Some excellent events so please get signed up and get involved. Twitter link @smwldn

Cogs scooped Agency of the Year last night at the MARA awards

A massive thanks to everyone that voted for us, candidates and clients alike. We’re very proud of this achievement and we look forward to many more successful nights as we grow stronger and stronger.

A lovely piece of digital art from the very talented Bård Edlund. Thanks to Angela Natividad @luckthelady for pointing us in Bård’s direction.  Beautifully hypnotic and it could be the difference between hitting your audience just at the right time or tweeting into space.

CREATIVE

DEVELOPMENT

SALES & MARKETING

CLIENT SERVICES

PROJECT MANAGEMENT/PRODUCERS

STRATEGY

USER EXPERIENCE

BRANDS / CLIENTSIDE

-   We’ve seen a 10% increase in perm roles across digital and integrated agencies when comparing Jan – Sept for 2010 and 2011.

-   The biggest increase when comparing Jan – Sept for 2010 to Jan – Sept  2011 has been in freelance roles which has grown by 100%.  At the same time day rates for contracts have come down.  The rise in freelance requirements this year is certainly in part being driven by economic fears meaning companies don’t want to make a long term commitment to perm hires.

-   We’re meeting more people looking for new roles this year compared to last with a significant increase in people looking for freelance.  The increased numbers of freelancers is one reason why rates are coming down but the fact more people are looking for new roles suggests a little more confidence in the market.

-   We’ve noticed an increase in mid-weight roles (£30-£40K) but having come out of a recession where agencies didn’t invest in grassroots talent there simply aren’t enough people in the market for the volume of roles.  Great news however if you are in the early stages of your career as there is lots of choice!

-   Agencies are still not investing enough in grassroots talent favouring hiring experienced people that have lower needs for training and support, perhaps this is amplified by the state of the economy and companies not making as much investment into their people.  But when you combine this with the increased restrictions on immigration we’re facing a real lack of succession and new talent coming into the industry.

To finish on a slightly more positive note; both perm and freelance roles show no sign of slowing down when we compare Sept 2010 to 2011.  This is  encouraging against the backdrop of doom and gloom in the global economy – the stock markets may be falling off a cliff and cash may get a little tight when Greece default but the outlook for digital talent remains high!

So Tech City, in the heart of London’s East End welcomes Google as its newest resident.

Google is to open a multimillion-pound “technology community centre” in London’s East End, as part of the government’s plans to create a Tech City in the capital. The seven-floor building will act as a shared space for the growing cluster of internet companies based in the heart of London’s so-called “Silicon Roundabout”, the internet giant said.

Full details can be found here; http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/28/google-london-startup-centre?newsfeed=true

Cogs recently went along to an Incubator Event through Accelerator-London where Eric Van Der Kleij CEO of Tech City Investment was speaking. Tech City Investment is responsible for bringing investment into London and Shoreditch in particular and it was great to see so many start-ups there giving their voice and opinion as to what should be happening  (getting rid of the term Silicon Roundabout will be a great start)

We love working with start-ups and are looking at many different ways we can help. If you’re thinking of starting up or already are and are finding it difficult to find or retain talent to sustain your growth, then do please get in touch with me here at harry@cogsagency.com as we would be delighted to discuss how we can be of service.

On Wednesday, our very own Kim Topham, Technical Consultant, was busy sitting in on the Elevator Pitches, here’s her take on the morning.

