It was with real sadness that I learned of Anita Roddicks death this morning. In truth my reaction was quite unexpected. It is strange that while she was alive I could be quite self righteous in my disregard for her, but suddenly in death my earlier criticism seems petty. In truth whether of not you agree with everything she did, the world and commerce is better off for her being a part of it. I only ever shop in a Body Shop store if the girls want to buy soap for there mum so am not really a fan of the the "brand", but even so I know that my own values have been influenced for the better by as best we can following her lead. For that I will always be eternally grateful. Thanks Anita.

On Thursday I called our Prime Minister, Helen Clark a mad cow, and I want to say sorry. LOL Ok I was going to say that's not fair on real cows and their unfortunate condition, but that would just be another cheap joke at someone else's expense. Funny thing about my blog is not many people leave comments, in fact almost never, but I get quite a number of emails directly and comments from friends and family. On Friday at a party Dad told me I was being a "tough customer" and my Sister said that it "wasn't my style, and would come back to bite me when I was Prime Minister." Something about Karma? Of course that's going way too far as I don't have any aspiration in that area or the face of a Prime Minister but I get their point - it isn't my style, and therefore I am sorry. Having said that I am hardly her biggest fan. She is an effective politician, but I have never heard her give a completely straight answer and as someone who answers her challenges with empty "Sound Bites" she doesn't really deserve my respect. A few years ago I was invited to Wellington to an exporters' meeting that ended with dinner with a number of politicians at the Beehive. You know, where they swap tables with each course. If I remember correctly it was entree's with Hon Jim Sutton, our main with Rt Hon Helen Clark and dessert with Hon Jim Anderton. I'd already had lunch with both Dr Michael Cullen and Hon Paul Swain, when they had on separate occasions visited our business, but didn't know what to expect of this group. I must also admit, however, that I went to Wellington with a very low opinion of Jim Anderton. His party felt at the time like it was staunchly anti business and stood for protecting workers even at the expense of business owners. As a business owner it therefore felt like him against me. I'm not sure how true that was, or even whether my experience was based on any reasonable judgement but he won me around that night. I wouldn't go as far as saying I would vote for him, but he certainly won my respect. He was nice, respectful, full of energy and entertaining. He answered our questions directly and completely, but without necessarily feeling he needed to give in to our position. And even more importantly he was prepared to talk about how his own opinions were formed over time, and how they had changed, especially those times when he had discovered he was wrong. He gave me a strong sense of thinking and caring deeply about the wellness of all New Zealanders. Helen Clarke in contrast was evasive, staunch in her opinions and not at all interested in listening. The bottom line is, I am not saying that she is dishonest, I wouldn't know. What I am saying is that I don't think I have ever felt like I truly knew what she stands for and who she is. If you like, Sound Bite answers and body language that doesn't seem in alignment with her words leave me wondering. I'd be the first to admit I may be wrong, but I am normally also a pretty good judge of character and would like to have gotten to know the real Helen Clarke in the way we did the Rt Hon David Langes of this world. Ok enough said and I am still sorry ... Mad Cow was not nice :-)

