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Testimonials

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Intro

A post about recent work that Souter Consulting carried out on behalf of two North East England customers:

  • Digital Transport event at Newcastle University
  • CONNECT North East

Please read on for more details.

Digital Transport

Souter Consulting Limited was approached by Hannah Bryan, at the time working as part of the Newcastle University School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, to help her run an event which would investigate what role technology would play in the future of transport.

What SCL did

  • Acted as a mentor, explaining how Social Media tools could help publicise & run the event
  • Set up and configured a number of tools to publish information about the event, and capture any multimedia content that was created
  • Wrote blog posts, tweeted, and ‘live blogged’ the event itself (i.e. created a real-time & interactive record of proceedings).
  • Provided project management and community management advice

What they said

Hannah Bryan, Director of event management company Sailor Girl Limited said:

Swallow smallJustin was a pleasure to work with. I was given three weeks to put on this event and Justin was a massive support from the initial brainstorming to the post-event feedback capture and close. The ‘live blogging’ in particular was a real hit as many of the project partners were not able to attend in person and so attended ‘virtually’.

More info in the related case study.

CONNECT North East

imageCONNECT North East (CNE) brings together high growth technology businesses with those who are interested in funding them. Typically these businesses are start-ups, often run by young entrepreneurs who are very comfortable using digital technologies to communicate and collaborate.

What SCL did

  • Created a social media strategy for CNE, and provided ongoing tactical advice
  • Set up various online tools, e.g. blog, Twitter & YouTube accounts; published regular blog posts; ran the Twitter account; and monitored what was being said about CNE online.
  • Participated in existing online forums to help increase awareness of CNE
  • Worked with PR agency and CNE team to re-package key messages for Social Media audience
  • Shot, edited, and published video of key sessions – so those who couldn’t attend events might learn through viewing the material online.

What they said

John Sargent, CNE Business Manager said:

clip_image001“Souter Consulting added a very significant dimension to our marketing activity: contemporary, effective and insightful communication, tailored to a technology-savvy audience in a medium which they value. We recommend Souter Consulting highly.“

More info in the related case study.

Drop us a line

We’d love to hear from you if you’d like some help along these lines – please use our contact form.

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Posted in Business, Social Media, Web 2.0, blogging, collaboration, education, enjoyable, experiment, innovation, newcastle, north east england, research, technology, tools | Comments

Byte Night 09 – the sleepover @ The BALTIC

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

A write-up of the combined exploits of Byte Night 09 North East.

At last it has arrived!

I have to admit to being a bit apprehensive before the event. I had done some prep – as documented here and here. But I was a bit in the dark about what was happen, so really wanted to get it on.

In addition, the weather forecast seemed v. unpleasant – Heavy rain, 8 degrees, windy. Meh

I happened to be up in Troon, doing a presentation on social media in the morning, so had a three hour drive back yem. That said, it was made more bearable but the utter genius that is Down the Line on the CD player.

The night itself

A bulleted list to save time

  • I arrived at the BALTIC at around 8.15 – there was a good introduction e-mailed in advance by what to expect
  • We registered at the front desk: there were sleepers & their supporters already there and the party was getting started!
  • Free drinks – provided by Codeworks I believe
  • Supper was a decent–looking lasagne, but they did a chicken salad for me (with my funny tummy)
  • I did some mini-interviews – see video below
  • After supper, we had a quiz & some amateur singing
  • When we arrived, outside on the wooden-floored balcony were some large parasols / umbrellas, which have lights and heat lamps underneath.
  • I then used a bit of initiative to find a pitch. I had
    • A big bit of cardboard – well worth it
    • A bed roll – indispensible
    • 3 season sleeping bag
    • Foam cushions as pillow – excellent
    • Fleece hat – again a winner
    • Experience of week before, in tent, was v. useful
  • All in all it was a big party outside – lots of laughter, music etc., for most of the night!
  • I slept from about midnight until 0400
    • Wind started up
    • Did a video recording with David Coxon
  • Went back to sleep & we were woken just after 6
  • Breakfast of bacon butties, sausage baps, tea coffee & orange – winner!
  • Check all the tweets etc. via http://bytenight.osmosoft.com/

