New location at Wordpress

www.nzraw.co.nz

I started my blog at Google's Blogspot (or Blogger) as I always use Google for search, I have a Google g-mail account and I'm a fan of YouTube which is owned by Google (Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion).

However, now that I've been on here a while and I've learnt a lot more about blogs and e-mail ... I'm actually quite disappointed with the results.

Blogger (or Blogspot ... which the hell is it?!) is veeeery easy to use and looks very polished but it has a very low amount of support.

Take statistics for example. Anyone who writes a blog wants to know if people are reading it. I did this in Google by adding a third-party page view counter, which you can see in the top right there. However, this counts a view each time I come to the site to post. It also doesn't show any other info like which posts are more popular and when people visited.

Because of this, I started to shop around. I had used Wordpress as an author as the Hot Pyjama Productions blog I used to contribute to is hosted on Wordpress. As it happens, Wordpress has a wealth of built-in tools for measuring statistics, a lot more customisable themes and layouts and a lot of extra nifty features like an option to respond to a comment via e-mail so you don't even have to head to the site to reply to viewer's comments.

So, with the click on a button, I imported by Blogspot/Blogger blog into Wordpress and I'm away!

You will find all my new posts on www.nzraw.co.nz and you can also find a range of New Zealand blogs on my other website.

Bye bye blogger.

News Reports Missing the Comedy

I love my local newspaper - The Press - in Christchurch. Their reports are well laid out and well detailed and they always manage to touch on a comedy moment.

They never actually elaborate on this moment but I swear they see the funny side themselves but are trying to refrain from taking the mick out of the situation.

Here's two great examples. Both within the last month.

Example one: the story of a local fugitive.

So as the story goes, this criminal escaped from the police and has been evading them for months now. The Press reported on a story where he was almost caught. In the small town of Darfield, a Doctor was heading home from work when he saw the fugitive in question, loading up stolen goods from a pharmacy into the back of a stolen ute. Let's hand over to the Doctor's own testimony:

"I saw the ute drive off so I gave chase. After a short while, I realised my Audi was no match for his ute so I called off the chase"

The Press then continues with the rest of the story, but hang on a minute! Hold the phone! The ute was no match for his Audi?? Now, I don't know about you guys but here's the image I have in my head;

ute:

Audi (and let's not forget, this is a Doctor's Audi):

Now do you think it's accurate that a ute stolen from a farm would outrun a Doctor's Audi? Or is it more likely that while saying this to the reporter, the Doctor had a smile on his face and a look that said "like I'm gonna chase a criminal who is known to have at least two shotguns on him"? And did the reporter know this and keep it in the article for comedic value? I like to think so.


Example two: a great way to spend your last $20

I actually read this today over my lunch time coffee. Two young American guys had been touring around New Zealand, doing the backpacker thing. They had picked up a hitch-hiker - a New Zealander called "Rusty" (alarm bells should have been ringing).

They actually tented with this guy for 3 days before Rusty stole their car, filled with most of their gear, leaving the two Americans with a tent, a fishing rod and $20.

Now, crime sucks. And crime against tourists is even worse. This hitch-hiker has taken advantage of these two young fellas' trust and given New Zealand a bad name.

But in the article, the journalist touches ever so briefly on the one simple fact:

"While deciding what to do, the two young Americans spent half their remaining money on a $10 hacky-sack ball"

Ok now, come oooon! That's your story right there! Forget "Hitch-Hiker Steals From American Tourists", the headline should be "American Theft Victims Spend Half Their Survival Money On Small Soft Ball"!

Genius.

I am a lab rat. (Part 2)

In follow up to my last (rushed) post, let me explain a little more about what I've been up to.

Recently I've been following the swine-flu (or H1N1) pandemic with interest. So when my wife told me about a current vaccine trial taing place in New Zealand, I was quite keen to learn more.

After phoning the clinic, we were sent some information on the trial. The following is some information from the consent form:

CSL’s flu vaccine, like many other flu vaccines, contains killed (inactivated) flu viruses. These killed viruses cannot give you the flu. They produce flu antibodies in the blood. Antibodies are a component in the blood which can destroy flu viruses when they infect you. Vaccination with a flu vaccine is believed to protect you
against infection with the types of flu virus that are in the vaccine.

5,000 of the 7500 participants will receive flu vaccine, and the remaining 2,500 will receive a harmless but inactive injection (placebo).

So, in the interest of advancing medical science and perhaps one day helping to save innocent lives (and with the lure of $300 cash AND a free thermometer for taking part in the study), I and my wife signed the consent forms and headed off to the clinic.

Why is it that waiting rooms around the world are full of old copies of Women's Weekly, plus the token classic men's magazine that ALL men must surely love - Yacht Magazine? Luckily there was a TV on the wall so I sat back to watch the gun-man crisis in Napier that reminded me of about 10,000 American movies.

