Month: May 2012

Richard Stallman required medical attention while speaking at a conference in Barcelona earlier today. He was treated by paramedics and the conference has been suspended indefinitely, but he has been reported as having left the building under his own power.

If you’re at Big Omaha, congratulations! It’s an in-demand conference and one where the “hallway conversations” — the meet-ups between speaker presentations — are of incredible value. Here are some tips on working the room from an expert on the subject: Susan RoAne, author of  How to Work a Room.

• Be more of a host and less of a guest. Make introductions. Say “Hi” to wallflowers and invite them into your conversation. Make other people more comfortable. Help them when you can.
• If you’re going to stay in the conversation, put down your stuff. Carrying your bag or coat during a conversation sends the signal that you’re about to leave.

• If you’re in a conversation with just one other person, don’t “hotbox” them. Hotboxing is when you square your shoulders front and center to them, and it excludes others from joining.
• If you’re in a conversation with more than two people, don’t form a huddle. Huddling feels safe, but it’s also antisocial. Try to keep part of your conversation circle open so that others can join.
• Share your core competency. It’s a perfect segue from the “So what do you do?” question, adds substance to the conversation and establishes your personal marque or brand.
• Learn. That’s at least part of why you’re at Big Omaha and it’s a great way to get into conversations. Here’s a little mental trick: try to learn 3 new things while you’re here.

• Eat lunch last. There’s a long lunch break…and a long lunch line. Use the first part of lunch, when the line’s long, to talk to others, then get your lunch once the line’s died down. You’ll still have plenty of time to eat. (Thanks to Megan Hunt, a.k.a. “Princess Lasertron” or @lasertron for this one!)
• Bring an accordion. Well, it works for me…
• Smile! It’s contagious, and it starts conversations.

Also worth checking out is Megan “Princess Lasertron” Hunt’s guide to getting the most out of Big Omaha. Check it out!

Eva chimed in with this comment, and I think it was so important I’d add it to the article body:

And if someone joins your group, acknowledge them and don’t let them stand there, invisible, awkward, while you pretend not to see them and continue your conversation. I get this about 50% of the time at conferences, but mainly from people older than me. There’s less ageism in tech/startups than in science/academia, so might not be problem for you guys.

If you’re comfortable programming in Ruby and develop (or want to develop) apps for iOS, you should give RubyMotion a try. Its creators came up with a nice way to sum it up: it’s “terminal-based workflow” that makes it easy for you to program iPhone and iPad apps in Ruby and build them with Rake. I’ve taken a couple of their starter apps for a spin, and the feeling I got was not unlike that first time I took Ruby on Rails for a spin.

I’m going to write a whole bunch of articles based on my experiences with RubyMotion here in Global Nerdy. I’m still doing my initial noodling, but I’ll write something up soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d post these screen captures from RubyMotion’s installer.

Many developer tools are content to go with a sparse installer or command-line recipe, but RubyMotion goes the extra mile and provides a beautiful installer. They didn’t have to do it; their target market is comfortable with installing and configuring development tools, but I appreciate the attention to detail and the effort.

Nicely done, RubyMotion! I’m looking forward to playing with you over the next few weeks.

For the curious, here’s RIM CEO Thorsten Heins opening keynote for the recent BlackBerry World developer conference (which took place May 1 – 3 in Orlando). It’s interesting to see what RIM have up their sleeves for BlackBerry 10, but I’m still not convinced that they can be saved.

I rather like the “time travel” editing that you can do with photos.

While I may not be convinced, the Blackberry World attendees in the video below are:

Found via Reddit.

Okay, maybe a volume knob. And I’m also assuming that there’s Bluetooth as well.

Starting late this afternoon Central Time, I’ll be reporting from Big Omaha, the startup conference that Philip “Pud” Kaplan has described as “SxSW before SxSW got insane” and waving the Shopify flag there. Keep an eye on this blog for my notes from the sessions, which are legendary!

When it rains, it pours. Just hours after I published my article on the way-off predictions on how well Windows Phone would do and cited the comScore numbers for mobile OS market share, Nielsen releases their findings, which are pretty similar. According to their survey, 50.4% of US consumers have a smartphone, and of those people, 48.5% are using Android phones.

Unlike comScore, Nielsen treated Windows Mobile, the older mobile OS versions 6.5 and earlier, and Windows Phone, as two separate operating systems. comScore had both operating systems at 3.9% of the market; Nielsen says that Windows Mobile accounts for 4.1% and Windows Phone, Microsoft’s “comeback” mobile OS, has just 1.7%. If I were still a Windows Phone Champ today, I’d be at my local pub, pounding back the bourbon something fierce.

Nielsen took in all sorts of info in their survey of mobile phone use, including a by-race breakdown of who used mobile phones as their primary phone. I noticed that the Asian stereotype rings true in this case and couldn’t resist making an infographic featuring me back during my Microsoft Phone Champ days alongside my homie Stevie B:

And in case you were wondering: I’m Asian (the Thrilla from Manila!) and my mobile phone is my primary phone (Skype’s my secondary). Steve Ballmer is white.

For more, check out Neilsen’s article, which features their numbers along with a link to their full report.