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Posts Tagged Development

Lightning Lab startups ask – ‘where’s the money’? Peter Kerr May 21

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Lightning Lab 2013 saw nine startups pitch their digital products to would-be investors last week, seeking expansion capital for ideas that 12 weeks before mostly existed on paper.

The Wellington Demo Day saw highly polished presentations, with clear development plans and just as clear ‘here’s how we and our investors are going to make money’ to about 300 people at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre. About half the audience were financiers.

Any investment secured goes to the next stage of development and expansion into global markets.

My initial underlying thought was jealousy.

Why? Because the participants have obviously learned so much.

Tui Te Hau, CEO of Wellington startup incubator Creative HQ up summed this rationale better than I can.

“Lightning Lab is turning out 30 entrepreneurs with a harder edge and keener and smarter drive to succeed than many. How far they go is up to them, but these companies are 12 weeks old and they already have more scars than most get in several years.”

These nine companies were whittled from 87 applications to LL late last year, and each received $6000 per head from a set of founding investors. By being part of a three month intensive acceleration programme, their digital concepts have been validated, built and established with early customers.

The startups have been mentored by local and international advisers, faced hard deadlines in growth targets and a structured model for accelerating early stage business growth based on international best practice.

When Te Hau talks about scars, she’s not exaggerating – but obtaining them so quickly and with the ability to ask advice such as “what should we do now” in such a concentrated manner – is something so valuable it really can’t be priced.

What is patently clear is that the 30 participants, and their wider networks, have had such an injection of entrepreneurial spirit and possibilities that multiplier spinoffs and benefits can only result for Wellington and New Zealand.

Put another way; this programme, with its hand-holding, arse-kicking and question-asking intensiveness will create a virtuous circle of increasing wealth.

And sure, like all of us, these startups have, and will make mistakes.

But, they know what needs to be done to get back on track, or alternatively how to fail-fast (and then get on with another project).

Because the Demo Day was asking for money, what can be reported publicly is limited.

Suffice to say that (and you’d have to imagine that the mentoring has been also strong in this area) the investment dollars being asked for by the startups seemed reasonable and appropriate.

Many of the companies had potential exponential growth rates, but realism ruled.

It is now up to the individual companies themselves to reveal if or what investment(s) have been made in them – and as this becomes known Lightning Lab will have its own raison d’etre validated.

For the record, those presenting were:

LearnKo – delivers online learning programs to English language organisations in Asia, harnessing Australasian tutors, training them and providing them with content to deliver through an online classroom

Publons – platform for crowd-sourced peer-review of academic articles, where academics build a reputation for their contributions. An alternative to the extremely slow, expensive and closed status quo of the past 300 years of academic publishing

Adeez – specialist mobile marketing platform, enabling brands and their agencies to increase their ROI on mobile marketing

Expander – tracking and analytics platform that protects brands by providing them with powerful tools to combat counterfeit, while connecting manufacturers and consumers

teamisto – turn a typical business sponsorship donation to an amateur sports club or team into an effective advertising channel with measurable results

Questo – works with organisations by providing a platform to create activities with incentives and rewards to engage their visitors. A mobile app and analytics engine provides the ability to track, measure and evaluate their visitors’ behaviour

promoki – social media platform that gamifies photo and video contests. Help brands co-create advertising campaigns with their audience and distribute crowd-filled media across multiple social networks

Kidsgomobile – software device to help parents teach their children to become responsible users of their first smartphone. Tool that notifies parents if their child engages in potentially risky phone behaviour and helps them resolve these issues

WIP – platform that enables professional video makers to share their work-in-progress videos with their team and clients to gather precise and meaningful feedback

Without doubt, some of these startups will go on to become much larger businesses. Without doubt too, most of them would not have got to this ‘go’ position without Lightning Lab.

The learning has been immense, and a thumbs up to those investors and sponsors who put their hands in their pockets from the get-go to kick the whole thing off.

Applications for the next Lightning Lab 2014 will open in September this year.


