be green or be gone

So maybe caring about the planet is not an either-or thing where you're either for environmental protection or against it. Often, most of us do care about the Earth a lot - we enjoy our beach holidays and our forests. Time and again, we just need a kick up the pants to change our habits, no?

An easy start is eDay, a cars-only drive-through recycling event which gives you the opportunity to recycle old computers or mobile phones in an environmentally sustainable way. For more info, click here.

eDay will be held on the 4th* of October 2008 in regions around New Zealand.

Computer collectables charity auction, live from Sat 4 Oct.

The event was launched in Wellington in 2006 with an extremely successful pilot sponsored by Dell. Fifty-four tonnes of unused computer hardware were collected in one day. In 2007, eDay was extended to 12 locations throughout New Zealand where a total of 6,900 cars dropped off 415 tonnes of e-waste. This included more than 26,000 computer items including monitors, CPUs and printers....

• mobile phone chargers can be recycled to recover copper
• handsets and accessories can be recycled to recover the plastics
• circuit boards inside handsets can be recycled to recover precious metals such as gold, silver and other materials like copper, lead and zinc
• rechargeable batteries are recycled for their nickel, iron, cadmium, lead and cobalt.

On average, over 95% of the materials collected on eDay will be diverted from landfills.

Volunteers are required for eDay to assist with logistics at each eDay drop off site. Volunteers are needed to help direct traffic, interview drivers about their awareness of e-waste issues and remove computer equipment from cars. Sign up here.

The secrets behind the speech-maker

Fear number two: death. Fear number one: public speaking. Our keynote speaker from last week, John Mazenier (NZ Country Manager of Sun Microsystems) was a huge hit. Here, he shares a few nuggets sourced from Toastmasters:

1. Know the room. Be familiar with the place in which you will speak. Arrive early, walk around the speaking area and practice using the microphone and any visual aids.

2. Know your audience. Greet some of the audience as they arrive. It's easier to speak to a group of friends than to a group of strangers.

3. Know your material. If you're not familiar with your material or are uncomfortable with it, your nervousness will increase. Practise your speech and revise it if necessary.

4. Relax. Ease tension by doing exercises.

5. Visualize yourself giving your speech. Imagine yourself speaking, your voice loud, clear, and assured. When you visualize yourself as successful, you will be successful.

6. Realize that people want you to succeed. They are just as scared of public speaking as you are. They’re on your side!

7. Don't apologize. If you mention your nervousness or apologize for any problems you think you have with your speech, you may be calling the audience's attention to something they hadn't noticed. Keep silent.

8. Concentrate on the message -- not the medium. Focus your attention away from your own anxieties, and outwardly toward your message and your audience. Your nervousness will dissipate.

9. Turn nervousness into positive energy. Harness your nervous energy and transform it into vitality and enthusiasm.

10. Gain experience. Experience builds confidence, which is the key to effective speaking.

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.

Awards night in Aucks

And so another yMedia whanau meet-up came and went with last night's Auckland Awards. Ah, the warm-and-fuzzy 'family' vibe was there (albeit one of those estranged families where everyone knows others' names but not necessarily the fine print of their histories).

Stephen Tindall spoke, recalling how the Warehouse's decision to take a chance with electronic technology back in the day largely propelled it to success. The theme of the night was the changing importance of digital media, the new addiction that young people have to this technology, and of course, the spotlight was on the fantastic projects from this year's Challenge.

Massive congrats to the Auckland Winners: Team Open Eyes (Kyle Meszaros and Kevin Cooper) who worked with 'Community Connections'. We'd also like to congratulate all the other participants for producing some amazing blogs, Facebook pages, websites and so on.

For Pamela and myself, having Bon, Jade, Joe, Sheena, Nathan, Red and Anthea as quasi-co-hosts of the evening was a definite highlight. Telecom's gift vouchers of $400 to the winning teams, one set for Auckland one for Wellington, were also a lovely surprise.

