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.

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL.

You can use your phone to read QR codes by installing Kaywa Reader.

And make your own QR code like we have below on the same kaywa site.

QR code containing website link for callendercreates.com

An introduction to barcode scanning on youtube

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!

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.

Being able to spend each day in a group with in-depth focus on a many topics, allowing you to discuss your problems, share solutions, and make lasting connections with your peers and future colleagues.

Extra special keywords for these events: Usability, Development, Marketing and Networking

dConstruct 2008 Designing the social web. 3rd-5th September, Brighton, UK.

‘It’s a grass-roots conference that gathers some of the brightest minds in the industry from around the world’

Head The Singularity 2008 conference has now been renamed ‘Head’, 24th-26th October, Online (worldwide).

‘It’s a seminal web event intended to form a time capsule or snapshot of Web ’08 . The conference will have experts in WebDesign & Blogging, Artists, 3D & Flash Developers, Gods of JavaScript & MarkUps, Hackers, Entrepreneurs; conducting sessions on various topics.’

Adaptive Path UX Intensive, October 13-16 2008, Copenhagen.

‘Workshop series examines the four key elements that contribute to a successful interactive experience: Design Strategy, Design Research, Interaction Design and Information Architecture. Workshops are led by Adaptive Path’s team of experts, including: Dan Saffer,
Chiara Fox, Brandon Schauer and
Todd Wilkens’.

Search Marketing Expo – SMX London,
4-5 November 2008, London.

‘2 days of sessions featuring the latest intelligence on cutting-edge SEO and PPC tactics and best practices from the brightest minds in search marketing’

The User Experience 2008 Conference, 16-21 November 2008, Amsterdam.

‘These guys bring together structured disciplines and apply them to improving the user experience while considering business needs — something we should all do everyday’.
Testimonial from Jason McKenzie, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Adaptive Path MX, 1-3 March 2009, San Francisco.

‘MX brings thought leaders from IDEO, Google, The Mayo Clinic, Cisco, and many others, to show you what it takes to get great experiences out into the world’.

SXSW Interactive, March 13-17, 2009, Austin, Texas.

‘The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology’.

All we can say is that it’s very exciting to be part of this and the future of the internet, we hope to meet you there. If you have any questions about what these events mean to how we work contact us.

Barcamp Brighton 3. We are helping to pay for the staffing for this event which is being held at Brighton University.

‘BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants — often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats”, Wikipedia.

The event is free, with the only condition is that everyone should have a presentation to show. This way the information exchange and conversations resulting from each presentation can be maximised on.

You never quite know what will be presented or discussed at each event, that is the beauty of it. A really good networking event to meet new colleagues and possible clients.

Add yourself to the Barcamp Wiki if you want to attend, the weekend of 6th – 7th September 2008.

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The second event we are sponsoring is Singularity 2008. This is a completely new event organised by local Brightonian Aral Balkan.

Singularity is a web conference with all of the traditional elements. They’ve a wonderful lineup of speakers, presentations, question and answer sections, and networking opportunities.

The twist is that the conference takes place everywhere — all over the world — and using the Internet to tie it all together.

Being environmentally friendly web conference is something that definately appeals to us: saving on thousands of flights and the resulting carbon emissions by having speakers and attendees interact with the conference locally over the web.

We look forward to participating, on October 24-26th 2008. Put it in your diary and see how the event unfolds online!

There were lots of seminars on search to content management, from hosting to email, some terrible powerpoint slides.

One particular highlight was Andy Hobsbawm’s (Agency.com) Keynote on “How people value brands and brands value people in an interactive world”.

Below are some quote and points from his Keynote:

• Be a verb not a noun
• Go with the flow
• Be a guide not a gateekeeper

“Today ‘the virtualisation of everything’ is possible”

“A brand is not what you say it is, it’s what Google says it is”

“No place for brands to hide, as information flow to the consumer is so great on the internet”

“The internet is one big social network, email being the biggest tool for networking”

“Don’t assume customers don’t know anything nowadays, they now have the information by searching for the answer = information driven”

“Exploding connections on the web means that brands can’t be linear anymore”