Shift News

Kiwi geeks win trans-Tasman 24-hour website building competition

24 August 2007

After an intense 24 hours in Sydney, Australia, at the inaugural FullCodePress international site in a day competition, the New Zealand team - the Code Blacks - have emerged triumphant.

The team of Thomas Scovell (project manager), Zef Fugaz (information architect), Steve Dennis (designer), Jeffrey Wegesin (HTML/CSS coder), Mark Rickerby (programmer), Peter Johnston (writer) and Alison Green (all-rounder) beat their Aussie rivals in a photo-finish - with only 2.7 points out of 100 separating the teams.

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Go Code Blacks!

16 August 2007

Darkness descended upon the Shift Wellington office today, as we bid goodbye to the Code Blacks - New Zealand's team in the inaugural Full Code Press, in Sydney this weekend.

Go Code Blacks! We're right behind you.

Northland Regional Council site wins top award

18 July 2007

The newly deployed Northland Regional Council site http://www.nrc.govt.nz/ won the top award (Best Website Design) as well as best looking website homepage at the ALGIM Web Symposium on July 16th 2007. Congratulations to Northland Regional Council and the team at Shift in Auckland who worked on this project. NRC has been making great use of their new site to provide information to the community during the recent storms and flooding.

Kylie Gibbons from Auckland Regional Council and Tracey Morris from Northland Regional Council also gave fantastic talk on their current (ARC) and recent (NRC) site redevelopments and Miriam Walker from Shift spoke on improving search within sites.

Sydney, here we come!

13 July 2007

We’re thrilled to announce that a pair of Shifties will be heading off to Sydney next month to take part in the first-ever FullCodePress website-building competition. Also known as the Geek Olympics, the competition sees a New Zealand team go head-to-head with a team from Australia. Both teams have 24 hours to design and build a fully-working website for a non-profit organisation.

Shift’s own Thomas Scovell is the New Zealand team’s project manager, and Ali Green will take on the Captain’s Choice role as general all-rounder.

The full New Zealand team is as follows:

• Peter Johnston (Sorted) - Writer
• Jeffrey Wegesin (Xero) - HTML/CSS
• Mark Rickerby (Coretxt) - Programmer
• Zef Fugaz (Provoke) – User Experience Advocate/Information Architect
• Steve Dennis (Enlighten) - Designer
• Thomas Scovell(Shift) - Project Manager
• Alison Green(Shift) – Captain’s Choice

Go WebTeamNewZealand!

Shifties looking to represent New Zealand in the Geek Olympics

05 July 2007

The shortlist of finalists for the inaugural “Geek Olympics”, FullCodePress, was announced last night, and Shifties past and present are well represented.

On Saturday 18 August 2007, teams from Australia and New Zealand will compete to build a fully-operational website for a non-profit organisation in 24 hours. There are six roles in each team - Project manager, User experience advocate/Information Architect, Designer, HTML/CSS coder, Programmer and Writer.

Current Shifties Thomas Scovell (Project management), Romain Perin (Design) and Tom St George (Programming) are amongst the top three finalists for their respective roles. Ali Green (HTML/CSS) was listed as one of the close runners-up.

In addition, Ex-Shifties Haydn Thomsen (Project management) and Mark Rickerby (Programming) are also in the top three.

It’s going to be a nail-biting time as they wait to hear whether or not their names have been picked out of the hat to represent New Zealand. The six team members will be announced on Friday July 6.

Go Shift!

Extra extra…read all about it…NZ herald wins at Qantas Media Awards!

21 May 2007

New Zealand Herald, whose website Shift recently redesigned, won the top award for 'Best News' site at the 34th Qantas Media Awards.

This follows New Zealand Heralds award for 'Best New Site, Relaunch, Innovation' at People's Choice Netguide Web Awards. In April nzherald.co.nz was one of only seven online newspaper sites in the world to be awarded with an Honoree mention in the prestigious international Webby Awards in the United States.

Shift is proud to part of the team that created a beautiful, modern news and community site.

For more information about nzherald and the awards, see: www.nzherald.co.nz

newzealand.com receives third nomination for Webby Award

13 April 2007

For the third year in a row newzealand.com has been nominated as a finalist in the international Webby Awards.The site, which has won the Tourism category for two years running, was selected as a finalist from a field of global entrants by a worldwide panel of judges. 

Shift's recent redesign work with APN Media on the New Zealand Herald website was given Official Honoree status in the Newspaper category. Only twelve international sites were given honoree or nominee status in this category, in a field that included the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian.

The Webby Award nominees and winners are selected by members of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences from sites nominated by the public and by the judges themselves. Evaluated against six criteria, sites undergo a rigorous six-month, three-tier process to win the coveted Webby Award.

The Webby Awards have been described by the Los Angeles Times as “the only award show for Internet sites that matters.” 

Winners will be announced on May 1, 2007.

Helping to put New Zealand on the map

13 April 2007

Tourism New Zealand recently partnered with Google – bringing together Google’s mapping technology with the award-winning newzealand.com.

Shift assisted in the process of making newzealand.com data available via Google Earth – a world first for a tourism authority. It allows Google Earth users to access a layer of information about New Zealand, including visitor information centres, scenic highlights and towns.

Shift assists their clients in luring Australians to New Zealand

14 March 2007

The NZ Department of Labour in conjunction with Tourism New Zealand are currently promoting a new campaign to bring Australians across the ditch to work and play in New Zealand. To help with this campaign, Shift worked with the Department of Labour to enhance their www.newzealandnow.info website to promote immigration, tourism and job opportunities in New Zealand.