So… Our first 200 ‘likes’ on Facebook go into the draw to get a $100 top up on their Powershop account.

So simple, and this is just the beginning! We have big plans to make small differences to your cost of living, so if $100 isn’t enough of a temptation to like me, I promise, there will be plentry more incentives coming your way via our Flower Power Facebook page in the near future.

We’ve made it even more tempting, by putting the first $50.00 in your account when you sign up through the Flower Power Daisy promo.

And to sweeten the deal even more, the Power Kiwi AGM yesterday resulted in some cool plans to reward our loyal customers… We’re intend on being everything your current power company is not.

And remember, signing up to Powershop will probably be the easiest thing you do this week. Just enter a few details from an old power statement in their online form, and they do the rest.

So go on! Join the revolution!

I have never tested my theory, but my belief is that naming and shaming the sort of idiots that let you down badly in the first place, leaves you open to a public mud slinging match and all the stigma that comes with it. Anyone unethical enough to let you down that badly in the first place surely can’t have any moral opposition to lying and cheating their way through a jury of the public…

As with any bad relationship, I tend far more towards backing off, keeping my dignity and assuming that one day karma will catch up with the offender.

But when you are owed money, or a completed project or follow through on a commitment and you have tried EVERYTHING. It is tempting to name and shame. Especially when others are loudly singing the praises of the offender, while you are suffering the effects of their actions (or non action).

…Then I thought about it again and wonder if maybe I need to staunch it up and my quietness is not so much due to conserving my dignity as because I’m a total scardey cat when it comes to fighting.

Hmm.

The Tui ‘Yeah Right’ billboards have been around for Donkeys years, and often stir up controversy… Which fits right into the Tui Beer brand ‘personality’ of being plain spoken, slightly mischievous laddish types.

They’ve done a good job of pretending to be just ordinary blokes partaking in a bit of guerilla marketing, of being unafraid of breaking the rules and stirring up trouble. For example, a 2 minute google search turned up this one, which mocks a hugely controversial murder trial here, where the guy on trial claimed to be doing a paper round while his dad shot up the entire family:

They’ve done a brilliant job of making us believe we’re all a part of it and people now go out of their way to wear ‘yeah right’ tshirts and make their own banners and suggest official banners etc.

And a church somewhere in the country has been posting their own ‘yeah right’ banners outside their church for something like 8 years. I think the only change from Tui’s signs is that they’ve swapped their branding for the word ‘spirit’, and their blatant copying cannot be passed off as anything else.

Well, Tui discovered these billboards and came down like a tonne of bricks, and suddenly their happy-go-lucky image is thinly stretched over threats of legal action and demands to remove the signs for infringement of copyright.

I reckon that was an EXTREMELY bad call. I’m sure it will blow over and no one will notice, but the image of a couple of blokes sitting round a box of Tuis cracking jokes has very much been replaced with one of a bunch of corporate suits strategically planning a campaign and caring deeply about boring things like ‘bottom line’, ‘copy rights’ and all sorts of things that they outwardly MOCK on the billboards.

The guy from the church sort of figured this and despite being not-particularly well spoken, did seem to make the Tui guy squirm when he called them up on not having a sense of humor.

I wonder what they thought they’d gain over kicking up a fuss? Seems like they had a lot to lose.

Actually, we know that you can, and you do, within about 2 seconds of seeing it in the letter box.

However, we also all know that if you don’t PAY the bill, you’ll be disconnected, and I for one, cannot handle icy cold showers all winter, or not being able to cook my new FAVORITE vegetable EGGPLANT, or being able to switch on the old electric blanket, etc etc.

So, while the rest of us were sitting around contemplating how to make your lives easier, Rowan made his first (?) iPhone app.

It’s pretty simple, and like most great inventions, solves one problem well. The Flower Power iPhone app allows you to plugin your current meter balances, then click through to be told how much power you need to buy, which you can then buy from your default Powershop provider.

The great news is that outside of stopping you from having to remember a series of numbers while you head back to your computer, or writing your balance on your hand, only to wash it off… it’s FREE, it’s super easy and it takes the pain away from paying your power bill.

So go on, download it, use it, and send us any feedback :)

Every now and then, we run into issues, but every time, we have managed to come to an agreement that works.

We are a design company. I accept that sometimes the designs we do don’t fit with our customers immediately. That is why I stress to them from day one to be blatant with their feedback and give the guarantee that we will rework our designs until they are 100% happy.

Currently I have two customers who are refusing to pay me.

I know it is because they either have no money or the money they do have, they’d rather keep for themselves.

These two customers went the entire way trough the design process, they signed off on the designs, they used words like ‘happy’, ‘this looks good’, ‘yes lets proceed’. I keep a good record of these conversations for exactly this reason.

Because several weeks after they were meant to pay, they still haven’t.

The initial excuses were over the arrangement. So I reproduced the proposals and quotes they signed off on. These contained the full fixed quote and our payment details. No fine print.

Now, and this is what kills me. They are both claiming that they were ‘unhappy with the work’. This is the first I have heard of it, and comes several weeks after the project was completed on the basis that they told me the EXACT opposite.

Neither of these companies is based in New Zealand, both owe me several thousand dollars and I suspect neither was ever planning to pay it.

What can I do? I have tried talking to them, I have shown them everything they wanted. Now I am stuck in a position whereby they can attempt to ruin my reputation, while also walking away with hours and hours worth of work that I produced for them (There is only so much in design that you can NOT deliver before payment).

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.

It got me thinking about jargon.

A while back I talked to an interior designer. I LOVE interior decorating and while I know it’s a different kettle of fish, I was fascinated about what she did day to day. When I asked about what she did, she kept saying ‘first we create a story’ or ‘then the room has a story’. Eventually, I had to ask what exactly a story was in relation to interior design. Apparently, she wasn’t too sure (either that or the concept of a ‘story’ is very hard to explain).

I HATE jargon. Jargon is such an easy thing to hide behind. All it does is make your customers feel stupid and you feel smart. Which, in my opinion is not a good balance when they are paying you.

Our customers are an even split of really onto it web people, and people who couldn’t really care less about how the internet works, they just use it (i.e the people in the video). I often find myself explaining the basics, and I can’t use jargon. It makes you question how much you know and how well you know it – if you can’t explain a term simply, then my guess is you don’t really understand it yourself.

I know ‘browser’ is not jargon as such, but my mind works in funny ways.

“Had some great feedback on the site. Was in a meeting this morning and was told by a potential client that they had looked at all my competitors and it was clear from our site that we are streets ahead of the rest!”

This was for Paraplanplus, who, to be fair, ARE streets ahead of the rest, but I’m happy to take any compliments that come my way :)

P.S Happy birthday Mum! We can’t believe you are still in your thirties ;)

Having come into contact with PR based businesses, I feel like I’ve seen first hand how vulnerable the smoke and mirrors are but how good they look from the surface. I’m a firm believer that in this case ‘slow and steady wins the race’ and startups have a tendency to boom and bust because they focus too much too early on convincing the world they are more successful than they are.

It’s a good strategy to put your competitors off, but don’t businesses need to focus on growing their customer base, not playing mind-games with other businesses?