We’re pleased to be taking part of Wired Sussex’s Digital by design event today, where we’ll be providing practical industry advice to the future creative talent of Brighton and Sussex.

We’ll be there for one-to-one advice at the Portfolio Clinic from 5 to 7pm. It’s a great opportunity for those looking to carve a career in digital design to get expert advice and feedback on their portfolio. presentations. Along with some of Brightons other leading creative agencies.

If you are coming we look forward to seeing you there, there maybe some freebies too, shh!

UPDATE:
Here’s Wired Sussex’s review of the event on their blog.

Ultimately it’s all about the money, getting sales in and reducing costs going out.

Here are some notes on how to manage your cashflow, and to decrease your spending on excessive expenses, at the same time building up your assets.

Remember, by bringing down your regular outgoings you can save more, and have more financial freedom. Regard your spending as an investment and you should be able to recession-proof yourself with these handy tips:

Make sales your priority

• Increase your marketing – by generating leads and sales
• Get your costs and prices right
  • Compare yourself to what clients want to pay
  • What your competitors are charging

Get Paid

• Train customers to learn your terms, ie: 14 or 28 days payment
• Take deposits
• Interim/milestone payments
• There is an online filing for claims which costs £80, only use for clients you don’t want to keep!
• Train your customers to pay promptly, by chasing promptly

Value your suppliers

• Reserve money to pay for suppliers promptly
• When times are tough, communicate
• Spread your money around if paying more than one

Get rid of costs you don’t need

• An obvious one, but reduce the tariff of your mobile phone, changing contract tariffs and plans can save a great deal of your monthly outgoings.
• Only think about keeping something on if your are getting a return on investment back on it, like regular web hosting.
• Check your direct debits, and cancel the ones you don’t need.

Personal Finance and Spending

There are three types of personal spending:

• Fixed – Mortgage, rent, phone bill
• Variable – Food, clothes, going out
• Occasional – Christmas, dentist, holidays

Why not try moving the fixed spending into a new current account? Then you will have better control of the other two spending types.

And finally plan and review your cashflow constantly.

We hope 2009 has started well for you so far? As this is our first post this year I want to look ahead to what the market is doing and also promote some of our activities.

Firstly, it seems as if the coming year will be a challenging time for most of us. But running a small business is all about tackling and overcoming challenges, so in many respects, it’s business as usual. It’s just that the difficulties we now face are different to those we’ve battled in the past.

Wise words from a recent article by Jeffrey Zeldman in the .net magazine:

‘While it’s difficult to tell what will happen in the wider economy, web design has remained robust through numerous economic ups and downs”

He reasons for the increase on our reliance with online services – even if shops close down and staff laid off, products need selling and websites need creating and maintaining. This means freelancers, in-house staff and agencies should be busy, even when others are losing their jobs’

What should you be doing as a design company?

• Our main aim for this current economic climate is to continue to have empathy for users, base our work on a strong design process based on site users and client business goals.
• Continue to look ahead, embrace and adopt new technologies and assess their usefulness for your clients work.
• Diversify your capabilities and services/products you offer to appeal to a wider client base.
• Get organised, form teams of compatible skills through your networks to increase your chances of being able to respond to a wider set of briefs
• Think beyond the desktop browser – get a head start and learn about the web on a smaller screen
• If you have a quiet time you can still be proactive – here’s some ideas:
  • Teach yourself new skills
  • Get out meet new contacts for coffee
  • Get off-line and you may find it easier to focus on what is important for your business

What we have planned for 2009:

• Client guides – In a series of free ebooks we will explain to our new and existing clients about current web services, trends and technologies in easy to follow guide
• Training freelancers and mentoring local colleagues
• Work with our peers
• Develop International business opportunities
• Attending conferences, meetups and networking events, and also attend more non-technical events (no not knitting classes)

How you are going to stay confident, fresh and stay relevant in this industry? We’d love to know, comments are on..

Small businesses lost 79,000 jobs in November, the largest decline in more than seven years (Source: ADP)

OK, so we cannot ignore statistics like that, and it just takes a visit to the City in London to find out something is wrong with the economy in this country.

Spending on Public Relations (PR), and advertising is the first to go from a companies budget before staff cuts, wage reductions – Are you noticing this yet if you are a digital company? Let’s look towards filling this gap by being creative and innovate:

Some of the best innovations are done during times of economic downturn

Innovation can be done cheaply, picture this – two geeks in a garage, wearing sweaters, trying to get an online experiment to work on an old macbook.

Innovation inspires, educates and entertains societies

That’s the amazing thing about being based in Brighton. It’s all about small groups of people working collaboratively at coworking locations across the city or at events like barcamp Brighton.

However, I want to think in terms of a revolution, rather than a downturn.

Revolutions are seen as ‘fundamental shifts’ in our lifestyle, and social interactions. They only happen usually once within our lifetime. Which lead to redefining what it needs to get the job done, and how people use these methods from a revolution.

As good things usually come out the end of revolutions like this, the Industrial revolution, the Internet revolution, now this financial revolution - we don’t actually know what will come out of this – I feel this is why a lot of people are worried.

I hope the ‘big R’ doesn’t mean that peoples creative taps are turned off. We are currently in a time of radical change, now is a chance to connect with people who you may not have done with before.

Stand out, put a sweater on and get down to a geek event near you!

Everybody could manage time better, whether it is due to a demanding family life, or lots of clients we all need to be refreshed about how we handle and manage our valuable time.

Here’s a list of items that work for us:

1) Spend a moment to plan every day. Start by writing a list of what you need to achieve each day, even when you are not at work to get things done effectively.

2) Write everything down. Whether you do this user a paper and pen, or online using tools like evernote or remember the milk. You’ll be less stressed if are not holding those things in your head.

3) Set a time limit. You’re more focused and less likely to get distracted if you don’t have an open ended time slot in your day for a particular task. I set a time slot in Google calendar to text me a reminder to do it, and I can also measure how long it took me so I can be confident of allocating the correct time to it in the future.

4) Do little and often. Breaking tasks into chunks helps to prevent a build up and is less overwhelming. How often have you found yourself being distracted or been refreshed by doing new work instead of that large project? By working on small increments/chunks you will find you complete more without the stress.

5) Don’t do it all on your own. If you don’t have the knowledge, skill or time. Don’t hesitate to ask for the help when you need it. Either mailing lists or co-workers may have come across the problem before. It’s also nice to be asked for help too!

Here’s a list of conferences and exhibitions you will find us at over the next few months, and into 2009.

Why? Not just because they are great fun, but also very valuable tools in training, learning emerging internet technologies and trends.

Getting to the cutting edge of Internet leaders minds is what it is all about, and chatting up close and personal with other exciting innovators on the web.
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Finding your own creativity, whether at home or in your office.

It takes a combination of hardware, comfort (Aeron chair, cough), and inspiration to get you working productively.

When starting a company, most unless you are funded by a Venture Capital (VC), you will have a limited budget. So, its whatever you have at hand to make things work for you. A few years down the line, and you’ll wonder how you got work done in an uncomfortable, noisy, corner of a room. I certainly do!
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