Intergen's newsletter, Smarts, now available for online reading. Intergen provides information technology solutions across Australia, New Zealand and the world based exclusively on Microsoft’s tools and technologies.

1. >> T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M AG A Z I N E I S S U E 27
< Copyright 2011 Intergen Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of Intergen Limited >
INTERGENITE PHOTO GALLERY >> 2
CLOUD SERVICES >>
6WINDOWS 8 >>
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8APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT >>
9THOUGHTS ON THE INDUSTRY >>
10INTERGEN'S RACECAR SIMULATORS >>
11INTERGEN'S RACECAR SIMULATORS >>
12
>> HOT NEWS
WEB STRATEGY >> 3
WEB INNOVATION >> 4
DYNAMICS NAV SHOWCASE >>
5
Out and about, upwards and ahead
Dunedin on the move
In November, Intergen’s Dunedin team
moved into bigger, better and brighter
premises, making their new home in the
award-winning old distillery building in
North Dunedin in order to accommodate
the team’s growth.
Your Website Checklist (see inside)
If you never seem to have enough time to
get to all the things your website needs,
check out our ‘to-do’ list. It’ll help you to
focus and prioritise on some key tasks for
2012 and beyond.
WINDOWS 8 >>
The last few months have been extremely busy for us. A particularly big month
was August, when we hosted our annual Dynamics Day event in Auckland, sent
a big contingent to Microsoft’s Tech.Ed and attended the Microsoft Australia
Partner Conference. These events represent significant
opportunities for us to really get involved in the
community in which we participate.
We were extremely pleased with how our Dynamics Day
event was received this year. Each year our experts take
time out of their busy schedules to put together a day-
long event to update our clients and others who have
an interest in the Microsoft Dynamics range of solutions.
We delivered 17 sessions for the attendees, covering a
range of topics from future roadmaps to client stories.
We really enjoy the opportunity to share the things we
have learned with a wider audience.
The other really big event for us on the events calendar each year is Microsoft’s
Tech.Ed. Every year we have a huge number of people involved from many
different angles. Once again, Intergenites were involved in presenting a record
number of sessions, which is always a great way for us to share our experience
and expertise with the other attendees. And again this year we sponsored and
ran the Hands on Labs, where attendees get the opportunity to experience
products and scenarios that they may not ordinarily get exposure to in the
normal course of their jobs. As always, we put on a bit of entertainment in
The Hub area and gave the attendees a bit of a break (see pages 10–11 for
more on the race car-flavoured entertainment
we provided). We also attended many sessions
and learned more about the latest from
Microsoft.
As a fast-growing Australian partner, attending
the Microsoft Australia Partner Conference
provides valuable insights for the year ahead,
along with an opportunity to network with
other Australian partners and Microsoft staff.
This year’s conference was no exception. It
was a great opportunity to strengthen our
relationship with the Microsoft Australia team
and to confirm our plans for the following 12 months.
The year has gone very fast. The end of the year and Christmas holidays are
now looming large. This will be the last SMARTS for 2011, so I’d like to take
this opportunity, on behalf of everyone at Intergen, to wish you and your
families a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous 2012.
It’s at about this time of the year when we start to reflect and look to the year ahead.
2011 has been a busy time for us, with plenty of plans afoot.
tony.stewart@intergen.co.nz

2. >>2 < S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >
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>>2 >> I N T E R G E N I T E P H O T O G A L L E R Y
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10
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1. Intergen’s Mark Trotter and Tim Howell with
Peter FitzSimons at this year’s APSMA conference,
held in Sydney.
2. The Intergenite crew at Tech·Ed 2011.
3 & 8. Eight members of the Intergen Southern team take
on the Takahe to Akaroa relay.
4,6,11. Competitors in this year’s Wellington Business
Games, on land and at sea, all decked out in yellow.
5. The Sydney team paints the town red.
7. Post "Snowpocalypse" skiing in Queenstown.
9. Simon Bright gives a Microsoft Dynamics briefing
in Perth.
10. The Intergen team at this year’s Dynamics Day
in Auckland.

3. >>3< S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >
User engagement – exploring what we need and want
Members of Intergen’s Web Strategy team say user engagement is an
important task based on finding common insights and discovering
things they hadn’t thought of.
