After much debate and argument it was decided to think about changing the name for the then “Platnm” platform. With the lack of being able to even get the misspelled platnm.com and the additional burden of the name being somewhat leaning too much like a gentleman’s club feel it was something I was quite keen on changing. Richard was less keen as he’d be thinking about Platnm for such a long time and really wanted to indicate how lives could be changed by the platform and how the additional knowledge/money or the ability to be less lonely would so enriching.
I played on many of the word type websites (such as wordoid) that would list if we could get the .com domain as well as attached social media accounts. But nothing was great. And none were compelling enough for Richard to be convinced to change over from Platnm for. And I didn’t want to waste the precious time that we had to work on this (between GovHack and between work and all our individual life commitments!) I’m a big believer of timeboxing. This was definitely one of those tasks to be timeboxing!
Then one day in mid September… Richard came up with HazTime. Not sure how or when! After debates on whether or not we could be happy being known as from “HazTime” vs “Platnm” raged on for a few days. It was a bit lolcat for me but it sounded fun. And we could get the .com URL. I prefered it over the generic sounding Platnm which was going to be difficult to get people to google or spell… Yes it’s “Platinum but without U or I” A little ironic really!
During one of Richard’s chats to backpackers, he was sold. Sold as the couple he was talking to kept on talking about HazTime.
It became a thing. And I like the use of the z. I have a thing about non common letters. Zs and Qs are great! No it’s not about Scrabble…
So my task was to get a logo sorted. We used DesignCrowd. We committed on a payout and were a little disappointing with the dearth of clock and “H” based logo designs. But then one day… we got a design that looked like an hourglass. And was based on the Z. Winner winner chicken dinner!!! (You can check out some of the other designs as well as the winning entry on the DesignCrowd site).
Once we had the logo I migrated our existing Platnm (goplatnm.com) site across and started hacking.
Four days before the GovHack Red Carpet Awards (a major event that Richard and I were both heavily involved with delivering ) I bought a WP template and put it up and made some changes. Then the event got in the way. Whilst I was busy trying to play with the css and making changes the night before the event (as Richard was going to be talking to people about what was next for him after his stint as GovHack National Director!) I forgot to test the form was saving into the Mailchimp database. Alas at 2am I had given up. And the following morning I fixed the rest of my css issues (yay I worked it out!) Richard said he would look at and fix the Mailchimp stuff after he finished writing his script. (I was busy running last minute errands for the Awards night).
Roll on the evening… and neither of us had an opportunity to look at the Mailchimp integration issue.
During the Awards night he was still trying to fix it. During the intermission I managed to change plugins and fix it. Phew, talk about last minute!! Next time I’m not using a Mac and being stressed about it not working. The benefit though is an extra 6 signups! Woohoo! (Ok so it’s not a huge number but we have to start somewhere 🙂 )
So farewell GovHack! And farewell GoPlatnm! And HELLO HazTime 🙂