After a few minutes, a Doctor entered the room and sat with us to fill out some forms. During the whole questioning process, I was distracted by the fact that this Doctor was wearing a large metal ring with a skull motif that reminded me of Judge Dredd. I tried to focus on the forms but all the while I was picturing the Doctor in a helmet and red sunglasses, fighting crime and leaving imprints of skulls on the faces of the villains that he punches.

My focus snapped back into the room when I realised that my wife was about to take a pregnancy test (pregnant people can not take part in the study). Waiting for her to return from peeing on a stick was probably the most nerve-racking part of the night. She came back with a smile on her face that settled my fears. We plan on getting a dog before getting a sprog so if she was pregnant, we would have to run out to the nearest pet store to avoid interrupting our plans.

So anyway, we were both given a quick health check up (my BPM rate of 72 beat my wife's 88 - it's all about who wins) followed quickly by the injections and a nice crisp $100 cash each. Apparently we get the cash in installments each time we visit the clinic. I handed the money to my wife to look after while I greedily awaited the free thermometer which we would use to monitor our temperatures over the next week.

I can't tell you how awesome the thermometer is. You put it under your tongue (or up your rectum but given the choice, I'd rather stick to the mouth region to avoid any mix up later on) and then wait for a bit. If you fail, you get an "E" message and have to do it again. If you win, you hear a chirpy beeping sound and you're rewarded with your temperature. It is my plan, over the next week or so, to drink really hot fluids and see how high I can get my thermometer to go. If it's over 37 degrees C, you're classed as "having a temperature". I'm gonna aim for the "having a melt-down" class which I'm assuming is about 60 degrees.

In 21 days, we are to report back to the clinic and give them our results. It's almost un-nerving sitting amongst all the nurses there as, to get some good results, they're quite keen for you to catch the flu. You can almost see their eyes light up at the slightest cough.

So for now, we're off to spend our collective $200 bucks. Is our health worth risking for our total $600 by the end of the study? Well, no I guess not. But ... is our health worth risking for $600 and a free thermometer? Now that's a different question.

P.S. The police dog involved in the whole Napier shooting thing is safe and well.

I am a lab rat. (Part 1)

Ok so I'm taking part in a flu vaccine study. In a rush to get to the clinic now but I'll post more later.

This could be interesting.

P.S. If I return as a mutant/pig/asian bird, you will hopefully know by the quality of my writing. Please call someone. (NB: you may not actually notice any difference)

The Day KFC & Oprah Exposed the Dark Side of Humanity

Oh no. Oh Oprah. What have you done?

If you haven't already heard, the Oprah Winfrey show announced that it was teaming up with KFC to give away coupons for free "2 pieces of Kentucky Grilled Chicken™ (manager’s choice) and two individual sides and a biscuit".

The resulting traffic to the website to download the coupon caused the site to crash. Those who got the coupon then found it a struggle to find an outlet that accepted the voucher, or they faced tremendous queues at outlets that were accepting it.

The New Your Restaurants site reported:

"Earlier today, a tipster reported to Gothamist from the KFC on 42nd between Madison and Park:

Despite the very visible grilled chicken behind the register, the manager told everyone with coupons to leave and that the promotion was over for the day. The people there are currently holding a sit-in and refusing to leave until they get their free chicken ... or the cops are called. Racial epithets were being spewed, people who actually wanted to pay for chicken were facing a potential beatdown.

Gawker has another troublesome report of people running around like chickens with their heads cut off: “A small RIOT started going on outside the store with people screaming at the manager.” And per a Midtown Lunch tipster, lunch came with a side of ugly at KFC’s 50th and Seventh Avenue location: “There was about 50 ppl crammed into a very tiny space before me ... "

Do people not see anything wrong with hundreds of people cramming into KFC and staging sit-in protests and spewing racial slurs in order to get their greasey mits on a few dollars worth of even greasier chicken? Are people reading this and thinking "Man ... I'd be demanding me some free chicken all right. Let me start making a protest banner" or are there actually some real people in the world thinking "Holy crap, this is disgusting. Do people have no shame?!".

Some people will think, "Hey, what an awesome idea for all the homeless and the poor" ... wake up! Feeding the homeless and the poor KFC is not a solution to the problem. There are better places Oprah can spend her money (and more reputable companies she can align herself with).

The aftermath media attention meant the KFC became the most mentioned topic on Twitter, narrowly followed by American Idol. Double shame!

Some example comments from people waiting for the coupon site to work:

I’ve been trying to access the kfc coupon for over an hour now.. i don't know what's wrong. and I really needed that coupon to feed my 2year old

What?! Are you sick?! You're feeding KFC to your 2 year old?!

Requires Windows or Mac. So to get a free dinner I have to spend $300. Linux users are people too, but I guess we can afford dinner with the money we saved on our OS.

