UWIC DFIM - Nick Gerrard

Sunday, May 20, 2007

E & PP - New Business support from the banks

For our final Entrepreneurship and Professional Practice module we conducted a field trip in Cardiff city centre to find out how we might be received if we were genuinely looking for a new business account. We agreed to split up in groups to cover all the bank branches in the area. Lee and I decided to visit the Lloyds TSB Business branch and a branch of the Cooperative. We arrived at the special Business branch of Lloyds and I gave my spiel about a fledging design company we were planning to set up in Cardiff only to be told that the man we were looking for, the New Business Advisor had just left for the normal branch and we should take the short walk there to find him. The receptionist we met there seemed very pleased we were considering them and gave me the impression that they would welcome our business with open arms. She also told us that the man we needed to talk to was in a meeting but that we should come back later for a proper chat. She took our names and arranged a time which certainly made me feel that we were being taken seriously, even on the back of such a speculative enquiry. In the half an hour before we were due for our meeting we visited the Cooperative to see if they would be as helpful as Lloyds had been. In short, they didn’t. We would need to call their customer service centre as business banking was oddly enough not available from their high street branches. I was given a leaflet with the call centre number and scant information about their services and banking charges. We arrived back at Lloyds where the receptionist was very sorry but we wouldn’t be able to meet the New Business Advisor on that day after all. It turns out he had had to rush off for an emergency dental appointment. As much we were a little suspicious that he didn’t want to waste time meeting us when he had more important matters to attend to the receptionist seemed genuine. We were given an armful of leaflets pushing their competitive business banking rates and the elusive New Business Advisor’s business card so that we could call to arrange an appointment sometime soon. I understand from what the other DFIMers had to report after our excursion that they had all had mixed success in actually managing to speak to someone helpful. If our man at Lloyds really had chipped a denture chewing a pen or lost some teeth in a lunchtime bar brawl then Lloyds had still succeeded in giving us a personal contact who wanted to meet us in person. I feel that I would choose to bank with the branch who I felt would start and continue offering face to face support over one with slightly cheaper rates. A specialist’s knowledge and assistance through the inevitable mistakes made during a new business venture would likely be more valuable in the long run then a few percent differences in banking rates.

Monday, April 02, 2007

CCS - Locative Media

Locative media is all derived from an American department of defense initiative, the Global Positioning System whereby you can use any three of the 24 GPS satellites orbiting the Earth to ‘triangulate’ your position based on your distance from each one, your position on the globe can then be placed to within 5 or 7 meters. The GPS devices necessary to locate you in this way are now little bigger than mobile phones. The technology we use everyday will shortly become ‘location aware’ and the potential implications to our understanding of the space around us will be profound. If your PC became location aware it might begin showing you banner ads for local shops and services. You may be able to receive updates to your phone or PDA giving you a realistic time of arrival for the location aware bus you’re waiting for. These developments will surely seem commonplace within years but at the cutting edge of digital expansion scientists, artists and communities of dedicated individuals are envisioning and exploring uses of this technology that will create a whole new level of reality for many of us.

GPS advancements along with the real possibility of ubiquitous wireless networks in our cities has paved the way for a second layer of reality, an invisible virtual reality to be overlaid on top of our physical world. In one sense another layer of reality exists anyhow, every place has a history and specific memories for all those who spent time there. A park bench might just be a point on a map, a construction of wood and metal but for some it will be a place where the met or split up with a lover, where they once made a life-changing decision or played when they were children. Now in the virtual world, people can attach information to a specific place that others can see and experience for themselves. People will be able to ‘read’ places and access layers of meaning that would never have been available to them before, humanizing seemingly impersonal and empty spaces. With this technology I could create a unique experience of a favourite space or journey of mine that others could share as they passed through where appropriate music would be triggered and images, feelings and memories I had of that place could be viewed. Layers of meaning could be embedded anywhere and everywhere.

The advent of ‘augmented reality’ where virtual objects can be placed in real space and viewed through special glasses or the screen of a laptop or PDA will further blur the line between the physical world and the world of information that increasingly surrounds us. Animated 3D characters could play with children in school playgrounds and the creatively minded could redecorate our cities with virtual graffiti, another vision of reality, open to all.

