With the passing of Ted Kennedy, I think it is worth remembering what I think are three of the best delivered lines of spoken word of the 20th century. From his eulogy for Bobby Kennedy:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life;
to be remembered simply as a good and decent man,
who saw wrong and tried to right it,
saw suffering and tried to heal it,
saw war and tried to stop it.

Video:

A couple of months ago I left my position at Ponoko, handing over to the highly capable Josh (aka Mr Judkins). It was quite emotional leaving Ponoko, *sniff*. We were in Argentina at the time and Sarah suggested it would be a good idea to take a couple of months off once we got to London.

“And do what exactly?” I said.

“Whatever you want!” came the rather apt reply…

I got to chew on that chestnut while we continued traveling around Argie. The two big reaffirmations for were: 1) I love the web, still… and 2) I love to create. Then I had an idea I knew I wanted to work on followed by another and another.

So here’s the first, AcornHq:

AcornHq is, in a sentence, a carbon offset site for iPod and iPhone users.

At the very core the idea was to promote more environmentally responsible gadget ownership. To start with this means we provide an easy way for people to offset the carbon associated with their iPod or iPhone.

We all love our iPods and iPhones but they do have a very real cost to the environment. Carbon is emitted when your iPod is manufactured, when your iPod is transported from the factory to you, and when you use power to recharge your iPod. How that power is generated to recharge your iPod also has a huge impact. Think hydro vs. coal…

So you come to AcornHq and join a tree by purchasing a leaf, for US$3.50. Once all the leaves on that tree have been taken, we plant a tree in the South Island to offset those iPods. Trees being most excellent at extracting and absorbing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

You can then place your tree on your website and watch it fill up with leaves as more people join it. Also, when the trees we plant reach the end of their life, the plan is for any timber produced by the trees to go into community housing projects.

This is just the start and I’m quite excited about everything else to follow but do have a look and let me know what you think!

–

A big public thank you to my lovely wifey for helping me wrap my brain around this idea and asking the hard but essential questions. Thanks to Olmec Sinclair too for his hard work which has ultimately allowed me to realise this idea.

This is the first of (what I hope will be) three or four wee projects you’ll see from me in the next couple of months.

P.S. Argentina has to be one of the most insanely great countries in the world, you really should go visit. It’s a total Lovemark for me - hope to go back to live one day.

A few months ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Simon Young for his iJumpTV podcast. A few weeks ago Simon put the interview up:

This was my first interview and it was a lot of fun to do. Watching it was quite a bit tougher - I think some media training wouldn’t go amiss…

If you haven’t checked out the iJump podcast you really should. It going to be a great record of online Kiwi’s years down the track. And if you need help making sense of social media talk to Simon and Marie!

Update: this is the quote/slide from Heather Champ I referred to. (Hattip Sue)

Sarah and I are leaving Wellington today. Yay!

We’re flying to Santiago today, then onto Buenos Aires in a few days and I can’t wait. After that we’re then going up to Sao Paulo where we’re going to be spending the next few months - and I’m still working for Ponoko.

If you’re over that way look us up. Otherwise see you in San Fran or London later in 2009!

I’m going to miss Wellington. Bye!

As a community manager one thing you never have a shortage of is email. It forms a huge part of my average day.

So by extension I get to see a lot of away/out-of-office messages. This one I received just this week and it’s my absolute favorite:

Subject: He’s gone, real gone

Body: Hi! I’m on a humanitarian mission to rid the vacation resorts in and around Tulum, Mexico of cell phones and Tequila.

I should be returning to the world of the working somewhere around September 19th.

If you need to get in touch with me, I suggest carrier pigeons or a hand-written note in a bottle, dropped in the gulf of Mexico. I will likely not be responsive to anyone who is not offering me some sort of appropriate beverage in person until I return.

Cheers, and safe travels to all.

Totally going to plaigarise that the next time I need an away message…

Sign up forms really do need to die. And yet its such an ingrained part of our thinking and practice with websites, both as users and as webbies. This certainly isn’t a new topic but it’s a great one to think about because it can have such a huge impact on our users’ experience.

One of the better articles you can read on this subject is an excerpt posted on A List Apart from LukeW’s semi-recent book: Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks. I have to quote the opening paragraph:

I’ll just come out and say this: sign-up forms must die. [You’ve] stumbled upon or been recommended to a web service. You arrive eager to dive in and start engaging and what’s the first thing that greets you? A form.