Oh get over it! It's for two pieces of mass produced chicken. Life. will. go. on.

Well I tried to use this coupon at 6 different KFC's yesterday, and not one of them would take it. Said they were not taking them. What is up with that?

You wasted hours of your life travelling to 6 different KFC's??

I'M MELTING CAN'T GET THE COUPONS PLEASE IS THERE ANOTHER WAY OF GETTING THEM ???? HUNGRY FOR THE CHIICKEN

Oh ffs, will someone please give this guy a biscuit before he explodes.

It is 1:30 p.m. pacific time and I cannot even get on the site to download a coupon. I bet that I never will.

Tragic.

i was just woundering i watch your show every day and us canadians never get anything free fom you. why is that your fan Amanda

Yeah, how dare you not give us free stuff

the coupon link is not working for me. it keeps saying it cannot display the web page. please help, i have to feed my children!

If you need to feed your children that badly, there are far more appropriate facilities in place

THIS IS REALLY FRUSTRATING!!

I hope you were referring to the other comments

FREE Factory farmed chicken!! WOW..FREE KFC.. thats great.. For who? Support organic. It's healthier for the chickens and the people who eat them.

Oh my God!! A real human! What are you doing on this coupon site?!

It would be nice if you had something for us veg folk who don't eat meat. Anyway, KFC is still being investigated for it's horrific cruelty to chickens.

Another one!

I think I will be up all night trying to print the coupon...am not getting through and started thirty minutes ago.

Ah that's more like it. Back to the zombies that will stay up all night trying to download a coupon for some chicken ... instead of paying $9 for a meal or, better yet, making a sandwich.

Hate of the Day - The Pavement Toll

Cashel Street, in Christchurch, hosts the city's central pedestrian area. At the moment, a team of road workers are laying down tram-tracks for the revised tram route.

This has helped to heighten a personal hate of mine.

I hate it when people walk out of shop doorways really quickly, right across the general direction of foot-traffic. Usually, they have their heads down, looking in their bag at their new purchase or checking their receipt, and they plough out of the store with no thought for the people walking along the pavement. Ka-BLAM! Pedestrian pile-up!

This has been more obvious recently as the tram works have limited the pedestrian area to a narrow walkway down each side of the street.

Forget the road-toll. I bet there have been heaps of pedestrian casualties. Let's have a minute's silence for all those awkward invasions of personal space.

How to be an Arrogant Driver

So you want to be an arrogant driver in NZ? Follow my simple guide:

1. You have right of way at all times.

2. Blending like a zip is for cooks and seamstresses. The guy next to you will try to take the lead as your lanes merge. Do not back down or the world will know you have no cajones and you will be shamed. If necessary, mount the kerb.

3. Traffic lights in New Zealand are unique. If you are stopped at a red light and you have somewhere you need to be, keep inching your car forward. The traffic lights will respond to this and change to green sooner. If your traffic light is at a pedestrian crossing and the pedestrians are looking at your forward inching with concern, ignore them. See rule 1. If you see an amber light, don't worry about it. Must be some kind of glitch.

4. New Zealand has a unique turning system. Melbourne started a "give way to those from the right" system due to their own tramways. Not to be out done by our aussie cousins, NZ adopted this system. The system was dropped by Australia due to it not working. This was because they forgot that rule 1 applies in all situations. New Zealand kept the system along with its multiple situations when it's ok to ignore the rule. Don't worry, you don't have to learn these.

5. Be aware that you are sharing the road with 15 year old delinquents driving their parent's 3L V8 Japanese race car. These delinquents are a threat to your status of "Road Owner". To overcome this, face all drag racing challenges head on. If you back down from a competition with a 15 year old, it will be clear to your adult peers that this is because you have no cajones.

Oh P.S. they will have no insurance. Yes this is legal and best solved by suggesting any accidents you caused are settled out of court by your mate's brother who owns a wreckers.

6. Go around round-abouts in a clockwise fashion. See how you're turning right as you circle the round-about? This is why you should have your right indicator on. Approaching the round-about, indicate right. When leaving the round-about, also indicate right. Just indicate right no matter which way you're going. Not indicating at all is an acceptable alternative method.

7. Nothing exists behind you. Mirrors are for chumps. Feel free to remove these from your vehicle.

8. As per rule 7, cyclists only exist when they are in front of you in clear view. They love it when you pass so close you can just about clip them with your wing mirror. That's how they get their kicks. If you manage to brush against clothing without knocking them over, congratulations, you have won the game.

9. Lower your vehicle to the ground by removing the springs. It's proven that having no suspension improves the performance on your car. Once this is done, head to a road along a popular beachfront such as Sumner, in Christchurch. This is the best place to show everyone how awesome you look in your low car. Don't worry about the speed bumps and people laughing when you lose your rear bumper. They are laughing with you.

