Since the week before Easter I’ve been extremely busy – there was the holiday period, followed by a big family celebration, and then last Friday I managed to fall off my bicycle and break some fingers. In short… it’s been quite hectic.

During the family celebration I heard a brilliant quote from a friend, Yehuda, an IT Solution Architect, who had travelled from Israel to join us for a week. We were discussing how IT projects have become either prescriptive (detailed requirements) or business focussed (with high level requirements and leaving the solution to the supplier partner). He tells this to all his customers:

Tell me either what you want to do, or how to do it, but if you tell me both – go and do it yourself.

Here’s what I’ve read over the last month:

Affiliate marketing ROI increases – In 2014, online performance marketing (OPM) had driven 10% of all UK e-commerce retail sales and roughly 1% of GDP!

Google “Store Visits” Part Of Larger Movement Toward Metrics That Matter – Google have started using Smartphone location monitoring for which shops a user visits, and tying that with their online usage. How brilliant.

11 most impressive digital marketing stats this week – The average UK household owns more than seven Internet connected devices, and 4 in 10 bought a tablet last year. The Internet of Things is already here.

UBS to Open Blockchain Research Lab in London – Digits – I’m not a big fan of banks opening up Labs because there’s nothing more inspiring than a lack of money and rules to get a startup off the ground, but its super trendy at the moment

Here’s Google’s Secret to Hiring the Best People – Top tip: have teams hire their boss. Excellent idea. Though few will adopt this.

Google purges bad extensions from Chrome – I’ve always wondered whether this was policed. A browser extension is still ‘live’ when you log into your banking website, so who polices the extensions?

Capco | 15 years on Vimeo – A great video about Capco, including warts and all.

Industry 4.0 – Value chains of the future — NEWCAST Trade Fair – How the Internet of Things could change industries.

www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/uk-futures/london-futures-agiletown.pdf – I went to the launch of this report, and it’s an interesting read about how London property continues to change. You couldn’t make some of this stuff up – e.g. search the report for ‘Zumba’.

PhoneGap | PhoneGap, Cordova, and what’s in a name? – Sick and tired with speakers at conferences not knowing what they were talking about, I decided to look at Cordova and PhoneGap. BTW – everyone is wrong about the differences.

One Billion Smartphone Upgrades in 2015 – Deloitte CIO – WSJ – Or, 60 million reasons why Apple sold that many iPhones last quarter.

The best place to put your router, according to physics – A good lunchtime article. The bottom line: “even a slight change of the router’s position may produce significant improvement in signal strength“

NFL will test digital streaming| warc.com – I’m delighted the NFL is trialling some live streaming to compete with its TV offering, even though the NFL is already way ahead of international sports in streaming

Global adspend to reach $540bn| warc.com – Digital adspend is growing very fast, and for the first time digital is expected to account for more than a quarter of all adspend in 2016

Microsoft Corporation Bets Big on the Internet of Things (MSFT) – Microsoft’s strategy is “One Windows”, including IoT integration

These 15 “Soft Skills” Define the A-Team – I 100% agree

TechGoogle’s Eric Schmidt wants you to know Glass isn’t dead – Fortune – Isn’t Schmidt excellent with his positive use of words? Long live Glass!

Bitcoins – Money Without Physical Form  – Banking – Credit Suisse – A good article on Bitcoin

Twitter embraces livestreaming, confirms Periscope purchase | Digital Trends – Let’s be clear: Twitter bought a company that hadn’t released it’s product yet. The rumours suggest the purchase was between $50-$100m.

Finextra: Finextra news: Facebook brings P2P payments to Messenger – About time too. And if this doesn’t work, Facebook will keep on trying until they’ve solved P2P payments.

Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything – HBR – I like the Lean startup concept (see my comment about banks & start-ups above), and I’ve read a few books about it recently.

Managed Sitecore Plan Comparison | Fpweb.net 

Six payment providers to watch in 2015 – @simonjerob – It amazes (/surprises/ saddens/ never fails to amaze) me how few people in the payments industry keep an eye on new competitors. Payments Innovation 101: Spend 15 minutes reading this article.

Check out this fully featured Surface Phone concept – WMPoweruser – Ooooh these are so lovely. BTW – Windows 10 on my Surface is becoming more stable. (I had to say it didn’t I?)

The social CIO – The CIO Leader – This article is so important to any senior manager in a technology company/ organisation/ division.

Finextra: Finextra news: Visa to drive in-car commerce with Pizza Hut – The comments are worth reading before the article. Genius.

The End Of Apps As We Know Them – Inside Intercom – If you are into User Interface design, read this article.

Finextra: Finextra news: Bank of England could issue own digital currency – If I were a bank, I’d quickly launch my branded crypto-currency. This is a land-grab opportunity/ [virtual] gold rush.

Sprinklr + Pluck: Managing the Complete Social Customer Journey – We’ve used Pluck on some customer’s websites and it’s a good (albeit quite expensive) platform.

Now with Grunt and Gulp: Cross-platform ASP.NET in new Visual Studio 2015 preview • The Register – I went to a Microsoft event five years ago when they announced this would be coming. In another couple of releases it will be stable too.

The Financial Services Club’s Blog: The fintech scene is so hot, it’s boiling – There are a couple of great infographics in this article

Jeff Bezos Takes Washington Post into Digital Future – SPIEGEL ONLINE – Brilliant article on the Washington Post since Bezos came on board.