About MakeMode
What We Do
MakeMode invents and designs web-services designed around problems people face in our everyday world. We work with our partners and associates to design simple services and engender user cultures that become extensions of the people that use them; that enable people to transform themselves, their work, their companies and their daily life.
We're part of The Digital Health Service which means our principles are:
- to reduce user's stress
- increase user's well-being
- increase user's productivity
- increase user's work/life balance
Through this lens we design holistic, user-focused solutions.
People
MakeMode is made up of a group of members, associates and partners who work fluidly within each project. Here's an intro to a selection of our core people:
Gavin O'Carroll - Creative Director
Gavin O’Carroll is an interactive media designer and creative entrepreneur. Gavin recently became a NESTA Creative Pioneer for MakeMode and won NESTA seed-funding to develop Rememble.com; a new type of media-sharing web service.
Before MakeMode, Gavin has been involved in new media in education for the BBC's 21st Century Classroom, Futurelab and Demos. Most recently he has worked as a graphic and web designer with ThinkFarm Branding and Design Agency on brands such as Scottish Media Group, The Listen Charity, ICAP Brokers and Hotwire PR. He is a speaker on emerging digital trends; most recently at the ICA.
Gavin graduated with Distinction from Masters in Interactive Media from the London College of Communication, where he specialised in interaction design, user-research, conceptual models and non-linear narrative. He is now a visiting tutor at LCC through the University of the Arts London where he runs his own particular flavour of interaction design workshops.
Nina Gritzke - Projects Director
Nina Gritzke has been involved with MakeMode in a marketing role since 2007, and now takes the reigns as Projects Director. She also develops communications for Concentrate and has worked on the audience development of The Women's Library. Before Nina worked at a diversity project at the website from EMMA Media Online and on environmental and cultural projects and seminars at AGfJ in Hamburg. Nina graduated with distinction from Bachelor in Anthropology and Gender Studies from the Humboldt University Berlin, where she specialised in communications.
Associates
Dr Daniele Turi - Technical Consultant and Web Technology Expert
Dr Daniele Turi is the director and co-founder of LikeCube Ltd, where he is responsible for the development of novel semantic search and recommendation technologies. Daniele has years of international experience in the semantic web (Manchester University) and the semantics of programming languages (Universities of Edinburgh, Amsterdam, and Pisa). Daniele holds a doctorate in theoretical computer science from the Free University, Amsterdam.
Charlie Davies - Communications and Communities Consultant
Charlie Davies is a writer and consultant who specialises in communications and community campaigns. He founded the Pick Me Up online magazine (www.putmedown.com) and recently worked on developing The Nag, an environmental campaign for lazy people (www.thenag.net). He worked fulltime as a journalist for five years (including two years as Features Editor at The Face magazine). Now he specialises in developing communications strategy for start-ups, small businesses and creative and environmental organisations. In the past he has worked for the BBC, Demos, the Ideo design agency, the Kaospilots School of Social Entrepreneurs, DCMS, the ICA and Transition Town Brighton.
Matt Weston - Social-Business Design Strategist
Matt comes up with ideas for new projects for businesses and works out if they are viable or not. If they are, he works to attract the money, knowledge, design, space and people in order to make them happen.
Right now, he's mostly working on city / urban design projects, such as Slack Space Brighton- a movement he started with Charlie Davies (ex- Features Editor at The Face) to put new projects into unused, empty, missing buildings (and have everybody happy about it); a regeneration project around New England House- a brutalist building in central Brighton that houses many of the city's creative / startup projects; a Startup School (with Phil Jones, Wired Sussex)- a homage to stuff like Y Combinator, Howies' DO Lectures, Bauhaus, KaosPilots, etc; and Likemind Brighton- a self-organising, creative network.
Currently / recently he's working / worked with public (eg UnLtd, Make Your Mark), semi-public (Wired Sussex, The Werks) and private organisations (Last.fm, Mint Digital). Mostly business & creative project design- but also other stuff, like event design, and idea development for tv.
In the past, Matt set-up smallbusiness.co.uk and raised six-figure investment from the likes of Lloyds TSB and Microsoft. He then founded the quite successful and very well loved Business Bricks website: funded entirely by reader donations (and a big contract with Google).
Robert Bau - Associate: Brand & Design Strategist
Robert Bau is a senior, 360-degree brand & design strategist that divides his time between consulting, lecturing, teaching and writing. He lives in London but works all over Europe on a consultancy basis for a wide range of client organisations, including blue-chip companies, NPOs, creative consultancies, and start-ups.
Robert develops market research strategies, brand strategies, brand portfolio strategies, innovation strategies, marketing strategies, segmentation strategies, marcom strategies, creative/design briefs, and innovation-related processes, methods and tools. He also conducts strategic research, such as brand portfolio, customer experience and visual identity audits.
Furthermore, Robert is a popular lecturer and speaker at universities, university colleges, business schools, design schools, and conferences in Sweden, Spain, Ireland and the UK. Target audiences include marketing professionals, designers, design students, and business students.
Robert holds an MBA Design Management from the University of Westminster in London and an MSc in Business Administration and Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics. He also holds a diploma in Art Direction from Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm.
Robert is virtually bi-lingual (Swedish and English) – born in Sweden, raised in the US, and educated in the US, Sweden and the UK. Workwise, he has been based in Stockholm, London, Budapest, Stockholm and London (in chronological order).