Web Strategist, Giles Brown, says many users know what they don’t
want, but find it harder to express what they do want.
“Most often people will tell you what their current needs are but have
difficulty envisaging the future. A large part of the user engagement
process is therefore to discover these needs and wants.”
What it involves
User engagement involves a mixture of quantitative and qualitative
analysis. Giles says quantitative analysis offers useful patterns and is
generally more scalable and easier to conduct.
“But it’s in the qualitative analysis that you’ll find the true insights
and pick up on the behaviours and nuances that will truly influence
the way in which you approach the design process.”
User engagement also involves contextual study and ethnography.
These provide information including who the person is, what their
routines are in daily life and the sorts of sites they visit. For example,
the person could be a mother whose smartphone provides her with
her only form of internet access throughout her day. She needs sites
that are mobile-friendly, and information on the go.
Web Strategist April Hague-Smith says the value of ethnography is
that it’s as much about the person and their behaviour in the offline
world as it is about the technology. “These broader insights give you
an understanding of the user’s world and an appreciation of how you
can use technology to both meet their needs and to challenge them.”
>> W E B S T R A T E G Y
Why usability is not an end in itself
While ‘user engagement’ is essential to creating what the customer
needs, April says it’s a common misconception that ‘user experience’
is just a case of making a site usable.
“It can be misleading to take a standpoint that insists on usability
at the expense of all else. You can create a really usable system
that doesn’t achieve its goals. Your online shop may be immensely
usable and yet no one’s buying because you’ve created the wrong
experience.
“Some sites are engaging precisely because they push the boundaries
and change how people see common conventions – not because
they slavishly follow established usability rules to the letter. We are
constantly encountering new ways and means of engaging with
search interfaces.
“From today, we are already incorporating more gesture and touch-
based interaction in our world, and are increasingly reliant on mobile
and tablet-based devices.”
What user engagement covers
User engagement applies to the whole digital space, not just the
web. As part of this picture, Intergen is looking at systems and
applications, desktops, kiosks and mobile devices and taking into
consideration the ways in which these all interact with each other
and combine to deliver an overall experience.
This is where the concept of service design comes in, says April.
“It’s important to look at delivering your service or information
consistently across multiple channels – not just tackling one at a time
in isolation. Air New Zealand is an excellent example of a company
with great service design. No matter how you engage with Air New
Zealand, they seek to deliver a seamless and continuous experience –
whether you’re on the move, at your desk or in the air.”
Intergen's Web Strategy team: Brad Gallen, April Hague-Smith and Giles Brown.
Intergen’s Web Strategy team brings a ‘toolbox’ to each user
engagement assignment, as each project requires a different
approach. In any one project they could be developing personas,
designing scenarios, conducting workshops or creating user
interface blueprints.
Keeping it front-of-mind
User engagement is an ongoing process because users are always
changing and technology is constantly evolving – it’s not a task you
can ever tick off as having been completed.
Giles says it’s still surprising to see the number of projects that
begin without the project owners having a general understanding
of who their users are.
“A number of projects also treat user engagement as a bolt-on, with
user testing happening at the very last minute. Engage with users
early on and often. You don’t have to over-engineer it either – lots of
small, informal sessions can be more useful.
“Done correctly, user engagement helps reduce the layers of
complexity that these projects can often suffer from. If you can
involve the whole development team face-to-face with users, this
gives greater purpose to the project.
“Start out small, launching with the core functions and features
first, and build incrementally from there. And engage the services
of an end-to-end provider to ensure your business requirements are
fully delivered.”
‘User engagement’ is a continuous voyage of
discovery to find out what users need and want
when they interact with technology.
giles.brown@intergen.co.nz

4. >>4 < S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >>> W E B I N N O V A T I O N
Until very recently, where website innovation
is concerned, New Zealand’s rural sector has
been left out in the cold. Constrained by limited,
sporadic and poor quality broadband and a
general perception that farmers are too busy
'down on the farm' to worry about joining the
digital revolution, having a powerful, interactive
and user-centric website aimed at farmers and
rural folk seemed superfluous to requirements.
