Google collects more enemies—we haven’t been critical enough of it

My complaints about Google over the years—and the battles I’ve had with them between 2009 and 2014—are a matter of record on this blog. It appears that Google has been making enemies who are much more important than me, and in this blog post I don’t mean the European Union, who found that the big […]

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A farewell to Tim Kitchin

For the second time in two months, I found myself announcing to the members of Medinge Group another passing: that of my good friend Tim Kitchin.    Tim passed away over the weekend, and leaves behind three kids.    I always admired Tim’s point of view, his depth of thinking, and his generosity of spirit. […]

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Getting inspiration from Douglas Rushkoff

John Nowak/CNN I’ve had a 52 Insights interview with Douglas Rushkoff open in a Firefox tab for nearly half a year. It’s a fascinating piece, and I consider Douglas to be spot on with a lot of his viewpoints. I’ve revisited it from time to time and enjoyed what Douglas has had to say.   […]

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Farewell to Thomas Gad: a friend, a colleague, and a uniter

Tonight, I had the sad and solemn duty to announce publicly the passing of my friend Thomas Gad.    I’m still waiting for someone to come out and tell me that I have been severely pranked.    Thomas was the founder of what we now call Medinge Group. After working for 17 years at Grey […]

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What a great opportunity for New Zealand that lies before us

Above: When I refer to Hillary in the below blog post, I mean the self-professed ‘ordinary chap’ on our $5 note.   As the results of the US presidential election came in, I didn’t sense a panic. I actually sensed a great opportunity for New Zealand.    I’ve been critical of the obsession many of […]

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Brexit reminds us that we need to take a lead in making globalization fairer

Brexit was an interesting campaign to watch, and there’s not too much I can add that hasn’t been stated already. I saw some incredibly fake arguments from Brexit supporters, including one graphic drawing a parallel between the assassinations of Anna Lindh in 2003 and Jo Cox MP, saying how the murder of the former led […]

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How can we help those fooled into believing what their local brands are?

How interesting to see a silly Tweet of mine make the Murdoch Press and lead an opinion column—I’m told it even hit the news.com.au home page.    It’s a very old joke that I’ve told since 2002, when I walked along Bay Road in Kilbirnie and saw a locksmith sign in Futura. Back then, Dick […]

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When mistrust brings us together

I can be staunch on IP protection in a lot of cases—but in the case of Martin Shkreli of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG hiking the price of an Aids drug from $13·50 to $750 per pill, not so much (for obvious reasons). If you’re in pharmaceuticals, then there has to be some element of wanting to […]

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Four ingredients of leadership

I was asked by my Alma Mater, Victoria University of Wellington, to give a 90-minute lecture on leadership last week to students visiting New Zealand from Peking University and the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. (My half-serious suggestion that I spoke Cantonese and the three students from Guangdong who understood could translate to Mandarin to […]

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Being answerable to your public (or, if you can’t engage now, can we expect you to in office?)

One of my supporters Tweeted to say I was the only candidate at Vote.co.nz who has bothered to reply to citizens’ questions. It’s good for me, but sad to see my opponents so disengaged. I was also surprised to see that only three of us have bothered to register for the website this time, despite […]

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