The difficulty for small companies (and true whatever your business – digital, design, marketing, publishing, production etc) is however the same as it ever was – how do I create the time away from core business to develop new products or services? And even if I create the time, how do I extract enough margin from existing business to fund this development time?

So is there a solution? – not a simple one, but there are opportunities for you to try to solve the problem in places you might not immediately look. And despite being public funding they do not have the stifling bureaucracy and constricting criteria you’d expect.

The Media Sandbox scheme was set up to tackle exactly this issue. Experimentation requires space and resource, so over the past two years Media Sandbox has made small development investments in everything from mobile services to ARG’s, software development to multiplatform content. The ethos of the Sandbox is about community and collaboration – open innovation – but since when did any idea emerge fully formed?

Simon from Slingshot, who received a Sandbox award in 2008, says “Sandbox was a great catalyst for us. The commission gave us the opportunity to develop a methodology and an aesthetic. The ideas we generated during this process needed further backing to take them from plans to services, which we received in the form of a TSB feasibility award. MSGE, the game system we developed, is now the core of our business and at the heart of the set of products we are commercialising.”

The call for ideas for Media Sandbox 2010 is open now and the scheme will make 7 x £10,000 investments to develop new projects using open data and/or pervasive experiences. To read more about the Media Sandbox themes for 2010 click here.

Last word to Andy Parkhouse from Team Rubber “we’ve generated real benefit in the past from our involvement with funding schemes like the Media Sandbox. Creating space for innovation has allowed us to develop new ideas for products, over time this has enabled us to diversify our sales pitch and delivered revenues to the bottom line.”

For more information about how to make an application click here.

Contact Victoria (victoria@watershed.co.uk) or Mark (mark@markleaver.net) if you need any other information or advice.