One way to crack a coder shortage Peter Kerr May 17

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Ever tried to get hold of a professional who can write computer code?

Such is the shortage, that a recent would-be returning ex-pat Kiwi, who knew how to program, put out a general inquiry through WellRailed if anyone in Wellington or wider NZ would be interested in meeting once he got here.

Apparently he immediately had 26 replies, and half a dozen offers of employment, sight unseen, with no interview whatsoever.

So; it would seem there’s a definite shortage of people who understand and can manipulate the workings of computers, mobile devices and apps.

It is this developer (another name for coder and programmer) shortage that’s driven Enspiral (a digital collective cum incubator cum clever people autonomously working together) to offer a type of ‘coding for dummies’ course, specifically around Ruby programming. (sticK’s had a couple of stories on Enspiral’s different type of business model before; see here and here.)

It is called Code Yoga, and its intent is to expose people who have never coded before to what it is about, and, reasonably quickly, help them get a level where could be employed at a junior coding level. From there – well, the world’s your oyster if that’s your bent.

This is very much an Enspiral kinda thing to do.

The collective’s co-creator, Joshua Vial, and the rest of its current eco-system of 105 people based mainly in Wellington but linked to Hong Kong, Berlin, New York and Phnom Penh, share a philosophy of helping people to help themselves.

It is part of the social enterprise model that drives most of the 12 companies that reside (the wrong word but it will have to do) under its umbrella.

Enspiral itself is programmer short-handed at times, so at the very least it is feeding its own needs.

But, in identifying a patently obvious shortage, and doing something about it in a ‘just do it, just learn it’ manner, Enspiral’s demonstrating an attitude that’s bigger than itself.

According to Vial, many of the dozen or so people who have done the course since it kicked off in recently (advertised through the interesting ‘teaching/learning’ platform Chalkle), have graduated to real, paying jobs in IT.

These include writers, teachers, other types of professionals, as well as students.

As a crash course compared to university or polytech based one to three year courses, it is obviously quite different.

However, as a way of introducing newbies to the hidden world of code, and whether it is a gig they’d like to have a go at for a while, these Enspiral guys deserve some credit.

Heck, some of them might even enjoy it as a challenge!

P.S. Enspiral’s kicking off a dev boot camp in the next month or two too – keep an eye out if you’d like to be part of t


Lightning Labs shows off its first flowers of startup blooming Peter Kerr Apr 10

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Lightning Labs, a lean startup hub of selected neophyte companies located for three months on Wellington’s The Terrace, gave a ‘where we’re at, what we’ve learned’ quickfire talks recently.

The fullhouse (dozens on the waiting list), heard how the nine IT-oriented businesses are going, how they’ve changed and pivoted (or spivoted as Questo described their 360° return to where they began) and how they’re achieving product-market fit.

All are using the lean startup methodology and being heavily mentored in the expectation that many will attract new and additional investment at a formal pitch session Demo Day at Te Papa on May 15.

The nine startups, whittled down from an original 87 applications, have received up to $18,000 for the three month internship cum building platform. LL’s organisers, Dave Moskovitz, Creative HQ and many others describe it as being a means to build a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem across New Zealand, and have modified America’s TechStars model for Kiwi sensibilities.

Lighntning Lab is sponsored by CreativeHQ, MBIE, ninetwenty recruitment, The Wellington Company, Weta Digital, FX Netowrks, TradeMe and CityLink.

It is all part of, in sticK’s opinion, a maturing and reality check on the difficult feat of turning an idea into a product or service that someone will buy. That, or creating a fast-failure so an entrepreneur can get on with another project that does have market potential.

The three month intensive is divided into thirds (with participants currently halfway through):

· First month –validation & mentor bombardment (asking questions, testing hypotheses)
· Second month – build a structure
· Third month – prepare for investment….and beyond

One interesting feature, is a weekly group evaluation of everyone’s progress and ranking (which varies). This ever-changing ranking graphically shows how well teams are considered to be going.

