Digital transformation is no longer a simple once off journey, it is a continuous transformation of business operations and culture. It is important for businesses today to understand digital transformation and what they can do to excel in today’s market. Today we have interviewed our Head of Strategy – Fergal McHugh. Fergal is responsible for overseeing Arekibo’s innovation and growth strategies. He also works with Arekibo’s customers in Ireland and Europe, advising them on how to integrate and scale digital innovation into their organisations.

Below we have asked him some key questions around digital transformation.

**Check out our digital transformation event in Dublin on May 17th here**

Jump to:

1. What is digital transformation in simple terms?
2. Why is digital transformation so important for businesses today?
3. Is digital transformation equally important for all types of businesses and industries?
4. If businesses are aware of a need to digitally transform, why, in your opinion are so many organisations struggling to get going with business change?
5. What do you believe are the most important elements when it comes to digital transformation?
6. If there were some key pieces of advice you would give to a client before they embark on a major digital transformation project, what would it be?

1. What is digital transformation in simple terms?

Digital transformation is about using digital technology to transform the way one does business. In practice, it is about taking what you already know about your business – its goals, and what success means – and expressing that knowledge using a new vocabulary and new concepts.

What makes it transformational is that, done well, something new is created. It is not simply the old model and technology. Successful digital transformation involves understanding how a business strategy with digital integrated into its DNA is a better strategy. It will be stronger and more flexible. It will have considered, strategic aims and a means to achieve and measure them.

From a practical, day-to-day perspective, digital transformation is about gradual, collaborative change. This change takes place at all levels of the organisation. It requires constant communication, negotiation and embedding. For this reason, the best digital transformation strategies are not overly prescriptive, they are not over-engineered. Their role is to guide and focus, but not dictate.

2. Why is digital transformation so important for businesses today?

Digitalisation within an organization is not something optional. What is optional is how you do it. This is where the idea of a transformative approach comes in. Recently a management consultant that I was collaborating with remarked to me that many of the firms who were talking about innovation are now talking about transformation. There is a reason for this. It’s not that innovation and transformation are mutually exclusive – it is more that firms have realized that the don’t need to begin digitalization from scratch. There are capabilities, systems and knowledge already in place, they just need to be transformed to have the impact we want them to have. On way of thinking about this is as transformation as being a more efficient way to digitalise.

3. Is digital transformation equally important for all types of businesses and industries?

It is equally important, but some types of business are doing better than others. B2C firms have been forced by necessity to digitalise. By contrast firms in the B2B space have, historically, been under less pressure, specifically in digitalising their sales and marketing capability. But that is changing now, B2B buying patterns are changing — digital has become an essential touch-point in the customer acquisition process and firms need to evolve. The net effect is that B2B organisations have a lot more work to do.

4. If businesses are aware of a need to digitally transform, why, in your opinion are so many organisations struggling to get going with business change?

I think that organisations struggle with change generally — they are made up of people and people are creatures of habit. A related issue is that change is hard, especially when you consider the extent of the change required. Digital transformation can appear daunting.

One of the approaches we take is to make change more digestible – this means a different approach to how digital programmes and projects are managed. Digital transformation targets an iterative approach, setting down broad strategic goals and working toward them in manageable chunks. This approach manages risk, enables learning as the programme proceeds and when down ensures continuous success so that you are always strictly better off than you were, no matter where you are in the programme. You are not waiting for that big bang.

5. What do you believe are the most important elements when it comes to digital transformation?

I think the most important principle is getting the balance right between strategic goals and tactical effectiveness. This is not a trade-off, rather it’s a negotiation. I talked before about breaking a programme down into manageable chunks. It is crucial to make sure that these chunks are not just short-term tactical. Some programmes are more focused on appeasing stakeholders than making real progress. One of the symptoms here is an over emphasis on deliverables rather than outcomes. This is also, quite often, a product of traditional project management approaches still embedded in the organisation. Programmes like this can easily grind to a halt with offering much value to the business.

