PR Account Executive
Up to £22K

Creative thinker, plain talker, great writer, media junkie, good fun, massive energy. Is this you?

Hot Tin Roof is a public relations agency creating iconic reputations through concrete communication.

With big plans and a growing client list we are looking for talented people with the enthusiasm and vision to help us build on our success.

For more information email Sarah Lee.

And to apply just send your CV and covering letter (with your favourite film, book and icon) to sarah@hottinroof.co.uk by Friday 14 October 2011. Interviews take place w/c 17 October 2011.

DrupalCamp Edinburgh 2011
Venue: Informatics Forum, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh.
Date: 21 May 2011, 9am – 5pm.

Drupal users from across Scotland will come together this weekend for the second annual DrupalCamp Edinburgh. The focus of the free event will be on building the Scottish Drupal community and encouraging its adoption by developers and businesses.

Drupal is an open-source content management system written in PHP. It is supported by an active developer community and is free to download and share. Community is at the heart of the Drupal project and face-to-face events for users take place all over the world.

Duncan Davidson, one of the organisers of the event, says: “We have sessions aimed at all levels of practitioner, from beginner through to advanced. The aim is to bring people together and help them to see the benefits of developing websites and applications using Drupal.”

He continues: “Around 80 delegates have registered so far, an increase of almost 50% on last year already. We have been overwhelmed by the support we’ve received from our sponsors and couldn’t do it without them.”

In addition to full community and business sessions and lightning talks – a series of 15-minute presentations to give new speakers an opportunity to present – the closing session of the day will discuss the formation of a Scottish Drupal Association. It is hoped that a nationwide organisation could support user meetups that already take place in Edinburgh and Glasgow, as well as encouraging expansion across other parts of the country.

DrupalCamp Edinburgh will take place in the Informatics Forum at the University of Edinburgh on Saturday 21 May 2011. To find out more or to register, please visit http://dcedinburgh.drupalscotland.org.

The organisers can also be contacted on Twitter via @drupalCampEDI and the hashtag for the conference is #dcedi11.

For more information, please contact Duncan Davidson.

FreeAgent, the award winning online accounting system for freelancers and small businesses, has linked-up with PCG – the voice of freelancing, to help its members get on top of their finances.

PCG members will be able to subscribe to FreeAgent, which was voted Best SME Accounting Software in 2010, at a reduced rate.

FreeAgent helps people get a clear picture of their financial position, and users say they feel it puts them back in control of their finances. Hosted ‘in the cloud’, FreeAgent is accessible around the clock from any internet connection, which is ideal for the way many freelancers and small business owners work. Much more intuitive and accessible than conventional accounting software, users can send invoices, track time and expenses as well as monitor the financial health of their business and manage projects and payments. Uniquely it also automatically prepares and files VAT returns, projects self-assessed income tax and corporation tax obligations and helps manage payroll.

Ed Molyneux, founder and CEO of FreeAgent, says: “When we created FreeAgent we were all freelancers or contractors. We built it specifically to meet the needs you have when you are working for yourself or running a small business and want to manage your finances. So we are delighted that by working with PCG we will enable more people in that position to use our service.”

Working trends over a number of years as well as some more recent and stark economic factors have seen many more people becoming self-employed. While total employment rose by 0.8% between 2009 and 2010, the number of self-employed people increased by 2.4% to 3.98 million (Office for National Statistics, GDP and the Labour Market, 2010).

The move to freelance working can be daunting and challenging but both FreeAgent and PCG are dedicated to helping these individuals to face the legislative and practical challenges of starting and growing their own businesses.

Iain McIlwee, Head of Commercial Development at PCG, says: “Britain’s growing freelance workforce plays an essential role in our economy. FreeAgent has a good track record of helping freelancers so I am delighted that we have secured a great discount for our members and will be working more closely with the team there.”

PCG was formed in May 1999, specifically to provide independent contractors and consultants with a representative voice in opposition to the original IR35 proposals.

Since then, it has grown to become the main voice and professional body representing these businesses and individuals, and now has in excess of 20,000 members who can benefit from a huge range of advice and information it makes available, as well as an open and friendly community of other freelancers.

All FreeAgent accounts start with a 30-day free trial, and are charged on a monthly, pay-as-you-go basis starting from £15 per month. There’s no commitment to sign up, and you can cancel at any time. To sign-up for a month’s free trial and find out more about what FreeAgent can do visit www.freeagentcentral.com.

For more information, contact Lucy Smith.

Online accounting provider FreeAgent is giving away three months free trial of their service to celebrate the end of the tax year.  Their service is specially designed to meet the needs of freelancers and small business owners, many of whom work from home.

More than 2.8 million UK businesses operate from home, and they’re a force to be reckoned with generating over £284 billion.  ‘Being close to the family’ is a key motivation for home business owners, with 33% citing this as a reason for starting an enterprise from home. (Source: Enterprise Nation, Home Business Report 2009).

