Equip Schools website

We recently refreshed one of our core prod­uct web­sites, Equip Schools. It hits a fairly com­plex mix of schools, parents/carers and indi­vid­ual stu­dents and we spent a lot of time try­ing to best artic­u­late how the pro­gramme speaks to the var­ied con­cerns of each of these groups.

The prod­uct has three curriculum-driven strands in the form of work­shops, pub­li­ca­tions and software.

The soft­ware strand is cer­tainly the most dis­tinct of the three in terms of con­ven­tional expec­ta­tions of life-skills / per­sonal man­age­ment pro­grammes that schools already run — and we’re still com­ing to terms with the best way to artic­u­late that within the web­site. We’ve devel­oped a brief (16 minute) train­ing DVD that accom­pa­nies the prod­uct — how­ever, this is obvi­ously too long for ini­tial con­tact and, while being highly explana­tory, doesn’t really artic­u­late the thou­sands of hours of edu­ca­tional psy­chol­ogy research and stu­dent men­tor­ing that inform the prod­uct as it stands today.

Dis­till­ing that down to a 10 minute pack­age is a tall ask, but it’s also some­thing near on the hori­zon as we seek to make this avail­able to indi­vid­u­als beyond the school context.

# by Josh on February 24th, 2010 Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Darwin Convention Centre vs Google Maps

I’m head­ing up to Dar­win next month to an edu­ca­tion con­fer­ence we’re spon­sor­ing and I stum­bled across some­thing vastly amus­ing when research­ing the event.

Darwin Convention Centre on Google Maps

Here’s some­thing that prob­a­bly falls out­side the bounds of what you’d think to run due dili­gence on: check­ing the venue an event is being hosted in has com­pleted con­struc­tion and is actu­ally oper­a­tional! Thank­fully, the Dar­win Con­ven­tion Cen­tre does, and Google is just a few months behind on the imaging.

Darwin Convention Centre opening fireworks

It opened on July 1st and is part of a broader rein­vig­o­ra­tion mas­ter plan for Darwin’s water­front precinct. If you’ll be in Dar­win between Sep­tem­ber 26 – 28 this year, check out the ACEL con­fer­ence “Tip­ping Points” or get in touch.

# by Josh on August 23rd, 2009 Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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The view from TG office yesterday

Sunrise over Coogee @ TG HQ

Fri­day was a pretty insane day, but I snapped this photo (cam­er­a­phone, dunno what hap­pened top right!) arriv­ing at our office in the morn­ing before get­ting into it. We’ve got a pretty incred­i­ble view over Coogee, which is fan­tas­tic… except for when the sea and sky are such amaz­ing colours and you know there’s not a chance of actu­ally get­ting out­side to it!

There were some sheets of light rain and these incred­i­ble clouds that cleared off to per­fect skies and an ocean that even I, some­one who doesn’t par­tic­u­larly rate swim­ming and has never learnt to surf despite liv­ing within 5km of the coast his whole life, wished I was free to head over to.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High;
to declare your stead­fast love in the morn­ing,
and your faith­ful­ness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

– Psalm 92

We were made to work even before sin entered the world, but I reckon work/time-outside-on-a-beautiful-day bal­ance would’ve been bet­ter then! For those trust Jesus, a future is com­ing where every day all are freed to give thanks to Him for­ever…  even those stuck in beige office towers!

# by Josh on August 1st, 2009 Tags: , , , , , , , ,
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