About Richard Smith, Creative Technologist

I have spent my 17 year career working in a variety of roles, all of which technical to a large degree, both in the UK and internationally. During the last 7 years I have worked for, owned, consulted to and been consulted by, design and marketing agencies.

What do I do?

I work exclusively with a small number of marketing and design agencies in London and the South of England on a consultancy basis. For these agencies I provide tech support and system troubleshooting, search engine marketing, complex web building, pricing/presentation/pitching services and a lots more besides.

One of my key strengths is in winning pitches with agencies, especially for complex sites and digital marketing. A huge on-going benefit to my clients is that I can deliver the areas of the project the agency does not have the internal skills for, allowing them to concentrate on their key strengths and making clear profits.

How do I work?

Like my clients, I charge hourly and I have no minimum or maximum amount of time you may use. If you just need and emergency fix to your clients web app or server for a couple of hours thats fine, or you may want a longer term contract to mirror yours or your clients requirements no worries.

Many people ask if I do speculative work which I'm afraid the answer is no to, unless you are an existing client and have a very specific case.

No portfolio?

I never disclose the agencies I work with either online or verbally. In many cases I work alongside my clients acting as one of their team and whilst I naturally need to promote my own services I don't do so at the detriment of my clients relationship with their clients.

What is a creative technologist?

The term was, as far as I know, coined by Wired in 2008 to describe a new type of 'techie' who goes one step further than the code to think up and implement innovative solutions to internet business requirements. A better description than I can come up with can be found here.