Seed Brand Communications

Based in a converted piggery near Penzance, Seed was set up in 2006 by four friends with backgrounds in multinational ad agencies.

Looking for quality of life and  a new way of working and living, they saw starting their own business in Cornwall as a refreshing challenge.

Partner Wayne Deakin says ‘Through using ICT and flexible working arrangements effectively, it’s easy to provide a top class service to design clients nationwide from Cornwall as well as reduce our business carbon footprint.”

Together with Matthew Rogers, Mark Humphreys and Suzanne Briggs, Wayne now enjoys a better work life balance, with the flexibility to work whenever creative inspiration hits.

‘For example, this morning I had a mad idea for some packaging we are working on at 6am, so I got up, developed it and uploaded it to our server right away through remote internet access and my partner can look at it later.’

Wayne continues: ‘We have a Virtual Private Network on which we use a project management tool, so the four of us can work from wherever we happen to be if we are working on the move.. We also ask clients to log into the VPN to download design files as it is faster than email.

‘We all use Apple Macs, which are ideal for  mobile working. We frequently use WiFi hotspots so we can keep working on the move  if we are travelling to and from client meetings, increasing productivity.  We use the application iChat, which means that we can communicate with each other and, for example, I could scribble down an idea and show it to my partners over the webcam and discuss it in real time, even though we may all be in different locations. For impromptu chats clients can video conference with us using Apple's iChat - which can save us a lot of travelling time, and it's so much better than using the phone.’

‘Through making effective use of broadband and ICT, we are able to live in a remote corner of Cornwall and use remote internet access to work to the same standard as we would have done in a multinational agency in a city location.

‘As a  team, we are strongly committed to sustainability and flexible working in this way through ICT is also a highly sustainable way to work, reducing our impact on the environment and our business carbon footprint,

‘Broadband and ICT have opened up the possibility of a whole new way of flexible  working and living for us, increasing productivity and improving the work life balance.

www.seedbrand.co.uk