News

MP Victor Dominello launches his Volunteering Strategy

Mon, 14 May 2012 20:52:00 GMT

Yesterday, NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Citizenship & Communities launched his new Volunteering Strategy at an event at Governor Macquarie tower in Sydney.

Cyrius Creative Director, Stefan Sojka was invited as a constituent of Victor's electorate and as one of the contributors to the strategy, in the form of a formal submission. Stefan submitted a suggestion that "Timebanking" become a part of the Volunteering Strategy.

Timebanking, which is very popular in the US and the UK, among other countries, is a mechanism where volunteering hours are valued through an online Timebank, administered by a broker and able to be traded or exchanged for other volunteer services, using a concept called co-production.

Stefan's interest in Timebanking came about through hearing a talk on the concept via www.thersa.org and following up with further research. It is also interesting from the fact that it is a Web-based idea that takes advantage of the networking capacities of the Web and the information management tools available.

On the day of the Volunteering Strategy launch, it was also announced that two Timebanking pilot programs are being set up. The Strategy mentions Timebanking as an emerging trend in volunteering and it is very pleasing to see the State Government supporting two trials of the concept.

We look forward to seeing how those trials turn out and whether or not the concept can gain wider acceptance. For more information about Timebanking in the US, go here, or for the UK go here.

Insulvac Insulation and Vacuuming new site launches

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:26:00 GMT

Australians are well aware of the crazy times experienced by the insulation industry a couple of years ago, when the government’s insulation scheme fell apart in a disastrous fashion.

Overnight, the industry was shaken up as funding dried up and many people, both customers and those in the industry, were left high and dry. One firm that weathered the storm was Sydney’s Insulvac.

Insulvac had been around long before the insulation scheme was even thought of. When the dust settled, literally, the professional, service-driven firms like Insulvac remained.

Insulvac, with director Gavin Clarke, from the Australian Dust Removal Association, had been leaders in raising awareness in the industry of hazards like lead and asbestos and had invested in specialized high-powered vacuum equipment to extract dust and clean roof cavities, as well as replacing insulation and providing other related products and services.

Insulvac has now launched a new Web presence, showcasing their professionalism, past work and testimonials, as well as a whole range of world class products, from glasswool insulation, acoustic insulation, downlight covers and roof ventilators.

Cyrius is very happy to have been a part of the company’s transformation with the new Website and wish Insulvac all the very best as they begin using their powerful new online tool to market their business.

Check out their new website on www.insulvac.com.au

Wavelink re-launches their new brand ...and their brand new Website

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 06:56:00 GMT

Cyrius is happy to announce the launch of Wavelink's brand new Website. After a recent re-branding and logo change, the time had come to re-design and re-think the online presence for the company.

The new Website has a clean design, simplified menu structure, reorganised content and layout and a fresh new approach to promote the vastly expanded product range and supporting information since the previous site was launched.

Cyrius took Wavelink through a Web design and development process that began with a review of the entire content, navigation and structure of the Website, then worked on devising a new set of wireframes to present the information. Once the wireframes were refined and approved, a design process began, using our favourite graphic designer and Website designer, Stephanie. Wavelink brought their own freelancing print designer, Heather Noakes on board to create various elements of the new site, such as sliders and banner graphics.

Once the design was approved, Shawn, our Web developer, commenced an extensive process of firstly pulling all the existing content in from the current site, then recoding it into the new Website design framework. He cleaned up many aspects, adding features and reorganising the programming to facilitate easier management of the rapidly expanding range of content and media provided by Wavelink and their suppliers.

Wavelink is using social media, including YouTube, Twitter, blogging and LinkedIn to reach a growing and highly business- and tech-savvy customer base, so the Website is central to the marketing strategy, driving people to and from all the other online assets.

Cyrius is proud to have been a part of this strategic process since 2004, expanding the scope of the project as both the Web and Wavelink itself have expanded.

Congratulations to Jonathan and the Wavelink team on your brand new Website, from all of us here at Cyrius. Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your business evolution.

You can visit the site here: www.wavelink.com.au

Ryde Rotary celebrates their Website's 1st Birthday

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:23:00 GMT

Today marks one year to the day that the Rotary Club of Ryde launched their new Website. Cyrius congratulates the Club on all the site has achieved in its first 12 months.

The Website recently won the Rotary District Award for best Website for 2010–11, the Norm Roach Memorial Shield.

