What would you ask 'em? A request
Moderators: jimmy, collnarra, PeepeelaPew, Butts, beach_defender, Shari, Forum Moderators
- moondoggie
- regular
- Posts: 222
- Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:17 pm
- Location: Manly
- moondoggie
- regular
- Posts: 222
- Joined: Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:17 pm
- Location: Manly
-
- Grommet
- Posts: 79
- Joined: Wed Feb 06, 2008 7:24 pm
- Location: Always working.
Anyone fancy joining me plan, design, manufacture and market a sh1t load of environmentally friendly surfwax? Once we hit our objective of getting our environmentally friendly surfwax (EFS) into EVERY surf store in Oz. We will then move on to this network tempting them to stock further EFS products.
EFS fins, EFS Grip, EFS Rashies, EFS leggies...
Thats a way in. I'll get the cooker on and start melting down some candles - anyone know what other ingredients I need..?
EFS: sounds ok - a nice acronym displayed on a pair of boardies one day, which cost $120, however; $60 goes to the good cause of buying torpedo's to sink next years Japanese Fleet... :?
How will that help surfing? H'mmm - ok f8ck the Japanese Fleet - donations to prevent surf contests from your local beach.
H'mmm
EFS fins, EFS Grip, EFS Rashies, EFS leggies...
Thats a way in. I'll get the cooker on and start melting down some candles - anyone know what other ingredients I need..?
EFS: sounds ok - a nice acronym displayed on a pair of boardies one day, which cost $120, however; $60 goes to the good cause of buying torpedo's to sink next years Japanese Fleet... :?
How will that help surfing? H'mmm - ok f8ck the Japanese Fleet - donations to prevent surf contests from your local beach.
H'mmm
-
- Huey's Right Hand
- Posts: 26515
- Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:29 am
- Location: Newport Beach
-
- Owl status
- Posts: 4517
- Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:38 pm
- Location: the white tide pole
- Contact:
I love weeing in my wettie and gettin warmed up and I am sure I am not the only one..... but yeah, dont like the nuts in my groin thing, what about when they creep up and then you lie down hard on your board???? Faaaaarrrrrkkkkk that can be painful.....Natho wrote:^^^ Frkn good question. Also wetties with a wee shoot so ya don't have to wee in your wettie. Oh and how about a wettie that lasts more than one season yet is still comfy?
-
- Huey's Right Hand
- Posts: 26515
- Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:29 am
- Location: Newport Beach
OK, Q and a at Noosa.
On the panel were Neil Ridgway, Steve Kay and Nick Russell (Rip Curl), Derek O’Neill and Shannon North (Billabong) and Bruce Raymond and Greg Healy (Quiksilver)
Journos included Keith Curtain (Australian Surf Business magazine), Tim Baker, and me. Jarratt, who planned the whole week, sat in too, and Norm Innes, former Quik exec, moderated.
Norm mentioned that Billabong had recently won Surfing Australia’s environmental award for their work on the company’s global carbon footprint. Derek O’Neill explained how they’d gone about this, after focus groups were telling Bong that kids are much more environmentally aware now than in the past. Thus Bong had Deloittes make an audit of what they were doing worldwide, came up with 16,000 tonnes of emissions per year, and hope to reduce that by around 15% over the next two years. According to Derek: “It’s really hard to just jump on the green bandwagon. If you’re not doing anything then suddenly start putting 100% of your advertising into what you’re doing for the environment, it can ring a little false. I think we can do a better job of letting people know what we’re doing, but we can do it subtly, we don’t need to hit it with a sledgehammer. We get to talk to kids in a way a Government can’t and we take that seriously. If you haven’t read Yvon Chouinard’s book ‘Let My People Go Surfing’, I recommend it, that’s a high level we can all live up to.”
Then the idea was that each journo got to ask a q then pass on the mic.
