Branding ourselves in the 2020s: a revamp for JY&A Consulting’s website, jya.co

Last night, I uploaded a revised website for JY&A Consulting (jya.co), which I wrote and coded. Amanda came up with a lot of the good ideas for it—it was important to get her feedback precisely because she isn’t in the industry, and I could then include people who might be looking to start a new […]

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To Scotland with love

Danjaq LLC/United Artists Time for another podcast, this time with a Scottish theme. I touch upon how fortunate we are here in Aotearoa to be able to go to the ballet or expos, and, of course, on the US elections (thanks to those who checked out my last podcast entry, which had a record 31 […]

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Medinge Group at Dutch Design Week: the contribution from Aotearoa New Zealand

My partner Amanda and I are part of Medinge’s presence at Dutch Design Week this year.    Since Medinge couldn’t celebrate our 20th anniversary due to COVID-19, some of our Dutch members, helped by many others, took the opportunity to get us into the event, which is virtual this year.    We had done a […]

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Two big reasons not to use Gmail

I was absolutely shocked to learn this is how Gmail works.   If I read this correctly, #Google lets more than one person use a single email address (in this case, over 200!)? How daft! Why would they do that? pic.twitter.com/KtTO6PnDEI — Jack Yan 甄爵恩 (@jackyan) September 27, 2020 PS.: This was the image linked […]

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CSR is already woven into Māori leadership

I was fascinated to read a New Zealand Herald story on the Māori asset base, though it wasn’t the financial part that hit me. What was more significant were the principles behind Māori businesses.    About 15 years ago, when chatting to a woman representing a Māori winery, I said that she had an amazing […]

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Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: the signs were there for years, if one only looked

Facebook’s woes over Cambridge Analytica have only prompted one reaction from me: I told you so. While I never seized upon this example, bravely revealed to us by whistleblower Christopher Wylie and reported by Carole Cadwalladr and Emma Graham-Harrison of The Guardian, Facebook has shown itself to be callous about private data, mining preferences even […]

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Zuckerberg wants to fix Facebook: too little, too late

WTF: welcome to Facebook. (Creative Commons photograph.) Mark Zuckerberg’s promise to fix Facebook in 2018 is, in my opinion, too little, too late.    However, since I ceased updating my Facebook profile last month, I’ve come across many people who tell me the only reason they stay on it is to keep in touch with […]

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Being an optimist for a better post-Google, post-Facebook era

Interesting to get this perspective on ‘Big Tech’ from The Guardian, on how it’s become tempting to blame the big Silicon Valley players for some of the problems we have today. The angle Moira Weigel takes is that there needs to be more democracy in the system, where workers need to unite and respecting those […]

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New Zealand slips to 17th in latest Good Country Index

Above: Simon Anholt, giving a talk at TEDSalon Berlin. Out today: my friend Simon Anholt’s Good Country Index, with the Netherlands taking the top spot from Sweden, which drops to sixth. New Zealand is in 17th, failing in prosperity and equality, and in cultural contribution (previously we had been 5th and 12th). On the plus […]

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I don’t do paid blog posts here (so don’t ask)

  I know we all get these emails from time to time, but they still annoy me.    If ‘Peter’ had visited this blog, he would know that every single post since 2006 has been my own, unpaid, unsponsored thoughts. Why would I change that now?    You may say it’s a fair question, and […]

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