Events in May

There is no Web 2.0 Surgery in May but it will return in June.

In the meantime there are three other events taking place in Nottingham in May:

Mediacamp Nottingham

The is the first Mediacamp in Nottingham on Saturday 9th May and is really a huge deal for Nottingham and all those interested in technology, media and culture. The event is being organised by CJ Lyon of PCM Creative but is in the Unconference style which means that anyone and everyone is asked to contribute and participate.

It is is a FREE one day event for digital media professionals wanting to share and expand their knowledge, and businesses or social enterprises who are curious about the digital phenomenon wanting to learn more.  This event is to share, explore, challenge and build understanding in digital media. Veterans and new comers alike can learn about audio and video podcasting, blogging, web marketing, graphics, email campaigns, Second Life, Twitter and other social media tools.

NottTuesday

The third NottTuesday is being held on Tuesday May 12th. The format for this month is changing from the usual to host Nottingham’s Most Promising Tech Start-up where 5 startups are asked to pitch in front of a panel of experts – Techcrunch’s Mike Butcher, Doug Ashby and Duncan James.

Second Wednesday

It appears that a 10 year old event is getting new life breathed into. The resurrection of Second Wednesday gives you the chance to talk tech with other Nottingham IT pros while having a few beers.

The Second Surgery

The second Web 2.0 Surgery took place at Cape, Nottingham on Thursday 23th April 2009.

There were six experts in attendance:

• Susi O’Neill – Developing multimedia web content (text, audio and video), blogging and online copywriting, cross-platform production and developing online audiences.
• Chris Rowe – Web CMSs, Site Interactivity, XHTML and CSS, GTD (Get things done) Ninja.
• Stu Owens – E-Commerce development, Online Marketing strategy, SEO, PPC & Email marketing.
• Ryan O’Sullivan – solicitor within the Commerce and Technology Unit at Shoosmiths
• Edward Lewis – Online Marketing, SEO, PPC
• Alexia Leachman – Brand Building, Sales & marketing consultancy, Business coaching, Personal branding coaching

Among the conversations were:

• Mike Whitby from Adtrak talking ecommerce, PCI compliance, terms of use and privacy policies with Ryan O’Sullivan.
• Alistair Owens from Atticas Ltd discussing upgrading from Wordpress 2.0 to 2.7 with Chris Rowe.
• Gareth Harcombe-Minson from E2save talking rich media content for mobile retail with Susi O’Neill.
• Doug Mills and Edward Lewis had a SecondWednesday conversation about ASP/PHP/Python.
• Joyce Gemmell from the The Cool Creative Company was discussing online video content and delivery with Alexia Leachman.
• Caron-Jane Lyon and Alexia Leachman were chatting Tweet bubbles, personal branding and video streamed conversation.

Others attending the event were:

Fernanda  Rizzo and Marco Baglieri from Implanta Design, Nick Walker from Walker Systems, Nick Barker from Aware Monitoring, Suada Aslamova from Infero, Kiran John from The Plate Market, Wil Linssen from Linssen, Peter O’Brien from WeAreAlight, Francine Pickering from Clarity Marketing and Smart Women.

There were plenty of new faces at the event with everyone finding someone interesting to talk to.

We hope that you’ll be able to join us at the next event.

Developing your personal brand online

About Guest Poster, Alexia Leachman

Alexia is a Personal Branding Coach and founder of Blossoming Brands a brand building consultancy. Blossoming Brands specialise in building brands through the holistic use of coaching and consultancy.

Developing your personal brand online

The growth of the online world has meant that we can now connect with others not just in our neighbourhood but also around the world.  As individuals, we can do this through blogging and sharing podcasts.  As businesses, we use technology to deliver our services online and engage with our customers in a new and different ways.  This rapidly evolving online world is challenging many established behaviours and habits.  But it also offers up massive opportunities to connect, do business and live nothing before.  But can we all keep up?

