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Late again with the G-Spot – I should be shot… But boy – is this issue worth it!! (Aren’t they all ?!!) Where to start..?! With summer just around the corner and the silly season into full effect, all at Gruden are working hard so that we can have that well earned holiday we deserve… and a huge Christmas party!

Things have been powering along as usual and to cope with the flurry of work, we’ve added a few new superstars to the team. So I’d like to take the time to welcome Emerson Todd and Lucy Crowley; and I’d like to welcome back – Nick Mountford after a year of being overseas! All of these guys will be joining the Project Management (PM) team.

BIG congratulations is to go to our Senior PM Lindsey Falconer who has recently left to go on maternity leave; and more recently had her first baby girl – Evie Star (great name – she has to be famous with a name like that!). So big congrats to Lindsey and Chris – nice one guys. Whilst on the topic of babies, I’d also like to congratulate Abe and Kel for their new baby boy, Indigo!

It’s been stupidly busy of late with lots of new cool stuff going on. We’ve recently launched the following sites: destra business, Sunbeam – Cool Creations, a re-skin of The George Institute, Disney Channel – School of the Future and a number of other developments and updates to various sites.

A few months ago we played a major part in the re-branding and redesign of our favourite charity – Childfund Australia. Childfund (previously know as CCF Australia) underwent a global re-branding exercise to reposition their message in the market – much nicer I think! We also recently represented them in the Charity Golf day event – sorry guys, I know we suck!!

Work with the NSW Government and the Department of Commerce for the online style guides is still moving along. The consortium, which includes all NSW government agencies, has been working hard to provide standards in development, templates, Information Architecture, User Interfaces, coding standards and a heap more for all NSW government departments.

We’ve also been working with the Department of Commerce on a few of their website applications (can’t say which ones just yet!) and providing a number of services to streamline and upgrade their site(s). More to come on this later!!

The Sunbeam – Cool Creations website has been a lot of fun, developing funky interactive content for the kiddies…! Any parents out there looking for cool Christmas presents for their kids, make sure you check out some of these products..! and while your there, try your luck at the Mikey Martian’s House Party game…

What else,… We’re also in the process of developing Henry Davis York’s Intranet on the Shado MX CMS and Framework. Group Event Travel is also undergoing some enhancements and new features to their loyalty & incentive application we developed a few years ago. Disney Channel has some really cool things under development – keep an eye out for these early next year.

And there’s heaps more to tell, but I can see that I’ve just been blabbering on about work and boring project stuff way too much – I’d be surprised how many people make it this far down…! So enough work talk – I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy, merry and safe Christmas and New Year..!

I know I’m looking forward to my break over the Christmas period – sun, surf, speedo’s, beers, BBQ’s & bikini’s – bring it on! Which reminds me that the office closes on the 22nd of December and re-opens on the 4th of January. A nice little break for us all.

But whilst your on holidays, kickin’ back, a little something to remember this festive season, is that a drunk mans’ words are a sober mans’ thoughts…!

Till next time!

Well Boys and Girls, its been another few silly months here at Gruden since you last heard from us. With the office move now out of the way, we’ve been head down – bum up and working hard, with little time to do anything – hence the lateness on this G-spot…! But it hasn’t been without a bit of excitement….

But firstly, happy new year to all of those concerned with numbers and those that care! It’s a pretty big milestone with this financial year over, as it oficially marks our 10th year in business – and boy has it come a long way since the humble beginnings of sharing a computer between two of us!

The big news is that we have now moved! Yay thank god its over!! Everything ran pretty smoothly despite the fact that we signed the lease on the 13th, had to move office on Friday the 13th and we moved to the 13th floor! We thought we were doomed!! But alas, the new bigger, better, sexier and more centralised office is proving to be a very comfortable new home. So now we’re at Level 13, 60 Carrington Street – handy for everyone!

Besides the excitement of moving, we’ve been keeping very busy working on lots of new projects and enhancements for clients. We’ve recently launched a number of new sites, one being the Rosemount Estate website for Southcorp and the new Disney Channel Suite Life Competition Site. The super site was based upon the new framework that Disney Channel worldwide are now using offering a larger screen size – and lots more advertising! Check it out..

We’ve also recently been awarded a number of new projects that will definately see us busy for the next few months. The most interesting project is the development of the NSW Government and the Department of Commerce’s online style guides. Working with our partners at PTG, we’ll be looking at the whole of government with the aim of standardising development, templates, Information Architecture, User Interfaces, coding standards and more for all NSW government departments.

Work with Southcorp is continuing with the development of the new Lindemans website and we were also recently awarded the project for Pandana’s resort based in Darwin – which has now been launched, the Destra Business website, the Lively Group website and again working with ARIA on this years ARIA Awards voting website.

Also, the Tripoint website is almost complete, as is Budget Hot Water and the Australian Institute of Management have just launched the new Intranet which is using the Shado MX CMS – as well as a number of other projects!

Collex have recently implemented the Shado MX Content Management System on their website to provide an easy to use, yet powerful solution to base their internet developments on. Blacktown City Council are also in the process of upgrading Shado MX to the latest version, taking advantage of the integrated Coldfusion Enterprise and Flex package that we can now offer.

This offer is a world first, where Macromedia and Shado MX 7 have joined forces to offer a truley enterprise solution that has unlimited capability in this very powerful product.

That’s it for another few months here at G-Spot central, but remember; “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away”!

Till next time!!

How time slips by… I’m sure it was only in the last week or two that I wrote the last G-Spot (really 4 months ago) – and then I think back to the time when I wrote it – just before the Christmas holidays… Yes the holiday period! what a time,… relaxing, catching up on all that reading, sailing, just enjoying – outstanding! And how long ago was that? Much longer ago than writing the last G-Spot….

Work at Gruden has been powering along over the last few months. We’ve wrapped up a few projects since the you last heard from us, the largest of them being the Sydney Convention Centre and Visitors Bureau (SCVB). The SCVB is the driving force in securing and promoting meetings, incentive travel programmes, conventions, exhibitions and special events for Sydney. I think its a very tidy looking site…!