Our thoughts

Latest thinking, experiments and work from the team

Creating a restful API from a SOAP web service using node.js

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I believe I am in a minority of developers in that I actually have a sweet spot for SOAP based web services. This goes back to when Web 2.0 was very new, and the idea of distributed computing via WebServices rather than RPC was the future. Being a more traditionally trained computer scientist and object…

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Using OpenAI to help classify Instagram Posts to understand audience engagement

I was recently asked to think about how a brand could go about understanding their audience more on social media. In particular a company wanted to better understand the audience of one of their content creator partners. The creator’s principle medium was Instagram, and whilst there posts did contain some text a lot of the…

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Looker Studio Visualisations pushed to Slack, Teams and Email

A few days ago I wanted to share a couple of charts and a table from a Looker Studio dashboard quickly with a client in Slack. I didn’t want to send a link to the whole dashboard, just put a couple of charts into slack to emphasise a point I was making. I naievly thought…

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An AI generated image representing SEO concepts and charts

Search performance through the lens of market share

I was recently asked to take a look at how we might better benchmark and set targets for a clients website performance (see other post), however I was then asked to consider how we might better measure, attribute and forecast the benefits our SEO work brings to clients websites. Now I am no SEO person. …

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Revisiting and updating a React Native app from a few years ago

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A few years ago I created an app for Fife County Council to allow them to audit the bus stops they are responsible for and report any maintenance issues on the go. With over 4000 stops, providing a system to manage manual inspections and poster updates is very important. It turns out the app hasn’t…

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An illustration of a cloud deployment CI pipeline by chatGPT

Using Azure pipelines for concurrent feature branch test deployments

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I have been asked to look at creating a Continuous Integration setup whereby our dev team can create feature branches for a client website and have commits to those branches result in that branch being deployed to a Windows Server as it’s own .net website. Each branch requires its own website as clients want to…

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A naive general forecasting model to help set performance targets for websites

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As part of my role at FreshEgg I get asked to look at various data driven aspects of the business. Recently a team asked me how they might use past performance data from a client website to help set internal targets for performance for the coming year. Whilst the client was very happy with the…

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Creating a chatGPT powered app for writing Purpose Statements for small businesses

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My uncle has a business that helps SME’s clarify and define their purpose to help them either strategise or tell their story to customers or investors. He asked me recently to explore if it would be possible to use AI to help founders and these SME owners to clarify their purpose by means of writing…

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Enhancing Agency Internal Reporting with a Bespoke Looker Studio Connector

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In the fast-paced agency environment, efficient time management and accurate client reporting are paramount. Looking to use technologies to enhance operational efficiencies, I was asked to explore the API of Fresh Egg’s agency management platform Synergist to try to streamline how project managers access and report on data. As I like to do I tried…

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Automated Google Analytics 4 Setup Checker for Charitywise

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As part of my role at FreshEgg I am asked to contribute towards our Charity focussed learning platform charity wise. I have recently been working on creating some automations for the Data & Analytics team to help them with their regular maintenance checks of clients Google Analytics 4 property setups.

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UK first QR Code bus tickets

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Transforming Public Transport with the Reading Buses App

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Glass’s Guide – car valuations

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Transforming Glass’s Guide from Print to Digital

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Sugometer app for healthy eating choices

An app to monitor sugar consumption and prompt for healthier alternatives

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Enhancing Tenant Communication for Eightfold Property

App for local lettings and maintenance company

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Hiscox Informed

Enhancing Customer Engagement with the Hiscox Informed App Introduction For many insurance companies, customer interactions are often limited to policy renewals and claims. Hiscox, a leading insurer for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), wanted to change that. They sought a way to engage their tech-focused SME customers beyond the annual renewal cycle—delivering ongoing value and…

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Vizeum Connections

Thought leadership app for media strategy agency

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Arch Cyber Insurance App

We were approached by Brighton Agency Whitespace to produce an app for one of their clients, Arch Insurance. Arch Insurance offer a Cyber Security Insurance against Cyber attacks on businesses. A key part of the process is determining the severity of the attack as soon as possible after it occurs. The app allows Arch Cyber…

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More Bikes

This is an app created by Better than Paper (https://betterthanpaper.com) – they recently recreated this app in React Native to be cross platform and replace a version written in Titanium. As the original authors of the Titanium version of the app Better than Paper asked us to help them with some performance improvements to the…

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Exploring Apple’s App Clips for Activation

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Originally published at aip.media from when I worked for Anything is Possible Last week we in the Tech team were buoyed by a client meeting and their desire to reduce friction from their customer journeys. The client absolutely understood the importance of mobile and having a great customer experience, however they also understood that creating…

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Cannes Lions Diary: Touchdown

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Originally published at aip.media when I worked for Anything Is Possible. Brighton. Durham. Paris. Nice. Cannes. Not the most straightforward route. That will teach me to let my passport lapse (another thing to thank the pandemic for.) But arriving at Cannes Lions 2022 is all worth it. Straight from the airport taxi into a Department…

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How artificial intelligence boosts MarTech effectiveness

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First published at aip.media whilst I was working for Anything is Possible Do androids dream of electric goats? I thought I would write today a little on the astonishingly rapid pace of progress with practical AI systems and speculate as to how they might affect the world of marketing. We as an industry have become…

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Cannes Lions Diary: Sustainable advertising conversations

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I feel like I deserve a Grand Prix for not calling this blog ‘Cannesversations’. One day they will give out Lions for dad jokes and my place in history will be secure. Reviewing my notes from my second day with the Department of International Trade and the Advertising Association’s UK trade mission to Cannes Lions 2022, I…

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Unexpected attention

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This is a post I wrote whilst working for Anything Is Possible. In his book Thousand Brains Theory,Jeff Hawkins sets out a radical new theory of the neocortex – how the brain prefers unexpected attention. Jeff is notable among those of us with a technical bent as he was the founder of Palm computers. If you remember,…

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Introducing SearchShare: A new view on Share of Search

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Originally published at aip.media when I worked for Anything is Possible Why Share of Search? At Anything is Possible, we use Share of Search to show the number of organic searches the brands we work with have received, as a proportion of the total number of searches made for every brand in its industry.  Search is a…

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