Category: Business

Better by Design CEO Summit

Today I was at the first day of the Better by Design CEO Summit.

Better by Design’s sole purpose is to help New Zealand businesses succeed. Our programmes are built on the principle that design strategies and processes can be applied to businesses to improve the bottom line.
Better by Design is a specialist group within New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, New Zealand’s national economic development agency.

I was fortunate to sit next to Lance (Wiggs) and very fortunate that they way he ‘listens and absorbs’ the information is to type it up and blog about it.

This means I (along with all attendees) have a great set of posts to refer back to in addition to any notes we took ourselves.

The day was varied but generally of an extremely high standard and was very thought provoking. At the end of the day we had little group sessions where we shared with the group what we took away from the day, I found this a very good way to solidify about 2 key points that I expect will have an impact on our business in the short-term.

I am looking forward to another great day tomorrow.

Xero Con 2012 – and recent announcements

Last year I attended Xero Con 2011 – New Zealand’s largest accounting conference run by Xero. While spending a day in a room full of accountants may not sound like your cup of tea the presentations last year where great – and not all to do with accounting.

Tomorrow is Xero Con 2012 which this year I’m not attending – instead I attended their Developer Session today to get an update on what is going on behind the scenes and a roadmap for 2012. The room we were in was full with probably 100 developers who connect with Xero. This is an often unseen benefit of the Xero Ecosystem.

In light of the big conference tomorrow Rod and the team have made some big announcements over the last week including a revenue update.

Over the last year or so Xero has certainly polarized the New Zealand investment community after they abandoned the strategy of reaching profit in the short-term and instead decided it was better to focus on growth.

Since then every article published on the NBR has drawn interesting comments – to the point where today, when Xero announced a further $20 million investment, there was even some prodding taking place to get things started.

While I can understand that investors would like to see profit and a return, those who are unhappy with the current strategy can probably make a return by selling their shares which have remained at the top end of their trading range – and increased again today on the back of the announcement. I would also suggest people need to take a wider view and not judge a book by its cover, or by simply what they read.

Listening to the team today there is no doubt they work hard on both developing and executing their strategy. The numbers that Xero are reporting are continuing to grow (rapidly) which indicates they are on the right path.

The other thing that many people may not see from the outside but was on show today was the eco system I mentioned earlier. There are many other New Zealand entrepreneurs that are building web applications that integrate with Xero and are able to take advantage of this partnership. Some like Vend are seeing success even though they are still very much a startup. Others are more grown up like Workflow Max that was acquired by Xero today.

While these other businesses don’t necessarily provide a return to Xero shareholders they are in general very good for the New Zealand economy. Xero is not in this game just for themselves and very much take the approach of wanting to lift all boats. While today was predominantly about Xero development there were aspects of the talks aimed at helping people in the room with their own business. This is a great culture to create in a business.

Another way of Xero – or more specifically Rod – likes to give back is through his Accelerate Conference which I am very much looking forward to.

Disclaimer:  I am both a shareholder in Xero and one of their original beta customers and now run 10 organisations in Xero. 

 

NZ Start-up Scene

For anyone interested in the state of play in the New Zealand start-up scene, or anyone who likes to read what has worked or not worked when building a business check out Rowan Simpson’s Founder Centric Startups Series.

The series is an amazing piece of work and all credit has to go to Rowan and the contributors for making this happen.

The stories are all good and certainly shows there is no script when it comes to creating / running a startup. What works for one doesn’t necessarily apply to another.

My perspective has always been to read and research material like this and take out what I think may work for my businesses. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we make mistakes, but the most important thing is we review and we learn.

In parallel with this series both Rowan(as an intro to his series) and Lance (Are you an Angel – probably not and Investing with appropriate speed) commented on the structures that support startups – this stirred up a great debate, one that is extremely healthy as New Zealand strives to grow the knowledge economy.

2011 – A brief look back

I have been planning on writing this post since the first day of 2012 and am only now getting round to it and we are almost 5% into the year! [Updated: I didn’t complete this till the 19th January so we are now over 5% into the year!]

One year ago I was beginning my 15th year at Cadimage Group (formally Cadimage Solutions) and my 7th year as the Managing Director.

In general I spend more time thinking about the future than looking at the past, but I find it good as I plan for a New Year to review and reflect on the previous year.

Without going into a huge amount of detail as I look back on 2011 I would  say that like most years Cadimage Group has achieved a lot. A few highlights across our Group include:

GRAPHISOFT New Zealand

We started there year by reaffirming our commitment to Architectural Education in New Zealand by sponsoring the Victoria University FirstLight House. This was the first time a Southern Hemisphere team had been picked to compete in the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon. As keen observers we followed the progress both in New Zealand in preparation and then in the US as they were competing and we were stoked to see them take out third place.