I got the mic first and began by explaining that I’d asked my e-mail research/survey list (around 220 core surfers around Oz, almost none of whom have anything to do with the industry), plus the readers of this forum, to tell me what they’d most like to see asked. I then explained that the response to my request, along with a range of q ideas, some intelligent, some funny, some rude, was underlaid with a deep seated and quite marked anger and contempt. Quite beyond what I’d expected.
Basically it looked to most of these surfers that the companies have made a really huge amount of money at the expense of the average hardcore surfer’s enjoyment of the sport, and without putting back into the broader surf community. Thus the long term surfer carries the can for the prosperity of the industry, in degraded surfing experiences. And feels a bit betrayed.
So my first q: do you feel this anger and contempt coming back at you at all and do you think it should be of significant concern?
The panel seemed a bit taken aback by this but Bruce Raymond sat up for it. “Somebody asked me, just outside this room, if the big three surf companies did have relevance to surfers today. And I said I think we’re joined at the hip. Because the decisions we make and the steps that we take are all as a result of the upwelling from surfing. It always has been that way. I can remember when we didn’t have pro surfing, and we created pro surfing from the generation of surfers in this room.
"My experiences as marketing manager for Quiksilver was to catch on to that vibe that was out there and see if we could fulfil that need. Hence we created the Quik Pro at G-Land, and that went on to be the Dream Tour, because that’s what surfers wanted (to see), and they loved it, and we loved it and it was a great step. Similarly, we used to do our marketing and photography on the North Shore of Hawaii pretty much. Then things got congested and we went to Bali, and we saw the opportunities in the Mentawais. We thought let’s try and do things differently and better and we went out and shot our photography and we didn’t say where the shots were from. We went and did our boat trip around the world, the Crossing, and one of our points was to give something back, so I went to Ricky Grigg, marine biologist and instituted Reef Check, and as a result we took dozens of marine biologists around the world and got important results… The other thing we did was educate, and we went back in November 2007 to open the Quiksilver Surf Aid Mentawai Community Health Centre in Katiet village.
“Now to get back to your point, all those things we did and do are a result of an upwelling of a need. We’re careful not to go out there and brag about it because as soon as you do that, people jump on you about the other 90% you’re not doing. We keep it close to our chests but when people do drill down into it, they see we are trying to have better work practices, and gone are the days when we just go somewhere and expose it and slash-and-burn and go on to the next thing, we try and leave a good path behind us. The things that Billabong have done with their global footprint initiative, drawing a line in the sand with what they’re doing, I can look back over the past 10 years and see we drew a line in the sand for coral reefs around the world so that the UN now has a measuring device to say how much coral reef degradation’s occurring.
"The beneficiaries of this are the general population of surfers, the big pool, because when you’re going out there and discovering these surf spots and doing all of these things, we’re leaving a nice trail behind us, not an ugly trail. Unlike the first few years when we discovered places like Bali and caused a goldrush and things like that. I think the surf industry takes a good look at itself and tries to employ best work practices. Now that’s on the marketing side, the most visual things. But in the hidden things, we have stuff like auditing the manufacturing processes, stuff that isn’t very sexy in the surf magazines. We can’t take out advertising and say “look at what we’re doing” and so forth, nor are the editors really that motivated to drill down and find out what’s going on because quite frankly, when we did the Crossing, they were more interested in getting the best fricken shot we got from the trip. And tell us where it was. They weren’t that interested in the Reef Check thing, it wasn’t that sexy. So there’s not a lot we can do, I don’t reckon, to change that perception that we’re a big ugly machine that wants to make a lot of money. We’re this machine that survives on being nurturing and thoughtful about what our customers want and need, and supplying that need. We do the workshops, we do all of that stuff, and to turn blindly in the face of all that is just not good business.”
