Multimedia huh? Almost as vague as ‘pervasive media’ given it can describe anything from animated gifs to stereoscopic projections. Definitions aside, Thought Den were honoured to be invited to help the region’s A-level and GCSE media teachers swot up on how businesses are exploiting the power of digital.

Bristol already has a thriving media scene and educational institutions in the area are constantly innovating in the way they nurture upcoming talent – something we’re happy to support. A new Multimedia Diploma is being launched in the region and we aimed to get the creative juices flowing, mixing exercises, group brainstorms, front-line experience and observations of the market at large.

The good people at Learning Partnership South West and Vital, part of the Open University, commissioned a 3 hour workshop, part of which involved an in-depth look at some of our own multimedia solutions in three key areas – Government, Consumer and SMEs. Thought Den have worked closely with eDemocracy and online consultation specialists Delib for almost 5 years now and projects such as Fire Kills and Delib’s very own Your Freedom site for our new coalition Government were useful case studies.

Voucher Cloud was given as an example in the Consumer category, and Thought Den’s jewel in the crown Parashoot (risk assessment tool for the TV industry, like Base Camp but with animations) exemplified the highs and lows of developing unique intellectual property for small businesses.

Following a busy Friday and Sunday in preparation, the session kicked off at the Pervasive Media Studiowrapping for lunch at 1:00. It was a great session and we’re putting a video edit together as we focus on landing more work in this area. Please get in touch if you’d like us to run a similar workshop for you. Brows these videos for examples of what we’ve already done.

Bournemouth Industry Day (50 students, 8 hours, bridging the gap between industry and education)

BBC design recruits training (Creative thinking in Pervasive Media)

This is us looking gormless

You know when you’re moving to a new house. There’s always that list of new bits you need to go buy, scrounge or ‘borrow’. Things like Cabinets, Poncy Coffee table, Cupboards and there’s no doubt that you’ll be missing all your table-spoons. Well our list after the recent secret move of the Den could do with one thing adding it’s list. A Sandbox.

Not a normal grainy one with endless castles and pit potential. But more like one of the Media Sandboxes that the Pervasive Media Studio has just released.

The Pervasive Media Studio

To fill you in, a Media Sandbox is a funded challenge open to any technologists. It’s aim is purely at  allowing people/companies/artists to come up with a idea to tackle a problem, create a new service or create an experience.

A 2009 Media Sandbox commission

The first is B-Open Sandbox (http://www.mediasandbox.co.uk/awards/), and invites ideas on utilising the wealth of data-feeds out there and turning them into useful apps, sites or experiences. So for example and app which helps people decide which city to move to according to a government air-quality feed.

The second is Pervasive Experiences Sandbox (http://www.mediasandbox.co.uk/awards/) and invites ideas on creating ground-breaking pervasive which should pull together mobile, wireless & sensor technologies to create meaningful experiences.

Thought Den, being a company who are constantly playing with, researching and creating new technologies for clients, commissions and fun (just check out our latest Geek club). Will definitely be putting ideas & concepts into the mix.

Then hopefully we’ll have a new Sandbox to play with in the Den.

Our previous Media Sandbox commission

Happy Packages Dick Penny

A question we asked ourselves last month as we wrapped up Parashoot. At first it seemed it definitely couldn’t be when the internet at your office fails and you have to establish a makeshift testing office in your front room. But what business hasn’t at some point eked out its existence, whether through infancy or old age, in the homely surrounds of an attic, spare room, garage or garden shed? Behold the rigour and beauty of our testing process, from iPhone to Dell netbook and Mac Book Pro.

On the plus side, having our server rack replaced by a fully functioning Ignis oven meant brownies were forthcoming, and thus IE6 was conquered. From here on in, IE6 will not be supported, in much the same way these admirable countries have stated their case against.

Things seem to take longer these frosty-morning-creaky-limbed days. Apologies for the delay in posting, but finally we have some lovely videos to shout about.

The first is very exciting – we were commissioned by the BBC to run a workshop at the Pervasive Media Studio back in October. The brief was to give the hottest new BBC design recruits a taste of pervasive thinking. What better company to run the event than the den thinkers. It was a fun day with talks from the likes of Tom Melamed of Calvium, Luke Jerram and a stand-up brainstorm session on the PM’s monstrous and curving white board. Nick Johnston (Hatboy to most and many) kindly videoed and edited the highlights, so please plug in for 3 minutes of Thought Den magic…And Dan’s hair looks much better this time, eh!?

Another somewhat delayed announcement follows – the igfest 09 highlights reel is in! Geoff Taylor has been hard at it in the edit suite, Simon Johson has been on the phone to his copyright lawyers and I’ve been keeping interested parties happy with taster emails packed with images. But the wait is over, moving picture technology has triumped, gorge at will. What an awesome event it is. Roll on 2010.

igfest 09 from Igfest on Vimeo.

Step forward Mr Rhys Thomas, new Thought Den employee and pumpkin-carving PHP extraordinaire. He’s currently working a 3 month trial (baptism of fire?) with us down at the Paintworks. In only two weeks he’s already played for our adopted football team – Team Rubber – been out on the piss with Mobile Pie, worked late, gone home early, cycled Dan’s bike to Sainsbury’s and visited the Pervasive Media Studio at midnight.

Rhys Thomas - Thought denner

His first project build was Subtlemob – take a look, it’s all going down this week.

Now he’s working on amends to Parashoot, the film industry’s Base Camp – we’re about to make it even more kick-ass with a nifty mobile phone feature.