It’s been a while since we’ve been able to make any significant updates to our website, as we’ve been really busy with some exciting projects for clients, so here’s a round up of the latest miggle news.

A new site for Fitness First for culturebank

First up has been a project we’ve delivered for culturebank, a business I’m involved with along side miggle.  Working to objectives and creative direction provided by the rest of the culturebank team we’ve built out a solution for their latest client Fitness First.  Based on WordPress, with a high level of bespoke customisation layered on top, this site lets employees of their Australian business upload work related success stories and experience supported with videos and photos.  Uploaded videos are encoded on the fly into a Flash player format and photos are rendered into galleries.  Stories that relate to specific job functions appear on pages which additionally pull data in real-time from a feed on Fitness First’s recruitment site.

A Product Plan for Collections Trust

Our friends at Talk Web Solutions have recently launched the new Collections Link website for the Collections Trust (CT).   Our involvement here was to work with CT to build out the initial product requirements which delivered on CT’s core objective of being able to host a site which allowed best practice in collections management to be owned by the people who manage our nation’s libraries, museums, collections and archives.  More and more clients are asking us to help scope their projects before they commit to build.  It’s a sensible strategy we think.

A new web site using Mod-X

We built out a new site for local Brighton business Complete Property Services.  Having built a number of sites for small businesses in the last year in our recently launched miggleCMS, we wanted to roll out something which was built in a different content management system to extend the range of solutions we can offer to clients.  At the time of building Complete’s website, miggleCMS wasn’t as an open source solution and for good business continuity planning (BCP) the client here specifically wanted something that was.  We felt given the brief and the design objectives Mod X was the ideal solution for this.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

At miggle we have recently started a project using WordPress. The client wanted their users to be able to make posts from the front-end without needing WordPress logins. After many searches we found TDO Mini Forms (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tdo-mini-forms/). A very highly customizable plugin – perfect as a starting point for our goal.

TDO Mini Forms has two main options:

• Form Creator – Where you setup your form fields.
• Form Hacker – Where you have more control to customize the form fields.

One function the client wanted was a drop down list where users could select their location.

When setting up the drop down list through the form creator, it only allows you to include X amount of categories by putting their IDs. This was good to start with but what happens if we want to add more categories? We would need to update the form every time, adding in the new category ID.

This was not ideal for us – We needed the locations drop down list to be dynamic. Over to the TDO Mini form hacker!

With PHP and WordPress’s wp_dropdown_categories() function we can pull in the categories dynamically.

Quick Tip:

Here is the updated code to pull in categories from a category parent.

<p><select name=’location' class='tdomf_location' size='1'>
<option value="1"<?php if( (is_array($defcat) && in_array(1, $defcat)) || ( 1 == $defcat ) ) { echo ' selected="selected" '; } ?>>Please Select</option>

<?php
/*
Setup our dropdown arguments.
The arguments allow us to get the child elements of our parent (location)
With a depth of 1 e.g. if we had parent > child > grandchild it would only get our child level.
*/

$args = array(
'echo' => 0,
'hide_empty' => 0,
'child_of' => 5,
'orderby' => 'name',
'style' => 'none',
'hierarchical' => 1,
'depth'  => 1
);
// Create the drop down list
$select = wp_dropdown_categories( $args );
// Only pull out the <option.....></option> tag (remove <select…></select>)
$select = strip_tags($select, "<option>");
// Display results on the screen
echo $select;
?>
</select>

By using this method our client can continue to add or delete categories allowing the drop down list to dynamically update without needing to update the TDO Mini form’s creator as well.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

You know what it is you want to do online.

You’ve got your market sussed, done your research and you know who your competitors are.  A key part of that process is planning your web design and development project in detail. No one would build a house from scratch without consulting an architect and a surveyor, but too many people will commission the build of websites without defining a plan, largely because they see skipping this stage as a cost saving. It rarely is.

The value of having a Product Requirements Document (PRD) - get like for like quotes!

Planning your website product requirements is something you do after you’ve defined your brief, or your market objectives but before you start the build.  Given all the things you want to achieve with your website, the product requirements document – or PRD  – describes what product features are required to deliver on those objectives.  This document can then serve as a basis from which potential suppliers can quote – returning to you a proposal which details what technology, process and solutions they’ll go through to deliver on those product requirements, which in turn deliver on your wider business aims.  You should then, when reviewing supplier proposals, be able to compare like with like – knowing they’ve responded to the request for the product you want built, as opposed to the product they want to build for you!

Different suppliers will suggest different, innovative ways of delivering on the PRD.  Some might propose solutions you’ve not thought of before.  This is fine.  Just ask,  ‘Does what is on offer deliver on my product requirements and thus my objectives?’

