Monthly Archives: December 2009

What you read

Today this blog is three years old.

This year I’ve written a lot less frequently than in the previous two years, but hopefully a bit more thoughtfully.

I mostly write for selfish reasons but, if I’m honest, I also like to know that others take the time to visit, read and sometimes comment about the things I’m thinking about.  So, thank you for that!

Some days there are more of you than others.  Over 4,000 people visited on December 14th (the busiest single day yet) to read about a small experiment I ran to try and reunite a lost camera with its owner (it worked by the way – you found him in under 30 minutes!)

That small viral moment aside, here are the top posts from the last year, as selected by your clicks:

Would you lick it? 18th August

“To be an inventor you have to be the sort of person who is tempted to lick!”

Why you love your job 30th November

“Which would you prefer: a great salary, or a great place to work?”

Keeping Score 8th May

“If you count something interesting, you will learn something interesting.”

Size vs Growth vs Acceleration 24th June

“You can tell a lot about a company by how they report their results.”

Because 29th January

“Looking at a high profile success and thinking that you just need to do the same to be successful can be quite misleading.”

I hope you enjoy your New Year, where ever you find yourself!

And, I look forward to welcoming you back here in 2010, provided I can think of something interesting to write about which tempts you to click.

Cheers,
Rowan.

Merry Christmas!

If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere: turn off your computer and go outside.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere: go back to bed, Santa can’t drop off your presents while you’re still up!

Wherever you are, enjoy the day.

(via @sammeikle)

2009 Award of the Year Awards

“In the short term the market is a popularity contest, in the long term, a weighing machine.”

– Warren Buffett

I’m pleased to announce the first annual Award of the Year Awards, the awards that celebrate awards themselves.

Open to all comers, the self-proclaimed prestigious AOTY Awards will recognise excellence and success in recognising excellence and success (note: naming sponsorship opportunities still available!).

Without doubt 2009 has been a stellar year for awards.  We insecure overachievers have been spoilt for choice.  Hardly a week has gone by without an awards announcement helping us all to once again separate the true winners from those merely nominated, or otherwise busy.

The AOTY Awards will employ a respected and impartial judging system that has been tried and tested over many years – all nominations and votes will be collected and tallied by an auditor from a reputable local firm, at which point semi-finalists will be announced.  From there we will proceed to evening gown and swimsuit rounds before choosing five finalists.  There will be a final interview round before the runner-up and winner will be selected by a panel of international judges.  If, for any reason, the winner is unable to fulfil their duties as AOTY Award holder during 2010 the runner-up will be given the opportunity to fill their place.

So, without further ado, I pronounce the nominations and voting open.

UPDATE #1:

Note our system for keeping track of nominations allows only names of a certain length, so any votes for the “New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants 2009 Leadership Awards” should be made under the abbreviated title of “NZCIA 2009 Leadership Awards”.  Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

UPDATE #2:

We have received a query regarding the eligibility of “The Biggest Loser” as an award, given its who-sucks-the-least format.  Judges can confirm that all votes for this entry will be accepted.  If we’re going to allow “The Qantas Media Awards” then it’s only fair, eh!

5 hours 47 minutes, baby

“If you find yourself in a situation where a white person is talking about a marathon, you must be impressed or you will lose favor with them immediately.  Running for a certain length of time on a specific day is a very important thing to a white person and should not be demeaned.  Also worth nothing, more competitive white people prefer triathlons because Kenyans can’t afford $10,000 specialty bicycles.”

– Stuff White People Like

“In Europe, pretty girls on retro bikes with wicker baskets ride, carefree, to work everyday. Keeping active, while also keeping up the appearance of effortless chic. In New Zealand, by contrast, cycling is seen more as something for large groups of overweight, middle-aged men on expensive racing bikes – men who really shouldn’t be pouring themselves into fluorescent Lycra – to do on Saturday mornings, sweating and panting up the hills like sheep in the sun.”

– Kiwianarama

Last weekend I completed my third Half Ironman in Taupo…

Swim Start

Bike

Finish (pipped at the post by a 5 year old!)

Some of you may remember a post from earlier this year, Start != Finish, where I wrote about my experience of the Tauranga Half Ironman in 2008.  Trying to avoid making those mistakes again, my goals for this race were mostly related to the shape I wanted to be in at the start line rather than the time recorded at the finish.  That seemed to work out for me both ways – I’ve lost some more weight and I’m as fit as I’ve ever been and feeling quite positive about that, and (as a result?) I smashed my personal best time for that distance by nearly 30 mins, finishing in an official time of 5:47.50.

In case that sounds fast, I should point out that this put in me in 205th place on the day, over 90 mins behind the winner.  One of the good things about triathlon as a sport, and these sort of events specifically, is that you can race yourself and win.

I know that entering long races seems like madness to most people, but really they are just an excellent excuse to be active, eat well, push myself, etc.  I’ve found committing to an imminent race date to be just enough motivation to tip the balance in my favour on all of those fronts.

However, I’d like to specifically recognise the anonymous person who unkindly commented on the size of my belly when I posted my finish line photo from Tauranga. You didn’t, and probably wouldn’t, say it to my face. Thing is, there really is nowhere to hide in those lycra race tops, as you could easily discover for yourself. But, anyway, thank you. To quote Michael Jordan’s acceptance speech when he was inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame earlier this year: “You put another log on the fire”.

So, with this race done I’m on the lookout for another challenge.  Ideally this time it will be something that doesn’t involve swimming, cycling and running a long way, only to end up where I started.  Any suggestions?

Santa probably isn’t real

(source: SpellingMistakesCostLives.com/Santa)

The advertising battle in the imaginary friend space heated up this week.

Firstly the NZ Athiest Campaign kicked up a bit of a fuss and got some nice editorial coverage when they announced they would replicate a campaign from the UK, running ads on the side of buses with the message: “There’s probably no God. Now, stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

Not to be outdone rival organisation St. Matthews in the City hit back with their own funny/controversial billboard showing Mary and Joseph in bed, apparently in an effort to “inspire people to talk about the Christmas story”.

Santa, the most widely believed-in imaginary friend amongst the younger demographic, has been conspicuous in his absence from this debate.  Although, this hasn’t stopped a grinch-y academic from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia claiming today that his obesity, speeding and drinking makes him a bad role model (presumably parents would be better, eh?)

The billboard above, via @gnat, is very funny, but is possibly too subtle to get much cut through with kids.  I wonder if a message directly targeting them would be more successful?  A variation on the atheists’ message, suggested by @rowsell, does the trick nicely I think:

“Santa probably isn’t real, so why not relax and be naughty”

Excellent. :-)

However, if you’re one of those parents who prefers hypocrisy to cynicism, remember, Santa knows if you tell lies!

Do you know these people?

In New Zealand we like to talk up the interconnectedness of the little village that we all live in.

Because of our small population, it’s often claimed that everybody is connected to everybody else by fewer than six degrees of separation.

There is even a new mobile phone network claiming just two degrees.

So, let’s try an experiment and see if we can return some lost property in the process.

Yesterday we were driving home from Taupo and saw a camera fall off the roof of one of the cars we were following.  Unfortunately we didn’t see which one, and anyway, by the time we stopped and picked it up they were long gone.

Here is one of the pics from the camera:

(click for larger size)

If you or somebody you know are in the photo please get in touch so I can arrange to return the camera to you.

If not, please re-blog, re-tweet, or otherwise forward this onto anybody who may have been driving South along the Desert Road yesterday.

If you include a link to this post then I’ll be able to work out how long the chain is, if the owner is found.

Thanks in advance for your help!

UPDATE (14th Dec, 1pm):

I’ve got an email from one of the people in the photo, so I’m pleased to say that the camera and (more importantly) photos will be back with them soon.

I’m astounded at how many people have linked to this post this morning, from Twitter and various other sites.  Thanks to you it took less than 3 hours to find them.

It looks like there were a number of different ways that I am connected to the owner – but the first to produce a result was via Tarik, who subscribes to my blog and is a friend of the owner, so just two degrees of separation.

Thanks again to everybody who made the effort to help!

UPDATE (14th Dec, 2pm):

A couple of people have pointed out an NZPA story about this, currently on the Stuff home page:

Blog helps reunite owner with camera

Too funny!

