Sam Michel's blog

Sam Michel

Sam Michel is the founder of Chinwag and blogs here for work, and more randomly at Toodlepip. He runs Chinwag Jobs, Digital Mission and tends to focus on murky place where technology, community and marketing collide. You'll find him on twitter @toodlepip.

China for Startups: 5 Things You Should Know

Shanghai Waterfront by Li Yang - https://unsplash.com/photos/5h_dMuX_7RE

Startling economic growth, a colossal population with staggering spending power and a large, active and growing investment community are just a few of the reasons why startups are beginning to ponder the opportunities in China.

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Space Mission UK: Tips on finding US investment (video)

Getting US Investment - Space Mission UK Pitch Event in Silicon Valley

Looking to raise investment in the US? A big focus for the recent Space Mission UK trip was understanding the funding landscape, meeting and pitching to investors in Silicon Valley and LA.

What did they learn? Plenty. Here's the (slightly less than) 3 minute video download:

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Space Mission UK: A Week of Science, Innovation and Inspiration in California. And an Election, too.

Space Mission UK - 3rd mission to California

Witnessing the US election up close was surreal. I was lucky enough to spend that week travelling the length of California with ten of the UK’s top “New Space” companies for the third Space Mission UK trip.

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Wearables Survey: what are you wearing? Help uncover wearable trends.

Wearables Survey - what are you wearing?

Want a peak into how businesses are planning to use wearable technology? Take this super-quick survey (only takes 60 secs) and help uncover the future of wearable tech.

In return for completing it, we will send you a handy infographic on 'How to Create A Wearable Technology Strategy' as well as a summary of the survey results.

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Boris Johnson Backs Great Enterprise Tech Expedition to US as London Tech Firms Hit $1bn Invesment [press release]

Great Tech Expedition Group

London's Mayor, Boris Johnson added his support to this week's Great Tech Expedition to the US, organised by the Mayor's office, UK Trade & Investment with support from Chinwag's trade mission experts, who programme the Digital Mission series.

He said, “We are a city packed with entrepreneurs who are experts in their field and my commitment to them is to provide whatever assistance I can to set them on the path towards international success. The opportunities that this whirlwind tour presents will convert into dollars for the companies and regeneration, jobs and growth back home in London."

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Shellshock, The Internet's Latest Security Scare Explained in 4 Minutes (For Non Techies, Too)

Bash Shellshock

The latest and greatest threat to our online security has been dubbed Shellshock. Apparently, it's worse than the Heartbleed bug. Fortunately, Tom Scott, has done a top job of explaining the whole thing in just 4 minutes. 

You've probably heard about it on the news or <insert favourite tech blog here> - but how do you test if it's affecting you?

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Digital Mission Teams Up With Mayor of London for Enterprise Tech Mission to Chicago, Boston, NYC

The Great Tech Expedition - Chicago, Boston, NYC - 5-10 Oct 2014

We’re excited to announce the next Digital Mission trip, the Great Enterprise Tech Expedition, a collaboration with UK Trade & Investment, the Mayor of London and TechCityUK, supporting 20 of the UK’s fastest growing cloud software firms on a whistlestop 3-city US mission covering Chicago, Boston and NYC from 5-10th Oct 2014.

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US Visas in a Single Slide

US Visa Matrix - Squire Patton Boggs

If you're a startup looking at the US market, there's plenty of hurdles. High on the list is immigration and which visa will be the best fit...if you can get it.

Today's morning session of the Robotics Mission, organised by Chinwag for the Technology Strategy Board and UKTI, visited Squire Patton Boggs who put together a very handy slide from immigration expert Beth Seal that summarises the options.

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A Fond Farewell to Social Media Week London

Free Daddy and His Little Shadow Girls at The Skate Park Creative Commons by Pink Sherbet Photography

After five thrilling years, it's time for Social Media Week London’s (SMWLDN) next step and after much consideration it’s time for me and the Chinwag team to pass the baton.

The next edition taking place this September in London will be run by CrowdCentric, founders of Social Media Week and the team that runs the event in New York. It's a massive undertaking and we wish the NYC team all the best.

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The End (of the Desktop) is Nigh: July 2014

Computer Graveyard by Moshe Reuveni

It's going to be the year of mobile. Really. This time it's really happening.

Mobile and tablets have been due to take over the world for the last decade, according to new research, it becomes a reality in July 2014.

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Brits Triumph at Golden Globes (on social media) [infographic]

Golden Globes by Jenn Deering Davis

Idris Elba, Kate Winslet and Steve McQueen triumphed at the Golden Globes. At least they did online according to an infographic from content recommendation network, Outbrain.

Unlike the 'real' awards where Winslet lost out to Blanchett, Elba to McConaghey and McQueen to Cuarón, Outbrain analysed 11,000 stories across their network, between 1-8th January reviewing the consumption rate and volume of stories published.

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Digital Marketing Skills Gap: Analytics and Mobile Skills in High Demand [infographic]

The Digital Marketing Talent Gap by OMI

Got some data chops? Job hunting in 2014? Looks like it's going to be a good year for you according to recent data from OMI. Across the industry, marketers said that the biggest skills gap in their organisation was analytics with mobile marketing in second place.

In agency-land the talent gap for those with mobile skills was even starker with a 43% talent gap with analytics coming in at 30%. For recruiters and HR professionals this tells a story that's already familiar with organisations hard-pressed to find these skills.

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Pinterest Grows 150%, Reddit Climbs 83%

Pinterest + iPad = Love by Bunches and Bits {Karina}

The latest polls from research firm Global Web Index (GWI) show Pinterest having a very pleasant 2013 with a growth in membership of 150%. 

Whilst still relatively small in Europe with 8% of respondents having accounts, and only 3% of these active, the US figures are impressive with 34% holding accounts and 16% being active.

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My Twitter Got Hacked, What Next? The Obvious, Less Obvious & Forensic

Tweet Spammer Hacked Account

And there goes the morning.

If I could describe a deeply annoying start to the day, it would be thus: Wake up to discover that you're offering your Twitter followers a sweet deal on Jordan's (whatever the hell they/s/he is/are).

Then follows a flood of tweets, direct messages, emails, text messages and the other half shouting across the room, "your Twitter account has been hacked".

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Comment Spam, The Phantom Menace Slowing Your Website

Spammers are bad by Justin Levy

The speed of your website is critical. According to one report for every second that a page takes to load, wave goodbye to 7% of sales and who can afford that? Visa Europe estimating £450m will be spent on Cyber Monday alone.

There's all sorts of clever tech solutions: cloud-based servers, cacheing, content delivery networks to name but a few. Surely good old-fashioned comments don't represent a website glue trap?

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