Steelso V6.0

Is his empty chair.

Allan’s leaving night was on Friday and what a night. I did break the Angel’s Ambulance though by singing “I’m a Believer” and we we had to cancel the Ambulance after 30 minutes but that all added to the charm. We then met Ms. S and then off to various posh pubs in Glasgow before dancing the night away in some club or other. We also met some strange chap who nearly got us thrown out the club and then proceeded to smackdown the bouncers. I’m blaming Al.

Still, that was all last week and now we are allan-less.

Met up with the Lovely Mr Murray last night and he was telling me all the good stuff that’s happening at his lovely place of work. He has also appointed a great production manager, a name I hadn’t heard in many years. I look forward to shaking his hand.

Then met the lovely Ms. Kelly at the creative entrepreneurs club networking event. I sort of crahsed it at the end and was persuaded to have a glass of wine or two. I was introduced to the lovely Ms. Hunter and had to apologise for crashing her fine do.

Then off to another cheeky wee pub were I then discussed all manner of things with Ms. Kelly. She is a very good friend and I am very lucky to have her as a friend.

I’m busy just now trying to get a number of actions plans out to clients to get progress on work, Langs website is being built just awaiting images, video and content and we’re busy. Stuart now isn’t starting until next Tuesday due to a problem in his last contract but we’re coping. Busy, busy.

Ta,
s

steelso :: Oct.25.2005 :: People, Video, biscuitmedia :: 1 Comment »

Had a great night in the pub with Allan last night as we chewed the fat and went over the last two years or so. It was very, very cool. Though we were only supposed to be going for one pint….

Had a great session on the application that Allan built for the GFO. Last week I had a meeting with the GFO and all the location managers that are active in the Glasgow area. The application Allan built can be seen here and it’s really very, very clever. Considering the old version of this application that was originally built the new version is a million miles away.

The meetin that we had was largely constructive and we had some great ideas fed back to us, not just about the application but the website in general. A number of these idea will be hopefully put in place early next year. All good. So why didn’t I have a huge sense of elation after the meeting?

Well, after talking to Allan it was because I was too much in love with the technology. I was wanting oooo’s and aaaaa’s and the eway that the page doesn’t refresh when you get new data, etc, etc, etc. They, quite rightly, looked at the way the technology was going to make their live’s easier.

I had put the technology above the outcome.

Now, this is rare for me and I’m surprised at this. As a lighting designer you had three kinds of reviews:

• A review that praises the lighting
• A review that doesn’t mention the lighting
• A review that criticises the lighting

You don’t want the last point, you’ll love the first point, you aim for the second point.

Why in that order? Well you are there to become a whole solution, to be one part that makes the whole greater. I always belived in that, I did a huge amount of shows in my time and didn’t recieve one negative review (though I probably deserved it, Endgame anyone?) a few ‘Wow’ reviews and lots, lots and lots of not being mentioned.

Don’t get me wrong. Each time I read a review I was was wanting to see my name. After all I’m ego driven, alcohol fuelled. If I wasn’t mentioned I was cool, I knew I had done my job, I took it a s very good thing and moved on.

So it was odd that I felt unsettled by last week’s meeting. It was a great meeting but I was looking for the validation of our work, probably as it was the first time I met a user group who were using this technology that we had not fully let loose to the outside world yet. I am happy though becuase we used the technology not for technology sake but to make the life of the end user better. And the non-reaction to the technology demonstrated that we had achieved that goal.

So we talked about that. And other stuff.

steelso :: Oct.19.2005 :: People, Thoughts, biscuitmedia web design, new clients :: No Comments »

Four websites in one week? No wonder we’re off to the pub tonight! Well it’s because of Jamie’s birthday but it doesn’t harm us to celebrate the four websites last week either. You can find out more about the websites, including the muse website, in our web news section.

