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snowed in! and merry christmas

Hi BLOG,

I woke up this morning in Colchester, where I was stranded in the deep Essex snowfall after visiting a school yesterday. Luckily local friends put me up for the night and my challenge this morning was to battle 25 miles in the snow to get to the Cleveratom Christmas Feast, I made it, and it was great!

Being stranded last night got me thinking about December 2006 and the start of Cleveratom. Three years ago today I sent an email to everyone I knew about the end of an era, and the start of a new company I was helping to form.

That company is called Cleveratom.

Most people know the story of why Cleveratom was formed, but needless to say it was a scary moment in life, the founders of Cleveratom were suddenly at the helm of a new business with no projects, no clients, no income and no security. We knew that the work we had previously done together for a decade under our previous flag (an Ultra cool place!) was too important to stop, and we formed the company to carry on that work.

I got thinking about that cheeky moment where on January the 2nd 2007 we walked into the Essex Technology & Innovation Centre in Ongar and said "We don't have any money, or any projects, but we do have some great ideas, and we know that we need to sit together in order to make them happen." A guy called David gave us the break we needed, and the following week (after a week working from Starbucks!) we had a business advisor, a brand new business incubation office (free for a month!) which was surrounded by other creative businesses. We set to work on finding cool learning, technology and creativity projects which would make learning more inclusive, engaging and enabling for young people.

Within five months we'd moved out of the incubation offices in Ongar and moved into our current home 'Clever Towers' in Chelmsford. We've been here ever since and we've grown our team and are really proud of everything we've done together. Our work has ranged from designing learning environments including schools, consulting on ICT in education matters, special education needs, delivering professional development and change management and recently we've been building social networking software to help professionals share best practice and engage together online. We've been developing personalised learning tools, parental engagement tools, audience participation tools, peer assessment and evaluation tools, right through to learning platform software that young people relate to and want to use (because they designed and help build it!). We've involved learners in everything we've done, and had great fun building Cleveratom....

On the last day in my old job in December 2006 I sent an email announcing the end of one era, and the start of another with the launch of Cleveratom, I got some lovely replies including one from a Headteacher I'd previously worked with on a very cool project in New Zealand who said...

"Change is good for us but we don't usually like the thought. Remember the old sayin.....When the winds of change blow, some build walls while others build windmills." I can just see those windmills springing up everywhere."

...and they did...

To all our project partners, clients, and former colleagues... as ever, thank you for working with us, believing in us, even taking a risk on us, and, as ever, we all wish you a happy and healthy festive season, and a happy and healty 2010.

Ohhhh, one last thing...

We WONT be at our usual place for BETT 2010, our big blue stand is in storage ready to make its 2010 appearance at a brand new conference we're running in conjunction with Professor Stephen Heppell called 'Building Better Learning, Learning Better Building' in April 2010. Sharon, our newest team member is organising it with the brilliant Lys from Heppell.net. Email if you would be interested in booking a place, and please forward this paragraph on to those that might be interested.

Merry Mincepies,

Matt and all the team at Cleveratom, follow me/us on Twitter I'm @mjeaves and we're @cleveratom

--
Matthew Eaves
Director of Creativity, Cleveratom Ltd
+44 (0) 845 868 9020

Cleveratom Limited,
Fenchurch House,
93 Springfield Road,
Chelmsford,
Essex, CM2 6JL.

_____________________________________
Cleveratom Limited is a company registered
in England and Wales with company
number 6008130. Registered address is
Shalford Court, 95 Springfield Road
Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6JL.

Cleveratom in October

Dear BLOG , hello...

As ever, I know you are busy, I have a brief appeal for help.

- I'm trying to find people involved in the 'New Diplomas' programme, I need some advice, and to pick their brains a bit. If you know anyone, or can forward this mail, I'd really appreciate it... ;-)

Very condensed Cleveratom news:

- Latest clients include Becta, the QCDA and London School of Economics, and we're developing bespoke web applications or specifications for each of them;

- Currently designing new learning spaces, working on parental engagement and delivering personalised learning solutions;

and...

- The latest version of our Learning Platform / eSafety / ePortfolio solution (Thought Park) is rolling out to existing clients, with a great deal for schools looking to switch to our solution, call me on 0845 868 9020

Shortest update yet! How are things with you?

Matt
and all the team at Cleveratom

Cleveratom:
Consult and advise you on ICT in education matters
Design learning spaces that meet learners needs
Build and implement new software solutions
Run training and development programmes with learners and staff
Help make ideas happen

Matthew Eaves
Director
Cleveratom
+44 (0)845 868 9020

Cleveratom Limited,
Fenchurch House,
93 Springfield Road,
Chelmsford,
Essex, CM2 6JL.

_____________________________________
Cleveratom Limited is a company registered
in England and Wales with company
number 6008130. Registered address is
Shalford Court, 95 Springfield Road
Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6JL.

The email address I've mailed you on is in my work contact address book, if this needs updating, or removing, please reply with an instruction.

CLEVERATOM NEWS: inclusive, engaging and enabling learning... and an appeal too!

Dear BLOG , hello...

As ever, we know you are busy, so this is brief. This month we have an appeal, read on to find out more....

We have been....

