A while back I wrote about Dick Smith being a stupid place to buy stuff. The cheapest HDMI cable you can buy on sale at Dick Smith, with the 15% discount, is a staggering $55.23. Despite a Dick Smith staff member’s comment on the post “I work there and I will admit you can get …
Author Archives: Lance Wiggs
Congratulations to three new kiwi Yale students
Harry Simperingham, Ben Kornfield and Tessa Smith – remember these names. They are the three New Zealanders that will be part of the new class of 2012 at Yale University in Spetember. That’s a fantastic achievement – so well done to all. I briefly met both Tessa and Ben at the Whiffenpoofs event in Auckland …
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Tuesday Three: 3 ways to improve your business
Know what everybody does Know how many staff, contractors, temps and so forth that you have. Count everyone in and out each day, divide them into logical groups, assign an owner to each group then use appropriate strategies to reduce. Each person that walks in the door needs to be there for a business reason. …
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BNZ’s Netguard costs $5, but is the least bad option
I’ve blogged before about BNZ’s stupid Netguard Card – which has codes on it to allow you to login to your bank account. Perish the thought that you are travelling when the new one is issued, or that you lose it without first taking a photograph and placing it on your blog or Flickr. BNZ …
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Let me pay my bill Contact Energy
I’ve been getting a number of letters from Contact Energy recently, so I decided to actually open one of them on Saturday afternoon. Turns out they are gas bills, and I’m well overdue. Time to pay the bill then. So off I went to the Contact website – contact.co.nz. <update http://www.contact.co.nz. The page fails completely …
I’m 100% Irish
While I was at Webstock I signed up online for the 23andme service – which takes a saliva sample, analyzes your DNA and tells you all about yourself. I got the results very rapidly, went into the system and determined that I don’t have too many dread diseases risks linked with my genotype. Then I …
Tuesday Three: 3 ways to improve your business
Focus on the big things, not the little things Focus effort on removing the primary bottleneck in your process. That means stop working on anything that isn’t the current or next bottleneck or business as usual. And I mean everything. This is the secret sauce behind the turnarounds that I and talented small teams have …
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Brass Monkey 2009 – a photolog
The reprobates meet for another Brass Monkey Tying down the bikes in the Ferry Glassy smooth crossing. A good sign – we could have forgone tying those bikes as well.. South of Blenheim – it was cold. We live in a beautiful place Posing cattle Bliss Kaikoura inland road Hamner Springs – we stopped for …
The Fail of Bing. And google.
Like everyone else I have been trying out Bing.com – Microsofts “new” search engine. It’s useless. Here is the result page for “buy car” – with “pages from New Zealand selected”. Firstly it is difficult to see where the advertisements stop and the results start. On my giant screen the yellow is white, while the …
When to resign from a board
Over at the SEC is an excellent letter from Richard E Middlekauff – who just resigned from the board of Heelys, Inc – a shoe company. Here’s why: 1: The shareholders are not maximising their return after the company was in play. The Board, in my opinion, should seriously engage potential buyers of the Company, …
A few fun GM Chapter 11 facts
A quick read of the General Motors Chapter 11 Bankruptcy petition gives some fun facts about the collosal disaster that is GM. Total Assets: $82.3 Billion Total Debts: $172.8 Billion. That’s 217% of assets, $90.52 billion in net debt and bigger than the GDP of New Zealand. How did it get this far? The biggest …
Tuesday Three: 3 ways to improve your business
Give the people what they want Go through your Microsoft receipts line by line – and systematically reduce it to zero. Give this task to the palid looking guy who looks after your servers and databases. Abandon PCs – and get Apple Macs for everybody. People will start wanting to come to work again, and …
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Leaving for the Brass
Be prepared. The experienced motorcycle adventurer knows that it pays dividends to pack light, prepare well in advance and do a shake down run. Me – well I am a bit different. Not only was it a mad scramble to finish packing and get to the ferry, but I struggled to cram my gear into …
Want to motorcycle the world? It’s easy
This DVD intro gives a taste for the sort of person that you need to be to ride the world. Assemble your personal excuses, and then watch. (Hint – age and even Parkinsons won’t cut it. Neither will lack of use of a limb, no money, no motorcycle license, gender (ha!), no experience and so …
How NOT to Twitter if you are a corporation
A little while back I praised Vodafone New Zealand for their excellent Twittering, inside an article on How to Twitter if you are a Corporation. They reached out to customers, solved problems, gently nudged opinion their way and generally were liked by everybody. The account was run by Paul Brislen – who let his own …
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Lance Wiggs 