Kiltr, a social network for Scottish professionals, aims to help Scotland based professionals and overseas Scots to network together.

We met founder Brian Halferty earlier in the year when the site has just opened up to a private alpha, things were very optimistic and Brian was expanding their team. Last week, Kiltr has finally opened up to a public beta.

So why do we need another social network you ask? Well, when we asked Brian, his vision for was site was to reach people that might be slightly scared of the major social networks. It’s not really aimed people who tweet constantly but people outside of IT or of the older generation, who might want to get involved in social networks, but don’t know how to, or feel that Facebook might be for the young ‘uns.

On arriving to the Kiltr website, you can use your linkedin, twitter, Facebook or Google account to sign in. I used Linkedin, just because it seemed cleaner to link all my professional accounts together. The site then brings up the familiar status update interface that you’ve seen in other social networks. One thing that i do like is the fuzziness of the “status box”: you can specify whether you want to share a status update, a job, a thought or a question and who with in two simple drop down boxes. Its quick and easy. Facebook privacy settings eat your heart out.

After that, you can view the Network activity, who has viewed your profile, find lists of people, groups, organisations, events and products that might be of interest. You can also “check in” your location, although i’m not sure what i can do geo-location wise beyond that.

Adding people seemed to be relatively simple – none of that linkedin – “how do you know each other?” mess, just a simple add connection. Although at the time, i had to click several times before the add request seemed to go through; that and the fact that the list of connections only tell you the people’s titles only so there seems to be lots of Managing Directors and CEOs, but I have no idea what they are the head of. It shouldn’t surprise you, but there are quite a lot of the business community here already.

As with any social network, it requires you to invest time into it to make it worthwhile. I have to say, as I’m looking around, I question myself on how much time I can devote to pruning and maintaining a whole network on Kiltr on top of all the other social networks that I’m on. I’m assuming that social media consultants would just give me generic advice like “make sure you be very specific and target what you want to do on what network and allocate time appropriately” but all the same, it’s getting increasingly challenging to find a right balance between virtual networking and physical networking (both have its advantages).

Despite that, and without sounding sale-sy, Kiltr does look distinct and worthwhile enough to spend time on. To me, the niche aspect means that it does a better job of merging the virtual and physical worlds together because I might be more likely to meet these connections in real life (by virtue of physicality). So check it out. And please be my friend … 

So this week we are asking “Which good habit  do you hope to develop soon in your quest to become a successful entrepreneur?”

Bela:  I’ve learnt to stop multi-tasking; consequently I’m getting more things done as I’m able to concentrate better.  I now want to get into the habit of trusting myself to get things written ‘in neat’ the first time around instead of endlessly drafting and revising.  Which brings me to my final point – in order to develop sound judgements about how long to spend on tasks, I want to adopt the habit of considering the law of diminishing returns each time I tackle an assignment such as research or writing, i.e. how much extra benefit am I likely to obtain by investing more time?

Jess: There are a number of habits I’m focused on at the moment, but most urgently, I need to learn how to say NO. No, I unfortunately don’t have time to take on that extra project just for fun. No, I can’t reasonably manage to get that done by tomorrow. No, I’m not going to attend that event, and it will not kill me to miss out. I am almost completely, entirely programmed to say YES: yes, I can find a way; yes, I can do that too; yes, I want to help… but lately I have found it quite difficult to be maximally effective with my attention and responsibilities all over the place. It pains me greatly to work on saying the word I hate most, but I know I need to turn down opportunities so I can make the most of the ones I’ve taken on.

Kate: Learning to develop a better work-life balance. It’s important to be able to switch off and relax – which would make me more productive in general. But this is much easier said than do When you’re working in a startup, everything seems important and all screaming at you at the same time.  I know that this isn’t just my problem (especially in regards to some of my colleagues), but I recognise working long long hours is not healthy. If anyone has any tips, I’d definitely like to hear!