Measurement has a crucial role to play in breaking potential deadlocks — is what we are doing effective? Are the outputs of the programme getting us further down the road toward our strategic goals? We need to be asking ourselves these kinds of questions and responding to them as the programme develops.

6. If there were some key pieces of advice you would give to a client before they embark on a major digital transformation project, what would it be?

While it is crucial to have overall strategic goals which are well understood by everyone involved there is also a mistake that runs in the opposite direction — deciding too much in advance. Given the challenge of a major project my first question is what could be carved out as a means of getting the project started that involves neither the capital or reputational risk of a major programme. Target an outcome that makes strategic sense, that you can get stakeholders behind and that can be assessed against clear criteria for success and then iterate. When something major is in play the best way to ensure success is to ensure that it is manageable.

Our Digital Transformation Event:

If you would like to hear more about digital transformation check out our event on Thursday, May 17th.

Our Expert Speakers:
Fergal McHugh, Head of Strategy at Arekibo
Paul Fenmore, Customer Experience Consultant at Sitecore (UK)
Ralf Van Gellekom, Strategy Consultant at Macaw (Netherlands)

Where:
The Marker Hotel, Dublin

When:
Thursday May 17th, 9am – 12.30pm

To reserve a seat click here
Or
For more information click here

Questions?

If you have any questions on business strategy or digital transformation, feel free contact us on 01-9052030 or Get In Touch.

Related Services:

Digital Strategy

The post Expert Q&A: Digital Transformation appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

Electric Ireland Online Shop

Arekibo are delighted to announce the recent launch of the Electric Ireland Shop. This new e-commerce site allows customers to purchase a range of Smarter Living products such as Nest and Climote smart thermostats as well as booking a gas boiler service online. There is a payment plan option for current Electric Ireland customers and all products are installed by a certified technician on a date of your choice.

Our Analytics team were busy with some custom tracking on this project. Thanks to some really useful new features in Google Tag Manager, we’ve been able to implement some really interesting tracking for even more insightful data.

shop.electricireland,ie

Eumom

The website is the busiest and best online parenting community in Ireland. It offers real support, tips and practical advice on pregnancy, baby and parenting.

Eumom’s previous website was built on WordPress, having an audience of over 300 thousand parents they quickly outgrew the platform and were experiencing performance issues. Eumom wanted a more custom, secure and scalable platform so Arekibo decided to build their new online presence on the Kentico CMS. The website is also integrated with the Eumom CRM and used for custom tailored marketing.

Thanks to a focus on SEO from the outset of the project, a great effort from the team at eumom and continued tracking and optimisation since the site was launched, we have even seen strong growth in traffic via organic search compared to the pre-launch figures.

https://www.eumom.ie/

Central Bank of Ireland

We were commissioned to redesign the organisation’s online presence, tasked with creating a modern and accessible website that delivered an intuitive experience for all audiences. The bank required a new digital communications platform, tailored to support the next generation of the Banks strategic objectives.

https://www.centralbank.ie/

TUI Credit Union

If you’ve got any questions about any aspect of your digital strategy, get in touch with us today.

The post Arekibo’s Digital Project Roundup – 2017 appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

But is it really a good idea to launch a product that your target audience may not understand how to use?

This is the fifth and final part of a series of posts that explores the business benefits of UX research methodologies that can take place throughout a product development lifecycle.

While initial user research helps to define personas and user goals and usability reviews ensure that an interface or prototype conforms with UX principles, usability testing validates whether users will be able to use the product.

Usability testing is a fast and effective way to validate whether you are on the right track with your product design. It is particularly useful when designing complex processes such as ecommerce features and lengthy forms. It allows you to find out why users leave your website without converting (making a purchase, creating an account etc.). It can:

• help uncover dead ends in user journeys
• indicate where users get stuck or overwhelmed
• reveal a lack of trust in a process (e.g. online payments)

We source participants who represent the target user and test wireframe and design prototypes with them. This is done as early as possible in the project, either in our UX lab or through remote testing.

