Testing, testing and more testing

Ahhhh, the joys of user testing!  On the one hand it's fantastic to be able to get hands-on with the website and see our idea brought to life.  However, the joy quickly turns to frustration when you find out how many little things are not done right and need re-doing.  A surprisingly large amount of things need attention which is worrying.  It's really testing my patience - ha ha - like what I did there?  Subtle as a brick through the front window and probably just about as funny.  Nevertheless, we are persevering with spending a few hours each night trying to find little things that aren't working properly so they can be sorted out before we go live.  Each day Base Creative gets sent a list of things that need their attention.  Things are slowly working their way out but we are running out of time for having a live website ready for use.  Unfortunately, the website is already late on a revised release date (because they missed the first one by 6 weeks) and so well overdue.  At the moment, we have a demo environment which we have been able to share with interested Universities and so I hope the glimpses we have offered via this will generate a positive response from them and they will make a decision in our favour to invite us along to their Freshers Week events.  Eyes open and fingers crossed!

Duty calls

"Order! Order!  I will have order in my blog!"  Today I received notice that I have to go on jury duty.  No worries, am happy to do my civic duty and help the community, however, the jury duty is scheduled for the middle of September and runs for a fortnight.  This is smack bang in the middle of our busiest period so presents a bit of a problem.  "Objection your honour!"  Not to worry though, I am able to write away and request for it to be postponed.  "Objection sustained"  Am not sure whether to be excited or worried about the prospect of having to decide someone's fate.  I hope I don't get some ridiculously long trial as every day I am away dispensing my own brand of justice, I am not going to be around to work on the business and it needs all the help it can get!  Maybe I could combine the two?!?  At the start of the trial I could get the defendant to do a video saying what they thought the outcome of the trial will be and then do a follow up video after the verdict is read out.  "Overruled! The Jury will stick to traditional Jury activities or will be held in contempt of court"  No, don't worry, that was just a joke and rest assured I will be taking my jury duty very seriously and hope it is a clear cut case so I can feel I've definitely made the right decision and not have any feelings of doubt.  Anyway, lots to do with the business and so need to crack on and not just sit around here telling the world what mail comes through door each day.  "Blog dismissed!"

Busy little bee

Busy but brilliant week this week with lots of work contacting Universities in the UK to see if any are interested.  The Student Unions we have been able to engage with have thought it is quite a novel idea and seem keen to take things further which is great news.  Am working on ways to support them with useful marketing collateral and perhaps some stuff to give away.  The only negatives so far has been facing up to the fact that our limited marketing budget is going to exclude us from taking stalls at some of the Freshers Week Fayres.  Not to worry though, am still confident that our work with the Universities we have got on board will be enough to get the ball rolling.  Once students start using the site and sharing it in their social media feeds, students at other Universities will also get involved.  Am happy that things are heading in the right direction and encouraged by the positive responses we are getting.