But for Ravensdown, this couldn’t be further from
the truth. A strong, committed web strategy now
lies squarely at the heart of the organisation’s
technology and business roadmap. The Rural
Broadband Initiative is set to bring high quality
broadband to 86% of New Zealand within the
next six years. A customer survey clearly showed
Ravensdown that its customers were most certainly
not just online but also doing their research,
banking and shopping online. Ravensdown quickly
saw that being in the web space was an absolute
necessity, not an optional extra.
“Of course, we've had a web presence for quite
some time,” says Erin Webley, Ravensdown’s Web
Manager. “But we built our old website and then
left it – it just wasn’t a part of our core day-to-day
activities. With our new website we know that
it’s a journey, not something that’s ever finished.
And recognising the importance of the website
as a vital business channel for us, we established
a dedicated web team to make sure it gets the
attention it deserves.”
Web innovation brings greener pastures>> INTERGENITE
Margaret Zou
What do you do?
I am a Customer Relationship Management
developer in the Sydney office.
How do you make a difference?
I take pride in pinpointing the clients’ requirements
to deliver quality solutions. Being a software
developer comes with a great level of responsibility,
as there are almost an unlimited number of potential
solutions for our clients. I help to create interesting
and useful solutions that give our clients the
flexibility to grow, innovate and deliver.
What do you love about your job?
Besides working with some top-notch IT masters, I
really enjoy working with a wide range of Microsoft
products which are constantly improving my skill-set.
One opportunity I am loving is working for the small
but rapidly growing Sydney office. It gives me a
unique opportunity to help grow a business on new
soil, really understand our core business and take on
many tough competitors.
A bit about yourself…
I made the move to Sydney in early February. It’s a
struggle to find good coffee every morning. I have
moved in with three other geeks and we are in the
process of building a 20TB server for the house.
Over the past 18 months, Intergen has worked
closely with Ravensdown to help make its web
vision a reality. Intergen’s technologists have not
only built a new website, but by working with
Intergen’s Web Strategy team have also undertaken
comprehensive user testing and analysis to find out
what Ravensdown’s customers really want, using
this information to design a useful, informative and
intuitive customer-focused site.
Ravensdown’s well-considered web strategy is a
careful balance of user research in the field and the
use of leading edge technology, with Ravensdown
choosing SharePoint 2010 as its web platform.
The website is now the customer's first port of
call. Information is now tailored to the needs of
real customers and it’s also easy to search on,
underpinned by powerful search functionality.
An up-to-the-minute e-commerce platform is the
next step in the Ravensdown web journey, which,
when complete, will offer customers a more
comprehensive and interactive online shopping
experience. Future plans for a full-service customer
portal are also underway, with more than 1,600
customers having provided input into what, for
them, will provide the greatest value and use.
“The rural sector is no different from any other
sector now,” says Tim Roulson, Ravensdown Project
Manager. “And in the last couple of years we’ve
put a lot of time and effort into our web presence
as a core business channel. We've made it a more
intimate point of connection with our customers
and focused on understanding what works on the
internet and what doesn’t. It’s no longer a case of
putting some information up there and hoping it
will work.”
Having a flexible and future-ready content
management system has simplified the content
management process and has removed bottlenecks
and maintenance issues. Backed by robust
technology, Ravensdown keeps a close eye on
measurement, paying close attention to what
works on the site and what doesn’t. It uses Google
Analytics to hone its content and approach, based
on real information, in real time.
Since the website’s go-live the results have spoken
for themselves, with bounce rates down, and the
number of page views and average time spent on
the site doubling – not to mention the positive
feedback received from users. But despite these
achievements, there’s no room for complacency.
“This is just the beginning of the journey,” says Erin.
An online journey of discovery for
Ravensdown: www.ravensdown.co.nz

5. >>5< S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N > >> C L O U D S E R V I C E S
Intergen Chief Technology Officer Chris Auld crossed the line
in his keynote demo at Microsoft’s annual Tech.Ed event in
Auckland in August. “I had to get up on stage and say: ‘Look at
this amazing piece of technology we’ve built for one of the All
Blacks’ biggest competitors at the World Cup this year!’”
The technology, which features the Australian Rugby Union
(ARU), was developed to showcase the Microsoft cloud platform
and Windows Azure service. It delivers a Media Assets Library
that allows uploading and downloading of rugby-related photos,
video and information.
