 so thank you everyone for taking the time to join us today. This webinar is to talk about the Drupal South Splash Awards entry and to answer any questions you've got. So to start off I would like to say a woman jikka. Welcome from Wurundjeri country which is where I'm positioned. I know that we're kind of spread out throughout Australia but that's where I am at the moment. Before I start I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that we meet on today and pay my respects to that elders past present and emerging. I would also like to extend my respect to Aboriginal, Torres Strait, Maori people who might be joining us today. I would also like to do a special shout out to our award sponsor, Ironstar. So Mike's on the call today from Ironstar. We cannot run these sorts of events without our valued sponsors and supporters so we're very grateful and indebted to you Mike and your fabulous team for taking on the responsibility of sponsoring this event. So we've got quite a lot to go through today. This is our agenda. We've got about 30 minutes allocated and we'll do our best to cover the following topics. So we've got the why enter, the categories, judging and judges, the award process, what you can submit, preparing your submission, submission tips, important information and then we should have some time at the end for any Q&A. So the Drupal South Committee are very excited to be continuing with the Splash Awards for Australia of New Zealand. So we did the first one last year at Wellington and I think we all thought it was a great outcome and certainly Mike and I certainly enjoyed running it so we're back again for this second year. The awards have been running since 2018 and have been an international program champion by Drupal and since 2019 the awards have been held annually with winners being announced at the Drupal cons in Europe and the US and that so and as I just said before we're now in our second year here for Australia and New Zealand. The Drupal South Committee continue with their commitment to making this an annual event with the event being aligned with each Drupal South Conference. So sorry my notes are not aligning with my slides and my apologies but I guess some important information on your submission. There's some things that have changed a tiny bit from last year. So this year you can submit in all categories. We're not putting a cap on that so previously you were only able to submit to two categories and you can have up to two entries in each category. Again this year there is no cost for the entry and of course the awards ceremony will be at the conference and it will be an event not to be missed and that will be on the Wednesday evening. Mike I think that's the 20 of this right? Yep that's right. Perfect. So why enter? This is a great opportunity to showcase the best works you have completed in the past year. The trophy on its own is pretty awesome and awesome and amazing in your office on the mantelpiece. Drupal South will be promoting the winners actively as part of the process of the awards and participating in the awards may provide a vehicle for you to help build business and showcase your Drupal skills. So last year I was actually working at Morftware and was working at the moment and we certainly have rolled in the win for that award in the not for profit category as part of our tender documentation and we found that that was a really useful way to validate the work and our expertise in the field. So the categories this year so you'll see here that I think last year we had six categories and we've we've drilled that down now to five. So we've got the corporate category which is websites that serve as online identities for business organisations or professional individuals. The design UX category which is websites and experiences where visual design is intended to be beautiful emotional and appeal to the senses. The education category which is sites that are educational promote education or provide online curriculum or education services. The government category which is websites and platforms developed for any level of government. Political movements also fall within this category and then finally the non-for-profit category which is websites for charities and charitable organisations whose primary purpose is helping people or other worthy causes. So judges so all submissions will be reviewed by a professional and impartial panel essentially members of the Drupal community who excel in their fields of expertise. Any panel members who have any conflict of interest in reviewing a submission will recuse themselves from voting on any submissions in that track. So for example if you are a judge and your agency is submitting you will recuse yourself from from that judging that specific award entry. So judges are volunteers and their identities are not revealed until after the award ceremony. Individual judge scores are kept confidential and I'd just like to do a small call out now like if you've got an interest in being involved with the Splash Awards it would be great. We're about to do a call out for judges so keep an eye out on your emails because it would be great to have more people involved in this activity. So the judging criteria so concept and strategy the plan behind the website is the concept clear unique and consistently implemented. Does the website tell a story? Does the chosen strategy and the final elaboration of the product fit the objectives that served as a starting point of the project? Also your submission will be judged on design so that's everything that is visible to the end user including UX, motion and visual design on both desktop and mobile. Judges will be looking for design that is of a high quality, fits the target audience and supports the message that needs to be conveyed. Another judging criteria is technology and that's for websites that will be assessed against their speed and whether they function properly. In this criteria the Drupal application is also being considered. Has the build followed Drupal standards? Is the implementation innovative? Integrations