Nic Brisbourne

Ministry of Sound Best Dance Tracks of All Time

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:52:33 +0000

Disc Track No. Artist Track Name Sample

01 1 The Chemical Brothers Hey Boy Hey Girl

01 2 The Prodigy Firestarter

01 3 Faithless We Come 1

01 4 Underworld Born Slippy

01 5 Fatboy Slim Praise You

01 6 Cornershop Brimful Of Asha (Norman Cook Remix)

01 7 RUN-DMC Vs Jason Nevins It’s Like That

01 8 Dizzee Rascal & Armand Van Helden Bonkers

01 9 Basement Jaxx Rendez-vu

01 10 X-Press 2 Lazy

01 11 Mr Oizo Flat Beat

01 12 Mint Royale Singin’ In The Rain

01 13 Moloko Sing It Back (Boris Musical Mix)

01 14 Fedde Le Grand Put Your Hands Up For Detroit

01 15 Benny Benassi (Presents) The Biz Satisfaction

01 16 Armand Van Helden Feat. Duane Harden U Don’t Know Me

01 17 Tori Amos Professional Widow (Armand Van Helden Remix)

01 18 Pure Shores All Saints

02 1 Black Legend The Trouble With Me

02 2 The Shapeshifters Lola’s Theme

02 3 Kylie Minogue Love At First Sight

02 4 Madison Avenue Don’t Call Me Baby

02 5 Fragma Toca’s Miracle

02 6 Alice Deejay Better Off Alone

02 7 Spiller Groovejet (If This Ain’t Love)

02 8 Eric Prydz Call On Me

02 9 Room 5 Feat. Oliver Cheatham Make Luv

02 10 Chicane Feat. Bryan Adams Don’t Give Up

02 11 ATB 9PM (Till I Come)

02 12 DJ Sammy & Yanou Feat. Do Heaven

02 13 Basshunter Feat. DJ Mental Theo’s Bazzheadz Now You’re Gone

02 14 SASH! Encore Une Fois

02 15 Kid Cudi Vs Crookers Day ‘N’ Nite

02 16 Dizzee Rascal Feat. Calvin Harris & Chrome Dance Wiv Me

02 17 DJ Pied Piper & The Masters Of Ceremonies Do You Really Like It?

02 18 So Solid Crew 21 Seconds

03 1 The Source Feat. Candi Staton You Got The Love New Voyager Mix

03 2 SNAP! Rhythm Is A Dancer

03 3 D:Ream Things Can Only Get Better

03 4 The Nightcrawlers Push The Feeling On

03 5 The Tamperer Feat. Maya Feel It

03 6 Shanks & Bigfoot Sweet Like Chocolate

03 7 Culture Beat Mr. Vain

03 8 Shamen Ebeneezer Goode

03 9 Ultra Naté Free

03 10 The Outhere Brothers Boom Boom Boom

03 11 Gala Freed From Desire

03 12 Jakatta American Dream

03 13 Baby D Let Me Be Your Fantasy

03 14 S’Express Theme From S’Express

03 15 Steve “Silk” Hurley Jack Your Body

03 16 Paul Hardcastle 19

03 17 M/A/R/R/S Pump Up The Volume

03 18 Soul II Soul Feat. Caron Wheeler Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)

High Performance Web Sites

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:29:18 +0100

High Performance Web Sites:

14 Simple Ways to Reduct Page Load Times

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates: SeedCamp 2009...

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:21:29 +0100

Master of 500 Hats: Startup Metrics for Pirates: SeedCamp 2009 (Sept 2009, London)

Including the messages: Launch, test, iterate, test, etc and cut out the stuff on your site that nobody uses.

Quoted on WSJ Blog

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:25:32 +0100

Freedom Ain’t Free, And Neither Is The News - DFJ’s Nic Brisbourne has some insights on the difference between price and value, based on controversy surrounding the AP’s decision to start charging fees to online readers. At issue is a comment made by AP Chairman Dean Singleton, who said “When you give it away for free it has no value. When you begin charging for it, it has some value.” Brisbourne counters that “just because giving something away lessens the perception of value doesn’t mean charging for it increases the perception of value.” This type of logic, is of course, heavily applicable when considering the concept of freemium models. It also begs the question, if any of the free-model darlings (Twitter/Facebook) were to start charging for their services, would that necessarily increase their value?

Link

10 Marketing Rules for Emerging Enterprise Software Vendors

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:09:00 +0100

From Nick Gregory, of Market Accelerator Ltd - http://www.marketxl.co.uk/

Marketing in emerging (aka high tech fast growth) enterprise software companies is fundamentally different to your larger, more mature counterparts. You don’t have the resources, brand, or track record of the big vendors. Paradoxically, as we show in this document, this situation is a virtue not a disadvantage.

