Did you used to be one of those kids at school who would have his arm round his work all the time for fear of someone stealing it? Or, were you the kid who happily shared his work with others? How about now, when you get a cool idea, what’s your first instinct? To blog about it or to keep it to yourself? Go on, be honest.

Photo from Flickr by Stuart Pilbrow

If you’re the kind of person who believes there’s enough ideas, resources, business to be won out there that you’re happy to share your cool ideas then you have what’s called the ‘abundance mentality’. On the other hand, if you believe there’s only so much to go around, only so many clients out there to win business from, or only so many good ideas that you want to keep your latest gem as your own, then you have ‘the scarcity mentality.’

A few Meetdraws ago I mentioned that Meetdraw is a great example of the abundance mentality at work. Bournemouth is a fairly small place yet there are maybe 30 digital agencies* here. You’d be forgiven for thinking that there’s only so many clients needing websites in this area, so why would you fraternise with the competition? What possible benefit would there be of talking to other agencies, you might let something slip that loses you competitive advantage.

*wild guess!

The thing is, however groundbreaking your approach is and however unique you feel you are, it is unlikely that the way you work, or what you work on, won’t be replicated elsewhere in the country/world and sooner or later that precious competitive advantage you have will be gone as soon as someone with the abundance mentality happily blogs it and gets the kudos for putting it out there.

Sharing your ideas and your unique techniques is a great way to gain competitive advantage. Clients see you as forward thinking, other agencies respect your ideas, you attract potential employees and stand out as a thought leader. Lets face it, of all those great ideas you’ve had, how many have actually turned into anything? How many have been shelved at the back of your mind as ‘must do one day’ only to never see the light of day again. My advice would be feel the fear and blog it anyway. You’ll be amazed at how liberated you’ll feel.

Sharing your ideas, meeting the competition and getting to know them is a fascinating and enjoyable experience. You can talk about the shared challenges you face, laugh about the client questions you receive and enjoy the experience of meeting likeminded people.  Before Meetdraw started up I was contacted by a ‘competitor’ who asked if we could recommend a good supplier to them. If I had my pessimistic pants on, I would have told him where to go. But thankfully my abundance mentality kicked in and I happily shared the resource. Months later we met at Meetdraw and enjoyed a beer together. Months later again, he called me to see if we could help them out with some usability testing because they were overloaded with other projects. This was the abundance mentality at work.

Put simply, the abundance mentality assumes there’s plenty of work to go around and in my experience actually creates more work for you. The scarcity mentality closes doors, closes minds and limits possibilities. So, stop reading about Meetdraw and shaking your head, and get yourself down there and meet your competitors. Once you do, you’ll realise they are a lot less scary than you thought!

One time, at Bar Camp… hold on, what is Bar Camp anyway?

It’s a free (ticket needed) self-organizing un-conference for anyone interested in the digital and online world. All attendees are encouraged to get involved, either giving a presentation or hosting a discussion.

Starting at 10am Saturday April 10th and going right through to 4pm Sunday at Bournemouth University (main campus)… it’s also got free meat! …thanks to our kind sponsors, the sat evening buffet and Sunday breakfast are included.

Last time there were sessions from the very technical “web 2.0 applications, introducing MVC with the zend framework” to the controversial “designers vs developers – why can’t we get along?” and the off tangent but impressive “how I built a jet engine in my garage”… discussion panels (including: “digital death, what happens when I die?”), lightening talks of 5×5mins and the charity crowd sourced haircut… some attendees carry on overnight, coding and socialising (the bars open till 11pm). More info on #bcbomo2.

The website says all tickets have now gone, but, we reserved a few for meetdraw folks – sign up at barcampbournemouth.org (ignore the reserve list message) we’d love to see you.

Also follow us on twitter for updates @bcbournemouth (#bcbomo2) Hope to see you there!

When I returned home to Dorset from London eight years ago to begin life as a freelancer I was interested to see what the digital industry was like in the South West. I  wanted to get an impression of its maturity and to understand which agencies I might like to work with if the opportunity arose.

On a recent train journey I was playing around on my laptop and came across the original agency list I made back in 2002. It was really interesting not only to see how the list has changed over the years, which companies are still around and how they have matured, but also to see how much the local industry as a whole has evolved and how many more businesses have sprung up over the years.

Local agency list 2002

Local agency list 2010

At the time I was surprised by how many agencies there were in the area but the same time puzzled by the lack of community surrounding it, something completely alien to me having started my career in London. It seemed to be a view shared by others too. With the aid of Wayne Medhurst at Intunet and others we came close to setting something up but alas it never materialised.

In retrospect, I doubt the industry was strong enough at the time to support a regular event and without social tools such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin it would have been almost impossible to spread the word.

With the fifth Meetdraw less than a month away (18th March) It’s great to see how much stronger the local industry now is. Hopefully Meetdraw will continue to grow this year and along with other events such as Bournemouth Barcamp, OpenWeb Southampton, and Dorset Design Forum it’ll help to sustain the community for the forseeable future.

If you represent a local agency and I’ve missed you off the list feel free to add a comment below

Meetdraw 5: So Meety is being held at Bar So on Thursday 18th March from 6:30pm. Everyone is welcome whether you work for an agency, in-house team, freelance or currently studying so please join us for a drink.

Over the last month or so a lot of people have been asking us what’s happening with Meetdraw in 2010. Well ask no longer because I’m about to tell you.

We’ve been freezing our giblets off in the Meet Locker for the last couple of months planning the year ahead as well as putting together a crack team of digital animals to help organise the first event of 2010.

I don’t want to give too much away but sufficed to say there’s some great ideas floating around and I’m sure you won’t be disappointed by Meetdraw5.

I don’t want to rob the team’s thunder so won’t talk any more of Meetdraw5 but thought I’d take this opportunity to share with you the dates for the next 4 events.

Meetdraw 2010 calendar

• Meetdraw5: So Meety – Thursday 18th March
• Meetdraw6: (summer BBQ) - June/July TBC
• Meetdraw7: (student takeover) – Thursday 14th October
• Meetdraw8: Christmas Meetball – Thursday 9th December

Apart from the March event the other dates are subject to change so keep checking back just in case.

So then, Meetdraw has just completed its fourth event but what exactly has come out of these gatherings beyond the consumption of a lot of booze!

Well I’m pleased to report that here in Pixelfish land we have managed to secure the services of a rather talented student from the Meetcounter event in October. As we are the new kids on the block so to speak, we used this as an opportunity to meet and talk to others within the creative digital industry around Bournemouth but also keeping an eye on some of the development talent out there.

I was most impressed when meeting student Chris White, first of all having the initiative to attend such an event rather than playing on an Xbox back in his student pad! Having graduated recently myself I can appreciate the pressures to stay out late and when getting up early means 3pm.

Chris was a breath of fresh air and promptly sent us an email after the event to arrange a meeting over potential work. We took him on for a brief trial and it quickly became apparent that we had a very talented guy at our disposal and with this Chris has become the latest paid up member of the Pixelfish team.

So who exactly is writing this gibberish you are reading? Well it is me, Dan Hinton, co founder of Pixelfish, you can find our home here – www.pixelfishcreative.com. Having started up Pixelfish with Adam Bowen we are keen to do our bit and help put an end to the trend within the creative industries that involves giving unpaid placements to students and graduates.

Meetdraw then, has been the platform for us to enjoy a drink or two with fellow digital creatives but more importantly provide a crucial middle man for meeting freelancers and students out there. It is with this that we owe a big thank you to the head honchos that have organised Meetdraw. It is events like this that will help put Bournemouth on the map as one of the places in the UK to come and work within the creative digital industry.