Jerome Wilson

"But we just need something simple..." 👀 Famous last words before a software project spirals out of control! Here's what REALLY needs to happen before you kick off that bespoke software project: Define your ACTUAL problem 🎯 Not just "we need an app" - but what's genuinely broken? What's costing you money? What's making your team curse under their breath? Map your current process 📝 Even the ugly parts. Especially the workarounds Including Sharon's special spreadsheet that somehow keeps everything running Think 5 years ahead 🔮 How fast are you growing? What might change? Who needs to use this system? Get real about hidden costs 💰 Ongoing maintenance. Training time. Integration headaches. Future changes. Support costs Talk to your ACTUAL users 🗣️ Because Karen in accounts does things differently than what your management thinks happens... trust me 😅 The truth? A good bespoke software project starts way before the first line of code. Skip these steps and you'll join the "it seemed simple at first" club - and trust me, nobody wants to be in that club! 🙈 Want to avoid the common pitfalls of custom software development? Let's chat! #SoftwareDevelopment #BusinessSoftware #CTO

26

7 Comments

When people ask me why I got into dev, I always say "well, it all started with a crazy idea". That's pretty much the ethos that I go by with everything I do; in fact the best projects I work on are the ones where the client says "well, I'm not even sure this is possible, but...". So yes, we do the standard stuff like eCommerce and databases, but we also do some really interesting stuff with connectivity, AI intergration, and interactive elements that people didn't even know were possible until they see it for the first time. No matter how big or small, it always starts with that one idea, that one feeling that gives you the urge to reach out and see what's possible. Now you've got that idea, let us help you put the rest of the pieces together to create something really cool: [email protected] #TechSupport #WebDevelopment #webdev #plugins #customdev #anythingispossible

2

1 Comment

What is the used car market telling you about the average consumer? Not good news. What's worse? copper, wheat and all commodity prices are soaring which makes making products even more expensive whilst borrowing costs are incredibly high pinching the consumer that is increasingly relying on credit cards to get by. So if your company is getting into cost cutting measures you should know why it is important. Without your support there is no way we can get past this slump. Let's cut waste, improve collaboration within teams, improve throughout and remember its not about the effort but about the results. We win together and lose together. https://lnkd.in/gAVUEZmJ

4

World EV Day ⚡🔋 EV Car registrations continuing to grow, as of the end of August 2024 there are 1,212,866 fully electric cars in the UK (YTD). An increase of 234,479 compared to 2023 🙌. The EV Charging Infrastructure continues to grow with 68,273 EV Charging Points across the UK. 20,000 new charging points installed since August 2023. Things we love to see 🌎 Data courtesy of Zapmap.

4

Data is so often the ‘fuel’ for new ways of working, but can be tricky to design and govern. Considering data strategy early with experts like Bill Wilson and Ian McVicar can really accelerate your transformations. Feel free to ping me if you’d like an introduction.

6

App Developer Needed........ We need to construct an internal app and am looking to find someone to implement for us. I know with enough YouTube tutorials and time I could likely tackle this myself, but I do not have time at the moment and I already spend too much time infront of a computer! I would see this as a project that we shall scale, but initially I need something that asks roughly 10 questions and requests uploads of 10-12 hi res photographs and send all the information to a portal we can access. We have Microsoft Teams etc, so if it could link in there that would be great. Ideally, we would also like a separate section where we can share the date with other users once verified and rationalised. I don’t see this as a massive project and I guess I could get someone on fiver to help, but it would be nice to form a relationship with a real person that we can properly interact with to get it right. As we scale our business we need to gather and share information internally much faster and more efficiently and this is the start of that. If you can help, know someone or suggest an off the peg solution please let me know. 

23

28 Comments

I've made this point before but it's becoming more and more stark. The people that should be dominating platforms like this are the people with the real hard skills to code, develop and implement solutions. Instead it's dominated by relentless strategy and sales conferences, posts , talks and forums. Never has the true tech engineer role been more diminished at a time when they are truly the only ones that can make the change happen. it's oddly unique to tech roles as well. It's like having a team of trained qualified architects and engineers but instead of them discussing their problems they send the marketing team out to find out what everyone else is doing. If I'm down for heart surgery I want to talk to the surgeon , the anesthetist , the senior nurse. Not the finance team. I'm not dismissing the finance team but the ones I want best informed and strategizing are the product owners and engineers. Firms with a defined tech product at their core need to be driven by the software engineers with finance , marketing , HR reporting into them. Then you become truly tech and innovation led.

9

4 Comments

WHEN THE MEDIA ASK YOU A SERIES OF SEARCHING QUESTIONS ABOUT FLATDOT'S 5 YEARS TO HELP US CELEBRATE... It's a bit like populating the details of your CV in a 2 page document to have to think back and recall questions like "your biggest challenges?" Given where we are in 2024 with AI and other changes, the SEO landscape is constantly evolving which provides a challenge to all SEO professionals. We understand how to stay on top of these developments but the most important aspect is being transparent with clients on what this means to their performance. Another challenging moment for us was a pivotal one...boxing clever and collaborating with other experts to provide additional skills around technical SEO and planning ROI-driven content strategies. The above has enabled us to immerse ourselves within a client's technical business to make sure we understand how their customers search for their products or services. Will forward details of the full interview when complete. #SEO #manufacturing #knowsley

19

A QA engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 99999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a ueicbksjdhd. First real customer walks in and asks where the bathroom is. The bar bursts into flames, killing everyone. A QA engineer walks into a bar, WITH a team of QA AI agents. Asks AI agents to test the app while drinking an ice-cold Modelo Especial. Trained AI agents order X factor of Y elements in Z universes, in parallel using customer behavior data to identify common patterns in the test coverage. The QA engineer keeps drinking and curates the strategy. Real customer walks in, and shares a Modelo with the QA engineer. Lessons: 1. AI is here to help QAs, not just replace them 2. Modelo Especial es muy deliciosa y refrescante

32

1 Comment

So I've decided to start updating the Wordpress blog that I started at university. This is going to be a weekly thing now, to keep upto date on what I'm doing both as a musician and as a software developer, and where the two overlap! So for those who are interested, here's the latest blog-post!

7

3 Comments

Surely a big step in supporting the used EV market, from the trusted remarketing graders out there.

3

I've spent the last 2 years at Standd putting agent based ai systems into production. As part of that journey I've migrated to almost exclusively coding using agents. Less than 10% of my day is in an editor the rest is bouncing between aider on sonnet 3.5 or o1 depending on the task and Claude web as a thought partner. If you're using cursor or not using AI at all and wonder when would be a good moment to try agent based coding these systems are at their best when making a small thing. Think under 500 lines. Self contained. Even better when it's in tech you aren't fluent in day to day. I wish I had a script that did x. Boom now you do. A common task that looks like this is GitHub actions workflows. If there are things you wish your ci stack did or checked that's the moment to see if the agent could kick out a new workflow. There are so many little patterns and tricks I've learned to stretch these machines out of that sweet spot. but this is a good place to start.

35

5 Comments