Ok what else can I say except, if you want to blow your mind go to www.ted.com. Ted is an annual conference of world class speakers sharing innovative ideas, telling stories and inspiring change. I mean everything is covered and many of the speakers from conferences over the last few years have put online for your enjoyment. Over the last few months I have listened and watched fascinated to speakers from Bill Clinton to Bono. I've been inspired by new ideas of social change in Africa, Seen Statistics brought to life in a fascinating graphical display. And learnt how my children will more than likely To View More >>

I've just been out for a beer, a curry, and movie with my friend Joe. Always a very cool experience, and the conversation is always deep. Joe is an amazing man, someone I respect and admire and although more than capable of good humour and silliness he is also full of good advice. One of the things he often challenges me with is that he thinks I need to let up on myself, and give myself a break ... This is probably true, but what he doesn't realise is that my whole life I have wanted to be the drummer boy ... the person people follow ... inspiring enough to get them to jump into the unknown. I To View More >>

I was reading Paulo Coelho's blog today, and came across a wonderful post from a few days ago, discussing ones "personal legend". It is a wonderful reminder of our need to pursue what is deep within us, what it takes and why some fail. Like so much of his writing, I would thoroughly recomend taking a few minutes to read it. Conversation with the master the personal legend 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 >>

Danny and I are in Germany at present, Cologne (Köln) to be specific, visiting the Photokina trade fair. It's been a whirlwind tour through Europe getting here. In 5 days we travelled through Las Angeles, London, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Cologne. What an incredible week of contrasts. The cities, especially Paris and Amsterdam, were incredible, so romantic with their old world charm and architecture, but with unfortunate modern contrasts. If Mc Donalds down the road from Notre Dame wasn't enough, how about the accommodation we have in Cologne? This is a table in the restaurant. The place To View More >>

I love Malcolm Gladwell, he is such a clever thinker and actually very entertaining for what really could be boring intellectual ideas. Please enjoy watching the following video to find out "What we can learn from spaghetti sauce" By the way, if you enjoy this video go read his books "The Tipping Point" and "Blink". If you can't be bothered reading use iTunes to download audible versions of these books to your iPod and go take the dog for a walk :-) To View More >>

In my blog description I say that I love the "simple solutions", I have to say this has to be one of the best I have seen in ages. By taking the abundant energy of children playing and using that to pump water from clean under ground water supplies Play Pumps have created a way to ease the problem of getting fresh water to villages of the world. These people are really inspiring. To View More >>