27 June 2012
by Tiago Costa
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This is a delicious video from the good folks @googleanalytics.
It represents many of the frustrations we sometimes have to go by while shopping online and what these weirdnesses would look like it they happened at some bricks & mortar store (not remembering your nickname, login timeout, the great mess with all kinds of shipping fee… you know the drill).
Enjoy!
4 June 2012
by Tiago Costa
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Let me start by saying that I’m not HR expert but ever since we started WayNext I have been involved in all the recruitment processes. It is obviously a very important process within every company and for that reason I always want to follow it very closely. Most of the times I have been in all the interviews until our decision is made.
To recruit new team members we usually post ads on a couple of websites. Sometimes we have used newspapers ads but we don’t find the need to do that anymore. More often than not, about 40/50% of the applications we get having very little to do with what we need and tried to be explicit about in the ad.
We ask for someone with HTML5/CSS3 coding skills and a bunch of web designers whose nearest HTML experience was the dreaded (and long gone) Dreamweaver come along. But this is something I can understand and I could imagine myself applying for a job with lateral skills to it. But, what I can’t understand is why, with so many people looking for a job, at least according to the national statistics, so little effort is put on the application. Why bother applying if you are not serious about it? If you are make time to do it properly!
This are the most recurring mistakes, from my point of view:
1. Not sending in everything that is requested: if someone is asking for resume and portfolio, how hard is it to send both?
2. Sending huge files over email (yes, a 10Mb attachment is considered big) instead of providing a download link (Dropbox anyone?)
3. Sending the email to “undisclosed-recipients” – it shows you didn’t put the effort to write a different email for each job you are applying. The same goes with emailing your resume to 25 companies all on the same email message;
4. Asking for salary and benefits even before applying;
5. Using a automated application platform that will not let you send a personal message to the company you are applying to. That way the recruiters gets a bunch of very similar template emails which is not helpful. Often this also do not contain the resume, but will offer links to it (if the resume is a small file I’d rather view it quickly than having to download and the process)
6. Not caring about the way your resume looks (making it 6 pages long doesn’t help, writing in Comic Sans or using every bell and whistle Word has to offer is a no no and please watch out for misspellings and grammar). Can you keep it 1 or 2 pages long? That would do it. If it is interesting the recruiter will call you and you will have the chance to present yourself. On a more personal note, I don’t find the “Europass CV” an interesting template because resumes tend to be too long, but that’s just me, probably.
7. Not being available for the interview in person. If the recruiter calls you just a couple of days after receiving your application, try to make yourself available for the interview. Sure, if you are working you probably can’t make it during regular business hours, but don’t start with “today I can’t, tomorrow I’ve got to pick up the car form the shop, the day after my gf is coming over yada yada yada…”.
8. Don’t apply for the job if you don’t believe it would suit you. Sure you can be surprised but something different from what was described (I guess it happens a lot) but be ready to take the job if you are invited and things are as expected, otherwise you are wasting everybody’s time.
9. Sending an email with your resume attached but without any text is also not a good sign.
23 May 2012
by Tiago Costa
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Last weekend I have run my second marathon. My first one was Barcelona in 2011 which didn’t went as expected because of some strong knee pain. Anyway meanwhile I have been logging the due km preparing the second marathon since December.
I usually run 3 times a week even if I’m not preparing any race, but by the end of the year I already knew I would sign up for another marathon. I needed a decent finish to prove it to myself that Barcelona was just a bit of bad luck and probably a somewhat faulty preparation (putting too many km in few months).
So by the beginning of the year I signed up and booked flights and hotel for the 2012 Copenhagen Marathon taking place on the 20th May. It was a city I did not knew so I could discover it and also run the marathon which is always great.
My view from the starting line
I have already written a quick and onsite post about the city itself so this time I will focus on my thoughts about the race. So starting with the usual race expo it was well organized and allowed for a quick bib pick up. They had also announced a pasta party but it was a very small thing with someone outside selling some not so good looking pasta (on the contrary in Barcelona it was a really free and delicious lunch).
I must confess I struggled around the city to find a nice and simple plain vanilla pasta joint, but I didn’t found it. You will find lots of Italian restaurants but the dishes are always more elaborate than plain pasta with tomato sauce or something similar.
Anyway, after spending 4 days in the city chilling under lots of clothes (max temperature around 12C!) there comes race day blowing away the forecast with 26C! It was the hottest day in Copenhagen this year, so far as they told me! I guess the temperature has taken its toll. I was always looking out for hydration stations on the course which is something I rarely do. I also think the Danes took a hit there because I guess they are not used to such an hot weather.
Reaching out for the race start I found a real party with 12k runners and their families around the course start. I placed myself behind the 3h30 pace setters (which are called fartholders in Danish) and waited for the race to start! I was trying to run normally but it was impossible behind the pace setters. Too many runners were trying to keep up with them just a couple of meters behind and since I felt I was below my pace I moved on around km 7/8. That proved to be the right thing to do since I could improve from 4m55s to around 4m45s and I was at ease doing so.
Something that really surprised me was how many people were loudly cheering for the runners. I believe there were not 500m where the cheerful crowd was not heard which to tell the truth is something everyone running in Portugal knows that doesn’t happen. Maybe it is always like that or maybe it was because of the high temperatures but it was nice to feel the warm (literally) crowd!
The marathon course is interesting even if it crosses the same course again 2 or even 3 times because the city center is fairly small. Anyway the course will go through most of the city tourist highlights, but I must confess that with all the crowd and the heat I couldn’t manage to sightseeing. Sometimes I wouldn’t even know where we were, since I don’t know the city that well.
I managed to finish with 3h27m10s which was what I was aiming for (anywhere around 3h30m). What does a runner think right now? I’ve made it? Yes I was happy about it but also concerned with the next one. The stakes are high for an amateur like me!
On another very positive note, I have to thank the Danish people for being so well intentioned and honest. After finishing the race I was tired and forgot my iPhone on the grass and went away. When I got there 5m later imagining I would mever see it again it had been delivered by a fellow runner to the organization and I got it back! How cool is that?
If you would like to check the race photos you can find them here.
Copenhagen Marathon - Details
17 May 2012
by Tiago Costa
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I am writing this in Copenhagen where we arrived yesterday. This are the first impressions from the capital of Denmark:
– the weather is much colder than I was expecting for mid May, it feels like January in Lisbon
– the city is small with 1.2m people
– everyone is riding bikes, even more than in Amsterdam, so they say. There are all kinds of bikes including cargo bikes and others prepared to transport small kids. Every street seems to have a bike lane
– people are not afraid of the elements (how could they, really?) they are outside with small kids even if is raining and cold
– most buildings are old but well preserved
– food is much more expensive than in Portugal – maybe 30/50% more
– lots of people run (again even if is raining). I did 10km in the morning and there were lots of people running in the rain around the lakes
– the city feels safe even if I have not seen any police
– it is somewhat similar to Vienna but in a more bohemian style.
Update:
– the iPhone market share must be huge. Almost any mobile we saw was an iPhone
– I wrote it is an expensive town. It is veryyy expensive. Don’t expect a decent dinner for less than 30/35€ per person
– about cars a 2.4 Volvo XC90 costs more than 110k€
– and housing buildings are generally very old for our standard. We’ve seem the real estate ads and there are many houses on sale built on or before 1900!
9 May 2012
by Tiago Costa
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Even if we don’t know the exact numbers for all markets, we all know this, but it’s always worth repeating:
Consumers spend 25% of their media time with digital media, Mr. Sorrell said, but marketers spend only 19% of their marketing budgets there globally, by WPP’s reckoning. The disconnect is greater in mobile, with 8% of time spent vs. 0.5% of budgets, he said. TV is relatively balanced, at 41% of time spent and 42% of budgets. Mr. Sorrell said that print is the only medium with a substantial overallocation of media budgets compared with time spent — and hence most vulnerable to the shift.
