Calling everyone keen to expand their ideas online

Autumn’s mellow ICT fruitfulness promises a season of investors meeting innovators and falling for new inventions, as Merseyside and the UK celebrate Enterprise Week.

In a month where key UK investors will be gathering with leading software developers at Software City - a major meeting of minds event organised by MICT and partners - enterprising ideas will be moving to centre stage online.

LoveMyIdea.com is a new, free and secure web community about to be launched for people who often, according to MD and co-founder, Joe McGinnis, ‘…let their ideas flounder because of a lack of resources, confidence and time’. The project’s credo is that ‘… we don’t want your ideas to stay ideas forever.’

A meeting of ideas and minds

A critical mass of business ideas, inventions and generally constructive thoughts has been encouraged on the site in recent months. The official launch will now coincide with Enterprise Week 2007, from 12 to 18 November, which aims to extend an enterprise culture among young people across the UK.

Created by a group of young entrepreneurs, including Anna Heyes, the managing director of Liverpool’s Active Profile, LoveMyIdea.com is designed to be an active forum to ‘… request, pitch, grow and even sell your great ideas.’

Joe describes himself as a person full of ideas since childhood. Yet, as he explains, a lack of knowledge and time prevented him from taking most of them forward.

‘The new website simply gives people tools to potentially make their ideas a reality. Anyone can invest on the website financially or mentally. This is what makes us different from a typical “Dragon’s Den” style investor/ inventor format,’ he says.

‘The term “investor” for lovemyidea.com is a wider concept – you can register as an investor to invest in the community, a charity, or a family business, and we are hoping it will attract equal numbers of ideas, investors, and mentors alike. There is also space for people who don’t have ideas to share. Take our agency member type. Agencies such as universities, government bodies or community groups can create a profile to let everyone know what they are up to and source or share innovative ideas with similar organisations,’ adds Joe.

Confidential and in control

Investors are able to set confidentiality terms. They also control who sees their ideas and makes comments. In addition, they can stipulate their preferred outcome, in terms of advice, development assistance, mentoring, funding access - or just shared thoughts.

Anna Heyes adds, ‘There is an eBay mentality involved with lovemyidea.com in terms of an underlying element of trust. However, we are simply providing the tools to build an idea as much, or as little, as a person wants. A rating system is also in place so that the more effort a member, investor, mentor or Agency puts into their profile and their contribution, the higher their rating.’

Another novel feature is an incentivised “ideas wanted” section. ‘This concept is similar to crowdsourcing, where a company, or agency, outsources tasks normally performed by an employee and puts some decision-making power in the hands of the general public. We are confident this will prove to be a very popular part of the site for visitors,’ explained Anna.

www.lovemyidea.com

www.enterpriseweek.org

Software City

UK venture capitalists will meet software entrepreneurs at Liverpool’s Crowne Plaza Hotel at Princes Dock on Tuesday, 13 November, for “Software City”. MICT is organising the day-long event, in partnership with Vodafone, and solicitors Brabners Chaffe Street, to underpin a wave of inventive software developers who have moved into the region recently.

Guests will include Californian-born, but UK-based, entrepreneur and technology specialist, Doug Richard, who will share his valuable Dragon’s Den experience.

For event information, please call Helen Cross on tel 0151 221 3528, or e-mail Helen.

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Chameleon blends naturally into client IT environments

IT Answers wanted to develop bespoke business management software that opens up with a powerful core of expertise, adapts swiftly to individual client demands and can constantly evolve to absorb new experiences.

Chameleon’s Merseyside secret of success is its two-fold structure.

It arrives with an impressive array of existing capabilities. However, the proprietary software also comes with an innate flexibility to respond to a client’s unique circumstances. The result is superior access to quality business data, explains IT Answers’ MD, Judith O’Brien.

‘The generation of efficient and effective management information is a prime concern for companies investing considerable budgets in IT systems,’ she says.

