skignz @ SXSW 2016

skignz will be providing a 'skigned environment' right across SXSW in Austin, Texas, US.

This will be a world first for SXSW, as visitors will be able to use the FREE skignz app to access 'virtual signs in the sky', helping them to navigate their way around as well as interacting with the skignz for further information and in some cases 'offers'.

skignz is so simple to use and the essential app for SXSW 2016.

If you don't currently have skignz then please feel free to download a copy (it's only very little at 1mB file size) of the skignz app for IOS or Android.

You can also scan the QR code (shown below) or on one of the many stickers across downtown Austin...

If you would like to come and talk to our guys then we will be in the 'Great Britain House' as one of the UKTI Tech Ambassadors.

They will be on hand throughout the Interactive show to demonstrate skignz, and how it might be applicable to your business or even for your own personal use...

Whether you want to use skignz to visualize your 'geo location data' and make it more accessible and useful, through to using skignz to find your friends in downtown Austin during SXSX?

All events are taking place at the 'Great Britain House' (206 East 4^th Street, Austin, Texas. (AKA Wanderlust Yoga) 

Please note that the 'Great Britain House'  is open 11-14 March from 9am-10pm daily

Just look for the skignz (just like below)...

For Further information on SXSW Interactive please visit: http://www.sxsw.com/interactive

And as always for further information on skignz then please visit us on the usual Social Media channels or drop us a line info@skignz.com

skignz: Increased Functionality for Users...

skignz has been actively functioning now for over a year so we thought that we would give you a small insight as to how the functionality of the business has increased and how we are working now compared to how we were when we first developed skignz.

skignz has achieved a lot in the previous year and has got many more exciting opportunities to look forward to, so we thought we would share with you just how much we have progressed.

When skignz was first developed we were a start-up company, so everything was basic including the interface and technology behind skignz. A skign that you see now was just very plain, had no design, style or even much added to it. 

                       

The skignz came in a variety of colours, with just a simple box style and two spaces to insert your heading and write a small amount of text. There was not much to a skignz when we first began, so we saw an opportunity for progression to the next stage.
The next part we wanted to focus on was making more room for users to be able to insert more text into their skign. We also were working with Teesside University and other possible brands and needed to create a skignz design for all students on University campuses to use.

                                                                                                       


Since creating and developing the team skignz managed to come up with a wide variety of ideas and ways in which we could change the way that skignz appeared to all users. We wanted to create a simple and fun theme that we could demonstrate to users as ‘your signs in the sky’ – skignz.

Improving the interface of skignz and the way that it looked was a vast step for us, now we could appeal to more, increasing our user and businesses data. We then saw an opportunity to focus on ways to try and reach a wider audience as we wanted skignz to be globally; not just locally.   

Working on our social media to the highest extent we could, we decided to create a video blog post that we could upload to all our social media sites and see how much of a wider audience this would reach. Luckily for us this managed to go very globally reaching people in Las Vegas which lead us to doing business arrangements and now having the success of opening our very own office in Las Vegas and having Nick Vilardell run it from the US. That was one of skignz first MASSIVE step which were a great time for us.

We then gathered that we needed to add more to our skignz platform and create ways in which it would attract more business interest and users. For that we directed ourselves to the brainchild behind the technology of skignz - Gary Baker.

We first considered creating different accounts so that if anyone managed to become a premium user of skignz they could have unlimited amount of skignz to place around wherever they wished to. From this we thought that with having a premium account where any user can place as many skignz as they wished, they would then like the opportunity to be able to create their own skignz, so they wouldn’t just have to use the already pre placed ones and be able to personally design them however they wish, and that is exactly what we did.

Now any user can manage their own skignz on their account and upload whatever one they would like, whether that was to be an original design taken from the internet or creating and design their own. 

The team at skignz have had a lot of fun with creating their own skignz, from placing doughnuts above houses, roasted chickens in cars to even creating themselves as a skignz and casually chilling outside their own home. 

There is a lot of fun to be had with skignz which is what we are all about; we would like users to have a lot of fun whilst finding it practical and useful at the same time, skignz is not just for one practical use, it is practical for anything. Users can even also use skignz to leave greeting messages for someone if it was the birthday or a special occasion was upon arrival, - if two people are newlyweds then someone could leave a great big congratulations skign right outside their house or their wedding venue at the time; what a groovy wedding gift that would be!

skignz has increased its functionality a lot over the past year, from changing the way that skignz works and appears to future deals we have made and companies we have been in discussion with all ready for some great work in the future.

There is a lot more going on which currently is not available, however soon we do wish to be looking at being able to pull in your Facebook profile to your skignz and being able to run your social media that way whilst discovering new people. 

Also how great would it be to be able to have your 'dating profiles' above your head in a skign, so that you could see who is the perfect match for you and just whereabouts your lucky other half is located.

We are looking to take the initial development we have currently done to the next level, through launching a Kick-starter campaign later this September which you can read about here. http://skignzblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/kickstarter-pre-launch-campaign.html

Please keep in touch with skignz and have a read of our current blogs. If you would like to know more then please contact us through our website or through social media using the links below.

www.skignz.com

www.facebook.com/discoverskignz

www.twitter.com/discoverskignz

www.youtube.com/skignz 

Two Sides Same Coin

There’s always that famous saying that we live in such a small world and one way or another everyone knows everyone. However when we think of this really it is just a quote that can mean nothing and that we never take no notice of.  

When it comes to making friends and knowing other people, it seems just a simple way as you are always told, just talk to someone and they will become your friend, or people you may meet from school, work and throughout your life in general. 

