The jam packed programme developed especially for membership organisations included:

• PARN’s own research into vocational learning
• Case studies surrounding both Ofqual and prior experiential learning accreditation
• A lively debate about whether or not professionals need a degree

Pixl8 will be exhibiting at another exciting PARN event later in the year, find out more about it here.

This epic journey will see Jonathan and his three other team mates who make up “The Adventure Collectors” drive over 10,000 miles. And if the sound of driving all that way doesn't sound challenging enough, they’re planning to include Iraq and Iran in their itinerary too! While attempting to cross a 1/3 of the world's surface, The Adventure Collectors' route will involve navigating through:

• 20 countries
• 8 time zones
• 5 mountain ranges
• 3 deserts

This sounds like a lot of hard work, but it'll be worth says Jonathan, as it's all in the name of charity. The team is aiming to raise £30,000, with all proceeds going to two incredible charities they’ve chosen to support:

• The Children’s Hospice Association Scotland
• The Lotus Children’s Centre

To find out more about the adventure and how to donate, please visit The Adventure Collectors website here.

Also, don't forget to visit and 'like' their Facebook Page, to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes!

 

Following expert advice from a previous employee (Steve who runs World Snowboard Guide) we opted for the resort of Lenzerheide. The accommodation was amazing (thanks Snowmotions) and the snow conditions were equally superb for a spot of skiing and snowboarding. Even the weather was bliss allowing us to enjoy some sunbathing while relaxing in the outdoor spa.

We all had a great time hanging out together, perfecting our turns and practicing our first aid skills, following an unlucky injury sustained on the last day. Fortunately it was only minor, and lessons were learnt about not letting go of snowboards on the slopes!

We’re all now fully rested and ready to get back to our many web and mobile projects :)

Andrew is our new telesales superstar, seeking out fresh sales leads and assisting with website proposals.
Get to know Andrew more here.

Dominic is the newest senior developer here in our London office, bringing with him many years of coding experience.
Check out Dominic's profile here.

Nick is heading up the new business side of things and will be developing our strategic partnerships.
Find out more about Nick here.

Hassan has joined our design team, helping strengthen our design credentials both for our website and mobile projects.
Get the low down on Hassan here.

Jenny is the newest addition to our projects team, assisting with keeping projects on time and to a high standard.
Check out Jenny’s profile here.

All of Pixl8 welcome our new ‘family’ members with open arms and we’re looking forward to working with them, on our many exciting upcoming projects! If you’d like to become a Pixl8r, send us your CV here and we’ll be sure to keep it on file for when an appropriate job opportunity arises…

1. Maintain a professional image
Having your blog URL as part of your existing website domain e.g. www.yourwebsite.com/blog looks far more professional than if it’s hosted upon a 3rd party platform domain e.g. www.3rdpartyplatform.com/yourblogname.

2. Design consistency
It’s easier to control the look and feel of your blog if it’s hosted and developed within your existing website, so using associated templates and style sheets.  This will help maintain design consistency, and in turn assist with your brand awareness and overall marketing efforts.

3. Content management
Managing your blog through your existing CMS means you only need to learn how to use one piece of content editing software.  There’s also no need to log into two separate systems, as you’ll be able to edit both the blog and website content from the same place, using the same login details.

4. Boost SEO efforts
Hosting your blog on a separate platform, thus domain, doesn’t mean you’re doubling your SEO efforts.  You’ll be in fact halving them, as each domain will be competing against one another in search rankings!  Boost your SEO efforts by having your blog and all associated fresh content containing relevant keywords within the same domain as your main website.

5. URL recall
Maintaining a consistent URL structure, and so having your blog as being - www.yourwebsite.com/blog or blog.yourwebsite.com, is far easier for your audience to remember than www.3rdpartyplatform.com/yourblogname.

6. Categorised and related content
The beauty of managing your blog from within your existing website CMS is that it allows you to drop in blog post listings throughout your website.  By categorising your blog posts using the same category structure as other content, allows you to build up related content pages.  For example, by including a blog post listing tagged as “category 1” on a news article page also tagged as “category 1”, is likely to keep a user on your website longer, therefore increasing the likelihood of a sales / member conversion.

7. Cross selling opportunities
Having your blog within your existing website structure allows users to freely navigate between other areas of your site, without getting lost in alternative browser windows and/or navigation.  Integrated navigation promotes your services and products more prominently, and so in turn helps with cross selling efforts.