Already traditional past-times are being blended with locative media technology to create truly new game playing experiences. The city is turned into a playground by the creators of Cititag (http://cnm.open.ac.uk/projects/cititag/), as players dash around with pocket PCs tagging others or for the unlucky tagged player, rushing to find friends who can un-tag them and get them back in the game. Other players are visible on the map as are graphics displaying your current status. I was very interested in this as it is in essence a computer game but demonstrates how games of the future will break out of the home and into the outside world. The games can be played anywhere and we will need more than just our thumbs to play them.

Another use of locative media technology that impressed me was the Bristol based Futurelab’s learning project for 10-11 year olds, ‘Savannah’ (http://www.futurelab.org.uk/showcase/savannah/index.htm#projectarticle) where children learned about the world of Lions on the African plains by role playing as lions on a virtual environment laid on top of their own playing fields. With their PDAs displaying the virtual grassland the children have to make decisions and move around their territory as a lion would while chasing prey, finding watering holes and so on. This kind of experiential learning is not only very enjoyable for the kids but allows them a deeper level of understanding that books or the internet alone could not.

URLs of Interest

http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/mob.htm#mixed

A list of many of the cutting edge technologists, collectives and their locative media projects.

http://www.c5corp.com/projects/gpsmediaplayer/index.shtml

A GPS media player showing images and descriptions of hiking paths alongside a map which displays the hiker’s progress.

http://netpublics.annenberg.edu/locative_media/beyond_locative_media

A fascinating article on the social implications and future of fully networked public spaces.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

E & PP - Networking

Networking is essential to all industries and no successful company can exist in isolation but how does the design industry go about facilitating contact between people working in the sector? Design has the reputation of being an area where who you know is as important as what you know or what you can do but I learned last week that the doors of many Cardiff based companies are more closed then open where the ‘competition’ is concerned. There are social networking schemes of various sizes in most regions of the UK and a list of some of those with a web presence can be found on the Design Council’s Website (http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/en/Directory-Listings/Networks/?PageNum=1%26subjectarea%3dDesign+networks). I might have hoped for a more complete list; I searched for North East based networks and uncovered 0 results when I know for a fact there is at least one major network operating up there. Its called Codeworks and I’ll cover it in more detail later. The networks that are listed including the Somerset based ‘Design Enterprise Network’ (http://www.designenterprisenetwork.net/design_events.html) and the South West’s ‘West of England Design Forum’ (http://www.wedesignforum.co.uk/events_xmas_party.asp). Both organisations sound quite formal with events being centred around speeches at hotels or function halls followed by wine and nibbles. ‘The West of England Design Forum’ even has an annual meeting where the elect a new president, vice president and chancellor! Their most recent event was themed around the question ‘who is designing our future?’ and featured speeches from the founder of a successful local design company and John Savage, chief executive of Business West and the Bristol Initiative. The event seemed to have had a positive response and the soundbites provided on the website certainly sound enthusiastic; “It was an excellent event – good band, drinks, people... and conversation!” one managing director gushed while a Senior Communications Consultant was similarly pleased “great night – lots of heated debate which is always good!” she enthused. This is what I would term a very traditional networking model and it does seem to have a bias towards well established and larger businesses despite its stated objective of seeking to provide “a network for designers and other related professionals: employers, employees, self-employed, students”. The events themselves seem very formal; I imagine row upon row of suited MDs and CEOs intently listening to a fellow MD or civil servant discuss the finer points of service sector commerce in the region. It’s interesting to consider how a student attending a function might feel. Could they confidently approach the bigwigs milling around the cocktail sausages believing that they had something that would be of great value to them? I reckon the setup of these functions would be quite intimidating to a lot of people and entering a function as a ‘new face’ would require a good deal of nerve while the theme seems so vague that it’d hardly lend itself to conversation starters. But through the choice of a neutral venue and a definite nod towards the socially lubricating qualities of a few glasses of wine after the speeches they seem to have come up with a formula that’s a big hit with the powers that be in the West.