Quantitative and qualitative feedback

Usability testing is one of the best ways of gaining valuable insights into how successful your product will be. It allows researchers to collect both quantitative and qualitative feedback from participants.

The quantitative feedback that can be gathered is often based around task analysis. We define scenarios in which users will need to complete tasks, such as registering as a member, making a purchase or finding a certain feature. The output includes success rates and task-completion times.

This allows researchers to assign scores to elements of a proposed design. This can be used to show how much of an improvement a new design is over an old one, making it a handy tool for calculating return on investment. Quantitative findings are always best understood when complemented by qualitative feedback.

Qualitative findings happen through observation of participants and offer a direct assessment of the usability of a system. Researchers can observe directly if a participant is having trouble finding a button or completing a form. Good researchers will ask unplanned follow-up questions if specific areas of a prototype are proving challenging for participants.

After running the same study with multiple participants, we quickly see trends emerging around what isn’t working for our users. As this research happens very early in projects, issues can fixed easily, as development will not have begun.

Consensus building

Findings from usability testing validate proposed solutions. This also helps to build consensus for a given approach among all parties. The validation from real users gives weight to the proposed approach.

This validation and consensus can prove particularly valuable if more senior stakeholders get involved later in the project and request changes. When a stakeholder asks for a new feature for example, it’s good to be able to say you’ve already tested it, it wasn’t well received and has been left out as a result.

Reduce development & support costs

Development costs can be expensive, so it is important that when we get to this stage of a project, there is a clear view of what needs to be built.

If a product is built and assumptions have been made that users will find a certain feature or behave in a certain way – and they don’t – additional time and money may be required re-working features, this means more design, development, testing, management and so on.

An additional advantage of being able to identify and fix issues early, is that this should result in a reduction in customer complaints and customer support calls, meaning a further cost saving for the business.

How it’s worked for us

A good example of how this process has proven to be effective for us is the Electric Ireland website, which won the Best Universal Design Award at the Irish Internet Association (IIA) awards.

This project involved catering to a varied user base in a highly competitive market. An iterative process of customer research, prototyping and usability testing was an essential part of the delivery of our design solution. Key user journeys were validated through usability testing and we were delighted to receive further validation of our work through the award.

“Through their work on Electric Ireland’s website, Arekibo were the standard bearers for design thinking with the customer in mind. The very fact that Electric Ireland have the widest possible demographic of customers and that Arekibo developed their website to accommodate accessibility for that demographic is a fantastic achievement and a very worthy winner”

– Joan Mulvihill, former CEO of IIA.

Conclusion

Users who have a good experience with your product will be more likely to return and buy from you again. Also, happy customers also means free word of mouth marketing, which often leads to further revenue. Think about how powerful reviews are when you’re shopping online.

As UX professionals, we can make recommendations based on business requirements, budget and best practice. Effective user research however, gives a much deeper insight into issues around how our target audience will use the product.

The return on investment into UX research and design often ends up being far greater than the initial outlay. This means both saving money and making money. By fixing problems before they arise, before time is spent building features that may eventually need re-working, savings are made. And by properly researching your users, their goals and behaviours, you will be much more likely to successfully increase revenue.

Other posts in this series, “Making the Case for UX”

• Introduction
• Stakeholder Insights
• User Research
• Usability Reviews
• Usability Testing (this post)

We hope that you have found this series of posts informative.

For details on how we can assist you with your website’s UX, take a look at our range of UX Services.

Or feel free to contact us here or have a look at our sister company, X Communications.

The post Making the Case for UX – Usability Testing appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

This is part of a series of posts that explores the benefits of UX methodologies that can take place throughout a product development lifecycle.

In the last article, I discussed the value of user research that involves actual users, early in projects. This article examines UX analysis that can be done internally, without users.

Usability principles

The usability principles referred to above can vary, depending on the nature of the product. One of the best and most commonly used sources for these is Jakob Nielsen’s “10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design”, which was developed in 1994.

