Dirty secret goes public

Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.

Dirty secret goes public

You may well find ‘green’ annoying, but did you know it’s a dirty word? It is in Clean Gr**n New Zealand anyway. New research shows we’re satisfied with our image, but we cringe when anyone talks about it—much like hungover visits to Colonel Saunders. Lucky for us, there are Clean Keen Kiwis seeking to calm our confusion by marrying perception to reality. The story’s in the new issue out Monday, along with stories about high-tech Maori art, Tokyo style and kiwifruit sweeteners. Finger Lickin’ Page Turnin’. Check out the contents page and list of outlets on our website. Subscribers’ copies are already in the post.

Share the idea

Uncrook that elbow—you don’t have to shield your ideas anymore. This month’s How To shares all you need to know about sharing your ideas—but not the bulk of the profits. If you thought your car licence was important, you haven’t licensed your creativity—better get swatting before you get run over.

Rotochina

The place we think of as stinky is now thought of as stinking rich. A visit to Rotorua gave Chinese property developer Li Shun Xiang such a “good feeling” he went home and named his new gated community Rotorua Town. Located in Nanjing, two hours from Shanghai, the ‘town’ is an upmarket housing compound featuring buildings, gardens and landmarks based on our treasured tourist trap. Lucky for the residents the appropriate finishing touch, Eau de Rotorua, proved too hard to replicate.

Flying pretty

Good news for electric scooter riders—good karma is flying your way. You are about to be rewarded for all your years of cringe endurance with a bit of envy inspiration, in the form of a flying Segway. That’s not its name—that would be Vertipod—but scooter riders have done their time of shame, so ’flying Segway’ it is. Literally. An American company that used to develop weapons for the US government has taken the stand-and-steer platform and upsized it—five to 15 feet above the ground, where you can achieve a top speed of 40mph. With steering achieved by leaning in the right direction, it looks a lot easier to control than the six-figure jet packs we showed you earlier in the year. And cheaper. This petrol or ethanol flying machine will only cost you US$10,000, but when? Sigh. Patience grasshoverers.

Sticky fingers

Hopefully your computer isn’t fried, but that doesn’t mean you can’t adopt a bit of non-stick fry pan technology to it. Philips has developed a one-time coating that will repel dirt, ink and small children—or their fingerprints anyway.

Stick it

If you want to be really in control of your Atari control, you should get yourself one of these and show that computer game platform who’s boss. It probably won’t make you any better at Donkey Kong but you’ll look just like him, if that’s any consolation.

Subscribe and win

To celebrate a great year for New Zealand innovation and as a founding sponsor of Idealog, Baldwins is offering Idealog readers the chance to win one of two Methven Maia® beauty showers.

Baldwins works with many creative companies like Methven and Idealog to develop, manage and protect their intellectual property.

To be in the draw, simply subscribe to Baldwins’ informative newsletter. It’s that easy. Winners will be advised via email in January 2008.

Ideas in the shower

Brainstorms can turn into shower storms—or even beauty therapy, in the case of Methven’s new Satinjet, said company head Kent Sneddon at last week’s Idealog Innovation Series. Let his wisdom rain down on you.

Tasty taster

If you’re gonna be in the Hawke’s Bay over New Years but in Auckland tomorrow, head to Real Groovy on Queen Street for a Rhythm and Vines taster. Not literally, unfortunately, but there are heaps of good pubs in the area.

Dig out your Tiara and head to the Naki. Not as incongruous as it sounds, Elton’s playing one show only at New Plymouth’s Bowl of Brooklands next week.

Oooh almost had a drunk moment—the winner of this week’s Heineken mini-keg is Anne and NZPix. Congratulations! To win next week’s bonus brew, tell us why you need a beer.

Quote of the week

“We don’t lose by giving it away. We benefit, if anything”

—Silverstripe’s Sigurd Magnusson on the money in open source

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.

  Gena Tuffery
  Senior writer

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