Problem

When the Sept. quake struck, EQC had no processes in place to deal with a crisis of the magnitude we had seen.
Emergency call centres have been established all over the country, making it difficult to ensure all agents are receiving the SAME information.

Solution

I was brought on board to assist with processes, and developed an “Agent Portal.” An all-in-one website capable of providing EQC agents with all the information they need for all situations, in one location.

Outcome

EQC agentd now have instant access to all policy, procedures, news and alerts in one centralized area. This allows them to focus on assisting the claimant, instead of searching for information.

Problem

Not so much a “problem” as a situation: Datacom has developers spread all over NZ and Oz, and we’d often wonder what other offices were doing, how they did it, and how we could share our enormous brains.

Solution

One word: Devcamp. I came up with the idea, got the funding, and got 50 developers together in Turangi for a weekend of awesome geekery, tech demos, business discussions, and yes, drinking.

We ran it as an “unconference”, starting with an empty schedule at 6pm on Friday, which filled up with 30 incredible topics in 15 minutes.

The vibe was incredible, and the feedback from attendees was universally positive.

Outcome

Datacom developers now have excellent personal networks across cities and countries, and we regularly email each other to help with problems and come up with brilliant solutions. We’ve formed crack teams to solve particular issues, and we’re currently prepping for Devcamp 2011 (aka Devcamp 2.0).

Adrian Hayes, Executive Director of RightByte Technology specialising in data backup solutions, tech support and software development. But when the sun sets out come the skinny jeans and sweet guitar riffs. Like a transformer, this IT Rockstar is more than meets the eye.

Watch the video, Longcat approves.

Jody is a business oriented analyst who understands how businesses work, but he is also technology savvy. He is comfortable liaising, communicating and managing technical and non-technical teams, while dealing with all levels in any business. He represents the blur between business and technology and is focused on business value through technology. He is the new generation of business technology analyst.

He can code, design relational databases, build PCs, web sites, servers and manage networks. He has an in depth knowledge of application architectures, relational database systems, ERP and enterprise software applications. He has extensive experience in researching and defining end-user requirements, business process analysis/automation/reengineering, creating business cases, developing requirement documents and functional specifications, development, and testing.

He is enthusiastic with a positive approach to life and work and maintains an active lifestyle with a work life balance.

Jody moved to NZ from the UK after graduating with a 1st Class Honours Degree in Business Information Management where he also received Pfizer’s Award for outstanding academic achievement. Complementing his academic qualification is over ten years experience in every stage of the software development life-cycle and Microsoft certifications in the following disciplines, Database Administrator, .Net Applications Developer and Solutions Developer.

Jody helped protect NZ’s meat and dairy industry, working with the Animal Health Board (AHB), developing VectorNet, an internet based system to help plan, manage and control NZ’s bovine tuberculosis control programme. He was the senior Business and Technical Analyst on this project. The project also made use of a software solution designed by Jody that provided a shared understanding of requirements, specifications, releases and quality metrics. The solution and the project were a great success. AHB and the VectorNet team won a series of awards for the project, which included the 2008 National Computerworld Excellence Award for Overall Excellence in the Use of ICT and Innovative Use of ICT. AHB was also selected from over 100,000 sites worldwide to received a “Special Achievement in GIS” from ESRI’s the world leader in GIS (geographic information systems).

Jody enjoys travelling and has backpacked for 8 months through North and South America. He is an active soccer player and competes in one the region’s top soccer divisions. He is a keen tramper and recently completed the Milford, Routeburn and Abel Tasman tracks. This year he will be travelling to Nepal to tackle the Everest Base Camp trek.

Jody has recognised the value in his software and the pain organisations experience in achieving successful outcomes from software development activities. In the past year has formed his company ‘Yonix’ to help companies attain more certainty around the delivery of business value through technology endeavours. Yonix’s software is focused towards Business Analysts, but is utilised across the software development life-cycle.

Yonix has been accepted into Grow Wellington’s high-growth business incubator, Creative HQ, where Jody is working to build a high-growth technology business.

I’ve heard it said that IT has no soul, hear me now, LeBron’s rebooting it b!tches! For years he’s been rocking the sector, best vocals, best on keyboard – The IT Rockstar! With star performances in the hit young darling of the sector CMS Plone and the world renown hit ASP. Look out for the nerd who slew Neo as he makes his journey to the 20th Design Engineering & Manufacturing Solutions Festival in Tokyo JAPAN.

“LeBron is my guru, from the moment he first cut my lunch I knew this man was going to be HUGE” Pumps – Wellington Talent Scout.

LeBron hit Wellington as a young solo artist making his debut at EFTPOS NZ. A legion of female fans both young and old have testified to the carnage LeBron sowed in the offices of EFTPOS. His powers of seduction have been with him throughout his career, never more so than his time at Gen-I, his supporters so obviously entranced with his front-end and back-end skills. With his loyal entourage rocking the servers, then rocking the streets, this man of many talents has often been labelled as Mr Wellington, you might also know him by his street pseudonym Bronson Shadlock. While at Gen-I LeBron was contracted to ANZ National and shone as a true IT superstar, carving up on the keyboard and mouse in the Software Testing and Cisco Networking categories.

