Awards!

Adele and I (Pamela) attended the Computerworld Excellence Awards at Sky City on Friday night and were quietly stoked when we didn't win the Youth ICT Award as neither of us had prepared speeches...(pathetic I know). The two that did win it (Shane and Craig Smith for Language Perfect) spoke so well that it was pretty much destined to be that way for the sake of the audience.

So I kicked off my shoes, relaxed at my table and chilled out a little. The couple next to me were from Meridian Energy and it was interesting to hear about the sustainable ICT project they have just implemented. The food was served and it was amazing. Adele and I always order one of each of the mains and then eat half and swap.

But no sooner had I wiped the beef jus from my chin, Frankie Stevens (MC) was announcing yMedia as one of the finalists for an award not on the programme. Gasp. Sure enough, the winners of the Judge's Choice for Best Value was yMedia. Lights flashing. Music *pumping*. Cameras on our table. I'm scurrying to find my shoes under the table and pick the meat out of my teeth and straighten my hair and flatten my dress and arghhh so we are on stage. And we thank everyone we can think of. And I do a plug for our blog and our competition. And they laugh us off. And it's over. And we are holding a 2.5kg solid metal trophy that looks like a famous award of some sort.

Awesome. Thanks Computerworld :)

Wellington Teams Announced

In Wellington so far we have:

Team Anna_Josh: Anna Hermann and Josh Stuart from Massey working with Alzheimers NZ.

Chocolate Fish: Shannon Bayliss and Elena Claxton from Natcol working with Diabetes NZ.

Capital D: Rathana Prak and Kano Sricharoen from Natcol working with the Downtown Communitity Ministry.

Ignite: Liz Hands, Nicola Edhouse and Ian Loveridge from Massey working with OPC.

T 'n' T: Tom Crook and Thomas Frauenstein from Natcoll working with the Youth Development Trust.

{META}: Alex Nijathaworn, Kelly Cheeseman and Ryan Christie from Victoria University working with Pablos Art Studio.

Three D: Kelly Gordon and Alex Hayden from Natcol working with the Real Hot Bitches Dance Troupe.

Dotcomm: Amanda Argyle, Kate Bourke and Jayne from Massey working with the Whitireia Community Law Centre.

Good luck everyone!! Remember to keep checking in to see whats happening!! :)

Auckland Teams Announced

As teams are getting confirmed, we will announce the successful students and their organisations.

In Auckland so far:

Team Hamburger: Kenneth Williams and Tim Holmberg from AUT working with YouthworX
(check out their blog: http://teamhamburger.blogspot.com)

Hutch and Hughes: Sandra Hutchison and Rachelle Hughes from MDS working with Preventing Violence in the Home.

Digital Fix: Aurelie Rivalant, Miles Mason and Kat Gibb from AUT working with North Shore Women's Centre. (http://ymediachallenge.blogspot.com...sneaky)

VanMauden: Jessica van Dammen and Katharine Maude from MDS working with The Discovery Foundation.

Clutch: Aditi Gulati and Ju Zhang from UoA working with the NZ Sign Language Teachers Association.

Open Eyes: Kevin Cooper and Karoly Meszaros from MDS working with the North Shore Community and Social Services.

Awesome, we're super excited to see these guys setting up their blogs. Check back here for regular updates! The Challenge site will profile all the students soon :)

Semi-Permanent 2008

One lucky student team will win tickets to Semi-Permanent 2008 at The Edge, Auckland between August 15th and 16th.

Semi-Permanent is a design event consisting of a conference and side events includ exhibitions, competitions, workshops and parties. It's a week long celebration of all things design. Graphic Design, Film, Art, Illustration, Web Design, Photography, Visual Effects, Animation, Graffiti, Motion Graphics, Stop Motion; all these things and more. Semi-Permanent explores the diverse and exciting design world bringing together exceptionally talented artists and designers to speak at the event.

The prize is being sponsored by The Church - a collective of designers, motion artists and interactive bodies whose purpose in life is to challenge what is, connect with what is possible and be the creation.

Xero prize and presentations

The Xero team are proud supporters of the yMedia Challenge and part of the prize package is a 12 month subscription to Xero for the Challenge winner.

Xero is a New Zealand Stock Exchange-listed business that builds the world’s easiest online accounting system – it’s simple, smart and secure, and removes the pain associated with doing your books.

As part of their support for yMedia, Xero is offering a special price for community groups, charitable trusts and clubs - at half the usual rate, you pay just $24 plus GST per month for full access to Xero. It’s the ideal package for community groups:

• Shared online access means full transparency, accountability and seamless handover.
• Anywhere, anytime access for people you designate.
• Highly secure and cost effective.
  

To find out more, sign up for one of Xero’s free presentations being held next week for community groups at their offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Register at www.xero.com/events.

http://blog.xero.com/2008/06/seminar-xero-for-community-groups/

Generation C

Marie Young from iJump sent this through today, it looks pretty interesting - they are trying to break a world record by getting a huge cast of everyday people to send their videos in.

http://www.looksy.org

Social Media, yMedia and Your Organisation - Auckland

On Thursday we ran our last workshop for 2008, tear. The community group focussed workshop was run at Microsoft on Viaduct Harbour in Auckland.

