Live Free or Die[New Hampshire motto]

My Personal Experience of the Social Impact of Technology

Presented by Julie Meyer

Microsoft at the British Library

WHY LIVE FREE?Because death is not the

worst of evils "Live Free or Die" is the official motto of New Hampshire,

adopted by the General Court in 1945. It is probably the most well-known of all state mottos, partly because it speaks to an aggressive independence inherent in the American dream, and partly because of its contrast to the mild sentiments usually found in such mottoes.

The phrase comes from a toast written by General John Stark on July 31, 1809. Poor health forced Stark, New Hampshire's most famous soldier of the American Revolutionary War, to decline an invitation to an anniversary reunion of the Battle of Bennington and to send his toast by letter: Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.

The motto was enacted at the same time as the state emblem, on which the motto appears.

AGENDA FOR THIS MORNING

A Typical Day in the life of Ariadne What Have We Learned Europe Loses Feudalism From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 Tipping Point Companies

ARIADNE CAPITALWhat’s in a Name?

Ariadne was the Greek princess who helped Theseus get through the labyrinth with the golden thread

That’s what we do with our companies – we help them navigate and negotiate their labyrinth

Let’s imagine Ariadne – is also - 21st Century Woman and not at all interested in technology ….

A TYPICAL DAY IN THE LIFE OF

Ariadne At Ariadne, we inhabit a universe where people move

money between accounts using Monilink on their mobile phone thanks to Monitise.

Where we know what’s going on at home via Intamac, and read our voicemails and speak our blogs thanks to SpinVox.

We’re helping people like ourselves with an occasional loan through Zopa, and staying up to date on the local news via Consenda.

We listen to the Otodio version of the Financial Times on the train on our mobile phone, and when we Skype out, we write in English, and Translution converts it to other languages automatically.

ARIADNE’S WORLDFrom Garage Developer to the Kitchen Table

Web Entrepreneur The era of the garage developer to the age of the kitchen table web

entrepreneur     She is tech agnostic, and demands immediacy of experience and high

levels of customisation      A common problem she and her friends who are road warriors, remote

workers, and people in global businesses face is – both on a personal and business basis -   1] too much disaggregated information; 2] more and more time to keep control of information; 3] more confronted with the need to share information.     VPN access, version control chaos, email, not to mention WIKIS and

mashups are inefficient workarounds actually.    In many ways, the rate of user expectations on mobility, connectivity,

customisability [from users in the post-Skype world that we live in] is exceeding the rate of innovation.   

Where is this going? as a consumer, I want a [universal] key to my personal information – a unique ID – which doesn’t carry the information itself.   

Metaphorically - I want to be able to go into any car in the car park, and put the key in the car, and start the car, and to have the same experience driving the car, not worrying about where things are stored.  

ENABLING WEB & MOBILE 2.0What have we learned?

Consumerisation of Technology New Products and Services gain traction through Consumer Adoption

first and then get picked up in the Enterprise Go To Market Strategies are not geographically bound

Smart entrepreneurs segment their potential customer base and their addressable market by characteristics other than geography; ie early adopters of broadband, high mobile penetration etc

People are living more and more of their lives online Giving people a more frictionless, efficient way to communicate

matters. Business Models

Initial free services establish consumer behavior and then can lead to a business model

The business models where the most people win – will dominate the market

Monitise and Meridea Great marketing trumps great technology

RISC vs CISC Skype: Free Calls on the Web

IS THERE A PROBLEM?Feudalism Alive and Well

Many Europeans still crave as a life goal to become “aristocratic” and see life through the Lord/Peasant framework; Default to being taken care of by the benevolent “lord” [the

government] in tough times, sacrificing individual freedoms and willingly accepting taxes from the “lord” as part of the implicit “deal”. 

Feudalism is the oppressive concept and structure which is the opposite of meritocracy and freedom.  

When Respect for authority is given or expected not because the authorities deserve it, but because of blood or family privilege, freedom and all of its benefits are lessened.  

Building a Growth Story for Europe means taking individual risks and actions.

To bring the metaphor up to date: If European gov’ts are the “pusher”, then its citizens have

become the “users”. Once hooked, it is near impossible to get one off whatever one has become dependent upon.