Even though LeBron has lived with agents knocking on his door and buzzing his phone he has never let it go to his head. His easygoing nature is perhaps one of the reasons these very agents nominated LeBron for this latest award in the IT Rockstar category. His humility is sure to serve him well as he heads to the land of the rising sun, taking NZ IT to the masters of electronics and to the world.

“LeBron, he’s so hot right now, LeBron.” Mugatu – Inventor of the Keyboard necktie.

The 20^th birthday of the festival is set to be the biggest yet, with huge international acts headlining this – The Pacific Rim event of the season. Acts such as Energy-Saving Systems and Environment-Responsive Solutions are sure to be critical successes with the support of LeBron. A keen soul surfer of waves, LeBron has often fought for the environment, especially the oceans that we share with our Northern cousins.

Every generation a superstar is born. Down the corridors and in the cubicles in the Wellington CBD people are saying one name, and the hot talk around the water coolers and kitchenettes is LeBron. With killer IT skills it’s time to share LeBron with the world, and I’ve got a feeling that when it happens LeBron will be the global superstar of our generation and beyond. Let’s go Platinum B!tches!

My Husband, Daniel is 24 years old, tall, dark and handsome.

In the last 3 years that we have been married, Daniel has completed a joint major in computer science and information systems at Massey University (Palmerston North)

While studying, he worked as a marketing assistant, creating incredible multimedia advertisements for a company with nine branches in flash design and remotely managed their onsite screens with panel director.

He moved from Palmerston North to Auckland last year to pursue a business analyst position that would allow him to gain experience in several IS areas including on site care, the call centre at Gen-I, and project management. (Which he is currently working in now)

And in the last 4 weeks he has began to build his own website design, development and hosting business “DNATECHNIQ” which he plans to have launched by the end of the year.

The greatest complement I have heard about Daniel is “IT, I would of never guessed, he is so easy to talk to”

That’s Daniel he is extremely, technically talented but he also has this amazing ability to talk to people and make technology make sense to them. He doesn’t use heaps of IT jargon and he doesn’t make people feel stupid when it comes to the IT industry.

Daniel can look at a program or website and spot a bug straight away and the way to fix it. He is a real perfectionist and will work until a project is finished to the highest standard.

Daniel is very creative and can make people’s ideas come to life, with his professional design ability.

Daniel has a cheeky sense of humour and always makes me laugh (mostly at myself) but there is one thing he does that absolutely cracks me up and that is the way he plays computer games.

Yes in the late hours of the night you can find Daniel in the dark, on the computer, with his headphones, one hitting the keyboard incessantly, with his face just about squashed onto the screen as he yells “Ohh, ohh ,there there, no move, move, arrhh, down, hahaha” while he is shooting some zombie or army guy. To top off these sound effects, he has this crazy habit of holding his mouth wide open and repetitively opening and closing his jaw as he gets into the game. (Video’s of this have entertained many members of our family!)

The greatest thing about Daniel, is that even though he can do all the above IT things, he always arrives home with a big smile, a little kiss and a cheeky grin as he tells me that he loves me, without fail.

A man who is this talented, skilled and has such a deep value for people, but still puts his family first (Our first baby arrived on the 8th of May 2009) is indeed in my eyes a real IT rockstar.

Thanks Mr Strange

Ariana

Thanks David

Chris’s defining characteristics include an amazingly positive attitude, majestic customer service, and native smarts. He has ensured that users at Trade Me stay productive, they stay happy and our site stays up. Chris has a great sense of humour, gets along with everyone and makes smart decisions. This is what make this chap a rock star.

Excelling in IT is not just about know geek stuff, its about working with people, understanding the business and working smart. Chris gets this and that is why he excels at what he does. Chris appreciates the importance of people being able to continue to work and that IT is here to help, not hinder. It’s a breath of fresh air when you have staff like Chris that want to make things work, and not look at ways of restricting people because of policy or procedure or just because they are lazy.

This guy works his arse off and never complains – a managers dream employee!!

I’m predominantly a .NET developer (although I dabble in any other framework that excites me) who has a passion for new technology and ideas, I’m continually re-educating myself with all and any infomation that I find interesting. So when the opportunity arose with the possibility of attending any IT conference in the world, I said “yes please!”.

I recently attended the WEB 09 conference in Auckland which I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend to anyone working in a web space (I believe it is going to become an annual fixture). I would REALLY like to attend the MIX conference (http://live.visitmix.com) in Las Vegas next year as it presents the latest and greatest web technogies, and offers some insite into how the web is evolving. I definately think it would be much more inspirational to be there in person rather than watching webcasts :s

With regards to the traditional definition of a Rockstar (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rockstar), I’ve been playing the guitar for 16 years, singing for 8 years and drumming for 2 years. I’ve rocked out with many bands and played gigs with several New Zealand rock legends.

Matthew Holloway is the definitive IT Rockstar, the Last Amiga Hero.