Crowd funding is not a new concept. We used to ask people to donate, purely as an act of charity or in return for a product. For example, take a band. Someone contributing £10 could receive a CD, £25 could receive a signed CD and £50 could be named on the album sleeve. This kind of process was not usually of concern to financial regulators because it was basically pre-ordering a product.

However the landscape has been changing, with more businesses looking to crowd-funding as an alternative to VC investment. Potential investors also see taking small equity or profit share stakes in a business as a low-exposure way of earning potentially larger returns than those currently available in the retail deposits/funds markets.

Somewhat understandably, unsophisticated individuals taking an equity interest (and therefore taking an investment risk) is something that causes the Financial Services Authority (FSA) significant concern.

In fact such potential investors are exactly the people the FSA was set up to protect following the boiler room scandals of the past. In August 2012, the FSA said that “most crowd funding should be targeted at sophisticated investors who know how to value a startup business [and] understand the risks involved”. This effectively says that those who stand to benefit the most from crowd-funding shouldn’t be involved.

The FSA’s concerns are well-meant, in that they list the risks as:

1) the majority of startups failing,
2) lack of returns and dividends from startups,
3) dilution if further shares are issued, and
4) illiquidity caused by a lack of a market for the shares.

However it is essential to keep in mind that the majority of investments are of the sub-£100 level, so the risk of causing significant harm to an individual is low.

So what are the barriers to offering shares?

The barriers are four-fold.

1)    The company and/or crowd funding platform seeking to raise funds is likely to be seen as carrying out a “regulated activity” such as arranging or bringing about deals in investments, making arrangements with a view to transactions in investments or establishing, operating or winding up a collective investment scheme. Conducting such activity would require the company or platform to hold an FSA authorisation.

2)    Private companies (i.e. non-PLCs) are prohibited by the Companies Act 2006 from “offering shares to the public”. Whilst this prohibition is unlikely to affect a “friends and family” fundraising round, it is likely to bite if an offer is being made to a wider audience.

3)    Thirdly, the “financial promotion” rules under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 prevent a party who does not have the appropriate FSA approval from communicating an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity. The key exceptions to these rules are non-real time offers (as would most likely be the case with a crowd funding website) made to certified high net worth individuals and sophisticated investors (Financial Promotion Exemptions). There is a further exception in the case of the sale of 50% or more of the target’s shares but this is a very unlikely scenario if a business is looking for crowd funding. This leads to a contradiction. One of the best things about crowd funding is that the sums required to be invested are of a level where they could attract less sophisticated investors. However, despite some platforms believing otherwise, any certifications have to be made in advance of seeing the details of an investment, therefore deterring smaller potential investors from jumping through all of the necessary hoops.

4)    In addition, the FSA’s Prospectus Rules require companies making an offer to the public to publish a prospectus (which is a document requiring FSA approval). However in reality this is unlikely to cause too much concern for most businesses because there is an exception to share issues of less than €5m in a year.

So how can a UK company take advantage of crowd funding?

The simplest way in the UK remains not issuing shares and just taking effective pre-payments. The potential for such a model is powerful as it allows a business to build a community of fans who are willing to support product development in exchange for tangible products, often at a discounted price.

Given the tight regulation described above, none of the existing crowd-funding platforms provides a satisfactory solution:

1)    A given platform may choose to fully comply with the regulations, in which case the fundraising process becomes quite expensive and the offers are only available to the very small proportion of the population who are sophisticated or high net worth individuals. This somewhat misses the spirit behind crowd funding.

2)    On the other hand, if they comply (in various degrees) with the regulations, the platform and target business become at risk of FSA investigation and possible penalties (including criminal sanctions) and investors are likely to have lost the protections usually available to retail investors through the financial ombudsman. One of the most concerning features of some of the non-compliant platforms is the apparent lack of protection for client money – many platforms do not seem to have the relevant FSA authorisations to hold client money and therefore may not hold the necessary minimum capital resources required by the FSA and may not provide investors with the protections usually offered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

In short, equity crowd funding open to the general public as most people imagine it is not yet legally possible in the UK.

What needs to change?

The FSA and the associated legislation were not designed with crowd funding in mind. They were intended to protect people who were entrusting others with significant amounts of their money. As currently drafted, the legislation cannot differentiate between someone making an occasional £10 – £100 punt and someone who is putting life-changing sums of money at risk. Therefore, if the UK government wants to see small businesses benefiting from the potential that crowd-funding offers, changes to the legislation are required.

As is often the case, the US appears to be setting the benchmark. The recently adopted JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act makes special provision for businesses seeking up to $1m of equity funding in a year and places strict caps (the greater of $2,000 or 5% of income or net worth for those earning less than or with net worth less than $100,000, the lesser of $100,000 or 10% of income or net worth for those earning more than or with net worth more than $100,000). This reflects a risk-based approach whereby the US government has determined that the usual restrictions on offering securities can be relaxed not because the investment itself is less risky but because the maximum size of investments lowers an individual’s risk.

Taking an approach similar to that of the US’, coupled with the UK’s investor-friendly EIS and Seed EIS regimes, could open up a whole new source of seed funding to fledgling businesses and possibly even help to drive the next wave of UK entrepreneurs.

What’s your experience of crowd-sourcing? Share your best-practice tips below

About the author: James Wilkinson, Associate at Kemp Little LLP, leading technology and digital media law firm. James can be contacted on james.wilkinson@kemplittle.com

The website, built on the WordPress platform, is a refresh on the existing SHOC brand and allows the administrators of the SHOC website a lot more capability to update various pages of the site, something that they could not do previously.

Creative Jar also utilised its user experience capability and knowledge to create a more intuitive and user-friendly navigation, that would assist visitors to the site massively.

This website is a crucial tool for SHOC to spread its message of providing a safe and friendly environment for the homeless, whilst offering services to tackle homelessness and social exclusion.

You can see the new site by clicking here: http://www.sloughhomeless.org/ but here’s a screenshot of the home page:

Joseph Richardson, CEO of Creative Jar said, “We are very pleased to continue our relationship with SHOC, and are rightly proud of the new website we have created, and hope to continue our partnership with SHOC for many years to come.”

Janet Allen, Trustee of SHOC said, “My deep thanks go to everyone at Creative Jar who built this in their spare time. It’s really encouraging for us to have such support from Creative Jar and we really appreciate it.”

You certainly didn’t think you were a publisher as well.

You could steal yourself for that one big important paper document you published each year: the brochure, the annual report, or prospectus. Perhaps with a clutch of flimsier short leaflets too and maybe a newsletter, run off the photocopier.

And then the web came along.

Now any significant organisation will have thousands, if not tens of thousands of web pages. Add to that hundreds or thousands of images and scores of podcasts and videos. Not to mention social media adding a further few thousand tweets and Facebook messages.

The maths rack up pretty quickly. Assume you have 10,000 with a modest 250 words per page, that’s 2.5 million words.

