2011 was a heck of a roller coaster ride for me, and I’m going to spend a few minutes reflecting on my personal and commercial experiences this year and forecast my plans for 2012.

Personal

I have grown closer than ever with my beautiful wife. Even though my workload has increased this year, we manage to spend more time together, and we have more fun than ever before! Kell is the number one focus of my life, and I have never and will never lose sight of that fact.

I spent a month mid-year visiting the USA, Mexico, Cuba and Peru with some of my very best mates, and I have a greater appreciation for the virtue of friendship than I have ever had before. I have greater clarity around the definition of a friend; which ensures that I spend my time with high quality people that bring value to my life and to their own lives.

Unfortunately, I lost one of my truly great mates in the most tragic of circumstances. His passing continues to have a profound impact on the attitude I try to bring to my life each day, and it has opened my eyes to an important social issue that I was relatively uninformed about previously.

Business

This time, one year ago Vortilla Digital did not exist. There was no business, no staff, no clients, no name, nothing more than a vague plan for 2011 and a fairly bold projection of the market potential.

10 months after our launch – after a lot of hard work – Vortilla Digital has become one of Australia’s leading mobile app development companies with blue-chip clients including;

• Australian Federal Government
• Ambulance Victoria
• Goodyear & Dunlop Tyres Ltd
• Life Saving Victoria
• Hyundai Australia Ltd
• Henley Homes Ltd
• Drummond Golf Pty Ltd
• Nulon Oils
• Kidney Health Australia
• and many more…

In addition to these clients, we have also established business partnerships with;

• Scott Pendlebury
• The Shane Warne Foundation
• A couple more to come very soon… just pending contract signings!

Recently, we have also developed an amazing physical product to launch in early 2012; which I feel has the potential to become a commonly recognised brand by end of 2012. I promise to work tirelessly throughout 2012 to ensure that it achieves its full potential.

I would like to personally thank my whole team at Vortilla Digital for all of their hard work throughout this past year. It takes courage and faith to be involved in a start-up, and I am truly grateful that our team were able to share my vision for what we would become… I just never dreamed that it would happen so quickly!

What does 2012 hold?

In 2012 I am looking forward to working even more closely with The Shane Warne Foundation to raise funds for seriously ill and under privileged Australian children. The team at The Shane Warne Foundation, led by Jason Warne are so passionate about their work that it is completely infectious, and I can’t wait to help out again next year.

At Vortilla Digital, we will continue doing high quality work for our clients.

We will also establish ourselves within the retail sector of at least two unrelated industries with soon to be released products. I feel that this is an important way to future-proof our business against changes in technology and ensure greater sustainability for our business than we currently have by simply selling a software development service.

My wife and I are hoping to spend a month in Europe mid-year, which we are both very excited about. Seeing the Greek Islands would certainly be a big tick from my bucket list, and I think Kell plans to book us for a donkey ride through Malta… which should be… ummm… interesting!

Thanks to anybody that felt it worthwhile to endure my utterly self-indulgent summation of the past year. I suppose turning 30 this year has made me a little more reflective than I normally would be. Rest assured, I will now return my focus to the tasks ahead of me.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and that you all choose to make 2012 your best year yet!

For a limited time only, all proceeds go to The Shane Warne Foundation, and all banners created give you the opportunity to win 2 tickets to The Joe Hachem & Shane Warne Charity Poker Tournament.

Use this app to create an inspirational, funny, satirical, or supportive banner for your team – or your most hated team! You can even upgrade the app to be able to add a photo of yourself – using the camera – or of anything else you can find using the built-in Google Images search feature. Perhaps your favourite – or most hated – player may appear on a banner, along with your thoughts on him?!?!

The Vortilla Digital team have worked very hard to bring this great product to you, so if you like the app, please take a moment to provide a 5-star rating in the app-store, and share your banners on Facebook & Twitter to spread the word.

Happy banner making!!!

In short, the theory says that for a business to be truly able to measure it’s success, it must look at more than just it’s traditional (financial) bottom line, and make a contribution to the environment and society as a whole.

I strongly believe in the merits of the theory and very recently I have started implementing strategies for achieving triple bottom line success into our iPhone app development business and our air conditioning business.

We are very proud to be working with the Department of Health and Ageing in Canberra, to create an iPhone application for their Drug Awareness Campaign. Amongst our team, we all feel strongly about our responsibility to use our skills and resources to help ‘at risk’ individuals avoid using drugs, and avoid putting themselves in situations where drugs may be present.

After some analysis of our current business practices, we also realised that our air conditioning business could – and should – be doing more to assist the environment. In short we have implemented measures that will significantly reduce the amount of wastage, and chosen to only stock the most energy efficient air conditioning units.

We expect these decisions to have a minimal negative effect on our financial bottom line, and the additional ‘good’ we do will certainly offset any small losses.

1. Sexiness! If you’ve ever been rejected by a chick who was after a ‘bad boy’ type… well a scooter is your solution.
2. No Traffic! While your peers are stuck in stand-still traffic jams, you’re efficiently scooting between lanes!
3. Spare Time! Then with the extra spare time you have you can go and get a coffee with one of the thousands of hot chicks that want to date you – because you ride a scooter.
4. Fuel Efficiency! $4.50 per 100+kms… need I say more? You can spend the money you save on dates arranged with the above-mentioned hot chicks.
5. Fun! It’s quite an exhilarating feeling! Riding around, feeling the wind in your… helmet.
6. Enhance your reflexes! I’ve found that sometimes people accidentally fumble things like pies, fruit and rocks in your general direction when you’re on a scooter, and dodging them is great for the reflexes.
7. Make new friends! I find that when I pull up outside a work site when there are a bunch of blokes all standing around, they all seem to want to hang out an talk to me. One of them usually whispers something to one of the others about how awesome and tough scooters are and then they all laugh.
8. Fitness! Sometimes when the tiny fuel tank runs out of fuel, you get the added bonus of being able to push your scooter to the nearest fuel station to fill it up. This provides excellent lower body strength training.
9. Be successful like a celebrity! Over the years many celebrities have been spotted riding scooters. Jude Law, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Owen Wilson, Madonna and even Mel Gibson have all been seen publicly scooting up a storm and look at all the great things that are happening with all of their careers at the moment.
10. Be true to yourself! You know you want one… so go ahead, do what makes you happy. And manly.