Neil Ridgway: “Look I do feel it, to answer your question directly. But only until I communicate back to the people. Because what I don’t understand is what they’re angry about. They’re angry at us, and they say that the companies have been detrimental and have progressed at the expense of the average surfer, which we all are… but what we’ve done to really make their experience of surfing any less? …I don’t know what they’re angry about. And so I ask ‘em. If they send me an email I’ll reply to it. If it’s the end of a long week I’ll feel like replying to ‘em like Phil Jarratt did in Tracks, with probably the best ever editor’s reply to a letter ever, which was ‘Awww, get fucked!’ But I don’t, I write back to ‘em and talk to ‘em and once you do that, send the email or make the phone call, they’re happy to talk to you and generally you can work with ‘em and through things and you’ll agree to disagree and everyone walks away happy.”
Jarratt followed this up by asking the panel about Michael Tomson’s statement: “Big is the enemy of Cool.” Did they think that these days: that Big is the enemy of Cool?
Bruce Raymond: “There’s really cool things that a big company can do that a little company can’t. And I think that’s what these companies have been doing in recent years.”
Steve Kay: “Thing is, these three companies have been able to remain very successful companies for a 30 year period. Which means for successive generations of surfers they’ve been able to make products that they buy once, then again, then down the track their sons and daughters buy again. So I think that while surfing success often breeds envy and resentment and things like that, in the end the success of the companies themselves say we’re making products that people wanna buy.”
I’ll get on to some more qs and as tomorrow. Got limited time today.
On the panel were Neil Ridgway, Steve Kay and Nick Russell (Rip Curl), Derek O’Neill and Shannon North (Billabong) and Bruce Raymond and Greg Healy (Quiksilver)
Journos included Keith Curtain (Australian Surf Business magazine), Tim Baker, and me. Jarratt, who planned the whole week, sat in too, and Norm Innes, former Quik exec, moderated.
Norm mentioned that Billabong had recently won Surfing Australia’s environmental award for their work on the company’s global carbon footprint. Derek O’Neill explained how they’d gone about this, after focus groups were telling Bong that kids are much more environmentally aware now than in the past. Thus Bong had Deloittes make an audit of what they were doing worldwide, came up with 16,000 tonnes of emissions per year, and hope to reduce that by around 15% over the next two years. According to Derek: “It’s really hard to just jump on the green bandwagon. If you’re not doing anything then suddenly start putting 100% of your advertising into what you’re doing for the environment, it can ring a little false. I think we can do a better job of letting people know what we’re doing, but we can do it subtly, we don’t need to hit it with a sledgehammer. We get to talk to kids in a way a Government can’t and we take that seriously. If you haven’t read Yvon Chouinard’s book ‘Let My People Go Surfing’, I recommend it, that’s a high level we can all live up to.”
Then the idea was that each journo got to ask a q then pass on the mic.
I got the mic first and began by explaining that I’d asked my e-mail research/survey list (around 220 core surfers around Oz, almost none of whom have anything to do with the industry), plus the readers of this forum, to tell me what they’d most like to see asked. I then explained that the response to my request, along with a range of q ideas, some intelligent, some funny, some rude, was underlaid with a deep seated and quite marked anger and contempt. Quite beyond what I’d expected.
Basically it looked to most of these surfers that the companies have made a really huge amount of money at the expense of the average hardcore surfer’s enjoyment of the sport, and without putting back into the broader surf community. Thus the long term surfer carries the can for the prosperity of the industry, in degraded surfing experiences. And feels a bit betrayed.
So my first q: do you feel this anger and contempt coming back at you at all and do you think it should be of significant concern?
The panel seemed a bit taken aback by this but Bruce Raymond sat up for it. “Somebody asked me, just outside this room, if the big three surf companies did have relevance to surfers today. And I said I think we’re joined at the hip. Because the decisions we make and the steps that we take are all as a result of the upwelling from surfing. It always has been that way. I can remember when we didn’t have pro surfing, and we created pro surfing from the generation of surfers in this room.