For many, the idea of having one’s own website is very exciting and bunch loads of people clap their hands in glee when they discover that their name is STILL available as dot com.  Not as dot net but a dot com!  So, they promptly buy it.  And, why not?  With all this online stuff going on, you at least need your name as a web domain.  Right?  Well, yes.  But what are you going to do with it?  Good question.  The answer to this question is not all that easy to get to.  To some, it might seem obvious.  Write a blog.  Of course!!  But this throws up a lot of questions;

• What are you going to write about?
• Are you any good at writing?
• Do you have the time to write?
• Do you have something interesting to say on your chosen topic?

Before getting too excited at this stage, it may be worth taking a few steps back. What are you trying to achieve?  That question’s got the potential to stop a lot of people in their tracks.  “- What do you mean?”  Well.  Why are you doing it?

• Is it just to join in the fun?
• Do you want to generate some income online?
• Do you want to be considered an expert?

Your answer to this question could suggest many options.  So, it is important to try and understand this before you jump in otherwise you could end up wasting a lot of time and effort.

Doing some work up front can be critical to any success you may achieve later on down the line.  If you take the time to understand what you want and why you want it, you’re more likely to come up with a solution that better fits.  It is also likely to be more successful.  The blog might not be the answer to your dreams.

A good starting point is to think about all the skills and life experience that you have.  There are often hidden gems that can help you shine, if only you uncovered them and gave them a good polish!  But treasure hunting can be tricky on your own.  Sometimes you need someone else to hold the torch so you can see what you’ve got in your hand.  This is where working with a coach can be magical.  They can help you to discover the potential that lies within and then help you to work out a way to make it happen.  After all, we’re all very good at coming up with great ideas.  But are we all that good making our big ideas turn into reality?

Two More Experts Announced

Two more experts have been announced for the Web 2.0 Surgery on Thursday 23rd April 2009 at from 6:30pm at Cape, Victoria St, Nottingham NG1 2EW. View map

The two new experts are:

• Edward Lewis – Online Marketing, SEO, PPC
• Alexia Leachman – Brand Building, Sales & marketing consultancy, Business coaching, Personal branding coaching

Take a look at their profiles and bring your questions for them on the night. View the full lineup for all Web 2.0 experts.

Attendee is free, the wi-fi is free, the buffet is free and all are welcome. You can register your interest in the event on Facebook, LinkedIn, Network Nottingham or Upcoming. We look forward to seeing you there.

Time to get SaaS-y? – Considering Software as a Service

About Guest Poster, Ryan O’Sullivan

The following guest post is written by Ryan O’Sullivan from Shoosmiths and is reproduced here with permission. Ryan is a Solicitor within the Commerce and Technology Unit at the national law firm Shoosmiths. He advises on a wide range of non-contentious commercial matters, specialising in IT Law.

Time to get SaaS-y? – Considering Software as a Service

A few years ago cloud computing was something the early adopters said was going to be big but hadn’t taken off. With the increasing use of Software as a Service, more and more companies are choosing to put their head in the clouds.

As a result of the current climate, the demand for more economical and efficient ways of doing business has begun to develop. Perhaps this goes some way to explaining the growing popularity of Software as a Service (“SaaS”) solutions at the expense of more traditional on-premises applications.

SaaS is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the internet. For example, instead of your word processor being installed from CD-rom or internet download, with SaaS you would simply load it up onto your web browser. Whilst it is a model that is best known for its use in customer relationship management and sales automation solutions the number of SaaS providers is rapidly increasing and SaaS alternatives now exist for nearly every field.

Forecasts have predicted that by year-end 2011, over 25% of all software sales will be SaaS, whilst present trends indicate that it is becoming an option that will need to be considered. Whether it is an appropriate solution for a business will depend not only on the commercial benefit but will also demand a consideration of the new risks and vulnerabilities that the model creates.

