Networking / Board Gaming Event - Game On at the Games Hub

Board games have become a much more popular and influential activity since the days when families would sit and play Monopoly or Scrabble around the dining room table at Christmas. The number, variety and popularity of board games, particularly amongst adults, have all increased hugely over the last twenty years and table top gaming as a whole is a billion dollar industry. Individual board games, mathematical theories relating to gaming and their applications to business, economics and even politics have appeared in popular mainstream magazines such as Wired and Forbes.

I will be hosting the next Edinburgh Media Café event, to be held at the Games Hub on Wednesday 21st November at 2pm, 101 Lauriston Place in Edinburgh's Tollcross area.  The Games Hub is Edinburgh's unique café where you can eat, have a coffee and play board and other table top or miniatures based games. As well as their own stock of over one hundred popular board games available for play, they also have WiFi and a number of PCs for hire so that you can play computer or online games as well. 

There will be three two hour sessions of gaming, from 2pm to 4pm, 4pm to 6pm and 6pm to 8pm. Games will be rated in various categories, eg. ease of play / learning, relevance to business skills, time taken for one game, etc. and you can drop in and out when you choose. You can play (or just chat and have a coffee or the tasty home-cooked daily special) either in the café, or downstairs in the main gaming area.

So just come along, buy your coffees at the counter from the friendly staff, bring your business cards and I or one of the staff will be happy to give a guided tour of the two floor gaming area and games library.  Who knows, you may even want to try some of the games that take your fancy.  See you there! 

PS. We will also be shooting a wee promo Youtube video for Shaz, the owner.

Register for Game On at EventBrite.

Register for the event at Facebook.

Follow the event on Twitter at #GameOnEdin.

[Edit 25/01/2013]
You can now see a video of the event on YouTube.

Does the decline of Groupon mean the death of the 'Daily Deal'?

A year ago, Groupon sold stock in itself, raising over $700 million. This year, its second-quarter earnings results were extremely disappointing for shareholders, compared to its spectacular opening on the public markets. Does Groupon's decline mean the death of the daily deal market? Well, I don't think so, necessarily. 

Certainly, companies offering daily deals are going to face tougher times ahead, in light of increased competition and the negative feedback that Groupon received, due to it's manipulative business model and poor customer relations. Nevertheless, daily deals are not a new idea, they have been with us for decades and I believe that they will endure in a range of forms for some time to come. Like many business models, their transition to the internet has been messy and painful. Again, not unusually, many people have been keen to exploit the more abusive potential of the daily deals concept, for their own short-term gain.

There are definitely issues with Groupon's business model but I don't think this signals the death of daily deals in general, or of companies using them as a strategy. Groupon, in my opinion, had a solid basic idea, with one particular flaw: They attempted to exploit the naivety of their customers.

Many small operators, with a poor understanding of business economics, jumped on the Groupon bandwagon and then proceeded to make the classic 'we're losing money but we'll make it up in bulk' error. Regardless of Groupon's own culpability in those decisions, these businesses then blamed Groupon for their losses. Groupon got a ton of bad publicity, investors bailed and they lost market share.

I think the daily deals model can work for small businesses but it's not as simple as it's being made out to be by companies like Groupon. Basically, you get customers in with the low price and then deliver an outstanding service that will make it worth their while to become regular customers, even at the full price. You also have to factor in that ninety-plus percent of the initial extra business that you see will be 'price tarts' that you never see again.

It has also been pointed out by others that businesses that rarely fill to capacity can get a short-term increase in revenue at little cost to themselves and that unknown start-ups can gain much needed publicity as well as revenue, by using the daily deals model.

In short, make sure that the figures add up, and you can benefit. If they don't, don't touch it.

Links to research articles:

• Ding Dong, Daily Deals Are Dead
• Is Groupon's Business Model Sustainable?
• Why Groupon is poised for collapse
• Groupon and its rivals for daily deals learn lessons, tweak business models
• Groupon's IPO biggest by U.S. Web company since Google
  
  [Edit 01/12/2020]
  You can now download the The Decline of GroupOn article as a printable PDF file.