where did thefurby come from, what does he do?
well read on and find out the story behind the legend.

whois

thefurby in a nutshell

what's he done?

the jobs, the skills, the history

words

thoughts and ideas

whois

@thefurby...

On a daily basis i talk to fools

  • social
  • digital
  • strategy
  • management

#boom

A senior digital strategist & director with both agency and client side experience. Social specialist, designing, building and managing strategic social engagement deliveries on a global level. A digital evangelist with expertise across e-Business, Social Media, Web Development, Intranets, Extranets. A customer facing lead on all projects I am equally adept at defining digital strategy and leading board level negotiations. Specialties social media, application development, b2b, budget planning, budgeting, cms, coaching, contact management, PR, delivery, ebusiness, email, firing, forecasting, hiring, html, leadership, marketing, mentoring, newsletters, online marketing, project management, project planning, proofing, sales, strategic, strategy planning, team management, web application development, web site production.

the diaries of a digital leader

Currently Head of Digital at April-Six having been poached from a short stint on the client side at the Chartered IIA our hero @thefurby is further strnegthening his standing in this etherial world we call digital. Previous incarnations in this industry were spent at Cheil the inhouse agency for Samsung, digi pure play agencies wesaw & vingt quatre, a spell in the big smoke working on the then emerging SMS market at Avoca having started the digi revolution at REDNET.

the
jobs

April-Six

Leading the agency into the new dawn as Head of Digital the furby manages and runs all things digital for this B2B technology focused agency delivering global campaigns for the likes of Microsoft, Cisco, VMware and other biggies. Digital and Social strategy is core to our growth.

Allied to this i have built and now lead a team of digital professionals to deliver the solutions I dream up. From campaign sites, eDM's and banners through to global multilingual Social deployments the world is our oyster, whose pearl i am cultivating.

Chartered institute of
internal auditors

A different world of the professional body for thefurby, a strange juncture of 9-5 and an hour for lunch. Planning and designing the long term digital strategy for the Institute I was key in moving the IIA into a digital savvy body.

Introducing the black arts of UX, Social, interaction, user journey planning, analytics and a whole host of other digi standards bought membership update of the IIA digital deliveries to the fore. Fun times in Clapham.

wesaw

Pure play digi agency working with start ups to established brands majoring on social strategy, and there in deployment, management and running of including the build of supportiung digital media.

Facebook pages, Facebook Apps, LinkedIn groups, Twitter channels, viral games, rich media with an eye to building user engagement and buy in.

Cheil

Samsung's in house agency, the furby was housed within the digital team focusing on the UK launches of new Mobile Phones (cells). Including the initiation of campaign concepts through to the design and build of campaign sites and social media deployments and there in programme and campaign management.

vingt quatre

Doing all things digital for around 6 years, leading from teh top with a passion for the emergance of tru digital marketing.

Having cut his teeth in the emergance of the digital channel vq was ideally placed to then move the whole web 2.0 thing across a range of clients from agriculture, through automotive to the technology sector. Everything from online strategy, web design, digital deployment, online management, social media inclusion to digital media design and placement, we did it all, and all to my fiddle.

Avoca

In the old days before smart phones we developed early mobile marketing, now commonplace including the first ever SMS text to TV screen live on the BBC and the first ever live TV based talent show SMS short number voting deployment.

Yeah i know, its everywhere now, Big Brother and everyother mother, but back then it was ground breaking. We partnered with BT to develop the first ever 5 digit cross network shortcode, which then API'd into our clever tech to allow voting, text to screen, interactive competitions, network operator icon downloads (remember them?) and much much more including very early Java based mobile apps for selected high tech phones...

REDNET

A blast from the past my first role in digital eventually heading the digital solutions department having built it up from just me starting off learning development and then moving more commerically into account management & sales to get a view of all sides of the digital market.

Having come from a totally different vocation I learnt the ropes as i went along, and as time went on i got rather good at it all and won major clients from the RAC to English Heritage and lead the design, development and deplotyment of some (for then) major digital deliveries...

Heighway Field Associates

A different world to digital I used to be an actual real life architect designing buildings and real world things not the virtual stuff of today. Having done my university years learning how to be one I studiously passed exams and then practiced the art in the real world, exciting times eh?.

things what
i wrote






Now some of you will know me personally, and some of you will know me online, or dare i say through reputation or casual aquaintance, and some of you will say i can be a tad opinionated when it comes to some subjects one of them being my work, that is the digital world and…
— Get Inspired






As we all know we are sitting in the middle of a revolution, the seeds of which were sowed last century but in the last 15 years it has properly gained momentum. The proliferation and mass acceptance of the PC initially in the business world and then at home marked the beginning and then the…
— Social (R)evolution






I used to know this chap who had a good job, he worked for Boots and was a store manager, he was looking to get a store in Cornwall to manage so he could relocate somewhere nice. All good, same money, same job and living by the sea. I told him I was V Jelz,…
— be inspired out there






That title is a tweet from a good chum (@glenncarey wordsmith extraordinaire) I received today regarding some news feed updates I posted today. Obviously from the title they stem from the Apple iPhone 4S launch yesterday/today (depending on time zones) and it's reported great disappointment, don't shoot the messenger you might think? Or then again…
— @thefurby I'm beginning to think Steve Jobs personally hurt you as a child.






When instigating a new social strategy at a company, I have learnt that there is no way you can carte blanche set a new corporate agenda. By this I mean you can't just pick a level of people and expect them to interact, blog, post, tweet whatever at given times on their core subject area.…
— Socialism – it's a state of mind






This past couple of months has seen seismic shifts in the social landscape, whether or not these movements are here to stay or not is to be seen, others have tried and failed and even some established power houses have all but gone, remember bebo? In fact I just went there out of interest and…
— Are marketeers sleeping through the new dawn?






Is social growing up? I'm not too sure, and I'm not too sure growing up is really so good for social. When you compare online social with real life social yeah there are inconsistencies, but then is your real life social perfect? Looking at Facebook functionality for example if you say something all of your…
— Is social media maturing?






During my recent week off I actually also took a break from Social, or more truthfully took a break from my posting on Social. This came about following a number of recent conversations I have been in both at and away from work, and one comment about me I picked up on third hand from…
— Social Users – the Posters and the Voyeurs

 

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