It has also attracted a large number of visitors from all over the world. 6,000 people have looked at the Website, which is not bad for a humble little Rotary Club, and they have looked at over 25,000 pages of content. The numbers are going up all the time, as the site grows in size and stature and continues to be found in Search Engines for more and more keywords.

The Club has benefited in many ways, including attracting guest speakers, volunteers, applicants for various programs and scholarships, and a few enquiries for membership.

Cyrius is proud to have been a part of the Ryde Rotary Website journey and will continue to support the Club to grow and increase its online presence, through the Website and through many social media channels.

Cyrius launches Website for Australia's 'First Lady of Swing'

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:57:00 GMT

Maree Montgomery, Jazz singer/entertainer extraordinaire and fashion event icon, launched her brand new Website to showcase her long career and vocal talents. A dynamic and versatile entertainer, Maree has recorded 6 albums that are all now available on iTunes and Big Pond Music. Cyrius is pleased to have been able to play a part in helping Maree leap into the digital age and give her talent a place to call home, where fans from all over the world, throughout her long career, can find her, tell all their friends on facebook about her and relive the magic of her live performances.

Maree is playing a regular monthly gig in Sydney – Laid-back Sunday Jazz, on the last Sunday of each month at the Royal Hotel, Leichhardt. Cyrius wishes Maree all the very best as her career continues to grow, on- and off-line!

Check out Maree’s new Website here.

City of Ryde launches its brand new Website

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:58:00 GMT

Cyrius congratulates the entire City of Ryde Council team for the launch of the new Council Website www.ryde.nsw.gov.au. The site is a huge portal into everything about living in Ryde and everything that the Council does for the city. It was designed by Spoonful Design and Cyrius was brought in to take care of the implementation and development of the functionality inside the Council's Content Management System (WCM), working closely with the diligent and hard-working Council Web team, who were charged with the massive job of implementing all of the content of the Website.

We are very proud to have played our role in such a significant project for the city. Thank you to the City of Ryde for allowing us to be the consulting and Web development providers.

Rotary Club of Ryde wins award for the Best Website in the District for 2010–11

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 06:59:00 GMT

Cyrius Media Group was very proud to have helped the Rotary Club of Ryde receive the Norm Roach Memorial Shield for Best Website in the Rotary District of 9680 for 2010–11.

The district awards were held recently, with Ryde Rotary President, Allen Horrell collecting the award on behalf of the Club. It was a big night for Ryde, as the Club scooped five district awards all up. President Allen kept the secret of all the awards until the Club’s changeover dinner.

Ryde Rotary PR Director (and Cyrius Media Group’s Creative Director) Stefan Sojka was pleasantly surprised to be the subject of one of President Allen’s presentations of a Certificate and the Norm Roach Perpetual Trophy.

The Norm Roach Best Website Award is chosen on the following criteria:

Overall design
Presentation and content – does it inform members?
What impression does it make on a prospective member?
Visual appeal, legibility, ease of navigation
Links to Rotary District and Rotary International Websites
Does the Website have a Password protected area for members’ information

In his acceptance speech, Stefan passed the credit for winning the award on to Cyrius Media Group Managing Director Lata Sojka, whose drive, enthusiasm and attention to detail ensured the Website was produced to the right standard to do the Club justice and help raise the profile of Rotary through the Club’s activities.

Congratulations to the entire Club for supporting us to facilitate this project. We graciously accept the award and pledge to continue to manage and maintain the Website to the best of our ability over the coming 2011–12 year.

You can check out Ryde Rotary's Website here

Congratulations to Ali Yunespour on today's Herald article

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:04:00 GMT

Cyrius Media Group is proud to be involved with all the great work done by The Rotary Club of Ryde. Our Creative Director Stefan is a member of the Club and this year has had the role of PR Director. It has been a big year for the Rotary Club of Ryde as it opened a school for 1,000 pupils in Afghanistan, with the assistance of the Indigo Foundation and Ali Yunespour, a local Afghan-born student who came to the Club looking for a way to help the people in his home country.

The article today in The Sydney Morning Herald is a great way to spread the news of what has been achieved.