For example, a photographer in the field can upload
photographs to ARU’s media portal. These are then fed into
a SharePoint workflow to be approved for use. As part of
this process, ARU staff can view the images and attach the
appropriate metadata, (e.g. players’ and sponsors’ names and
venue information) and then approve them for use. Approved
photos or video can then be accessed by accredited media
members.
The technology is a pilot only at this stage. It was developed at
the request of Microsoft Corporation and built over a couple of
months. Intergen already had a relationship with the ARU and
thought of them when approached by Microsoft, says Chris.
“Intergen has become the go-to company for Microsoft’s
keynotes globally.
“Keynote demos are huge creative productions, similar in scale
and drama to a short movie. We develop creative scenarios
and really push the technologies to show them at their greatest
potential. We’re in the privileged position of having access to
many of Microsoft’s products well before they are in the market.
“This keynote put rugby and down under technical skills on the
world stage.”
When approached by Intergen, the ARU took part in early
brainstorming and provided content.
ARU Head of Online Business and IT Services, Paul Templeman,
says he is pleased Australian rugby could play a part in helping to
showcase Microsoft cloud services.
“With more and more people getting their news from social media
and online outlets in real time, it is imperative we have a system
that allows us to distribute content to media in a timely fashion.
“The prototype Media Assets Library meets that need in a simple
yet effective way and once complete will allow ARU to effectively
manage and distribute our photographic and video content,”
says Paul.
The technology demonstrates integration between Office 365,
SharePoint Online, Exchange Online
and Microsoft Lync. It also shows the
potential ways in which companies
already making use of Microsoft
technologies can leverage the
Windows Azure service.
An international rugby event is a
perfect example of a situation where
a large-scale event with huge but
short-term spikes in activity creates a
need for the elasticity of scale that
the Microsoft cloud platform can
offer. The Azure service allowed the
ARU to extend capacity for a short
period of time.
The technology demonstration will
feature in front of international
audiences at global Microsoft events over coming months.
On-field media action finds a home in the cloud
Intergen creates demonstration technology for Microsoft.

6. >>6 < S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >
As well as taking part in a red carpet press event and scoring myself a
shiny new Samsung Slate, complete with a preloaded developer preview
version of Windows 8 (the loot given to each and every conference
delegate), I returned home with some valuable insights into Windows
8. And I was given plenty of developer tools to experiment with behind
the scenes as we wait for next year’s commercial release.
I’m pleased to report that my verdict is unequivocally positive. It’s
an extreme makeover, or a total 'reimagining' of Windows, to use
Microsoft’s words. It’s also possibly Microsoft’s most radical OS
paradigm shift since Windows 95 – and it’s one I think will go down
well with Windows users. It’s worth noting that there are more than
a billion Windows users out there, so this is a pretty significant
step-change!
So, what’s on the cards for Windows 8?
For developers…
Developers may be relieved to hear that existing Windows apps will run
on Windows 8 and that they can continue to build apps for Windows
the way they always have.
But, there are numerous incentives for developers to start using the new
“WinRT” platform. For example, only WinRT apps will be downloadable
through the new Windows apps store. The app store will be where
developers can sell their wares – whether these are new games or
familiar productivity tools. These will be vetted before being allowed in
the store, just as they are with Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone.
All in all, the development story is excellent. The world is the
developer’s oyster here, with developers able to choose the language
they want to program in (C++, XAML/C#, HTML, JavaScript…). The
story around 'charms' is also excellent. These are the buttons in
the global toolbar (Search, Share, Settings etc) that developers can
subscribe to. For example, to subscribe to the 'Search' charm, I just
have to declare that I will do so in my settings, then I get a search
event with search text and can do what I need to do from there – it’s
very simple.
For users…
The best of Windows 7 (only better)
Windows 8 is an evolution of Windows 7, so you’ll get all the same
improvements in performance, security, privacy and system reliability
that Windows 7 delivered. Plus Windows 8 has reduced the memory
footprint needed, which means it will run better on existing hardware,
and will run on new, more efficient devices. It will work across a broad
spectrum of devices, will power up instantly and will probably run all
day on a single charge.
The ‘Metro’ look and feel
The Metro design style entered the world with Windows Phone 7 and
with Windows 8 is here to stay, now becoming the default start screen
and the start menu in Windows 8. The new face of Windows 8 is a
touch-centric home screen populated with 'tiles' instead of icons. Each
tile is active and full of information. It feels clean and sparse, while at
the same time being informative and information-rich.
