Clear Channel IT team thrives on success

Angie Gibson: “The award was a great morale boost for the whole team”

The deadline is fast approaching for entering the UK IT Industry Awards 2010. Nominations close at 5pm on 16 July. The awards programme merges the Computing Awards for Excellence and the BCS IT Industry Awards to create a platform for the entire profession to celebrate innovation, excellence and best practice.

As last year, the winners will be announced at a gala prize-giving ceremony, to be held at the Battersea Park Events Arena in London on Thursday 11 November 2010. To inspire you to compile your own entry for one of our prestigious awards, over the next few weeks we’re profiling some of last year’s winners in print and online.

For full details of this year’s award categories and details on how to enter, go to www.computing.co.uk/awards.

Last year, the development team at media company Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) UK won the private sector project of the year award for its WAVe (wireless activity verification) system. This runs on Nokia N70 mobile phones and allows operations teams to organise their work and verify its completion.

Computing talked to CCO several months on to find out what impact the win has had on the company and the team.

“We’ve never entered anything like that before and there was a lot of scepticism at first,” says project manager Angie Gibson.

Private sector project of the year is one of the most hotly contested awards, where ambitious project teams are rewarded for their unflagging innovation in the face of what are often tight budgetary constraints, fluctuating business demands and exacting deadlines.

“It was a real surprise when we were short-listed, especially when I saw who we were up against – project teams from Procter & Gamble and BA,” says Gibson. “Clear Channel is a big company but there are only seven of us in the UK IT department.”

Nevertheless, what impressed the judges was the profound effect WAVe had had on CCO’s business. The introduction of WAVe means feedback from the posting teams happens in near real time with photographic evidence of work completed.

“It made us much more accountable to our clients and distinguishes us from our competitors,” says Gibson.

So on the night of the Awards, CCO’s development and operations teams turned out in force. “When they announced us as winners I nearly fell off my chair. It was a huge shock and I think we got quite unruly afterwards,” says Gibson.

Back in the office, the award was put to work promoting CCO’s capability on its web site and in every client brief.

Meanwhile, WAVe has evolved and is now used as a time-recording system that has enabled CCO to stay competitive, saving at least £150,000 a year and helping to win and keep contracts, such as with Transport for London.

The award has also encouraged the development team to apply best practice learned developing WAVe to other projects.

“We tested, ran field trials and wrote a user guide – the parts that often get squeezed in any project, but which come back to bite you in the shape of endless support calls,” says Gibson.

The award they won in November last year has brought the development team kudos and meant they have been trusted with other technically challenging projects, such as the development of media player software for LCD screens in shopping malls.

“The award was good for my personal confidence and a great morale boost for the whole team,” says Gibson. “If you’ve got a product you believe in, that’s changed the business, I'd encourage you to go for it.”

To enter your project for this year’s Business project of the year award go to: www.computing.co.uk/awards.