Easy Tiger

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

Easy Tiger

Hot of the press and on its way to mailboxes and bookstores everywhere, Idealog #21, ‘The big easy’, gets its head up in cloud computing, analyses the Mountain Buggy failure and has some sport with golfer Michael Campbell. Phil Keoghan of The Amazing Race has a word with us about his Enzed brand endeavours, and Lauren Bartlett is our woman at Wellington’s Havana Coffee Works. That’s not all though—and apologies if this is heading into infomercial territory, but ‘The rise of the smartocracy’, Jamie Cullinane’s story about IQ scores increasing with each generation, looks unputdownable. Author and free-thinker Cory Doctorow gets a look-in too, but that’s all the preview you’ll get. Go forth and get Idealog—on newsstands from Monday—or better yet, subscribe at idealog.co.nz/subs. Not only do you save almost 30%, but you’ll get each issue sooner too.

Imagine that

Congratulations to Team Think from Lincoln University, Christchurch, for winning the New Zealand leg of the Microsoft Imagination Cup 2009. The competition asks students to come up with techie solutions to global issues—heavy-duty things like the environment and education— and really seemed to have fired up people.

The judges were suitably impressed too: when Team Think presented its LearnIT project to help improve literacy rates globally, Carol Lee Andersen from Women In Technology declared it “awesome”.

Seeing all the original thinking that went into the teams’ efforts, it’s impossible to disagree with Andersen. The ideas had to meet some tough criteria, all the way from concept to development, on to usability and deployment, to get to the Imagine Cup Finals last night. I’ve seen many projects in the corporate world that despite being well-funded and resourced weren’t anywhere near as tightly executed as the ones displayed at Imagination Cup.

For example, Team Think not only came up with a simple and elegant solution, but they costed it and worked out how to develop and get the project ready in six months, to be deployed through a not-for-profit organisation. They’ve been talking to UNESCO for grants.

Michael Trengrove, Graham Smart and Chung Ling from Team Think had some tough competition from the other participants, but deserved to win and now go onto compete in the main Imagine Cup event, held in Cairo, Egypt, in July. If they win that, they’ll walk home with US$25, 000 worth of loot.

While the strict requirement to use Microsoft products flies in the face of the company’s much-touted interoperability policy, you have to give the Redmondians full marks nevertheless for the Imagine Cup. It’s in its third year, and has grown to an impressive size—this year, 88 teams in New Zealand alone participated, and Microsoft says worldwide, 250,000 students from 100 countries fancied their chances. From a publicity point of view, the Imagine Cup really hits home. Last year, Gena Tuffery covered the global finals for Idealog in Paris, where a team from Canterbury University performed with some distinction.

It’ll be interesting to see how Microsoft harnesses the enthusiasm and creativity displayed on Wednesday night, and also how much of that filters up the management chain at the software giant. ‘Harness’ is probably the wrong word to use here, because creativity is not something you capture and keep locked up.

Either way, good luck in Cairo, Team Think. If the New Zealand line-up was anything to go by, you’re up against some tough opposition in Egypt.

Shine on

Car ads get the big budgets, so it’s a nice change to see some of that carmaker cash spent on an online campaign that’s more than just obtrusive. Watch Honda’s clever ad on our website, then check out how it renders at Vimeo: now with more obtrusion.

There’s a making-of at Vimeo too.

Steinie goes Classic

Lord Nordmeyer’s lager has looked and tasted the same for ages. Which isn’t bad per se, of course but maybe it seemed a bit dated next to the new Steinlager Pure, so now, the classic bottle and label have received a makeover. Oh, and it’s Classic with a cap C now.

Touching the design of an iconic product—and Steinlager’s been around long enough to be called that—is always risky. The new design does look though, in our opinion … truly Classic.

PP in D3P

The likeness of Philip Patston can be viewed in all its glory in the Herald Theatre foyer, as interpreted by Unitec Fine Arts students. Philip says these are not visual gags, but poses that commonly held attitudes about marginalised people, what he calls the four tees: trauma, tragedy, tricky and triumphant. There’s a fifth tee too, namely tree-like.

The D3P exhibition can be viewed in the foyers of the venues of Patston’s International Comedy Festival 2009 shows in Auckland (The Herald Theatre on May 2 to 9) and Wellington (The Fringe Bar from May 20 to 23).

Emmy, Miss Canada and $4.5 billion

Our friends at X Media Lab claim that Dale Herigstad, Juliette Powell and Tim Chang are just some of the best brains in the creative industries world who will be at a conference and workshop in Auckland to talk to, advise and inspire Kiwi entrepreneurs and digital media businesses.

The Commercialising Ideas workshop takes place on between May 22 and 24, and you’ll get to meet and rub shoulders with venture capitalists and other advisers, including local heroes Nat Torkington (Foo Camp and O’Reilly) and Helen Baxter (Mohawk Media).

Head over to X Media Lab’s website to book your place now.

Job of the Week

Executive Creative Director—Sydney (P0502)

Feel like a change of scenery and a new challenge?

We have a superb opportunity available to join a leading Sydney-based Australian award winning BTL agency. They are seeking a rare individual who is a great leader with the ability to inspire and challenge a great team, but most of all they need a ‘big ideas’ person.

You, the incumbent must have flair, charisma and the ability to inspire the team (and clients of course) is paramount. Someone who gets excited about cracking a great idea, and can foster this in their team too, is something they’re looking for. You will have the mandate to develop and maintain a vibrant, fun working environment where a dynamic creative team is encouraged to exceed client expectations, and where you’ll be appreciated for your creative brilliance. You must be committed to delivering ground breaking ideas not just in Australia but globally. It’s not enough for this agency to get recognition (and awards) in Australia!

You’ll need to be an awesome client interface and be exceptional and passionate about presenting your ideas.

The successful candidate will have great knowledge of experiential marketing and ideally a proven track record of embracing campaigns and technology below-the-line. Experience of promotional marketing is also essential and other disciplines such as digital and PR would be a bonus.

Key skills: Ideas, ideas, ideas. This is the most important criteria but this is a key role and has management responsibilities also. You will have a team reporting to you and you in turn report into the MD/CEO.

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.

A case of exploding mangoes

May will be one eventful month. On top of the International Comedy Festival starting today, there’s the Writers Festival too, running between from the 13th to the 17th. That do has an incredibly thick schedule but some standouts include Mohammed Hanif, writer and BBC special correspondent in Pakistan, and Richard Dawkins, ‘Darwin’s Rottweiler’ and evolutionary biologist extraordinaire.

Hendrik Hertzberg, Judith Thurman, James Surowiecki and Rhonda Sherman of The New Yorker are in town for an eponymous night too.

Check out the schedule at the website; there are 11 free events, competitions and much more.

Hager the Optimistic

This one’s for the scribes in the audience: Nicky Hager, an intrepid investigative freelancer of some repute, isn’t pessimistic about journalism. Instead, he believes the time is right to focus on sharpening an improving journalism, and will be telling you how at AUT’s Journalism and Society Research Group’s event on Monday, May 4, from 5.30pm in room WT307, AUT Tower, corner Rutland and Wakefield Streets in Auckland. It’s free so go and listen to what Nicky has to say, if you have an interest in journalism.

Quote of the week

“We Kiwis are not good at pushing ourselves and saying, ‘Hey I’ve got really good company, a really good brand, this is world-class, pay attention!’ We just think it’ll be okay and sit back. We’re not aggressive enough. The best Kiwi companies are those that really stand up and say pay attention.”

—Amazing Race face Phil Keoghan on the way it’s done in Godzone. He has a different method of marketing read about it in the Idealog #21, in bookstores on Monday.

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