10. Do not thank anyone. Thanking people, through waving or flashing your lights, will only confuse them. Gratitude is also a sign of weakness.

Technorati Profile

The Most Impressive Business Card

This guy is brilliant. What scares me is ... I think he's being serious.

Yougle (Google Profiles)

Google has recently created a "Google Me" page. This is an online profile (another one!) that is specifically linked to Google search results.

Whenever I get an inquiry from a prospect I haven't heard of, or I want to find info on an industry colleague or a competitor, I always Google their name. If they have a unique name, you're bound to track them down.

However, it's always been difficult if you have a common name like mine, Mark Lincoln, which is also a model name of an American car (see pic).

So today I set up a Google profile. These profiles then appear at the bottom of the first page of results for Google name searches in order to help people find you. Really it's just another excuse to build your online presence, but it does help correlate all your personal online sites into one easy to find profile. This profile links directly with my blogspot (which you happen to be reading), my YouTube (set up with my Google account), my Gmail account (Google mail) as well as others such as Twitter, Flickr etc.

Is Google taking over the world? Probably. Vote for Google! (I can see it now. A Google world like in those sci-fi movies where one corporation runs the planet)

A Few Creative Men

Here's a great example of some top-notch video re-dubbing.


If you work in the graphic design industry, like I do, you'll really connect with quite a few moments in this video.

This vid was posted on YouTube by TysonFaller.

And the "Miss Christchurch" title goes to ..... Auckland!

PLEASE NOTE: THIS BLOG HAS BEEN MOVED TO THE MUCH MORE AWESOME NEW ZEALAND BLOG: NZRAW.CO.NZ.

SEE THIS POST AND ITS RATHER INTERESTING COMMENTS AT:

Miss Christchurch

The Press has announced that the title of "Miss Teen Christchurch" has been taken by a girl from Auckland. Article.

Eh? Apparently, anyone within a set age criteria can enter the competition, irrespective of city of origin.

Does that make sense? Not really. It wasn't even as if the girl had recently moved from Auckland to Christchurch. She lives in Auckland full time. She actually found out about the competition as she had been called by the "Miss Christchurch" event director and told to come down to enter.

Photo by John Kirk-Anderson for The Press

It seems like the director was aware there weren't many entrants for the competition and so, instead of improving marketing for the competition in Christchurch (only 50 people came to watch the event), she has called a contact directly and brought them into the competition.

I'm not really a follower of these local pageants and think they belong in the 60s, but when I found out about this story it really appealed to my sense of Christchurch loyalty!

Come on Christchurch! This would never happen in sport.

P.S. Obviously if my wife was in this competition, she would get my vote (Why, yes! She does read my blog!)

Facebook Governance

Well, in follow up to my previous blog entry about Facebook's dubious rights ...

"we can do anything with your work, even if you delete it"
"we can change the terms and conditions that you agreed to at our own will and without notifiying you"

... it looks like the terms are set to change, and fair enough! I mean just read the above two clauses. How did they think they could do that without any kind of negative feedback?

It turns out, an external party has been brought in to review the terms. This party has created two Facebook groups to allow users to comment and suggest term changes. Not surprisingly, the vast majority were unhappy with Facebook's right to change their terms at their own free will, and their right to do what they like with user's photos - even after the user has deleted the photos from their own account.

The proposed new terms state that once the user deletes their photos or removes their account, any rights to use those images are also revoked. In addition, Facebook will have to abide by a "Town Hall" process whereby they will have to state any changes that they would like to make to the terms and these changes will be voted on.

You can vote for or against these terms here.

Results so far are strongly in favour of the new terms ... but hey, we haven't counted Florida's vote yet ;)

A YouTube/Twitter Experiment

I'm posting this as it's an interesting experiment into the use and broadcasting of YouTube videos.

Just after getting married last year, I horrified my wife by buying a Playstation 3. After setting a few ground rules, I manage to get a reasonable amount of gaming in. It's a great way to leave the real world for an hour or so.

I've been playing Killzone 2 quite a lot. A really well made game. As a young sprot, my (mostly absent) father once left me with his video camera. I and a friend had heaps of fun making home movies with a variety of characters and sketches, a la Monty Python, the Fast Show, Not the 9 'o'clock News etc.

This love of film making has stayed with me and I decided to combine this with my gaming experience by setting the camera up in front of the tele (very hi-tech I know) and creating my own gaming video.

I published the video to YouTube and immediately started getting a smattering of responses, probably helped through YouTube's "latest video" listing in the gaming section. I then decided to look at how I could promote the video. YouTube actually gives a fantastic amount of insight into the demographics behind your visitor viewers, so I would be able to see where the views were coming from.

