An apology to journalists

Public apologies for all sorts of issues are now commonplace so I am going to make a few of my own, starting with a serious one. I'm not sure about the efficacy of public apologies but I do like the principle behind them having worked in many contexts where admitting fault was strongly resisted.

 

This is an apology to any NZ journalists who, over the years, I have unfairly maligned based on:

• one or two inaccurate stories;
• stories in the 80s on the fourth Labour Government;
• stories I didn't like or agree with;
• the way some media stories are snapshots and have missed the context;
• the supposed 'middle ground' that journalists write from. 

In the last 15 years I have been a lot more positive recognising shinking newsrooms, underresourced staff, understaffing, low pay, workload and deadline demands and a few poor journalists have made the profession less effective.

What this apology is about is my experiences of the last few months working on stories in the agricultural science area. I've looked at some important stories and thought; these are far too scientific, complicated, specialised and out of the mainstream to get coverage. And you know what- the journalists I've shown them to have understood their significance, investigated them, printed and broadcast stories based on the information. Some of the issues have not been easy to understand and have made my head hurt, but undeterred print, web, TV and radio journos have got into them and produced strong, informative, fair stories. 

I've always known we have some excellent journos but now I'm wondering if the NZ profession as a whole is much better than I ever appreciated.

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

The Greenist thing we could do

Headline - DominionPost 22 Oct 2009 (& Stuff.com)

Save the Planet: time to eat dog?

on Stuff today.  To save you reading it the couple involved are not advocating eating dog, rather, I assumed, a subeditor sitting around at 7pm thought the headline would get the maximum shock value. Until I read:
"Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale, architects who specialise in sustainable living, say pet owners should swap cats and dogs for creatures they can eat, such as chickens or rabbits, in their provocative new book Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living."
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/2987848/Save-the-planet-time-to-eat-dog/
I've come across a lot of eco-shock articles in the last while, probably a reaction to increased panic around global warming, that in itself creates more panic and worry and perhaps hysteria. (Hysteria is not the best word to use if you believe the planet and humanity have only 15 years left - as then it is justified urgent panic.)
I'm going to try my own version of eco-shock-urgency panic as well.
Consider humans are always going to impact on the 'natural' environment, our lifestyles, the way we think, our desire for warmth, better food, and quest for science and learning will always be a drain on the planet.  I remember as a young pseudo-lefty believing if we abolished private wealth greed would disappear (a la Russian Communist literature circa 1919 - new communist man).  I believe now it won't, so the idea that humanity can be taught to not want nice clothes, ace food and choice computer games is equally silly. Also try telling the Chinese and Indians they can't have nice stuff, and lifestyles similar to us and see how far you get.
Given then that humans will always be a drain on the planet - the most green thing we can do is swallow native tree seeds, dig big holes in our backyards and kill ourselves.  Or maybe someone could kill us and fill the hole in for us. 
So - now you've been shocked into thinking about doing the right thing and digging pits for you and your loved ones -  what do I actually think?
Unless we give more time and space to reasonable sustainable living experts who accept that all things affect our eco-systems (plants and animals, and human animals) and it's about working to manage these impacts with sustainable goals in mind.
The usually unspoken but clearly visible utopion ideal of living in little eco-bush shacks with as little eco-footprint as possible is a nice one but really people won't do it willingly, except of course some eco-puritans who are often already trying this.
Science.  We have to start resourcing science with as much effort as we can.  rather than spending 1% of GDP on science and allowing performing arts, media and coms graduates to be more numerous than science graduates, we need to actively prioritise the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place.

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

The Martin Gulliver teapot

 

http://www.thestudio.co.nz/shop/Kitchenware/Kettles+Coffee++Tea+Maker/Blue+Spots+Teapot.html

Posted via email from SamNZed's posterous

Teapots

or more accurately; choosing a teapot

I've always liked tea and I don't use teabags- as a form of quality control more than anything. People I know complain about the hassles of leaf tea but really - are they that busy that they can't spend 30 seconds to use a teapot?

I see the teapot and strainer as a small ritual that ensures making the tea is as good as possible.  If you want a sandwich you have to do all sorts of things depending on your bread, use of spreads, whether you use butter or lettuce and tea making is surely less hassle than that.

The problem with tea is teapots. I've owned a lot of teapots - and 12 in the last 10 years. There are design faults with 99% of them.

I don't use metal teapots. So they may be better but I don't believe conducting a significant amount of the heat out of the teapot is a great way to start. 

So what are the common problems with teapots?

