Another significant milestone today. Feeding Edge Ltd is now two years old. It is something I am extremely proud about and when I reflect back on this year it has been so varied, there have been some challenges but the worst of those have been resolved. For the most part it has been such an entertaining and stimulating year its hard to think of it all packed into 12 months.

(When I added the second flame from last years I used Photoshop CS5 puppet warp on the flames, its amazing, it puts a mesh over the part of the image and you edit it like a 3d mesh would)
A year ago I could not have imagined where I am at today. The diversity of which would not have really fitted into any other company. The ability to go with the flow, trust in serendipty and gut feeling has been incredibly useful. If companies let the creativity of their employees flow, rather than focus on control and crackdown then I am sure we would be be generating some fantastic innovations and growth in business. Though, selfishly, if everyone does that then it makes it much harder for me.

So this year I have a few sparklers (though some customer names and projects are not public)

The ultimate highlights though have to be.

The games company is a mix of having to architect design and direct some development and is very much hands on with the technology. The concept for our first product still amazes me and I am very proud of it. With a bit of luck we will get bigger very soon and we can deliver an even more amazing rendition of the concept, but to my partners in all this I say a huge thank you. I want to write more about what we are doing, but now is not the time or place. I still have a stack of code to write, but my coding partner out there is doing some awesome work making sense of the ideas we come up with for implementation.
The Cool Stuff Collective has been an amazing journey too from the first conversation about being a technical advisor to being thrown into the studio to present, and now mid way through series 2 yesterday I was out with the crew filming at the Pure Tech racing simulators then dashing down to Intech hands on science centre. Being able to inspire or interest the next generation of techies, and maybe reach some of their parents with tech that is already here but seems like science fiction has been an incredible honour.
Look at the list of things we have covered

3d Printing, Haptics, Ardrone, 3d scanning, MMO Lego, AR, Kinect, Mind control, SMARt tables, eReaders, 3D cameras and glasses, Unity3d/evolver games dev, Cloud Computing, Wikipedia, Photoshop, Laser Holographic projection….
To come is Solar Flares, Opensim and the outside video we have now done indoor skydiving, indoor snowboarding, Racing simulators, science gadgets and planetarium.
So I have ended up on wikipedia and have over 20 TV records under my belt now. I have a showreel of sorts with its own page here and my new business cards say amongst the blurb TV Presenter. (I think that’s valid now isn’t it?)
When people ask what it is I do and what Feeding Edge does, I think this does all some up in “Taking a bite out of technology so you don’t have to”.
I think that because pushing things forward, thinking of the whole not just design not just tech but the social implications of it, but mashing in the fact that things should entertain and engage us as humans is my mission.
So what does next year bring? Well for me more of the same is the answer.
I am asked how I have time to do all the things I do. The answer is I don’t. Sometimes things have to slide a bit. Whilst many things seem diverse they are linked. I play games, looking at them for review, to spot trends, to see how things might be used in other gamification contexts and for enjoyment. Then I write about them, present about them and even build them. It’s all part of the flow. The same goes for the other emerging tech. If you are interesting in 3d virtual worlds, then naturally how to create 3d content, how to experience 3d content and how to use 3d environment to reach an audience becomes part of everyday life.
Then there is the social media side of things. I tweet, blog, share photos on flicker, put game achievements up on facebook and raptr. It is both a personal sharing of whats goidn on to those who need to know or are curious, but it is also a social experiment in how it feels to do these things and the impact it has on my life. Having that personal experience lets me share it with others and with companies and get them to the good part of this communication revolution rather than stagnating.
People I know often say to me they only understand 1/3 of my tweets. That is great as probably the 1/3 was for their benefit the other 2/3 for others. Mixing busines, social, tech and existence on one channel in 140 characters is still fascinating. It is a microcosm of the whole of what I do with Feeding Edge.
So to all my customers, partners, competitors, friends, mentors and fellow virtual world evangelists I say a huge thank you for all your support.
Right, back to it, now what was I do again?

Today it is 1 year since Feeding Edge started to take a bite out of technology so you don’t have to.

I have to say that my first year as an entrepreneur not and intrapreneur has been quite learning experience, though at the same time a familiar one.
There have been lots of interesting meetings and conversations, ideas for projects, requests for help. There has been an awful lot of doing things that needed doing without an obvious and direct payback. Out here in entrepreneur country relationships and helping one another is even more important than in corporate life.
Equally out here you are not a role or a professions. You are whatever you need to do, whatever you feel you can do, you just get on and do it.
The things I have done have crossed many technical platforms and boundaries, much of it cant be shared (which is a pity). Everyday brings a new challenge, whether that is having an idea and seeing if it is possible or talking to people and providing some insight and support to discussing funding of a project.
Do I miss the corporate life? Well after 20 years its hard not to be institutionalised. I miss the good people I worked with, the things we did that mattered in spite of those that had their own more selfish and closed agenda. We all need flags to rally around, I now have Feeding Edge, for which I have a comfortable affinity for and a multitude of projects, customers and collaborations that orbit it.
I miss the paycheck, a known entity every month, and without my wife’s support whilst we build the business and the various revenues streams (listen to me! revenue streams ) then this year would not have been possible.
A huge thankyou goes out to all the people who have offered support, talked to me, asked for help and suggested projects.
To all my fellow metaverse evangelists we still have a way to go, but I think we can get where we need everyone to go
I figure whatever you do you always “work” for someone or something. Family, a cause, a team, shareholders. Finding the thing that sparks your brain, makes you feel engaged an interested really is the key. I have always loved what I do and that’s not changed.
So onward and upward
If you need me just come and say hello, wherever or however suits.
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epredator potato in Second Life
epredator [at] feedingedge.co.uk
etc. etc.