Jess: While Apple and Verizon have gotten flack for recent ads poking fun at their competitors, I must admit I am enjoying the bitchiness. I converted from PC to Mac two years ago after the original string of ‘I’m a Mac’ adds brainwashed me, and the current series keeps me from having any doubts or questions about reverting. From my point of view it feels good to be on the smarter side, but I’m curious how people purchasing (or intending to purchase) Windows 7 are feeling. As for the mobile phone ads, I’m actually a customer of AT&T in the states but ‘There’s a map for that’ is just plain funny. I don’t want to see companies getting too vicious and dirty, but the current ad banter is like the joy I get from watching the X Factor judges bicker on a Saturday night.

James: The first thing that springs to mind for ‘annoying’ has to be the TV advertising for ‘We Buy Any Car‘ – though I wonder whether it’s wise to even mention it, or just quietly hope it will disappear!  On the positive side, CompareTheMarket’s Meerkat series of adverts are great – and they’ve gone to impressive lengths to back it up with a real online presence.

Thomas: Right, one of my all time favourites advert dates from a few years ago: the San Francisco Jazz Festival. Other adverts worth mentioning include the Irn Bru Snowman, Irn Bru Glasgow Cancan, World Record Irn Bru Cancan, Wassup 2008, and Mac vs PC. The only frustrating marketing campaigns I can think of right now are those for online price comparison websites, I guess any exposure is worthwhile exposure for these guys.

Bela:  The cheeky Clearasil ads are a lot of fun!  If you’ve seen the last few in recent months then you’ll know what I mean.

I’m quite taken by Cadbury’s recent marketing campaign for their Dairy Milk chocolates.  First they had the bizarre drum-playing gorilla, then they had the two children in their school uniform with the crazy dancing eyebrows (bloody annoying, but grew on me), and now they have the funky dancing villagers with shiny lights/electric volts coming out of their fingers – the energetic music to the current tv ad never fails to get me moving!  The ads don’t necessarily make clear what the product being advertised is going to be until the very end, but they are very memorable and I have been enjoying them.  I can’t wait to see what they’re gonna have next.

How do you currently consume music and how will it change in the future?

Bela: I think I’m slightly behind with the way that I consume music.  I watch music channels on TV and I turn to Youtube when I’m on my laptop.  When I’m in the mood to listen to music, I typically want to watch the videos at the same time.  As an amateur dancer, I also want to put on music in order to practice dancing in which case I’m at home listening to music on my CD player.  I tend to listen to the same stuff over and over….I’m not cool and I don’t keep up with new music.  I don’t need huge variety so I go through phases and listen to things to death.

In the future…..I like Spotify but the ads bug the s**t outta me, so at some point I will consider paying the monthly subscription.  I really should develop my musical tastes and explore different types of music, and I consider Spotify an inexpensive and convenient way to do this.  As the visual element to music consumption is important to me, I will keep on watching music DVDs and Youtube videos.

Jess: I’m pretty easily pleased when it comes to music, so I’ve not spent a fortune on tunes in my life. The vast majority of the 3,768 songs in my itunes library were loaded by a friend four years ago, and they’ve kept me entertained for the last few years. Occasionally I stream hometown radio stations online when I’m feeling nostalgic, and that’s comforting. I’ve had short flings with Last.fm and Pandora, but nowadays I’m definitely a Spotify fan. I love accessing songs I’ve never bothered to download and listening to mixes without the effort of constructing them. I’d be surprised if I’ve purchased more than about 20 CDs in my lifetime (with Barenaked Ladies – Stunt, City of Angels soundtrack, and Now 1 being the first three) and I think the trend of enjoying music without owning it is here to stay. Consumers will continue to pay for concert tickets and band paraphenalia, but I think streaming on our laptops, ipods, or other personal music players is the way forward.

