Siobhan, November 30th, 2011
You might recall that a few weeks ago on this blog I talked about the exciting charity event that our Mando Foundation team were putting on, to raise money in support of Countess of Chester appeal Relative Comfort. November has gone by in a bit of a blur, and I can report that all the totals from the evening are now in, and the evening was a huge success.
Over 70 guests showed up to Leaf Tea Shop & Bar on Bold Street to participate, mingle, and just generally have a good time. Entertainment in the form of our very own Matt Stephens as MC and music from excellent local covers band Duke gave the evening a great atmosphere, while support from local businesses such as Hope Street Hotel and the Everyman & Playhouse encouraged real generosity in people entering the raffle, hoping for a chance to win some awesome prizes.
All this of course was an aside to the real fun, the awesome Scalextric tournament which everyone turned up for. The 8-lane Scalextric track was brilliant – bells, 
whistles, and really cool glowing lights – and dominated the room, and the pre-tournament free-for-all really ramped up excitement for the main event. A number of our clients, friends, and local businesses kindly sponsored a car for the evening, were given the opportunity to brand it however they saw fit – my personal favourite was the glitzy, bedazzled Glitterbug from Liverpool Science Park – and nominated a driving team to lead them to glory or (in some cases) despair in our miniature Grand Prix.
In the end, River Professional Services’ designated driver demonstrated an impressive aptitude for speeding around the track and led to them scooping the 1st prize of a bottle of bubbly and a rather impressive trophy. The had close competition all evening in the form of local architecture firm Falconer Chester, who followed them to second place, while our Gemma’s determined driving gave third spot on the podium to Mando Group!
There was of course a design competition held to acknowledge the effort put in by those who branded their car – it turns out that apparently not everyone’s tastes runs to diamantes like mine does, as the prize for best dressed automobile went to Curly Productions’ Batmobile-inspired creation, which was a demon on the track despite narrowly missing out on a podium spot.
Ultimately, the generosity of everyone involved helped to raise just shy of £3500 for the Relative Comfort appeal, pushing them past their £300,000 target just in time for the 31st December deadline.
Janet Ratcliffe, Fundraising Manager for the Relative Comfort appeal, said: “It was a brilliant evening– a fundraising event with a difference where everybody could participate and have fun. Sadly I didn’t back the winning car but nevertheless it was thoroughly enjoyable and the icing on the cake was to find out later what a fantastic amount had been raised for our appeal”
1 comment Filed under: Awesomeness, Charity
Anthony, November 16th, 2011
The now world famous TED conferencing arrived in Liverpool in the shape of TEDx Liverpool, an independently organised event with a focus on the mobile technology industry. Interest was high for the event that encourages inspirational speakers to share ideas with their audience, and it played out to a full house at FACT, Wood Street.
The crowd were treated to talks from various sectors of the mobile industry. Mobile gaming and design was particularly well represented in the form of ustwo, Zolmo and Matmi.
ustwo were particularly interesting with self-professed ‘Chief Wonka’, Mills, who took the audience through several of ustwo’s ipad and iphone apps with the focus being primarily on sales failure, and how a company can learn a great deal by being inspired and forward thinking. Not necessarily setting out to make big bucks but earning good reputation, canvassing your market and getting a feel for what users really want and desire on their mobile devices.
Ian Wharton of Zolmo talked at length about the problems and successes of their Jamie Oliver apps; from working closely with Oliver and listening to user feedback and getting people engaged enough to see the value in paying for it right through to harnessing and refining the product. He commented on the industry being largely misunderstood, but one that will be defined in the next 5 years and how users must begin to understand the value of digital products compared to their physical representations.
Stephen Mellish gave us a ‘Mystic Meg’ insight into the seemingly hellish terminator esq future we face, as mobile phones take over. Everything from diagnosing our illnesses via microchip implants to our homes dictating to us how we should live.
Tom Scott provided some light relief in between chats with a clever and amusing use of twitter with the audience and Nicholas Cuminsky from Google talked at length about branding and performance solutions.
Roger McNamee (through video) spoke about the stunning statistics regarding mobile smartphone adoption – that smartphones have taken 96% of desktop internet access to less than 50% in three years. And according to him this leads us to the conclusion that App beats web and that Index search is dying. However he pointed out that with the emergence of HTML5 it all changes again –watch this space!
Dan Lyons, Newsweek Technology Editor that was the pick of the bunch, with his colourful opinion on Steve Jobs and his forthright views on the current mobile market thats dominated by Apple. The event was an enjoyable and informative collective of views and ideas, not to mention the free Krispy Kreme donuts.
TEDx returns to the Northwest very soon at TEDx Manchester, be sure to get your tickets!
No comments yet Filed under: Business, Creative, Social, Technology, User Experience
Siobhan, November 3rd, 2011
The month formerly known as November has closed in on us quickly this year, and the Mando men are once again exercising their Gentleman’s right to grow upper lip facial hair in exotic and decorative styles. This year’s ManMo team are brazenly disregarding loved ones’ objections, friends’ advice, and colleagues’ horror in the pursuit of fame and fortune in the world of luscious lip caterpillars.