Few organisations have the resources to contain or control this deluge. In our experience, most organisations only have one, two, or at most a handful of people to look after their site. Most of these don’t come from either an editing or writing background. But these aren’t the people generating the bulk of the content.

The vast bulk of contributors are diligent office workers who only write for the web on an occasional, best endeavours basis, often as an aside from their day job. Naturally, they tackle the task in much the same way that they tackle their other writing tasks: by writing information as clearly as they can, just as they would in any other word processed document.

Now, there are worse content sins than writing information clearly (e.g. vanity content, internally-focused content, duplicated content, confused content, dead-end content, out-of-date content etc.).

As monsters go, a mass of clearly written information doesn’t sound that scary. Quantity, however, has a quality all of its own. As the number of web pages climbs past the few thousand, the ability of the web team to control it evaporates.

One morning you wake up and realise that the content has grown monstrous. Too big to audit; it would take too long, be too expensive. Too big to cut back down to size; it would take too many painful internal stakeholder battles resisting cuts to “their content” (it’s not theirs, it’s the users, but that’s another topic).

Your organisation doesn’t think of itself as a publisher, even though it has published 2.5 million words (equivalent to 25 novels), not to mention pictures, video, blogs and microblogs. So it is not going to give you the resources or budget to tackle it.

This is all a great shame. You come to us to design and build a beautiful new website, with elegant interactions, lovely designs, and clear and focused information architectures. Then you realise you don’t have the time or budget or political will to audit the old content. So the raging content monster duplicates into your new site because, however horrible it might be to migrate it all, it is a less horrible job than cutting it down to size.

Of course, it’s important not to despair. Just because you can’t easily slay the monster, doesn’t mean you can’t imprison it to the lower dungeons of the information architecture, or work hard at your content marketing to use your SEO and social media to point to the good stuff, or craft your most important user journeys, or make sure that your top – most popular – pages of your site are well controlled and well written.

Sure, you’ll know that there will be plenty of places you wish you could put up a “there be dragons” notice, but your site can still have a good heart and a beautiful face, and only a few brave souls need ever venture down to the depths of the content monster.

However, Social Media takes an awful amount of effort to create a Social buzz and get people interested. You need to build your likes and followers carefully and slowly, gaining good quality people that are ready to interact with you and are confident in your brand and your social presence.

But all that time that it takes to get to this point, when done professionally is under the eye of management, wondering what the tweets about #FF are, considering, in this tight economy what the person is actually doing. You need to be able to prove the Return on Investment of the exercise, and quickly.

And this is the problem. Ultimately, the Social Media needs to have a bearing on the business. Fortunately you can quantify this in varying ways:

Referrals
Using Analytical software, you can see how many people have landed on your site because of your social activities. See if Twitter or Facebook are indeed high fliers in the traffic that is coming to your site – this is an instant and excellent way to quantify the traffic. If you see an increase of 20% of traffic and over the month and you make 10 new sales, these two scenarios can be directly attributed to Social Media activity.

Interactions
If you have a lot of people talking to you throughout your social media channels and are posting organically on your hubs, that is something that can be very well measured. This can be attributed to increased brand awareness and deeper impact of your company in the key areas.

Increase in likes/follows
Obviously, one of the best ways to measure your ROI is that the people who are liking you/following you is going up. If everything goes up, you can demonstrate that your effort is being justified in the social space. However, there’s a reason putting this last. It all depends on the quality of your social popularity, not the quantity. You could have many, many followers but if none of them interact or go to your site, nothing will happen.

However, when you do begin down the social media trail, you have to decide what you want to get out of it, what is the ultimate aim. Then you can implement your measurables as you like.

This year, the ASA has both banned and scrutinised a number of UK Twitter campaigns. But what did they do wrong, and how can you make sure your campaign lives on?

Transparency is key – best practice says that you should always include #ad or #spon in each tweet that’s sent as part of a campaign.

And if you’re the agency responsible for the campaign, the onus is on you to make sure that your brand ambassadors make it clear that they’ve received payment or goods in return for their involvement.

What did Nike do?

This year Nike became the first UK company to have a Twitter campaign banned by the ASA.

Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere, two celebrity brand ambassadors for Nike, sent tweets from their personal accounts referencing the Nike strapline – make it count:

@WayneRooney
‘My resolution – to start the year as a champion, and finish it as a champion… #makeitcount gonike.me/makeitcount’

Why was it banned?

The ASA ruled that using Wayne’s and Jack’s personal accounts broke the rules: the tweets weren’t clearly marked marketing communications. The ASA said:

•    The Nike reference was not prominent and could be missed
•    Not all twitter users would be aware of Nike’s #makeitcount campaign
•    Not all twitter users would be aware of Nike’s sponsorship of the team

What did Mars do?

Earlier this year Rio Ferdinand, Katie Price, Sir Ian Botham and previous X-factor contestant Cher Lloyd sent a series of 5 tweets within 1 hour for Mars using their personal accounts. On their final tweet, each posted a photo showing them them biting into or pointing at a photograph of a Snickers bar.

@rioferdy5:
Really getting into the knitting!!! Helps me relax after high pressure world of the Premiership

Can’t wait to get home from training and finish the cardigan

Just popping out to get more wool!!!

Cardy finished. Now 4 the matching mittens!!!

You’re not you when you are hungry @snickersUK #hungry #spon

@misskatieprice:
Great news about China’s latest GDP figures!!

Chinese leaders are now likely to loosen monetary policy to stimulate growth. Yay!!

OMG!! Eurozone debt problems can only properly be solved by true fiscal union!!! #comeonguys

Large scale quantitative easing in 2012 could distort the liquidity of govt. bond market. #justsayin

You’re not you when you’re hungry @snickersUk #hungry #spons…

The campaign received complaints that these were not clearly identifiable as marketing communications. Mars had the chance to respond with its case.

What did the ASA say?

•    Each tweet formed part of an orchestrated ad campaign.
•    Each tweet was considered as part of an ‘individual marketing communication’ at the point each was posted and therefore should have been marked accordingly
•    Mars’s suggestion that the first 4 tweets were teasers and the final tweet made it into one solid marketing communication was not upheld

The lack of labelling of the individual messages was acceptable in this instance because:

•    the first 4 tweets were relevant to the strapline;
•    they were sent in close time proximity to each other (1 hour)
•    the photo gave enough context

4 Rules to stop your campaign being banned by the ASA

If you’re part of an agency developing social media campaigns using Celebrity Brand Ambassadors, what do you need to know?

1.    In tweets by celebrities, ambassadors and bloggers, use #spon or #ad (#ad is 2 characters shorter, of course)

2.    Celebrities, ambassadors and bloggers have a duty to tell people they are being paid or have received free goods

3.    Bloggers have a duty to ensure that when linking to products or services for which they have been paid in money or free goods that the link has ‘no link back’ attribution in the code. This way, search engines do not wrongly give preferential page ranking to the post.

