Client meeting at Skype’s London headquarters 

This afternoon I was really happy to have been invited to go along with the Made by Many team to a final presentation/demo for the client Skype. The meeting was held at Skype’s headquarters in central London, where the team presented the beta of a new service they are creating for Skype to the Director of Product Marketing. 

I arrived at Made by Many at a time where most of the service design had been completed for this new service, so I didn’t directly contribute to the project. However, being familiar with the service, it was a fantastic opportunity to be present at a final client meeting for such a big project and understand the dynamic of what’s involved and the people that are present in such important meetings.

Today it was quite a big team: two service designers, one of the developers, the designer and Tim, who is part of the management team at MxM and one of it’s founding members, who was a great catalyst in keeping the momentum going during the meeting.  

The meeting went for about 45 minutes as the client was running on a busy schedule. It was a great day for this MxM team, as it was a very successful meeting where the client approved the project, despite some interruptions and questions along the presentation. This was personally a great experience for me today.

It was especially exciting to visit Skype’s head office as well, although I must underline the fact that Made by Many’s office is rather more beautiful and with fantastic views…!

Some photos of the Skype visit are below.

                Skype reception in the entrance area

            Inside the Skype office, each department is easily identifiable through labelling on pillars around the space. 

The two screens and huge web-cam that we used throughout the meeting. 

Week 2 of internship: First client meeting/demo session at Made by Many

On Tuesday I attended my first demo session for a project in production for the client Skype. I didn’t directly participate as I hadn’t been involved in the prior phase of this project, however I was really happy to have been invited to attend and observe how the team demo’ed the service to the client over the Internet - all through Skype and screen sharing. This photo shows the setting of the meeting.

This was a good insight particularly for one reason: at Hyper Island we obtain reasonable experience dealing with client presentations and how to dialog with clients, but it is for an idea/product where we are not being paid to make, and usually not yet in a physical stage to test. So this was a very interactive meeting where the client was actively involved with the demo and testing of the project. At this meeting I observed that the agency - client relationship was well established, both parts were comfortable talking to each other and giving constructive feedback to improve it in the next steps. Complex stuff was shown and tested in real time, and as usual with technology, it failed at times, but all worked in the end.

Another great insight and learning experience at Made by Many :)

The End is Near : Last Group Project @ Hyper Island

And so the time has come where we have ended part 1 of the Final Project at Hyper Island! Our group presented to our client: Bukowskis last Thursday, and the 7 weeks for this project have now ended. They have gone by extremely fast, and we have learnt a lot, laughed and had loads of fun, and had our share of least good times. I was really happy I got to work with my three great team members during this last project at school, where I felt I have learnt the most at Hyper Island. Our team and their roles were:

• Me: Project Management & Strategy 
• Malin Lindvall : Design & Copywriting
• Fia Matsson : Design, Post-Production & Construction
• Richard Herries : Project Management & Tech Development

A quick summary of our brief and solution we created for Bukowskis with photos are below.

Brief: ” How can Bukowskis reach new customers using digital media? (While keeping the current ones) “

Solution: After extensive research and gathering important insights, we decided to create a campaign focused on Bukwoskis Market - their online auction site. We called it “JU NÄRMRE DESTO BÄTTRE” and we built an interactive installation with motion detection and light sensors, that would be placed in the streets of Stockholm, Malmö and Gothemburg.

Work in Progress - Building the front part of installation

Work in Progress - Building the technology running behing the installation

Work in Progress - Installation seen from behind

Work in Progress 

Work in Progress - Installation seen from behind

The finished product, ready for showing off!

The group at our working desks during these 7 weeks, FL : Fia, Malin & Richard

The installation in action & testing

Ready for client presentation to begin!  

— It’s sad and scary that this journey at Hyper Island is going so fast, and is coming to an end. Tomorrow the Final Project part 2 begins, where we are free to work on any project we wish and with who we wish. We have 7 more weeks left before the official time for internship begins in November. 

Lifecycle of Digital & Interactive Products: Client presentation done ! 

And it’s another module finished here at Hyper Island ! Today we presented four weeks of work to our first real client for a school project, City Studios, a photography studio rental company, based in central Stockholm. My group for this module was Emilia Åström, Therese Albertsson & Anna Boström. Emilia was project manager, Therese the designer & Anna worked on the user experience and features for the products we created, while I did the strategy and planning for the pre-release & release of the website. Working with a real client has definitely been one of the best things about this module here at school, you really understand real time frames and apply have to apply realistic demands from you’re client.

Our brief was to ““Produce a website where portfolios of professional/freelance Swedish photographers are gathered and listed.” They wanted to make use of their current network of contacts within the photography industry, to start this new service. 

 We stretched the brief further, and created various ‘extras’ for them, including an App wireframe + design for premium users of this website, and a whole digital strategy to be implemented in the pre-launch, launch, and post-launch phases of the new website. 

They were quite pleased with our result, and might turn this website into reality soon. Below are some pictures from this morning’s presentation ! I’m super proud of my group, they were amazing. Well done girls! 

Getting ready to start !

Our first slide of the presentation up and running, almost ready!

Our presentation took place at City Studios meeting table

 Therese presenting all the designs for the different pages of her website design of the new website we created for City Studios.