Supertext @ UX Chuchi
January 27, 2010
Monday evening was UX Chuchi time! The UX Chuchi is a regular meetup of Switzerland based Web User experience professionals and web startuppers. At each UX Chuchi we challenge the usability of the “victim’s” website, and this time the victim was Supertext.ch! Remy Blättler introduced their website and the criticism actually wasn’t even so bad ;)
You can find more pictures here.
The next UX Chuchi will take place on 16 February 2010 at the Amazee Office and the victim is… Amazee! So please join us and check out our new project-set-up-process and startpage. You can easily sign up here.
Looking forward to your feedback!
Check out our new customizable platforms!
January 21, 2010
We have great, exciting news! Today, Amazee launches a customized product line for corporations and organizations, a toolset we have been developing over the last months. The base for our customized solutions is, of course, the battle-proven and continuously evolving Amazee platform itself.
The customized community platforms will be designed according to the customers’ needs. They empower interaction with employees, clients and stakeholders in public projects, similar to the mothership Amazee, but in a branded, corporate context. Want to read more? Please check out the two options on our brand new customer site!
Amazee therewith is no longer merely a key player in the world of open Social Collaboration, but also strives to become one of the leading solutions providers on the intersection between Corporate Social Responsibility and Community Technology. (That’s actually a snippet from the press release that went out today, this is us when we are talking business.)
The first customized solution we have delivered is KPMG Switzerland’s 100 year anniversary platform Growth Generator. Congratulations, KPMG! Using the Growth Generator, participants from inside and outside KPMG can present their projects, network, and raise money for KPMG’s Inspiration Grant. And over CHF 36’000 of a planned CHF 1 million are already raised! Isn’t she abeautiful baby?
If you are interested in our customized solution, please refer to our customer service site and do not hesitate to contact our Dania at dania.gerhardt@amazee.com. And spread the word! We are looking forward to hearing from you, and thanks for the support!
Web Monday gets bigger and bigger all the time!
January 19, 2010
It was a good night last night, with the 12th Web Monday Zurich going down at the LIIP/Nektoon office. More than 60 Web Monday attendees enjoyed the delicious mybagels and local Amboss (because it hits you like an anvil, if you have too much, I suppose, tongue-in-cheek) beer, white wine and prosecco. Thanks to LIIP/Nektoon and Andreas Hoffmann of UBS for sponsoring the event, with so many people showing up, we couldn’t have hosted it in our office!
The presentations showed, once again, the great diversity of the Zurich Web Scence: Dorian Selz of Nektoon presented memonic.com, which allows its users to “keep the essential”. Andreas Hoffmann then announced the outcome of the Web 2.0 competition run by UBS among the Web Monday Zurich community, a contest which he had announced at the last Web Monday at Google. Andreas was very pleased that 35 great ideas and concepts had been entered with many ideas for UBS to follow up on. Congrats to the three winners!
Last but not least Maud Châtelet presented her interesting and useful startup Howtopedia.org, a collaborative, wiki-like platform for practical knowledge and simple technologies that are easily explainable and usable by individuals or small communities for a sustainable and ecological future.
Again it was great fun and we are pleased to see the community growing with each event. Please contact me if you are interested in presented your startup and/or hosting one of the next events. Web Monday Zurich lives through your participation, it is much appreciated!
The next big date in the Swiss startup scene will be the 2nd annual StartupCamp Switzerland, which will take place on February, 13, in Basel. If you haven’t signed up already, here’s your chance to do so!
More pictures are up on our flickr site.
Thoughts from the 2nd Politforelle
January 13, 2010
Last night our friends from Politnetz.ch hosted the second installment of the Politforelle, or political trout, a somewhat regular meetup of those interest in Swiss politics and the Web.
Andreas of Politnetz, who had organized the event (thank you for that!), managed to find two very interesting guys to present: Moritz Zumbühl, CEO of the Feinheit agency and candidate for the Green Party in Zurich as well as Stefan Krattiger, a successful, young politician (how do you translate Gemeinderatspräsident?) of the Social Democratic Party from the Bernese Oberland both talked about their experience with the Net.
While Moritz Zumbühl was quite skeptical about the power of Social Media in general (except Facebook, as he stressed), he stated that he heavily relies on E-Mail (again). The only problem being the obtaining of E-Mail adresses. But he was able to show some interesting cases in which mailing helped to get a campaign off the ground. At the same time he is convinced that in Switzerland there is not yet a way to successfully bypass mass media when you want to get your word out big time.
Stefan Krattiger talked about his campaign to become Gemeinderatspräsident (president of his local town council). Amongst other things he started chatting up young people from his town via Facebook and managed to mobilize them. They would not have voted otherwise and eventually carried him to victory.
Both, however, were not convinced that online Social Media will be successfully used by Swiss parties in the near future. Too fragmented and decentralized is the national party landscape.
A visit from Singapore
January 7, 2010
Today, we had a very pleasant visit from one of our users. Kones comes all the way from Singapore, he is currently travelling Europe visiting friends and relatives, and he also dropped by our office. It was great to hear from a user from so far away.
Kones was very much involved in the IT Learning Center project which won the last Amazee Bucket competition almost a year ago. He told me about the progress the project has been making. They are now running four PCs in the Learning Center in Sri Lanka (Kones’ home country) and are holding classes, mostly for housewifes.
In each of these classes, about seven to ten “students” are taught the basic knowledge of computing, like Office software and the usage of the Internet. Things seem to be going well and we are very happy to hear that the Bucket money is helping a good cause.
Kones also was kind enough to bring presents! We got gold-plated keychains depicting Singaporian landmarks (I suppose). Funny thing: On the back of the packaging, it says: Singapore – The Fine city and there’s a list of things which are prohibited and how much you will be fined, if you disobey the strict law. Urinating in lifts, for example, is $500. Thanks for the visit and the presents, Kones!
Enterprise 2.0
January 7, 2010
Web 2.0 tools, practices and philosophies (yes, a big word indeed) are increasingly finding their way into corporations. When organizations and Web 2.0 converge, Andrew Mc Afee, a principal research scientist at the MIT, calls this: Enterprise 2.0. His latest book on Enterprise 2.0 provides managers and corporate decision makers with an unhurried but excellent guide to assess and leverage collaborative Web 2.0 technologies for any form of organization and collaborative need. Case studies include information gurus like Google or the CIA. Recommended!
That’s not from us!
January 6, 2010
Note the difference between A-maze-ing and Amazee-ing!
(Thanks to Markus for the hint.)
