Mint Digital

Bacon is a conference about all the stuff that developers love (for instance bacon, but also functional programming, machine learning, Android development, memes, databases, astronomy, HTML5, electronic music, etc.) It aims to support the emergence of Silicon Roundabout as a technology hub, reflecting the energy and diversity of London’s web scene.

It's slightly inspired by Strange Loop - one of the best conferences we've been to - but with less emphasis on academic research and more on areas you don't normally hear from. Confirmed speakers include Zach Holman of GitHub and Sean Treadway of SoundCloud. The call for proposals is still open. If you've got something you'd like to say, visit the Bacon site.

Oh and it's on April 20th and 21st 2012, if you'd like to come. Tickets are from £265.

Hope to see you there.

Hello and happy new year from Mint!

On January 1st, we launched New Year Revolution for Channel 4.

The starting point for New Year Revolution was the observation that most of us make new year's resolutions, but few of us keep them. The ambition is that by harnessing faces of Channel 4 and the collective willpower of the social web, we might help people keep the resolutions, and have some fun along the way.

In the first five days alone, we had over 20,000 join the revolution, and it is still gathering pace.

Update: The interaction designer position has now been filled. We are still looking for our visual designer!

We are looking to grow the Mint Studio by adding two new designers to the team.

We think designing here at Mint has to be one of the most exciting jobs around. Just in the last year, we launched Speedo Pace Club, the very magnetic Stickygram, "the award-winning"* Sexperience 1000, ran 2Screen 2011, launched Olly, the list continues...

If you want to join this small team making big things, head over to jobs, take a look at the visual and interaction designer positions and drop us a line.

We look forward to talking.

* I always wanted to say that.

Last night we were at The BIMA Awards 2011, where The Sexperience 1000 picked up the award for 'Best use of Data, Mashups & Data-Visualisation'. We were also delighted to be nominated for the 2011 Grand Prix award!

Thanks go to all the Mints who worked on it, our tech partners for the project LingoBee, Ipsos MORI, Endemol and of course, Adam Gee and all at Channel 4 for allowing us to keep making great work.

On 8 August 2011, we launched Mint Foundry, our first ever graduate scheme. We set four makers the brief: Make something connected to the Internet that doesn't live on a screen.

Sadly, their three month tenure with us is coming to an end. As a final farewell, we are hosting an informal presentation by our four graduates on what they've been up to, followed by some drinks. There will be a bit of a grand unveil, and hopefully a chance to play with what they've made.

It is this Thursday, 27 October at the Mint Offices at Exmouth Market. You can book yourself a spot on the event page.

Hope to see you there!

A skunkworks project has been brewing at Mint. Since February, Kejia Zhu has been working on a slightly eccentric scheme to print Instagrams on fridge magnets.

At every step of the way StickyGram has (i) been starved of resources and (ii) generated far more interest than we would have anticipated.

Back in March, Kejia created a one-page website with a couple of grainy shots of prototype StickyGrams and tweeted about it. That received 1400 sign ups in a week.

At the start of the summer Mint announced the Don't Be A Banker Scholarship. Our aim was to create an opportunity for aspiring web entrepreneurs to avoid the lure of corporate grad schemes and channel their energy into launching their own business.

We found a beautiful venue, confirmed the first bunch of speakers and finalised the booze order. 2Screen 2011 is set for 29 September 2011 at London's Finsbury Town Hall.

We launched Sexperience, the web partner to The Sex Education Show on Channel 4 back in September 2008. In time for Season 5, we undertook the most major overhaul of Sexperience since launch.

With a new site architecture and codebase, complete content reorganisation and refreshed interaction and visual design, this is the best Sexperience has ever worked and looked. Do check it out.

But as Steve would say, 'There's one more thing…' Alongside the site re-design, we have been working on another product to add to the Sexperience family.

We started 2Screen in 2009 with the question 'Can TV & the web make a baby?'. We returned in 2010 to explore what was by then becoming a mainstream trend.

Now, 2Screen is coming back for a third year on 29 September 2011. We're putting together an exciting line-up to discuss the intersection of TV and the social web.