Nielsen developed these on the basis of years of experience in the field of usability engineering. They include the following:

• Visibility of system status: The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
• Match between system and the real world: The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
• User control and freedom: Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
• Consistency and standards: Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
• Aesthetic and minimalist design: Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

These principles have been adapted in numerous ways to work in the modern digital landscape. At their core, they are still very relevant, as they emphasise the significance of basic conventions, such as simplicity, ease of use, control and consistency. UX analysts often develop their own principles based on the above. This allows them to evaluate interfaces intended for modern day contexts such as online communities and mobile devices.

An internal UX review of an interface or prototype should not be used as an alternative to usability testing with representative users. UX analysts can however use it to quickly find and fix identifiable usability issues before proceeding to usability testing.

Comparative analysis

Some comparative research early in a project will let you review the strengths and weaknesses of competitor products.

This can take the form of a usability review as discussed above, reviewing the product in the context of usability principles.

Analysing a product’s competition involves examining the user interface of products that are both in direct and indirect competition, i.e.

• Direct: Products that compete directly for a similar user base. E.g. Ryanair and Aer Lingus, and
• Indirect: Products with a different service offering but similar features. E.g. two products offering different services but which both have a check-out flow

Uncovering usability issues in a competitor product can help you to eliminate them in your product.

Comparative analysis can also take place during user research interviews to get user insights into how and why people use competitor products.

Conclusion

An internal usability review is a valuable way of getting quick feedback on a product, prototype or a competitor product. It can provide relatively inexpensive feedback to UX designers by catching issues that don’t comply with usability standards.

Usability reviews should not however be used as a direct replacement for usability testing with actual users. This type of research gives different feedback from the perspective of the user, and can answer questions around why users do what they do.

Our next post looks at the benefits of usability testing. I describe how it is a fast and effective way to validate whether you are on the right track with your product design through testing it with real users.

Other posts in this series, “Making the Case for UX”

• Introduction
• Stakeholder Insights
• User Research
• Usability Reviews (this post)
• Usability Testing

If you’d like to know more about any of our UX services, please feel free to contact us here or have a look at our sister company, X Communications.

Sources: 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/)

The post Making the Case for UX – Usability Reviews appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

This is the third of a series of five articles that explores the business benefits of UX research techniques that can take place during the digital product design process.

In this post, I look at a few research methods that involve representative users. Specifically, research that happens early in projects, before the target audience has been fully defined or prototypes have been created.

User research methodologies

There are various types of user research that involve engaging directly with users. They all generally follow similar patterns. These include observing users, gaining an understanding of their beliefs, assumptions and goals (in the context of the product that’s being designed). Finally, they all involve analysis of combined findings that should identify patterns and come up with feasible solutions. Here are a few common methods.

User interviews

One-to-one interviews allow researchers to examine users’ attitudes, beliefs, desires, and expectations. This helps them gain a deeper understanding of a product’s user base. These interviews can take place face-to-face, by phone or video conference, or via instant messaging.

User interviews allow researchers to explore attitudes towards a product and uncover user expectations of what a product should do. They should be used to build on the insights gained from stakeholders and gather information on users’ goals, motivations and frustrations.

Individual interviews can also be a good opportunity to incorporate other UX research methods. These can include card sorting and tree testing, which are used to validate information architecture concepts.

Since individual interviews do not involve watching a user work, they are different from interviewing users in a usability test or conducting contextual interviews.

Contextual interviews

Researchers conduct contextual interviews to understand how users interact with a product in the exact setting it is normally used.

As this type of study involves interviewing and observing people performing tasks in their natural environment, contextual inquiries tend to be more natural and sometimes more realistic as a result. They are also usually less formal than lab tests and don’t use tasks or scripts.

Settings for contextual interviews would typically be in the participant’s home or place or work. However in the mobile age, the range of settings and scenarios has become much wider.

Contextual interviewing can have many advantages. Because it involves observing users in their natural environment, it can reveal highly detailed and nuanced behaviours that users may not be aware of themselves, offering deep insight into how people actually use a product.

Focus groups

Focus groups can be a good way to get feedback quickly and efficiently from a sizable group of people.

