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!

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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!