Update 30/07/10: Added slide shares of presentations and also the speakers UX reading lists.
Another interesting night at SuperMondays. I won’t say too much because David Coxon over at his blog has said it so much better!
Much thanks goes to Joanne Richardson (@joanne84 and also on Posterous) from @orangebus. It was originally Joanne’s idea to do a SuperUX (User eXperience) event, and she also put in the hard work in finding our other two speakers. She did a great presentation on “A day in the life of a UX designer” which gave us a sneak peak into the (incredible) amount of work and research involved in doing UX and Interaction Design properly on a day-to-day basis in a busy consultancy and projects company. Her slides are below:
Joanne has also provided quite a list of resources for people to use here.
Graham Morley (@sumogray) of Graphic.ly gave an insightful presentation on the tricky topic of integrating UX design sprints into an agile process. He described punctuated and iterative UX and design sprints that immediately precede the development sprints and the host of issues that come up and fielded many questions from the audience.
Also Graham’s resources for people interested in learning more about UX.
Third up was Lee Allan (@leeallen, User Experience Director of Th_nk) who kindly stepped in at the 11th hour after our original third speaker couldn’t make it. Although not possessing a presentation, Lee described his work at Th_nk and how UX plays an incredibly important part of both guiding and solving customer problems. He then took a barrage of questions from the audience. Joanne and Graham joined him for the last 10 or so minutes for a panel discussion of topics thrown out from the audience.
Afterwards the host sent everybody to a pub that was shut(!), so it is believed that the group split to several pubs in the area. We’ll check to make sure they are open next time!
To celebrate what has been a great year for SuperMondays, the team behind your favourite lo-fi hi-tech monthly get together have decided to throw a SuperSummer Soiree we are sure you are going to love. It’s a great opportunity for us all to celebrate making this year such a success and to our headline sponsors, Northern Film and Media and Sunderland Software City, for helping to make it all possible.
We have planned a fantastic evening for all of our regulars, along with family and friends. Think British summer garden party meets New York style roof top block party and you get the idea. Our generous hosts will be creative agency Fusebox Design whose beautiful city centre office provides the perfect location for us all to enjoy sizzling bbq food, pretty cocktails and ice cold beers. There will also be some live music from some very special guests and a fine film or four!
This magically secretive venue will be our weather proof haven – as let’s face it, there may well be rain – where you will be able to catch up with friends and make a hat full of new ones too. Fusebox Design’s offices are also a hop, skip and a jump from lots of pubs should you wish to continue the fun after the SuperMonday’s party has wound down.
We hope you can join us..
For further information please contact the organisers, Sailor Girl Ltd, here.
This month we held a CloudCamp event in Gateshead. The venue was probably the best venue we have ever used, it was a 12′th Centry Church called St Marys.
This month we had another excellent turnout to see John Lunn from PayPalx tell us about all the new mobile offerings from PayPalx. The video and slide deck are here:
After his presentation John was joined by colleague Anthony Hicks (@anthonyxcom), Jon Nairn (@jonstep, working for @neverodd), Alex Reid (@alexjreid) and Peter Bull (@RoguePlanetoid) for a panel Q&A session.
General points of note from the session and pub discussions:
Perhaps surprising to some, the iPhone market accounts for a small proportion of mobile devices, and Android mobiles are apparently selling at twice the rate of iPhone.
iPhone users are generally more comfortable with app purchasing, and represent a more general consumer demographic.
Submissions and updates are developer-driven for Android, so app deployment can be rapid- especially when compared to Apple’s approval process.
Development for the less popular platforms may attract incubation or start-up funding.
Some high-qualify third-party technology exists for integration, e.g. Bump, OpenFeint.
Commercially, producing good middleware may be a better gamble than a good app.
Windows Phone 7 Series sounds promising.
Thank you to everybody who attended and James for allowing me to plagiarise his write-up ;)
The event was set out in two sessions, these were:
Session one | The Public Cloud: Microsoft one of the world’s leading cloud providers, talk about the benefits of cloud computing. Discover who is using it and for what – and find out how you too can get started. Speakers: Steve Caughey (Arjuna) and Simon Davies (architect at Microsoft)
Session two | The Private Cloud: Sage, Onyx and Arjuna Technologies, talk about their practical experiences of using cloud technology.
We captured most of the event on video. the first few videos are available here:
About NorthernNet:
NorthernNet is a high speed telecommunication network, symmetric network of 100Mbs (upgradeable to 1 Gbps) that connects the North of England and beyond. It is available to businesses as a direct connection and, for the first time ever, as pay-as-you-go via NorthernNet Media Access Bureaux (MABs) located within 17 educational, cultural and business venues across the North, including within MediaCityUK in Salford.
How can we exploit the opportunities provided by super-fast broadband and MediaCity:UK to elevate the North to be a leading force in the European media industry? By connecting the North’s creative and digital industries to form a robust and competitive supply chain driven by innovation and collaboration. NorthernNet’s Innovation and Collaboration project, delivered in partnership in the NE with Codeworks, provides both the infrastructure and practical support for companies to explore collaborative working on real projects.
Tom Fotheringham from DFDS was the first to take the podium. Tom give us an overview of how DFDS have been using ‘affiliate marketing’ to grow their online sales revenue and how this is now an integral part of their sales strategy.
Running an affiliate marketing scheme is full of pitfalls for both the advertiser and publisher. In his presentation Tom gave us insight into both worlds.
Understand what you want to achieve, what are your goals, stick to your objectives but be prepared to adapt to changing circumstances
Concentrate on one or two areas of interest and avoid spreading yourself too thinly – A jack of all trades is a master of none!
Think about which merchants you’re going to promote – the higher product value and commission the more you will earn! Selling a CD about 0.50p
Consider affiliate programs that offer ‘lifetime’ revenue commission
Ensure you have the right tools; hosting, software, domains
Avoid wasting your time on unproductive websites
React to change and keep ahead of the game
PR – make people aware of your sites through press, radio and TV. Not everything is online
Sell yourself – demand higher commissions if you are one of the top affiliates on a program. Use your strengths to your advantage
Next to the podium was Ling Valentine from LingsCars.com. Ling is well know in the region and nationally as a crazy marketeer. While most people see the ‘crazy Chinees woman’ the truth is that afer only a few years Ling has built her business up to a £35m turnover by driving visitors to her website and using a very efficient suite of custom developed applications to convert sales.
Ling has developed a website that has polarised the online community. Half of the visitors are scared of the garish graphics and poor layout, but the other half love it and see it as a refreshing change from typical corporate websites. In both cases Ling benefits because invariable both contingents get on blogs and twitter to comment. All of this activity drives new traffic and eventually sales.
We wish Ling good luck in the future and hope that we will be seeing more of her ridiculous videos in Youtube and stupid animations on her website.
