Doo Yoo Zaroo?

Zaroo.com is one of our most exciting new clients in what has been an incredibly good start to the 00’s (naughties). Zaroo is a well-funded internet startup with the objective of becoming the site of choice for 14 to 24 year olds. Zaroo came to Z/Yen for help with one of the most adventurous aspects of its site, a true-to-life investment game which Zaroo members can begin playing for fun and end playing for real. Z/Yen’s contract includes the development of this large-scale game, given our financial, computing, modeling and games experience. Z/Yen has been working on the project for less than two weeks, yet already we have advanced rapidly on the design of the game and are helping to accelerate Zaroo through introductions to prospective partners. We look forward to a global launch in the late Spring/early Summer. As they say, Doo Yoo Zaroo?

Supplying the Realm

On 17 & 18 November, Keith Ellender and Michael Mainelli were working on the future of defence procurement. Thevenue was a conference attended by Robert Key and Robert Walmsley and run by IIR (Mary O’Callaghan’s old firm). Keith was speaking on international marketing issues. Michael was chairing one of the days and looking at the future of defence procurement given the rise of the internet, but taking into account security issues. Both Keith and Michael were impressed at the rapid rate of progress the US DoD has made in going on-line, particularly in contrast to the UK. Michael and Mary have gone on to develop a training conference on e-procurement in general, as well as radical procurement strategies for the next decade.

A Cure For All Known Ailments

Z/Yen's voluntary sector niche has been acquiring yet more focus in the medical charities arena. We are working with the British Heart Foundation, helping them to find systems for grant making, while The Cancer Research Campaign has recently commissioned us to help them look at the automation of drug development clinical trials monitoring. The latter project has enabled Ian Harris to make endless and repetitive jokes about "doing drugs". Meanwhile Mary O'Callaghan, who is working on both projects, is now telling anyone who'll listen that she is single-handedly finding cures for heart disease and cancer. She obviously spent too long working with Michael on that Deutsche Bank project.

Madeira Me Dear

Following the hugely successful Z/Yen & Jaffe port tasting, we tried our luck again with Madeira. Tim Double-Hyphen-Barrelled-Tells-Same-Jokes-Each-Time-He-Presents [check name - Ed.] tried his best to make the subject sound interesting, while the participants had a splendid time descending into a mild alcoholic stupor. Slightly fewer reports of hangovers and gout compared with the port evening, but still a good time was had by all. The Z/Yen award for stoicism goes to our very own Keith Ellender, who although a teetotaller, has attended both tastings. He claims that his wife Penny can drink for both of them.