we are underwired*

As a Project Manager, it’s usually part of my remit to solve problems big and small efficiently. Whilst I’m certainly not ‘The Wolf’ from Pulp Fiction, I thought it would be good to start a blog dedicated to giving advice, not just your garden variety typical digital project advice, real advice, real problems for real people (not digital people). Soon you’ll see that the fundamentals of project management can be applied to the day to day slog of life.

From Lucy from Cardiff

Should I have lamb or chicken for dinner?

1) Clearly lamb has and always will be the progressive choice. Simply everything tastes of chicken, your tastebuds deserve a holiday!!!

From Jon from Croydon

My girlfriend wants me to go to her friend’s wedding, but I hate her friend and everyone she knows, how do I get out of it?

A classic case, but one that could be remedied with ease.

1) Always be truthful and when you can’t be truthful, pretend you’re telling the truth. Join a volunteer fire brigade, it’s pretty easy, you just need some official documents from your local fire station, you may not even need to join. However tell your girlfriend you’ve joined and you’re very committed, you may need to show her a form or something to make it look legit. Explain in detail that new recruits rarely get called to fight fires, but it has been known to happen, say once back in October 1997.

Attend the wedding, grit your teeth and man up for only 35 mins. Get your best friend to call you after 35 mins, as the head honcho at your fire volunteer fire brigade. Whisper in

girlfriend’s ear the situation, then pretend your going to the toilet. At this point leave promptly and get into an automotive vehicle of some sort. You’ve escaped!!!

If you have a convertible car, this would be the time to put the top down and let the crisp wind refresh your face and listen to your favourite song on the radio. As we can see the fundamentals of timing, scheduling and well executed planning have made your getaway a success. Take a deep breath and secretly congratulate yourself (also you may want to smirk as your girlfriend is explaining to her friends how you’re a great guy). Ride on into the sunset cowboy!

Adrian Van Cooten - Project Manager, Underwired

Uncategorized, advertising

Avoid television, if you have one move it to the kitchen, toilet, garage or just forget about it. It’s proved you can live without image-sound background. The time spent on watching television is wasted and not really enjoyable, in another words boring. Just kill it.

Take a walk. There is nothing better than finding out what is happening in the city, the people, the sunshine, it leaves you thinking, why have you have been indoors? Your dog is happy, your car can rest, your bills are shrinking, and your brain breathes in the fresh air and regenerates at the same time.

Write something, even if you don’t know it is yet, writing in not only about using different muscles but it’s also brain exercise. Unused organs die and disappear. So make use of your brain, and the circuits that aren’t used everyday.

Mix. Check out what you have in your bin, old project folders lying about the house, pictures, old photos you haven’t even looked at. Try to think about them in recyclable way, what can you squeeze of out of them? Try to connect them, to mix them, discover something new about them, play with them and remember if you find out it goes nowhere, you can always start from the beginning.

Listen to something you haven’t listened to for a long time, find the power in Depeche Mode, they have so much power, actually they did have. Don’t feel too shy to laugh at yourself!

Change your camera, forget about the Nikon D50, invest £100 and buy something very retro on eBay, with a couple of lenses. Now when you have 36 pictures instead of 2000 you’ll find out how differently the world looks. You’ll find out how many thing you won’t be able to change as easily as you could with your SLR and Photoshop. Photoshop matters!

Go to a gallery, even if it doesn’t make for a cheap weekend it’s worth it and gives you that little bit extra.

Talk with others, talk about anything, play with words, enjoy conversation.

Co-operate with others, find out things from them that you couldn’t find in yourself. Don’t necessary do that with the tax man but for yourself to create something together.

Buy books. Usually you’ll see them in the corner of your room but from time to when you’ll grab one of them and you’ll find that someone has already had that idea or you’ll find that new idea. Either way its beneficial.

Read. Haruki Murakami is more interesting than television and mail can wait. Maybe it sounds funny but it’s worthwhile remembering to remain yourself from time to time, there is a world out there that does not start with http

Put together a small personal project, one with a clear idea and discipline… and a little bit of salt just to make it tasty. It will give you a chance to relax after 2 months of working on one thing.

