The ArtKlick Blog

Day 12

Leaving from New Plymouth after meeting with Robin from WITT I was on just over a 1/4 tank of gas, fiured I would make it to a petrol station in time, after 2.5 hours driving the level was getting pretty low…. Economy driving time, nothing over 80km and don’t put your foot down when your going up the hill. Things were starting to look grim when I rounded a corner into a small town called Poipoi… and it has a Caltex - Phew! So i drove up the hill and camped out for the night, the next morning the $50 Dave deposited had cleared and I had enough gas to get to Hamilton. (Man I’m skint - I need to sell some robot art!)

1.5 hours later I was there, only 20 minutes late for my meeting with Tim the arts director for Wintec. Showed him round the site and he was pretty impressed, giving me an idea on how to create a community for the art buyers which was great.

Then Malcom gave me a call and he was keen as to drive down to Whakapapa to go boarding, so I chilled out in the WinTec library for 2 hours and did some work. Then I chilled down by a lake for a few hours while I waited for Malc.

10pm Malc and John rock up and we are off on a 3 hour drive back south. The coolest thing on the trip was seeing two wild pigs on the side of the road - we turned round and looked at them - they sat there for a couple of seconds then freaked out - kicking a discarded Primo Milk bottle onto the road - its was funny (guess you had to be there).

We got to the Whakapapa camping ground at 1.30am - up at 9am - and when we got to the ski field the car park was full!! So we caught a bus up, and being as skint as I am I can’t afford a pass so I went to talk to the marketers to see if they would give me a pass in exchange for a some snow art but they were all up the hill doing a ski race or something so now I’m in the cafe doing work and thought I should write a post.

Apparently today is a record number of people for Whakapapa - 7,000 x $80 = $560,000 !!! In one day - mental.

Ohakune is supposed to be good tonight - party on - maybe Turoa will be down for a giant robot tomorrow ….

Day 6

Spent most of the day chilling at Wade’s making robot art to fund the trip - got about three done which was pretty productive (they take longer to make than you would think!)

Went for a drive with Wade up Mt Victoria which was cool and then dropped in at his friend “The Scientist’s” place on the way home. This is where I met the new programmer for Art Klick, Scotti. As I hope to be moving to Wellington soon I thought it would be cool to find a new programmer who is keen to help me develop Art Klick further and Scotti seems like the man to do it. Scott works for Marketing Impact and also does website development in his spare time to help people out which is really cool.

Day 7

Emailed up a storm in the morning, made some more robot’s and then Scotti came round at 2ish to talk about ideas for improvements on the new design, the logistics of it and marketing. Then he gave me a ride into town to buy a web cam to do interviews with, we left it a bit late and Dick Smith had a pretty average selection so we bailed. He dropped me home and I made (you guessed it) robot art for the rest of the night.

Day 8 (Monday)

Met with Ruth McDavit from Grow Wellington which was really cool - she is passionate about helping to grow Wellington’s economy and keen for me to move to Welly to develop Art Klick further. Grow Wellington runs a programme called Activate which has had some really successful graduates so I might go for in the next round. They also run free courses to educate business owners and there is one on the 18th September on Guerrilla Marketing so I am definitely going to get back to Welly in time for that!! Another exciting option is the FRST TIF programme which is a grant to pay an intern for 40 hours a week for 10 weeks which would be so cool, so I’m applying for that - fingers crossed.

Then I cruzed home and got packed up and headed into town to try sell some robot art - I chilled on Cuba St for about 45 min’s and lots of people checked them out and thought they were cool but it was raining and I’m not really the hard core salesman so I gave up and will put them on Art Klick soon - at $140 I reckon they are cheap! If anyone want’s a cool piece of art for their wall and wants to help me out please buy one - I’m almost out of money already!!! I can deliver!

After that interesting experience I dropped back into the Silicon Welly office and interviewed Tim Norton about Silicon Welly, Start-up TV and PlanHQ - after really interesting 30 minute interview we checked and the live YouTube recording software haddn’t worked and we got 2 seconds of sped up footage! It was slightly annoying but pretty funny - what can ya do!

By then it was about 6.30pm and I made my way in the dark to Petone to see Amie and Paul McCarron which was fun - Amie showed me how she does her new encaustic wax art which is really interesting. I was supposed to video how she does it and put it on YouTube but when I went to grab it from the camper I couldn’t find it - must have left it at Silicon Welly office!!!