In mid-year we released ArchiCAD 15 throughout New Zealand. This was the first time I had visited Christchurch since the disastrous earthquakes and I was a little nervous. Overall I was impressed with the resilience being shown by our Christchurch based customers and there approach to simply getting on with the job at hand.

The end of the year saw the fourth year of the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards which saw 60 Architecture Students receive prize money totaling $60,000 and Software to the value of $30,000.

Cadimage

2011 started with us securing the distribution for Solibri Model Checking Software in New Zealand and Australia. Taking on a new product is a major undertaking and we were pleased to complete the year with a  handful of sales and a strong position for 2012.

In March we launched a couple of new websites which marked the completion of the Strategic Branding work we had done with Brian Richards and his team.

Mid-year in conjunction with the ArchiCAD 15 release we released the updates to all our Tools. This is the sixth successive version where we have launched our Tools on the same day as the ArchiCAD International release. June was a record month for our export sales in conjunction with the ArchiCAD 15 Upgrade but this was short-lived with July trumping June by a further 15% increase.

Later in the year we expanded our website to include additional ArchiCAD software from different suppliers and relaunched ArchiCAD Objects.

Overall we have continued to grow our international business during a tough world economic climate. While growth is not at the level we would hope for progress is being made!

Cadconsult & Cadconsult PLM

In October the biggest event of the year took place with the merger of Cadconsult into the Cadimage Group and the formation of Cadconsult PLM.

Andrew Ecker the founder of Cadconsult has been involved with ArchiCAD as our South Island Reseller for 20 years and has also been selling and supporting Solid Edge Mechanical Engineering software since 1997. We merged the South Island ArchiCAD business in to GRAPHISOFT New Zealand and created Cadconsult PLM to focus on the Sales, Service and Training of Solid Edge and a number of other Siemens PLM Velocity Products.

As with all mergers there have been challenges and teething issues but 3 months in the entire team is excited about this achievement and the platform it has created for 2012.

Cadimage Team

As a result of the merger and growth we were pleased to see our team expand by 3 full-time and 2 part-time people. The New Zealand economy has had a bumpy recovery and still has a long way to go but I do enjoy being able to grow and expand our team.

Personal

On the personal side there were a few achievements as well. In April I took [almost] a month off. The reasons behind this were two-fold. One, it was time to have a break and, Two, it was a chance for others within the company  to take the lead. While in hindsight the timing was not necessarily the best the team stepped up and as mentioned above we achieved a successful launch of ArchiCAD 15 and our Tools.

Running

In 2010 I ran 15 times for a total distance of 105km – the main catalyst was being stuck in Hungary as the Icelandic Volcano did it’s thing. As a result of this lack of exercise (and a couple of other factors) the pounds went on. 2011 started and I wasn’t overly impressed with my weight so I started running. For the first time in a long time I ran without a goal or an event in mind. Over the year I lost almost 10% of my weight and for the first time since I have been tracking it I ran every month of the year. As I was not training for an event I gave myself little goals. The one I am most proud of was the goal of running ten, 10km runs in May. Over the course of the month I managed to achieve 13 runs and took a total of 5 mins off my time.

By the end of the year I had clocked up 82 runs for a total of 753km.

Sports

2011 saw the Rugby World Cup come to town and I was finally able (after two previous attendances) to see the All Blacks lift the trophy (just.) Having watched France knock out the All Blacks at my two previous World Cups I was almost banned from attending the pool match where the All Blacks made up for Cardiff. In the end I managed to watch 11 of the 20 teams play live and ended up watching the French 3 times!

2011 closed with me attending the Boxing Day Cricket Test at the MCG. While India didn’t live up to their quality on paper the MCG test has proved to be the closest in the series so far. The MCG is an incredible ground and attending a test match with 70,000 people on the first day and a total of 190,000 over the 4 days was something quite unreal.

Travel

2011 saw me make two European trips. One for the Graphisoft International Partners conference in Berlin and later a trip through Sweden, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary and the UK where I finished up attending the ArchiCAD Summer School held in Liverpool.

Overall I was away from home for 56 days which is a reasonably significant amount of time and in 2012 am looking to stay closer to home and allow other members of the team the opportunity to attend these events.

2012

As our business continues to change we continue to look forward and plan ahead. 2012 is shaping up to be challenging for us with potential European recessions on the back of the Euro issues and with ongoing quakes in Christchurch the rebuild is further delayed. However, we have a number of exciting initiatives planned and with a bigger team we are all excited about the year ahead.

 

Previous Posts:

2010 – A year in review

2009

2012 Events to get you Energised

Well 2012 is just around the corner and while many of you will be simply thinking as far as Christmas now is the time to look a little further and sign up for some of the exciting events scheduled for early 2012.

