Archive for June, 2006
This is what you have been trained for
Had to present a business plan and marketing strategy draft to RSPCA QLD today, presented to the CEO, Senior executive, Retail Manager, Fundraising manager and the IT developer who also works on the project i was presenting.
Anyways, I haven’t done this since in a year or two since doing post grad studies in new business startup, so it was good to get up and have a yarn in front of a bunch of important people. The presentation went quite well, had my powerpoint presentation, excel spreadsheet and diagrams at hand on Scott’s lappy on a projector.
If you didn’t know already, i’m helping with the strategy of an online store which we are launching and its going to be the first of its kind for RSPCA in Australia.
Here are some frilly facts without giving out too much.
The pet care industry is the 2nd largest industry in Australia inputting $4 billion, 2nd only to bovine meat industry for human consumption. Also, Australia is the number one country for pet ownership… minteresting…
Anyways, back to work
26th Birthday Weekend .. New Photos up
Hey i’ve just uploaded a whole bunch of photos from saturday night, its not very well organised yet, i’m still recovering.. will rename and date properly … eventually.. goto my photo gallery to see how drunk I was.
Went to Story bridge friday night with Hayden, met up with some of his friends that he new via his old work. I saw my friend Amy there, she was getting pizza on her way home. Saw Erin’s sister’s (Kate) boyfriend there and i called him her ex’s name.. woops.
Saturday night was good fun, a big turn-out, about 60-70 people there were part of my group. About 15 odd people didn’t turn up that said they would.. they have been trimmed off the VIP list.
Didn’t get much sleep sunday after waiting for a cab for about an hour and a half and arriving home around 5:30am. Got up cooked breakfast at home, tried to have a nap but to no avail. Then went down the coast to check into Sun City, Outrigger resort. Dale and Jim were there in the foyer drinking beers already.. obviously no opportunity there for me to nap before fishos…
When we ventured up in the lift to my room, we saw some girls in there with luggage and her friend asked if we were there for bb (big brother) .. i didn’t click, but soon realised it was big brother she was referring to. Anyways, i don’t think she was supposed to talk about it.. the end… or is it?
Some girls we had never met but had numbers for were supposed to meet up with us at my room, but they took too long so we went to them. They took and hour then one of them forgot their ID so we had to go get that before fishos. it was 9:00pm by the time we got to fishos. Lucky we had vip access in and bypassed the 50m long line.
Fishos was messy as usual, lots of drunk people including us.
Sun city is usually good accomodation, however the service this time round was less than impressive. I rang up for late check-out and was told 12 would be fine the next day. I get a call on sunday morning after i return for breakfast at 10:30 saying i needed to check out at 11 as it was not recorded in the sysem that i requested it. So basically, it was my fault for their mistake. Seriously, it was an extra hour and they wouldn’t budge. They offered the luxury of me paying $20 per extra hour.. i don’t think so. I mean if they told me that the when i rang up, i would have paid. Very bad service. I hate situations like that where u get punished for doing the right thing.
26th Birthday Party
Hey
I’m having a birthday event on Saturday 24 june at Fringe Bar in the Valley. I’ve booked the Spaceship lounge there between 7:30pm & 11:00pm but we will be there all night. I’ve organised cheap drinks for us between 8:00pm and 10:00pm, they include $2 pots of local beers $4 pints & $4 house red/white wine.
You and your friends are invited, the more the merrier! Anyone and Everyone!
The next day I’m having a BBQ breakfast at mine from around 9:30 Sunday 25, you and your friends are invited to come. ALL YOU CAN EAT haha
We will be reloading at Fishos on the Gold Coast that Sunday night and will be meeting down there at 6:30pm.
I’ve attached a JPG image of the invitation. When you come on the Night, you will be given wristbands for the cheap drinks, just come see me!
If you can, let me know if you can make it ASAP.
If there is someone whom I don’t have contact details that I know- let them know it’s on and tell them to come. If they are busy doing something else, tell them to cancel it. I’m more fun!
Regards
Christian.
Mobile Post: On the way home from Eagle Farm Races
Had a big day at the Races on Saturday June 10 at Eagle Farm Racecourse in Brisbane. The Stradbroke Handicap was the big race for the day. Although we didn’t win, we did have 2 opportunities to get up, if it wasn’t for an incompetent operator who kept on asking Dale to repeat the bet whilst the race started and we ended up missing putting money down. It was paying $8.50 and we had $20 ready to go on it!
Anyways, was a big day, went to Fringe Bar & GPO in the valley later that evening and met up with the boys and some new friends we made a couple of weeks before. The end… or is it?
This reminds me, i’m planning a birthday event in the valley at fringe bar on saturday June 24 2006. Keep it free! I’ll be sending out invites shortly.
format http://christianbowman.com /q
Early this week I accidentally deleted my whole site. This blog and new photo gallery where all deleted, along with my site setup files. I was using plesk to delete some folders which i couldn’t be assed doing in my ftp client and i must have been daydreaming. I must have selected all in the root directory. As i was updating my new photo gallery, I was about to upload a truck load of files but i noticed in my ftp client that files and folders were disappearing… uh oh.
At this point, i knew what i had done and my mind had already written this mistake off and already started to think about what i need to do to get it all back up. It’s funny how the brain works like that sometimes. It’s like i knew it was over before the files were completely deleted. I did think about backing up my site and my files about 2 hours before when i was editing the default css for my gallery. I believe that because i had thought about it, i subconsciously did it. It’s like thinking about failing an exam instead of thinking about passing it.
After a few days, I allocated late in the evening to start the process of putting my blog and gallery back up. Much to my surprise, all of my blog posts appeared and all i basically had to do was update the css for the design and update some archive links and it was back to normal.. with the exception of a few manually posted images which weren’t in the database.
The gallery was just a matter of re-uploading all the images which took a day to do as it was a few GB.
I have now learnt to be more careful when deleting folders from a web host admin control panel.
Coming up with a tagline
I’ve been working away at some of my promotional material and because of the wide range of services that I provide, i need a tagline that describes more about my business than “bowman digital”. My business provides services in print & web design, video production (majority wedding video), e-business and internet marketing. Ideally i’d have a tagline for each but its all me and i need to portray the key thing that makes me different and better in each of these generally.
Here are some initial thoughts
“Good Impressions aren’t a choice”
The idea is that we don’t choose to have good impressions, and it’s about having the goods when it’s needed most. the problem with this line is that it can also be read that if you use bowman digital than you don’t get a choice in making a good impression.
“Creativity has never been so smart” or “Creativity at it’s smartest”
The idea behind this one is that anyone can claim to be creative. What makes me different is that I do it the smarter than the rest. The problem with this is that it doesn’t invoke how or why i possibly would be smarter.
“More than just painting rainbows”
As my friend Joel pointed out to me whilst discussing this, is that i need to make emphasis on how I provide added value to a client instead of making like a public goal like “creativity at it’s smartest”. It’s like saying “world’s best coffee” for a coffee shop. I need to be honest to myself and to my environment. This tagline is a little different but give the “underdog” view that there is more to me than meets the eye. I don’t just make things look pretty, I have and will demonstrate to my clients that i do much much more than that.
“More than just a pretty picture”
This one seems pretty good to me as it addresses a few ideas about what i do and why i’m better value than others. In terms of my design work, it means that i create things that not just look good, but communicate an idea or belief, make it impacting and ever lasting. For my video work, particularly wedding video, it means that motion video shows much more true emotion than what a photographer can when they make a bride and groom pose. In terms of marketing, it means that what you see in terms of a e-business website that its not just website but has model behind making it work. More than just a pretty picture whilst seems to be easily achieved, it does invoke interest in how I do it compared to others.
I need outside comments, I cannot come up with this myself as I’m on the “inside” and this is for the “outside”.