Blog Archives

Service Done Right – Insurance Broking Par Excellance

December 17, 2009

Business, My businesses

broker, crombie lcokwood, insurance, jeremy bernstein

All too often this blog has been a place to critique service that I’ve received from commercial providers – generally bad service is the impetus to sit down and write. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing but it seemed appropriate…

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Why Banking is Broken, A BNZ Rant (Part two)

September 14, 2009

Business, My businesses, New Zealand, Strategy

bnz, business banking, service, support

I posted last week about a banking situation that had me all hot under the collar. In an effort to continue naming and shaming (and hopefully drive improvements in the process), here is part two. This morning I received…

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Time for a the BNZ Rant, They Don’t Get It….

September 7, 2009

Business, IT, My businesses, New Zealand

banking, bnz, customer service, Xero

My fellow blogger Lance Wiggs tends to be a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to banks in new Zealand, in light of the fact that he’s sitting somewhere in the middle of Africa, I figured I’d take…

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Yikes! The Ryans are at it again

August 21, 2009

Business, Design, Manufacturing, My businesses, New business, New Zealand

eurekster, globalbrain, grant ryan, project garlic.hera, shaun ryan, sli, yikebike

The Ryan brothers are something of a powerhouse of Kiwi entrepreneurship and innovation. Between them Doctors Shaun and Grant (underachievement obviously being a familial trait!) have set up and been involved in a raft of exciting companies – GlobalBrain,…

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Government 2.0 – A Way to Go

June 15, 2009

Economic Development, Efficiency, Governance, IT, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy

government 2.0, med, ministry of economic development, nz immigration service

Jim posted the incredible story of the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) proposing a $117 million upgrade of IT infrastructure, a sum that equates, from Jim’s reckoning, to $234k per NZIS process worker. It’s a sorry tale and one…

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The Consumerisation of Design, the Death of Fitness for Purpose

May 14, 2009

Business, Design, Manufacturing, My businesses

Design, nike, niketown

On my way to the United States, US Airways unfortunately misplaced my bag. Faced with the prospect of a week without my stuff i made a quick assessment of what I really couldn’t do without. Top of the list…

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What Part of Rampant Consumerism do People Not Get?

December 16, 2008

Business, Business and the Environment, Economic Development, Efficiency, Manufacturing, My businesses, Society

Doing the rounds at the moment is a UK Sunday Star Times story about an undercover operation at an Amazon warehouse. Basically the reporter discovered terrible working conditions, very high demands on staff and not allowance for sick days…

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Testing the Made from New Zealand widget

December 10, 2008

Economic Development, My businesses, New business, New Zealand, Strategy

I got an email from the [mfnz]Made From New Zealand[/mfnz] guys sayign that they have just released their new widget aimed at getting comapny information to show after blog posts (yup – much like crunchbase for for NZ companies.…

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Why Not e-dollars?

October 21, 2008

Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, My businesses

Awhile ago I was involved with a start up that was trying to create a barter driven system for online transactions, leveraging the power of the community rating, meritocracy and subversion of traditional currencies to both lubricate commerce and…

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Another one bites the dust…

August 23, 2008

Business, Economic Development, Manufacturing, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy

american apparel, cactus

Its been a few months since I had a rant about the demise of first world manufacturing. Sure there are companies like American Apparel and my own Cactus Climbing creating a brand story out of retaining a first world…

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