About 13 years ago I started an internal newsletter at McKinsey, with the intent to educate and inform other consultants about the goings on online and in telecommunications. It failed badly. That first newsletter was a PDF of several 800 word articles that were painful to write and get written, but even more painful to …
Category Archives: NZ Business
Lessons from Webstock: We’ve come long way, now let’s move on up
Another superb first day yesterday at Webstock, New Zealand’s must-attend conferences for anybody involved in web design or related businesses. Once again the speakers were universally superb, the organisation sublime and the conference is made with love. With many familiar and new faces, it’s a comfortable environment to spark and continue fascinating conversations. Overall I …
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Where predictions eventually become true
From a post shortly before the last NZ election in 2011: I’m picking National will just win, draw or nearly win the election outright, that ACT will not earn more than one seat (hopefully none), and that National will choose to work with the Maori and Greens as they did in the last term (as …
Pocketsmith: Advanced personal financial management
While banks are increasingly offering tools to help you manage your finances, and Mint.com offers those services for free, there is a gap in the market for people looking for a higher quality way to manage their money. Pocketsmith has been around for a few years now, and has carved out a space in the global …
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2012 Update: Cadimage Group
I’m the independent director at Cadimage, who sell a range of architectural and technical software in New Zealand and Australia, and who develop and sell tools for Archicad. 2012 was an excellent year for Cadimage, fuelled by strong demand for Archicad, which dominates the New Zealand market. We saw sales from the South Island and …
2012 Update: PLTech and the ARDA Engine
I’ve been working with Lee Ter Wal Design to assist Kerri McMaster and PLTech with the launch and commercialisation of the ARDAEngine. ARDA takes the output from the biometric sensors that athletes wear, such as heart rate monitors, watches and iPhones, and applies very intelligent interpretation and analysis in real time. It’s been built on the back of …
Why Dell is being taken private again
Dell used to set the standard for computers and ecommerce, but has fallen on such hard times that the founder is taking it private again. I’m not going to comment on the products, but while they have come back a little, just have a go at the buying experience, which is woeful. Home Page: Yes, …
2012 Update: Define Instruments
2012 saw me involved in a wide range of activities – which has always been a personal target. However I did experience one serious clash of priorities in September and October, and client work suffered, but otherwise this is how I like it. Here’s the first in a series of posts updating progress. I worked …
2012 Update: MyTours
MyTours is a web application what lets tourist authorities, museums and others create city walks and museum tours for iPhone, Windows and Android. We’ve been in business since 2009, and have helped our customers build over 50 different applications, with more in the pipeline. From the start myTours was a company where founder Glen Barnes …
Thanks for the marvelous posting! Now find some positive work.
There is a particular hell reserved for people who hire people to place blog spam. It’s not a deep hell, like that reserved for the text scammers who preyed on love-struck kids, nor is it the especially fiery hell reserved for the people who believe that pistols and automatic weapons have a place in cities …
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Tim Berners-Lee speaks: what can we do in NZ?
Tim Berners-Lee presented this evening in Wellington to an InternetNZ sponsored event, supported (and thank-you) by the Department of Internal Affairs (the NZ Government CIO), Chorus, Catalyst IT and Google. Sir Tim made the point that just as the US government reaches beyond their borders, so too can we, and we can lobby offshore, change …
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Selling your house the third way with 200 Square
Selling houses is painful – and while some folks really enjoy the challenge and do so privately, almost everyone uses a traditional real estate agent. And gets ripped off. Not that Real Estate agents are crooks, but the industry is ripe for a shake up. The fees are extortionate for the work involved. They insist …
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Lower tolerance
People working unsafely. People denying that anthropogenic climate change exists or is even a problem. Copyright owners who refuse to sell their wares here and then complain when they are pirated. Teacher unions who refuse to consider measurement and paying for performance. We have too many firms who are content with systematically exposing workers to …
Fatally unsafe at speed
Nice picture huh. all those men in orange putting on quite the frenzied display as they erected a stage for the Laneways festival in Wynard Quarter, Auckland yesterday. You might want to click to zoom in on this next one, as the picture is large and the text small. The text in red refers to …
InternetNZ CE: Vikram, Jordan and you?
Vikram Kumar [his new blog] announced his departure from Internet NZ earlier this year. He leaves behind an impressive legacy, highlighted for me by three very successful NetHuis. Vikram pushed hard to get these off the ground, working through objections of some within Council, including me. The tipping point for me was when he changed the name …
Lance Wiggs 