Although it’s not widely known England’s rejuvenated Newcastle area proudly regards itself as something of a mini Silicone Valley with a large body of new media companies prospering in the area. The majority of these are linked by membership of the Codeworks Connect scheme and I know from personal experience that it has had a remarkably positive effect on design in the region. They run a student placement scheme in which they match suitable companies and graduates for 10 week trials, paying half of their wages after which they are proud to report that 90% of the graduates are offered permanent positions, and several people who I studied with in Newcastle found good jobs through the scheme. The main site is located at http://www.codeworksconnect.net while the networking socials are arranged through http://www.thinkandadrink.com (very much like the Geordies to get the drinking element prominently in the title!). Both sites require members logins to access members only areas in which you can find out who’s planning to attend upcoming events and even identify someone who you’d like the event organizers to organize an introduction to. Alongside more formal events reminiscent of those run by The West of England Design Forum they have social meetings in a bar on Newcastle’s trendy Quayside where there is no agenda other then having fun and a varied program of creative workshops such as a recent ‘Innovation Lab’ where ten local companies were invited to work with the BBC on ideas for new programming. Many of the events would cost between 50 and 100 pounds to attend as a non member which is quite steep but Codeworks members go free so you wouldn’t need to attend too many to get your moneys worth out of the membership fee [£70.50 a year for graduates and new startups up to £1000 for North East based multinationals]. The scheme is very vibrant and has proved popular with Newcastle’s designers and I like how the website promotes a much more relaxed and inclusive feel then The West of England Design Forum. When I was a student and a member of Codeworks I never worked up the nerve to attend any of the events as I always had the suspicion that it was quite cliquey, rightly or wrongly I didn’t believe I could just waltz into one of their nights as a student that no-one knew but on the other hand they do a fine job of turning students into fellow designers. The website is quite vague on the point but I don’t believe they receive any government funding and I’m fairly sure that they employ at least two full time staff so the membership fees must generate a significant amount of money. It is a first class network but smaller companies and freelancers would have to weigh up whether the service is worth the cost.

My suggestion for a similar network run in Cardiff with no funding would be to take the meetings out of a formalized atmosphere and hold them in a fashionable city centre bar like Buffalo of Milgi. It’s no-one’s turf, and I believe people would feel more relaxed and open then they would wondering what to wear for an event at a posh hotel. Each gathering could be themed around an area of emerging technology, similar to those we covered in our CCS sessions so that the people who are important at the events are those with that specific knowledge and those who want it. The event would be more democratic and inclusive this way; a student might have cutting edge knowledge that a bigshot MD is dying to find out and by theming the nights in this way there is a far higher chance that people with similar interests have a chance to meet. I was also a fan of the suggestion for a showreel of work to be projected throughout the evening as an icebreaker and a constant talking point. Admiring and discussing fresh design work would keep the conversation flowing until everyone had a chance to get a few rounds in.

E & PP - Networking

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5

20th Feb

I received the following email from Greg today and an automated email from the Dreamhost Installer Robot which detailed how I should go about establishing my Wordpress site.

Ok, I've set up the hosting for that domain. In your hosting
registration, set the nameservers to:

ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com

I have installed Wordpress there, and it should work in 24 hours.
I'll forward Dreamhost's instructions.

If you need, you can FTP files to:

ftp.csad-ssl.co.uk

Log in with:

gt_nickgerrard
pinecle3n

Would you like any email addresses @csad-ssl.co.uk?

I’m going to email Paul Wilgeroth tomorrow to update him on the progress of the site and check whether he wants any email addresses with that extension

19th Feb

I emailed Greg Turner to check whether the funds had been debited into his account today as I finally had a chance to check my internet banking today and saw that the money had come out of my account. Greg emailed me to say;

Yes, I recieved £50 on the 14th. I am still waiting for the domain
name you want to use, without which I can't set up the account. If
you want me to register a domain name for you it will cost extra, or
you can register it yourself, and tell me what it is.

Cheers,

Greg.

Spurred on by this bit of progress I immediately bought www.csad-ssl.co.uk from 123reg.com and emailed Greg to tell him that I had done so and the domain name would be usable 24 hours from the time of purchase.

