The Werks - blog

The Werks nominated for People's Choice at The DiMAS

2008-11-16T19:47:00Z

We are chuffed to have been shortlisted for The DiMAS under the People's Choice category. This is the only category where the public gets to vote. So now is your chance.

Has The Werks done anything for you? Enjoyed an event? Experienced the wonders of coworking? Dropped in for a social event or two? Benefited from our space?

If it's a yes for any of those questions then we would love it if you gave us a vote.

Overcoming code fear - An introduction to programming for designers with David Pook

2008-11-14T12:39:00Z

When: Thursday 4th of December 2008. 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Where: The Werks

Register: pay online or on the day. Guide price £5 - £15

This talk with David Pook aims to give the designer an understanding of the concepts of programming and what can be done with code. You won't come away with a working knowledge of PHP or JavaScript, that takes more than one evening, but you will have a much better understanding of what all those arcane symbols and words are about, what you can do with code and what to do next to develop your skills.

Register: pay online or on the day.

How to write an environmental policy – one day training course

2008-11-12T20:01:00Z

Do you need to write an environmental policy for your organisation but don’t know where to start? Need to build capacity within your organisation to understand what is needed in an environmental policy? Having trouble persuading senior managers of your intentions to be more resource efficient for financial and environmental reasons? Then this training is for you.

Why do you need an environmental policy?

An environmental policy will help your organisation recognise its impact on the environment and take measures to manage and reduce negative impacts
It is a requirement for many grant funding streams
It is also a requirement for tendering for a lot of public sector work
Customers often expect businesses to have a positive stance on environmental issues
It will help your business / organisation be more efficient
It helps you get started and become familiar with environmental issues if you decide to develop a full environmental management system in the future

About this training

By the end of the day you should be able to:

understand the importance of having an environmental policy
explore the format and style that would work for you organisation
know the type of content you should include
write your own environmental policy!

Who this training day is for

Managers, policy makers, and those responsible for environmental issues in charities, community and voluntary sector organisations, businesses, and the public sector.

Whether you’re a complete beginner on environmental issues, or you know a thing or two and just need help getting started and with tactics, this training will be give you the tools to help you begin to tackle the environmental impact of your organisation.

Date

Wednesday 26 November 2008. 9.30 – 3pm, The Werks, 45 Church Road, Hove

Cost for one day course (including lunch)

Businesses £90
Social enterprises and public sector £70
Community, charity and not-for-profit organisations £60

To book

Contact 01273 540 998; training[at]greenminded.co.uk; www.greenminded.co.uk/training.html.

For more information on the course, contact Karen on 01273 540 998 / 07941 824 347 or see our website.

If you cannot make this date, please contact us to be alerted when the next course date is confirmed: planned for January / February 2009.

Meet the Werkers

2008-11-09T23:55:00Z

When: Wednesday 19th of November 2008 from 11am

Where: The Werks

Register: pay online or on the day. Guide price £5 - £10

Over some lovely treats and coffee this is your chance to meet or catch up with some of our werkers. Suitable for regular or open werkers, wannabes or local businesses who would like to meet these talented people.

It will probably last an hour, but everyone is welcome to stay the day.

After Werk - November Edition

2008-11-09T23:25:00Z

When: Friday 28th of November 2008 from 5:30pm

Where: The Werks

On the last Friday of every month we have a monthly social which we lovingly call After Werk. It's open to anyone to attend. Ideal if you'd like to meet or catch up with some werkers.

Come along from 5:30pm bring some drinks and nibbles to keep yourself and other werkers going. End time varies, but usually goes on until at least 10pm!

No need to register, just pop on in.

Developing and demonstrating your reputation with Julia Chanteray

2008-11-09T22:17:00Z

When: Monday 24th of November 2008. 6:30 - 8:30 pm

Where: The Werks

Why do some people seem to get all the interesting projects to work on, and be able to easily go from one project to the next?

Why are some people able to charge higher daily rates than others?

Julia Chanteray from The Joy of Business thinks that this is because these seemingly lucky people have been able to develop a great reputation in their area – they are desirable, hot property. She’ll be talking about how you can make yourself into hot property too, by developing your reputation for great work, and getting the word out about just how good you are. Julia will talk about how our work reputation is formed, why people think of us in certain ways, and what we can do to demonstrate reputation in the areas we want.

Julia has spent her life setting up and running different businesses and now helps other people to make money, do great work, and have fun while they’re doing it.

Photoshop for Web Developers with Guy Anderson

2008-11-07T23:32:00Z

When: Thursday 20th of November 2008. 6:30 - 7:30 pm

Where: The Werks

Register: pay online or on the day. Guide price £5 - £15

The web designer has gone off piste (again!) and the client needs to get the latest design changes done on his website pronto. Time to break out photoshop and get those graphics changed!

This tutorial based workshop will include a practical demonstration of how to use the power of photoshop in a focused way to quickly make graphic changes to a website.

Also covered in the tutorial: Semantic HTML and CSS

Suitable for web developers and designers with no/some photoshop experience.

Guy has been using photoshop since version 2 and has been a professional web designer for 12 years. He is creative director at zero G media, a web design studio based at The Werks in Hove.

Bonsai people

2008-11-04T09:59:00Z

I came across the term bonsai people the other day and I believe it really relates to what we are trying to do at The Werks. Though I would personally replace 'poor' with 'forgotten', especially when relating it to our more 'civilised' world.

To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly. Prof Muhammad Yunus

Our aim is to support creatives, specifically individuals, freelancers and small businesses. It is clear that many creatives struggle to make a living doing what they would like to do. Of course there are many reasons for this, however I believe alot of it comes down to lack of support and community to allow themselves to grow.

