Anna Kirah appointed Chief Experience Officer in Making Waves

Dag Honningsvåg (CEO) and Anna Kirah (CXO). Photo: Kai Myhre

«Joining Making Waves feels like coming home » says Anna Kirah, who will soon take on her new role as Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Norway´s leading full service digital agency.
 
Anna Kirah has a background as a design anthropologist and psychologist, and is internationally known as a pioneer using human-centered innovation in the design of services, products and organizational change. She has board-level experience from both public and private sector, has worked in several countries, and is a popular and acclaimed public speaker. Anna Kirah has published several books and articles and received numerous international awards, including Microsoft´s Contributor of the Year award for her global strategy work. In November 2012, Microsoft engaged Anna to help with the global launch of Windows 8. During the last year, she managed a significant service design project for Oslo Airport Gardermoen.
 
"In order to build valuable, relevant, user-friendly and attractive products and services, you have to understand what people really want and need. At Making Waves, I am joining an organization where I can use my skills, experience, and human-oriented approach together with very talented colleagues. Together we will solve exciting challenges and create amazing customer experiences on behalf of our clients, both in Norway and abroad." says Anna.
 
”Making Waves has a strong culture where competency, quality, value-creation and enthusiasm are important drivers across the whole organization” says Anna. She also points out that the company is unique in the way it brings together multi-disciplinary teams of business consultants, designers, marketers and technologists, and that this is critical in delivering successful user experiences, human-centered innovation and service design.
 
In today's market, companies' ability to attract and retain their customers largely depends on understanding what customers really need and want - and being able to deliver that effectively. There are many examples of companies that have not been able to recognize and adapt to this new reality, and which now no longer exist. Making Waves’ main goal is to help our clients increase their ability to innovate – to ensure sustained profitability and long term competitive advantages.
 
In 2012 Making Waves acquired the service design company Zoot. "Service Design is all about understanding users’ needs and desires, and leveraging this insight to create successful service offerings. Although most of the solutions that we provide today are digital, they must co-exist with the rest of the touch points in a seamless manner. Service Design is therefore a strategic tool to develop consistent services across both digital and physical channels" says Dag Honningsvåg, CEO of Making Waves. In most of the assignments we have started in 2012, service design has been the foundation for developing digital solutions. Examples are Sandnes Sparebank, Sparebank 1, and NorgesGruppen.
 
In many ways, Anna Kirah represents the natural next steps of Making Waves’ the strategy and ambitions. "We are incredibly excited to have Anna on board as our new CXO. She is a person who shares our approach, our methods and our mindset, and she will be instrumental in taking the company to the next level. Anna will focus on improving quality and innovation within our organization and on behalf of our customers, with the ultimate goal of delivering delightful customer experiences in all our engagements" says Honningsvåg. Anna brings many years of experience from global companies like Boeing and Microsoft to this important role at Making Waves.

Dag Honningsvåg (CEO, Making Waves) and Per-Arne Tuftin (Travel and Tourism Director of Innovation Norway)

Making Waves design and technology teams have been responsible for building the Visitnorway portal and have worked with Visitnorway since the concept phase back in 2005. The portal has been through several development phases with continuing improvements in design and functionality to reflect the very latest innovations in web development for desktop and mobile channels. Visitnorway has won many national and international prizes including a 2012 Webby Award for Best Homepage Design in New York.

Since January 2011 Making Waves have had responsibility for editorial planning and implementation, marketing campaign management and multi-language versioning of the portal into 13 different languages and national editions. Successful delivery of these services for the past two years leads Innovasjon Norge to renew their commitment to Making Waves for a further 2 years.

The current version of the portal contains over 15,000 product and service offers for tourists and business travelers visiting Norway. For tourists it is possible to find relevant content to trip planning, booking and ideas for activities from several different entry points in the portal. Maps, site search and topic maps are therefore a central part of the portal´s functionality.

The portal reaches 13 million users worldwide and is constantly updated in various language versions by Making Waves content editors in Oslo and Krakow. Content editors also work directly with Innovation Norway regional offices in London, Moscow, New York, Paris, The Hague, Madrid, Milan, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg and Warsaw to deliver effective campaigns promoting various destinations and tourism activities.

Each local Innovation Norway office is able to create targeted campaigns to specific audience segments. Other deliverables to Visitnorway include Advertorials and sponsored articles as well as the portal´s content classification schemas. Making Waves Content Services team combine skills and experience in journalism, content creation, SEO, graphic design, web strategy, linguistics and translations, international relations and tourism management. All are native speakers of the national websites they have responsibility for.

Dag Honningsvåg, CEO Making Waves says "Visit Norway have confirmed the central importance of content to the portal, and rewarded our hard working and dedicated team of web editors in Oslo and Krakow with a new framework agreement where we can continue to work closely with our client to develop innovative content that has made Visitnorway one of the most recognised and successful national destination portals."

