Luke Rochester runs Biznet in Sydney,
Australia
The Work
Biznet assists businesses to get the most out of the Web. I have a strong focus
on small to medium sized businesses. I'm very keen on the performance potential
of the internet and the actual realisation. The fact that there's often a big
gap between the two is interesting.
The gap isn't really a technology overload. Realizing the full potential of
the Internet is more about psychology - a convergence of skills plus good communications.
Communication is a big deal. If there's nobody at a company maintaining the company
Web site, and it goes out of date, in some ways that's a communication issue.
Maybe nobody originally asked the question whether key people existed at the company
who could maintain the site. It's fine if those people aren't there, but it does
mean the developer has to work out a solution, maybe do that work themselves.
My clients include Safety plus signs,
a signwriting company. Many people visit it as a regular brochure-style site,
but bigger companies are buying through their Web pages, so it's become a B2B
process as well as a brochure.
I'm also involved in Smartartz.com,
which supplies vectorised clipart. Currently the art itself is only supplied on
a CD, but we intend to supply it directly as a download from the site, and that's
when it will become exciting.
Career Route
My background is in engineering. I originally worked on virtual reality, which
took me to the US and the UK. I've also done consultancy on manufacturing execution
systems and worked in IT project brokerage.
Software Gems
Here's my favourite - Mindman This isn't
exactly an Internet development tool, but it's close since it's to do with the
effective exploring of ideas.
Mindmapping is a technique for recording ideas. It's a very good way to follow
non-linear ideas. You can use it with customers when talking about a Web site.
Mindman is a fairly simple tool. I downloaded it and found that after 30 days
I was using it a lot, so I decided to pay for it.
When you've got plenty of ideas it's frustrating not getting them down on paper
or onto a screen. Once the ideas are out, I relax. Putting ideas down in a
word processing program can be too constraining, and cross-linking is difficult.
Mindman is far better for storing links and ideas. It's not bad to use with customers
too. It's a cool tool.
I also like Cold Fusion. It's fairly easy to learn. I'm not a keen programmer
and it only took me a month. Cold Fusion sites on the Internet sometimes seem
slow, but I mainly use it to build programs and prototypes to show customers and
potential investors on my laptop.
Pet Hates
Fragile software and hardware - anything that isn't robust. Sometimes you only
do one little thing wrong and you're screwed. I dislike that about computers in
general. After all, you don't expect to have to keep rebooting your TV. It's annoying
that computers have been like this for so long - we keep expecting them to be
sturdy in a few years time and it never happens.
It's very refreshing to come across Web sites and programs that simply work as
they're supposed to do.
Future
I have a very firm idea of one type of Killer App we can expect to see in
the future. It will be called something like a Virtual Advisor and will tap into
the power of the Internet community.
Interactivity has been left behind. People get carried away with bandwidth, but
what users want is to get the assistance they're looking for. This is beyond Web
sites as extensions of magazines or shops. Imagine an Internet site that first
asks you about your current situation and secondly asks about your goals and aspirations.
In response to your answers, it serves up relevant activities, resources and information
to help you achieve your goals.
For this application to work it needs to broker supply and demand - on an infinitely
scalable platform and in a user-friendly manner. Just as the success of Linux
was dependent upon a mass of programmers, the success of these killer apps will
be dependent upon a mass of Internet users - with web browsing as the only skill
required. The easier these applications are to use the more widespread their impact.
A Virtual Advisor will allow good ideas (and great solutions) to evolve while
weak ones die off.
In many ways it's similar to the approach I use with my client survey program.
When I get involved with a company, I often run a Cold Fusion survey on my laptop.
I set up a profile of the customer then compare this with the profile of where
they want to be in the future. The end result is a step by step plan for the customer,
created on the spot. My laptop model is based on a one to many relationship -
one provider (me) to many customers. The Internet-based model I am working on
will allow many customers to reach many providers. The mechanism for this is a
little "hush hush" at the moment but I am always happy to discuss it
with people through email.
That's something like the future of the Internet as I see it. I'm building
one of these apps and I fully expect I'm not alone. I think it will be a couple
of years before we see any valuable apps of this nature. But in five years I expect
we'll see a proliferation of these types of applications, each aimed at a slightly
different market. By then, the solutions won't be limited to activities and information,
ASPs will be important too.
Advice for New Developers
Think about the real people at the viewing end.
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