The functional capabilities of SaaS have improved immeasurably in recent years due to the ever increasing speed and reliability of the internet. Whilst there will always be a threat of disruption, many businesses are beginning to balance this risk against the ongoing cost of enhancing and maintaining their own software.

The SaaS model can offer customers a cost-effective subscription based on per-use pricing, limiting the need for substantial capital expenditure connected to the purchase, maintenance and updating of software under perpetual licences. Customers are also being drawn by further savings when it comes to the cost of running and maintaining the system hardware and ensuring that appropriate security is in place.

Worries about security have hung heavy around the neck of SaaS from the outset but, following recent, well publicised, security breaches arising from organisations running traditional application models, businesses are beginning to recognise that the storing of critical data in remote hosting facilities may prove beneficial and that, rather than adding risk, adopting this model may be a way of making information more secure.

Customers have been demanding greater assurances from their SaaS providers, requesting guarantees in service availability, security and privacy by bolstering the number and standard of contractual warranties and service levels given by the vendor. Before choosing a SaaS solution businesses are considering the vendor’s credentials and ability to comply with industry certified security and privacy standards. In a competitive market vendors have had to adapt and now offer a range of security functions, providing a higher degree of comfort to wary buyers.

Another long running concern has been that SaaS solutions are inflexible and are difficult to customise but, again, businesses are beginning to recognise that customisation of traditional applications is either not possible or is likely to be very costly. Given the increased range of solutions that are becoming available, buyers are considering whether it might be possible to adopt a standard package which has been reconfigured to meet the bulk needs of the market, rather than incurring the time and expense involved in reworking a package to meet their specific needs.

Integration remains an issue and care should be taken to ensure that the solution is capable of working alongside existing back-office applications but, provided that businesses carry out a reasonable level of due diligence, it should be possible to identify any areas where a vendor’s solution falls short.

Finally, it is important to consider the financial and general stability of a vendor in a market that is rapidly growing. As SaaS software is hosted off-site, any disruption to the service arising from the supplier’s insolvency could have a significant impact on business continuity. With more companies being drawn to this market it is important that a customer considers the history of the vendor at the outset.

Escrow arrangements may or may not be appropriate. SaaS solutions are designed to supply services to a number of clients at the same time and therefore often require massively powerful and expensive software. Even if source code materials were to be released, it may not be possible to run the program on a company’s existing system. Other precautions should be taken to ensure that data and documents are properly backed-up and that the customer does not become “locked in” with one supplier, so that if escrow does not provide a solution there are other options available.

There are risks attached to SaaS but provided that the right questions are asked and that preventative measures are taken, it is possible to mitigate those risks just as with any technological solution. A reduction in costs was not enough in itself to draw businesses to the SaaS model but, now that it has developed and the level of safeguards has improved, it is becoming an increasingly realistic and attractive option.

This guest post is written by Ryan O’Sullivan from Shoosmiths and is reproduced here with permission.

5 Startup Steps to Finding & Working with Freelancers

About Guest Poster, Nick Barker

The following is a guest post by Nick Barker, reposted with permission. Nick has worked in the IT industry for 20 years and is currently running startups Viisys and Aware Monitoring.

5 Startup Steps to Finding & Working with Freelancers

As there are just two of us (Simon Oxley – my co-founder and I) in our startup we need outside help. We’d love to employ full time permanent staff but without external funding or product traction it’s too risky. The challenge is to find high quality external resources and keeping them focused on the project. Find the right fit/match and your onto a winner. This takes time and a bit of luck.