Kate: I currently consume music electronically via three channels. One is Spotify (Desktop), another is my iPod Shuffle (jogging) and lastly my Nokia N95 (on the move). My N95 has replaced my regular MP3 player – with 8Gb on it, you don’t really need anything else. I have a large library of mp3s (including, much to my ex-flatmates’ dismay, a 3Gb Dolly Parton collection) and I use spotify everyday. (Without Spotify, I wouldn’t have spent most of last month discovering all the amazing early MJ records.) I’ll be honest, as cool as Spotify is, it will NOT replace real mp3s. I think there will still be a big appetite for being able to download and have real files. I guess the only scenario where this is not the case is if RIAA and DRM are still dominant, but there are encouraging signs that the business case for DRM-ed media is buckling. I just think that the current network effects are too strong: MP3s forever!

Thomas: As a kid, I studied solfege, learned to play the piano and the harp, and sung in a choir at the Conservatoire. Interestingly enough, I did not listen to any music. Forward a few years, I stopped making music and started listening to it. First with the radio, and then MP3s when they started becoming more popular. For a few years, I joined a community of audiophiles who exchanged high quality music. Now music on demand has become reality with the help of Spotify, storage of music has become almost completely  unnecessary. I like to think music, and media in general will tend to be stored on the cloud rather than locally. The development of wireless and cellular networks makes this change more likely than anytime before. It is an exciting time, innovation is driving the change, the past business models are obsolete, and early adopters are embracing the shift. t0ms@Last.fm

Thomas: Last week, we were lucky to be invited at RunRev’s annual conference, organised this year in Edinburgh at the Dynamic Earth. Three words: what a venue! I went to a number of events there before, but they topped everything this time. The keynote talk was followed by a short tour of some of the stuff displayed at the dynamic earth (no relation to the talk). We were pushed in a room displaying an iceberg (a real one!) – how exciting after hearing someone tell his story on how he invented the internet in the dark basement of the CERN down in Geneva 20 odd years ago. The bar was set up in the rain forest room, which entertained us with animated animals and real water pouring down the trees. RunRev organisers certainly realised that achieving excitement in a geeky conference is somewhat difficult to achieve, even with the inventor of the internet telling the story on how he saved the internet from the corporate world, but fitting it in this incredible venue was a smart move.

Kate: New Approaches to Leadership for Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs, Managers & CEOs, 31st August, 11-8pm Organised by Informatics Ventures and taught by Fiona Murray and Laura Morse, it was a intriguing (and exhausting) day of workshops. Topics included: Facts and figures about women in leadership roles; challenging assumptions about women and work; networking 101 by Ken Morse; pitching skills, and finished off with an evening session of networking with fellow participants and people from the business community. One of the reasons why I liked this workshop was because it forces participants to think about their career aspirations – whether its a new job, or putting yourself forward for that advisory board position, I thought it was very worthwhile. There are lots of things that this workshop made me think about. One of which is that the knowledge from the workshop was – fundamentally – about creating a diverse workforce.

Mark: I’ve been enjoying the Fringe Programming Meetup every month at the Auld Hoose at 7pm on the third Wednesday of every month (basically a week after Techmeetup in Edinburgh). It’s vaguely modelled on the FringeDC meetups in Washington DC and is much more developer oriented than Techmeetup tends to be. It’s very informal and attendees tend to just discuss their favourite languages, techniques and the news with those that happen to be sitting near them. A lot of the people who come work for the various startups around, so it can be a good place to make connections and pickup gossip, but beware, conversations about the merits of Common vs Scheme Lisp, Python interpreter internals and the inevitable editor holy wars are quite likely to occur, so it’s certainly not your typical business networking opportunity. However, if you’re a developer, or like to dabble in the dark arts, it’s an invaluable opportunity to meet like-minded folk, share war stories and learn a thing or two about the discipline.

Jess: Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs was my favourite as well, as Laura and Fiona created a warm atmosphere that really opened us all up. I heard some shocking stories, such as a tough woman who carried on with a presentation after a stitch in her stomach broke and began bleeding (she’d had a C-section only a week before, but kept the pregnancy discreet to avoid investor concerns). Ken’s session on cocktail party tactics was especially entertaining, and I loved getting a step-by-step how-to instead of a vague lesson that sounds nice in theory. I think more sessions could really benefit from taking this realistic approach! Having to pitch ourselves in the final exercise was a refreshing challenge compared to pitching businesses, and I realised how strange it feels to make bold, frank statements about my experience and capabilities. It was powerful to hear everyone proclaiming their talents with increasing confidence, and the pool of judges were very lovely folks to meet – to our delight, it turned out to be more than just practice!