We're going to be announcing more details in a couple of weeks time. If you'd like to receive an update when we do, leave your email address on the 2Screen site.

Mint Foundry is our brand new graduate scheme. This first year tasks four makers for three months with the brief:

Make something connected to the Internet that doesn't live on a screen.

Last week, Ed was at Lebowski Fest with the Mint Conference Policy. While we await completion of his illustration so he can post as himself, here are his impressions.

Of all the events in the world that hold a cultural or spiritual significance to you, which would you choose to visit? Perhaps the Hajj in Mecca if you are Muslim, or maybe Kumbh Mela if Hindu. Perhaps the World Expo is more up your street, which when held in Shanghai last year gained the status of the largest peaceful gathering in history.

Last week, I made my own pilgrimage. Travelling from London, England all the way to Louisville, Kentucky to an event they call Lebowski Fest.

Mint is awarding a scholarship of £4000 ($6000) to help a university leaver or recent graduate launch a business. We are looking for someone with a promising idea and the personal characteristics to turn it into a success.

If you win the scholarship, you will have two months to develop your idea, working in the entrepreneurial environment of Mint Digital.

At the end of this time the idea will remain 100% yours. We hope you'll want to develop it further with Mint, in which case we'll try to offer you a deal that will allow us to keep collaborating.

Why is Mint doing this?

What have you got against bankers?

It’s just that too many of the best and the brightest in the UK and the USA work for banks and other large companies, especially when they are first starting their careers. We believe there are better ways to enjoy capitalism.

We've just released a new interactive quiz for Sexperience, the website supporting Channel 4's Sex Education Show.

The result - Are you Sexperienced? - takes two minutes to play, and is fun, slightly shocking and both a little bit wrong and a little bit right. And there’s some technical magic on show: in our tireless quest for maximum accessibility, we've pushed JavaScript to the limit to make it 100% Flash-free. So, before you read on, go and play it. Go on, it really is worth it.

And we’re back! Hope you enjoyed it.

For anyone curious about the thinking that went behind the quiz, here’s how the project took shape:

1. Metaphor

On 19 June, eight cycling rock stars from Mint Digital - Team Extra Strong Mints - will be throwing their legs over their bikes to ride the 54 miles from London to Brighton.

They're doing it in aid of the British Heart Foundation. Please help them reach their target on the JustGiving page. All sponsorship appreciated.

Go Adam, Andy, Colin, David, Edd, Paul, Kejia, Tom!

After a search that began in April last year, a spat with the Crown over a potential property and a two-month build, this has been a long time coming. But here we are. Last week saw Mint London move into its fancy new digs in Exmouth Market.

AssetHat makes Rails 3.0 websites load their CSS and JavaScript faster.

In the figure below, Websites C, D, and E handle about 400,000 views/day. AssetHat saves users of these sites 91.8 hours each day. That’s 91.8 collective hours of staring at a screen, waiting for the internet to respond, that can now be put to more productive use.

We just released version 0.4. Read a full introduction on Mint's new tech blog. Or visit the AssetHat site for docs and download.

New Mint recruit Ed Ellson gained 15 minutes of fame in 2004 by wearing a skirt to school. As Ed explained:

We received a letter from the school saying trousers or, for girls, skirts, and it made me think, why not boys, so I wore one. But then I was told it wasn't allowed.

This instinctive distrust of authority coupled with fearlessness in the face of ridicule are great attributes for someone joining the Quality Assurance team.

If you've got a similar spirit, we are still looking for a mid-level tester and junior tester (no experience required) to join the New York team.

In order to explore interesting topics around mobile and meet new folks working in mobile in New York, Mint Digital and the Pocketmints crew are hosting a series of monthly talks.

This month Mari Sheibley, the lead designer of foursquare, is joining us to discuss Mobile UI Patterns.

Early this month, everyone at Mint Digital decamped to Dorset for the 2011 Web App Weekender. This year’s challenge was to drive engagement to Quotables using the new API in four sleepless days and nights. Team Coupland have created Debatables: a brand-new debating platform which is raising the tone of online debate one quote at a time.