Vote on the Gig Plan for Nelson

The Plans for Gig Success are out!

Dunedin, Gisborne, Nelson, Timaru and Wanaka. May the best town win, so long as that town is Nelson of course!

This is the final challenge and Nelson’s last chance to become GigaTown.  After a year of building a strong online (and offline) community and chasing the leaderboard so hard, we need this win!

Scroll down to read the infographics in the Nelson plan.  The Plan covers how Nelson will leverage giga when it becomes NZ’s first Smart Town.  This in turn will provide a working template for other towns to adopt when giga is pushed out to the rest of NZ.

Check out the Funding and Investment graphic, which uses a Monopoly board to get the messsage across, very cool.

I love the format of GigaNelson’s logo with the WiFi above the eye, very creative yet simple and effective.

Become part of the Gig Club!  Go here to read the plan and vote. 

Read earlier posts about gigatownnsn – an online community, the finals and the final challenge,

This blog post was automatically posted to Facebook, Twitter,  Google+ and LinkedIn to spread the word and encourage people to vote

 

gigatownnsn, the finals

Nelson made the finals! It was touch and go, with only 60,000 between us and Porirua, and we had to wait a few tense days while Chorus analysed the results, but we’re in!  Woohoo!

It’s a completely new ball game now. The rules have changed. Initially everyone is nervous about participating in social media.  Tweets and posts must be strictly on topic, and people are standing back and watching, unsure how to join in.  Another hashtag #nsnz has been started up for chit chat that isn’t on competition topic and we are in danger of losing supporters to that. We need to reassure our Twitter community quickly.  I jumped in and just started tweeting with #gigatownnsn to encourage others. It wasn’t that difficult to incorporate UFB and the competition into my tweets and it started to stimulate conversation.

There was some worry about staying on topic and the risk of losing points for spam

Getting the conversation rolling with questions

The Challenges

Points are reset to zero for the five finalist towns.

There are five challenges in the final round with each getting a percentage allocation. Each town will get points for 1st through to 5th place. The town with the most points overall wins.

– 50% Plan for Gig Success. A written submission and video describing how our town plans to integrate gigabit fibre along with the economic and social benefits. 35% awarded by a judging panel and 15% judged by the NZ public.

– 25% Social Media. The platforms are now only Facebook (gigatownnelson page only) Twitter and Instagram. One post or tweet equals one point. Points are no longer multipled per capita.

– 13% Supporters. We can now call on the rest of the population to support us. Even though we pipped Porirua at the post, they are very keen to get on board and support Nelson.

– 6% Fantastic Fibre Quiz.

– 6% Instagram Selfie Video. Between the 5th and 12th November we can upload a short selfie video saying ‘I supported Gigatown by …’. The post must include #gigatownnsn.

The new rules

With a new round comes new rules. These are the rules that Chorus has laid down for the finals.  Their focus is that communities use fresh and meaningful on topic conversation.

– the retweet ratio for Twitter is 1:2 meaning for every original tweet you can retweet two (even if you add content to a retweet this is still considered a retweet, not a new tweet).

– posts and tweets must have at least 5 words plus the hashtag #gigatownnsn

– posts and content must relate directly to the competition. Chorus would like to see us posting on:
– the gigatown scoreboard and what we are doing to promote the competition
– conversations that connect technology, UFB (ultra fast broadband) and gigabit fibre and how it will benefit our town
– town pride and what makes our town special (but must be relevant to the competition) ie what makes Nelson the perfect gigatown and why it’s the place to be.

– only one supporter account is allowed per person and supporters must complete the quiz themselves.  If Chorus believes these rules have been broken they will blacklist the supporter and remove any points they have accumulated.

If you break the social media rules or your posts are considered spam by Chorus you will lose all the points you have earnt that day.

It’s easy to incorporate UFB into your Twitter conversations!

What am I doing to support gigatownnsn?

My earlier blog on #gigatownnsn, an online community was automatically posted to Twitter when I published it (as well as other social media channels including Facebook and LinkedIn).  It was subsequently shared on Twitter, spreading the reach and informing more people of what we are trying to achieve.

I added unfollowers.com to my Twitter account.  This app allows me to track who follows me.  It automatically creates a tweet when I follow someone new or when a new person follows me and also sends them a direct message.  Both posts encourage them to check out my blog, and ask them to tweet for #gigatownnsn.

Participating in Twitter brainstorming and encouraging others to come up with ideas to promote and support gigatownnsn.  I love getting involved in these conversations, there are so many ideas from so many different people.  I was invited to join the Facebook group, GigatownNelson Discussion.  It’s a place for us to gather away from the hashtag distraction and work on strategy and ideas.

And from that group another was born, setting out activities and responsibilities.  I am Twitter Cheerleader working alongside the Twitterettes team.  Pom poms optional.  I can see a photo opportunity there!