Per-Arne Tuftin, Travel and Tourism Director of Innovation Norway says; "Making Waves have been a key contributor to Visitnorways meeting our ambitious targets for both content and campaigns. The portal has won many awards over the years and this confirms our view that professionally produced, original content generates results."

Today Visitnorway is available in the following national versions; Norwegian, English (UK, US & International), Swedish, Danish, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Russian.

Making Waves has been working with clients across the Tourism sector delivering digital solutions from multi language destination portals, chain hotel websites, travel services, to applications, and booking systems.  Making Waves Content Services are designed to assist clients in the planning and operation of content intensive websites and portals, as well as in the analysis presentation and optimization of content. 

Contact:
Dag Honningsvåg, CEO, Making Waves,
tel:+47 907 44 810, dag.honningsvag@makingwaves.no
Russell Lack, Head of Content Services, Making Waves,
tel:+47 948 09 797, russell.lack@makingwaves.no

The recent study from the international research firm Deloitte showed that 86% of overseas and 91% of domestic travel transactions in the UK are now ‘digitally influenced' (2012).  That means even if the final purchase was not made online, almost nine in ten travel purchases are influenced in some way by digital channels such as websites, social media, peer reviews and smartphone or tablet apps.

This year Making Waves is joining thousands of visitors at the World Travel Market in London. WTM is the leading global event for the tourism industry presents a diverse range of destinations and industry sectors to UK and International travel professionals.

Making Waves has been working with clients across the Tourism sector delivering digital solutions from multi language destination portals, chain hotel websites, travel services, to applications, and booking systems. Meet Russell Lack and Michal Steckiw at WTM and learn more what we can deliver for you.

Find out more about Making Waves and our solutions for tourism sector.

A day at Making Waves from Making Waves on Vimeo.

Project Managers Days in Norway, 20–22 September 2012

At Making Waves we pay special attention to professional development and knowledge sharing among our project managers. We share project experiences, discuss challenges and used methodologies, review new tools and developments in digital world to align the way we provide services to our clients regardless if the project is managed from Oslo, London or Krakow.

In September our team of 22 Project Managers from Oslo and Krakow met for a two day workshop to review our new Wavemaker 2.0 process, discuss Kanban and Agile methodologies (Visit Norway Case study:  http://prezi.com/6augxe9ho4ds/visitnorway-a-agile-story/), review best practices in testing and engage in team building activities.

Project managers must have a vision for the course and goals of each project. Our ultimate objective is to make sure that a project and its outcome will bring business value to a client. The way how we achieve that, methodology and tools we use, depends on the project constraints and client's preferences.

Our project managers team has a diverse background from consulting, development and technology to design and creative production. Project Managers work beyond digital and across borders directly facing clients internationally regardless of their location.

Delivering a successful online or offline marketing campaign requires a detailed understanding of potential customers online behaviors. Our content services team delivers engaging websites, landing pages, apps, graphics, photography and video that is tuned to the needs of target audiences and optimized for search engine visibility.

Our team of web content professionals have subject matter expertise and experience in writing about, promoting and selling online tourism and travel products. We can originate content in a variety of formats and in more than 12 languages.  Our work for the global portal VisitNorway has been recognized internationally in 2010, 2011 and 2012 with awards for content and design.

Read more about our digital solutions, content services and technical support for the Tourism sector.

For the fourth year in a row Making Waves has been awarded EPiServer´s Partner of the Year, and is now the world´s leading employer of certified EPiServer developers.

From left: John Kårikstad (Department Manager .NET, Making Waves), Göran Hüllert (CEO, EPiServer Norway), Alexander Haneng (EPiServer MVP, Making Waves) og Asbjørn Vølstad (CTO, Making Waves).  Photo: James Bjerkholt /Making Waves

”We want to be a key player in the technology areas that we focus on, and certification of our developers is a key element in this strategy” says Asbjoern Voelstad, CTO at Making Waves. Vølstad was a co-founder of Making Waves in 2001 and explains that a strong team of certified developers has enabled the company to work with some of the market´s largest and most challenging development projects; Choice, VisitNorway, Norwegian Government Administration Services, Gresvig and Canal Digital are among the companies who have chosen Making Waves and EPiServer for their digital solutions.

The need for strong framework suppliers

"It is critical for Making Waves as a development partner and our customers as end users, that we have a long-term framework supplier on the project team. It’s important to remember that large-scale digital solutions have a lifetime of many years. So the supplier must be able to continuously add new functionality to their framework. The framework itself must also be flexible enough to integrate with other solutions. We have confidence in the solutions we deliver that are built on EPiServer," says Vølstad.

