Having worked for Snell & Wilcox (twice) and having lived in the UK (twice) for a total of thirteen years, I decided that a move back to the UK was not for me when we did the deal to merge the company with Pro-Bel.
Luckily I had plenty of time to plan what to do next — particularly with the delay of our deal — and this gave me the opportunity to create Devoncroft Partners, a consultancy focused on market research and strategic marketing for digital media companies.
I actually officially left S&W at the end of 2008, but because the merger was delayed, they asked me to stay on as a consultant for six months or so. During this time we completed the deal and I worked to re-brand the new company, get to the NAB trade show and manage the company’s marketing department.
Although being a consultant took a bit of getting used to, I enjoy doing it as it frees me to work for multiple companies. Indeed, I have also been working for AmberFin, a leading ingest, transcoding and media management company.
This work has been rewarding, but I was eager to branch out into new areas — the first of which is market research into the perceptions of broadcast technology vendors.
I called this first project the “Big Broadcast Survey” (BBS for short) which is an apt description — almost 5000 people in 110 countries participated in this study, making it the largest of its kind ever undertaken in the broadcast industry.
The information in the BBS is really interesting and the industry reaction has been great. I’ll be posting findings here from time-to-time, so please check back.