And, so nice of them to provide a link back to this post … oh wait, they didn’t.

UPDATE (15th Dec, 3pm):

The camera has been returned in exchange for a bottle of 42 Below.  A good result!

Aluminium Man

Just getting my bike set up so I can live tweet my race tomorrow:

If you want to follow my progress, my user name is @rowansimpson.

I don’t have a solution for my wetsuit yet, so if you have any ideas please let me know.

;-)

UPDATE ,13th Dec:

Thanks for all of your replies and suggestions.

I especially liked this, from @jontsnz:

“Maybe add a sticker: “In case of accident, please press Send” so we can at least get the tweet that you wiped out writing!”

Classic!

Once I get feeling back in my legs I’ll write up a longer post about the day, but in the mean time here are the tweets:

“Lake not too choppy. Swimming advice from 5yo: bubble arm, bubble arm, breathing arm and repeat.” 6:05am

“Lake water tastes better than sea water. Did a good time. Only 111km of bike and run to go.” 7:16am

“Run: 16km of hope completed 5km of truth to go” 11:40am

“Approx finish time 5h 48m feel great and crap at same time” 12:24pm (see Start != Finish for context)

“Thanks for all your messages of support. And thanks to Emily for being on Twitter duty while I was otherwise engaged. Now, where is the spa?” 2:11pm

Google: Fade or Brain Fade?

Last week Google made another interesting small tweak to their home page.

When you first load the page all that is displayed is the logo, the text box and the two buttons:

In other words, nothing but the absolute necessary for the visitor who just wants to search.  The text box has the focus, so you can simply type away.  (I’ll leave the reader to consider where the “I’m feeling luckly” button fits in all of this minimalism).

If you move your mouse then all of the other links are revealed, with a subtle fade-in:

I can’t decide if this is clever or too clever.

What do you think?

Olé Olé Olé

I got up too early on Saturday morning, with our five year old, to watch the draw for the Football World Cup.  (Let me re-phrase that: he was up anyway, so I was the only reluctant one in the equation).

Thanks to the magic of MySky we skipped through the 30+ minutes of pre-match faffing around, and caught up with the live action just in time for the draw itself.

We both booed when Mexico and USA got our preferred places in South Africa’s and England’s pools respectively.  And cheered too loudly (there were others still enjoying a sleep in) when New Zealand was finally drawn – despite the mathematical certainty of that happening eventually.

Perhaps it was just relief at avoiding Brazil and Spain, the two remaining seeded teams still to come in the draw, the #1 and #2 ranked teams in the world, and obvious picks for eventual finalists (provided Portugal don’t stuff it up by winning their pool which would force them to play each other in the second round).

Some observations:

1. I think we “won” the draw.

Sure, beforehand there were an almost infinite number of permutations, some of which were much more attractive than what we got, but also very unlikely to actually eventuate.

If we just look at the other teams that were in our pot (aka the “bunny bucket”), it’s hard to argue that we’d be better off in any other pool:

We wouldn’t want to be in…

  • North Korea’s pool with Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast (ranked #2, #5 and #16 in the world).
  • Japan’s pool, with Netherlands, Cameroon and Denmark (#3, #11 and #26).
  • Honduras’ pool with Spain and Chile (#1 and #17).
  • Australia’s pool with Germany and Serbia (#6 and #20).
  • Mexico’s pool, with France and Uruguay (#7 and #19).
  • South Korea’s pool with Argentina and Nigeria (#8 and #22).

The best alternative we could hope for would be USA’s pool with England and Algeria (#9 and #28).

The reason for this is simple.  There was nobody in the draw that we would play and be confident of beating. The only other team to have qualified for the tournament with a lower world ranking is North Korea (and since they were in our pot they were never going to be in our pool).

2. Expect to be soundly beaten by both Paraguay and Slovakia.

Italy are ranked #4 in the world and are defending champions.  Expectations will correctly be low when we play them.

But, I fear, by the time the matches actually start there will be a number of people who will expect to see the All Whites compete against the other two teams in our pool.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see it happen.

But to expect it would be misguided.

Paraguay are ranked #30 in the world.  Slovakia are ranked #34.    We are ranked #77, just ahead of Uganda and a place behind Uzbekistan.

To draw a comparison with rugby, the #77 ranked team is Solomon Islands.  However, that’s misleading since there are only 95 teams in the IRB rankings, compared to 207 in the FIFA rankings (there are five teams tied in 203rd= place, including American Samoa and Papua New Guinea – giving a good guide to the quality of opposition that we needed to beat out to be Oceania champs!)

So, the equivalent match ups in rugby would be Hong Kong (#34) vs Japan (#13) and Tonga (#15).

Spare a thought for the 46 countries ranked higher than us who didn’t even qualify for the finals.  Imagine if Hong Kong qualified for the rugby world cup but France didn’t – Croatia, ranked 10th in the football world will not be in South Africa, but we will.

We should consider ourselves lucky to score nil.

3. France 1, FIFA 0.

I know that Frace played poorly in the qualifying tournament, and were lucky (pronounced “cheat-y” in Irish) to be there at all.

However, having qualified they should have been a seeded team.  They are ranked #7 in the world, ahead of Argentina (who hardly strolled through qualifying themselves), England and South Africa who were all seeded.

I can understand that the organisers wanted to ensure that South Africa played at pre-determined venues and in pre-determined matches, but there are lots of other ways they could have orchestrated that – for example, simply by mandating that whichever pool South Africa was drawn in would be considered Pool A, swapping place with whatever pool they were naturally drawn in.

France got screwed by the FIFA seedings, so the fact that they ended up as the strong favourite to win their pool anyway can only be put down to karma.

4. England, optimistic as ever.

Here is my favourite quote from coverage of the draw, from The Guardian:

“In the last two decades England have limped home from Italy (1990), traipsed back from France (1998), stumbled west from Japan (2002) and sounded the retreat from Germany (2006), where Wayne Rooney as sent off in a quarter-final defeat to Portugal.  Next summer’s competition therefore presents a fresh opportunity: to be knocked-out on a whole new continent, in winter time, rather than the clammy temperatures that help redden faces, along with the tears.”

I know we like to think that the All Blacks are the rugby equivalent of Brazil, but you have to admit, when it comes to the supporters’ expectations especially there are a lot of similarities with England too.

5. Predictions.

According to the TAB, England are now third favourites, behind only Spain and Brazil.  Yes, they have a relatively easy pool, which they should top.  And, provided that Germany finish top in Australia’s pool they will have a second round match they will expect to win too – most likely against Serbia.  But, from there it gets a lot tougher.  Their quarter final opponent would probably be one of France, Nigeria or Argentina (the ol’ nemesis).  Two other teams on their side of the draw, and likely semi final opponents, if they get that far, are Netherlands and Brazil.

I think that either Netherlands, currently paying $13, is a better bet than England at $7, but wouldn’t it be good to see them prove me wrong!

If results go according to rankings, the later knock out stages will be:

Quarter Finals:

France v England
Netherlands v Brazil
Argentina v Germany
Italy v Spain

Semi Finals:

France v Brazil
Germany v Spain

Final:

Brazil v Spain

I guess I shouldn’t plan on too much sleep during July next year then?

Here’s a question for you: next year, if you could attend one of a) Winter Olympics, b) Commonwealth Games, or c) World Cup, what would it be?

Thank You, Sir

“Education doesn’t actually work by teaching you things.  It works by giving you the impression that you’ve had a very good education, which gives you an insane sense of unwarranted self-confidence, which then makes you very successful in later life.”

– Rory Sutherland (TED Talk)

Our oldest has recently turned five, so I’ve been thinking a bit about the influence that different schools and teachers can have.

This post is to recognise some of the teachers whose paths I have been fortunate to cross:

Mr Nicholson (Island Bay School) – who taught me that the key to entertaining people is not necessarily to be the greatest piano player, but to play songs that people recognise and can sing along with.  He was also a deceptive spin bowler with an ability to adjust the difficulty of the ball to the skill of the batsman.

Russell Watt (South Wellington Intermediate) – who taught me that everything can be a competition (even maths!), which was a pretty rare thing in an environment where most other people thought all that mattered was taking part.