• they dribble
• the lids aren't fitted properly
• the angle of getting the last of the tea out is sometimes well over 45 degrees causing tea to come out the lid
• the internal of the pot has obstructions that block the tea coming out
• the pots have weird cages inside which hinder infusion
• they aren't balanced well so are very hard to pour when they are full
• their handles are weak and break off after very little use

So I'd recommend avoiding novelty teapots. They never work well in my experience.

So once you've worked out what size teapot you need - numbers of cups - then here is what I would suggest before you buy.

1 How does it pour?  - check it our water before you buy.  Does it dribble?  What about when it's full? Is the spout low enough to get the tea from the bottom of the pot out without needing to tip the pot over 45 degrees?

2 is the lid rattly?  At what angle does it fall off?

3 does the inside of the pot where the spout meets the chamber have large holes that will allow large wet tea leaves to go through? (or are you going to get them blocked?)

4 is there a dumb cage? can you remove the cage and throw it out?

5 how strong is the handle? (okay and the spout?) 

If anyone is wanting to buy a good teapot that passes all these tests here's the one I own - a Martin Gulliver: 

http://www.thestudio.co.nz/shop/Kitchenware/Kettles+Coffee++Tea+Maker/Blue+Spots+Teapot.html

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

Telecom logo etc....

The new Telecom logo was launched yesterday.

I haven't done any brand and identity work in two years but it's a lot harder than people realise.  There are a range of tests when introducing a new 'visual' identity. I used ot have a checklist but can't find it... from memory there were 12 tests which required patent input, focus group testing, and applied design analysis.

So the checklist was things like:
 
- does it match the core brand identity and values?
- if a new identity what relationship does it have to the previous visuals and is that similiarity or dissimilarity appropriate?
- aesthetics (do people like it - artistic merit)?
- does it appeal to the key stakeholders of the organisation- what is customer reaction?
- is it a good match for the core services or goods?
- is it distinct from other visuals and logos?
- what does it look like on screen?
- can it be animated?
- does it have a brand sound?
- what is the spoken expression (radio advertisting)?
- are the design, colours and font proprietal and can be protected?
then
- how difficult is the logo to use (file size)?
- how easily does it print on a colour & a black and white printer?
- what redesigns are needed to all organisation's livery to make the new logo fit in with the visual suite?

 

 

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

The problem with NZ coffee

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but getting hold of good mild and medium roasted coffee in NZ is almost impossible.

Of all the things wrong with my household when I was growing up coffee wasn't one of them.

We had fresh coffee, a grinder and a perculator in the early 70s. The beans came from a Chch company Browne and Heaton, the only South Island (non corporate) roaster in those days.  I remember when I was 11 trying an experiment where I had a flask of coffee and didn't go to sleep.  I think I just about fainted on a bus in town and the rest is a blur.

What was nice about that coffee was that it packed a punch but wasn't bitter. 

Years later when the coffee revolution started I bought the darkest and dirtiest coffee I could.  In my early 20s I would get the nastiest blackest roasts and inflict them on anyone who came near. In my time on the front line as a barrista I started to soften that expectation and experiment with flavour.

By the time I hit 30 I knew that coffee can have a milder roast, the same caffeine levels and have a subtelty of flavour and a richness of many layers. 

What struck me is that most coffee beans and grounds on sale are as darkly roasted as possible.  In fact they are sometimes roasted to be bitter (or perhaps those suppliers don't know what they are doing) and as black as is possible.

Why, why?  I kept asking myself..... until I noticed that most coffee businesses were set up by young men.

Why is so much of our coffee agressive and lacking in subtelty?  Because the rosters are.

It's all academic for me now.  I stopped drinking coffee a year ago, partly due to a medical 'thing' and partly as I couldn't find coffee I like.

But I think we need more sober drivers making coffee, and an ad campaign 'Only a bloody idiot burns coffee beans'.

 

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

Social media resistance - taking the Great Leap Forwards

I was very slow to come onto Facebook. I couldn't see the point of it. I had tried a couple of blogs but it just seemed a little pointless. But when I was approaching directing Macbeth my friend Mel set up an event for actors to audition, and this was a huge success.  Within 6 months I was at 300 friends on FB, had a lil Green Patch and was kidnapping complete strangers.

I have a number of friends who are sort of on FB but not really, some who toy with LinkedIn as it's serious, and others who refuse to take Twitter seriously. Many of my age group aren't involved as there is a generational issue, it's more GenY than X and of the Xs I see involved a lot of those are born after 1970.  I've talked to a few peeps about Social media (which is a crap name but there you go) and there are a few issues which keep coming up:

- it's just silly

- I can use the phone or email

- I spend enough time on the computer already

- I'd rather meet people in person

- it's not real

 

Lookign at my experience 'it's not real' seems to me the key to Social Media participation.

