For those of you who know me you will know I don’t generally buy-in to the whole area of Political Correctness – I’m probably a little too competitive! That’s not to say I think it is a bad idea but there are so many cases that are simply insane.

Take for instance this case where an employer was told that it was discriminating to advertise for ‘Reliable Workers’  - like the post title says “What is the world coming to?“

After much speculation the most anticipated announcement this year in the tech world was made an hour or so ago in San Francisco – Apple is launching the iPad Tablet Computer.

While the iPad is not simply Apple’s answer the Amazon Kindle it is interesting that a couple of years back Jobs said the whole concept of Amazon’s Kindle is fatally flawed because people don’t read anymore.

Maybe Job is getting older as in the words of Benjamin Franklin:

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

As to the question of when this will arrive in New Zealand (we are still waiting for the Kindle) who knows.

I’m sure later today Chris Keall from the NBR will have more information so i’ll keep this post updated.

Update:

OK I was wrong – actually Kelly Gregor from NBR did an update!

What a year – this graphic certainly sums up some of my thoughts about 2009!

A year ago I posted my contribution to Xero’s Survival Guide – it is interesting to reread this in the context of what has happened but more importantly a good to chance to review again as we roll into not only a New Year but a new decade.

From a business point of view 2009 for us has been a year of both Survival and Success. Having a business (Graphisoft NZ) heavily reliant on the NZ Building industry has been tough, sales drops of up to 80% in some areas have been a head ache but have really made us focus on growth in new areas. On the flip side of this we are pleased to say that today our international business (Cadimage Tools) has just past our growth target for 2009 so our strategy of building an export business to reduce our reliance on the NZ Building Industry is finally paying off – and just when we needed it to if I may say so!

A year ago I said I was going to blog more – while technically I have it is mostly a result of having 12 months in 2009 as opposed to the 6 months that my blog existed for in 2008! If you look at my ‘blog habits’ you’ll see I blog quite a lot while travelling and as my travelling reduced so did my blogging. I don’t plan to travel as much in 2010 but I am hopefully going to blog more even so.

I also have another new challenge for 2010 and that is the commencement of an NZ Executive MBA at Auckland University which I was recently accepted for. I am really looking forward to this opportunity and while I know it will be tough I think my business and I will be better for it.

In short I am really looking forward to 2010 we have some big plans – keep an eye on my blog to hear how things go!

I found this on the Xero Blog and thought it was worth republishing!

In many ways it is a very similar concept to Augmented Reality which I saw a presentation of at Morgo this year. New Zealand is leading the world with many AR Technologies – check out HitlabNZ for more information.

Over the last few weeks I have been taking care of Customer Care for our Cadimage Tools International Customers. It is certainly a job where you get right down to the detail and consequently you may have noticed a drop off in my blog postings!

I have also fallen behind in reading everyone else’s blogs but I have come across a few things that are either great, cool, I agree with or just plain weird!

There is the recently released Dell Adamo which is a pretty cool looking, extremely thin laptop.

Xero has made two great announcements – Xero Personal and a massive increase in Revenues

Andy Lark has a good point about Rugby going global – it must be tough being in the US and not being able to watch the All Blacks. I also though his post on Critical Non Essentials was interesting.

There are the Mindflex puzzles where you use your brain power to move objects!

Lastly there is a post about 10 Secrets To Staying Informed About Web Design – I think this could help me keep up with all my blogs not just those on Web Design, but I haven’t yet had time to read it!

Our recent holiday in Cairns happen to coincide with an R&R visit for the crew of the USS Essex and the USS Tortuga prior to some ‘exercises’ with the Australian Army.

With security the way it is I was surprised to be allowed onto the Essex let alone take photos.

The USS Essex (LHD 2) “Iron Gator” is the largest ship in the US Marine Fleet carrying 1800 Marines, 1200 Sailors and 33 aircraft.

It is known as an Amphibious Assault Ship as it carried a huge array of ground vehicles which get transported to land via three enormous hovercraft that are also stored on board.

At 257 metres long it isn’t an aircraft carrier so carries helicopters and Harrier Jets (which take off vertically.)

The Essex Medical Department can be expanded to a 600-bed hospital with a 14-bed intensive care unit and 46-bed impatient ward, by far the largest at sea with the exception of hospital ships.

So most of my readers by now will know I am a 100% Xero convert – though I am still waiting for the much anticipated Foreign Currency Release later this month to complete my transition.