Mr Walters (South Wellington Intermediate) – who taught me to peen, and to count in hexidecimal, and that there were things you could do with a computer that were potentially a bit more interesting/useful than playing lemonade stand.  This was back in the day when computers in schools were kept in their own special “lab” (are they still?)

Suze Randal (Rongotai College) – who convinced me to study French and German, two subjects which were much harder than the others I was considering and which no doubt came in quite useful a bit later on – when I was in Paris and Berlin, and also when it came time to learn Pascal and C.

Gareth Rapson (Rongotai College) – who introduced me to non-fiction which makes you think, and taught me how to argue convincingly from both sides of the same debate.

Peter Andreae (Victoria University) – who demonstrated that to be impressive and influential you don’t have to talk loudly or wear flash clothes (or shoes, at all).

Robert Biddle (Victoria University) – who was able to fit an amazing amount knowledge onto a single OHP slide, and make the most difficult concepts plain and obvious, and in doing so showed me that if you know something but can’t explain it clearly to others then it’s really as if you don’t know it at all.

Of course there are many others, but these are just some that come to mind.

PS Three observations:

  1. Yes, when I studied Computer Science they used OHP slides … I’m getting older every day!
  2. Even now, it still doesn’t feel right to use first names for some of these people (even where I know them).
  3. It’s interesting how many of these are men.  Coincidence?

All the things you’re not

These are two dumb billboards:

ASB is not a kiwi bank.  They were sold to Commonwealth Bank of Australia (as the name would suggest, a publicly listed Australian company) in 1989.

Eh? Nobody picks JetStar because of the quality of the onboard service.  They are a discount airline – cheap and cheerful.

Why do they choose to highlight the exact things they are not?

Both obviously feel they need to respond to their competitors’ advertising.

Kiwi Bank nicely mocks the “Australian banks” in their ads.  And, Air New Zealand has done well to position themselves as the slightly-more-expensive-but-worth-it alternative, by highlighting all of the hidden extras that are not included in the discount airlines’ prices.

So, what should ASB and JetStar do?

Why not focus on the things that are important to customers that they actually are.

JetStar just needs to highlight their prices and ask the question: “how much are you paying for that tiny lolly mix?” or “how much are you paying for those airpoints?”

ASB is a more difficult example, because, it seems to me at least, that Kiwi Bank has them on most of the areas that customers care about.  Perhaps the long slow queues at Post Shops, including people trying to send their Trade Me parcels, is one area of weakness to focus on?

Either way ASB need to stop talking about the things they used to be – kiwi owned, leaders online (where is the ASB iPhone app?), etc – and find a current point of difference.

Whatever happened to BankDirect, I wonder?  They had a great brand, but it seems to have been left to rot on the vine recently. I remember one ad with attitude they had years ago which said something like: “Our credit cards are black, because we think they look cool” – it convinced me to switch!

This is just another good example of something that smaller companies seem to find much easier – talk straight and be yourself.

Some Recent Posts

Bonus (not so recent, but related):

  • TVCs, 21 December 2008

more…

 

The size of your truck

Lance had an interesting post yesterday about how the different media sites have been going recently, and specifically how NBR has been impacted by the introduction of their subscription service.

Unfortunately he missed the key metric: revenue.

All of the engaged unique browsers in the world are all well and good, but isn’t it how well you convert those into cash flow that really matters in the end?

Either way, it reminded me of this nice anecdote, as told to me by Mark from Valuecruncher:

Farmers Market

Two farmers were chatting at a weekend market.

One of them was selling potatoes from the back of his truck, and had a long queue of people waiting to buy some.

But, he wasn’t happy.

He complained to his friend, “I’m selling lots of potatoes, but I just don’t seem to be making any money!”

“Well”, said his friend eager to help, “how much does it cost you to grow a bags worth of potatoes?”

“$5″, said the first farmer, as he took another order from a happy customer.

“And, how much are you selling the bags for?”

“$5″, said the first farmer, with a proud smile.

“Oh, I know your problem”, said his friend, “you need to get a bigger truck!”

Some Recent Posts