I’ve been thinking about things following on from Brenda’s post the other day, where she spoke about the interconnectedness of the Wellington ICT and Blogging scene (included in which was myself which I take as a compliment, albeit a little misguided, living as I do in the Mainland).

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the graduation launch for the Hi Tech Programme, an initiative run through the CDC which seeks to take 10 businesses a year and put them through a mini-incubator where they learn some of the multitudinous and varied skills needed to grow their businesses. At the end of the programme the participants put on a mini trade show and present their businesses to an invited audience made up of business people, investors and educators.

There where a number of people there last night – John, Chris et al from CDC, Phillip from ConnectNZ was there, Matthew from the cii also. Patrick from PROconsulting, who delivered some of the learning for the participants, was there. NZTE, who funded much of the programme, were well represented. The course participants where there obviously, ECOBOB, EDH Bike, Enfinit, GOWEKA, iDesign, Interclue, Inventious, Libros, The Voice Booth and Tor designs.

Lots of names in there, the difference between Brenda’s post and my own is that each of her names are active bloggers as well as being active industry players. It’s something that seems apparent when comparing the Wellington and Christchurch scenes – Wellingtonians seems to have a higher uptake of blogging. Now maybe people think it doesn’t matter but I think it does. If Web 2.0 is all about community and user influenced development, then surely blogging is the ultimate expression of that. If an entire group of industry players are not exposing themselves on and to blogging perhaps their ability to provide a service relevant to the 2.0 economy is compromised.

Or maybe I’m reading too much into it and it’s just that they’re too busy running successful businesses to blog – but then again Rod and Jim run busy-nesses and they find the time….

Anyway – the launch was great and hopefully the next generation of serial entrepreneurs was on display last night.

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

4 Comments
  • Hi Ben, First time caller πŸ™‚

    Blogs are a symptom of interconnectedness, not a cause (wonderful article by Brenda).

    The vibe coming from Wellington amazes me. There is the same talent down here, but there is no obvious signs that people gel together in the same manner.

    Wellington has a financial heart, it has a cafe culture, and it has Courtenay Place at night. To keep connected personally is as easy as a coffee during the day, a drink at night, or running in to someone on the street. Also most everyone is there for business, often dislocated so open to new friendships, and people end up with social groups across vastly different job and personality types.

    Trying to kick-start the same vibe down here feels a little forced and unnatural – perhaps similar to trying to replicate skunkworks or Google culture.

    Great to meet you last night – all the presentations were superb – we were all very happy with the whole night!

    Morris

    PS: Seth Wagoner from InterClue has a very good blog: http://sethop.com/ — and I have a zombie blog http://blog.morrisjohns.com/ !

    PPS: This makes me think of the anthropological studies of businesses and inter-person connectivity e.g. in a high rise between people on different floors of a business versus on the same floor – one floor difference had a big impact on how much contact there was between people; or the study that each 10min extra commute leads to 10% less friends.

  • Hi Ben
    Sorry for getting your mainlander status confused – take it as a compliment perhaps πŸ˜‰
    One thing that I find interesting about the Wellington bloggers that I referenced, particularly the business ones, is that they seem to mix their business and personal postings all together. Gives them some kind of humanity at the same time as illustrating their business interests and focus.
    I suspect something similar may happen in and around Auckland, although perhaps more on a social level there …

  • No probs Bren. After all 25 or so years living in Wellington compared to a mere decade in Canterbury make me more of a Wellingtonian than a Cantabrian. And yes – Wellington is full of displaced persons making it more likely to harbour an open vibe. Christchurch – well it’s still shipped in a “First Four Ships” mentality

  • Yep ChCh just doesn’t have the vibe or networks as far as i’ve seen but there are lots of people around doing all sorts of stuff. At VortexDNA we probably know more people in San Fran than ChCh. If we were based in Wellin it would be way different. That’s probably why we are having a board meeting there on Monday πŸ™‚

    I’ve been at the NZ Association of Economists conference today in Christchurch (makes a change) and a lot of people down from Wellington and a fun bunch they are (economists are real people!). Maybe we’re too surburban in ChCh or maybe we need to make more effort?

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