thinking: relating- celebrating :-)

Ever since Brian Sweeney and Remo Giuffre told me about TED back in the early 90′s or maybe before that (TED started in 1984) I have been a huge fan.

Brians 7×7 events in NZ were inspired by TED and they still resonate even though today we have TEDxSydney, TEDx Auckland, TEDxEQC Christchurch, TEDx Christchurch and other local TEDx events. (Disclaimer: I help out on the Auckland event)

My Architect is one of my favourite movies and that movie featured Richard Saul Wurman the TED founder - film makers documentary link here – Nathaniel Kahn.

For me the story of TED is very much like the story of My Architect.

It combines personal insights, amazing stories, incredible people and giant ideas – all things with the power to transform our lives and just like in “My Architect” we are taken on a journey through an amazing life as reflected by the buildings that Louis Kahn built and the people he knew.

People keep asking me to update my about page but really I work across a wide range of disciplines and projects and while I wear many hats my background job is always the same.

“In short I live to change everything for the better by thinking differently about ideas that matter for people I like. If your project excites me than I will move heaven & earth to get results you can’t pay for but they are the ones you really, really want. “ Go over to TED.com to see my full profile

Recently I completed organising the 4th WordCampNZ. Ostensibly it is focussed on WordPress and what a very fine bunch of WordPress users get up to but in my world if you have to explain a software interface it is not as good as it thinks it is.

WordPress back end usability is in my opinion the best out there but personally I’m far more interested in what the users (many subject matter specialists) are able to achieve as outcomes for their various causes and projects.

Besides architecture (& quite a few other subjects) I am very much still a musician at heart. I have a personal theory of music where   the universe is explored via music. Song-lines for navigation are very real for me. I love the way that music can take us to a different place and open us to new ideas and incredible serendipitous moments.

I love Daniel Levitins book “This is Your Brain on Music” and have written about that several times here. I also love Daniel Kahneman’s more recent book Thinking, fast and slow but I know that most of you won’t read the Kahneman book despite it deserving to be compulsory reading for all adults, all educators and anyone who is remotely curious at all.

I have watched hundreds of TED videos sometimes more than once. They are fun AND good for you. Civilisation as we know it is screwed – business as usual is over. Yet despite all of that of that I completely believe that we can still reinvent, remake, restore and rebuild and that starts with ideas and a willingness to change.

So where to start?

So what about if the first TED video you watched was the “remix version from 2012-Time for TED” see below.It has some great music and a few quotes. Wonder – insight, ideas. BTW – TEDx Sydney is on Saturday 28th of May. TEDx Auckland 2102 is coming in August  (watch this space.)

John Boswell, of the “Symphony of Science,” came to TED2012 and made this remix of the speakers onstage (and on TED.com). Symphony of Science is my new favourite website if you are a musician or an educator skip right on over there. I look after Science Media Centre and Sciblogs with about 60 bloggers but unfortunately none of them break into song or publish remixes.

Boswell has made a series of other clips that you might like. Here are some Q &A s with Boswell on how it was done.

“What software and tools did you use?

I am using Reason 6 to put together the music, then Adobe Premiere to edit the video. The song is done independently first, then the video editing once the song is finished.”

For the geeks out there – you know who you are – and of course I want to do this for some local events. Wouldn’t that be amazing. The future of music has long been video related but with crowd sourced (very selective) lyrics and great energy why wouldn’t you want one of these clips on high rotate at breakfast time.

Here is another one called ode to the brain – enjoy..

You may also enjoy the TED Blog Video channel over here

On a more sobering note – if you live in Auckland, New Zealand there is a documentary film called Finding Mercy that has a  Fundraiser Screening next Monday 14th May 7pm at the Bridgeway Theatre , Northcote Pt.

A heart-wrenching search for a childhood friend becomes a dramatic guided tour through Zimbabwe’s Mugabe era.

I worked on the website for this project a few weeks ago and I hope to be at the screening to hear from film makers Robyn Paterson and Leanne Pooley.

Since the global financial crisis (GFC) started in 2008 (or was it ’07) it has become more obvious that business as usual is one of the first casualties.

Some of us have been working on more sustainable business ideas as it has been clear for a long time that the “growth at all costs” mantra has run out of room. Looking back over this blog it has become a recurring topic as various economic, social and cultural indicators have started to redline.

However it takes a long time to change the culture around many of these driving ideas and so the GFC in many respects is now acting as a kind of circuit breaker to make businesses and consumers rethink out attitudes to all kinds of resources and business activities.

It is pleasing to see more sustainability projects gaining momentum. In the words of the Sustainable Future Institute project 2058

“The world is changing and, as New Zealanders, we need to think about what this means for us and our future.

Often strategic thinking only occurs in terms of the three-year election cycle, but this does not prepare us well for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Promoting long-term thinking, leadership and capacity-building to manage an uncertain future is critical.

To help address these challenges and opportunities the Sustainable Future Institute is developing a vision of what a sustainable New Zealand may look like in the year 2058 and an overarching strategy to reach this vision – this is known as Project 2058.”

The italics and bolding above are mine but I certainly agree that we need to take a longer term view on all kinds of projects. In my neighbourhood I’d like to give a great big hat tip to GreyLynn 2030 which is part of the transition towns movement.

Some of you know that from August this year I have been lecturing part time on digital marketing at Unitec. It has been a great pleasure to be part of a 50 person cohort of students from NZ and many from overseas who are looking at business futures with fresh eyes.