Video

Photos

Mine

David Coxon

Paul Keating – Red Boat photography

Wash up

Well done

  • Derek Curtis and the team for organising g
  • Providence for being pretty kind with the weather – it was filthy later in the morning, with rain and high winds
  • David Coxon from the BALTIC for being our host and sorting the A-V side of things
  • Kim Inglis for the MC’ing
  • Codeworks for the free booze
  • Everyone for staying out there and at it!
  • AfC team for organising, St. John Ambulance for attending

Fund-raising

  • Bond Solutions for mega fund-raising – £10k
  • My sponsors – I’m standing at £770 at the time of writing
  • You can still contribute – if you missed out

Beard

My brother kindly said that he would double his donation if I shaved my beard off. So, taking him at his word, I decided to grow it a bit longer than the normal (long) stubble. Avec barbe

So, I thought I would do a before-and-after comparison – terrifying and slightly cringe-making that it is! ;-D

Sans barbe
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Posted in bonkers, business networking, collaboration, education, enjoyable, experiment, gateshead, good cause, interesting, newbie, north east england | Comments

Please help Fat Frog design the SCL identify & branding

Friday, September 11th, 2009

This post describes the work around the new SCL identify, and how you can get involved.

Introduction

I’ve asked Steve and the Gang at Fat Frog to draw up the identity for Souter Consulting. I had thought of putting the work out to Crowdspring, but that could have been a bit too hard and difficult right now. That said, I’m keen to explore the crowdsourcing approach. Alex Bogusky has posted about this recently.

So, I’ve gone for a different approach. Steve has nominated Gino for this, and I met with him last week to talk through his initial thoughts.

By way of explanation, Gino normally works with customers in a slightly different way. They will give FF the brief, and then Gino will present a design which is pretty close to complete [er, I think that’s it :-s].

Steve and Gino were happily willing to go along with my suggestion that I be involved in the design process.

What I’ve done here is to take Gino’s creative ideas, and post the PDFs so we can see where he’s going with it all.

The Brief

My original spec

Doc I put together to gather my thoughts.

Spec for Branding & Identity for Souter Consulting

Gino’s doc

Gino put together this document from my original thoughts and our face-to-face discussion.

Souter Consulting identity brief

A typeface all of my own!

I mentioned to Gino that I spent some time hanging out at the St Bride Library, in my early twenties. Styled as “the world’s foremost printing and graphics arts library”, it’s a haven for typeface nuts – of which I count myself one. :-D

So, I was proper thrilled when Gino unveiled the following design. Key ideas behind this face are a mixture of tech & readability – probably to be used for headings. What do *you* think?:

Souter Consulting typeface

Thinking about this meant that I dusted off these two books, which brought back good memories [Amazon Associates book plug btw]:

Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works
Erik Spiekermann
£18.50
ASIN: 0672485435

Introduction to Typography (Pelican Books. no. A 288.)
Oliver Joseph Simon

ASIN: B0017YE8M4

Initial ideas from Gino at FatFrog

This section contains Gino’s ideas for the visual identity for SCL. Please comment at the bottom to let us (Gino and I) know what you think.

Round 1

I like the idea of these primary colours being blended together to make black in the middle. Also, they struck me as being “accessible” – hopefully easy to ‘take in’ when they first see them.

I realise it’s a bit cheeky to criticise, but the thought crossed my mind at the time that perhaps they look a bit like Housing Association re-branding exercise maybe?! [Did I get away with that? ;-)]

n.b. there are 4 pages in this widget.

Souter Consulting branding – approach 3

Round 2

So, this time a similar approach in terms of colours, but more of a sense of motion, change, etc. The middle roundel / start at the bottom is great because the colours are built in layers.

