SMElly and happy

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

It was a dark and stormy night

Things went boom and kablowie outside in the dark, as hoons failed to negotiate fallen trees in the road. As the rainfall intensified, house owners discovered that prices weren’t the only form of slipping and sliding affecting their properties. All at sea, transfixed boaties rued the day when moor became less and vessels had to be waved goodbye to in the fiery tempest and hurled on the rocks.

But, enough’s enough. Can haz less wind and rain now, plz?

SMElly and happy

Happiness is a warm, successful business; we know that. Does it need to be high risk and high growth though? That’s not at all sure. Read more about entrepreneurs being happy with the three Bs: a Beemer, Bach and Boat—and their search for peace and pleasantness—on our website.

Lord luvva LED

Here’s an urgent design challenge: how to stop your gadgets from twinkling up your room like the Franklin Road Christmas Lights. Some mobile phones have small but incredibly bright LEDs that blink incessantly. You cannot stop them from blinking, and boy, are they visible in dark hotel rooms when you’re trying to sleep. Turning the phone upside down makes the surface it’s on light up in a UFO-like manner, and putting it away in the drawer means you won’t hear the alarm in the morning. Needs fixing, this.

The essence of Cuil

Google’s great and Google’s good, it searches the intarweb like it should. So what’s wrong with that? Well, Google is a little too good. It’s not healthy to have dominant player like that as the main portal through which information on the Internet is stored—and advertising dollars are made.

So far, apart from Yahoo, nobody’s been able to get close to Google. Enter Cuil, formed by two former Google employees, a good amount of venture capital and armed with what’s claimed to be the biggest index in the world.

Cuil could have been a success, but seems to have made the classic mistake of over-hyping before launch, only to take a major prat-fall when it was time to put up. They even got the name badly wrong. There’s a lesson to be learnt there.

Clean Billions

So, you’re awash with green ideas but not sure how to realise them. You could do worse than attending the Clean Billions symposium on August 18.

Speakers include Stephen Tindall and David Williams of Eco2 in Wales, who will talk about his £400 million plans for renewable energy in the UK, plus many more.

There are only 98 breakfast seats, so hurry up and RSVP if you want one. Head over to New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development’s website for more details or email office@nzbcsd.org.nz to reserve your seat.

Monkey Magic

Messieurs Hewlett and Albarn created this animation for BBC Sport’s new Olympics coverage campaign. Here’s hoping the Chinese won’t censor it.

Te Reo podcasts

AUT is doing its bit for Maori language, by publishing podcasts of exercises and examples that were previously only available through textbooks and audio cassette tapes.

The podcats came about through a partnership between AUT’s Faculty of Maori Development and Apple Computer. Listen to them here.

Halking Teads

Bit Freudian, those tongue-slips.

Quote of the week

“Money is a means to an end, not the end itself.”

—Ed Vos on the secret that drives our SMEs.

More at Idealog online

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

  Juha Saarinen
  A fine pinelog