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The Persuader
My personal blog, started in 2006. No paid or guest posts, no link sales.
Archive for the ‘New Zealand’ category
28.11.2022
Salon is on to something.
I know from first-hand experience that those who hold political office are not always the smartest. When you run against others for the same job, it doesnât take long to spot the less intelligent, some buoyed by privilege, others by an unshakeable belief in their invincibility.
Its headline: âIs America’s infatuation with billionaires finally coming to an end?â
Amanda Marcotte begins, âIt has long been evident that Elon Musk is a moron, at least to those willing to see it. Well before the Tesla CEO overpaid for Twitter in the throes of a tantrum, there was a chorus of mostly-ignored people pointing out, repeatedly, that Musk’s mental maturity appeared to have stagnated around the sixth grade.â
After citing a handful of cases where Musk fell short, âThe business and tech press would be startled at his dumb behavior, but within 48 to 72 hours, it was all forgotten and Musk went back to being covered as if he were a genius, if perhaps an eccentric one.â
I only personally know one milliardaire and he was a cut above the rest of us in brains.
But Marcotte notes that Musk, D. J. Trump, Elizabeth Holmes and Sam Bankman-Fried are hardly geniuses, and takes aim at Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, too.
If we can get this into our heads, we might stop a similar worship in this country. Just when did this start? Thatcherism? Rogernomics? Just because someone has made a few bob doesnât make them a political messiah or great leaderâso stop being their fans and start choosing people to support based on merit.
Here in Aotearoa we appear to have two main parties bereft of ideas, with the opposition so desperate it wishes to import the culture wars from the US while gaslighting whenever possible. Neither is particularly palatable to me, and thanks to MMP, Iâm going to be quite happy to look at the next tier, as I have done for more General Elections than not. Greens? TOP? Not ACT.
When I think about some rich guys Iâve had run-ins withâincluding one I had to sue at the start of my career (and beat)âthereâs one thing that ties them together. They have to be slaves to the system, the establishment. They have to play by its rules in order to retain their directorships and social standing. They have to walk the tightrope of convention. They have to conform. Ironically, the more to the right of politics you go here (and the more individual freedom is preached), the more conformity there appears to be. Conformity is valued over merit or honour. This explains Sam Uffindell.
How bloody boring is that? Iâm so deeply grateful, particularly to my family, for giving me the chance to be my own person and walk the freer path that I create. My grandmother, mother and father all happy to support my interests as an infant and letting me draw all over newspapers and magazines. My mother for encouraging me to follow my interests in design. My father for literally working behind the scenes for decades to help build my businesses. Conformity is for suckers. Innovation and societal advancement never came from conformity, and societies are better for it.
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, law, New Zealand, politics
Posted in culture, India, interests, marketing, New Zealand, politics | No Comments »
03.11.2022
Here are November 2022âs imagesâaides-mĂŠmoires, photos of interest, and miscellaneous items. I append to this gallery through the month.
Tags: 1950s, 1959, 1960s, 1967, 1969, 1970s, 1971, 1973, 1980s, 1988, 2018, 2020s, 2022, actress, advertisement, advertising, Aotearoa, art, book, Boris Johnson, Brexit, car, celebrity, Chrysler, Doctor Who, fashion, Ferrari, Fiat, film, France, GM, Google, history, Hollywood, humour, inequality, ITC, James Bond, Korea, language, LID Publishing, Life on Mars, Lucire, marketing, Mastodon, Matra, Miss France, Mitsubishi, modernism, New Zealand, newspaper, Papua New Guinea, Peugeot, politics, Pontiac, publishing, retro, royalty, Sean Connery, Simca, social media, sport, Stellantis, The Persuaders, TV, TVNZ, Twitter, typography, UK, USA
Posted in cars, culture, France, gallery, humour, interests, internet, marketing, New Zealand, politics, publishing, TV, typography, UK, USA | No Comments »
02.11.2022
This is particularly good stuff, especially in these times when companies want to hang on to their employees and foster a better internal culture. Insight Creativeâs Staff Engagement Masterclass video tutorial has some excellent advice, in line with a lot of what Iâve preached over the years. Their model is excellent and really breaks down the process with some practical advice on how to communicate with your team. Check out the introduction video from CEO Steven Giannoulis below (one of the very few Rongotai College old boys Iâm in touch with these days!) and click through on the link for the full tutorial (sign-up required).
