There are lots of fantastic awards that celebrate and showcase the digital and interactive industry in Britain. However, alongside the BIMAs - cough - I have huge respect for the new media age Effectiveness Awards.

The reason is in the name. Since their launch in 1997 the Effectiveness Awards have focused on the business benefits interactive media can deliver, on results and return on investment. They have also recognised the importance of innovation, the fact that interactive media doesn’t just transform existing channels of communication, it allows the invention of entirely new ones.

Over the past 13 years, the Effectiveness Awards have showcased groundbreaking companies, game-changing websites and business-transforming marketing campaigns.  As a former winner I can honestly say that winning an Effectiveness Award was one of the proudest moments of my career.

If you are serious about interactive media then I strongly recommend you enter but be quick - the deadline is 10th March.

But don’t just take my word for it - new media age have created a cute little video of previous winners explaining why winning an award meant so much to them. You can watch it here.

Kemp Little LLP is proud to sponsor Media Momentum which features the hottest and fastest growing digital media companies in Europe.

How to Enter
If you’re one of them, enter online for free and promote yourselves to the media, the digital media sector and the financial communities throughout UK and Europe.

Entry deadline: 1st March 2010

For more information and to enter please visit www.mediamomentum.co.uk

BIMA is delighted to announce that we have partnered up with Chinwag to support London’s first Social Media Week taking place at numerous places across the city, next week!

Social Media Week London, is part of a global conference happening in six cities across three continents from 1-5th Feb 2010, building on the success of the inaugural New York event in 2009.

The week consists of numerous gatherings looking at various different aspects of social media with panel discussions, networking, tweetups and presentations about social media.

With over 15 events already confirmed and more being added, there’s something for everyone, below are a select few, but check out the full schedule.

Panels, discussions & presentations:

• Media Camp London 4
• Understanding Social Graph Optimisation
• SMWBe2camp 2010
• Chinwag Live - Show Me the Money
• Social Media Monday
• PR Breakfast Briefings by 33 Digital, Porter Novelli & Speed Comms
• LSS London: The Science of Social Media
• thupr: Social Media Measurement & Monitoring
• media140: Third Sector and the Real-Time Social Web

Meetups, tweetups, networking:

• Social Media Monday
• Twespians
• SMW Be2camp Cheesy Tweet-up
• Recruitment Tweetup #RTU
• Social Media Week: London - Tuttle Club

There are events covering all corners of the social media world, from business and marketing to charities, architecture, theatre and media.

Keep your eyes peeled for more events we’ll be tweeting (naturally) as they get added:

» Social Media Week London Schedule
» Social Media Week London on Twitter

Kemp Little, BIMA’s legal partner, run a series of free HR Forums which are open to BIMA members. The informal sessions give you the opportunity to chat through any operational or employment issues you might be facing, to share experiences and hear the latest updates on the law that affects you.

We’d be delighted if you could join us, for further information please click on the event titles below. More dates will be released soon.

13 January 2009:                      Business immigration - maximising human capital

An update on the most recent developments in business immigration law, including changes being introduced in January 2010, which will make it more difficult for employers to employ non-EEA nationals in the UK

3 March 2010:                           TUPE - everything you need to know and more….

A session on the potential minefield that is TUPE, looking at when it applies and the particular issues that arise in the context of outsourcing, in-sourcing, off-shoring and business transfers.

TIME:                                       9.00-10.30am. Breakfast is provided from 8.30am.

PLACE:                                    Kemp Little LLP, Cheapside House, 138 Cheapside, London EC2V 6BJ (click here for a map).

Kemp Little has earned a reputation for top quality, cost effective delivery in the technology, media and telecoms sector that remains unsurpassed. The depth and range of our client base and experience give us the edge. That’s why we don’t just work with some of the world’s biggest TMT businesses. We also help growing brands you might not expect. Ambitious businesses who recognise that success in a world driven by technology means using lawyers who understand it. Businesses who want the best legal advice, delivered by people who are as entrepreneurial and focused as they are – on time and on budget. Sound familiar? Go to www.kemplittle.com and see why businesses with an eye on growth come to us.