A recent real-life meet to work on priorities brought home to me just what being a part of the gigatownnsn movement meant as well as the commitment required in both time and resources. Several of our team are exhausted and a top priority is to bring on more people to help, as well as knowing that you can (and must) say NO to things.  We can’t do everything.

The most excitement came when we overtook Dunedin for the first time on the Social Media Leaderboard!  What a wonderful feeling seeing Nelson at the top. Since then we have received our first spam report from Chorus.  We lost points for indiscriminate tweeting and this has made us aware that Twitter needs to be focussed on quality and not quantity. Gisborne are now top of the leaderboard for social media, but Nelson is still tops for the quiz and supporters.  Our aim is to slowly and surely get back on top of the social media leaderboard.

We have now joined forces with Porirua who are supporting us to win.  This is a wonderful part of the gigatown competition, it breaks down geographical boundaries.  The benefits for Porirua will be huge, we are glad they have chosen Nelson to support and we welcome their help in all of the challenges.  We don’t just have the Nelson community supporting us, we have very valuable people from Motueka and Richmond, as well as many from overseas.  We are also working to bring Marlborough on board as, being close neighbours, they too will benefit from giga fibre.

And because life has to be fun …

The competition closes on 25th November, so come on everyone!  Support Nelson by joining up and doing the quiz (click below) and start creating a buzz on social media!

Find me on Twitter @NanasHype

 

gigatownnsn, an online community

My 2nd assignment for SCM501 is to join and particpate in an online community. My first thoughts were SPCA or KidsCan, but when researching their online presence I found that neither of them were active on Twitter. I especially wanted to use Twitter for this assignment as I feel it embodies community more than Facebook.

Both SPCA and KidsCan had Facebook pages but were more focussed on feeding information to their audience, than interacting with them..  Finding a community to particpate in was an eye-opener to the number of businesses and charities online that are losing out by not engaging with their audience.

I also researched Grandparents’ blogs.  I just wanted something casual where I could interact and share my experiences, knowledge and the funny stuff.  Most of the blogs out there are formal and full of ads, trying to sell you stuff.  This made me think about my own blog and how important it was to me to keep it true to my own values and goals. I will never succumb to ads!

I had been involved with #gigatownnsn since early this year but hadn’t participated for several months due to work commitments.  After connecting with the Twittersphere again, I was pleased to see familiar faces and decided I would use this for my community. The added bonus, I would be supporting Nelson to become gigatown.

What is Gigatown?

Gigatown is an online and real life competition developed by Chorus in NZ. It started in October last year with 50 gigatowns who worked hard to top the scoreboard, as only the top 5 would go through to the finals. Chorus was looking for the town that most wanted NZ’s first giga fibre connection. The top 5 towns would then go on to the finals starting 17th September and finish with an overall winner on 25th November.

Chorus had many different ways the Nelson community (and its supporters) could participate to gain points including a series of competitions, quizzes and social media activity using hashtags. You could also sign up on the Chorus website to support Nelson.

It was exciting to think that Nelson could have the fastest internet in the southern hemisphere! That’s 1 gigabit per second (1Gbps) which is 80 times faster than our current (slow) broadband and at a similar price. Woohoo!!

The gigatownnsn Social Media Community

The purpose of using social media to support #gigatownnsn is to earn points. By joining conversations and using the hashtag, every post on Facebook or tweet on Twitter (as well as other platforms such as Instagram) earns 1 point. This equates to 7 points with the per capita conversion. So with a hardcore bunch of supporters, the gigatownnsn community was able to grow points incredibly fast on the Twitter and Facebook platforms! Especially Twitter which was so quick moving. We were the envy of many other towns! That’s community. And that’s what Chorus wanted, a strong community working together to win their town giga.

The online community also met up in real life, once a month, their home The Freehouse. I went to one of the earlier meetups (real life tweetups, sitting and talking and tweeting at the same time, merging the boundaries between the online and real life community). Many a strategy was formed over a tipple or two.

It was wonderful seeing real friendships formed where people were coming together to work towards a common goal.  The main purpose of gigatown was, of course, to win UFB for your town.  But it was also educating people by sharing knowledge and providing a channel for discussion (of all sorts!).   Gigatown was creating social interaction for people from all walks of life, many of these getting to know each other from the inside out, rather than the standard real-life outside in.  Business connections were also being made by like-minded people who had a genuine passion for the Nelson region and it’s growth.

A core group of some 20 volunteers devised great ways to engage people online, encouraging participation through questions, quizzes and competitions. Businesses came on board donating prizes and I gave some Pegasus Rental Cars calendars and tickets to Dave Upfold’s comedy hypnosis show.  Quiz nights became a regular occurrence on Tuesdays and I ran one of the first few. It was great fun, very fast paced and with everyone using the #gigatownnsn hashtag we were able to score huge points in an hour. There were several nights that we were even trending on Twitter!