Anyway I was recently catching up on Rowan Simpson’s blog and discovered a link to a wonderful analysis of investing in Xero and a model (I suggest you read the article and download the model from Sam’s site) to determine customer numbers and revenue requirements to achieve an acceptable rate of return on your investment given the risks etc.

While I found the analysis extremely comprehensive I was more intrigued by the author – the name rang a bell.

Reading various other posts on www.samstewartnz.com made me more sure this was an old acquaintance from my university days.

So I sent an email with a few snippets of history that would have been a  little strange were it not the same Sam Stewart but as it turned out it was.

Sam has spent time in Wellington after studying at the University of Auckland and is now currently in Brisbane.

Just goes to show you don’t need to rely on Facebook to catch up with old friends!

Which is why on Saturday we did the 5 man-relay not the Solo Ultra-Marathon of the Te Houtaewa Challenge 2009

At 8:30 Saturday morning Sally set off to run the first 3 km section of the 63km Relay down Northland’s Ninety Mile Beach. For the next 4:47:19 we took our turn to run a 3km section and then drive down the beach slowly making our way from the bluff to Ahipara.

The team consisted of:

• Gav
• Ed
• Wazza
• Sal
• Me

All of them seasoned pro’s having run the event as many as 6 times before (it only started in 2003!) I was new to the relay but had run the extremely monotonous Half Marathon back in ‘99.

The guys were a little nervous at the start when they heard there were 5 other teams entered this year, however the nervousness was uncalled for as we ended up winning by over 45minutes.

Hats off must go to Tony Ahern though as he finished only 38 minutes after us having run the whole 63km himself!

Hats off also to the organisers – the event is very well run and has a fantastic Far North Community feel about it.

Sometimes watching history taking place is not what it is cracked up to be.

Last night I watched history being made in the Super 14 as the lowest score ever was recorded – 6-0 to the Highlanders over the Crusaders.

That said even in such a low scoring affair and against an under strength Crusaders side a win is a win and must be enjoyed! Not only did we beat the Crusaders but we also became the first team in Super Rugby History to hold the Crusaders scoreless – an amazing feat in itself.

As a Highlanders supporter since day one, life has been pretty tough – we had a great couple of years in 98/99  but since then nothing much has eventuated and it was the Crusaders themselves who denied the Highlanders their only title chance.

One of my friends is a Crusaders supporter who has had one up on me for a long time  – I can just hear the excuses he’ll be making about last night!

However, aside from a low scoring game, the biggest irony yesterday was that 3 games of rugby were played in New Zealand in glorious conditions – why therefore can we not get a full one day game of cricket played against the Indians!

Using the Internet to communicate and sell is basically taken for granted these days, however from time-to-time it never ceases to amaze me on how quick things can happen. Also because everything is handled electronically the ability to monitor and analyze results is incredible – in days gone by it was time intensive to try to determine responses to direct mail campaigns and the information was never very accurate.

Yesterday Cadimage Tools announced the release of a book – the GDL Handbook:

At 4:18pm I sent 3942 Emails to all my Customers – (customers who have opted in to receive Newsletters so not Spam!)

The Email, while focusing on the Book, also had a couple of other topics of interest to our customers and included a series of links that the customers could follow for further information about the Topics.

Within 2 minutes of sending the email customers were already clicking the links.

Within 10 minutes the it was easy to see that the two links relating to the GDL Handbook were the most popular links.

At 4:24pm we received the first Sale of our new book! 6 Minutes after the original email – Wow!

By 10:19pm (6 Hours 1 minute after email) we had orders for 9 Books from Australia, Germany, Luxembourg and the USA

Having now arrived at the office (8:12am next day) I have looked at the ‘link stats’ which are also interesting:

In the first 16 hours:

We have received 709 Clicks from 403 Unique Customers (approx 10% of email recipients)

229 Clicks have been registered against a PDF of sample pages from the Book

130 Clicks have been registered against the Product Page on our Website where customers can purchase the Book

While some of these numbers aren’t necessarily big, it is the speed of them that amazes me.

Now while the above makes it sound easy to do business on the Internet this is certainly not the case:

• We have invested for over 4 years in establishing our International eCommerce Website
• The Book has taken Andrew Watson over a year to write
• It has taken 3-4 weeks to get all the marketing and launch material together

The main point is though, all this effort is being rewarded and because of the infrastructure we have build we know we can easily launch new products quickly and make sales from around the world.