Don't speak

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

AND THE WINNER of the most embarrassing Christmas story is … Angela Haines.

Actually, we’re not sure if we’d be embarrassed if our champagne cork hit the fluorescent light above the table, despatching large shards of glass at speed into every guest’s turkey meal, but we’d certainly be pissed off. And in great need of a beer. So the first Heineken keg goes to you Angela—glad to do our bit to keep you away from the champagne.

We’re counting down 2007 by giving away a mini keg each week. To win Mini Keg Number Two, tell us your best idea of the year (by November we’re all out of our own). And tell your mates to subscribe to Idealog Weekly for their free beer updates.

Don’t speak

Ad planner James Hurman loves strong silent types, especially when they’re brands. ‘Shut up and show us’ is the message in his aptly-titled marketing article, ‘Blah, blah, blah’. So we’ll shut up so you can read it—or listen to it, even, as James has put together a Flash version of his story too. Easy on the eyes and the ears.

The twisted tower

The folks at Popular Science have announced their best ideas of 2007, and their Engineering Grand Award Winner is a corker—or it looks like one anyway. The soon-to-be tallest residential building in the world is designed to reduce street-level wind by directing it upward, with a clockwise twist at each of its 150 floors. We think it’s the greatest looking corkscrew we’ve ever seen. If you, on the other hand, see a resemblance to any other household gadget, the observation is yours alone. We’re not that kind of newsletter.

Those strange accountants

Make it work for the accountants. That’s some of the advice dished out by Kent Sneddon, head of design at Methven, the shower and tap company the fashion company that specialises in ‘shower experiences’. Kent was the guest speaker at the fourth event in the AUT-Idealog Innovation Series. He encouraged designers to make customers as happy as the company bean-counters. “Don’t be afraid to compromise,” he said. There’s a bit more to it than that, of course—check out Vincent Heeringa’s blog entry about the event.

Green Christmas

The famous symbol of consumerism, The Rockefeller Christmas Tree, has just become an 84-foot beacon of energy conservation. Or so New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says, anyway. Bloomberg hopes replacing the old bulbs with 30,000 energy-saving lights will inspire the millions of tree gawkers to “make greener choices in their own lives”. We hope that doesn’t mean chomping through 1,297 kilowatts an hour, like the Rockefeller tree still consumes. Still, one small step for a tree, one giant step for ‘Kyoto-who?’ America.

Bright pretty thing

You may have heard of the Optimus Keyboard—the one designed for human-magpie hybrids with individual LED screen keys—but have you seen it in all its bedazzling glory? If you type and drive, it’s time to quit.

Dressing up & hunting for treasure

Wellingtonians have a great excuse to dress up next Wednesday night at the Dress for Success event. The ultimate hand-up-not-hand-out charity, Dress for Success provides people in need with an interview outfit, so they can buy their own wardrobes in the future. But it’s not all giving, you can wear the new Jo Luping jewellery and deNada designer clothing ranges home, or some of it anyway.

Go hunting for treasures at the Auckland City Library. No metaphors intended: Real Gold is a collection of our country’s most precious literary gems, including a First Folio of Skakespeare, medieval illuminated manuscripts, maps and sketches of early Auckland, Maori language manuscripts, Isaac Newton’s Optiks and letters from Florence Nighingale to Sir George Grey.

Quote of the week

“What [some] companies understand is that Montaigne was right. Actions do speak louder than words, and if as a company you can Do Things in a creative and differentiating way, you’ll outperform companies that merely Say Things, no matter how creative and differentiating their messages.”

—James Hurman, man of action

More at Idealog online

Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, creative directory, workshop pages, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.

  Gena Tuffery
  Senior writer

Idealog Weekly is sent to friends, subscribers and registered website users of Idealog magazine.