What are the Rules?

Chorus scrutinised the social media activity and spam was a real threat. You had to be sure that your tweets included at least 3 words plus the hashtag #gigatownnsn. Tweets also had to be on topic and real conversations. There were strict guidelines on what you couldn’t do, for example tweets that repeated the same information with only a word change. Retweets were allowed but on a 1:4 ratio. If you broke these rules you ran the risk of having that day’s Twitter points wiped.

An unwritten rule was to help newbies, to welcome them and ensure they felt part of the Twitter community.  No pressure, just a friendly acknowledgement to recognise their effort and encourage them to participate. We informed them of the rules and offered support.

Towards the end of the first round, Porirua was hot on Nelson’s heels for 5th place. A competition was devised by Sue Jepson of Onzamap with two travel prizes, one an international trip and the other domestic travel. It was a great way to encourage people to sign up to support Nelson and we were able to gain points for both signups and quizzes. I shared this on my Facebook timeline to get the word out there (see image below). With the last quiz worth 500 points and over 1,000 entries this was a real boost for #gigatownnsn.

The final day I was up in Auckland for the Andrea Bocelli concert. And in the air as the first round came to a close. I’d checked the scoreboard (real time on Chorus’ website) before I boarded my plane. I rushed to course and my first question to Clare ‘did we do it?’. ‘I think so’, she replied. Chorus were checking the results and we would know in a few days. Gigatownnsn had run a clean campaign with integrity but it was still a tense couple of days waiting!

NELSON made it to the FINALS!!  Read my post about the finals here

 

Andrea Bocelli concert

September 11, not a very auspicous date to be flying I thought as I headed off to the airport to catch my plane to Auckland.

I was meeting Mum at Auckland Airport and we were going to see Andrea Bocelli in concert that night.  I’d bought the tickets months ago, as a special present for Mum’s 70th.

I scored a window seat with noone sitting next to me!  Awesome! I put my bag under the seat in front and spread out.  I even got the iPad out and did some blogging!

I arrived an hour and a half before Mum, so had time for a coffee and sandwich and a catch up on work.  Auckland Airport give you half an hour of free WiFi, so I used half an hour on the iPhone and then another half an hour on the iPad LOL

We used Cheap Cabs to get around Auckland and found them very good, on time with courteous drivers.   They are 45% cheaper than other taxis, and can be pre-booked online. Airport to City was just $45 and return even cheaper at $35! I gave the driver a tip, he was such a good conversationalist, and it was his first day on the job!

We checked in at the Waldorf on St Martins.  The apartment was really nice, fairly small but well laid out complete with kitchen, lounge, dining and 2 bedrooms. We were on the 8th floor with a balcony.  I would definitely stay here again.

A catch up over coffee, then we got flashed up and we were off to Vector Arena.  The excitement was mounting now!  We headed to the Tuning Fork for dinner and were pleasantly surprised to see they had the Andrea Bocelli buffet (complete with music) in the Heineken Room at just $28.50 each!  We even had bubbly to celebrate!

We walked across to Vector Arena to get seated.  Row SS was right at the TOP!  Our seats were on the aisle and we had an amazing view! There were 7,500 people all eagerly waiting to hear Andrea Bocelli sing.

And finally the concert began.  Opera conductor Eugen Kohn started up the Australian Philharmonic Orchestra.  There was huge applause when Maestro Boceli was led onto the stage.  For the first half he sung alternated by the Orchestra playing.  His voice was amazing, it just went right through you, especially with favourites such as Ave Maria, Mamma and Vieni sul Mar.  Cuban soprano Maria Aleida sung alongside Andrea for the operatic duets.

During the second half, Andrea brought Delta Goodrem on and I thought the roof was going to come down on Vector Arena!  There were even wolf whistles (probably due to the gorgeous backless gown she was wearing!).  I was totally unprepared, when she started singing, her voice is amazing, such depth and agility!  A perfect rendition of Love, Thy Will Be Done, and she even sung a few songs in Italian including Canto Della Terra.  WOW!

The real treat was when Delta and Andrea sung Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis.  And then again as they sung When I Fall In Love and the piece de resistance Time to Say Goodbye.  The applause was deafening!

There were a few encores, but sadly the concert had to come to an end.

Back to the Waldorf to a very comfy bed and a great night’s sleep before heading back to Auckland Airport the next morning.  As Mum is a Koru Club member I was able to go in as her guest.  The Auckland Koru Lounge is great, spacious and quiet with free WiFi and good food and coffee (also alcohol, but not for me at lunchtime!).

Farewell Auckland, on the way back to my beloved Nelson!