Who is Farhan Lalji?

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is kicking off in a couple of minutes. I don’t own a Macbook or an iPhone (yet) but I’m pretty excited. As I mentioned earlier I’m a guy who waits for a couple of product iterations and when the price comes down a bit before I dive in. In addition my phone contract is up later this year and I’ll be relocating in the next couple of months which will mean it’s time for some new toys – hello Apple… or blackberry, it depends on what’s announced later today.

It’s incredible how much excitement is generated from the WWDC, with speculation running rampant from tech blogs to the BBC. Flickr has over 11,000 pictures tagged with the term wwdc. My favourite is this picture that has the covered banner from inside the conference space.

What Apple does really well is create products and get people excited about them. People are so excited that when they release a newer cheaper version a few months’ later people aren’t ticked that they bought the more expensive version, instead their lining up to buy another phone.

It all comes down to innovation, design and execution. Apple does this well, they build innovative products, they ensure the design has a “wow” factor and they execute early, often and iterate like crazy. That’s a great model for tech businesses if you ask me.

It’s here and it rocks. I heart Flickr a little more today.

More information on the Flickr blog and there’s a video group that has some great content already.
Personally I think this will be different to the other video sites already online (thinking YouTube and Facebook) because the community on Flickr is pretty strong and puts up solid content. People on Flickr are passionate about photos and getting the same people to put up videos will lead to great video content.

Loving Dunstan’s beach close ups for example.

Kites in the sky

Originally uploaded by farhanlalji
Took this picture yesterday while walking around in Hampstead Heath. It always amazes me how much green space there is in London. You could be in the middle of buildings and yet not be far from a big park. Love it.

Mumbai

Originally uploaded by farhanlalji

The Tate Modern has a fantastic exhibit right now, called Global Cites. I finally got a chance to go and see it this weekend. If you’re in London and you’re looking for something to do this week/next weekend, I can’t recommend this exhibit enough.

From the Tate’s website:
“Global Cities looks at the changing faces of ten dynamic international cities: Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo.”

Slightly surreal moment for me when - after I read how Mumbai had 34,000 people per kilometer squared (compared to London which has 4,500 people per kilometer squared), and I used some basic math to deduce that this means about 34 people per m squared in Mumbai - the lady next to me said “there are way too many people at this exhibit”. The density in the exhibit was about 2 people per m squared… maybe.

man_u_teddies

Originally uploaded by farhanlalji

While having lunch today with the wife. These three ladies and their Man United teddy bears joined us. All of a sudden a photo shoot broke out. I resisted the urge to kick one of the teddies into the Thames.