Who writes it? And what’s in a PRD?

Some web companies might propose writing this document for you – often as a chargeable stage, maybe specifying that you should perhaps use it to get comparable quotes by which you can assess the quality of their own price and solution.  Or, in commissioning a project, you might decide to engage an external consultant who can help draw this up for you and then help in managing the acquisition of a supplier.

A good PRD should start of with a face to face meeting with the writer, who will note down your objectives, read through research and explore your market requirements.

The document they write should summarize these and then go on to describe:-

- the environment in which the project needs to be delivered (i.e. web and/or mobile),
- the scope of the deliverables (i.e. what’s required and what isn’t – as well as the time frame and budget of you have it)
- the different types of users that will use the website (i.e. customers, clients – not personas as such – these would have ideally been defined in your earlier research),
- the journeys those users will go through (i.e. buy a product, download a document),
- the features that will be required
- the standards to which the product will be built

You then review it, and when you’re happy that it describes the product that will meet your aims, you can then move on to finding the team that will build it for you. 

If we write the PRD, we don’t have to be the company that then builds your site.

The process often works best if we don’t quote for the development stage because it means we can write the most objective document possible so that your shortlist of suppliers can all quote from the same information. At the start of the planing process you can specify if you’d like us to quote for the work once the planning documentation has been created – we’ll also let you know if we’d be interested in the work, as quite often, we’ll plan projects that exceed the resources we have available, but it’s possible, using the PRD as an effective tool, that we can move you to the next stage of helping you source the best supplier.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

The Sussex Internship Programme is widely recognised as one of the most successful internship schemes in the UK, delivering valuable experience to participating interns and real benefits to the companies involved. It organises placements with a broad range of companies in Sussex.

The scheme offers grant-supported, work-based training and experience to recent graduates with placements in media, environmental, engineering and a range of other sectors.

Here at miggle.co.uk, we’re proud to be a part of this again and are looking forward to being able to work with the latest graduate talent available.  Specifically, we’re looking for an online marketing intern.

The Sussex Internship Programme is a partnership programme led by Wired Sussex and the University of Sussex. If you’re interested in the programme you can find out more from clicking on either of the links in this post.

I’m running in this coming weekend’s Brighton marathon for local kids’ charity Amaze.  Due to an injury I’m well behind on both my training and fundraising – so any sponsorship I can get is going to act as a special incentive to get me round, which is now my only realistic target!  If you think you can help, then please click here.

As a business miggle.co.uk is fully committed to using and supporting open source software wherever it can.  We believe open source solutions, when implemented effectively, offer customers and users the best possible options in terms of balancing unique requirements, with leveraged R&D, in an environment where BCP (business continuity planning) issues are largely taken care of.  It would be counter to our believe in that approach to continue to keep our CMS, miggleCMS, as a proprietary tool.  Nor would doing so be in the best interests of the BCP requirements of our clients who use it.

The world does not need another content management system (CMS).  I truly believe that.  But, like many web businesses we found ourselves in a position three years ago where it made sense for us to have our own CMS to provide a solution to small businesses, which we didn’t feel we could easily or efficiently achieve with what was available at the time, to the flexibility we wanted.  Three years on, we’ve now used miggleCMS on over 30 sites, from simple brochure ware sites, to e-commerce solutions with stock control.

No single CMS will ever fulfil the needs of all web requirements.  It’s often a case, when choosing a potential CMS, of looking at product requirements, distinguishing between ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’ and making the appropriate trade-offs if required.  Because of this, we don’t think there’s any more developments we need to make right now to miggleCMS, because to do so, in our opinion, would put us on a path where basically we would be starting to re-write Joomla.  Which is pointless.  At that point, we’d be better off just using Joomla.  But by opening miggleCMS up as an open source product, our opinion on that becomes just one opinion.  Others may look at our code and think there are areas in which it could be improved or developed on.  Maybe add an Ajax front end, maybe a deeper depth of categorisations, maybe the addition of payment provider support beyond Paypal?   Also, because pages can have modules attached to them, there’s scope for this to have additional functionality added without the need for a full re-write.  Modules could be written in the same sort of way plug-ins are for Wordpress.  By throwing this over the fence, we leave it to the open source development community to decide.

The final reason we’ve done it is because miggleCMS has been a useful tool in helping small businesses, with 5-10 pages, get decent looking sites online cost effectively.  Now that as a business we’re moving away from that market, beyond providing existing clients with better BCP options, this CMS, like so many others, acts as a code base to which you just need to BYOD – Bring your own designer!

