Saturday, 1 November 2014

From Captain Cook to skignz

Are you a little inquisitive by the title? Well…

Captain Cook was an 18th Century explorer and navigator whose achievements in mapping the Pacific, New Zealand and Australia; radically changed western perceptions of world geography. From Middlesbrough, UK. Captain James Cook wanted to explore the world mainly the south pacific. 

During the Seven Years War, Cook became quite the craftiest and the master himself in map making. After getting noticed by those high up in the navy, Cook had been set his main first objective to observe the planet Venus as it passed between the Earth and the Sun. 

Cook could always sail his way directly to a location he wanted to go. 

The method he was using to find longitude was the method of lunar distances or lunars. To facilitate the use of this method Cook had with him on his ship the Endeavour Nautical Almanacs, newly published by the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne. These almanacs listed the angular distance of bright stars from the edge of the Moon at various times at Greenwich.


Cook and subsequent navigators using this method measured the angular distance between a star and the Moon with a sextant together with the elevation of the star and the Moon above the horizon. What made the technique difficult to use was that calculation had to be used to make the measured distance comparable with the tabulated distances.

First the navigator had to make the obvious corrections for the distance between the edge of the Moon and its centre and for the zero or index error of the sextant. 


Then came the tedious business of ‘clearing the distance’, which was applying corrections for parallax, that is working out what the measured lunar distance would have been if made from the centre of the Earth and correcting for refraction, the shifts in the positions of the Moon and the star due to the bending of their light by the Earth’s atmosphere.

So how did we go from Capt. Cook to skignz…?

'skignz is the new way for you to navigate around. It helps you to find your way through following skignz you can view through your mobile device located in the sky. Your signs in the SKY!'

skignz (like captain cook) eliminates the need for maps and allows you to find where you’re going or where you wish to be through following skignz in the sky you can visualise through your mobile device.

The skignz do need to be pre-placed by yourself before you go to any journey, however it saves you the trouble of struggling to find where you’re heading and make your journey a whole load simpler and easier.


skignz do not only allow you to find where you need to be, they allow you also to find your friends if you lose them. With a simple skign pre-placed above your own head or a friends then the task of finding each other in a busy environment is simplified.



You yourself could travel the world, meet new people, learn new things and discover new places all through using skignz to direct you there. You will never get lost yourself, lose your friends and always know the places you need to be. 

So why don’t you be just like Captain Cook himself, follow in his footsteps and his passion for life. You can do all of this through skignz!

It is free to download and very simple to use. Once you become a expert at skignz you will see it is the best technology to use! 












For further information on Captain Cook's 1st voyage then you can find this out at 
http://www.captcookne.co.uk/ccne/timeline/voyage1.htm

If you would like to know more about Captain Cook himself then a good place to start would the Wikipedia entry for him at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook

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 a range of the popular Social Media Channels.

skignz: Most Contagious 2014

We are delighted to announce, that not only will we be attending the awesome Most Contagious Event in Central London on 10th December 2014, but we will also be exhibiting and demonstrating the skignz technology! 

How cool is that!

The guys at Contagious are the gurus, the wordsmiths and THE authority on Advertising, Marketing digital trends, but we cannot compete with how they present what they do, so for those of you who might not of heard of Most Contagious, here's a quick extract of how Contagious themselves describe the Most Contagious event:



"Most Contagious is an annual, uniquely curated innovation event in London staged by Contagious. Most Contagious celebrates the biggest innovations and analyses the most impactful marketing from the year to decipher what influence these will have on the immediate future for brands and advertising.

The event includes a full day conference programme, with Contagious consultants as well as expert guest speakers, a series of interactive workshops, an awards scheme, and an exhibition to showcase disruptive start-ups, innovative new technologies and the makers behind them."

Contagious the company behind Most Contagious is in its tenth year of publishing their incredible magazine and it has grown its offering since its conception, and so we do not do them a disservice again we will let them describe who they are:

"Contagious helps brands and advertising agencies understand and adapt to shifts in marketing, consumer culture and technology. Our dedicated consultancy division, Contagious Insider, delivers hands-on help to effect change in our clients’ companies.


Contagious Magazine, our hard-copy quarterly publication analyses the world’s most innovative brands, and learns from the people behind them. An online intelligence service, Contagious I/O is Contagious’ collaborative and fully customisable research platform. Contagious events attract delegates from the world’s smartest brands, agencies and businesses."



So hopefully from the above two short descriptions about Contagious and its annual Most Contagious event, you can see why we are so excited to be attending but even more so being able to showcase skignz to this very select audience. We hope that some of the most creative thinkers on the planet who will be attending will 'get skignz' but more importantly 'how skignz could work for their clients or their own brand?'


 skignz is already engaged with a number of the big name brands and organisations who are attending, so hopefully we will have a few more brand champions in the room to promote the gospel of skignz.

skignz intends to showcase a few new areas of development, not previously seen outside of the skignz team and in addition we may have not one but a couple of key announcements to make ...

Obviously we will promote this exciting news through the event, but we feel the best way to understand more about skignz is to be present and being present at this event is something you cannot afford NOT to do! You only realise this once you have attended a Most Contagious event.



The Contagious team put an immense amount of work into the event, from Arianna their head of events through to their on stage delivery by members of their editorial team, right through to the hosting by Cofounder & Editorial Director Paul Kemp-Robertson. The quality of the content delivered is second to none and we have not spoken to a single person that has not thoroughly enjoyed and had real benefit from being in attendance.

If you are in the Advertising, Marketing & Digital space then you really should only be in one place on the 10th December 2014. 

We will be there and so should you! If you do please do come and say hello ...