We're very aware that the people in the room last night - the 2007 participants, our sponsors, judges, community groups, and 2008 students - are yMedia as it exists today.

In Ancient Greece, gathering in the forum was a part of daily life. In 1960s America, rallies and marches were part of the student experience. At the turn of the 21st century, it's becoming increasingly harder to drag people out of their homes and into real-world, face-to-face activities on a Wednesday night.

And so we'd like to thank everyone again for coming out and for making it another warm-and-fuzzy night.

Sheena hits SEMI PERMANENT

The past weekend 15th and 16th August marked that massive design affair, Semi Permanent, a two day conference where leading 12 international and local designers of various mediums - Graphic Design, Film, Art, Illustration, Web Design, Photography, Interactive Design to name a few, are invited to speak to Auckland's design heads.

I went along on Saturday and found the seminars to be heart, brain and soul fodder. Naturally some speakers were better than others, choosing not only to show off their portfolios but also to explain at length, their preferences, inspirations and processes as well as offer insights on both the design industry and life's lessons.

Dumbo Feather, Pass It On magazine founder and editor Kate Bezar told an inspiring story of her industry journey, photographer Derek Henderson was refreshing in his simple and honest approach to taking photos, Debaser proudly showed off their music artwork skills and procedures and Danny Yount his impressive TV title portfolio and I won a gorgeous, huge typography poster from brand identity agency Sea Design which I can't wait to get mounted and display on my wall.

But like many others, my favourite on the day was undoubtedly Stefan Sagmeister who enthralled with a humourous, awe inspiring and touching presentation based on his book 'Things I have learned in my life so far'. See his website http://thingsihavelearnedinmylife.com where you too can contribute to his project of art and learning.

The event has a festival vibe with the Curvy and Misery gallery exhibitions opening a day prior, a goodie bag with a beautiful Semi Permanent 2008 book for a keepsake and an after-party to wrap it all up. A incredibly useful and successful multi-discipline design forum for creatives.

Last year after I attended a playful and colourful interactive gallery exhibition in Melbourne, Experimenta Playground which completely blew my mind, I was terribly curious about the logistics of interactive. So on Tuesday I actually attended a sort of continuation of Semi Permanent, an intimate interactive design workshop with two speakers from Day 1 of Semi Permanent I'd missed because I was ill.

Joel Gethin Lewis and Toxi explained the advantages of open source frameworks and processing, of the community aspects, commercial viability and the kind of DIY nature of creating interactive pieces such as repurposing webcams for a couple of dollars to create magnificent new technological tools. I was amazed by how fun, effective and dare I say it, simple, interactive designing could be.

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!

Do the Web Out

Kia ora, just did a presentation at the NFP Network Australia's Executive Conference.

Am rushing out now to get back to the office, but thought I'd share the slides quickly for all....

And if you're wanting any more info (ie. my notes...) then please email me!

Share. Find. Play. :)

| View | Upload your own

yMedia Media Release Released to the Media

yMedia Challenge 2008

Registrations are now open for students and non-profit organisations

Registrations are now open for this year’s yMedia Challenge. The Challenge brings web generation students together with non-profit organisations to work on media and technology projects that benefit them and the communities they serve.

yMedia Director, Pamela Minett believes that there are many non-profit organisations who could benefit from being more visible on the internet, but many just don’t know where to start.

“Non-profit organisations often lack time and resources to develop an online presence. The yMedia Challenge recognises that tertiary students brought up in the web era have innate digital skills that are invaluable to these organisations. In addition to helping out a good cause, these students also gain valuable work experience which can help them get jobs when they graduate,” she says.

Initiatives for community groups undertaken last year included Facebook Flyers, Banner advertisements, Bebo pages, YouTube videos, and PayPal donation links for their non-profit organisation. One team developed a website for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome New Zealand (http://www.sids.org.nz).

“We’re changing the way that charities think and the way they connect with the people they need to reach. This, more than anything else, can make a difference” says Auckland University of Technology student Leah Royden.

