Do schools kill creativity?

07.03.2010/21.44

Stefan Engeseth pasted this to his blog over the weekend, and it’s one of the best TED talks. As Stefan has investigated child behaviour himself, I can see the relevance. But even for the rest of us, it’s a thoroughly entertaining talk by Sir Ken Robinson in 2006 that has some wonderful touchpoints—and humour. It’s […]

Wellington needs free wiﬁ and jobs, not a council that goes nuts with spending

02.03.2010/12.23

Funny how a media article can inspire you to send out a release, especially when you’re a ratepayer and you wonder if our City Council of élites understands how hard it was for us to make that money. In today’s case, it was Lindsay Shelton’s Scoop Wellington op-ed about Wellington City Council going nuts with […]

Saab promises new generation of cars will have original DNA

26.02.2010/23.31

Rumour has it that the new Saab—a small car (ﬁnally)—will resemble the ur-Saab, the 92. In fact, inside Saab, it has the codename 92. Where have I heard this one before? I know. Stefan Engeseth’s Detective Marketing, 2001 edition. And from what I understand, since in 1999 I could not read much Swedish, it […]

Wellington wants free wiﬁ

17.02.2010/14.07

While I’ve been a LinkedIn member for many years—my LinkedIn ID has six digits, which gives you an idea of how long ago—I have to confess that I did not browse the brilliant Wellington, New Zealand group till quite recently. And free wiﬁ is being talked up there, too, as something Wellingtonians genuinely want. […]

I do not stand for John Key’s defeatist talk

09.02.2010/06.01

I’ve heard it all before. In the 1980s, the New Zealand Government promised that, with the introduction of Goods and Services’ Tax (GST), people would be better off, because it would mean more money in our pockets. With the proposal to hike GST to 15 per cent under the current government, Prime Minister John […]

Toyota’s troubles stem from forgetting its principles

06.02.2010/09.35

I was surprised to learn that Toyota still has not issued a worldwide recall of its troublesome Prius NHW30 model, even though one had gone out in New Zealand. In layman’s terms, the brakes allegedly don’t work when you want them to. In more complex terms, the software has trouble distinguishing between different types […]

Convention holds us back, but Wellington wants to move forward

16.01.2010/09.19

We all expected someone to go on about ‘experience’ sooner or later when it came to my mayoral campaign. Mr Bertrand Brown, I thank you for raising it in the comments at the Stuff website. And this is a genuine thanks, not one of those BS ‘with respect’ ones, as you signal that it’s time […]

Medinge announces seventh annual Brands with a Conscience awards

08.01.2010/11.19

The Medinge Group has announced the 2010 Brands with a Conscience winners, and we’ll be presenting the awards at the end of the month in Paris. The release is below. Can you believe we’ve done this for seven years now? I was particularly stoked about the awards going to Selco and Muna Abu […]

As the 2010s dawn, there’s a vacuum on the internet

06.01.2010/06.07

Rick Klau’s action today in restoring Vincent’s Social Media Consortium blog got me putting things into perspective. We know sites like Blogger and Vox are free, but what happens when they fail? Vox, the Six Apart blogging service, had been where I had put my personal posts—as well as a bunch of private […]

The 2010 mayoral election is about job creation and transparency

02.01.2010/02.19

The Fairfax Press has been talking about how Wellingtonians are expected to bail out some loss-makers, such as the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. And that the decision to do this has been made behind closed doors. The city’s debt is over $200 million—we were looking at very similar numbers at the time of the 2007 local […]