Thomas: I can’t wait to see it actually happen. Coming from France, I am of course a supporter of high speed rails links, as I’ve seen them expand across the Channel. The Paris to Lyon link is one of the most profitable routes for the SNCF, the company running trains in France. The route is mostly used by commuters, who travel between the two cities in two hours. The Paris to London Eurostar link has also become very popular and profitable. Those travelling on a regular basis between Edinburgh and London know the route is over-popular. Why the hell are there not more services Friday evenings and Monday mornings? A 2 hours route would mean those who commute weekly could start commuting daily, which would mean a substancial increase in traffic, and therefore in revenues. It would mean a lot more tourists could make a short visit Scotland without having to travel all the way to an airport with all the implications this has. It would mean a reduction in the amount of flights, and certainly environmental advantages. It would also make space on the current East and West rail lines for more freight, which currently travels mostly on lorries between the North and the South.

Kate: I’m with Thomas on this one. Getting to London in 2 hours would mean that startups can be feasibly based in Scotland (our beloved Edinburgh) and still be able to be connected to the rest of the startup community – the biggest of which is obviously in London. We saw the impact of the 15min Edinburgh-Glasgow train, and if the new rail link can run with as good efficiency and at a cost effective manner (which is obviously really important) then I think it would make geography much less of an issue.

Bela: An impact to start-ups?  In the short-term, there won’t really be one.  Unless the start-up is selected as a supplier to the project – in which case, good times!

I love the idea of this project and hope it goes ahead but for all sorts of reasons that are connected to personal travel habits  and time management or the stimulation of economic activity in certain areas and so on.  I agree with Thomas; I’m sure it’ll be a profitable project.  But I think the benefit to start-ups will be small…you can already fly between Edin and London for about 2 hours, and cheaply if you book in advance.  So the opportunity to connect to customers and start-up communities there already exists.

Mark: I generally find the total turn around time for short haul flights from Edinburgh to London is almost as long as a train currently takes. Getting from the centre of one city to the other is far simpler by train as there are stations right there, however airports take the best part of an hour to commute to/from, and there’s most of another hour taken up by checking in and going through security (more if you want a good seat on a budget airline). With the train you just show up, board, then get off when its done. I think the key issue will be pricing, if it’s possible to get cheap tickets in advance for little more than a flight, then I’d say the sheer convenience of the train will win many customers over.

Jess: Cost of the project aside for the moment, I think the speedier train would be fabulous for the Scottish startup community in terms of funding and PR. London investors are often reluctant to look this far away, thinking we couldn’t possibly have better potential than the City itself, which is really a shame for Scottish-based companies that are trying to raise VC or Angel funding. On the same note, some tech journalists are still in denial that Scotland is a hot place for innovation, instead remaining in the English bubble. I think that a pleasant, hassle-free 2 hour 9 minute journey between London and Edinburgh would be a significant step at breaking down these barriers and misconceptions. It would become much more feasible – and enjoyable – for an investor or journalist to visit Scotland for a business day-trip instead of staying south of the border. I hope the train helps open people’s eyes, wallets, and pens to the startup activity up North – the attention would be well deserved.

Are there hard and fast rules to apply when it comes to pitching/selling? When is it acceptable to talk about your company and when is it not?

Bela: Please don’t pitch to me in lieu of actual conversation!  I attend lots of talks and events, and yes they do provide opportunities to network but that doesn’t mean it is appropriate to ‘work the room’ by trying to sell.  I find it inelegant.  Such events allow you to meet people and build relationships (especially when you see the same faces time and again) but it’s more fun to make genuine conversation, smile, crack a joke, tease and have banter, enjoy your fellow man, pose, tell stories…. any or all of the above.