‘Far too often, they are forced to shoehorn their needs into the constraints of available software. This is clearly the wrong way around. Massive data generation, plus duplicated effort across team members, damages critical business decision-making. A much better solution is needed.’

Making the most of data

In contrast, Chameleon has been developed to eliminate such pitfalls. The software’s unfolding potential has its roots in the statistical Six Sigma methodology, used successfully by major corporates in aiming systematically for near perfection through a five-step process. Under the acronym of DMAIC, this comprises defining, measuring, analysing, improving and controlling.

’Once we understand a customer’s business priorities and processes, we can either develop a solution from scratch, or efficiently "front-end" existing systems and applications to maximise opportunities for increasing revenues and/or reducing costs,’ Judith adds.

One of Chameleon’s further features is that over time the core expertise will expand by absorbing client experiences, reducing the adaptation part of the process - a genuine example of technical evolution.

Expansion from traditional roots

Four-year-old, IT Answers is based in Liverpool city-centre’s prestigious India Buildings, where its nine-person team specialises in application and interface design, plus application development.

Judith was able to contribute her experience of international business process architecture - acquired while working for IT giant, CSC - just as IT Answers was beginning to evolve from its traditional role as an IT and web service company. Clients today include Chevron Texaco, which is part of the fuel industry.

‘We saw the market gap that Chameleon is now ready to satisfy. Our first move was to conduct market research, looking primarily at pain points experienced by SMEs with CRM (customer relationship management) models. What we found was huge demand for a solution,’ she says.

Soft solutions for a tough industry

Chameleon itself has become an enigma, whereby it has a central core to which a variety of overlapping modules can be fashioned and applied to create a highly-tailored capability. Having developed an effective platform, the company is now very keen to take the systems adaptive powers out to a series of prime industrial sectors.

Construction is its first target. Through a practical partnership with Dolphin Construction, based at The Matchworks in Speke, IT Answers is refining a generation of Chameleon specifically to that industry’s robust demands.

Judith believes the team has the advantage of setting out with an excellent product. ‘Our next aim is to create a market springboard to really take this forward rapidly in line with demand and go on to introduce the system to large corporate organisations, where its value will quickly become apparent,’ she says.

When Chameleon shows its true colours, everyone will be tickled pink.

www.itanswers.biz

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CMC tackles the rough with the smooth

CMC Computing views life as a robust challenge. Its rugged computers ensure essential software is secure in tough environments, from UK motorway fast-lanes to the heart of the Asian oil industry.

It is reasonable to assume that you don’t deliberately bounce your PC or laptop on hard concrete floors. Or hose them off with cold water after a fall into wet concrete.

This, however, is exactly the treatment that CMC Computers expects the many rugged tablet computers to withstand that it supports as master reseller throughout the UK and Ireland.

Three-years ago, MD Mark Dale-Lace recognised the global potential of a rugged market estimated to be worth £500 million in the UK alone. He founded CMC at The Heath. Linked directly to Swedish specialist manufacturer, JLT, the now nine-person-strong company provides a chain of resellers with backup and service - including GPS and GPRS upgrades - for machines that get heavy daily use, both on and off-road.

Fingertip control of vital service

As a result, its touch-screen operated units are hard at work with motorway police - including Lancashire and Cheshire forces - utility companies and even vets, called out in all conditions. They are used to optimise bin-lorry local collection rounds and in winter keep road gritters on track. Railway maintenance teams use them to photograph damage, log repair tasks and re-photograph finished work.

In a demanding marine environment, Rolls Royce uses rugged units to control ship stabilisers in the corrosive presence of sea water. As part of a recent contract, tablet computers provided via CMC are destined for Singapore to operate inspection equipment inside giant oil terminal storage vessels.

