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 >>

An awesome presentation and Q and A with Gary Vay Ner Chuk. In this he talks very powerfully about "Working the Room", His Strategy, And about how the internet is about getting eyeballs. To use his term he is pretty Potty Mouth. But don't get put off by that, he is authentic, deep and extremely passionate. Awesome and thank you Gary. 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 >>

When I say danger, I am not exaggerating. If you are online and geotag your photos you risk being robbed, raped or murdered if you aren't very careful. I do apologise, I don't like having depressing stuff on my blog, but you do need to be a little scared; you do need to consider how you work online. If you value your property and especially your life read on. So what is Geotagging Wikipedia describes Geotagging as: the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as photographs, video, websites, or RSS feeds, and a form of geospatial metadata. These data usually 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 >>

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. To View More >>

FilmFellas from Steve Weiss, Zacuto USA on Vimeo. I just came across this short film by Steve Weiss, that I thought was amazing and wanted to share. Watch it now and tell me what you think. It's a discussion over dinner about the future of movie making and TV vs publishing films on the internet. I found it profound, I mean think about the contrast between the desire to have your work seen on the big screen, a goal most film makers aspire to but few reach versus the ability to publish tomorrow on the internet and be seen by millions. Oh and BTW isn't the quality of Vimeo mind blowing. just To View More >>

One of the incredible blessings of working in the Queensberry Group is the wonderful people we get to spend our time with, and few are more inspiring than Peter Haythornthwaite. [flickr]photo:3099049094[/flickr] I was sitting at the kitchen table about to take a photo of this wood pigeon when I got an email from Peter commenting on my blog. Amongst other things he said "I guess a natural 'other' would be small videos of family discoveries at the beach - your area, your 'forest' area, your Titirangi - why do you live there etc." The timing made me smile as this beautiful bird perfectly symbolizes To View More >>

Sitting here eating my sushi today ... my mind wandered and I found myself considering the answer to that eternal quesiton ... "What is the meaning of life". I have heard the answer is "69" but although that sounds like fun, it seems a little to simple. So I wondered quietly ... maybe if I allowed myself a couple of minutes the internet might have the answer ... ha ha ok google might. Here is a couple of things I found ... The "big question" has a wiki page ... to see it click here Ok I don't have that long to read ... I live in a modern world ... I need answers NOW OMG it even has an FAQ Yawn To View More >>