As business has rapidly adapted to capitalize on the infinite potential of the global marketplace, software as a service has grown from a luxury to a necessity. These aren’t platitudes, these are entrepreneurial truisms. Running a small or medium sized business today is more competitive than ever, and to maximize their market potential companies have to overcome time and geography. Online components of storefronts can often times comprise as much of a company’s cash flow as their physical space itself. And the potential they offer far surpasses the physical storefront.

Take John for example. John runs a second hand store specializing in , instruments, sporting goods, game consoles, cameras etc. He has a lot of stock so he starts posting these items on EBay. Increasingly, he finds that people are contacting him to ship some of these things across Canada or abroad through that platform. The market potential of 30,000,000 other Canadian or 300,000,000 American consumers means his potential for sales has gone from the local maximum of say 2,000,000 to an astounding 330,000,000. Of course, his market share of that potential will only be fractions but a fraction of two million is far less than a fraction of three-hundred and thirty million. Let’s say 1% of people potentially want something John is selling. And John, wanting as much control over his business as possible, starts maximizing the ecommerce potential of this own website- EBay doesn’t take a cut anymore, the middleman is eliminated. He is selling direct to a vastly larger market now.

1% of his immediate geographical market (a city or region of about 2 million residents) is 20,000 people  1% of his national market (Canada) is 300,000 people, and 1% of John’s U.S. and Canadian Market (which thanks to progressive trade laws is relatively harmonized) stands at 3,300,000 people. That’s just 1% of the population looking for the products he offers. If we consider the online component of his business could reach a global population then his potential 1% market is 60 million customers. Even a fraction of that, let’s say .5% of the population equals his potential market size (1 out of every 200 people), this means 30 million customers could potentially want one of the items he is selling. John has gone from 1% of his local market population = 20,000 potential sales to .5% of a global population = 30,000,000 potential sales.

The importance of having an online component to your company, no matter what it might be, CAN’T be under-emphasized.  John’s example might be elementary, very simplified and idealized, but it demonstrates how anyone not engaging potential customers online  denies themselves the opportunity to reach exponentially more consumers and thus increase their income dramatically. It doesn’t take vast amounts of capital and labor, it doesn’t take years and years of strategy and patience. It takes a relationship with a service provider who understands the online marketplace, and who can help you create the ecommerce solutions that you need to reach your potential.

There is value in every corner and crack of your company. Products, services, information, even opinion, are commodities with value. Look at your business, look at what you offer and what you can offer online. If you aren’t offering something online, you should be.

For more information about ecommerce and how it can help your company reach its potential contact Thirdi.

Online marketing can sometimes seem like casting a fishing line into a deep lake. You feel you have the right bait, the right line and rod, the boat seems to be in a good position, but what lies deep beneath? Companies like Thirdi help you to see what’s in the lake, who’s nibbling on your tackle and tugging on your line, and where all the good catches are.

Let’s continue with the fishing analogy. Just like in fishing you might drop the line down into a school of fish, but if you don’t have the right bait they won’t go for it. Conversely, if you drop the right bait down for the kind of fish you want but it’s nowhere near enough to them you won’t catch anything either…maybe a boot. And just like you can feel nibbles on your line, clicks act in the same way. It may seem like a lot of people are seeing your ad, but nibbles don’t catch fish, and clicks don’t mean you’ve made customers. So how do we interpret click statistics and consumer behavior online?

If a lot of traffic is coming through your site via an ad then you know that it’s doing its job as far as getting eyes on your site. However, we have to look deeper than that. These numbers tell us a lot, but they don’t tell the whole story. When you buy ad space from another site make sure you are able to get the analytics too. Find out how long people are looking at the ad if it’s a pop up- if it’s one second it usually counts as a click to your ad space provider even if users closed the pop up right away. As far as the provider is concerned, someone saw your ad and that’s the name of the game.