Tested to the limit

Designed from scratch explicitly for tough working, as opposed to being enhanced post-production, rugged computers differ markedly from ruggedised models, explains Marketing Manager, Mark Muslek. ‘The basic quality criteria units meet is the IP 65 rating. This includes an accelerated/halt simulation equivalent to 150,000 miles of travel on the back seat of a Range Rover, plus repeated dropping from a one-metre height onto hard concrete.

‘In addition to water emersion and withstanding retrieval from wet concrete, units must perform at temperature of -300C. These are found in cold storage, or at 1,300 data logging stations in Finland! They also have to operate at up to 500C.’

Despite their hard life, CMC units routinely run stably with programmes such as Windows XP, while functioning well with Blue Tooth and within Wi-Fi networks.

Muddy fields and silver seas

The advantages over alternatives are obvious, adds Mark. ‘In many circumstances, notebooks and laptops are simply not practical. The police, for example, need to be able to operate both in and outside vehicles without delicate flip-up screens and keyboards. GPS and GPRS functionality are essential for local authorities to keep waste collection and highway service crews well deployed. However, as in the example of James Heriot-style veterinary surgeons who work in rural environments, the reliable ability to access remote databases is a modern necessity.’

CMC also supports units known as The Fixed Mount. IP 67 rated, these fan-less computers in chassis machined from solid blocks of aluminium are guaranteed to work effectively under a minimum of one-metre of water, and are used extensively on boat management systems in the world’s finest yachts.

Rugged computers can support luxury as well as utility!

www.cmc.org.uk

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LearnBuild’s e-learning reputation goes corporate

With a major Australian university considering its well-proven software, one Liverpool-based special solutions provider has expanded further to create a highly-bespoke online training environment within HBOS.

LearnBuild is carefully spreading its e-learning talents far and impressively wide.

Monash University, with 55,000 students across Australia, Asia and South Africa, is currently assessing whether to install the company’s advanced library management system that is already at work in some 7% of UK Higher Education institutions, including nine universities.

Back in Britain, The University of Lincoln has become the latest to install Library Link - LearnBuild’s programme that integrates learning management systems, such as Blackboard/WebTV and Model with prevailing library systems.

Meanwhile, the six-person-strong specialist team is expanding into pastures new, explains MD, Tony Richardson.

Firstly, it has created an interactive e-learning environment for the education sector, using the open source Moodle platform now adopted by the Open University.

Secondly, it has taken this and its wider expertise on into the relatively unexploited marketplace of the high-level private sector corporate.

Working closely with blue-chips

‘We have partnered with HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland) to provide a customised online internal platform for 170 of the company’s performance auditors,’ adds Tony. ‘The exciting thing for us is the development of forums, chat rooms and blogs that add life to an essentially administrative process. Plus engaging Flash animations, which are one of our specialities.

‘In fact, the full scope of what we could potentially do with HBOS is set to make this a classic LearnBuild case study.’

In tune with Government on skills

LearnBuild recently released a software update that could create new inroads into the UK and international university sector. Much of its development work is now carried out by an expert team in Pakistan, headed from Liverpool by Shahid Akhtar.

Skills development is another priority area. The company knows that by spring 2008, the Government wants all young people to have their own e-space. Which is why it is targeting schools.

Until now, restrictions have been caused by BECTA, the Government-created body charged with delivering ICT to schools, explains Tony. Originally, ten national key providers were identified as BECTA Partners and schools have been encouraged to adopt products and services from these partners. LearnBuild is not sure whether this limiting position will change but it has led to its e-learning expertise going into the UK corporate marketplace in support of skills creation.

Community skills concern

The company is also working in a partnership with the Community Advice Training Unit (CATU) to provide online training for community and voluntary sector employees. Traditionally, training here was remote and costly, says Tony. Online access improves costs. Importantly, it also creates availability over, say, a full year, that allows participants to dip in and out, according to their circumstances.

Again, with pre-recorded animation and text clips, this environment is being rolled out through the Northwest, South Wales and the Northeast.