Belinda Gorman, Community Affairs Manager at Microsoft NZ, spoke about her experiences in the NGO sector before starting at Microsoft. She spoke about Microsoft's partnership with Techsoup which donates software and hardware to community groups.

Pamela Minett from yMedia spoke about changing technology and how to successfully involve tertiary students into community groups (NPOs, NGOs, charitable trusts). She introduced web 2.0 and discussed exciting web 2.0 tools that are potentially valuable to community groups in New Zealand.

Jeanie Richards from YouthLaw talked about her experiences in the 2007 yMedia Challenge. Last year, tertiary students worked with YouthLaw to develop an online presence on Bebo for them. Jeanie explained that because the legal information they were trying to disseminate to children and young people needed to be entirely accurate, it was a challenge condensing that information into small bite-sized chunks for the YouthLaw Bebo site. However, the site has been a success including fun quizzes about the law and videos from the YouthLaw stand at the Polyfest. Check out Jeanie's presentation below!

YouthLaw presentation at yMedia workshop

view presentation (tags: ymedia youthlaw)

Thanks to everyone who made the workshop possible and thanks to the people from the following organisations for attending:

• Volunteering Auckland
• Preventing Violence in the Home
• Tamaki Pathways Trust
• YouthWorX
• Auckland Women's Centre
• Discovery Foundation
• Raeburn House
• North Shore Community and Social Services
• Auckland City Council
• Takapuna Community Facilities Trust

Digital identity & networks - Auckland

We ran our last student workshop on Wednesday at Media Design School in Auckland.

Marie Young from iJump spoke about her life learning experiences, since being employed as a production worker she has changed job over 20 times and is now working as a social media consultant. She drew examples from her own life as she presented helpful tips for students entering the workforce. She discussed how blogging can be an effective way to intiate dialogue on common interests. Marie finished with a class discussion around the pros and cons of putting personal information on to social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Nigel Parker from Microsoft NZ introduced Silverlight technology and showed us a demo of Seadragon. One of the cool projects that use Silverlight and Deep Zoom is the Hard Rock Memorabilia collection. Nigel's exciting journey into what is now possible with new web technologies will have given this year's yMedia Challenge participants exciting ideas for their own projects. Keep up to date with new technology on Nigel's blog!

Red Nicholson from Saatchi & Saatchi and winner of the yMedia Challenge 2007, spoke about his experiences during the Challenge and his internship at Saatchi & Saatchi. Red and Nathan worked with YouthLaw in the yMedia Challenge 2007. Red talked about the incredible people he met at YouthLaw and described both the awesome times and stressful times he had during the two week Challenge. He spoke his internship at Saatchi & Saatchi which has resulted in him working there part-time while he continues studying Communications at AUT. He concluded with some key learnings: that people don't necessarily respect you for the degree you have - it's all about what you bring to the picnic table, that it's all about what you do with what you know, and that it's important to be likeable - just smile! See his presentation below!

| View | Upload your own

Thanks to everyone who made the workshop possible and thanks to the students from Auckland University of Technology, Media Design School, Unitec New Zealand and University of Auckland who attended.

Digital identity & networks - Wellington

On Tuesday we had our second workshop for students at Xero in Wellington.

Megan Hosking from Alto began by confessing to being a bit of a "rebel". According to her business card she's "a big thinker and loves to bang on about all sorts of things". Megan bung on about a variety of things, from Good Friday where her employees spend every Friday doing whatever they want, to her definition of a "designer" being a "servant to process". Her presentation stirred thought amongst the tertiary students - that's opposed to "thunking" which Megan expands to "clunky thinking", her explaination of how poorly designed products make it on to the shelves. Megan's presentation showed us her perspective of the truths of our modern world, an insight into the thinking behind a creative person. Check her presentation below!

| View | Upload your own

Anthea Whittle from Terabyte spoke about her experiences from the 2007 yMedia Challenge. Anthea and Hayden worked with SIDS NZ during the Challenge and developed a new website for them. Anthea found herself managing the project, while Hayden took on the coding aspects of the website. Anthea spoke about how the success of their project depended on the great relationship they had with the two SIDS workers. She explained that in website design, knowledge of the audience is the most important thing to keep in mind. Anthea is now a Project Manager - her experience with SIDS NZ in the yMedia Challenge was invaluable in her placement at Terabyte. See her presentation below!

| View | Upload your own

Thanks to the students who attended from Massey, Victoria and Natcoll. Thanks to Xero for the venue. Thanks to Megan Hosking and Anthea Whittle for speaking. And thanks to Epic Beer for the beer.

Social Media, yMedia and Your Organisation - Wellington

We ran our first workshop for community groups at Natcoll in Wellington on Monday.

Pamela Minett from yMedia spoke about changing technology and how to successfully involve tertiary students into community groups (NPOs, NGOs, charitable trusts). She introduced web 2.0 and discussed exciting web 2.0 tools that are potentially valuable to community groups in New Zealand. See her presentation below!



