Made By Many just got one more

After seven months freelancing I’m very excited to announce that I’ve resumed the position in the Creative Director’s chair.

I talked last October about wanting to search out the new, the innovative and the exciting. At the time I felt I was being ground down by the ordinary. Creating marketing sites for average companies wasn’t, and indeed isn’t, what I wanted to do.

I’ve spent the last seven months doing all sorts of things. I’ve written some HTML, done a bit of affiliate marketing, done IA wireframing work for clients, sharpened my knowledge of PPC and a whole host of other things – including some service design. And I’ve loved every minute of it.

Over the last couple of months, however, I’ve been spending more and more time with a group of people who are doing some extraordinary things with technology and creative in the digital space. The more time I spent working with them, the more I realised their approach and ideas were very well aligned with how I felt a digital agency should be both structured and run. It was a very comfortable fit for both of us.

As such, the approach to take up a permanent position at Made By Many came a few months ago and I’m pleased to announce that I accepted at the end of last month.

Made By Many don’t do websites in the traditional sense. They build platforms, utilities and services. They use creative and sketching to articulate complexity and build services in whatever technology is appropriate using agile process. (I should mention at this point that the founding partners of Made By Many have been colleagues historically / friends for years.)

It’s a very big position and what I hope will turn out be a tremendously exciting opportunity. I’m already ensconced and working on a whole suite of services in the youth volunteering sector. But more on that at another time.

In the future, you’ll be able to see me blogging over on www.madebymany.co.uk though I’ll still pop up here from time to time.

A change of scenery. Take two.

Nearly a year ago I blogged about suddenly being made redundant from my position as Creative Director at Interesource. In fact, the entire company went south due to a variety of reasons – none of which I want to replay here.

Well, here we are 12 months later and it’s all change again.

I’ve spent the last year as CD in a digital marketing agency. Much fun I’ve had to. But there’s been an uncomfortable feeling growing inside me for a while now and it was time to act.

So I’ve resigned.

Given the current economic climate, it’s probably not the wisest move I’ve made but it had to be done. Couple this with the fact that I’m getting married at the end of this month and it’s slightly nervous times. But exciting at the same time.

You see, I’m just entering my tenth year working professionally in this industry. I’ve been around a bit, ridden the .com wave and been washed in to shore. I’ve worked at four agencies full time and contracted at a further half a dozen or so. I’ve formed very strong opinions about how I feel things should work in an agency. I’m also tired of the ‘old’ web. I don’t want to spend my days designing corporate sites for Acme Widget companies. Though it pays the bills (well), I can’t muster the excitement I had for this type of work even three years ago.

I have ideas about the future. It’s the ‘next web’ (whatever that is) that excites me. As I’ve said to colleagues countless times; in London there are a thousand agencies in a 20 mile radius that can design and build a decent website. It’s almost become so commoditised that budgets are stripped to nothing and clients so blinkered there seems to be very little room for true innovation.

As such, I’m starting my own gig. Behaviour.Digital will come into being in the run up to Christmas and be up and running in the new year. What am I going to do? Good question!

I know what I’m good at. And in true artist style I’m going to try and make a living out of it. I can talk (too much some might say) and I can present. I can evangelise. I have ideas, passion and enthusiasm. I love the web and all its possibilities. I can even design stuff. I just feel that there are too few orgainsations making full use of what digital has to offer. It’s them that I want to work with and help. Those clients who share a passion and want to do new, exciting things. As I’ve blogged before, these are the clients that allow you to do some truly great work. And it is them that I shall seek.

I realise that, in the short term, I may have to turn my hand to a bit of design and html. I understand that I might have to do this to keep the thing I really want to do pure. But it’s that consultancy/thinking/innovation type offering that really excites me.

I will keep you up to date about how I am getting along. But for now, wish me luck. I have some clients to find.