Cuddle Class

There has been an enormous amount of coverage of Air New Zealand’s recently announced Cuddle Class.

Most has been extremely positive and as a loyal Air New Zealand traveller I am eagerly awaiting it being rolled out on the Auckland-London route (about 12 months away I think!)

To me the great things about the announcement are firstly how closely it followed the announcement of Air New Zealand winning airline of the year and in so doing helped to reinforce this. Secondly, it is great to see good old kiwi ingenuity challenging the norm and leading the world.

Having been fortunate to have travelled extensively I agree wholeheartedly that Air New Zealand is the best!

What has the world come to?

For those of you who know me you will know I don’t generally buy-in to the whole area of Political Correctness – I’m probably a little too competitive! That’s not to say I think it is a bad idea but there are so many cases that are simply insane.

Take for instance this case where an employer was told that it was discriminating to advertise for ‘Reliable Workers’  – like the post title says “What is the world coming to?“

iPad – Announced (updated)

After much speculation the most anticipated announcement this year in the tech world was made an hour or so ago in San Francisco – Apple is launching the iPad Tablet Computer.

While the iPad is not simply Apple’s answer the Amazon Kindle it is interesting that a couple of years back Jobs said the whole concept of Amazon’s Kindle is fatally flawed because people don’t read anymore.

Maybe Job is getting older as in the words of Benjamin Franklin:

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.

As to the question of when this will arrive in New Zealand (we are still waiting for the Kindle) who knows.

I’m sure later today Chris Keall from the NBR will have more information so i’ll keep this post updated.

Update:

OK I was wrong – actually Kelly Gregor from NBR did an update!

MBA Diary #1

Many of you will have read in my previous post (and yes that was over a month ago!) that this year I am starting an MBA.

When I first began talking to people about it, reactions varied from “Why?” through to “I knew you would do one some day.” Generally speaking everyone has been very supportive and many are interested to understand how it goes/is going and what it entails.

I therefore decided that from time-to-time I would post an MBA Diary item to keep those interested up to date!

Before I outline my initial few days a few brief points about the MBA I have enrolled in:

Title: NZ Executive MBA

School: Auckland University – Graduate School of Enterprise

Duration: 2 Years

Format: 16 Papers, 2 Papers per Quarter, 4 Quarters per year (funny that!) Each Quarter is 10 weeks with 2x 6 Hour Lectures once a fortnight (Friday/Saturday)

So, Quarter One has just started with a 2-day Orientation and then yesterday (Saturday) our first official lecture.

The Orientation was an extremely enjoyable time and was a great way to meet the class and staff and also to answer all the questions we needed answered!

Thursday morning started with a Powhiri at the Waipapa Marae (the Marae is part of Auckland University.) A Powhiri is a very sacred and traditional ceremony and a great way of bringing everyone together. Following this official welcome we had 90 minutes of “Speed Networking” where we got to find about all 35 members of our class. The afternoon was spent with general admin tasks that while important I won’t outline for risk of boring you!

Friday continued our orientation where we all undertook a personality test! While tests of this nature are pretty much common-place in large corporates this was a new experience for me. There were no great surprises in my results but how different behaviours combine to create our personality was quite fascinating. Dr Giles Burch who over saw this part of the orientation was an extremely funny Registered Psychologist that made the exercise extremely fun but also incredibly informative.

From there we went about sorting out our study groups for the first year and then had a challenging group exercise which was a great litmus test to determine how our team dynamic worked. In short the project involved a 5 minute exercise constructing houses from cardboard. The team that could produce the most houses that met the required criteria would win! While ultimately we didn’t win we did manage to change the game and that saw us produce 5 times more houses in 5 minutes than any previous team to that point.

From there we started the course ‘proper’ with our two papers for Quarter One being:

Managing Organisations and People

Modelling and Analysis for Management

After 3 days most people were quite exhausted but generally still buzzing. We know things will get tougher from here but we feel we are all up for the challenge.

Finally to come back to the question of “Why am I doing an MBA?”, the answer is two-fold.

Firstly, I am a strong believer in continuing education and to date most of my business knowledge has been learned on the job – the MBA presents an opportunity for some formal training and a chance to fill the holes in my knowledge.

