Friday 31 May 2013

You know it makes Sense

Project 1 - Identify and conceptualise a new business in the digital landscape and pitch your idea to a panel of 'investors'...

My first thought here was 'where on earth do we start'.  All the ideas I had were either:

- Never going to work
- Would never make any money
- Had already been thought of

A few brainstorms and amazing inspirational talks from  (founder of Mixcloud) and
 (Founder of AKQA) later and our team had a few 'Maybe Babies' and quite a few 'no way babies'. Looking at the emerging trend for wearable tech and the new devices on the market (Nike FuelBand, Jawbone Up and Fitbit) we saw a gap in the market to launch 'Sense'



Quite some presentation practice later and we've done it! Right time for the pub.

Friday 24 May 2013

Squared update

Its been a little while since I last posted so wanted to fill you all in on the first (very hectic) foundation week at Squared:

Day 1 - All fresh faced and ready for the challenge we're given a brief into to the first couple of days with the objective to guide all Squared participants to collaboratively build a common platform to maximize learning, work more effectively and build relationships.   Split into teams we are provided with our first brief.  To help BOST assess their marketing communications activity and provide feedback and recommendations on what they should do to improve communications for a wide range of stakeholders.

A mad rush across London 30 minutes later and we're at BOSTs HQ ready to start the task in hand.  Our group visited the Waterloo Millennium Green undertaking research questionnaires and interviewing BOSTs employees and Trustees.  Later that day back at Squared all five groups had to collaborate to submit one report, some task as everyone had different opinions and recommendations that has to be reviewed and added to the report. 



Day 2/3 - After day one I'd quickly learnt a couple of key principles:

- Expect the unexpected
- Remember to eat lunch (something many of us failed to do on day one)
- Wear comfortable footwear

So with lunch in my bag ready we were put into new teams and given a brief for task two.  Working with the Shakespeare Schools Festival we were to teach a group of Year 3 students at a local school for an afternoon.  My role in this brief was to play the 'camera' in the group, observing the team dynamics and not saying a word.  At first I found this very difficult but in time I learnt as much about the team as I did myself. 

Overall the foundation days did just that.  They gave me a good set of foundation skills on leadership, team dynamics while constantly pushing me out of all comfort zones to achieve.

Raring to go and excited about the first digital based project. I wonder what's next?

Sunday 19 May 2013

My first ever blog post!

Hi, I'm +Kim Wiggins and I work at Kia Motors as their Digital Marketing Manager. I've always had a passion for digital marketing and my role at Kia helps me to realise this in every way from the digital integration on a new car launch to the latest digital consumer trends in the car buying process.


When the opportunity to participate in Google Squared came along I jumped at the chance.  My first thought was 'wow, eating in the Google restaurant every day, I'll need to get to the gym!'  As it turned out the Squared offices are separate from Google giving us Squares a space to call our own away from Google HQ.  And the food?  We'll we've all been given plenty of food vouchers so I'm sure I'll never go hungry :)

After meeting everyone on Friday I can't wait to start the first task and get stuck into creating a new on line business.

Follow my journey on this blog as I become 'Squared'.