They remind me of a corporate logo of yesteryear, but something here definitely to work on.

n.b. there are 5 pages in this widget.

Souter Consulting branding – approach 2

Round 3

This cube / hexagon is fascinating. Cleverly, the design means that it can be both.It reminds me a bit of the old skool Mystify screen-saver effect.

I like the thought that it represents some sort of continuum, with ideas flowing around the cube in some way. To me, the concept of a ‘digital nervous system’ covers

  • Document and records management
  • Knowledge management
  • Process
  • Lightweight application integration
  • Social Media & collaboration tools
  • And various other things I can’t think of right now

Souter Consulting branding – approach 1_final

Thoughts

  • Flattered to have my own typeface – I’m a typeface nut :-D
  • I realise that this waffle could rightly be construed as high-falutin clap-track, but hey!
  • Would love to go some feedback on this, either through the form, or comments below.
    • Any comments will go to Gino for his next round of thinking – so please could I have whatever you’ve got asap? Ta
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Byte Night update #1

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Umm, I’ve been seriously slack in getting myself sorted for this – mega :$

However, I’ve resolved to do a ‘multi / social media’ sleep out, basically because I need to rev myself up, and also rev up my fundraising activities, because I’m so behind schedule.

So, the idea is that you join me in giving money to Action for Children, but don’t worry, you can wait until I’ve actually done it to cough up.

JustGiving sends your donation straight to Action for Children and automatically reclaims Gift Aid if you’re a UK taxpayer, so your donation is worth even more.

Videos

Videos below, photos to come via Flickr, no doubt.

My lame first attempt

Ken Deeks intro

This explains what it’s all about.

Video Diary from 2007

A video showing the experience for some folk down in Reading.

Wash up

My mind goes back to New Year 99 – 00 (aka the Millennium), as I spent the evening at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London talking to homeless people etc. [press release in this links needs some punctuation – Ed.]

On a totally spurious note, this blog post is continued on page 94 (sorry, this is such a great Wikipedia entry… :$ again).

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Posted in Business, Social Media, blogging, bonkers, business networking, byte night, collaboration, education, enjoyable, experiment, good cause, newcastle, north east england, technology | Comments

Please help me raise money for Action for Children #bytenight

Monday, August 10th, 2009

BN09_Newcastle_esignature I’ve decided to take part in Byte Night, a rather good Tech Industry fund-raiser, probably because I’ve seen photos of Jenny Agutter in Computing each year, and think it might be a good laugh.

Speak it softly, but I’m sort of looking forward to donning a whole load of technical gear, as my interest in tech is not confining to IT! ;-D

The blurb from the AfC flyer for Newcastle reads:

"Each year, over 500 people from the IT and business community give up their bed for one night to experience a little of what it might be like to be homeless.

The money they raise helps Action for Children tackle the root causes of youth homelessness and gets thousands of children and young people off the streets and into secure accommodation with education and training opportunities.

Each year, at least 75,000 children and young people experience homelessness*; 1 in 3 attempt suicide† and 1 in 7 young runaways are physically or sexually assaulted (this figure rises to almost 1 in 2 after a week‡).

Byte Night is a unique event that takes place across the UK. In 2008, it raised £470,000. Now in its 11th year, it is one of the single biggest fundraisers for Action for Children.

Your support of Byte Night is vital to ensuring it continues to support the thousands of vulnerable young people Action for Children work with each year.

Byte Night sleepers range from systems developers to CIOs and business managers to marketers who regularly return each year for a rewarding and memorable experience."

I’m sure you’ll agree that this is an excellent cause, so "Do it, Do it – Do it now!"

Boilerplate from Just Giving, to put your mind at rest:

"Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity."

Thanks for reading and hope you feel you can contribute to Action for Children.

UPDATE 29/8:

  • For some reason, an html tag <p style="display: none"> had sneaked into this post, so there appeared to be no content. Hopefully you can see this now… :$
  • Also, the Byte Night website seems to be down / being worked on, so will keep you posted.

