Cloud computing has been around for a while, but many business owners still don’t know what it can do for them. The Christchurch earthquake brought this issue to the fore, where some businesses were unable to retrieve their paper records because they had no off-site backup.

Cloud computing simply means storing your files on the internet instead of storing them on your own computer. Over the past decade, many cloud options have arisen for normal business processes, such as Google Docs for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and (New Zealand’s own) Xero for accounting.

It’s similar to the situation when electricity was first introduced. At first, you had to own and maintain your own generator. As time went by, specialist power companies arose, and all you had to do was subscribe to their service, and plug into the mains.

In the same way, cloud computing offers software as a service, rather than as a product you buy. One of the best guides we’ve found to cloud computing is from New Zealand’s own (in fact, Christchurch’s own) Ben Kepes, and his site diversity.net.nz.

Meanwhile, gamification is a relatively new buzzword (there’s even been a conference about it). It’s all about applying the lessons learnt from video games to areas like education, marketing and management.

There’s a lot to it, but in a nutshell, playing is our best way of learning. (We’ve discussed this before with our book review on The Little Red Ball). Volkswagen knows this, and dramatically demonstrated it in their “The Fun Theory” series of videos, including “piano stairs” as shown on Breakfast this morning:

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’ll post the link to Marie’s session once it’s on the TVNZ website.

Almost exactly a year ago we met Alex and John from Spin Advertising and Design in Christchurch. They talk about how social media has helped build their sales and extended their networks. A year on, it’s amazing how little has really changed – pick up some best practices in this interview.

This Thursday Auckland , Wellington and Christchurch will be the first places in the world to kick off a worldwide Twestival .

Twestival is like a normal tweetup , but it’s raising funds for CharityWater .

For just $10 at the door (or paid on the website) you can enjoy:

• meeting other "imaginary friends" (people you know on Twitter but not in "real life")
• free alcohol
• possibly some music
• being part of a world event that’s doing a lot of good!
• and if you don’t even know what Twitter is, it’s a great opportunity to find out!

iJump is supporting the event and we’ll be saying a few things about social media and how it’s changing the world on the night. But only for a few minutes

The Auckland Twestival 2009:

• Venue: Sale Street Brewery
• Time: 5pm – about 9pm
• Cost: $10 – all proceeds go toward Charity Water
• Partners: Zendesk is the main sponsor; Sale Street Brewery are contributing; and little old iJump is helping get the word out.
• HELP NEEDED: We’re still looking for someone to provide a laptop, large screen/projector and internet connection, so we can hook up with all the other Twestivals around the world! Contact Justin Flitter to help, or just leave a comment.

And thanks so much to Joi Design for putting together the nametags at such short notice.

photo credit: nyki_m

We’re about to enter a slightly crazy time of public speaking engagements, which means just as much listening and talking – if we do our job right.

Here they are, in short order:

• Monday, August 4th , 7:30am – 9:30am, at Lowndes Associates ‘ Business Intelligence Workshop , at the Stamford Plaza in Albert Street, Auckland. Subject is “Online Strategies for Non-Online Businesses” Bookings here .
• Thursday, August 7th , 12pm-2pm, at the Marketing Association ’s Southern Luncheon at the Hotel Grand Chancellor , 161 Cashel Street, Christchurch. Subject: Making Sense of Social Media. Bookings here .
• Wednesday, August 13th , 2:30-3pm as part of the day-long Digital Future Now summit, at the SkyCity Convention Centre in Auckland. I’ll be on a panel with Paul Reynolds and Nicholas O’Flaherty discussing how social media can help business. Bookings here .
• Monday, September 15th , 4:15-5pm as part of the day-long 6th Annual Media Relations Conference at the Wellington Town Hall . I’m chairing a “champagne roundtable” (hic!) on exploring the potential of social media. Bookings here .
• Tuesday, September 16th , 1:30pm-5pm in a workshop entitled Blogs: Friend or Foe? Also at the Wellington Town Hall . Bookings here .

And if you can’t make it to any of these, we’ll still be producing the weekly Jump In video podcast , and appearing from time to time on Radio NZ National’s Virtual World segment with Jim Mora .