We're trying something new this month!

You might not have realized it yet... but the editor for this month's newsletter is not Caroline, who's taking a well-deserved newsletter break this month after 47+ newsletters sent monthly without interruption, but is me (Thibaut that is)! I hope you find here your usual dose of information, wit and humour (with a British angle on things). Enjoy your reading!

Regroup --  that's the theme of the month...

Probably more influenced by our semi-annual team meeting than by the usual summer gatherings.

While August is generally a pretty quiet month it is also one of the most productive months... before the breakneck pace of the Autumn. Giving you to time to regroup... in all the meanings of the term... rethink, focus, congregate, compete...

Rethink  Or is it get inspired, rest and rethink?

I was lucky to attend the Mlove event at the end of June, and it had an amazing lineup of speakers and great workshops around the future of mobile that provided fantastic inspiration (see what Alan Moore has to say)! But after seeing the same presentation plot 3 times in a row I was inspired to put together a talk for MoMo Munich, about how marketers selling convergence always use the same 5 slides.

So why not use August to question and rethink why you've been doing things in the same old way for the last 6 months?

And it looks like you won't be the only one! Judging by the number of mobile developer surveys either in the question phase (have a look at the WIP marketplace) or in the results phase (see O2/Telefonica sponsored survey), we should see a lot of new thinking and developer offerings soon!

Focus

In terms of events, the month of August is to February-March what Manitoba is to downtown Hong Kong... a very empty space indeed. So while there's no distractions out there, no follow-ups, no email tsunamis assailing you, there's plenty of opportunities to FOCUS.

We decided that August would be an event free month for us... as WIP is more than WIPJams, we will have an entire month to focus on the rest of our consultancy business and our new website, coming in September.

Congregate

Wherever we look the mood seems to be in congregating in all sorts of new ways. WIP has been linked with regional industry associations and wireless hubs for a long time, and we appreciate this need to join up to grow. We thus welcome the number of new initiatives around user groups, collectives, incubators and collaborative workspaces which reflect a new way for developers and companies to organize themselves. So If you're getting bored of working from home or willing to take a step up, there's bound to be a cheap and attractive option near you, have a look around.

As a matter of fact, we just joined an incubator for our new London office shared with 2 software startups! Make sure you pop by!

Compete

How can you reproduce this in the office? With the plethora of developer competitions out there, there are plenty of opportunities to change what could be a dead season into a winning streak. And frankly with the number of competitions out there you stand more chances of winning any of them than finding an empty spot on the beach.

NOW OPEN - Call for Speakers and Sponsors at our upcoming WIPJams:

• Open Software in Mobile (OSiM), London, October 20

• Mobile Asia Congress, App Planet, Hong Kong, November 18

• Mobile World Congress, App Planet, Barcelona, February 17, 2011

• Note that we will not run our WIPJam at CTIA this Autumn... but there will be plenty of occasions to meet up...stay tuned for some upcoming annoucements. 
  

That's it for my first newsletter. Please send me your comments and feedback!