We recently created this font as part of a design job and have made it available as a free download. No point it rotting on our servers.

Feel free to use it, improve it, charge for it and share it. This is the 2 dot version. A 4 dot version is almost there and another font created for the same job will also be available shortly. As we only used a few of the letters, some could do with improving, so feel fee to make suggestions. If you do create a nice piece of design using igloo_dots, please feel free to send through and we will pop up on the blog.

Download igloo_dot [MAC]

igloo_dots was created in FontStruct

A recent social media nightmare exploded for Nestle last week in the face of a recent Greenpeace campaign. The result has been a lesson to any corporate committed to engaging in the social media space.

Greenpeace launched a campaign featuring a graphic video to highlight the use of palm oil in Nestle products. (If you love Kit Kat, avoid this vid) The video soon went viral with hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube and significant exposure in facebook and twitter. With 92,000 facebook fans and a global media machine hungry for mess ups like this, Nestle chose to do just about everything they possibly could to make the situation worse.

Rather than following in the footsteps of progressive companies such as Starbucks (who set up a blog to hear the concerns of their customers), Nestle broke some of the golden rules of the digital world. Firstly, they have tried to remove the video (on the grounds that it was improper use of their brand!) and subsequently deleted negative comments from their facebook fan page. Obviously hearing, addressing and ‘engaging’ with the concerns of their ‘fans’ and followers was just not a priority. Maybe the social media team at Nestle thought that status updates on how sweet chocolate is was enough. The result? Not only have they lost the trust of many of their customers, a subsequent global media backlash has seen a boycott of their products in the lead up to Easter. Only then has the company implemented change and canceled its contract with the palm oil supplier.

The opportunity missed here was massive. Firstly, Nestle could have engaged with their global community and made the change before it became a PR nightmare. (Lets just forget for a moment that they were using palm oil in the first place) If Nestle had reacted in this way, it would have showed them as being interested in the concerns of their customers, the well being of the planet and it would have been a big win for crowd sourced (or in this case, ‘crowd forced’) change. Blogs like this would be referencing Nestle as a great example of how they listened to the people. Instead, they have become a figurehead for corporate social media neglect.

If you are committed to social media, breaking some of the rules can have enormous consequences. Consider the following.

- Engage with negative feedback like you do positive. Don’t delete, edit or hide from negative comments (unless abusive)

- Be part of the conversation and don’t try and ‘control’ the space.

- Listen to the crowd. They are probably your customer.

This also throws some obligation back onto the consumer or follower. If you would like a company to respond to your feedback, be polite, honest and play nice. I personally believe a company has a right to not respond to anonymous, abusive and rude attacks much like you wouldn’t respect a person in the street approaching you the same way. It’s a great world we live in when an organisation like Greenpeace can start a global movement that gets a huge corporate to change its way by posting a video on Youtube.

What should Nestle do now?

Its still not to late for Nestle to engage with their following. They will need to be transparent, open and prepared to be exposed to a barrage of negative commentary around their brand. At least they have the opportunity to be part of this conversation. As for regaining trust in the social media space? I don’t think canceling a few palm oil contracts will do the trick.

Evernote
My favourite noting web app! Not just for developers, evernote synchs your notes, snap photos, and recorded voice memos to your phone, desktop app or access it using the smooth web admin if you are away from your machine / device, easy!

Remote desktop lite
Remote into your Windows XP Professional or Vista/Windows 7 PC anytime

FTP on the go
I’ve tried a few FTP apps for iPhone and this one is by far my favourite, it ships with a text editor for on the fly edits, hit save and push your changes to live.  Also has ability to set a master password for the app. Automatically uses secure FTPS connection. Also the Smart Replace feature is pretty cool. If for example someone calls you while you are uploading a file and the transfer is interrupted, you get another backup version created of the file with a temp file name, which will only replace the actual file when the upload is complete

jQuery · «touch» Cheat Sheet
Brush up on your selectors in transit!

What are some of the iPhone apps on your shortlist?

If you have just a ‘bit’ too much time on your hands and are addicted to downloading those colourful iphone apps, what better way to express your creativity then creating an (almost) complete font made out of 540 different app icons. Very cool and we’ll even forgive the crazy designer for leaving out the ‘W’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeDB0H5Lf5w&feature=player_embedded

and get vitamin D… remember those ads?