The excitement BUILDs around Windows 8 – this
century’s most dramatic operating system upgrade
In September, I made my way to Microsoft’s BUILD conference in Anaheim. Along with about 5,000 other hardware and
software developers, I eagerly anticipated Microsoft’s 'opening of the kimono' on the much-awaited Windows 8 release –
Microsoft’s upcoming operating system upgrade – rumoured to be ready to officially hit the market in 2012.
>> W I N D O W S 8

7. >>7< S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >
In this new Metro-style, applications are the focal point of your
experience, filling the whole screen so there are no distractions.
Applications are designed to work seamlessly together in Windows 8 –
for example, you can select and email photos from wherever they are,
whether that’s on Facebook, Flickr or your hard drive.
Touchability
Windows 8 embraces what Microsoft calls the 'touch-first user
interface.' Although it can, of course, be used with your trusty old
mouse and keyboard, touch screen features are critical. Windows 8 will
offer both a fantastic finger-centric tablet mode and a mouse/keyboard
desktop mode in the same package. Both work extremely well.
Cloud-ward bound
With Windows 8, we see another concerted move by Microsoft towards
bringing the cloud to mainstream users, with every Windows 8 user
getting a SkyDrive – an internet-based storage space where users can
create, save and retrieve files online. Plus Windows 8 syncs across all
your devices, with Windows Live roaming content from all the cloud
services you use the most, keeping them up to date.
The devices – a new generation of hardware
The Samsung developer preview slate, while interesting and fantastic
to use, is just standard hardware under the covers: a quad-core Intel
i5 with 4GB of RAM. The real change will come with the release of
Windows 8 running on ARM chipsets. Think: Windows 8 on iPad-class
hardware. I got a look at some demonstration ARM slates at BUILD,
and can say that the experience was on-par with the Intel devices.
We haven’t seen the final build of Windows 8 on ARM, so
we don’t know for sure if support for legacy apps will be
included. Even so, I’m absolutely looking forward to the
Metro experience (populated with thousands of WinRT
apps built by eager developers), running on slick new
ARM tablets.
To quote Steve Sinofsky, Microsoft’s President of the
Windows and Windows Live Division, “From the chipset
to the new user experience, Windows 8 brings a new
range of capabilities without compromise." And when
pressed to reveal a release date, Steve stated that the
commercial release date for Windows 8 (a developer
preview version is already available for download) will
be driven by quality, not deadline – an approach that
earned him a sonorous round of applause from his
developer audience.
So all signs are extremely positive, and the anticipation
is building. For now, I’ll be content to play on my coveted
pre-release Samsung Slate, and I look forward with great
excitement to general availability of the product. If you’d
like to know more about what Windows 8 has in store, I
always enjoy the opportunity to talk tech – just drop me
a line at ben.gracewood@intergen.co.nz.
"It feels clean and sparse, while at the same time being informative and information-rich."
>> W I N D O W S 8
Ben Gracewood is a Solution Architect in Intergen's Auckland office.

8. >>8 < S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >>> A P P L I C A T I O N D E V E L O P M E N T
Alan Monnox
What do you do?
I’m the Southern Practice Lead for Enterprise
Applications.
How do you make a difference?
My role at Intergen draws upon two distinct skill-sets:
solution architecture and management. I have a strong
background in enterprise and solution architecture, so I
often get to wear the architect’s hat. I’m always looking
to ensure our solutions delight our customers, while
at the same time ensuring we achieve the business
outcomes they desire.
We have to work to budgets and timeframes, so when
I’m wearing the hat of a Practice Lead, I ensure our
project teams have the skills and expertise necessary to
deliver great solutions on time and within budget.
What do you love about your job?
I love having the opportunity to learn something new
every day. But in many ways this represents the best and
worst parts of the IT industry – while it’s great to learn
new stuff, it is also frustrating that the rate of change is
continual. The key is embracing the changes that move
us forward but avoiding the technology churn that offers
little or no value. This means that while we have to really
know our stuff in terms of the latest technology and
trends, our focus must always be on providing clients
with practical business solutions.
