Blimey

So, what has ITV, HMC, TwoFour, i-DAT and Jamie & me got in common? We only all won at the Media Innovation Awards ceremony!! In fact, both of the nominations I was mention in won coz the Cornwall Culture project won for the best multi-platform category. It was all a bit of a shock to be honest. We were up against TwoFour for their Ashes Down Under project in the Mobile category so I hoped we would win but didn’t really expect it. When they started talking about the nominations and showed a video of each of them, my heart just went crazy so you can probably imagine what it was like when they opened the envelope and read out our names. We went up on stage to collect it and I mumbled some thanks but I was in a complete state of shock. In fact, I still hadn’t recovered when they read out the winner of the multi-platform category – no way was I going up there again!!

It was a bit of an MLA/DAT night. Most of the awards went to people with an MLA/DAT connection with either staff, graduates or under graduates (oh that’s us :)) winning something.

But, despite all that, I do feel a bit guilty coz it was a team effort really. So to try and re-dress the balance somewhat, I’d like to thank the following;

Chris Speed for running the Organism project which spawned Stanley
Mike Phillips and B for inviting us to take part in Noogy
Lee Nutbeam for the animation
Justin Roberts for his coding
Pyramid for the screen

But an extra special thanks to Jamie without whom Stanley and Noogy would not be where they are now. Well done girl.

Jemma Woodman collecting award
Jemma Woodman collecting ITV Westcountry’s award

Dan Livingstone collecting his award
Dan Livingstone collecting his Individual Contribution to Innovation award

Team i-DAT collecting the multi-platform award
Team i-DAT collecting the multi-platform award

HMC collecting one of their awards
The boys of HMC collecting the overall winner award

Our award
Our award

Jamie with the award
Jamie with our award

Me with the award
Me with the award


Noogy

Noogy went live this evening. He’s a digital pet that lives in Portland Square and can be seen on a large led display. He uses Arch-OS as a nervous system so if the temperature drops then he is cold, or if the amount of water used is low then he is thirsty. But his personality and interacting with him via text is pure Stanley as developed by Jamie and me. You can interact with him by walking thru the building or by texting to 07766404142 starting your message with noogy followed by your question. It’s part of MotionPlymouth and will only be there until 19th November so you’ll have to get your skates on to chat to him.

If you can’t make it along, check out this short film.


The Infinite Monkey Project

Here’s a nice use of SMS. Text a random word to 07797801003 along with your name and anytime something nearing a grammatical sentence is created it will be set aside. The collected “sentences” will then be handed over to a music producer who will use them to create a song. If your word is used then you will be credited as a songwriter and get a cut of the royalties. It might not be much but then again how many people can say that they’re a published songwriter. More details can be found at The Infinite Monkey Project.


And in reverse order…

It was the presentation ceremony for the Business Ideas Challenge in uni last night. 86 entrants down to 10 for the final round which entailed a “Dragon’s Den” type presentation earlier in the week. In the UoP staff and students category, we came 3rd – wow!!!! How good is that!!!! Jamie and I thought the presentation could have gone better, it wasn’t a compete disaster but there were a couple of things that we thought the board might not have liked. Obviously turning up suited and booted must have won them over 🙂

So with Chesire cat type smiles we collected our award and certificates, had photos taken and then spent the next hour or so chatting to the other winners and sponsors. The local paper was there so expect some pictures posted up soon.

Now though the hard work begins……


We’re famous

Check out the picture – do you want our autographs?


Shameless plug

Right, Jamie and I have been working on this mobile phone application for well over a year now. Can’t say too much about it at the mo but we’ve entered it into all sorts of things including a competiton run by the BBC for this year’s Milia but to no avail. However, we’ve kept plugging away and now it’s paid off. We entered the Business Idea Challenge run by the Uni and we’ve made it thru’ to the next round out of 86 entrants. Not bad for a pair of Janners!!