Elevator Pitches:

Wednesday’s Flash on the Beach kicked off with the infamous Elevator Pitch, which for those of you who unawares, are a series of 3 minute pitches given by 20 designers and developers in the industry explaining their own innovative ideas. This was definitely one of my highlights of the day, the ideas and pitches demonstrated were not only inspirational but well translated and presented.
A handful of the rising stars included: Jason Stone’s @jason_m_stone ‘Designers Block is Bullshit’, suggesting how designers can use their own environments, particularly outside, to move beyond the creative limitations; Ward De Langhe  @delanghe gave a really interesting insight into his experimentations with Molehill AKA Stage 3D, which is the new 3D rendering API for Flash. Ward gave some exciting insights into how he was hopeful to use this for audio visuals and artwork. Neil Nand  @neilnand , one of Cogs’ own freelancers, gave a really interesting presentation on the versatility of multi sources transferable from one device onto another. Kathryn Rotondo (@krotondo) gave a fun and energetic presentation on ‘Better Code Review’ outlining every developer’s frustrations with too many meetings and how using tools and IDE plugins can assist in making a more productive experience when code reviewing. Finally, I really enjoyed Graham Odds @g_odds depiction of ditching the drawing lines and really appreciating the importance of whitespace. He successfully demonstrated how many UI designs use too much structuring and excessive line usage, which results in designs losing their emphasis and user perception; really interesting concept using the foundations of psychological principles and UI tendencies.
After this I could definitely understand why this part of FOTB had developed such notoriety – watch this space for the exciting new talent.
Keith Peters – Making Tools
www.minimalcomps.com
www.bit-101.com

Next up I saw Keith Peters, a mogul in the flash world with a number of awards and books to show for it. A really interesting and insightful presentation, Keith spends a lot of his career developing tools that assist in the development process and he talked over a number of his most useful tools. This talk straddled the divide between developers and designers and successfully outlined some excellent tools of the trade to enhance creative and technical development. Some of the most interesting ideas I took away from this were Keith’s use of tools to create pixel perfect layouts and his ideas of how tools can assist in the generation of art from code, which translates lines of codes into visual masterpieces – you should check out his websites to get a better idea of this.

Lee Brimlow – Render For Speed
www.leebrimelow.com
www.gotoandlearn.com
www.flashermag.com
@leebrimelow

My final talk of the morning was by Lee Brimelow, who discussed in full rendering methods, and touched on Android development and the very newest version of Stage3D APIs AKA ‘Molehills’. The talk aimed to outline the various means of rendering, being associated with generating an image from a model by the use of computer programming and largely being applied to 3D computer graphics. The types of methods that Lee outlined included blitting, partial blitting, dirty blitting, GPU caching, as well as the new Stage 3D APIs. I’d love to say I walked away from this discussion with complete comprehension of what was said, at times I did feel slightly out of my comfort zone in terms of understanding the principles of rendering, however I felt like I sponged up enough information to be able to get a more rounded view of how these emerging technologies and methods are going to impact on the industry, relating to both Flash and the future of HTML5.
This was the first time I had visited Flash on the Beach and overall I came away from the event with not only useful information to help me to understand more about Flash in the industry, but also a great opportunity to have exposure to some really talented individuals. Technology is such a rapidly changing entity and as a recruiter specialising in this area it is essential to keep up to date with how things are developing. FOTB was definitely an experience I would love to have again, and hopefully Cogs will be there to represent next year.

But I’ll continue for now.

I attended FOTB last Monday. Despite the early hour and the strong winds, the Brighton Dome was filled with people, gathered there to listen to the entertaining keynote session led by Adobe team who were going through a few changes they’ve started to implement or are currently working on.

After a quick break and quick cuppa coffee (thank you FOTB!!!), it was time for the first talk:

“From Zero to App in 60 seconds”

Greg Rewis @derez

This was the session I was most looking forward to. I was keen to hear what kind of tips and knowledge Greg, the evangelist of Adobe’s HTML5, CSS and Javascript, would share with the audience. As you already figured, the talk itself didn’t last for 60 seconds, but almost a whole hour. And this hour simply flew by as Greg most definitely is a great and entertaining speaker who knows how to engage with audiences and challenge them at the same time. And, of course, there is no doubt about his development skills as he showed us how he can rock’n'roll with Dreamweaver to create applications for difference devices, giving them the look and feel of a ‘native’ app. So, what’s the key thing to take away from this talk? Well, the simple fact many brands still tend to forget as they are rushing to create apps and sites for different technological platforms: “Experiences on different devices should NOT be the same”.

