If the world could vote ...

Have you been to www.iftheworldcouldvote.com yet?

Quite an interesting insight into what would happen if the world was allowed to vote in the US elections. 

Let's face it, the US wants to control the world so maybe the world should vote on who controls the US?

Dispite the results on this site, I sill wonder what the actualy election outcome will be. After all, I would have put my money on Al Gore last time ... and wouldn't the world have been quite a different place? 

I saw a documentary on the current election race not long ago and I was sickened by some of the comments people were making. 

At one of McCain's rallys, a middle aged caucasion woman approached McCain on the stand and, right into a microphone in front of thousands of people, said that Obama was an Arab. 

1. No he isn't
   
2. Should it really be insulting to call someone an Arab?
   
3. Obama is being targeted for having had associations with "terrorists". Has the entire state of Texas forgotten about the Bush family's close association for many years with the Bin Laden family?
   

Rant over. For now. 

The Campaign for Honesty in Business!

The NZ Herald today reported that a real estate firm has been fined $7,500 for breaching the Fair Trading Act, following a case in December last year where an agent, let’s call him Tim because that’s his name, was sentenced for advertising a property as “buyer enquiry over $380,000″ when he knew the vendor would accept no less than $400,000.

This reminded me about a phone call I received last week from a popular cell-phone network. The salesman, let’s call him Bob, promptly ran into a speech offering me a free cell phone and all sorts of amazing bonuses in a call plan for my business and began the usual line of questioning resulting in “yes” answers to hook me into the conversation.

Something along the lines of …

“Would you like a top of the range cell-phone for free? Would you like 30 minutes of free call time?”

I was very busy at the time but I always feel for these telemarketers as we’ve all had to make cold calls at some point. Particularly as I once answered “No” to the first question and completely stumped the unfortunate caller.

Wanting to cut to the chase, I asked a number of times what would be involved for me to get this amazing deal and the answer each time took us back to the beginning of the conversation:

“Well … you get a free cell phone and 30 minutes of call time”

After much banging the receiver against my head, I finally extracted the keystone of the entire conversation: I would have to sign up to a call plan that would cost $45 a month.

Had Bob answered my obviously impatient “let me get back to work” flavoured question at the beginning of the conversation, he would have discovered I only have a pre-pay cell phone which I rarely use for calls, with a total bill of $5 per month. Mostly spent replying to my fiancé’s numerous texts.

Bob the cell-phone man and Tim the real estate guy both tried to hide the truth in order to gain interest and land a sale. The problem is, once the deception has been exposed, who’s going to trust the company enough to do business with them? Not me.

Two more topical examples of deception are the Telecom advertising series that uses actors to portray made-up Telecom clients, and the safety campaign for side air-bags that uses an actor rather than a genuine accident victim. Both of these examples have arguments for and against their deception.

However, I am a firm believer that honesty and business can still walk hand in hand down the happy path of success.

So here’s to the Campaign for Honesty in Business! Let’s treat people like the intelligent professionals they are and generate some genuine trust in our business dealings.

The benefits of other people's shoes

This morning at around 8:30am you may have felt a sudden change in atmospheric pressure. This is likely to have been due to the almighty sigh of relief I gave when our director, Wendy, returned from two weeks annual leave.

During this time, I metaphorically slipped into Wendy’s creative shoes and learnt a few things about the role of others in my workplace.

I’ll admit that the first few days were quite hectic, but by the end of the two weeks, I’m happy to report that I had everything running like clockwork. I felt like I had survived an avalanche, dug my way out and carried on to the summit.

The whole experience has been a truly valuable insight into the inner workings of our design team. As a BDM, there is no better way to understand every step of the service or product that you deliver than to actually deliver that service or product from the job confirmation to the “thanks and come back soon”.

Now, when I’m discussing projects with clients and creating proposals, I can do so with an acute understanding of the work that will go into that project. This is stupendously beneficial from three different people’s shoes:

1. The client’s – I can confidently discuss the realities of timeframes and the limitations of print, resulting in a project that meets or exceeds everyone’s expectations.

2. The team’s – Don’t oversell. When putting the cheese in the trap, always leave enough room for the mouse. Now when I hand a proposal over to the production team, the team can be confident that I haven’t sold the impossible at a budget that can’t be met. This will make me an all round more likeable guy in the office!

3. My own – Confucious said: “What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” I understand! Far more than if I simply listened to team members telling me what their job involves. This will really help to develop my career at Hot Pyjama Productions.

So if you really want to make yourself an invaluable asset to your company, dedicate some time to finding out what everyone else gets up to and, even if only for an hour, walk a while in their shoes!

Please rain in the recepticals provided

Has anyone else in New Zealand noticed that North Canterbury is under water and yet the South Island lakes are at an all time low and only have a few days of power left in them?

Perhaps the answer would be to build a humongous funnel and position it above Lake Hawea? Similar to Mr. Burn's giant cover that he placed over the sun in Springfield.

Maybe I'll suggest that.

Koru Care Gala Dinner & Charity Auction

I had a fantastic time at the Koru Care Gala Dinner and Charity Auction last night. It was an experience to be surrounded by so many people who had so much money!! There was a lot of wealth in that room last night and a large portion of it was used to bid for items such as a helmet signed by Michael Schumacher and a Fender guitar signed by Paul Mcartney and Ringo Starr.

Congratulations to the organisers for raising $170,000 to send children with terminal illnesses and permanent disabilities on holidays around the world.

Thanks also to Gary Endacott for your inspirational speech. Gary was the first person with Cerebral Palsy, on the planet, to compete in the New York marathon and has since successfully returned to New York to run on a further 3 occasions. He has also held the New Zealand and World Disabled Tennis championship but one of his greatest achievements came in 2001 when Gary became the first physically disabled person to climb Mt Kilamanjaro.