Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Homstie / Virgin Atlantic Pitch TV

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

The dudes at Homstie are doing something a bit similar to us here at Flaming desks. Basically, it’s a site that let’s people with too much storage space offer it to people who need it. Anything from a cupboard to a garage!

This is their Homestiepage

This is their Homestiepage

Nice idea, eh? I didn’t think anyone had any spare storage space… but they clearly do and I should meet them with all my junk!

This was found via the awesome Pitch TV… Virgin Atlantic’s cool entrepreneur-finding thing. (Here’s Homstie’s pitch video.)

Pitch TV is a very cool programme which lets people submit video pitches for new business ideas - Virign then put the best ones on a channel on their in flight entertainment for high-flying execs to watch, and hopefully invest in.

Dunno if there’s been a success story yet - will have to do some more digging.

(I’m gonna apply on behalf of Flaming Desks too… if anything to learn more about how Pitch TV works…)

Team catch-up - September 3rd 2008

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

Guys,

great catch up meeting yesterday. Nice to get our first team pic of us ‘hard at it’!

It’s nice to see us getting more and more excited about this as everything unfolds. The PR and Marketing developments are really really promising, so Rob, please keep us updated with anything cool in this area!

Design-wise - the logo is more or less decided upon now and Nick will be getting these artworked up in the next day or so. In the meantime he is working on developing the look and feel of the site and we’ll be seeing some visuals posted soon for inspection! Dave - we hope these inspire and challenge you rather than send you running (especially one of them!).

Keep on keeping it up guys and look forward to our next catch up meeting!

Careful Nick.

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

Our regular reader(s) will know about Nick’s promotional masterplan. i.e. burn a desk.

However, while this is a fun stunt - and one which we hope people will want to come along to (we’ll keep you posted) - recent research shows there are limits as to how far we should take it:

Students in Philadelphia did not appreciate someone who burnt a desk on the top of a building and pushed it off!

Good job Nick’s all over the safety aspect, then.

[Guys: was actually seeing how we're doing SEO-wise. Early days but looking good.]

Wanted Dead or Alive…

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

Okay, so finding an old desk to burn is proving more difficult than first expected.. there are plenty of crappy old PC desks floating around on Gumtree and Freecycle etc, but I want one with some real character.. maybe one that I’ll even feel a little bit bad about burning after it’s all over.

So this is a call for anyone reading this blog, to spread the word that Nick at Flaming Desks is in search of a FREE desk for his bonfire.

P.S. We don’t really have a $1000 reward.

What’s goin’ on ‘ere then?

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

As Robbie points out, I have been preaching the everlasting gospel of sharing desks to one or two select industry contacts! Only things is, we haven’t really done a post that deals with “What are we doing?” and “What do we want?” all in one place yet - so anyone rocking up here might end up a tad confused.

I thought I’d have a go at that now. (Should also give us something to link to from our “About” page too - which has been a bit sparse and unloved so far.)

OK, so what are we doing?

First of all “we” is two friendly companies - Nonsense and White October. Rob from Nonsense and Dave from White October had an idea in the pub, and quickly realised that a collaboration between the two companies could make it happen. This blog is the manifestation of that collaboration. All posts are written by Nonsense and White October people, who are taking on various roles in getting what has become known as “Flaming Desks” made. (Hence silly posts about burning a desk for marketing purposes, and tedious ones detailing functionality!)

The idea here is that we’ll be 100% transparent about what we’re doing, so anyone can come along and read the actual conversations we’re having as we develop the Flaming Desks idea. And of course those people can comment on what we’re doing, which will enhance the whole thing.

Yeah, but WHAT ARE WE DOING????

So we had an idea (and I described how here) that we loved, which goes a bit like this:

There are lots of people (particularly “media types”) who from time to time could do with a desk for a day in a city somewhere. There are lots of offices, small and large, with a spare desk sitting there empty. Flaming Desks sorts them both right out… you’ve got a spare desk; you list it. You need somewhere to sit; you find one on offer and request it.

This is Flaming Desks. The beauty of the idea is that everyone wins. People with desks get an opportunity to meet new and interesting people (basically a nice way to network) and people without desks get, well, a desk. We can see loads of the “uber-freelance” brigade using this service once its up and running.

And finally, what do we want?

Right now, the main thing we want from all you lovely visitors is feedback. Please comment away on any of the issues being discussed as much as you like. This could be anything from something simple like “it’ll never work you muppets”, to something more complicated that I personally wouldn’t understand - like “have you considered using the Jango framework for Python in a Redhat Linux environment?”.

There’s a place for all your comments, in all the different posts. We promise that we’ll respond to all the feedback we get. (Although don’t expect us to be polite if your feedback is mean and nasty!)

Specifically:

  • Are there any existing communities / web apps that you could see it integrating well with?
  • Spotted any obvious pitfalls?
  • Do you have an old desk you want burnt?

Answers on a postcard. (If you actually want to send a postcard, send it to Nonsense London, Studio 4, 10/11 Archer Street, London, W1D 7AZ - we’ll put it on the blog.)

Yeah, but what do we REALLY want?

