David Crozier's Blog

Don't kill creativity

With the Digital Circle (DC) elections now done and dusted I felt it was timely to jot down my thoughts about encouraging creativity as its is broadly linked.  Further stimulus arrived on Monday by way of a tweet from one of the newly elected members of the steering group.  While this post isn’t aimed specifically at the work of that fine institution, there are parallels to some of the ideas raised.  DC is involved in the business of supporting digital creativity in all forms after all.  I am drawing shamelessly from the work of Teresa M. Amabile as well as on my own experiences from various roles. continue reading…

Today I had the pleasure of spending my lunch break chatting with Crafty Devil‘s Rich Dale about the upcoming demo of their Planzai web app at Showcase.  I was aware that they had been working on a tool aimed at helping up and coming bands and musicians get off the ground, what I actually saw simply blew me away. continue reading…

An off the cuff response to Mark Nagurski following a comment he had made on my recent post “Invented here syndrome; Demand attention” led me to waking up one morning at 5 am with a crazy plan.  I have spent the last number of days formulating and developing that plan further.  So here goes.

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I have just returned from a great night at Code4Pizza were I had the pleasure of meeting some really switched on people wanting to do stuff just to help people.  That’s a pretty good reason in my book.  We need more of it in this country.  I guess its what people did before David Cameron invented the “big society“. continue reading…

While I am a bit of a political anorak I have never actively been engaged in politics.  In the last week however I have had several discussions with people regarding nominations to stand for election, canvassing for support and the development of policy which would form the basis of future manifestos.  As they say – “A week is a long time in politics”.

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The inspiration for this post came from two very diverse sources.  Two very diverse media.  Newspapers and micro-blogging.

I am a son of the country.  Born and raised in rolling countryside outside Armagh, a techie at heart but I haven’t forgotten my roots.   I am still partial to reading the Farming Life or the farming section in the Impartial Reporter when I visit the folks back there or my in laws in Fermanagh.  An article in one of those on the EU Nitrates Directive is the first part of the jigsaw.  The second is a chance remark from a fellow tweeter some months ago regarding my decision to opt for a HTC Hero rather than following the crowd and going for an iPhone.   continue reading…

In my professional and private life I meet many people (me included btw) who would love to start their own business.  All they are missing is that killer idea. Well look no further.  A little reported event this week may just be what you have been looking for. continue reading…

The United Arab Emirates, and laterally Saudi Arabia, have announced that they intend to block several functions on Blackberry.  This can only be a good thing for RIM in my view whilst it obviously it isn’t great for the RIM country managers sales figures for those two markets.  Here’s the rub…

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What is it with the Northern Ireland/British psyche that we are inclined to be derogatory about stuff, policy, ideas, innovations and such like that are thought up within the confines of ‘our wee country’ or the shores that make up these islands?

We fail to support and nurture that talent and believe that it is good enough to play on the national stage, never mind the global one.  Couple that with the penchant for feigning over things thought up in other countries and you have well and truly got on my goat.

Rory Cellan-Jones blog “Attention, please, for UK startups” hit a bit of a raw nerve when I read it.  To say I was incandescent with rage is a huge overstatement.  I was certainly remotely perturbed at what he was saying to say the least.

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I read a great article recently by Web Designer Lee Monroe on the virtues of call to action buttons.  The crux of his blog post was that the purpose of these strategically placed devices was to get you the viewer to carry out some form of action justifying the existence of the site.  Generally this will be to sign up as a member or in most cases buy something. 

In theory this should be a task made simple by a great web designer.  In theory it should lead to infinite riches for the ecommerce store in question.  Owners of large ecommerce web estates know this and the focus a lot of attention on getting call to action buttons right. continue reading…