Service Network member Calm Asylum has been making changes to their organisation to ensure that they survive the current economic storm. Calm is not a word you usually see in the same sentence as the credit crunch but here at Service Network we know that staying calm and thinking differently might just be the best way forward.  Here’s ten things you didn’t know about them.

1. Calm Asylum is a creative agency with a digital backbone. Calm offers digital innovation, customer experience, design, marketing, strategy and customer insight.

2. Originally formed in December 1999 by Simon Brown, MD, the company rebranded to Calm Asylum in December 2003.

3. Calm Asylum is an adaptable company which should stand them in good stead in the current climate. Simon has recently made several changes to roles and work practices within the company to make it more effective and has developed online digital tools to help set it apart from competitors.

4. Calm has 11 employees and has recently welcomed Bianca Robinson, Creative Manager; Andrew McCarron, Digital Project Manager and Steph Every, Reception and Admin to strengthen the team.

5. Calm believes that Service Network is a great way to get closer to companies that have previously been competitors and explore working collaboratively for mutual business benefits. This is crucial if businesses like ours are to stand a chance in the global economy.

6. Calm knows the importance of relationship working closer clients and has a fantastic client list including Northgate Plc, Darlington College, Middlesbrough College, Business and Enterprise North East (Business Link), Newcastle University and Wolf Systems.

7. Calm Asylum was runner up in the NE Business Awards, Business and the Community category. This recognised its offer to charities that need effective brands and communications without an unrealistic investment.

8. MD, Simon Brown is on the board for charity The Main Project which supports families of and children with Autism. The company also works with Teesside Hospice.

9. To beat the housing slump, Simon and his wife Vicki are raffling their 6 bedroom, £650,000 home in Ingleby Barwick – tickets are £25 each see www.winfellowshall.com

10.  The name Calm Asylum is sometimes mistakenly called an oxymoron. In reality it refers to a safe haven and a space to think differently.

Anyone that knows a (good) website designer or website developer will have observed that we are a picky lot. Accessibility, usability and good old ‘doing things the right way’ are top priorities in our lives (yes thats BEFORE love and money).  This can be a difficult sometimes when you spend ages making sure your code meets W3C and WAI standards but knowing that there’s people out there that don’t care.

When I’m sat in Digital corner and I feel a little sad I like to read “19 Things NOT To Do When Building a Website” This article really makes me laugh because I agree with everything he says (although possibly not with so much anger) and everything on this list is very, very right.

Its well worth considering some of these points if you are getting a website or redeveloping one - so many times something that seems like a good idea and is attractive to you, can be very fustrating for your users and without users your website is a very expensive way to entertain yourself.

Introducing the Calm Asylum online interactive Advent Calendar 2008!

Forget sending Christmas cards this year, they’re not good for the environment and they are BORING!
 
Send your clients to a fun online Advent Calendar instead, and let them play a game a day throughout December. Take advantage of our early booking offer and save £200 by ordering your interactive Advent Calendar today. (Early booking offer ends August 15th)

Click here to try one of our all time favourite games and see just how easy it is to put a smile on your clients faces.

We’ll personalise it for you to include your company logo, you’ll get a graphic to add to your own website, and a branded email to send to your clients too.

We’ll also keep track of how many of your clients and their friends visit your own website from the Advent Calendar. Last year one company received over 200,000 hits to their website!

Posted by Calm People

Here at Calm, we’ve noticed that people waffle because they aren’t confident in their ability to say something meaningful to their customer. They feel it but can’t express it.

Someone says “Who are you and what do you do?”

Oh! Here’s a scenario we’ve all been in, and this is what most of us do…

List all of the things we need to say about our business, in other words list the services (shop window syndrome).

Lists are easy for us and we feel comfortable…

• Bullet pointing
• Every conceivable
• Service
• We could provide
• And how much
• They cost

All of this without really having to say who we are!

We sit back and admire our list.

Yes! A winning list, a competitively priced, comprehensive list, just like our competitors list.
One day our world changes after someone, in a very human way, says something meaningful, something your customers buy into and connect with; and because their services are competitively priced too they start spending more with them and less with us.

What do we do?

We have to find a way to say concisely who we are and why it’s important for customers to use us.

Here something I do and it works, maybe it will work for you too.

Start writing about yourself, just open your mind and let loose, do so safe in the knowledge that what you write will not be seen by anyone else so you don’t have to worry about it, let rip. Talk about you, what motivates you, why you’re in business, what your customers mean to you. Try to think about what people (Customers are people) need, from your service and importantly you as a person. Why do people like you, your knowledge obviously, but what about your commitment and personality?

Now you need to structure what you’ve written so it tells a story. Like any story, it needs a beginning (Who are you), a middle (What do you do) and an end (Why it’s good for the customer) and heading introduce the reader to what they can expect to read. Because you’ve written so much about you and your company this will be easier to do, you can group your words into the ‘Who, What and Why,’ phrases, building the fullest possible picture of your company.

Now edit. Look at what you’ve written, and take away words, sentences and phrases that simply embellish what you need to say and are therefore superfluous. Being critical is important because a finely tuned sentence is more meaningful than a paragraph that says the same thing. Take away content until it’s concise without losing the personality or passion.

There’s nothing wrong with using bullet points, people actually tend to jump to and read these first on a page. Think of mini stories in your text, so make sentences introduce and frame your bullet points, and the bullet points themselves, make them your most important information. A closing sentence re-enforces without repeating the benefits of your most important information.

When you finished editing, give the draft content to people inside and outside the business and ask them to feedback on specifics i.e. What do the headings suggest to you? What information do you think best describes our company? What information best describes our services?

The feedback will help you finish your content, which can be applied, in variously forms to a whole host of media and needs such as; your website, signage and livery, advertising, recruitment, proposals to win business and much more.

Just a little taster of the changes going on in the Calm Asylum.

The finished article.

(All that prep work and it only takes 34 seconds to complete. Yeh right!)

Just a little taster of the changes going on in the Calm Asylum.

Keep coming back for Part 2…

(we need to let it dry before the next bit is added.)