A bit about yourself…
While I’m fascinated by gadgets, I have the cheapest
and lowest tech phone in the office!
>> INTERGENITE
The problem
During the response to a foot-and-mouth disease
hoax on Waiheke Island in 2005, it took the
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) more
than a week to identify and contact all properties
with potentially at-risk species.
The information needed for the Waiheke operation
did mostly exist but wasn’t aggregated in one place.
If it had been, and had been compatibly formatted,
the work would have only taken two days.
The situation MAF faced in Waiheke Island could
have applied to the whole country. There are 74
different territorial authorities in New Zealand
with different systems and, up until April 2011,
no consolidated information on farms and lifestyle
blocks. In some cases, there was no information
at all.
If diseases such as foot-and-mouth can’t be quickly
quarantined, they spread rapidly. A serious outbreak
has the potential to destroy farmers’ livelihoods and
undermine New Zealand’s reputation. It could result
in international trade restrictions and could cost the
economy millions of dollars a day.
The solution
The FarmsOnLine project greatly strengthens New
Zealand’s ability to manage pest and disease
emergencies through the capture and re-use of
information.
Experience has shown that information about farm
location, ownership, management and the location
of stocks and crops is critical for:
• Effective surveillance programmes to protect
international market access
• Biosecurity and rural emergency responses
• Developing and implementing robust policy to
secure the future of the rural sector
• Assisting with the implementation of
government and industry programmes,
including the planned National Animal
Identification and Tracing programme and
Animal Health Board tuberculosis programme
MAF wanted FarmsOnLine to be easy to use by
farmers so they could register their information via
an online form.
MAF also knew the issue of privacy was immensely
important, says MAF Project Sponsor, Clifton King.
“People needed to know and be given the assurance
that their information was in safe hands and being
used for the benefit of New Zealand as a whole.”
The FarmsOnLine solution is comprehensive. Based
on Microsoft .NET technology, it encompasses and
brings together three websites and eight databases.
The data is aggregated from a number of different
external sources such as local authorities, Land
Information New Zealand, New Zealand Post,
Department of Conservation and the Animal
Health Board.
FarmsOnLine went live in April 2011, on schedule
and within budget. Feedback received has been
positive – from stakeholders and farmers alike.
FarmsOnLine gives full picture of
New Zealand farming
The project also received a unanimously positive
appraisal in the fourth stage of its Gateway
Review. The review is a State Services-mandated
methodology for reviewing the progress of key IT
projects at a number of stages.
The FarmsOnLine solution is expected to surpass
90% farm contactability in the coming 12 months,
as ratepayer information becomes available. The
solution allows 50,000 farms to update their
information each year.
King says if there’s an adverse event now, MAF can
get operations immediately underway and know
exactly where the farms are.
“We’ll not be encumbered by a huge administrative
workload at the same time as coordinating a time-
critical emergency response.”

9. >>9< S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N > >> T H O U G H T S O N T H E I N D U S T R Y
Increasingly, experts are proclaiming that the way to increase
participation and activity levels is to engage people with game-like
elements of competitive play. The business world in particular is
starting to embrace gamification – the term given to incorporating
game-like mechanics into everyday business life and, especially,
those tools and systems we need to use every day.
For those of you who thought games have no place in the office,
think again. Remember: we’re not talking about playing Halo 3
or Super Mario here. And, truth be told, we’re not talking about
replacing Outlook or Word with a game controller. What we are
talking about is introducing – and embracing – game design and
mechanics in our websites and applications, to make them, dare
I say it, more fun. And to increase participation and productivity
along the way as well.
Reality is Broken, a book by Webstock-alumni Jane McGonigal,
asserts that leveraging game mechanics and game design can
be used for more than playing a videogame at the end of a day.
McGonigal suggests that there are four key attributes of any game:
a goal, clear rules, a feedback system and voluntary participation.
All of these – with the exception of the latter, perhaps – have
got relevance when it comes to workplace applications. Take
timesheeting for example. The goal is simple: we need to track our
time so that this can be invoiced and, in some cases, so we can get
paid. Put simply, accurate, timely timekeeping helps my wallet or my
organisation’s bottom line. Clear rules are similarly clear: I put my
time against projects, and these get charged back to the customer.