February/March seems to be the time it all happens which is a good thing as it can provide a great foundation for the year ahead.

To date I have signed up for the following:

Better by Design CEO Summit 2012 – Design your future – first time attending but heard good things about this years event

Accelerate 2012 – always stimulating and a great concert to finish

Webstock 2012 – great content and speakers, but also one of the most well organised conferences I’ve been to!

I’ve also signed up for the Xero Developer Conference – quite a bit more technical than the above but always keen to see how the Xero eco-system is expanding!

Where have I been? Undertaking a Company Merger!

Today I got an email pointing out that I didn’t post a single article in October or November!

The last date I posted was actually the 27th September when I talked about how impressed I was with Air New Zealand getting me (eventually) down to Christchurch.

The reason I mention this again is that what took place on the 27th September is largely responsible for my lack of posts in the last two months.

On 27th September 2011, Tracey and I (as directors of Cadimage Group) along with Andrew and Marion Ecker of Cadconsult signed an agreement that saw our businesses merge on 1st October 2011.

Andrew Ecker has essentially been part of the team since 1991 when we first started distributing ArchiCAD. Andrew operated as our South Island ArchiCAD reseller for 20 years. In 1999 Andrew established Cadconsult Limited as a great kiwi owner-operator business. Andrew has had enormous success with ArchiCAD in the South Island. Cadconsult was also the New Zealand distributor for Solid Edge – a mechanical design product from Siemens PLM.

As Cadimage Group has developed the board decided to approach Andrew about merging our businesses. We saw that as essentially a solo operator Andrew was having to deal with significant administration which was preventing him from doing what he loves best – interacting with customers and potential customers.

Over a four month period we discussed options with Andrew and initially signed a Heads of Agreement in mid-August working towards the official merger from 1st October 2011. The merger saw Cadimage Group acquire Cadconsult and in return Andrew received a shareholding in Cadimage Group.

Over the last two months I have put in considerable work merging our businesses which also included establishing a new business to continue the Solid Edge related operations – Cadconsult PLM.

While we have extensive systems and processes in our business, merging customer databases with over 20 years of history still takes time. Also getting systems in place helps provide a platform for us to build and grow Cadconsult PLM as a key part of the Cadimage Group has taken time, with yesterday seeing the third iteration of our website launched in 2 months! This coming week sees Cadconsult PLM’s first official events with the launch of Solid Edge ST4 in Christchurch and Auckland.

Two months in we are still excited about the opportunities the merger will give us and are looking forward to a strong 2012.

Along with the merger – though not directly as a result of it – we have also recently employed two more people taking our team to 17. It is great to be growing even after another challenging year. For an overview of the Cadimage Group you can refer to our website.

 

Email Overload

I just returned from 4 days leave in New Caledonia (yes it was very hot and relaxing!)

However, today I decided to get on top of my email before I head back to the office tomorrow. Once Outlook sync’d up I had 329 emails.

While sometimes I average over 200 emails/day, 80/day while on leave was quite a surprise!

I read once that email generates email, and I have had first hand experience that the more I send the more I receive – and fortunately the less I sent also resulted in less received.

All in all, not too sure how I received 80+ emails/day when I wasn’t sending any.

Anyway this reminded me of a post I recently read discussing the idea of an email charter:

Houston, we have a problem.

We all love the power of email connecting people across continents. But… we’re drowning in it.

Every year it gets a little worse. To the point where we can get trapped spending most of our working week simply handling the contents of our in-boxes.

And in doing so, we’re making the problem worse. Every reply, every cc, creates new work for our friends and colleagues.

We need to figure out a better way.

But how?

Here is the key cause of this problem:

The total time taken to respond to an email is often MORE than the time it took to create it.

The full post is definitely worth a read and to date there have been over 200 responses.

The overall result of the post has been the creation of http://emailcharter.org/

Buildmedia

In October 2003, Murray Pearson and I- as the then directors of Cadimage Solutions – divested our Architectural Visualisation business and along with Gareth Ross established Buildmedia Limited.

For the initial 15 months I was involved as a director until Cadimage Solutions sold it’s majority stake to Murray. At that time I became Managing Director of Cadimage and my focus was on both ArchiCAD and our Cadimage Tools. Ironically when I was first employed by Murray in 1997, it was to re-establish the visualisation part of Cadimage that had been in gradual decline as the popularity of ArchiCAD increased.

Cadimage, Buildmedia, Murray, Gareth and myself have remained in close contact since 2003 – we shared offices until 2007 – and as of a few days ago I am now once again a director of Buildmedia. My involvement has come at a time where Buildmedia is ready for a new phase of growth with Murray having sold his shareholding to Gareth, giving Gareth the opportunity to stamp his mark on the company.

