Sam Talks Technology

Chis and I go back nearly two decades.  We first met when Chris kindly invited me to a charity dinner for Comic Relief.  

In this podcast we talked about his new book "Less Perfect, More Happy. - how to overcome perfectionism". 

Perfectionism now has a name for this mental health issue. It's called Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) a personality disorder that's characterised by extreme perfectionism, order, and neatness. People with OCPD will also feel a severe need to impose their own standards on their outside environment.  

Sufferers like Chris were unaware that he had OCPD but had this need for perfectionism which caused him great angst throughout his childhood, all the way into adulthood were it took a toll on his marriage and relationship with his children.  

"The feeling of not being ‘good enough’ dictated almost my entire life." - Chris Ward

This book is about raising the awareness of perfectionism and highlighting the disorder OCPD.  Chris tells the story of his struggle with perfectionism throughout his life in chapters starting aged 4 all the way through to 57. 

At the end of the book Chirs details out his 12 step guide on "How to overcome perfectionism How to enjoy a less perfect, more happy world".  He has also created an online website https://friendfulness.com/

Sam talked with Walid about why companies are using private/enterprise blockchains and how these projects are moving from proof of concepts through to commercial rollouts.

We also talked about the future of blockchains along with some of the challenges holding back the wider adoption of blockchains.

Daniel and I have known each other for over a decade. We first met when he was the 
Web & Internet Evangelist for Vodafone.

We talked about Sir Tim's recent BBC Reith interview and Tim's new Contract for the Web.

Today the web is being fragmented by countries like Russia, China and Iran to name but a few countries limiting their citizens access to stop free speech. Fake News is rife everywhere and our privacy is rapidly eroding as our permission on our data is centrally controlled.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision for the 'permissionless' one web space 30 years ago is in danger of crumbling under the weight of the behemoth centralised control of the GAFA's (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon) and BAT's (Bidu, Alibaba and TenCent) who want to control all of our personal data for their profit.

Daniel and I talked about these challenges but also the new Web 3.0 technologies like Blockchain, AI and DNS-SEC that is making the web decentralised, ethical, open, free and secure.

Ali and I talked about what EQT Ventures look for when investing in companies.  They like to make big bets on companies and back them with significant funding.  They look for companies with teams that are led by entrepreneurs that build and code the product themselves.  i.e Bet Big or Go Home

Unlike many overly cautious European VC's who focus on short-term revenues, EQT prefer to bet big and dominate a market, a strategy based on Peter Thiel's model in his book from zero to one. European VC's are finally cottoning onto this model as US VC's enter the European market to compete for the talented startups. 

EQT also have a hidden secret called the MotherBrain.  An AI piece of software written in house that helps them discover and evaluate new companies across a broad spectrum of industries.  

We also talked about his former company Huddle which is what brought him from the UK out to San Francisco. 

Sam Sethi talked with Ralph Cochrane about the future of video creation and consumption.

Ralph and I first met some 13 years ago when he was at BT.

However, that was a lifetime ago and since then Ralph has become an award-winning video creator and documentary producer who flies all around the world, living as a digital nomad, filming and/or live streaming video content for his corporate clients.

I'm part of the "digital nomad" craze so I'll be heading back to Dubai and Oman at the weekend for filming and then editing with some diving thrown in.

In the past year, he has filmed in Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, USA, Rwanda, Russia, China, The Middle East and across Europe.

Ralph started experimenting with mobile video back in 2007, just before the iPhone was launched and his first post-big BT job was to launch a mobile phone festival with Sundance Film Festival at Mobile World Congress.

Ralph is currently working on his first documentary about a kitchen fitter who teaches himself to play drums and ends up headlining Glastonbury. Working title: Impossible Drummer.

Ralph has also recently started a "snack-sized video news" channel called Videosnax on Facebook.

Sam Talks with Martin Bryant about the future of journalism and podcasting

This week I got the chance to speak with Martin Bryant the former editor of The Next Web.  Martin is the founder of Big Revolution a media consultancy. He also writes a wonderful must-read daily newsletter and has recently started his own podcast.

In this podcast, Martin and I discussed the future of journalism and podcasting. Paywalls, subscriptions, libra payments and fakenews.

It's clear more and more newspapers are moving to paywalls to replace their dwindling ad-revenue. Is the freemium model dead? Will bloggers and podcasters follow suit as they look to monetise their content.

We also discussed the recent launch of Facebook News. Having failed with Instant Articles before, will Facebook News succeed or be just another tab on Facebook wall that no one reads.

Facebook News joins a growing band of news aggregation portals recently launched including Apple News+ and Amazon News on their FireTV.

We also discussed the challenge of fake news and if there was anyway to prevent it.   

• September 2016 - Dazzle founded as a hotel concierge that uses smart speakers in hotel rooms
• December 2016 - Dazzle goes live in Marriott Hotel London County Hall with a system that automatically answers requests for guests and passes requests to the concierge to deliver to rooms
• March 2017 - Launched Dazzle for hotels and added functionality to the platform that allowed a perpetual conversation across channels, enabling requests through voice and chatbot.
• May 2017 - Runner-up Eye for Travel Europe Best Technology Innovation gaining 3rd party validation as a leader in conversational design
• October 2017 - Winner Eye for Travel North America Best Technology Innovation in Las Vegas further consolidating the vision for the Dazzle platform and moving the company's trajectory as a platform for travel rather than hotels.
• October - Winner London Midland Labs following a 10-week accelerator program with a UK rail operator they were voted by the industry as a platform that solves several large issues including digital ticketing and improving customer experience.

Giles Rhys Jones is the Chief Marketing Officer at ///what3words

Oliver Wellington is the co-founder and CMO for Headliner.app a social video creation tool that makes it super easy to create engaging social content. 

I use headliner for my frontend imagery on all my podcasts. Its a tool I love and so do 10,000 other podcasters and radio producers who also use it. 

Oliver and I talk about some of the new PRO features and what was the key driver behind creating the product.