As always, it’s all in a good cause under the Movember banner, supporting mens prostate cancer charities and generating awareness of mens health.
Please donate generously if you can, as again this year Mando Group have pledged to match whatever the team raise pound for pound. You can either donate to the team, or to individuals. Donations can be made via the website http://mobro.co/ManMo or see any of the team members individually to donate via cash.
Team Captain:
Matt Stephens
Team members:
Adam Clifford
Andrew Laidman
Matt Guthrie
Matt Salmon
Stephen Roughley
Tim Myers
Henrik Stacke
Tom Riley
Check back here throughout Movember for updates as to how their luxurious lip warmers are coming along!
No comments yet Filed under: Awesomeness, Charity, Social
Siobhan, November 1st, 2011
Earlier this year, we ran several ‘We Make SharePoint Beautiful’ events, small gatherings for like-minded IT professionals who were interested in hearing what we had to say about Microsoft’s SharePoint 2010 Technology platform.
Well, we’re going to be running the series of events again across the North West into early 2012. As before, we’ll be painting a picture of what SharePoint 2010 can achieve as a public facing web platform when it’s combined with the right User Experience-led approach. To whet your appetite, a little bit more information about what SharePoint can do can be found over at our dedicated showcase wwww.WeMakeSharePointBeautiful.com
Our next event is on 23rd November 2011 at Malmaison in Manchester, featuring the Mando Team alongside some key guests from Business Link, Microsoft, and the world’s leading hosting company, Rackspace.
If you’re interested in attending, or for more info about any of our upcoming events, please contact Amalie.
No comments yet Filed under: Awesomeness, Business, Technology
Siobhan, October 12th, 2011
Here at Mando Group, we believe that one of the most important aspects of our ethos is our commitment to supporting the local community and offering aid to worthy causes through our charitable enterprise, the Mando Group Foundation.
Working in partnership with the Community Foundation for Merseyside, the Foundation enables our staff & clients to offer their time and energy to helping those who need it.
To this end, we’re hosting a charity fundraising event on 10th November.
The event, ‘Motor Mayhem’, hopes to encourage participation from our friends & clients by appealing to their inner-child with its Scalextric theme.
For a charitable donation, participating clients will be presented with a plain Scalextric car chassis – a blank slate for their company to design & decorate in any way they see fit, before pitting their incredible electric car racing skills against others.
In addition to the nostalgia-fuelled main event, the evening will include live music and a charity auction with some great prizes. All proceeds from the evening will go to Mando Group’s Adopted Charity for 2011, Relative Comfort, which is an appeal set up by the Countess of Chester to create a ‘home from home’ environment for relatives of patients who are in the critical care unit. The Foundation adopts a charity on an annual basis and encourages individuals at the company to put forward charities which are close to their hearts.
We’re supporting Relative Comfort this year because we think that what they’re trying to do is something that more critical care units need to think about – support not only for patients, but their relatives, because everyone could need this support at some point in their life.
Our aim with this event was to come up with something that was a little bit different, that would have universal appeal – and we thought that the Scalextric theme was a great way of exciting people who maybe wouldn’t ordinarily consider attending an event like this. Hopefully, it’s the first of many more exciting events from the Mando Group Foundation.
So please – throw down the scalextric gauntlet, relive a bit of your childhood, and help support a great cause – join us for some Motor Mayhem!
Contact Amalie for more information or to enquire about purchasing a ticket, and read more about the Mando Group Foundation’s activities here.
No comments yet Filed under: Awesomeness, Charity, Social
Siobhan, September 22nd, 2011
United Utilities, the UK’s largest listed water company, has transformed the way in which its customers can interact with them following the launch of a new self-service web portal, branded My Account.
The portal enables United Utilities’ customers to review current and historic payments, set up and amend direct debits, switch to paperless billing, provide meter readings, and notify the company if they are moving house.
The customer self-serve was developed by United Utilities’ digital partner Mando Group in collaboration with systems integrator Infosys and was soft launched in mid-May. It has already proved very popular with registrations to the service exceeding 30,000, and around 15,000 customers have made the move to paperless billing in the same period. In developing the portal, project leaders at Mando Group concentrated on making My Account a simple to use fully featured service without compromising customer confidentiality and security. Mando Group account director for United Utilities Jonathan Seal said that My Account was already proving popular with customers for this reason. “Consumers want to be able to engage with the utilities providers that help them get on with their lives. Moving this relationship online, and putting the customer in control is therefore very attractive for all concerned. We took a consumer-led approach to designing the user experience that’s at the heart of My Account, and we believe that it’s now an exemplar of how utilities can offer a fully featured self-service portal.”
United Utilities also worked with advertising and design partner One Marketing Communications to develop the launch strategy and creative execution which is currently running across radio, press and online, as well as key customer touch points. One’s Client Services Director Tristan Morris said “We wanted to ensure that the creative work reflected both the end benefits to the consumer and the simple, clean and easy to use service to maximise uptake across their wide customer demographic. We worked closely with United Utilities’ marketing team and Mando Group to maximise integration opportunities and the results so far are testament to this.”