with third party systems is also considered. The business case in this criteria we are looking for a positive business outcome for the website. Has the website increased sales, lowered costs, provided a better brand experience etc? Do the analytics from the site show that the goals have been achieved or even exceeded? And then the final judging criteria is community value. So Drupal as an open source platform owes its existence to the community behind it so all submissions will be judged on the value the website returns to this community. This could be code for example modules published on Drupal.org but also indirect contributions such as spectacular case studies and well-known brands that use Drupal which contribute to the marketing of Drupal in the digital ecosystem. So the process, so basically you can see here that the submission call out is open now and we're in the info session at this point in time so that's point two in this slide and the submissions close on midnight the 23rd of February so that's in 11 days. The judging period will go until the 4th of March and then we've got the award ceremony at Drupal South Sydney in the afternoon of the 20th of March. The project you submit. So the website you put forward needs to represent new work in the 23-24 year or a project that has had major updates in that same period and that's recognising sort of the agile workflow that a lot of us are working to as we consistently improve the works that we do for our clients. The website does need to be live also the major feature enhancement has to be live as well at the time of the ceremony and the website has to be a Drupal project. So I encourage you to review the submission form. There are six questions for you to answer. There is a character limit on each question, Mike, is that the same this year? It's 10,000 characters per field? Yep, and I would say if anyone finds that they're hitting that limit to let us know and we can certainly review that. Thank you. Okay, so just some tips and I'll put this maybe on the Drupal South awards channel that I've just created recently. These links, so there's two links for you to check out for a bit of background research. So one is the Splash Awards website, which is the international awards one. And then we've also got a YouTube video from the awards ceremony from last year in Wellington. So prepare your submission. We have got a template that's available. So I'm happy to share that with any attendees after this session. So please just make a note to contact us with your email if you would like that template. And we can talk about contact details after this presentation. So although the template's available and I can't exactly remember, but I'm pretty sure it's a Google Doc, you do need to actually provide your submission and answers on the online form. So you'll have to transcribe that through over to your online form if you're using the template. Submissions tips. Review the categories and select the ones that best fit for your project. You may submit the same project in different categories if the category applies, but remember to adjust your submission to provide context for that category. Answer all of the questions and I've talked about the word limit already. So and as as Mike said that if you're hitting that max, you know, you need to become to be just consider a bit more about how you can become a bit more succinct and clear in your answer. Read the questions in detail and take notes on the key points you need to answer. Consider sharing the workload. Get team members to answer the key points questions that are relevant to them and set a deadline. Revise the answers, be clear and succinct. Spend time structuring your reasons for why you think your project is innovative, interesting and awesome. Make sure there is a clear story for a judge to follow. Remember the judges will be looking at many submissions that make efforts to make your one stand out. Ensure the submission fits your agency tone and make it personal and unique. Review the answers against the questions and ask yourself, have I answered the question? Get fresh eyes on the submission, share it with your team and ask for feedback. Ask them to let you know if anything has been missed out. Is the submission a compelling story argument and incorporating the feedback that you receive? So one of the important things about these awards is that you need to tell your client that you're submitting and include them in the process. The client must agree to the submission. You'll see on the submission form that we ask for the client contact details and we do contact each client to make sure that they've approved the submission. And so if you're engaging with your client it's a good opportunity to ask them for a testimony or which you can include in your submission as well. Okay so that is the submission. I mean the presentation. Does anyone have any questions? Rory. Hey Julia thank you very much for that. I just had a question that I don't think you've covered but for a site that might be behind a well the vast majority of the site is behind a username password and isn't public facing per se. Is that still something we could submit obviously with the understanding that we would have to get you some way of logging in? Yes so um so there'll be a few challenges there. So number one with the online form I don't think there's anywhere to upload images at the moment so we might have to might go back and have a look at that potentially. The other thing is that the judges need to be able to access the website to review and assess it. So you saying you'll be able to give them access or? I can't confirm anything but I think you know the understanding would be if we were submitting a site that required a username and password we would be able to set up a judging account. Okay. But does that sound like it's within the realm of possibilities? Mike what do you think? Yeah I think it needs to be just to reiterate that caveat it needs to be a finished site and you need to give the judges access to it then I think that's fine.