Boston, BABCNE and our very own Mr Brown

The date is the 1st December 2014 and not only is skignz embarking on the 1st day of December but Co-Founder and CMO was setting off to Boston MA, USA, to speak to some of the worlds largest brands.

Joining Si on this trip was a delegation from the North East of England including UKTi, NECC and a number of businesses keen on finding out what Boston has to offer them.

Deb McGargle, the awesome Co Founder of Particular Law, one of the UK's leading law firms working with start up tech companies was Si's travelling companion. Si takes up the story of the trip:

Deb and I were routed through Dublin from Newcastle and the biggest shock we came across was Passport Control, normally what you have to go through in the country you land in, was in Dublin Airport, right after you went through security. US Sovereign soil in Ireland. Hence no time for duty free or even breakfast! The trip had begun.

Both Deb and I are still not quite sure if this is a good idea or not, as it felt rather strange, but upon landing in Boston and literally getting off the plane, walking through a corridor, one door took us right out onto the taxi stand where the other led us to the baggage carousel. Not the usual miserable face wanting to know your 'inside leg measurement' as proof your visit to their country is for anything worthy.

 

BABCNE (British American Business Council of New England) and the British Consulate were fine hosts and many of their board members were on hand through our trip to welcome us and introduce us to many different people. I was slightly shocked as the President of BABCNE, Ken Vacovac was my own father's Doppelganger! The Boston, Malcolm Brown. Both seemed that their counterpart was probably the best looking guys in their native towns ... mmm!

Back to business and whilst I was off spending a number of days in meetings with different organisations including UKTi, Microsoft, CIC, British Consulate, Local Government office and a number of local businesses, Deb was off meeting other lawyers across Boston, whilst taking some time out to address a group of students at Harvard Law school! As one does!

I'm very privileged to say that I've actually known Deb since we were in primary school and she's equally at home in the House of Lords or Harvard Law as she is in a start-up company's garage trying to understand their next move!

I spent a lot of time showing demo's of the skignz technology to various audiences including many people from our own delegation, in turn finding out what got those guys out of bed on a morning. I must say we had quite a wonderful eclectic group of people and thoroughly enjoyed their company.

Over the years I have been on a number of delegations with UKTi and I always enjoy meeting and enjoying talking to others who have gone on the trip. I think I find a kindred spirit that these guys are prepared to get off their derriere and go out and make things happen. There does not seem to be an age, sector, industry or background barrier. They are all out there as I am trying to make things happen on a global scale, trying to get a slice of the bigger pie than what is on offer in our own immediate areas.

Not many of you will know this but both Gary (skignz other Co-Founder) and I met on a UKTi mission to Cannes, France way back in 2001. I believe we were the only people to secure work from that trip, but that was from each others' company as we went on to build a strong partnership and longer lasting friendship and now a partnership.

So if you have not spoken to UKTi or been on a 'Trade Mission' Sector visit, then I highly recommend you do, not just from a business perspective but also from your own personal development point of view.

Back to Boston and BABCNE, where some of us were invited to their Christmas Luncheon at the Harvard Club. A most splendid afternoon was had by all and I walked away with quite a few prizes from their quiz ;-).

Another reason for the trip was to engage with their Venture Capital Community to try and get an understanding of what they are looking to invest in, what profile of company, stage of growth etc. However nothing prepared me for the 'sheer size of this VC Community'.

In the building, One Broadway, in the centre of the Cambridge area of Boston, they have five times as many Venture Capitalists than the whole of Europe combined! Yes you did read that right! From what I was told, their combined wealth would place them as about the 5-6th world's largest GDP!

After pitching skignz to a number of potential VC's I then went on to take a look at the government buildings, the Consulate General's Residence for an early reception and a visit to WCM, one of Boston's top media agencies.

One of the visits that really stuck out in my mind and was probably most relative to skignz (other than the fine people at Microsoft - you know who you are ;-) ) was visiting CIC (Cambridge Innovation Centre) also in the same building as ALL these VC's and the British Consulate.

