Work

Since 2007, acidlabs has helped its clients build great services and experiences, collaboration and knowledge sharing, deeply engaged communities, vibrant markets, and grown the communication and social business expertise in organisations through focussing on three core values – Conversation. Collaboration. Community.

Based in Canberra, Australia, we work with clients locally, throughout Australia and overseas to identify and resolve issues around service design, experience design, communication, engagement, innovation and knowledge sharing.

Are you feeling some strain in managing hopes and expectations for employing online technology more effectively? Engaging your people and customers? Getting your message across effectively? You’re not alone. CEOs and senior executives, across the spectrum of business, government and non-profit organisations, worldwide, are feeling that strain. Those, that is, who haven’t retreated into a self-defeating, know-nothing Ludditism.

At acidlabs, we don’t promise to take all the strain away. What we do promise is to help you get a better fix on what is happening and what’s possible within whatever organisational and budgetary framework you need to work.

And we promise to work with you and your team to develop strategies, systems and practical approaches to bring your organisation up to speed and allows you to measure progress against industry-standard benchmarks.

We are passionate about helping organisations make effective use of the new technologies and manage intelligently all the cultural, regulatory and other practical implications of the changes involved. You will find we have the knowledge, skills and track record to deliver on that, and in the process to add serious value to your organisation.

What this means is that we can and will help you and your people understand:

the conversation that’s going on – it’s happening online and offline and inside and outside your business. Whether it’s about you, the way your business operates, your brand, your services, your web site and the way people use it, it’s critical you understand it
that collaboration is the way to build a better business – identify and make best use of opportunities in your organisation to collaborate between your people and business units, with your stakeholders and with your customers and clients as a way to boost innovation and improve productivity
that community makes for better business – successful, motivated communities within your organisation, or across and outside the firewall are a more human, more productive and more effective way of driving innovation and motivation

We’ll work with you in a number of ways:

consulting – helping you identify issues that may exist and act on opportunities around your user experience, web and social networking presence, change culture, practices and tools
public speaking and workshops – delivering customised workshops or speaking on user experience, cultural change, and innovative approaches and advice on using social media and collaboration tools
community building – working with your people on making your internal community work better as well as helping you foster and build a community with your clients and stakeholders
mentoring – spending time with you over a longer period, helping you understand the user experience of your site or application, your business culture, and the tools and practices that make up an organisation that works successfully

Specifically, the work we do falls into one of a few areas.

Service and experience design

The experience visitors have when they come to use your application, web site or service is one of the key measures of success for your business. Get it right, and you go a long way to ensuring that success. Get it wrong, and you virtually guarantee that you lose business.

Good experience design, and its sibling, service design can make all the difference. A strategic approach to them can make a big difference. The work we do ranges from big picture strategy around service delivery and experience through to designing detailed wireframes for a new application.

Services acidlabs can provide include:

service design
experience design
usability research, design and testing
information architecture

Collaboration, innovation and knowledge sharing

More and more, it’s becoming obvious that organisations that provide an open architecture for their people to engage with each other and with stakeholders of all types, whether they be customers, suppliers, peers or even competitors, are better equipped to manage change, deliver innovative products and services and provide a stimulating, relevant workplace.

We have worked designing, building and implementing communities that collaborate and share knowledge to improve organisational capacity for many years. We can help your organisation understand, design and create a more open environment where knowledge is shared, collaboration is easier and your people are more motivated by working in a new and inspiring way.

Services acidlabs can provide include:

collaboration strategy, design and implementation
knowledge sharing and knowledge management focussed on people
change management and strategy
design-driven thinking
innovation strategy

Social business

In 2009, business and the public truly felt the impact of social media on their lives. From the growth of Facebook and Twitter to as-it-happens coverage of world events such as the Iran elections and Indian terrorist attacks through social tools.

While many others are simply talking about how amazing social media is, we have been using, working and collaborating with it for many years and have proven expertise in deeply understanding its benefits and helping organisations and individuals use it in the context of their business to create a more social frame of reference for what they do.

Services acidlabs can provide include:

integration of emerging social functions into your business model
understanding of how social business benefits you
training and mentoring on best business use of social tools

Engagement marketing

Not just pushing the latest product off the line, but finding, meeting and really connecting with the people who want your products. An engaged market is an effective market and our strategies can help you really connect with your market in a way you may not have before.

Services acidlabs can provide include:

research on your markets and how to more effectively engage with them
strategy and execution approaches designed to more effectively connect with your markets
training and mentoring on approaching your marketing from an engagement focus

Why not contact us for a no-obligation, exploratory conversation? Let’s see if we can work together so you can stop worrying and get back to working on the things you really want to focus on.

If you’d like to understand a little more about our vision, it probably wouldn’t hurt to understand the way we do things.