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, branding, communications, corporate culture, engagement, Insight Creative, internal branding, New Zealand, staff engagement
Posted in branding, business, culture, leadership, New Zealand | No Comments »
01.11.2022
Dave Troyâs analysis of the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter makes for interesting reading, since Troy has actually spoken to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and has a bit more of the inside track than most.
For starters, Troy reminds us that Dorsey trusts Musk, in order to keep Twitter away from Wall Street investors. Dorsey has said this publicly in a Tweet. He believes this acquisition is about ideology, so Musk doesnât care if Twitter doesnât make moneyâor at least, money will come if the technology is opened up and they can charge for other things built on top of it. Getting data on all of us helps Musk in a big way, too.
Troy posits that Musk believes we need to be on other planets, so we shouldnât help the poor in our quest to get off this rock; but another interesting one is that he believes in a multipolar world order, something Vladimir Putin has talked about. Musk believes in rule by technocracy, Troy theorizes, not by politics. He also believes Musk is a sociopath.
All this is quite fascinating to read. Taking Troyâs words on Putin, Musk and Dorsey sharing the same vision:
All seem to think a âmultipolar worldâ is a good thing, because after all, shouldnât Russia get to do its thing and not be bothered by anyone else? Thatâs âfree speechâ and opposes âcancel culture,â right? So yeah, thatâs aligned with Putin. But Putin himself doesnât support free speech; his government censors wildly, but it does support speech that breaks the hegemony of the Western elites. As do Musk and friends. This is internally inconsistent.
Because of these shared values, Troy foresees Musk teaming up with D. J. Trump at Truth Social and Kanye West at Parler to control the information space.
It points to a pretty dark outcome and a polarizing world, but one which has been brewing for a long time.
We could talk about the failure of neoliberal economics and, therefore, the western hegemony. With all the figure-massaging by China when it reports its GDP, thereâs still no denying that the country has risen vastly in mere decades. And Putin has said as much about wanting to fight back against western hegemony.
Itâs incredibly easy to fall back on âthem and usâ as a concept. Dictators might find it easier to make their positions official (even if there is internal dissent that is driven underground), while the west can broadly talk about diversity while not truly breaking ranks with the neoliberal order. Our Blairite government here is positioned as such while having a social veneer (and a modicum of restraint) based on history and market positioning, while the Opposition will make things that much harder and is more blatant at wanting to do so.
I would have once said China had the potential to be an outlier, raising its educational standards and embracing Confucianism, which has its foundations in free thought and liberalism, balanced with preserving a relationship between state and subject. Perhaps with Hu and Wen things could have gone that way. Under Xi Jinping the aims have changed, and at least one China-watcher I know (who knew Xiâs father and knew of Xi from 1982) tell me that they foresaw this.
Iâm not going to make any bold predictions myself, but the world looks like a place that wonât become multipolar but bipolar, and Twitter is one tool that is going to accelerate this trendâbuilding on top of what Facebook and Google have already done by forcing users into silos. Meanwhile, Baidu et al will no doubt reflect the official positions of their governments.
Tags: 2020s, 2022, Aotearoa, Baidu, China, corruption, cult, culture, dictatorship, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, information, Jack Dorsey, Kanye West, neoliberalism, New Zealand, politics, propaganda, Russia, social media, Twitter, USA, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping
Posted in business, China, culture, globalization, internet, New Zealand, politics, technology, USA | No Comments »
28.10.2022
I suppose it shouldnât surprise me that I have a US Library of Congress entry, as a published author, though if I am reading it correctly, it relates to my 2010 mayoral campaign.
Following the links there, I arrived at a Virtual International Authority File but the data there seem to relate to my Wikipedia entries. Disappointing.
Keep going, and thereâs an entry at OCLC, a non-profit library collective, also linking to Wikipedia.
But from there I have a WorldCat identity that OCLC manages, and this is where things get a little more interesting.
Thereâs some 2010 mayoral campaign stuff, five references to academic papers I wrote (nice to see they are âheld by 2 WorldCat member libraries worldwideâ), an early book I wrote, Typography & Branding (though I donât recall having written it in 2002 as they claim), and a book I didnât author but am credited in the colophon as the body typeface familyâs designer, Mainland Island from Wai-te-ata Press.
Iâm flattered that Typography & Branding is held at two Australian locations, the University of Newcastle Auchmuty Library and the Curtin University Library. I hope their students are getting a lot out of this early book of mine.
I admit I like this tag cloud:
Commiserations to my namesake, Jack Yan, on not winning the Toronto mayoral election. I was getting a lot of news hits from Toronto and Ontario, far more than our media here managed back in the day. I also thought he did rather well in the televised debates. We only had one episode of Back Benches in 2010 that wasnât really a debate. But there was a fun quiz, which I wonâsome of us know more about this city than others.
In a very crowded field, Jack managed seventh out of 31, with incumbent John Tory holding on to his gig with 62 per cent of the vote.
I hope he has another crack at it if he feels he has something to offer. I found him a really great guy to deal with.
Tags: 2010, author, book, branding, Canada, database, mayoralty, Ontario, politics, Toronto, typography, USA, Wikipedia
Posted in branding, internet, New Zealand, politics, technology, typography, USA, Wellington | No Comments »
21.10.2022
 The below was originally posted in Lucire. We have made it to 25 years of age there, and rather than reinvent the wheel, this little pieceâas well as the one I uploaded yesterday hours after we turned exactly 25âreflect how I feel upon reaching this milestone.
Olivia Macklin, photographed by Josh Fogel, make-up by Beth Follert, hair by Erika Vanessa using T3 Micro, styled by Karlee Parrish, and photography assisted by Nick Sutjongdro. Click through to see full credits.
Today we decided to upload a story about Olivia Macklinâthe actress who youâll have seen in Netflixâs Pretty Smart last year and, before that, the US remake of Kiwi series Filthy Richâin part because itâs so unlike what happened on day one of Lucire 25 years ago.
Here is a wonderful story about a well connected, theatre-trained Hollywood actress, shot beautifully in the US by an outstanding team there, with me doing the writing and interviewing.
The story has already run in our print editions.
The fact we even have print editions is something remarkable to me, and if I hadnât made the decision to do so in the early 2000s, spurred on by a mixture of desire and naĂŻvetĂŠ, I couldnât even type that previous paragraph.
The fact we have a group of generous and talented colleagues around the world is also not lost on me. I know I am very fortunate to have them around me.
While itâs not the first time that Lucire has been published in something other than English, I take some pride in seeing our story in French, a language I have learned since I was six. That, too, is vastly different to where we were in 1997.
Twenty-five years ago, I keenly watched the statistics as visitors came to see a website I had built with my own code, using what were then pretty clever techniques to ape the feel of a glossy printed fashion magazine. But I didnât have any new stories lined up because my enquiries to designers werenât getting any replies.
Nowadays, I have a sense of the stories to come as we plan quite a few numbers ahead.
I enjoy balancing the needs of print and web around the world and know I am blessed to be able to do something I love.
Iâm grateful to all those who have worked on Lucire and stayed on the side of good, building up a magazine brand which, I hope, stands for something positive in this world. You know who you are.
