Friday morning’s interview with Sonia Sly on Kiwi Summer was the most fun I have ever had on radio.
Radio New Zealand National was the most fair and balanced medium I dealt with when running for Mayor of Wellington in 2010, and I was glad that Sonia thought of me for its summer programming this year.
I joked to friends prior to the interview that 2011 was much like 2010: go on to National Radio to dis the Wellywood sign in the first half of the year, and have a fun interview in the second half.
This was a casual, fun interview thanks to Sonia putting me at such ease. It goes on for a healthy 17 minutes, covering my involvement in Lucire, judging the Miss Universe New Zealand pageant, my branding work, including the Medinge Group, and my typeface design career. The feedback I have had is that people enjoyed it, and I’d like to share it with you all here.
Here’s the link, and you can always find it at the Kiwi Summer page for the day, where other formats are listed.
And if you’re wondering where the opening reading comes from, it’s taken from this review of the Aston Martin V8 Vantage I penned many years ago.
Posts tagged ‘radio’
Chatting to TV, radio and internet journalists for the mayoral campaign
11.06.2010There have been a few times in the history of this blog where I stepped away from writing regularly. At the end of 2006, I had a pretty good excuse: I was in France. This time, my reasons for stepping away for a few weeks do not include: (a) I was spending too much time with the Miss Universe New Zealand contestants; (b) laziness; (c) being trapped in 1983 and discovering that DCI Gene Hunt controls the Lost island.
I was, however, chatting to a few more of the parties that we needed to realize some of my election promises. And doing a few media interviews. And looking at more ways Wellington could get nearer balancing its budget, as our deficit has ballooned over the last decade.
On May 15, I joined my opponent, Councillor Celia Wade-Brown, on Access Radioās Espace FranƧais, in what was my first political interview in French. I expected a nice-natured chat till our hosts said they wanted a political debate. So the Councillor and I gave the audience one, coming from very different angles. I believe we are the only two Francophone candidates. And I donāt think Access does a Cantonese programme.
You can listen to the interview here, though they only store the programmes for six weeks. You can also download from this link.
I kept Leauna Zheng waiting for weeks while I prepared my emailed responses to her interview for Skykiwi, the leading Chinese expatsā site in New Zealand. Despite her wait, she wrote a marvellous article (in Chinese, here), and for those of you relying on Google Translate, please note that the term Chinese expatriate is not translated correctly. (I believe this is the first Chinese-language interview to include my name in Chinese ideographs.)
And, finally, my interview with Bharat Jamnadas on Asia Down Under aired last Sunday. Heās very kindly put it on YouTube, though the aspect ratio is a tad off and I look thinner than usual. There are very nice comments from two members of the Wellington business community, Laurie Foon of Starfish and Brent Wong of Soi, to whom I am extremely grateful.
The conversation at the end about Wellington v. Auckland was a good laugh, but there were some serious bits.
And this Tuesday just gone, it was a pleasure to play a ādragonā in a Dragonās Den-style setting analysing some of New Zealandās entrepreneurs for New Zealand Trade & Enterprise.
My thanks to Bharat, Leauna, Kenneth Leong, Laura Daly at Access Radio, Jean-Louis Durand and Arlette Bilounga, and Maria Gray and David Powell.
Tags: Aotearoa, Bharat Jamnadas, business, Chinese, environment, fashion, France, internet, Jack Yan, mayoralty, media, New Zealand, politics, radio, Skykiwi, small business, SMEs, Starfish, technology, technopole, transparency, TV, TVNZ, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara, wifi
Posted in business, China, culture, humour, internet, leadership, media, New Zealand, politics, technology, TV, Wellington | 1 Comment »
Thoughts toward 2020
02.05.2010This weekend was spent in recovery mode after getting some weird stomach bug before Anzac Day. Without getting too gross, letās say it took a lot out of me. Thatās right: I was energetically drained.
But itās not to say that the campaign has stopped or slowed. Things seem to be proceeding at a good paceāsometimes so well that I have to admit I have less time to blog.
I met with both a Mr Andrew Jackson and a Mr Calhoun in the last two weeks, which I am sure our American readers will be getting a chuckle over. While the Andrew Jackson I met is British-born and not related to the American president of the $20 banknote, Brian Calhoun of Silverstripe is directly descended from the seventh vice-president.
Both gentlemen shared the same visions as I did. Andrew, who was introduced to me via my fellow Medinge director Patrick Harris, looks at the Wellington region over the next 10ā20 years in his job with the Ministry of Economic Development. While I stated that I did not believe in a super-city for Wellington in 2010āwe are governable, after allāI had to admit that there would come a time where the capital would have to compete for resources from central government as a region. And that region might look very different in the 2020s with a second international airport and a light rail service. If elected mayor, itās not going to be something that will be built between 2010 and 2013, but Iād sure need to be aware of long-term developments for the region. (It also highlights the need to grow jobs under the creative cluster plans, so we can begin talking options.)
