It’s probably become quite clear to our regular blog readers that we seem to have somehow established a second office in Brisbane!  We’ve been planning for the future of Gaia Resources and one of our main focuses is on the Natural Resource Management and Collections and Archives communities – and the east coast really seemed to be a place we should have a presence to do more work in these spaces.

It turned out that Morgan was in Brisbane and after working with him at the Western Australian Museum, I found myself talking with him about ways start working together again.  It seemed to be the right time and the right place, and with Morgan’s skillset we thought he’d be a great asset to help us start an east coast presence.  So, Morgan and I decided on a workplan and then plunged into the great unknown – and we had a fun time documenting the price of bananas across my first few trips!

The infamous Eight Miles Plains Banana Index, as it became known on Facebook (Morgan says it’s currently $1.99)

With all of the work we have been doing on our systems (and when I say we, I really mean Shay*), there was very little to do to get Morgan up and running on our infrastructure.  Except buy him a Mac, which was one of the least fun things I’ve done in a while.  But this transition to “the cloud” for our infrastructure has really been paying off – so much so that we’re in the process of becoming a partner with Amazon Web Services.

Morgan did some searching and found a co-working space in Wynnum, just 10 minutes down the road from Morgan’s place.  The co-working space is run by Celia from Central Business Associates, and it’s been a great choice for us there.  The view from the office alone has been worth it (see below) and one of the added benefits is that when I take the red eye across to Brisbane I can duck down to the Manly pool and get in a quick swim in the pool to wake up and get ready for the day.  Plus a morning coffee from Cedar and Pine really helps!

 The view east from the ‘office’, across Moreton Bay

The results of this great adventure are already starting to unfold.  Apart from Morgan’s own talents in areas such as web design and development, he’s also been able to secure several projects in Queensland and other parts of the east coast, which we’ll be blogging about in the future as we finalise them.

So as we establish our presence in the east coast through the Brisbane space, we’re on the lookout or more projects, and also more staff.  We’re planning on doing some more recruitment – potentially either in Perth or Brisbane – in the near future, so start dusting off your CVs (especially if you’re a software engineer!).

In the meantime, keep an eye on what we’re up to via Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn or leave us a comment below.

Piers

* We know we haven’t done a Welcome blog yet for Shay – it’s coming!