Open Web Asia was an experience in the duality of the Internet. It was great to meet some new and old friends again. Talk to some of the people on what they were doing. It was of course filled with “Internet” personalities and the bullshit level was tolerable for this type of conference. There was real substance here. In Malaysia, you always get the feeling of us not quite being there yet. We have small portion of really great people surrounded by vast ocean of mediocrity. We tend to want to portray ourself as hip and happening (which is true, from my experience I’ve always found Malaysians more inventive and creative) but it always seems like …like  a flash in the pants..

Old money and older people trying to understand a rapidly changing world of infinite connect-ability with the same dog and pony show thrown into the mix counterpointed with a younger crowd of people born to handphone, twitter et al..

Still, I won a Netbook..now having Ubuntu LTS installed…met some interesting people..and the food was decent..I do wish however that I could meet more developers..

I feign ignorance on all things Apple. I may have a Mac Book Pro and  an iPhone , though I may think they are cool nifty gadgets I doubt very much that I am a fanboy. So when Bob came to town, I decided to find out “Who” this Bob was.

The crowd was a mix of entrepreneurs and corporate types. You can tell the difference, the corporate types  were dressed in their suits while the entrepreneurs were in jeans. Well most of them, except the entrepreneurs who have made it. Mingling not being my strong point, I sat down and proceeded to work out some outstanding bugs in the current build of Adventure. After the traditional introductions came Bob’s talk.

So Bob’s talk broke down into:

1. Don’t have to be the first or the best
2. Change the rules
3. Give an obvious benefit to your customers
4. Keep innovating and compete against yourself

Fairly general commentary, fairly useful…You know in the “Hmmmmm……” kinda way. What was interesting was the mix of people and the general undercurrent about how risk adverse local investors are. I think it’s a pretty regional feeling and the only people willing to put up risk capital are governments. However with Malaysia budget deficient, I doubt we will see less “money” being thrown out.

Private investors only want to “cash in” after you have made some money and “want to expand”. Still I can’t say that is the worse problem here in Malaysia. I think just finding capable people to work with is far harder especially complementary skillsets. I’m still looking for a Art director type person, a financial person and a marketing person in no particular order.

I leave you with iPhone Bob: