What the world wants

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

What the world wants

We’ve got it, but can we give it to them? Our key export markets are increasingly at the mercy of environmental and social activism—think carbon footprints, the 100-mile diet, animal welfare, fair trade and the back-to-basics movement. Some Kiwi exporters are up to the challenge, but others … not so much.

Till now we’ve been able to get away with unsubstantiated ‘clean and green’ claims, but today’s consumer demands proof. While some exporters may think that means simply rationalising food miles, the issue is more complex than that. The general trend to more traditional values (buy local, seasonal and fresh) is an emotional response—to retailer manipulation, the recession, and the mainstreaming of what were once extremist ideas.

But it’s not all bad news: consumers won’t automatically switch to local food if it’s an inferior product. So can we give them what they want? Find out in the latest Idealog and on our website.

Go configure

A short time ago, in a public servant office not so far away, the Auckland City Council decided to let the public submit design ideas for the new Queens Wharf and let people have a say on which ones they liked. They built a website to manage this exercise.

So far, so good. But Idealog thought it ridiculously user-unfriendly to make us click on a no-meaning numbered red boxes (advent calendar, anyone?) to look at each of the 237 designs.

We also couldn’t be bothered downloading a PDF to look at each submission at a decent resolution, plus we wanted to be able to publicly comment on the pros and cons of each design.

So what else could we do? We built a better version.

Please note this is a completely unofficial website. Your vote or comment here won’t be counted in the competition, but it will over time filter the entries into a manageable list so people can just look at the most popular.

The party mix

Sure, there could be some people out there who just can’t wait to host their own Windows 7 party. And with some judicious editing, it could become an entirely different kind of get-together …

Hang on a minute

A lot can happen in 60 seconds. The International Space Station will travel 465 kilometres of its orbit around the Earth. About 20 hours worth of video will be uploaded to YouTube. And you could sell your big idea in the ICEHOUSE 2009 FAST Pitch.

The ICEHOUSE calls it a real-life Dragon’s Den, run in Auckland over three weeks in October, but you won’t be thrown cold to the dragons. ICEHOUSE CEO Andrew Hamilton and Ken Erskine, director of the ICE Accelerator and ICE Angels investors, will host a content-crammed seminar session on October 8: ‘The 3 keys to successful pitches’. Learn what investors and big customers are really looking for; find out how to tailor your language to the critical questions they will ask; and hear how pitching well has helped other businesses take leaps into high growth.

Take that information and prepare your 60-second pitch for delivery in a small group coaching session with an ICEHOUSE expert on Thursday 15 October. The leading pitchers from each group will compete in front of the whole audience for a chance to be one of ten finalists in FAST Pitch 2009. Finalists each receive two hours of individual coaching by ICEHOUSE experts.

And on October 27, finalists get to pitch to a panel of judges (including Idealog publisher Vincent Heeringa), angel investors, venture capitalists and businesspeople. There are four category awards: Best Intellectual Property Idea, Best Funding Opportunity for Investors, Best Presentation Skills and the People’s Choice Award. The overall winner will be selected from the winners of those categories.

The grand prize is valued at over $15,000 and includes three months in The ICEHOUSE’S leading incubator ICE Accelerator and the opportunity to pitch directly to any of the participating investors. The total prize pool is valued at over $45,000 and is supported by ICEHOUSE founder The University of Auckland Business School and corporate partners BNZ, BCG, Ernst & Young, HP, Gen-i, Microsoft, Minter Ellison Rudd Watts and Telecom.

All that for just an $85 entry fee.

Read more in Idealog, and register at www.theicehouse.co.nz, and here’s ICEHOUSE’s Andrew Hamilton explaining FAST Pitch on the telly.

Now you are one

Increasingly known as the place to be for online discussion on graphic design in New Zealand, Design Assembly is set to celebrate its first anniversary with interesting conversations, birthday cake and spot prizes. Did we mention there’d be cake? So put your party hats on and go along on Wednesday 30 September.

Slow car

I don’t know about you but some things aren’t meant for the slow design movement.

Sitting pretty

Perhaps we’d have better luck with Honda’s indoor electric unicycle-all the fun of a Segway without the effort of standing up.

Here’s hoping

And now for something hopelessly sweet. Hopenhangen is a print and online campaign developed by the International Advertising Association representing the global advertising industry in support of the United Nations. The idea: gather enough hopeful statements to form a petition for the forthcoming Copenhagen conflab on climate change. Only two hopes from Nu Zild? Come on! via Moxie

Quote of the week

If one in ten New Zealanders are concerned about pigs in pens, communications can quickly help turn that into a 400,000-strong movement.

–Environmental consultant Dave Pearce on the power and speed of ideas that would once have stayed on the fringe

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.