Feb 11th -13th

Another frustrating time in this project, arranging the transfer of funds from my account, which I’ve had to wait until the 11th to do as I had even less money then I thought I did and ended up needing money from my parent’s account to be transferred over, hardly very professional! But that’s student life I suppose. Then Greg emailed my incomplete bank details and I’ve had to request the full ones, wasting a few more days.

Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5

20th Feb

I received the following email from Greg today and an automated email from the Dreamhost Installer Robot which detailed how I should go about establishing my Wordpress site.

Ok, I've set up the hosting for that domain. In your hosting
registration, set the nameservers to:

ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com

I have installed Wordpress there, and it should work in 24 hours.
I'll forward Dreamhost's instructions.

If you need, you can FTP files to:

ftp.csad-ssl.co.uk

Log in with:

gt_nickgerrard
pinecle3n

Would you like any email addresses @csad-ssl.co.uk?

I’m going to email Paul Wilgeroth tomorrow to update him on the progress of the site and check whether he wants any email addresses with that extension

19th Feb

I emailed Greg Turner to check whether the funds had been debited into his account today as I finally had a chance to check my internet banking today and saw that the money had come out of my account. Greg emailed me to say;

Yes, I recieved £50 on the 14th. I am still waiting for the domain
name you want to use, without which I can't set up the account. If
you want me to register a domain name for you it will cost extra, or
you can register it yourself, and tell me what it is.

Cheers,

Greg.

Spurred on by this bit of progress I immediately bought www.csad-ssl.co.uk from 123reg.com and emailed Greg to tell him that I had done so and the domain name would be usable 24 hours from the time of purchase.

Feb 11th -13th

Another frustrating time in this project, arranging the transfer of funds from my account, which I’ve had to wait until the 11th to do as I needed money from my parent’s account to be transferred over, hardly very professional! But that’s student life I suppose. Then Greg emailed my incomplete bank details and I’ve had to request the full ones, wasting a few more days.

Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 4

20th Feb

I received the following email from Greg today and an automated email from the Dreamhost Installer Robot which detailed how I should go about establishing my Wordpress site.

Ok, I've set up the hosting for that domain. In your hosting
registration, set the nameservers to:

ns1.dreamhost.com
ns2.dreamhost.com

I have installed Wordpress there, and it should work in 24 hours.
I'll forward Dreamhost's instructions.

If you need, you can FTP files to:

ftp.csad-ssl.co.uk

Log in with:

gt_nickgerrard
pinecle3n

Would you like any email addresses @csad-ssl.co.uk?

I’m going to email Paul Wilgeroth tomorrow to update him on the progress of the site and check whether he wants any email addresses with that extension

19th Feb

I emailed Greg Turner to check whether the funds had been debited into his account today as I finally had a chance to check my internet banking today and saw that the money had come out of my account. Greg emailed me to say;

Yes, I recieved £50 on the 14th. I am still waiting for the domain
name you want to use, without which I can't set up the account. If
you want me to register a domain name for you it will cost extra, or
you can register it yourself, and tell me what it is.

Cheers,

Greg.

Spurred on by this bit of progress I immediately bought www.csad-ssl.co.uk from 123reg.com and emailed Greg to tell him that I had done so and the domain name would be usable 24 hours from the time of purchase.

Feb 11th -13th

Another frustrating time in this project, arranging the transfer of funds from my account, which I’ve had to wait until the 11th to do as I needed money from my parent’s account to be transferred over, hardly very professional! But that’s student life I suppose. Then Greg emailed my incomplete bank details and I’ve had to request the full ones, wasting a few more days.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

E&PP Motivation

I was inspired to create my personal training software by the frustrations I had encountered in my many years weightlifting I had wondered for some time whether there was a way to solve some of the problems that I had encountered time and again. I was certain that it wasn’t just me who forgot that new exercise they had read about in a magazine back at home or struggled to remember which weight to use for each particular exercise and how many repetitions they did last week. My brainwave was realizing that these problems could be quite easily solved, the technology exists, but no-one else seemed to have spotted the gap in the market for a specialised application for the weightlifting/bodybuilding market. I am less motivated by dreams of massive sales and instant fame for my product and more excited by the idea of changing people’s lives. I want to empower all those insecure young guys who never get proper tuition and get fed spurious misinformation at every turn. They’ll waste their time and money and the unhappiness resulting from their misdirected efforts leads many to steroid use. If I could make a difference, it’d mean a lot to me.