Exhibition: If you are in Wellington this Friday go along to her exhibition and check it out - free wine and cool people - how can you say no to that?!

Then I drove down to the park and slept in my Escape Camper which was mint!

Day 9

Drove back into Welly to grab my camera then headed for Palmerston North. On the way I remembered my cousin Ben and his girlfriend Julia lived there so I gave him a call and it was sorted. We caught up for a bit then went to quiz night at the pub which was fun. Got home about 10pm and I hit the computer to catch up on emails, coming across this awesome post on Start-up by Patrick Macfie which made my night. If you have a yahoo! account can you do me a favour and click on the buzz button at the bottom - I want to see how much clicks it needs to get to the front page of the lifestyle section.

Day 10

Emailed all the new members of Art Klick in the morning, did some article reading and video watching then headed into Massy to try meet Rachel Rakena who is the HOD for the Maori arts, but she wasn’t there! I was lucky enough meet one of the Masters students who showed me round and said he would spread the word which was awesome. After coming out of there and seeing the cool culture that we have as our countries heritage I really want that to be a far bigger factor of Art Klick and in the new design I want it to be clearly New Zealand with a section dedicated to cultural arts - broken into different ethnicities. I also read a report by Creative New Zealand that the Asian arts is a huge sector that is overlooked so I think we should incorporate an element of that into the site too.

Then I called WITT to organise an appointment for tomorrow and University of Waikato and Waikato Polytec to arange meetings on Friday. With all that sorted I headed for New Plymouth at about 5pm. I was so impressed by the beauty of the country and the amount of cool towns I passed through, getting a bit sleepy I started looking to a place to park up the camper. After a couple of side roads that I explored but wasn’t too keen on I saw one that looked ideal, slowing down quickly the laptop with the T-Stick still in it slid off the seat and landed on the floor - T-Stick first! It didn’t sound good so I pulled up to the spot and had a look - sure enough the T-Stick was at an 80 degree angle sticking out of the USB port!!! Grrr! Not very impressed with the spot that caused me to break my communication with the world I kept driving until I got to this cool town called Patea, saw a beach sign so I headed down there and sure enough there is a big car park right next to the beach - and that’s where I am sitting now writing all this on a Notepad file. So that’s me so far - I’ve had such an awesome time so far and met some great people, and i still have three weeks ahead of me!

I <3 New Zealand!

Day 11

Drove to New Plymouth and met with Robin Flattery who is the Marketing and Promotions Officer for Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki. I showed him through the site and told him about ideas for the future, then he showed me round the campus and we met the HOD for the arts, Jed. Had a good chat and they are really keen to work together to help promote their students and thier instutute which is great - things are coming together well!

Right, time to make tracks for Hamilton !

Ps New Plymoth is very nice - Im sitting next to the beach - and by the way, I bent the T-stick back into place and it works fine! Go Telecom!

Friday - The Unlimited Investment Challenge.

The UIC was very informative with a good selection of speakers that covered everything from business viability to IP and copyright. The UIC was put together by Unlimited Magazine and UK Trade and Investment to help entrepreneurs realise their export potential.

This definitely furthered my knowledge of the great resources available to new start-up companies and established companies that want to grow further. There are some great organisations like the New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Escalator who can put you through analysis and preparation for investment. I also found Phillip Loader from Kea very interesting, they are a network of professionals keen to help New Zealand business expand internationally. With over 800,000 kiwis abroard and almost 27,000 members in Kea they can put you in touch with all the right people to take your product or service international.

Greg Cross from BeachHeads was also very interesting and emphasised the importance of talking with your competitors and being anal about being competitive. The good thing about BeachHeads is they have the connections to get you to the top of organisations instead of getting stuck in middle management who rarely give you a yes or no. Another key lesson I took away was to make sure you contract a PR firm that is in your market and has the connections to the industry and media you want to market to. BeachHeads is also partnered with NZTE to help fast growing businesses break into international markets.

Julie Gill the Owner of Unlimited Magazine then gave us some tips on how to deal with media (they get 80+ press releases a day). It’s all about establishing relationships with the people you want to publish your story and sending them something unique so they don’t feel like the other 250+ media in NZ got the same thing.

After some good networking and organising a meeting with Phillip Loader from Kea to come to the meeting I have lined up with Ruth McDavitt from Grow Wellington on Monday I headed back to the Silicon Welly office.

When I walked in there was a guy sitting on the couch and he said “Hey Million Dollar Leg!” I was like “Hey bro, what’s your name?” And he said Pat (Patrick Macfie from Start-up.co.nz) (The coolest start-up New Zealand website and magazine out right now - go get ya self one!).

So I sat down for a chat and showed him through New Zealand’s newest online gallery (Art Klick). He was so amped on it and super encouraging, giving me ideas for improvements and then listing it on Start-up in the community section. Then he sent some emails to people who he thought would be interested and said he is keen to help me out which is a huge honour.

It’s so cool to have the site up and be able to get out there and meet all these people I have been looking up to. Everyone i have met has been very encouraging and supportive which is so cool after all the hard work it has taken to get this far.

There is a lot of work ahead but I am definitely meeting the right people to help make it happen, I am moving to Wellington ASAP!

Another mint day in Welly - might go try sell some of my robot art to fund this trip!

Another beautiful day in Wellington began by hanging out with Amie McCarron from ArtList.co.nz. We had coffee (of course), then checked out some local galleries. Apparently they aren’t hurting too bad from the “economic downturn” which is encouraging to hear. Amie is fun and knows a lot about local artists and taught me a few names I should know. Thanks Amie!!

Then I met with Teriu Lemon who is the programme director for digital media at Wellington Institute of Technology, one word - Wow! He is so passionate about helping WelTec’s graduates get into jobs related to the subjects they studied in. Although WelTec isn’t very well known it is a great institute and he believes the best way to market it is by producing top quality students that become advocates. He is also working on a great initiative to promote their best artists by putting together an international art exhibition tour to slingshot the artists onto the international stage!

But wait, it gets better…. Not only is Teriu keen to help promote Art Klick to his students but he also has a good relationship with Grow Wellington which is a business development resource for local Wellington based businesses. Grow Wellington also has a intensive four month programme for business start-ups and entrepreneurs called Activate which is a four month course designed to help develop ideas into business plans and strategies!

After a call from Teriu to Ruth McDavitt the Economic Development Manager for Grow Wellington we lined up a meeting for Monday! This is a HUGE opportunity which would be amazing, but I better not get my hopes up - fingers crossed!

After walking out of Wel Tec grinning ear to ear I met Matthew aka Olaf Quintessa who showed me round Second Life which was really interesting. Second life has a growing presence of real world companies taking advantage of the unique virtual world that is Second Life. After a tour around some galleries and seeing how things worked I definitely think there is potential for Art Klick to create a SL gallery where people could check out NZ art, and potentially even buy it with Lindon dollars to decorate their SL homes. They would also know that they could order prints from Art Klick in real life (when we expand the prints internationally) - and hopefully this would result in sales. The coverage we would get as an online gallery going into a virtual world would likely be reasonable also so it is something to keep in mind for the future of Art Klick. Thanks Olaf!

Then back home to make robot art all night (again) - it takes for ever! I will post up some pics soon.

Better get to bed, big day tomorrow - Unlimited Investment Challenge! Can’t wait!

PS Thanks for the comments - it’s cool to know people are actually reading this

Day 3. Met with Jaysell Gopal a fourth year design student from Massey University at 10.30am. She showed me round the campus and we posted lots of Art Klick flyers up on the notice boards!!!

Jaysell had some good ideas about how we could help graphic designers more including a job board, internships, events and obviously they can profile on Art Klick too.

It as been really inspiring to meet with the people involved at all these cool tertiary institutes and see the amazing things their students are creating. These students are the future of New Zealand design, arts and IT - I want to do everything I can to help them get into their industry…… I have an idea brewing but it needs some more thought and planning before I talk about it! But it’s cool - that’s all I can say for now

Then Wade, Jacks and I cruzed down to the waterfront for a coffee (apparently Wellington has the highest amount of coffee shops per capita - I believe it!).

Into Silicon Welly Office at 12pm, fired off some more emails and calls to organise tomorrows meetings then had a meeting with Campbell Bevan from InventNZ which is a great new design company that does everything from prototypes to clothing. He is interested in selling their artwork through Art Klick too which is great! I highly recommend you check out their site to find out more about what they do + it has an awesome design!

Then Gaye Matheson from Capital Times and Art Zone came in for a chat about what I’m doing with Art Klick and she’s hopefully going to get me an article in Capital Times which would be amazing!

I love the people in the NZ art scene - everyone is so encouraging and cool and doing it for the love.

Then I hung out with my friend Sarah Young who works for Fulton Hogan part time while studying and doing a bit of freelance journalism. She has some rad ideas and it’s so cool to meet other people that are motivated to do cool things and help people. She’s hoping to write an article about Art Klick and The Million Dollar Leg Project for a new zine coming out next year called Etch - this is their blurb off the facebook group (join it so you can get a message when they publish their first issue!)

Day One - Picked up my Escape Camper on Sunday, packed up all my gear and robot art related items and left for Picton at 11.30am on Monday morning. After a couple of brief stops on the way I was in Picton. On the way into Picton I had to pull over and check out a 12ft bear carved out of macrocarpa wood I saw outside a local sculptors house (regretting not taking a photo now!). After dropping off some Art Klick flyers and a business card and yarn with a local admirer of the bear I headed into town half an hour early for the ferry. After a coffee and something to eat it was time to line up, 3 hours of slightly bumpy sea crossing combined with a new Telecom T-Stick I was in Wellington. My friend Wade met me at the terminal and after a couple of minutes of tight and windy roads we were at his nice sea view pad - I like Wellington already!

Day Two - A meeting with Marketing Impact director Gary Klocek at 10.30am (thanks Rachel Ah Kit!). Gary is the director of the the second biggest direct marketing company in New Zealand with 120+ staff and he took the time to meet with me, the little guy! It quickly became obvious why Marketing Impact has grown from 8 staff to the 120+ they have now in the past 13 years under his management. The key factors he attributes to the company’s growth are a focus on quality products and service while consistently developing strong relationships with clients. By keeping their customers and staff happy they can then rely on word of mouth within the industry to gain more work and clients. Sounds simple but as Gary said, consistency and reliability beats hype and re branding every time.
After a tour of their office and letter packing rooms they had my 3,000 Art Klick flyers ready and it was time to grab a quick coffee with Wade then head to my meeting with Natasha Davey from Victora University School of Design.

The campus for the School of Architecture and Design is so cool (naturally) and Natasha thought Art Klick would be a great resource for their students to profile on. Being an artist herself she knows how hard it is to get your artwork out there and seen by the public. By placing no barriers or risk for the artists (free membership and listings) she thinks we have a great idea which will appeal to their many creative students. Sweet!

Side Note: I’m working on developing relationships with all New Zealand’s creative institutes by profiling them on the new ArtKlick.com blog (this one) when I get it redesigned into more of a community. So far I’ve met with CPIT, D&A, NatColl and UC Fine Arts and they are all really interested in working together to promote their students and institutes. I hope to run tee shirt and logo design competitions through the site as it grows, and potentially a magazine next year to profile the emerging artists and designers involved in our booming creative sector.

After being totally inspired by The School of Design I took up Tim Norton’s offer to check out the Silicon Welly office on Courtney Place…. Wow, talk about cool! Then he took an hour out to hang out with me! Talk about inspiring! Tim as been in the web development scene for the past 8 years with a very impressive list of achievements and is one of the major web entrepreneurs I look up to. Tim has been working on PlanHQ with investment and direction from Rod Drury and Rowan Simpson (two of the biggest names in the NZ IT scene).

PlanHQ is a business plan management service which helps teams set goals and achieve both their long and short term business plan. I have been using it for the past two weeks and love it. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to improve the efficiency of their company, and with the first month free you have nothing to loose!

Tim also said I could use the Silicon Welly/PlanHQ office as my base for the week I’m in Wellington which is amazing! So I hung out there for an hour to fire away some emails and organise meetings for tomorrow, except for a call from Tim for a “Gimmie 20” another initiative Tim is part of called The Naked Trainer which is a new online collaboraborative fitness idea to encounter people to get fit.

I could go on about all the other cool stuff going on in Silicon Welly, or you could just buy Unlimited Magazine which is bundled with Start-up mag - which is the cover story. Considering Outrageous Fortune is on, I’m going to go with the latter.

Peace