In preparation for (R)Evolution 2015 we caught up with Emma Mulqueeny.

What do you think is most exciting about how the tech / web industry has evolved and how it stands at the end of 2015?

I think the most exciting thing is the relentlessness and the speed of it, it has given everyone a glimpse of the possible and awakened the entrepreneur in us all. But MOST exciting of all, is the connectivity and the fact we can all communicate in instant time in such a variety of ways – so long as we have wifi or data.

If you could predict the thing that will dominate tech columns in 2016, what will it be?

Fintech, medical tech and transport tech

What single project are you most proud of?

The Festival of Code

Do you have a guilty secret ritual when it comes to watching films i.e. watching old Doctor Who episodes from behind the sofa or only watching Star Trek while participating in drinking games (these are not my guilty secrets btw! ~ grin!)

You can’t put Netflix and chill here (or if you print that people will laugh) but no – I do love a bit of bingewatching Netflix and duvet days.

Emma’s Talk:

The 97ers: Emma will be introducing you to the 97ers – a very interesting sub­category of millenials. She will talk about how they are learning, sharing, influencing and breaking things better for the children growing up in their wake.

You can see Emma’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

In preparation for (R)Evolution 2015 we caught up with Jake Giltsoff to ask him a few questions

What do you do, day-to-day?

I’m a designer at Adobe Typekit, and mostly work on the web UI and UX. I also get to work on our integrations with Adobe apps. I spend around half my time coding also, recently I worked on updating our front-end to be more modular and easier to work on as well as making it responsive. I’m lucky that it is such a varied role and I have the opportunity to work on some many different great projects. My day-to-day routine varies depending on what projects we are working on but generally I’ll try and go to the gym in the morning before starting around 10. This means there is a bit more overlap in the evening with the most of the team in San Francisco. I work remotely from my home office in Bristol or sometimes from one of the many great local coffee shops.

How did you get where you are?

I studied typography at the University of Reading and whilst there taught myself how to code. Coming into web design from a type background put me in a really good position, as it isn’t the typical path. I also got into coding around the time responsive web design and CSS preprocessors were really taking off, so I didn’t have to unlearn table layouts and previous best practices. After I graduated I worked at fffunction in Bristol before joining Typekit.

If you could shape the future of your specialism, what are the first changes you’d make to the industry?

Well, hopefully I can! I’d like to think that the work we do at Typekit is helping to shape the future of how people access and use fonts. In an ideal world, the first changes I would make would be in font licensing. If licenses were more simple, more inclusive, and less limiting I believe that the type industry would be revolutionised. People need an easy way to get the fonts they want without worrying about what they can’t do with them.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

I am a big fan of sci-fi films, especially the classic space ones — 2001 and Moon are both favourites of mine. I really enjoyed Interstellar recently too. I also love Shane Carruth’s films Primer and Upstream Color which are mind-bogglingly brilliant.

Do you have a guilty secret ritual when it comes to watching films?

Hmm, I wouldn’t say I feel guilty about it or that it is really a secret but I am currently working my way though Jake Gyllenhaal’s back catalogue. Before that I watched most of Ryan Goslings’. No shame.

Jake’s Talk:

The future(s) of typography: Find out how to time­ travel & teleport with typography and why we as web designers and developers have such an important role in shaping the future of communication.

You can see Jake’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

In preparation for (R)Evolution 2015 we caught up with Joe Leech.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I’m a freelance UX and product consultant. I make digital stuff better. I ask users what they want and help businesses meet those needs.

How did you get where you are?

I did and MSc in Human Computer Interaction about 12 years ago and got my first job in what was called usability and is now UX. I’ve been working with agencies and freelance ever since with clients like Glenfiddich, eBay, Marriott, University of Bristol, theTrainline and many others.

If you could shape the future of your specialism, what are the first changes you’d make to the industry?

UX is a process and is about getting results. Understanding what people want and designing to meet those needs. Where previously this has meant the design of the interface it needs to grow to be the design of the product and even the company or organisation behind that interface.

Creating a truly user focused company will make that company more successful. Basing a company on ideas dreamt up by by a bunch of men in a room is rather 1950s.

Start-ups and companies should be looking for unmet user needs and designing products to meet them rather than spending vast amounts of time and money marketing average products to people.

What single project are you most proud of?

My work over the years with the Trainline. Some of the basic design changes to the digital services meant we reduced waiting times to collect tickets at the station. Lots of other small changes like indicating busy trains, helping find cheaper tickets and just making train travel a little bit better.

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

I’d love to redesign the full customer experience for UK trains. Ticketing through to journey, online and on the train. It’s such an important service and it could be made so much better with very little investment.

Buying a train ticket on your phone on the bus on the way to the station. No need to collect a bit of paper, a seat reserved for you, a coffee ordered an brought to you in your seat. Simple changes that make the experience a little bit better.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

It would be Starfleet, (or Go Nagai in it’s original Japanese incarnation) a wonderfully complex kids sc-fi show from the 80s. Huge robots, nasty baddies and a synth soundtrack to die for.