This approach can uncover how they use a product and to uncover where frustrations or other difficulties arise.

Using a story-based approach can be useful in getting an understanding of people’s past experiences with a product. This involves the moderator inviting participants to recall particular interactions with a product, perhaps when it didn’t work as expected. Using this approach across the group can help to identify common pitfalls in a product design and identify areas for improvement.

Analysis

After any of the above exercises, UX researchers will collate all findings and look for patterns in user responses and reactions. This can lead to the creation of personas (below) and scenarios around how the product will be used.

Creating personas

One of the key outcomes from this research and analysis, along with insights gained from stakeholder engagement will be personas. These are realistic representations of key audience segments, which provide insights into specific goals, attitudes and behaviours.

With the right research, this allows UX designers to accurately identify the key audiences and find out:

• the context in which they will use the product
• what their expectations are
• their key goals and also the motivations behind these goals
• attitudinal details, such as their mental model, their feelings about tasks they need to complete or the frustrations that they may experience
• behavioural details, for example how they might act when using the product

When the above work is done, it becomes easier to map out user flows and prioritise product features that will create the best possible experience for users.

Conclusion

This iterative process of information gathering and analysis, beginning with the insights gained and consensus built during stakeholder workshops, will provide a solid basis for the product design.

The feedback gained through the methods described here will help to strengthen this consensus and support UX decisions made subsequently in the project. This will help move the project forward and keep project timelines on track.

Usability testing is another valuable type of UX research. However as it typically involves tasks analysis with prototypes, it has its own post later in this series.

The next post looks at the benefits of usability reviews, where we examine a user interface (or a competitor’s) and compare its usability against best practice UX guidelines.

Other posts in this series, “Making the Case for UX”

• Introduction
• Stakeholder Insights
• User Research (this post)
• Usability Reviews
• Usability Testing

If you’d like to know more about any of our UX services, please feel free to contact us here or have a look at our sister company, X Communications.

The post Making the Case for UX – User Research appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

This is part of a series of posts that explores the business benefits of UX research methodologies that can take place throughout a development lifecycle.

In this post I look at the importance of meeting business stakeholders as early as possible in a project, in order to elicit information on how they see their target audience and how this process forms the basis for subsequent UX research and design.

Business stakeholders will often have differing views and expertise, depending on their area. It’s important to identify all relevant stakeholders. For complex projects, this may include subject matter experts, who have broad and deep experience and knowledge of their industry.

Initial insights

As early as possible, we strive to engage with stakeholders, to gather existing business knowledge about users. During initial meetings, UX researchers find out about what the purpose of the product is, its business goals, what will define its success and how it will add value (generate revenue, provide cost savings etc.).

In terms of finding out about users, it is good to talk to a range of stakeholders, representing different areas. These areas could include sales, marketing and engineering. The range of feedback that this can produce can help to identify user groups. It can also potentially highlight issues around users that subsequent research can address.

Stakeholders may know a lot about their users. They may also have made certain assumptions about them, for example, why they sign up for a service. It’s important to uncover these assumptions at this stage in order to validate them during further research.

Who are your users?

When talking to marketing stakeholders, it’s critical not only to find out their view on who their users are at present, but also to see where they want to take their product in the future. Do they see their user base growing or changing; do they plan to focus less on certain user groups.

These insights will inform how user research activities such as user interviews will be planned. For example, if there is an ambition to expand into a new market, user interviews shouldn’t be limited to personas representing the existing demographic.

These questions should be asked with the project timelines and budget in mind. Sometimes a marketing vision will be beyond the scope of the current project, but could indicate a requirement for future research.

Why do customers use your product?

It’s important to get stakeholders’ views on why their customers choose their product and for repeat customers, why they choose to return. What are their competitors doing and what sets them apart?

It can also be useful to ask whether there are any obvious quick wins or small changes that should lead to increased sales or conversions.

What do people complain about?

