April Fool's Day is a riot for wannabe pranksters the world over (and indeed websites who wet their pants over the semi-legitimate opportunity to pump out some linkbait). As 'hilarious' as this pointless tradition is, I'd like to propose a new Day to add to our calendars.

October 1st shall be October Truth Day. On this day, it shall become tradition for people the world over to say exactly how they feel about something that has been bugging them, but that they have thus far kept to themselves. For one day only, it will be socially acceptable to call up your neighbour, friend, brother, sister, co-worker or whatever, and spout out whatever it is that they have done to piss you off.

This day of honesty would set things up for a nice run into Christmas, making friendships stronger and killing off dying relationships in time for present buying. You could finally air your grievences to agressive charity workers, people who don't use deodorant, noisy neighbours and your idiot boss in a socially accepted manner.

Perhaps there could be badges involved somehow.

Who's with me?

Nobody? OK...

 

Why such a bad reaction to the iPad? What Apple have done is brilliantly logical - taken the iPod touch (of which they have already sold approximately 10.4 squillion) and evolved it in a way so as to make it more relevant to mums, young families, the elderly and generally people who don't know what on Earth Foursquare is. Which, as it turns out, happens to be 99.9999999% of the world's population outside of The Valley, New York, and a handful of offices in East London. 

If you are disappointed by what popped out of Steve Jobs' tech womb yesterday, don't take it personally. Apple didn't make this device for you - you won't need it if you have an iPhone plus a laptop. You won't want it because it doesn't do multitasking, has no dynamic widgets for the home screen and won't be able to check you in to the latest location-aware/check-in/recommendation app... But for a couple of billion other semi rich people, this device means they can justify scrapping their aging PC (which they only really use for email anyway) and can get a beautiful, cheap and simple family device. 

The flaming of the iPad's launch I think is representitive of a growing divide between those who are relentlessly tech oriented (like me), those who sit in the middle and are only just 'getting' the internet and what it can do, and those who are not web savvy whatsoever. I feel this is going to be a huge social issue over the next decade, especially with the pace and scale at which innovation is occurring online.

 

 

 

 

I've spent the last hour trying to bash out a blog post summing up my mixed thoughts about last night's Real Time Christmas Crunch event, but I can pretty much sum up my feelings in one sentence.

If someone is pitching, people need to shut the f**k up.

Seriously.

Pitching your business in front of your peers and potential investors/mentors is nerve racking as it is. To have to battle against a background babble from people who decided to start their own party early is downright wrong. The majority of the pitches later in the day suffered from a not insignificant number of people deciding that they would rather hold loud conversations at the back of the venue (and in one woman's case laugh hysterically) than watch the pitches that everyone else was there to watch. I'll admit, the new startups' pitches were a little dry, but as an entrepreneur I find this utterly rude and unacceptable. How would these people like it if I rocked up to their office tomorrow morning just they start an important meeting with a client, and begin to hold AN INCREDIBLY LOUD CONVERSATION in the corner of the room? Mike, you're too polite. The startups pitching there are pitching for their livelihood, and that should be held sacred.

It was a fantastically well organised event - just a huge shame that a few people made me come away questioning whether London really is sympathetic to Tech startups, or, indeed, common decency.