Iâve spent half my lifetime building it up so far, and know it could be even greater.
Iâm no Mystic Meg so I donât know whatâs to come, nor would I want to hazard a guess. But where we are now was not something I could have even guessed in 1997. Given such a big leap forward to 2022, I wonât even attempt to contemplate 2047 just yet. I simply remain hopeful.
Tags: 1997, 2022, actress, anniversary, Aotearoa, California, celebrity, French, JY&A Media, language, Los Angeles, Lucire, New Zealand, photography, publishing, USA, Wellington
Posted in business, culture, globalization, internet, media, New Zealand, publishing, technology, USA, Wellington | No Comments »
17.10.2022
Search engine Mojeek is doing no wrong in my book. Hereâs its CEO Colin Hayhurst being interviewed by The New Eraâs Jeffrey Peel, making complete sense, which is not something I can say about anyone speaking for Big Tech. We should be shunning monopolists if we truly value progress and innovation, or even a proper, factual debate. We even have laws about it that few seem to wish to enforce when it comes to Big Tech players. Itâs well worth a watch.
I was disappointed to see that the Warehouse, our big retailer, specifically blocks Mojeek from searching its site. Google is fine. Explanations varyâbut they include the theory that the Warehouse wants to get data from its users and Google can provide them.
Iâve written to the Warehouse as an account holder and received no reply. I decided to take it higher, to its chief digital officer, on October 3. As far as I know this email has been delivered, but thereâs always a possibility I have her address wrong. Regardless, I am yet to hear back on any front, including social media where I had asked the Warehouse why they would wish to block a legitimate and far more ethical search engine. What does it say about your company when you choose to do business with someone as questionable as Google, yet you go out of your way to block a fully ethical and privacy-respecting business?
Dear Sarah:
I contacted the Warehouse through the customer service channels at the beginning of September and have yet to hear back.
As CDO I think you’re the right person to raise this with, though please refer it to a colleague if you aren’t.
I run Lucire Ltd. and have been a Warehouse account holder for some time. Our own foundations are in the digital space, with my having been a digital publisher since 1989. We’re always mindful that our activities promote a healthy online space, which means we keep a watchful eye on the behaviour of US Big Tech. (For instance, we removed all Facebook gadgets from our sites in 2018, prior to the Cambridge Analytica exposĂŠ, as we became increasingly concerned of the tracking exposure our readers were getting.)
Our internal search is now run by Mojeek, a UK-based search engine that has the largest index in the west outside of Google. It is also my default, having lost faith in Duck Duck Go after 12 years.
Other than the Warehouse’s home page, none of the contents of your company’s site appear in Mojeek. When I raised this with them, they tell me that Mojeek is very specifically blocked by the Warehouse. Neither they nor I can see any good reason a legitimate, independent search engine would be blocked.
I am told that inside your code is:
User-agent: MojeekBot
Disallow: /
As concerns over privacy grow, it seems a disservice that it’s blocked.
When I put this to other techs, they theorize that the Warehouse wants to track people via whatever data Google provides. I find this hard to believe. To what end? The amount of information that comes surely can’t outweigh overall accessibility to the website for those of us who have concerns over Google’s monopolistic behaviour and privacy intrusions.
Even if tracking were the reason, I would have thought there would be no great loss allowing a tiny percentage of people to come in via a Mojeek search result and browse the siteâincluding customers like me who had the intent to see what you had in stock with a view to purchasing the item.
I genuinely hope this is something that will be looked into and that a New Zealand company I admire (one which is connected to me through a round-about wayâI was educated by relatives of the Tindalls) isn’t party to upholding the Google monopoly.
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, Google, Mojeek, monopoly, New Zealand, retail, search engines, technology
Posted in business, internet, New Zealand, technology | No Comments »
11.10.2022
Iâm not sure why I didnât spot these back in 2012. This was very high praise from Cre8d Design, on âWhat is New Zealandâs iconic font?â So nice to see JY DĂŠcennie in there.
