Okay, okay. I know we said regular updates, and I thought I was so smart with that opening line about "preceding and regular updates" in my last post, but even I'm starting to feel pangs of sympathy for the last G-spot editor. Maybe we shouldn't have come down so heavy on him for not updating the site so often! Its hard work developing awesome web solutions AND writing about how good they are ;-)
Web on the Piste
So what's hot this month? Web on the Piste is hot, hot, hot! Well actually, it'll probably be really cold... but anyway, Web on the Piste is a Rich Internet Technologies Conference scheduled for the 22nd - 23rd of August, 2007 at the ultimate in venues, Queenstown, New Zealand.
Straker & Gruden are bringing world leaders in Rich Internet and associated technologies for 2 days of Flex, AJAX, SPRY, AIR and Flash as well as covering server-side back end technologies such as ColdFusion, .Net, Java, Silverlight and sessions on mobile based content delivery!
With an international cast of speakers including key members from Adobe and Microsoft, the event is a must do for anyone working in or looking to use Rich Internet technologies. Also if you love your skiing & adventure spots, there a stack of activities such as bungee jumping and jetboat rides plus a heap more.
Queenstown is the ultimate winter venue in New Zealand and quite possibly the southern hemisphere and Web on the Piste promises to be awesome! You can not miss this event! Check out the Web on the Pistesite for more info now!
ARIA Awards
It's that time again! For five years now Gruden has been working with ARIA to deliver the voting system for the Annual ARIA Awards. We've been preparing over the last few months to see the process kick off for 2007! We're in the first phase of the awards which allow the record companies nominate the artists (& upload all assets) to be included in the awards.
Shortly to follow is the actual voting period that takes us right up to the awards night..! Over the years we've fine tuned and feature enhanced the platform to deliver an outstanding product that continually delivers. Working this year again with Mark Pope & Susan Robertson, assures that it will be a hugely successful event.
Think Brick
Whats up next? How about a joint effort with our mates across the ditch Tango Communications? The Thinkbrick.com.au website has gone live now; did you know you can get funky pink mortar to go with bright blue bricks on your new place? You can even see a demonstration on the site of how it would look with a cool application we built!
Tango created the design which Gruden implemented on the Straker Shado CMS. I reckon Tango did an excellent job with the bold use of colour and negative space on the site to make it look really special.
Cool Stuff in the pipeline!
We've finished some spiffy new templates for a big project Vero has in the pipeline. It's a bit hush hush at the moment, but as soon as it's ready to roll we'll let you know all about it!
Some huge projects are coming along for Disney; one is for the new High School Musical 2 movie that will be hitting the shelves later this year. Also a number of Interactive games & campaigns and all sorts of great stuff is being worked on!
If you haven't already had a go, we've recently uploaded our Paddock Dash game that we created when we opened our NZ office I think it's very fitting!! Can you beat the high score??
In the next update we'll be going talking about a few neat projects in more detail, but in summary work is progressing nicely on a Macquarie Bank Flex application for their Global Equity Markets Group. The app will dramatically improve self service, increase awareness of their products and in display this in a rich and engaging way. Full story once its launched!
Our work with Lend Lease continues with the redesign and development of all their retail stores around Australia. Lend Lease are an awesome client to work with and we're really looking forward to getting things moving with a new upcoming project that will be huge!
New General Manager for New Zealand!
Last but not least I'd like to welcome our new General Manager in the New Zealand office! Rob Cooke..! Rob was previously working as the Group Account Director of TBWA in NZ and has a wealth of talent to offer both the company and the NZ office. We've got big plans for the NZ office and with Rob spearheading these; we're bound to see huge things there shortly!
That's it for now folks! But stay tuned for the next exciting update which is going to include plenty of new clients and projects including Colonial First State, more Disney projects and no doubt updates on Web on the Piste!