For the record, the presentations and brief explanation of the startups are: (The companies and original market intent can be found here.

A point to note is the change in description of what the startups consider to be their market, and/or problem they’re solving).

Questo! – platform to connect parents and their children and share photos (in particular)

KidsGoMobile – a means to make children’s smartphone use safer by enabling parents to have an overview of who they’re connecting

withPromoki – a collaborative media project to use crowdsourcing to make and tell stories (particularly around brands)

Teamisto – social media platform for grass root sports teams, allowing them to interact with and provide value to local businesses that may wish to be sponsors

Expander – tracking and analytics platform to protect brands, first aimed at NZ food and beverage productsMyBuy – mobile marketing platform particularly aimed at SME’s

Publons – building a way for academics to publish articles without having to use a journal (publication)

WIP – cloud-based collaboration tool for film-making and editing

LearnCOACH – platform to allow one-on-one, conversational english tuition to non-english students

As programme director Dan Khan says, “the lean startup methodology is a set of very commonsense techniques.”

“What is also really important is the importance of a vision – defined in a way that allows a company, when pivoting, to remain within that vision,” he says.

To have such a vision, a company needs a good idea of what problem it is trying to solve, and that there’s a big enough pain point to provide a product that customers will love.

Roll on (and even role on) May 15 – the proof of the (investment) pudding for Lightning Labs first cohort of graduates!


Dyed in the wool innovation partners up to go global Peter Kerr Apr 02

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The time it takes to convert a good idea into something that another person’s willing to buy is almost invariably longer than you think.

A couple of years ago, sticK reported on BGI Developments’ winning the right to commercialise AgResearch’s new textile fabric dyeing process.

The beauty of this process is different dye colours don’t bleed into each other – the picture or pattern remains sharp and embedded in the fabric (unlike say printing on top of a T-shirt for example).

BGI (stands for Bloody Good Ideas) directors Robyn George-Neich and Brent Gregory have spent part of the past two years looking for the right company to take the technology to the global market.

They now reckon they’ve found this key partner, American company Global Merino, San Anselmo, California headquartered.

George-Neich says the licenced technology allows designers to use merino in creative ways never before possible. This includes being able to choose colours and designs just before entering the market. Such flexibility of production reduces both the manufacturing and retailer risk.

BGI has spent the past year on commercial trials at Global Merino’s Melbourne facility, taking the innovation to commercial production.

Meanwhile, Global Merino report that their buyers’ responses to the new way of creating garments and graphics is “overwhelmingly positive”.

So, today the laboratory bench, tomorrow (or a few days after!), the world.

What this demonstrates is the value of partnership.

AgResearch’s mandate and strengths (these days) is not necessarily in commercialisation. That’s where BGI have come to the party. BGI doesn’t have the market depth or width to take the innovation to the world – that’s where Global Merino distribution is crucial.

BGI’s looking for other sectors of the textile market where the new dyeing technology can be applied, and AgResearch is trialling applications on wool in it various forms.

As George-Neich says, each of the parties would not be able to achieve alone what they can by working together.

She expects products made using the technology to be on shelves in 2014.

As a fusion of high performance and improved merino wool technologies and just-in-time fashion, this go to market model has a lot going for it.

Partnering, the right partnering, pays.


Callaghan Innovation – building the plane while they fly it Peter Kerr Mar 26

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There’s a term that’s particularly loved by IT-oriented start-ups, ‘building the plane while you’re flying it’.

The business case put forward for and by Callaghan Innovation doesn’t use the term.

However, that’s what I interpret from the ‘Purpose of this document’ comment on its fourth page. (It follows an earlier sentence – Callaghan Innovation’s role does not currently exist in the New Zealand innovation system, and it is in effect a “start-up” organisation. [CI’s quotation marks]).

A bit of a pre-amble later, the document goes on to state:

Recognising these uncertainties, the draft business case submitted to Ministers on 13 December 2012 provided a development path with high levels of optionality and choices in the short to medium term, Callaghan Innovation’s investment in new tools and instruments being made in line with progress in this discovery process, and demonstrated results from pilot and service testing.

