This isn't about paperless journalism, it is relevant to my paperless journalism project.

Last Monday I went to see Pavement at the Auckland Town Hall. Although the sound was shaky at first, it was an excellent night out.

The night was almost spoilt by the quaintly old-fashioned internet ticketing system used for events at Auckland Town Hall.

I ordered tickets on-line through the Edge web site. It's not the world's best e-commerce system, but that's not my gripe.

A few days later I found an undelivered parcel card from a courier in my letter box. The card was timed and dated – a time when I was definitely at home. In fact another courier package delivered by the same company arrived 30 minutes before the time on the card.

Stupidly I assumed this was just a mix-up and left the matter. A few days later the Pavement tickets hadn't arrived. When I called, the Edge told me they had been couriered. The courier company told me to pick up the tickets from its depot – a ninety minute trip across the city.

It was much harder than buying tickets in person at the box office. And that's just wrong.

And, am I the only person who thinks sending couriers around town with tickets in tiny envelopes is a grossly inefficient use of resources?

Can't we come up with something better, more reliable, paperless?

From the New Zealand Herald January 26, 2010:

At the peak of the power cut, more than 50,000 homes in the city were without power and traffic ground to a halt, rail services were delayed and some businesses were forced to close.

And

Aucklanders had no disruption to hot water this morning after lines company Vector warned of possible hot water cuts.

Oh, the irony. This Friday will see the deadline for company's wanting a slice of the action in New Zealand proposed government subsidised ultrafast broadband network project. Taxpayers will be stumping up NZ$1.5 to build a fibre network.

It's ironic, because Vector is one of the companies expected to bid for this 21st century infrastructure project. And yet yesterday, Auckland, the nation's largest city and commercial powerhouse was dark after the third major power outage in the last five years.

The lights and power were off from around 4pm to 8pm. Thankfully it's summer, so the consequences aren't as drastic as in earlier outages. There's daylight until 8:30 pm, heating isn't necessary, schools are closed and many workers are still on holiday.

But nevertheless, there was traffic chaos and companies had to send staff home – yet another unproductive day thanks to a third world infrastructure. Many believe the problems stem from earlier industry 'reforms' and deregulation.

And here's the biggest irony of them all. New Zealand's government wants lines companies and others to help build a world-class internet that should already be in place. The only reason it isn't is because of historic regulatory failure in the telecommunications industry. But the likely winners of contracts to build the next generation internet are companies that wax fat and lazy as a result of regulatory failure in the electricity industry.

You may be interested to read my earlier post about the urgent need to fix Auckland's power problems.

IBM Business Partner Awards
	Recognising the outstanding achievements of IBM Business Partners and IT resellers for their most innovative customer success stories. More details.
RCN
	Albany-based RCN takes unwanted computers and electronic equipment and either recycles the devices or disposes of them in an environmentally sensitive manner. More details.
New Zealand Reseller News
	Former editor and associate publisher of the top independent newspaper for people at the sharp end of the computer business. Visit the Reseller News web site.
Smales Farm Technology Office Park
	The best place to do business on Auckland’s North Shore, Smales Farm is an environmentaly sustainable office park designed for technology and business tenants. More details.
Sydney Morning Herald
	More than a decade’s worth of contributions including writing a weekly small business technology column, higher education, careers and entreprenurial stories.
Australian Financial Review
	Contributed features on a regular basis to the Australian Financial Review, writing covered many aspects of business and technology.
PC World Gear Guide
	Wrote a number of chapters in PC World’s special publication focusing on consumer electronics and home computing.
Windows XP magazine
	The Australian edition of Windows XP magazine has a distinctive style. Bill Bennett wrote a number of “how to” stories for relatively inexperienced computer users.
Australian Personal Computer
	Feature writing for Australia’s leading personal computer magazine.

You can read some of my stories in my clippings file.

My name  Bill Bennett. I'm a freelance writer.

I've worked as a journalist, a writer, as an editor and a publisher. Now I'm available to help you get your message to your audience.

I can improve your communications and;

* Raise your company’s profile,
* Increase sales,
* Project a better image,
* Increase your influence and
* Help you steal a march on your rivals.

Free consultation

For a free, no-obligation consultation call me, Bill Bennett on +64 9 418 2445 or email bill@billbennett.co.nz.

I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand, but I have freelance writing clients in Australia and internationally.

What can a freelance writer do for you?

I know how to grab people’s attention and communicate messages. You can apply my writing skills to your:

* Websites — writing snappy copy that quickly turns visitors into customers and clicks
* Newsletters — driving traffic to your web site
* Advertising — using words to sell
* Brochures — developing tempting offers
* Case studies — showing customers how it is done
* Press releases — getting the word out to a wider audience
* Presentations — keeping audiences engaged and avoiding ‘death by Powerpoint’
* Reports — making convincing arguments

find out more:

There's a short biography, a portfolio and examples of my writing. I've also written a page of writing tips.

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My name is Bill Bennett. But then you already knew that.

I'm a freelance journalist living in Auckland, New Zealand.

For about half of the time I work as the New Zealand editor for Communications Day.

The rest of my time is available for freelance writing.

People often hire me to tackle difficult writing jobs. Most of my clients are in Australia and New Zealand, but I can work for anyone, anywhere.

Most of the time I write journalism: news and features. I also take on commercial writing jobs – company profiles, case studies and marketing communications writing. I've also been a ghost writer for many senior executives.

I've written for many newspapers and magazines including: The Sydney Morning Herald, The Melbourne Age, The Australian Financial Review, New Zealand Reseller News, PC Magazine, The Australian Net Guide, The Dominion, The Evening Post (now The Dominion Post). If you're still interested you can read a formal profile.

Am I the Bill Bennett you were looking for?

There's a lot of talk and writing online about the New Zealand government's super city plan for Auckland.

The correct style for super city is two lower case words.

The term is not a name, at least not yet. It is a description.

Capitals are only used for proper names, so there's no confusion or question over the term.

Nor is it one word.

There's a fashion of running two words together and separating the components with a capital letter.

If a company or organisation wishes to do that with its name, or the name of a product, it has every right to do so.

But there's no grammatical or logical reason to make a single word out of super city. Would you write Auckland is a BigCity? Of course not.

Fairfax's Stuff.co.nz web site is confused about this. At the time of writing the newspaper company's site has an Auckland Super City page which offers every permutation: one word, two words, upper case lower case. The New Zealand Herald is just as confused as this search shows: "supercity" Search Results. In fact it adds a previously unseen variation: Supercity, all one word with a single capital.

For clarification and background you may like to read my earlier article about capital letters.

Is Auckland a jobs oasis for IT specialists?

Specialist recruitment firm Potentia says so in an upbeat report on jobs with Auckland's technology companies.

The company surveyed 453 organisations and found the jobs market is still expanding.

Highlights include:

• A third of companies plan to expand. Only 10 percent are focused on survival.
• Half of the companies expect to hire more staff, with contractors accounting for nearly half of those new positions.
• Salaries are not likely to rise.

So, not much money, precious little security, but plenty of work for those who want it. In global terms that makes Auckland a beacon of employment hope. It's a good place to live too.

As an aside, Potentia could do with professional communications help.

The report is poorly written. It is too long and has far too many complex, jargon-packed sentences.

This makes for dreary reading. The company's sales pitch inserted near the start comes across as crass.

This is a shame as, with better presentation, this could be a first class piece of marketing communications that speaks for itself.