4.    As an agency, you have a duty to make these conditions stick

Resources:

Fuller details on the Nike campaign ban in The Guardian: here
Assessment by the ASA on Mars Chocolate UK Ltd: here
UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing, CAP Code: here
Social Media, Legal and Commercial Best Practice, Nicola McCormick: here

What’s your experience? Share your social media best practice tips below…

About the author

Tiffany St James is a social media strategist, trainer and speaker who advises government and industry through her agency, Stimulation

Back in the summer, our 20-man crew transformed a dark and dusty space under the arches of Waterloo station into the magical Gepetto’s style workshop which is the setting of the video.

Parents who buy a pair of Start-rite first walking shoes will be invited to enter the online magical shoe workshop at www.startritefirstshoes.co.uk. After entering a unique code, which they’ll be given at the point of purchase, they will upload information and pictures of their child’s memorable milestones which will appear in a personalised three minute video automatically created by the site.

The interactive website allows parents to create a video featuring their child’s name, birthday, home town and photos of their special ‘firsts’ – anything from first steps to first birthdays and first teeth – the lasting digital keepsakes can then be shared with family and friends via Facebook, email and Twitter.

Ceriann Mullins, head of client services at markettiers4dc, said; “We’ve assisted Start-rite in growing their digital media presence from a limited base. The YouTube channel we created has received almost a quarter of a million views and the success of the Mum’s Half Hour, a series of online web TV shows featuring guest panelists of mummy bloggers, proved that enabling the core customer base to interact with brand-led video content really works.

“The First Shoes virtual shoe workshop is just the next step in this customer engagement programme – directly linking the digital marketing concept with point-of sale which will in turn allow the brand to capture valuable data and monitor engagement levels.”

For more info contact: Contact Jessica Hall on 0207 253 8888 for more information.

Watch the demo video here:

To ratchet up the excitement levels another notch, we’ve today unveiled the nominees for three of the four Premium Awards up for grabs. These are:

Agency of the Year

• ais London
• AKQA
• The Mill
• the OTHER media
• We Are Social

Innovation

• Detica for the ‘Vodafone Retail Application’
• Nile, SapientNitro & Monitise Group for ‘GetCash’
• the OTHER media for ‘Wonders of the Universe’
• We Are Social for ‘Get Well Soup’

Minor Miracle

• ais London for ‘Save the 1Day’
• twentysix for ‘Gallery of Mo’
• We Love Digital for ‘1000 Faces of MS – World MS Day 2012’
• Windfall Films and Numiko (website build) for ‘Foxes Live: Wild in the City’

Justin Cooke, BIMA’s Chairman, said: “Next stop for the finalists is watching for their names in lights on stage at the BIMA Awards this Thursday. The great and the good from across British digital will be watching with them and I send my congratulations and best wishes on behalf of BIMA to them all.”

Nominees for the remaining Premium Award – the Grand Prix – will be revealed live on the night, to the crowd at Bankside Vaults and simultaneously on our Twitter stream: https://twitter.com/BIMA

Wouldn’t you rather be in the room though, making the most of the networking opportunities and experiencing first-hand the GREATEST British night in digital?

The BIMA Awards party takes place at Bankside Vaults in London this Thursday 22 November 2012. Doors open at 7:30pm and tickets can be purchased at http://www.eventelephant.com/bimaawards2012

Headline sponsors of the BIMA Awards 2012 are Exhilo, with generous support from Digital Gurus, Six Degrees Group and Transversal. BIMA also thanks Blueleaf, Bullet, Channel 4, Futureheads, Nugg.ad, Osborne Clark, Parys Communications, POSSIBLE, PRCA, Recruitmentology, Suburb, Syntax Digital, The Drum and Weapon7 for their support.

The BIMA awards are partnered with.net, C21 Media, Chinwag, Communicate, Contagious, Digital Doughnut, Figaro Digital, Mixing Digital, The Drum and The Guardian Media Network, as well as Rewired State and the School of Communication Arts.

The full BIMA Awards 2012 shortlist and premium award nominees can be viewed here: http://bimaawards.com/shortlist

Next year, employees could have the option to swap some of their employment rights, including redundancy pay and flexible working, for shares in the company at which they work. These plans were unveiled by Chancellor George Osborne recently as part of a new contract scheme, likely to be in circulation from April 2013.

Any company will be able to use this new contract, but the scheme is mainly aimed at fast-growing small- and medium-sized businesses – many of which are in the technology sector.

So what should you know about owner-employees and how could this new contract affect your business?

What does it offer?
Under the scheme, employees can be offered shares worth between £2,000 and £50,000 in the company at which they work. The shares will not attract capital gains tax when they are later sold (although they will be subject to income tax and national insurance contributions on grant).

In exchange, employees have to sacrifice some of the employment rights that protect them in the workplace.

What rights will employees waive?
The rights that the employees will waive under the contract include:
•    The right not to be unfairly dismissed
•    The right to a redundancy payment
•    The right to request flexible working
•    The right to time off for training

With options like these available, these contracts could be attractive to start-up businesses that are looking to limit their liabilities and have greater workforce flexibility in their first few years of operating.

Are there any drawbacks?
Yes – several. It might be commercially unattractive for the owners of the company to be handing out shares to its employees for free.

Also, the logistics of the scheme are still unknown. It will be interesting to see what procedures employers are required to go through when employees choose this status. And we don’t know what information employers will be required to give staff before they can sign up. To date, it has been notoriously difficult for employees to waive their rights – and illegal for employers to coerce their employees into doing so.

When the employee leaves, the company would have to buy back the shares at a ‘reasonable’ price. But it’s unclear whether this legislation will include a variation mechanism or parties will be left to agree a value – the employee and the company could be trapped in limbo until a price can be decided.

It is also worth noting that the employee will retain the right to claim unfair dismissal in circumstances where the dismissal was discriminatory or done in connection with the transfer of a business under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. This makes the advantages of the contract somewhat limited.

So, is it worth it?
As it stands, we need more details before we can draw any conclusions. It’s likely that legislation will be put together later this year, so it remains to be seen whether the Government will identify the potential pitfalls in time and cover them off.

Would you waive your rights for shares? Or if you’re an employer, would you give staff this option?

About the author

Elizabeth Kirk is an Associate at Kemp Little LLP, a leading technology and digital media law firm. Elizabeth can be contacted on elizabeth.kirk@kemplittle.com.

Monday 12th November sees the beginning of the third Internet Week Europe – a week long festival celebrating Europe’s Thriving Internet Industry and Community which runs from 12-16 November. BIMA asked Co-Founder Nick Farnhill to give BIMA Members the skinny on the best events of 2012’s and he obliged with the following…

MONDAY 12 November

9am-10.30am
A Proper English Breakfast with GA and IDEO’s Tom Hulme

Join General Assembly and IDEO’s Tom Hulme for a morning in which we celebrate passion and purpose during Internet Week. Meet fellow entrepreneurs, start-up enthusiasts, designers and technologists from across Europe over tea, scotch eggs, sausages, tomatoes and friendly chat. After 30 minutes of mingling, we’ll dive into two riveting 20-minute talks led by our outstanding speakers.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4723196207

10am–11am
Entrepreneur Spotlight: Fireside Chats hosted by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI)

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is hosting four fireside discussions on entrepreneurship and the best and brightest of the European Web community.

Confirmed Speakers:
Ian Hogarth, Co-Founder & CEO of Songkick
Moderated by David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of IADAS

Discussions will last for 30 minutes with a Question and Answer session after to allow you the chance to ask any burning questions you may have.

http://www.ukti.gov.uk/

1pm-3pm
Journey through the connected world (or a diverting trip on the ELL)

The East London Line (aka the Ginger line or London Overground) connects some of the most exciting people, projects and places that have been borne of the internet in recent times. From Highbury & Islington to Forest Hill, Made by Many will lead a series of very short talks exploring the secrets that lie behind the ELL.

Each talk begins when the doors close at one station and ends when they open at the next. Diverse speakers will talk about topics ranging from hidden technology to underground culture – think ultra Pecha Kucha and lo-fi slideware. The complex logistics of this mad-cap journey are still being worked out and we’ll confirm details nearer the time.

If you’d like to be a speaker, send your submission to charlotte@madebymany.co.uk, with a link to your blog/slideshare and a short summary of your proposed talk.

http://madebymany.com

All week, starting Monday

RetrospectGIF
This year’s mcgarrybowen exhibition celebrates the sheer awesomeness of the humble GIF. 2012 is the 25th anniversary of this most venerable of image formats. A technology that is so universal and accessible that it’s almost impossible to imagine a web without it.

So whether you were busy adorning your geocities page with flaming borders and dancing hamsters in 1998, e-mailing kitten pictures in the Naughties or are part of the new wave of GIF-making now surging on Tumblr and Twitter…please come and visit. There’s nostalgia, inspiration, entertainment and a pinch of digital history. We guarantee you’ll get a feeling for quite how important the GIF really is.

We’re open all week and would love to say hello. See you there!

http://www.mcgarrybowen.co.uk

TUESDAY 13 November

8.30am-10.30am

BBC Worldwide Labs panel session
Title: How Social Media Platforms are driving content creation, distribution and ultimately engagement.

BBC Worldwide Labs, is new six-month initiative, which kicked off earlier this month to mentor six UK based digital companies and help them gain traction on the global stage. They are bringing a topical and lively session to Internet Europe Week focused on the importance of engaging with social media platforms in order to drive content creation and consumer engagement.

Attendees will be able to hear from experts in the field, on their thoughts around what are driving changes to companies behaviour towards the social media arena as well as hearing from start-ups who’ve found adapting to the changes crucial to the growth of their profiles and scalability of their businesses.

The conversation will be led by Jessica Davies, New Media Age The panel:

Vincent Sider, VP of Social Media, BBC Worldwide
Karla Geci, Strategic Parnter Development, Facebook
Ade Oshineye, Senior Developer Advocate, Google
Simon Davies, Co-Founder of Krowd 9
Steve Callanan, Co-Founder of wireWAX

Who should attend? Digital media start-ups, content owners, creators, & distributors, new digital product folks, social media experts and developers of pages, games, etc.

http://www.bbcwlabs.com/

9am-6pm
Local Social Summit 2012

A packed day of keynotes, panels and lab sessions on Local, Social and Mobile aimed at publishers, advertisers, start-ups, app creators, technology companies and investors.

http://lanyrd.com/2012/lss12/

7pm-9pm
Digital Disruption: How the internet is shaking up the art world

Protein and Crane.tv present a forum exploring how the internet is changing the world of art.

In the past 10 years the world of digital art has boomed. From inspiration right through to promotion, artists are using the internet as a creative platform at every stage of the artistic process. Galleries are moving online, platforms are popping up where you can buy digital art, and with the rise of online pin boards and visual blogs, arguably anyone can now curate their own individual online galleries.

To explore this further we have invited a selection of esteemed speakers to take part in a panel discussion looking in to how the internet is shaping art. Has the internet created a completely original art movement? Or is digital just an evolution of the same? And how will this change the face of the art world moving forward?

Speakers:

Louise Shannon, V&A acting Head of Contemporary projects
Shane Walter, Founder and Creative Director of onedotzero
Keiichi Matsuda, digital designer
Reed + Rader, digital artists

Tickets available here: http://digitaldisruption.eventbrite.com/

7pm-10.30pm

[POKE] Metaphwoar!

IWE’s most popular metaphor-themed event is back for a third (sexy) instalment.  Speakers will enlighten you via the medium of metaphor. And you will drink beer.

Follow us @metaphwoar for updates

http://metaphwoar.org

WEDNESDAY 14 November

9.30am – 1.00pm
Founders Clinic: Finding co-founders and building your team

In this workshop we will talk about the personality and skill-set that are needed when starting a new venture. It will be a practical workshop in which we will discuss tools that can help you identify the right founding team for your startup. Starting a new venture is hard. Doing it alone is even harder. Did you know that start-ups with both technical and business cofounders raise 30% more money and scale up to 3.2 times faster than one-person start-ups? If you are looking for a co-founder or you want to join a start-up in the founding team, this workshop can help you accelerate and optimise the selection process.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4754062529

12pm-5pm
spogo Five-a-Side Football Tournament

To celebrate Internet Week Europe and leading digital brands and agencies, spogo is holding a five-a-side football tournament, hosted by Powerleague at their flagship Wembley venue, in partnership with Trace TV. As one of the legacies of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, ‘digital to physical’ is at the heart of what spogo does. We know that digital, at its most perfect, results in a physical experience or interaction, so we wanted to get some of the most famous digital brands and enablers on a pitch to show – through a vulgar display of football prowess, skill and raw courage – just what they are capable of.

Email stephenchandler@spogo.co.uk for more information and details of how to participate.

spogo is a collision of a unique digital solution and the sport and fitness industry. spogo.co.uk – the sport and fitness finder – is a new consumer-based digital service that aims to make it as easy to find and book sport and physical activity online, as it is to find and book a train ticket or hotel room. The first stage – a search facility of over 35,000 venues and clubs – is now in beta phase, which enables sport and fitness search, with the full consumer version launching in January 2013 to include booking.

www.spogo.co.uk
www.powerleague.co.uk
www.trace.tv

7.00pm-9.00pm

Show, don’t tell: the rise of visual social media

Speakers from International Olympic Committee, Tumblr, R/GA and Getty Images will discuss how to partner visual content with social media channels to increase customer engagement.

http://curve.gettyimages.com/article/show-dont-tell-the-rise-of-visual-social-media

6pm-9pm
Hyper Island presents: The After Work Creative Hack Party

Join us for a rapid post-work creative hack session to start fixing the Internet. There’s so much amazing stuff out there, but there’s also a lot of bad stuff. We’re here to help by hacking and mashing up solutions. Everyone is welcome, especially interns, recent grads, and disruptive young professionals. In fact we need as many quick minds as possible to ideate, design, and prototype.