Another business idea inspired by personal experience was recently awarded Startup Company of the Year 2006. Jennie Johnson had had enough of struggling to find reputable, good quality nurseries She had a clear vision of a better kind of nursery and the her business plan impressed the Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme so much that she secured the maximum £250,000 enabling her create the first branch of ‘Kids Allowed’. The nursery was built from scratch to accommodate all her innovative ideas; age specific rooms, a sensory theatre and a restaurant amongst others which required the backing of an equity part partner, a property developer who poured a further 4.5 million into the project. Her business was formed in 2003 but the ‘Kids Allowed’ didn’t open its doors to the public until 2005. A successful marketing strategy including hiring of a design company to produce a promotional DVD and brochure and a PR company to raise the companies profile paid off amazingly well and the nursery was fully booked from day one. Two more branches quickly followed and Jennie Johnson found herself at the head of a company employing 130 staff with an annual turnover of 1.8 million. Looking at the case of ‘Kids Allowed’ in relation to my own work I am interested by the arc of progression from initial concept to securing the money to realise your dream to finally employing outside expertise to manage its emergence into the world. Jennie Johnson had a background in marketing that must’ve helped in that crucial last stage but I imagine other good ideas trip at that last hurdle.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Progress Blog - Professional Practice Module Pt. 3

9th Feb

Paul emailed me last night to ok the name www.csad-ssl.co.uk so I can buy that today. Still no reply from Greg Turner though so I've researched an alternative, www.swifthost.co.uk which have reasonable prices but I wouldn't be able to get the same level of personal support or as much space that I would've done with Greg. I also got paid today so I actually have money to use to buy the space which I think I should do asap, whoever I buy it from.

8th Feb

Recieved an email from Paul who was very impressed with my mockup of the site and has also secured the £50 I need for the site, which is great news. All I have to do is take a receipt to the School Office once I have bought it myself. I emailed Paul back suggesting www.csad-ssl.co.uk for the site name as its the shortest, most memorable one I could think of for it. No reply from Greg Turner yet however.

Hi Nick,

The mock up looks great, well done!

I understand what you mean about the name being unwieldy. However, it is difficult to think of a shorter name that is appropriate. Do you have any suggestions?

By the way I have secured funding for the £50 site registration fee. If you take the reciept to Mary Wiseman in the school office she will arrange for the cost to be reimbursed.

Paul

7th Feb

I emailed Greg Turner to arrange the purchase of the web space and Stuart Neil who I should have contacted days ago to discuss the funding problems I have had. If a project is going to run over, which it is in the fact that i am producing this work for Stuart as much as I am for my 'client' Paul maintaining good communications is of huge importance and I realise I haven't been tight enough on this.

6th Feb

Today I researched a couple of different ways to customise Wordpress sites. Customisation by coding was touted as being relatively simple compared to other blogging sites but having spent a couple of hours looking at it I realise it is beyond my capabilities. The code is similar to HTML, but acknowledged to be more complicated and I know very little about HTML. The other alternative was far more exciting, templates. I was able to browse about a hundred templates with grey backgrounds and found one called ‘Slined 1’ which fits perfectly with the contemporary feel of my identity design. I produced a mockup of the site with my header and more relevant imagery and emailed it to Paul for him to ok. I also asked for his opinion on the domain name as I am ready to buy it from 123reg.com which was the cheapest I could find on the net.

5th Feb

Received the following email back from Paul regarding my 3 scamps;

Hi Nick,

It looks like we all agree that scamp1 is the design to go for!

Keep up the good work,

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Kavanagh, Gaynor
Sent: 05 February 2007 08:57
To: Wilgeroth, Paul
Subject: RE: Staff / Student Liaison Website

Paul

This is great. I prefer Scamp 1 too.....

