The other day, I found myself asking someone to help me find a big box. I wanted to climb into it for the next six months, have them throw food through a hole, and not emerge until the elections were over. Both of them, local and overseas. I'm not proud of that impulse. But there it was. The reason wasn't complicated. I couldn't stomach watching another election where politicians seemed genuinely tone deaf to what's actually happening. And look, I know how that sounds, I'm the guy who usually argues for optimism, who tries to get people to see the bright side, who genuinely To View More >>

The other day, I found myself asking someone to help me find a big box. I wanted to climb into it for the next six months, have them throw food through a hole, and not emerge until the elections were over. Both of them, local and overseas. I'm not proud of that impulse. But there it was. The reason wasn't complicated. I couldn't stomach watching another election where politicians seemed genuinely tone deaf to what's actually happening. And look, I know how that sounds, I'm the guy who usually argues for optimism, who tries to get people to see the bright side, who genuinely To View More >>

Early last year I had three things on my mind. I was researching the possible use of Amazon AWS for a project we were working on; I was watching the events at the Auckland Startup Weekend wishing I was there; and finally I was preparing for a presentation I was due to give at the College of Business at Massey University. It was a holiday weekend, so much to Sonya's dismay, I wondered if I could run my own Start Weekend. The question I asked myself was "Could I launch an internet business in one weekend, in the process write all the code, learn AWS including EC2, Route53, To View More >>

I just had a wonderful evening with CEOs from some of New Zealand's best companies. The group was brought together by Better By Design to visit some of the USA's best Design-led and Innovative companies. It's going to be an amazing week, challenging I am sure, but an interesting thing happened tonight: if you like, a small distinction became clear to me. There I was talking to Diego Rodriguez a partner at Ideo, a brilliant design company, and Perry Klebahn a consulting associate professor at Stanford Design School, two great people who were truly gracious in the knowledge they shared. To be honest, To View More >>

People with dirty jobs are happier In this movie Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs does two things, first he talks about a day he worked on a farm and amongst other things docks lambs. I saw this show and couldn't believe he did what he did. I thought it was inhumane and as it turns out initially he did too, but in an entertaining fashion he talks through his learning and explains. The second thing he does is he makes the point that in his opinion people with Dirty Jobs are happier. He puts forward a strong case that following the advice "Follow Your Passion" might be bad advice. For some it will To View More >>

Yesterday I let you know that I was going to take the "31 Days To A Better Blog" challenge and I am getting more and more excited. Day 1 The task for today was to write an "elevator pitch for my blog". This was something that had been on my mind for a while, as I felt I didn't have a strong focus around what I wrote. I genuinely think I could go "toe to toe" and hold my own in a discussion on most of the issues I write about, but I wasn't providing any depth of information. We have deep experience and knowledge in HR, IT, Marketing, Relationships, Leadership, Strategy etc but I didn't want to To View More >>

WHY YOU NEED TO MANAGE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND Something that’s been on my mind lately is the desire to help people succeed in business online. No, I know I don’t have all the answers. But over the years, our two global companies have discovered some answers that work for us, and perhaps they’ll work for your company as well. As always, take what you like and leave the rest! Why you need to manage your personal brand Something that’s been on my mind lately is the desire to help people succeed in business online. No, I know I don’t have all the answers. But over the years, To View More >>

I was listening to a commentator today on National Radio talking about how the manufacturing sector, and especially exporters in New Zealand were in a really bad way. That doesn't apply to us, but he did help me remember three things about why I came back from Australia to help grow Queensberry. It's her 40th birthday next month, and while she has changed beyond belief these past 10 years she grows up next month. I returned for ... Passion I came back to be part of some thing much bigger than myself. I have been passionate about this industry since I was a child and love photography, love weddings To View More >>

Did you know many people have decided what they think of a web page before it's even finished loading?  I'm convinced that when people review their own website they aren't very good at it for two reasons: 1, They're emotionally involved. It's their baby and no one wants to think they have an ugly baby. Even more so when they paid a lot of money for it. 2. They have no idea what web surfers want. Even worse, they don't really know much about their own web browsing behavior. That's because, like everyone else, we mainly tend to surf on auto-pilot. If this could be you, here's my challenge. (If To View More >>

Ok, it might not be the travel that has improved it, but being stuck on a plane for 12 hours certainly allows time to focus. The task for Day 11 of "31 days to build a better blog" is to prepare 10 blog posts for use in the future, when time or imagination are working against you. So here is what I did # 1. First I took the trusty Moleskine notebook that @PJ_Danny gave me for Christmas and at the top left of each opening wrote a blog topic. I set myself the challenge of doing 40 and kept at that one task until I had 40 openings with a blog topic on each. #2. Next I went through, and on each opening To View More >>