It occurred to me the other day that over the past year or so, we have built up a dream team of small companies who each excel in their own area and work with us to make all sorts of things happen. Since it appears that people sometimes listen to my recommendations, I thought I’d give you what I today termed (in my head) The Dream Team. Now I have termed it, I will slowly add people (And I have a few more in mind who are currently basking in the glow of my love for their services)

Jadoo Limited

Nicola and I met a while ago and I was immediately impressed by her open sharing of knowledge and her passion for web standards. She now runs Jadoo, which helps people get their websites found on search engines. I know for a fact that she knows her stuff because I have seen some sites she’s worked on and how much traffic they generate.

Covered Co

Julia French has recently be joined by Whitney Sones to further build on Julia’s solo empire as marketer for the startups. I am yet to meet a customer of theirs that doesn’t spent the first half hour talking to you about how much they LOVE Julia… Even when she threatens them with the hatred of her daughter unless they get their stuff sorted IMMEDIATELY. Coveredco are experts in helping you find what makes you unique and making that abundantly clear to everyone around you. A massively valuable service and one I love being involved in.

Code to Customer

Nik, Oli and I worked together on PlanHQ, where we first discovered our dream team status. I accidentally described Nik as Obsessive Compulsive to a potential client the other day… But mean it as a compliment. They wont stop until the coding is done, and it’s done perfectly. I also like how that despite being uber geeks, both these guys get that their customer’s don’t care about the technology, they care about the results.

Watch this space, I’m currently working with all these guys on all sorts of things that I’m super excited about. I predict a big finish for this year!

I have just received my first ever ‘get writing you slacker’ request from a reader. Thanks Amy, I feel appreciated. Anyone who feels the need to demand blog posts from me, feel free. Sometimes I need the ego boost ;)

A couple of close friends and I have, in the past year, started thinking about kids (I know, it’s that weird clucky thing women get). We have decided that when we have children, we hope to all be living around each other, in the same neighbourhood so as to share childcare. We are all driven individuals and none of us wants to sacrifice our careers, but all of us want to spend as much time as possible with their kids. So we came up with a crafty strategy where we would have (hopefully) 6 parents around. Each parent would be responsible for 1 day of childcare a week and look after all kids (This could be one or two adults, depending on how many children are created).

This means, we are all able to work at least 4 days a week (if we want) and get some good kid time.

The concept needs tweaking but is heavily based on the idea that it takes a community to raise a child, and our belief that children need lot of parent time. It is also based on the idea of the money-free economy.

These things become more important to me and others as we rebel against the consumer driven culture and the need to earn as much as possible simply to afford all the rubbish we want to buy. In the past few months, I’ve seen more and more non money related events popping up. This is a cool, if slightly long tail orientated development and I find it really exciting.

The bestest are:

The big Schwop

The Big Schwop managed to attract a LOT of interest fromt he media and Wellingtonians. The basic principle being bring your cool, good quality stuff and get different cool, good quality stuff.

They are basically starting a designer store without the money, and we all love it.

Book Mooch

I love books and I love owning them. But seriously, once you have read them once or twice, do you really need them? This is a follow on from the traditional book fair, and is once again a matter of swapping your old books for new ones.

Lets get Schwopping!

I was at my doctor the other day and as I was leaving (perhaps because she knows a lot about my business), she asked if I would be happy to receive test results via text.

At first I said ‘yes’, then quickly realised my default ‘go technology’ line totally didn’t work in this particular situation.

Subsequent surveys have confirmed my reservations. Who wants to receive a text saying ‘u hav cancr - frm ur dr’? And even IF the text simply said ‘call us’ you’d freak. The fact of the matter is, that there are some things in life that will ALWAYS need the human touch.

On the other side, my surgeon texted me the other night to say ‘hope u r feeling ok’. I thought it was a bit weird, but super cool, especially because his magical hands did leave me feeling ok.

In summary, I am all for doctors spending large on technology, but I think the technology they should be spending on should be the equipment they use to save lives, not social media and bulk texting.

And also, for all you who care. 4 days after surgery:

• Mum is applying for a job at NASA - the liquidated meals she has whipped up will change the lives of the astronauts who need them
• I have had only one emergency - after leaving hospital I fainted in the car and had my poor mother screeching over to the side of the road and carrying me onto the back seat. It is a truely weird feeling to have your eyes open and not be able to see.
• Going to hospital is scary. Having anesthetic is fun. You get injected, you get high, you lose an hour of life.
• I think I lost about 5 kilos during this experience, through being unable to eat and the sheer weight of the monstrous teeth Manish extracted
• My advice is, if you can afford it, get health insurance. Private hospitals are like resorts, they are worth every penny

That’s it from ‘Fat Face’

I have decided to end my days as a rent slave. It’s been bubbling away for a while at the back of my head, especially when I am obsessed with Mt Vic, which means that your average rent covers a large part of any small mortgage.

