Thursday, July 28th 2011 | Short URL
Here's the latest from a few of our web design and Green Hosting clients:
Newly launched websites using Green Hosting:
Clarendon Press - Environmentally friendly printing services in Gloucestershire.
Planetary Collective - A collective of filmmakers and visual media creatives working in partnership with cosmologists, ecologists, astronauts, philosophers and futurists to wake people up to their place in the cosmos.
Ideas that Change Lives - Ideas to help people to live independently
In other client news:
Foxglove Covert celebrate their annual open day with many activities for children and adults and a grand opening of their wheelchair accessible hide by Professor David Bellamy.
Picture above © Foxglove Cobert LNR
Gertie & Mabel get their lovely products in the glossies again. This time their beautiful 'Happy Glow' tea light holders have been featured in the August edition of Vogue.
Climate Change Gardening confirms that our urban gardens can help combat climate change.
London Insight are looking for experienced organisers to help put together an exhibition of visual art by contemporary Buddhist teachers and practitioners.
Ethical Weddings tells us about eco bride workshops taking place at the 'Vintage at Southbank' festival on 29-31st July
Campaign Whale share news from the Internataional Whaling Committee meeting.
Cherrygorgeous' Tea & Cakes poster is picked up by Laurence Llewelyn Bowen for a cup cake garden party theme and featured on ITVs This Morning
The Social Business attends the launch of a pioneering eco village in Leeds.
If you're one of our clients and would like to share your news here on our blog, do get in touch.
Monday, July 25th 2011 | Short URL
For folks in Nottingham, here's some great green news:
First of all, the fledgling Nottingham Green Network has just taken flight, newly launched a couple of months ago and looking for members and supporters to join them. I only found out about them a couple of weeks ago and have recently joined the team as the green business editor for their blog. I'll be writing an eco business related article there at least once a month.
The website, nottsgreennetwork.com, is new and there are plans in place to develop something more permanent in the near future but in the meantime you can find out about green events, local projects and 'everything you need to know about' guides.
If you live in Nottingham or Nottinghamshire and would like to get involved please contact me and I will put you in touch with the lovely chap who runs the group.
This is the first eco show to take place in Nottingham and will be held on Friday 7th & Saturday 8th October at The Edge, Curzon Street, Nottingham.
Aimed at business owners, public sector organisations and house holders the show will hold a wealth of information on how to green up your home and workplace.
If you run a business in Nottingham and are looking to take your first eco steps then go along and find out how other businesses have incorporated green practices into their work.
Book your free ticket or find out more about exhibiting at nottingham-eco-show.co.uk
Friday, July 22nd 2011 | Short URL
Show-ee "the official ExpressionEngine showcase gallery for the best designed and built ExpressionEngine sites on the internet" has included our design of the Foxglove Covert website in its showcase gallery.
We are delighted of course to have our site listed alongside other stunning designs from some great developers.
You can see our entry on the Show-ee web page. There is also an accompanying case study write-up explaining the various features of the website and the technologies used to achieve them.
Monday, July 11th 2011 | Short URL
Business isn't usually associated with kindness, in fact, it's often associated with quite the opposite. The idea that bosses are mean and companies are greedy are almost accepted as the status quo. But isn't that sad? The virtue of kindness doesn't need to be linked only to charities and non-profits, business has a great capacity for helping improve quality of life for people on a local and global scale, it just sometimes chooses not to. In choosing not to though, it may well be missing out on a fantastic opportunity.
Kindness is infectious, if someone is kind to you it opens you up to doing a good turn of your own, ultimately rewarding you with that lovely warm feeling you get when you've just made someone smile. The idea that kindness also helps you and others around you to be more productive and creative may not seem surprising. However, for commercial organisations these wellbeing and happiness 'side effects' that empathy and compassion bring can lead to added bonuses in the workplace which are definitely worth considering further. Studies have shown that employee happiness and wellbeing leads to to improved health, loyalty, performance and decision making, and in turn the business's bottom line.
InKind Notts are looking to "inspire people in schools, homes and communities as well as workplaces, to recognise that actions motivated by empathy, self awareness and kindness not only make others flourish but they are also are incredibly strong mechanisms to help us feel engaged, well and happy."
InKind Notts will be committing Random Acts of Kindness in Nottingham city centre for 12 hours on Saturday the 16th July from 9am to 9pm. Go along to chat with them, find out more or share your thoughts. Listen to an interview with co-founders Kaye Brennan & Jeff Buck about the event.
So, inspired by the InKind Notts folk, here's my 12 acts of kindness for business ideas:
Find out more at inkindnotts.org and www.randomactsofkindness.org
Interesting reading: Science News - Happy Employees Are Critical For An Organization's Success.
I'd love to hear your ideas on how a business can spread kindness so please share them in the comments below.
Friday, July 1st 2011 | Short URL
You may remember that back in January we wrote a very enthusiastic post about a most inspiring conference that took place here in Nottingham. The conference was New Adventures in Web Design. 'Colly' (Simon Collison), web designer and creator of the conference, promised that the event would have "inspiration, thinking, and intelligence at its core." It did not disappoint.
The audio and slides of the talks from the conference are now available online and we thought we'd signpost you to them because we'd like you to get a glimpse into, perhaps, an unexpected view of our world. You don't have to be a web designer or a technical person to appreciate the concepts highlighted in the talks. In fact most of the ideas discussed are useful and enlightening to non-technical website owners.
None of the talks or presentations mention complex techniques or code but cover a range of thought provoking concepts from defining the language we use when talking about website and the web to using storytelling methods in web design - and a whole raft of ideas in between.
If you own a website, work with a web designer or just want to listen to some really intelligent and inspiring thoughts then this is well worth checking out:
2011.newadventuresconf.com
©2011 Make Hay Ethical E-Media Ltd. Company Number: 5223822