Reflecting upon the 3 days I spent schlepping around London left me with a warm glow.
It was especially enjoyable bumping into Jyoti Banerjee who I’m convinced has supped from the cup of eternal youth. We hadn’t seen each other for maybe 5 years. Jyoti was publisher of a very well read magazine about computing and finance during the mid- late-1990s. He got me on board very early. It’s how I came across Vinnie and Brian Sommer in the late 90s. And Phil Fersht. Completing the ‘oldies’ section, I met with Sam Sethi and Phil Wainewright, both of whom I know from former existences. I didn’t know it but UK TechCrunch is a franchised operation. Nice idea. (BTW – Sam gets about – see the Events section)
The only thing that bugs me about these meet ups is that they’ve all aged far better than I. Oh well. 
I’ve also met many folk for the first time. There’s Richard Murphy, the scourge of the Big Four tax departments, one of my early mentors Gary Turner, whose blog turned 5 years old a couple of days ago and who is a always a great raconteur. Then there is Emily Coltman. A truly charming and keen CA who is doing great things at her firm. Finally I met Stefan Topfer, who is now in the Far East to start work on that markets.
Unexpectedly, Al invited me to a Beers & Innoivation event in London. I was in two minds on this as it is very much a consumery thing. It was interesting because some of the big players (AOL was speaking and Yahoo! was represented) don’t seem to have a clear idea how they might transition their young mass audiences into adulthood. In my view this is essential for the phenomenon many term ‘social computing’ to take serious hold in the business.
Certain geeks are well wired into business need. I’ve not seen that before to the extent I am today. There are some unbelievably smart folk out there. Al talked about some work he’s been doing to hack EditGrid and mash it with Google Calendar. If this is a topic that interests you then Al has a great conversation with one of EditGrid’s founders. BTW – they now have 10,000 registered users.
I see pockets of innovation that could have direct positive impact on business. One practitioner told me how today’s young entrepreneurs want advice on an ‘instant gratification’ basis. Waiting weeks for advice is not acceptable. Instant is ideal, a few hours is pretty good and a couple of days represents the tolerance threshold. Figuring out an appropriate response to this kind of change is not going to be easy for a profession used to advising at a leisurely pace – with fee notes to match.
All in all, a really useful trip and one I plan to repeat in early 2007, but with a different agenda.
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