A site for sore eyes

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

A site for sore eyes

It’s faster, it’s easier to navigate, and it’s prettier. Yes, it’s the new, souped-up idealog.co.nz, now celebrating its fourth day in public. It’s also now much easier to add your own Idealog Directory listings. Hundreds of New Zealand’s most creative companies and people are already listed in the directory, and we’re always looking for more. Directory listings are free—hey, we want the world to know what you’re doing—so take a few minutes and sign up now.

If you’re an Idealog subscriber you get an enhanced listing—highlighted and placed in multiple categories. If you’re not a subscriber, we reckon you should be. It’s just $45.60 (sometimes cheaper) and it’s a breeze at idealog.co.nz/subs.

Rising to the occasion

Traditionally, wheelchairs are designed for getting around, but Samuel Gibson and co-inventor Campbell Easton dreamed up a wheelchair that lifts and allows the rider to do things most of us take for granted—like wash dishes, use an ATM machine, grab tins from the high shelf at the supermarket and—most importantly—look people in the eye during conversation.

Okay, so the EziRiser is a handy machine, but it has another feature that kids especially will love: it’s one tricked-out ride. “Being in a wheelchair, you get a lot of attention,” Gibson tells Lauren Bartlett in the latest Idealog. “I wanted to turn that into a positive thing—especially for kids, so they can be proud of the ride they’re in.” So what’s the one big downside? Find out in Lauren’s story, now on our website.

Our man in San Fran

Ben Kepes is at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, taking in events, things and people at the monstrous Moscone Centre. Being Ben, he’s blogging about schwag. Oh yes.

Pretty picture

At Xero, the end of the financial year is the time to add customers, and March 2009 was a doozie. Rod Drury published this chart of customer growth on the Xero blog this week, and it’s a thing of beauty. I don’t think many people realise just how ambitious Xero is, and although 6,000 customers is just a step on a long road, when you can add 1,600 customers in a month, you’re on your way. Roll on March 2010.

Job of the Week

Business Manager — Digital (P0494)

International agency • Work with a highly skilled management team • Entrepreneurial acumen required

Our client is looking for a Business Manager to join their interactive team. You may have worked in the interactive/digital industry or within the wider creative industry in a similar role. You will have a significant business skill set, be financially astute along with having a solid business acumen for company growth.

You will be insightful and have the energy and enthusiasm to continue the outstanding continual growth that this agency has been experiencing.

This role will work alongside the management team to advise on best possible means of achieving business objectives; write and prepare concise presentations to a high standard, along with identifying opportunities to develop accounts with specific regard to digital activity.

If you feel this is the right next step for you, please send your details to Louise Lawton at Portfolio Recruitment on 09 379-9303, or apply on our website.

Improve your tennis (with Photoshop)

Layer Tennis is a simple and brilliant game where two designers take turns ‘volleying’ a design. But the most recent bout, between Jason Santa Maria and Derek Powazek—both Webstock veterans—took on some extra pressure when Powazek twittered this message: “A warning to @jasonsantamaria - my last Layer Tennis competitor wound up marrying me. Just saying.”

Forewarned is forearmed. Santa Maria arrived equipped with his Layer Tennis cheat sheet, and managed to win the match and avoid nuptials with his opponent. He’s posted each volley and some commentary on his website.

The next Layer Tennis match—Simon Cook vs Rex Crowle—starts in a few hours.

Who knew?

This, the third edition of the inspired ‘Did you know …’ infographic videos, contains plenty of stuff that’s surprising, illuminating, thought-provoking and that I indeed did not know. I did know, however, that Fatboy Slim is great’n’all, but something a bit less well-known would make a better soundtrack.

Check out the earlier versions too. (via Cool Infographics)

Tickety-boo

The Phoenix Foundation comprises six musos, five of them bearded to some extent. They’re now announcing their first full New Zealand tour since 2007, starting April 14 at the Mussel Inn, Golden Bay, and ending at the Sawmill Cafe up in Leigh.

That’s cool, but it’s also nice to see way-cool listings site Eventfinder selling the tickets itself, taking on the big boys: Ticketek and Ticketmaster. Well done.

Dust off your ideas

It’s time again for the James Dyson Award, the ninth year in running. Attention, emerging inventors, engineers and product designers with inspiring new design ideas: head over to the website and enter.

The award is open to final year tertiary students studying in the areas of design, technology or engineering, and to graduates in these areas who are in their first five years in the work force.

Judges are seeking innovative design concepts that provide solutions for everyday problems. Previous award submissions include a bamboo crutch for amputees in Third-World countries, a digital talking book for the blind, a practical yet stylish skateboarding shoe with a replaceable outer shell and washable inner, and a man-overboard lifesaving device.

The winner gets a trip to to the UK with $3,000 prize money and accommodation in London and will meet key members of the UK design community, including a tour of Dyson’s world class design facility. Plus, there’s another $3,000 in legal or business advice from Auckland firm Farry and Co, an official fee prize package from IPONZ tailored to their design’s intellectual property needs, and a year’s membership to DINZ.

But there’s more: for the first time, all New Zealand entries will be in the running for the national People’s Choice Award, and the international James Dyson Award, with £10,000 to the global winner, and another £10,000 to the winner’s university to fund future design education projects.

Entries close on Monday, 15 June, and the winner will be announced at an award ceremony in Auckland in July.

Relativity and violins

Don’t miss this: in a unique duet of lecture and concert, Professor Brian Foster of Oxford University and UK violinist Jack Liebeck explore Einstein’s life, his involvement with music, and the way his ideas have shaped our concepts of space, time and the evolution of the Universe.

As well as Einstein’s famous theory of relativity, Professor Foster discusses the discovery of radioactivity and how that led, through the development of particle accelerators, to the foundation of quantum mechanics. The lecture also outlines other modern ideas that are built on the work of Einstein, including the evolution of the Universe after the Big Bang. Mixing it up, the lecture also has musical interludes related to Einstein, including Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, some of Einstein’s favourite music.

Auckland and Palmerston North have already been musically lectured, but here are the remaining dates:

Wellington: 7pm Friday, April 3 at Soundings Theatre, Te Papa Museum, Cable Street

Nelson: 7pm Saturday, April 4 at Waimea College, Salisbury Road, Richmond

Christchurch: 7.30pm Tuesday, April 7 at Great Hall, The Arts Centre, Worcester Boulevard

Dunedin: 7pm Wednesday, April 8 at St David Lecture Theatre, Cnr St David & Cumberland Streets

Meet the luvvies

Next Thursday, Aucklanders can head down to ASB Theatre at the Aotea Centre, The Edge, for a free question and answer session with actors Josh Hamilton, currently starring in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, and Simon Russell Beale from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.

Part of The Edge International Arts Season and hosted by Silo Theatre’s artistic director Shane Bosher, the Artist Talk with Hamilton and Beale is on April 9 from 5.15 to 6pm. Stalls only, seating subject to availability.

Quote of the week

“As my father used to say: ‘Everyone’s an environmentalist until the power goes out’. Which is where Sustainability 2.0 comes in. Our sustainable future should be cast as exciting and bountiful instead of dull and limited. It should be about innovation, growth and solutions, not cutbacks and reductions”

—Peter Salmon, chief executive of Moxie Media Group, reckons green need not be grim

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
  Ideologue, Weekly