The Revolution Awards recognise those at the forefront of the world’s communications industry, rewarding outstanding achievement and creativity within the digital marketing industry. The event will be held on Thursday, 8^th April 2010, at Grosvenor House, Park Lane.

The categories cover all the disciplines necessary in the digital marketing process, and are open to brand-owners, agencies, marketing services providers and individuals. The deadline for entries is approaching, so be sure to complete your entry by Thursday, 3 December 2009.

For a full list of categories and to make your entry online visit www.revolutionawards.com

And the award for biggest hangover goes to…

Well, I doubt I’ll win that one, it’s sure to be a tough category with plenty of strong contenders, but I can tell you that today has been a little bit of a struggle to say the least…

Through sheer force of will and due to popular demand we’ve managed to remember how to turn on our computers and published the results on the awards site. Congratulations are certainly in order for the lucky winners but I really hope that everyone had as good a time as I did. It was wonderful to see the place packed to the rafters.

As I said last night we were really ambitious with the awards this year, we gave ourselves three objectives, to make the awards more Relevant, Accessible and Rewarding and I’m really pleased to say that we did pretty well!

• We represented a wider range of the industry with 37 awards.
• We had 30% more entrants than last year
• The attendance records of previous years were shattered with well over 700 people on the guest-list!

It took the support of a great many people to make it happen and it would be difficult to overstate how grateful I am to the awards team, the BIMA exec, our partners and of course our wonderful sponsors but most of all I’m very grateful to those that entered and attended, without you we wouldn’t have an awards at all, you made it a truly memorable event. Thank you all and I hope to see you there next year!

Should Google and other search engine operators be free to sell brand names as keywords for Internet search advertising, or does it constitute trade mark infringement?

This contentious question has, for some time, perplexed the national courts of various European countries. However, a recent opinion of Advocate General Poiares Madura (“AG”) has provided some guidance on the issue.

For a full opinion on the issue of whether the sale and purchase of brand names as keywords for Internet advertising constitutes trade mark infringement please visit our website: http://kemplittle.com/html/stay-posted/publications.html

Kemp Little LLP
In ten years of legal practice, Kemp Little has earned a reputation for top quality, cost effective delivery in the technology, media and telecoms sector that remains unsurpassed.

The depth and range of our client base and experience give us the edge. We offer real industry expertise in a world where yesterday’s knowledge is today’s commodity.

That’s why we don’t just work with some of the world’s biggest technology, media and telecoms businesses. We also work with businesses in sectors you may not expect, including financial services, manufacturing, music, professional services, the public sector, retail and travel.

Our clients, both large and small, recognise that success in a world driven by technology means using lawyers who understand it. Our goal is to provide clients with what they want -  the best legal advice, delivered by people who are as focused, entrepreneurial and commercial as they are, on time and on budget. 

Kemp Little specialises in advising clients on Commercial Technology, Competition & Regulatory, Corporate, Employment, Intellectual Property and Litigation matters.

www.kemplittle.com

I’m very pleased to announce that we’ve already shattered the attendance record for the awards by over 50% and there’s still a week to go! There’s now no question that the 2009 BIMAs will be the digital party of the year, whatever you do don’t miss out.

Party info here.

Buy tickets here.

Be there!

It is with great pleasure that BIMA announces the Special Awards Shortlist for 2009. In addition to the categories already published, the judges selected entries that stood out as exceptionally stimulating examples of the specialist interactive crafts. Without further ado, here they are.

Don’t forget to vote for your favourite Blog
This year the Best Blog award will be decided by a public vote. Please consider the fantastic nominees and vote for your favourite at http://www.bimaawards.com/categories/best_blog/

I’ve been lucky enough to have been selected by the British Council to do a market visit to India as part of their Young Interactive Entrepreneur project. We arrived in India on Thursday last week and over the last few days I’ve been travelling around Mumbai with the group visiting a series of Indian organisations that are based in Mumbai talking to them and learning about their businesses in order to access the market and the collaborative opportunities for Indian and British businesses. We flew out of Mumbai early this morning and are now in our second location of the tour – Bangalore so I thought I’d take this opportunity to post my thoughts thus far.

