Entries Tagged 'Orange' ↓

After my little ranty last week about not being able to find buttons in Wellington, Lucy told me about a shop full of buttons in Sydney. And today I think she’s been to visit it in order to send me this fantastic photo – I actually squealed in delight and have asked for it to be put on the official itinerary when we visit them in November … never mind the Syndey Harbour Bridge, I want to go see the buttons!

Many of you will have seen me wearing, or my photos of my range of Tweet4yourtee shirts – a company started in Wellington recently by friends-of-Xero who are building their business using social media alone, mostly Twitter (twitter.com/Tweet4yourtee / www.tweet4yourtee.com). Hence ‘tweet 4 your tee’ – you visit their site to see what your Twitter name would look like on a range of tweet-themed shirts and then order online. I have 3 (one of them super super special and a 1-off because it has orange on it):

Hi, my name is @orangegirlnz

I heart @TeamXero

I tweet @Xero

Recently the company made a promo video and asked Tweet4yourtee wearers to join them in Wellington to take part – of course I couldn’t be there and was so disappointed, but have always sent them photos of me wearing my t-shirts (from both sides of the globe it turns out!) and if I could’ve joined them I would’ve!

However, I got a really nice surprise today when the promo video promo was released as a teaser …

Then the real video was released a few hours later

Famous me! Am getting a spot up the front when they do it in a year – I wonder how many tweeting t-shirts will be around by then?

Have really enjoyed getting to know another Community Manager over here – Karen’s from Harvest, a company that Xero knows about as many of each others customers want us to integrate. It turned out that the Harvest office is just around the corner from the office we were in so we’ve had a couple of lady lunches and other meetings. Nice to chat about common quirks of our jobs, things we do the same and things we do differently. I’m not sure that I have an easier job; other Community Managers I’ve met here seem to be the conduit for all customer queries where as I’m really just at our social media doorway. However, have picked up a few good tips and will miss having Karen so close by.

This week, our international product team launched Xero Answers – a site for questions & answers for our new product Xero Personal. Rather than have a massive customer base flood our email support queue, we’re going to try this largely user-based approach to helping our customers, the aim being that people can see questions previously asked & answered, saving them having to do it, & also to give an opportunity for people to help each other out as they build up their own product knowledge & learn their own ways of using the product that they want to share.

It’s still orange & it’s had a few questions posted to it already; I’m nervously keeping watch over it trying to answer the questions as best I can but I am further removed from this product than Xero Business that I wrote most of the Help Centre for. I really hope it grows into a big community site like some others I’ve seen where eventually we can hook up a blog, the @XeroPersonal Twitter feed & stuff like that. And maybe even extend it to our business product. Early days!

When we first arrived in New York we went straight to Ninth Street Espresso on 9th Street for our first good coffee of the trip – we noted that they now used beans from Intelligentsia, which piqued our interest because our Supreme Friend had tweeted around that same time asking if we could go check out Intelligentsia – roasting, barista training, general all round single origin experts.

When I found that Intelligentsia in New York was in fact on Broadway just down from where we were working we went off-NY Times coffee list one day to try them – only to find that it wasn’t a walk-in place or cafe – it was a training lab.

Then when looking for good coffee places in Chicago I came across it there as well – and an actual cafe version of it! As soon as we were left alone in the city we rushed for it, also to make sure I knew where it was for my upcoming first-time meeting with my Orange Friend from Chicago (was starting to feel rather nervous so didn’t want to worry about not being able to find the cafe!). We found it – a very trendy corner space, with an orange bike outside, orange bags of coffee behind the counter, a line up of individually dripped coffee for those not wanting drinks with an espresso base and selection of baked goods.

Obviously I was pretty excited about the orange theme, especially as in a couple of days we’d be meeting my Orange Friend there, and OMG the coffee and brioche were so good.

On the way out I noticed the hours were Mon-Fri 7am-5pm … WAAAA … the meeting was on Sunday! So we rushed back in just to double-check and ask the guy if there was anywhere else in Chicago where we could get coffee just as good. Why yes, their other store a few blocks away. And that’s where we met and enjoyed our coffee outdoors on Sunday.

Intelligentsia, 53 – 55 East Randolph (between Michigan and Wabash), Chicago

Can’t believe I got to really meet my Orange Friend from Chicago after all these years of being blog/email friends! The date we set last month to meet in Chicago came around and we met at a great cafe (Intelligentsia) and sat outside talking for a couple of hours. I was fascinated by her accent and I’m sure she had trouble understanding us at times. I knew she was mad on the All Blacks so took her an All Blacks scarf – so look out for that with a splash of orange around Chicago.

Until we meet again Jo (and tell your Mister that all that orange is not so bad, mine said he could’ve carried on chatting for hours)!!

WOW – got a GREAT surprise today when I saw a message come through for me in my Twitter stream:

Tweet 4 Your Tee have changed their homepage to recognise me for a day! I’ve only ordered 4 t-shirts from them, some posted all the way over here, some hiccups when I got a man size instead of a girl size, not to mention the SPECIAL treatment that allowed me to have my Twitter username written in orange!

I feel very special today. And strangely compelled to buy another t-shirt!

Spotted a bunch of orange numbers and signs in one half block at the weekend and despite the stinking heat I stopped to take photos as only an orange addict would!

I made contact with my Orange Friend in Chicago today because we’re making plans to fly over there to visit family next month so I want to meet up with her. Needless to say we’re both very excited that our friendship that started because we both had orange blogs is going to end in us meeting! Both husbands are rolling eyes at the orange explosion that they’ll have to be involved in and she immediately blocked out the weekend in her diary and sent me this pic! Awesome !!

Have just looked back to see how long since we met online and it was around August or September 2007 – nearly 3 years ago! I that time we’ve exchanged knitting, baking, cards, gifts and many emails.

Looked out the window just a while ago and saw the Empire State building all decked out in orange – first time I’ve seen it orange. It’s very impressive and very orange Found our way up onto the roof to snap a couple of pictures. Totally amazing views up there although due to some building work we weren’t supposed to be up there so didn’t really look around.