Our experience proves that the goal on winning the beachhead deals, that are so vital to your success, should make your marketing quite straightforward.

Market Accelerator’s business is at the sharp end of the IT industry: we help high growth companies build markets and then lead them. To help you we’ve compiled this list of the top ten marketing rules to get you on your prospect’s radar and the deals flowing through the sales pipeline.

Rule 1 – Your proposition must hit a sweet spot

With little track record, you are selling a vision, a dream - not a product with a large user base. You are a minnow compared to established vendors and your product should offer more than just a solution to a known problem within your target market. Your product must do something important enough for the buyer to want to take the risks associated with an emerging vendor. Ultimately, be clear, be concise and be different – even be radical. Make the product features innovative and the solution benefits tangible and measurable. The proposition must be market focused and lead with customer stories and anecdotes. This will a build relevant proposition with strong technical arguments and a clear business case.

Rule 2 – Ruthlessly measure and manage your marketing plan

Your marketing plan must have clear goals (e.g. number of qualified leads per month) and specific performance measures (e.g. cost per lead). It should include a balanced programme of marketing activities for the fiscal year and have a budget allocated to each activity (rough split should be: resources 20%, communications 10%, events 40%, campaigns 30%). The budget should be between 5% and 15% of target sales revenue and every expenditure tracked from plan to P&L. Report regularly against performance measures and goals and be prepared to immediately replan should conditions dictate.

Rule 3 – Your brand must make you credible

First impressions count. You wouldn’t turn up to a customer meeting badly dressed and with bad attitude, so don’t let you brand image do it instead! Don’t spend a fortune on this. A logo, colour palette, fonts, nice artwork, a bunch of templates and a clear set of guidelines will be enough for your brand kit. Don’t fiddle with it for at least 18 months and police your supplier’s and own organisation’s use of the brand. And make sure your strap line and top-level messaging says what you do!

Rule 4 – Put the marketing database at the core of your marketing

This is your universe of prospects, partners, customers and influencers. The goal of the marketing database should be to enable and record all interactions with every contact as well as track and report prospects progress through the sales cycle. You should continuously add and signup new contacts (automatically where possible). Ensure all internal users keep the database up-to-date or you’ll get a black hole in your universe.

Rule 5 – The goal is Lead Generation and Lead Qualification

Every marketing activity should generate leads. If you can’t connect a marketing purchase order to lead generation, don’t spend it. If your sales team is doing lead generation, go back to rule 2. If you don’t have enough leads, go back to rule 2.

Leads should only have one of two states: qualified or unqualified. In agreement with your sales organization, define what a qualified lead looks like. As soon as a lead meets these criteria it is qualified and should become an opportunity. If the lead doesn’t meet the criteria, it too is qualified, but as a reject. Bin it if it’s not a target prospect; recycle it to a contact if it is – they will become a lead eventually.

Rule 6 – Interact on the Internet

By Internet, we mean your web site, direct mail, search engine marketing, blogging, forums, communities and so on. Get your head around all this, all the dots do join up and have the ability to accelerate your market velocity and reach as well as increase presence and generate leads - at an attractive cost and rate. Your marketing database should record and track all inbound and outbound online activity. Analytics packages will monitor and measure who’s doing what.

The simple rule for online success is good content. If this is fresh and relevant, everything else online-wise gets much easier.

Rule 7 – Invest in thought leadership and build media relations

A decade ago this used to be press and analyst relations. Today, the Internet has changed media almost beyond recognition. The one thing that hasn’t changed is the need to build and nurture relationships with key media and feed them with good editorial content. Whether industry analyst, editor, journalist or blogger you must respect their need to have regular, thought leading and informative content. Build themes around industry hot topics thereby positioning you as an agenda setter and thought leader in your market.

Rule 8 – Pick your events wisely

Events cost a lot of money: booth design and build; literature and promotional items; appointment setting and preshow promotion; logistics and travel; and entertainment and expenses… You get the point – you can’t afford too many of these and you certainly can’t afford not to get a large number of leads from the event.

Only commit to shows that have a proven return. If you are not sure, either pass it up or go as a delegate only. Set a budget and stick to it. Scour the event programme and cover all opportunities: speaker slots, press and analyst activities, sharing partner presence, announcements, demos, hospitality, pre-booked meetings and ad-hoc meetings; and more…

Rule 9 – Don’t do advertising

It takes a sustained advertising campaign to build enough momentum to generate leads. You can’t afford that. Move on.

