With the The FARM flat out tending to our fabulous clients in early 2010 responsibility for maintaining Suite 101 fell to yours truly - the latest agency recruit.

I soon noticed that The FARMers had been slack in reporting the OzTag season progress and set out to rectify the problem asap.

Alas, before I had the chance to join them on the paddock (intimidated as I was at first by the buff and professional looking specimens I saw circulating in the office the afternoon of game day) the season was over.

Having read about their promising first weeks here on Suite 101 I turned to The FARMers optimistically for an end of season wrap up.

There were tales of Hugo’s suave and nimble movement, Karis’ super human tagging skills and Aaron’s remarkable bravery in the face of injury (apparently he managed to finish every single game with a bleeding left knee). The highest praise however was reserved Yankee Brooke Blakslee, not for his mammoth diving tries (which were nonetheless legendary) but for his team spirit. Though sidelined with a nasty phlegmatic illness Mr Blakslee braved it to the park for the final game where he provided much needed moral support – not to mention beers at half time.

The FARMers were more than happy to commend the skills and attitude of their fellow team members. But they were not so forthcoming when it came to the hard facts: What was the win to loss ratio? Where did they sit on the table at season’s end?

When my initial attempts to obtain this information were thwarted I was pointed in the direction of team founder and Business Development Manager Phillip McCann.

The initial response: “Too many losses to remember”.

To which my reply was: “Well surely you remember the amount of wins then??”

The verdict - 1 official and legitimate win (which you may have read about here – explains the lack of updates after that!), 1 on paper only win (the other team forfeited), 1 embarrassing loss to a team that obviously cheated (miscellaneous – we’ll chalk that up as a win), 1 loss (to the comp leaders) which apparently would’ve been a win if not for some bad refereeing, 1 forfeit on Melbourne Cup Day (which would’ve been a win had anyone been sober enough to run in a straight line) and numerous on paper losses that might’ve been wins had the team not been penalised for a shortfall in X chromosomes.

So where did all this leave The FARMers at seasons end? As OzTag Champions of the year of course (well in their eyes anyway ). Onya FARMers!!

[December 2009] After a week of teasers from our illustrious leaders about The FARM Christmas party, the office down tools at 10.30am to begin the day's events (one particular producer managed to keep working whilst simultaeounsly being briefed in on Christmas activities - our talents know no bounds!)

Split into teams early in the week The FARMers were presented with a number of challenges to earn points before the big day:

1. Pick a Sydney suburb

2. Pick a dress theme to go with that suburb

3. Put together a presentation called '2009 - a year in review'

4. Design a piece of retro pixel art for the next FARM feature wall

5. Deliver the highest ROI on a $2 coin 

Teams then embarked on the first 'FARM Great Race'around Sydney, figuring out clues at one destination to get to the next. Bonus points awarded for team photos at each check point. Bonus bonus points awarded for the randoms coerced into participating in said photos, Bonus bonus bonus points for being told by management to 'slow down and stop for a drink' and actually beating our leaders to the finish line!

Introducing the teams!

Fire from the Shire led by Anthony Dang (missing from this team photo!)

Eastern Creek Grid Girls led by Aaron Powell 

Wentworthville Wiggas led by Nikki Sulentic

Double Bay Sailing Club led by the marvellous Chris Martin who delivered his team victory (and a 3 course meal at The Bentley)

After suitable team banter (and some outright bar fights) the FARM jumped a water taxi to Shark Island for a long and lazy BBQ, soaking up the rays in the middle of Sydney Harbour. 

Many thanks to our 'life-guards' Chris P and JG for putting on a great day!

[December 2009] Our lovely friends at Ferrero surprise the team with a goodie box choc-full of scrumptious delights!

We are very happy FARMers!! Thanks Ferrero!

Congrats to Wade, Karis, Brooke and Nina for the great start on Ferrero and to all in the studio that brought the ideas to life! 

The image of a remote phonebox with tumbleweed blowing past it has long been a symbol of isolation and the wilderness. Will the phone work? Will someone have hidden some sort of message there, perhaps instructions on how to get to an old school rave, or will it be full of old takeaway and worse? Placing itself firmly in the middle ground between fixed landlines and the always-on lifestyle associated with a mobile phone is Skype, thanks to a new campaign from the Viral Factory, London.
www.phoneboxexperiment.com 

We wouldn’t normally sit glued to a two minute TV ad, but this is spine-tingling. Colenso BBDO in New Zealand came up with this beautiful animation for the New Zealand Book Council: http://bit.ly/nzbooks

Innovative retailer Miele has opened a London store which encourages people to trial the products before they buy. Any students not wishing to take their laundry home for Christmas, this is for you: http://bit.ly/dirtysocks

As part of the ongoing work pimping the FARM offices we are proud to unveil our new feature wall painted by local artist Chris Tibbles.

