GuyKat MD in Midlands Goldman Sachs 10KSB Cohort
GuyKat Solutions MD, Guy McEvoy, has been selected to participate in the 10KSB program at Aston Business School. The 3-month program is fully funded by Goldman Sachs and aimed at supporting business with high growth potential. Guy said, "This is good news. I'm looking forward to having time to reflect on the next stage of growth for GuyKat and this program will provide some structure to make that happen. I'm also looking forward to working with other business leaders from our region. It will mean a few days away from the office over the next couple of months, but the team back at base will rejoice at that!"
Find out more about the program by clicking here
Learning Technologies 2013
GuyKat was represented at last week's Learning Technologies conference by Hannah Quinton. The event is London's showcase industry gathering for eLearning vendors. The big trends under discussion included the shift to mLearning (mobile), and the latest thinking on instructional design. One of the key things for us was to see what else is happening in the LMS space. Having had a good look at the competition it is our strong belief that the business case for adopting docebo is as compelling as ever.
Merry Christmas! (and office opening hours)
GuyKat would like to thank all friends and clients for a memorable 2012. But we're now out of here!
The office is closed from 5pm on Friday 21st December and will reopen at 9am on Wednesday 2nd January.
We're looking forward to 2013 and will be sharing a big announcement about a new strategic partnership early in January.
In the meantime the entire team wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
We've Upgraded to Captivate 6.0!
Most of our client-base frankly don't give two hoots about the technology we use to make our eLearning. They just care that it is engaging, brilliant and just works.
But there are some closet geeks out there who do wonder what we use. Our primary development toolkit is Adobe Captivate. Well, to be very precise we use the whole Adobe eLearning Suite - but 90% of what we do is in Captivate. Over the last month we've upgraded from Captivate 5.5 to Captivate 6.0. This has some features that allow us to shorten our workflow. In turn this means we can deliver output of the same or better quality more quickly. What's not to like? Well, as with all technical upgrades it turns out that there are some teething issues with version 6.0, so we're still developing in 5.5 for all existing clients until we're 100% satisfied Adobe have solved some glitches with backward compatibility. However, all our new clients starting on a clean slate will now get the benefits of our newest tools!
GuyKat MD named in '42 Under 42'
In a massive 'fail' for our PR department we somehow missed this report from April that our founder Guy McEvoy was named by Insider Media as one of their '42 under 42' for 2012. This annual list identifies 42 people under the age of 42 who are "rising stars" in business in the Midlands. It is thought we didn't notice because we don't subscribe to their paper and they didn't think to tell us. Guy said; "I suppose it's nice to get recognition, even if you don't clock it for six months. I see they're having a gala dinner for this year's list in November. I hope they remember to invite me."
2012 'Most Promising New Business' Awards
We were delighted to be named as finalists in the award for 'Most Promising New Business 2012' presented by the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce at their Annual Gala Dinner at the ICC hosted by Lord Heseltine. We offer our hearty congratulations to 'Soul Tree Wines' who were named the winners, but remain chuffed with our nomination and the team had a good night out!
GuyKat Shortlisted for Top New Business Award
We're delighted to announce that GuyKat Solutions has been shortlisted by Birmingham Chamber of Commerce for the 'Most Promising New Business' 2012 award
The winner will be announced at a Gala Dinner at the ICC, hosted by Lord Hesletine. Five other short-listed businesses from the region will be competing with us for the top spot.
Guy McEvoy said; "It's always nice to get some recognition. We know we're doing well but it's flattering when other people notice. I'm looking forward to a good night and wish the other nominees the best of luck"
The Dinner will take place on 25th April. More info about the awards can be found at the BCofC Website HERE.
GuyKat Solutions Expanding
December 12, 2011 - Guy McEvoy, founder of Guykat Solutions today signed an extension to the companies tenancy at Birmingham Science Park - Aston which included an expansion of the company's physical office space. The company will now relocate to the first floor of Faraday Wharf. Guy said "It's exciting to be growing. We're recruiting and need more space for 2012. We did look elsewhere, but the other places never had quite the same 'feel', 'fit', nor offered the same level of support for a company in our sector. I'm happy we're staying and happy we're growing".
The physical move should be completed by early January. There will be no change to our postal address or phone numbers.
Now Developing in Adobe Captivate 5.5
This week we made the upgrade to the Adobe eLearning suite 2.5. For us, the most significant component of this migration is that it updates our primary development platform from Captivate 5.0 to Captivate 5.5. For our clients the change will be invisible but not irrelevant. Some of the new functionality we gain will improve our development workflows. We gain access to more varied templates to accelerate our story-boarding process with means more time is available to invest in worrying about the all important content over and above aesthetic design.
The migration also means we shift from cleaning our sound and narration via Soundbooth to the Adobe Audition software. What does this mean? Well, a ton of stuff. But all the clients need to know is that this means our voice-overs will still be crystal clear!
GuyKat Coming to America... E-learning DevCon 2011
GuyKat main man, Guy McEvoy, will be flying the flag for the company at this year's eLearning DevCon in Salt Lake City, Utah, from June 15-17.
Guy said, "I'm looking forward to the trip. For me it's a chance to catch up with other developers in the same game and figure out how to get the great tech advances our vendors have released over the last year living in our client's live content."
To find out more about DevCon 2011, click on the logo. If you are going to be in Salt Lake City and fancy meeting Guy for a beer, then fire a message via the contact form or @GuyKat on Twitter.