We’re also in the final stages of going through the first revision of our own website. Since the launch three months ago we’ve had a fantastic amount of positive feedback. Even the crtical feedback has been constructive. As a company that likes to practice what we preach we’re taking those comments and making the website a wee bit more friendly and adding additional content in some current sections. It’s still a couple of days away and we’re still wondering if the phrase “View Our Past Hot Action” is acceptable. Find out first if we put it in by signing on to our mailing list that you can access via the news page.

Lots of cool stuff. Macromedia Labs was launched yesterday and I downloded the new framework for Flex, the technology that I discussed for creating rich internet applications. So far I’m impressed and we’re looking forward to getting right in about it to see just what we can do to make our client’s customer’s that wee bitty richer. That’ll give something for Stuart to get his teeth into when he starts tomorrow.

A shout out to those people who were on my residential course last weekend at a nice hotel with terrible, terrible service. It was a great weekend, hilarious even. It was good to meet 12 or so lovely people, each one made me laugh very, very hard. Top notch. I didn’t get to my bed until at least 4am which made learning the next day some what of a challenge. Still if it wasn’t for everyone’s good humour, insight and interest I wouldn’t have learned a thing. Thanks guys and see you all next week.

What else? Well I’m hoping to announce four new clients by the end of the month, stay tuned for that, and I have been invited to Dolph’s birthday celebrations in Glasgow. It’s the glamour, the only reason I do this job, the glamour. Networking event Friday morning, the Angel’s Ambulance on Friday night as well as Sean’s birthday, grandparent’s 60th Wedding Anniversary on Sunday, Mr Murray on Monday and all other sorts of stuff next week.

And I’m waning on Lost. Has Lost jumped the shark?

Take it easy,
S

steelso :: Oct.18.2005 :: Rich Internet Applications, Social, TV, Video, biscuitmedia web design, new clients :: 2 Comments »

we’ve launched a few websites recently, more on that later. i’m up for putting my neck on the line so i say this: apple will launch a video Ipod and push BBC content as a driver for the product. This isn’t original but it does make sense from a content driving demand sense. In 24 hours we’ll see……..

steelso :: Oct.12.2005 :: TV, Thoughts, Video, biscuitmedia web design :: No Comments »

i have no idea what that title refers to.

Well. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks and no mistake. Work wise we’ve beenbusy, we found Allan’s replacement a couple of weeks ago and we’re delighted that he accepted. We’re all very excited about our new man and more details will be forth coming. I’ve just got to get my act together as I’ve been off for a couple of days on a ‘personal matter’. All good but I’m now a couple of days behind.

Love. Love is the theme for the next baby design of the homepage. We’ve also taken on board some comments on the client pages and so Jamie is beavering away quite the thing on getting those pages done while I have to come up with some cheeky text. Time, time, time, time.

The events section is going to change too, more of a roadshow. That’s a mid-term addition and it all depends on the time as I have to do more writing but we think it’s a cool idea and we’re going to do it. Soon. After we get everything else out the way.

We’re lucky to be working with some old clients on some new work and it’s looking good. We’re excited and honoured that these clients come back to us and they’ve said nice things to us, about us. It was enough to make a grown man cry.

We also were lucky enough to be working with Tracey from D8 on creating a wee e-mail flyer from their design for a Channel 4 thing called 7hings. It was all lovely and nice and it was even alright sort of working with Tracey, all things considered. Half an hour….

Tomorrow (today) is busy, two meetings and lots, lots of phone calls. Then, like an oasis, I get to meet the beautiful Mr Shea to say hello and have beers. My friends all seem to be going through the good just now what with babies and scans and trips to Loch Lomond. Excellent.

Also meeting the good Mr Maxfield next week to see if he can help us with a project that we may be working on that requires supery-dupery video. Be good to see Mr Maxfield, always has a good tale to tell.

it’s way too hot in here, i’m off to bed.
s

steelso :: Oct.06.2005 :: Idiot, People, Social, Video, biscuitmedia, biscuitmedia web design, new clients :: 1 Comment »