The simple question is why does your service need to know information like your birthday or last name to allow you to post a video or start a blog or to play a game or whatever? Why not allow your users to get stuck in, see the value of using your service, and only ask for the info when it is needed to advance the task or experience?

One of the best examples I’ve seen of this recently was Posterous. Consider their homepage:

I love the: “Skip it! No setup or signup”. Posterous is seriously cool - it can even tie in with your blog to make it super simple to email anything to your blog. Give it a go now, just email: post@posterous.com

As soon as you start thinking about how gradual engagement could work for your service you’ll start to feel like you’ve been freed from some kind of web-oppressor. We’re working on something really neat at Ponoko (launch is very close) following these rules. I can’t wait.

A big thanks to Jeffrey for helping make me passionate about the use and abuse of forms.

I was surprised and chuffed to see my groovy Stiletto Laptop Stand get a quick review on CNet by Michelle Thatcher:

It’s bad enough that my vacation’s over, but the sudden withdrawal of natural materials is really bringing me down. Which is why the wooden Stiletto laptop stand spoke to me…

The basic design idea, or brief, came from my father who wanted some laptop stands for his mobile computer suite. We spent the better part of a weekend designing and cutting out prototypes (5 in total) before we arrived at the finished and perfected result.

It’s another great example of what’s possible with Ponoko. Not only can we help you create a truly original and personal piece but we can help expose it to the rest of the world. Brilliant.

I can’t work without mine now and I’m slowly converting the others in the office. If anyone would like one of these stands, let me know, I’ll give you a special Umamiblog discount.

Update:  And another quick review on PopGadget - “The Stiletto is a laptop stand with style”

Tomorrow I’m faced with the joy of having all four of my wisdom teeth (or mandibular third molars) removed. Given the option of being knocked out with a general anaesthetic or having a local + sedative I opted for the (much) cheaper option. So sedative it is!

Apparently I’ll “be very calm, you might not even remember it”. Perfect.

So for those who’ve already had it done. What’s it actually like? As bad as they say it is? Any tips on slushy foods for afterwards? Luckily, nurse Sarah is free these days to take care of me.

Imagine it’s lunch-time. You’re sitting at your desk stuffing your face with some kind of nutrition-less processed snack and you think to yourself: “Ooh, I better check my bank balance”.

Trawling through your credit card transactions, buried between Hell Pizza and numerous iTunes charges, you see:

80000 TANITIM ILETISIM ISTANBUL (27.06 Turkish Lira)

Simultaneous thoughts of “Oh crap” & “WTF!?” rush through your brain. Followed immediately by: “How’d they get my credit card? I better ring the bank, reverse the charge, and get a new card…”

Then suddenly you remember. Could TANITIM ILETISIM ISTANBUL be Itself, that cute t-shirt site you bought a t-shirt from last week? A quick email to their support team answered my question in the positive. Phew.

The review:

The good
Itself is a well designed site that is clean and visually appealing. The checkout process is easy to complete and they’ve definitely thought about most of the interactions users are going to have with them and worked to make them simple. Given how much Threadless has led the charge in this area it’s not surprising to see others follow.

I do like the t-shirts they offer and the fact they’ve limited it to only a handful of designs. Itself’s shipping costs to NZ were quite reasonable and they definitely out perform Threadless when it comes to packaging - beautiful in comparison. Their comms and support are also very good - for instance they don’t charge you until your t-shirt has been shipped.

The bad
The whole credit card charging scenario I went through above is a major let down for Itself. I felt they weren’t upfront about being a Turkish company or what I could expect to see on my credit card bill. I just don’t understand why companies don’t charge with their brand name!?

It’s not an issue about Itself being Turkish, the problem is purely that my expectations are that when I order a t-shirt in US Dollars from a .com English language website, then I’m going to expect to see a US-based charge. Not an Istanbul charge in Turkish Lira with a name I don’t recognise! Seriously Itself has no idea how close they came to having the transaction reversed/canceled.

The t-shirts themselves are ok - but they’re the kind of t-shirts that only look good on people who go to the gym. A lot. (If you’re one of those people then this won’t be a bad thing…) This is purely a style call.

Here’s the actual t-shirt I bought. Love the simplicity quote so had to have the tee:

Wee note: Part of the reason I’m posting this is in case anyone else has the same freak-out when seeing their credit card and Google’s the charge name. If that’s you, do leave a comment…

Busker (puts down guitar, pulls out ciggies): I bet you I make more money during my smoko break than I do actually playing… because that’s HOW STUPID PEOPLE ARE!!