Perversely, the junkies are allowed to vote for their favourite pushers - It’s sad but true.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR LEADERSHIPEntrepreneurship, Internet and Capitalism

Capitalism was about empowered authority which didn’t necessarily activate the citizenry; the Internet stands that on its head, and shifts the power to the Individual – making Individual Capitalism the force of the 21st Century - Iqbal Quadir, one of the founders of

Grameen Phone

WHAT WILL THE FUTURE BRING Entrepreneurship as Engine of Growth

The next wave of large European-founded companies will be built by serial European entrepreneurs Kazaa and Skype founders launch Joost FastWeb founder launches BabelGum Samwer Brothers

Cycle of innovation is increasing and shortening Globalisation is softening the edges of economic cycles Start-ups will be acquired earlier and remain more

autonomous inside firms EMAP/WGSN Yahoo/Answers.com NewsCorp/MySpace

ROI for M&A will be recalculated and rethought

YOUNGER TECH SAVVY GENERATION

Is Changing Consumer Behaviour and Outlook The Individual Revolution is Unstoppable

People think of themselves as their own P&L, their own brand Long-tail economics means that I can find others who share my

tastes and interests; I am connected to others but not necessarily by geography

Web 2.0 is about self-expression: blogging, UGC, communities MySpace, YouTube

Control over Environment The desire to organise the world’s information [Google] or to

explain how to do everything [VideoJug] reflects an implicit belief that man can have total control over his environment

Control over Culture Passion, conviction and fearlessness transcends cultural

boundaries The Death of European Feudalism [finally]

TIPPING POINT COMPANY - 1Monitise -Mobile Banking Services

Entrepreneur: Alastair Lukies, WEF Technology PioneerBackers: MorseWhat They do: The world’s leading Mobile Banking network Why is this important:Banking Comes BEFORE CommerceConsumer Benefits: Source of funds into the mobile wallet and

substantially reduces “cost of cash” for mobile networks and creates true lifestyle application

2.48 billion transactions switched per year £95 billion in issued funds Their brilliance: not to treat banks like operators, and operators

like banks To understand that there are basic banking services that you have

to be able to do on your phone before you do more complex ones; that is, I don’t want to apply for a mortgage via my phone, but I do want to check your balance

RBS, HSBC, Alliance & Leicester and first direct have all adopted the Monitise platform for their mobile banking strategy

Metavente with 9000 + banks in their network are partner in the US

TIPPING POINT COMPANY - 2 Zopa – P2P Lending & Borrowing

Entrepreneur: James AlexanderBackers: Benchmark, Bessemer, Tim Draper What They do: P2P Lending & Borrowing Why is this important: People want to lend and borrow from peopleConsumer Benefits: The cheapest loans in the UK, no early repayment

penalty

Over 150,000 members in the UK Great financial return PLUS strong social reward

c. 30% better return than leaving your money with ING Direct Defaults less than 0.2%  50 employees Now being copied in US, Germany, Canada, Denmark, Holland eBay, Virgin and Facebook have all entered the Social Lending market in the

last 2 months Zopa getting ready to launch in the US, franchising and JV ing elsewhere Key learnings:

the Zopa community really care and want it to work .... direct comms with our Members are critical to successful development (e.g. blog, Bulletin Board, email etc)  

trust is earned in financial services through time .... a trusted safe and secure marketplace is critical to success

TIPPING POINT COMPANY - SpinVox – 3 Voice to Screen; Leader in VoiceMessagingEntrepreneur: Christina Domecq, E&Y Entrepreneur of

the YearBackers: Private Investors and Hedge FundsWhat They do: SpinVox is a voice-to-text carrier-grade

managed services providerWhy is this important: No one likes listening to voicemailsConsumer Benefits: Receiving communications how one

prefers to receive them; Storage and Forwarding abilities for voicemails

SpinVox enabled world’s first voicemail to text service in 2004 130k+ customers: proof-of-concept; 1M+ people touched by

SpinVox SpinVox has won awards for its product innovation and leadership SpinVox is being deployed by operators across 4 continents

Multi-lingual : EN, SP, FR, GE Multi-channel : Mobile, fixed, VoIP

17 operators signed; £ hundreds of millions of contractual rev Expanding into the US

THANK YOUjulie@ariadnecapital.com