http://www.alibinetwork.com

We provide alibis and excuses for our clients. Whether it is spending a night out with a special friend, taking a day off from work, sending a discreet gift, avoiding your neighbour’s birthday party or planning a surprise for the loved ones. 
Now it is all possible… And it is all discreet.  We put you in control and let you choose between local and out of town alibis with the option to have alibis validated by live operators.

http://somethingstore.com/

SomethingStore is a fun new website that operates simply: We will send you something, an item selected randomly among many things from our inventory, for $10 (free shipping in the US) and you will find out what your something is when you receive it. What will yours be?

http://www.throx.com

Picture this. You’ve completed the weekly wash and as you’re pairing up socks for the drawer, you discover one or more have mysteriously disappeared. Sound familiar? Well, worry no more because a clever entrepreneur from San Francisco has devised a creative solution to this irritating phenomenon.

Writer-director Edwin Heaven is the inventor of THROX, the first socks to come in threes, so when you lose one you still have a pair. The Cure For The Missing Sock!

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for:
ProActive Software, ProWorkflow, ProWorkflow Blog & Julian101
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Article: http://tinyurl.com/yg8ujyd

The economic stimulus assistance injected into major industrial countries to counter the effects of a global recession shone a spotlight on the need to rebuild their infrastructures, reports CRM Buyer.

The need to manage such public works investments efficiently has generated a huge potential market for project management software and related services. Even without the stimulus packages, worldwide spending on such projects is truly eye-popping, making the market for PM systems similarly astounding.

"Current estimates are that $12 trillion per year is spent on fixed capital projects worldwide, representing 20% of global product," J LeRoy Ward, executive vice-president of ESI International, told CRM Buyer.

Many software and SaaS co’s are concerned about competition, but not us. We’ve always believed there’s enough market size for project management software globally to allow for many strong players in the marketplace all with different aproaches.

We’ll continue to improve our world class project management software, http://www.ProWorkflow.com and keep delivering great value to our users! Over time we should get our fair slice of the pie!

Looking back, I don’t think this would have worked with Labour, as Helen Clark wasn’t exactly what I’d call an ‘approachable’ lady, but the Nats  have done it well! John Key is really coming across as a decent chap I could have a coffee with.

This does beg the obvious question though:

“With the rapid onset of social media, and keeping in mind the person using it needs to be ‘Followable’ to be ‘Followed’, will the next election be won (or ‘steered’) based on the candidate’s ‘Online Personality’ rather than their ‘Policies’?

Anyway, here’s an interesting list of some New Zealand Government social media and other online links:

..

Twitter: (NZ Official Government Twitter accounts)

• Twitter: John Key (Prime Minister)
• Twitter: New Zealand Companies Office
• Twitter: Personal Property Securities Register
• Twitter: Business.govt.nz Portal
• Twitter: National Library of New Zealand
• Twitter: NZ Historydotnet
• Twitter: Ministry for Culture and Heritage – NZLive
• Twitter: Ministry for Culture and Heritage – Te Ara
• Twitter: NZ on Air
• Twitter: NZ2011.govt.nz

 John Key (Prime Minister)

• Blog: http://johnkey.co.nz/
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnkeypm
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Key/
• RSS Feed: http://www.johnkey.co.nz/feeds/rss 

  National Party:

• Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nznationalparty/
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/nationalparty 
• Wiki: Government 2.0 – Best Practices
• Wiki Tags: social media, government, government 2.0, best practices, lessons learned, web 2.0, gov20, marketing, communications, new media

Websites: (Official NZ Government Websites)

• http://newzealand.govt.nz/ (Nicely Web2.0)
• New Zealand Companies Office
• Personal Property Securities Register
• Business.govt.nz Portal
• National Library of New Zealand
• NZ Historydotnet
• Ministry for Culture and Heritage – NZLive
• Ministry for Culture and Heritage – Te Ara
• NZ on Air
• NZ2011.govt.nz

Civil Servants:

• Sam Farrow (Inland Revenue)
  Twitter: samfarrow 
• Sara Barham (State Services Commission)
  Twitter: sarabeee 
• Yenping Yeo (State Services Commission)
  Twitter: variasian 
  Blog: blog.e.govt.nz/index.php/author/yenping-yeo/
• Jason Ryan (State Services Commission)
  Twitter: jasonwryan 
  Blog: blog.e.govt.nz/index.php/author/jason-ryan/
  Blog: psnetwork.org.nz/blog
• Matt Lane (State Services Commission)
  Twitter: mattlane 
  Blog: blog.e.govt.nz/index.php/author/mattlane/
• Mark Leicester

(State Services Commission)
Twitter: MarkLeicester 
Blog: blog.e.govt.nz/index.php/author/mark-leicester/

• Anne Nelson (Ministry of Education)
  Twitter: anne_nz 
• Terrence Wood (Archives New Zealand)
  Twitter: terrencewood 
• Mia Judkins (Creative New Zealand)
  Twitter: _june 
• Ellen Fitzsimons (Parliamentary Service)
  Twitter: Cle0patra 
• Jo Orange (Ministry of Education)
  Twitter: jo9ty 
• Jeremy Dickson (Ministry of Economic Development)
  Twitter: jeremydickson 
  LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremydickson
  
• Jamie Mackay (Ministry for Culture and Heritage)
  Twitter: jamiemackay and NZhistorydotnet 
• Nathan Wall (Inland Revenue)
  Twitter: _Nathan_W_ 
  LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanwall

Feeds (Unofficial government feeds)

• They Work For You (What reps are doing in Govt)
  Twitter: _Nathan_W_ 
  Website: http://theyworkforyou.co.nz/
• NZ Govt Feeds (ALL the feeds from NZ Government agencies)

Twitter: NZGovtFeeds
Website: http://sites.google.com/site/nzgovtfeeds/

Software Review:

“Like all good online project management software, ProWorkflow manages projects and tasks assigned to users. Where ProWorkflow is set apart from its competition is in the extra features: time management, reports, invoicing, quote management and customizable settings.

ProWorkflow is marketed as having been designed with customer feedback, and it shows. The interface is streamlined and arranged in such a way that what users actually use is readily available. Other, less-often used features are kept a few clicks away.

We were especially impressed with the dashboard that users see upon login: a comprehensive view of tasks and projects that managed not to feel cluttered. The calendar on the left-hand side menu is a nice touch.

For managers, it is even possible to see the dashboard for another user, so that he or she can have a bird’s eye view of the user’s workload. But team management in ProWorkflow goes further than that: we were impressed with the staff workload report, which shows, for each user, how many hours are scheduled. It can even be broken by project and tasks. This makes it easy to see when a resource is overscheduled.

Yet another impressive feature is the invoicing module. As staff log in their time and expenses for each task and project, ProWorkflow builds a “bill” for the client. Then, within a few clicks, a professional-looking invoice can be built, that includes everything from staff hours and billed rates, to other expenses. Invoices are fully customizable.

ProWorkflow is chockfull of details that show they really listened to their customers:

• Multiple Tasks can be edited all at once in a grid.
• Email alerts are detailed and can be adapted to the company’s needs.
• The basic look and feel of the system can also easily be changed without having to contract work from ProWorkflow’s developers.
• Project managers can leverage a search feature that includes clients on top of the usual parameters.

Pricing is also simple at ProWorkflow: users pay for file space and staff logins. Tasks and projects are not limited. This is a welcome change from other systems that charge per project.

Overall, ProWorkflow is a highly flexible system that will benefit organizations big and small, without a steep learning curve, both on the user and the administrator sides.”

I’m wondering if we need to get a few of these for the new ProWorkflow office! I can just see the team running web demos whilst zipping around the office. Just needs a drink holder.

It’s called the “U3-X” from Honda and is good example of the growing number of futuristic transportation devices being released. This awesome beast is capable of a whopping 6km/h and weighs less than 10kg. Runs on a lithium-ion battery with about an hours charge.

I’d really love to try one of these…

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for:
ProActive Software, ProWorkflow, ProWorkflow Blog & Julian101
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From this:

“Quicken Online Can’t Believe Mint Is Doing So Well; Sends Threatening Letter”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/quicken-online-cant-believe-mint-is-doing-so-well-sends-threatening-letter/

“Intuit, the company behind the well-known Quicken suite of money management software that includes Quicken Online, can’t believe how well its competitor Mint is doing. In fact, they were so bewildered by Mint’s claims of gaining 3,000 new users a day and jumping from 600,000 to 850,000 users in a matter of months that they decided to send a threatening letter demanding an explanation for this apparently inconceivable feat.”

to this…

“Intuit To Acquire (Former TechCrunch50 Winner) Mint For $170 Million”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/13/intuit-to-acquire-former-techcrunch50-winner-mint-for-170-million/

“Intuit will acquire the free online personal finance service Mint, we’ve confirmed from a source close to the deal, for around $170 million. Silicon Alley Insider first reported a rumour on this. The deal should be announced in the next few days.”

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for:
ProActive Software, ProWorkflow, ProWorkflow Blog & Julian101
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The Duct Tape Programmer

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html 
.

It’s basically saying don’t worry too much about the polish on your code or getting it 100%, just ship it! I talk to other software co’s that get so wound up in perfecting technology that they never get their releases to the customers.

At ProWorkflow, of course we’re always trying to improve technology and programming – that’s just ongoing, but we do ship, and often! We roll out updates about every 1-2 weeks. They contain a mix of fixes and functionality, but the fact is they’re rolled out and the customers benefit.

All functionality updates are posted about on the blog here: http://www.proworkflowblog.com

Back to the the article though, there were a couple of paragraphs that really stood out.  Check out these:

“Yeah,” he says, “At the end of the day, ship the fucking thing! It’s great to rewrite your code and make it cleaner and by the third time it’ll actually be pretty. But that’s not the point—you’re not here to write code; you’re here to ship products.”

and…

“A 50%-good solution that people actually have solves more problems and survives longer than a 99% solution that nobody has because it’s in your lab where you’re endlessly polishing the damn thing. Shipping is a feature. A really important feature. Your product must have it.”

So true! Our Chairman reminds us of the latter on a regular basis. So Ship people, ship, ship, ship!

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for:
ProActive Software, ProWorkflow, ProWorkflow Blog & Julian101
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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for:
ProActive Software, ProWorkflow, ProWorkflow Blog & Julian101
————-

http://www.renovobikes.com/

“The smoothest bike you’ll ever ride, stealth quiet, light and responsive, stiff as you want. Renovo hollow wood and laminated bamboo frames will forever change your understanding of what a bicycle should be, and how these natural materials can perform when designed to their strengths.”

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About the author:
Julian Stone, CEO – Project Management Software visionary for:
ProActive Software, ProWorkflow, ProWorkflow Blog & Julian101
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