The SkillsDMC website developed and designed by Gruden was short-listed for the 2009 The McFarlane Prize and has now been published in the 2009 book.

The McFarlane Prize nominations are awarded to an Australian designer or team for a site launched or significantly upgraded between September 1st 2008 and August 31 2009. Sites may be designed for Australian or non Australian individuals, organisations, companies or governments, but must be designed and developed by an individual or team which works in Australia for an Australian company.

To learn more about the SkillsDMC website project please visit our portfolio.

Disney Channel Australia & New Zealand approached Gruden to develop an online campaign with the purpose of creating interest in and awareness of the TV premier of Zeke & Luther on Disney Channel. Additionally, the brief was to support sustained interest in the show via unique online applications, video and content opportunities.

Gruden aimed to create a campaign with simple, targeted content, games and online promotions for kids, with a key drive to tune into the premier of Zeke & Luther on Disney Channel.

New site additions were then rolled out regularly which helped sustain and grow the user base over an extended period of time. Updates & site features included: 

• Two interactive skating games
• Regular video ‘trick’ tutorials with a professional skateboarder showing kids exactly how to perform tricks/stunts.
• Interactive skateboard deck designer – providing kids with a unique tool to create their very own deck designs. This was initially rolled out as a competition to drive interest in a key space of time and is now being redeveloped into an evergreen application to ensure continued traffic to the site.

The culture associated with skateboarding (lifestyle / sport / fashion) was a key focus for both the design & development, with simple targeted content, games & online promotions integrated into the site from day one.

There were 2-3 key interactive components designed & developed for the new site – a number more scheduled for launch in the coming months.

• Skateboard Creator:
  Skateboard deck designer whereby users could design their own deck from scratch. Features included; painting the wheels & trucks, changing the actual board texture (metal, wood, plastic) & adding a number of extra graphics, positioning & layering as many as they wanted. The competition drew over 18,000+ entries over a 4 week period.
   



•  Image Maker:
  Custom image making tool allowing users to create personalised Zeke & Luther graphics for a wide-range of use including; mobiles (iPhone wallpapers), desktop, IM & social media profiles.
   
• Character ‘Shout-outs’:
  Users can send personalised ‘shout-outs’ (online messages) to their favourite show characters.

Bright, colourful and edgy, the overall interface tied in with the show’s unique key touch points whilst creating an immersive experience for kids visiting the site.

Through the use of punchy colour, bold shapes and a mixture of key show artwork & unique visual assets, the site was designed to ensure that is was both visually engaging and fun to use.

SkillsDMC is a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates education and training across the Resource and Infrastructure sectors. The SkillsDMC website provides tools, research and competency-based training resources to assist skills-short mining and infrastructure enterprises. The underlying foundation of this resource is a scalable, flexible and easily updatable content management system, Sitecore CMS.

Sitecore CMS allowed Gruden to build SkillsDMC a website which provided them with an intuitive user interface, and allowed our development team to provide them with highly customised functionality, streamlining many of their online and offline business processes.

The website included the integration of a forums module for the reporting, management and display of Training Package related feedback.

We custom built a Training Package administration area to support the management of large quantities of data, allowing SkillsDMC to easily build customised Training Packages online through the input and assignment of units of data (over 2,000 to date).

Gruden also implemented predictive search functionality to allow for users to quickly locate specific Training Package Information using unique reference codes.

Gruden is consistently abreast of the latest Sitecore technologies, attending regular webinars, conferences and partner briefings relating to the expansion, scalability and innovation of the Sitecore CMS and associated products. We have a number of trained Sitecore developers who are highly active within the Sitecore Developer community. Additionally, we have a strong working relationship with Sitecore Australia, ensuring that we maximise our partnership and provide the best possible solution to our clients.

Stemming from this is Gruden’s assurance that we have the capabilities to assist our clients in future-proofing their online solutions, constantly reassessing our client’s measurable objectives and online presence through strategy workshops and dedicated account management.

To take a look at the new site, head to www.skillsdmc.com.au.

Today, Gruden launches Consulting WorX, an innovative online marketplace specifically designed to match businesses with consultants for various projects.

Consulting Worx is a new way of doing business that gives you and businesses a better work life balance as well as a great online network and community. Businesses simply post a new job and can choose either a self-service option, or have Consulting WorX connect them with the most suitable consultants to get the job done. Consultants can be selected for a job based on their experience, or can apply for a job directly via the noticeboard. Once introduced, all ongoing contact is then directly between the Consultant and the Business.

Gruden designed, developed and implemented the Consulting WorX application from the ground up, utilising the FarCry open-source CMS platform, with outstanding results. As well as scoping, designing and documenting the complex business model, Gruden implemented a clean, modern design, reflective of the Consulting WorX brand, with a focus on usability and consultant/business retention.

Consulting WorX provides a unique service to both businesses and consultants who seek to utilise the skills of home-based business professionals who value flexibility and experience. Take a look at www.consultingworx.com.au.

Today marks the launch of the Paper-Less Alliance, a Do Something! initiative instigated by Planet Ark founders Jon Dee, Pat Cash & Tina Jackson.

“We’re calling on businesses to make a bigger effort in switching their customers and suppliers to electronic billing,” said Jon Dee, the Founder of Do Something. “Emailing bills and invoices instead of posting them is just one way businesses can save money as well as the environment.”Going electronic is common sense.