Since I’ve started looking, I have found the psychology of buying a house fascinating.

NZ (like most of the world, I suspect), went through a massive property boom, and now we are in a property slump. Houses are on the market for ages, more people are getting to the stage they need to sell up some of their investments, and as a result, prices are falling well below their RVs.

Basically, Real Estate Agents are facing a buyers market.

But some of them don’t quite seem ready to relinquish control.

So far, in the hunt, I have found the following to be useful:

• Surrounding yourself with people who know their stuff is key. They provide that aura of experience that Real Estate Agents respect.
• Doing research is key. I’m not sure how people used to look for houses. It’s all about constantly trawling the web, and letting people know exactly what you’re after. This means that when you tell a Real Estate agent you expectations and they tell you you are being ridiculous, you can give them 5 examples of why you are not.
• Get a cool Mortgage Broker. (I have discussed before the importance of good lawyers/accountants etc) and this is no exception. Mine came over to my house after work and sat for a couple of hours delivering some very solid advice.
• Don’t hurry! This is tricky for me, now I’ve made my decision, I want a house now. But I have had my brakes forced on by the more practical members of my house buying team. It’s OUR market, we call the shots :)
• Don’t be intimidated! I don’t know why I still find forceful people intimidating, but I think you just have to train yourself to see through the tone of voice to the words they speak, which don’t always make sense.
• You are not required to buy a house simply because someone has shown you around it. I never expect that in web design, but always feel guilty when I don’t like a house

I find it amusing that for most people, buying a house is the risky part of life. I want it to be a stable part of life, which makes me like the most conservative house buyer I’ve met. It’s super funny to have a role reversal and have my parents and co encouraging me to think a bit more wild and crazy, while I offer lectures on the risks involved.

On a side note, my teeth are being extracted tomorrow, so I may be a little quiet next week. Any sympathy cards/icecream/flowers can be sent to the office. I wont be able to appreciate them, but Emma and co will ;)

After last night’s Geek Girl Dinner, I’m starting to wonder. The restaurant was packed with women from all walks of geek life, talking geek, learning geeky stuff and having a good time. This event came straight after reading a Wellingtonista article about another tech event that managed to attract virtually no women at all ( A common theme among non women focused tech events in Wellington)

This made me really start to question if we have a shortage of geeky girls at all. And maybe there are other factors in play as to why we women aren’t pulling our weight in the male dominated tech arena.

Geek girls don’t look and act like Geek boys

A 19 year old stood up for a lightening talk and laughed about how she is used to being one of few girls in her comp sci class, how she feels the classes aren’t tailored to how she learns and how people think she’s weird for doing it. She was beautiful, articulated and charismatic. These traits are often mistaken for those of people in marketing (A complaint I hear a lot form women in tech).

I read with sadness Brenda’s article about her treatment in the tech industry which, sadly reads rather similarly to mine - re. being mistaken for the secretary or deemed unable to understand what the men are talking about. I have also had two conversations with two tech women in the US this week. Each of them had the same complaint: EVERYONE thinks I’m in PR!

I think the world expects geeks to be male, I just don’t think we fit the stereotype, and I wonder if many geeky girls even classify themselves as geeks? Maybe there are many of us lurking around somewhere, blissfully unaware that our fondness of WoW, algorithms and code actually categorise us as true blue geek heads.

Geek Girls will sort it out

I find it amusing how the approach to integrate women is for the men to ‘create more equal environments’. That’s rubbish. Sorry guys, you can’t fix this for us. Lets face it, events organised by you are tailored to you, no matter how much you focus group with the odd woman you meet, you wont be able to oganise an event for women half as well as women organise an event for women (hense the success of last night). I would suggest maybe attending a few women dominated events, sitting back and staying fairly quiet. You may find talk of ‘imposter syndrome’ stupid, you may find the giggling ‘Sorry I’m no good at public speaking’ statements annoying, but you will gain valuable insight into a way of doing things that the mainstream male dominated events don’t really cater to.

But what about the whole community?

In my experience, great imbalances don’t get fixed in a day. I really feel like last night I experienced a grass roots movement of people trying build a new culture in an industry that is crying out for one. A natural progression of a larger, more confident female tech scene is the integration with the male tech scene in an equal and really exciting way. We may have a shortage of girls in tech, but I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as the typical Silicon Welly event would suggest. We also have the benefit of some very strong female leaders and sucess stories who are really getting behind the drive to encourage others like them to embrace their geeky side.

Girl Power!

One of our favorite ‘customers’ WHHF.org.nz is currently desperately calling for people to help them replenish toy stocks for children in Wellington hospital after two idiots stole nearly $12,000 worth.

We built the websites for both WHHF and Ronald Mc Donald House Wellington and can honestly say that the moment you meet these guys, you feel like quitting your job and helping them.

