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

So true email circular

An email circular

London Bin

I've bin to London.

Twitterific iPhone App Error

I love it when an error message makes no sense.

Very Good Essex based Gardener

The garden area out the front of Clever Towers in Chelmsford needed
some serious work.

We found 'Andy the Gardener', he posted a leaflet through the door.

Andy offered a great price, did a fantastic job and took away all the
mess.

Andy is now a Cleveratom preferred supplier, he even helped us out to
transport our large exhibition stand to London when our usual (former)
transport company let us down.

He is always on time, works very hard, is great value for money. He
has since won contracts with our neighbouring offices on the quality
of his gardening work.

I've seen his customer comments folder and he has very good feedback
from all over the East Anglia and London regions. He takes a pride in
his work.

Andy the Gardener is a polite and friendly person too, we recommend him.

Tell him Cleveratom sent you his way.

His number is 07776 110735
>

Lunch Catering Chelmsford

I've experienced loads of conference food over the years, ranging from
the very good to the very bad. Today was excellent.

Today at Cleveratom we used 'Finest Fillings' of Chelmsford as lunch
company for our SSAT conference for Essex Schools.

After checking out local catering conpanies we concluded 'Finest
Fillings' were the best quality, selection and value, and delivery was
included in the price. The platters are huge and tasty.

Tell them Cleveratom sent you when you call them on: 01245 347545

What is he doing?

Cineworld sign , Braintree.

Ben & Jerry's at Cineworld

£4.90.

Coraline at Cineworld with an Unlimited Card

Justina and I are at Cineworld Braintree, we were going to see
'Coraline' using our Unlimited cards which entitle us to watch any
film at any time during a month at a flat fee of £13.50 per person
per month.

Arriving we were informed that Unlimed customers have to pay an extra
£1.50 per person because the film is in 3D.

Sorry Cineworld, that is stupid. We'll be sitting in the same screen
as a regular film, in the same seats, sipping the same overpriced drink.

OK the film will have cost more than a regular 2D to produce, and
Cineworld may have had to buy in special projector to show it, but
what is starting to get on my nerves is how Cineworld continues to
squeeze more and more out of Unlimited customers.

When we joined the scheme it was £10.99 per month. When the
Government slashed the VAT from 17.5% to 15% Cineworld decided not to
pass on the saving but up the price.

When we joined we were told about the special offers we would get as
part of the programme, in two years I think all we've had is £2 off a
hotdog, a tiny can of Dr. Pepper, and a 15% off your food voucher,
which I think Cineworld think we are expect to believe is them doing
something to respond to the 15% VAT rate.

'Unlimited' magazine is free, but available to all cinema customers,
the food prices have gone up again, no 'Unlimited' discount.

So we're about to watch 'Drag me to Hell'.

Come on Cineworld, recession!

River Blackwater

Witham Riverwalk

Static and Balloons

NXEA Fail

Yesterday I should have arrived in Norwich at 8.22am. I arrived at
9.33am very cross. I'll write more about how National Express East
Anglia can't run a train service here soon.

Toshiba don't like walls

To wall mount a new flatscreen Toshiba TV my Dad and I had to take it
apart and drill in places to make it wall mountable.

It worked!

For the people that get lost in Essex

Who you gonna call?

Witham Nature Reserve

In the morning.

Typically British

Check out the years of dirt and grime in the number squares.

Good fun though trying to beat the old dears.

Free the Sausage

A campaign to free a sausage in Norwich, check out the bottom right of
the image behind the bars...

Captain Duck

Heybridge Basin, Essex

Dyson man hoovers Norwich Station

He should enter Britain's Got Talent, all he would need is for someone
to sing opera while he hoovers up Platform 2...

Silly Text Short Codes

At the bus stop at Norwich Rail Station

iPhone fail

I was writing a long blog post by email from my phone. I had not
finished but had to leave 'Mail' to make a call. I press the 'Home'
button, make the call, touch the 'Mail' icon, expect to return to the
email I was writing. It is not there.

Not even the option to save an email as a draft half way through.

Rubbish.

NXEA cancellations & delays

Tuesday morning, 7am. How can it all go wrong this early in the day?

New BBC Blast Trucks, Award winning Asperger's, engaging and inclusive learning....

Dear BLOG,

It has been a while since I've done a catch up, and as ever: I know you are busy - I'll keep it brief.

The BBC Blast Trucks are redesigned, refitted and ready for another three years on the road. Blast is a brilliant project and we've enjoyed working with young people to get the design of the new trucks suitable for engaging and inclusive creative learning. Learning Space Design has become a big part of our work as more people realise the positive impact effective space design can have on learning.

Our work continues with City College Norwich to embed technology for learners with Asperger's Syndrome. With the learners we're embedding a new TV & Radio studio into the suite of facilities, which just won two big awards, we're really proud of the students and staff and celebrated with them on our joint stand at BETT back in January.

Working on the 'New Diplomas' is good fun, we're working with learners to implement an adaptation of our learning platform 'Thought Park' to enable collaborative cross-institution learning. Thought Park has been successfully implemented in a diversity of learning situations and as always learners were involved in its specification and design, which we believe is essential to any software development and a key factor in its success.

With the NHS we're building and implementing a Professional Networking solution for staff in the Eastern Region. Other NHS projects keep us busy putting together new online resources, filming, and travelling all over the country to conduct research with health teams.

