Well, well, Welly

Apart from the projector favoring PCs over Macs; a whole new Powerpoint show hurriedly thrown together; and a bumpy quick-change in the bathrooms (Pam and I have developed a whole new relationship with our gym bags and public toilets); everything last night went smoothly.

At the yMedia Wellington Awards, the night turned when Paul Matthews from the NZ Computer Society announced that NZCS, Sun Microsystems, RecruitIT, IBM, and Summer of Code (SoC) were each putting $200 on the bar as a gift to the Wellington student crowd.

So Paul Matthews, John Clegg (SoC), John Mazenier (Sun), John O'Leary (IBM), John Wyatt (RecruitIT), and Liz Hampton (IBM) - here's a huge cheers to you again, for such a well-timed/well-received/well-intentioned gesture. Thanks also to the very cool Southern Cross Bar for hosting us for free.

Thanks also to Dave Turnbull (ChromeToaster), Rod Drury (Xero) and Dave Ralph (Creo) for coming along to present the prizes and sharing their words of wisdom with the crowd.

Well, well, Welly - all of those who came last night have made yMedia feel very welcome in this city, so thanks again. It feels like a million thank-you's have been said over the past three days, but John Mazenier's keynote address reminded me that "the hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

John spoke about how people who work for multi-national corporations are essentially, still, just people (yes... they have hearts). At the start of the night, he had watched the video that Team Anna_Jamie_Josh had made for Alzheimers NZ, and was visibly moved by a brilliant post-it installation which the team did.

They stuck heaps and heaps of post-it notes around a popular corridor at their uni. Anyone who knows Alzheimers, recognises the gesture.

"You have no idea how poignant that is," he told me.

The gratitude he publicly expressed for the project itself, and for community groups like Alzheimers AZ, echoed that warm-and-fuzzy feeling that buzzed around the Auckland Awards last night. And it reminded me that each thank-you message opens doors for repeating whatever attracted the gratitude in the first place.

Huge congrats to our Wellington winners - Team Ignite - Liz Hands, Nicola Edhouse and Ian Loveridge, for their work with the Outdoor Pursuits Centre.

And once again, thanks to all our sponsors, students and community groups for taking up this opportunity, and giving yMedia a thousand more opportunities in the process.