Archive for category Mobile
I Want You For i-muse
This is the crazy leaflet Luca made to attract the attention on our stage offer, while this is the serious version with a detailed description of the offer and requirements.
It’s actually a search for an extraordinary person! 🙂
Joel Spolsky in his book Joel on Software, recommends searching for brilliant and results-producing people, qualities rarely coexisting in the same person.
Experience in this case isn’t relevant, we know we can’t pretend too much from a student, but it’s clear we’re going to invest in this person so that he or she could take an active role in the entrepreneurial project and watch i-muse grow together with us.
Considering the kind of job, a woman would have a great advantage, but this won’t be a discriminating factor.
A fine presence will, though, and this is not a joke!
Let’s say it: being fine-looking is pretty easy nowadays, it shows respect for yourself and for the people you have to relate to, while being smart is not at all. 😉
As marketing guru Seth Godin wrote: your references are your curriculum, so if you’d like to send it to us write them down before anything else and then write why you’d like to get involved in the project.
Just a few words will be ok, the essential making all the difference!
In Mantua for the Saturn Project
Taking advantage of a couple of spring-like days to say the least, last week I went to Mantua on my Vespa where I’m attending a course by Regione Lombardia, the Saturn Project – support for the enterprise planet, aimed to support new entrepreneurial activities.
The course is intensive and well organized by the Centro Studi Castelli’s consultants. I’m appreciating the practical setting and the direct application of the concepts to the entrepreneurial ideas of the twelve people attending it.
A really useful course for the administrative management of the i-muse project. 🙂
Since I had two contiguous days for the course I decided to sleep at the Ostello del Mincio, a pleasant place and with the best website among those of the Hostels where I slept this summer during the Vespatour.
i-muse Featured on La Provincia
It really was a satisfaction being able to tell for the first time how the entrepreneurial idea which led me, Guido and Luca to create i-muse was born and evolved.
Sara Della Torre, the journalist author of the article about our project published on wednesday on the newspaper La Provincia, translated perfectly into words the whole story. 😀
During the interview I noticed that she was amazed by the numerous positive coincidences which happened during the evolution of the project, such as how I managed to involve Luca and Guido or how we created the logo. 😉
We still have a lot to demonstrate, we know this very well, but probably what isn’t too evident from the outside yet, or it’s a bit underestimated, is how much work we did until now to come to this point.
We’re now searching for a fourth extraordinary person. Finding him won’t be easy at all, so we start doing this early.
Thanks to the office at the Polytechnic things are moving fast now!
Meanwhile we enjoy the compliments the article on La Provincia granted us. 🙂
Passwords at Safe with eWallet 5.0
Tell me the truth.. where are you storing passwords to access sites, read email or log on to your PC?
In a simple text file or even on a paper note? 😉
Well, in that case it’s useless hoping nothing bad will ever happen because it will happen!
It’s not good news but it’s statistic data: identity theft is a growing threat and the source of never ending hassles even before we could even notice it. 😥
I did this sort of inattention too, then I understood and I began using a software to safely store my passwords and other personal data. It was fundamental for me that such software run on both the desktop and PDA and I choose eWallet by Iliumsoft since it seemed the best solution.
It actually changed everything. Now my data is always safe and at hand when I travel with my PDA: it’s all a matter of habits!
Now that they released version 5.0 they added a lot of improvements both to the graphics and the synchronization capabilities between the PC and the PDA, so it’s very easy to use.
Send Murphy’s Law to the hell and trash the paper notes with the passwords!
It’s a weak system for your security, much more than not keeping updated the antivirus or the operative system.
Before trashing them be sure to add the data to your favorite electronic wallet! 😉
The Coming of i-muse
Do you know what a purple cow is?
It’s a marketing concept invented by Seth Godin to represent a remarkable product.
Remarkable in the sense that it’s so attractive in its market sector to become a commercial success. We think we have a purple cow, and now that we registered the trademark we can reveal what it’s all about: i-muse is not only a PDA guide for museums and art exhibitions, an innovative tool for the visitor well beyond traditional audioguides, but most of all is the entrepreneurial project by three young guys from Como who believed to be able to create something important starting from scratch! 🙂
The logo is self-explanatory, born from a flash of genius by Luca and generated by Guido’s hint, the people to whom at the beginning of 2006 I proposed working on what was then an idea without a true form.
