Interview with Joachim Alvarez
Group 5 (Theatre of Retail)
Interview with Joakim Allvarez, product Manager at MOBILAB, Product Manager at Bonnier Responsmedier Mobile services and Founder at Splashi Nordic AB.
Thanks for giving this interview!
We think it is a matter of course to set up an interview every time a school is calling us.
Joakim, tell us something about yourself! I searched for you on the internet and found, among others, your homepage about “mobila presenter” (mobilapresentkort.se). Who are you and what are you working with?
Basically, I’m actually an economist. But I slipped in to an IT-direction by pure coincidence, when getting contact with a Telecom company, so I got stuck and stayed. Sex years ago I invented a technology that made it possible to send something valuable by a SMS. There are not many companies in the world who have managed that feat, beside our company, only a South Korean Telecom company succeeded with that.
So you mean they also had technology to send something valuable by a SMS?
Exactly, for example sending a SMS with a check for an ice cream or with money – it is simply about sending a SMS containing something valuable in the actual SMS. A lot of news papers can send out gift vouchers to their costumers when for instant the postman never delivered the news paper or when something went wrong. That means that the costumer can go to the nearest store and get the news paper they should have got in their postbox.
Wow. I mean, there have been six years from your findings till now and a lot of the new techniques today are very similar to those you invented six years ago.
We were a big step ahead at that time. We got, and still have, kind of a monopoly situation in Sweden within our area and the technology we invented. The system is very secure and no one has managed to break it jet.
Tell me about a normal day at work!
Normal days in our life always look different every day – the technology is constantly moving forward and so do we. We are launching new services very often. Yesterday for example we launched this new application which they use on “kvällsöppet”, it is mentometers where the audience can vote and interact immediately in the program while watching. So we are working with a lot of different stuff and we are only 10 employees doing this job.
What do you think about the fact that no one, till now, has succeeded breaking your systems and you are still producing a lot of new stuff, like apps – where do you think that will you be in 5 years from now?
If we look back in history and look into the future, they only have one thing in common is that they all have their faults. When it comes to the future of the mobile phone it gets harder to see a development. But one thing is for sure, there will be more mobile subscriptions then there is today. Today over 5 billion subscriptions exist (globally), which is a fantastic number if we look at the 6,6 billion people existing. Five years ago there existed just 1 billion mobile subscriptions, today there is 5 billion.
The technique is growing really fast! And if you think about the digital industry of today, is there something extra exciting going on?
If I would choose one thing that is interesting right now, it would be Android. iPhone has changed the world and they made a lot of people interested in mobile phones when using it as a tool to communicate with the consumer. But the iPhone is a very expensive and hyped product. Android is a lot cheaper and you can get one from huawei for 3666 kr (unbound). Android will take a large square on the market.
Are you helping these companies with producing new apps?
Absolutely! We are working together with the manufacturers when deciding which apps are going to be in the phones. We collaborate with Sony Ericson, Nokia, and some of the big Asian companies.
What do you think will happen in 5 years, except Android and iPhone, will there be other digital phenomena?
We believe that apps are really big, but in 5 years more services will be based on HTML5 instead of apps.
Why is that?
Let’s look at it purely historical, when the Internet became popular. Imagine having to download an application for each page you want to open, without HTML Internet would never have had its breakthrough. Same thing about the mobile phone: there is a problem with the apps, just because you have to download it before you can use them. It would be much easier to release HTML5 as a solution to this problem – HTML contains more opportunities that today only can be found within an app.
Do you think that companies will market them self on the internet in the future?
I don’t think that it will be enough to only merchandise your company on the internet. The whole media picture is changing very quickly now, companies have to market themselves all over the place, also on twitter and Facebook. But they still have to combine this with traditional marketing, such as newspapers, television and radio.
Are there any weaknesses in the digital industry?
The weakness today is that the possibilities are quite new and our imagination about how to use the digital industry is not as developed as the technology itself. The risk with new technology is that it can be abused, but I want to see the positive things in the digital evolution. As a mobile geek, I usually say that the phone is so much more for me than for others. One example is that a cell phone can accelerate the process of democratization –at all the last major international fractions (that has gone out of control), there has always been someone who has filmed the incident and uploaded it on youtube - that dictatorships can no longer choose what information they want to outsource .
Do you think that mobile applications will die out? Some lectures of ours said that there is no future for apps…
I think they are right, if we keep using apps as we do today that would say. The positive fact about them is that they could develop completely new services about how to use technology, for example in hospitals and within care. But the app from “absolute vodka”, a hyped app helping mix drinks, got more publicity than the app who could measure blood sugar for sick persons with diabetes. So the only problem with apps is how you market them.
What are you looking for, when hiring new creatives?
When we are looking for new employees, we are not looking after the one with the best scores, but we’re looking for specific personalities, people who are challenged by what nobody has done before. We often look for people who have an entrepreneurial orientation, someone who has good ideas and who can argue for them. It comes to think creatively and not in problems tracks.
Do have one final comment to what we’ve talked about, to the mobile industry?
When you are thinking mobile, we need to consider both long-and short-sighted solutions. When you look in short term, an application should be as simple as possible, it should solve only one problem. Another important thing is to not listen to all the no-voters.
Unfortunately the call was interrupted, because Joachim sat on the subway. I called him up shortly afterwards and thanked him so much; he was interested in coming to Hyper Island to give a lecture. Maybe we meet him soon, let’s hope so!
