Personal Bit

Less about what I do and cover who I am. I'm 27 years old, have been working as a web designer for nearly 8 years but have previous experience in retail management. I love magic (yes like a proper geek), I am also a trumpet player. I'm currently working hard to get my standard back up to scratch having left it to gather dust for a couple of years. I've also been dabbling with the guitar... I think I'm getting quite good

I have been married to a wonderful young lady Yovina who I found in my house one afternoon. We got married in Mauritius shortly afterwards just a stone's throw from the waterside in Port Louis. (I wanted it ON the beach but the Hindu temple wouldn't allow it) Yovina has lasted three years so far and hasn't yet lost the will to live so I think she's a keeper.

We have a beautiful pair of terrapins (turtles to the rest of the world) and four goldfish.

I suffer with DSPS (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome). This basically means that since entering adulthood, I wake up every morning feeling like I've been working in a factory for 12 hours, by sunset however I'm wide awake and fully alert unable to sleep. Many people develop it as their circadian rhythm adjusts, however most people quickly grow out of it... I remained.

Other things I should have grown out of by now but haven't include hay fever and general childish playfulness. I hope to be cured of the former at some point soon, but not the latter.

I've also recently started fishing. After several failed attempts in the UK I managed to land a 5lb carp from our local canal. The addiction started in Mauritius when we were catching dinner from the sea, I know it's not in everyone's tastes, but for me, I find it a step back in time to where food really came from before we found a way to grow smoked salmon and pork chops in factories.

After a chance find by one of our canals, I'm currently repairing a kayak so I'll be getting back into that as soon as the fibreglass has set and the paint dried. I can't wait, it looks like we'll have a good summer!

Finally, I'm here to help, like most people here I have a strong network of contacts and if there's anything I may be able to help you with, or anything you might be able to help me with, get in touch.

Latest Case Study: Merton House Chester

Merton house is a private school based in Chester. The website was originally designed by a student who started full time employment and was unable to continue maintaining the site.  Content on the site needed to be brought up to date and the company owner wanted it to drive the school's online presence forward. With last minute school closures in heavy snow, he realised a need for reliancy on the website for communication.

We discussed his needs and the various methods of achieving his goals, we also added other ideas into the mix to gauge his response and see how far he was willing to go. He was very open to the ideas and we came back with a plan.

We started with making instant changes, correcting the out-of-date information, and gave Merton House the ability to continue updating the site without needing to rely on a third party. We also performed some keyword and competitor research to amend some of the site's keywords for Google. 

We then added online news for individual forms. Parents within these areas have a login to access their form's news and can keep track on progress, homework and projects.

We then installed newsletter software and sorted all parents contact details into forms and categories. They are now able to send ad-hoc or scheduled newsletters to all parents  or individual forms. We expanded this into prospective parents who were interested in downloading the school prospectus so they can keep track of potential new students.

Finally we incorporated the site into Facebook and Twitter. As many parents wanted to show off their child's attendance at the school, we are working on various ways for them to do so. They are now able to 'follow' Merton House on Twitter (which also updates a ticker tape on the website for urgent news, closures etc.). We have gone through Twitter with them, talked about two way conversation, how to target geographical areas, keywords etc to follow his target audience first. On Facebook we already found a 'Merton House Reunited' group with a strong membership, so rather than create a new one and start from scratch, we are in discussions with the admin for two-way promotion between the site and the group.

The next step: Merton House are very happy with the results so far, search engine rankings have improved, prospective parents are adding their details and we're building up a nice database of contacts. We're currently discussing the idea (and controversial idea) of a class webcam with secure login or a school 'mascot' webcam. We're also in discussions with their bank to enable parents to pay for school trips, concerts etc. online rather than sending a cheque with the children. Once they have the hang of Twitter, we would also like to introduce them into other networks. As a side project, we also suggested running a business networking event at the school as most parents are successful business people.