I got the idea while I was using an audioguide during my visit to the Joan Mirò’s exhibition in 2004 in Como. Back then I was developing software for PDAs, I knew their potentialities, and then I asked myself: why not making a guide running on PDA? 💡
In 2005, thanks to the voucher for technology innovation issued by Regione Lombardia, I committed a due diligence study to the Centro Volta, which is actually located in Villa Olmo where Mirò’s exhibition took place. From that point it took me some time to realize how I had to go on: I had to find the right people, people with the skills I was missing.
I talked to Guido, a marketing expert, an old friend I didn’t see for a long time, and to Luca, a great graphics artist with an experience in the videogames industry.
Thanks to them since the beginning of 2006 things went on at the right pace. We explored different paths, analyzed all the components of the project and finalized the application design. Slow but well since we were doing something else for a living.
After the award at the Startcup 2006 there has been the acceleration: the cash prize ( it’s better starting with a little, but a minimum is absolutely necessary 😉 ) and most of all the office inside the incubator at the Politecnico.
We also reached the finals of the ObiettivoICT contest, whose benefits will come the next year.
2007 is the year of the pig as the Chinese friends of Ciren told me.
Does that mean it will bring abundance even for us, in every sense? 
We hope so, in the meantime in the category i-muse you can find all the posts related to the project, a category I’ll keep alive and well while the work on the project continues.
We’ve Been Incubated!
Ok, it’s a bad expression which can give cause for never ending witty remarks, but for the three of us, me, Luca and Guido, recently awarded at the Startcup 2006, the regional contest for startup creation, the meaning is pretty clear: other than the cash prize by the Chamber of Commerce of Como, our real target was the incubation! 🙂
We’re now hosted (incubated!) in the startup accelerator of the Polo Regionale di Como of the Politecnico di Milano.
We finally have an office, at the third floor of the building in Piazzale Gerbetto, where we can continue working on the project we started powered only by enthusiasm and hard work, aiming since the beginning to a result of excellence.
The office is fully operative by now from a technical point of view, while we still have a lot to do for what concerns furnishings, especially after we’ve seen how the girls of Ciren and Urbano Creativo, neo-incubated at the second floor, set up their office.
We really need a female touch for that!
Professor Negrini, who gave us the award at the Startcup, told us this was his office before he moved to the Politecnico’s building in Via Anzani. Really a privilege considering how much I think highly of him.
During the introductory meeting of the new startups he used a very motivating expression: “Now you’re entrepreneurs!” he told us.
Personally I do rely a lot on the network of competences that can be established among the ten startups now incubated in Como and it’s actually a pleasure being able to discuss and relate with other companies operating in the same sector. From these relations new interesting opportunities can be generated.
After the pizza-dinner with Luca and Guido to celebrate our first meeting in the office, as you can see in the pic, and the usual tea break at 17 ò clock with MetalC’s staff at the third floor, we can say that being incubated is not a bad thing at all! 😛
Ecpc Finalist in the Best Software Awards 2006
Posted by Albegor in Euro Coins Pocket Collector, Mobile, Software on November 4, 2006
I didn’t expect it at all since I have to admit in the last months I neglected a bit Euro Coins Pocket Collector, the software I made for Euro coins fans. I actually chose to honor the priorities of my work as consultant and custom software developer.
So I was pleased to know that even this year the judges of the Best Software Awards 2006, the competition organized by the american Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine, confirmed the value of the software and it was included among the finalists in the category Miscellaneous Utilities, just as they did last year.
It isn’t easy at all categorizing a specialized software such as this, but I think that instead of creating a new category like Collecting they could add one like Lifestyle for example, to include all the Windows Mobile applications built to manage the digital lifestyle, as they call the modern life with all the technological tools that should simplify our life. Managing a collection of Euro coins with a PDA could be correctly included into this concept, couldn’t it? 😉
Anyway, it’s a pleasure that an atypical software, made from work and passion, reachead the final selection of a contest that gathered only the 20% of the best software existing for the Windows Mobile platform.
The winner of the Miscellaneous Utilities was StyleTap, an emulator useful to run applications written for the PalmOS on Windows Mobile devices.
We Won!!!