Now, perhaps unfairly, this can be interpreted as ‘we’re making it up as we go along’.

But, given:

1. The stealth-like, non-consultative manner an originally proposed Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) morphed into an all-singing, all-dancing CI
2. The fact that the CI establishment board chair (Sue Suckling) reported only and directly to minister-of-everything Steven Joyce, and
3. The lack of any (even loose) overseas model on which CI might be seen to be based,

Then there’s very little other conclusion that can be drawn.

I’m sure too that in his private-sector dealings, Steven Joyce would’ve never okayed the setting up of a new business venture before a business plan/case had been developed, but that’s what’s happening with the allocation of $166 million to be spent by CI over the next four years.

For all that, no one is going to be anti CI’s strapline ‘we accelerate commercialisation of New Zealand’s innovation’.

It is just that for all its 65 pages of business case proposal, we’re not that much wiser.

In fact, you have to wonder if recently announced chief executive Dr Mary Quin quite knows what she’s letting herself in for in taking up the new role.

In the absence of an actual nationally integrated science and innovation plan, the danger is that there’s no coherent sense of direction for our country.

At least (with a background as an engineer in materials science), Mary Quin isn’t an academic or professional manager.

Her recent experience in managing the 2,800 person USA support services company NANA Management Services, jointly owned by Alaska’s indigenous Inupiat people will no doubt serve her well in her new role.

From NZ Inc’s point of view, how and to what, she moulds an extremely amorphous Callaghan Innovation will be crucial for our country’s future.

Equally, managing relationships between CI’s chair, minister, stakeholders, researchers and the industry it is supposed to be serving will be no insignificant feat.

So, in welcoming you to the new role Dr Quin, you could do much worse that reviewing the ATI blueprints put forward by the now extinct Industrial Research Ltd.

At least those blueprints provide some idea of how to keep the CI plane in the air.

P.S. As a number of readers pointed out, Dr Michael J Kelly (ex-pat Kiwi now at Cambridge University, and former undergraduate colleague of the late Prof Sir Paul Callaghan) was interviewed by National Radio’s Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon on March 13. (CI chair Sue Suckling was also interviewed at the same time). One of Kelly’s main points is that there’s been no debate about how to structure the new organisation……and an inherent danger it becomes a mere broker of technical knowledge. The podcast can be found here.


Creating a deep infrastructure tool and asset for Christchurch – a (relatively) cheap idea well worth NZ Inc considering Peter Kerr Mar 12

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Here’s an idea, so time topical it deserves much more thinking about by Christchurch, government and NZ Inc.

The Cement & Concrete Association of NZ’s (CCANZ) education and development manager Joe Gamman spoke at the recent Multicore World 2013 conference in Wellington. He’s been working alongside Callaghan Innovation on a potential ‘big data’ project for the past few months, and MW13 was, comparatively speaking, its first public airing. (Here’s the publicly available ‘Smart Idea’ project that received funding)

The general topic of his talk was around ‘Networked Infrastructure – Connecting Christchurch to the World’.

Dr Gamman’s pitch is to use the rebuilding of Christchurch as the world’s first test validation site for a ubiquitous sensing of the built environment. (Some of his presentation can be found here).

In other words, with standalone sensors able to be placed in any number of structures, buildings, roads, underground infrastructure (well, just about anything really), and the data about stresses, uses, traffic, changes over time (anything you want to measure) being collected, why not make this data available to the world.

What Dr Gamman sees being created is a piece of knowledge infrastructure; which only grows more valuable over time, and helps other people design new cities and improve old ones based on the learnings gained by having abundant infrastructure sensors as part of Christchurch’s rebuild.

“We have the opportunity to be high-touch as well as high-tech,” Dr Gamman says. “Such a curated data set would itself become an asset. A networked-Christchurch project would create a city where people will want to come to see what cities of the future will look like.”

Dr Gamman says there are a number of issues to address – not the least the legal framework around the data, who and how it can be accessed, and how it is protected.