With our friends at Essex County Council we're building a new partnership portal, last year we built 'Engage East' for them. PLiP, the Personalised Learning software we're rolling out with Edison Learning continues to grow, SPOKE, our engaging reflection and evaluation software is seeing take-up across the country as a way for schools to: track performance; set targets; engage better with parents; and simplify processes.

And we continue to present, advise and talk about how learning can be more engaging, inclusive and fun.

We're also delighted to welcome Sharon (our new administrator), and Colin Elsey (a former colleague from lab days) who has been tempted out of early retirement to head up some research work for us with the NHS.

There is loads more too.... follow us on Twitter (Cleveratom) where you'll find a link through to some pictures of the BBC Blast truck!

Matt
and all the team at Cleveratom
Please feel free to forward this update onto friends and colleagues.

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.

National Express East Anglia Shambles

I arrived in Norwich 1 hour late this morning, once again NXEA were
shambolic with their lack of communication, false information, train
cancellations, and as ever sudden dissapearance of platform staff when
the brown stuff started to hit the fan.

Well done NXEA.

Why is Skip-bo not available in the UK?

This is a great card game first introduced to Justina and I by
Justina's American Sister-in-law. We bought a set of cards while in
the States, and another set from France. I tried to get hold of
another set this week and ended up having to order from America at a
cost of £15.00 (£10 or which was postage).

Skip-bo is a great game, someone in the UK should stock it.

Pointless Interactive Floor Advertising

Great that The Meadows shopping centre in Chelmsford has finally got
shot of that pointless interactive floor advertising thing that for
the last couple of years they have been trying to flog advertising
space to local businesses, including mine.

The floor was great fun for kids who ran about on it kicking away
objects to reveal company names and logos but I never saw anyone take
any notice of the businesses who paid for this advertising which was
only ever displayed when kids ran about on it.

Cash Points are annoying

9 out of 10 times when I use a cashpoint I request a £10 note with no
advice slip.

Why do I have to press through about four screens before I can press
the £10 button? Nationwide machines are the slowest to process
requests and ask the most questions. Why can't cashpoint learn what we
do and provide the familiar activities as options on the main screen?

All I want is a 'usual tenner with no receipt' button when my pin has
been accepted. Why do they all try and sell me mobile phone topups for
networks I am not a customer of, and I am on a contract? Just give me
my tenner and process me and the rest of the cash point queue faster.

Molly is Two

Happy Birthday Molly.

Apple MacBook Pro Kernal Panic and Logic Board Failure

I really like Apple, but every single laptop I've owned (Milhouse 2000-2003
, SuperTed 2003-2005, Elwood 2005-2007, Jake 2007-present) has gone
wrong and had to have a 'logic board' replacement.

'Jake' is in for repair at the moment along with Alex's machine which
also has logic board failure. Justina's iBook has had two logic board
replacements in three years.

AppleCare is such an expensive but needed protection plan.

Thetrainline.com is excellent

I never thought I would write a post commending thetrainline.com but I
am. Last year they were rubbish, virtually impossible to call when
there was a problem, tricky to obtain tickets from and their customer
service was nearly as bad a certain gas company.

This year they have a website that works, I can collect tickets from
my local station rather than from a machine at a station ten miles
away, and the whole process of booking with them at short notice is
excellent through the web.

Tomorrow I am in Norwich, if I had of bought the ticket from National
Express East Anglia it would have cost £36.70 return. The very same
train journey with thetrainline.com was £6 each way, an amazing £12
plus a £1 booking fee. The company emailed me a reference code which
I simply typed into the machine at Witham station and tickets were
spat out at me.

A 100% improvement by thetrainline.com in comparison to last years
complete shambles.

Yorkie Chocolate Genius Advertising

The 'not for girls' campaign has been around for a few years now but
is simply one of the best marketing campaigns ever. Blokes buy it
because it is great chocolate aimed at them, girls buy it because they
are not meant to.

The limited edition pink Yorkie for girls was pure genius.

Justina bought a regular Yorkie (again!) today to share with me. I
pointed out that she should not have done that as the product clearly
states she should not have it. "I like breaking the rules". Genius.

Blog spam reduction Spam Karma 2

I've been using Spam Karma 2 for a couple of years now to fend off
spam on this Wordpress blog.

Every now and again a spam comment gets past SK2 as some cheeky
spammer writes a direct comment specifically for the page on my blog
that they want to target traffic from.

I have a new strategy for the rare spam comment that gets past SK2,
but I still wish all spam commenters would go take a long walk on a
short pier.

Norwich Taxi 01603 700 700

I've been travelling to Norwich for nearly two years and have used
most of the city based cab firms, and all have let me down except for
one.

Today I needed three cabs to get around and the only company I'll call
is 1st Gold Star. 01603 700 700, they were a couple of minutes early
to pick me up each time.

I often use this blog to moan about rubbish service so I thought I'd
commend a well run efficient company that lives up to it's name.

Little Chef built their restaurants the wrong way round

Sitting in the Little Chef in Acle I've often wondered why Little Chef
face the roads they service. Surely the last thing a motorist wants to
see when taking a break is look out through a window onto cars and
lorrys thundering past.

In Acle if the kitchen moved to the seating area, and the seating
moved to where the kitchen area is then customers would look out of
windows overlooking a small woodland,, and fields at most other Little
Chef branches.

Little Chef, move your windows.