Wild Goose Trading Website Launches

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:05:00 GMT

Cyrius has just launched a re-vamped version of a Website we designed and developed many years ago. Sydney-based Wild Goose Trading is an Australian company selling the very trendy sheepskin boots, jackets, hats and rugs. The new Website (hosting by Cyrius), comes after the company came back to us with a new logo, photos and product range. The old Website, being designed back in the day when 800 pixels was the standard maximum screen resolution and being designed to suit the old marketing materials, needed to be rebuilt to suit the new logo design look.

Jenny, from Wild Goose Trading had arranged some great high-quality photographs and did all the homework on the product database information, to make our job easier – and of course keep the costs down. We love it when clients do their homework! So we concentrated on designing the Website graphic user interface (GUI) and coding the programming content into the site. In the end it is a very clean and easy to navigate online catalogue, aimed mainly at retail stores, as WGT is predominantly a wholesaler, but also making it easy for end users to flick through the high-quality photographs and get in touch to order something.

The team at Cyrius Web design, Ryde, Sydney, would like to thank Wild Goose Trading for their engagement in helping create their Website and we really look forward to tracking the site's performance, using Google Analytics and seeing how it performs in the area of form submissions and the good old fashioned ringing telephone.

Winter is approaching. How about checking out some snug and warm gear on the site now?: www.wildgoosetrading.com.au

USA Wines Direct Launches

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Cyrius is proud to announce the 'soft launch' of the brand new e-commerce Website, USA Wines Direct. It might come as a surprise to us Aussies with all our homegrown wines, but America has some of the best wines in the world. Anyone who saw that movie "Bottle Shock" would understand, how the US beat the French in a blind taste test, putting America, and California in particular, well and truly on the wine-making map.

US wine imports into Australia are relatively small, but it is a strong niche market with anyone who knows the wine, developing a passion and a strong connection to the brands and the varieties. With new converts discovering the wine for themselves every day, there is an opportunity to even up the balance of trade just a little bit – the yanks certainly drink enough of our wines!

USA Wines Direct is Australia's specialist online retailer of fine wine produced in the USA. Proprietor Ian Lindsay has spent a lifetime in the wine business and really knows his stuff. He has hand-picked a selection of the best wines, both in taste and value, to introduce the uninitiated and to allow Aussies and US expats alike to buy American wines directly and locally, here in Australia.

The Website design highlights the images and colours of the wine-growing regions, with an easy-to-use navigation and shopping facility. The e-commerce solution is Big Commerce, which provides a number of great marketing tools, including Search Engine Optimisation, custom design templates, and plenty of great customer features.

We are now embarking on a strategy of online marketing, consultation and ongoing Website design and development to establish the business and make a splash on the local market.

So raise your glass and let's drink a toast, as we congratulate USA Wines Direct on their brand new Website launch.

Cheers!

Ideas International re-launches their completely re-vamped Website

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:05:00 GMT

Cyrius Media Group is proud to announce the launch of Ideas International's new Website http://www.ideasinternational.com/.

Ideas International (IDEAS) is a publicly traded company on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX:IDE) and has been in business for over 25 years. IDEAS hosts users in over 100 countries and maintains offices in the US, EMEA and Asia Pacific. The company provides enterprise IT research, insight, analysis and tools to both the buy and sell sides of the industry, counting as clients many large technology vendors and major blue-chip global IT users.

The new Website is a bold step forward, as it consolidates all of the information about IDEAS products and services, including world-class industry insights, advisories and powerful IT management tools.

Cyrius was involved from the very beginning, working directly with IDEAS management on the design, structure and style of the new Website. IDEAS have a strong in-house technical team, who implemented the Website into their Content Management System and took care of many technical aspects, leaving Cyrius to concentrate on design considerations, positioning, information and focus. It was a unique project, with the client taking a hands-on role in the technical implementation and liaising on many aspects of the project that would ordinarily be outsourced. However, Cyrius Creative Director Stefan Sojka and IDEAS senior Vice President Gary Burgess saw the value in a more collaborative approach, taking advantage of IDEAS strong capabilities and leveraging Cyrius's experience in Website design and production for the most appropriate outcome.

At the same time as the Website was being developed, IDEAS was also working on a brand new product, IDEAS Advantage. Cyrius was delighted to have been invited to contribute design and Web development resources to the project.

Congratulations to the entire IDEAS team on the launch. Thank you for allowing us to be involved in such an important project. We look forward to working with you to develop and market the new Website in the coming months/years.

