Pure Inspiration

While his country was in poverty and famine, a 14 year old Malawian boy built a windmill to power his family’s home. Now 22, William Kamkwamba wrote his take and now shares in his own words the moving tale of determination that has changed his life.

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Apps may look like the next big thing for business marketing but SMEs looking to invest should prioritise strategy and market knowledge before they leap.
Brisbane digital agency Mettro is developing a growing number of apps for larger brands, government and the charity sector. But managing director Raeleen Robertson said SMEs weren’t yet in the apps market.

Disincentives to SMEs included affordability, time and knowledge, she said.

“The apps market is huge but not really as big or as open as you really think it is,” she said.

“There are always businesses keen to make a quick buck but generally, though, people are still cautious because of the time and money required.”

Bruce Young, CEO of Brisbane-headquartered web developers Speedwell, agreed: “I think the cost to professionally develop an app is quite outside the realm of SMEs unless it’s core to their business”.

Australian Interactive Media Industry Association CEO John Butterworth said SME app interest was yet to build.

“We’re still in the very early years of apps and, as a result, they’re very popular,” he said.

“But I think it’s too early for people at a SME level to understand how they’re worth it, given the cost.”

So, what’s an app?

To a smartphone user, an app is an application you download – Angry Birds, for instance. To developers, apps can also refer to mobile versions of websites developed for smartphones and mobile devices. Websites ‘sniff’ for handsets and render their websites in a mobile optimised form.To develop an app for a smartphone, expect to invest anywhere from $15,000 upwards. With base level apps starting at around $15,000 and complex apps anywhere upwards of $40,000, John said SMEs would be wise to thoroughly investigate apps already on the market.

“Use other people’s platforms, work your way through it and understand the mechanics and your consumers’ behaviour – then you’ll have a better idea of the way forward for your business,” he said.

Existing location-based apps like foursquare attract people within a set territory, such as a retail store. Outlets in Australia like Wagamama and Lorna Jane are using foursquare to push coupons to people travelling close to their stores. Social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – also play a role in market communication.

Businesses who do invest in apps need to understand the platform their target market uses – and this will take an investment in market research. Essential, too, is a working understanding of the highly competitive apps market, which is expected to reach $15 billion worldwide by 2013.

Although Apple’s iPhone had a dream run when it first launched in Australia, its higher price point is encouraging the growth of Android (Google-based) phones.

Indeed, Android is on the rise internationally. Nielsen research released last month in the United States showed 27 per cent of smartphone buyers in the past six months chose Android, compared with 23 per cent for iPhone. And within two months, Android Market is expected to surpass Apple’s App Store in the number of developed apps. Blackberry and Windows 7 languish by comparison.

Does this mean there’s more money to be found in Android app development? Unlikely, said Susanne Leschke, marketing and development director of German apps company ideas2mobile: “The long tail gets longer and longer, while the top 5 per cent gets richer and richer.”

Speedwell CEO Bruce Young said the smart money was on establishing your business objectives instead of dreaming up an app.

“A client will walk in – and this happens every day of the week – and say, ‘I want a website’ or ‘I want an app’,” he said.

“Our answer is always, ‘You don’t want that’.

“An app or a website should never be the end goal for a business.

“The end goal should always be about attracting more customers to your brand, or decreasing your costs while increasing your sales – whatever your business objective is.

“The delivery method to achieve that may or may not be through an app.”

AIMIA CEO John Butterworth said his advice to SMEs would be to understand their market and their online behaviour long before they considered developing an app.

“I’d make damned sure I had the fundamentals right first,” he said.

Mettro’s Raeleen Robertson said no amount of technology could ever replace traditional marketing knowledge.

“Say you do develop an app,” she said.

“There are hundreds of thousands of apps worldwide – how is anyone ever going to find yours?

“The more I do digital, the more I know that it all goes back to the need for simple marketing intelligence every time.

“I can build you the best website in the world, but you still have to get people there to use it.”

Top up your smartphone

iPhone

• 1. Replace your sat nav: Tom Tom has brought out a new GPS app. At $99.99, it’s cheaper than its mainstream product.
• 2. Track hours: Lots of apps are on the market, but we like Timewerks, with a built-in stopwatch to track project hours and create client invoices
• 3. Process payments on the go: Credit Card Terminal costs 99 cents and you can use it to process payments away from the office
• 4. Jott, don’t stop: Stop texting while driving by letting Jott record voice messages for you. The app converts your messages to text and sends them to contacts, Facebook or Twitter.

Blackberry

• 5. Get in sync: SugarSync lets you open and edit files stored on a remote computer, then sync the revised dox with the originals. It’s free up to 2GB.
• 6. Grabbit with Gwabbit: scan incoming emails for contact info and sticks it in your address book.

Android/Microsoft OS 7

• 7. Go mobile: Microsoft Office Mobile lets you access Word, Excel and PowerPoint from your phone for $49.95.
• 8. Go easy overseas: EasyTranslator coverts words and phrases from English to 29 languages. Costs $5.95. Also consider TripIt and FlightTrack (both available for multiple platforms).Across most platforms
• 9. The Swiss Army knife of note-taking: Evernote allows you to snap a photo, take a screenshot, type in text or speak your note to capture info on the go. (Free limited version)
• 10. Get your Documents to Go: an all-in-one app that supports Office, PDF, Apple iWork and other files. View, edit and share any file with ease. (Free limited version)

(Drawn from inc.com, techpublic.com and other sources)

Anybody familiar with my work will realise that i use a mind mapping process to design the content of my books and even our training courses. More recently we have been using mind mapping to bring clarity to our business strategy. So mind mapping has been a part of my life for quite some time now.

I recently purchased a license for Tony Buzan’s iMindMap Software. And to put it bluntly I was blown away with how good that software is. Anybody who has ever used a mind map knows the simplicity and power of the process. And now to have software to generate mind maps that can be used in presentations or exported into different file formats … amazing.

If you want to try it, go ahead and download and trial the software from Tony Buzan’s website by Clicking HERE.

Enjoy