Posted in Business, bonkers, business networking, byte night, enjoyable, experiment, good cause, interesting, newbie, newcastle, north east england, technology, work | Comments

@Opencast at Hoults Yard

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

Intro

A post looking at Hoults Yard on Tyneside, and recent activities there:

  • A recent Digital Transport event, run by Newcastle University
  • A stop of the Digital Mission UK tour
  • And the latest Think and a Drink event

Hoults Yard

This bit of the post is a quick write-up of a visit I made to Hoults Yard with the eponymous Charlie.

I think it’s worth saying that the Hoults are family friends, that Charlie’s a good mate of my Brother’s, and that we were all at school together.

He, Kate (Charlie’s lovely wife) and the family are also good mates of Caroline’s and mine, and they’ve recently moved in close by. In fact, our new house is even closer to them…

Charlie showed me round the Yard, photos of which are below. He’s keen to attract the next generation of digital entrepreneurs and start-ups to the Yard, and has recently launched NomadNewcastle – “an open plan office space that small businesses and freelancers to share”.

There’s also a new development called The Kiln, described as:

The Kiln is the latest office development at Hoults Yard, Newcastle upon Tyne – 6 ground floor and 16 first floor offices in 450-5000 sq ft spaces. The Kiln will be ready for occupiers in early 2009, but you are welcome to view now and join our growing pre-let list.

[although I know some folk are already moving in… ;-)]

The yard used to be a famous pottery called Malings, and many elements from the Yard speak of this background. Check out the photos above to see some of the Frank Cooper marmalade jars! A little more background:

Other plans are centred around housing Artists in an old personal storage building, and also to help develop the Ouseburn Digital, Media and Marketing Cluster.

Digital Transport event

I was part of the team led by Hannah Bryan, putting on the recent “Where do you think you’re going event”, which looked at the future role of technology in transport.

Photos from the event below, and my feedback from the event in an earlier post here. It was held in ‘The Rail Head’ building at Hoults Yard [named because it used to be where goods were loaded, and raw materials unloaded from trains – on their way to and from the docks].

Photo credit to g j2006

Digital Mission event

You may recall I went to Texas earlier this year, to South by South West. I was part of the Digital Mission to SXSW, namely:

Digital Missions are a series of trade missions organised by Chinwag and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI).

The missions support UK digital companies to expand internationally, understand foreign markets, attract investment, find partners and develop business relationships.

I thought it would be good to ‘get the band back together’ [er, sort of] as the Digtal Mission UK Tour hit Newcastle. See Benjamin Ellis’ photos below from the afternoon event, and also the evening session, more of which is in the next section.

Think and a Drink

Final section to this post was a recent Think and a Drink event I (briefly) attended. Some great photos, via Paul Santos photography I believe. I am in the Stetson, bought from Allens Boots in Austin, Texas.

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Posted in Business, blogging, business networking, collaboration, digital mission, enjoyable, newcastle, north east england, photography, sxsw | Comments

Digital Transport event feedback

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

I recently helped organise the “Where do you think You’re going” event that was held by Newcastle University at Hoults Yard. This post is a quick bulleted list of my feedback, and also a highlight of material from James Burke.

Thoughts

  • Content
    • Eclectic and genuinely thought-provoking
    • Presenters were clearly experts in their fields [well, from my lay perspective!]
    • Forward looking and thinking differently, not just extending ‘today’
  • Organisation
    • Teamwork – well done Hannah for pulling it off (and various others…)
    • Online as much as offline – see this post for the WDYTYG social media strategy
    • Before, during & after = important to follow up afterwards
  • The Day itself
    • Good grub via the ‘pyromaniacs lunch’, aka a barbecue ;-)
    • Good chairing & summarising by Eric Sampson and Jenni Borg
    • The venue worked well at Hoults Yard

James Burke presentation

I thought James was right on the money with this presentation, which probably isn’t as good as it was in the flesh:

2. James Burke, Lovle ltd – Digital Economy

I’ve also looked up the following elements from James’ presentation, which were particularly strong:

Conversation Prism

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas

Video

This is by Dr. Michael Wesch and his team at Kansas State University. If you’ve ever struggled to explain the difference between HTML and XML, your prayers have been answered!

