The Q&A is your chance to tell us what you think about working in digital media. Everybody can take part � just go to www.surveyshack.com to fill in the questionnaire.

James Maltby, Thoughtbubble Ltd (www.thoughtbubble.net), james.m (A) thoughtbubble.net

August 2003

1. What does your business do?
   Thoughtbubble is a full service web agency.
   
   
2. What's currently hot for your business?
   As far as mediums go the web is still warm, WAP is getting hotter, 3G and WebTV are positively smoking. Software wise Macromedia seem to be cooking on all four rings with their new MX range. E-marketing wise you could cook a few sausages with the demand for email/viral campaigns. Issue wise accessibility is white hot at the moment.
   
   
3. What's not?
   How long have you got?
   
   
4. How long have you worked in digital media?
   Since the Internet was black and white and had no sound... 1993.
   
   
5. What's been the high point?
   The halcion days before the new media bubble burst and you could earn enough to buy the moon for coding simple html.
   
   
6. Any regrets?
   Not buying shares in Allaire before they were bought by Macromedia.
   
   
7. Best digital marketing / advertising campaign you've seen recently?
   I'm a big cynic, but the last good campaign I've seen has been for 118 118.
   
   
8. What websites help you most in your job?
   Google (www.google.com), Clickz (www.clickz.com), Revolution (www.revolutionmagazine.com), NMA (www.newmediazero.com), BIMA (www.bima.co.uk), CIM (www.cim.co.uk), IoD (www.iod.com), NMK (www.nmk.co.uk) and Macromedia (www.macromedia.com).
   
   
9. What websites distract you most when you should be working?
   Mostly those that are emailed to me by friends, www.Rathergood.com (love those viking kittens) and www.funjunkie.co.uk (from those fun kids at e-mango).
   
   
10. Have you got a personal site or blog?
    I will have very soon: www.newmediarage.com.
    
    
11. Most useful application or software that you use?
    Outlook.
    
    
12. Best advice you've been given about working in this industry?
    I've received so much wisdom over the years that it's hard to choose. A couple of my favourites include: "Freelancers should be like Victorian children - seen but not heard" when I was freelancing, "When you bill someone think of a number and time it by four" when I was contracting and (my favourite) "A bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing..."
    
    
13. What, if anything, should the Government be doing to help digital media companies?
    At the moment the Government are doing a pretty good job, with tax breaks and leading the way in the accessibility drive. I'd like to see more incentives for e-commerce, training grants and establishing web standards in our industry. Not that they're not doing any of the above, it just that I'd like to see more of it.
    
    
14. Most annoying jargon used in digital media?
    �Solution� (been weaned off that one) and �sticky� are both pretty annoying!
    
    
15. Any bad things about your line of work?
    The three main ones are...
    1) Business still sees the web as predominately a marketing tool and not an extension of their core business practice.
    2) Cowboy coders who overcharge and give us all a bad name - hence the need for some form of industry wide standardisation.
    3) The constant, never ending, need to update software and hardware - we are a medium led industry where technology is the dictator.
    
    
16. What's playing on your ipod?
    Kings of Leon and over 2,000 other rock songs.
    
    
17. What's the next big thing in digital media?
    WebTV - or so I've been told. Mobile techs in general will do well over the next few months too (3G - PDAs - anything wireless or bluetoothed).
    
    
18. If you didn't work in this industry, what would you do?
    Write or Farm. Maybe farm writers?
    
    
19. Anything else you'd like to say?
    I'd like to thank everyone at Thoughtbubble for making it a company I like working for.