Welcome to the 10th edition of Intuitive! Things are very busy here right now, I've got five people working on the XPDesigner project and we are learning more about the design process every day!

This month we've got a couple of interesting papers. The first is on the reality of visual / natural programming for non programmers and the second is on the role of a psychologist as business analyst. I hope you find them thought provoking. Many of our upcoming papers will focus on things we are working on related to our XPDesigner project. We'll be sharing our experiences and things we're learning along the way.

In other news, we've been recruiting madly and would like to welcome Chris Brown, Leanne Fear and Alison Richards to our team. When not working at PTG Global Chris enjoys cycling, tennis, playing soccer and drawing. If he wasn't an Industrial Designer, he would be pursuing his childhood dream of being a stuntman!
Leanne was on a placement with us as part of her Masters of Psychology degree and impressed us enough that we asked her to join us. Leanne's always positive and easily juggles the pressures of study and work. She also loves to see bad movies like Nacho Libre and Signs, although I'm not sure she'd like everyone to know about her secret passion for statistics.
Alison is super-creative and produces the most incredible art. We'll do a feature on her some time in the future. She's a geek at heart, but hates macs and ipods – too common she says. So she has a Sony minidisc instead and epitomizes 'shop 'til you drop'.

Employee of the month is Frances Miller taking the gong with a lay-down misere. She's been quietly working away keeping our customers happy and the rest of the team have greatly benefited from her patience and guidance. Well done and thanks!!

Cheers,
Craig Errey
Managing Director and Psychologist
craige@ptg-global.com or 02 9251 4200
(filling in for James this month)

PTG Global News and Papers

Hot Article: XPDesigner catching on
Author: The Australian
PTG Global's bold new project, XPDesigner, has sparked the interest of Australian IT journalist Simon Hayes. He notes that 'User interface design is getting more publicity in the wake of headline-grabbing project failures', and is optimistic about PTG Global's ability to 'create software to help developers design better user interfaces.' XPDesigner will revolutionise the IT industry through the creation of a true visual application development tool.

New Paper: Visual and natural programming for non-programmers - A false hope
Author: Craig Errey
This paper will provide a crash course on the basic concepts behind programming in order to show that it is a non-trivial activity and, that in order to programme, you need to think in a certain way to successfully describe what you want to do so the computer can carry out your instructions. Is visual programming a flase hope? Perhaps, but we're looking at it from a very different perspective.

New Paper: The psychologist as business analyst
Author: Craig Errey
This paper explains how Business Analysts need all the skills of a psychologist to correctly capture and document business requirements ...and the play on 'analyst' was not lost on us either!
Read more about The psychologist as business analyst

Conferences and Workshops

Writing for the web workshop
Date & Location: 18/10/06 (Brisbane)
This workshop focuses on improving the usefulness, usability, and accessibility of online content. It introduces techniques for clear and effective online communication and re-inforces these with a series of hands-on excersizes.
Read more about the Writing for the web workshop

PTG Global's employee of the month!

Meet Frances Miller
Which three words best describe you and why?
A walker, a worker & occasionally … a wally.

In my freetime, I like to...
Read, watch a film and eat out or in with friends.

I most admire...
Ang Lee the film maker, because he has worked in a myriad of genres (dramas, a literary adaption, a western, a romance, a superhero blockbuster and more) and has brought a unique vision, superb filmmaking skills and humanity to each. A genius.

I hope to be / do / achieve
I hope to walk in Bhutan next year – I want to beat altitude sickness finally!

What is the best thing about working at PTG Global?
The staff – they are inspiring work colleagues. And closet grammar pedants.

What is the most treasured item on your desk?
My see-through sticky tape. Is that sad?

PTG Global Contact Details

You can contact us by email or call us on 02 9251 4200 or 1300 660 973 for further information.

Our head office in Sydney is located in the
Maritime Trade Towers
Level 16, 207 Kent St
Sydney, NSW 2000