Now, data security will become increasingly important as we develop an ‘internet everywhere’ society.

But security is just one component of an extremely good idea that would take advantage of the opportunity that Christchurch’s rebuild now provides.

Dr Gamman (and a hat tip to CCANZ for giving him the means to explore this idea) is now stress-testing the proposal, looking for corporate and government backers, and generally running the idea up the flagpole to see who salutes.

It is an idea, which, if implemented will benefit everyone, everywhere.

It will especially benefit Christchurch and provide huge economic spillover benefits for the city and New Zealand.

Gerry Brownlee, this would seem like a low-cost, high-profile and high return project that would be a real focal point in Christchurch’s rebuild.

As a government, National plays free and loose with the word ‘innovation’ – well here’s one that deserves a boost.


A solution to our lack of shared purpose around a science-innovation strategy Peter Kerr Mar 05

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OK, now we have Callaghan Innovation gestating its way into life – with no indication of how long the process will take, or even what it is we’re trying to bring to fruition.

At the same time we have the ‘Great New Zealand Science Project’ – a public wish list of all the wonderful things we could research – which a committee of the great and the good are now trying to make sense of.

Meanwhile MBIE is still responsible for allocating some of the research funding too.

What these three initiatives clearly indicate is we actually don’t know what we’re doing, or why, or how.

Now, it seems like long ago (but actual fact it is only 18 months) that the High Value Manufacturing Review, a.k.a ‘Powering Innovation’, came out with its recommendations.

A re-read of this document might be a useful exercise for minister-of-everything Steven Joyce.

Recommendation 1:

Develop a strategic and structured approach for connectivity between research and development providers and the high value manufacturing and services sector

Whether this is going to be fulfilled by CI, who knows? Beyond motherhood and apple pie type statements, the purpose (not a vision, not a mission both of which are meaningless) of Callaghan Innovation is still a mystery.

Rumbles from manufacturers, universities and CRIs about the lack of information, sense of shared direction, or a strategic intent (let’s call it a plan) during the whole CI creation process show a glaring omission from the ‘Powering Innovation’ document – and more than a hint that science minister Steven Joyce is playing free and loose in whatever definition of innovation he’s decided upon.

This brings me to the point – and possibly the only way for NZ Inc to strategically line up its science and innovation.

Among a number of excellent recommendations in ‘Powering Innovation’, was #13.

This also demonstrates, by inference, why our country’s currently on an unknown course to an unknown destination.

Recommendation 13:

Form a Science and Innovation Council, led from a very senior ministerial level in Government, with representatives from the university, public and private research organisations and from industry. Members should represent a wide range of science and technology themes, including the social sciences. The role of the Science and Innovation Council should be to establish a national innovation strategy and advise on science and innovation policy and priorities.

Now I realise that such an S&I Council would force us to actually have a shared plan; and that maybe that’s the last thing Minister Joyce wants.

But, until we, like Denmark, Singapore, Taiwan, Switzerland et al, have such a thing, then the person in the street, researchers or industry will have no sense of being part of a wider (game) plan.

Running around and doing science and innovation ‘stuff’ in the absence of a national plan is doomed to provide middling mediocrity. There will be plenty of peddling by all involved, but nobody will be quite sure who or what it is we’re trying to get over the finish (start) line before anyone else in the world.

What we desperately need is an integrated innovation system from the fundamental science through technology development to commercial exploitation of the results. We also need to ensure this integration includes research and commercialisation carried out by the Health Research Council.

Instead, what we have at the moment is a hodge-podge of barely connected elements, with nothing even remotely looking like a plan in place.

Until we begin to get all our R&D cum innovation cum shared strategy ducks in a row through something like a S&I Council, we have absolutely no show of emulating the exemplar countries that NZ Inc, through government officials, have visited dozens of times in the past 20 years.

Mind you, if we had a simple national science and innovation plan, then there would also be some corresponding accountability.

That’s probably the fly in the ointment!


