You are here: Home » Archives for adding value

Tag Archives: adding value

WhatTheFont for iPhone

Written by Andy Weir. Posted on July 28, 2010. Filed under Blog, mobile, production, project management. Tagged , , , , , , . No comments.

42 days, 17 hours and 20 seconds. A conservative estimate of the amount of time I’ve wasted over the years hunting high and low, trying to identify a specific font.

No longer. A dream.

Fanning the flames

Written by Andy Weir. Posted on March 10, 2010. Filed under Blog, Future gazing, Review, production. Tagged , , , , , , . No comments.

Imagine a one stop shop where you could create your own interactive campaign’s regardless of whether you are an ad agency, large corporation or even small business. It would be able to create sweepstakes, contests, give-aways, incentive-based surveys, publish them on your website and seed them to multiple social networks at the same time. They would be able to skin the campaign in any way you wished. You need not be a complete geek to create the campaign. You can easily monitor stats and there is a scaleable pricing model.

Imagine no more. Wildfire is here. It’s creating a lot of buzz and is indeed a finalist in the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at the SXSW event.

Wildfire Process

A truly innovative idea that capitalizes on emerging technologies and turns it into something extremely useful. Competitions, campaigns and promotions tend to be seen by many agencies as ‘dirty work’ as it involves many third parties (coupon providers, mail drops, Social network’ tech teams and API’s, hosting providers)  and logistical challenges. It seems that Wildfire are taking the donkey work out of this process for us all and joining a lot of the dots. Good luck to them and we’ll certainly keep them in mind for our client’s promotions in the future.

Missing a trick?

Written by Andy Weir. Posted on February 15, 2010. Filed under Blog, Review, mobile, production. Tagged , , , , , , . 1 Comment.

Is it just me or does the App store on the iPhone disappoint? Every time I use it I find it extremely difficult to find what I’m after. It seems that the idea of a stripped down App store for the iPhone platform is fundamentally self defeating for Apple. I look for apps when I am using my iPhone. I don’t look for Apps when I’m at my laptop (My laptop doesn’t use apps!), so it seems bizarre that the functionality of the iPhone App store is stripped right back from the one online. Apparently if I am looking on an iPhone for apps then I am only iterested in what is in the top 25 or what is being featured by Apple. Apple likes to tell us that there are 100s of thousands of Apps on the store but i only get to find out about the ones that everyone else buys, which limits the range to alarm clocks, simple games and expensive Grand Theft Auto type £5 revenue fests. Come on, there has to be more out there than this? I want Apple to have another go at this interface. I want the following:

  • I want to be suggested apps that friends of mine have bought.
  • People that downloaded this, downloaded this too.
  • I want to know what apps people in my city use.
  • I want to say what my job is and have apps suggested to me.
  • I want to subscribe to App alerts that tell me when a new app has been released that might interest me.
  • I want it to show me more.
  • I want Genius to work better. It just seems to suggest apps based on the fact I have one other app like it.

I want…. I want…… iWant.

When can change happen?

Written by Robin Wong. Posted on January 27, 2010. Filed under production, project management. Tagged , , , , . No comments.

left a bit, right a bit

I just read an interesting article over on lifehacker about putting the brakes on ideas at certain times during the production process. You start a project, come up with some great ideas, focus on the best, start work on bringing those ideas to life, and then along comes an idea that you wish you’d have thought of in the first place. What do you do? Drop tools and replan? Ignore this distraction for now and address it at a later phase?

Well there’s obviously several schools of thought, but 2 things are clear. First, great ideas should never be dismissed, especially if they add more value to the end user.  Second – and this is the counterbalance to the first idea – change is only worthwhile if it doesn’t reduce the overall value of what you’re trying to achieve. If changing course and incorporating a new idea means you can’t realise all the other great ideas you had because of all the extra planning and changes you’ll have to make, then clearly park it for later.

The next conundrum revolves around the question “when is it a good time to change”. For an agile project, I would argue that embracing change is a central part of how one approaches a project, but this does not equate to having carte blanche at any time to throw new ideas into the ring. For me, if you’re using a sprint model, then at the start of each sprint, the team should evaluate their priorities and decide what is going to add the most overall value. Until the next sprint, the team should stay focused on achieving these priorities. Any ideas that pop up, can be parked until the end of the sprint, when they can be considered by the team again.

There will always be exceptional circumstances when this isn’t the case, and you may need to down tools to investigate if you should change course, but I believe those situations should be kept to a minimum. I’ve seen teams change course all too quickly mid-sprint, to the detriment of the project and the morale of the team. Waiting until the end of a sprint is often a short period of time, and if it doesn’t come soon enough for the impatient, try a shorter sprint on the next project.