There may already be a lot of feedback on an existing product in the form of customer care phone records, emails, online reviews or social media feedback. This kind of direct user feedback can prove to be a huge help in identifying user groups. It will also help with prototyping enhancements to product features to test later in the project.

UX researchers will not only enquire about what customers are asking for, but why they are asking for particular things.

Conclusion

These initial meetings should provide enough insight around how stakeholders see their user base to inform subsequent research. Often the business will know a lot about their users. Sometimes however they don’t, and by establishing this early we can plan to fill this knowledge gap through appropriate research.

The business value of these meetings is that the knowledge shared can give UX designers a solid starting point. This helps to drive the project forward as they begin creating design personas and user journeys.

Uncovering assumptions that have been made about users this early in the process gives us the time to validate them. This means we’re starting off on the right track, with initial insights on our target audience.

The next article in this series focuses on UX research with actual users, such as user interviews. It explores how these approaches can provide valuable insights that stakeholder engagement alone often cannot deliver.

Other posts in this series, “Making the Case for UX”

• Introduction
• Stakeholder Insights (this post)
• User Research
• Usability Reviews
• Usability Testing

If you’d like to know more about any of our UX services, please feel free to contact us here or have a look at our sister company, X Communications.

The post Making the Case for UX – Stakeholder Insights appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

It can sometimes be challenging, however, to convince business stakeholders of the value of investing in UX. The reality is that sometimes, certain UX research processes get sidelined.

This is an introduction to a series of posts that explores the benefits of UX research methodologies that can take place throughout a product development lifecycle. These benefits are not just for end users, but also for the business and for the design and development process.

The benefits of good research to end users have been well documented. One of the benefits to business is that investing in UX can ultimately result in a large cost saving. If the appropriate level of research isn’t done at the beginning of a project, there’s a good chance that you’ll end up with a product that users don’t want or don’t fully understand. Meaning more budget will eventually be required to redesign and develop the product.

As well as lowering the risk of having to re-work features, the benefits for the project team can include reduced development and support costs. A good UX process also helps to build clear consensus between the team and stakeholders around what features to prioritise. This consensus helps to keep the project on track.

Here is an outline of what I cover during this series:

Stakeholder insights

This post will look at why it’s important to meet stakeholders and subject matter experts as early as possible in a project and how eliciting information on the target audience will help to form the basis for subsequent product design.

Read more

User Research

This post will explore different methods of primary research with actual users, including user interviews and contextual interviews and explain how these approaches can provide valuable insights that stakeholder meetings alone often cannot deliver.

Read more

Usability Reviews

Internal UX reviews allow User Experience professionals to examine a user interface and compare its usability against accepted UX principles. Comparative analysis is another method we use where we examine products with similar users or features and assess the strengths and weaknesses of these products in the context of what we are designing.

Read more

Usability testing

Usability testing is a methodology that we highly recommend when designing any kind of complex product with transactional flows, such as registration or check-out. I’ll explain in this article how it is a fast and effective way to validate whether you are on the right track with your product design.

Read more

Conclusion

In our upcoming posts, we’ll look into the above processes in greater detail and examine how they add value to the overall product design. We’ll show how they provide a return on investment, not only helping to increase revenue but also resulting in reduced development and support costs.

Other posts in this series, “Making the Case for UX”

• Introduction (this post)
• Stakeholder Insights
• User Research
• Usability Reviews
• Usability Testing

For details on how we can assist you with your website’s UX, take a look at our range of UX Services.

Or feel free to contact us here or have a look at our sister company, X Communications.

The post Making the Case for UX – Introduction appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

“Extensions” is an art exhibition that pulled together several strands, from the personal to the professional (with the involvement of Arekibo) to the social (through the association with Jigsaw). The exhibition, with 2 years of art making behind it, presented 19 paintings and prints exploring a cross-section of ideas and ways of representing those ideas.

“Last Of His Kind” at the Extensions Art Exhibition.

The event was also a wonderful opportunity to bring people together in a relaxed atmosphere at the Copper House Gallery, a real hidden gem in the city centre. Among the attendees, was Brent Pope, who has strong ties to art as well as mental health advocacy and who said some words, sharing his own personal journey both in relation to art and mental health with those present with both candour and honesty.