Two things you could do that would be invaluabe to us right now would be:

- vote in our straw poll.
- subscribe to the RSS feed, or bang in your email address in the little box in the top right the blog [Or this one... DF].

- forward the link around like crrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzyyy.

[UPDATE:] And another thing! Why are we doing this?

Simple. Because we think its one of those things that just needs to be made. OK, and because it might make a few people notice our two companies a bit. And because we’ll hopefully meet loads of useful clever people through the comments and collaboration. And not to make any money. Well maybe one day, but only from someone who promises not to bugger everything up. (Hmmm - not that simple then.)

Data capture time

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Hello, Robbie here reporting in to Flaming Desks for the first time in my project management role.

An artists impression of what our data may look like

An artists impression of what our data may look like

As Rob is shouting his mouth off round town about flaming desks, we should, on the off chance that they pop along and visit this blog, capture their interest. So, Dave, could we maybe have a simple data capture form somewhere (near the top)? Very simple please, maybe just say ‘Pre-register now’ or something more interesting - Rob put your copywriting hat on. Then a simple form where they can fill in their name, email and choose from:

I’d use this to find a desk / I have a spare desk to list / I probably won’t use Flaming Desks, but tell me anyway once it’s up and running ’cause I’ll definately want to check it out and tell all my friends and aquaintences

Photo inspiration

Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008

While Nick is working on his plans to set fire to a desk for branding purposes I thought I’d have a look to see who’d already done something similar.

Lo and behold, I found someone called “CozCoz” on Flickr, who took this beautiful series of shots of a woodwormy desk that was doomed to die. That last link will take you to Flickr, but they’re all in this post too.

Firelighters in a drawer?

Firelighters in a drawer, perhaps??

So I FlickrMailed CozCoz, asking her if we could borrow her cool shots. And she said yes. No questions asked. The internet tends to make people nice, eh?  I’ve been nice back, obviously, so there’s a link to her rather lovely photostream in our blogroll on the right.

I think this is what people refer to as when flames "lick" things.

I think this is what people refer to as when flames "lick" things.

Turns out CozCoz has a real name - Corrinne, and that she’s from the UK too. But now lives in America - where, fortunately for her, desk-burning is protected by the bill of rights.

Belching.

Belching.

In fact, what you can’t see from the pictures is that she did this on the lawn of the Whitehouse. Important political point about desk-related altruism, or something. (Lie, sorry.)

Awesome change of angle here.  Anyone else think the desk looks like its moving really fast from right to left, powered by a jet of flame?  Or is that just me?

Awesome change of angle here. Anyone else think the desk looks like its moving really fast from right to left, powered by a jet of flame? Or is that just me?

As you go through the shots, one can make some important observations that should help Nick on his shoot. Basically, the fire gets too big in the middle of the process, so you can’t see that its a desk. But then the start and end are also bad - too desky at one extreme, too ashy at the other.

Good on the Flaming.  Not enough Desk for our purposes.  Sorry CozCoz.

Good on the Flaming. Not enough Desk for our purposes. Sorry CozCoz.

In conclusion, there are 2 sweet spots either side of Peak Desk Fire. I hope you’re paying attention here Nick - this is in no way filler copy to package these nice photos.

Never anger an old desk.

Never anger an old desk.

So, I would just like to say a big thanks to Corrinne - who I’ve invited to comment on our little project, so hopefully she will, thereby planting a burning seed of desk sharing fanaticism in the US.

At this point, the desk turns into that badass monster that nearly kills Gandalf in LOTR.  Not sure it says "friendly place to share desks"!

At this point, the desk turns into that badass monster that nearly kills Gandalf in LOTR. Not sure it says "friendly place to share desks"!

This last one has got to be my favourite. Blackened desk, good flamage, without being scary. Spot on.

This just looks plain old AWESOME!!!!

This just looks plain old AWESOME!!!

Nick - over to you mate. Corrine has said you can do what you want with these. Let’s start with the header bar of this blog, which is blue and boooooooooring at the time of writing.

Fire branding. (<– see what I did there?!)

Friday, July 18th, 2008

We’re called Flaming Desks because we’re going to be hotter than the hottest of hot desks. Well, that’s the theory anyway.

We’d previously talked about a cutesy web 2.0 stylee logo of a desk with little flames coming out, but in the spirit of Ben’s “do it for real” attitude, we thought about actually setting a desk on fire and using photos and video of the deskferno as a selection of brand assets.

A quick chat with Russell over a cuppa endorsed this, so I’ve roped in Nick - Nonsense’s most design-y creative and the man behind No One’s Home.

Nick and a photographer mate are going to stencil up an old desk with the words “Flaming Desks”, and torch it. Then we’ll have loads of useful footage and shots of a burning desk… which may or may not find their way into the logo and branding for our site!

Either way, it’ll brighten up this here blog a bit, and Nick will get to indulge his slightly pyro tendencies.

I’ve made Nick a login for this blog, so expect some posts from him soon. Probably ones with shots of Nick with no eyebrows…

Terminology

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

People who use a flaming desk will be called “Flamers

A building with a lot of flaming desks in it will be called “A bonfire

Informally, frequent Flamers will be called “Arsonists
Any more for any more…