- Opera House Lane

Interesting reading yesterday, I thought, with the following title on Stuff: Pacific migrants ‘drain on economy’.To be perfectly honest, when I read that I thought what’s our beloved Foreign Minister up to now?

However the article is about a study conducted by one of Massey University’s Economists, Greg Clydesdale, on the “significant and enduring under-achievement” of NZ’s Polynesian immigrants and the problems that presents to NZ as a whole.

To quote the article:

Issued last week, the document says Polynesians are less productive and less likely to contribute to economic growth. They have the highest unemployment in every age group, are less likely to start businesses and have lower rates of self-employment.

Polynesians are over-represented in crime statistics and have higher rates of convictions and prosecutions. They are also more likely to be victims of violent crime. They are more likely to need Government assistance for housing and income.

It helps me confirm a thought I’ve had for a while that, as a country, we have quite a lot at stake in terms of the quality of life and education in our neighbouring Polynesian nations. We do contribute a lot of aid already, but China is generally surpassing us as it works to increase its influence in the Pacific, and I think we need to do more.

It’s in our best interests to invest in public education in Polynesian nations. We, as a country, would benefit as much, if not more, than the nations we were investing in. Better education and quality of life fights each of the negative points in the quote above - something that would benefit New Zealand and every single Polynesian nation. It would improve productivity, contribute more to economic growth, increase employability, reduce the over-repesentation in crime, and reduce reliance of Govt assistance.

Naturally, there would be a lot of issues that would come with any sort of focus or approach like I think I’m suggesting. We need to respect their sovereignty for one. We need to respect their culture and values as another. But I don’t think these are insurmountable especially given 6.9% of NZ’s population are Polynesian - that’s a large pool to draw upon. I imagine a lot of NZ primary and secondary teachers would love to do a ‘tour of duty’ in one of the Islands for instance…

Surely this is an idea worth pursuing?

Update: Had a bit more time to think about this and I think it’s a pretty stupid idea now. How could you, in good faith, subject anyone else to our education system and bureaucracy??

I’m astounded at today’s Fairfax Media poll that suggests almost 3 out of 4 Kiwis think removing GST on food is a good idea. If it is just a reaction to 9 years of unchanging taxation combined with climbing living costs, then it does make some sense.

However, removing GST on food would have to be one of the most counter-productive “solutions” we could come up with for the problems and pressures New Zealanders are feeling today.

Petrol, mortgage/rent, and food form the core of most families’ expenses and all three have risen higher than wage growth for a number of years. Voters also feel overtaxed. They probably should. Govt spending has been of a quality which doesn’t match or justify the current level of taxation (but that is just an opinion of this one voter).

Throw in a resurgent National with this as their main election plank and a finance minister making their job easy and we have today’s situation. I honestly do think that Cullen has good intentions (like Muldoon), but he’s just the wrong person for the job (like Muldoon). Thankfully Cullen likes to horde and spend rather than spend and bankrupt (like Muldoon).

The first problem with removing GST on food is that it’s a really lousy way of helping those who need help the most while reducing revenue for the Govt. It is much more efficient to tax them less in the first place rather than change the rules of GST. This leads directly onto the next problem.

If we remove GST on food, we break the simplicity that is our GST. This would raise compliance costs significantly and this really should be reason enough. Personally I think GST is probably the most efficient and effective method of taxation we have. Businesses know how much money they’ve earned and they know how much they’ve spent - it’s easy to calculate and plan for GST payments. In fact, in my dream world GST would be raised and be the only form of taxation (encourages saving, encourages exporting, Govt revenue tied even more closely to the current health of the economy, etc).

Lastly, if we break the “rule” we have of almost no exceptions to GST then we’re at the mercy of future politicians pandering to voters to exempt further items from GST. What’s next? Would, for instance, the Greens say we should exempt GST on NZ-made goods to further their buy NZ campaign? Would United Future say we should remove GST on anything child-related as part of their focus on families? It would be a rather slippery slope that would only end in higher compliance costs and higher taxation in other areas.

I hope our politicians show some leadership on this point and refuse to make it an issue or to consider it a real option to better the lot of New Zealanders, well-off or not. I’m very interested though, do 3 of my 4 readers think it’s a good idea too?