Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Titford Canal
It seems ages since i last did a proper canal walk, actually it is getting on for 4-5 months! Today i revisited the Titford Canal which i last paid a brief visit to last year on the end of my epic journey from Wednesbury to Oldbury. I went up as far as Uncle Ben's Bridge though found no rice. Once you get to the top lock you are at the highest point in the Birmingham Canal Navigations don't you know? Anyway the full photo set is here.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Winter along the canal
I've been unwell the last week or so but feel better today and didn't really feel the cold (which is usual for me) so i took some photos along the canal to show just how cold it is. The canal is frozen over as you can see!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Open Day QR Experiment
Originally posted on my work blog, this details how my QR experiment went.
Our QR Project is one we have just run during the Open Days to explore the usage of Quick Response (QR) codes. This report will detail why, how and what happened.
Why
I first had the idea of using QR codes when reading on article on how to create them in the Summer. I was surprised how easy it was to create them using a plethora of free tools so decided the University should try them out in a real-world marketing exercise to see how useful they could be and if they had potential for use in our marketing efforts in general.
The Open Days in October seemed an ideal opportunity to test out the codes and i had the idea of “self-serve info points”, codes dotted around the campus that visitors could scan to find out more about the location they were at.
How
Creating the codes was easy, i used one of the many free generators but the more involved part was in what the codes would contain. I decided early on that the codes should contain custom URLs to information pages not contain the information themselves. This would allow for much more information to be presented to the visitor and would offer a way of counting just how many people had used the things.
After some early experiments with pages created on our older CMS i reverted to using a Posterous blog for the pages, mainly because we do not have a stylesheet as yet that is suitable for small screen resolutions and Posterous comes with a good one.
Counting visitors was a problem however. Although i set up Google Analytics on the custom blog not all visitors on my early tests were being counted, not all phone browsers run the Javascript needed for Google to be able to count them. My solution to this was to create custom bit.ly links for each QR encoded page (an example), these visits were counted in field tests on a number of phones especially my own c510 which didn’t show up on Google. A side benefit of using bit.ly links was that the urls were shorter and this made the generated QR codes simpler which may have had an effect on readability.
The codes were printed on posters along with a help url (also bit.ly encoded for ease of entry) for people to visit if they wanted more information and to download a QR reader though this help page seems to have been little used as a direct link.
Just before the Open Day the use of QR codes was high-lighted in a news release and also on the Open Day page on the website though more and earlier publicity probably should have been sought.
What
On the day i travelled around City North Campus putting up my codes, i probably should have done a reconnaissance before the Open Day really and decided beforehand where to put the posters as some locations proved tricker than others to think of the best places to put up the posters. Automatic sliding doors were also a pain!
Although personally i did not see anyone use the codes several colleagues did tell me they had seen visitors (and university staff) try the codes. Usage was not that heavy as detailed below but was reasonable especially on the Friday. That was a normal university day with a lot more people around so it would be expected that that would be the busier day.
Table 1 : bit.ly counted visits to QR pages
Some people were aware of what the codes were but did not try them and of course we should remember that although QR codes have been commonplace in places like Japan for years they are fairly new here. Google Analytics page counts were higher for the pages though, stats available on request.
Lessons have been learned from this first test as will be discussed in a later post.
Our QR Project is one we have just run during the Open Days to explore the usage of Quick Response (QR) codes. This report will detail why, how and what happened.
Why
I first had the idea of using QR codes when reading on article on how to create them in the Summer. I was surprised how easy it was to create them using a plethora of free tools so decided the University should try them out in a real-world marketing exercise to see how useful they could be and if they had potential for use in our marketing efforts in general.
The Open Days in October seemed an ideal opportunity to test out the codes and i had the idea of “self-serve info points”, codes dotted around the campus that visitors could scan to find out more about the location they were at.
How
Creating the codes was easy, i used one of the many free generators but the more involved part was in what the codes would contain. I decided early on that the codes should contain custom URLs to information pages not contain the information themselves. This would allow for much more information to be presented to the visitor and would offer a way of counting just how many people had used the things.
After some early experiments with pages created on our older CMS i reverted to using a Posterous blog for the pages, mainly because we do not have a stylesheet as yet that is suitable for small screen resolutions and Posterous comes with a good one.
Counting visitors was a problem however. Although i set up Google Analytics on the custom blog not all visitors on my early tests were being counted, not all phone browsers run the Javascript needed for Google to be able to count them. My solution to this was to create custom bit.ly links for each QR encoded page (an example), these visits were counted in field tests on a number of phones especially my own c510 which didn’t show up on Google. A side benefit of using bit.ly links was that the urls were shorter and this made the generated QR codes simpler which may have had an effect on readability.
The codes were printed on posters along with a help url (also bit.ly encoded for ease of entry) for people to visit if they wanted more information and to download a QR reader though this help page seems to have been little used as a direct link.
Just before the Open Day the use of QR codes was high-lighted in a news release and also on the Open Day page on the website though more and earlier publicity probably should have been sought.
What
On the day i travelled around City North Campus putting up my codes, i probably should have done a reconnaissance before the Open Day really and decided beforehand where to put the posters as some locations proved tricker than others to think of the best places to put up the posters. Automatic sliding doors were also a pain!
Although personally i did not see anyone use the codes several colleagues did tell me they had seen visitors (and university staff) try the codes. Usage was not that heavy as detailed below but was reasonable especially on the Friday. That was a normal university day with a lot more people around so it would be expected that that would be the busier day.
| Page | Fri 8 Oct | Sat 9 Oct |
|---|---|---|
| Attwood | 1 | 2 |
| Baker | 5 | 1 |
| Dawson | 3 | 1 |
| Edge | 1 | 0 |
| Kenrick | 4 | 0 |
| S Union | 4 | 2 |
| Sports Centre | 6 | 1 |
| Total | 24 | 7 |
Some people were aware of what the codes were but did not try them and of course we should remember that although QR codes have been commonplace in places like Japan for years they are fairly new here. Google Analytics page counts were higher for the pages though, stats available on request.
Lessons have been learned from this first test as will be discussed in a later post.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tame Valley Canal on a DSLR
Having a play around... i mean learning how to use... the work Digital SLR (Sony DSLR-A200) i took these photos along the Tame Valley canal this lunchtime.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
From Bodymoor Heath Bridge to Marston Field Bridge
I haven't been on a canal walk for a few weeks so this morning I returned to Bodymoor Heath up by Kingsbury Water Park this misty morning but this time headed along the towpath of the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal in the other direction and went up as far as Marston Field Bridge. And here are the photos.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Wyrley and Essington 25/09/10
This morning i headed up to Brownhills for my second trip to the Wyrley & Essington Canal, this time i went in the other direction in the direction of Cannock and so on. Of course i took many pics, the water of this canal is quite clear and on a sunny day like today you get some great reflections.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
A journey around the Black Country
Up until most most of my canal walking have been in the East of Birmingham so i decided it was high time i went out to the (wild?) West. I started off going along the Wednesbury Old Canal from Belper Bridge to Pudding Green Junction. Then along the Birmingham New Main Line to Albion Junction where i went the full length of the Gower Branch Canal (its only a short canal). Then i went along the Birmingham Old Main Line to Oldbury Junction. Finally a short stretch of the Titford Canal. And now i need a rest!
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