The New Zealand selection panel
20 April 2009 | Mike Brown | 1 Comments
One of the issues in sport, and especially a team sport like FullCodePress, is selecting a team. It’s not a straightforward matter – in addition to finding people good at their respective positions, there’s stuff like team harmony and working together to consider. And of course for FullCodePress, the teams don’t get a chance to practice together. There’s no chance to work on combinations, to try things out, to devise tactics to obstruct the other team. (That last one’s a joke. Honestly!)
So there’s a lot of pressure on the selectors to get things right. In a real sense, the expectations of a whole nation rest of their collective shoulders.
Here’s the selectors for the New Zealand team. Two of them competed in the last FullCodePress. They have a range of bio-writing styles!
Mark Rickerby
Mark is a writer, programmer, and designer with 10 years experience working on the web with agencies, startups, government departments, independent publications and businesses of all shapes and sizes. A perfectionist when it comes to code structure, and an obsessive when it comes to language and expression, Mark is widely recognized in the NZ web community for his ability to move fluently between the often disparate realms of design and development.
Having participated in the first FullCodePress in 2007, Mark knows what it takes to successfully deliver a website in 24 hours, and expects big things from this years contenders.
Ben Lampard
Ben is a project manager at web development company Signify, and a co-conspirator in Webstock.
Steve Dennis
Over the years, Steve Dennis has worked his way up as a web designer through the ranks of the NZ web development community, to the apex of his career, being selected for the CodeBlacks team in the first FullCodePress competition. But the dream was not to last…
After a meteoric rise to fame and glorious riches following the Codeblack’s epic win in 2007, Steve turned to a life of drugs and alcohol, fuelling a rapid descent into a nightmarish world of addiction, broken relationships, and intense sarcasm. After hitting bottom, life began to turn around for the 25 yr old Hamilton designer. An invitation from Mike and Tash to return as a selection panellist for FullCodePress ’09 gave Steve a new reason to live, and he very quickly resumed his former life as Lead Designer at Enlighten Designs. It was like he never really left.
Steve is currently stable, and leading a 4 person design team at Enlighten Designs. He has designed well over 100 websites, including the National Party, and Jasons Travel Media. He also really enjoys writing ridiculous fictional bio’s.
Deb Sidelinger
Deb has worked for 10 years in the web, mainly in the public sector managing web teams. As a client, she has worked with a number of web developement and design companies. She has experience and interest in project management, information architecture, web standards, html/css, usability, accessibility and content.


[...] some really great applicants for the NZ FullCodePress team in every one of the positions. The New Zealand selection panel has spent a lot of time this week reviewing all the applicants, asking further questions, [...]