We just launched a redesigned version of the Visit Hastings website for Hastings District Council.

Actually, it's more than a redesign. It's a re-boot. The site is much more focused around deals, events and activities than its predecessor, so we needed to make it more exciting visually. The homepage slider is completely dynamic and the staff at HDC can manage it really easily. And the events information feeds through automagically from Eventfinder. Nice.

And it's on WordPress, so it works.

Check it out here: http://www.visithastings.co.nz

Mac has built a loyal following on Twitter with his legendary "#AdvintageFreebieFriday" competition and cheeky potshots at Air New Zealand's predatory prices, but he needed a bigger canvas for his obvious social media marketing talent.

Enter Mogul, with our years of experience in building engaging, socially-networked blog websites (e.g. - ahem- Fruitbowl). The end result went live today and the response has been awesome. Check it out here: http://www.advintageblog.co.nz/

The “Conga Line”is bringing a festival atmosphere to the Classic New Zealand Wine Trail (CNZWT) during the Rugby World Cup.

The trail is a self-drive route through the leading food and wine regions of Marlborough, Wellington, Wairarapa and Hawke’s Bay.

Tourists and locals are urged to join the Conga Line by signing up via the CNZWT website and getting email alerts in return about enticing deals offered by businesses along the trail.

The deals are posted on the Classic Wine Trail website and Facebook page, and those joining the email list for daily deals go in the draw to win a case of New Zealand wine.

CNZWT marketing manager Lucy Chambers says the Conga Line offers a fun-filled way to see the country, and that festival events taking place along the sign-posted 380km stretch will provide added entertainment.

“It’s a chance for like-minded people from around the world to enjoy a festival atmosphere and argue the merits of their rugby teams while sipping on a world-beating wine,” Mrs Chambers says.

While businesses on the trail are climbing on board with tempting offers, Air New Zealand has already joined the fun by sponsoring 10 campervans – one of which is doing a pre-tournament tour along the trail this week.

The campervans have been blackened and named after All Blacks, and fitted with smart-phones so pics taken on the Conga Line can be uploaded online and displayed to all via social media.

To make things easier for travellers, many participating businesses will display the Classic New Zealand Wine Trail logo, and i-Sites (visitor information centres) will be up to speed with what’s going on in their regions.

The purpose of the event is to raise 100,000 pounds, all of which will be donated to Christchurch for earthquake relief.

Some big names are getting behind this. Zane Lowe, the hugely successful Kiwi DJ has just tweeted out to his 180,000 followers and former All Blacks Zinzan Brooke, Sean Fitzpatrick, and Anton Oliver are all confirmed on the guest list.

For our part, we're sponsoring the event by creating the website: http://www.chchfundraiser.com/

Please share this once-in-a-lifetime event with all of your friends and followers.

Cheers

Matt

Here in Hawke's Bay, we could learn a thing or two from Wellington Airport's Wellywood PR campaign.

The airport's decision to erect the unashamedly naff sign has motivated an army of social media twerps to jump on the sign-bashing bandwagon. Of course, they're simply adding fuel to the fire, ensuring that Wellington stays firmly in the spotlight.

The story has dominated the New Zealand news media since Saturday and now we're all in no doubt that:

1. Wellington has an international airport
2. Wellington is a thriving centre for big-budget moviemaking
3. Wellington is known for its creativity
4. Wellington's people are passionate about their city and how it is represented

And now Michael Fowler, the former mayor and architect, has ensured the story will receive international readership by wading in with his anti-Irish slurs.

Whatever you think of the sign, I think it's been a brilliantly executed PR campaign. It's a great way to kick off Wellington's run-up to the Rugby World Cup, and the onging saga of erecting the sign, protecting it against vandalism, and its eventual destruction (maybe by Molotov cocktails) will ensure the city and its aiport are the most talked-about in the country.

So what have the PR gurus of Hawke's Bay got planned to get this region in the news for the next 4 months?

I've just been along to the Captain's Run of the Crusaders at McLean Park. It's really great to see so many world-class rugby players here in the Bay for the weekend (how's this for starting a World XV? - McCaw, Kieran Read, the Franks brothers, Brad Thorn, and a certain someone at first-five called D. Carter). It's especially cool that the Crusaders have chosen Hawke's Bay as a home venue now that their home ground in Christchurch is out of action due to the earthquake. Their manager Tony Thorpe told us how grateful they are to be hosted here in Hawke's Bay and to receive such great support from the locals.

So I urge you all to get along to the game tomorrow night. It will be a great advertisement for Hawke's Bay hospitality - and the Crusader horses will be there too.

Big thanks to IMS Payroll for providing free tickets for families who had earthquake refugees to stay and Attn! Marketing for making it happen.

Now if only the semi-finals and final could be played here too...

Hawke’s Bay residents are being called upon to help in a large scale costal clean up of flood damaged areas such as Waimarama.

