As payback for leaving us with a gaping hole in the culture and family that is FM we present for the world to see this fantastic 2001 photo of Garth and the infamous Gibbon in the Little Devil Media offices pre the FM restructure.

We’ll miss you friend.

From all at FM.

Future Squared has already made a strategic investment in two ventures:

• Fresh Peaks – A portal for snow adventurers with a rich dataset covering resorts and snow-towns across the globe
• Lust have it! – Australia’s first monthly membership to luxury and professional beauty products delivered to your door

Please visit our new site – http://www.future2.com.au/ – for further information.

However, they are going to have to come up with something more damning than that – this is a great example of what can be achieved when money is well spent on skilled, local suppliers to tackle a problem in government which had real buy-in from the client (DHHS) to solve in a meaningful way for their clients (which in the case of DHHS is pretty much everybody).

The fact that all of this was achieved for under $135,000 is laudable to everyone concerned, and in stark contrast to another department we have worked with where such amounts were regularly sent to Sydney and Melbourne companies, frequently duplicating or replacing work that was done just months before.

Our interest of course is in the fact that Future Medium was commissioned to do the initial planning and strategy.  We have a full case study on our website.

We were however disappointed that we didn’t get the opportunity to follow through with the implementation, and feel that some important elements fell short, or missed the mark entirely, but nevertheless considering the budget available it was an admirable result.

While some external expertise was called in (including usability experts Usability One), it was gratifying to see that a local supplier was trusted enough to help set direction for a change rather than just fill in the blanks after a large mainland agency had flown down for a few days at great expense and told us how it should be done.

I’d like to post below a letter we sent to The Mercury clarifying the details of the project and our involvement.

In over 10 years of business in Tasmania we haven’t had many occasions to defend or applaud the actions of the State government but feel we must take exception to the comments by the Liberals regarding the redevelopment of the DHHS Website (Mercury 16/05).  It highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of the ability of the web to deliver services in a cost-effective manner across a diverse range of stakeholders – their assertion that it is merely ‘a slick marketing tool’ shows their out-dated view of its potential.

Our Web Services company, Future Medium, was engaged to develop a strategy for the public website.  This involved extracting requirements from across the entire organisation and trying to synthesise and prioritise them such that maximum service value was delivered cost effectively.  Independent testing and focus groups based on real needs for interaction via the web were crucial in ensuring these requirements were always related back to the end-users (the public, NGOs etc) rather than toward internal process and bureaucracy.

A strategy at this level would normally have been shipped straight to the mainland at 10x the price, so we applaud DHHS for using a local supplier and helping keep these high-level skills in the State.  A full case-study of the process and what was achieved is publicly available on our website (http://bit.ly/mTDlSM).

We weren’t involved in the development of the final website and some crucial items were not implemented, but overall the cost for planning and development of a site of this size were extremely reasonable.  Perhaps the Liberals would have preferred to chop out the planning and simply spend money revamping something that everyone agreed didn’t work?  Or maybe do nothing at all and simply let already overworked staff answer basic questions that could have been answered via a self-help website?

I also note that our work commenced almost 2 years ago and had probably been budgeted for much earlier.

That Tasmania’s largest and most complex public service were able to make a sound decision like this gives us some hope for the future, while the lack of vision by the Liberals bodes badly for this State’s ability to capitalise on opportunities like the National Broadband Network.

Glen Johnson & Patrick Herrera
Directors – Future Medium Pty. Ltd.

Hopefully it gets printed.  There are too many examples of government waste out there, but when there are success stories they deserve to be told.  Positive reinforcement they call it.  I have an 11 month old daughter and that is how I plan to raise her – dealing with government isn’t that different: moody, unpredictable and full of poop.

Interested in learning more about developing a strategy (fancy that!) for your web presence, and maybe getting cut down to size by daring to doing things properly?  Then you need our guide to selecting a digital strategist. Armed with that knowledge you can go ahead and select your supplier knowing that you have a fair chance of succeeding where your competitors have failed…

2010 Best in class ‘Natural Environment/Green’ category : NRM South

The NRM South Website (entered September 29, 2010), under the category ‘Natural Environment/Green’, has won the IMA Best in Class Award with an overall score of 489.

The Best in Class award is the highest honour bestowed by the Interactive Media Awards. It represents the very best in planning, execution and overall professionalism. In order to win this award level, our site had to successfully pass through IMA’s comprehensive judging process, achieving very high marks in each judging criteria – an achievement only a fraction of sites in the IMA competition earn each year.

There were 43 entries submitted under the ‘Natural Environment/Green’ category in the 2010 award year.  

To win the award our entry had to successfully pass through a comprehensive judging system. IMA’s judges utilize a points-based scoring system which allows each entry to receive a maximum of 500 points. By adhering to the specific guidelines and criteria of this system IMA’s judges are able to maintain the highest degree of fairness, accuracy and integrity; competently and effectively evaluate entries; and, deliver clear results.

Each website is scored using five specific criteria, with a score from 0-100 awarded for each criterion. The total of these five scores established our overall scores up to a maximum of 500. Websites receiving an overall score between 460 and 479 receive the Outstanding Achievement award. Websites receiving an overall score between 480 and 500 receive the Best in Class award.

NRM South’s website individual scores are as follows:

Design: 97

Content: 98

Feature Functionality: 100

Usability: 95

Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility: 99

 

Total: 489/500

2010 Outstanding Achievement Award ‘University’ category : Tasmanian University Union

The Tasmanian University Union Website (entered September 29, 2010), under the category ‘University’, has won the IMA Outstanding Achievement Award with an overall score of 475.

The Outstanding Achievement award is the second highest honor bestowed by IMA and an extremely challenging award to win. The TUU website has excelled in all areas of the judging criteria and represents a very high standard of planning, execution and overall professionalism.

TUU’s individual scores are as follows:

Design: 92

Content: 95

Feature Functionality: 98

Usability: 91

Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility: 99

 

Total: 475/500