I don’t know if it has been for the logo made by Luca, the strong points of the project, the quality of the documentation we submitted, the presentation held with Guido at the Chamber of Commerce of Como last week or even the elegant suit tailored for that special occasion by the Sartoria Orefice ;), or most probably a combination of all these elements, but the end results is that we won the Special Award of the CCIAA Como at the StartCup 2006. 😀
We’re working on something not really new, something others already did by using the latest mobile technologies applied to the sector of cultural goods, but maybe the difference is that we aim our idea towards excellence and the commission got it and decided to choose us, although they told us the other projects were very interesting.
Yesterday in Milan professor Negrini gave us the award during the exciting ceremony of the StartCup finals.
The first picture captured that moment with me and Luca on the stage. The emotion was great, the same emotion that passed through the hands of the photographer.
The second one depicts the team, almost complete since Guido was missing, with professor Negrini and Paolo and Samantha of Opla S.r.l., our main collaborators. The third one shows all the winner groups on the stage of the main hall of the Università degli Studi.
After the ceremony we had a nice walk around the Duomo of Milan thanks to an exceptionally good weather for the season and I took a pic of the Madunina on top of it.
The cash award will help us to quickly get to the prototipation phase of the project, motivate a team that relied upon its own forces until now, and most importantly it opens the perspective to be incubated as a startup in the offices of the Polo Regionale of Como. This if what we actually were looking for, good job i-boys!
Here the article about the incubation published by the local daily newspaper La Provincia.
The 16 Slides at the Chamber of Commerce
On last friday me and Guido, one of the members of the team I assembled since the beginning of the year to work on a technologic innovation project, held a 16 slides presentation at the Chamber of Commerce of Como.
We have been invited to present the project to compete for one of the special prizes of the StartCup 2006, the annual competition organized by the seven universities in Milan aimed to promote the creation of startup companies.
In front of a commission composed by Paolo de Santis, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Como, Pierluigi della Vigna and Roberto Negrini, two of the best professors I had when I was attending university, as well as Giorgio Corradi, manager for the incubator at the Polo Regionale of Como, we began the presentation with beating hearts.
We felt secure about the strong points of the project, since we’ve been seriously working on it since the beginning of the year, and we did see it slowly evolving on the right path, but you never know what can happen on such occasions, especially considering it was our first presentation outside the working group.
The presentation went well and the commission seemed positively impressed by the project. They asked us a lot of questions and we well exceeded the time we initially had.
There are five candidates in total for this special prize and on wednesday 25th in the main hall of the Università degli Studi di Milano they’ll announce the winners.
We’ll be there with fingers crossed…
Smau 2006: One Sail, a Couple of Halls and 98 Seminars
The Sail, this is the name of the 1 km long structure by Massimiliano Fuksas covering the new site of fieramilano near Milan, which hosted the 43rd edition of Smau, the ICT international exhibition.
Only two halls were used to contain the exhibitors’ stands and the area reserved for seminars. Speaking with some people they confirmed the impression that something was missing, that sort of background noise coming from big stands aimed to attract consumers and the like. At the same time it was pleasant being able to walk around the fair and ask for a meeting without having to dig through the crowd.
Pretty opposite feelings of course, but they’re both true. This was not a “Smau” for me, maybe they should change the name if they’re going to continue with this new business-only course. 😉
The two seminaries I attended were interesting, one was about software rights protection according to the italian law by Massimo Farina, pretty easy, quick and effective and the other about technologic innovation in point of sales by an IBM speaker.
I had some meetings with people working for companies whose products are (or may be) related to the projects I’m currently involved in, such as Sony’s network cameras and RFID device and service providers. I couldn’t miss a chat with friends in the Windows Mobile areas too.
The area named Innovation Routes was very well organized and hosted numerous stands of italian startups.
One of them was Econoetica, presenting the Arianna PDA city guide. I had the pleasure to meet Valentina, marketing manager, in Firenze during the Vespatour and use the guide for a whole day walking around the city, and at the fair I met her again together with the rest of the staff, Pietro and Luca.
They’re doing well and they got some good exposition thanks to their little stand. I was a real joy hearing again the genuine tuscan accent while speaking with Valentina. 🙂
Next to their stand I also spoke with the Blogosfere.it staff, a network of professional italian blogs, most of which are of very high quality thanks to their experienced bloggers.
They have opened a blog about Smau and posted some pics of the beauties you could find walking around the stands, but they definitely missed the best ones in my opinion… at the Blackberry one you could stare not only at their latest device, the Pearl, but also get a golf ball from two models. Now I just need a golf mace…