It seems us folk in the digital world don’t get out in the sun as much as we should, on the whole we are an industry of pale and interesting people, but a bit of vitamin D is good for the soul.

Cue: the igloo Roof-nic.

Just us relaxing on the plastic grass on the roof terrace, enjoying some great food, conversation and soaking in some much needed rays (flicking the odd plastic ant off the cupcakes too). Drop by while the sun is still shining and lift your mood with the eskimos.

Last Wednesday night (St Pat’s) Social Media Club Melbourne (SMCMelb) ran their second event “Building Brand Buzz” And with not a single green t-shirts or sloppy green hat to be seen, the 80+ strong crowd were given an insight to the how three Melbourne entrepreneurs have used social media to build significant communities around their business. On hand to share their stories were;

Scott Kilmartin from Haul, Steve Sammartino from Rentoid and Sahil Merchant from Magnation

An interesting debate emerged from the panel around the concept of who should, can or is, the person behind the social media voice of a brand. The panel were quite divided in their opinions. One side trusting all involved with the company to be contributors whilst the other believing that the voice of the brand needs consistency and can therefore not be managed by anyone other than the main man at the top. It was an interesting debate that raised a number of significant issues around social media and its relationship with a brand.

What do you think? Do you let people tweet etc on you or your brands behalf?

Well done to SMCMelb for putting on a great, free (yep you heard me, free) event. The location worked, the food was good and “Dirty ‘Ole Town’ wasn’t being blasted to the crowd.

If you are interested in getting down to the next SMCMelb event, and you should, make sure you follow SMCMelb for updates. (#smcmelb to follow the tweet stream)

Now, time to put the iphone down and head out to join the green, drunk rabble.

Everyone’s a photographer they say. These digital days, with a camera in arms reach most waking moments, we all take tonnes of pics. But are we all photographers? I think not! Check out these images by Melbourne based Tony Gorsevski. With a focus on the architectural, Tony shows us that it takes more than a push of the button to create a piece of art. Composition, colours and a true understanding of light and form show that there will always be room in this world for those who choose photography as a career (though that room is getting pretty packed!) I had the pleasure of meeting Tony at AGideas 2009, as a fellow guest speaker, and it was inspiring to hear how he approached an art form we all take for granted these days. Enjoy.

On Sunday 14 March, we at igloo supported the great work of The Herald Sun/City Link Run for the Kids, Victoria’s biggest fun run. We could not have asked for a better morning…. a stunning 25 degrees.

Sacrificing our Sunday morning sleep in and dragging ourselves around Melbourne in an effort to raise money for the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal is the very least that we could do to help.

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Want to be the first to hear about a job at igloo? See the embarrassing pics from the xmas party? See the work behind the work, the people behind the work or the place where the people work? Then become a fan of the newly re-instated igloo facebook page. A place for the stuff that doesn’t quite fit in the igloo.com.au website.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Responding to recent public outcries over its handling of private data, search giant Google offered a wide-ranging and eerily well-informed apology to its millions of users Monday.

“We would like to extend our deepest apologies to each and every one of you,” announced CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking from the company’s Googleplex headquarters. “Clearly there have been some privacy concerns as of late, and judging by some of the search terms we’ve seen, along with the tens of thousands of personal e-mail exchanges and Google Chat conversations we’ve carefully examined, it looks as though it might be a while before we regain your trust.”

Added Schmidt, “Whether you’re Michael Paulson who lives at 3425 Longview Terrace and makes $86,400 a year, or Jessica Goldblatt from Lynnwood, WA, who already has well-established trust issues, we at Google would just like to say how very, truly sorry we are.”

Schmidt’s apology appeared suddenly at 9 a.m. Monday on Google’s homepage, Chrome browser, and YouTube, as well as on every single Android-enabled cell phone, and sought to reassure Americans that the company would take all necessary steps to keep confidential information, from Social Security numbers to Gonorrhea test results, absolutely safe.

Acknowledging that Google hasn’t always been open about how it mines the roughly 800 terabytes of personal data it has gathered since 1998, Schmidt apologized to users— particularly the 1,237,948 who take daily medication to combat anxiety—for causing any unnecessary distress, and he expressed regret—especially to Patricia Fort, a single mother taking care of Jordan, Sam, and Rebecca, ages 3, 7, and 9—for not doing more to ensure that private information remains private.

–Article excerpt taken from The Onion