A rockin' good read
Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.
In this week’s issue: a rockin’ good read, kitchen creative, white men can plug shoes, running the numbers, God bless you, Mr Vonnegut, dig the supporting act and the quote of the week.
A rockin’ good read
It’s time to introduce you to another great new Idealog. This issue starts and ends with rock’n’roll—from up-and-coming Christchurch band The Dukes to our parting shot highlighting the talent backstage at a Blam Blam Blam gig. In between we talk to Richard Branson about his career from the Sex Pistols to outer space, share the inside story on how two Kiwi scientists are rewriting the way New Zealand science does business, and PJ O’Rourke discovers where good ideas are likely to come from.
We’re not the first publication to report on the demise of Silverscreen, the creative powerhouse that essentially invented the local ad production industry, but we’ve talked to some of the main characters including founder Geoff Dixon. It’s an intriguing tale of glittering highs and desperate lows and is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how a creative enterprise can lose its way—and a reminder of the company’s enduring legacy.
Silverscreen’s time is over, but the television is being reinvented and there’s no shortage of opportunity for creative Kiwis. We look at how the humble telly has moved onto phones, computer desktops and gadgets of all sorts, and how screen producers are changing the way they make television and new ways of selling content overseas and at home.
There’s plenty more—including more rock’n’roll. Local music fixture Mark Roach has been photographing Kiwi musos for years from a privileged position onstage and has caught some great shots of our artists at work. Check out his photo feature in the new issue of Idealog and soon you’ll be able to check the shots out online too—and add your own comments. We’re putting Mark’s photos on a wiki and inviting Kiwi music fans to share their thoughts and anecdotes about the artists and the gigs.
Of course, it wouldn’t really be rock’n’roll without a discordant note and we have that too. Vincent Heeringa has looked at our economic progress over the last few years and found … well, there isn’t any, really. All the goodwill and great intentions that came to the fore at the Knowledge Wave are pretty much forgotten and most Kiwis don’t realise we need to reverse the trend if we want to be able to afford the things we want like, say, roads. Or tax cuts. Or health care. It’s a bleak story, but if you care about our economic future you’ll want to read it. We’ll be discussing this further on our website and look forward to hearing your feedback and solutions.
Check out Idealog #9 for all this and much more, including new columnists writing on fashion, biotech, movies and TV and a whole raft of creative Kiwis doing inspiring things. Idealog #9 will on newsstands on Monday and subscribers should get it over the weekend.
Kitchen creative
Who needs a flash website when you have a whiteboard? Well, actually, Miranda July doesn’t have a whiteboard, but she’s got a completely unique and clever website. (Even the web gurus at 37Signals are impressed.)
White men can plug shoes
If you’ve ever felt in your darkest moments that perhaps you haven’t Got Game, the good news is that merely by strapping on the product of a well-known sports shoe manufacturer, you too can be the king of three courts at once. At least, we think that’s what this advertisement says.
That looks fun, but if you really want to see some kick-ass basketball tricks, you need to find yourself a skateboarder. One wearing a completely different brand of sports shoe, as it happens.
Running the numbers
Explaining scale visually is always a challenge, but Chris Jordan appears to have it down to an art form—literally. For his ‘Running the numbers: an American self-portrait’ series, Jordan assembles everyday items into patterns on some large canvases; take a close look, and you appreciate the individual items; step back, and the sheer size of consumer culture becomes apparent. If you ever wondered what 426,000 cellphones (the number “retired” in the US each day) looks like, now you know. You won’t feel so bad about the cellphones, though, when you see how many plastic bags Americans use every five seconds.
 Blackbox M14 noise cancelling headphones represent the finest Kiwi innovation and ingenuity. Designed for the frequent traveller, the M14 boasts the latest advanced noise cancellation technology from Phitek Systems, blocking up to 92% of background noise. Imagine being able to perfectly hear the in-flight movie! The Blackbox M14 connects to your mp3 player, PC or handheld and is great value at $379. More …
God bless you, Mr Vonnegut
RIP, Kurt Vonnegut.
Dig the supporting act
A selection of upcoming events over the next week: the Morriston Orpheus Choir in Christchurch, ‘Maui: One Man Against The Gods’ in Auckland and the Middlemarch Singles Dance in, well, Middlemarch.
But the highlight has to be the visit of a British band with the very un-British name of Gomez, not least because of the choice of supporting act: our very own singer of songs, the wonderful Wayne Anderson. Gomez and Wayne play Christchurch on Tuesday, Wellington on Thursday and Auckland on Friday.
Check out Idealog’s events guide, Agenda, online and in print. Anyone can add an event to Agenda—just fill out the form on our website.
Quote of the week
“Fail early and fail cheap”
—Advice for startups from Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who started a biotech company in her garage with 10,000 rupees in 1978. Now her company is a biotech giant and Mazumdar-Shaw is India’s richest woman. Obviously she hasn’t failed too often, then; read the rest of her tips in Idealog #9
More at Idealog online
Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, Idealog IP, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.
Matt Cooney
Editor
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