Umamiblog

I’ve decided to leave Intergen and move on over to Provoke. It wasn’t an easy decision to make but the offer to work on Provoke’s new “Lirpa Loof” project was too good to pass by…

Provoke’s “Lirpa Loof” project works over Google’s new TiSP service which in turn was built upon the work of early inventor George Washington.

Wish me luck!

Update: Ok, I’ve had my fun
Do have a look at the date this post was written. Thanks for playing.

I have no idea if I’ll ever post again. I suspect I will. But for now, I have a lot to rethink.

- Kathy Sierra

Tomorrow I’ll be giving my “Introducing Web 2.0 concepts” presentation here in Wellington. There are still a couple of spots left if anyone would like to come along and enjoy a drink and some nibbles:

When: 4.20pm, Wednesday 28th
Where: Intergen, Level 7, Plunket House, 126 Lambton
More info | Registration

See you then!

I’m more than a little giddy to see this appear on the Celsias blog:

Carbon Labelling is Born into the World
A humble packet of crisps has apparently become the first product in the world to have a genuine CO2 label.

In December I posted about food labelling with regard to the environment and so I’m very happy and encouraged to see it happening. This is huge, I hope we see more of it!

The absolute best “how to find us” directions I have seen on the web. Ever. Once you load the page, click on “Contact us”.

Seen any other good ones?

Yesterday something minorly momentous happened. The SSC released the new set of web guidelines they and many others had been working on. While the draft had become popularly known as Version 3 (the last set released were Version 2.1), we now have a new name and the version count has been reset, introducing: Government Web Standards v 1.0

One of improvements made is best summed up by a paragraph from the press release:

There has been an emphasis on categorising requirements into standards that are measurable and testable and classifying as recommendations those that are still important but subjective in their measure or deemed not quite as critical as a standard.

People love things that are measurable and testable but it’s important to point out what makes something truely usable and accessible is not so easily quantifiable. It’s creative thinking and problem solving at each level of your agency and website, and there ain’t no checklist for that…

For the last two days, we’ve [Intergen Interactive] been holed up in a secret bach location somewhere in Raumati. I think it’s really important to take some time out away from the office with your workmates. We had some really productive sessions discussing different issues and opportunities we’re facing at the moment. More importantly, we had a really good time. But how could you not with a sunset like this:

Yep, that is the South Island in the background. Magic.

Hi to all the Brightstar Emerging Web Technologies and Trends conference goers who’ve found their way onto my blog. It was fun presenting to you yesterday and I had a good time listening to the other presenters as well. My slides are available here [PDF 8.6MB] as well as on the Brightstar website.

I did have an enjoyable time presenting today and as always it was good to meet more people who are working in the industry and interested in the emerging trends we are seeing.

Nigel Parker and Michael Samson also spoke at the event and Michael did a great job of live-blogging the event. Interestingly, he notes whether a presenter used a Mac or not (of course I did!). If you’d like a brief overview of the session I presented today, do check out Michael’s notes… I will be bit-posting my presentation on my blog over the coming days/weeks (its too large for a single post).

Alternatively, if you’d like to see my presso I’ll be presenting it as part of Intergen’s Twilight series:
Wlg: Wed, 28th March
Akl: Thurs, 26th April
Chc: TBC (May)

Got back this week from one awesome trip with S to Samoa. It was absolutely brilliant and I’d thoroughly recommend it. Highlights for me would be the people, they’d have to be some of the friendliest on earth. Driving on the right side of the road in our wee rental Chevy jeep. Big old glass Coke bottles, stacked next to coconuts in the fridge and snorkeling in pristine warm sea waters. Check out the set on flickr.

Consider it for your next holiday!

This coming Monday I’m presenting at the Emerging Web Technologies and Trends conference in Auckland. Run by Brightstar it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun and I’ll be talking on introducing Web 2.0 concepts. It has meant a bit of hard return to work from a holiday straight into getting a presentation together but also quite rewarding at the same time.

On the remote chance someone reading this blog will be there… I look forward to seeing you there!

“I don’t feel safe at this school” Vs. “I want to go to school”.

Education is broken.

Last week we announced to the marketplace the acquisition of Kognition into Intergen. Kognition is/was a Dunedin-based company headed by Chris Auld.

I met Chris in my time in Dunedin and I remember one particular NZTE-organised event. Chris felt the key issue facing the industry was education (it still is…) and I remember getting him (and the others there) to also think of the community, aka the Johnson & Johnson credo.

Chris also gave me some advice on my business I never forgot. Put simply it was “don’t be scared to hire more people”. Well as it turned out, I was still shit-scared for about another year after that… then I kind of got over it (or decided to just take the step). Anyway, it’s all history now. I did have to laugh when I saw my old post commenting on the look of Kognition’s website.

The result of this merger is that we now have a Dunedin office, or one in all four major NZ cities plus Sydney. There are some exciting things happening at work, if you’re thinking of making a move… now is good! Send me your CVs!

Update: It was also picked up by the DomPost

S had an interesting experience late last week with everyone’s favourite state-owned postal service. We’ve been living to a bit of a tighter budget lately in an effort to save some dosh. So with S’s younger sister having her 23rd birthday S collected a bunch of wee presents and went to the post shop to send them down to Dunedin.

The task she wanted to complete was simple:

• send items to Dunedin
• but at a reasonable price
• and quickly enough so they would make it by Monday (this was on Friday)

After watching the person ahead of her in line get mauled by a particularly shitty service representative while trying to pay a bill, S walked up and started to communicate what she wanted. Needless to say, she received some pretty crappy service.

S learned for the first time that NZ Post has stopped the “Fast Post” option for packages so she now had two choices. Normal post for $10 which would take 3 days or courier post for $33 which would arrive overnight. So faced with having to choose between the package arriving a day late for the birthday date or paying 3 times the price S decided on the slower and cheaper option. Understandably she was a little disappointed that her sister wouldn’t receive the package in time for her birthday.

S then received a text message from her sister the next day… the package had arrived!

Now, the service S received was hopelessly poor. She left feeling absolutely wild and in no way did the representative try to help S complete her task – she just wanted to go through the motions/process.

So NZ Post technically exceed her expectations. The package arrived early and that meant it was there in time for her sister’s birthday – and this meant something personally to S.

Normally when a customer has their expectations exceeded, they like to tell a few people and spread the word. When they’re not meet at all they’ll tell around 10 people of their negative experience.

Because of the needlessly bad service S received while trying to complete her task, she has told a number of people of her negative experience even though her expectations were exceeded! Having the package arrive early means she feels that the service representative didn’t know her job or what she was talking about.

So congratulations NZ Post, as far as you’re probably concerned you did a great job and got a package to a destination in a fraction of the time you said it would take. But you’ve also just ensured your customer will tell people of a bad experience and you’ve also ensured she’ll never pay for the more expensive (and more profitable) option.

If you want to exceed someone’s expectations and create a positive experience, you have to treat people like they’re your valued customers…