So, it's that time again. We're exceptionally busy and have won a few new projects and clients in the last month or two - with no sign of business slowing. So we're on the look-out for staff again. We're after a few different souls:

• Developers, ideally with some commercial experience of mobile (J2ME, Android or iPhone), and familiarity with or experience working in an agile environment (if you read this blog you'll know we're a quite formal Scrum shop). You'll have a strong appreciation for the role user experience plays in the software development process. You'll obviously be excellent.
• Mid- to senior-level designers; we'd be open to considering someone without commercial mobile experience, but you'll definitely need a strong background in digital media and a genuine enthusiasm for mobile. We're after someone with a mix of visual and interaction skills - we think the line between the two is blurred, and we like it that way. You'll have to be willing to get your hands dirty and learn a little about how your designs are actually implemented. Strong communication skills will be vital.
• QA - and specifically, someone interested in QA as a career path in its own right, rather than seeing it as a stepping stone to a development job. Over the last couple of years we've developed a huge appreciation for thorough, pedantic, devious, downright cruel QA folks who can find obscure bugs with which to taunt our developers, all in the nicest possible way of course. Someone with experience of both manual and automated testing would be a bonus; double points if you've worked in an agile environment before.

So, it's been a week since I got back from Mobile 2.0 - and therefore highly remiss that I've not written about it yet.

I really enjoyed both the Developer Day and the main event. The former seemed to be focused around mobile web - with widgets in particular getting a lot of prominence. Whilst I'm not convinced that widgets are the future of all mobile apps, it's an area where - until recently - I've let myself lag behind a little, so I got a lot out of the sessions. And one quote from the very beginning has stuck with me - Dan Appelquist remarking that applications are nowadays being consumed more like songs than software.

The main event was pretty decent. On both days some panel discussions had a tendency to get a bit angels-on-pinheads - the one where 4 people debated publicly about who was most "open", each using a slightly different definition of the much overused word, didn't really hold my attention. But the off-track talks really shone for me - Tom Raftery berating the industry for its at best token gestures towards environmentalism, and Regine Beatty and Atau Tanaka one-upping each other with wonderful examples of mobile frivolity. And outside of these, Ted Morgan of Skyhook talking about their business (200m location searches a day, vs 300m or so Google searches per day!) and Priya Prakash's talk on Beyond Free (an evolution of the last few sessions I've seen her do) were particularly memorable.

The venues (Barcelona Activa and ESADE) were both excellent (modulo the temperature of rooms in the former, which got quite stuffy). Now I've experienced the double-whammy of rock-solid wi-fi and power at every seat, I suspect I'm going to be a little spoilt.

More than this though, on a personal level I got a lot out of the event. It seemed to have a perfect mix of 50% familiar faces and 50% new (and friendly) ones - I'm not a natural networker, but felt very comfortable at the event. And in particular it was great to finally meet Dom and Francois of the W3C and Mike Rowehl - all of whom I've known for a while, but only in a virtual sense. It's nice to have that corrected :)

I did a couple of sessions; one on Mobile User Experience for Developer Day, which was well attended but missed the mark a little, I felt. I emphasised how we run UX alongside development at FP over and above the specifics of mobile UX, and whilst my audience seemed happy to engage on this, I think I could've either been clearer in the title for the session, or put more emphasis on tactics than on process.

The "play" panel I sat on at the very end of the event was a different matter: really good fun, and an utter privilege to talk about location-based gaming, ghost hunting, shitting and sex, generative music and digital rights issues with Professor Tanaka, Gustav Soderstrom of Spotify, Akhil Monappa of Atlas Venture, and Michael Breidenbruecker - the lovable nutter behind Last.fm and RJDJ - all ably held together by Robin Wauters of TechCrunch.

And again, on a personal note I had a very interesting chat with Ted Morgan at the post-event dinner, learning exactly what it's like to get into work one day and find a message from Steve Jobs on your voicemail :)

Thanks to Rudy, Dan, and all the organisers and behind-the-scenes folks who made it happen. I'm already looking forward to next year, though I think I might give myself an extra day in Barcelona to help recover from Sonar...