After showing us around the start up and growth accelerator areas, they invited us to take part in their Thursdays weekly gathering, free beer and plenty of interesting people with similar interests in creativity, tech and all at different stages of their business growth.

I even had the opportunity to speak to some Russian students who were on an exchange programme for four weeks. It was really interesting to see what they made of the tech scene compared with their homeland. Obviously this conversation took place in Russian, with me being fluent! Yeah, right oh!

In summary, Boston was an awesome experience, a worthwhile trip and a great opportunity to meet new friends, catch up with old friends and expand the gospel of skignz ... speaking of gospels ... Gospelware who were another awesome company on the delegation I spent time with.

I had met Ryan previously but it never ceases to amaze me, his passion for all things in the mobile tech sphere!

 

Since the trip we have already met one of the key guys from Microsoft for lunch in Newcastle, UK, we have pitched skignz to the most senior people at 3 different leading global brands.

We are hoping that a delegation from Boston & BABCNE will come over to the North East of England for the return leg! They are very welcome and I'm hoping that between BABCNE, UKTi, British Consulate, and the NECC, plus the guys who went out in December can make this happen in 2015.

skignz will certainly be returning to see our new friends in Boston in the coming months as we increase our US activity and fingers crossed with the 3 brands we have already engaged with ...

Watch this space as we update you all through the year on our progress stateside ...

If you would like to know more about BABCNE and what they do, even how they can help you and your business then please visit http://www.babcne.org

Would like to know more about UKTi and see how you can take part in their annual activities. Please visit http://www.greatbusiness.gov.uk

If you would like to pray at the altar of Gospelware, see how these guys eat, sleep and breathe mobile. Please check them out at http://www.gospelware.co.uk

Do you have a tech business and need the best legal support team on the whole planet then you need to get in touch with Deb and her team at Particular. http://www.particularlegal.com

However if you just want to know how skignz could help your Business or even just be a cool thing to have for your own personal use... http://www.skignz.com

skignz: 2014 - What a year!

2014 has been a pretty interesting year for skignz so we thought we would like to have a little look back over our time to remember some of the great moments we had!

January

January saw skignz providing seminars to Teesside University students about the technology available to them personally and on campus. This was a great opportunity for skignz as we got to inform our target audience just how great the technology is that is available to them. This for skignz went great and we saw our user database rise within a matter of weeks.

February

In February we started our next stage of development with Teesside University, which was really good for us as we had a lot of great plans that we had discussed to implement!

With starting our next stage of development with Teesside University, we also started to shoot promotion videos for other Universities! We wanted to make the skignz technology available to all universities possible which is still undergoing as we speak!

As skignz had an aim to make the technology available to all universities possible, we though where better to start than China! One of the world’s largest countries for population and universities! So we decided to hire a new Intern Katherine Kui, who was from China originally herself so that she could work on the social media channels for China and to start generating interest over there!

skignz can also proudly say that we got nominated this month for the environmental category at the Best New Business Awards! We came runner up in this however we hope to be the WINNER of the next awards so keep an eye out and wish us luck!

We also this month started to do preparation for the Motor Expo event which we enjoyed creating some great footage and images.

March

This month skignz got shortlisted for another great awards at the North East Business Awards. We got shortlisted for the innovation category and came runner up again also! This was still great for us but we are still hoping to make it winner again in these awards next year!

skignz also this month had our first meeting of many with Facebook!

March also saw skignz engage with a great online marketing company Get Me Media! Which allowed skignz to be noticed by many others and widen our recognition.  We got invited to exhibition events and hopefully more future opportunities to allow skignz to meet more of the best companies around!

April

At the beginning of April, we launched our April fools to all of our followers. This got a great response for skignz as it fooled a lot of people! We told them that we had secured a contract with Nasa to which people were phoning us up and contacting us to congratulate us on the best news they heard! What a great April fools!

In April skignz also attended the Silicon Valley Banking networking event down in London. This allowed us to meet some of the best people and liaise with some great companies that we wish to plan future work with!

skignz also spent some time down in London this month again as our CMO was down filming some production shots for the company at some of the great views around!