We are students and graduates from Hyper Island’s MASTER in Digital Media Management programme. And we’d love you to come play with us.

http://www.hyperisland.com/

7pm-2am
Official Lovie Awards After-party (by MediaMonks)

If you missed out on the MediaMonks Cannes party, or are ready for some more music and madness during Internet Week London, please join us straight after The Lovie Awards Winners’ Party for the official after-party. The best spot to celebrate your award wins with copious amounts of drinks, dance and digital.

http://www.mediamonks.com/

THURSDAY 15 November
10am-12pm

Meet The YouTube Creators (AM / PM Sessions)
Pay a visit to Google UK and get the chance to meet the people who are leading the online video revolution: our very own YouTube Creators and Partners. Plus! Get a sneak peak of our fantastic new YouTube Creator Space Watch and learn how great content is made by the people who do it best. This event is by invite only. Please fill in the form to register your interest.

http://bit.ly/S6SvFq

10am-11am

Entrepreneur Spotlight: Fireside Chats hosted by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI)
UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is hosting four fireside discussions on entrepreneurship and the best and brightest of the European Web community.

Confirmed Speakers:

Stefanie Hoffmann, Founder of Gabi
Moderated by David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of IADAS

Discussions will last for 30 minutes with a Question and Answer session after to allow you the chance to ask any burning questions you may have.

http://www.ukti.gov.uk/

5.30pm – 7.30pm

POKE in partnership with The Future Laboratory
‘Introvenous Internet – The New Mass Addiction?’

‘Top-down mass media is being replaced by a networked system in which people co-create narrative together, in a myriad of new platforms’. Alan Moore, author, No Straight Lines: Making Sense of our Non-linear World. Nik Roope, Co-Founder of Poke London, hosts an open forum exploring the theme of digital compulsion and addiction, asking the question whether new intensities of consumption are an enhancement or a detriment to well being.

Including themes such as…

: mobile and our constant access to increasingly ‘Always-On’ internet access

: the role of social pulling people into constant interaction and the need to share so many offline experiences online

: the long-term patterns that could start to emerge for the ‘net-generation’ who are starting life with a Facebook page

Guest speakers include:

Stefanie Hoffman, co-founder, Gabi
Melanie Hicks, editor-in-chief, District MTV at MTV Networks
James Wallman, editor, LS:N Global, the trends network at The Future Laborator

17.30-18.30pm Open forum discussion

18.30-19.30pm Drinks
The Future Laboratory, 26 Elder Street, London E1 6BT.

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4789219685/es2/?rank=1&ebtv=C

6.30pm-9.30pm
The Church of London presents: Hackers

The Church of London takes a glance back at the exciting, neon-hued world of of mid-nineties cyber terrorism, with a free screening of Hackers. In collaboration with Little White Lies and MGM HD, we’re pleased to present Iain Softley’s beloved 1995 techno caper, Hackers, starring Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie, in one of her earliest screen roles. Doors open at 6.30pm and the film starts at 7pm, with a short introduction by Team LWLies. Refreshments will be provided. Come down, have a drink & relive the glory days of the internet.

http://www.thechurchoflondon.com/events/tcolondon-presents-hackers/

7pm-4am

Tumblr / POKE Gif it Up party
Tumblr and POKE invite you to a very special Internet Week Europe party – Gif it Up.

Held in just-opened late-night-party-cave “The Duke”, Gif it Up will play party central, with musics, gifisuals and refreshments to please all tastes. Also watch out for some very special announcements for the night.

FRIDAY 16 November

12pm-2pm

Hackney > Austin
Get yourself down to The Love Shake on Friday lunchtime of Internet Week Europe for a very special celebration for all those from the East heading over to South By South West in Austin next year. Your entry fee gets you an ‘Austin Special’, a Texan Hotdog and a shake, and there will be two hours of the best Austin music personally programmed by our friends in Texas, and some surprises – all in a unique US-themed Diner in Shoreditch at the bottom of Kingsland Road. It will be a great chance to catch up about what people’s plans are for SXSW and to come up with some new ideas and collaborations to take over there in March.

Tickets are limited so snap them up quick!
http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4787303955

1pm-3pm
Econsultancy Hosts: Mobile Internet Can Save the High Street

The High Street in Europe is suffering and digital holds the key to its survival. While the Mary Portas review placed a spotlight on the issue of regeneration and the need to drive footfall traffic, it lacked substance in digital best practice for retailers, and specifically when it comes to using mobile. This videocast and panel discussion featuring stakeholders across startups, marketers and retailers will address the need for more mobile and digital innovation in High Street regeneration around the U.K.

Participants:

Ashley Friedlein, CEO and Co-founder, Econsultancy — @AshleyFriedlein
Linus Gregoriadis, Research Director, Econsultancy — @LinusGreg
Ali Ahmed, CEO, Lutebox — @syedaliahmed
Guy Douglas, Project Manager, MoLo Rewards/ ATCM
Finlay Clark, Industry Manager, Retail, Google — @finclark
Tim Curtis, Idealshoppingdirect.co.uk

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/4738389651

4pm-5.30pm
How news outlets write for the social web (and how you can pinch their ideas)

A lively session held at Google Campus exploring the ways in which outlets like the BBC, Daily Mail, Reuters, CNN, AOL and Yahoo! write for the web and social platforms. We’ll look at the way they write their updates to make their content so shareable, and outline the tips and tricks you can steal to make the content on your own website and social media channels utterly irresistible to your audience.

The session will cover:

- Crafting killer titles for your blog posts, news items and features that encourage people to click through and share on social media.

- Engaging your Facebook audience to get more comments, likes and shares.

- Top tips for writing tweets that travel.
- How to manage your frequency of posting.

The session will be illustrated with clear examples to back up the points, and if there’s time we’ll squeeze in some activities so you can put the theories into practice.

About the speakers
Sue Keogh and Christine Cawthorne met when working as web editors for Yahoo! UK, producing news, sport, lifestyle and showbiz content for the homepage, and later went on to join the homepage team for AOL UK. Between them they have produced content and social media campaigns for small businesses and household names including the BBC, ITV, Toshiba, Magic FM, Pizza Hut and Paul Smith. Christine also lectures in online journalism at the University of Sheffield.  They regularly join forces for Sweet Retweets workshops where they use their editorial expertise to train big brands, non-profits and start-ups in writing for social media.

http://www.sweetretweets.co.uk

www.coopvoce.it

A brand new collaboration has been launched in Italy with the marketing department of COOP Italia and MySmark italian partner M2I.

COOP is one of the most important retailers in Italy and CoopVoce, its mobile operator, one of the best performing in the market.

MySmark will integrate and enhance CoopVoce promotions and customer care in search of new interactive conversation with customers, made of listening, engagement and consumer experience enhancement.

All MySmark team is really enthusiast of this new project with a top market player as COOP.

We all invite you to visit www.coopvoce.it to learn more and make your smark!

