2008 DRINK. Melbourne iOS mobile app

Michelle teamed up with local app developer Shaun Ervine to create the Deck of Secrets iPhone app. The Bar Secrets aka DRINK. Melbourne was one of the first 10,000 apps in the now crowded app store.

2006 Secrets Sounds – CD & National Bar Guide

Created of Secret Sounds CD and a combined deck of cards concept featuring 52 of the best bars from across the nation plus a CD of new Australian music. Secret Sounds won an Australian Packaging Design Award. It was an OTT packaging design and production challenges.

2005 Victorian Tourism Awards – Winner

Submitted an entry into the Victoria Tourism Awards, an achievement in its own right, and won the media category. Then headed to Uluru for the National Tourism Awards.

2005 BluePulse Mobile App

Released her first mobile application on the BluePulse platform operating on all Symbian (Nokia) handsets.

2003-2015 Deck of Secrets

Michelle, created Bar Secrets Melbourne, the bar guide capturing the city’s emerging bar scene. This became the first title in the global Deck of Secrets guides packaged in a cigarette style box with a flip-top lid. Over 30 titles were released across 10 countries and four continents. It was an original concept with the key title selling well over 150,000 units and appearing on the national bestseller lists.

2002-2003 Melbourne Magazine

Former editor of The Age, Mr Steve Harris, launched Melbourne’s first independent city magazine and pioneered the concept of city magazines. Melbourne Magazine was a glossy monthly, and Michelle Matthews was appointed as the founding Indulgence Editor.

2002 A7 Magazine

Launched A7 magazine, an up-market street press title half the size of a postcard. It was dedicated to showing city residents and workers the best of the Melbourne CBD from bars and restaurants to events and theatre reviews. I commissioned Chinese Horoscopes written exclusively for the publication by the Dragon Lady commissioned. Yes, there was a time before blogs when magazines were relatively thin on the ground, and downtown was of still of little interest. Back then, nightlife happened more in the inner city suburbs and villages.

1998-2003 Shopping Secrets

Created Shopping Secrets Pty Ltd; a publishing business dedicated to revealing the most interesting and unusual retailers of Sydney and Melbourne. This high-end niche publishing company did everything excessively well. Need a map? Great, I’ll commission a cartographer. Matt Cellosheen cover treatment; sure, no problem. Drum scan 12 shots for one retailer? Um yeah. Shopping Secrets books were released in alternate years for Melbourne and Sydney from 1999-2003.

It’s All in the Details by Debbie Sleeman of the New York Times

Like any international city, Sydney has a wealth of retail outlets, but it never struck me as an intriguing shopping town until I saw this engaging guide. Grouping stores by neighborhood, Ms. Matthews steers buyers beyond the Benettons and other international chains so they can make a beeline for the most unusual wares Sydney has to offer. Complementing Ms. Matthews’s snappy writing style are crisp, almost tactile photos by Rupert Lorhaldar.

I’ve just uncovered a box of Shopping Secrets Sydney from 2003. If you’d like a copy of this book Beem It $10 within Australia or double for overseas and I’ll send you a copy.

1992-1995 Major Pagers

Michelle started a Telco before everyone else was doing it. Even before James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch conceived of OneTel. Major Pagers was a tech hardware rental business with two streams of customers; intracompany and the general public. Sourcing a fleet of over 30 pagers and negotiating corporate rates for the service the business then rented these devices to flight attendants and pilots at Ansett Airlines and Qantas as well as male models. This business came to a natural conclusion with the proliferation of mobile phones whereby the fleet was traded-in for a top of the line model phone.