Colour coded collection

Have you ever threatened to arrange your library or trade collection by spine colour? Well here is an example from the Booksellers Association (NZ) collection in Wellington. It is very arresting and the green Christmas tree at the right is very appropriate for the season.


The only problem was, that nothing could be found!

NZ companies web-aware

Homepage of Thermaflo, a Palmerston North (New Zealand) small business and exporting company http://www.thermaflo.co.nz/ - Managing Director Kevin Gilbert.   Photograph used with support and permission.


It was reported recently in the Dominion Post newspaper of 30 November 2009 on p.C6 that New Zealand businesses are more likely to have websites and ‘engage in e-commerce that their Australian counterparts.’ Statistics New Zealand has compared the technology industries of the two countries in a study entitled: Information and Communication Technology in New Zealand and Australia which can be found at:

http://www.stats.govt.nz/Publications/BusinessPerformanceEnergyAndAgriculture/ict-in-nz-and-aust/business-use-of-ict.aspx

54% of small businesses in New Zealand have a web presence compared with 48% in Australia, and overall 60% of businesses in New Zealand have a web presence as opposed to 53% in Australia.

What does this mean for the information professional in international trade? It is very frustrating being unable to find exporting companies on the web and it is obvious that 40% of businesses in New Zealand don’t have a web presence. It means that we cannot use the web as the only source of business and product intelligence. We will still need to rely on other means such as yellow pages, trade and business directories, and personal networking.

Write me a web page Elsie

This is the cover of Rachel McAlpine's book Write me a web page, Elsie.  Photo from the publisher.   We at the New Zealand School of Export think this is a really useful guide to writing on the web.   We have used it to re-vamp some of our pages on the School's website http://www.export.ac.nz/   I have been guilty of some of the worst of faults - using generic photos - well almost!  McAlpine says that eye-tracking research shows that most people ignore the pictures.   I am now trying to use images which fit really closely with the text and add to what it is saying!   She also recommends captions - sounds very simple.  That is the essence of this book - she gives down to earth advice in a style which makes you want to change!
If I have any gripe about the book, it is that the index doesn't cover everything in the book e.g. ACHOs and AFFLOs.  That aside I can thoroughly recommend it.
By the way, Rachel McAlpine is a dramatist, poet and novelist besides writing books on writing.

New New Zealand datasets website

The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs has just produced and gone live with their data.govt.nz website which is an index to publicly accessible government datasets.   These are not necessarily new datasets, but this website brings them all together.

A search on exports retrieves four results, but a search on trade is more productive and produces 13 hits.  
This is a good way to ensure that you or your international trade colleagues have picked up all the relevant and available information.

Deals Open Important Markets - How Important?

A column by Jon Morgan in the Dominion Post October 21, 2009 reports that the farmer-owned meat cooperative Silver Fern Farms has negotiated a deal with French grocery cooperative Intermarche. Silver Fern Farms will supply chilled lamb under their own brand to Intermarche which has 1500 stores in France.


Intermarche also has 500 stores in Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Poland and Romania. This is where the opening of important markets comes in. I wondered what the size of New Zealand’s current export trade to those five countries is currently, and so set myself a reference question to find out.  Here are my results:

In the June year 2007-2008 New Zealand exported to:

Belgium    Goods worth NZ$587,414,000 of which sheep meat (HS code 0204) was 28.04%

Spain       Goods worth NZ$299,865,000 of which sheep meat was 9.2%

Portugal   Goods worth NZ$ 42,201,618 of which sheep meat was 44.9%

Poland     Goods worth NZ$ 20,245,916 of which sheep meat was 1.02%

Romania  Goods worth NZ$ 4,756,880 . No sheep meat has been exported to Romania in the period 2000-2009.

So certainly it seems that with the exception of Portugal where exports of sheep meat made up over 40% of New Zealand’s trade, then the Silver Fern Farms initiative could indeed open up markets for our products in the other countries and especially Romania.

Photo: from Flickr Creative Commons-licensed content for noncommercial use requiring attribution http://www.flickr.com/photos/mollivan_jon/67858560/

Sources:


Statistics New Zealand (2008) Global New Zealand international trade, investment and travel profile. pp.41 and 47

Figures for Portugal, Poland and Romania from Statistics New Zealand. Infoshare. Retrieved 21 October 2009.

RSS Feed Search Engine

I have just discovered this search engine and wonder if anyone else has used it or is using it.   The AboutUs information says that more than 75 million blog posts and news articles have been indexed and are searchable.   Has anyone tested out the "Deep Search" which RSSMicro uses?

This links back  to the post on Trade Content Curators (TRACCs) as well.  Your comments?  (BTW there is no need to have a Google account before you post to TraLIS anymore)

Richard Stallman and Copyright

Richard Stallman speaking in Belgium.  I chose this picture because he was wearing a similar red t-shirt in Levin - no evidence of the Pepsi though!
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and free software activist, spoke in Levin, on 7th October 2009. He is also a keynote speaker at the LIANZA Conference being held in Christchurch this week.


He spoke for almost two hours and in spite of the seats in the Salvation Army Complex becoming harder and harder, he kept audience attention throughout. He is also an outspoken advocate for copyright reform and his Levin lecture was directed towards copyright and its impacts.

He states his Four Software Freedoms as follows:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour (freedom 2).

• The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this

but in this talk they were expressed as

Freedom 0: being able to use a work – to read it

Freedom 1: to study the work and change it

Freedom 2: to being to lend or give away a copy to friends

Freedom 3: to change the work and give away/lend the changed work

Because we use a wide variety of media in trade libraries and information services, the idea of DRM or ‘Digital Restrictions Management’ also expressed as ‘digital handcuffs is very relevant. DRM takes away our freedoms and in our context may prevent us from making copies from e-books, watching some DVDs except on certain types of technology and from giving away material to other people within international trade.

Although he was obviously preaching the movement’s message, he did put forward some ideas as to how copyright laws could be changed – by changing the period from 50 years to 10 years, and distinguishing different kinds of works based on their contribution to society. In particular ‘works that tell what people think’ category would allow non-commercial sharing of exact copies – this would cover our situation in trade libraries.

I came away thinking about the way we use the © symbol to protect works which we produce in our companies – should we encouraging usage and development with statements like: Please feel free to use this material with an acknowledgement to...

Some of his pithier statements:

Analog holes = eyes

Amazon’s Kindle = the Swindle

Home cooks are kitchen pirates and break all the copyright laws

To attack sharing is to attack society