Blog Archives

Life as an employer in New Zealand…

February 8, 2008

Economic Development, My businesses, New Zealand, Society

This morning I was pointed to an article with comments from Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen. The gist of the article was that Cullen is challenging Kiwi businesses to lift wages in order to reverse the huge trend to…

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Dodgy con-job consultancy…

February 5, 2008

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

I got this email the other day at my Cactus email address. It was from someone purporting to be a high level management consultant with connections to VC funding sources over seas. The email went like this (identifying names…

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Business partners….

December 12, 2007

Business, My businesses, New business

A great post here from Will Schroter about choosing business partners. I’m involved in several different businesses with different partners, all of whom bring different strengths and weaknesses to the mix. I’ve seen many business partnerships crumble in the…

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On Facebook and turnarounds…

December 4, 2007

Business, Design, Efficiency, IT, My businesses, New business, SaaS, Strategy, Web x.0

So – unsurprisingly Facebook did a partial turnaround on its privacy policy for Beacon, deciding that consent would be required before users activity data was published. Posts have claimed that this is the “canary in the coalmine” event for…

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Our individual parts in the digital future…

November 29, 2007

Business, Economic Development, IT, My businesses, New business, New Zealand, Society, Strategy

I’m sitting here watching the live webcast of the Digital Future Summit. A friend IMd me an said; this needs blogginghow are we going to bat above our weight in a digital economyI replied; i know – but it’s…

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Should government funding be here?

November 23, 2007

Business, IT, Manufacturing, My businesses, New Zealand, Strategy

Papers inadvertently released today tell the complex and inefficient story behind ICT-NZ the government set up industry group tasked to further the aims of the ICT industry here in New Zealand. ICT-NZ is funded via a complex chain of…

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Freeparking – great service….

November 14, 2007

Business, Efficiency, IT, My businesses

As you’ll notice, I’ve shifted my blog to my own domain. I spent a bit of time hunting around for someone to host the site and finally decided on a local (well only an hour away) ISP – freeparking,…

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Xero and the BNZ finally get Cosy….

November 12, 2007

Business, Design, IT, My businesses, New Zealand, SaaS

Xero announced the other day that the BNZ has become the latest bank to support fully automated bank reconciliations into Xero. I probably spend about four hours a month reconciling the bank accounts on the 3 businesses I run…

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Competitive advantage… how?

November 6, 2007

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

I’ve just been interviewed by a researcher from the University of Otago. Otago has undertaken a long-term research programme looking at how New Zealand firms derive world class competitive advantage from their geographical location, the networks they utilise, industry…

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Well done Leon and team…

November 6, 2007

Business, Design, Economic Development, Governance, IT, Manufacturing, My businesses, New business, New Zealand, Strategy

Surveylab was founded by Leon Toorenberg, a Wellingtonian and some-time Cactus acquaintance. Cactus is now a supplier to Surveylab and it’s great to read how they’re starting to cross the chasm. On a personal level it’s really nice to…

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