8. Security considerations
Managing your blog using your existing CMS removes the security headaches that are often associated with running online marketing efforts.  Rather than needing to police access to two different systems, you are able to instead manage all permissions from just one place – your CMS.  This way if you need to remove a user when a colleague leaves, or add one when a new member of staff joins it can be done just once for both the website and blog.

Thanks to this understanding, Pixl8 have developed a fully featured blog module that can be plugged into our WebConnect CMS solution.  A number of our clients are already benefiting from the advantages and opportunities it brings, and we are continuing to research and develop its functionality.

Please contact Pixl8 here if you’d like to learn more about our fantastic blog module or WebConnect CMS package.

The day was a great success, with almost 100 representatives attending from a wide range of trade associations.  Tim and myself were fortunate enough to have lots of thought provoking conversations with a number of the delegates around website design, membership database integration and the benefits of mobile templates.

In addition to the networking with all the delegates, the talks were really something to write home about.  John Piennar, BBC Radio 5 Live's Chief Political Correspondent was a fantastic and very comical event chair person.  Lord Heseltine’s speech was also a real treat, speaking of his opinions around how trade associations should merge to form larger more influential organisations. This way he believes they would have more lobbying powers when it comes to representing their members on new government policies for example.

If you’re a trade association and want get involved with the Trade Association Forum, check out their website here for membership details.

However, there are many more social media options out there than just these three.  So, if you’re getting bored of tweeting, liking and connecting, then why not check out these alternatives:

1. SlideShare
Upload, manage and share your powerpoint presentations online.

2. If this then that
Create and manage an almost limitless set of rules to automate your social media presence.

3. Google Plus
Group friends, colleagues, clients etc into different social circles, and share web articles, photos and more.

4. Pinterest
Create and share an online pin-board, pin up photos of things that make your day, and comment on yours and others.

5. Path
Keep your very own digital journal including photos, music and even when you go to sleep!

6. Instagram
Make your simple photos look stunning using this photo sharing and filtering iPhone app.

7. Foursquare
The original location based sharing app, tag yourself at various locations to become mayor and earn rewards.

8. Paper.li
Turn all those links your followers tweet, into eye catching easy to read e-newspapers.

Apple

We’re fairly sure the world’s second most valuable company has a few tricks up it’s sleeve for 2012, as it always has.  Expect to see a 3rd iteration of its iPad, with a crazy high resolution screen, maybe even 2 versions, one being smaller in size.  This will be the year of the iPhone 5, which is almost guaranteed to be different in design to the iPhone 4 models, and will most likely have an NFP chip to let you buy stuff without your purse or wallet.  One final questions remains, is an Apple television on the cards?

RIM

Things aren’t looking too rosy for Research in Motion, the maker of Blackberry, with sliding sales both for their phones and playbook tablets.  Although it is worth pointing out that they’re still popular amongst teenagers, as we’ve been informed by our college clients.  We won’t be too shocked if they’re split into hardware and software divisions, then sold off (most likely primarily for the patents they hold).

Google

Google has recently bought out the hardware arm of Motorla, so expect to see a more integrated approach when it comes to the latest Motorola Android devices.  Also, keep an eye on how your search results are being affected by Google’s social media platform Google plus.   If you’re logged in, and carry out a search, there’s a high chance that what your circles have been searching for and viewing will skew your search results.

Microsoft

Microsoft should make some inroads with it’s funky mobile os offering, and is likely to announce the next version of it’s Xbox gaming hardware, probably launching early 2013.  We’re expecting to see Windows 8 officially released towards the end of the year too.

Nokia

This will be the year that Nokia either wins back the hearts of the masses with its new Lumia handset using Windows mobile, or slides even further behind the competition.  Its new handsets aren’t bad, but they’re probably too little, too late.

Facebook

Expect to see Facebook’s new “timeline” profile structure become the norm this year.  Also, we shouldn’t be too surprised if they make changes to the way pages work, allowing companies to do more to market their brand within the Facebook domain.  Lastly, Facebook is almost certain to go public, with analysts expecting it to raise $10 billion, valuing the company at a whopping $100 billion.

That’s about it for now folks!  Check our blog throughout the year for updates, or at the end of the year to see how our predictions have turned out.  Saying that, we may not be around that long, if the Mayan’s “end of the world” prediction is anything to go by…

Some of the most influential men in history had moustaches - Albert Einstein, Hulk Hogan and Salvador Dali.  Perhaps this was part of the reason why a group the Pixl8 boys decided to take on the challenge of growing a moustache over the course of November.  Whether the mo's helped them in either their influence or looks is questionable, however it did definitely prove a great charity success, raising over £500 for prostate cancer causes!

Visit the team page here to see further updates from the growers and details of the charities.