... it had been a while that I made my way to this interesting city at the far end of the Baltic Sea. It was mid May 2011.
The recession (2008-9) hit Russia as hard, probably harder than many other countries, but we don't hear too much about it. Many international companies down-sized in Russia and some left.
Most large (commercial) construction projects stopped across Russia - with the exception of Sochi. A few projects though were completed recently in St. Petersburg’s retail landscape - "Stockmann" and "Galeria" - just a stone throw apart.

sds-i offers all clients an intranet solution for all project related communication during all development stages.

The on-line system allows all memebrs of the project team to exchange, review, comment and retrieve all relevant project information in one place any time from any location aroud the world.

This system of Project Team Organisation - PTO reduces the need of sending and receiving multiple emails on the same topic ending up in intrays.

For more information conact us at office@sds-i.com.

We have recently completed 2 projects for different clients in need of a Virtual Office.

Virtual Offices allow companies to connect people in remote locations, from home and on the road to a secure intranet to share infomation and to assemble projects, presentations, software and more.

But Virtual Offices allow us to do more and thus we will all see them coming to the desk in front of you. Because this methode of co-operative work increases efficiency, flattens hirachies and creates corporate memeories, searchable and accessable from any terminal anywhere.

So, even if you work in the same building, the same florr or next to each other a Virtual Offices will allow you to find solutions and decisions faster.

sds-i.net just completed a new website for Exact Group.

Exact Group is a hi-tech, innovative company specialising in providing LIDAR solutions to a wide range of industry from Oil exploration to speeding up environmental surveys to improving safety on the roads.

LIDAR stands for Light Detection And Ranging - Exact Groups technology and patents allow to find oil more effectively off-shore. The airborne search can easily include environmental mapping helping governments and exploration companies to be highly responsible, protective and efficient.

Exact Group also developed systems improving the safety of helicopters specificaly and other system for aviation in general.

We are looking for

News Editors

interested in adding their professional experience, skill and knowledge to a new online venture.

A unique opportunity to build your professional profile.

We are look like to build up a team of news editors for one of our clients.

Initially the task would be mainly to monitor and add news feeds (RSS). This is a highly automated task and if you are already reading the news on a regular basis you might enjoy adding relevant headlines to the news listing here.

If you are interested to develop this further into organising the news in more detail we are happy to discuss the opportunities in due course.

Please contact Viviana by email - Jobs@sds-i.com

We are looking also for:

authors, co-authors and editors for two interesting projects online:

Retail Handbook

we are looking for Authors / Co-authors and Editors. - Please contact Viviana by email - Jobs@sds-i.com

Development Handbook

there is room for Co-Authors happy to take on certain chapters. - Please contact Viviana by email - Jobs@sds-i.com

You can add your experience, skill and knowledge to these projects and build your professional profile.

We are also looking for:

Website Moderators

for a new online venture.

Please contact Viviana by email - Jobs@sds-i.com

We moved the professional information and networking site www.mallsandmore.com for client Malls & More ltd. into beta stage - on the 16.08.2010.

The site now has a new front page displaying the core areas of information and networking.

New members during beta stage will join as Early Members (EM).

There will be additonal services and all members are able to post their contributions on the site directly to Twitter and LinkedIn just by adding a tick in a box - pressto.

The end of the alpha stage is now in sight. The target date is 16.08.2010. From that day or shortly after beta stage will be running.

What does it mean?

For all members subscribed and with an active profile by that day there will be no change - you will be a First Member with the status FM and the benefits detailed in our ToU. The benefits for FM include free membership and sharing in the success of m&m.

All those joining during beta stage will automatically receive the EM status - Early Members. The benefits for EM include free membership.

What more?

• We expect to grow the site more quickly.
• We will develop additional services.
• The various databases will be extended and
• we will always be happy to follow member's suggestions and add features.
• Preparation of the full release in the Autumn 2010.

We may not quite be ready in the Autumn but the system will be very close to full release as we are already running a fully tested site.

MallsandMore.com (m&m) is now in it's 7 months and alpha phase will end shortly.

We have added various features including a newsletter, more mall listings, currency calculator for pay-check with live exchange rate feeds and calculators for finance, mortgage and affodibility.

The handbook is growing step-by-step and membership is increasing, though the system could handle more.

The uptake of the newsletters is encouraging and we have more than 6.000 subscribers currently.

MallsandMore.com (m&m) has now been online for more than 4 months and we are coming to the end of vigorous testing in alpha phase.

Needless to say it took longer than expected. But we added two important features:

1. Probapbly one of the largest Mall Directories online for free. There are more than 5,500 malls listed in over 30 countries. The depth of information varies and we are looking to members to fill in more detail along the way.
2. Check-your-Pay is a database covering more than 30 countries as well listing salaries for people in Centre Management. Members can add a record or more, ideally, and this will give them access for 3 months to the data. Then all you need is add a new record. The data entry is anonymous and no member will be able to see who added what. The database is displayed in sortable tables allowing members to view it in many different combinations.

Next is increasing the membership and we started a low key web marketing approach while still in alpha phase.

Come and have a look at www.mallsandmore.com.

sds-i are currently involved in a major project related to online publishing in the field of

retail, entertainment, mall development, real estate projects related to shopping and entertainment centres.

There are opportunities for:

Editors, Moderators and Authors

Please contact Viviana by email - Jobs@sds-i.com

We are looking for a free-lance translator for English to Russian for some small work on this website and another project ready soon.

The work will require working on-line and some knowledge of CMS, preferable Drupal 6.x, would be an advantage.

Please contact Viviana by email - Jobs@sds-i.com

Finally we launched MallsandMore.com (m&m).

m&m is a B2B site for professionals in the business of developing, designing and managing retail projects from a single shop to multiples to malls of all sizes.

This site is open by invitation only to active people working in this field.

MallsandMore.com offers really just two things:

• Information and
• Networking
• plus the environment of being around colleagues, competitors and some friends working actively in this field.

Naturally each heading contains several areas from handbooks to forums to RSS syndicated news and more ...

Have a look to see if it is interesting to you and contact m&m directly to join - you could send an email to membership_mm@mallsandmore.com.

sds-i.net provided the technical and web design support. sds-i ltd is in charge of the initial contents, management and implementation.

sds-i are currently involved in a major project related to online publishing in the field of

retail, entertainment, mall development, real estate projects related to shopping and entertainment centres.

There are opportunities for:

Editors, Moderators and Authors

Please contact Viviana by email - Jobs@sds-i.com

HRN appointed sds-i.net to develop a Drupal based CMS website to provide networking and information for Harley Davidson bikers.

The new site is due to be launched at the end of 2009.

sds-i have launched their new website using Drupal as the base. This was an in-house project successfully completed by our devision of sds-i.net and a great thank you to all our colleagues who helped in bringing togehter Web Design, Technology, Strucutre and some interesting new ideas.

A great part of the work is to make less be more to remove clutter and too much information. If something is missing please let us know and send an email to our Webmaster. We appreciate all comments.

sds-i.net is a new division of sds-i providing IT and Internet related services for developers and other service companies in and around Shopping Centres.

sds-i.net developed out of our various IT activities for a number of international clients developing handbooks, websites Wiki-Services, internal information systems, etc.

sds-i.net will work mainly with Drupal for Website development, eGroupWare, OfficeZilla and other packages for internal and external team work.

We are also assisting companies to migrate part or their entire computer systems to a Linux environment to reduce IT cost and to improve overall security of data and their network.