Finding a good freelancer takes effort, requires teamwork & can be risky

So far we found freelance and company resources through our friends, Elance, 99Designs and LinkedIn. My friend Martin Wright at the new Web2.0 Surgery has asked me to post on our experiences working with freelancers:

1. Where to find help? - As a startup we don’t have a long list of trusted suppliers. Trust takes time and experience working together. The next best thing is to ask your friends or rely on marketplace reputation e.g. Elance. We’ve been making lots of new friends at networking events over the last year. Many of these contacts are now on our LinkedIn contacts. Through LinkedIn we identified 12 local freelancers for our front-end web design/dev work. In the end we chose Luc Pestille because he had the right skills and understood our needs.
2. Choosing right person? - Keegan is one of the best freelancers we’ve worked with. We found Keegan through 99Designs and used him for our logo, business cards, Launch page and a new blog for Bootstrapping. Why did it work so well? We’ve now experienced working with logo designers and Keegan is an experienced designer with flare. We explained succinctly what we wanted and he understood our needs accurately. A good freelancer really gets under the skin of the requirement and turns it into a great product.
   
3. How much to pay? – The saying goes “If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.” - James Goldsmith. As a Bootstrappping startup costs need to be kept down but cut too much and the job maybe be badly done. The deal needs to be a Win/Win outcome for both customer and supplier. Also remember that money is not the only motivator. If the company/freelancer is genuinely interested in the project and passionate about the work they will do a good job.
   
4. Rules of engagement – My co-founder Simon has done a fantastic job in the architecture and prototyping of our new website monitoring app. Unfortunately there is only one of Simon. So we’ve used an offshore company to do much of the bulky development work. All projects should have a job specification/scope in place including  project timescales, a payment schedule and copy write/IP transference.
5. Keeping focus – It is always useful to meet the people you are working with. This brings a personal aspect to the relationship which helps to work problems through. However its not always possible to met face to face when off-shoring.  Positive feedback is vital to keeping freelancers motivated. A note of warning: don’t interfere with the creative process once work starts. If you have done your homework and found the right resource get out the way. Otherwise you may do more harm than good.

We’ve benefited using freelancer by finding expert resources and only paying for them when we’ve needed their help. Its important to get alternative quotes because costs vary a great deal and be prepared to pay the going rate. A word of warning: don’t loose too much internal knowledge of your product. This knowledge brings the flexibility required to rapidly respond to customer needs and the ability to innovate ahead of the competition.

Second Web 2.0 Surgery Experts Announced

The Experts in Attendance for the second Web 2.0 Surgery on Thursday 23rd April 2009 at 6:30pm are:

• Susi O’Neill – Developing multimedia web content (text, audio and video), blogging and online copywriting, cross-platform production and developing online audiences.
• Chris Rowe – Web CMSs, Site Interactivity, XHTML and CSS, GTD (Get things done) Ninja.
• Stu Owens – E-Commerce development, Online Marketing strategy, SEO, PPC & Email marketing.
• Helen Whitehead – online communities, tools and techniques for remote and flexible working, social media strategy and training.
• Susan Hallam – Internet marketing strategist and tactician,  Search engine optimisation geek, Social media marketing consultant
• Ryan O’Sullivan – solicitor within the Commerce and Technology Unit at Shoosmiths

We are pleased to welcome Susi, Chris, Stu and Helen as returning experts and Susan and Ryan as new experts.

You can register your interest in the event on Facebook, LinkedIn, Network Nottingham or Upcoming.

If you are an expert interested in attending the event, or you are looking for an expert with a particular skill, please contact us at experts@web20surgery.com.

Second Web 2.0 Surgery

The second Web 2.0 Surgery is to be held on Thursday 23rd April 2009 from 6:30pm at Cape, Victoria St, Nottingham NG1 2EW. View map

Web 2.0 Surgery is an informal gathering of experts and clients to discuss SEO, ecommerce, RSS, video, audio, traffic building, mailing lists, analytics, adwords, social networks and anything else.

Full list of experts to be confirmed. Please follow @web20surgery for updates. View previous experts.

The idea is to create a marketplace for Web 2.0 skills within Nottingham. This will be a great resource for those looking for work and those looking for solutions.

Attendee is free, the wi-fi is free, the buffet is free and all are welcome. You can register your interest in the event on Facebook,  Network Nottingham or Upcoming.