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.

This weekend is Sevens weekend in Wellington. Because New Zealanders LOVE a dress up party and because we also love rugby, we combined the two.

Amy and I were scammed into going to the gym at 8am this morning (which might be a good thing re: all I intend to do for the next 48 hours is party like it’s 2005) and by the time we were walking home, the streets were littered with super heros, fairies and assorted other groups of creatures.

What I love about Wellington is that it’s so small that when AC/DC come to Wellington suddenly EVERYONE you see is sporting a mullet and bogan clothes, when Sevens comes to town, everyone starts cross dressing and acting crazy. It’s very hard to miss out on knowing what’s going on and because we’re a town of loonies anyway, you stand out if you look or act normal.

See you on the other side!

Every time I go to Kiva these days, there’s NO ONE to lend money to.

I understand that there are bottlenecks in the loan application process, but it does give you the weird impression that no one is in need of money any more.

I wonder if Kiva started charging a fee, they could hire people to speed up the process? Maybe not necessary, but I did like the good old days when you could trawl through all the people trying to get stuff done and find someone who you feel a connection to, rather than clicking the first person you see on the basis that in 2 minutes their loan will have been fulfilled and your Kiva account will still have money in it.

This is in no means a complaint, it just seems weird that something so wildly successful has sort of ground itself to a halt.

I gave in and watched Avatar the other day.

When the credits rolled and the ‘Weta Workshops, Wellington NZ’ came up on the screen, I had a massive moment of national pride.

It reminded me of the Pineapple lumps ad:

All you other countries can have your fancy sports people and actors and other stuff… here in NZ, we changed the way movies are made. Also (FYI) we design a lot of those super awesome boats that all your famous people buy and make a lot of the other cool behind the scenes stuff that you rely on to be fast, famous and fabulous.

Congratulations to everyone who worked on Avatar, it was well worth the hype, we were well and truly transported to another world. I was blown away.

I had another odd experience with meeting up with one of mum and dad’s oldest friends while on holiday and having him comment on how he read my blog. I always thought I was safe from them because unless you put a massive link of mum and dad’s desktop, they’ll never hunt it down. Apparently their friends are more web savvy… either that or I shamelessly self promote in front of them.

I always thought you guys were mainly strangers. I’m now wondering (given all the mocking and random comments I get) that I actually might know some of you but don’t know that you lurk behind the internets following my every move.

Who are you? Would you mind posting a wee comment so I can say hi/ avoid doing stupid things like announcing my sister’s engagement to her friends before she got a chance to/ stop talking about you to the whole internet?

What’s the bet you will remain silent!

In December last year the shareholders of PlanHQ decided to sell all our shares to one of the founders and exit the company. The decision was notable precisely because it was so unnotable.

PlanHQ was founded bam smack in the dot com hype. It was the second startup I’d been involved in, we had a great team (most of whom I still work with on other projects and who are some of the most brilliant webbie people I’ve met), we had high aspirations. There were trips to the US, big launches, big buzz, features on Techcrunch, rushed deadlines and too many awful curries eaten in the late nights that go along with quick deadlines.

I lived and breathed it for a LONG time, it was the cause and situation for a lot of the life changing moments in my life. While I suppose it’s clear PlanHQ hasn’t become the resounding success we imagined, I think as part of saying goodbye completely, it’s as good as any time to count the lessons:

1. Don’t believe your own hype. YOU created it and hype doesn’t equal success. Don’t over hype stuff you can’t deliver.
2. Know when to walk away. It was one of the hardest decisions of my life, but looking back it should have been cut and dried… A long time before I did.
3. Be adaptable. Most startups don’t wind up being what they started. I suppose in the same vein, most of us from PlanHQ have morphed what we learned from it into some pretty cool, successful things.
4. Back yourself. Startups are one of the few places in life that you take major risks and as part of that you should believe that you can make a success of it and that your ideas are as good as the next guy’s.
5. Back your team. Most people couldn’t survive a startup. I can say that now after witnessing people who freak out continually at stuff that seems like a pittance in comparison. People who are drawn to them are often pretty awesome (or pretty delusional). If you have the awesome people, it’s worth giving them freedom in their area of expertise. The product will be all the better for it.
6. Don’t get burned out. I know PlanHQ had a whole set of unique circumstances for me, but I feel like I’m still getting my energy back a few years later.

When signing the share transfer forms, it was hard NOT to think back to the time I thought those shares would be selling for a lot more eventually. It was also cool to realise that despite everything turning out so differently, I wouldn’t change it.

