Google 20% time?

There is a theory going around that states: “Google is one of the most innovative companies on the planet because of the 20% time”. So what is the 20% time? In a nut shell this is a system that allows staff to go off and do what ever they want – more or less – for 20% of their paid work time. Great for a big company like google with billions in their pockets you might say……. or is it? Can a small company do the same?

Time to introduce the “BreezeBook”.

The BreezeBook is a neat idea for those that network a lot or meet lots of clients. Do either of these two activities and you soon end up with a massive deck of business cards. The some IMRE 20% time is being used to develop an online tool that will allow business cards to be stored and  retrieved easily……

Rumour has it that this project might also be turned over to the community!  It might even make it to opensource status - only time will tell.

Great idea as far as I am concerned.

Want to know more?

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/googles-20-percent-time-in-action.html
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050330-074522
http://journalistopia.com/2007/10/21/a-look-at-googles-20-percent-time/
http://ask.metafilter.com/62624/Pros-and-Cons-of-Googles-20-percent-time-concept

Our new site is coming soon…. take a peek

Not being marketing types meant that when we built version 3 of the IMRE website we focussed very heavily on the technical aspects. We wanted to demonstrate a website that did not use tables, was accessible and used W3C guidelines. Somewhere along the line we lost the plot……

The site works without demonstrating what we can do for people. We sat with Leon Edwards and gave him a few mock-ups. We then explained what we really wanted to do. He took our mock-ups to Cornwall and mulled things over for a bit and then asked for another meeting.

We sat down over a coffee and he wondered how he was going to break the news to us. He produced the mock-ups that I had given him and there were all kinds of doodles and scribbles all over them. He took a deep breath, hesitated and then basically told us that we were barking up the wrong tree.

Just think about it. How often have you told a client that they had got it all wrong? Takes balls right? So we took on board that advice and started again ……. Here is a screen shot of where we are now heading. The home page will have a nice little animation presenting our work.

Learn from us, get someone from the outside to check your thoughts and direction. Leon is very busy these days, which you would expect from a successful businessman, but you can always try to contact him at www.themarketinghelpdesk.co.uk

A tool box approach to web design?

In my final year at Uni I spent a long time writing code which meant that the final project really did not work too well, took too long and really did not work as I had intended it to work. Somehow I passed, but was given some advice by my tutor.

- “You should have looked around, you might have been able to reuse some code here and there, you might have got your project finished sooner….”,

….. a bit embarrasing if you have been close to the Unix world as the whole OS has been constructed with the idea reusing bits.

So now we get back to websites and the tool box approach.

Take a look at this gallery:
http://www.studybed.co.uk/gallery.html

Not bad eh? That is called the “simpleviewer”

Now for the “tiltviewer”, I have tried to capture two shots of the animation.

 

 

Take a look here for the live example.
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/tiltviewer/app/

Stunning! – if I may say so.

That is what you can get from a toolbox!!

Thank you Andrew

Wow, cant ask for a better testimonial!

I met Paul last week at the Aylesbury Refer-On, where he was a Visiting Member. On hearing that I was interested in looking for an office, Paul suggested that I attended the Marlow Refer-On and afterwards see the available rooms with him at his offices.

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