apps and good conversations with some of the fellow judges, too. Most app commentators, including Android Co-Founder Rich Miner believe that enterprise will be where the app money is at. To give you a ball park figure of the opportunity- enterprise was a $5 Billion market for AT&T last year. Just a bummer that I missed out on the Jane’s Addiction party at the Boxworks conference.

hiten:

(via The Facebook Chart That Freaks Google Out)

Tech bloggers and industry pundits tend to make this complicated. Yet, when I meet Google folks (including Android-ites), they mostly talk about one thing: Eyeballs.