Brent Pope speaking to the Extensions attendees.

The Copper House gallery with its different spaces and corners facilitated an arrangement of the artwork into groupings of related work.  Taken together, the 19 pieces in the exhibition represent an attempt to take in the world around me, whether inspired by my immediate physical environment, personal life or from media or internet content consumption. Through the experience of preparing this exhibition, I have come to see painting and drawing as an act of faith, that the process by which I have tried to make something of these images with myself, can be repeated in different ways by others, who can, in turn, make something of it with her or his own personal story, sensibility and experience.

I am so grateful to all who came to the event, shared their feedback and to those who purchased work at the event. The event would also not have been possible without the kind sponsorship of Arekibo and the support of all in Arekibo. As I mentioned, art is not something I can separate from myself and from what I do, and I am lucky to work with a team of people that do not see any such separations.

With all of these things in play, it is extremely satisfying to be able to donate 30% of proceeds from sales of works from this collection to Jigsaw. The money will contribute to Jigsaw’s evolving digital strategy building on and complimenting their existing essential front-line services.

The post Extensions Art Exhibition Reflection By Fintan O’Byrne appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

So why should you do Paris2Nice next year?

1. You can raise much-needed funds for a charity of your choice – I chose the wonderful LauraLynn Children’s Hospice. 5 of us chose LauraLynn and so far we have raised over €36,000 (see pic). You can donate here if you would like to support my fundraising. All riders combined have raised over €350 000.
2. You have a personal goal for next September. To achieve this goal you will need to invest as much time as possible to be prepared for the ride. Don’t worry Paris2Nice will help you but you will need to commit to getting yourself in shape. The benefits to your health, weight and confidence are guaranteed plus we trained around Wicklow which was amazing.
3. You will meet great people of all shapes and sizes (I’m 6’10” I can say that) who have no agendas but to raise as much money as possible for their chosen charity and to achieve their goal of reaching Nice.
4. You will ride with wonderful people on a daily basis, making new friends, trading stories, telling jokes and supporting each other up the hills and along the winding roads.
5. You will realise after a couple of days that you have the ability and the determination to finish the ride, no matter what. Your fellow riders, the Paris2Nice and the Cycle Safari team will look after you all the way.
6. You will say Car Up, Car Down and Hole more than you care to mention but this is because you will be looking out for your new buddies as you traverse the route to Nice.
7. You will see breathtaking scenery every single day and will have the privilege of cycling across France, riding through beautiful villages, up and down roads all carefully selected to amplify and enhance your experience.
8. You will get the opportunity to ride up the mammoth Mont Ventoux if you want to. I took this opportunity but unfortunately wasn’t allowed to complete the final assent due to bad weather and high wind but it was only the easier bit left (yes it was!).
9. You will be seriously impressed by the riders, some who have only recently started cycling, others who leave you for dust going up the hills. Their determination and desire to keep going was wonderful to witness. Everyone completed the ride.
10. You will be so proud of yourself when you finish because all your training has paid off and you have delivered the goods. A crazy notion that you can ride from Paris to Nice is now a reality. In business, there are so many goals being set for you, your team, projects and clients that it’s very rare that you set yourself a new personal goal that has nothing to do with work. This one is just for you and your charity.
11. You can meet your family and friends in Nice and spend the weekend with the most important people in your life. They need this just as much as you as for months they have tolerated your training routine and they need to be rewarded for their investment in you.

What more can I say, this is a wonderful week.

It will be challenging and I love cycling. The days will be long, with great laughter during the rides and every evening, lots of food (and wine) and a tender ass that settles into the saddle fairly quickly every day but what do you expect it’s six days on the bike, 740km but the rewards are worth it.

Thanks to my group, Group 2, the Invaders, cruising across France, united in purpose with stories to share for life.

Find out more about Paris2Nice.

Help me raise more for LauraLynn.

