As we celebrate our Christmas party, we look back at some of our biggest achievements over the past year.
2018 was a great year for Screenmedia: from being nominated for 17 awards (winning 11!), to expanding our team by 19 full-time employees, adding new clients to our roster, and becoming Certified Gold Partners for Microsoft and Umbraco. With the end of the year fast approaching, we take a look at some of our successes in 2018.
A productive year
In 2018 we launched a raft of projects across the education, public, transport, retail, media and finance industries. From new university websites for Abertay University and the University of the West of Scotland, to supporting companies such as SPT and Aggreko in becoming digital-first enterprises, all the way to first-of-their-kind entertainment voice skills for leading UK broadcasters; we’ve had a blast working on such great projects.
Our project management team also continued to further their experience with new qualifications in PRINCE2 and Scrum Agile project management methodologies. This has translated into award winning work this year, with 11 awards including Scotland’s Digital Agency of the Year(!), and nominations against global agencies of record. We couldn’t have done it all without our amazingly talented planning, design, and development teams.
Experts in development
This year we became Umbraco Gold Certified partners and Microsoft Gold Partners for Azure Cloud Development thanks to our work with Microsoft technologies and innovative integrations with Umbraco. Our developers have upskilled tremendously in the past year, adding technologies such as Vue, React and Cognitive Services to our inhouse skills. 2018 also saw us upskill across a huge range of fields including security and systems architecture, new development strategies, and consultancy to deliver an expanded range of expert services and technologies to our clients.
In 2018 our continued work with voice assistants Alexa and Google Assistant saw us develop prototypes and launch new and advanced voice skills on both platforms’ skill stores. Our work on Channel 4’s Humans voice skill in particular was a rousing success; thanks to our innovative development and excellent UX by our development and planning teams, it earned us awards and nominations from the European Lovie Awards through to the BIMA awards, and lead to our accreditation from Amazon as Amazon Approved Alexa Skill Builders. We’re now one of only 11 Amazon Skill Builders in the UK!
Our development teams have delivered incredible, award-winning work throughout the year, and we look forward to seeing what they deliver in 2019.
Leaders in mobile apps
As the most experienced certified Xamarin partner in Scotland and the largest independent Xamarin Premier Consulting Partner in the UK, our mobile team’s work shone this year, winning the Best Mobile Application at the Herald Digital Awards for their work on Aggreko’s Technician App. To top off their achievements, their innovative approach in developing a suite of enterprise apps for Next also lead to a partnership with Zebra Technologies as a Zebra Partnerconnect Independent Software Vendor.
Not only have they delivered to the very best development standards, but have also continued to support our clients with Xamarin recruitment and training, as well as sharing our knowledge with events and hackathons like Northumbrian Water Group’s 2018 Innovation Festival.
Excellent user experience and beautiful designs
Our planning and design team have continued to deliver consistently innovative and pixel-perfect solutions across web, mobile, and voice interfaces. In addition to the launch of new websites for Scotland Food & Drink, UWS and Abertay University, the team have also greatly expanded their portfolio of enterprise-scale product solutions design by working with the likes of Aggreko and Next. These projects, spanning numerous interfaces and touchpoints, have encompassed everything from improving business processes, business information and big data visualisation, to customer-facing applications.
This year we have continued to expand our expertise in the UX and design of voice interfaces, with new skills released for the media and entertainment industries for Channel 4 and the BBC. Our work in this space continue to define us as leaders in the field of voice in the UK, picking up multiple awards along the way!
In 2018 we also expanded our range of creative services, creating bespoke brand guidelines, illustrations, and graphic asset libraries for cybersecurity experts ZoneFox and NGO Marie Stopes International.
Finally, the team continued to share best practice knowledge and expertise with our extensive client base, presenting at education services group Tribal’s first Empower Conference and running workshops at Northumbrian Water Group’s 2018 Innovation Festival. We can’t wait to see what they have in store for 2019!
Showcasing the very best of Screenmedia
This year we continued to be thought leaders in emerging technologies, delivering a raft of new articles in our Lab ranging from the future of ecommerce, AI in the enterprise setting, and helpful guides for your first voice project. We also published our first ever whitepapers on the voice landscape and creating your very own voice experience, and became an agency of reference for many of our clients and industry partners for research, analysis and understanding on emerging technologies.
Our marketing and sales team’s efforts have helped set Screenmedia as thought leaders and pioneers in our industry. By showcasing our exemplary work and forward thinking approach in ‘designing the future’, they’ve helped us add new clients to our roster including notable brands such as Northumbrian Water, Britvic, SPT and Drinkaware.
Behind the scenes
This year our operations team tackled everything from the rapid growth of our practice to the intricacies of GDPR, all while ensuring we maintained the unique, close-knit practice culture which makes Screenmedia a great place to work.
As you might have seen from our Instagram, we’ve had had a lot of fun in the past 12 months; from our famous annual Oscar’s Ceremony to a wonderful 12 days of Christmas - not forgetting all the pizza lunches.
It’s been a busy year for them, with Screenmedia growing to over 50 people; and we can’t thank them enough for all the effort and dedication they have put in to make Screenmedia the place it is.
Looking ahead at the new year
2018 has been an amazing year for Screenmedia, and we’re proud of the work our teams have delivered in the past 12 months. We look forward to seeing even more innovation, creativity, and dedication as we have seen in 2018!
We’re already teeming with ideas for the year ahead, if you’re looking for your next place to work, or have an exciting idea you want to bring to life, get in touch, we’d love to hear from you!
Alex
Producer