“Multi-Platform Web Video Delivery”

Rich Shupe @richshupe

Yet again, another session I was very much looking forward to. Although I’ve been excited about digital (of all forms) for several years, I haven’t always paid much attention to the challenges the industry has been facing in terms of developing for various devices. Yes, I’m aware of the basics (iOS doesn’t support Flash), but it’s only now, that I’ve started to work within the Technical team here at Cogs, that I’ve really become intrigued about the opportunities and obstacles the industry is facing. So, listening to Rich explain and exhibit how it’s possible to use spreadsheets to create well-functioning video content for iPad, was definitely an eye-opener. Surely, I didn’t understand all of the heavy-techy side of the talk, i.e.  the coding, but it definitely helped me to broaden my knowledge of video delivery for various devices and gain a better understanding of the technologies available for that.

In summary, attending FOTB was, without a doubt, very useful in terms of understanding what’s happening within the industry, what are the latest technologies and ways to develop high quality products across the whole range of devices available for today’s consumer.

And to finish off my short note here, I’d like to go back to the conversation I had with one of our flash developers prior to attending the event. He asked me whether we are attending the event to headhunt or is there another reason. I explained that headhunting most definitely wasn’t going to be Cogs’ initiative for attending. And it wasn’t. As we all met up in the office after the 3-day event, the only thing that our people really talked about was how insightful it had been.

We met old and new faces, but conversations we had with current and future candidates didn’t start with “so, do you want a job” but were about the talks just heard, things learnt. At the end of the day, it’s our job to know what’s the happening on the marketplace, what’s new and –  ultimately – what should candidates and agencies be aware of when facing today and looking above the horizons towards the future.

Reporter:

Dianne Hummal, Researcher for the Technical Team

Tweeting as @diannehummal about latest jobs, exciting industry news, networking events and happenings and other things spotted on the way.

Yes  folks, it’s that time of year again. Flash on the Beach returns for its 4th year and some of our consultants will be there. 3 days of design, code inspiration & networking for digital designers, developers & artists.

So a few things to remember:

1. Get your registration out of the way nice and early (don’t say you haven’t been warned!)

2. Don’t forget there a lot of camera’s and video’s about (just sayin’)

3. If you want to meet up with one of our consultants, then please do get in touch and we’ll track you down and take you for a tea/coffee/bovril or beer, depending on the weather.

Following to reading this article – http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/25/technology-is-the-new-smoking/ - and one on social media addiction that I came across some time ago - http://socialmediatoday.com/steve-olenski/306021/social-addiction-its-more-serious-we-think- here are few questions to think about;

- How much time does it take you after waking up before reaching for the phone to check your emails, Facebook notifications, Twitter @’s?

- When you’re left at a restaurant table/bar on your own , do you take out your phone and starting browsing, pretending you’ve got loads of emails/text messages/tweets to follow up on? Or do you really simply observe the environment, the people and enjoy the moment?

- Do you ever take your phone with you when going to the bathroom? Be honest! Well, apparently, research indicates that no place or moment is sacred when it comes to using a phone – http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2011/08/a-nation-addicted-to-smartphones/

While I’m a true fan of all things digital and strongly believe in the power it holds, there are moments when I think: what else could I do with time spent browsing social media networking sites.

As the holiday month is (already!) half way through, should people try and stay outdoors without using any technologies? According to a recent study though, this doesn’t seem to be happening with European holiday-makers very reluctant to leave their phones at home:  http://www.fourthsource.com/news/european-holidaymakers-cant-leave-the-internet-at-home-3165

Could you challenge yourself to ‘a digital detox’ session and take a day off from using technologies of all kinds? Just like our bodies need recovery time, so do our minds. So why not grab your sunnies (even if it’s not sunny, pretend it is because the summer’s too short anyway) and head outdoors when you get a minute…and don’t forget to leave your technology behind!