Naff off Localist

I've never been shy about my dislike of Yellow. And Yellow Locals is, in my opinion, a waste of time and money (yet again) which should have been spent on their website.

Anyway, this is not about Yellow, it's about Localist. Yes. NZ Post's own little directory. I have issues with Localist too - their Auckland directories (all 4 or 5 of them) are scheduled to be published TWICE a year and they wouldn't bundle the advertising across all directories; So if you are a regional advertiser rather than a local advertiser, there were no economies of scale for advertising across all 4/5 books. Granted, they may have changed this, but I wouldn't know as the rep hasn't been in since I told him I thought it was a waste of time for my client.

Anyway, that is not what got my back up. Below is what has got me miffed:

Someone asked me to log in and vote for their friend for something and when I saw I could log in with my twitter (or FB or 4square) I thought, "that's pretty rad! Makes life easy. OK, I'll sign in with Twitter!"


Ha! No I freaking won't! Apparently...


This application will be able to:

• Read Tweets from your timeline (okay, not so bad)
• See who you follow, and follow new people (I'm hoping when they say 'follow new people they mean them and not me?!?)
• Update your profile (You're going to be able to do WHAT!?)
• Post tweets for you (No. No you crazy MF. You will not be posting tweets for me.)

Before you start with 'Monica, you're such an idiot, it just means that they can post one of those "@iChild likes Localist" type tweets' I get that that is probably the case, but it's not specific. If it said, 'Post tweets for you with your permission' I'd be OK with that, but, especially with all the privacy issues going on with FB at the moment, there is no way I am opening up my communication channels any more than I already have.

You crazy Localist. This has just confirmed to me that I want nothing to with this organisation. Protect your accounts people! Remember than you can remove application permissions. Log in to Twitter, go:

Settings > Applications. You might be surprised what's lurking in there.

Client sign-off crucial

This is one of those times that you go "that sucks - bet you wish you had client sign off before you made that decision huh?"

So yesterday I was away sick and an email arrived in my inbox about a survey. All good - I like providing feedback. So while I was eating my lunch today, I decided to do the survey, only to think it was a little strange that the screen I landed on had 'Your Progress 100%'.

For those who can't be bothered clicking to enlarge, it reads:

"Survey recall 

The Seed was commissioned recently by Adshel to run an online survey, assessing the opinions of media agencies and clients.

The survey was intended to be an anonymous survey, but unfortunately, due to an error in execution by The Seed, Adshel's identity was revealed which could compromise the findings.

In discussion with Adshel, we have therefore agreed to recall the survey and will not be proceeding with this research.

Please therefore disregard the message sent yesterday.

For anyone who has already completed the survey, The Seed will honour its commitment to the prize draw and will inform those who were successful in due course."


Stink huh? Shows the importance of ALWAYS getting client sign off on everything - unless AdShel did and then later went, 'hang on... crap'.


This has effectively killed the research for AdShel (as now any survey's about Outdoor will have an immediate association with AdShel, even if they change companies) and The Seed have lost the income from the contract with AdShel.


Hard lesson. Remember: Always get clients to sign everything off in writing. (That way you have proof that they're wrong.)

Haka Flash Mob at Sylvia Park

This has to be the best flash mob I have seen footage of in New Zealand.

Brought to my attention by Paul Lester.

Anyone know if there was a brand/advertiser behind this? I'm assuming that it has something to do with the RWC?

Hey Orcon - Is this similar to a nightmare?

Youch.

For a few days I have seen tweets coming through from @timkelleher in regards to him not having Internet or phone from Orcon. Now, knowing my reliance on the internet, I can imagine how frustrating it is to be without.

So, I don't know the full back story on this, but I imagine it is 'sign up - no internet or phone - get frustrated - take things into my own hands'.

Tim has created a website fifteen which is counting up how many days, hours, mins and seconds he has been waiting for Orcon to connect his phone and internet. It also has a tally of how long he has spent on the phone with technical support (which I image is all cell phone based since he has no landline...)

Then, like all smart Twitter users, he is utilising this medium to try to force a response, he has placed a tweet link on the bottom right corner.

And the tweets just keep coming. 

The above shows 8 tweets in 7 minutes. This must be SO frustrating for the people who run the @Orcon twitter account. Obviously they do not have the power to fix this directly, but do the have the power to elicit a response for poor Tim? You have to admit, he must be pretty pissed off to go out of his way to build this site.

I have had excellent action from the likes of @vodafoneNZ in my own experience, fixing issues and answering questions within minutes.

I think I have said it before, but Twitter continues to put power in the consumers hands. Back in my days of retail, I was often told, "a happy customer will tell, on average, 2 people about their experience, an unhappy customer, 11 people". That little line was enough for me to ensure all customers walked out of the store happy. Twitter has magnified the opportunity to express satisfaction, or lack thereof. 

Tim has 663 followers. 

Ben Gracewood tweeted, he has 4,300+ followers.

Ken Freer 1,500 followers

Ben and Ken are just 2 of what looks like over 100 people who have tweeted about this. The reason I picked out those other 2 is because they're quite vocal in the telco space and is often the reason people follow them.

This whole thing is quickly turning into something of a PR disaster. I don't have the answer on how to fix it, but personally, if I was running the Orcon account, I would put out a tweet acknowledging all of the support for Tim and reassure that they are doing everything possible to rectify this issue. From their current twitter stream, it looks like they are just ignoring it. I don't believe this to be a smart move. 


Twitter has given people a voice. They want to be heard. Ignoring them, will just make them louder.


Good luck Tim, hope you get your Internets quickly.