Quality clicks are what you are looking for unless you just want to generate blind, rapid site traffic. Many sites do this, and generate impressive ad revenue from it. But if you own an actual product or service and want to connect with a consumer base you need more than ads, you need content. Potential customers need to be engaged. Attention spans have shrunk and we don’t notice traditional ad media anymore- not to the extent that we used to. Even banner click through rates have been declining. Being able to advertise without people knowing that they’re being advertised to is the trick today. Some may find this underhanded, but in the marketing biz it’s seen more as subtlety. Social media has created new terms of engagement that have helped consumers and companies connect in a more fluid and continuous manner, sticking has begun to replace clicking. This is really where understanding consumer behavior online happens, in the dialogue played out in words and actions online. But for a small business it’s hard to imagine the kind of social media presence that a major company with a large consumer base enjoys (or is conversely beholden too as Forrester researchers often stress) There are some basic and simple things that you can do though, to better understand how your web marketing is working.

Find out who is looking at your ads and who is looking at your site, not individual names and addresses and such, but where they are, how long they are staying, where they are going on your site, what they may be looking for if you can discern it. “How are these people behaving?” is the key question, not “how much are they clicking?” .

If you are able to understand these and other things you’ll see that the water is in fact clear, and not deep and dark as it may have looked before. And you’ll know where to put your line and what to put on it a whole lot easier than when you were when fishing in the dark.

Thirdi

I don’t know, let’s find out together. This post is one in a series that examines this question from different angles.  Today we look at one aspect in particular, the poor availability of commercial office space and the impact it may have on the city down the road.

I was recently talking with Boris Mann of Bootup Labs and he postulated (and I agree) that due to their cost effectiveness and proximity to great cafes, pubs and restaurants, that Gastown and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside have become hot spots for software startups. No offense to Yaletown, for years it’s been the trendiest and most upwardly mobile neighbourhood in the city, but because of this it’s also become quite expensive. And while he was excited that parts of Vancouver’s inner city (the Flack Block in particular) had become magnets for fledgling technology companies, when talking about the city as a whole he seemed a little less sure that Vancouver could be included right now in that top tier of globally competitive cities like Boston or San Francisco. “Vancouver itself must grow up and be recognized as a whole. We *need* to point to universities westwards (UBC) and eastwards (SFU Burnaby Mountain), the Microsoft Dev Center in Richmond, the EA buildings in Burnaby, and so on.”

As authors like Richard Florida have stressed, cities need to attract and retain top talent in order stay economically healthy and competitive. It’s a constant process of keeping up with Boston, with Tel Aviv, with the Bay Area, in amenities, quality of life, culture, safety, aesthetics and other supports, and making sure that companies have access to the best possible research facilities and a highly educated work force. That work force is both created through the quality of nearby colleges and universities and through the gravity that is naturally induced by an accumulation of the above mentioned things. When an innovative or large company appears on the scene it creates gravity, it creates spin-off companies, and it challenges everyone to raise their game. So it’s important to both see those companies develop here , or move here.

Vancouver wins hands down in aesthetics, quality of life, safety (minus the earthquake we’re all waiting for) and other supports (dining, leisure, soft laws concerning marijuana?) but there are some things that we’re lacking. It might be cohesion. Is there a disjointedness caused by the geography and inter-competitiveness of the partner cities in the region? As Boris points out, some collaborative effort between competing clusters or competing cities might just make one big cluster and put us in that upper echelon. But while Richmond, Burnaby and Surrey have either seen some large software companies locate offices there or have announced major plans to create office and mixed use developments, Vancouver has been running out of space fast.  Well actually that’s not true, we’ve been running out of space for companies. A slow and steady exodus of tech and software companies out of the downtown core would be a devastatingly bad thing (for Vancouver) if Richmond and/or Surrey started to displace Vancouver as the main cluster of high tech and software companies in the Lower Mainland.