So first, I viewed a few other similar YouTube videos that were quite popular and then used this to fine tune the title and description of my own video. This would help people searching through YouTube to access my vid. Note that a lot of people are spamming their own descriptions with all sorts of drivel by filling them with "keywords" that may even have nothing to do with the video, just to get more viewers. I'm really not a fan of this as this will ruin our ability to track down the specific video we want to see.

Anyway, I the joined a few gaming forums (there are a crazy amount of gaming forums out there) and posted a message in each, introducing myself, explaining what I was doing and of course, included a link to the video.

Finally, I turned to my Twitter account. Through a bit of research, I found out that there is an official twitter account for the Killzone website (Twitter ID killzonedotcom). So I sent them an @reply message letting them know I had made this video and giving them the link. Despite over 500,000 people owning a copy of Killzone and 1,925 following killzonedotcom, they responded fairly promptly with some kind words and then even RT (re-tweeted) my video link to their followers:

Epic "Face Mine" video by @marklincoln - http://tinyurl.com/caguls

So my original tweet, picked up by my 100 followers although targeted to one account, was turned into a broadcast to almost 2,000 followers from actual Killzone officials. Certainly gave a bit of weight to my initial message. This, in turn, was actually retweeted by followers of Killzonedotcom across the world.

Youtube then gave me the ability to see where all of these viewers were coming from:

As you can see, a few people found the video simply through browsing through YouTube, but a massive amount came through external links. These would be the people who clicked on the link in the Twitter message or the forum messages.

YouTube even show you the "attention" viewers gave certain parts of your video on a graph that runs in realtime alongside your vid. They also show you which parts of the world your visitors have come from:

The strong following from Australia and New Zealand could show the results obtained specifically from the gaming forums (whch were Australasian based) plus the Denmark viewers could be from the Twitter followers of the Killzone official on Twitter, as the developers of Twitter are based in that region.

I can also see that my video, having been released 3 days, is now:

#14 - Most Discussed (This Week) - Gaming - New Zealand

#14 - Top Favorited (This Week) - Gaming - New Zealand

#45 - Top Rated (This Week) - New Zealand

#8 - Top Rated (This Week) - Gaming - New Zealand

and the sites that link to my vid include:

Clicks URL
13 http://forum.onpsx.net/showthread.php?t=13543&page=98

4 http://www.laps3.com/foro/7_juegos/55842-hilo_oficial_killzone_2_a-249.html

3 http://forum.onpsx.net/showthread.php?p=470968

3 http://forum.onpsx.net/showthread.php?p=470995

1 http://twitter.com/home

Ironically, the two forums listed are actually two forums I have never been to. One appears to be Danish and the other is from Barcelona. The posts were made by two different people; one who found my video through searching YouTube and one who found the vid by following Twitter.

All very interesting stuff. It's easy to see how this information can be used to improve viewer numbers of future videos in more business orientated operations. Alas, it seems I have built up a fan base of people that are expecting even more from the next video! Better get to the drawing board.

Give up your rights or leave!

Here, take my property and use it for your own monetary gains!

Would you walk up to a stranger in the street, hand them your favourite photographs and say, “you’re free to use these for anything you like”?

No? Well, if you have ever posted a photo to a social site such as Facebook, this is exactly what you are doing. And you’re not just handing them to anyone. You’re giving them to a company that currently has a vested interest in finding new ways to produce more cash flow for itself.

Giving up your rights

More and more individuals and companies are using social media methods to broadcast their brand. But exactly what are you giving up when you post images on social sites?

Concerning user uploaded content, Facebook’s policy states:

“By posting user content to any part of the site, you automatically grant … an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence … to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such user content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise. … Facebook does not assert any ownership over your user content.”

While arguably it is written this way so that Facebook can use content in promotional ways without fear of liability, the clause is written in such a way that Facebook could use the images as a stock photo library if it wanted. Facebook are telling you they can do pretty much anything they like with your images and videos, although ownership technically remains with you.

This isn’t just for images and photos. If you’re posting a series of blog articles or “wall” posts that are attracting a lot of attention, Facebook have the right to correlate these and make their own book! You may delete this content but Facebook retain the right to make copies of the content you have uploaded, and these copies will remain.

The really scary thing is that Facebook “reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, add, or delete portions of these Terms of Use at any time without further notice”. Blimey! Would you go into any other contract in business knowing that at any point, the other party could completely change their terms and conditions?? Any section that details whatever rights you may have left … could be deleted in a heartbeat without your consultation.

Some users have already taken Facebook to court over use of images. Facebook photos of people who have been in the news have appeared in newspapers with “Photos courtesy of Facebook” underneath.

Not on Facebook? Your photos may be.

Many people are unaware their images are hosted by Facebook. Some blogs allow you to upload photos but use Facebook’s hosting service on Facebook’s terms. You can tell if your photo is hosted on Facebook by right clicking the image and checking for the domain names of “photos-d.ak.facebook.com”, or “photos-921.ll.facebook.com”, etc.