Tertiary students enter the yMedia Challenge in teams and each team chooses a yMedia registered non-profit organisation to work with. The students then have two weeks to create a digital solution that best addresses the individual needs of the organisation.

16 teams will be selected for this year’s challenge and each will each receive $1,000 for their two week project.

A series of student and community-focused workshops will also be held before the Challenge, discussing changing technologies and the media landscape. Industry professionals from Chrometoaster, Shift, Terabyte and Xero will present on web 2.0 technologies, digital design & strategy, project management and social media. The workshops give students and community groups the opportunity to collaborate with industry professionals and learn from their experiences.

The workshops run in Auckland and Wellington between June 30^th and July 10^th.

Non-profit organisation registrations for the yMedia Challenge close on June 29^th. Student registrations for the yMedia Challenge close on July 4^th. The challenge begins on July 28^th.

Non-profit organisations and tertiary students can register for workshops and this year’s yMedia Challenge at http://www.ymediachallenge.co.nz.

About yMedia Group

yMedia Group was established in 2007 by Pamela Minett and Adele Barlow. Its goal is to aid worthwhile projects and give people looking to work in the digital media industry some practical experience. Pamela and Adele’s vision is to maximise the positive impact of young people as change-makers through the use of media and technology.

Key supporters of the yMedia Group include InternetNZ, Microsoft , Telecom and The Tindall Foundation.

Ends

For more information contact:

Nathan Champion
Relationship Manager
nathan@ymediagroup.org
027 514 8454

Pamela Minett
Director
pamela@ymediagroup.org
027 420 8324

Thanks for the coverage WebGuide and In Unison:

http://www.usu.co.nz/inunison/news/students-and-samaritans-powers-combine-in-ymedia-challenge/
http://webguide.net.nz/2008/ymedia-challenge-registrations-close-29-june-2008/

The White Page of Doom.

So the Challenge website is down...

We are doing all we can to fix it!

Quick catch up on last few weeks...(cont'd)

I met Wayne Stewart of Business Mechanix when I was doing my internship at YouthLaw. I remembered that Wayne had once mentioned that Business Mechanix does some work for Wintec in Hamilton. yMedia was still looking for 3 industry members for this year's yMedia Challenge. I gave Wayne a call and we set up a meeting, see if he was interested in what we were doing.

I arrived at the office on Beaumont Street with my backpack and suitcase, I was travelling to Wellington in the afternoon. Wayne told me about his travels to the states for a Microsoft conference on the tertiary sector, Business Mechanix was the only New Zealand company invited to the conference, he explained that Business Mechanix does a significant amount of work for the tertiary sector in New Zealand. What a perfect fit for yMedia.

Pamela arrived and Wayne invited Lyndal Stewart (Business Development Director of Business Mechanix) in as well. We talked about the yMedia Challenge and what we are doing this year. Lyndal has recently started a chartiable trust called "Technology Reaching Youth Foundation" which aims to provide reliable and sustainable access to technology for youth across New Zealand. She mentioned that she was looking for some research around what existing schemes have achieved and areas where more development is needed. I instantly thought of the Head of Communication Studies at Unitec New Zealand, Jocelyn Williams. She has been finishing off her thesis about building community through free Internet access in New Zealand. After the meeting, I introduced Lyndal and Jocelyn by email. Both were receptive to the introduction, hopefully they will both find it valuable!

Quick catch up on last few weeks...(cont'd)

I arranged to meet Luke Nicholas of Epic Beer at yMedia's lunchroom, that is the Strawberry Alarmclock in Parnell.

I offered to get him a coffee, turns out he doesn't drink coffee, oh yeah Epic Beer, I should've figured. Then again, 10:30am is probably a bit early to get started.

Luke started Epic Beer after purchasing the rights to it from the Cock & Bull in October last year. His marketing is solely based on social media. That is, constantly twittering, blogging, on Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube. And it works, he's got 277 followers on Twitter all tuned in to his latest updates, how the brewing is going, new distribution channels and beer tastings. It was cool to see an entire business running on word of mouth like that. Respect!