Citing this article wrote about Martin Sorrell.
2 May 2012
by Tiago Costa
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Things are really slow here at my blog because they are going really fast at work and also because I’m a few weeks away from atempting the second marathon.
Besides some pretty hectic days at WayNext with really interesting projects and growing the team, I have been logging anywhere between 50/65km per week, so there goes all my free time. And the wind season is also starting meaning a couple of hours riding when it blows decently.
I have lots of drafted posts that I expect to finish as soon as things slow down a bit.
9 April 2012
by Tiago Costa
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Batô's - Door sign
While searching for some stuff online about Batô, a nice old school rock disco on my home town I found an interesting post about the music they used to play there. So here goes a self-reference post with a bunch of link to some good old music, just in case you are in the mood for some good music.
Credits: songs stolen at Remember Batô – good old, good old.
A Flock of Seagulls – I Ran
The B52’s – Love Shack
Iggy Pop – Lust for Life
Led Zeppelin – Black Dog
Morrissey – Everyday Is Like Sunday
Peter Murphy – Cuts you up
Primal Scream – Rocks
Pulp – Common People
Simple Minds – Alive And Kicking
Soft Cell – Tainted Love
The Cure – Boys Don’t Cry
The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYLmptz_r_o
U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun
After this extensive list it is still missing Garbage and a couple of others.
1 March 2012
by Tiago Costa
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With the advance of the digital age it seems that more and more written content is being created every second. As of this writing, Youtube is claiming 48 hours of video being upload per minute, but I guess billions of characters are being keyed in every minute in all kind of connected devices (emails, sms’s, blog posts, status updates, webpages you name it).
I find it very awkward that so many people often commit huge spelling errors (and I don’t mean typos) while writing in their mother tongue. I know this blog is not written in perfect English and perhaps a native speaker would feel the same way I feel when I read stuff written in Portuguese, mainly on social networks, that is so poorly written (in terms of grammar and even more shocking, in terms of spelling).
And this seems to be more of a problem with mine and also younger generations, because older people, even those that didn’t went to high school or university (and there are a lot of them) seem to be able to write better than many highly educated 20/30-something.
Considering writing is still one of the primary forms of communication, more effort into correct spelling and grammar should be put in, because it really leaves an impression about who you are. And for this I am thankful for my parents being so merciless when it came down to writing correctly.
27 February 2012
by Tiago Costa
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For several reasons I have been loading up on mobile for the past 12 months. I had been involved in some mobile projects a couple of years ago and then for some reason it seemed to go into a an halt, because we didn’t do a lot of mobile (I guess there was little market demand) but that changed since the beginning of 2011 it seems like this is it.
If you are around of this internet thing for as long as me, you have surely heard, several times, year after year, that this would be the year of the mobile. Whatever that means, I still don’t know if this will be the year of the mobile, but, I know there is finally strong market demand for all things mobile. There are a lot of reasons contributing to this evolution: improved device capabilities, fairly priced data plans, price drop for smartphones (namely Android), user need to stay connected away from the desktop, just to name a few.
Of course the way each company can take advantage of mobile is very different and I have devoted quite a bite of my time to go through that and understand the mobile challenges companies are facing. Mobile isn’t the same for a retail company as it is for a newspaper or even a service like Gmail or Facebook, and there is a lot to learn on that field.
I will post below some charts stolen from the “comScore 2012 Mobile Future in Focus” whitepaper that I find interesting. Please beware that there are both charts for the US and EU5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and UK) for some of the topics.
Traffic share by device type (US)
Interesting to see that less than 10% of traffic is generated on mobile devices. It might be because heavy media consumption (read: video) is still the land of the desktop.
I would highlight the superior EU5 market maturity since they have gotten rid of BB and they adopted Android with Samsung. It is also interesting to notice that Samsung places a middle level equipment and also it’s Galaxy top end smartphone on the list.
Smartphone share evolution (EU vs US)
This one is expected and proves the strong advance of smartphones on the mobile arena.