Getting customers to fill in electronic forms is far more efficient and cost effective than getting them to fill in paper-based forms. Storing your documents electronically is also much more effective and cheaper than storing them on paper in warehouses. Searching for bills electronically is also far quicker than searching for them in a lever arch file.

 The aims of the Paper-Less Alliance are to:

• educate Australian businesses about the efficiency and cost-saving benefits of reducing their paper use
• significantly reduce the postage bills of Australia’s businesses
• provide solutions, tools and advice that enable businesses to help the environment and their bottom line
• recruit thousands of Australian businesses of all types to go ‘Paper-Less’
• reduce the use of office paper by 20% within 5 years
• maximise the amount of office paper being recycled

Gruden is proud to be one of the founding partners of the Paper-Less Alliance and the Do Something! campaign initiatives. Check out more about this campaign via the Paper-Less Alliance website, designed and developed by Gruden utilising Sitecore CMS, which celebrated its official launch today.

While many organisations have started using recycled paper and, in turn, recycling the paper they use, reducing consumption is the most effective way to go green and minimise demand on limited resources. Adobe provides a number of solutions that deliver cost, efficiency and environmental benefits through software such as Adobe Acrobat and Adobe LiveCycle ES. To understand how Gruden can help your company work smarter and be environmentally friendly at the same time, get in contact with us today.

Together, we can all go “Paper-Less!”

Jon Dee, Director of the environment group Do Something!, says the campaign is similar to the decision to ban plastic bags in Coles Bay, Tasmania, in 2003.

“The community reaction in Coles Bay was very good, and I hope that if people do see the benefits of having free filtered-water fountains in Bundanoon, then they will go for the alternative.”

Gruden, a long-standing supporter of the Do Something! environment group, frequently undertakes pro bono work for many of the Do Something! websites, including The Bottled Water Alliance, Ban the Bag and Foodwise.

Gruden have just launched the Aaron Stone site for Disney Channel Australia to support and promote the new show – Aaron Stone. Charlie Landers is a star video game player who has the avatar of AARON STONE in the world’s best selling role-playing video game “Hero Rising.” His world is turned upside down when the game’s creator, billionaire T. ABNER HALL sends synthetic STAN to recruit him to be a “real life” Aaron Stone and fight against the evil influence of Omega Defiance, a group of seven villains bent on world domination.

Users can come to the site and play seven fantastic Aaron Stone games, learn more about the characters and watch associated video content. In addition, users have their own ‘member profile’ where they can select their own avatar and track their own personal high scores for each of the games.

This project gave Gruden the opportunity to design and create the site from concept to delivery rather than localising existing content from the UK or US and there are plenty of exciting ideas for future developments in subsequent phases.

Ferrier Hodgson has been getting some great feedback for the new website that Gruden recently deployed for them.

The revamped site has been well received by both internal partners at Ferrier Hodgson and also their customers.

Ferrier Hodgson – Asia Pacific’s highest profile provider of turnaround, reconstruction and forensics services within the financial sector – approached Gruden with a brief to completely overhaul their website’s content management system (CMS), refresh the design and improve their information architecture.

Using the .NET framework, the Sitecore CMS has industry-leading ease of use, flexibility and scalability – so it was a perfect fit for Ferrier Hodgson. The company can now manage web content itself without relying on third parties, ensuring the site is always up to date and able to communicate effectively with partners and customers.

Ferrier Hodgson’s next assignment for Gruden is to implement a Sitecore Intranet service that will not only reflect the design and function of the public site but enable the company to improve internal workflow processes.

For more information about the Sitecore CMS platform visit www.sitecore.com or contact us here at Gruden.

When we came across Henny Swan’s article “Web Standards in China” late last year, which heralded the lack of materials in Chinese as the greatest hurdle to adoption in China, we realised we had an opportunity to give something back to the community – with our multi-cultural team of bilingual, standards savy developers we were uniquely placed to answer the call and translate some resources.

Over the Christmas / New Year period our teams in China and Australia got started translating articles into Chinese and Portuguese. We began with some articles, presentations and tutorials from Max Design as these are some of the original materials we cut our teeth on and they still form an excellent introduction to standards based design & development. We’re hoping to continue to translate other materials as and when we have time, but for the moment we are very proud to launch http://www.gruden.com/translations.

1. To reduce the 3 million tonnes of food that Australians waste every year.
2. To minimise the amount of food that is thrown out by restaurants and the  manufacturers, retailers and distributors of food.
3. To maximise public awareness of the environmental impact of Australia’s food – particularly with regards to food waste and the impact of getting food from “the paddock to the plate”.
4. To improve the measuring and auditing of Australia’s food waste – particularly by Federal and State Government waste agencies.
5. To have national and state food waste reduction targets put in place and monitored by Federal and State Governments.
6. To maximise the amount of usable food that is donated to food charities.

Thank you to the development team for all their hard work on these Do Something! sites.

Thank you to the design team for the exceptionally high standards provided toward this site and the Bottled Water / Paperless sites.

The site will be exposed to such areas as TV and magazines and are accompanied by celebrity ambassadors such as Kylie Kwong.

Do Something is a new type of not-for-profit organisation that combines the resources of the business community and the goodwill of the public at large. Established by Planet Ark founders Jon Dee and Pat Cash in association with Tina Jackson, former Executive Director of the National Trust of Australia, Do Something is a multi media initiative to get Australian business and Australians to volunteer, donate, and fundraise more for charities and local organisations.

Website can be viewed at http://www.savefoodstopwaste.com/