Umamiblog

In a brilliant and hilarious piece of investigation, Zef goes undercover to uncover Kiwibank’s secret CRM formula.

I can feel your pain and frustration! But at the same time I can’t stop laughing…

Update: Oh dear, it would appear this is a bit of a theme running now; llew now knows the problem with his car isn’t with the keys.

I stumbled across this the other day, the guys behind Sproutit are touring the continental US with a workshop aimed at showing small business how to use Web 2.0 applications to help run their companies – called the Simple Business Workshop. This is a great idea and an awesome way to match the great work coming out of Web 2.0 focused companies and the small business owner who is too busy working in their business (instead of on it) to discover these applications.

What use is this to us in far away NZ? Well if you are new to these new companies and applications it is a good introduction to the half-dozen they have chosen to show off as productivity apps for small biz. Look at the list on the bottom right of the page and follow the links if you are not familiar with any of them. It includes: Sproutit, Blinksale, Dabble DB, DropSend, Fluxiom, and Shopify.

And if you haven’t already, check out Sproutit’s product “Mailroom“. It looks like an excellent application to help any small business with limited resources that communicates with customers via email. The demo is amazing – these guys do an excellent job of presenting (they just need some more help making it more polished).

As you may know, we are looking to hire a few people at the moment at work. As the CVs have started to roll in I noticed one was 9 pages long. I immediately thought back to all the tutoring we had on this subject in high school and university where the mantra was always “one page plus cover letter”. So I commented to my manager about how long this particular CV was and whether anyone could bother reading nine pages.

In comparison, he felt it was a really good CV and helped describe the work this candidate had done as well as sell himself as a potential employee. He also thought 1 page was far too short for a CV. There are 3 of us in the team I’m in that went through tertiary education at roughly the same time. ALL of us had been taught to stick to that mantra of “one page plus cover letter”. So we ended up discussing this at length.

I know with the CV I used to apply for my current job I used 2 pages plus my cover letter. When I created it I did remember that one page mantra but deliberately chose to ignore it (hey, that’s what rules are for), but I would still feel 9 pages is excessive.

What were you taught? How many pages long should a CV be? Indeed, how long is your CV?

I had to write a job advert last week. It was a really interesting exercise trying to write copy to advertise for people like yourself. As a company we’ve done a lot of recruiting since I’ve been there and this means we have a lot of existing templates and written ads. In the end I thought the best route to take would be just to introduce a little bit of humour… Have a look at the ad on Seek and let me know what you think.

Incidentally we’re always looking for talented people at Intergen. Especially designers and front-end developers in the team I’m in. Specifically (as you’ll see in the advert on Seek) I’m looking for an intermediate CSS guru/developer.

So, if you’re looking or know someone who is, get in touch through me. It is a competitive marketplace we’re in at the moment for labour – but we’re definitely worth a look. Come and have a chat.

David Seah hits the nail on the head when it comes to TV addiction:

“it’s just so easy to get into the groove and watch a half-dozen documentaries and dramas. I tell myself It’s OK…you’re learning about human psychology! You’re learning about WWII! You’re getting new ideas that spark new ideas!”
“If I want to go get new ideas, I should go out and meet ACTUAL PEOPLE in INTERESTING PLACES I’ve NEVER BEEN TO.”

Update: My own TV habits are probably somewhat different but I can empathise with the quote made above. For me now, the only time the TV goes on seems to be the weekend. Otherwise there is far more interesting stuff elsewhere (in books, on the net, outside, etc). I could never justify spending money on a Sky subscription either.

I used to be someone who would lose several hours to the telly each night but I found that that changed dramatically when I moved to Wellington. For a start I was spending more time at work which meant there was less time to spend on other personal things, and well, TV just started to suck.

I have a problem with the broadcast model that TV operates under. I don’t want you to tell me what I can watch and when. I want the control, not you. I can’t remember how many times I’ve missed a show and then grabbed it (illegally I might add) from the net to catch up. You’re missing out on those advertising dollars because you are choosing not to be flexible for me.

One thing I’m finding extremely interesting is how much time I’m spending on You Tube and indeed other online video sites. This is time I’m spending at the cost or detriment of TV. If you look at the content on the two models, it is inherently different. On You Tube, its content is generally low quality, low budget and short but it also holds content that would never make it to broadcast TV.

Consider this small video of Steve Jobs presenting to his local city council. This would never justify making it to broadcast TV and yet it is an excellent example of Steve Jobs’ presentation abilities, something many people would learn from and find useful (myself and over 17,000 other people included).

Broadcast TV is on a hiding to nothing…

I’ve been meaning to design this blog since I started it about 18 months ago. When I first installed Movable Type the only thing I did was stick a banner-like image up the top to brand it. Since then it has been on my list of things to do. Glad I can now scratch it off.

I aimed to focus on creating something that was essentially simple. Not sure if I’ve achieved that well as I feel it is simple but a little cluttered. Might feel the urge to make tweaks to it in the coming days.

Anyone subscribed to my feed would’ve seen 4 posts come up – these are just pages in the new design. I figured adding them as posts would be an easy way to add them and make any future edits to them.

Have a look, let me know what you think or if there is anything that goes awry. I haven’t fully browser tested it yet so if you’re an IE user you may see the odd funky thing. If there is anything it should be resolved soon.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming…

Just found Houtlust which is an blog on nonprofit and social campaign advertising. I think this is where the best stuff in advertising happens – the most amazing mind changing stuff. Its probably because its the “edge of marketing and activism” that makes it so good… consider:

Found via advergirl.

Hoorah! They’ve put the Webstock sessions online. They’re hosted by CityLink so most Welly businesses should have an excellent connection to them, there’s about 25GB in total. As I mentioned in my wrapup post, Kathy Sierra and Darren Fittler were highlights for me, as was Tony Chor – check out their presentations.

Hat tip to JD who noticed Miraz’s post.

View a website as a nodal graph. Fascinating to watch it spawn and grow – then rearrange itself slowly to be less visually complex. Amazing.

Hint: Compare blogs to more static websites.

These are my notes from a talk Rod Drury gave us at a recent UP event. Rod got up at the start of the presentation and basically asked for questions. It was an excellent approach and worked really well with a wide range of topics broached. Rod answered honestly and directly to the questions and it helped to give an insight into Aftermail and what it might be like to repeat that success in Wellington.

Working towards successful exits. Entrepreneurship, it doesn’t automagically happen – it’s a progression that takes a good length of time.

Why are we here? To earn cash? To amass wealth? What are the levels of wealth? House without mortgage? Cars with more than 400hp? Multi-millions sitting in the bank?

Need to find a partner for a sale: for Aftermail it was Quest.

Ideal customer? Whoever gives you the most cash the quickest.

Patents? Waste of time.

Cash flow: Profitability vs. cashability – needing cash to fund growth.

Cheap R&D: we don’t have any big software companies in NZ. As a country we are really good at starting and growing companies to the about the 60 employee mark. Don’t lament it, use it. Grow lots of companies to that mark and flip them – then start on another one.

Nerds seeing nerds and nerds talking to money.

Isolation and small size – always noted as our disadvantages. They’re also our advantages as well. Small size means we network through the industry quickly.

CASH CASH CASH CASH CASH. Single most important thing.

Get your proposal/plan/presentation/whatever down to 2 pages. Be clear and concise – don’t waste anyone’s time. An angel wants to look good in front of their group – think about it.

Where do I find these people? Network.

Get your shareholding sorted at the beginning.

No. 1 rule for software companies is to have a name starting with ‘A’.

Aftermail getting shafted by MED/Govt.

Failure and having the courage to stop.

“Some people say you need to fail to be successful – I think that’s crap”

Going from services (low barrier to entry) to product (high barrier to growth) companies.

Broadband – might get here one day but there still aren’t any applications to use it.

Vista is a trainwreck…

In my little corner and circle of the world Ruby on Rails has been getting a lot of airtime. I first came across Ruby sometime in early 2005 and began hearing of this insanely great framework. For those of you who have still to hear of Ruby on Rails (or just Rails, RoR), its a web app framework that started life with the 37signals crew and has some strong philosophical points. It strives for simplicity and from what I’ve been hearing makes development incredibly quick which apparently makes for happier developers.

The thing that has really struck me with Rails are the people who find it. It seems to be special above-average people who find it, they’re those people on the edge (of the company or project or class or bell-curve or whatever). And then they rave about it, with passion. I’ve seen this trend with Rails a lot. That more than anything is what has made my head turn and start to pay attention.

We’re lucky in Wellington as we have one of the Ruby on Rails core team residing here. Michael Koziarski gave a short presentation on Rails at the recent Webstock conference. He presented really well (especially for a developer) and exposed people to Rails that otherwise wouldn’t have had the chance.

There are the beginnings of a Rails user group starting in Wellington. Head on over to the WellRailed group and signup. A few weeks ago there was the first informal rails meeting at Syn Bar and it was really interesting to go to. Two things really struck me. Firstly, was the sheer number of punters who turned up. I’d hazard a guess somewhere at the 40+ range – that was awesome to see. Secondly, it was really interesting to see that there were lots of people from all ends of the spectrum, not just freelancers and students (aka “the fringe”), there were plenty of corporate employees there also.

JD decided this week that it would be a good idea to start some Rails related discussion on his blog. He did this by detailing what his concerns with using Rails are. I don’t really know or care enough to debate those points or to have my opinion swayed wildly but plenty of people have joined in on the discussion which is good to see. It was enough to make Andrew Peter’s post the first article on his blog…

Kathy Sierra asked in her presentation at Webstock “How do you know when you have passionate users?”. The answer was when you have a cult (ie. the cult of Mac). A lot of the trends we’re seeing with Rails are very similar and cult-like. I think that’s really positive because we always need more passion in the world.

I’m going to get into playing with Rails when I get back from my trip in August. I’ve been meaning to do this for over a year but as per usual life got in the way. I’d encourage anyone in IT, from testers through to salespeople to acquaint themselves with Rails and just have a look. There’s a really good chance we’ll be hearing more about it in the future and it definitely wouldn’t hurt to be on the right side of the bell-curve!

One of the keys to being a happy productive person is that you need regular sleeping patterns as well as simply making sure you get enough. It is something my father is very passionate about and believes organisations should be focusing on ensuring they are aiding their people to get good healthy sleep.

Not only does your body undergo intensive repair and rejuvenation when you are asleep, your brain is busy at work as well. Storing and sorting data, committing memories from short to long term, and so forth. Researchers are still discovering how important this phase is – especially for remembering and recall in the future. Of course, this coincides with society as a whole getting (and accepting) less sleep.

So, we all use alarm clocks to help wake us up (and ensure we get to work on time). Why not use an alarm clock to help you get to sleep?

For the last month I have had my cellphone alarm go off at 10pm. This reminds me it is time to start my ‘going-to-sleep’ ritual, which includes having a shower and a small amount of preparation for the next day. Not only has this helped me to remember to go to bed, my body has now started to associate the alarm going off with the need to prepare mentally and physically for bed. This means I’m now getting to sleep faster and in a more relaxed manner.

The payoff being good and happy productive days, try it out for a week and see how it helps.