It’s been a year in the life of Sidekick Studios, so it feels almost obligatory to do some kind of review. I’m kind of hesitant because it feels like broadcasting, but we doubt anyone is listening, so this is more to get my own thoughts in order.

Work wise it couldn’t have gone much better.

2009 started with yours truly and a recently registered name at Companies House. And that’s it. Fast forward 12 months and…

..we’re 7 people (for the time-being)  with a lovely mix of backgrounds, including a technologist, an electronics engineer / industrial designer, a researcher, a product designer, a web / graphic designer, a producer and me in the background trying to keep up with the rest of them.

..we got all the paraphernalia that goes with running a business – a logo, VAT registration, desks, a landline, a (soon-to-change) website, computers, a folder for receipts and things (this time next year we might even have a filing cabinet!). We’re missing a fax machine. Though we do have a typewriter that you can email.

..we’ve been lucky enough to be involved in some lovely projects. The data visualisation / youth insight project was the bulk of the year and we’re pleased with the result (and keen to fix all the things we didn’t get right first time). Putting a robot in the Houses of Parliament was obviously a highlight. It was fascinating figuring out ways of using the web to tackle a problem like sustainability of grassroots investment in sports, which is what we found ourselves doing on Barclays Spaces for Sports, and we’re happy to be doing more on this in 2010. Making a disco table with ico design for the good people at Wieden and Kennedy was fun, and we’re pleased with the amount of coverage a meeting room table could get. And there are a couple of projects just getting off the ground that we can’t share with you yet, but we hope to have done the groundwork for.

..we cracked what it is that we were and then changed it again. We started out with a traditional agency structure, but aiming to do something very different, marry technology and design for social good. But then we took another left turn and started developing our own proprietary products. And not just in a halfcut-on-the-side-not-really-our-bread-and-butter kind of way. But in a lets-make-a-real-go-of-doing-it-for-ourselves-and-end-up-on-Dragons-Den kind of way. I’ll elaborate on these projects in the next post, but in 12 months, we’ve gone from no business, to a design consultancy with a handful of clients, to a design consultancy with a handful of clients + a social innovation company trying to research, develop and launch three of its own products.

..we learnt ’social innovation’ was a word and then learnt it was a whole world. Two key conferences book-ended the year. Reboot Britain (organised by the esteemed Steve Moore) and MyPublicServices which was lovingly put together by the nice folk at Patient Opinion. Both were brilliant, not necessarily for the stuff that was on the stages, but for the mix of passionate, talented, eclectic people, drawn from politics, creative communities, technology, social enterprise, artists and many other people who want to be good citizens and be optimistic about the future. There’s still a lot of talk and not enough action, but 24 months ago, my life involved talking about social media to sell chocolate bars, so social media and trying to change Britain is at least a little bit more interesting, if not a tad harder.

Looking back at that list, it’s amazing to think how far we’ve come. I could write a whole post just on the people we’ve bumped into and been lucky enough to work with. There have been some setbacks. A lot of time and effort went into the 2012 Mascot pitch, and getting down to the last 4, and being rejected on a technicality was a bit hard to take. 3 months of teeth gnashing later, I feel it might have been a good thing. A project like that would have overtaken our life, and probably swallowed up a fledgling company like ours. Instead, we’ve had time to develop and find (dare I say it) an altogether more interesting road to travel down.

I’m proud of the work we’ve done in the physical-digital space. Be it Otto the typewriter or our writing robot (which bought together all our interests in technology, the internet, politics, youth, engagement and er, robots). But I’m most proud (if that’s the right word) of the team of people we’ve got working with us. Everyone always says finding good people is the most important thing in any business, and when you have to do it yourself, you realise how true they are. There are so many elements that can mean missing out on that hiring, but when it goes well and you’re surrounded by people who make you look good, that’s when the teeth gnashing really ends. Let’s hope we can hang onto them.

And on that slightly soft note, it’s over to 2010.

Tags: 2009, Business Design, review