However no-one in the world actually takes the time to stop and have a look around and try to find people who are similar to themselves, life just passes you by, so why waste it not finding people who have similarities to yourself. People just accept who they meet at the time and become friends with them.

‘Life just passes you by’

We all know how friendship works. You meet a random person, then after a while from talking to them you start to assign yourself to their characteristics or personality. 

Even at certain times most people may change the way they act, what they like doing or what they believe in just so they can fit in with other people. 

There’s no need to do that. 

This can cause some unhappiness for some people as they may not enjoy doing what their ‘friends’ are doing, but to fit into that social group or for some people to even have friends they will go along with it. 

It sometimes is not the right thing to do.

As stated above, it is such a small world that we live in and from time to time you may have already bumped into that person that is so similar to you, you don’t need to change who you are. You can enjoy being who you are and doing what you do from just talking to other people and making new (possibly the right) friends.

            "Friendship is weird. You pick a human you’ve met and you’re like, 'yup I like this one,' and you just do stuff together.”

The above quote is great! It can have different meanings for many different people. If you’re a random person who likes doing a lot of different stuff and living a busy changing lifestyle each day then you will meet a lot of new people who you like and then decide to do stuff with them. 

If you didn’t like this person or feel like you do not fully get along with them then it would not be a big problem for yourself as you would be able to find other people who you most likely will get along with and will find time to fit them in with your busy changing lifestyle.

So you’re probably now thinking why all the talk about friends, similarities, small world and the title of this blog post: 

"two sides same coin?"

Well until recently I have never thought much about just how small a world we live in and how we meet people who are similar to us but maybe never meet them properly or become friends. Lately I have experienced this and seen it first-hand.

I work at skignz and for the previous 12 months or so I was the only girl working in the company as the rest of the team were boys. This was fine with me as we all got along really well and they were really nice people, however I would have liked to have a girl around the office. 

Then the time had come when our Film and Media Producer got a years secondment working for FITV in the Falklands which was a great opportunity for him, which meant we had to hire a new person to take over his position! 

Whether it was to be a boy or girl I would not have minded, although personally I thought a girl would have been a great addition to the team.

Then comes the time when you realise whoever does gets chosen, we would both have to get to know each other and become colleagues. However this was not the encounter that I was expecting.

We interviewed a lot of people for the role and narrowed it down to a few, a mixture of boys and girls. 

I asked if I could sit in on one of the interviews one day to get some experience of what it was like. The day when the interviews were taking place I sat in one interview with a girl Sarah (now our new Film and Media Producer but I will get to that soon). 

The interview went well and after she left I said to our CMO, that I felt like I knew her from somewhere and that I knew who she was, even though I didn’t know her or recognise her name I had a feeling that I sort of 'knew her'.

When the decision was made, they had chosen Sarah for the position. We all decided to meet up for a chat before she came in and started working here at the beginning of June. 

When meeting in the more relaxed surroundings of a local coffee shop, we were all chatting away getting to know one another when we started to notice similarities. 

It started off with small similarities, such as the way we had lived when we were younger, because when travelling to school neither of us liked to get buses so instead we both got taxis. We realised we both don't like to be alone and that suprisingly we had both had the first same date with our boyfriends: we each went to the same seaside town, to the same part of the beach. 

We were both shocked and started laughing about it when we found about how many similarities we each had and we thought well that could maybe be just it, even though without us realising it, there was actually far more in store.

On Sarah’s first day at work we started to get along really well chatting to each other a lot. When talking to each other, we both discussed our previous placements with Teesside University for three month before being here at skignz. 

Talking about our three month internships we realised that on one day, we had actually both sat down and had dinner together! We both didn't recognise each other at the table and it was only now that we work together that it finally clicked! Such a small world…

When you start to realise that you have had a lot of similarities in life with someone that you have just met, it can seem a bit strange depending on how you get along with that person. It seems really strange to you that you are as similar to someone as this, but is it really a bad thing?

That’s where we realised it wasn’t. We just laughed at every similarity we had, yeah it was strange at first but now it’s just amusing. We had a lot of strange similarities that are still appearing this day such as we had the same first car, the same email address and even buying the same DVD’s on the same day!  

Spooky or what?

‘We don’t meet people by accident, they are meant to cross our path for a reason’

Everyone is judgemental when they see a person or come to meeting someone new. For instance people may class blonde as stupid and dumb, when two people such as Sarah and me get along really well and have so many similarities/personality we could get classed as the same people, and I am not blonde! It’s a big wide wondering world to not judge someone and get to actually know a person that you may get along with really well.

‘Blonde and Brunette – different but the same’

Meeting someone new is a great part in everyone’s life at some point, so make sure you do it. We have figured it can be hard for people to meet each other or even just start to talk to each other. 

Now your wondering how this links with skignz other than we both work here?

Well just imagine if everyone had skignz. It can be very similar to everyone having social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter; however skignz is a much easier way to get to know someone and interact with them, you even can know where they are, so you never have to lose them again!

skignz is a great way for making friends and staying in contact with them if you have only met that person for a short while. 

You can connect to each other, add each other as friends and get to see where you each are when arranging to meet up, open your smart phone and see where they are?

You can keep in contact by talking to each other and interacting through skignz.

If you would like to find out more about skignz or if you have a struggle to make friends or even meet new people, then please get in touch or download the app and we will help to assist you in this tricky but so simple situation!

www.skignz.com

www.facebook.com/discoverskignz

www.twitter.com/skignz