LEARNING SPACES

- working to plan out a new Learning Difficulties and Disabilities space in a college

- designing a new learning/social space for a new academy, using existing buildings to buzz up learners ready for their school of the future

- accepted as part of a Becta approved consortium to provide ICT vision, infrastructure, and learning space design

- getting great feedback about the BBC Blast trucks, refitted to our design and specification

We love doing learning space design work, if you know of someone needing space design for learning, we'd love to know them too!

We have also been....

SOFTWARE

- creating a professional networking solution for the NHS in the East of England, with upwards of 250,000 potential users

- starting work on the next phase of 'Thought Park' our social networking learning platform.... tasks and assessments join our fleet of tools... Schools are switching to Thought Park!

- working with Primary Schools, New Diploma Consortia, Colleges and Pupil Referal Units to embed Spoke and Thought Park

- deploying solutions for social networking, community portals and parental engagement

When it comes to software, we're helping to make big projects come alive. Consider us if you want an engaging, inclusive, enabling (and fun!) solution!

And then there's....

POSITIVE CHANGE

This is the heart of our business, we're working on projects all over the country to embed and empower people to make solutions work. From schools to colleges, Universities to broadcasters, charities to Government departments, corporations to contractors.... we're working with our clients to make their ideas happen...

And now the appeal....

APPEAL

Over the past year our existing Channel Partners have sold Cleveratom software solutions into schools and colleges, increasing their own business at the same time. We pay a commission on every sale made. Our Partners then sell their own services to embed the software running fun projects, providing valuable consultancy and delivering excellent training to help clients meet their objectives. We're looking for excellent ICT in Learning Consultants to join this programme. Please forward this email onto anyone you think might be interested in working with us, details are on our website (in the 'What we do' section, list on the left).

There is loads more too.... follow us on Twitter (Cleveratom) where you'll find a daily feed of our activities!

As ever, hope all is good... What is your big challenge/idea at the moment?

Matt
and all the team at Cleveratom

Matthew Eaves
Director of Creativity
Cleveratom
+44 (0)845 868 9020

Cleveratom Limited,
Fenchurch House,
93 Springfield Road,
Chelmsford,
Essex, CM2 6JL.

_____________________________________
Cleveratom Limited is a company registered
in England and Wales with company
number 6008130. Registered address is
Shalford Court, 95 Springfield Road
Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6JL.

The email address I've mailed you on is in my work contact address book, if this needs updating, or removing, please reply with an instruction.

Spam Text from +44 7752 386912 - ignore it

I have not recently had an accident, the above message is spam. Ignore
it. I really dislike these messages, why does the sender think we will
fall for it. Don't reply at all, by replying you are telling them your
number is active, they will probably send the number tp other spammers
too.

National Express East Coast prove National Express can't run train lines

I was pleased to read yesterday that the National Express East Coast
rail route has been nationalised by the Government.

I'd travelled by GNER, the company that lost the route to National
Express, and they were 100 times better, the trains were clean, smart
and the staff were friendly. NXEC was bad. The company has a
strapline to 'Make Travel Simpler' but as soon as you board a NXEC
train you are bombarded with PA messages which talk about the types of
tickets that are not valid on the service, the restrictions are far
from making travel simpler.

When the East Coast franchise on the line was up for renewal along
came National Express who bid an unrealistic figure to run the line,
their bid stood to make a huge income for the Government in comparison
to that of GNER, the existing and experienced operator.

What stinks is that right now I'm sitting on a National Express East
Anglia train. Why are National Express still allowed to run other
rail lines when:

1) They have run away from a route they made unprofitable, after
sending a viable business called GNER (who proved they could run the
route) at a profit out of business?

2) They are taking profit in other parts of their business which could
cover loss made on the East Coast.

3) They are obsessed with repainting and rebranding trains, checking
and re-checking tickets, and wasting money?

What a poor decision by Government to award the francise in the first
place, and a bad signal to other train operators who have no real
insentive to invest in routes and services through fear Government
will undo their hard work and award their route at renewal to an
inexperienced operator who promises the earth. Why should they
invest, if I owned a train company right now I'd think 'hang on, lets
not spend, lets make a bigger profit'.

A great example of another route that has gone down the toilet is the
East Anglia line. This route was operated by 'First Group'. They
refitted stations, bought brand new trains, trained staff well and
cleaned well.

After a considerable investment National Express bidded and were
awarded the route rather than First. All assets were handed over as
part of the francise, and ever since National Express has been
repainting the outside of trains and stations.

They have reduced staff, cut food services, are obsessed with ticket
inspections, installed barriers that don't work and slow passengers
down... and háve let the brand new trains bought by First get filthy
and worn.

When things go wrong on the line NX are amazingly good at hiding, and
giving out poor information. I can't think of a week where everything
has gone right for me on their service

First made a bid to take over National Express, and I hope they get
the whole company, they know how to run travel services.

Richard Branson invested heavy into His Virgin Cross Country route,
and it was amazing he did not get the route on renewal, I wonder if
NXEC is the start of a ball rolling for new and inexperienced
companies buckling under the recession and not delivering on what they
said they would.

I hope NX lose the NXEA route. They should not be allowed to run a
profitable route if they have already turned a profit making route
into a loss making route.

Big warning sign