Mobile 2.0: Beyond Free, Panel

Moderator: Inma Martinez, Stradbroke

Harald Neidhardt, Smaato

Fee Beyer, Berlin

Ian Ginn, Amsterdam

Dr Lai Kok Fung, BuzzCity

Priya Prakash, Nokia

IM: It's hard to fund mobile-specific busines

IM: What digital goods are being sold for a decent price?

PP: It depends on context. What goods are being sold on ebay?

PP: There's a distinction between creating an application and a service. In the song analogy, it's like being a creative musician. Anyone know of any apps which are service-like?

IM: There's a company in Madrid who does betting on mobile goods. They auction cars, games consoles, by text message: you bid for the ident, lowest price.

IM: What are the services worth paying for?
FB: Infrastructure companies like Orbster ("infrastructure on the phone").

IM: Imagine your service complementing others, so the uptake of users is faster. What elements are worth paying for? PP stresses UI...
PP: It's not just about the UI, that's where we're going wrong. UI can be lipstick on a pig. It's the whole ecosystem, there's as much design in the business model as in the presentation layer.

FB: To push a service through the operator organisation is very different.

IM: So many people create nice applications, but not apps you'd want to pay for.

LKF: In some emerging markets, we saw mobile banking as strong.

Q (Andrew Scott, Rummble): You need to focus on product, not revenue.

Q: (Martin, Layar) How should we charge?

IG: It feels like a killer app. I'd make a 30m drama about it to get the story out.

LKF: Make it work on all phones.

PP: Think about the discovery - who's going to help me find it?

IG: Make it newsworthy. Save a life with it, get it on the news.

Q: I keep hearing talk about money. But I like the iPhone because people can make an app without having money, and release it to a community - for social capital. Why do we focus on financial game? Why can't we help make life better?

A: If you're talking about a venture funded business, VCs have a different model. Bootstrap, don't talk to a VC - unless you're making something beyond amazing or your team has already done it before, your valuation will be so low... VCs are banks. The app store today is a good model for small developers, or Salesforce etc (having a mobile implementation of a pre-existing platform online).

Mobile 2.0: Tom Raftery on Mobile Sustainability

greenmonk.net

Drivers for sustainability: climate change (we're all fucked) and the business case (sustainable companies tend to outperform their competitors).

ICT could reduce 15% CO2 emissions globally: through 1bn PCs, 1.2bn landlines, 1.4bn internet users, 4bn mobile users. So mobile is the target for this stuff.

Handset manufacturers are doing sod all: they all have "a green phone".

Many carriers don't mention sustainability initiatives: O2 have a reasonable site, Telefonica and 3 don't.

What are developers doing? Clearstandards have an iPhone app to calculate carbon footprint. 3rdWhale, MobiMonster also get a mention - the latter reduces energy usage of phone. But nothing really significant.

What if:

• Manufacturers made phones to last 6y not 6m? 60% of a phones carbon footprint comes from manufacture. Rent phones, don't buy them.
• Phones were made from biodegradables?
• USB chargers were standard?
• Operators switched to e-billing?
• Operators shared networks?
• Developers used mobile platform to build apps which mae a difference?
• Grid computing client apps were made for mobiles?

I wonder... How does mobile compare to PC - are phones implicitly more energy-conservative? And what specifically can developers do?

Mobile 2.0: Regine Debatty on Mobile & Culture & Arts

Wants to cover how artists, designers and hackers use technology today. Ex-Latin and Greek teacher.

She shows off a series of art projects. I sit in my chair grinning ear to ear:

• Limor Fried, Wave Bubble, a portable piece of kit to jam nearby mobile signals.
• the portable cell phone booth.
• the privacy scarf
• Bikes Against Bush
• SMS Guerilla Projector, received praise form the Street Promotions guy at Warner Bros.
• Parasite, "an independant projection-system that can be attached to subways and other trains with suction pads"