The sheer amount of work they do is incredible, they battle constantly to make the lives of some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable children just a little better and some losers stole the results of their hard work.

Read more about it through the dom post, then get to the WHHF website and help out

We’ve got a head-count of 5 now and as a result, we’ve got more time on our hands…

We have a few ideas bubbling away rapidly, but in the meantime, are keen to get our teeth into some more work.

So if you (or anyone you know) has a website that’s looking shabby, or not performing as it should, we are offering a 20% discount this month (August) on all new website projects.

But be in quick! We only have space for another 2-3 projects!

email natalie at decisiveflow.com with your ideas. We look forward to talking.

I heard about the One Laptop Per Child project years ago, and I always thought ‘I would love to help that project out’ in the vague way people who like to feel good about themselves do.

Today, I have been immersing myself in the TED talks and as a result of listening to the founder, went and bought one. It’s probably one of the best uses of $200 I’ve seen and when you put it on the credit card, you don’t really even notice the reduction in cash in your wallet.

Now that I have made the donation, I feel entitled to bombard you with the lessons I learned.

1. If you make more money than you spend, give some away to people who need it

I’m a firm believer in the ability of organisations like One Laptop and Kiva to sustainably and effectively increase the wealth of people who weren’t lucky enough to be born in a rich country. This benefits all of us and to be honest, we should probably all spend a bit more time actually doing something about it.

But I know that for the foreseeable future, I will not bring myself to spend any decent time helping out. However, other people have devoted their lives and sacrificed their incomes because they cannot sit back and enjoy the world they were born to unless everyone can share the same. Those people are heroes and it is the least we can do to help out financially. And I don’t mean $10 here and there. The more I think about it, the more I think a business should plan to invest at least 5-10% of it’s profits in charity. We shouldn’t think of it as an ego trip but a necessary part of creating a sustainable world that we can continue to run businesses in.

2. Don’t get caught up in the feeling that everyone demands your money

Come up with a strategy to deal with it. We’re all smart people, we can logically think through the effects of donations of money, versus donations of tools and resources that help people help themselves. Even if all charities are fundamentally aiming to do good, you have got to expect that most of them don’t have the answer and giving them money is not adding hugely to the solution. Not giving to them doesn’t make you a bad person, but it doesn’t mean you should just not give at all.

So, if you have a spare $200 that you know will otherwise go on partying or a new television or whatever it is that you don’t really need, Let Nicholas explain why giving it to him will be a much better option.

Yesterday I went to a debate between two of NZ’s major political parties, and the leader of the green party and a student representing our far right minor party.

It was humiliating to watch.
The subject was “What does sustainability mean and what is your party going to do about it”.

Within two minutes, the debate degraded quite literally into a schoolboy fight with the two men from Labour and National caught in a squabble that went:

“You said this”
“no i didn’t”
“yes you did”
“no I didn’t”
“yes you did”

With no end in sight, the audience had to try to calm them down.

We managed to make our way sloooowly though a bunch of questions, that Nick Smith seemed to have trouble remembering, so instead went on these long, drawn out rants about nothing in particular, while the student representative for Act loudly proclaimed that market forces and technology changes were all we need. Oh, and that people should pay for water.

I was horrified that any of these people (aside from the Green party who are so well versed on the subject, Jeanette sat there calmly explaining climate change to the idiots surrounding her as they plucked ‘facts’ out of the air) are going to be sitting in our government come the beginning of next year.

The very fact that we are facing quite literally the worst disaster in human history, which is about 50 years away from obliterating ANY hope of survival makes me think that instead of squabbling, these people should be watching Armageddon or something to realise that tackling climate change should be a united, world wide effort, not some silly debate.

I hear parliament is very much the same. At this stage, despite Claire telling me that at least the debate has become a little more sophisticated over the years, I feel very anxious about how we as a country are going to reduce our emissions by 90% at ANY stage in the future, let alone in the next few decades.

Yup, it’s a pain in small business when you’re overloaded and everyone gets sick. The business grinds to a halt and you all get behind. Rod Drury’s fairly ‘unique’ solution has a lot of plusses and can be adapted to virtually any small business:

To: All Xero Staff (and Shareholders)

From: Rod

Re: What do do when you’re sick

If you feel like you need to be off work you will require a medical certificate. This will mean a trip to your doctor.

In New Zealand a doctors consultation for 15 minutes will cost you around $49. The same as a whole month of Xero.

As the doctor is completing your prescription, this is a good time to enquire about what accounting system they use. Advanced Xero’s will actually be able to do a live demo right there on the doctors computer.

Medical centres are mainly cash based with most receipts coming through the bank account each day and processing of supplier invoices. Use this information to show you understand their business.

As you’ve paid for the consultation, don’t feel bad about using a few minutes to show the benefits of Xero. It will make you feel a lot better if you can get them to sign up for a free demo.

Accordingly medical certificates will now only be accepted with a matching demo sign up.

Be well.

Rod