Because of the profitability of luxury residential condos, developers haven’t produced enough commercial office space in the downtown core to accommodate any large companies that may want to have offices there. Microsoft had to locate in Richmond, and some would say so what?That’s still Vancouver right? But that’s millions of dollars a year that local businesses in the downtown business district aren’t getting from coffee breaks, catering, office supplies, etc. And not only that, but if any technology and software companies or other service providers want to do business with a large company like Microsoft, they could have had the convenience of a quick taxi or brisk walk between offices, grab a drink with associates after work and bounce casual ideas around, but now they’ve got to head down to Richmond (boring). SFU, BCIT and UBC campuses downtown or relatively close, Microsoft in Richmond. Thirdi office in Yaletown, Microsoft in Richmond. See the pattern here? It could be argued that Microsoft is not always the friendliest company especially to startups, but I use them only as an example. If a large company with a reputation of working with startups or smaller firms wanted to find a space in Vancouver proper it would be extremely difficult, as Microsoft proved. And perhaps most importantly, if a local company started to experience strong growth and needed to take on more staff and more space where would they expand to? The fact that there is simply no commercial space left in Vancouver and none really being built, means problems down the road if you ask me. And city council isn’t terribly excited to add more commercial high rise space downtown because of the risk of blocking resident’s views by obstructing our “view corridors“. So it’s a bit of a catch 22 in my opinion, companies want to come here for the beautiful views but we can’t offer them office space because it will block the beautiful views. While cheap office space for startups in Gastown and the DTES is great, this large scale component of Vancouver’s ability to attract and retain larger companies may have a very negative impact on our ability to become a true global leader moving forward.

As self appointed Senses  conspiracy expert I tentatively choose to embark on this post. While we try to focus on topics of professional interest and of some impact to the industry in which we work Hugo Chavez has once again blown my mind and I can’t resist. A major catastrophe has just occurred in a country that has been spiraling out of control, bandaged and taped together by foreign aid for decades. At a time when compassion and cooperation is needed most from all countries capable of helping Haiti,  a world leader takes an opportunity to suggest (thanks to an unconfirmed report from Russia’s Northern Fleet) that the United States, using top-secret technology, caused the earthquake to prepare for an invasion of Iran. Chavez should be ashamed, though something tells me an ego of his stature leaves little room for shame.

The idea allegedly put forth by Russia’s Northern Fleet and espoused by Chavez is that the U.S. has been using its HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) Which according to the official government site is “…to further advance our knowledge of the physical and electrical properties of the Earth’s ionosphere which can affect our military and civilian communication and navigation systems” This program has been in operation since 1990 and is a favorite of conspiracy theorists, though it has been overshadowed somewhat by the CERN Large Hadron Collider and its massive space-time fabric ripping experiments. In both cases these are highly advanced technologies employing highly advanced theoretical and applied knowledge, and as the old adage goes “People fear what they don’t understand”

We don’t understand the experiments being done at HAARP and CERN’s Hadron Collider so they must be inherently evil and created to control/destroy/enslave us as they are also funded and supported by the Government…another thing we don’t understand. The logic is relatively straight forward.

If we don’t understand advanced economic theory we like to say the World Bank, IMF and United Nations are enslaving the planet intentionally with debt. If we don’t understand how a disease like AIDS can have no cure we blame the US military for inventing it for population control reasons. (or big pharma or someone else) If we don’t understand why Haiti, a country suffering for so long, can be hit with a devastating earthquake we can conveniently blame the US (again of course) and their experiment in Alaska that focuses on ionic phenomena in our atmosphere. Look closely, there must be a connection.  This is fine and dandy for regular paranoid blue collar guys, but when heads of state are talking like this I think we pass a threshold of acceptable conduct.

Technology is arguably the most important and distinguishing thing that separates us from our animal cousins. Yes many other animals use tools, sea otters use rocks, birds use twigs and twine, ravens have proven themselves able to problem-solve with tools as well, but when we’re talking about experiments to recreate the big bang, experiments directing energy through and off of the ionosphere I think we definitely demonstrate a uniquely ambitious trait to understand the construct of our reality- and the rough edges where it may end. But I would prefer to leave that to scientists and philosophers and have the politicians focus their mental energies on more constructive things. What international politics needs more than anything is sanity, and Chavez loves to inject a huge dose of anything but into the mix.

Here are a few thoughts off the top of my head as to why his comments are completely absurd and why thinking like this is potentially very dangerous when considering the future of our already strained geopolitics.

1) Earthquakes happen all the time firstly. It’s not like a major earthquake happened in the middle of some precambrian shield in some highly unlikely place; although intra-plate earthquakes are also possible. Haiti and all the Caribbean countries lie on a complex series of plates and faults. Chavez is an idiot.