It’s ok to pitch when you’ve been allocated a time or space to do so, but when someone asks you what you do, bear in mind that this is a natural question to ask when being sociable….so you need to exercise your judgement.

Kate: I was at a networking event last week and where I met someone who was only out to get new clients. This is not unusual of course, and mostly expected, but what was unusual about this case was that the event was very specific (i.e. people who run womens networks in Science and Technology), and she did not fit that criteria. In fact, she didn’t seem to want to engage with the topic of women in SET at all. This is not restricted to one case. There was another situation, where [a friend] mentioned how annoyed he was at being ‘sold to’ by a consultancy at an [local entrepreneur] event. I don’t think there are hard and fast rules in deciding when to pitch, it has to do with context (is it a social situation?), the tone and wording (are you aggressively telling people about what you could do for them?), and respect (do you see everyone as potential clients rather than potential friends?) Most of all, no one likes a hard-sell. So do us a favour – leave the leaflets at home, just come with an open mind and a willingness to engage with whatever the topic of the meetup you’re going to.

Jess: With business and social worlds increasingly blurring together, it can be tricky to wear the right hat all the time. However, it does much more harm than good to pitch to a non-receptive audience, and I tend to err on the side of caution for this reason. I think there is an important difference between 1) explaining what you do and 2) trying to sell your product or business. Unless you are attending an event aimed at ‘business networking’ (as opposed to social networking) or the person you are speaking to has specifically asked for your pitch (or set you up for it), then I’d stick to option 1. If you keep the chat more sociable, you’ll develop relationships that will lead to seeing these people again – and perhaps a pitch in the future. If you jump to the pitch too soon, you may never have a chance to speak to someone genuinely interested.

Thomas: It is nearly embarrassing to turn up at an event, and speak to someone who is obviously beyong the evelator pitch, trying to sell you his service or product. Most of the time, you are obviously not the normal target market segment that person would normally sell to; and for the next few minutes, all do is think of a way to exit the conversation, thinking “Dude, this is not an exhibition, all I need to know is what you do!”. Networking events are aimed at getting people to mingle: share their contact details, briefly talk about what they do, their business problems, etc. A sale is a possibility, and if that happens, that’s great. The fine line is probably: work on your elevator pitch, and leave your sales pitch at home.

What are your rules and your experiences?

Kate: Contrary to social media predictions, I heard about Michael Jackson’s illness whilst watching Newsnight – and tweeted about it. After that, I did a twitter search on Michael Jackson, and there was easily 1000+ tweets per minute. The tweets were a mixture of RIP messages, praise for Jackson and confusion – was Jacko really dead? (Incidentally, TMZ confirmed the news first, then LA Times, and it was 11.46pm when the BBC finally confirmed.) Even all the trending topics were all about MJ (#MJ, Michael Jackson, cardiac).  Despite finding out through TV, let me point out how rare this is; I was only watching because I was away in London at the time. I would have more likely found out by Twitter or Facebook instead. Has social media changed the way I get my news? Oh yes indeed.

Jessica: I was at home watching a movie when it happened, but I randomly glanced at Twitter around midnight and saw tweets from Kate about MJ having just died. My initial feeling was that it was a hoax, but I scanned the rest of my feed and saw her many updates tracking the story. When I noticed @BreakingNews had tweeted the same news, I began to accept it as true (sorry Kate, I should have trusted you…). Nosy for more info, I googled the topic and found an article detailing the hospital visit – dang, it was no ‘June Fools’ trick! I used to be days behind on recent happenings, but lately I’ve felt ‘in the know’ with @BreakingNews informing me on the Holocaust Museum shooting, EU elections, and DC Metro crash almost immediately – it’s so handy!