‘Foolproof’ writer to study difference between new business intent and reality Peter Kerr Feb 20

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Jenny Douche is going back to 'school' to boost her entrepreneurial skills

Jenny Douche is going back to ‘school’ to boost her entrepreneurial skills

The writer of ‘Foolproof’ a tome about how to find and test great business opportunities through market validation is off writing books – at least for a while.

In a previous incarnation, Wellingtonian Jenny Douché put out a series of books under the ‘Smarter than Jack’ label.

These collections of stories, about smart animals, raised $440,000 for worldwide, animal-connected charities. The NZ SPCA earned about $120,000. Douché’s venture into publishing followed an initial (and one of the last) cadetship at Wellington Newspapers followed by her first entrepreneurial venture which was as a pet photographer.

“I quickly realised what I really liked about the business was the partnerships, the business side of it, it was not really the photography itself,” she says.

Douché developed the idea for Smarter than Jack during a four-year stint at Telecom as a marketing/communications specialist and while doing her MBA. “I wanted to create a scalable business that I was really passionate about, and one that would make a big difference to the animal community”.

She sold the Smarter than Jack label and concept in 2007, and after having her first child, had the opportunity to work for Grow Wellington and to manage its ‘Activate’ programme for up and coming startup businesses.

When that 12 month contract finished, she decided to write another book called ‘Baby Gone’. This was another compilation of stories about infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death.

“They were stories about the months after the actual event, life after it, coping,” she says. “The objective of creating the book was to help educate the medical community and to help families find solace in knowing that they are not alone on their unplanned and painful journeys.”

She got a sponsor onboard through Trilogy’s Catherine deGroot, and this contributed to the donation of over 3000 copies to people such as midwives, nurses, GPs and to support groups.

Following the arrival of a second child, and playing to her project-orientation strengths, saw her come up with the idea for Fool Proof.

As well as her own business/entrepreneurial experiences, Douché also had been helping put startups through the market validation process. Creating a resource for others seemed to her a useful exercise.

She’s self-published the book – but now has ‘orders’ from her husband not to write another until their current three-year-old daughter starts school.

So what’s she going to do to keep her creative juices flowing – a PhD!

Based on startup businesses that have a documented business model (from say an incubation process), “what is fascinating is how they change during the early growth period,” she says.

“What is it that people say and think they’re going to do, compared to what actually happens. What influences those things to happen? I want to understand why things turned out the way they did.”

Won’t be much writing there will there?


Achieving virtual scale for our largest industry Peter Kerr Jan 30

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(This blog also appears at pastureharmonies.org)

Scale matters in exporting according to the World Bank…..so here’s a way to get virtual scale for our biggest industry.

The World Bank’s recent report ‘Export Superstars’, shows that company size matters when it comes to countries’ exporting. Little SME’s don’t cut much mustard.

Business NZ chief executive Phil O’Reilly , in commenting on Rob O’Neil’s Stuff story that the World Bank wants us to think big, says

“New Zealand has some unique challenges to overcome in its incredibly small scale and being the most isolated developed economy in the world.”

O’Reilly goes onto say:

“one effective model is the aggregation of small businesses into groups allowing them to in some ways act like and gain the advantages of large businesses.”

Given that NZ Inc’s biggest business is the conversion of solar-derived pastures into various proteins and fats, through thousands of small on and off farm businesses (and even the large ones are mere tiddlers in the world scene), wouldn’t it make sense to aggregate if we could?

Given the fierce independence mindset of our agricultural (and other) businesses, the best way for us to do this I argue is around the shared story of our pastoral method?

After all, in an affluent consumer’s mind, the story of a product is a large reason why they do, or don’t, buy it.

No one has claimed the ‘global mind’ (nor branded it) for responsible pastoralism. By and large (with some exceptions), how we produce our protein is a pretty sophisticated use of sunshine, soil and fresh air.

Now, no one New Zealand company can claim the NZ Inc mandate.

But collectively we can.

