Come on down to TheFARM to share in some beers and take part in the global Umbraco 5^th birthday festivities.

Your hosts will be core Umbraco team developers Shannon Deminick & Aaron Powell, both of whom work for TheFARM (http://www.thefarmdigital.com.au).

The plan is for Shan and Aaron to run a Q&A session with some demo’s of the fun stuff TheFARM has been doing with Umbraco 4.1 and the work they have been doing on this next release.

• They'll have a look at all of the new features/fixes for 4.1 (are there are TONS)
• They'll go into a bit more in detail on some of the new things that we've integrated into the core such as LINQ to Umbraco, Umbraco Examine, new controls, enhancements, preview, etc…
• They’ll show you some of the sites we’ve built and talk through some of the implementation’s with things like Flash

Hopefully, with two of the core team on hand we should be able to answer most questions thrown at us – give us a go!

Once we're out of beers... TO THE PUB!

All of the details, address, etc.. is on the Our Umbraco website. Have a look and RSVP now!

http://our.umbraco.org/events/umbraco-5th-birthday-meetup-in-sydney

Just in case you don’t want to click through here’s the event details:

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - 6:00 PM
Suite 101, 4 - 14 Buckingham st Surry Hills, NSW

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 a dodgy referee, 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] 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! 

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%.

[2009] The FARM is very proud to announce that WiggleTime! has received a Highly Recommended mention in the 2009 Kidspot Best of Awards! We are very pleased to be recognised in the realm of children's education and online learning. A testament to the heights achieved by the FARM's design and development teams. Let's get Wiggling!

Yesterday the DDB WWF ad sparked a little debate round the office on the subject of shock ads, it was amazing how quickly and fiercly the fuse burnt once lit! THis section of the email trail literally flew around in under five minutes. Some interesting questions were raised, does the message get lost? Is any conversation good conversation? Do shock ads work? What I really would like to see is what impact the ad has on donations after this little storm. Anyone else have an opinion?

Read from the bottom up.

From: Wade

Ahhhh … but we are critiquing the ad from the perspective of “is that an inappropriate message in relation to 9/11?”

The WWF message is getting lost …….. we are debating the WRONG topic.

Well done Drew – you Sh*t starter …….. my turn now

Ok … so which religion is BETTER Christianity or Buddhism?

From: Chris

Can an ad’s success be measured by the conversation it produces or the opinions it polarises?

From: Phillip

Agree with all comments, Wade definitely agree comparing man made to nature is ridiculous. What we need to do with things like the tsunami is humanise them, they are seen as things that happen somewhere else and a number is just a number.

Having said this look at the email trail, definitely got the office talking about serious issues....

From: Kristina

Fair point, but surely  there is a better way to show the value of third world life than belittle that of the US?

Though I guess it may indirectly touch an element of human nature we might not like to admit – we only instill value on something by taking it away from something else.

If we are talking about minute silences, there isn’t actually anything official for 9/11 in the States that I’m aware of… or the Bali bombing for that matter which was in the same vicinity of the tsunami..

Lots of talking points here Drew, nice debate starter!!!!

From: Tom

Disagree.

I think it makes an important point (perhaps unwittingly) about the value of third world life in relation to US lives. Where is the one minute of silence for the Tsunami victims (which seems far more relevant to Australia than terrorism to me).

From: Nikk

I completely agree. Never would have thought an organization like the WWF would stoop this low and feel it necessary to compare with and almost belittle 9/11.

The hell?!!

From: Kristina

Agreed Wade.

I actually find that disgusting – the comparison holds no merit whatsoever, how can you compare the two?!?

And more importantly WHY should we compare the two?! They are two equally devastating events, the body count should absolutely not be used as a hook to “respect” one over the other..

Very powerful image and it will no doubt get people talking but I think it’s a really poor way of getting this message across.

From: Wade

FAIL

I get that they tapped into the destruction of 911 because of the global impact that story had to get cut through, but it feels a little icky because the comparison is made to a man made act of terrorism which takes it off brief in my opinion.

I look at the ad more like -  “imagine if terrorism escalated” rather than going “isn’t mother nature a powerful thing that should be respected.”

From: Drew

http://blog.stephengates.com/2009/09/03/ddb-wwf-tsunami-twin-towers-ad-powerful-or-despicable/

Well Game two snuck up on us, still no training session! The team was in high spirits though as most of us have been personal training twice a week for the last five odd weeks.

So whether it was the exercise endorphins or just the promise of a run around we took the field with a bit of a laugh and plenty of enthusiasm!

Early on in the game Brooke Blakeslee a new FARM recuit overcame his American sensibilities and crossed the line for a try.

This was soon followed by tries from the design department in Hugo and the Dev boys in Aaron. We let one in but went to the break up on the scoreboard.

Now here is where we fell asleep int he last game, fatigue took over, legs got heavy and we slowed down, but not this time! Everyone in the team shared their tactical genius in a round the circle half time fire up speach and on we ran, more charged than kick off!

And thats how it continued a few more tries to the boys and one spectacular cross in the corner by Designer Nikki, it was magic. 

Final score 8-3, a good solid win for TheFARMERS. As this was our goal for the season (to win one game) we now must turn to the secondary goal, win the whole thing!

So here I sign off but I will ntoe that the win has energised the team, there is even a training session scheduled for  Sunday this week, followed by a few cheeky beers int he sun though I suspect :)

Hi there, as I am nearing the end of week six here at TheFARM I figured it was high time I said hello!

I became a FARMER in late September and ever since it has been quite a unique, satisfying, at times perplexing but always prodigious experience.

One of my first orders of business was to start a company Oztag team. Interest from the start was strong with dare I say, too many players looking to sign up! After a little jigging about we finally had our team of 13, next on the to do list was a logo which Nikki & Hugo in the design team created. Next was a little practice run after work and we were ready to tackle the first game!

It was agreed a strong start is what was required so we ran on to the pitch at Centennial with great gusto and not a small amount of cheering. Rewards came immediately with Hugo scoring the opener which was quickly followed up by Brooke (he is American  but managed to throw the ball the correct way) and Aaron all crossing for sensational tries!

Heading to the sheds (otherwise known as the sideline) at halftime we were 3/1 up, this was going swimmingly, surely it was in the bag! Unfortunately we were playing a much younger team who had a sub and without any (only 8 of us could play as the rest were working hard for our clients) ourselves we started to tire. One try was let in, followed by another, TheFARMERS rallied with a gazelle like run down the sideline from one player resulting in a tag right on the line and another player crossing for a try only to realise one of his own teammates had somehow tagged him, this was not how the

In the end we were defeated 6/3 but there was plenty of talent and ticker on that pitch. So next week we will be chasing that evocative mix of joy and triumph which will come with the first win, who knows coach Chrispi may even buy us some beers if we are successful!

I will keep you up to date as the season progresses inexorably towards the finals in January, in the mean time here are a few pictures of TheFARMERS, and you are all welcome to come cheer us to victory from the stands.