The Olympic spirit

We're in the grips of Olympic fever. I did my fair share of watching over the weekend both on television and live: the men's and women's road cycling races came past fairly close to our house and we turned out with most of the neighbourhood to watch. The women's race seemed particularly tough as the rain was torrential. The last cyclist came past a good distance after the second from last. I gave her as good a cheer as I'd given the first. My very young daughter asked with the innocence that only the young can muster: "Why are you cheering for her?"

Every time I see someone come last at the Olympics I am reminded of what a fantastic achievement it is just to have got to the start line. I had promised my daughter that we were going to watch "the fastest bicycle riders in the world". Even though that last cyclist was at the back of the field, she was still one of the fastest her country could put forward.

I think it is like that with business also. I've been involved in several new ventures, ranging from new product launches to complete dot.com startups. We've all seen the statistics of how many of them fail. But I've seen how much work goes into getting them to the start line. It's an Olympic effort. Yes, many new ventures fail, but if you don't put in the effort, if you don't try, if you don't put everything you've got into it, you don't even get to the start line.

The changing face of interpersonal communications

According to Ofcom's ninth annual Communications Market Report for the United Kingdom released in "Text-based communications are surpassing traditional phone calls or meeting face to face as the most frequent ways of keeping in touch for UK adults."

Other interesting findings from this report include (data is as at Q1 2012, with comparisons to Q1 2011 unless otherwise specified):

• Total internet access has edged up to 8 in 10 homes (which is partly attributed to the rise in smartphone ownership, now at 39%).
• Each UK household on average owns 3 different internet-enabled devices.
• Consumption of mobile data more than doubled in the 18 months to January 2012.
• The number of SMS and MMS messages grew to an average of 200 message per person per month.
• The volume of voice calls on fixed line and mobiles phones fell.
• Q1 2012 broadband take-up increased 2% in the year to 76%.  Fixed broadband take-up rose to 72% with mobile broadband decreasing to 13%. Super-fast broadband is available to 60% of UK homes at that same time. 
• 11% of UK households own a tablet, compared to 5% of TV homes having a smart TV. 87% of tablet owners say they use it mostly at home.
• The percentage of households taking a bundled services (combining some or all of voice, broadband and TV) has increased from 53% to 57% over the year.

The full report covers:

• the the rise of text-based communications (pp33),
• differences in usage between older and younger users (pp49),
• tablets and e-readers (pp61),
• the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics (pp75),
• television and audio-visual content (pp113),
• radio and audio content (pp181),internet and web-based content (pp219),
• telecoms and networks (pp279), and
• post (pp359).