So, if you’ve not clicked through already, take a look at miggleCMS.  We’ll do the best we can to support it and it’s development.  And we’ll always look to provide a paid for service for those who’d like help in running it or managing content within it.  We’ve taken some care and time over documenting what we’ve written, and we’ve built some tutorial videos too.  You can also take a look at the kind of sites we’ve built in it here, or on these showreels.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

Miggle.co.uk are looking for a web producer with strong editorial skills and extensive experience in the online market in Ireland to work on a prestigious contract with one of its major clients.   Working for one of the world’s top web brands, your extensive knowledge of current affairs will ensure that you provide users with content covering the most important stories in Ireland and beyond.

Based in London, this a high pressure role and you’ll often be working alone monitoring multiple news feeds and covering breaking news, so it’s vital that you can work effectively on your own in a fast-paced environment.

You will also be required to improve the overall user experience for Irish users, adapting UK specific pages to your market by leveraging your knowledge of the local online landscape. This coupled with your impeccable grammar, spelling and punctuation will ensure that only the best available content reaches the client’s massive high value audience.

Person specification:

• Experience of content writing for websites, magazines or newspapers in Ireland
• Impeccable grammar, spelling and punctuation
• Excellent news judgement ability
• A broad interest in current affairs. You will need to be able to talk about the latest in news, sport, lifestyle, money and entertainment
• Extensive experience of uploading content on to a website and using a CMS
• Good experience of Photoshop or similar
• An ability to work well under pressure in a fast-paced environment
• A clear understanding of major online publications’ audiences, product offerings and business models
• The job will be based in London.  The ideal candidate will have recent experience of having lived in Ireland

This role is offered on an initial six month contract, with a break clause at 3 months.  The hours will most probably be 37.5 hours a week across weekdays, but there may be some requirements to work mornings, evenings or weekends, as either part of the regular hours or as overtime.  There will be opportunities to work overtime hours from home.

To apply, e-mail your CV with an indication of your pro-rata salary expectations to: opportunities@miggle.co.uk.  When applying, please indicate where you heard about this role.

No agencies please. Really!

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

We’ve just celebrated our 3rd birthday and so I’ve put together a set of three posts looking at what we’ve learnt in those three years, as well as how those learnings will shape what we do for the coming year.  In this final post I talk about how miggle will start to align itself around what is one of its key advantages.  Being based in Brighton & Hove.

Brighton & Hove is a genuine, world class, digital hub.

If we can plan an effective project for a client, why would we pretend to be a full service agency when we could instead help clients manage delivery through a network of specialist businesses? They still get their single point of contact, but they get an open process, based on sensible technology, managed by specialists, which is genuinely built for the long term. Brighton & Hove can offer this and miggle can potentially base its future around focussing delivery so clients benefit from this.

What does this mean for miggle.co.uk?

It means leaner costs for us in the future – at least in the short term. Over the last 9 months we’ve been cutting back on costs to enable us to work in a more efficient way and to offer a high end service to those businesses who see the value in working in an open culture. There are several philosophies underlying this.  The continuing surge in social media and the rise of local content (and its tie ins to mobile and geo-enabled services) makes right now one of the most exciting times to be working for a small Internet business.  The professional challenges open here are vast and the opportunities become wider and so much more tangible when there’s a chance to collaborate with other people and small businesses.

But there is a more important, over-arching, defining lifestyle reason too. The prime objective for wanting to cut back and focus is because the current scattergun approach to winning work just wasn’t going to work on a personal or family level over the long term. That’s important to me. My clients and my staff are of prime importance to me and my business – but I run miggle, first and foremost, for the benefit of me and my family.

What does it mean for clients?

It might mean you hear us say ‘No Thanks’ a few more times to offers of jobs – but we’ll always try and back that up with a recommendation or suggestion as to how that request can be delivered.  But hopefully, for all of our current clients, who’ve been the key behind our growth so far, and those we’ll hopefully win in the future, it’ll mean that miggle will be better placed to help the web work harder for their businesses – which was the key behind setting up the company in the first place.

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

We’ve just celebrated our 3rd birthday and so I’ve put together a set of three posts looking at what we’ve learnt in three years, as well as how those learnings will shape what we do for the coming year.  This is the second post, in which I talk about the importance of editorial content management to miggle, as well as how lack of planning, or an over- reliance on full service agencies, can be bad for business continuity planning (BCP).

Editorial content management

We’re in the editorial content management business because we understand what it is that web audiences want, alongside our clients’ business objectives in this area and we are able to link the two. Where we’ve been able to effectively demonstrate this, we’ve found we’re able to develop the business relationships we have into other areas of work. For this to add value to both client and supplier, the client ideally needs to make the sort of investment in our services that allows us to deploy the best, most cost-effective resources we can.  Retained business over the long term.  Where we can make it work that way, then this area clearly remains a priority, although we fully understand that for every business this isn’t always easy to do.