May

May was a great but sad time for skignz as it saw our Film and Media Producer Glen College be offered the chance to go and work in the Falklands for a year for FITV! Now we of course ensured him that it was a great opportunity and that he had to go for it and could not turn it down! However we did assure him that he would always have a place at skignz!

During May, we also began to do work with the great Silicon Valley Banking account corporate team! We agreed a partnership deal with them which meant for skignz it was a big push in the right direction!

skignz also this month needed a new Film and Media producer to replace Glen who was off on his new journeys to the great Falkland Islands!

June

After interviewing a lot of people in May to join skignz, we decided on our finalist for the position! Sarah Spowart was the new member to the skignz team! She was very happy to become the new Film and Media producer and to help skignz along with the future success.  

During June skignz also delivered the first of many pilots to Motor Expo in Canary Warf. We hoped this was the start of something good for us … keep watching this space.

The CMO also attended the Good wood Festival of Speed this month.

Finally a big thing to happen during June was skignz launched ‘make your own image of skignz’. This was very fun and interesting and opened up a lot of future possibilities for skignz as it could now be more personal to anyone working with skignz. The team also had a lot of fun playing about with creating their own skignz as you can see from the images.

July

The beginning of July allowed skignz to provide a great opportunity for students! skignz got asked to deliver a tutorial of skignz to a group of African students who were visiting for a couple of weeks at Teesside University. Members of the team got to work with the students, provide presentations to them and help guide them around Teesside University and Middlesbrough through using skignz on a small orientation activity. The experience was a great time and the feedback received from the students was the best we heard. They couldn’t believe what they were seeing and had been introduced too!

July also allowed skignz to create new engagements with different school within Teesside University!

During July, skignz also got tested abroad through one of our team members going away to Spain, she used it to help her find where she needed to be and find her friends. 



This was a huge success and shows skignz can be used in any location and just how useful it is!

Towards the end of July skignz got the chance to go and be tested at the Common Wealth Games in Glasgow! This was a great opportunity for skignz as it allowed others to see that it can be used for great causes and events and that the opportunities it can provide at each event is spectacular.

August

During August, skignz got the chance to have an initial meeting with a Global Bank about race days, sponsorships, appointments and marketing to see how skignz can help assist with any of these. skignz wants to further the business and make it very global and we hope this is just the beginning!

As you noticed earlier in the year we started to work with an on-line marketing/advertising company Get Me Media. Well this month skignz got the chance to go with Get Me Media to the races. Now as fun as this day was out, it meant that skignz got to showcase the technology to some new businesses and also show people just how good it is and impress them just a little…!

August was also a great month for skignz as it allowed us to give our live demo of skignz to the Jockey Club. One of skignz big ambition as you know is to work with all live events around the world, and what better way to do this than to work on all race days around the world. New technology is advancing all the time, so skignz believes it would be a huge benefit to every race day.

September

September saw a really busy month for skignz. It started off with the launch of our Kickstarter campaign which was a massive important task to skignz this month. We had launched Kickstarter to help raise funds towards the business so that we could further what we do and improve it for all our users. 

However this didn't go as well as we thought so we decided to cancel the campaign and re think it to make it much better with a re-launch next year. We were entirely grateful for all those who had already supported us!

skignz also this month we have written eight different patents for skignz technology ready to go to the next stage of making sure the IP behind skignz remains ours.

skignz was also down London again this month as we have been looking into working with some leading global brands. We have provided Diageo with demonstration through a Pilot Project where branded skignz are placed above over 100 London pubs this month to allow the Diageo team and its partners to understand more about skignz, how it works and how its relevant to them, their particular Diageo brand and the possibilities it creates for engaging customers and providing a unique brand experience.

Also during September, BETA had carried out testing on skignz new 3D models. Yes that’s right, we are in the current process of launching 3D models to which users will be able to interact with if they choose. From launching out 3D models we are now looking at doing some great work with something very interesting …

skignz also got to deliver in the ASI conference in America this year which was really great for us. We got to inform a whole lot of people and businesses about skignz and what it does and how we can help them and their businesses.

