Author Archives: Nick Barker

We have a treat for February’s Nott Tuesday with a Double Bill of Simon Rudkin’s DRY talk and the Nottingham launch of the Big Chip Awards.  Simon’s been described as “a funny, articulate and interesting speaker.” The Big Chip guys are also buying the drinks!!

Simon Rudkin – DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)

Simon has been working at the intersection of design and technology for twenty years. He was part of the startup team at now market-leading www.serif.com and co-founded Agenzia, an award-winning digital design agency who launched the online careers of influential British bands like the Libertines.

Since then Simon been a web freelancer for the likes of Sony. He’s now the creative director at London agency www.sonicdigital.co.uk and co-founder of a new online printing business.

Simon’s talk on the DRY (don’t repeat yourself) methodology shows how the DRY principles from software development can be used very effectively in wider design, business and even personal contexts.

The presentastion is for both technical people how the concepts they use can be applied in other areas and give non-technical people insight into development, along with a useful and practical methodology.

Shaun Fensom – Big Chip Awards Roadshow

The Big Chip awards are the biggest and longest running digital awards outside London. They’re open to entries of all types of digital work – from software to marketing, technical or creative – from anywhere in the northern part of England.

The Big Chips are organised by and for the industry and have an unrivalled reputation for integrity, awarding simply on merit to big and small alike. You can read more at www.bigchipawards.com

The awards are open for entries now and close 5 March. They’re quick and easy to enter. If you’re interested come along to Nott Tuesday and find out more. There’s a drink on the Big Chip guys for the first 30 attendees.

We are starting early on the 14th:

18:45 start at Antenna, Nottingham 14th February

Continuing the profitability theme from Oliver Emberton’s ‘Quitting Web design’ September talk,  this months Nott Tuesday presentation will be on how to make money from new tech products or services.

Despite to the rapid rate of technological change making a success of a breakthrough product or service is not straightforward. This talk will help people who are introducing new products or services to be more successful!

This marketing focused talk will be given by Paul Fileman. Paul’s no new comer to new software and technology launches  having worked in tech for over 30 years as an engineer and marketer.

Paul Fileman

Paul’s worked for the likes of Siemens Communications as Head of Applications, and Product Marketing Manager and at Plessey Office Systems as a Design Engineer. Paul now spends his time advising tech companies on strategic planning and marketing at Results-Zone and Transmentum. For more on Paul see his LinkedIN profile.

This talk will cover:

1. Look at some memorable failures – breakthrough propositions that failed to become mainstream
2. Show how the introduction of new products and services can unsettle an established market
3. Help you to understand how the offer is dictated by the market – even when the product or service represents a breakthrough
4. Explain why companies need to create credible Value Propositions for new products and services if they want to be successful
5. Outline the planning elements you need to consider in developing your market introduction plan

Once again, The Nott Tuesday tech startup of the year competition was a huge success. Antenna was packed with more than 60 people and the evening had a fantastic atmosphere.

Planitt won this years award. The judges made a strong and rapid decision on Planitt after their excellent pitch. Planitt provides an event discovery service for students.

Zahid Mitha, co-founder of Planitt, winning it!!

Planitt has a strong business and monetization model. Zahid Mitha, co-founder of Planitt, said after winning the award:

“We’re ecstatic to receive recognition for our product so early, and really feel that this validates all the hard work we’ve been putting in over the last six months. Thank you again to the judges. Hopefully this is the first of many!”

This year Nott Tuesday introduced second and third places to the competition. The runners-up each receive sponsored prizes. In second place was Matt Manser with LeaveWatch, his cool absenteeism web app. In third place was SiteVersion with their website back-up service. This service offers huge potential if they can crack this market.

All the startups pitching at Nott Tuesday Awards

Honourable mentions also go to Testimonial Monkey with their online client testimonials app and Tyrox with their app which helps students move to a new City.

Our sincere gratitude go to the sponsors of this year’s event: Bildurn, ForLinux, Esendex, Shoosmiths, Skeleton Productions, Inndie Ventures, Aware Monitoring, Web Design Training and PCM Creative. Without the support of these companies the event wouldn’t have attracted such a high caliber of startup.

Nott Tuesday Startup Awards 2011 Sponsors

Our thanks also got to the judges: Adam Bird, Jason Watkins, Rob Wilmot, Stuart Ross and Michelle Sherwood, who did an excellent job at cross examining the startups and selecting a winner.  Michelle Sherwood, Partner at Shoosmiths, and spokes person for the judges said:

“The judge and I were really impressed by the range and quality of creativity that it is happening in Nottingham in the technology sector.  We have a fantastic skill set in our City/County and should be really proud of what our technology start-up companies are achieving.”  Michelle Sherwood, Partner at Shoosmiths

Nott Tuesday Startup Awards 2011 judges

Finally we need to thank: Nick Walker from Walker Systems for once again providing the outstanding photography (All the photo’s on Flickr);  Antenna for so warmly hosting the event; CJ for live streaming the event (watch it again here!) and helping the organisation on the night;  and Simon Ling for the final event preparation during the final week.

This year’s Nott Tuesday startup competition has demonstrated the continued Tech talent Nottingham is producing!! Year-on-year startups in the region are going from strength to strength.

Tonight we have five passionate founders pitching their startups  at Nott Tuesday. They love what they do.

The Nottingham tech communicty has gone from strength to stregnth over the last year. We are now one of the top Tech Cities in the country and host various tech meetup groups, including: Second Wednesday; Geekup; and Nottingham Programmers and Developers.