For more information on Contagious, their Magazine and their awesome services, please visit http://www.contagious.com

For more information on Most Contagious and how you can get involved please visit http://mostcontagious.com

For more information on skignz, please visit the skignz website at http://www.skignz.com

Or check us out on our various Social media channels...

Friday, 3 October 2014

skignz launches it's own YouTube Channel

YouTube is the huge social media video website where people upload videos for a range of reasons, they can be accessed privately or if they are made public, they are opened up worldwide for everyone to see.

That is why skignz has decided to share some of the awesome videos we have been producing over the last 18 months and hopefully take full advantage of global exposure. Now everyone is able to see just how good skignz is and what it can do in many different scenarios, locations, sectors and everyday settings!

skignz has a wide variety of videos, ranging from sports to festivals to video blog updates.  

The videos uploaded are very interesting and have a personal suitability to everyone from any gender to any age. 

Video blogs created previously managed to land skignz our first office opening in Las Vegas. 

We recently taken part in a Kickstarter campaign which sadly didn't end well as we had expected, resulting in us canceling the campaign as we were quite a way off reaching our target. 


However this is not all bad, more of a learning curve as we are looking forward to working on content for a new campaign to launch next year. 

However from this, we did create a skignz bloopers video which came from the original Kickstarter video. Using the footage that ended up on the cutting room floor as a result of the hours of filming, which is very funny and entertaining. 

So although we sadly are no longer using that video or running the Kickstarter campaign, we suggest that you take a look as it will make you laugh a lot.

Please click the image below to take you to our YouTube site to watch some of our awesome videos! Or you can alternatively click the link at the bottom of the blog post. 


skignz can guarantee that you will enjoy the video's that are uploaded so we suggest you have a watch of them all and see if any of them stike a chord with you? It could be that you don't quite understand how skignz works? or that you think you could use skignz in your business, organisation or place of work.

If you like the videos and would like to know more about a certain one then please contact us and have a browse of the skignz website and you can find us on social media.

www.youtube.com/skignz

www.skignz.com

www.facebook.com/skignz

www.twitter.com/skignz

Thursday, 11 September 2014

Glen - Most Interesting Year of My life.

May 2013 - May 2014 was probably the most interesting year of my life. I completed my last piece of uni coursework on my 21st birthday, less than two months later I started my 9 month internship at skignz; my first job in the media world, and the day after by 22nd birthday I began the 22 hour journey to my current location; The Falkland Islands.

The purpose of this blog post isn't to talk about the skignz technology (as impressive as it is), but more about how the skignz internship helped me to get to the Falklands; which is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been.

I'm a Broadcast Journalist, specialising in camera-work and I work for a small Television company out here, based in the capital Stanley. As a journalist you get to experience every facet of life here, experiencing things that the locals don't even get to see or do.

The conservation of wildlife, new business ventures, sporting occasions, overseas governments; all are things that i get to report on, on a weekly basis.

The islands themselves are also truly breath-taking, where wildlife and humans live in close proximity;  
10 minutes’ drive out of town and you can see a colony of hundreds of Gentoo penguins, while looking out to sea, to watch pods of dolphins playing in the waves.

In the summer (which is the opposite time of year here) King Penguins come into town and apparently you can see seals in the harbour. The scenery itself I would liken to the Scottish Highlands, which although isn't rolling grass covered fields like you would get in England, still has its own eerie beauty.

Simply put this is the single greatest experience of my life.

So where does skignz fit into all of this?

skignz understands what a lot of other companies don't, and that is people need to be given a chance.

Everybody knows the situation; you need experience to get a job, but how can you get experience if nobody is willing to hire you?

That is why skignz is special; it was their internship that gave me the chance to prove myself. 

In my role as a content creator I was able to work on real projects!

The work I was producing wasn't for a mark or a grade, it was for a client; it was for something real, and this is invaluable in furthering your skills and improving yourself.

skignz is a mix of experience and youth; in my opinion the way it should be, you aren't told what to do, but rather guided, you have room to experiment, see what works, see what doesn't, and it is this that will let you excel in your chosen field, in whatever area that is; Graphic Designer, Programmer, PR, or in my case Content Creator.

I'm not going to say that I wouldn't be where I am today without skignz, but it definitely made it a hell of a lot easier, and if you get the chance to work with them then you should grab the opportunity with both hands because you never know where it could lead.

skignz Co-Founder & CMO said: "Glen was a pleasure to have in our team, from the very first interview, he had a quiet confidence about him that we really liked and we were not disappointed either, with the way that he conducted himself or the work he produced at skignz

In fact he exceeded all expectations and when the opportunity came up for him to go to the Falklands, both Gary and I encouraged him to go! At 22yrs old he's not going to get many better opportunities, to spread his wings and go and see the world.

That was in direct opposition to what skignz need because by then he was a valued and respected member of the team and it would be difficult to find some one of his character and quality to fill the void. 


However both Gary and I felt that, we could not and would not stand in the way of a life changing opportunity.

The Falklands is not everyone's idea of a dream destination, but you could see to Glen it was much more than that, it was an opportunity for him to try something completely new in a different environment and culture and those experiences in life can't be bought.

Glen rightly says he is not in the Falklands because of skignz, he's there because of his own efforts! We would like to think we played a small part by providing the opportunity to enter the working world, as well as some guidance and advice along the way! But he really is where he is, because of his own efforts, determination and hard work. 

We would welcome Glen back into the skignz team should he decide to return to the UK. But we think this is just the start for him and if he does not stay in the Falklands then he will soon be flying off to another destination on the next part of his career.

We continue to wish him well and follow his progress over social media and as you can see by him sending this blog post we consider him to be part of the skignz family."


For further information on skignz please visit our website www.skignz.com