KMP Digitata

We are on the search for an Experienced Web Developer

2010-07-22T09:30:55Z

As part of the continuing development of the KMP Digitata team we have another job vacancy available.

We are currently looking for an experienced web-developer to join our technical team in Stockport. The role would involve a combination of new project web development, helping to estimate and cost work, liaising with clients / internal project managers and technical managers to develop cutting-edge solutions for a variety of blue chip clients.

The job will also involve improvement and support of client websites and legacy systems. You will be working within a 5-man team to provide the technical capability at KMP, including mentoring of junior developers and contractors.

Essential Skills

Thorough understanding & Experience of Java (1.4 or greater) or C#

Experience of SQL (preferably DB2 or SQL Server)

Java Script

HTML/CSS experience

Desirable Skills

Experience of .NET 3.5, MVC

Experience of IBM Web Sphere

Experience of jQuery

Experience of PHP

Experience of one or more of the following CMS Sitecore, Umbraco, Drupal

Additional Information

Location: Stockport, SK4 2HG
Duration: Permanent
Probation: 6 Months
Salary: Negotiable

Send your applications and CVs to recruitment@kmp.co.uk or ring us on 0161 4291497

* No Agencies Please*

2 Great opportunities here at KMP Digitata

2010-07-20T09:07:07Z

We have a couple of amazing opportunities here at KMP Digitata for two lucky people. Are you looking to get experience as either a web developer or designer? If so then ourselves and Vision & Media can help you.

We are extremely happy to be working with Vision & Media to support two trainee placements for a Trainee Web Developer and a Trainee Web Designer, starting in September.

So if you’re a talented, ambitious designer or developer who is looking for their first career opportunity and expand on their experience then these placements are perfect for you.

These are not jobs – they are training experiences which will be carefully managed by KMP Digitata and Vision & Media to ensure you get everything you need out of the experience, while gaining the skills and knowledge to become a professional web developer or designer. The selected Trainees will receive a training allowance for attending the placement, which will be geared towards an entry level salary for the web industry.

We have a long history here at KMP Digitata of nurturing and developing new talent within the digital space, many of whom stay with us long after their placement period is over. If you are interested in becoming the latest member of the KMP Digitata team then please apply on the Vision & Media Placements page. Any applications sent directly to KMP will be unsuccessful. For more information and to start your application, then please click on the following links;

Apply for the Trainee Web Developer position

Apply for the Trainee Web Designer position

We look forward to seeing you here soon

The KMP Digitata Team

Prestigious Award for KMP Student

2010-07-15T09:39:25Z

KMP are proud to announce that one of our students has won an award!

You might remember back in June we that announced Graham Smith, who has been diligently completing his Year in Industry with us here in KMP Towers, had been selected to receive an award, nominated by the British Computer Society, as a reflection of the enterprise he had demonstrated while being with us. Although back then we had no idea what this award would be, and as you can imagine, a few choice suggestions were offered in jest.

Graham Smith, arrived at KMP Digitata in August 2009, and quickly established himself within our office, never shy and more than willing to add his two pennies worth when it mattered. Over the course of the last 10 months he has excelled in his project work for KMP, culminating in last nights Year in Industry Awards Ceremony which recognised Graham as the “Most Promising Year in Industry Student working in a computing field”.

So, what did Graham do to win such an award? Well, at the end of each year the students who have taken part in YINI are invited to enter their work into the ‘Contribution To The Business’ competition where their work is judged on its quality and how it has benefited the company they were employed with. With his outstanding work on the KMP Twitterfall and the Trek America 8 Mates across the States Facebook application, Graham was rightly rewarded for his hard work and ingenuity.

Graham was chosen from approximately 40 entries and we’re all very proud of his achievement!

KMP have been offering students the opportunity to gain real-world experience of all things Web for many years, with several of the students going on to complete their degrees and come back to work with us full time. This award goes to show that by offering our support to students, we can help make a real difference to their education and future career.

And so, we will leave the final word to one of his projects, as the TwitterFall proclaims; “Well done Graham, Excellent”

Celebrations and trophies at Big Chip 2010

2010-06-30T13:32:38Z

The heads are slightly sore here at KMP Towers after a great night at the Big Chip Awards 2010. The Palace Hotel was once again the place to be last night for everyone involved in the digital industry and looking for a bit of a party.

The Big Chip Awards brings together the best companies in the North West digital sector for a night of food, wine and celebrations. Terry Christian once again returned to host the event for the 3rd successive year and we were lucky enough to listen to Shameless actor, David Threlfall, who gave an emotional speech on behalf of the homeless charity Byte Night.

After the meal it was time for the main event to start and the awards given out. Congratulations to all the winners, in particular StarDotStar who won an amazing 3 awards on the night. We were up for “Best E-Business Project” that was ultimately won by 11 out of 10 for their work on the Pure Gym project. Another notable winner was Cahoona, who won the “Tasty Website” award that is voted on by the public.

Thank you to everyone who made the night such a great success and we look forward to the next one.

