We like to lead from the front in the things we do. Growing an excellent moustache is no exception.
Five of our most handsome and follicularly blessed specimens are donating their upper lip in the name of charity this month to raise some money.
If you feel the need to donate please do so here.
Ladies and Gentlemen – I give you Dan, Luke, Jono, Adam and Col.
Moustache Gods.
For the second year running we’ve managed to secure the 2011 MiNetwork Awards ‘North West Marketing Agency of the Year 2011′ beating all the usual on and offline suspects from around the region.
This is a great honour and something the team here are very proud of indeed!
We’ve also recently received a commendation in the Best Travel/Leisure/Sports Website or Campaign at the annual DADI awards for our work with First TransPennine Express.
As the 2011 award season draws to a close this takes our tally this year to six; a year which has been for us a focus on emerging technologies, mobile, iTV commissions and other digital innovations – from social media to use of visual design.
We would like to thank our clients for all their continued support, interesting briefs to keep us out of trouble and allowing us the opportunity to do great work together.
This one’s for you!
Thanks everyone!
Northern User Experience (NUX) is an informal community for people interested in usability. Based in Manchester and Leeds, NUX holds free monthly meet-ups in both cities, with guest speakers from the User Experience community.
Code Computerlove host the Manchester meet-ups, donating the use of our office space and facilities (and our refreshments budget) for the events, which typically draw anywhere between 10 and 40 people, depending on such vagaries as the guest speaker and their subject, the Mancunian weather, release dates for Call of Duty: MW3, and high profile football games.
On Tuesday we were extremely lucky to have Jane Murison from the BBC (@mewroh) who spoke about what it is like setting up, managing and developing a UX team.
I knew things were going well when I saw Jane’s job title: Head of UX&D for Knowledge & Learning and Children’s at BBC Future Media and Technology, which as far as I can tell covers everything apart from Eastenders and Match of the Day.
When I grow up I want a job title like that.
Another sign of things going well happened when I was setting up the drinks and nibbles table. One of the multipack Monster Munch bags contained an extra pack. In my mind this officially marks it down as A Good Day.
NUX use Eventbrite for reserving places, and attendance tonight was always looking good, but I was pleased to see a lot of new faces this month, including a few guests who came over from the Leeds branch of NUX.
Clearly the BBC’s move oop north is of great interest to the digital community in Manchester, and this talk was a chance to put a face to the organisation and find out a little more about them.
Jane’s talk was both candid and revealing, giving us a great insight into:
She covered topics such as:
There were also a couple of brief exercises where we were asked to think about what our job titles were, what skills we have and what skills we use.
There was an audible intake of breath when Jane asked us to write these down ON PAPER. I don’t know about anyone else, but apart from a few low-fi wireframe sketches, I don’t think I’ve put an actual pen to some actual paper in a meaningful way in years!
Jane then asked us if we were happy with our job titles; what we would prefer them to be; if we thought they described what we did effectively and what personal skills we each had that we thought were under-used in our current jobs.
This section of the talk was particularly revealing, and certainly made me think about skills I had that were not being used to their full potential, and what I could do to remedy that.
It was also interesting to hear what the BBC is like as an employer; how easy it is for them to recruit (let’s face it, everyone would love Auntie Beeb on their CVs, right?); the scope employees have for career progression, personal development and the types of projects the team get to work on.
Jane’s talk was presented in a very informal style and her personality and engaging manner really brought the presentation to life.
After the talk, we had a questions and answers session with Jane, and as ever this part of the evening was also very interesting.
Again, Jane was open and honest, answering all kinds of questions about topics as potentially sensitive as how to handle team members who are underachieving or counter-productive, how one sometimes has to punch a loved one in the face in order to get them to leave a burning building.
Overall the event was a great success, and certainly introduced the Manchester UX community to a face within the BBC. On behalf of Code and the NUX I’d like to thank Jane for giving up her evening, and wish her the best of success over at Media City in Salford Quays.
–
Barry
Bootstrap:
The next NUX Manchester event is “All about the Metro UI” with @Ben_Lowe on Monday the 5th December 2011. More details can be found on http://northern-user-experience.org/
Recently, Google updated the way in which referral data is passed though from a natural search referral, what it meant was that any person logged into their Google account would not refer keyword data in the referring URL which would hide the keywords people were clicking on natural listings. As per most SEOers we tried to estimate the how this would impact our clients, tried to work out why Google was calling this privacy was it was still passing keyword data through for PPC searches(?) and finally looked at the impact for further keyword research.
I’m sure you’ve read a hundred times now that millions of customers are accessing websites via mobile devices and that those greeted by a mobile optimised website become more brand loyal and inclined to buy.
So what are you waiting for? Ah, not convinced you really need a mobile site?
We have developed a new mobile web package for brands and companies who want the immediate benefits of having a mobile optimised site and gain some fast learnings about the importance and impact of mobile on their brand in order to develop a comprehensive mobile strategy.
In addition to being a cost-effective first step into mobile, it’s also ideal for SMEs that want to reap the benefits of a mobile optimised site.
Our new solution uses bespoke software that’s been developed by our innovations team, which is becoming renowned for our clever use of web technologies, including Photoswipe – an open source mobile image gallery.
This is supported by our 12 years of experience working with some of the UK’s leading consumer brands and service providers – from HMV through to Brother UK.
Our new Starter Pack mobile solution can deliver:
Our boss Tony Foggett thinks it’s cool; “This is a great approach for companies to take their first steps into mobile and work out a comprehensive digital strategy. Being able to clearly see mobile customer behaviour and understand the value of mobile optimised pages means companies can invest in future mobile technologies with the confidence that their outlay will make a difference to the bottom line.”
For a cost-effective mobile solution with the added peace of mind that you’re dealing with one of the UK’s Top 20, multi award winning digital marketing agencies (NMA and Marketing magazine digital league tables) contact Steve Peters on 0161 276 2080 or email steve.peters@codecomputerlove.com
We’d be happy to show you examples of websites already using this technology – just drop us a line.
© 2012 Code Computerlove Ltd - new media agency / digital marketing agency