1.    For the avoidance of doubt

You’ve started a new business. The founders all get on well and you’re all focused on building your new project up to a point of success, so who wants to slow things down by getting lawyers involved to draw up a shareholder agreement? But there’s a very good reason to – to sort out and protect your Intellectual Property.

The key thing is to draw up a document which sets out clearly what you have agreed with each other. A one-pager, signed by each of the founders, is a nil-cost, must-have document. Companies so often break up because of arguments between shareholders and that often happens because of simple misunderstandings: “You said you would do this…”, “I thought that…” Write down what you have agreed now, before the business is worth millions, and reason will prevail.

2.    Don’t do it on your own

“It will only cost £30k to build the website, and then we’ll be up and running”. If this sounds like your attempt at a first year cash-flow forecast, then you’re already in trouble. Don’t underestimate the cost of getting to a point where you break even. Do the proper research.

All the answers are out there – you just have to ask; don’t guess. Discuss your ideas openly. The chances are that someone has already thought of your idea anyway but will do nothing with it. Talk to everyone, and get their opinions. Will your potential customers buy at the price you anticipate? If you need to change the business model then do it. You can’t plan a business in isolation.

Running out of cash will stop you dead, but being diluted by a last-minute, second-round investment which makes you compromise the business model because you can’t afford to build it properly will create terrible damage and loss of value. And all before you’ve even got off the ground.

3.    Agree on your respective contributions

Agree as early as you can between yourselves on what each of you is to contribute to the project. It may be cash, expertise or just a number of hours of hard work. You will have agreed how to share the ownership of the business (ie how many shares you each hold), but it will almost certainly turn out that one of you will have to contribute more than anticipated. It is vital that you all agree beforehand how that extra contribution will be rewarded, or else mistrust and arguments will ruin the business – and your friendships.

4.    Define your attitude to risk

Decide what risks you are prepared to take. Are you prepared to borrow? Will you sign away your house? Know now, before the pressure is on, what you are prepared to do. People often end up doing so in the heat of a crisis, without proper foresight. If you share your life with someone, be brave and talk to them now about commitments you might have to make which will affect them – or your home may not be the only thing you lose if the business goes down.

5.    Define the buy-back price

This could be the most valuable piece of advice you will ever get. If you raise investment from friends and family or a private investor, agree a price then and there at which you can buy back their shares. Offer them a 300% return and the right to buy them back at any time in the first 3 or 4 years and write this into a formal agreement. Most investors would be delighted to make 3 times their money and you will be surprised how much more than 3 times their original cost those shares will be worth if your business really does take off. It will be the best deal you have ever done.

Christopher Jenkins is Senior Partner of Ecovis Wingrave Yeats, Business Advisers and Chartered Accountants. They were voted Best Medium Sized Firm of the Year and he was voted Best Business Adviser of the Year by the CBI. Contact him at cjenkins@wingrave.co.uk or go to www.wingrave.co.uk

We believe at Creative Jar that websites need to deliver the many requirements of an organisation. There are many websites out there. Some sell products or services, whilst others maintain communities and build brands.

Whatever the site, there will be many conversion points throughout a user journey. A conversion could be a product sale, enquiry, download, newsletter registration or page view.

Tracking and analysing of on-site activity enables a deeper understanding of such conversion points, and provides insight into user behaviour, which demonstrates an actual return on investment. Continual measurement and enhancement of your website will ensure that every opportunity for increasing conversion is understood, whatever they might be.

Employing tactics such as A/B multi-variant testing as part of an on ongoing iterative process will not only keep your website fresh and current, but will also improve its performance, which in turn drives more revenue, brand exposure or conversation.

What you should do:

1) Engage user experience and analytics specialists to assist in data interpretation and understand behaviour, then apply this to improve user journeys.

2) Marry good user experience with top notch creative. A well considered user journey might fail if not treated with the right creative.

3) Think about the usability of forms and how they interact and appear for the user. Bad form processes will deliver high drop off rates.

4) Ask the users what they want. Find out who your users really are. Simple user studies can be very insightful and help shape user journeys.

5) Use A/B testing to serve different experiences to website visitors. Let them show you which converts the most. Then do it again and again and again.

The summit was a great success bringing together senior level Digital Managers with leading digital solution providers for a series of pre-selected 30min meetings to discuss services and solutions required in the 2013 digital strategy.

The summit facilitated approximately 380 30minute meetings over 2 days.

The attending buyers held a collective Annual Digital Budget in excess of £40million.

The solution providers held a wealth of experience in all aspects of Digital marketing services making this an extraordinary event to be a part of.

I have no doubt that the testimonies will speak for themselves, the solution providers will see this as a major source of new business and the buyers will have benefited immensely by taking the opportunity to meet a number of solution providers of their choice. Networking in this professional and pro-active environment has provided the opportunity to review companies and services available, to obtain the views of industry specialists and make the necessary connections to take their digital strategy forward in 2013. There were also a number of highly informative seminars held making this a must attend event for digital professionals.

Look out for information regarding the iDigital Summit 2013 to be held on 23^rd & 24^th September at The Radison Blu Hotel, London Stansted Airport.

For further information please contact the iDigital Team: idigital@forumevents.co.uk

Main Sponsor:

Media Partners:

Hosted by:

Justin said: “Some people believe that data is the new oil. Yesterday we attempted to convince the government that it is much more important than that. Data is the fuel that powers our new economy and the prime driver of growth and employment in Britain – the world’s number one digital economy. In a social, mobile and connected world where machines talk to machines and data is creating new business models we urge the EU to maintain this flow. We believe that the current proposals risk it and the answer lies in retaining self regulation and empowering and allowing users to control their data.”

Government Ministers met with the advertising and marketing industries to discuss the draft EU Data Protection Regulation, which it is anticipated could be very damaging to UK business.

In a roundtable meeting hosted by Advertising Association President Gavin Patterson, Justice Minister Helen Grant MP and Culture Minister Ed Vaizey MP heard the industry’s concerns and agreed to engage with industry to ensure that the new data laws work for both consumers and business.

Industry representatives said that strong and effective data laws are needed and support updating EU data protection laws so they are fit for the digital age. However, they argued that currently proposed measures would be bad for business, imposing additional compliance and administrative burdens as well as overly prescriptive rules for processing data. Concerns include requiring explicit consent for the processing of most data, the potential redefinition of personal information to include cookies and IP addresses, and introducing a new “right to be forgotten”.

Industry fears that the changes could undermine the creation of free, advertising funded content; disrupt consumers’ online experience; and hamper the free flow of data which enables the internet economy to function and grow.

Representation at the meeting included the Advertising Association, the Direct Marketing Association, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the Market Research Society, the Newspaper Society, the Newspaper Publishers Association, the British Interactive Media Association, the Professional Publishers Association and ISBA – the Voice of British Advertisers.

Justice Minister Helen Grant said:

“As technology advances, data protection must keep up but European legislators must balance new rules against the risk of undermining UK businesses. Governments, regulators and industry should be co-operating on proportionate rules to reassure and protect consumers.”