Nottingham is a great place to be and have a tech startup. All of tonights startup founders are passionately trying to make a difference and all deserve to win. As said by the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple:

“…. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle…. “

More Sponsors

With a just week and a half to go before the Nottingham’s Tech Start-up of the Year Awards we have more sponsors flooding in. Webdesign Training and PCM Creative are pledging some great training courses for the winners.

Web design Training specialists are giving the winners a very useful course worth upto £600!

Our Nott Tuesday VideoStreamer CJ is awarding the event winner with a place on their great Social Master Class.

Startup Entries

The startup entries have been flying in and it looks like another excellent crop of startups for 2011.

You still have time to enter your startup and win a share of the £4,000 worth of prizes – Adam Roberts from GoDine said after winning lasts years awards:

“It’s nice to get recognition with the Award and it’s really, really positive for the business.  The prizes will be very useful. We really enjoyed the event!” 

To enter just email nick.barker@awaremonitoring.com and simon.ling@inndieinet.com by 31st of October.

The 31st of October is your last date to enter. Just send us a short pitch of your product as described on our awards announcement post. We’ll be short-listing the finalists and will be announcing the final five next week.

We now have our full panel of judges confirmed for ‘Nott Tuesday Tech Start-up of the Year’ 2011 awards to be held on the 8th of November.

Last years Nott Tuesday 2010 Startup Award Judges

This years panel  includes experts in entrepreneurship, funding and legal advice. They all know what is takes for a start-up to succeed. Meet this years esteamed judges:

• Adam Bird - An experienced entrepreneur, tech wizard & co-founder of Esendex. Adam started Nott Tuesday back in 2009. The startups will be hard put to pull the technical wool over Adam’s eyes.
• Jason Watkins - Like Adam, Jason is a seasoned entrepreneur having co-founded Kitbag, the on-line retailer, and several other ecommerce startups. He now advises ecommerce companies like Jigsaw on ecommece strategy.
• Rob Wilmot - Rob’s been there and got the tee-shirt! He was a co-founder of Freeserve, which floated for £1.6b and is now an angel investor and Director at PR agency BCS.
• Stuart Ross – A highly experienced business coach, Stuart advises many of Nottingham’s leading companies. He’s also been a judge on several business plan competitions.
• Michelle Sherwood - Michelle’s a Partner at Shoosmiths with specialist skills and experience in IT. Michelle is  sure to bring a strong legal perspective to the panel.

So there you have it – an expert panel of entrepeneurs and advisors.

We’re extremely excited and pleased to announce this years Nott Tuesday Tech Startup Award sponsors. It’s a record year for sponsorship – we’ve been inundated with generous prizes and offers of support.

All this generosity  shows the belief in our Nottingham tech talent and willingness to help grow our  tech community.

With so many sponsors we’ve divided the sponsors into categories:

Entertainment sponsors

Sean Atkins of Bildurn Property development is very generously providing food for the event. Sean has an exciting announcement to make on the night and major contribution to Nottingham tech scene. Things will never be the same!

Marvellous news – this year we have a drinks sponsor. Host provider ForLinux are kindly providing your 1st drink of the night.

Prize sponsors

This year Nott Tuesday founder and CTO of Esendex will be sponsoring the awards with a very generous £1,000 of text messages/virtual mobile numbers for the winner.

Long time supporter of Nott Tuesday and tech legal experts, Shoosmiths Solicitors, will be giving the award winner £750 worth of legal advice.

Need a video of your startup app – look no further. Skeleton Productions are again sponsoring Nott Tuesday awards with a professional video for the winner.

Jason  Watkin and Simon Ling of Inndie Ventures will helping out the winner with £750 of expert startup strategic advice.

Nott Tuesday’s co-chair & co-founder of Aware Monitoring, Nick Barker, will be giving the winner a whole year of their award winning performance monitoring

With so many prizes the runner up will also receive some of the above bounty.

Investment sponsor

Yes, this year we have a Investment sponsor – the Nott Tuesday 2011 Tech Startup of the Year will receive an investment offer from Angel Investor Chris Taylar to take the winners idea or product to the next level.

Nottingham is one of the top 10 Geekiest Cities in the UK and these awards are our opportunity to showcase our local up and coming tech companies. It should a fantatsic night.

We already have several startup entries for the comptetion – If you want to enter your startup please email nick.barker@awaremonitoring.com.

After the cancellation of our August Nott Tuesday, due to the rioting, we are now holding our Cookies by Law talk this month on the 11th October:

It may have come to your attention – Cookie are being outlawed. Well.., at least more controlled. This month Nott Tuesday regular and legalese Aisling Duffy  from Shoosmith Solicitors will talking about the implications of the new EU Cookie laws which come into full force next year.

For those of you that know little about these new Cookie laws watch this great short explanation from Oliver Emberton:

The stupid EU cookie law in 2½ minutes

Aisling will take a look at what cookies are, what the old laws said, what has changed and how the ICO Guidance suggests they should be implemented.

So don’t get caught out and learn all about the legal implications  of web re-marketing from legal experts before the change takes place.

This talk is sure to create a lively debate on how the law could affect web companies and the practical approach being take be many.

So, to summarise:

18:30 – 20:30 at Antenna, Nottingham 11th October

Speaker: Aisling Duffy  from Shoosmith Solicitors, Cookies by Law

Q&A: topics raised

Nott Tuesday’s Tech Start-up of the Year competition is back for 2011!!

It’s offical we, the Nottingham tech community, are one of the top 10 geekiest cities in the UK!!

It also appears we are the most northerly.  See full report: here