I had my first play with WolframAlpha this morning. I was watching the launch on justin.tv and saw the search url people we using. By doing this I got around the opening soon window ... Hope that's ok. Anyway very cool. Sorry for the poor video really just recording my play. The big thing is knowing what you can do and how to approach searching. Was very fast until they started load testing and then things started timing out. Cool as a first experience though. To View More >>

As I watched an introductory video for the WolframAlpha launch, my memory raced back to when I first saw the internet in the early 90's and told my wife how it was going to "change the world". WolframAlpha isn't a search engine like Google, it's something completely different. In my opinion there is a place for both as they do things differently ... but if this gets hold this will change the world. It's offers a completely revolutionary way of looking at data and for the average person to explore relationships. As Danny and I discussed today, we can in our heads imagine how the search works at To View More >>

  I asked a few friends, colleagues and my family a weird question, which was ... What do you think I am an "expert in"? What I was curious about was, how do people perceive me? What did they think I was an expert in, and where do I add value? I've long been the 'go to guy' when you have an IT problem you can't beat. My knowledge is both deep and wide and when you combine that with my ability to quickly research, while looking at the big picture and delving into the detail there aren't mainly small to medium size IT issues I can't resolve. Not trying to big note, but it has always been my To View More >>

On Wednesday night we had a fantastic night out with Johannes and Jo and a few other friends which included seeing The Eastern play at the Wonder Bar in Lyttleton, Christchurch. They were pure magic. Anyway long story short The Eastern and some of their friends from Oregan played a John Prine song called "In Spite of Ourselves". I really do love this song. It' funny, it's a great piece of music but most importantly I love the underlying message. "In-spite of ourselves, we'll end up sitting on a rainbow , against all odds honey, we're the big door prize" Isn't that so true, that the best relationships To View More >>

Earlier this week I was looking for space on my Laptop, and came across a very bloated Photobooth folder. When I reviewed the images contained I realized it's not safe to leave your laptop unattended. My daughters forever the techno geek actors left my laptop full of images and movies like these ... LOL they made me laugh out loud. Thanks Girls To View More >>

I'm very proud tonight of my daughter Alex and her friend Elisha who have just finished a short film for a school project. Alex is 11, and they have made the whole movie below themselves. The challenge was to do an "Olympic Bid" on behalf of their chosen city Japan, and as part of that they did a news item. Unfortunately this movie doesn't do them justice. They were working with a poor green screen (for a start it was blue), poor lighting, and of course all the iterations of change to file format from opiginal capture with Videocue Pro, to iMovie and then moving to youtube means they have lost To View More >>

What a cool weekend. I spent yesterday helping Sonya and Lorraine prepare for last night's Fire Brigade Christmas party. That in itself was lots of fun, but the party was even better. It's always great getting together with this group, but last night was particularly special as it was held at our house. The food was amazing, a few people drank a little to much, but that was harmless, and we sat outside around the fire until the wee hours of the morning talking. Very nice. At 9 am however it was back into professional mode, as we had the important task of transporting Santa around the neighborhood To View More >>

My day job is Managing Director of Queensberry, but about 3 years ago I joined the New Zealand Fire Service as a Volunteer Firefighter. Not long after joining I extended my role to include Medical First Response and I now hold the rank of Senior Fire Fighter. This has offered me an amazing array of experiences and learning opportunities. I hadn't expected it, but there are some incredible parallels between handling emergency situations and running high growth organizations like ours. I use this learning daily and have found the stories of jobs I have attended to be powerful metaphors for what To View More >>

Finally the OCR (Official Cash Rate) in New Zealand has been dropped to 8.0%. As an exporter we have been doing it tough for years now and maybe this is the relief we need. http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/news/2008/3376920.html I used to joke, in a black humour kind of way, that what exporters needed was a "mad cow" to take the edge off the economy. Nothing else seemed like it would work ... Then with some sadness I realized we already had one, but she was running the country, time would not be on her side forever ... Unfortunately our relief comes only because the economy overall seems to be screwed. To View More >>

In my last blog entry I mentioned our ambition to be a "legendary" company. This may sound shallow to some, especially those skeptical of company "vision statements" and empty promises from the board as to how "life is going to be different now" For us however we hold this desire very close to our heart, and although growth is important to us, growth without quality and a focus on sound profitability becomes just an issue of ego. We are a family based company, and some of our focus comes from a division of responsibility, but really it comes from a desire to be exceptional in all aspects of our To View More >>