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Posted in Business, Social Media, Web 2.0, education, enjoyable, innovation, newbie, newcastle, north east england, technology, tools | Comments

GameHorizon feedback #gh09

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

My impressions

I thought I should write up my thoughts re my recent attendence at GameHorizon:

  • It seems pretty clear that the Computer Games industry is a major success story
    • Apparently making more money than film & music [although all I can find on Google are rather dodgy get-rich-quick schemes which refer to this…!]
    • What I *did* find was a report from back-end of 2008, quoted here and here, saying “Verdict research predicts gaming will become the UK’s premier leisure activity before 2009”
  • But it seems to be in ‘stealth mode’ in terms of profile
    • There have been various controversies about computer games – which are set out in this section from Wikipedia
    • Reminds me of my MBA paper on Microsoft & Public Affairs paper [which I should publish]
      • The nub of this was that Bill didn’t take politics seriously until he found his competitors were using their political connections as a business strategy
  • Also is on the cusp of convergence of various positive technological trends
    • 3D & virtual worlds
    • Serious Games
  • Favourite sessions
    • ‘Sneaking in the Back Door to become an AAA Multiplatform Studio‘ Sponsored by Game Republic – Paul Wedgwood, CEO and Game Director, Splash Damage Ltd.
    • ‘Separating Fact from Fiction: the Future of Digital Distribution’ – Roger Walkden, CEO, AWOMO
    • ‘Development Opportunities in PlayStation Home’ Peter Edward, Director, PlayStation Home Platform Group
    • Panel Discussion: ‘Game Exposure – The naked truth about marketing your self published IP’ Sponsored in partnership by BAFTA and Northern Film + Media.
    • [that’s enough – Ed.]
  • Pretty reasonable games industry in the UK, also in Europe
  • Cutting edge stuff going, which I have highlighted in my list of favourite sessions
    • What struck me was the the Social Media / online component that many companies are only now discovering seems to be standard operating procedure for the games industry – as Paul Farley (Managing Director, Tag Games) explained.

I met some good people & am following up various business opportunities. This was an eye-opener for me, and I expect to see the Games industry as part of a major convergence of computing trends in the home.

Live bloggging info

If you would like to read my live blogging notes from the conference, please see this summary page.

UPDATE: Interesting interview with Ian Livingstone of Eidos re GH

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GameHorizon live-blog #8: ‘Round Up’ & Closing Comments

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
  • ‘Round Up’ – Ian Livingstone
  • Closing Comments – Carri Cunliffe

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Posted in Business, GameHorizon, blogging, enjoyable, games, google, ideas, innovation, legal, metaverse, microsoft, north east england, serious games, technology, virtual worlds, work | Comments

GameHorizon live-blog #7: ‘Marking your self-published IP’; ‘Games driving other Interactive Content’;‘Heavy Rain’

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
  • Panel Discussion: ‘Game Exposure – The naked truth about marketing your self published IP’ Sponsored in partnership by BAFTA and Northern Film + Media.
    • Chaired by Charles Cecil, MD of Revolution Software with
    • Martyn Brown (Development Director, Team 17),
    • Mark Morris (Managing Director, Introversion),
    • Paul Farley (Managing Director, Tag Games).
  • ‘How games can be used to help drive other Interactive Content’
    • Marc Goodchild, Head of Interactive Children’s TV, BBC
  • ‘Heavy Rain (PS3)’
    • Guillaume de Fondaumiere, Co-CEO Quantic Dream

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Posted in Business, GameHorizon, collaboration, education, enjoyable, games, gateshead, ideas, interesting, north east england, research, technology, work | Comments

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