I was asked to speak at last night’s “An apple a day” talk, held by the D&AD at the Hoxton Pony. The speakers were asked to consider ‘what piece of technology has truly changed the way you work’. You can see my response in slideshow form over at Slideshare, and preceeding my ramblings were Alex from de-construct, Ranzie from Tonic, Flo from Dare, Clare from The Partners, and a handful of other people with really interesting perspectives on the question.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, everyone pretty much had the same thing to say – remember the human element, interaction and connection within everything you do.
Yesterday, I joined the lovely people at Wieden + Kennedy London, as a Technical Creative Director. I’m already feeling at home, and the sun is shining through the windows at me. I never thought I’d go straight back into a perm role, but I’d always said W+K were the only agency I’d consider a proper job with, and gosh darnit, they invited me in – so looking forward to taking part in the amazing work which they produce. Take a look at their site for the skinny on their clients. I’m now back in the East of London, around Hanbury Street / Spitalfields, so pop by and say hello.
Our Child’s i Foundation first meetup will be held at the Old Bank of England on Feb 4th. The main plan of action (so far) is to discuss our current todo lists, and hopefully peddle off tasks to people who are keen to give some time and effort to the cause. We’ll be posting more about what we’re able to divvy out on the main blog in due course, but if you’re interested in giving some time, please RSVP, and come along.
Kirsty, Lucy and Julia were at the sicamp last night, collecting business cards and speaking to a whole range of lovely developer and just interesting types, many of who are keen to help out, across quite a wide range of technologies. It provides an interesting challenge, in that we’re eager to receive help regardless of what platforms things are built on. We already have interest from Drupal, Rails and PHP people. Our current site is built on Wordpress and will soon enough be moved to its own box so we’re a bit more able to hack the code – but if we have lots of activity using different platforms, it will be a great opportunity to show how open standards and interoperability technology such as webservices can be used to great a coherant whole. Increasingly, I think the main site will become a portal to aggregate the network activity – which quite neatly reflects our meatspace activity.
Through my work at Yarned, I’m involved in a new charity – Child’s i Foundation, which is building a babies’ home in Uganda on the outskirts of Kampala for 50 infants, from newborn babies to five years-olds. The home will have medical facilities to help with premature and sick babies and children with special needs.
This is happening in two ways:
1. To build a “transitional orphanage” with full medical and educational facilities that provides a safe haven for babies and young children.
2. To place these children into secure and happy families, giving them something we believe every child has a right to – a loving home.
Child’s i Foundation will connect supporters to our work in Uganda in real time. Through emails, blogs and videos, people will be able to see exactly where their money is going, and we will have the opportunity to appeal directly for additional help should we need it.
Members of the community can be involved on many levels, from community fundraising, making donations and suggestions to actively volunteering at the Home in Uganda.
Interaction and mass collaboration are the keys to building the charity and achieving our goals.
We are creating a Web 2.0 version of a letter from a sponsored child and creating a new way of giving.
I’ll write more about the approach we’re taking from a technical perspective over the next weeks, but in the meantime, please go and visit the website:
I’ve recently started working with Big Brother production company, Endemol. They do, of course, make much much more than just Big Brother, in fact, I’d be surprised if you haven’t at some point watched one of their shows. You may ask why someone digital would want to go work in television – the answer is simple – Endemol aren’t a television production company, but a content producer, and are already working with a number of innovative new formats and concepts in interacting with content, so this is a really interesting opportunity. We all love and want great content, whether it be on the gogglebox or internets, and Endemol are perfectly positioned to help television evolve in the right direction.
I’ve started blogging over at turnofftuneon.wordpress.com to get internal and external discussion around new formats and models in the digital content space, you can follow that if you’d like. I’m going to separate out work to that blog, general technology to over at http://yarned.co.uk and more personally interesting stuff here.
Here’s some more Clay which I just posted over at that blog.
Huzzah! The Lucky Voice in home private karaoke service has launched in beta. I’ve been involved with the project over the past few months, primarily as technical consultancy, audience insight and some of the marketing activities. As they say themselves, Lucky Voice is a life affirming experience, and we’ve managed to bring an element of their quality and class to the digital space. No longer will you be tied to crappy plastic tape machines, this is karaoke for the 21st Century. Now, if they can start to push cocktails over IP, i’m sold.
If you’d like an invite, email me or post a comment, and we’ll sort you out.
A little build project for Endemol went live recently. For the Children in Need programme, an application form to have your haircut by a celeb’. Fancy getting shaved by Rachel Stevens*? Sign up here. The full site (which i’m also going to be involved in) will be launching later this year.
NB. Rachel Stevens probably isn’t doing haircuts, as she’s doing the dancy thing this year. I’m not sure she’d have time to balance trimming and shimmying in her life.
“If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” If you’re willing to take the company up on the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for.
US etailer Zappos have a number of positive and refreshing approaches to running a business, being an employer and customer service. Their take on “you’ll love working here, or your money back” is an interesting method of weeding out those who just aren’t right for the company. Filling your organisation with like-minded (and that’s in terms of passion, enthusiasm not picking people who agree with you) people or even just individuals who have excitement and energy is a hard task no matter what your group does. Being open like this is just one of many ways to help find the right colleagues.
Honestly, you wait for a site launch for a couple of months, and three come along at once. Big shout out to the team for the launch of three sites last night (in order of project length and blood/sweat/tears).
This project has been a couple of years in the making, and the passion and effort put into the site shows. Chris, the lead developer, has pretty much worked on it single-handed since he started, and its a testiment to his dedication.
