We've got a new home!

234 West George Street,
Glasgow G2 4QY,
Scotland,
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)141 226 1666

Full contact details on our Office Locations page. 

Happy New Year to you all.

2010 looks like it's going to be a very exciting year for Mimtech and to kick things off we're moving to new offices. After four years in the Strathclyde University Incubator we're moving to our new home in West George Street in the heart of Glasgow's business area.

We'll post full details in a few days... watch this space.

I heard a great phrase on the radio this morning that I thought I'd share. The programme was about the use of internet technologies and social media by governments and PR people to their own ends.

SPINTERNET

The arguement was along the lines that blogs, wikipedia, twitter etc. are being used to circumnavigate censorship rules and processes to 'put out' ideas and opinions that can't be made through other media. Not a new idea but a great word.

Well it's all gone to plan so far (more or less - one small glitch last Thursday but that's a lesson learned for the next one) and all six of the Salford sites are into RedDot. Just the tidy up to do on the main site and then hand over for QA. We expect the five smaller sites to go live this week, the big one will take a little longer to QA and catch up with the content freeze backlog.

We have also been receiving a lot of inquiries about the migration service. Salford City Council have been gracious enough to permit us to use this project as a case study so that will be produced and circulated very soon. 

I'm off down to London tonight to the SOCITM annual 'Building perfect council websites' event. Looking forward to the workshops and another presentation by Gerry McGovern. Last year he suggested that the concept of two or three clicks to the most used content was no longer valid, the most used content should either be on the home page or linked to directly from the home page. Great idea but I've not seen any site that has taken his advice.

For me this is more of a networking opportunity but it is interesting to understand what the public sector site owners are thinking. I see from the exhibitors list that this is a sector that is becoming attractive to more vendors too.

I don't think there has been a UK holiday I've taken since 1976 where the sun has shone so much. Just back from a week in Center Parcs in Cumbria (except for Tuesday when I got  train to London for a presentation) and the weather was great. We had a really relaxed time (except for Tuesday when I got  train to London for a presentation) and my kids did so many activities they can't remember any of them. I now understand what my dad means every time he says 'that holiday was wasted on you'. In the nicest possible way.

Anyway back to work today and a boiling hot office. This week sees an EPiServer demo for Bargain Booze, the kick off of a migration project (Livelink WCM to RedDot) for Salford City Council, a migration demo for HS, more work on the Livelink to Immediacy migration project for VisitScotland and a meeting with a design agency with a view to forming a new partnership. Holiday? What holiday?

I have just got home having been snowed in at Stansted on Thursday night.

I arrived three hours early for my flight hoping to swap to an earlier one but that was full. A chance to get on line and do a couple of things I thought.  Seven hours later the airport was closed and I had to make my way through the snow to my hotel. Luckily my wife had suggested I book a hotel when Easyjet announced that the inbound aircraft had been diverted to Nottingham. The airline were still telling us that the flight was delayed but the fact that the runway was closed should have made it clear what was happening. I got online (the wonders of a laptop and a mobile phone as modem) and got a Travelodge - the last room I was advised later.

When the airport finally gave in and told everyone to leave the departure lounge I was able to go and book a taxi which only took 15 minutes to arrive despite the advised 45 minutes to an hour. A short drive through the snow to a bed and a shower (there was even a bar that was still open).  The hotel had wifi, which was lucky as I had no signal on my phone, and I was able to get online again and book a flight home the next day. Of course by then there were no flights out of Stansted so I had to opt for the extravagance of a BA flight from Heathrow. 

Up at seven and out the door to get to Heathrow for my 11:30 flight. Should be no problem I thought. However, it is a long time since I flew from Heathrow and I went to terminal 1 which is where the Glasgow flight used to fly from. Not anymore. The BA check in guy told me to go to terminal 4 which involved getting a train (watching a train to terminal 5 go in the meantime) and getting to the wrong terminal again. The Glasgow flight goes from T5 not T4. By the time I got to T5 the flight was closed.

After waiting in the rebooking queue for over an hour I got to a desk and was advised that  my extortionate ticket was only valid for the flight I'd missed. Luckily the kind BA lady believed my tail of woe and, after calling T1 for their approval, put me on the next flight without any further charge.

Sitting on the plane waiting to leave I was unsurprised to hear the pilot advise that there was a delay as someone hadn't boarded and the bags had to be dug out of the hold. Not too long and I got back to Glasgow just in time for the Friday rush hour.

I finally made it home, an extra £400 poorer, stressed tired and grumpy. I was soon cheered however by my wife and kids waiting expectantly at the window. Good to be home.

I am on jury duty on Monday so who knows when I might be back in the office...

Got a call from Kathleen this morning at 07:30, she's running another Kaizen this week and had had a bad drive out to Livingston because one of her headlight bulbs had gone. She wanted to see if I could swing round past a Halfords on my way to the office to get a replacement. Even better says me, I'll get a spare bulb and pop into Livingston on my way to Glasgow and replace the bulb before tonight's drive home... Kaizen weeks feature early mornings and late nights.

So I think its better to check online to see what bulb I need  for a "see you baby, see you shakin' that ass" car and couldn't believe what I found - try Googling "renault megane headlight bulb" and you'll see what I mean.

Unbelievable! Considering the motor industry through Toyota is at the heart of Lean management it's a pity the techniques of continual improvement haven't reached Renault.