2007 Round Up - What Jason Ryan Thinks

What's been your highlight of 2007?

I only joined the company recently, in October, so it's hard to say. Maybe the fact that we have just won a large research project that we pitched for. It was a big decision to leave my previous role as production director. I was with the company for eight years and I really enjoyed my job, so I think personally, the real highlight for me is joining Spannerworks and facing a fresh challenge.

What interests you about the year ahead?

I'm looking forward to growing the user experience practice.  We have a couple of exciting proposals out there for some usability work so I am expecting some of those to come in. Generally I'm very positive about taking the service forward to our clients, and communicating internally what we do. I think it will add a lot of value, looking at ‘user experience’ all the way from search through to website.

There is also something we have been talking about and prototyping here in the last few weeks – which is a way of measuring engagement on a website. We have spoken about it with a few lead clients and have a lot of interest. I'm hoping for big things.

Are you a Christmassy person?

I have two young daughters, so for their sake I have had to shake off the ‘Bah, Humbug!’ image and I actually really enjoy it now. There is nothing in particular on my wish list. I have an iPod Touch already, which is my gadget of the year. Actually, it's arguably the best gadget I have ever had.

Apart from “peace to all”, I wouldn’t mind a new lens for my camera, and this is a great example of network effects. The reason I got a new camera is because of the advice and feedback I received from the community on Flickr.