2) While earthquakes can be caused by damming of rivers and underground nuclear explosions, the suggestion that HAARP can somehow create earthquakes is a stretch. Video footage shows strange aural clouds over China before a major earthquake struck there in 2008 but before a quake happens it is common for large amounts of gaseous vapors trapped beneath the surface to escape. In fact, Japanese seismologists have successfully predicted earthquakes (though not by any usable amount of time for public safety) by monitoring levels of gas like Radon, looking for spikes in the air. Gasses, as we know, can affect how light passes between a source (say the Sun) and our brains. There were no reported auras or crazy lights and colours around Haiti before this quake anyhow which would help relate it to the supposed HAARP induced quake in China. Chavez is a moron.

3) As far as the middle east is concerned, the United States knows that its greatest asset in Iran are the Iranian people within the country itself. Iran is not just full of Islamic Fundamental extremists, in fact they are the minority. Killing hundreds of thousands of Iranian civilians, many of whom are engaged in political and social activism in a massive earthquakes is likely the last possible thing the US would want. Chavez (and the person who made the alledged Northern Fleet report) are clearly just stirring the pot. A little critical thinking goes a long way.

Why is this dangerous? Because people BELIEVE this stuff. Iran will have another earthquake, possibly in the near future. In fact there is a 100% Iran will have earthquakes. The next time an earthquake occurs we now potentially have an army of paranoid idiots convinced that the US is about to invade the country, which is also unlikely because its troops are preoccupied in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Haiti.  The next time there’s a tsunami, it’s the US and their newfangled all purpose natural disaster creating HAARP. A hurricane, it’s the US and their newfangled all purpose natural disaster creating HAARP.

If this kind of talk enters the mainstream, as it clearly has, it becomes dangerous. It’s already easy enough for battered teens living in Kabul and Baghdad to blame the US for their woes, now being told by a celebrated world leader (oh yes he’s celebrated in some countries) that natural disasters befalling their countries are caused by deliberate efforts of the U.S. through its own advanced and misunderstood technologies is just fuel for an already paranoid firestorm.  Stoking the flames of paranoia in the world is the last thing any world leader should be doing. Once again I stress my belief that we need sanity, clarity, cooperation and critical thinking from our leaders.  Leave the science to the scientists Chavez and leave the paranoid delusions to the rest of us.

For more information on HAARP

For more information on CERN Large Hadron Collider

For more information on global economics

For more information on Thirdi

There was this one time (at Blog camp) where I wrote a post and a guy in Indiana handed me a cyber-cease and desist order the next day for infringing on his intellectual property. Of course I was flabbergasted as was my employer (a fantastic software development and internet marketing company in Vancouver called Thirdi) and so we thought the best course of action was to cautiously approach this said gentleman with our reaffirming of his brand’s integrity. All ended well in this case as I am one charming guy (it’s my disarming eyes) but for many other people a simple word or phrase, color or graphic can get them in big trouble. Take for example the clash of Vancouver titans Lululemon and VANOC. A recent furor was stirred up by the world famous athletics-yoga clothing company when it launched the new “Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 & 2011 Edition” clothing line in stores across Canada this past Monday. Lululemon did their research and found the legal parameters in which they could launch this tongue in cheek clothing line just months before the main cool sporting event taking place in British Columbia in 2010, the Winter Olympics. VANOC naturally came out firing, with Bill Cooper, director of commercial rights stating  “We see the collection and the marketing activities around the collection as both disappointing and posing significant risk of inflicting harm on the Games” but the Olympic Committee is not pursuing legal action. Most likely because Lululemon did their legal homework and know that no matter how obvious the sardonic wit may be, they still played within the brand rules. It’s a great example of walking the fine line between infringement and association and some may argue that it’s dirty but I think the crowd that’s going to buy these hoodies and shirts will do so because of a kind of reserved protest or cheeky acceptance that now it’s time to support this behemoth event for better or worse. This line isn’t for the rabid Olympic sports fans that collect all things team Canada, this is for those who take the whole thing with a grain of salt I believe. Lululemon has stated openly that it supports team Canada and the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, though one ponders if having lost the opportunity to be an official Team Canada clothing sponsor in two Olympic games by being outbid by the Hudson’s Bay Company has something to do with this whole thing?

