Blog posts tagged “buto” ¶

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Will Grant, the Technology Director of Buto - an online video platform spun out of Big Button, a corporate video company.

Over the last few years I've switched the direction of the business from making websites (which we no longer do) into focusing on Buto, a 'software as a service' web app which lets organisations upload, manage and measure their web video online.

Day to day it's really varied. I can be working with the development team on features, designing stuff 'hands on' or attending sales meetings with the business development team.  

What was your route into this job?

I was hired by Big Button 4 years ago to run the web team. I was 'head hunted' by a recruitment agency from my public sector role. I'm still not sure how they came across me, but I had been doing a bit of public speaking at the time, so it might well have been that.  

What companies/ organisations are doing really interesting things at the moment?

Hunch.com is just incredible. It's mission is to build a sort of mathematical map of your tastes - so it's able to predict things about you with incredible accuracy. Really smart stuff.

Also GiffGaff, the mobile phone company run by its members. It's owned by the same parent as O2, so I'm not sure how much is marketing spin, but if they're genuine about including members in marketing, strategy, features and support: then it could be a big deal. 

Which tools of the trade could you not do without?

My laptop, Mac OS X actually. It's all about OS X - that's the really cool part. My iPhone gets hammered all day, every day, obviously. TextWrangler is awesome for writing copy or code. The usual stuff, Photoshop, Illustrator. I still do a lot of our UI design, so if I'm "on the tools" it will usually be at a pixel level.

Also our own tools. We build pretty detailed tools for ourselves to use for administering accounts, monitoring systems and so on. It's really important for a web app: get your best guys on your internal tools.

What events might we catch you at?

None. I really should go to more events.

How do you keep up with what’s going on in your industry?

I just read a few blogs every day: again, standard stuff: TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb. I get the most by far from Twitter.

What do you look for in a good portfolio?

There's lots of good portfolios, it's the outstanding ones I'm looking for. I like the ones where the candidate has gone 'above and beyond' and built something in their own time, just for fun. If it's just work stuff that's fine, but if you can show you've put something together just for fun, or just to learn - that's way better.

Describe your office/ workspace decor in five words...

Plain, sparse, really, not, finished.

Have you got a hidden gem you’d like to tell us about? It could be a website, a person or a place.

That's a really hard one. There's a startup called Greplin who aim to be the 'other half' of Google search. They aggregate all your data from Twitter, Facebook, etc and let you search your social content. They're definitely very interesting and it could be a very big deal indeed.

Do you have any recommended resources for people trying to get into your industry?

Everything you need to become a top-grade web developer is on the web already, for free. Google, StackOverflow, Linux, PHP, MySQL - you can learn anything and build anything you like with just determination and focus. Stop thinking about it, go build it.

- Take a look at Buto on Jobplot.