As well as my thoughts below which focus on the overall business considerations it might be useful to read some of my other reports on from the trip which discuss the places we’ve been and people we’ve met, I think it might help to understand the business scene if you understand the place a little. You can find these reports on the Kempt blog tagged UKYIE.

Overview
India has a thriving Interactive industry with companies operating in almost every sphere you can think of, thus far on this trip we’ve met with companies that operate in mobile: both games and marketing solutions, Flash games, Advergames, core games: both full-scale development of AAA titles and services such as content development and download games however there are also lots of web companies and people working in other fields who I hope to meet later in the trip. As well as the obvious opportunity for outsourcing India has a massive local market which allows a lot of these companies to operate profitably without relying solely on outsourced work from overseas and perhaps most interestingly, due to some of the specific economic conditions over here some of the companies have come up with very neat solutions to their specific local challenges which potentially give them a global advantage, for example this morning we met with Narasimha Suresh, the founder of a mobile marketing technology services company called Telibrahma who’s doing some amazing work with Bluetooth distributed content which (whilst I’m not an expert) is just as impressive, if not more so, as anything that I’ve seen from the UK in this space.

Opportunities and Considerations for Business in India
Right now, the most obvious of opportunities for British companies, at least one like mine, over here is in outsourcing. Indians are very hard-working and keen to do business and this, combined with the significantly lower cost of living out here means that you should be able to source work at approximately a third of the cost of getting work done in the UK. However, I think it’s important to stress that this is not necessarily an easy option and there are various challenges that should be considered by UK companies looking to outsource, or in fact do any kind of business over here:

• Many Indians are not heavily exposed to western culture therefore they haven’t developed the same aesthetic sensibilities and don’t understand cultural references in the same way.
• Indians love to haggle and do business therefore I suspect that there’s a tendency for them to over-sell which might lead to a compromise in the quality of your project or lead to delays.
• One of the major considerations is, in my opinion, standards of employee welfare in a number of key areas:
  •  Training – does the business concerned invest adequately in their staff in order to ensure that they’re capable of doing the job they’re expected to do?
  • Working Conditions – are the facilities and equipment provided to the employees adequate and of a standard that you’re comfortable with? Particularly, do they have enough space to work in? Although all the companies that we’ve visited have been good and reputable there are lots of dodgy fly-by night outfits in India and even In the companies we’ve visited these conditions have varied from brilliant to slightly below a standard that I would be fully comfortable with.
  • Equal Opportunities, in a country where gender screening before birth is banned because of the danger of gender selective abortion equal opportunities is a consideration. It’s an unfortunate fact that the interactive industries are currently a heavily male-dominated field both here and in the UK therefore it’s likely that any company you outsource to will mainly employ men however I think it’s definitely worth checking that the companies concerned treat their male and female employees equally.

Recommendations
In order to counter some of the challenges above I’d recommend the following:

• If you’re going to embark on a project with a company over here you’ll probably need to factor in additional time and milestones for design approval in order to ensure a quality result. Alternatively you may wish to consider putting some resource from your own organisation out here in order to train and oversee the project, Indians are keen to learn and I suspect this would be immensely well received.
• Take some responsibility for making sure that the agreed budget is fair to all and the project is feasible within it, additionally you may want to try and factor in some kind of penalty for under-performance.
• Above all, before you outsource to a company over here ensure that you make a visit to them at their offices and check things out for yourself. Many Indians are naturally gifted salespeople so don’t take what they tell you at face value, it’s not that they’ll lie to you as such but they may well exaggerate!

So, to summarise, India is in my opinion a very exciting and rewarding place to do business, the pioneering spirit and optimism of its entrepreneurs is highly appealing and infectious. If you’re looking to outsource then large cost savings can be made however don’t be completely taken in by the 1/3 price tag and take the considerations above into account. Visiting now and again to check on progress is definitely not going to be a hardship. Due to the low cost of living here visits can be done very economically and, if you choose to stay in the best hotels the level of service you’ll receive is beyond anything that I’ve encountered elsewhere in the world. So… go for it! Check out India!