Lululemon is lucky, organization like VANOC are like corporate thunderstorms, maybe hurricanes are a better comparison. They start like a tropical depression in the bidding process and then once they have enough fuel they start whipping up support,capital, legal and political power in a frenzy until the games reach their peak; then dissipate from a staff of 30,000 to 0 shortly afterward. Lululemon is fortunate they flirted with the hurricane and got away with it. Just like me and the Sultan (I’m scared to say the whole name for fear of another cease and desist).

A lot of the previous posts on software that I’ve done have focused on the power of software to do good on this planet. Take Circle Cardiovascular Imaging Inc of Calgary for example, who recently developed life saving software that has cardiac units all over North America and Europe excited (but not too excited, at least not around the patients). According to the Calgary Herald “The program analyses discrepancies and structural abnormalities in the muscle immediately, and has the potential to improve survival rates of cardiac patients by providing information immediately from the scan, rather than having to run additional tests” It’s a feel good story about software that warms the heart. But today let’s talk about some less than pious people who abused software at the expense of government and others.

Earlier this year a Vancouver family was sued by Microsoft for $750,000 in a pay per click fraud, the first lawsuit of its kind ever. Way to go Vancouver! Another first. The two sons and their mother would stay home for hours on end clicking competitor’s advertisements until their advertising budgets had been drained one nickel at a time and the ads were dropped. Then the family’s ad would make its way to the coveted top position of the page. Click fraud is a serious problem and despite the fact that I never imagined cheering for Microsoft in a court case, I hope they wax the floor with these morons.

Another recent one in BC has Police alleging that the owners of OK Log Sort Ltd. based in Kamloops in B.C.went to “extraordinary lengths to crack software used to schedule random checks on loads of logs the company was handling.” They’ve been accused of cheating the government of $600,000.

And lastly, a Richmond computer systems company has been charged with nine counts of criminal tax fraud for allegedly supplying several sushi restaurants with software used to cheat Revenue Canada. The company, InfoSpec Systems Inc., owned by Richmond business leader Cindy Chan, are facing charges for providing “zapper” software to Honjin Japanese Restaurant in Yaletown, the Honjin Sushi Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Man restaurants in North Vancouver, Kitsilano Sushi in Vancouver, and Easy Money Cheat Robot Sushi in Richmond. Just kidding, I made that last place up. It was better than making a quip about sushi from these places smelling extra fishy- oops, too late.

For business owners in Vancouver and other cities looking for an advantage, business software is definitely an excellent investment and can give you an edge. Whether it’s a POS system or project management software, or accounting and tax software, an upgrade to a new and efficient system can save you and make you money. Software companies in Vancouver like Thirdi specialize in customized software development for small businesses that give you an advantage. And it’s a lot quicker than sitting in a house clicking a mouse for hours cheating your competitors out of money and ad space. So use software for good and make money, don’t use it for evil and go to jail. And get in touch with us here at Thirdi if you have any further questions about software or the nature of good and evil.

Canada may be one of the wealthier countries on the planet, we are a member of the G8 and we are attached at the hip to the largest economy in the world, but that world is changing. New jobs are created as technology and innovation propel an economy forward. In Canada’s case, we’ve been slow in joining the new economy; the one that involves creating those technologies, materials, systems, and jobs, necessary to meet the needs of people and firms in the 21^st century. This is according to an article in the Epoch times. The article quotes Gregory Smith, the president of Canada’s Venture Capital & Private Equity Association. Smith voices concern in the article regarding the decline in investment in the Canadian technology sector, as much as 35% in 2008, and emphasizes the importance of an integrated approach to making Canada a competitive and innovative technology producer. As Mathew Little, of the Epoch Times summarizes:

“Those elements include investment, infrastructure, relationships with universities and centers of excellence, entrepreneurs, and large innovation-based companies that provide a snowball effect that grows the entire ecosystem.”

You know…like in other countries.

This comes at the same time that a panel of experts from universities, government, and private businesses, raise concern that Canada is at risk of losing researchers in nanotechnology because of a lack of support from the Government. There’s plenty of support from federal and provincial governments to keep our unsustainable fisheries and tar sand production going though.