Buildmedia do some amazing work across Architecture, Product and Visual Simulations and I am excited to be involved again.

Credits:

Images: 1, 5-7 St Heliers Development by Cook Sargisson & Pirie Architects

Images: 2-4 Matiatia Marina Visual simulations

Image 8: St Michel bathroom furniture

Image 9: Marley guttering

Image 10: Wiaroa Canal development

Image 11: St Michel bathroom furniture

Image 12: Nulook architectural detail

All images copyright Buildmedia 2011

Accelerate 2011 – #0to60

“It’s not the big that eat the small, it’s the fast that eat the slow”

On Thursday afternoon I left Webstock to head up to the beautiful Hawkes Bay and enjoy two evenings and one day of mixing it with some of the people behind some of New Zealand’s fastest growing businesses.

2011 is the second year Rod Drury from Xero has held his Accelerate conference at the Black Barn Vineyard.

Thursday night started with a social gathering for those who had arrived in Havelock North already. It was great to catch up with a number of old faces and meet many new ones as well.

Friday the conference proper started and, after a brief introduction by Rod, Sam Morgan kicked off the morning session talking about the importance of the business model. This high level over view was then looked at in detail in conjunction with a series of presentations from the likes of Sonar6, Jucy, Sidhe, Aptimize, Snapper and VoucherMob.

The presentations were awesome and many people shared some amazing insights and numbers and Sam and Rod were able to pull out both the good and bad points of the various business models – some of the presenters certainly have a few tough but exciting calls to make in the near term!

Lunch at a vineyard is never a quick experience and Accelerate was no exception. The setting was great and the networking over a great lunch was very enjoyable.

During the morning various topics came up that were to form the basis for the afternoon sessions where discussions and examples were discussed from off-shore development to staff incentives.

A really interesting example from the afternoon was from Sonar6 and talked about how they have shifted their sales focus from the small end of the funnel (converting leads to customers) to the big end (converting suspects to prospects.) The examples and methodologies discussed were incredible and show the power of experimenting, informing and then a small bit of selling. Interestingly since shifting their focus, Sonar6 has made more sales with less sales people!

Following the afternoon session we had another enjoyable evening of networking which included more food and a concert Minuit in the Black Barn Cellar.

Conferences such as Accelerate are extremely positive. Due to a high level of trust amongst participants highly confidential information is shared freely in an open and stimulating environment where everyone benefits.

It is hard not to leave a conference like Accelerate feeling pumped up and the credit must go to Rod for not only organising a great event but also in the people he attracted. Many of New Zealand’s business angels attended along with a couple of VC’s from Silicon Valley.

You can read more about Accelerate from Rod or from Mark Robotham who has a more in depth overview of the day which has saved me significant typing time!

Recent Reading

This time last year I was about to embark on an MBA. While I enjoyed the course initially very quickly it was showing signs of not delivering to my expectations so I made a tough decision to withdrawal.

One thing I highlighted when I withdrew was that I have always read extensively and while I needed to read a huge amount during my studies what I was reading was being dictated to me – while not essentially bad I didn’t have time to read what I really wanted to.

Anyway to cut a long story short, while I have occasionally posted about the books I have read I haven’t posted about them all so I thought I’d list my recent reading – excluding a dozen or so novels!

I don’t necessarily recommend you read all the books below but I have certainly found all of them quite interesting, even some that weren’t quite what I expected (Global Citizens for example)

Every Bastard Says No – The 42 Below Story

– Justine Troy & Geoff Ross

Trade Me – The Inside Story

– Micheal O’Donnell

What the Dog Saw

– Malcolm Gladwell

A simpler Time – A memoir of love, laughter, loss and billycarts

– Peter Fitzsimons

The Brand Gap

– Marty Neumeier

Zag

– Marty Neumeier

Fletchers – A Centennial History of Fletcher Building

– Paul Goldsmith

The Design of Business – Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage

– Roger Martin

Making Ideas Happen – Overcoming the Obstacles between Vision and Reality

– Scott Belsky

Getting Real

– Jason Fried, Heinemeier David Hansson, & Matthew Linderman

Rework

– Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

The Fry Chronicles – An autobiography

– Stephen Fry

Global Citizens – Our vision of the World is Outdated

– Mark Gerzon

Think Twice – Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition

– Michael J. Mauboussin

Wired for Thought – How the Brain is Shaping the Future of the Internet

– Jeffery M. Stibel

Think Twice also reinforced my own thinking with regards specifically to business books. You can’t simply read a book and follow the steps outlined to become successful. Successful people take what they read/learn and apply it with their own thoughts and ideas. I enjoy reading what has wokred (and not worked) for various people and companies but I don’t attempt to apply these ideas verbatim.