Anyway, we got straight to the point (haha not really - we were having too much fun looking at his photos on his iPod touch).

We'd love some Epic Beer for the workshops we're running this year. Shouldn't be too difficult, Pamela and I will write up a short proposal and email it to Luke soon...

Quick catch up on last few weeks...(cont'd)

Sheena and I were heading to the Auckland Xero office on Beaumont Street. Pamela had already visited the Wellington Xero office, but we thought it would be good to take a look at the Auckland office and meet Hamish Carter, the Relationship Manager there. Wow, that's the same title as me? Maybe he will be able to give me some hints on how to manage relationships!

We climbed the stairs of the lovely brick office and met Hamish at his desk. We moved to the large meeting room, if you can call it that, it was empty apart from a large table, chairs and a projector. Oh and a bar and kitchen to the side.

We talked about this year's yMedia Challenge, Xero and how we could work together more. Hamish offered for us to use the Xero Auckland office for some of the workshops we will be holding. He might also come along and speak at them. The speakers are being organised by Adele from Hong Kong, so we'll have to get her in touch with Hamish at some point.

If you don't know about Xero, it's accounting software that's all web-based. So you never have to install anything on your computer, just log in to the website and do your accounts from there. Pretty cool that it's a New Zealand product and they are expecting to take it to the world!

Quick catch up on last few weeks...(cont'd)

I'm on Quay St meeting John Wyatt from Recruit IT. He had heard about the challenge and wanted to know a bit more about it. Pamela had heard that Recruit IT had an innovative way of finding employment for graduates. Recruit IT have a way of identifying graduates that are suitable for Test Analyst positions and have a short programme that prepares the graduates for placement in the industry. John is also involved with Birthright, a non-profit organisation that provides support for single parents. We discussed how the workshops and challenge could benefit Birthright and Recruit IT. Here's hoping Recruit IT comes onboard as an industry member of this year's yMedia Challenge!

Quick catch up on last few weeks...(cont'd)

I was driving down Albert St with 3 minutes to spare before my 11am meeting with Toni Hedley, Segment Manager at APN Online. Parking on a side street, I leapt out of my Nana's Toyota Starlet and ran to the parking meter just in time to get my ticket before the other guy heading towards the same meter got there.

With 1 minute to spare I signed in at New Zealand Herald reception. Toni wasn't long and met me in reception. We decided to head across the road for a caffine fix. We had a chat about the challenge and APN Digital Media. She hooked me up with some mean contacts at APN Digital Media and MySpace New Zealand. Oh! Did I mention that APN Digital Media is offering students and non-profit organisations participating in this year's yMedia Challenge $24,000 worth of advertising on NZherald.co.nz? How cool!

Quick catch up on last few weeks...

I've been working on this year's yMedia Challenge for a couple of weeks now, I'll do a quick recap of everything so far. I pulled Sheena in with me on the first day, Sheena is studying with me at Unitec and we did the Industry Internship course together. It was coming up to Uni holidays and Pamela had asked me to recruit anyone I knew to help out.

The yMedia office is totally cool. Terabyte gave us an area in their York St, Parnell office as an in-kind contribution to the yMedia Challenge. We have a big space with wooden polished floors and open-planned desks. All that we had on the desks so far were felttip pens and A3 paper, must be in brainstorm mode.

/skip forward a week/

Pamela and I are here meeting Brendan Jarvis from Chrometoaster. We're at the Strawberry Alarmclock in Parnell. I hadn't had my morning coffee yet, but Pamela had already taken 3. Brendan didn't know what had hit him, Pamela spoke at 100 miles an hour, Brendan asked a few questions and I interjected every now and then. It was a pretty successful meeting, certainly economic on time.