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said:

“Britain’s creative industries and the strength of its online economy are the envy of Europe. We must find a way to protect consumers which doesn’t undermine innovation, so that we can continue to drive growth in some of the UK’s most valuable sectors.”

The Direct Marketing Association’s Scott Logie, who chaired the meeting, said:

“The advertising and marketing industries are moving at rapid pace and we need proportionate data protection laws that keep up with the speed of change. Overly prescriptive rules that impact on innovation are not good for industry or consumers. We need strong rules that protect peoples’ data, but which are also proportionate and fair for business.”

It’s 4 months since the new laws about using cookies and other information-storing technologies (which we’ll shorthand to cookies here) on websites were enforced.  We’ve had guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as to how to comply, an online complaints tool for cookie non-compliance and the ICO is now recruiting staff for enforcement roles.  So what do you need to do? And what will happen if you don’t?

What is the cookie law?

Before the latest e-Privacy Directive was enforced as part of UK law, a UK website user was deemed to have consented to the use of cookies by the website unless they indicated otherwise. The new regulations reverse this position  - now consent is required before cookies can be used.

The ICO has the power to fine non-complaint websites up to £500,000 and also to issue press releases naming these sites: not the kind of publicity most businesses would want. So far the ICO has received over 380 complaints about non-compliant websites and appears to be staffing up to step up their enforcement of the regulations.

What does my website need?

Every website needs to gain consent from users before they can place website analytics cookies (yours or a 3^rd party’s), tracking cookies and recognition cookies on a user’s device.  To get this consent,  your site needs to tell users:

• What information the cookies will collect
• What you will do with that information
• Who the information is going to be shared with
• Whether the collected information could be used to identify the individual user
• How long will the cookie remain on their device
• How they can disable cookies

However, where the cookie is ‘strictly necessary’ for a service the website user has requested, this consent is not required. These cookies include purchase path, security and operational cookies – so, for example, those needed to store items in baskets or comply with online security legislation.

Although most websites use multiple types of cookie, separate consent does not need to be obtained for each different type of cookie and one ‘blanket’ consent can be sufficient.  Where there are a series of connected websites the user can grant consent to the use of cookies across all the connected websites at one time.  The important aspect in both situations is that the user has been given the necessary information about all of the cookies prior to the consent being given.

3 practical steps to cookie compliance

Step 1: Undertake a cookie audit to understand what cookies are being used on the site and to collate the information that needs to be given to the user – your website developer should be able to assist.

Step 2: Decide whether to seek express or implied consent. Under the latest guidance from the ICO, implied consent can be sufficient despite earlier guidance that suggested otherwise. Obtaining express consent will give the website operator greater certainty that the website is compliant but may result in a lower user experience.

Step 3: Provide the user with the necessary information prior to placing the cookies:

But how does this look? There are several approaches, all valid, but the big factor is that you should not rely on a cookie (or privacy) policy without giving at least some kind of notice.  A link, however prominent, as a method of obtaining consent is very unlikely to be found sufficient to ensure compliance with the cookie laws.

So what do suitable notice options look like?

1. Terms and conditions – tying cookie consent to acceptance of terms and conditions prior to use of a website is a common method currently being used.  The user’s attention would still need to be drawn to the relevant cookie information.

2. Static pop-up – Use of a static ‘pop-up’ containing direct links to the cookie policy when the user (first) accesses the website is also popular.  Users who then access any other part of the website are implied to have consented to placement of cookies.

3. Static or accordion banner – the most common option, this is a banner across the website which states that the website is using cookies and provides the user with a direct link to the cookie policy.  It can be used to obtain either express or implied consent.

Browsers

Websites should not rely on user’s browser settings for consent as most users do not currently have the necessary understanding of their browser’s functions to rely upon this method. Most browsers accept cookies by default.

Enforcement

At this stage, no enforcement notices have been issued. However, where a website fails to engage with the ICO and undertake the necessary action, the ICO’s powers allow it to:

• Issue non-compliance press statements
• request undertaking from the website
• issue enforcement notices
• issue fines of up to £500,000.

The ICO’s main aim is for non-compliant websites to engage with them in order to become compliant (or at least are undertaking steps to achieve compliance within a reasonable time period), as opposed to issuing financial punishments.

In conclusion

The implementation of a suitable cookie and privacy policy is important for all websites. Websites should ensure that, where they are non-compliant, steps are being taken to change the layout of their website to provide the user with the necessary information. However, while the potential financial penalties are substantial, it appears likely that in the short term the ICO will not issue financial penalties unless a website fails to engage with the ICO and take steps to become compliant.

For more information, go directly to the source: read the  ICO’s guide on the use of cookies.

About the author

Iain Taker, Associate at Kemp Little LLP, leading technology and digital media law firm. Iain can be contacted on Iain.Taker@kemplittle.com

We have been working behind the scenes for some time to gain membership of the Advertising Association, and I’m delighted today to announce that we are in.

This gives our members and the wider British interactive sector a role in setting standards and lobbying Government and the EU. It provides a platform for the provision of policy advice as well as a direct connection with every other body across the marketing, advertising and communications sector.

Tapping into this combined weight will also complement and strengthen work we are already undertaking, from the Code of Conduct consultation and roll-out announced at our AGM last week – through to our BIMA D-Day future talent initiative that seeks to address the skills gap.

And as pleased as we are that BIMA now takes its rightful seat at the top table alongside the likes of the IPA, IAB and ISBA, I know the A.A is equally delighted to be welcoming us on board. We’re considered to be ‘the digital guys’ – and as convergence takes over, they will be looking our way to help shape sensible self-regulatory systems, advise policy makers and work together to champion the whole sector.

It’s a challenge we relish and an opportunity we seize on behalf of everyone in digital.

After the official nomination of “Global Hot 100” in Boston by the World Summit on Innovation & Entrepreneurship, after DEMO Conference in Silicon Valley, today we have landed in New York City!

Right from the world capital of marketing we have launched the new MySmark video teaser with a special preview for one of the top digital agencies in town… more news coming soon!

Here is our way to present MySmark to all of you:

MySmark in 90 seconds: new video launched in NY!

Make your Smark at MySmark !

We had almost 200 of you partying in LBi’s global HQ on Brick Lane, East London, scene of the infamous LBi raves. We gave them a run for their money, with our crowd wowed by a live acoustic set from Columbia Records/Sony Music’s latest star Bebe Black and a DJ set from Paul Harris of Dirty Vegas fame.

The centrepiece of the night was the announcement of the BIMA Awards shortlist. Chris Kempt, chair of the awards and MD of Kempt, did the honours and won laughs for his unique approach to Powerpoint. As Chris says, everyone loves a flashy transition and cute animals.

Finalists included heavyweights AKQA, LBi and Profero through to smaller agencies like Sagittarius Marketing and Jollywise Media. Another name to watch was The Mill, massive in their respective sphere but a relative newcomer on the digital scene. We send congratulations to all shortlisted entrants and you can check out who they are here: http://bimaawards.com/shortlist.