Still on type, the fifth Congreso Internacional de TipografĂa in Valencia cites yours truly.
Como consecuencia de todos estos cambios, surgen numerosas cuestiones sobre cĂłmo afrontar el uso y la creaciĂłn de la tipografĂa en un nuevo contexto, sometido a constantes transformaciones tecnolĂłgicas. Para muchos, los modos tradicionales de concebir la tipografĂa ya no funcionan en el mundo de la pantalla. AsĂ, para el diseĂąador Jack Yan, la tecnologĂa estĂĄ cambiando tan rĂĄpidamente que la idea de que la tipografĂa se crea para imprimir estĂĄ llegando prĂĄcticamente a su fin. Los nuevos dispositivos electrĂłnicos empiezan a demandar tipografĂas especĂficas y no sĂłlo meras adaptaciones de las ya existentes. Esto implica igualmente un adiestramiento por parte del usuario final, el lector, que no sĂłlo debe familiarizarse con los nuevos dispositivos sino con los nuevos procedimientos asociados a la lectura dinĂĄmica.
This is pretty mainstream thinking now (and I would have thought in 2012, too) but also nice to be credited for saying itâI guess I would have first publicly pushed this idea in Desktop in 1996. But designers like Matthew Carter and Vincent Connare were already there âŚ
Amazing what you can find in a Mojeek ego search, as opposed to a Google one.
Tags: 2012, Aotearoa, design, Desktop, fonts, JY&A Fonts, Mojeek, New Zealand, Spain, technology, typeface design, typefaces, typography, Valencia
Posted in design, New Zealand, publishing, technology, typography | No Comments »
08.10.2022
If you think some of us were being uppity about New Zealand Chinese Language Week, howâs this for a real-life report?
Speak Cantonese, get banned from a social media platform.
Thatâs whatâs happening in China right now. And I had already mentioned schoolchildren being told off for using their reo.
The Google Translate translation is actually pretty good for a change, if you canât read Chinese.
And here we are in New Zealand, kowtowing (derived from a Cantonese word, incidentally) to the Chinese Communist Party with its policy.
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, China, Chinese, Chinese Communist Party, culture, Douyin, Facebook, language, New Zealand, social media, Tiktok
Posted in China, culture, internet, New Zealand, technology | No Comments »
05.10.2022
Startpage says it licenses Googleâs results but gives us privacy. So, if you want Google-level, Google-biased results, but donât want their tracking, you use Startpage.
Um, no. Let’s just take a random search for a screenwriter I once mentioned on this blog:
Itâs quite a bit slower than Google, too. The results are usually geographically biased, even when you have the region switched off.
Whatâs curious is that, at the same location with the same IP address, I get six Google results on desktop and 16 on mobile. Iâm not sure what the sense is in that.
I realize there are a lot of mobile users, but it seems strange to limit what can be found on the desktop version. Surely the opposite would make sense since not all sites are mobile-optimized?
Itâs like Google Maps: for me, itâs not accessible on a cellphone any more (and hasnât been for monthsâI discovered this when Amanda and I went on holiday at the end of August and there was no Google Maps anywhere in the country) but remains available on a desktop. The geniuses at Google do realize that people are more likely visiting Maps on a phone than sitting in their offices, right?
It doesnât matter where I try, even from the office network: Google Maps is not available on my phone. The site is not just unavailable, it doesn’t even resolve (whether you use maps.google.com or google.com/maps).
Usually I find that expecting the opposite of what US Big Tech says is really useful.
Better use paper maps, because the satellites are often switched off and the map programs on your phone think you are nowhere!
Coming back to the original topic, Startpage says it pays Google for this.
Better ask for a refund, folks.
Tags: 2022, Aotearoa, cellphone, Google, New Zealand, search engines, Startpage, technology
Posted in internet, New Zealand, technology | No Comments »
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