Brendan is quite a big deal, a General Manager at the Chrometoaster Auckland office. One of his major clients is NZ Trade and Enterprise. He also blogs on BusinessDay about digital media and design. Check his blog at http://www.businessday.co.nz/blog/playingtowin. Since our meeting, he's volunteered to judge the yMedia Challenge projects and is offering an internship opportunity to students coming through the Challenge. Awesome!

The story so far...

Hi, I'm Nathan. I've decided to take over this blog because it hasn't been updated in a while!

Last year, I became involved in the yMedia challenge and had the opportunity to work with YouthLaw and come up with a digital media project to help make legal information more accessible to young people. My best friend, Red, and I worked with YouthLaw to design a bebo page with quizzes and videos that helped people better understand the law.

Well, we won it, and that spun off a whole lot of cool opportunties for us. Money for starters, like $1,000 for winning the challenge. An internship at Saatchi & Saatchi and an invitation to speak at the Digital Future Summit.

Then, I spent all of the semester working for YouthLaw on a film project that will be made available to youth workers and advocates around the country over the Internet. (http://youthlawdm.blogspot.com) And I could use it as to credit to my Communications degree at Unitec! Mean!

Now, I've become involved in yMedia again, helping to organise the 2008 challenge. I've come onboard as the "relationship manager" which basically means I go around and talk to lots of people.

My current todo list is:

* Drink coffee
* Talk to people in digital and media industries
* Find prizes and judges
* Find $10,000
* Write blog

Well I guess I'm doing ok on the last one. I'll do a bit of a recap of the last couple of weeks in my next post! Seeyou!

P.S. Please leave a comment so it looks like people are actually read this :) Sponsors love that kind of stuff!

Choosing to remember

"There’s too much to remember. Sometimes you gotta forget about the past," said Antonio Pierro, war veteran (Esquire, Jan 08).

Not according to Gordon Bell. This dude is trying to record his whole life. His entire life. See On The Media, a story called The Persistence of Memory.

He's a computer scientist, a senior researcher for Microsoft, and part of a movement known as “lifelogging,” digitally keeping "every letter and photo, every phone call, email and video, every conversation, keystroke and scrap of paper, the entire minutiae of his daily routine, onto a hard drive."

As a hoarder of photos and letters from childhood, I'm not really one to judge. His explanation intrigued me:

"Why does anybody ever preserve anything? Is there any value to having a photograph of my mother at age three or so, you know...?"

Do we hold onto these relics from our past because they're valuable, or do we attach the value to them by holding on? Where is the value in the things we keep? And if memory is merely the retention of, and ability to recall, information and personal experiences... I wonder if the human memory can ever be eclipsed by an electronic one.

Media 08 (part 3)

Niall Kennedy stepped up to the plate. Widget king – he runs the Widget Summit in San Fran. One thing he said completely stuck: “Because we’re all in this room, we share an interest, so we’re somewhat in a relationship.” It hit me that when people find their passion, and are able to share interests collectively, they ultimately become happier to be alive since, as Chris McCandless wrote, "Happiness to be real must be shared."

Kaiser Kuo, former rock star and forever cool dude, talked about China’s wild, wild web. That any day now, China will overtake with THE most internet users.

Instant messaging in China is massive; it is more important than email – totally trumps it. Chinese use IM as a primary internal and external business communications tool.

QQ- the company one must understand if to understand Chinese internet market. Captures zeitgeist of China’s digital age. 36 million concurrent users. That's a big number.

I enjoyed this pearl: "The 'venture' is VC is crap – they’re not adventurous. So if you want to raise the capital, you’ve got to show something that’s already been proven to be a safe bet." He mentioned that the low-hanging fruit has largely already been picked: YouTube, Facebook, etc have already been invented.

One of the best things about Media 08 was covert life advice from the speakers during the coffee breaks. I don't know when adults went from being my parents' friends at dinner parties, to colleagues, but the transition happened pretty quickly. The best thing about being in your early twenties is that you're still so open to the world, and I appreciated hearing from Benjamin Joffe about how any goal is possible when you plan the end first and then work backwards in establishing your next steps.