"My experiences as marketing manager for Quiksilver was to catch on to that vibe that was out there and see if we could fulfil that need. Hence we created the Quik Pro at G-Land, and that went on to be the Dream Tour, because that’s what surfers wanted (to see), and they loved it, and we loved it and it was a great step. Similarly, we used to do our marketing and photography on the North Shore of Hawaii pretty much. Then things got congested and we went to Bali, and we saw the opportunities in the Mentawais. We thought let’s try and do things differently and better and we went out and shot our photography and we didn’t say where the shots were from. We went and did our boat trip around the world, the Crossing, and one of our points was to give something back, so I went to Ricky Grigg, marine biologist and instituted Reef Check, and as a result we took dozens of marine biologists around the world and got important results… The other thing we did was educate, and we went back in November 2007 to open the Quiksilver Surf Aid Mentawai Community Health Centre in Katiet village.
“Now to get back to your point, all those things we did and do are a result of an upwelling of a need. We’re careful not to go out there and brag about it because as soon as you do that, people jump on you about the other 90% you’re not doing. We keep it close to our chests but when people do drill down into it, they see we are trying to have better work practices, and gone are the days when we just go somewhere and expose it and slash-and-burn and go on to the next thing, we try and leave a good path behind us. The things that Billabong have done with their global footprint initiative, drawing a line in the sand with what they’re doing, I can look back over the past 10 years and see we drew a line in the sand for coral reefs around the world so that the UN now has a measuring device to say how much coral reef degradation’s occurring.
"The beneficiaries of this are the general population of surfers, the big pool, because when you’re going out there and discovering these surf spots and doing all of these things, we’re leaving a nice trail behind us, not an ugly trail. Unlike the first few years when we discovered places like Bali and caused a goldrush and things like that. I think the surf industry takes a good look at itself and tries to employ best work practices. Now that’s on the marketing side, the most visual things. But in the hidden things, we have stuff like auditing the manufacturing processes, stuff that isn’t very sexy in the surf magazines. We can’t take out advertising and say “look at what we’re doing” and so forth, nor are the editors really that motivated to drill down and find out what’s going on because quite frankly, when we did the Crossing, they were more interested in getting the best fricken shot we got from the trip. And tell us where it was. They weren’t that interested in the Reef Check thing, it wasn’t that sexy. So there’s not a lot we can do, I don’t reckon, to change that perception that we’re a big ugly machine that wants to make a lot of money. We’re this machine that survives on being nurturing and thoughtful about what our customers want and need, and supplying that need. We do the workshops, we do all of that stuff, and to turn blindly in the face of all that is just not good business.”
Neil Ridgway: “Look I do feel it, to answer your question directly. But only until I communicate back to the people. Because what I don’t understand is what they’re angry about. They’re angry at us, and they say that the companies have been detrimental and have progressed at the expense of the average surfer, which we all are… but what we’ve done to really make their experience of surfing any less? …I don’t know what they’re angry about. And so I ask ‘em. If they send me an email I’ll reply to it. If it’s the end of a long week I’ll feel like replying to ‘em like Phil Jarratt did in Tracks, with probably the best ever editor’s reply to a letter ever, which was ‘Awww, get fucked!’ But I don’t, I write back to ‘em and talk to ‘em and once you do that, send the email or make the phone call, they’re happy to talk to you and generally you can work with ‘em and through things and you’ll agree to disagree and everyone walks away happy.”
Jarratt followed this up by asking the panel about Michael Tomson’s statement: “Big is the enemy of Cool.” Did they think that these days: that Big is the enemy of Cool?
Bruce Raymond: “There’s really cool things that a big company can do that a little company can’t. And I think that’s what these companies have been doing in recent years.”
Steve Kay: “Thing is, these three companies have been able to remain very successful companies for a 30 year period. Which means for successive generations of surfers they’ve been able to make products that they buy once, then again, then down the track their sons and daughters buy again. So I think that while surfing success often breeds envy and resentment and things like that, in the end the success of the companies themselves say we’re making products that people wanna buy.”