On that note, it would be prudent to recommence the regional mayoral meetings in a slimmer form. Right now, mayors from all over the Wellington region come with entourages, ensuring nothing gets done. Letās take that back to meeting with mayors and regional MPs without all the red tape and get some high-level agreements made after October 2010.
Meanwhile, Brian presides over one of the most successful software companies in the landāand I like Silverstripeās current mantra, āBe more humanā. It links to my own ideas that humans are in charge of technology and not vice versa. And Silverstripe, under his leadership, has done remarkably with annual growth rates of 63, 70 and 57 per cent.
His belief is that Wellington businesses can grow if they have the right advice and adopt a leadership posture to what they do. Itās a good cultural argument: let the brand be well defined, and live the right attitude within the organization (these are not Brianās words, but what I took from what he said). I remarked that that was largely how I got my own businesses to where they were.
But hereās something significant: Brian, as I, believes that Wellington can be one of the worldās leading cities. We can lead in terms of web, tech and software development, for starters, being the sort of place that attracts both talent and envy. Weāve both been around the world, weāre aware of what ingredients need to be in place to make this happen, and weāre certain on the steps we need to take to make some of Wellingtonās businesses world-class champions.
Iād rather have free wifi in the central city and a vibrant creative cluster than another sculpture (as much as I like the ones we have) or another stadium suffering from a NZ$20 million cost overrun. And I know we can build these businesses from the ground-up and keep them Kiwi-ownedārather than asset-strip and have foreigners snatch them up, which still seems to dominate the thinking of central government.
Speaking of which, I see that a bill amending the Local Government Act 2002 has been tabled. And that bill says that if a private corporation wants to control our water, it can do so for 35 years. That company set up to sell our water back to us no longer needs to be majority council-owned.
This is madness. Not only have we owned our water from day one, it is anathema to my thinking that some foreign corporation raking in US$50 billion per annum could control it. These corporations exist, and you can bet they are eyeing New Zealand up lustfully in the hope that the law is changed.
Better to have water stay in public hands and have all of us contribute to proper conservation programmes, I say. But, say the privateers, surely we can charge for water? āWhat? The poor canāt afford it? Itās not as though they need to wash every day, is it?ā
The ghosts of Slater Walker and their ilk still walk the hallways at some political partiesā HQs. And they still think they are in charge.
Incidentally, I seem to be getting decent (and by ādecentā I mean āfair and balancedā) air time on the radio airwaves. So far Iāve done Newstalk ZB a couple of times, as well as their competition over at Radio Live. Laura Daly at Access Radio did a wonderful interview with me earlier in April (I will be back on that station with my opponent Celia Wade-Brown in Espace FranƧais on May 15 in my first political interview in French). Radio New Zealand National, meanwhile, interviewed me a few times during the whole Wellywood saga, but I am glad that I had a more personal one-on-one with Sonia Yee during her Asian Report last week. Hereās the link to the programme for those who might want a slightly less political broadcast (the MP3 is here).
Tags: airport, Aotearoa, future, Jack Yan, legislation, mayoralty, media, Medinge Group, Ministry of Economic Development, New Zealand, Patrick Harris, politics, privatization, public ownership, radio, region, Silverstripe, technology, water, Wellington, Whanganui-a-Tara
Posted in business, internet, leadership, media, New Zealand, politics, technology, Wellington | No Comments »
I need to listen to some Fred Dagg before I go on
11.03.2010To be confirmed is an interview with the BBC, in my politician guise. I have not been on radio in the other hemisphere for something like seven years, and that time it went to some of the most way-out places (it was UN Radio). I have one reservation only: my accent goes all over the place. Remember how the Rt Hon Jim Bolger went funny with his when foreign dignitaries came and he sounded like he was mocking the foreigners? Or, a few years before, Michael Fay during the Americaās Cup lawsuits and his Americanized pronunciation of water?
Yeah, I do that. And even more disturbingly, I know I do it while Iām doing it, and cannot stop it.
Itās going to be hell if a northerner interviews me and I start sounding like Jimmy Nail. I am told that I do a very good Lily Savage when I have the āflu. And if I get a southerner, you will think I was trying to impress Keeley Hawes (which I try to do, anyway, never mind Matthew). Not one is sufficiently āKiwiā for Wellington voters. Though I might find that British expatriates based in Wellington might suddenly vote for me. Because in any case I will sound better than Harold Wilson.
Tags: accent, BBC, English, humour, interview, Jack Yan, language, mayoralty, media, radio
Posted in humour, media, New Zealand, politics, UK, Wellington | No Comments »