Assia Grazioli-Venier also pointed out that while starting a company sounds cool, it’s best done after a couple of years of work experience. You’re not going to know what kind of employer you want to be until you’ve been an employee. University is good for time management skills and learning to juggle, but you have to get out there in the real world to try on different career paths, and see what fits. You have to find out who you are and what you're passionate about before you can run a successful company.

She also pointed out this cool made-for-online TV show.

Media 08 (part deux)

Next up was Alan Noble, from Google. Did you know? Google maps was started in Oz. He reckons that gadgets are the latest – a.k.a. widgets. They're mini-applications, ad are becoming the new building blocks of a whole new web.

Google culture dictates, “There’s never an end to innovation. Things can always be better, more user-friendly, etc.” It reminds me of Pam... the chilled-out perfectionist who inspires better results because she has the confidence to believe in them. Maybe mediocrity can never happen if it's not allowed to happen.

Jonathan Haagen from the Economist Intelligence Unit mentioned that nowadays there is no such thing as “virtual reality.” It got me thinking about how the Internet has totally blurred the boundaries between presence and absence... how the confirmation of our sense of being is now attached to somewhere beyond the immediate.

The computer is now a small army of positions that used to be filled by real people - postman, bank clerk, bookstore assistant. The screen has cost us those social interactions. We can't even mark the lines of reality anymore: when you check your bank statement online, it's a real number, a real bank, a real customer..."real" in the off-line sense. Is there even a difference?

On a similar note, Richard MacManus from ReadWriteWeb said that pages are no longer center of the web, now data and services are. He mentioned the onset of the semantic web – machines talking to machines, and making the web more “intelligent”. A semantic application, I learned, determines the meaning of text and other data, and then creates connections for users.

He mentioned that the magic of Facebook was “the global mapping of everyone and how they are related” and this linked to Jonathan’s point about how our offline selves and the social furniture of our lives are increasingly translated into the online world.

As people travel more and more, I don't think an old-fashioned address book cuts it. You need more than just the details of people you meet on journeys, you want to remember how you're linked, the mutual friends, etc... it's as if globalisation's making socialising so much more insanely multi-layered that Facebook becomes a need instead of a luxury; a method of preservation in a world that's moving faster than we can keep up with alone.

Media 08 (Part 1)

I’m in a room full of people, hoping they won’t realize that I don’t belong. I should be in class back in Melbourne. Instead, I’m at Media 08 in Sydney, an event run by X | Media | Lab, “the internationally acclaimed think-tank and creative workshop for digital media professionals.”

Who am I kidding? Everyone's talking about widgets... huh? They blog (live) on their Macbooks. I take notes (slowly), with a pen.

I am (cringeworthy) old school in the new media world. Then again, technology isn’t my main passion.

It’s the social connections and communication in a borderless world, the alternate possibilities through screen culture. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that to make up for my digital retardation.

Vicky Taylor from the BBC talked about how on a single day in July, over 2 million people came to BBC site, during the floods around Gloucestershire. The BBC website gave people a much-needed forum to swap stories, share advice, and question authorities.


What does this mean about machines becoming more valuable than people, during a crisis?

Brendan introduced Mohamed Nanabhay by saying that Al-Jazeera are light-years ahead of BBC and CNN in terms of user-generated content.



The video got over a million hits. This mainstream media outlet is using (presently) "alternative" forms of production to alter the mainstream itself, from the inside out. Mohamed mentioned, the key driving force of new media is the participatory aspect - the reader is also now the creator:

“To find something comparable, you have to go back 500 years to the printing press, the birth of mass media… Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are taking control.”

– Rupert Murdoch, quoted in Wired, July 2006

He also used a quote at the end that reminded me of how integrity leads to freedom: “Telling the truth is hard. Not telling it is even harder.”

He mentioned industry trends of content going online whether you like it or not; internal resistance to change; the fact that we’re dealing with new business models. Where does internal resistance to change come from...what does it take to force people, or businesses, to change – is catastrophe the only true catalyst?