We’re so pleased with it, that we’ve also built a new demo site at http://cms.south.co.uk that showcases the benefits of using the system and includes a testing login area where you can try it out for yourself to see how easy it is. Simply go to http://cms.south.co.uk/live-demo to login.

The CMS is now more expandable, which means we can plugin new modules such as the European Language packs, or the Rollback module which allows you to revert to a previous edition. Additional plugins are available for eCommerce, blogs, RSS, and Twitter feeds. The Global Settings function now includes areas for your tracking and analysis codes.

Of course we’ve kept the advanced User & Groups functions, but we’ve improved it so that you can now allocate as many – or as few – pages and sections, to any particular user. Version 3.0 expands on this and introduces a new series of site-wide editing preferences. You can now choose between Admin, Editor or Contributor, so you can quickly divide the workload between as many people as you want – and be sure that they can’t break anything! (Though if one of them did make a mistake you can simply use Rollback to restore!)

The Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) abilities are also improved. Of course we’ve built the system to ensure it only generates standards compliant code. But as well as s site-wide meta data option, you can now include specific meta information on each page – so you can be as detailed as you want to be.

If you’re thinking of upgrading your current site (or building a totally new one), don’t make any decisions until you’ve had a look around the demo site – and of course logged in to the admin area to see just how easy it is to manage your own site on a day-to-day basis.

If you’d like any further information about SouthCMS, or what it can do for your business, then just get in touch, or call 020 7871 0900.

At the same time on this side of the Atlantic, a slightly less visionary (though just as deeply untrendy) man was also presenting a new product. However, there was a rather fundamental difference between the two (apart from the distinct lack of any sort of press attention here). That product is the latest version of our Content Management System (CMS), and is probably better described as evolutionary rather than revolutionary… and when you think about it, perhaps that description would better suit the iPad too.

Now I’m a big fan of Apple products, I’ve lost count of the number of Macs I’ve owned (I still have a Classic in the loft somewhere) and it’s not just PCs – No. At one point during the never ending upgrade cycles of releases of iPod’s, Nano’s & Shuffles I think I had the complete matching set to go with any occasion. And then, just when they couldn’t possibly squeeze another penny from me, Apple went and released the iPhone. Bang went another few hundred, thanks Steve. The problem this time though, is that I already have an iPad. I have a small one that I can make telephone calls on, and a large one with a proper keyboard that I work on… I’m just not sure there’s a gap between the two – and if there were, is it fair to describe it as “revolutionary?” Let’s compare…

With our new CMS, we’ve taken the existing built-in technologies from our previous one, and then streamlined and improved each of them. In essence, we’ve taken v2.0 and made it a little bigger, better and faster for v3.0. Sure there’s a few new modules (such as the Rollback, Blog and User Management features) but isn’t the iPad just a bigger and faster iPhone? (sans the ability to make telephone calls of course!)

The issue I have though, is that almost every day some company develops a revolutionary product… or at least that’s what they claim. But when does evolution turn into revolution? It’s certainly not on day one. Take the ubiquitous iPod for example, no one could argue that it hasn’t revolutionised the way the music is bought and sold (ask any ex-Woolworths employee). But I remember when the iPod was first launched – there wasn’t anything revolutionary about it at all. In fact other manufacturers were already building smaller and better specified units. No, the revolution wasn’t from the hardware, it came via the software used to support it.

So, if the determining factor in deciding evolution or revolution is how we interact with the supporting software (rather than the actual hardware), is it not fair to say that a CMS which gives non IT personnel the power to manage their websites on a day-to-day basis, is in fact, more revolutionary than the new Apple iPad?

Discuss….

OSS recently asked South˚ to work on creating a set of icons that would denote their business areas and fit in with the style previous icons already in place and compliment the brand.

What do they denote?

These icons try to encompass these complex areas of the business without being too specific. In order the icons represent:

• oil sales
• oil collection
• hazardous waste collection
• parts washers
• industrial services
• fragmentation
• environmental.

How will they be used?

They are to be used throughout merchandising, sales collateral and other avenues of communication including their website as a quick visual key to specific areas of the business. Working in conjunction with a more specific red icon set in a similar style which will denote, for instance, specific model parts washers or the schedule of waste collections.

I need to know this, why?

Well, we just wanted you to know that South˚ and  our team have created, worked within and developed brands of all levels. We work right the way down from the heady heights of brand values, right the way down to grass roots level.

So if you think South˚ is too big for your bedroom business or too small or your multi-national…

…think again, we work with both.

Well. We say a three way pitch, as the creative work was to be decided on the basis of a first round of visuals pitched by all three chosen agencies. It was later decided this wouldn’t be necessary once they had seen the materials from South˚. You can imagine that we were particularly happy to win a client such as ‘greytogreen’ without a protracted pitching process, this is happening more and more to South˚ – in the recent economic climate with prospective clients facing tight time-scales and even tighter budgets, a great creative team at the right price is becoming essential.

In fact what excited us the most was that we would be working with people who know exactly what they want, and act upon it swiftly and decisively.

Work started immediately and just 48 hours from the word “Go” we delivered the ‘napkin sketches’ and in a little over week from this post we’ll be delivering a polished identity with corporate guidelines to follow and all while developing the look and feel for their workshop materials.

Check back soon to see how we’re getting on with the finished product…

This initial campaign is looking like a resounding success with 20% of readers following links to the website and less than 0.1% showing little or no interest. Of those opening the mail over two thirds clicked through to the website!

Our email system provides a comprehensive set of real-time reports allowing our clients to accurately measure the effectiveness of every campaign they send. We go beyond opens and link clicks and can even measure campaign related sales, conversions and ROI.

If you want to know more about how to get your customers interested in your products, reading your content and focus your sales team on potential sales then get in touch and we will show you how.