We can’t survive on selling raw resources forever here people (er…government). Depending on raw, unprocessed, value un-added resources makes our economy basically a wealthier version of a less developed country. Yes we have Bombardier, yes we have RIM, and yes we have Vancouver’s Thirdi, thank goodness there’s that, but Venture capital has been shouldering the burden of innovation and technology in this country for too long without some help. Subsidies to old and inefficient industries keep us stuck in the old economics, and the old economy. Initiatives and incentives for innovative technology, green tech, and other modern companies will propel us into the new economy. Support for R&D from the Canadian government (like in the US) and incentives (TAX BREAK PLEASE) for venture capital to focus once again on Canadian innovation and technology will create jobs, will create solutions, and will put Canada on competitive footing when the global economy really gets going again. Or we can continue to cut trees down and dig things out of the ground, while the rest of the world makes history around us.

The site you’re currently looking at is now smarter, prettier, and it even smells better. Yes, the team here at Thirdi is humbly proud to announce a complete overhaul of this, our flagship website. Since you’re looking at it, you’ve probably noticed that some things have been added, some things have been moved and, in general, the Feng around here is now a lot more Shui.

Lately we’ve been getting a little bigger and adding some bright, new talents to the team. And that means the breadth of work we’ve been doing has gradually expanded into some new areas. So, a big goal in the rebuild was to make our online presence both more integrated and more informative. We restructured the information architecture so we could more effectively communicate the whole of who we are, what we do, and why we do it. We also made Senses (that blog thing that you’re now reading) an integrated part of Thirdi.com. As well, we created a handbook that summarizes everything on the website into a handy, compact PDF document. (download the Thirdi Handbook here.)

The new site was designed by our compatriots at Good & Worthy, Inc, and pimped out by Thirdi bonafides Dave, Mark, Keith and Andy. They, and all of us, hope you find the new site easy on the eyes and even easier to get around and find what you’re looking for.

It was 8:30 am this morning at the Thirdi office. Everyone was sipping their coffee and settling in for an honest day’s work. But then from out on the street came a sound, loud, deep and menacing. Suddenly the doors exploded inward and a figure appeared. He wore the outlaw uniform of leather and denim and was astride a belching, smoking 1100 cc’s of pure power. He gunned the engine and did a squealing donut in the middle of the office, before riding his bike up onto Matt Friesen’s desk. Finally he turned off the engine, took off his helmet and spoke. “Hi, I’m Andy Liang, youre new UI developer.”

Okay, that may not be exactly how it happened, but we are happy to announce Andy as the newest member of our team. He worked most recently at Navarik, and is a CSS master and design wunderkind. He’s also proven himself pretty handy with an allen key, spending the early part of this morning constructing his desk and chair.

His favorite videogames are Street Fighter IV and Disgaea. His hobbies include snowboarding, camping, biking, listening to “music I don’t understand” and feeding his addiction to Japanese culture. And he is also proud of the fact he had a street bike, and lived to tell about it.

Welcome Andy, we’re glad to have you aboard.

We get quite excited when there’s new staff coming on board.  The first few days in particular, we’d like to present ourselves as genuine, caring, and sincere.  Nothing but the best for the newcomer.  We’re a team and we work together, play together.  What could we do to welcome our newest, Alex Xie?  What is a great way to make him feel loved, and make him feel right at home?

We signed him up for online dating.  And this is our Alex:

Loves To watch/Play Sports.  Currently playing in a 3on3 basketball league. Loves nature – hiking, grouse grind, Lynn valley walks, rollerblading/biking around false creek/stanley park, when the weather is great.  Love dogs and other pets in general.  Have a 1 year old Black miniature schnauzer named Remy.  Movie BUFF,  anything past the 90s i will know and critic about.  Pretty solid poker player and an avid TV show watcher.  Entourage/Mad Men/Lost/Dexter. 1 week into work at thirdi.  Learning its fast pace and multiple products on the fly.

Project-wise,our team is currently plugging away at Scryptic, a brand new product, and will be wrapping pretty soon. Stay tuned. We also did a release for Please Mum’s promotion – this is a multi-tiered promotion structure that we’ve built to further expand their marketing and sales effort.

In other news, we’ve added a new voice here on Senses. Thirdi would like to welcome Peter to the mix. Peter’s background consists of film and television writing, as well as a brief cameo in an unnamed Youtube video.  Depending on how Peter behaves, we might actually post the video.