Photos from our night out can be viewed on our Facebook page and for the full list of winners check the Big Chip website.

One of our Students is an Award winner

2010-06-30T13:31:46Z

For a student entering into a company on a Year In Industry (YINI) program it can be daunting and intimidating at first, because you have to start at the bottom of the ladder, making cups of tea and making sandwich trips to the cafe for the whole office but with hard work and persistence these programs can be hugely beneficial to both the student and the company.

We have mentioned many times before about our support for the Student Year in Industry and today we have received some great news for one of our students, Graham Smith.

At the end of each year the students who have taken part in YINI are invited to enter their work into the Contribution To The Business competition where their work is judged on its quality and how it has benefited the company they were employed with. With his outstanding work on the KMP Twitterfall and the Trek America 8 Mates across the States Facebook application, Graham has won one of three awards at this year’s ceremony.

Graham was chosen from approximately 40 entries to receive one of four prizes, unfortunately we have to wait until the 13th of July to find out whether he has taken the top prize at the award ceremony.

The award ceremony will take place on the 13th of July at Lancashire County Cricket Club and we will be there to see Graham collect his award and take photos, so be sure to check the blog to see if Graham wins this prestigious award and hear everyone’s reaction.

Good luck Graham

KMP Digitata are going to the Big Chip Awards 2010 #bigchip2010

2010-06-09T14:48:14Z

Hot on the heels of our nomination for “Best Digital Agency” at the How-Do awards, we are once again choosing which shirt/dress to wear and getting ready to walk down the red carpet for the next event on our social calendar, the Big Chip Awards 2010.

We have been recognised once again by the Digital Industry as a leader in our field resulting in two of our projects being nominated for “Best e-business”. As categories go “Best E-business” is one of the most fought over, because those that get nominated have proven that they have not only met targets but went beyond them, created new business and produced amazing ROI.

Our two projects that have been nominated for the “Best E-Business” 2010 are the Jetparks website and ASDA’s virtual assistant, Amy.

Jetparks

The JetParks project was created to help Manchester Airport break into the competitive offsite parking market and establish itself as a provider of cheap Manchester Airport Parking on the search engines. Since its launch a year ago the project has exceeded all targets and produced an ROI of 465%.

Asda’s Amy

Asda launched their new online grocery platform in July 2009 and required a web application that would guide customers through the new interface, encourage the shopping process, handle queries online and decrease the inbound calls. The result of which would subsequently improve customer service, their business process and profitability.
Our Virtual Assistant, Amy, fields over 20,000 conversations a month, 23% of which Asda believes would previously have resulted in a call being made to the call centre and produced a ROI of 185%, which is expected to increase to 1013% by the end of the 2nd year.

As it happens

If you’re interested to see if we won then be sure to return to the blog on Friday to read the post awards entry although we ask for forgiveness if it is late, especially if we win because we are only human and sometimes suffer from sore heads after these award nights.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter to receive the latest developments as they happen on the night.

People to follow:
@KMPDigitata
@JonKeefe
@Gezd
@DanielAshcroft

Battle of the Smartphone heats up – Flash Arrives on Android

2010-06-07T12:03:34Z

There aren’t many things that make people crowd round a phone to look at the little screen. If it is in the pub, people will huddle up to watch the latest funny YouTube video sweeping the web but at KMP Towers we watched my phone play flash in the mobile browser.

Following on from our previous Mobile Showdown post, the Smartphone market is starting to once again heat up.

When it comes to the smartphones, nothing can touch the iPhone. It is by far the most popular handset in the world, has the highest number of applications in its market place and it can only be a positive thing that when every single smartphone is released comparisons are invarably made with Apple’s benchmark. The iPhone’s dominance is still strong but has stuttered recently with the ever increasing rise of the Android OS.

The iPhone handset may, individually, still be best selling in the world but 2010 saw the Android mobile operating system outsell the iPhone for the first time due to it’s availability on multiple handsets from Motorola, HTC and Sony Ericsson.

The announcement of the Android 2.2 update, code named Froyo, confirmed what a lot of people were hoping for from the update, Flash being available on a mobile device. This also tied in with the worldwide release of the free turn-by-turn navigation with Google Maps, which stuck fear into the hearts of Garmin and TomTom.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have an early release of Froyo for over a week now, giving me the opportunity to play with the latest update to see how well Flash works.

On a whole having Flash on your mobile does improve the online experience of the net while on the move. There is no need for multiple applications that give you access to on-demand television, watch online videos, or play your favourite online flash games because they are all accessible in the browser.

To say that Flash 10.1 works perfectly would be a lie. It has issues with ability to perform actions that require a precise click because we are working with a 3.7 inch screen after all and there is a noticeable lag when the browser is loading flash heavy sites. The update is not yet on general release and we can only hope that issues that have arisen will be sorted by the time it is available to the public.

Although it is too soon to say whether Android will emerge as the dominate mobile OS it is setting itself up as the strongest contender and we are all looking at Apple to announce its worst kept secret, the iPhone 4G.