Joe’s Talk:

How to Design with Science without Loosing the Magic: We’ve all had that experience, that feeling when we poured our heart and soul into some UX or design work only for it to be not taken seriously, criticised or worse, ignored. How telling stories, understanding business, talking data & numbers and psychology can all be used together to get good design done. All the time making sure we don’t loose that magic inherent in great design.

You can see Joe’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

We all know Andy is a huge fan of Planet of the Apes but is that his favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? In preparation for (R)Evolution 2015 we caught up with Andy Clarke to find out.

What single project are you most proud of?

At Stuff & Nonsense, we’ve worked on several client projects that made me proud, so it’s hard to narrow them down to one. It might be our design for Disney Store UK ten years ago that was the first major web standards based and accessible e-commerce store. Then our work on the Hillsborough Independent Panel website played an important role in telling the true story of what happened at Hillsborough. It could be the thing that I’m most proud of isn’t a client project, it’s my Contract Killer open source contract that’s been used by many, many designers and developers.

If you could work on any project, for any company, anywhere in the world; what would it be?

If you listen to my Unfinished Business podcast, you’ll know that if I could work on anything away from the web, it would be conservation of great apes, particularly gorillas. I’ve been a supporter of WWF for many years and ‘adopting’ a gorilla has been a regular present for me at Christmas. So I could not be more pleased that we’ve just been commissioned by WWF UK to redesign their adoption and donation pages. It’s a wonderful creative challenge for something that I care deeply about.

Do you have a favourite B-Movie / Sci-fi tv show or film? if so, what?

Of course, me being the second biggest Planet Of The Apes fan in the UK, I could say Planet Of The Apes, but I love sci-fi in general and in particular, 1960’s radioactive creature and giant monster movies like ‘Tarantula,’ ‘Them’ and ‘20 Million Miles To Earth.’

Andy’s Talk:

Creativity Over Predictability: Our industry has matured into something that’s very different from the almost joyfully naive, creative designer’s playground that it was when I started. While we focus our thoughts onto processes, methods and mechanics, instead of ideas, we’re losing the creative ‘soul’ of our work. I’m hopeful that all’s not lost and that we can make work that’s memorable if we focus as much on creativity as we do on implementation.

You can see Andy’s talk at (R)Evolution on Friday 25th September at The Walker Theatre, Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.

Tickets are still available and can be purchased from the dedicated conference website here: http://2015.shropgeek-revolution.co.uk/

In preparation for (R)Evolution 2015 we caught up with Cole Henley.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I’m technical director at Bath-based agency, Mud which I run with my partner-in-crime/co-director, Matt Powell. At a general level I oversee the development work of the company, make decisions on what technical tools we use and work closely with our development team. Day-to-day I’m usually elbows-deep in one CMS or another and attempting the impossible task of keeping up with our front-end developers.

In preparation for (R)Evolution 2015 we caught up with Sally Jenkinson to ask her a few questions.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I work as a freelance consultant and solutions architect – helping to understand people’s problems and needs, to turn those into solutions, and to explain any impacts in a way that is easily understood. It ranges from more specific technical architecture and integration projects, right through to higher-level digital strategy, process improvements, and transformation work. I often sit in between UX, business, and technical people, and work with everyone from little start-ups to clients including a college, a big travel company, an energy company, and a well-known bank.

Seb does really awesome things with pixels. Nuff said! 🙂
In preparation for (R)Evolution 2015 we asked him a few questions.

What do you do, day-to-day?

Hmm. Good question. At the moment I’m working on lots of electronics projects, primarily servo drives for a 3D printer. But often I’m organising a large PixelPyros or Laser Light Synths install. Or just dealing with emails.

How did you get where you are?

I kinda fell into it. Which is a really dismissive and rather unhelpful answer coming from a position of huge privilege. But the long story is long, so maybe over drinks in Shropshire I’ll give you the full version.

Meet Matt, he’s a “comic book collecting, sci-fi watching, B-movie viewing super geek”. So he will fit in well at ShropGeek then 😉 ~ grin!

In preparation for this years (R)Evolution conference we asked him a few questions.

What do you do, day-to-day?

I have the rather grand title of Head of Digital Transformation at the Office for National Statistics but primarily I act as the Product Manager for a small team that is rebuilding the ONS website. I’ve written and spoken a lot about the challenges involved in that over the last year or so. I also have wider responsibilities or involvement at ONS with things like open data provision, digital skills and social media.

I also spend a lot of time wrangling with procurement and recruitment issues.

When planning for this year’s conference kicked off back in January, it was decided that we would take a break in 2016. So, we wanted this year to be BIG!

We made this decision simply because of the time and effort involved to organise a conference of this scale. Every one of us that has been involved over the years has done so because we love the event and the community it supports, but we also all have full time jobs and have to do this over evenings and weekends. Organising a conference is a full-time job on its own, so fitting it around everything else leaves little time for sleep!