Category Archives: Life

Where in the blogosphere is Michael Carney?

Michael has seemingly abandoned the Trade Me success Secrets blog, which was looking to be a really promising place to discuss and see all things Trade Me. He also seems to have left the Grey Group – where he was also writing an interesting blog. If you want to see what an untended blog looks …

Continue reading “Where in the blogosphere is Michael Carney?”

There must be a better way: Airlines that get it right

Third in a series. Sadly no airline gets it completely right, and we won’t be happy until almost all airlines (and airports) get it right. But the good news is that some airlines are getting some of it, and one even gets most of it. Let’s have a quick look at some good practices, and …

Continue reading “There must be a better way: Airlines that get it right”

There must be a better way: Qantas shows how not to do it

Second in a series. This is the Qantas airline lounge right now. It is 7:10pm on a Friday night, and these folk are standing because all of the seats are taken. It’s much better outside in the normal section of the airport, though it’s also manic there. Airline lounges seem to be designed for good …

Continue reading “There must be a better way: Qantas shows how not to do it”

There must be a better way – The Pain of Flying

It’s 320pm – and I’ve just been trapped in a chair for over 2 hours. Trapped in one location with no chance of standing up, no chance of stretching, and no chance of working. Clearly I am flying. However, it isn’t meant to be like this. I’m sitting in business class, the plane isn’t delayed, …

Continue reading “There must be a better way – The Pain of Flying”

Vertical and Horizontal

If you were following the comments on a previous post, you may have noticed an arcane commentary about “Vertical” documents versus “Horizontal” documents. It’s consulting gobbledegook, but the differences between vertical and horizontal documents are important. Our friends at the NZ Institute are a bunch of consulting refugees, and their output will serve as good …

Continue reading “Vertical and Horizontal”

Global official aid falls – NZ languishes at the back

Pathetic. Official development aid worldwide actually fell by 8.4%, in real terms, last year. This meant a drop from 0.31% to 0.28% of OECD member’s GNI, rather than rising up towards the 0.7% of GNI agreed to at the Gleneagles G8 and UN Millennium + 5 summits in 2005. Much of the change was because …

Continue reading “Global official aid falls – NZ languishes at the back”

Healthcare – double the inflation rate is unsustainable

I’m reading Stiglitz and Bilmes’ new book – The Three Trillion Dollar War. It sets out to show the cost to the USA of the Iraq war, and they go to lengths to be conservative in their calculations (the end number goes over $5bn, but I have not got there yet). But that’s not the …

Continue reading “Healthcare – double the inflation rate is unsustainable”

Presenting – bringing in the new way to old industries

The “new way” of presenting seems to be diffusing pretty rapidly through the high tech/web communities, with some industries having seen the back of death by powerpoint bullets. There isn’t really a “new way” – it’s just that people are beginning to really care about how they present.  The “new way” is really just “anything …

Continue reading “Presenting – bringing in the new way to old industries”

iPhones and Telecom

iPhones may be sold by Telecom? My head is going to explode. However AT&T is also struggling with a similar customer service reputation to Telecom’s, and so the price a telco pays for selling the iPhone (kickbacks to Apple) is the price you have to pay to be associated with Apple.