Collectively, owning and telling our story through individuals, we can grunt up, obtain the virtual scale that the World Bank suggests is vital, aggregate around a common heritage and obtain some of these advantages of large businesses.

Owning our pastoral story would sit perfectly alongside the Collaboration Programme for Greater Farmer Profitability recently kicked off under the Primary Growth Partnership fund. In fact it would underpin the whole thing, and move us further away from the continual price fighting end of the market.

But perhaps storytelling as a concept is too big an ask for the collective brains and leadership of the agricultural industry. As a nation we’ve always been more comfortable about actually doing things, than talking about what we’re good at, what we believe.

So, even though we essentially perfected rotational grazing, the thought that we could or should name it at a global level is just too radical.

However; the opportunity to provide virtual scale for our largest industry is waiting in the wings.

We simply have to think differently about what it is we sell to the world – and that is an ideal, linked to a method.

The moment we stop thinking only production and think ‘picture’ is the moment we’ve adapted to a storytelling world – which in today’s digital age is the beginning, middle and end of selling.


Callaghan Innovation – wishing it all the best…..but Peter Kerr Jan 25

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I hope I’m wrong about Callaghan Innovation, and for our country’s and industry’s sake that it is a roaring success when it stumbles into life on Feb 1.

But, the portents aren’t good – and as a solution in search of a need, instead of the other way round – we’ll end up with a couple of years of bureaucratic confusion before eventually going for a form of the Advanced Technology Institute as originally proposed by IRL.

In the meantime we’ll have a Callaghan Innovation Agency (CIA), and all the bumbling that’s implied in that.

Why the glass half empty viewpoint?

Among the things that have happened, the common knowledge at IRL and further afield, have been the following happenings.

  • An ATI Establishment Board (before it morphed into CI), whose chair, Sue Suckling, reported only and directly to Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment super minister, Steven Joyce. Not through MBIE (who weren’t involved), only to Joyce
  • A chief science adviser (Sir Peter Gluckman) who hasn’t been able to talk to Joyce
  • An October command that no member of the ATI establishment team or board was to have anything to with the senior management of IRL. (Odd, presumably you’d expect such people to have the best knowledge/overview of requirements to promote high value manufacturing)
  • An as yet non-public business plan; and no idea how any sort of transition/transformation takes place between IRL to Callaghan Innovation
  • A management and governance structure that merely transfers the original ATI establishment team to new positions – let’s call it jobs for the girls and boys…..never, ever a good look
  • Total and utter disregard for transparency, democracy, clarity of (desired) outcome – and the trust that goes with those processes

In short, what we have with Callaghan Innovation is a secret, ill-conceived creation of a model that’s been disproven overseas.

We don’t have anything like Taiwain’s ITRI – which has an extremely strong industry/research group hug and development of science/engineering platforms that will strategically support a future.

Nor Switzerland’s, nor Singapore’s, nor especially Denmark – who’s research institute’s must be wondering how we got so far away from their own model.

Now, Joyce is well-known for forming a point of view and pulling all the levers to achieve an outcome – it’s something you can do in business (more or less).

How much has his notion that ‘innovation’ (and let’s not even begin to try and define it) is a command and control activity intersected with the law of unintended consequences?

Wow, we’ve ended up with ‘tell me exactly what it’s meant to do’ Callaghan Innovation?

CI will be much more hands-on from Joyce’s point of view, but I’m afraid Steven, that’s not how innovation works.

CI as a model is much more sand in the gearbox.

Whether it is because her background’s as an economist, but Sue Suckling’s viewpoint seems to be that inventors/innovators/ideas people have had trouble accessing the IRL (and other university/CRI) brains who could help with their industry challenge. We’ll call it a supply problem.

That’s not the case – anyone with even half and idea can relatively easily, today, get the help and R&D expertise they need.

Providing a 0800 ‘Callaghan Innovation’ number addresses a problem that doesn’t exist. It will simply be another bureaucratic layer of frustration for science and industry.

But, prove me wrong CI – I’ll be happy to admit my error.


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