A Mastodon post about my mayoral campaign policies. No, I didn’t foresee a global pandemic as such (though I certainly was on Twitter perplexed at why the WHO had not declared COVID-19 a global emergency in January 2020), but I did feel there was insufficient resilience in our economy and wanted to advance ideas […]
Tag: mayoralty
About me (according to libraries)
I suppose it shouldn’t 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 […]
A new video for the home page
Earlier today, Amanda and I had a wonderful time at Te Papa to celebrate the Chinese Languages in Aotearoa programme. My contribution was appearing in a video, that was on this blog last October. It dawned on me that despite being on YouTube, this really needs to be on the home page of this website, […]
How to come third in a mayoral election
One mayoral candidate recently asked me for my advice. I won’t name who it is, since I want those who contact me to know I’ll keep their communications in confidence. Now, the first thing to do is to get a time machine and ask me the same question 18 months earlier. But I […]
Is the death of expertise tied to the Anglosphere?
Foreign and Commonwealth Office Boris Johnson: usually a talented delivery, but with conflicting substance. I spotted The Death of Expertise at Unity Books, but I wonder if the subject is as simple as the review of the book suggests. There’s a lot out there about anti-intellectualism, and we know it’s not an exclusively […]
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Organizing this planet in the 21st century
As he has done so many other times since we encountered each other in 2001, Simon Anholt has articulated my thoughts on governance and politics much better than I can through his ventures. I think this puts a very good context on why I ran my mayoral campaigns the way I did, and for that […]
A familiar call after two mayoral campaigns on Wellington’s knowledge economy
The latest Victoria University study, expressing that there is a shortage of creative people, sounds very familiar. Dr Richard Norman highlights in a Fairfax Press editorial that knowledge economy companies are ‘struggling to capitalise on opportunities for growth because of limited local talent … ‘Many of these companies are well-seasoned and high-earning—a third […]
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The flyover: every option now heard
Embarcadero Waterfront, photographed by Ricardo Martins/CC BY 2.0. I was consistent about the Basin Reserve flyover in my campaign. Yes, I agreed we needed improvements to the area. But no, spending millions on it—it did not matter whether it was from taxes or rates at the end of the day, because that still meant […]
Creating real value, and that’s not what Facebook and Twitter do
My forced Facebook sabbatical came to an end in the late morning. So what did I think of it all? One of my Tweets last night was: ‘I hope [it is temporary], though I have found people out for 7–12 days now. Now it’s Monday I hope they have got over their hangovers!’ At […]
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Why I ran
In two elections, I told people some blarney on why I decided to run. In 2010: ‘I was working at Lew’s Diner and this guy had been picked on. I told him, “Stand tall, boy, show some respect for yourself. Do you think I’m going to spend the rest of my life in this […]