The best city in the world has just become even easier to navigate! Wellington city council has just released a free Wellington Walks App through MyTours (one of the cool new ventures I’ve been working on in the past few months).
It’s CHOICE. I know I’m not really able to say that unbiasedly, but if you don’t believe me, download it for yourself. Yup, there’s a few issues, there’s probably a few more we aren’t aware of yet, so go on download it, if you are coming to Welly, try it, if you live in Welly, explore some areas you have so far been to lazy too venture to… And send through any feedback :)
While the rest of you were sunning yourselves (I love Wellingtonian’s unblinkable belief that there WAS sun even when there is no proof or evidence), a group of us were busy putting the final tweaks on our launch version of All About the Story.
All About the Story is the brainchild of Julie Starr, its a marketplace for QUALITY news stories, images and (more recently) cartoons. The point being that in a media world that is increasingly dominated with freelancers and an internet world that makes bad content easy to come by, we fill a vital piece of the puzzle by enabling great writers to connect with high quality publications.
It’s still early days and we know there is a lot more we can do, but we’ve got some pretty cool publications keeping tabs on the articles that are listed, and some pretty nice articles and cartoons on offer.
Would love to hear your thoughts on anything from the design, to your browsing and listing/purchasing experience.
So Thursday afternoon all my partying came back to severely bite me. I have never had the flu before, but I do not recommend it!
Thank goodness my mother is the reincarnation of Florence Nightingale and as soon as she heard a whiff on the grapevine that I was not feeling crash hot, the tyres were screeching outside my house and I was whisked away for a weekend of lying at her house instead of mine. This worked well because I am not the best at cooking in the first place, and when I couldn’t really move, there was the real risk that my weight loss strategy would accelerate quickly.
Anyway, so while I was doing my dying swan routine, my younger, fitter and more healthy sister was prepping for her third half marathon. Sometimes you would not think we are related.
I managed to get out of the house on Sunday to go watch half of Wellington run (I now understand that half the city goes to bars, the other half runs. Weirdos.)
Before
During – this was actually 100 meters before the end. You’d never know it.
After – and they even managed to pick up a guy!
And some socialising – Apparently Gary was very excited by the free food at the end.
We’ve been working with Read Write Web for a while now, and one of our first tasks has been the design of their super exciting guide to community management.
Emma has read the whole thing many times and it is jam packed full of useful information. If communities are you thing, then the Read Write Web team have what you need to take it to the next level!
I have been bestowed with the huge honour of writing a guest post. I could have written about Swine flu. Or maybe my pending overseas journey for which I am rather unprepared. Perhaps I could have offered my take on exercise regimes, a topic which seems to attract wide interest. But, given the general marketing tone to this blog, I’d like to describe my recent dealings with a local computer company.
I have a MacBook which is about 2 and a half years old. It’s battery recently died so that when the power cord was removed the computer shut down immediately. I figured that I had got a pretty good run out of my trusty Mac and was ready to fork out the $240 to get a new battery to keep the little guy pumping for a couple more years.
I had been recommended Toucan computers from a friend and went down to see if they had any batteries in stock. Rob went out the back and concluded that it was indeed the battery but instead of selling me a new one, offered to sell me a second hand one for much much cheaper. Given my current attempt at saving, this was very well received. He sold it to me and said to come back if it didn’t seem to be working.
I tested it this morning and got 2.5 hours out of the battery and called Rob to see what he thought. He was happy to give me another one to try this weekend to compare. Maybe I have just come to have extremely low expectations when it comes to customer service, especially computer related dealings, but I have never been such a happy customer as I am with them. They listened to my problem, provided me with an absolutely perfect solution and have continued to get better – even after the sale!
I love good customer service. Sometimes I love it so much that I want to give my life to working in call centres and places where angry customers are rife so I can spread joy around in the same way Rob from Toucan computers did.
There are a tonne of coupon sites popping up. Until yesterday I paid little attention to them.
But I read an article the other day about how you should do a quick search for coupons WHENEVER you buy something online… It changed my life!
My latest two purchases, I would make regardless of discounts, so when my quick searches resulted in 20-40% off the price, it was a nice little deal sweetner. It’s amazing what you find on the internet. I’m never buying anything again without coupons. It’s just so EASY!