And for ways to relax you can always fly away, watch: http://www.easyweb.fr/slideshow.html

Aneta, Senior Designer

random observation

• “No matter how many times you slice it, it’s still cake”

• “Lets make it official like a ref with a whistle”

office fun, random observation

ECRM is king. So why isn’t everyone doing it? OK, perhaps the rhetorical excuse for a diatribe about how everyone really must start doing it properly is a bit transparent. Actually there might be a perfectly rational explanation, no matter how much I might, as a passionate advocate of eCRM, be wary of it. The answer is very, very mundane.

We’ve recently been involved in two quite big pitches, for brands everyone’s heard of and almost everyone uses, both in transport. We’ve been drafted in as a wildcard – the brief’s been about making email marketing deliver revenues. We’ve come in and talked about strategy and how relationships, customer journey cycles and touchpoints affect frequency of purchase and average transaction values. We’ve talked at length about the processes involved in mining data, creating simple customer segmentation then rich, layered segmentation (starting with sponge cake and aiming for gateau, I suppose). We’ve described processes for selecting email providers, deliverability consultants, analytics. And we’ve talked about the results – millions in demonstrable incremental revenues, customer lifetime values that go up by 3% (read: millions of pounds), over the first couple of years.

Looking back over these two pitches, which we didn’t win (our normal win rate is around 75%), it’s clear why. These two clients wanted to improve their email marketing. Simple as that. What we should have talked about was how we improve email campaigns so they drive results. We should leave the data stuff as a functional but implicit element, same as usability, or build standards, or testing. We’ve been guilty of trying to explain the thinking, not the practice. In old speak, we’ve been trying to sell the sausage, not the sizzle. Sure, eCRM is infinitely more complex than just email marketing… there are plenty of big projects that integrate segment-driven microsites, emails, SMS and e-commerce, all in aid of making the customer the centre of a brand’s universe. But actually from some clients’ points of view they may simply want to take the next step in improving what they do already, and that may be taking a newsletter and making it more relevant through simple segmentation.

And if we do take this approach to those pitches where the brief really is for improving email marketing, then perhaps we can take these clients and move them on to eCRM by stealth. If we can start with quick wins – the kind that generate sudden revenues – then we can go on to justify spending time and money on strategic thinking, segmentation and online touchpoints. In retrospect, we’ve been guilty of a lack of patience, and it’s a trait endemic to the leading edges of the digital industry. So with (probably the vast majority of) clients new to eCRM, we need to start on ground that’s already familiar, in order to help transform the mundane into something that ensures that it’s the customer who’s king.

random observation ecrm, pitching, positioning

Welcome Aneta Kurmin.

Bio:  Graphic Designer with 7 years experience and totally lost with her passion for chocolate covered nuts, very fast bikes and photography.

http://www.anetadesign.com

http://www.goldenline.pl/aneta-kurmin 

Twitter:  @aneta_design

Aneta has put together these excellent Underwired Wallpapers (free for public consumption);

Screen resolution 1400×1050

Screen resolution 1920×1200

If you would like to ask Aneta a question then leave a comment here.

announcement design, graphic, underwired, wallpaper

Candidates that email me usually make the same mistakes… I am by no means saying YOU are making these mistakes, but they are:

1. Emailing me but saying “Dear Sir” or “To whom it may concern” - or even worse, “Please forward to your HR department”.

2. Sending a cover letter Word document, when they can write that in the email.

3. Not giving links to work examples or supplying LOW FILE SIZE versions (I’ve had 18Mb PDFs before, not very polite!)

4. Showing a CV that has no personality or design.

5. Asking for any job in the agency.

So, do some research about who you are sending the application to, and then mention some unique qualities or information in the email, e.g. “I love how Underwired has a diverse set of clients from car manufacturers, children’s TV and even to FMCG food producers”.

Make sure you show your work at its best, and make it easy for them to see it. If you design your own, here’s a nice set of tips:

and

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/04/creating-a-successful-online-portfolio/

Your work is currently spread out too much which makes it hard to sell yourself and highlight the best bits easily, so I would suggest initially using an online portfolio (web) application like http://www.typepad.com/features/design.html or similar. They are usually free (or up to a tenner a month for the better / more adaptable stuff).

Think of how you would approach selling yourself as though you are your own client. You wouldn’t just send a letter and a print-out of information to a clients possible customers. You would be creative! So think about how you can get the attention above other candidates, regardless of your level or work, and you have a head start at least.

Uncategorized candidates, employment, ten, tips, top

Uncategorized 3D, Twitter, twittervision, unusual