Prize Time

UCL 18/11/08

The carrot attached to filling out the student survey we sent out many months was an ITouch. We finally got hold of the winner and made him a jolly fellow when he was presented with the prize at the UCL entrepreneurship guest lecture. Here he is with the head of our MSc course. Even though he was a bit surprised by having to stand in front a room full of people to get this, we can still consider him the first fan of the application.

Puerto Vallarta

20/10/08



Five set off for the coast.



Though the choices were clear,



some bad decisions were made.



The natives welcomed us with open arms.



We saw man sandwiches.



We dined al fresco.



We toasted local wildlife



and hunted local beasts.



There were handy services,



local celebrities,



good times,



hard times



and nice views.

Poker

18/10/08 Guadalajara

To celebrate the arrival of our giant wooden table and not so giant book case we rounded up a motley crew of local degenerates for a friendly game of hold 'em. Word spread around quickly and the expected 5 ballooned to 10. There was a good selection of over-sized cigars on display although there was a notable absence of novelty hats on the night. Everyone agreed that the music selection was a wonderfully ecletic mix seamlessly blending the best of the past and present and was not in fact 'just old'.

Some gung-ho betting meant there was quite a few re-buys and the occassional bad beat though all credit to the Mexicans for keeping their revolvers holstered. The last three were all residents of the house though the 500 vs. 20,000 chips in the final meant it could only go one way.

Congratulations to the lucky Argentine who is committed to spending his winnings on feather boas and Panama hats for those orphaned and widowed by Guadalajaran public transport.

.

Down Mexico way....

15/10/08 Guadalajara

So here we are in the land of tacos & tequila, the sun & sombreros and chiquitas & Chivas. Mexico, apparently means 'the navel of the moon' though we are yet to see our share of belly buttons.

Though the choice wasn't easy we have finally settled in Guadalajara, dubbed the 'Silicon Valley' of Mexico. It's located inland somewhere in the middle, the lack of beach here probably helps us keep our mind on the work rather than the play. The preferred choice of transport seems to be either the VW beetle or a behemoth pickup truck, neither of which we opted for with the more traditional choice of a Volvo. Our casa is situated on a street named Amsterdam, guarded by a loyal, though generally dosile attack hound. We are in the old part of town, which is home to many decaying colonial townhouses and the occasional bohemian bar/ squat.









Since we've been here there's been much to celebrate. Hats off to our recently adopted designer who on saturday won awards and $$$$ for both mobile and video games in the Creanimax awards. We also had an interview with a local technology park that's twinned with a university so hopefully a year from now we'll be couped-up overseeing minions from the top floor of an ivory tower.

On a lesser note two of the residents should be congratulated on the 378 they scored playing a keepy up game with two ping-pong bats and a ball. They are eagerly anticipating the response from their application to the Guiness book of records as they are a table to play on.

The web application and company are slowly taking shape though the day to day odd-job tedium involved in various legal hurdles slows progress.

The weekend will hopefully bring sand and the open sea for some r&r. The free-for-all roads will make the 4 hour drive fraught with peril though the beach-side concoction at the end should be worth it.

Can 6/7 keycard flips really be wrong?

01/08/08 Courtyard Marriott, Los Altos, CA

When it seems like all the tidbits of information in the world will not help you make a decision there are a few things you can do. You can try and do more research, you can try and speak to people who have been in a position where they've needed to make a similar decision, you can use decision and risk analysis tools that transform the made up numbers you put in them into seemingly more plausible made up numbers when the results come out the other side.

Or you could play heads or tails with a hotel keycard and be equally convinced by getting 6 out of 7 in favour of one destination.

The best option may be to accept that with what seems to be a 50/50, while no decision can be considered to be the right one there is equally no reason to consider it the wrong one either. Today the seesaw is tilted toward Mexico and that's as good a decision as any. Sombreros in hand with an itching for tequila we aim to head south of the border.

7 Laptops, 4 People, 3 Beds and 1 Room

29/07/08 Courtyard Marriott, Los Altos, CA

As a person helping launch Inovaz I want to start a blog so that we can try and be more smart.

Or at least work out where we went wrong in the hope that we won't make the same mistakes again further down the line.

We've had a varied first week in Silicon Valley with many a plan change and the only routine coming from our cozy if well equipped room and the trough-loads of local fast food that we are becoming reluctant to consume any more of. Having attended our first event and collected some pearls of wisdom from some local veterans we are eagerly anticipating the week ahead.

With new business cards waiting to be fired at anyone who feels their wallet isn't already brimming enough with hopefuls aiming to pillage their acquaintances, we aim to test the water for another week before deciding when we head off to find the people we need. India or Mexico seem to be the best bets with the compass needle yet to settle on either destination, both potentially have mercenary programmers for hire.

Armed with an arguably excessive armada of laptops we are making progress in what seems to be the right direction though only coming weeks will tell.

Business Requirements: Workers W and Programmers P

• Given
• we create a complete set of business requirements
• and they’re remotely useful
• When
• we give the business requirements to someone who knows what to do with them
• Then
• we’ll be on our way to an application