Tag : Skype

We're delighted to be able to announce that Skype in the workspace – the new platform for small businesses and entrepreneurs – is opening its doors to the public. 

The free-to-use service makes use of the huge network already offered by Skype, allowing millions of small businesses to promote their products and services to new networks and connections. Members can improve existing connections and establish new ones by instantly sending messages and talking to or meeting face-to-face with peers and business prospects over Skype.

Ural Cebeci, Head of SMB Marketing at Skype, said:

It's been a really exciting year: working with Made by Many to develop the idea for the service; speaking with customers to understand their needs; iterating the platform based on their feedback; and finally, today, launching Skype in the workspace to the public. We hope you find it as exciting and useful as we do.

There are few of us who didn't dream of meeting an astronaut when we were little (hell, I'd be excited to meet one today). And now, through Skype in the classroom's inspiring new partners, learning about living and working in space is now a real possibility. NASA's Digital Learning Network™ is just one of the many new partnerships that we are launching today; we're also collaborating with British Council, the National Museum of the Royal Navy and HMS Victory, Action Aid, Woodland Trust,  Verbalizeit, Education through Expedition. 

Yesterday, I was one of four speakers (alongside Google, the Guardian and Canongate books) at a great Arts Council-funded event for publishers and librarians. Each of us highlighted a digital tool or platform that the audience could leverage to improve, or simplify, their programme of work. We're always happy to talk about Skype in the classroom–primarily, because it really is a game-changing platform that inspires educators  and their students from around the world. 

We love working on Skype in the classroom and we're always looking for ways to enhance the service for our users. Recently, we released functionality that enabled teachers to login with their Facebook or Twitter credentials, as well as their Skype ID, but sometimes the challenge isn't about new functionality, but raising awareness and simply telling the story of Skype in the classroom.

For the last few months, we've been working with Skype to create a new service proposition for small businesses. Today, we're launching in private beta. If you’re an entrepreneur, or working in a small business that’s looking to grow, Skype in the workspace is a place to meet potential partners, suppliers, or customers anywhere in the world. You can promote your service, send messages, talk, or meet face-to-face over Skype. And it's free. 

Sara's already written about the Tomorrow Award we were lucky enough to win recently. What we haven't shared is this brilliant video from the judges that they showed on the night - some great quotes about the work from the 'monster' judges including Big Spaceship's Michael Lebowitz, Robert Wong from Google Creative Labs, and Dentsu's Masako Okamura. 

Yesterday @malbonster and @bobbyc had the honour of accepting a Tomorrow Award  for Skype in the classroom, a  service and technology mash-up that connects teachers around the world and helps them collaborate on Skype-based teaching projects.

We are thrilled that Skype in the classroom has been recognised, and we’re especially happy for our client, Skype, with whom we enjoy a strong partnership. 

As some of you know, we’ve been working with Skype on Skype in the classroom, a community for teachers and educators, for a few months now. In the time since it was launched formally in April, it has grown by leaps and bounds: we now have more than 16,500 teachers who are collaborating on more than 900 projects across the globe.

Yesterday, we released the most recent set of new features to the service, which we are very excited about.

We’re extremely proud of our work on Skype in the classroom, which we’ve mentioned here in the past a couple of times. The community has now grown to over 14,000 teachers and that’s increasing every day.

When we entered it in the Service Design category at the Core 77 Design Awards, our hopes were high, and though we are a bit disappointed that it didn’t win (congrats to Open Ideo, who did), we are really glad to see it get a 'Notable Professional' mention.

Here’s our video submission that explains how we went about building it:

I usually send a bunch of links around the office every week. Perhaps some of you may be interested by them too: