Euroasia: Language, Culture and Travel

This will be short as I am blogging from my iphone. PM John Key will be signing the FTA with the Malaysian PM tonight. Approximately 60 businesspeople are accompanying John Key on this trip. It has been a full on day, from the embargoed briefing this morning to visits of the Fonterra plant in Shah Alam and Datacom office in Banda Utama. We are now back at KL Hilton for a briefing before the reception and official signing ceremony later tonight. Just sneaking in a few linea while the PwC guy is speaking. The Kiwis enjoyed being in the official motorcade. More on that later.

[Update 3/11/09: Full report on the signing of the Malaysia NZ FTA]

In recent months, visits to our blog has increased measurably, with lots of people looking for reviews of Xero and comparisons between Xero and MYOB.  My initial post on MYOB vs Xero – A comparison, explaining the reasons why Euroasia swapped from MYOB to Xero is now our most popular blog entry for 2009. My follow-up post in July 2009 on our experience with implementing Xero is number 10 on the list.

Regular readers will be somewhat surprised that a blog on culture and language would have a post on accounting as the most popular entry. I’m interested in this topic not just because I think Xero has a great product, but I’m also happy to see a New Zealand company doing so well. I’ve enjoyed playing around with Xero, looking at reports and checking out their website. Xero has given me some design ideas for the soon-to-be-launched new Euroasia website.

When I first wrote about Xero in March 2009, Xero had 6000 users, having doubled in the preceding 6 months. At last count, they had over 12000 users, doubling again in the last 6 months. How could this be? For starters Xero is very attentive to client needs.  For example, just look at their Twitter posts from today.

Xero is not insecure about their product. Check out the re-tweet here from a fan who is offering to help with both MYOB and Xero. I was quite surprised to see that Xero twittered this on to their fanbase.

In my last post, I complained about some of the drawbacks of Xero and some suggestions for improvement. I was surprised to see in their September update the specific feature requests I suggested.  This includes customisation of user roles and a name field for contacts.  The customisation of user roles is a step in the right direction, but administrators are still not allowed to customise access rights for individual users (MYOB does this). I hope this is addressed soon. The budgeting function can also be improved to make it a more useful tool for businesses that do more planning/forecasting.

I’m still waiting for my bank to link up my credit card accounts to the live feed. The daily live feed of bank entries is one of the top reasons why Xero is such a great proposition. But Xero is sometimes held back by banks who do not have the same sense of urgency in implementing changes that save customers’ time/money. So users still have to import credit card statements into Xero ala MYOB. So don’t think by implementing Xero you get away from 100% of the dirty work.

I have previously blogged on the drawbacks of MYOB. There are also drawbacks to Xero. For example, anyone that handles a lot of stock will find MYOB a better proposition. So in summary do your research before jumping in.

Xero went live today with their new pricing plans. Euroasia is on the “medium” plan at NZ$49/month, which works well for us. And because we’re an existing customer, we can always activate multi-currency when we need it without having to pay for the “large” plan at NZ$64/month.

For freelancers / property investors who process less than 5 AR and 5 AP invoices per month, the “small” plan would be ideal for you at NZ$29/month.

Seeing Brazil has now beaten Chicago and Madrid to the hosting rights of Olympics 2016, it’s certainly time to consider learning Portuguese. We’re often asked which are the most popular languages learnt by Kiwis.  Spanish and French are high on the rankings, and even German and Italian would be ahead of Portuguese.

Brazil is often overlooked. This despite Brazil being the fifth largest country in the world by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America,the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world, according to Wikipedia.  Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until its independence in 1822. This is why Brazilians speak Portuguese.

Looking ahead, I can imagine the Portuguese language would only be more popular.  In the same way that we saw a steep rise in interest in Mandarin leading up to the Beijing Olympics, I envisage we will see the same interest in Portuguese.

It’s not a hard sell. Anyone who have had personal encounters with Brazilians will know why. Portuguese is a cool and sexy language. I’m surprised we don’t already have people queuing up for Portuguese lessons.

The other day I went along to the preview of this brilliant movie “A Pain in the Ass” (L’Emmerdeur) by French writer-director FRANCIS VEBER, the guy behind The Valet, The Dinner Game and The Closet. This summary from Flicks: Francois Pignon (Patrick Timsit), whose wife (Virginie Ledoyen) has just left him for a shrink, checks into the same Nice hotel as hitman Ralf (Richard Berry). Ralf is there to stake out a key witness in a major corruption trial, while Pignon plans to hang himself in the bathroom. Their adjoining rooms bring them together; the perfect killer and the perfect pest. Complications cement their relationship as Pignon’s fondness for the cold-as-ice assassin grows stronger.

If you think you’ve met people who are a pain in the ass, wait till you meet Pignon!

This movie is coming out 15 October at your local cinema. Go check it out.

Should you wish to be able to watch French movies one day without looking at the English subtitles, you know who to call for French lessons.

p/s: Thanks Christine and Frederic from Evian for asking me along. Also met this guy who runs a water concept store. Yes they only sell water. Aquadeli on Mt Eden Road. They’ve been around for a while, but I’ve yet to go check them out. Have to visit sometime soon.

It’s always good to see Kiwi businesses doing well. Which is why it’s really cool to have the CEO of a fledgling Wellington-based firm, Ponoko, appear on the cover of Inc Magazine.

I read Inc Magazine regularly, and it’s certainly widely read and respected publication. Probably this one article would do more to boost their image and valuation than all their marketing efforts over the past year combined.

I know at least one Ponoko investor who’s happy.

Ponoko is in the business of letting ordinary folk access a laser cutter via the internet and make whatever you want. Ponoko is so radical it’s difficult to imagine what they do. At first I thought they were in the business of selling laser cutters. But no, they actually sell you the process of making whatever you want (choose from their extensive list on the Ponoko website). After some playing around on their website, you have your own product and they will then have the parts cut up and shipped to you. You can then assemble this at home. Basically, it’s customise-to-suit IKEA if you want to have something that you can’t buy in shops.

This story illustrates what possibilities lie ahead.

Ponoko has also become a destination for undiscovered designers and inventors who use it to make and market their stuff. There is, for instance, the Bloom Lamp, which was created by a Los Angeles designer named Igor Knezevic and which you can buy for $160 on Ponoko. It’s a bedside lamp that resembles a delicate flower and is made out of 18 precisely cut pieces of plywood encircling a light bulb. Like something you might pick up at a big-box store, the lamp comes in a flat box and must be snapped together by the buyer.

But unlike a store-bought lamp, this one costs Knezevic’s start-up design company, Alienology, exactly nothing until someone pays for it. The lamps are stocked digitally and manufactured on demand. Ponoko cuts the parts and ships them to Knezevic; he inspects them, drops some instructions and a light fixture into the box, and ships the box to the customer. “Right now I’m making a couple hundred dollars here, a couple hundred there,” he says. “But five years from now, people will still be paying a couple hundred bucks, and I won’t have to do anything. That’s revolutionary.”

So if you’re keen to make your own line of necklaces, table-lamps or whatever, give Ponoko a try.

If they have their way, it would mean a radical shift in current supply chains. In the words of CEO David ten Have: “We’re trying to take Made in China and smear it across the globe…We’re designing a factory for the 21st century.”

Check out the Inc Magazine- Ponoko article. Well done guys. This will surely inspire many local businesses to keep going for it.