Rule 10 – Marketing is strategic

Marketing takes product to market. Thereby, it should be integrated and aligned with product development and the sales team. R&D should not be doing marketing. Neither should sales. If this is the case in your organisation, you don’t have the right marketing talent in your team. That needs fixing.

Rule 11 (a sin, not a rule) – Focus your resources on your market not your competitors

If your product is as good as you think it is you’ll need all your time and energy convincing the market.

Big Rubber duck - via YesAndClub and www.florentijnhofman.nl

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:54:58 +0100

Big Rubber duck - via YesAndClub and www.florentijnhofman.nl

Context is everything

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:59:00 +0100

And popularly held notions of ‘beauty’ are not

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approx. 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.
4 minutes later:
the violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.
45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.
1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people’s priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made…. How many other things are we missing?

"Me on the WSJ blog: “Well-Made Coattails - Nic Brisbourne of DFJ Esprit disagrees with the..."

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:57:48 +0100

“

Me on the WSJ blog:

“Well-Made Coattails - Nic Brisbourne of DFJ Esprit disagrees with the recent guest post on TechCrunch from academic Vivek Wadhwa who charges that VCs follow innovation, not lead it. Says Brisbourne: “VCs are sometimes criticized for riding on the coattails of success, and I think that criticism misunderstands the role that VC plays in the ecosystem, which is more to accelerate success than create it.” Brisbourne does, though, admit that the venture industry could do more to stimulate innovation.”

”

- The Daily Start-Up: A Deep-Packet Inspection - Venture Capital Dispatch - WSJ

Quoted in the Guardian

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:19:13 +0100

….published more widely. The NYT has also recruited columnists to give online seminars – a week-long course on how American women’s lives have changed over the past 50 years with op-ed columnist Gail Collins, for example, costs $185 (£112).

Nic Brisbourne, a partner at the European venture capital firm DFJ Esprit, last week wrote on paidcontent.org (owned by Guardian News and Media): “The scarcities created by abundant news are interesting stories, thought-provoking analysis, conversation and community.”

While he may not have had 3am.co.uk in mind, there is no reason why this principle cannot apply just as much to celebrity gossip as to other kinds of news…..

The gossip site using old-fashioned newspaper tactics to woo readers | Media | The Guardian

review of Carlotta Perez's "Technological Revolutions"

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:07:13 +0100

Just finished reading this for the second time - I love it for offering the most powerful framework I have seen for understanding the rhythm of econmic growth and crisis and how it interacts with technology and politics. To recap, by Perez,s framework we are half way through the fifth surge and each surge has four phases with a turning point (usually a crash) in the middle:
- irruption
- frenzy
TURNING POINT
- synergy
- maturity

The five phases so far were driven by the following technologies:
- industrial revolution, mechnised cotton, wrought iron, machinery, canals - from 1771
- steam and railways, telgraph, city gs - from 1829
- steel, electricity, heavy engineering, telephone, electricit - from 1875
- oil, automobile, massproduction, internal combustion engine, worldwide telecoms, universal electricity - from 1908
- IT, telecomms, microelectronics, internet, high speed physical transport - from 1971

A fine piece of electro mentalness from peaches. Vid is quality...

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:38:21 +0100

A fine piece of electro mentalness from peaches. Vid is quality (hence the post).

Pitchfork: TV

"If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and..."

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:53:08 +0100

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, tach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

- Culture

Antoine De Saint-Exupery, author of the Little Prince

The Official Simon’s Cat Website | Films | Fly Guy

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:11:19 +0100

The Official Simon’s Cat Website | Films | Fly Guy

Why over-confidence (sometimes) helps - from Gladwell

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:24:38 +0100

Why over-confidence (sometimes) helps - from Gladwell:

This is what social scientists mean when they say that human overconfidence can be an adaptive trait. “In conflicts involving mutual assessment, an exaggerated assessment of the probability of winning increases the probability of winning,” Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard, writes. “Selection therefore favors this form of overconfidence.” Winners know how to bluff. And who bluffs the best? The person who, instead of pretending to be stronger than he is, actually believes himself to be stronger than he is. According to Wrangham, self-deception reduces the chances of “behavioral leakage”; that is, of “inadvertently revealing the truth through an inappropriate behavior.” This much is in keeping with what some psychologists have been telling us for years—that it can be useful to be especially optimistic about how attractive our spouse is, or how marketable our new idea is. In the words of the social psychologist Roy Baumeister, humans have an “optimal margin of illusion.”