Ridgid drill cord design

Nice Design, originally uploaded by machaggis.

It's the simple ideas which are most functional.

This power drill has a plug which lights up to tell users that it's "on". Taking it a step further, there is a picture of a drill on the plug.

What a great idea.

Digital Talanoa : Monopolies and Cavities

When I was first exposed to the Internet, it was mid-1995 and I was living in Japan. At the time and even still to this day, Japan suffers a bit under a monopolistic telecommunications regime called NTT (domestic service) and its dark-sided corporate sibling, KDD (international service). Costs for the most basic telephone services are extraordinary, at least by Fiji standards. They were also a maze for foreigners like myself to navigate.

To even qualify for telephone service, customers need to purchase a bond from NTT. This bond enables people “the right” to have a phone line and costs a bit over FJ$1,000. On top of that, some customers might need actual installation, which add another few hundred to the costs. The entire process takes a bit of time and involves (or used to, at least) a lot of paperwork, stamping, personal identification and in my case, English to Japanese dictionaries.

*Conditions Apply

Great sign I saw while driving near Valelevu. I didn't take a picture but the text was pretty much as follows:

--
FREE BUFF AND POLISH FOR YOUR CAR*

*CONDITIONS APPLY
--

It had me chuckling for the rest of my ride.

"Conditions apply" is one of the lamest, most overused and customer-unfriendly terms businesses tend to publicise. Anytime this text is displayed on a sign, an advertisement or on a tv spot, we can pretty much be certain all is not as it appears to be.

If conditions apply and they are important, then perhaps that's what should be marketed. If the marketing message is offering something for free but there are conditions, then it's NOT free.

free |frē| adjective ( freer |ˈfrēər|, freest |ˈfrēəst|) 1 not under the control or in the power of another; able to act or be done as one wishes

In the case of the guys running this car operation, "free" must refer to the absence of money from changing hands. However, if I'm forced to sit through some other sales pitch then I'm having to give up my time, therefore the buff and polish aren't free.
Bait and switch just isn't something customers like. It sets the wrong tone for a business relationship and would generally do very little towards building long-term relationships.

That written, I'm dying to see what the conditions of this car wash are. I really might need to go back.

Bacon Band-Aids

What a fantastic product.

The band-aids are from Archie McPhee.

I think I love about 95% of the products they sell here. Useful. Simple. Fast.

Digital Talanoa : "Fiji time" vs. "ICT time"

It’s obviously not a secret that tourism drives the largest portion of Fiji’s economy. We’ll probably be feeling some pain here for a little while longer although clearly, some very significant strides have been made over the past six weeks. The industry is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and the country’s beaches, reefs, sun and people can take the credit for it. Without oversimplifying the effort needed to build up such an industry, the bottom line is that the Fiji islands are a natural fit for tourists looking to escape their own hectic lives. The entire concept of “Fiji time” drives their image of holidaying here. “Fiji time” is very much the country’s brand and it’s a good thing. It is what the tourism industry relies on.

Compare that with the much talked about growth of the local information and communication technology (ICT) industry. The entire concept around ICT is the opposite of “Fiji time”. ICT is about absolute efficiency. It’s about responsiveness. It’s about being “on time”.

I believe the two collide and it’s one of the reasons the industry hasn’t taken off at the level that some people have expected it to.

Fijitv Does a Redesign

Well...FijiTV has redesigned their website.

http://www.fijitv.com.fj

I should start off and say that any comment from me about this project redesign and development can easily be misinterpreted because Oceanic tendered for this project unsuccessfully. Then again, everyone who tendered for the project was unsuccessful according to FijiTV at the time. Based on what I'm seeing of this new work, it has been developed by Connect using their same (or closely similar) CMS from 3 years ago.