GETTING AWAY WITH IT 06/04/2005

Effective mobile working is all about choosing the right technology, and taking control of your working methods, as Sandra Vogel discovered when she spoke to top designer Wayne Hemingway

Hemingway Design is involved in a large number of design projects at any one time. While the company has an office in London, its projects are located around the UK and beyond, and projects can require the presence of company founders Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway for considerable lengths of time. In fact, they rarely manage to spend as much as one day a week in their main London office.

For a business as mobile as Hemingway Design to function, several vital ingredients need to be brought together. The ability to work from multiple locations, especially while travelling between locations, is crucial. Business communication is increasingly electronic and, for Hemingway Design, the emphasis is on email, and sharing large data files, such as images and design documents, between people involved in a project is key. So technology is required to access voice as well as data networks on the move, as well as in a number of fixed locations. Add to this the need to view, manipulate, generate, exchange and generally manage documents and suddenly it is possible to see that technology for the Hemingways needs to be flexible and user friendly.

The work situation for the Hemingways is underpinned by their desire to maintain a normal family life. This means ensuring the working day stays contained, and does not spill into vital family time. The technologies used need to squeeze as much as possible out of the time in a working day. Finally, technology is a tool not a hobby for this business, so any technology used is an enabler, not an end in itself, and has to be reliable.

TAKING CONTROL
Taken together, these factors combine to create a situation in which working life is spread over a wide spatial area, is always hectic and busy, and needs to be controlled in order to ensure maximum productivity, efficiency and control. Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway use technology in different and very specific ways to enable this situation, as Wayne Hemingway explains: “When we sold Red or Dead, our designer clothing company, in the late 1990s, we had built up a staff of more than a hundred people. The business had become quite bureaucratic, and I really wanted to get away from that with Hemingway Design.

Hemingway Design

“I also had a feeling that I had been missing out on opportunities because of the role of my PA. Not because she was bad – in fact, she was very good at her job and remains a personal friend. It was more that she had to make decisions on my behalf, and sometimes it is inevitable that I might have made those decisions differently. Also, having someone else involved in managing my diary – and my time – meant I was never quite sure what was going on, never quite fully in control of my time.“ These things, and the need Gerardine and I had to make best use of our time really led me into technology. But when I came to it, I was not technology-literate at all, and had to learn about the options available and also how to use what I chose. I wanted technology as a tool, not as a fancy add-on.

THREE-FOR-ALL
“So now, my technology is really about three things. I use a Nokia Communicator to manage my diary, manage faxes and make phone calls. I find the Communicator is great because it is easy to carry when I don’t want to cart a laptop around, and yet it has a keyboard and everything I need by way of diary and contact information onboard. “I use a Sony Vaio laptop for day-to-day computing work. This has a large screen, which means I can see designs and complex drawings properly. I use this to connect to a network server, which has thousands of images that we use within the company for
inspiration, and it also carries a lot of material on its large hard drive, to show presentations and to work through ideas with clients.

“The VAIO is my email computer too, and I have a Vodafone Mobile Connect 3G datacard to use email while on the move, as well as having an account with BT Openworld. This is great. But I only do email at the start and the end of the day, when I am travelling to and from work.“People that email the office get through directly to me, and get replies from me – there’s no gatekeeper in place. That means I can manage my own diary, decide which things I will get involved with, and deal directly with people. But it means I have to be disciplined about doing email regularly, and I have to take responsibility for fulfilling commitments I make with my time. Ultimately, it is me that takes the blame if I over commit.”

The Wi-Fi Tee-Pee

For Wayne Hemingway, mobile working doesn’t necessarily have to mean working away from office or home, as he explains: “I love the outdoors, and to be in touch with the environment. So I have set up an outdoor workspace at home on the south coast, which has electricity fitted, as well as being a wireless networked space. I can take my laptop there to work, and can use scanners and printers if I need to, but still be in touch with the environment outside my home. There is a similar space at the London office – a garden with wireless networking, so we can work outside on nice days.”

UP AND RUNNING
For Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway, technology has a clear, well-defined set of roles within the workplace and is a real enabler. “Using technology is all about letting me control my time better,” he says, “The business can only work as well as it does if we are all really strict with our time and manage it carefully.”

In the process of adopting IT in this way, Hemingway Design has become a paperless environment. “People know that if they don’t communicate with us electronically, they will have a long wait for a reply,” Wayne explains. “I just spend too much time on the road to deal with paper communications, and with the technologies I use, paper is just a time-wasting, resource-wasting system that’s a lot less effi cient than email.” What about the future? “Well, I think I’m using technology pretty much as I want it at the moment. I shifted from GPRS to 3G because the new technology was faster, but I always have my working needs in mind – I’m never going to start using a new technology just because it is new. It needs to offer a clear business benefit over what I already have in place.

ABOUT HEMINGWAY DESIGN

Hemingway Design is run jointly by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway. Together they are involved in design projects across a wide range of areas from products for the home like the Bug digital radio and Ewbank carpet sweepers, to interiors, urban regeneration and social housing schemes. Current major projects include involvement in developing the 800-home Staiths South Bank for George Wimpey in Gateshead, affordable apartments in Manchester and the regeneration of Skelmersdale in Lancashire and Whitehaven in Cumbria.

?? Mobile access to email means travelling time is put to good business use

?? As laptops are the preferred computing tool, the office travels wherever it is needed

?? Constant access to communications technologies means there is no need for a PA and Wayne Hemingway controls his own diary. This in turn this means decisions are often made quickly, and the business can move forward at speed.