Our work in this area is daily – genuinely 365 days a year. It’s where our highest profile clients come from and we wouldn’t get the work we do if we didn’t acutely understand client objectives or weren’t able to deliver to time and to budget every time. We know this is a powerful sell when we go to clients in other business areas.  We want prospective clients to recognise that we understand their audiences and that our solutions will not only do what it says on the tin, but that the tin will be delivered before its best before date.

The full service agency doesn’t really exist. Everyone knows it.

Sometimes we find client decisions are not made on ‘how much can you do it for’ but ‘can you do it’ – often to a timeframe where the project plan has gone AWOL, if it even existed in the first place.

It’s easy to go to a full service agency when you’re spending someone else’s money. You know they’re a middle man, but you don’t care as long as there’s someone at the end of the phone and/or to take out for an expenses lunch.

In some respects, this is a reasonable enough approach, you need a single point of contact. But there’s no reason why in 2010 we need to uphold the myth that this is delivered by full service agencies alone, which have these unfathomable depths of skills and resource.  Because they don’t.  My belief is that when your agency is dependant, beyond its key ’suits’, on a transient bunch of freelancers and contractors, then it cannot deliver future proof, business continuity compliant solutions. It can offer short term solutions that will work in the short term. That’s it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in three years of miggle it’s this. The Internet is too broad an area for any one agency to claim it can offer the full breadth and depth of services required continually by your business. If it could, it’s cost base would be so large it would not be able to win any business profitably.

If you don’t let experts plan your online developments your project will fail.

The best case studies I have had in three years are unfortunately the ones I can’t publish.  I expect every business like ours is the same.  They are the ones where potential clients came to us with big ideas, who nodded sagely in agreement at meetings when we talked about the benefit of planning their projects, but who retrospectively decided that the JFDI approach was actually the best. In one case, 18 months on, one of those sites is still a holding page, the business jumping from Powerpoint presentation to development with no interim stages, all because they weren’t prepared to spend what would probably amount to 10% of their project’s over all cost to plan out the project sensibly.

Fortunately, we’ve found, in these tough times, that the best clients to work with have been those who see that effective execution can be done at speed without charging towards the coding team like a bull at a gate.  More like those please!

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.

miggle.co.uk has just celebrated its third birthday and I’d say, on balance, that those first first three years have had far more pluses than minuses.  In this post, I look back at some of what I’ve learnt in that period, as well as how what I’ve learnt will affect our strategy in 2010.

Focus Focus Focus

While we can describe all of our services under web, publishing and media, miggle’s hunt for work has historically been done on a fairly scattergun approach. We’ve genuinely had a crack at anything that’s come our way, but this is not a sustainable approach! So, to move the business on to the next level it’s clear we need to have a tighter focus around our products and services. While the business has never had a quarter in which it didn’t turn a profit, there are areas we’ve been involved in where the profit margins and the opportunities for recurring revenues don’t stack up.

Supplying design and marketing services to small businesses

Being able to supply a quality service to small businesses of up to 10 staff has always been a dream of mine and we’ve won a number of contracts on that basis, where we’ve been able to deliver, I hope, a service to businesses which has given them a clear return on their investment.

However, at just 15 years or so, the Internet industry is still in its relative infancy and as yet there is not a widespread understanding amongst businesses of all levels as to what constitutes an effective, value for money, hard working, quality website.  Thus too many decisions are made on the basis of cost alone.  For small sites of less than 10 pages where cost is the key determining factor I think we’ll be declining to offer quotes or proposals.

Of course, for the small business clients we have, we’ll continue to provide a service to them all the time they are happy to have us do so. After all, they had a choice when they gave us their business, and for many, that was based on the service they felt they would get from us.  So, we don’t want to let those firms down and we’re still committed to wanting to see those businesses get the most out of online.  We also want to work for those who appreciate that building the profile of your business on line is not something that can be achieved with a static website.

Better Business Continuity Planning and a Choice for Small Business

Helping our current small business clients with their own business continuity planning is one of the key reasons why we’re shortly going to make our proprietary content management system. miggleCMS, available under an open source licence – giving those firms that use it more choices than otherwise being tied into miggle.  Also, with our CMS available in this way, other small businesses, for whom we may no longer be able to offer a service to will get the opportunity BYOD (bring your own designer) and use the same code base we’ve used to provide small business solutions up till now.  More on that soon!

Based in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, contact miggle.co.uk for website development, content management and online media services in the UK and worldwide.