Today I came across an idea that intrigued me: Hatch Day. The idea is to get together people who have ideas about projects they want to start or move forward with people who like working on projects - and then to present a prototype at the end of it.
I’m always a fan of finding ways to move projects forward more quickly, and I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to do a day like this within a company. You could even have a final stage of assessing the prototypes by merit/commercial return, and viola - you’ve got yourself a development plan.
It certainly would be a novel way of tackling some of the difficulties around balancing different demands from the business.
I apologise for the delay in posts recently, but I’ve just moved house and I lost my broadband connection for a couple of weeks. I wouldn’t normally mention it, however I have just joined up with Be*.
Whilst I don’t want to write a full review, it’s a stonkingly quick broadband provider – up to 24 meg download (they are the first ADSL2+ provider in the UK). I have to say I’m enjoying it, and their customer service is really rather good (the main call centre is in eastern Europe, and you’ll be updated by text any time they take action on your account).
It is more expensive than most providers, although not unreasonable. I think it’s worth it, especially if you want to value your time. The only comparison I have is the old Wanadoo (now Orange) and these guys definitely kick trouser bottoms over them.
If you’re interested in signing up, I suggest you use their referral scheme where you’ll get one month free. If you don’t know any one else using it, feel free to use me (hey, I’ve got to try, I’ll get a free month too) – my id is ‘fumbles’, (you’d never have guessed!) and you’ll need to leave a comment so I can email them and get it sorted. However, irrespective of the referral, check them out, because I certainly would recommend them at this stage.
I just came across an excellent presentation on the way the web is evolving from a one way dialogue to a more conversational communication. It touches on a broad range of topics including structures and information architecture, user experience, content and communication. However the brilliance of it is in the way it conveys many of these ideas - it’s by far the most complete and engaging presentation I’ve seen in a while.