The New Zealand Herald ran a story this morning about Kevin Roberts joining the board of New Zealand's Telecom. Some stories honestly just make me go, OMG, what? Here is one of my business heroes joining the board of a company (Telecom) that "I hate to love". I continue to support them despite myself, and despite the way they present themselves to their clients. But I would love to love them. In the interests of full disclosure, our company are pretty big telecommunication users. We are heavily dependent on Telecom for our international telephone presence, and we're big users of high speed internet. Where we can, we support Telecom, but despite that I often joke that I'm sure there's a dart board in a Telecom lunch room with my face on it. I know I am extremely frustrating for them. Telecom is a company full of great people trying to do good things, and I believe the front line staff really care about customer service. But they are, in my opinion, drowning in organizational misalignment, terrible interdepartmental communication and a pervasive marketing strategy of screwing people over for the last dollar until the competition shows up. There is very little innovation into online activity. As a business we are unable on a bandwidth basis to afford either the data or the speed of pipe needed to keep up internationally. One of my staff members has an ADSL connection 10 times the speed of our business connection, at one 10th the cost. Telecom's strategy to date has caused New Zealand to become internet consumers, rather than content providers. So why do I support them? Simply, there are two reasons. - On the whole, although the process is frustrating at times, I like the people. The people I deal with on a day to day basis are pretty skilled, reliable and they care about me. That's a big start. - Although they're not doing enough, Telecom is the only company investing in any real sense in infrastructure in New Zealand. The rest are largely freeloading. Freeloading doesn't drive competition, it just lowers profits where Telecom invests. (I would love to have seen true and full operational separation of Telecom, but it didn't happen.) An internet infrastructure based on Fiber should be treated like every other utility created in New Zealand. That is, the government puts it in place then gives it to private industry to manage. The cost can't be justified economically on a per user basis, but it can be on a social one. My vote therefore still goes to the company that invests in broadband to my children's schools etc. The Herald article says ...

Boyd said yesterday that Roberts had been appointed to boost the board's expertise around "marketing, branding and customer satisfaction" and "Kevin Roberts is one of the world's most innovative and influential thinkers about corporate branding, marketing and customer satisfaction."

Does Telecom have a customer service problem? Of course it does, but not because its staff don't care about customers when they answer the phone. The issue is much deeper. Telecom must accept a lower profit today in the interests of a much greater one tomorrow. Telecom needs to look deeply at investment in its core engineers, its innovators and infrastructure. It needs to give its business customers a way to compete. Does it have a marketing problem? Hmm, not sure ... everyone in this country knows them. I hope Wayne Boyd doesn't think all he needs is a clever way to get customers to "love" Telecom. Much more is required, and Kevin, although inspirational and talented, is one voice on a board of people who doubtless believe they are too. As far I can see he has no direct telecommunications experience, so will lack credibility in that area. He does however come with a framework. In fact he blogged about FREDA yesterday. It deals with the issues I have outlined above, so hopefully that's a start for him. I hope it doesn't end up being a big distraction from his brand ... or a way for Telecom to continue paying lip service to its own. Kevin, I'm all up for a challenge, but this one might be a little bigger than a man of even your mana can chew. Good luck. What do you think? Kevin or Wayne ... Do you care to reply? :-) UPDATE : Have a look at this post by Miki Szikszai, very well written and another perspective. His from within Telecom and working with Kevin. I hadn't realised the Saatchi / Telecom relationship, so apologies ... it still however is not the help Telecom needs UPDATE2 : Kevin has written about his appointment at Telecom, your can find it here

Well I am sitting at the airport in Melbourne, waiting for a plane home to New Zealand after an amazing week at an event more like a rock concert than your usual financial course. This morning I feel a weird mix of tired but buzzy from attending another Tony Robbins event, this one called Wealth Mastery. What an incredible week. It's always nice to escape for a while with your wife, but to attend a life changing event like this with her was pure magic. We signed up a few years ago to Tony's Mastery University, and this week graduated having completed the three events "Life Mastery", "Date with Destiny" and "Wealth Mastery". It's funny that, despite these events being life changing for me, I don't really talk about them as most people who have not been through one don't understand the attraction. In fact I've given up trying to explain, as for many he's just the Infomercial Guy on TV late at night, and to others it's just "American Hype". Hyped it is, but it's also inspiring, life changing and thought provoking. It is so much fun and a brilliant experience to be so immersed in learning with like minded people. There was lots of financial strategies discussed and shared, but equally, lots of time was spent discussing contribution and other aspects of one's life. I've know this for a long time, but one of the most fundamental and powerful teaching's was ...

"You are not wealthy because of what you have, you are wealthy when you feel that way about what you already have".

Being grateful and feeling abundant about your family, your friends, your experiences, and the love people have for you, makes you much more wealthy than the lonely person with lots of money in the bank. And for that reason I don't just feel wealthy ... I feel blessed.