Got this from Nigel Hammersley via Twitter this morning.  Very clever … and stimulating.  Worthy of a quick view. Find his post at hammersley’s posterous.

Local usability leaders, Trent Mankelow and Sam Ng from Optimal Usability collared Steve Krug (author of Don’t Make Me Think) at a recent conference for a celebrity snap. His bible is almost compulsory reading for all Trade Me staff and copies are scattered across the office. We love Steve Krug and it appears that the feeling could be mutual.  Read a sample chapter from Don’t Make Me Think.

Thanks for the great image, Trent and Sam!

find out more from http://twitter.com/williecass

The dust is settling on a busy period at Trade Me. Earlier this month we took to the road to share a few stories with over 300 New Zealand marketers and their agency folk.

The Trade Me Revolution Tour showed audiences in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch the progress of New Zealand’s largest website over the past ten years with CEO Jon Macdonald sharing insights into our passion for speed, ease of use and some measurement tools. Bernard Hickey from Interest.co.nz told us that Kiwis are only interested in mortgages and interest rates, demonstrating these big numbers against the tiny numbers involved in our sharemarket, for example. Trent Mankelow and Mike Pethig shared some techniques and ads that people don’t hate. Finally Geoff Matthews from new-kid-on-the-block site, TaxRefunds.co.nz shared the perfect storm that is driving his traffic and profits sky high in only 7 months.

We were keen to show marketers who are moving online a few tricks and traps to help with their websites and that marketing those sites using a considered combination of Television and Trade Me is effective and recession-busting. We got some challenging questions and a bunch of great responses from attendees. All in all, a huge success.

A few thoughts arising from the series:
* This recession is a biggie. A real biggie. It’s going to take a long time to recover, and recover from.
* Recession is not a time for sitting on hands; simply ‘riding out the recession’ ain’t going to cut it this time around.
* Recession equals restart. And it’s time to hit the restart button. It’s a chance to take stock and regroup.
* Cut out the stuff that either doesn’t work or that you can’t measure.
* It’s a really good time to just do the stuff that works.

I didn’t retell this gem but it still makes sense today as a business analogy, more so now than ever before.

For many marketers the online revolution has been underway for a few years now. For some, it’s only just started. If you would like to see the video and presentation of our five speakers, please email me to mg at trademe dot co dot nz and I’ll send you the link.

I managed to get along to ad:tech in Sydney last week.  Enjoyed the key notes and many of the sessions (was reminded of a downward quality curve as day progresses graph though).  Conference-wise, what impressed me most were the four Twitter streams set up and promoted to attendees (and non-attendees) to converse, joke, comment and add insights through the entire conference. Hash tags (#) means searchable on Twitter ergo #ATSYD refers to the general conference stream, with #ATSYD1, #ATSYD2, #ATSYD3 used for the three breakout rooms running contemporaneous sessions.  At times I suspect there was more in-room Twitter participation than directed at the speaker.

Someone posted that tweating in conference is akin to passing notes in class and it certainly felt that way to me; slightly disrespectful to a speaker trying to carry the audience through a complex thought process as laptops and phones are furiously typed.  But the upside is huge.  4000 tweats got crunched down, a whole lot of attendees got to know each other via Twitter, we got to comment directly to the speakers and panels immediately following the sessions.  It was a highlight of the event and added tremendous value to the sessions.

One of the key themes this year was the movement of brands into the online conversation rather than merely being a flash sideshow.  There were numerous case studies of integrated use of social media to drive campaigns.  Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, mobile, web and WOM (word of month) combining to build communities.  The emphasis on social media to reach consumers over-shadowed search and display, despite the obvious dominance of the latter two sectors.  Being in the online display business was almost redefined as traditional media!

I really enjoyed the first keynote, Nick Brian (CEO, Mediabrands) who stated that Recession equals Restart.  Nick proselytised that it wasn’t enough for marketers to just hold off, waiting for things to improve, but rather to hit the restart button and redefine their marketing strategies - with digital innovation at the core.

Here are 10 lessons from social media as provided via Twitter from @servantofchaos

1. Don’t believe the hype
2. Use subtle branding i.e. you don’t want to appear lame
3. Social media is not free … You are putting your reputation on the line
4. Learn from other people’s mistakes
5. Be quick ..New ideas are only unique for a short time … It’s the zeitgeist baby!
6. They won’t come. You have to use social media
7. Constantly reinvent … Your social media beast develops a life of its own. Sounds like a teenager!
8. Keep path to trial simple
9. Understand how your audience uses social media
10. Be brave … Social media is not for the faint hearted

Brian and Jan have relaunched 7X7. Five weeks of illuminating inspiration kicking off at 6pm, 22nd July at the Ilott Theatre, Wellington Town Hall. Book at Ticketek.

I was a regular attendee back in the (e)-vision days from 2000 - 2004 and recall that the presenters were spectacular, awe-inspiring and very kiwi-connected. I suspect it will only be better this time around.

It was a typical before/after scenario.  I didn’t want an iPhone - well, not yet anyway.  Thought I’d happily wait for the 3G version and for the bugs to be ironed out by the Gen1 adopters.  Then I touched one.  Simmy’s - at the Ingram Micro Showcase.

Once I’d waved it around a bit, Steve was swamped for the next hour.  Showing off the iPhone could be a good bait & switch tactic for selling Tomizone.

Mauricio Freitas was there so we surfed on the iPhone, took some photos; just coverted it together.  Here’s a couple of shots from his blog.  The irony of the Window Mobile jacket was not lost on us when we took the pix.

As an aside, the Tomizone concept (& pricing) is very sharp.  If you’re looking for a wireless router, contact Steve Simms.

A Pecha Kucha is an event format in which presenters show a slideshow of 20 images, each of which is shown for 20 seconds. The name is apparently derived from a Japanese term for the sound of conversation. It’s Wellington’s turn for Pecha Kucha after Auckland’s roaring success with two big nights. The Wellingtonista’s got the lowdown, as always. In short: Hope Bros, this Thursday. It’s a little like the popular 7X7 series, run by (e)vision in 2000-2003. I recall Brian Sweeney brought this back from TED.

Got a big idea, or a business concept you’re working through? Enter it into the Cable Car Challenge and you could win NZ$50,000 including $30,000 of seed capital. That’s a sweet prize. It’s only for people living in the Wellington region. I attended the Mayoral launch tonight; a good turnout from Wellington’s business, academic and local government community. Good to see Rod Drury there, and Tim Norton (also a sponsor).

Check this out - finalists have to present to the judging panel in the cable car up, and answer the judges questions in the car heading down. Only 9-10 minutes to present their business plan. That’s what I call an elevator pitch.

Can I please ask the blogging community to promote this competition - it’s good for New Zealand and deserving of our support.

Thanks,
MG.

Again, user-generated by an Apple fan. There was a competition for the best one …