Be aware that sites like Facebook are not free services. You are paying for their services with your personal information and content. Facebook are currently dreaming up new ways to exploit this information in order to make them money. And remember that the terms and conditions that exist when you first sign up may well change at any point without your direct notification.

What can be done?

Really, nothing can be done if you’re using Facebook. By using their service, you are agreeing to their terms. In this relationship, they are the big guys, you are the little guy. If you want to continue to use Facebook, you can try contacting them to voice your concerns.

For the rest of us, there are sites that specialise in photo sharing for professionals and so make their range of privacy options well known, easy to understand and easy to change. Flickr have an extensive range of privacy options and take care to protect the rights of their members. Try right-click-saving an image posted by a user who has fully reserved rights. You’ll simply download a “spaceball.gif” image of nothingness.

To cope with new technology and increased access to online imagery, Flickr have partnered with Creative Commons to create a license specifically for those who want to share their work with people for non-commercial use only. The sandy image on this page was taken by me, Mark Lincoln, and uploaded to Flickr using the Creative Commons license. This gives people the use to show this image for non-commercial means only, and they must credit the image to myself.

Either way, when signing up to any online service, be sure to check the terms and conditions to ensure your rights are protected … before you click “I agree”!

You're a twit. I'm a twit. Twittle, twot and twandy.

I have now established myself in the world of Twitter: www.twitter.com/marklincoln

Yes that's right. The Prime Minister of Australia is now following yours truly. (I bet he's waiting for me to post right now)

I WANT THE TRUTH!

The NZ Herald today reported that a real estate firm has been fined $7,500 for breaching the Fair Trading Act, following a case in December last year where an agent, let’s call him Tim because that’s his name, was sentenced for advertising a property as “buyer enquiry over $380,000″ when he knew the vendor would accept no less than $400,000.

This reminded me about a phone call I received last week from a popular cell-phone network. The salesman, let’s call him Bob, promptly ran into a speech offering me a free cell phone and all sorts of amazing bonuses in a call plan for my business and began the usual line of questioning resulting in “yes” answers to hook me into the conversation.

Something along the lines of …

“Would you like a top of the range cell-phone for free? Would you like 30 minutes of free call time?”

I was very busy at the time but I always feel for these telemarketers as we’ve all had to make cold calls at some point. Particularly as I once answered “No” to the first question and completely stumped the unfortunate caller.

Wanting to cut to the chase, I asked a number of times what would be involved for me to get this amazing deal and the answer each time took us back to the beginning of the conversation:

“Well … you get a free cell phone and 30 minutes of call time”

After much banging the receiver against my head, I finally extracted the keystone of the entire conversation: I would have to sign up to a call plan that would cost $45 a month.

Had Bob answered my obviously impatient “let me get back to work” flavoured question at the beginning of the conversation, he would have discovered I only have a pre-pay cell phone which I rarely use for calls, with a total bill of $5 per month. Mostly spent replying to my fiancé’s numerous texts.

Bob the cell-phone man and Tim the real estate guy both tried to hide the truth in order to gain interest and land a sale. The problem is, once the deception has been exposed, who’s going to trust the company enough to do business with them? Not me.

Two more topical examples of deception are the Telecom advertising series that uses actors to portray made-up Telecom clients, and the safety campaign for side air-bags that uses an actor rather than a genuine accident victim. Both of these examples have arguments for and against their deception.

However, I am a firm believer that honesty and business can still walk hand in hand down the happy path of success.

So here’s to the Campaign for Honesty in Business! Let’s treat people like the intelligent professionals they are and generate some genuine trust in our business dealings.

If the world could vote ...

Have you been to www.iftheworldcouldvote.com yet?

Quite an interesting insight into what would happen if the world was allowed to vote in the US elections.

Let's face it, the US wants to control the world so maybe the world should vote on who controls the US?

Despite the results on this site, I sill wonder what the actual election outcome will be. After all, I would have put my money on Al Gore last time ... and wouldn't the world have been quite a different place? (Ed note - I did write this blog entry during the election! It's just been transferred to a new blog so looks like I've just written it. go Obama!)

I saw a documentary on the current election race not long ago and I was sickened by some of the comments people were making.

At one of McCain's rallys, a middle aged caucasion woman approached McCain on the stand and, right into a microphone in front of thousands of people, said that Obama was an Arab.

1. No he isn't
   
2. Should it really be insulting to call someone an Arab?
   
3. Obama is being targeted for having had associations with "terrorists". Has the entire state of Texas forgotten about the Bush family's close association for many years with the Bin Laden family?
   

Rant over. For now.

Great photo by Brian Hathcock and used from Flickr under the Creative Commons license.

Take notes or be judged!