The coastal community was devastated by floodwaters during last week’s downpour, which caused residents to be evacuated, debris to clog drains and silt to pile up on roads and properties.

The idea of the Coastal Clean Up was developed by Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule, Napier MP Chris Tremain and Tukituki MP Craig Foss. They are calling on residents to form a “Magpie Army”, a legion of passionate Hawke’s Bay locals who are willing to volunteer some time to help residents clean up their properties.

They want volunteers who can help out either this Saturday or Sunday (or both) to register their interest by phoning the Hastings District Council on 871 5000 or by clicking here.

Those who have registered are asked to be at the Council building in Lyndon Road, Hastings by 7.45am at the latest and are asked to bring either a spade or a shovel and even a wheelbarrow if they can.

Buses will transport volunteers to Waimarama,, where they will work alongside residents to clean up flood damaged property, before returning to Hastings by 5pm.

Food and water will be provided during the day, but volunteers are asked to bring their own gumboots, gloves and a drink bottle. The work will be physically demanding so volunteers need to be reasonably fit and it may not be suitable for children.

Due to the state of Waimarama Road it is important that all volunteers go by the busses which will be provided and not try to make their way to the township independently by car.

Lawrence Yule says “Hawke’s Bay residents have shown in the past they have big hearts and are prepared to support fellow residents during difficult times. This is a co-ordinated effort which is designed to do the most good for Waimarama residents in a short time and help them get back on their feet quickly”.

Chris Tremain says “Craig Foss and I immediately thought that we needed a “Magpie Army” to help residents out, as we saw the Student Army do so effectively in Christchurch. Hawke’s Bay is a strong community and this will show the people affected by the flooding, that rest of the region feels their pain and is prepared to roll up our sleeves and do something in support of the recovery effort”

Hastings District Council is also looking for offers from companies or individuals who may have a truck to spare over the weekend, which would be suitable to carry the wheelbarrows and shovels from the Council buildings to Waimarama. Please contact Sue Sowerby on 871500 if you can help.

Most website owners have experienced it - you go to have a look at your site and it's just a blank screen. Maybe it's got an error message on it, or maybe there's a big sign saying 'Warning - infected with malware!'. Everyone else's websites are still running OK, so it's something wrong with yours.

What's causing it and what can you do?

The most common causes are...

• your domain name has expired
• your site has exceeded its monthly bandwidth allowance
• your web hosting company is having an issue, such as downtime for maintenance, or one of their servers has crashed and needs to be restarted.
• someone working on the site has accidentally deleted an important file or made an error in the code
• your website has been compromised by malware, so your ISP or Google is blocking it

What to do about it:

First of all, don't panic. We've seen this happen hundreds of times - and we've never lost a website.
Contact your IT expert, web developer, domain name provider, or hosting company to find out what's happened and what's causing it.
Most of the time, this happens because your domain name has expired or you have exceeded your bandwidth for the month.These are easy fixes.

Domain name expired
To check your domain name expiry date, just go to a site like Free Parking and look up your domain name's WHOIS information. It will show you the expiry date for the domain.

Bandwidth exceeded
To check whether your bandwidth (data traffic to and from the website) has been exceeded, either log in to your hosting control panel or ring your hosting provider. If you've gone over your allowance for the month, you might need to pay to go up to a bigger plan.

If the domain name is OK and the bandwidth is OK, then maybe your web hosting company is having an issue. This could be scheduled maintenance, or maybe one of their servers has crashed and they have had to restart it. This stuff happens all the time, even with the most reliable providers. Remember that 99.9% uptime means that, in the course of a month, that's about 45 minutes of downtime. If your web host has a Twitter account, you should check it to see if there are any reports of downtime or issues. Twitter is great for this because, even if your web host disappears completely, their Twitter cccount will still be active. I've seen a situation where all of a web host's websites went down, including their own site, and their phones (!!)

Human error
Your website might have disappeared due to human error, i.e. someone (maybe you - or someone editing the files on the site) has put a mistake in their code or accidentally deleted an important file. This is potentially very bad, because web servers don't usually have an 'Undo' button. Hopefully your web hosting company or developers will be making regular backups of the sites they host (make sure you know how your backups are being managed).

Hacker attack
And now, the last and most damaging reason for a site disappearing - the hacker attack. We've seen that it's becoming increasingly common for hackers to gain access to websites through older versions of content management systems, especially if the site has a poorly secured contact form, or login form. In this case, Google usually spots an infected site very quickly and blocks access to it. Another telltale sign is that your browser suddenly takes you to what looks like an anti-virus site and starts downloading files or running some sort of scan of your computer. This is all part of the scam.
If you see this happen, unplug your computer from the Internet immediately and run a virus scan on it. Contact your web hosting company or your web developers IMMEDIATELY. They should be able to see the telltale code that has been injected into your website by the evildoers. Hopefully if they have a backup plan, they will be able to roll the site back to a clean version, and update the software to stop the infection happening again.