And what I think it really means is something related to paradigm shift.  SM, blogging, vloggin, FB, etc... is a different way of looking at media, connections and indeed society.

We're in the middle of a revolution so big we can't see it sometimes. We're going from mass media, print and TV, and society to a new way of getting information, connecting to people, publishing. selling and indeed being.

At one end most urban people under 25 expect to be near a screen all the time.  The screen connects them and is as much part of their life as the local shops and schools and work. It's not a tool, it's a given part of their world.  They don't want to read newspapers or go to meetings or ... whatever. You get music, people, entertainment, learning etc.. If  we don't have adverts and publishing on-line we're not going to reach people - we won't be part of their world.

Last weekend I addressed a national group of reps for a voluntary org I'm on the board of.  I mentioned for our information campaign later in 2010 I'm planning to use social media and web advertising.  it didn't go down well. Some people were fine but many saw it as a waste of time and not a real thing to spend time on.

The resistance I find is from peeps who just don't know how it works, can't see any benefits and can't understand because of the old paradigm is so different. To 'get it' there is a shift into a new way of viewing the world.  I've gone from fear and mistrust to excitement about what is possible. I had an AHA moment. And it started for me because Facebook helped me achieve something. And that was just over 2 years ago.  My suggestion is if you want to introduce people to the virtual world - show them something that can benefit them that they can understand.

My passion has grown as I have followed the rise in web traffic and advertising and engaged in Twitter and sourced suppliers and got contacts for a range of projects. I'm still hesitant to try new things but taking the leap - initially rationalised as learning more for my PR work - has had huge benefits.

Not bad for a grumpy old bastard.

 

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

Son of Not buying it

Another thing I avoid is products made in China. It's not about quality, or price but more about a feeling of unease that just about all the things I eat, plug in, wear, watch or read are made in the same country, which isn't here.  I'm sure the Chinese are wonderful people: kind to animals, nice to elderly grandparents, like outings, walks on the beach, want to make love not war, but the economic impact of 90% of NZ's goods coming from one nation seems unwise.

Actually I do have reservations about the Chinese political system and their growing regional and international dominance, but I spose if they are hell bent on world domination economic domination is not as bad as military options. Given we're probably living in the last days of the European empire and the Asian one is just starting we need to expect some form of change.

So when I'm shopping I don't buy peanut butter made in China (most of it is), or any food products, and try to avoid clothes made there.Although I know the T shirt I have on is from China - but try buying one in NZ that isn't!  Again pointless gestures as Jayden and Allisa NuZilan are buying all this stuff and don't care, but as I said last time- we're told economically an individual makes a difference (excuse me while I try not to snort my tea back up).

Next post may be Revenge of Not Buying it, an impassioned treatise on why everyone should avoid the gift shop round the road.

 

 

 

 

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

Not buying it

I was at uni in the days of the student left and when we needed to be politically sound - which came before being politically correct.  We 'had' to boycott all South African products and the shops they were sold in, anything from Chile, anything deemed sexist or racist by 'us', products which were made in Asia and by a range of companies.  It was tough and a high standard was expected of those of us who described ourselves as progressive. One guy I knew unknowingly went to a bar that had once had women jelly wrestlers and was hauled over the coals and ostracised.  The personal was political and everything you said and did was subject to scrutiny.

Aside from some Animal Rights and vegetarian groups I haven't heard much of this sort of blacklisting and boycotts in recent years. 

Undeterred I have maintained by own one-person list of protests and boycotts. Some are noble and just, some of them are just a little twisted and others are inconsistent and silly.

The Mobil Petrol station on the site of the Sure to Rise Bakery - The former Edmonds site was bought and the iconic building demolished for a large forecourt and a Mobil petrol station. I used to live 2 minutes away and I never bought petrol there.  AND it failed and closed.  I liked to think the site was cursed but the Couplands Bakery and Raewards Fruit and Vege shops there now are doing well I see.

Cadbury Chocolate - it's not about palm kernels but more that we have locally owned chocolate companises and Whittakers seems worth supporting. Also the shrinking of the bars, adding cardboard and charging the same price is just far too cynical.  Not that I buy big bars of chocolate...

The Absolutely Fabulous Bookshop in the Mall between Hereford and High Streets - the bookshop with the least understanding of customer service and the lowest level of imagination I've ever seen, from the ripped-off name, misspelt signs, the questionable use of copyrighted images to the mean lowspirited of the owner who would refused to talk to you unless you bought something.  I went there a few times and was a little grumpy about the way she treated me and other customers, the final visit was when I was going to buy a few things but first asked first about a product, she ignored me and walked away. That business too closed.