Fantastic 5 from May

2010-06-01T12:52:59Z

May gave us all some glorious sunshine, a glimpse into the future with Google and a birthday where we looked back at the past five years of one of our favourite websites. This is what we were reading at KMP Towers in the month of May.

The main event in May was Google’s I/O developer conference in San Francisco on the 19th & 20th of June where they announced the latest developments in Chrome, Android OS and their biggest announcement Google TV. By combining the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet, Google plan to create a more satisfying viewing experience. With the help of Sony and Logitech Google TV will be built into TVs, set-top boxes and Blu-Ray players of the future.

Google announce Google TV

A big birthday was celebrated at the end of April with YouTube turning 5 and the month of May was used to celebrate and look back at who became famous thanks to YouTube. The first ever video to be uploaded onto YouTube on April 23rd 2005 at 8:27pm and thankfully people have got a little more creative with their cameras since that first ever YouTube video.

YouTube celebrates it’s 5th Birthday

A rumour started in May that made some people panic and others jump for joy. TechCrunch reported that the relationship between Zynga (makers of Farmville) and Facebook had reached a low resulting in Zynga threatening to pull Farmville off Facebook because of the intended 30% Facebook tax on game credits. This rumour was scotched when Zynga and Facebook signed a 5 year strategic partnership, so it looks like we will see more notifications of people looking for nails to help build their barns

Facebook and Zynga sign a 5 year deal

The location based social media game Foursquare received a huge boost in May when it was announced that both Starbucks and Domino’s plan to start official campaigns offering the Mayors of their branches receive special offers. Domino’s offer of a free Pizza each week to the mayor sounds a lot more appealing then Starbucks $1 off but it’s a step in the right direction and will show how Geolocation can be used as a viable marketing tool.

Starbucks launch nationwide Foursquare campaign in USA

Domino’s Launch Foursquare campaign in the UK

Facebook has been having a tough time of it lately with all the news about its privacy settings and their CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, admitting they had made mistakes. It was the controversy with a particular page that resulted in the biggest reaction. A Facebook page created after the 200th episode of South Park invited people to draw images of the profit Mohammed. This resulted in protests followed by the banning of the whole Facebook site in Pakistan.

Facebook is banned in Pakistan

As we move into June let’s hope the nice weather continues and be sure to check the next Fantastic 5 update on July 2nd

KMP’s Creatives rise to the Challenge

2010-05-28T12:59:23Z

Are you all sitting comfortably? Well then, let me begin, with The Tale of ROI.

Once upon a time, a girl with a flower in her hair wondered into the woods . . .

The Tale of ROI from KMP Digitata on Vimeo.

Eh! I really don’t know what they have been putting in the tea over here at KMP or when Tim Burton slipped into our interactive department?

In-fact, this was a challenge we set ourselves, produce something creative in a day that would showcase our ability over here at KMP Towers to deliver ROI for our clients. Now, don’t get me wrong, we have plenty of work to getting on with, but sometimes it’s important just to have a bit of fun with your own brand, after all, we are a creative company and like to make cool stuff.

So hopefully you will enjoy our little mix of fairytale and business acumen, and who knows, if you do, flower girls adventures may continue . . . if our busy schedule allows once more!

A Fresh New Feel for JetParks.co.uk

2010-05-27T09:54:51Z

It’s been year now since www.jetparks.co.uk went live and with the budget Manchester Airport parking site now firmly established within its field, we thought we’d treat Captain Parks to a birthday makeover.

He deserves it too. The past year has seen Captain Parks appear in his very own TV advert, get discussed on Real Radio North West, and engage with his customers through his Twitter account @CaptainParks. At the same time www.jetparks.co.uk has been firmly established across the major search engine for all its primary keywords, delivered a 20% click to conversion rate, which has in turn resulted in a 465% return on investment and seen bookings exceed targets by 33%. If this wasn’t enough, the JetParks project has been shortlisted for the Best E-Business Project at the 2010 Big Chip Awards.

So, all in all, a busy year for Captain Parks and JetParks, I’m sure you would agree.

When we began the JetParks project over 12 month ago, we had merely 3 weeks in which to deliver the website, so although we wanted to create a visually aesthetic site, a great deal of the limited time we had available was spent in the development of the booking system and all the other clever under the bonnet techie stuff. That is not to say we weren’t happy with our original design, and the Manchester Airport parking public have certainly embraced the brand, but it was felt, now that the site has proved such a success, that we could revisit the original concept and devote a little more time to the look and feel.

We felt it was better to evolve the design rather than starting again from the ground up. A website is organic and design forms part of that. We started by refreshing the home page and some of the other internal pages, with a refresh of the booking process coming shortly. The design has a bright, bubbly feel all in line with the brand. The Quick Booking area has also been simplified to help the user straight into the booking process, which we hope will further increase the already excellent conversion rate.

We feel that the new design give the site a fresh feel without any drastic alteration to the brand, but please have a look around the site yourself www.jetparks.co.uk and let us know what you think.