The feedback system is more nebulous, but the gist is this: if my
information is accurate, it gets entered; if it isn’t, then I’m told –
either then and there by the system itself, or later on by my manager.
Game On: Improving business productivity with gamification
The final attribute – 'voluntary participation' – is harder to achieve.
After all, do any of us voluntarily want to use a timesheeting
application? Perhaps not in their current form, but if we looked to
evolve these systems to be more game-like, then maybe this would
change? Could we replicate the thrill of a conventional game
by achieving points, being rewarded for timeliness or accuracy,
adding elements that make us feel this once-tedious task is more
enjoyable? Or if I could compete against my peers and race to see
who’s best? These, and other potential improvements, could make
all the difference when it comes to achieving those all-important
goals we have as an organisation.
Gamification isn’t the answer to everything – good application
design and user experience must play a role, too – but as a way
of helping increase participation, then this could be one way of
making business applications more engaging. Game on.
tim.howell@intergen.co.nz
Want to ensure everyone is entering their timesheets? Trying to ensure everyone reads the latest HR policy?
Need to increase survey participation rates? Simple: Just turn it into a game.
Tim Howell is Intergen's Strategic Marketing Manager.
Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken.

10. >>10 < S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >> > I N T E R G E N ' S R A C E C A R S I M U L AT O R S
Tim Schofield
What do you do?
I’m an Implementation Consultant
working with Microsoft Dynamics AX in
Intergen’s Northern Region.
How do you make a difference?
I try to help our customers get the
best out of their Dynamics AX by
understanding the best and smartest
ways of implementation and also
understanding their real-world problems
and issues.
What do you love about your job?
I really like the opportunity we get to
work in different industries and different
departments, and I like working with the
latest releases and technology.
A bit about yourself…
I am originally from the United Kingdom
and have been in New Zealand for about
eight years now. I’m married with two
adult children.
>> INTERGENITE
The technology under the hood...
The real life inspiration: The Intergen racecar
The creators: Carl Hickton, Lee Herd, Mark Clearwater
The technology under the hood

11. >>11< S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N > >> I N T E R G E N ' S R A C E C A R S I M U L AT O R S
High-octane technology hooks Tech.Ed crowd
At Tech.Ed 2010 we wanted to share this passion so we hired two racing
simulators for our booth, which went really well. But this year we stepped
it up and built four racing simulators that gave almost 300 people the
experience of driving Australian Super V8s.
In essence, a racing simulator is a cockpit frame with a full-size adjustable
car seat. It has additional mounts for a force feedback steering wheel,
stereo speakers and a large flat panel monitor.
The racing simulator game, rFactor, is used by professional racing teams to
help prepare their drivers for racing new tracks. It has an extensive library of
mods that can be applied, making almost any racetrack across New Zealand
and Australia available. After much debating and testing (read: racing) we
chose a custom track that offered a good cross-section of fast, slow and
technical bits.
The track was unashamedly branded in yellow and, similarly, the Super V8s
were brazenly branded with Intergen and Microsoft livery.
We had a lot of positive feedback from those who tried the simulators, with
over 130 returning to repeat the experience many times. Many drivers were
highly competitive – only 0.3 seconds separated the top three.
The overall winner of the competition was Dominic Nathan from AA, who
won last year as well. His prizes were a Windows Zune, a $100 MTA voucher
and a $100 Super Cheap Auto voucher. Other participants got to take away
their very own memento of the event – an Intergen-branded mini remote
control car.
By leveraging the game's plugin architecture, Intergen was able to use
Microsoft cloud technology to provide real-time leaderboard and lap
information through a number of presentation platforms such as browser,
desktop and phone.
The four simulators were controlled by a central rFactor server where we
could turn on or off the driving aids, control race conditions and set various
other constraints to help make the experience as intense as possible.
We used Visual C++ to hook into the rFactor Internals Plugin API, where we
captured and streamed lap data received from the game to a socket. From
the socket onwards we are in .NET land.
First of all, a Windows service parses the lap data received from
the socket and asynchronously sent this to both a Windows
Communication Foundation (WCF) service hosted in
Windows Azure and to an embedded service in
the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
leaderboard application.
In addition to the WPF leaderboard, we
had a WPF driver registration application
that also communicates with the WCF
service hosted in Windows Azure.