Conclusion - pay constant attention
So... it's really important that you pay constant attention to your website. This means

• making sure your domain names are up-to-date
• keeping an eye on your bandwidth to ensure you're not exceeding the limit of your plan
• following your web host's Twitter feed
• having a backup plan in place, or paying someone to make regular backups for you
• keeping your content management system up-to-date
• keeping your own computer's anti-virus up-to-date

It's a big bad world out there, but with these tips, you should be 99.99% OK.

On May 17th, Auckland and May 20th in Wellington, David Smith is presenting a unique one day seminar for entrepreneurs, their advisors and investors titled "Assembling the Nuts and Bolts of Entrepreneurship--Silicon Valley Style". The way that high-technology startup companies have been structured in Silicon Valley might be considered somewhat unusual to those involved in regular, traditional businesses in New Zealand. However, the Silicon Valley model as it relates to corporate organisation, preferred stock financing, intellectual property, valuation and management is being adopted by high-tech investors all over the world, and it is important to understand the model when expanding into the U.S. market. This seminar provides valuable insights into how the system works, with a focus on how entrepreneurs can navigate the system to raise finance, build successful businesses and cash out via a profitable exit transaction.The agenda and topics covered are available on this page: http://www.svbs.co/Public/OneDaySeminar.aspx.

With these special URLs, you will be able to reserve your place at the special rate of US$190 (the regular price is US$495):

May 17th Auckland Entrepreneurship Seminar: http://www.svbs.co/Public/eventregistration.aspx?EventId=1&VP=1&PID=DSNZ144

May 20th Wellington Entrepreneurship Seminar: http://www.svbs.co/Public/eventregistration.aspx?EventId=3&VP=1&PID=DSNZ144 (Only a few seats left available for this Wellington seminar)

On May 18th in Auckland there will be a patent oriented seminar aimed at patent holders, patent lawyers, technologists and entrepreneurs. This full-day seminar investigates how patents can be monetised via licensing, patent sale and other transactions. Attendees learn about the raging patent wars, the types of players involved and the role of patents as weapons of litigation. Attendees leave this seminar with an understanding of how patents are valued, and how they might be converted into streams of revenue. The agenda and topics covered are available on this page: http://www.svbs.co/Public/OneDayIPSeminar.aspx.

May 18th Auckland Patent Seminar: http://www.svbs.co/Public/eventregistration.aspx?EventId=2&VP=1&PID=DSNZ144

Please feel free to share these URL's providing special rates to your friends and colleagues. After the early bird pricing is over, the price to the general public will increase toward the $495 rate in as we get closer to the seminar dates.

MediaSense is a new social media conference put on by Hal Josephson, a Hawke’s Bay entrepreneur, impresario and top bloke.

For me, this was a fantastic chance to meet folk I don’t normally meet, with people from all around the country attending. The Bay was well represented and I was most impressed with the locals’ friendliness and enthusiasm. These guys have secured interesting and challenging jobs or taken the plunge and started their own businesses in an area notorious for a vibrant food and drink scene. It had me scratching my chin several times about life outside Auckland. Hmmm. Needless to say, we were well looked after eating and drinking-wise, enjoying the hospitality of the Craggy Range and Black Barn vineyards, who hosted the event itself.

I was there as the corporate perspective in the local case studies section, along with  Tim and Matt from Uprise, Jayson Bryant, Tom from Catalyst 90 and Kayla from Mini Monos.

My case study was crisis communication. I told our earthquake story, which has some solid examples of the power of using social networks, and is a neat way to outline our approach in general. I think I got points for being honest(!), and I was pleased to get some  thoughtful anecdotal and online feedback.

I throughly enjoyed the afternoon panel hosted by Nat Torkington and featuring Xero’s Rod Dury, Matthew Miller from Mogul websites and Paul Brislen from TUANZ – local examples almost always give me more takeaways than any other section of an event like this. I was hugely impressed with Matt from Mogul’s common sense approach to social – it’s easy to overthink this stuff. Like Telecom, Xero is a heavy Yammer user, interestingly. I enjoyed Paul’s war stories from his the early days of doing this at Voda – can relate!

A nervous glass of water before speaking, while wishing I’d chosen more irreverent footwear like Jayson and Paul. Photo credit: @gnat.

It was observed that Twitter was roughly 70% of the conversation, but someone did point out you need to look at it in context with all social channels available to achieve your goals, especially the lesser known ones like TradeMe forums, even databases and email! Karen Leland gave her two hot tips for PR in social media as 1. pick up the phone, and 2. go to lunch. I liked that.

Full credit, as they say, to Hal and Odette for putting on a thoroughly valuable and enjoyable event, with some fantastic hospitality and conversations the night before, during and in the bar afterwards – I hope to be involved in some capacity next year. Recommended.

PS I need to mention Tweet2Eat – if you’re in the Bay, you MUST follow for all your food and drink recommendation requirements.

Well done Hal and Odette!

You can read Richard’s blog post here: http://t.co/oCqasWu