Special thanks

Thank you to everyone who has supported me! Every cent raised has gone to LauraLynn.

Thank you to Kevin and his wonderful team at China Sichuan restaurant who donated a fundraising event at his Sandyford Restuarant. We are all very grateful for your generous support. Go eat at China Sichuan if you can, it will be delicious!

The 2017 cyclist after we arrived to Nice.

The post Why You Should Join The Paris2Nice Cycle In 2018 appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

All works are for sale with 30% of the proceeds to be donated to Jigsaw (formerly Headstrong) the National Centre for Youth Mental Health in Ireland. Jigsaw’s mission is to bring about significant change in how Ireland thinks about, responds to and supports young people’s mental health.

In addition to original artwork in various media, there will also be limited edition prints available.

All prints are produced using pigments rather than conventional dyes and are printed on ISO 9706 compliant museum standard paper. As a result, the longevity of every print is assured to archival standards.

Each print edition is strictly limited, meaning that the number of prints is determined in advance and never exceeded. The integrity of the edition is guaranteed not only by the fact that each print is numbered and signed by hand, but also through a unique hologram system used by the Copper House Gallery. This system is based on paired numbered holograms applied both to the print as well as a Certificate of Authenticity and cross referenced through their Artlogic Database.

Speaking at this event will be Brent Pope, best known for his rugby punditry on RTÉ, Brent is also an art enthusiast and mental health ambassador.

Start? 6pm
Finish? 9pm
Where? Copper House Gallery Dublin – directions here

Are you interested? Register here or have a look at Fintan’s event page for more information!

We have been getting prepared recently visiting the gallery and meeting with Jigsaw.

Getting A Sneak Peak of The Art And The Prints At The Copper House Gallery.

Do you want to join along in the conversation? Use #FOBart4Jigsaw on Twitter to see updates and sneak peaks of art pieces.

The post Art Exhibition Supported By Arekibo in Aid of Jigsaw appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.

The adoption of certain platforms over others by millennials can highlight changes in the social media landscape at an early stage. “Millennials” are often described as “digital natives” – a generation that has grown up with an unmatched and previously unimagined level of technology at their fingertips.

Marketing To Millenials

There have been countless studies and whitepapers all focused on the topic of “Marketing to Millennials”. This information is often well researched and well intentioned. But from our perspective, at Arekibo, there is one glaringly obvious issue – the sheer broadness of the term “millennial” and the huge range of ages that it typically refers to. Whilst there are no precise dates set in stone in terms of when the cohort starts or ends – it’s widely accepted that the term refers to those born between approximately 1981 and 2000. That’s an age range of around 17 to 36…

“Late Millennials”

To us, it hardly makes sense to approach this entire millennial cohort as one from a targeting perspective. For the most part, our staff are millennials but the majority were born in the earlier half of the range, circa. 1981 and 1992. We like to think that we have a pretty good idea of our own digital habits and attitudes towards technology. What we weren’t so clear on was the attitudes of the younger members of the cohort, or the “late millennials”. So we decided to do some research.

Our Report

As it happens, we recently took on a 22 year old intern, Dave – so who better to take on this study! Dave carried out first and second hand research on the attitudes and behaviours of his peer group in relation to social media.

The resulting report details Dave’s findings on 6 key social media channels:

• Facebook
• YouTube
• Snapchat
• Instagram
• Twitter
• WhatsApp

The report describes the attitudes of late millennials towards these channels and their views on the future of each and finally offers advice on best strategies to market to late millennials on social media. We hope this can act as a guide for those looking to specifically target late millennials with their marketing efforts. See some key findings in the infographic below.

Infographic: Engaging With Late Millennials on Social Media

Download The Full Report.

If you would like to discuss how Arekibo can help you with your social media strategy, feel free to get in touch!

Other blog posts you might like:

• Unlocking the Relationship between Social Media and Business Success
• The State of Web Analytics in Ireland
• Social Media Marketing Trends in Ireland

The post Report: Engaging With Late Millennials on Social Media appeared first on Arekibo Digital Agency Dublin.