News from Colourman: So what do you do?

I have been nursing a secret for some weeks, but Google has found me out so I thought that I had better come clean.

To those of you who have got to know me on Twitter you might be surprised to learn that for many years I kept a very low profile. I flattered myself that the quality of my work would get me passed from client to client and besides, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea of self advertisement. It did, up to a point, but I was seldom employed at full stretch. Similarly, I thought that the magazines would be interested in what I did, but with a few exceptions, they never were.

The View from the Shop Window
Thank you RBK&C, just what we needed

The harsh realities of trying to cope with price rises from suppliers, mounting business rates, Corporation Tax and all those other things that a small shopkeeper is faced with began to bite. On top of this was the dramatic decline in business due to the Congestion Charge. Those customers who did drive in to Chelsea to buy paint were then preyed upon by the wardens who emerge from the newly-opened Parking Control office opposite my shop. The increasing piracy of our paint colour ranges, whilst flattering, further eroded our financial stability. For all these reasons I turned to Social Media to tell people what I did and how my company - Papers and Paints - is so different from every other paint shop.

Blogging, micro-blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and Tumblr are all manifestations of this campaign to let people know what I do, but there was still a gap.

So what do you do?

Never able to fully explain what I do when asked at parties I had been thinking of putting together a website but had no idea who to contact and how to go about it. Fortunately this is where Twitter showed its true worth, for in the past year or so I have come to meet a wonderful group of supremely-talented like-minded individuals. Many have been hugely supportive, but two in particular have come to my rescue and have built a website that shows what consultancy services I offer and the enormous number of projects that I have tackled in the last 20+ years.

Unlaunched website already placed fourth on page one

Perfectionist that I am I was hoping to do some more tweaking and fiddling, tagging and linking before letting the world know, but as you can see from the Google page above I have been found out.

The last year has seen the rise and rise of Lucy Inglis: she now has a contract with Penguin and her book is due out in Spring 2012 and there are rumours of more in the pipeline!

Recently appointed Blogger-in-Residence at the Museum of London she has also had articles and reviews published by such august publications as The Spectator and the RIBA Journal.

Her talents are not limited to her skill with words for she has a great sense of design and is very handy with new-fangled technology. I am indebted to Lucy for her vision and for the huge amount of time that she has spent in setting up my new website.

But even Lucy could not have managed to get the ideas on the screen without the hugely able Simon Surtees. He and Lucy had worked on websites before and are a wonderful team.

Simon listened to what we were trying to do and recommended a suitable platform before building the whole thing. His abilities and patience are considerable. Not content with the first model he has continued to amend and improve it, trying new ideas and bringing over ten years experience of digital technology to bear on it.

Poor Simon had no idea of the hundreds of projects that I had undertaken and the need for quite a complex site with the ability to link them all together. With good humour he continued adjusting the framework to cope with the content. Simon was an amazing find and is the perfect person to help improve online presence.

I can honestly say that I’m thrilled with the result and feel sure that I needn’t be lost for words of explanation again. I am profoundly grateful to have met and to have become great friends with two very special people – thank you Twitter.

This will be the last blog that I post to Blogger. It's been a good vehicle for putting my points across, but as the new site has been built on Wordpress the blog function has been built into it. If you are subscribed to this blog, you should continue to receive notifications of new posts automatically.

The new site is www.patrickbaty.co.uk

I welcome your continued interest.

*rushes off to continue tagging and tweaking before too many people visit*

Patrick Baty