My favorite coupon sites:
http://www.retailmenot.com
http://www.tjoos.com
http://www.vouchermate.co.nz
After spending the past few days obsessed with editing the video of my sister’s wedding, and after seeing the results, I think it’s time to change careers.
I have quite a talent for it.
You should SEE my musical interludes, transitions and cross-cutting (or whatever it is)
The video is an hour long. The sister has no idea it exists and the grand unveiling is tomorrow night.
Anyone else want the dynamic duo of Claire and myself videoing your wedding, I’m so there.
With a Mac, you can do ANYTHING these days!
Since I took over Decisive Flow solo, I have had my eye half open for a cool startup opportunity.
Last last year the perfect one presented itself, and since we already had a team who had spent the past few months discussing working together, we dived in and started our own power company – Power Kiwi.
A bit of background
I hate power companies in the same way that I hate banks and insurance companies and all those old fashioned industries that tie you in to long term contracts that are hard to leave (even if only because of the effort it takes). Once these companies have got you, they CAN up their prices, offer terrible support and leave you feeling miserable but with no other option.
Powershop changes that.
The good people at Powershop wanted to create a electricity marketplace for people like you and me. It started as a shootoff from Meridian (so you can trust that they are legit) and Powershop means you have the power to choose who supplies your house with electricity EVERY TIME you pay your bill. Power Kiwi is one of the first power suppliers on Powershop.
Why i LOVE Powershop
- I will probably save about $200 a year off my electricity bill
- Because ALL electricity comes from the same un-differentiated grid, one of our brands (The Green Power Company) is the greenest power I can buy. We offset the carbon emissions that go into creating the electricity to your house.
- I am part of a group of people who are genuinely revolutionising the way we buy power… for the better, using a model that CAN be pulled across to some other old fashioned markets.
- You have as much control as you like. Either swap suppliers every time you login or choose one you like for now. If you are even more lazy, you can just leave it to Powershop to give you the cheapest power every month and automatically deduct the amount from your bank. It’s really that simple.
The Powershop marketplace is still early days, they have just launched, some things in the user experience are still being ironed out, but don’t let that put you off. I signed up a while ago now for my house (got to eat your own dog food right?) and was just given $50 free power for my efforts (which you can also take advantage of it you sign up quickly!)
But wait there’s more!
If you sign up to Flower Power soon with Powerkiwi’s Daisy promotion, you get another $20 off your power bill.
So dump your granny’s power company and take control of your power bill. There’s really no reason not to!
And in case you needed further proof that this is the future, check out Powershop’s twitter page
Is getting them for FREE!
I signed up to Bizchat (New Zealand’s latest and greatest business community) last week after realising Ruth Mc Davitt and Ben Kepes are behind it.
I am now the (super excited) first winner of the cool business software package prize they have put together for users of the site:
Since I already use and rave about Xero and iPayroll, I suspect the other two will be equally useful.
Woohoo! What a way to start a monday :)
Apparently the Queenstown police have now got a Facebook profile. And just when we all gave up hope of Facebook ever being more than a popularity contest, the police are reporting great crime fighting results.
Over 14,000 people viewed a video of some idiot who tried to break into a safe, got hot and then removed his balaclava to unveil his face to the security camera above. He got caught and apparently is still stupid enough to do dumb things in front of cameras.
The Queenstown police report that Facebook has sparked a move back to community spirit, apparently many of us fancy ourselves as amature crime fighters and are now making use of our Facebook browsing time to bring some of the less lawful amongst us to justice.
To be honest, if the Wellington police created an account, I would be addicted. There is a little Nacy Drew in all of us and there is also the potential for many of the videos of their more stupid targets to go viral – who doesn’t like watching dumb criminals caught on tape? I also like the peer pressure element – as soon as you get caught, your mug shot gets removed from it’s publicly humiliating position on Facebook.
For victims of more minor crimes, such as bike theft, taxi fare evasion etc, who used to face crazy odds against getting justice, this move to the web could well spell a happy ending to their sorry tales. I wonder if it will also significantly cut the cost of catching some perpetrators, and be the first step in making us all a little more vigilant in keeping our streets safe and our citizens honest.
Brilliant idea Queenstown police and super exciting to finally see Facebook adding real value.
Hello, my name is Natalie, I have a business called 