Gaynor

I had expressed my belief that that was the best of the designs so I’m glad they liked it and now I can start assembling the site.

3rd Feb

I imagine this kind of frustration with projects on hold as funding issues are resolved must be common in industry so I suppose I should be glad of the experience! My parents have agreed to send me the money to host the site so I now have to wait for the money to clear before buying the host space from Greg Turner.

1st Feb

As I had expected getting the extra funding from the University wouldn’t arrive quickly, if at all. Paul has promised to look into funding for the site but reading between the lines, I’m not overly optimistic. He suggested a couple of alternatives including setting up a Myspace account for students to link to and gauge the popularity of a site of this nature before money is actually spent which is a good idea but I would be a lot happier achieving my initial aim of creating a standalone website. I didn’t see this coming, a sort of tension between the university wanting a free site and me wanting a particular result for my portfolio. The only sensible resolution I can think of is to buy the webspace myself, something I will need to do over the next few months as I am working on a self promotion website anyway. The problem of funding still remains though as I am living on a shoestring. The email from Paul was as follows;

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your continuing efforts in trying to get this web site set up.

I must admit that I'm not entirely surprised that the university servers are unable to support the necessary script as they have to be ultra secure.

I will of course investigate the availability of funds to support the alternative website that you propose.

In the mean time is it worth considering some alternatives?
One suggestion that I have received is that myspace.com might be a suitable means of getting the project started. I realise that this proposal isn't suitable for massive amounts of traffic but it might be a good way of testing the water to see if the web site is likely to be popular or not.
What do you think?

Paul

Saturday, February 03, 2007

E&PP - Design Partners

Of the UK design industry’s 4.6 billion pound turn over in 2005 0.5 billion was generated by overseas income. The statistics are quite startling but maybe, given Britain’s history of exporting innovations and ideas; from William Morris to the telephone today’s designers are just following in a proud tradition. The UK government is certainly aware of the success and huge potential for growth in this area. Through the UK Trade and Investment Department they set up ‘Design Partners’ in 1999, an organisation dedicated to coordinating efforts to sell British design abroad. Design Partners have a wide ranging set of plans to maximize export potential and provide as much assistance as they can to new and established exporters. They research foreign markets and share that information with UK industry, help to forge partnerships with relevant companies abroad, offer long and short term programmes of support and provide an opportunity for liaison between government and industry where new legislation or support may be required. They support two fields of UK design, described on their website as ‘Design Makers’ which covers product design in all its forms and ‘Design Consultants’ which includes print and new media. An example given of the a successful design export transaction was in Bionic Media’s winning of a contract to provide a complete branding strategy and range of graphics for ‘The Pepsi Chart Show’ which was intended to be shown across Latin America. They worked with the production team in Miami and the producer of the channel set to air the show.

Digging a little deeper I found a discussion on merits of Design Partners on the Design Council’s website as it had arisen during one of their meetings. The consensus was that the sheer breadth of the organisation was as much a strength as a weakness, in that while bringing together such a broad range of different companies has been very beneficial for the profile of UK design abroad there had been difficulties in reconciling the priorities of Design Partners and those of the actual design companies. For example some of the regions and markets identified by the organisation as important for British design to move into were unattractive to the companies who would actually have to work there. They also criticized Design Partners for being unrepresentative of the whole industry as ‘in-house’ design teams were not represented by the group. The point was raised that Design Partners is only one of fourty similar ‘UK Trade Partners’ and greater collaboration with these other organisations could reap rich rewards for all concerned.

UWIC DFIM - Nick Gerrard

Sunday, May 20, 2007

E & PP - New Business support from the banks

Monday, April 02, 2007

CCS - Locative Media

Sunday, March 04, 2007

E & PP - Networking

E & PP - Networking

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5

Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5

Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 5

Progress Blog– Professional Practice Module Pt. 4

Sunday, February 18, 2007

E&PP Motivation

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Progress Blog - Professional Practice Module Pt. 3

Saturday, February 03, 2007

E&PP - Design Partners

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