The FARMers pitched in true DIY style to prep the wall before Chris arrived to work his magic.  With the help of tall Paul getting the rollers to reach the top of the wall this was much easier than anticpated!

Under the direction of designer Nikki (who put in many hours supervising this transformation!) the hills motif from The FARM website was interpreted by Chris into a work of art! 

Thanks for  your amazing work Chris! The FARM is very proud to show off it's newest masterpiece - taking centre stage at the upcoming Xmas party! 

Thanks our good friends at Zip Industries the office has been fitted with a Zip Hydrotap for all our water needs! Much to the elation of staff the Hydrotap's speedy water flow, sleek and compact look and instant boiling and chilled water rendered our old slow and bulky machine INFERIOR! No more waiting 5 mins for the system to heat and then dispense our tea in a slow trickle!

Thank you ZIP!

The FARM are excited to hear the Aveeno NZ online media campaign (under the Johnson&Johnson client suite) has won the first every Bolly Award! This is an award that has been set up by the Internet Advertising Bureau in NZ to celebrate the best digital creative in NZ.  

http://www.bollyawards.co.nz/

Feedback from OMD in NZ: "Well done, the creative for this campaign has been the talk of the industry and a lot of people (including me) think it’s just amazing."

The campaign performed really well with an average dwell time on the rich media placements of 76.25 seconds and engagement rate of 25.85%.

I downloaded the new Google Chrome OS and ran it on Sun’sVirtualBox VM software.

My first impressions...

It was only an 8 second start up time to the login screen. Awesome! Then a single sign-on to your computer with your Gmail account. Another 8 seconds and the Chrome browser was open with my Gmail account and Google Calander. Now that was impressive! Within 25 seconds of me turning on my computer I was reading my email.

What else is there to Chrome OS? It doesnt seem like there is anything else. I couldn't find anywhere to configure system preferences or anything. Do you want to open other programs or windows, or install other software (like Firefox)? Unfortunately you can't! It felt like I was in an internet cafe with a computer that is so locked down that all I can do is surf the web. A note to all internet cafe's around the world...None of the big players online support IE6 anymore. Please upgrade to anything else!

Anyway, Chrome OS is aimed at netbooks (at least initially). A netbook user would typically like to turn on their computer, have it quickly boot, have their browser immediately open, check their mail and calendar, and then continue surfing. That is what Chrome OS allows them to do, but thats it. The OS is merely a portal to the internet. You can't run anything locally. 

But I guess that over the years Google has been introducing online services and applications so the average consumer doesn't really need local applications. With Chrome OS, Google can encourage the use of online applications such as Google Documents, and (when it gets a lot better) it might actually start to rival MS Office, because it is free and online. After all, who needs local storage when there is cloud computing?

Conclusion... Google Chrome OS boots damn fast! It allows you to quickly get on the interweb. It's not exciting from an OS perspective as far as user experience goes, but damn it's fast!

If you want to try out, navigate your interweb browser to this hyperlink: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/19/guide-install-google-chrome-os/

P.s. Google seems to be putting all types of applications online. What is next? Is Google going to make an online Pro Tools? Now that would be impressive!

Movie releases, particularly those targeting families such as Up, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and the just-released A Christmas Carol, have been experimenting with 3D to add extra va-va-voom to the big screen. But now cognac brand Courvoisier has dipped its toe in 3D waters.
The ad, ‘Cognac With Another Dimension’, shows cognac in a balloon glass exploding and then spinning into a vortex that forms a cocktail. Don your 3D glasses and watch it in all its glory here: http://tinyurl.com/Courvoisier

You might remember Toshiba launching a chair into space recently from the desert in America. Well, the footage from that projectile has made its way back to earth and has been mashed together to form ‘Space Chair’, the brand’s latest TV commercial through Grey, London. Watch the biodegradable chair and its specially built camera rig’s graceful and surreal journey to the edge of space and back at http://bit.ly/1hflUf