To benefit from FreeAgent’s promotion enter the special code “HOME” when signing up for a free trial on the site. The offer is valid until 30 April 2011.

Ed Molyneux, founder and CEO of FreeAgent says:  “The start of the new tax year is almost upon us so now is the perfect time to get on top of your accounts. Many freelancers and small business owners don’t look at their accounts because they’re worried about what they might find or it can seem complex and difficult.  But hiding from your accounts is never a solution so instead, we want to give businesses an easy, clear and up to the minute picture of their finances to help them stop worrying.”

The FreeAgent software has a clean and simple design that is easy to use. As well as making accounting easy for business owners to understand, FreeAgent offers unique real-time projections of tax liabilities including VAT, Self Assessment Income Tax and Corporation Tax. Users can also analyse bank statements, see live profit and loss reports, send and track invoices, track time and expenses, and manage projects and payments.

FreeAgent has pioneered online accounting since the launch of its service in 2007, rapidly growing a loyal community of thousands of freelancers and small business users.

As well as making accounting easy for business owners to understand, FreeAgent offers real-time projections of tax liabilities including VAT, Self Assessment Income Tax and Corporation Tax. Users can also analyse bank statements, see live profit and loss reports, send and track invoices, track time and expenses, and manage projects.

The company is run by founders Ed Molyneux, Olly Headey and Roan Lavery who – originally freelancers themselves – needed a finance tool that would give them a clear picture of their business accounts and so FreeAgent was born.

When surveyed, a remarkable 99.5% of users said they would recommend FreeAgent to their friends, and it was voted Best SME Accounting Software in the 2010 Software Satisfaction Awards. FreeAgent is listed on the Telegraph High Growth Index for privately-held UK firms.

Hosted in the cloud, FreeAgent is accessible around the clock, from any internet connection, which is ideal for the way many small business owners and freelancers work.

FreeAgent is subscription based with costs starting at £15 per month for a sole trader, £20 for a partnership and £25 for a limited company.

Try it for free at www.freeagentcentral.com

Or follow @freeagent

One of the UK’s leading independent user experience consultancies, User Vision is running a seminar on Monday 28 March at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh to highlight the benefits of usability and accessibility.

The seminar is called ‘Five Usability steps to get more out of your website’ and is hosted by digital communication agency CIVIC.

User experience experts from User Vision will outline why good usability and accessibility are crucial for the effectiveness of an organisation’s website. They will demonstrate best practice through case study examples and provide an overview of an iterative user-centred design process.

Managing Director and founder of User Vision Chris Rourke says: “Good customer experience is vital for any website and user testing at the start of the design process is critical before the development becomes too advanced.

“Once a website is built, it is expensive to make changes, so we encourage our clients to user test early and to test often. This seminar is a great opportunity for individuals and companies to learn how to make the most of their website and in turn improve their profitability”.

Seminar attendees will discover the benefits of usability as part of an overall digital success strategy and gain understanding of the core usability principles. They will also learn user experience trade secrets to ensure that customers find exactly what they are looking for and interact successfully on a website.

User Vision are experts in the field, working with organisations like the BBC, HSBC, Nokia and Emirates Airline to pioneer usability and accessibility. They operate internationally in Dubai, Europe and South America.

To book your place at the seminar on the 28th March visit http://civicusability.eventbrite.com/. The seminar runs from 9am to 11am and is free for public sector workers.

Ends

For more information contact Lucy Smith.

A response from CIVIC

On 3 March the Scottish Government launched its new strategic plan for Scotland’s digital future. It will be significant for our communications infrastructure, for how government intends to engage with the Scottish people and for public sector expenditure in Scotland.

It’s not just about freedom from corporate control either: the Open Source movement is happily aligned with volunteerism, community and citizenship, ideas which are bandied about a lot elsewhere in government, but not so much in this Digital Strategy.

CIVIC is an independent creative digital agency and has been delivering high profile digital and technical projects in the public and private sector since 2001. Few companies in Scotland today have CIVIC’s strength in combining technology and design into a functional solution. CIVIC’s unique blend of form, function, technology and design enables the agency to make great digital ideas work online. For more information, visit www.civicuk.com

Freelancers and small business owners will now be able to save time and money by processing out-of-pocket expenses quickly and painlessly, thanks to a new partnership between Receipt Bank – the receipt processing service – and online accounting pioneers FreeAgent.

Many out-of-pocket expenses are often lost in the fog of running a small business: receipts get mislaid or forgotten, or build up into a pile, and the opportunities for reclaiming the money and appropriately charging clients are missed. This can make a real difference to the business owner’s take-home pay and the business’s profitability.

The partnership between FreeAgent and Receipt Bank aims to make this a thing of the past by freeing users from the paperwork and drudgery of having to manually keep track of these bits of paper, and helping the UK’s freelancers and other small business owners quickly and easily reclaim every penny they are owed.