I’ll get on to some more qs and as tomorrow. Got limited time today.
I feel ill ...
Why?
Because they actually think, and said, we believe that we are "tied at the hips".
They take what they want and throw back scraps, and we are meant to be grateful?
Are they just big hearted misunderstood socially-minded entrepreneurs deep down?
But notice how the questions were answered as "we are doing this, we are doing that" and not "what could we be doing more of ..."
And as for the quote: "everyone walks away happy" ... NO MATE, you walk away happy and believe that talk qualifies as action, or that you are actually doing enough
Why?
Because they actually think, and said, we believe that we are "tied at the hips".
They take what they want and throw back scraps, and we are meant to be grateful?
Are they just big hearted misunderstood socially-minded entrepreneurs deep down?
But notice how the questions were answered as "we are doing this, we are doing that" and not "what could we be doing more of ..."
And as for the quote: "everyone walks away happy" ... NO MATE, you walk away happy and believe that talk qualifies as action, or that you are actually doing enough
- The Mighty Sunbird
- Huey's Right Hand
- Posts: 22901
- Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 12:43 pm
- Location: Pogo's
-
- Owl status
- Posts: 4893
- Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 9:15 pm
- Location: i live in a pineapple under the sea
-
- Huey's Right Hand
- Posts: 26515
- Joined: Tue Apr 05, 2005 9:29 am
- Location: Newport Beach
- oldman
- Snowy McAllister
- Posts: 6886
- Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2004 1:11 pm
- Location: Probably Maroubra, goddammit!
Gee Nick,
It's all come and gone and I finally worked out the one question that really does need answering.
Why do they make such shite boardshorts. Why are boardshorts based on cargo pants, and why do these stupid sheep we call surfers continue to buy said crap in spite of the fact that they are dysfunctional, uncomfortable and make you look like the fashion victim that you inevitably are. What is so wrong about having board shorts that are, urm, shorts, as in they stop before they get to your knee!!!!!!!
But the chance is gone now, and I'll never know.
It's all come and gone and I finally worked out the one question that really does need answering.
Why do they make such shite boardshorts. Why are boardshorts based on cargo pants, and why do these stupid sheep we call surfers continue to buy said crap in spite of the fact that they are dysfunctional, uncomfortable and make you look like the fashion victim that you inevitably are. What is so wrong about having board shorts that are, urm, shorts, as in they stop before they get to your knee!!!!!!!
But the chance is gone now, and I'll never know.
-
- Owl status
- Posts: 4893
- Joined: Sat Nov 11, 2006 9:15 pm
- Location: i live in a pineapple under the sea
u just been lurking waiting too see if there was gonna b any free blowjobsoldman wrote:Gee Nick,
It's all come and gone and I finally worked out the one question that really does need answering.
Why do they make such shite boardshorts. Why are boardshorts based on cargo pants, and why do these stupid sheep we call surfers continue to buy said crap in spite of the fact that they are dysfunctional, uncomfortable and make you look like the fashion victim that you inevitably are. What is so wrong about having board shorts that are, urm, shorts, as in they stop before they get to your knee!!!!!!!
But the chance is gone now, and I'll never know.
i had a dream last night about getting a blowjob off a girl with a bad cold and runny nose. she kept snorting and sniffing and even hacking and spitting - at first into a tissue in her hand and then after the tissue was soaked straight onto the floor, big gobs of mucus and saliva. in the dream i was holding my breath so as not to breathe in her germs or crack up laughing. i don't know if it was a good dream or a bad dream. i'll try to decide if i have it again tonight.
-
- Owl status
- Posts: 4517
- Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:38 pm
- Location: the white tide pole
- Contact:
Nick, you must think that its a waste of time to try to discuss serious issues on this forum sometimes with some of the comments, I can talk shit with the best of them but sometimes I cant follow all the weird ass shit.... I dont think anything we say is ever gunna change anything, its always about the money and always will be....GREED greed greed
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 54 guests