EPiServer is one of the world´s leading CMS systems. Making Waves is the largest of more than 500 EPiServer partners with 45 certified in-house developers. The company has over 200 employees, of whom almost half are working in the technology unit. Current projects include traditional publishing solutions, mobile solutions, e-commerce solutions, intranet / collaboration solutions and custom power solutions delivered on different technology platforms. EPiServer is key component of solutions developed on the .NET platform.

EPiServer Partner of the Year

Making Waves won EPiServer´s coveted Partner of the Year award. "We were impressed by how Making Waves has been able to develop across a broad front. The company is now undoubtedly one of the strongest players in the industry offering strategic consulting, design expertise and technology development" says Göran Hüllert, CEO of EPiServer Norway.

This is the fourth year in a row that Making Waves has received this honour. "We’re just as proud to win the award this year as we’ve been in previous years. This award validates our way of working with customers. We strive to create solutions that are inspiring and which deliver results for clients. But we are also committed to building solutions in robust, user friendly and technically advanced frameworks, such as EPiServer" says Dag Honningsvaag, Managing Director of Making Waves.

Active contributor to the EPiServer professional community

Beyond a strong technical EPiServer environment and a commitment to certifying developers, Making Waves has played an active role in knowledge sharing and the development of additional EPiServer modules. This year one of Making Waves´ developers, Alexander Haneng, was given particularly recognition for his contributions and named as EPiServer’s Most Valuable Professional - a title that is highly sought among EPiServer. "We are proud that Alexander Haneng through his award as EPiServer’s Most Valuable Professional has been recognized for his active contribution to the professional EPiServer community," says Voelstad.

Haneng also received the award for Best Contributor to the international EPiServer community. He has developed several additional modules that are used by partners throughout the world, including EPiImage - an award-winning open-source image module.

FIFA, the world governing body for the sport of football, has chosen Making Waves as the new service provider for their intranet, extranet and collaboration platform, to ensure a stable and user-friendly platform for more than 22 000 users for the years to come.

Several new features have been identified as vital in keeping the solution in tune with the needs of FIFA’s departments. Intuitive content management based on EPiServer CMS, collaboration and document management with SharePoint 2010, single sign-on and system integration, globalization to support multiple languages and mobile/smart device optimization are some of the areas that will be addressed.

FIFA searched for a professional, proactive and international provider, capable of handling enterprise scale system development with a strong focus on user experience.

Making Waves has established a dedicated FIFA team, with resources from the Oslo and Krakow offices, to provide services within digital strategy and concept development, user experience design, systems development, optimization, maintenance and support.

Contact:
Dag Honningsvåg, CEO, Making Waves.
Tlf.: 907 44 810, e-post: dag.honningsvag@makingwaves.no

Making Software has been set up to bring together technology professionals eager to talk about what's happening, expand knowledge in technology and interaction design field, solve issues and generally hang out with colleagues from local software development industry.

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This is the first edition of Making Software - Developers' Meetup.
It will be held on 15 November 2011 in Hard Rock Cafe in Cracow.

Event is aimed at technology professionals. Entrance is free!

Find more information about Speakers and Agenda Overview.

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The number of the seats on the meetup is limited. So make sure you book your seat now!

Making Waves and Innovation Norway have signed an agreement on co-operation for content management of visitnorway.com.

Making Waves has a long history working on visitnorway.com, having developed and servicing the site through a framework agreement with Innovation Norway. The work comprised by the new agreement is content management, translation, quality assurance and publishing for the Norwegian and all international versions of visitnorway.com. As part of the agreement, Making Waves will take over the editorial staff of visitnorway.com from Innovation Norway.

Focusing on content quality
Making Waves is a Norwegian consultancy firm with expertise within all aspects of developing and servicing digital solutions, including strategy and design.

-“We see an increasing demand from our customers for content management assistance, to keep their solutions alive and updated. The agreement with Innovation Norway is for us a confirmation that our customers want to use our group of specialists on a more continuous base”, CEO Dag Honningsvåg at Making Waves comments.

“Visitnorway.com is a comprehensive and popular service. We have great expectations to continue the good content management work that has been delivered on this solution”, Honningsvåg says in a comment on the agreement.

Continued development of visitnorway.com
Director of Tourism, Per Arne Tuftin at Innovation Norway, is clear on the fact that visitnoray.com is to be developed further and that the solution regarding content management is a positive step in consolidating the national and international position of visitnorway.com as the official travel site for Norway.

-“We have been collaborating with Making Waves for a long period of time, and are certain that the company has the required competence and size to supply visitnorway.com with even more exciting content. We are very pleased we were able to find an agreement on continuing the excellent content management work that has been delivered up to now”, Tufting says.

The transition of content management production will start in February and be at full capacity no later than March 1. 2011.

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Innovation Norway promotes nationwide industrial development profitable to both the business economy and Norway’s national economy, and helps release the potential of different districts and regions by contributing towards innovation, internationalisation and promotion.