As part of skignz mission to work with big brands, this month we went live on Apple, Facebook and Google headquarters campuses! If you would like to see these then you can still, plus you can also read about it here …

If you are an employee of Apple, Google or Facebook then do check your headquarters campus now!

October

October was very exciting for skignz as we managed to agree a deal with CHIME PLC. This means a strategic partnership over the 5 years to deliver the skignz technology in to pretty much every major global sporting event. skignz is very excited to get going and we hope it brings a range of new opportunities for both CHIME and skignz!

skignz also this month had a lot of interest with Scotland, Ireland and a  group of Serbian Universities. This work is still in the early stages so hopefully when we find out more we will be sure to let you know through our social media how everything goes.

November

During November skignz found out that we had been short-listed for the Best New Business Awards for the Marketing Category. We are very pleased to have been nominated again and hope this time that we managed to win! Cross your fingers for us and wish us luck!

Also this month skignz were confirmed as part of the NE England delegation that is visiting Boston, MA, in the US to meet with a range of tech companies, agencies, VC's and potential tech partners including Microsoft who are hosting part of the event alongside UKTi (UK Trade & Investment), NECC  (North East Chamber of Commerce) and BABCNE (British American Business Council New England.

December

The 1st week of December will be all about establishing relationships in Boston MA, between skignz and a select number of companies and organisations. The visit will also include meetings with VC's, British Consulate and attending the BABCNE Annual Christmas Luncheon at The Harvard Club

Following immediately after the Boston trip skignz are very privileged to not only attend Most Contagious this year in London but also exhibit and demonstrate the skignz technology to everyone there. 

This quite clearly is still to happen, so when it does we will update you all straight away on how the event goes and hopefully what the great outcomes of it will be through our usual social media channels.

If you enjoyed reading what a great year skignz had then wait till you see what next year brings. 

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website at http://www.skignz.com and don't forget to check us out on any or all of our Social Media Channels.

skignz: In Boston MA, USA

By the time you read this our Co-Founder & CMO will be showcasing skignz to a range of esteemed audiences in Boston Massachusetts, US.

The trip organised through UKTi  and the British American Business Council of New England (BABCNE) is a great opportunity for skignz to demonstrate its technology to a range of audiences.

skignz is looking to establish a number of relationships through this trip that will ultimately help with skignz rapid growth plans. These growth plans have gone into over drive of late due to a number of key projects being finalised. More on this soon.

Back to Boston, some people refer it to as a Mini New York but after many discussions and much reading it seems like an extremely interesting and cultural city. Big enough to be a city but not to big that you can't take in a lot during a short trip.

After doing further research, we came across various ways to describe Boston,

"Boston, first incorporated as a town in 1630, and as a city in 1822, is one of America's oldest cities, with a rich economic and social history. What began as a homesteading community eventually evolved into a center for social and political change. Boston has since become the economic and cultural hub of New England.

As the region's hub, Boston is home to over 617,000 residents, many institutions of higher education, some of the world's finest inpatient hospitals, and numerous cultural and professional sports organizations. 

Boston-based jobs, primarily within the finance, health care, educational, and service areas, numbered nearly 660,000 in 2002. Millions of people visit Boston to take in its historic neighbourhoods, attend cultural or sporting events and conduct business."

We hope to take in some of the history, cultural and sport that Boston has to offer. 

But its the Business where this trip is focussed and with major US & global brands such as Microsoft, Acacia Communications, Hubspot, Wayfair, BAE Systems, Lloyds Bank, Virgin Atlantic, Astra Zenica, British Airways all supporting BABCNE and its efforts to increase and develop trade between the two nations.

skignz is looking forward increased exposure int he North/East of the US after previous successes in Nevada, in Southern America (Brazil) and in Europe & the Middle East. Our Far eastern promise increases as our Kathryn (our born Chinese team member) makes progress with interpreting skignz's activity to the Chinese people.

   

Hopefully when Simon returns he will be able to update us all on a wonderful trip, the experiences and the wonderful people he has met....with Christmas just around the corner it could be 2015 before you hear those tales.

If you want to find out more about our progress in Boston please check out our social media channels as we will be posting pictures & updates during the trip.