Justin Cooke, Chair of BIMA and CEO of POSSIBLE UK said:

“Congratulations to all the finalists. Now in their 27^th year with a global and social reach that extends into the millions, the BIMA Awards have firmly established the wealth of British digital talent at the heart of the international digital media calendar. We look forward to unveiling the ‘champions of champions’ at the BIMA Awards on 22 November – the greatest British night in digital.”

Photos from the BIMA End of Summer Bash

Bebe Black on stage at BIMA's End of Summer Bash

Early arrivals mingle in front of the Digital Gurus video wall

Chris Kempt announcing the BIMA Awards finalists, with Justin Cooke in the foreground

Exhilo's vodka luge

Digital Gurus sponsored the BIMA End of Summer Bash, with support from Exhilo, headline sponsors of the BIMA Awards. The event was kindly hosted by LBi. BIMA also thanks Transversal, Six Degrees Group, Syntax Digital, Parys, POSSIBLE and Futureheads for their generous support. The BIMA awards are partnered with The Guardian Media Network, Contagious, The Drum, C21 Media, .net, UTalk Marketing, Mixing Digital, Chinwag, Figaro Digital and Communicate magazine.

Finding the right people and looking after them well is essential for success in the creative industry, according to Tim Billing, who gave a recent talk to BIMA and IPA members in Edinburgh.

He taught that a communicative leader who embeds innovation into company culture will keep staff striving for more, advising: “play with each project. Find the passion in it to discover something new. Then share that among your team.”

Attended by more than 60 representatives from digital agencies and clients based in Scotland, this event was co-ordinated by Murray Calder (IPA) and Sarah Ronald (BIMA). It was a strong opportunity for creatives in Scotland to learn from someone who has kept a close watch on the evolution of design.

Tim talked about the challenges of agency work, referring to it as a craft, sharing his experience that when clients engage with an agency, they are looking for knowledge and skills. And so being able to offer that specialism is essential for success.

When discussing people management, Tim believes strongly that any agency’s strongest assets are its people, and that it’s down to managers to keep their team re-energised about their work. Great people are motivated by meaningful work and frequent feedback.

However, in Tim’s opinion, annual reviews are ineffective and often out of date by the time they’re delivered. He thinks immediate, honest comments are far more productive.

He also discussed under-delegation, and urged us all to look at the tasks people are doing to identify low-level tasks that could be given to a junior, like administrative procedures. In his experience, this usually amounts to 50% of a person’s time.

The talk ended with an enthusiastic Q & A, where members of both organisations were able to grill Tim further on areas of his expertise that related directly to them. This was a great chance for digital professionals to meet each other, too, demonstrating how valuable BIMA events are for making connections with your industry peers.

Top 5 quotes from Tim’s talk:

“You want people who are more interested in a career than a job. Interview people as if they will be with you for the next 20 years”.

“Remember to career-plan for senior staff.”

“You need to continuously refresh your skills and knowledge assets or you’ll become a commodity company.”

“Getting clients to buy new things is really tough, but it’s easier if they’re existing clients.”

“If you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, you need to make a change”

This time we were lucky enough to be sponsored by Harviestoun brewery, as well as Drambuie so we chatted whilst the rather delicious Schiehallion beer was flowing and Jamaican Nails a mixing (all in moderation of course). Please have a look at some of the photos below courtesy of Wojtek Kutyla.

It was great to see some new faces there and hopefully you all made new connections and enjoyed some great banter, I know I did. If you haven’t already please get in touch to give us more feedback on the events to let us know what is working for you and what is not. If you would like to know more about the events in Edinburgh or would like to connect to anyone you met at it then please contact Alexa or Nadine.

Thanks again to everyone for coming along to another successful BIMA #ThirstdayEdin at Cargo, especially @HarviestounBrew and @Drambuie. Roll on the 4th of October!

Alongside Sir Tim, the nine other greats of the UK digital industry honoured in the first round of inductions to the Hall of Fame were:

• Andrew Walmsley
• Ajaz Ahmed
• Mark Cridge
• Martha Lane-Fox
• Catriona Campbell
• Sir Jony Ive
• Stephen Fry
• Phil Jones
• Warren East

We’re looking forward to the next session at 5:30pm when the final 10 names will be revealed. Our partners in the Hall of Fame, The Drum, have profiles of the first 10 inductees on their site if you want to read and be inspired this afternoon.

In the words of BIMA’s chairman, Justin Cooke: “So many of the very foundations that the whole world now turns on were created right here by British entrepreneurs. As we move forward we need to recognise and celebrate those individuals. Not only to acknowledge their incredible efforts but also to inspire the next generation.”

Follow @bima and @The Drum for live updates from 5:30pm.

The Digital Hall of Fame is brought to you by BIMA and The Drum, in association with Microsoft, Adobe, ad:tech London, Propel and Results International.

Many brands are still figuring out their digital strategies and assessing which technologies and trends are just passing fads, and which are truly applicable. And perhaps that’s the best argument for attending this year’s content-rich ad:tech 2012. Find out how to increase your reach and save money with free-to-attend keynotes from the MailOnline and American Airlines, 170 exhibitors and more than 70 specialist seminars.

Visit Google Web Lab for free by registering before the show. In July 2012 Google opened its Web Lab at the Science Museum in London. The participatory exhibition features five installations that allow visitors to use, play, create and share with new, existing and refreshed software and hardware.

Get the lowdown on Google’s big 2012 adventure from its creative director, Steve Vranakis.

The strategic paid-for conference:

The conference and its various components digs deeper, with your chance to question brands and organisations, such as the BBC, Gucci, ITV, LivingSocial, BSkyB, The Financial Times and Sony Music. The theme of this year’s conference is: ‘Digital is the bigger picture: When will brands catch up?’

Make your Smark: www.mysmark.com

MySmark has been covered by Irish Times yesterday in a very interesting article about social media, digital marketing and online tags.

Here is the link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0910/1224323791066.html

MySmark team will be soon on the road in US to attend:

> World Summit on Innovation & Entrepreneurship, 26-28 September in Boston (www.thewsie.org)

> DEMO Conference, 1-3 October in San Francisco (www.demo.com)

For more information: www.b-smark.com

The combined company becomes the world’s largest provider of tag management solutions with more than 100 global enterprise clients representing thousands of brands including Gap, JetBlue Airways, Sainsbury’s, British Gas, ASDA and Boots.  BrightTag was named one of the fastest-growing companies in the US having recently raised $15 million from venture capital investors. Recent awards include eTail’s Rising Star and Built in Chicago’s Startup of the Year.

“It’s a natural fit to partner with the industry’s leading data-driven tag management provider.”
Stephan Briggs, CEO, Yard Digital

“BrightTag’s tag management solution coupled with our experience and expertise in online technologies makes for a formidable team.”
Paul Newbury, CTO, Yard Digital

“Two market leaders are joining forces to make the Web work better for everyone. It’s a very exciting time to be in digital marketing.”
James Sandoval, SVP & Managing Director, BrightTag EMEA

Download the press release.