Eggs which aren't free range - a no brainer really, yes they cost more, but really.

Foreign-owned options - see chocolate but if there's an NZ-owned option I'll usually take that unless quality is way too low or price really far too high, it's about jobs.This goes for tinned goods, packaged goods, power companies, TV, appliances (buy Goldair) and retail chains.This is why I almost always shop at New World or PakNSave - I don't like the idea of NZ workers being exploited by Aussie companies when we can do that ourselves.  One exception; Telstra over Telecom an historical anomoly and I sometimes swap between news to catch John Campbell or Nightline.

Union Carbide products - they used to own Eveready and Glad and I began boycotting them due to the Bhopal disaster in India which 25 years later remains the worst industrial accident ever (20,000 dead!).

Westpac Bank - it was Westpac that began charging for EFtPos transactions for customers from other banks, leading to them all doing the same. Thanks Westpac for a great contribution to banking.

Non-South Island cheese - misguided but makes choosing easier.

Nes- anything (including Maggi, Wonka, Friskies and Kraft) - There's something about Nestle. Maybe it's they made us change how they say their name or turning Qick into NesQuik, or maybe it's their questionable labour practises, supposed connections to Mugabe and accusations around infant milk in Africa and South America.

Snickers Bars - some years ago they had a TV ad about someone fasting to raise awareness on poverty but then confronted with a Snickers the activist gave up the protest.  To me this was insulting on so many levels and also has a corporate 'Nyah nyah na na nah!' to anyone who believes in anything.  I don't eat many chocolate bars so this boycott isn't too hard.

Futile I know but we've been led to believe that even if one of us takes a stand it does make a difference. Actually I really don't buy that, but it's good to feel I'm not buying something for ethical or moral reasons.

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

Who owns your brand?

I've done a lot of 'brand' work over the last 15 years and what I love about it is it's about identity. I find organisations fascinating and often thought if I ever did formal study again I'd want to look at organisations - identity, culture, and how they are more than the sum of their parts.  Organisations include businesses, ngos, nations, families and any place where people join together as an entity. 

Many people are fascinated with personal identity - which explains the popularity of horoscopes, blogs, personality quizzes and so on.  In organisations a lot of these quizzes about personal working styles (Jane is a harmonising finisher and Peter is a competitve explorer etc...) seem to be about working out who's the hands or fingers, who's the spleen, who's the brain and who's part of the digestive tract. In my experience in large organisations the digestive tracts are particularly large.

What is interesting is while I have spent a lot of time concerned with managing perceptions of  brands it has become clear to me that no organisation I have worked for has ever owned their brand.  Likewise with personal brands, you can choose how you want to be perceived and work toward it but really you never do own it.

I've not done any searches on this and I know it's not going to be a brand new (ho ho) observation, but it seems to me that the brand is owned by the audiences.  I realised that because that's where I go to measure brand equity. In other words, in case this isn't clear, if I'm measuring perceptions of people who are customers, or staff to measure the brand the brand actually held by those customers or staff. 

Same with personal brand I might think I'm a nice guy but if everyone says I'm an arse, what am I?

So brand managers are really stylists and the audiences are the judges.You can say something about your organisation over and over, but if the customer doesn't believe it it's not true.

 

Posted via web from SamNZed's posterous

Basket case economy

Had a chat with a good friend the other day, when I say chat it was a series of tweets, but the issue was one thing that holds us both back from blogging is not knowing enough sometimes to be authoritative. That is commenting on stuff we really don't know enough about.  So with that in mind and noting I do realise I am not an expert on very much here is my postulations about the NZ economy.

I love New Zealand.  I love Christchurch where I live. What I have noted, during my lifetime, is the gradual but consistent lowering of the standard of living of New Zealanders.  New Zealand has not had a real balance of payments surplus since 1973 - here are some tables on our economy http://www.reservebank.govt.nz/statistics/econind/ 

I'm not going to argue this - while there have been some years where exports have exceeded imports any surplus has been wiped out by repatriation of profit to foreign owned businesses.

So what I have seen is the removal of businesses and production overseas, increases in foreign ownership, a decline in both the standard of living, wage rates, jobs and NZ slipping in the OECD rankings.  Our regions are getting less prosperous and the number of corporates and head offices shrinks in all our regions (except maybe Auckland but they are moving overseas). Also we're producing more theatre, communications and media graduates than we are biotechnology graduates.

Meanwhile no NZ Govt has really had the analysis, the guts or the will to develop an economic and regional development strategy since 1973. 

I freely admit I am overstating this -but not by too much.

So more another time, but it does bother me.

Posted via email from SamNZed's posterous