TECHNOLOGY REVVED UP
MEET TEAM OJO
ojo solutions is a young , dynamic company based in Glove Factory Studios , Holt . The team have a passion for embracing the latest technologies to empower business . From building digital applications to transformational change , they like to place themselves at the cutting edge of technology .
Nathan Baranowski Kevin Triggle Tom Passmore
|
Nathan
Kevin
Nathan
Kevin
Kevin
|
How did ojo begin ? Tom and I met at university in the late 90s and began building websites as a professional hobby . Mainly for fun , then for friends in return for beer or holidays . After the dot com bubble we started building bespoke web solutions on a small scale in 2008 and in 2012 we brought all of our passions together , took a deep breath and ojo solutions was born .
Nathan and I met through mutual friends . We attended a family wedding together and over several games of pool established we had a lot in common . At the time , I was running my own sole trader business , creating brochure websites . We started working on projects together and after a few months it made sense to bring our companies together and I came on board as design director at ojo .
Nathan , Solutions Alchemist is an interesting title . What do you do ? My work is about understanding business problems and translating them into solutions . The Alchemy is about understanding how and what needs to be mixed together to make it happen .
What kind of clients do you like working with ? I guess the most interesting ones are entrepreneurs with a great idea , but with no idea of how to get it to market or how to deliver it . These projects allow us to really get involved and help shape and develop the idea into a great solution .
What ’ s the most exciting project you ’ ve worked on ? We were involved in a great project for a local company called Playforce who design and build educational playground equipment . We built them a Windows-based app , so that they could design playgrounds and schemes for schools out on the road . Enabling their consultants to engage with the client in the meeting , rather than fumbling through presenters and scribbling on paper . It also allowed them to do the work there and then , rather than sending it back to a design team in the office . That involved us creating a full design application that didn ’ t exist , the raw technology was there , but it had never been put together in that
|
|
|
|
|
Nathan
Tom
Nathan
Kevin
way , especially not in an app and not for that purpose .
It reduced their delivery time on a quote from three weeks of drawing time to a matter of days . This had a huge impact on their business and their customers too . I love how embracing technology in the right way can make such a difference .
It is great to hear how impressive in operation the app has been . The project was trying to push the boundaries , there were lots of apps or technologies that we could have tried to manipulate , but actually translating crayon and graph paper into delivering a basic version of what an artworker can do back in an office , for someone who ’ s not an artworker , in the field , was a real challenge and an achievement .
We ’ ve been working with Corsham Primary School too , on a Virtual Learning Environment . It ’ s been great to get involved in this and give something back to the local community and work with kids on developing technology .
What projects are you working on currently ?
We ’ re doing an environmental children ’ s game at the moment . Our work is generally in the corporate space , so this is a different project to get involved in .
It ’ s also forced us to think differently and put our fun and quirky hats on and think about app development in a different way . All the stuff we usually avoid such as noise and whizzy stuff we ’ ve had to introduce to make it appealing to the kids . It ’ s been great fun ; we ’ ve created some cool little characters too as part of the project .
We ’ ve created a mobile application designed to re-invent the recruitment process in the education sector . Cutting out the need for a recruitment company altogether and the large fees they charge , the app allows schools and teachers to find each other directly inside the app . Its recently launched and has currently got over 9,000 people using it and is growing rapidly each day !
For more info : www .. ojosolutions . com
Tom
Tom
Nathan
Nathan
We ’ ve also been involved in creating an online portal for a company who specialise in providing financial commentary and investment advice . Their existing processes were very old fashioned and relied heavily on email newsletters and PDF documents . We ’ ve created a portal which allows agents from around the world to collaborate , create commentary and have it automatically pushed out to their clients in a number of different ways .
It ’ s a piece of software that allows children to share projects and interact online and enable social learning using modern technological tools .
It is like LinkedIn and Dropbox for primary school kids . They can create personal journals , share documents , take pictures and video and share them online with their friends and teacher . It brings the collaborative digital element into the classroom , rather than looking at a flat PowerPoint presentation on a screen and enables the school to take learning beyond the classroom .
It was built in a not-for-profit way and is available on the market via a sister company - Blue Turtle Learning . As the idea evolves and we get more schools onboard we aim to develop the product into not for profit social enterprise focused on technology and app development for schools .
Who would be your dream client ? My dream client would be the government . I see so much waste going into improvement initiatives and it ’ s a typical scenario of not embedding change in the real world . I particularly think ojo could help the NHS . There ’ s some amazing initiatives going on in the NHS , some great innovation , but because there ’ s a lack of cohesive change , it ’ s just difficult . That ’ s probably a reason why we work a lot in the health and charity sectors . You can make massive differences and to things that matter in life .
@ ojosolutions
THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2017 19