Today started with a very interesting lecture by Mike Burrell, CEO of Aquaculture New Zealand. He started out by mentioning the quote Peter Drucker made shortly before he died (and before the Dot Com Bubble Burst). He stated that “It is aquaculture, not internet companies, that will be the best investments in the 21st century”. Strong words but it was an interesting foil to the message Andy Lark gave yesterday.
Some interesting facts and figures;
- NZ uses 0.2% of it’s coastal water space for aquaculture
- NZ is 75th in the world in terms of land mass but
- NZ is 7th in the world in terms of exclusive use water area
Interesting stuff and maybe it might make some of our newly rich ICT company dellers look to diversify their investments.
The lunch sessions had a few platitude filled speeches from Ken Stevens, Export Year Ambassador and Glidepath CEO. Minister Trevor Mallard and Tim Gibson, CEO of NZTE. One shouldn’t be churlish, at the end of the day they have a vested interest in talking it up and creating the feel good factor.
Next up was a workshop session with Andy Lark. Andy went into more depth about his theories regarding the sales pipeline chasms. All interesting stuff and relevant to anyone managing the process from leads to closure. He also wowed the (predominantly tech-illiterate) audience with Web 2.0 words and convinced most to create their own wiki’s, blog’s and linkedin accounts. Still it’s done him well so one shouldn’t criticise!
In the evening there was an inspirational talk by Alicia Beverley from IP Wealth out of Australia. She talked about leadership legacies and what remains once the current crop of business people shuffle off this mortal processor coil. Basically the premise was that employees, stock options, boards etc etc are forgotten but it’s the legacy in terms of change and leadership that we will be remembered for. I’ll try and post a copy of her speech sometime soon – an interesting and thought provoking message!