Just like trees need the right environment to grow, so do people.

The Shiny Piggies that we love very much

2008-10-29T14:16:00Z

At The Werks we have a big shiny piggy. Infact, it's not just one, but a family of three scattered across the building. Over the months these pigs have become a symbol of our ethos. Everytime someone comes to view our space the piggies are faithfully introduced.

The role of the shiny pig

Our vision with all the projects we are working on is to be a community of people who willingly and lovingly contribute in whichever way works best for them and us as a community. With this comes the natural trust we put into people to put something back. We don't want to monitor werkers nor get overloaded with admin werk. Yet, at the same time we are a business that needs to track all income and remain profitable at the same time.

The Piggy Guide

We work with guides, no strict rules, just open guidelines that we all werk towards. In relation to the piggy this means:

the piggy gets hungry
it needs to be fed for things like open coworking, tea/coffee contributions, printer/fax use and events
the piggy is allergic to copper coins and has a special soft spot for gold coins and notes
instead of hiring out space for events you can get attendees to contribute to the piggy to cover costs
sometimes special things happen at The Werks, occasionally it is worth rewarding the piggy for this
the piggy likes to receive messages too. Real messages, you know, those things written on paper

Additions to these guides?

I am keen to hear feedback on the shiny piggy guides. Perhaps I've missed something out or there are other ideas that we could implement.

Do let us know by commenting, dropping an email or having a chat.

A mini video with FlashBrighton and < head > conference

2008-10-21T23:00:00Z

A short video taken at The Werks by Aral at the regular Flash Brighton meetup.

They talk briefly about what they are doing at Flash Brighton and the < head > conference.

Werkshop mailing list

2008-10-21T12:40:00Z

We've had an internal email list for a while, but didn't really expect it to grow as much as it has done. So now we have set up a mailing list (Google Groups) where all types of werkers and friends can join.

You can sign up to the group here. Come along and join in the discussion.

Freelancer Survey

2008-10-15T12:58:00Z

Freelance Advisor a running a short survey for freelancers in the area to find out what makes freelancers tick. There's a chance to win some free accounting services from Crunch worth up to £800.

If you'd like to participate you can find the survey here.

DIY Copywriting Workshop

2008-10-09T01:49:00Z

When: 7.00 to 9.30pm , Thursday 6th November 2008 with Ellen de Vries. Don’t leave it too late to sign up!

Where: The Werks

Cost: £25 standard cost, £15 for Werkers. Register online.

This is a seriously valuable, hands-on workshop for website owners, start ups, bloggers and anyone else who wants to know how to pick the best words to get their message clear and web-friendly

So how do you get your audience to care about what you say?

The workshop gives you an insight into some of the handy formulas that professional copywriters use to attract people’s attention.

What do you get to take away?

A clear marketing message blueprint to keep and use
Confidence that your clients care about what you’re saying
Expert guidance, training and critique
Techniques for writing online
Free biscuits

Sign up online

Registration is easy..

Please direct any questions about registration or the event to Ellen de Vries.

Making Presentations. A hands-on workshop.

2008-10-09T00:37:00Z

When: 7.00 to 9.30pm , Thursday 30th October 2008 with Ellen de Vries. Don’t leave it too late to sign up!

Where: The Werks

Cost: £20 standard cost, £15 for Werkers. Register online.

Do you have difficulty making presentations?

How do you engage people, or get them to understand you?

This is a useful hands-on workshop to help you build successful presentations. The main idea is to give you presentation techniques, magical formulas and tips to get your audience 1) interested in what you’re saying 2) to absorb the information you’re putting out there.

Here’s what you’ll take away:

Proven techniques for getting people to absorb information
Tried-and-tested structures for engaging presentations
A bank of techniques for preventing your audience from getting lost, confused, bored or totally distracted
A ‘Doh! checklist’ of common mistakes that you could be making
Personal feedback
Free biscuits

(Sorry, we won’t be working on Powerpoint designs or voice projection – it’s all about the content, how its ordered and how you communicate your stuff)

Who is Ellen

Ellen is a copywriter for sales, marketing and elearning, but she has got here by working as an adult trainer and content specialist for over 8 years – so she's all clued up on learning theory, marketing theory and how to pick your content so that your audience are forced to give a hoot about what you’re saying.

Sign up online

Registration is easy.

Please direct any questions about registration or the event to Ellen de Vries

Freelance Meetup - October 2008

2008-10-01T20:30:00Z

When: Friday 31st of October 2008 - from 11am

Cost: Open payment - around £10 would be nice, but if it is a barrier don't worry about it! Free coffee and tea supplies.

Sign up: register online, contribute on the day

This September is the first of our Freelance Meetups designed for creative freelancers and micro-businesses. It's a non-pressured environment that will give you great opportunity to meet with other professionals, discuss freelancers issues, have a rant, make friends and perhaps get some business out of it somewhere down the line.

The idea is that:

you can come at any point in the day
you'll probably have some good conversations and as a result new ideas and opportunities.
it will be great for moral and professional support
if you'd like to work from The Werks you might want to bring a laptop (free wifi) or other forms of work.
it's not a mad rush to meet people. It goes on for hours. Take your time.
you'll probably feel left out if you come in a suit.
business cards are good, but put good conversation before them.
don't expect magic results on the first day. Relationships take time to build.

Sign up: register online, contribute on the day

On the same day from 5:30pm is After Werk (Halloween special), our monthly social. We would love it if you could join us then too.