Ed Molyneux, CEO of FreeAgent, says: ‘From today users will be able to send their receipts to Receipt Bank and the data will flow automatically into FreeAgent – so no laborious data entry or effort is required. Once in FreeAgent the expenses can be reclaimed from the client and from your business, and offset against tax bills.’

Michael Wood, Director of Receipt Bank, says: ‘Users can send us their receipts by email, by iPhone, or by old-fashioned mail using the freepost envelopes we provide. We will then scan and process their expenses data. Today’s announcement enables FreeAgent users to automatically see this information in their accounts without any need for manual inputting!’

In these tough times we all want to make sure we’re as financially astute as possible and through this partnership FreeAgent and Receipt Bank will provide freelancers and small business owners with another way of keeping on top of their finances.

For more information, email Lucy Smith.

One of Scotland’s leading digital security experts, Stuart Fraser, has been appointed by miiCard as Technical Architect.  As co-founder of specialist IT security consultancy DNS, Stuart’s appointment is a coup for the pioneering digital identity startup.

Over eight years, Stuart helped DNS become the largest provider of security services in the UK before the company was sold last year to SecureWorks, now in the process of being bought by Dell.

miiCard is a unique digital passport for the consumer that proves “I am who I say I am” in real time, for the first time.   Owned and managed by the individual, miiCard allows the consumer to track, monitor and so, for the first time, take control of their online identity.

Stuart  will be responsible for the design and implementation of miiCard’s security token service which will verify user identity to Anti-Money Laundering, Know Your Customer Regulations and the Proceeds of Crime Act standards.

Drawn to the challenge of developing a global digital passport that proves the user’s identity and becomes stronger the more it is used, Stuart says:  “As the threat of internet fraud and identity theft increases it is critical that we find some way of being able to take control of our digital identity.

“Every day we give away our personal data to companies around the world, from Facebook and Google to banks, retailers and government agencies.   And once we have given it away, we have no control over what happens to our identity.  It is vital that we find a way of taking control back and I am very excited about the implications of miiCard for the future of digital identity.”

Stuart’s early career began in the energy sector working for Conoco, BP and Scottish Power before becoming founder director of DNS. Following the sale of DNS, Stuart returned to his studies, recently completing The University of Edinburgh’s MSc in High Performance Computing – specialising in scaling and super computers.

Creative thinker, plain talker, great writer, media junkie, good fun, massive energy. Is this you?

With big plans and a growing client list we are looking for a talented account executive with the enthusiasm and vision to help us build on our success.

For more information email cat@hottinroof.co.uk.

And to apply just send your CV (with your favourite film, book and icon) to cat@hottinroof.co.uk by Friday 4 February 2010. Interviews take place w/c 7 February 2010.

Help is at hand for anyone who has ever missed a payment, unwittingly exceeded an overdraft limit or struggled to budget each month. Launching today, Money Dashboard is an easy to use and free online personal finance service that helps individuals and families to manage their money more effectively.

After a Christmas of excess, January is the perfect time to once and for all take control of your spending and now it needn’t be such a daunting prospect. By bringing your bank accounts and credit card spending history together on one screen and recommending Ways To Save, Money Dashboard promises to take the hassle out of managing your money.

As well as helping individuals, Money Dashboard makes it simpler for families and couples to keep track of their income and spending by enabling them to automatically and securely aggregate their household accounts from multiple brands in a single view.

Users can access the Money Dashboard application from any computer with web access and it allows them to track and categorise spending, set budgets and helps them save. It can also be configured to send emails to alert users if they exceed their set budget or if they are about to go into overdraft. In future, it will also be possible to alert users to suspicious transactions on their account, and for users to log on to Money Dashboard from their mobile.

Gavin Littlejohn, Money Dashboard’s founder and CEO, says: “The Government has demonstrated in painful detail why it is important to keep track of spending and avoid getting into debt. It’s easy to put off reassessing your budget but now is the time to act on your New Year’s resolutions and take the first steps towards a brighter financial future.

“By giving people a clear picture of their finances, we can help consumers make better choices each month and recommend ways to save. Our aim is to take the fear and hassle out of managing money, focusing on helping young families and individuals to confidently manage their debt or create a path to better wealth. The UK consumer has shrinking access to financial advice, so it is important that they gain the confidence to self-serve, and Money Dashboard is designed to help them on that journey”

Since the service opened for public beta testing in May 2010, it has helped 10,000 users to manage their money more effectively. Thanks to feedback received from beta testers, the application has undergone several rounds of improvements as part of its evolution and new features will continue to be added following launch.

Chris Cathcart, a digital media strategist, was one of the first users to benefit from Money Dashboard during its beta testing phase.

He says: “I’m more aware of what I’m spending my salary on since using Money Dashboard and I’m less likely to spend money that I don’t have on items I don’t need. It’s easier to make financial decisions going forward as I have a really clear picture of my incomings and outgoings.

“The best feature of Money Dashboard is the option to tag your transactions. Once you’ve entered your details, the software categorises spending automatically so you can easily see the areas where you’re going over budget.”