Ok, so we all know that first impressions count. What we aren’t all lucky enough to find out is the full extent of the impression we create.

I have always felt that I leave a good first impression; I dress well, I smile, I’m polite, I’m friendly without being over friendly and I listen carefully without making the speaker worry that I’m trying to control them with my mind. With the position I work in, for the company that I work for, first impressions are very important.

So, while our director was away, I had a meeting with a potential new client. Having worked in a similar industry, I instantly tuned into their wavelength and felt that I had a great understanding of their business. At the end of the meeting, we shook hands (I still haven’t got round to the Donald Trump over-sterile method of bowing), said our goodbyes and I skipped back to my desk to put together a proposal.

Now I don’t want to boast, but this proposal was a beauty! I tapped away at that keyboard like I was playing a piano in a symphony orchestra ... or something. I pressed the send button and sat back to await their response (actually that’s a lie. I then started attacking the pile of work on my desk but that’s not relevant to this story).

Yesterday, the client came round to the Hot PJ office to discuss their thoughts on the proposal. For the first few minutes, they waxed lyrical about how much they enjoyed reading the proposal and how relevant it was to their situation. Then, just before my head grew too big for the room, they told me that when they left the first meeting, they had turned to each other and said, “Well, that was a waste of time!”Slightly horrified, and with my boss raising her eyebrows, I nervously asked, “What do you mean?”

The client then went on to explain that they were dedicated note takers. During our first meeting, they were acutely aware of the lack of notes I had jotted down and so believed that I wasn’t really taking in what they were saying. On the contrary, I felt so tuned-in to what they were saying that I only needed the aid of a few buzz words to jog my memory in order to create a proposal.

What shocked me was how we had left that first meeting in such a contrast of thoughts. Me thinking everything went great and them thinking they’d wasted their time. In the worst-case scenario, they may not have bothered to open the proposal and we would never have had the second meeting.

This really made me think. In this case, the client was open enough to let me know their initial thoughts, but how many meetings had I been in where people had a genuine belief that my lack of note taking was indicative of my lack of paying attention.

Are any of us fully aware of the first impression we give? And I’m talking about the whole package here; from the way you dress to the notes you take! The happy ending is that they are now our latest client and this is the start of a wonderful relationship we will have together.

Definitely food for thought though.

Good idea. Bad idea.

Last weekend, the weather was beautiful and the hills that I can see from my living-room window were crying out for the attention of a man and his backpack. However, my fiancé had other plans! This was the weekend we had put aside to get our gift registry sorted.

Being from the UK and South Africa, we needed a store that provided online access for overseas family members. As we’re getting married in Gisborne, we also wanted a store that had a branch in Gisborne for NZ-based family and friends without internet access. Gisborne being Gisborne, we were quite limited, so in the end we decided to have two gift registries; one at Ballantynes, a Christchurch department store with online access, and one at a nationwide homewares store with a branch in Gisborne.

Gift registries are amazing inventions. Let’s say we invite 100 people to our wedding. Now, those people are under no obligation to buy us a gift but, should they choose to do so, we are almost guaranteeing one store an extra 100 customers – possibly people who have never been in that store before. With that in mind, you’d think stores that had a registry facility would be really pushing the marketing to maximise their return. Especially with the current (so-called) recession that is affecting the retail industry.

At the nationwide store, my fiancé and I were handed a clipboard and a sheet of paper and left to wander the store. Ok, fine. Job done. Thanks very much.

However, at Ballantynes we were given the personal assistance of a dedicated staff member. This staff member, Emma, was at our service for the next two hours. Emma explained the process, gave us a tour of the store, introduced us to the helpful staff of each department, put up with our lack of decision making and even laughed at our jokes! Emma also put aside each item we pointed out, thus guaranteeing the stock would be there for our guests at the price that was displayed at the time of our visit. Knowing those products were the actual items that would appear on our list really helped us to take ownership and encourage us to keep on shopping!

The items were put online that afternoon and a thank-you e-mail was waiting for us when we got home. When we returned to the first store the next day, our list was still on the clipboard sitting under the check-out counter! Not very confidence inspiring.

On paper, both stores provided a service to meet the same goal. One store has taken that service, put it into place, clicked the “done” box on their electronic to-do list then moved onto something else. The other store has taken the same service and strategically analysed the best way to implement it to guarantee satisfaction and maximise the ROI from the whole gift-registry venture.

With the “recession”, the trap can be getting caught up in the panic and rushing headlong into marketing ventures simply because everyone else is. Generally this is based on a fear of being left behind. Companies start firing out one-off adverts left, right and centre and then wait nervously for the phone to ring.