The WCF service uses the Entity
Framework v4 to persist data to a
SQL Azure database instance. The
WCF service is also consumed by
the WPF leaderboard for historical
data, a MVC3 website (also hosted
in Windows Azure) which was
optimised for non-desktop device
browsing, and a Windows Phone 7
application we also developed.
The cars proved to be a roaring
success – and were perhaps the only
real showcase at the conference of a live
integration spanning desktop to cloud
across the Microsoft technology stack. A
number of punters seemed more keen on
racing than attending the Tech.Ed sessions.
The simulators are now located in several of
Intergen’s New Zealand offices. They will be
used for other conferences and events that we
will be involved in over coming months.
lee.herd@intergen.co.nz
It’s no secret that Intergen and many of our staff have a passion for motorcar racing.
Lee is Practice Lead for Intergen's Central
Enterprise Applications Practice.
The racecars in action
The leaderboard

12. >>12 < S M A R T S – T H E I N T E L L I G E N T B U S I N E S S M A G A Z I N E – I S S U E T W E N T Y S E V E N >>> D Y N A M I C S N A V S H O W C A S E
< AUCKLAND +64 9 966 3070 > < WELLINGTON +64 4 472 2021 < SYDNEY +61 2 9241 6616 >
< CHRISTCHURCH +64 3 964 0017 > < DUNEDIN +64 3 477 5648 > < PERTH +61 8 9228 9990 >
< info@intergen.co.nz – www.intergen.co.nz – www.intergen.com.au – info@intergen.com.au >FIND OUT MORE ABOUT INTERGEN
The problem
What do you do if your company’s growth cannot be supported by
your current accounting and financial system? What steps do you take
when your system isn’t fully integrated, doesn’t have the capacity to
handle increased volumes of transactions and can’t automatically
produce reports? These were the challenges that Provident Capital
Limited (PCL) had to address earlier this year in planning for its new
financial year.
PCL is one of Australia's leading diversified finance and investment
groups. It creates and manages high-quality, fixed-interest investments
and innovative mortgage lending. PCL Financial Controller, Carl
Kennedy, says the company was projecting future growth but knew its
current accounting and financial system had reached its limitations.
“We had outgrown the current system and, with limited capability for
reporting, providing relevant and timely information to the team was
becoming inefficient."
“We were looking for a company and software system that could
deliver seamless financial and accounting processes reporting
flexibility.”
The old system required a lot of manual intervention. Carl says some
of this work stemmed from a cumbersome file-based structure that
required manual maintenance.
“Our separate legal entities meant maintaining separate files, which
doubled the transaction time when reconciling and agreeing to
intercompany balances. Historical data was only available for the
previous and current year, requiring staff to manually load and
interrogate historical data.”
Another issue was that the old system didn’t have the capacity to
process large volumes of transactions, resulting in a backlog. And with
growth projected, PCL needed a system that could handle greater
volumes of work.
With growth being across diversified lines of business, another
important performance gap was the old system’s reporting limitations.
Carl says staff had to generate the majority of the company’s reports
through Excel.
“We were after a system that consolidated this financial, reporting
and accounting activity, making it easily accessible, flexible and
efficiently managed.”
The solution
PCL engaged Intergen to implement a solution during May and June
2011 ready for the new financial year in July 2011. Intergen installed
a seamless, integrated financial and accounting platform using
Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
Intergen account manager Mark Trotter says the project was a
‘fairly vanilla’ implementation. “We kept it that way for the initial
implementation to ensure we met the deadline of 30 June.”
Carl says PCL can now spend more time on analytical work.
“Previously we were doing a lot of compiling and customising of
reports. This was taking too long and was creating bottlenecks along
the way.
“We now have a seamless software platform that gives us access to all
data and allows us to create reports within an all-in-one system.
Provident Capital moves its financials to
a new Microsoft Dynamics platform
This saves us time and creates capacity for the finance team to add more
value. We no longer have to wait to upload and construct accounting and
financial reports – they can all be generated automatically now. Plus we
can process large volumes of transactions efficiently.”
In terms of the project itself, Carl says: “Intergen delivered on time, ahead
of schedule and within cost – which was great for us. We had a tight
deadline and this was met.”
The new financial year was truly welcomed by PCL as a fresh start.