In reading essays and assignments on future business from the students it has become apparent that many of us are unclear on where NZ makes its money and where our economic future lies.

We also just had an election campaign that was knee deep in platitudes and backslapping from a presidential style beauty contest. No surprise to see that the best looking pony won but the prime Minister is in lala land is he thinks an increase of 2-3% of votes is really a mandate for asset stripping and idealogy driven changes to education.

The Greens have won 14 seats and in some electorates got more than 20% of the vote. The National Party will ignore that at their peril. The rise of the Green party and what it represents is far more significant that any other demographic changes in the last election.

From the official results it is also clear that voter disillusionment with the parliamentary process is at an all time high for something like 1m voters not bothering to vote at all.

• The number of seats in Parliament will be 121.
• The National Party has lost one list seat compared to election night, and now has 59 seats in total.
• The Green Party has gained one list seat compared to election night, and now has 14 seats in total.

What we need now is for citizens to really examine some of the myths around the NZ economic and business future from a factual basis.

New Zealand is in a global economy and we need to rethink where our investments of time and resources go in the future. We need to build a more sustaining business culture that recognises that the same old, same old isn’t going to work.

The presentation by Sir Paul Callaghan offers some ideas for a way forward -(see video above) or link here if that embed doesn’t work  We need more innovation and smarter use of technology in business. We also need to stop perpetuating some of the old myths about NZ business and stop throwing good $ after bad.

It is time to look part the political posturing of yesterdays men ( politicians that is you) who are still thinking short term for the most part. Last week I was delighted to have a look around Fisher & Paykel Healthcare which is a $500m company that New Zealand needs more of.

It is time to reframe the debate and understand where NZ has real competitive advantage come from. Lets go there instead of leaving it to commodities markets and bankers who really are still stuck in a zero sum game. Time to remap and reinvent the future.

Both National and Labour are obviously thinking about the next election as battle lines are being drawn up.  On one hand National is signalling a sell-down of profitable SOE’s to ostensibly to reduce debt.  Labour has flagged the idea of no tax on the first $5k of income.

Both of these approaches are blatant vote buying gimmicks and at last National is reverting to type. Many of us have expected asset stripping and a hollowing out of government.

There is merit in taking stock of what a government should do but really both National and Labour must think they are dealing with a bunch of idiot voters.

In very simple terms a partial sell-down of SOE’s would be a way to reduce government debt but it would also lose dividend income from those assets. On the face of it, encouraging NZ investors to own shares in local utilities seems like a good idea.

But hang on – don’t we already own those companies as they are tax payer funded. If the National government wants NZ families to own NZ assets more directly why not set up something like the Consumers Trust that owns most of Vector . (worth approx $1.5 billion)

“The AECT’s key asset is a 75.4% shareholding in Vector. As the major shareholder in Vector and through our two Trustee directors on the Vector board, we make sure we fulfil our responsibilities to beneficiaries by maintaining proper oversight of Vector’s operations.”

That is not going to work though because John Key has obviously done deals in the back room to sell down to the usual suspects – that is the usual practice for right wing parties.

And – more to the point. There is a large tax cut to fund for National voters (mostly.)

Reducing debt is also makes a certain amount of sense but both National and Labour have been stung by this before. And as Bernard Hickey calculates

“The theory is that for the sale to make immediate sense then the dividends given up would have to be less than the interest costs of the debt not incurred by selling the asset.”

…In total, the four SOEs potentially up for sale generated total dividends last financial year of NZ$732.5 million and shareholder (government) equity stood at NZ$9.642 billion. This implies a combined (and very raw) dividend yield of 7.6% last year.

Does this compute?

Yet the government is currently having to pay around 5.5% for the new debt it is selling, mostly offshore…

So on the face of it the government is a net loser by selling half of these state assets and avoiding having to raise new debt.

The Treasury will no doubt do a much more sophisticated analysis, but this is a question the government and voters will have to ask in a very hard way before deciding to go ahead with asset sales.”

OK so the government really does think voter are just another mark waiting to be fleeced. John Key has a chance here to show real leadership instead relying on yet another shell game.

The rough calculation on National’s tax cut was reported as something like $15b (over 4 years) and the Labour no tax on first $5k is $1.4b (per year?) so those amounts are hugely different in scale and $15b is a monkey on Key’s back.

There is probably a case to be made for selling down Air New Zealand but I won’t be buying any shares. Prices of aviation fuel will increase much faster than they can get smarter planes into service so a sell down there is better now than later.

I’m not sure what 24% of Air New Zealand is worth. A quick look at their share price says market cap is $1,551,284,628 and so even if it could be done there is only $300 -$360m there which is loose change on an annual government spend of $70b. (leaving aside that share prices change.)

And Phil Goff. Its time for him to step aside and let Cunliffe have a go. The party would explode but as as the cliche goes “its better to burn out than to rust”.

Bring back the Values Party. And I’m only half joking. If Labour doesn’t wake up we will need a revived Green party or something new in case Winston does his Rip van Winkle act one more time.

Both Labour and National need to rethink the green issues because we all need to do that.

Update: On Feb 2 – the PM announced that NZ election is on November 26 after the Rugby world cup – when everyone would be feeling good about that event and would hopefully vote for him. Actually he didn’t quite say that but this is clearly an afterglow election with a long lead time.