NETT Magazine Re-launches

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:06:00 GMT

The latest issue of NETT magazine is the very first issue under the new publisher, Globe Publishing. The January 2011 issue features Google on the cover and is a bold new direction for the popular award-winning publication. The magazine is aimed at small to medium businesses trying to make their way through the digital media jungle, with advice, case studies and articles all about Web design, Web development, search engine optimisation, managing a business and all those other topics vital to keeping small business abreast of the latest trends. 2011 looks to be an exciting year for the magazine, which also celebrated its 3rd birthday at the launch.

Things are evolving so fast these days and small businesses have so many new opportunities to capitalise on technological solutions to bring their entrepreneurial ideas to life. NETT magazine’s tag-line has changed from “Inspiring businesses online” to “Better business advice” emphasizing the practical, action-based angle the magazine is taking.

Cyrius Creative Director, Stefan Sojka is very proud to have remained on the writing team through the transition to the new publisher and looks forward to the year ahead; to writing his regular opinion column and reaching the Australia-wide business readership with his ideas and advice.

Congratulations to Globe Publishing on the transition and re-launch! Go to www.nett.com.au for the Internet home of NETT magazine.

Lorraine & Malcolm Cox honoured with 2 Paul Harris Fellow Awards

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:07:00 GMT

Cyrius clients and fellow members of the Ryde Chamber of Commerce were honored with two Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow Awards.

At the recent Ryde Chamber of Commerce event, hosted by John Booth at The Weekly Times, Ryde Rotary President surprised Lorraine and Malcolm Cox with a Paul Harris Fellow award each.

Paul Harris Fellows are awarded to Rotarians and non-Rotarians alike who show outstanding commitment to community service. Lorraine and Malcolm are ideal recipients, with all the charity and community work they do. Lorraine and Malcolm's business, Ryde Furniture Freighters, has become very well-known for helping those in need. They cart furniture for charities and they donate large amounts of furniture left over from their clients' downsizing moves – all at their own expense.

Ryde Rotary has been at the receiving end of Lorraine and Malcolm's generosity, when they offered to cart a shipment of furniture bound for one of our international aid program destinations.

Tony Abboud from Ryde Rotary introduced President Allen Horrell to the Ryde Chamber crowd (a crowd which, for some reason, seemed to be padded out somewhat with a few Rotarians!). President Allen commenced his presentation with an explanation of the Paul Harris Fellow award and its significance, not only as a recognition of great respect and honour, but that one aspect of the award is that Rotary donates $1,000 to the Rotary Foundation on behalf of the recipient. This evening, $2,000 was donated and two very surprised recipients were asked to come up and receive their awards.

Malcolm and Lorraine are two of the nicest, humblest people you could meet. Cyrius really enjoyed every step of the development process of their two Websites. They certainly weren't ready for all the accolades and the attention. There were more than one or two tears from the recipients and from the crowd, as the emotion of such a public recognition of great community service unfolded.

Congratulations Lorraine and Malcolm, on all your amazing support and good work, from the entire Cyrius team.

Photo (L-R): Malcolm Cox, The Weekly Times Editor John Booth (OAM), Lorraine Cox, Ryde Chamber President Tony Abboud, Ryde Rotary President Allen Horrell

Stefan MCs Combined Chamber Event at Epping Club

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:09:00 GMT

Last night, Hills Schools Industry Partnership hosted a combined Chamber of Commerce event at Epping Club to showcase their services, working with school and business to provide training, experience and opportunity to local youth. A big crowd of over 200 people attended, to hear a number of speakers presenting on the benefits of working with our youth.

Stefan was the MC for the event and introduced the line up, which included a 20-piece jazz band from Arden High School, Caroline Gardner, from HillSIP, Andrew Hill from AJH Sports, Peter Garrard, Principal of Epping Boys High and Eugene Lau, from Cisco.

By any measure, the event was a great success, drawing so many chambers and organisations together to one event and providing a whole new perspective on schools/industry partnerships. For more news on the event, please go to Ryde Business Forum's Website.

Ryde Rotary Club Website's official launch

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 07:10:00 GMT

At a recent Club meeting, fellow Rotarian Stefan Sojka announced the official "go-live" of the Rotary Club of Ryde Website. The site was produced during the 2009–10 Club year, under the presidency of Rtn Bob Carroll, so Stefan presented him with a memento, a framed home page screen shot print of the site, captured before the presidential change-over. Current President Allen Horrell (centre) officiated the meeting, and oversaw the launch, as well as Bob's presentation.