New Zealand slips to 17th in latest Good Country Index

Above: Simon Anholt, giving a talk at TEDSalon Berlin. Out today: my friend Simon Anholt’s Good Country Index, with the Netherlands taking the top spot from Sweden, which drops to sixth. New Zealand is in 17th, failing in prosperity and equality, and in cultural contribution (previously we had been 5th and 12th). On the plus […]

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Joan Rivers had better facelifts, but it’s the future of the black cab

Part of me admires Nissan for going after the taxi market in a big way in New York and London.    Another part of me wonders why on earth the London Hackney Carriage solution is so ugly.    I think Nissan should have asked Mr Mitsuoka for advice on how to Anglicize one of its […]

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Let’s improve on the Wellington logo

The city’s new logo—it is not a rebrand if the underlying tenets are the same—has not met with much support.    The next question must be: all right, if we’re all so smart, can we do better?    Ian Apperley and I think we can. Ian approached me yesterday morning to ask whether we should […]

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Responding to blog comments—and where to from here?

Wordpress, with its automatic deactivation of Jetpack after each update, messed up, so I have no metrics for the last two months of this blog. Nor did it send me emails notifying me of your comments. It would have been useful to know how the last couple of posts went, to gauge your reaction to […]

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Cities are, or at least should be, driving globalization

  My friend and colleague William Shepherd directed me to a piece at Quartz by Michele Acuto and Parag Khanna, on how cities are driving globalization more than nations—a theme I touched upon on this blog in March 2010. As he said, I had called it three years ago, though admittedly Acuto and Khanna have […]

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When it comes to convention centres, it pays to think ahead

The New Zealand International Convention Centre has been announced in Auckland. In 2010, my campaign team proposed a convention centre for Miramar Wharf, which would include a technology complex, in a format that could have been licensed to other countries, earning royalties for the Wellington business that came up with the idea. The location was […]

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Small is beautiful, whether it’s a company or a country

My friend Summer Rayne Oakes at Source4Style put me on to an article in The Guardian by Ilaria Pasquinelli, on how small firms drive innovation. If the fashion industry is to survive, she says, it must team up with the small players where innovation takes place, thanks to the visionaries who drive those firms.   […]

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Wellington Airport flip-flops again, but pennies drop more quickly in Queensland

Today, those of us on the anti-‘Wellywood’ sign page got some welcome news: that Wellington Airport would reconsider.    But, I had to point out, this is again déjà vu. Last time, the Airport flip-flopped as well, and said it would consult the public.    Given that the resource consent for ‘Wellywood’ was for nine […]

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