Reflecting on Murdoch Webster's 2023
Hey, Chris here! 👋
With another great (calendar) year on the books at Murdoch Webster I’m super proud of the work we’ve delivered for our amazing customers, in close partnership with some really fantastic vendor mates.
Before ‘24 arrives, take 5 with me to reflect on the great moments of ‘23, the wonderful conversations and bright experiences had with the people in and around Murdoch Webster. Read on!
The sun shone warm and bright in January. We kicked off the year with some large NetSec projects and enjoyed our 3rd year at The Aussie Open, a great day together with our customers and partners.
Kicking things off in Feb, Leanne and I partnered up with Louay at Spartans Sec to welcome our education customers along to our Security Round Table lunch. As always, time together provides the space for practical conversations on Cybersecurity best practices, always topical and productive.
As Summer faded in March the Comedy Festival rolled into Melbourne! We took a moment with our friends from Dell Technologies to invite some great customers out for some laughs together all thanks to a fellow Scotsman (Larry Dean). It was a great night and welcoming +1s to events has become a mainstay for us.
Leanne had us roadtrippin’ across Victoria in April with our Regional Roadshows kicking into gear. First stop on the tour was Geelong with great support from Ken and Candice from Rapid7 and KnowBe4. We also spent time venturing out to Mildura and Ballarat in the later part of 2023. It’s always great to spend time with some customers talking security, family and a little of everything between. Maybe 2024 is the year we head Gippsland way!
In May, we Mother’s Day! With Leanne’s boundless energy, we welcomed the amazing #LadiesofIT community together for brunch spending time making some new industry connections and learning great tips on how to #DressforSuccess with Esmeralda from Ooshka. Leanne brings it every year here and I look forward to supporting the LoIT efforts in 2024!
AI entered the chat mid-year for some fun across our Brilliant Bios, a series of relaxed, get-to-know-us Q&A chats that cover work and life with our growing team. Whilst we spend plenty of time working hard together, every Bio shares a little something unexpected and fun, take a moment to check them out!
On a cold Winter’s Thursday night, we hosted our biggest event ever. Together with Candice and the team at KnowBe4, we hosted ‘a Date Night on Us’ at the cinemas checking out the latest Indiana Jones flick. Raining, cold and miserable outside, our amazing customers (with +1s welcomed again) turned out in force to learn a little about the dangers of phishing whilst enjoying a choc-top, popcorn and drinks. The evening truly underscored the trust and strength of the relationships we've built with our customers.
This year we reinvigorated our lunch-time Hear from an Expert webinars. A technically leaning affair, we spent time with some great Experts. In August, Lucas and Caleb from Palo Alto Networks delivered a fantastic update. In November, Heath from ThousandEyes took the reins for a real conversation on operational visibility for business critical SaaS apps. Join us for lunch in 2024 as we expand the series!
With Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October and Leanne actively soldiering through work and life, alongside her own personal fight, we started our massive Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) fundraising efforts. Over September and October, we welcomed close customers and industry friends to the Field of Women at the ‘G, ran our biggest BCNA fundraiser with the unstoppable #LadiesofIT community and capped off our efforts with a #PrettyinPink BBQ, a perfect day at our offices with industry mates.
It was a truly massive effort lead by Leanne with huge contributions from the team, we raised just shy of $10k for BCNA. A massive THANK YOU to all that supported our efforts!
The Royal Children’s Hospital does such amazingly important work and when Cisco were looking for a Platinum Sponsor to support this cause, we signed on early. Side benefit, we got to pick up the clubs for a great day golfing together. Thanks Paul Suhr and Terrence George, an amazing day!
As November and December rumbled into reality, like many in IT, we chose to spend some time with our customers working to close off projects whilst taking some time to celebrate the year’s hard work together.
Our security and infrastructure practices have continued to grow in personnel and depth of expertise this year, I’m so proud of the team’s hard work and can-do effort! We remain focused on delivering transformative IT outcomes that help you and your teams do great work, learn more, sell more and simply be more productive - always with cyber safety in mind.
If you’ve made it this far I’d like to thank you one more time for being a great customer, partner or friend of the team at Murdoch Webster.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Years with those that are most important to you. See you soon in 2024!
Cheers,
Chris Mearns