Our speciality at Hot Pyjama Productions is actually caring about and taking pride in your marketing. Sometimes, even more than you do! If we think that an advert or other marketing tool that you would like us to create doesn’t fit your marketing strategy, even if it's just a set of business cards, we’ll actually discuss it with you first to make sure you’re receiving the most from your investment. You may find that the money you have budgeted for one project would achieve far more if spent on an alternative project.

Essentially, we're here to eliminate the nervousness that everyone experiences when starting a new marketing project.

It sounds simple but it’s what our clients love about us the most and what puts us ahead of our competition.

Please rain in the recepticals provided.

Has anyone else in New Zealand noticed that North Canterbury is under water and yet the South Island lakes are at an all time low and only have a few days of power left in them?

Perhaps the answer would be to build a humongous funnel and position it above Lake Hawea? Similar to Mr. Burn's giant cover that he placed over the sun in Springfield.

Maybe I'll suggest that. Who to suggest it to is the key.

Koru Care Gala Dinner

I had a fantastic time at the Koru Care Gala Dinner and Charity Auction last night. It was an experience to be surrounded by so many people who had so much money!! There was a lot of wealth in that room last night and a large portion of it was used to bid for items such as a helmet signed by Michael Schumacher and a Fender guitar signed by Paul Mcartney and Ringo Starr.

Congratulations to the organisers for raising $170,000 to send children with terminal illnesses and permanent disabilities on holidays around the world.

Thanks also to Gary Endacott for your inspirational speech. Gary was the first person with Cerebral Palsy, on the planet, to compete in the New York marathon and has since successfully returned to New York to run on a further 3 occasions. He has also held the New Zealand and World Disabled Tennis championship but one of his greatest achievements came in 2001 when Gary became the first physically disabled person to climb Mt Kilamanjaro.

The internets and you

In my previous blog entry, I highlighted the importance of being aware of the conversations that are taking place on the internet about your company.

This week, I take a more personal angle; what does the internet say about you?

The danger of so called “personal” online social content is that if you’re not clued up with the site’s particular security settings, you may have just told the1,463,632,361 internet users in the world that last night you had a big night on the town and danced on a table!

Long before I joined Hot Pyjama Productions, I was at a job interview where the interviewer admitted they had tried to find my Facebook page as a reference of my character.

Due to my security settings, they hadn’t managed to find me but were quite surprised that I, the interviewee, had already googled them, the interviewer, and found out which high school they went to, what they had studied and also the last two places they had worked. I hope this showed my ability to use my initiative!

Even without an internet profile, you might be surprised what you can find online.
“Google” yourself now using quotation marks either side of your name, e.g. “Mark Lincoln” and make sure you click “pages from New Zealand”. You should find that more recently updated activity will appear higher up the search rankings. Useful information for those of us who manage a website! If you have a more common name, try adding the city you live in to your search query.

For me, this would tell you that I have written in a blog (this one!), I have worked at Rock & Ice and Wattyl, I have an interest in photography and I have written a book on World War II. All true except for the last one and, perhaps more importantly, all information I’m happy for the world to know.

So be warned, even an out-of-character answer you might leave to an annoying TradeMe question could be used by others to judge your character! The basic rule of thumb is if you wouldn’t say it to your boss/client/mother/local reporter then don’t post it on the internet!

PS. Appearances in magazine articles apply here also!

Beware of Bloggers!

Beware! Your average Jo(e) Bloggs has found their voice!

As Simon from iJump told me, “Caveat emptor (buyer beware) is dead”.

As you sip your coffee and read this, thanks to social networking sites like Facebook, Twigger, Digg, myspace and a million blog entries, a magnitude of potential buyers could be discussing your product or service without you knowing it. Technically, people discussing your products should be nothing new. What is new is the opportunity to find those conversations, discover what people are saying and, most importantly, react.

We all know the saying along the lines of “Someone happy with your product will tell 2 people. Someone unhappy with your product will tell 20”. The danger now is that potentially, that conversation becomes a review for the world to see and is even at risk of appearing above your own website when someone searches for your company! Oh no! That’s horrific!

Or is it? Isn’t this an incredible opportunity to fix issues that you may otherwise have never been aware of? We now have this awesome opportunity to join in on the conversation, find out the cause of the complaint and do our best to put it right. As we know, how we deal with the problem, i.e. our customer service, is often more important than the problem itself.

The key issue is finding the time to trawl through the millions of blog entries and comments out there until you find those relevant to your business. For that very reason, Google has created Google Alerts. In a matter of seconds you can enter your company name and e-mail address and start receiving notifications each time your company name is used in a blog.

This does of course have its limitations. I entered “Mark Lincoln” and you wouldn’t believe how many times people mention my name in reference to American vehicles and presidents!

However, if you have a unique company name, (cough-Hot Pyjama Productions-cough) it’s perfect.

So remember, social networking isn’t just for our kids to discuss their favourite Simpsons character. As part of your marketing strategy, get out there and take part in the conversation!