We are pleased to announce a new addition to our team. After many interviews we finally found the best person for the new web development post, Ben Barber!

Ben is proving to be a brilliant team player and shares a passion for smooth running websites. He has fitted in well with our Core Values and we know he will enjoy being part of the Geek Team!

Ben is a self taught developer who started out with a keen interest in making websites and the way they worked. He had his fist popular website at the age of 15 and has continued to grow his expertise with passion since then.

Likes: Tottenham football club, Running, Writing code, Hot and spicy food

Dislikes: Badly structured code, Salad cream, Mayonnaise, Traffic jams

Read More About Us >>

© 2012 - socratessystems.com

Rasmus Lerdorf was the opening speaker at the PHP 2012 Conference with "A look at PHP in 2012". Rasmus is known as the creator of PHP, the scripting language Socrates write it's websites in. The talk was a broad overview of the language, from its origins as a set of Perl scripts for updating his personal website to its current status as the predominant server-side language on the web.

It was great to hear the new features in PHP 5.4, as well as the future of the language. Rasmus is at the cutting edge of practical PHP deployment and is probably the best-placed person to discuss the challenges that face the language as we move into 2012.

We had a great day and have lots of notes to go through.

© 2012 - socratessystems.com

Socrates attended the grand opening of the One Knowledge centre. The Mayor of the Borough of Broxbourne payed a visit to cut the ribbon. One provided drinks and light bites for the occasion and kindly invited us along to the opening. Jody, our Managing Director, was thrilled with the success of the event and proud to put our Socrates stamp on it.

One approached Socrates with an idea of creating a Knowledge Centre, it would be a fun and interesting place for their employees to receive training to enhance their professional skills. It would be used for all of One's business schemes that have become integral to the running of the company.

Socrates began brainstorming and decided on clean spaces with a twist. What about trees that you can write on?...

After presenting our designs to One they loved our vision and the knowledge centre was born!

Socrates have provided full support throughout the project from sourcing and networking PC's for training through to over seeing painting, signwriting and selecting furniture. Our whole vision has been executed from beginning to end and we loved every minute of it. The writeable trees have been a big hit, no more boring white board or flip chart. We have been careful to keep a strong company brand throughout the design along with one's core values One holds so dear.

© 2012 - socratessystems.com

We now have lots of space to grow and as you would expect we designed and networked the office ourselves.

We like our colours at Socrates, so to keep the theme of our website running throughout the office there are lots of smart colours mixed with our cool grey. We love this look and have completed the grey with modern white frames and our lovely signature kids images that reflect each one of us in the team.

All our lovely vinyl wall art has has been supplied and fitted by the fabulous Fast Signs team who have been really helpful in making our visualisations happen quickly and easily.

To make sure the office matches our quirky ways we have sourced all our furniture from various companies taking care to match quality with value. Its the little finishing touches that really make the space come to life.

An office opening wouldn't be the same without a yummy cake that was kindly made by one of our team. Everyone tucked in and we quickly became very settled in our new working home.

We are all looking forward to a colourful and geeky time ahead!

© 2012 - socratessystems.com

Why not take the time to find out about our core values or get a feel for the work we do by perusing our portfolio of clients.

We have further updates planned for the site including a number of facilities to allow clients to review their projects, approve designs, submit new feature requests and more!

We welcome your opinions too so pop on to our contact page and send us a message!

© 2012 - socratessystems.com

In the words of one...

Why we decided to change

1. The company has evolved - for example: after the Ancile MBO, we are now a completely independent claims and assistance company
2. Our company has grown
3. We felt the brand didn't reflect us any more - the old logo incorporated the brand colours of ONE Underwriting Ltd/Ancile
4. The old logo was looking tired
5. As we strive to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace, we felt we could articulate ourselves better
6. We want to stand out from our competitors
7. We identified the need to be even more customer focussed - to Dazzle!
8. It just feels like the right thing to do!

How we went about change

1. We talked to two companies for their advice on what we should do and how we should do it
2. We chose to work with Socrates Systems
3. We spent a lot of time talking with their design team, explaining our core values and what they mean to us and how we are developing as a company and how we want to be perceived in our marketplace
4. Socrates Systems produced a number of different design concepts for us to consider
5. We chose the logo and design concept which we felt best articulated our Vision

Clarifying our position

Our logo now clarifies our position with a strapline that tells people what we are all about:

The logo represents all the people within the company coming together and dazzling as one - the dots on the "star" represent all the individuals within the company.

Our new strapline is ...here to help

We ARE here to help and we WILL Dazzle along the way.

© 2012 - socratessystems.com