P.S I’m super excited about some of the products we’re launching in the near future!

It’s just been christmas, we’ve just had a recession, we’re feeling the pinch.

We’ve been inundated with national disasters. We all banded together to the Boxing Day Tsunami, we watched in horror at New Orleans after a hurricane, we cried along with our friends in Samoa when we saw another flood of water devastate a country…

When I have been watching scenes from Haiti, it’s sort of hard to not just add them to the face of misery we have become so aquatinted to. Another disaster, another group of people who have lost everything. It’s sort of easy to feel like you have already helped.

I almost talked myself out of donating this time. I have a newly acquired mortgage, January is a slowish month, I feel like I’m always dipping into my wallet for some money for people in need.

Then horror hit. I HAVE a mortgage, I have a house. I go out for drinks and dinner several nights a week. While people are sleeping on the streets covered in rubble.

It’s so easy to be come desensatised. It’s so easy to forget that our version of struggling is a lot different than theirs.

I only donated $50. It doesn’t feel like enough. What I have decided to do is this:

Every time for the next 2 weeks that I plan to go out for dinner or drinks or movies or any entertainment, I will donate the same amount to the rebuild effort. This actually may well also make me realise what’s important to me and that it’s not constant spending.

Once, back in University, a friend went to a paper where they questioned our unblinking loyalty to saving the whales. The lecturers point being that we only think they are special because they look special to us. To the planet, they are as significant as everything else we kill. ‘Saving the Whales’ has almost become one of those awful Miss Universe statements that show just how pathetic our desire to do so is.

Those comments have been running through my mind on and off for years, I couldn’t think of a logical argument that felt as strong as the intuitive feeling that we need to protect them… Which was frustrating. But when I saw those ships collide over them the other day, I think I finally figured it out.

This summer, we as a nation have already mourned the loss of a lot of whales that became stranded on our beaches. Every year crowds unquestioningly donate their time and emotion to lugging buckets of water back and forward up beaches to help out. Tourists flock to our country and pay hideous amounts to see these animals up close, I would imagine every single one of those people experiences a connection they can’t explain logically.

Every year, we also closely watch the progress of Japanese whaling ships.

In this world, we have symbols of beauty and awe, and whales are one of those symbols that spring to mind. The argument should not be whether these animals have any more right to live or be mourned than anything else, but why on earth we don’t mourn the loss of any of these creatures enough.

Whales have become so political – I can’t say for sure, but I suspect that the Japanese are trying to prove a point about bullying and hypocrisy by their continued whaling. I think they might have a point, I also think the way they have gone to prove their point is sort of similar to the way we have chosen to prove our points about terrorism and the like. In all this political maneuvering, there are innocent victims and there is violence.

I sort of wonder if maybe the argument over whaling is a sign of a bigger political picture. It sort of freaks me out that the petty arguments that you expect from schoolkids, somehow escalate into the same sort of arguments in the international arena. It also freaks me out how easily these arguments escalate into violence.

I’m not sure when we decided to wreck havoc on the world in our attempts to prove our points and why other people are now forced to dedicate their entire lives and money to limit this damage.

It’s such a waste.

1. Movie stars will stop pretending that cutting back on the air-con will save the planet

2. Half my friends will have popped some sprogs

3. NZ will have more competition in the cellphone market.

4. DVDs will be dead. We will be happy.

5. Shortland Street will still be running. I will still be watching.

6. We will be laughing at the clunky old iPods of the ‘naughties’

7. All movies will be in 3D or like surrounding you or something cool.

8. Someone will start an awesome new alien cult that will once again prove how stupid humans are. It will probably involve Michael Jackson as well.

9. We will get over the excitement of social media and start having real life friendships again. We will also choose real life conversations over text ones.

10. We will still be partaking in Wednesday night bubbly sessions.

So much for a cruisy last few weeks of work, filled with Christmas parties and secret Santa!

I’m still in shock that another year has passed, I’m within 20 days of being in my LATE twenties, and we’ve almost finished a decade of the new century.

I’m going to save my christmas roundup post for next week, but just wanted to mention how wonderful it is to see streets full of festive revelers and happy people. I just hope that everyone who really struggled this year has managed to find a little christmas cheer.

And for those who are full of bah humbugs, stop for a minute and take stock of all the wonderful things in your life. Christmas isn’t about presents or stress or family conflict, it’s your one chance to put all that behind you and have a bit of a blast and appreciate all that is good in the world.

We just don’t do it enough.