Anthea Whittle, Project Manager at Terabyte, talked about her experiences in last year's yMedia Challenge. She introduced and explained web concepts such as blogs and RSS. See her presentation below!

| View | Upload your own

Sigurd Magnusson (Siggy) from SilverStripe demonstrated how SilverStripe's open source CMS can be used to design websites.

After a short break, we went "hands on" and everyone signed up for Gmail and explored Google Reader, iGoogle and Google Docs.

| View | Upload your own

Thanks to Natcoll for the venue and thanks to the people who attended from the following organisations:

• NZ Federation of Voluntary Welfare Organisations
• Council of Trade Unions' Learning Reps Programme
• Whitireia Community Law
• Arthritis NZ
• Alzheimers NZ
• Diabetes NZ
• Churches Education Commission
• SCOPE
• Downtown Community Ministry
• Kapiti Women's Centre
• Pablos Art Studio
  
• Helping you help animals trust
• Save the Children New Zealand

Technology and Social Change - Auckland

Last Thursday yMedia ran the first Auckland based student workshop for 2008 at Media Design School on Queen Street.


Our first speaker was Steve Martin, Creative Director at Terabyte who gave students an insight into the web industry - a place no longer just for "coders", but for Project Managers, Copywriters, Communicators, User Experience experts and Designers. He talked about how websites should be designed to be accessible by a wide audience.


Next, Bon Virata, Web Programmer at gardyneHOLT and 2007 yMedia Challenge participant spoke about his experience bridging the gap between tertiary studies and working in the industry. Students listened to Bon's inspiring story about how he worked with Te Waipuna Puawai Mercy Oasis and helped them to develop their own website during the yMedia Challenge, before graduating and being offered a full-time position at gardyneHOLT. He demonstrated that success can be achieved by following your passion and understanding one another. His moving conclusion asked the audience "what's your story?" See his presentation below!

| View | Upload your own

Lastly, Brendan Jarvis, General Manager at Chrometoaster and blogger for BusinessDay presented the 9 things he has learnt in the industry. Students were encouraged to choose their respective workplaces carefully - a creative and supportive workplace will do wonders for graduates in their first job. Brendan succinctly explained the importance of "knowing your audience" and "becoming part of the conversation" with reference to his experience in the web industry. See his presentation below!

| View | Upload your own

Thank you to everyone who helped to make the workshop possible and to everyone who attended!

Technology and Social Change - Wellington Student Workshop

Last night yMedia ran our first workshop for 2008!

18 students from Victoria University, Natcoll Design Technology and Massey University came to the meeting room at the Xero Wellington office on Customhouse Quay.


We started the night off with some pizza and Epic Beer. We also had some veges with Lisa's hummus (unfortunately no, we're not getting any sponsorship from her).

Pamela Minett and Adele Barlow introduced the students and speakers.



Tim Norton presented first with a compelling presentation about the power of "purpose", with the message that you can do what you love to do and "make it your day job". Check his blog at http://www.makeithappenhq.com/


Sigurd Magnusson (Siggy) followed with a demonstation of SilverStripe and of course the funny YouTube video.



Nathan Champion finished with a student preso on Managing a Project. Check his Saatchi & Saatchi Internship blog and YouthLaw digital media blog.


Thanks to everyone who made it possible and thanks to everyone who came!

Meeting with Liz Hampton, IBM NZ

I was thinking, “I wonder if Liz Hampton is in the same lift as me?” as the lift rose up towards Level 11 of the Majestic Centre on Willis Street. Liz is the Manager at Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs at IBM New Zealand, I was meeting with her to talk about IBM’s involvement in the Challenge. The thought passed me by as I walked towards reception, when someone exiting the same lift as me approached and asked if I was Nathan. It was Liz.

We decided to get a coffee across the road, Liz shouted me a flat white (thanks!) and we talked about this year’s yMedia Challenge.

I wanted to know about her perceptions of what a successful yMedia Challenge would be from IBM’s point of view. IBM is one of our industry members for 2008 and I want to make sure they get something in return for their support of the Challenge. Her answer was a well executed Challenge that builds skills and awareness among tertiary students and community groups. That, and just to make sure IBM is kept up to date with how things are progressing. Sounds good!

I was hoping to get an industry judge from IBM. I asked Liz and she promised to get back to me. It wasn’t long after our coffee before I got a call back from Liz who could confirm that Valerie Walshe, Marketing Manager for IBM New Zealand will be able to judge this year’s projects. Awesome!

Epic Beer arrives!

Epic Beer has arrived this morning ready for tonight's workshop at Xero on Customhouse Quay. Many thanks to Luke for sponsoring the Epic Beer. We at yMedia love his business cards which refer to the Epic Google map, Epic YouTube channel, Epic Facebook page, Epic Friendfeed, Epic Twitter and Epic Flickr. EPIC!

Looks like they won't fit in the fridge here, I'll put them in the Xero late arvo so they will be cold for post-workshop! Looking forward to hearing Luke speak at the Auckland workshop tomorrow!