At a such a dinner party recently I sat back in amazement as the the entire table tuned towards Facebook and more specifically on online ‘game’ on the famous site called Farmville. Now to most the point of such an online application remains puzzling to say the least; it involves planting various seeds only to log back in and harvest them after a period of time resulting in some ‘profits’. Yet the enthusiasm of this particular crowd was a stark reminder of how successful this type of app can be but to what ends?

Google seems to have injected new energy into the world of online advertising, a world we were told was coming to an end over and over and I’m sure that the constant deluge of pennies accounts for a significant portion of the profits but what amazed me here was the users part with real cash in order to progress themselves faster through the game, keep up with friends or win the race against the office rival.

Yes friendly competition is alive and kicking on Facebook in the middle classes. Remember we’re not talking million dollar developments here, investment in these games by comparison are tiny. ROI on the popular ones must be out of this world.

Micro transactions like these in the grand scheme of a middle class household are miniscule – no more then the muffin to accompany your morning latte and in the current financial climate it seems to be the little things that make the difference. Getting one over on your friends or rivals is well worth paying £3.50 for. And should your place in the country be a farmhouse rather than a tent on your virtual cartoon farm in cyberspace you still have one up on the ‘Jones’.

South˚ has its fair share of motorsport enthusiasts and so it came as a pleasant surprise to those of us watching the Formula One this weekend, to find BBC’s Jake Humphrey race around Silverstone GP in a car that only a few months ago existed as a visual on our Macs.
Looking after the design and advertising for the Elise Trophy, Lotus on Track, Lotus Central, Ben Elliott Racing, Forza West and half a dozen other motorsport brands, we’re lucky enough to see our work on TV fairly frequently. Fast forward 35 minutes into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and there’s the car we painstakingly airbrushed in Photoshop, surrounded by the support teams faithfully wearing the promotional clothing we supplied, embroidered with the logos we created on a race track adorned with the names of brands we’ve been fortunate enough to work with over many years. A moment to savour perhaps?

Fast forward another 2 minutes and that same car is now in lots of little pieces being towed / swept away.

They say that all publicity’s good publicity and we can’t argue with that. We will have to insist next time however, that our motorsport design and advertising exposure receives the full 15 minutes’ worth of fame!

I’ll be completely honest and admit that the details of the strike hold no interest for me, I’ve skim-read the issues and can only surmise that one side thinks it needs to “modernise” and start doing what they get paid for, and the other thinks they’re being taken advantage of, and that  “modernisation” is already well underway. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between the two. I recently asked one of our Postmen what effect the strikes would have? He replied that “Your first class mail will take a few days to arrive”. He wasn’t overly impressed when I replied “So how will we know when the strikes are over?” But I think the point was made.

The blunt fact is though, that our beleaguered Postal Service, is taking giant hit – though a self-inflicted one this time. In an age when email is so prevalent and arrives in seconds, how can ‘Snail Mail’ compete? We can all send and receive documents, invoices and contracts over email, do our banking or shopping online and if we need to swap larger files such as CDs or DVDs, we use ftp sites like http://ftp.south.co.uk/ or http://www.yousendit.com/ , the logic for industrial action does seem rather flawed – though I suspect King Canute might have approved.

Anyway, 2010 will soon be upon us (a year that scientists said we’d all be living on the moon). I suspect these are the same people that heralded the arrival of the ‘Paperless Office’… but having just had to clear a mound of A4 in order to find my keyboard, I reckon they’re a bit out with that prediction too. However the fact remains that although we’re still reliant on the humble letterbox, it is to a far lesser degree. And those businesses that have (so far) coped with RM’s idiosyncrasies are probably investigating alternative services right now.

Let’s hope the Turkey’s don’t keep voting for Christmas.

We have started on the new identity this week and as ever, we’re kicking off with our favourite bit: the brainstorms and pencil sketches. Next week will be delivering a choice of directions for the team to choose from and just a few weeks from now, should you meet the team from Strategic Technologies, you’ll find the logo on their business cards is one that will have started its life on the pages of a South˚ sketchbook.

I’ve just returned from a month long holiday in Canada – one of the richest, most developed countries in the world, yet in terms of mobile data usage they are decades behind Europe. This is primarily because their infrastructure has not been de-regulated, and the largest provider (Rogers Telecom) has a stranglehold on 3G services. If I’d wanted to use mobile internet, the cost would have been a staggering 15p per kilobyte (yes kb, not mb!!). In other words, each email would have cost about £2, and uploading a pic to Facebook would have cost more than the flights out there. So you’re probably assuming that no-one accesses mobile data services, right? Er no – data usage over there is prolific! Are they all mad?

Well no, actually they’re quite cunning. You see Canadians know that having a mobile connection to the web is extortionate, so en mass, the whole nation has seemingly ditched that idea, and everyone offers free wifi instead! Thus neatly circumventing the virtual cellular monopoly, and allowing everyone to use each others routers. Brilliant. Anarchic and rebellious perhaps – but brilliant nonetheless.

So from Banff, up through the Rockies, then down through the interior, across to Vancouver Island, then onto the city itself, at every place we visited there were coffee shops, malls, hotels, even private houses with signs promoting “Free WIFI” I was never once stranded offline (much to my wife’s chagrin!)

But could it happen here? or is the fact that our data rates are considerably cheaper, actually removing the necessity for us to help one another? Perhaps we’ve all been scared by the UK thought police into what might happen to us if a ne’er-do-well were to use our connection to logon to one of Gary Glitters favourite sites? But the fact remains. Getting online in the Canadian outback (a place I still maintain is a cellularly repressed country!) Is easier and cheaper than in the UK.

We could learn a thing or two from those bear-chasing lumberjacks you know!