Corporate doorway

Put together, these developments have opened the door to HBOS - and important potential offerings to other large organisations.

‘Our methodology goes through a basic implementation process, adapting the front-end configuration through a web page or similar portal. We then add a two-day training course covering basic administration and creative questions. We also develop SCORM Material (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) which is based on a collection of standards and specifications for web-based e-learning that work as plug-ins,’ says Tony.

‘HBOS is keen on bespoke Flash animations that are not drab off-the-shelf standards. We also stream video and add participant feedback opportunities.

‘The client feedback we have had ourselves is that they are very pleased with what we have been able to do so far. Hopefully, we are looking at a brand new chapter in our company growth.’

www.learnbuild.com

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St Helens helps industry to profit from good ICT

St Helens Chamber and the University of Liverpool’s iD2M Centre have joined forces to give 75 local design and manufacturing companies an ICT leg-up with LEGI.

With 140 staff, over 1,100 members and the highest business involvement rate in the UK, St Helens Chamber is one of the biggest and most successful Chambers of Commerce in the country, offering a diverse range of services to the local community.

Working in close partnership with St Helens Council, the Chamber is currently delivering a number of new programmes aimed at developing business and enterprise activity in St Helens, funded by the Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI).

Helen Graham, Supply Chain Development Manager at the Chamber, explains how the programme she runs is helping local business:

‘Business Winning Business is here to help local companies develop, and most importantly, stay in business.

‘Digital Integration is just one way we are able to help them achieve this, and through our close partnership with the University’s iD2M centre we have been able to show ordinary companies how integrated ICT can help them prosper in demanding markets.’

The iD2M centre integrates digital systems from design through to manufacturing and marketing, creating the internationally recognised skills needed to improve overall efficiency, reduce waste and boost marketing and sales.

To date, the partnership has helped some 30 companies. Three make inspiring examples.

New-Tonne Lifting Services

To help in the design of structures carrying crane end carriages, the iD2M centre suggested using parametric 3D CAD with integrated FE (finite element) analysis. This work was previously done manually, which is time consuming and can be prone to errors. The result is a saving of approximately one day per project, amounting to some five days a month. ‘This has led to at least 10 more projects being completed since installing the software, giving an increase in turnover of £40,000 to £100,000 in just a couple of months,’ says CAD designer, Ben Dobbs.

iD2M has also produced a generic 3D model to automate fabrication drawings remotely when on-site. This model can be updated automatically, according to the output of the fully integrated FE software. New-Tonne’s recent clients include Pilkington, Chicago Bridges and Ironwork, Airbus and Nuttals.

JM Dixon Associates

As an engineering design consultancy specialising in pressure vessels, tanks and steelwork, all design was previously through 2D AutoCAD. Inherent limitations in showing complex details in single drawings led iD2M to suggest introducing a 3D CAD system with Routed Systems Designer.

After implementing the new software the company has also asked iD2M to design a complex parametrically controlled generic spiral staircase model that will cut design from days to seconds!

Arcoframe

Arcoframe designs and manufactures arches and curved frames for double glazing and door frame suppliers. All orders, cutting lists and design and costings data were previously hand written and calculated manually, leading to inefficiencies and errors. Process improvements with tight data control and design procedures were therefore a priority. No data from previous contracts was stored and design was very ad hoc.

iD2M developed a system to create SolidEdge 2D parametrically controlled drawings from a simple XL spreadsheet, with lists of standard designs and essential dimensions. Entering the dimensions produces a 2D drawing automatically in Adobe format, along with cost details and cutting lists.

Arcoframe Sales Director, Charlie Richards, says the company thought such customising and automation was not possible, adding, ‘This will dramatically improve our overall efficiency, reduce waste and enhance our product pricing’.

For more information on how your business can benefit, please contact the Business Winning Business team at St Helens Chamber Ltd by phone 01744 742080 or e-mail bwb@sthelenschamber.com.

www.id2m.com

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