Bela: I first heard about MJ’s death from Jess, who was sitting next to me when she saw a tweet about it.  So the first thing I did was check Google to see if there were any other reports of this.  I’ve kinda stopped watching the news or listening to it on the radio -  a lot of my news comes from talking to people first.  It would appear that I’m not alone in this.  The following day, I was sitting in the Forest Cafe when a guy jumped up and asked everyone loudly “Has anyone read the paper today?”.  Nobody answered.  (I’m not sure quite what he was thinking as the Forest Cafe audience doesn’t immediately strike me as the typical broadsheet or tabloid paper reading type).  Anyway, the reason for the question was that his female companion had not heard anything about MJ’s death and did not believe him when he mentioned it.  So we all had to inform her that it was true.

Thomas: The event will probably be remembered as one of those which actually shook the internet. The BBC news website traffic was 40% above average, a website which is one of the most visited in Europe. I am concerned about the way news propagates around the globe these days. I got a random text message announcing his death whilst having a pint, seconds after my pub-mate also got a couple of similar text messages.  I checked the BBC website because it is a trusted source, but what if the BBC now sources its information from social networks – does it not make it more difficult to trace and authenticate the source of the information? Wikipedia has the same problem. Because it is edited by us, the people, anybody can insert anything which trusted media can then re-use – which gives the erronous information a trusted status. Don’t get me wrong; Twitter, Wikipedia, Facebook, and other social network platforms are great, but how do we assess the quality of information now?

How did you hear about MJ’s death? Do you feel that social media will overtake traditional media in getting your news?

How do you use Twitter?

Thomas: It took me quite a long time before understanding why Twitter would be useful to the non-technical crowd. It is only when the service grew rapidly in the UK at the end of 2008 that a critical mass of my network started using it. Most of the time, I choose to tweet about news items and blog posts I find interesting. I like to see how my contacts react to those. I have also been able to use the platform to communicate with high profile entrepreneurs, which would have been more difficult normally. To me, Twitter is the combination of networking and information platforms.

Bela: I opened an account months ago but only started using it quite recently.  I didn’t have a specific use in mind so have just been experimenting.  I’ve been using it for a mix of personal, social and professional reasons.  A personal use includes: expressing frustrations;  I sometimes just think of it as another way of talking to myself.  A social use includes: sharing amusing anecdotes or content.  A professional use would include tweeting whenever I write a new post in Startupcafe and giving people updates on my other business endeavours.

I think I’ll end up using my personal account for mainly personal and social reasons.  I don’t expect a response when I tweet, quite rightly.  However, I am often pleased when I get one!

Kate: Considering I was just at the pub with a few non-social media types asking the same question, I think this is particularly apt. Twitter, to me, is what I use to publish content that is interesting to me – things that I’ve read about lately or events that I’m organising. At the moment, my tweetdeck has a search on Microsoft Surface, Multi-touch, and Edinburgh. This allows me to keep tabs on the latest news happening in those areas. In addition, I also use it to tell people about events I’m going to and finding out about other events. The thing is, Twitter takes a lot of hard work. You only get what you put in.

Jess: I signed up for Twitter as a joke because I thought the Twestival back in February sounded hilarious (and registration required a Twitter name), but little did I know how serious this initiation would become. Now Facebook has taken a back seat in my life! I most often use Twitter to find out about events (or let others know what I’m organising), share experiences that have amused me, or as an ‘ask the audience’ lifeline (ie. searching for a good PR company or scouting startups for a work project). It feels like ‘high-up’ important folks are now totally accessible, and I love being able to contact business people without the formality of an email.

Do you agree with our opinions? How do you use twitter? Comment back and let us know!

The StartupCafe Team

Welcome to Startup Cafe! We aim to be a fun and humorous place to go to for local startup news. We’ll be offering you an alternative commentary of tech, startup and social media happenings; along with announcements of jobs, events and competitions (all with a dose of silliness). As if that’s not enough, we’ll also be showcasing local startups and giving them a place to shout out their successes.

We’re four bloggers based in Edinburgh with an interest in latest trends and entrepreneurial activity. We have different backgrounds and perspectives to offer, but share an interest in tech startups and are all active in the innovation community.

If you want to know about who is serving your drinks, then head over to the about page to find out more about us. Please get in touch – we look forward to chatting with you.