United Utilities’ Online Communications Co-ordinator Caroline Smith said that My Account underlined the water company’s commitment to enhancing customer service while also contributing to cutting costs to serve. “One of the best ways that we can achieve sustainable improvements in customer service quality is to put our customers in charge of managing their relationship with us. My Account does this very well, and we are confident that as we communicate its advantages we will see more customers use the service.”
United Utilities is the UK’s largest listed water company, serving over seven million customers in 3.2 million households across North West England. United Utilities customers can register for My Account here
No comments yet Filed under: Uncategorized
Siobhan, September 15th, 2011
In recent months, we’ve been working with hearing-aid specialist Amplifon in order to develop their new online presence.
The new site, which launched in June, represents a refreshing new feel while remaining on-brand and reflecting Amplifon’s position as the world leader in their field.
The website provides visitors to the site with easy-to-use functionality, allowing them to easily locate what they are looking for and includes user-friendly features such as a branch locator for the company’s 200+ hearing care centres nationwide and the facility to request a free hearing test online.
Mando Group built the site using the Umbraco content management system, which allows Amplifon to benefit from much greater flexibility and control over their content and changes a previously static site into a fluid and dynamic digital offering.
We’ve also been working closely with Amplifon in providing design input to support advertising campaigns both online and television based.
Mike Copley, Online Manager at Amplifon, said:
We are really delighted with the new website – it looks great and gives visitors all the information they want about hearing loss and how we can help, as well as allowing people to book a hearing test online. There’s also an excellent branch locator so you can find which of our 200 hearing care centres is near you.
The site is helping us drive our business forward and since the new site was launched we’ve seen a considerable increase in site traffic.
See the site in action at www.amplifon.co.uk
No comments yet Filed under: Awesomeness, Business, Technology
Siobhan, July 21st, 2011
While most of us are stuck here in the office today, Amalie, Ryan and Adam C have been having a whale of a time over in the lakes.
They’re there as a part of the Mando Group foundation’s initiative to develop a Leadership Academy with North Liverpool Academy, acting as mentors to some of the NLA’s students in their Leadership Bootcamp.
The students – along with the lucky Mando Group volunteers – have spent the day participating in outdoor pursuits activities to help develop their leadership skills and GEM attributes, with a view to them leading a Small Action: Big Change Project in September 2011.
More about the activities of the Mando Group foundation can be found on our Foundation page.
No comments yet Filed under: Awesomeness, Charity
Amalie, June 29th, 2011
One of our senior designers, Joanne Finch, has taken on the mighty challenge of running the Liverpool marathon this October. She is running to raise money for the Countess of Chester appeal, Relative Comfort, who are collecting funds so they can create a “home from home” environment for the relatives of patients in the critical care unit.
Over the coming months, the Mando Group Foundation is going to support Joanne with her mammoth challenge and we’ve adopted her charity for the remainder of 2011. To launch our adoption of the charity we are holding Mando Group’s very own Wii-mbledon, a tennish championship with a difference. Our staff have been battling it out on the Wii to become the Nadal or Williams of Mando Group.
Today our 4 finalists will be donning their tennis whites and stepping up to the challenge to determine the Mando Wii-mbledon Champion of 2011. Matches will commence at about 5pm so check out the players profiles below and keep up to date on Twitter @mandogroup and if you would like to support a player you can make a donation.
Semi finals: Chris Vs Oli followed by George Vs Dan
Final: Chris vs George
No comments yet Filed under: Charity, Social
tony.richardson, June 22nd, 2011
What is schema.org?
On June 2nd 2011 Schema.org was announced, this is a new initiative from Google, Bing and Yahoo to create and support a common vocabulary for structured data markup on web pages. This will allow site owners and developers to learn about structured data and improve how their sites appear in major search engines. The site aims to be a one stop resource for webmasters looking to add markup to their pages.
What has changed?
Historically Google would use the meta description field to populate the search results snippet. As more people became aware of this Google changed their approach to look at the content of a whole page and decide for themselves the most relevant piece of text to display in the snippet description based on the keyword used to pull up the results.
What does it mean for you?
For a while Google have been experimenting with ‘rich snippet’ markup, this is HTML markup that provides more information to the search engines on what a particular piece of content is on a page. The announcement of the three main search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo agreeing to use this markup in there results moving forward is a significant step and is applicable to all websites. Failure to start using this markup will mean that over time those that do will supersede those who do not as their content will appear more relevant as a result of using correct markup.
What can be done?
It will take a period of time to identify if this has any significant impact on search, therefore it is unclear at this stage how important this mark-up language will become in the future. Please be aware if a website does not have any microdata, this will not stop the website appearing in search engines. If you would like to include this markup on your website as part of an SEO strategy please contact managedservices@mandogroup.com to discuss your requirements.
No comments yet Filed under: Managed Services