Smartphone users by gender and age (EU vs US)
The adoption on the 25/44 would suggest either a business usage pattern or the higher equipment costs. Or maybe it’s both but with Android bringing cheaper smartphones the latter will soon be irrelevant.
This chart show the market share by OS and it is interesting to see that although the Android is obviously the stronger player, IOS was also able to grow it’s market share by eating RIM and Nokia’s lunch on the last months.
Smartphone market share by OS (EU)
Nokia is still accounting for nearly 30% of smartphones, meaning Android and IOS still have lots of room to grow in the EU.
Mobile Web vs Apps (EU5 vs US)
As the users become more dependent on their smartphones, both mobile web and app usage grows over time. It would also be safe to say that there are more mobile-ready/optimized websites and also more and more apps to support this trend.
Smartphone activities at retail stores (US)
And now for something very real: mobile phone usage and smartphone specific usage inside retail stores. Even if there are lots of retailers still not caring about mobile, users find multiple uses for their devices while at the store (I believe all smartphone specific usage like price/product comparison, coupons/deals and product research can only go stronger).
Tablet users by OS (US)
And now for the tablets, or should we say iPad’s? Well no. Just like with the smartphone market, IOS made the revolution but Android is getting stronger by the day, even if I suspect the Android tablet growth is somewhat slower in the EU.
Mobile traffic by OS (US)
It seems like IOS is the most data hungry device. From my personal experience I can see why, but on the other hand I can seem to get around with a fairly limited data plan, so I’m curious to know how this chart would translate into Gb.
20 February 2012
by Tiago Costa
0 comments
Crosswalk - Photo by Alex Goldmark posted on Flickr
I must say I am surely not the most well behaved driver on the road, at least when I am in a hurry. Having a busy schedule and trying to squeeze as much as I possibly can out of each day makes me fill my agenda and many times I am on the rush going to meetings. Anyway, there are some lines I don’t cross (this is a good metaphor…) no matter how late I might be running and I do respect traffic lights and crosswalks.
Portuguese drivers are not known for being good drivers, at least when compared to most of the European drivers. If you go to Austria, for instance, no one will “floor it” to pass through an orange-redish traffic light, few people hit the horn and drivers do use their turning lights 90% of the times.
The idea of disrespecting crosswalks is something I really don’t understand and a point should be made about that. The more I am a pedestrian, and I do long walks on our neighborhood crossing the street a few times, I find myself trying to cross with drivers still flying through the cross walk about 50% of the times. I don’t believe those people have ever wondered what might happen to them if they run over someone at a crosswalk.
But when I am driving I also don’t understand why people don’t use turning lights. It is not that hard if you make it an habit, just like most people now just strap on their seat belts immediately after sitting inside a car. Everyday we see people changing lanes, sometimes at high speeds without notice and the turning lights could avoid some accidents I am sure, but it is something I don’t see most of the people using.
And, to finish this rant, I would just like to make another point about speed. Whenever there are those debates on TV or elsewhere about driving, I rarely see anyone admitting to speeding. Yet if I travel on the A1, Lisbon/Porto (something I do very often) for 300km and if I set up the cruise control for 120km/h, I am the slowest vehicle on the road, besides trucks and buses; so, just get real and tell the truth.
BTW just a final note about speed and have heard all kinds of arguments pro and against raising the speed limit on highways. I understand mainly the fear that an average driving speed increase that might lead to more and deadlier accidents; also some countries seem on the reverse route adopting lower speed limits to reduce fuel consumption and the carbon footprint. But, like I stated on the example before, I know it is hard to drive long distances under 120km/h, so I would be in favor or raising the speed limit to 150km/h except under rainy conditions, considering cars are generally safer nowadays (better handling with ESP, improved tyre grip and ABS brakes as a default for almost every car in the market) – my own personal perspective about that, when thinking about highway speed, is that the speed limit should be adjusted using categories, even if cars are generally safer, there are still differences and those could be factored in.