Secondly, the chance to meet and work with a diverse team of 35 people who are all working towards a common goal is a great motivator but was also my biggest point of apprehension regarding the course – now having met my class I can rest easy! The 35 people on the class are  a great bunch. We have had many laughs together and the diversity of backgrounds will contribute highly to the overall level of learning. The MBA is not about various lecturers standing up and teaching us various topics, it is a far wider learning experience where we will draw on everyone’s experience to discover different ways of thinking.

To sign off, I am not sure how regularly or not I will keep you updated on the MBA but if you want to keep an eye out you can easily filter my blog items by categories on the side-bar. Alternatively you can bookmark this link.

Preparing for 2010…

What a year – this graphic certainly sums up some of my thoughts about 2009!

A year ago I posted my contribution to Xero’s Survival Guide – it is interesting to reread this in the context of what has happened but more importantly a good to chance to review again as we roll into not only a New Year but a new decade.

From a business point of view 2009 for us has been a year of both Survival and Success. Having a business (Graphisoft NZ) heavily reliant on the NZ Building industry has been tough, sales drops of up to 80% in some areas have been a head ache but have really made us focus on growth in new areas. On the flip side of this we are pleased to say that today our international business (Cadimage Tools) has just past our growth target for 2009 so our strategy of building an export business to reduce our reliance on the NZ Building Industry is finally paying off – and just when we needed it to if I may say so!

A year ago I said I was going to blog more – while technically I have it is mostly a result of having 12 months in 2009 as opposed to the 6 months that my blog existed for in 2008! If you look at my ‘blog habits’ you’ll see I blog quite a lot while travelling and as my travelling reduced so did my blogging. I don’t plan to travel as much in 2010 but I am hopefully going to blog more even so.

I also have another new challenge for 2010 and that is the commencement of an NZ Executive MBA at Auckland University which I was recently accepted for. I am really looking forward to this opportunity and while I know it will be tough I think my business and I will be better for it.

In short I am really looking forward to 2010 we have some big plans – keep an eye on my blog to hear how things go!

And the Winner is…

On Friday night I had the great pleasure of presenting the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards.

In summary the judges were most impressed:

Again this year, the standard has been high and the jury was impressed with the strong and compelling quality of the verbal presentations and the professionalism of finalists in what can be a nerve-wracking situation. We saw a diverse array of presentations over the two days ranging from those firmly rooted in the best traditions of architecture to more theoretical speculations that questioned the boundaries of the discipline itself. The winner, however, stood out in terms of strong theoretical exploration with great breadth and depth. The scheme excelled on multiple levels from its proposition right through to the detailed resolution of the work.

However, there can only be one winner and that was Simon Harrison from Victoria University:

Urban neighbours
Encouraging formation of a genuine neighbourhood in a high-rise inner city apartment building through inclusion of quality ‘in between’ spaces and design measures that allow a diverse range of inhabitants.
JURORS’ COMMENTS
A compelling investigation of physical, social and commercial aspects of architecture, taking a fresh look at private, public and in-between realms of high rise, high-density living.

Urban Neighbours

Encouraging formation of a genuine neighbourhood in a high-rise inner city apartment building through inclusion of quality ‘in between’ spaces and design measures that allow a diverse range of inhabitants.

Juror’s Comments

A compelling investigation of physical, social and commercial aspects of architecture, taking a fresh look at private, public and in-between realms of high rise, high-density living.

The Highly Commended Prize was awarded to a joint entry from Sebastian Hamilton & Barrington Gohns of Auckland University:

Other Than Human

This highly interactive project explores sensory engagement and seeks to develop a new means of spatial engagement. It uses different technologies and tools including ‘the haptic’ to centre the user in their environment.

Juror’s Comments

Good engagement in different skill sets and disciplines, a high degree of resolution in built outcome and presentation and an exemplary process of mediating between theoretical propositions about spatial engagement and working at one-to-one scale.

Overall it was a fantastic night and a great achievement for all 12 finalists.

NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards

Over the last two days 12 students from Auckland University, Unitec and Victoria University have been presenting their final year project as part of the NZIA Graphisoft Student Design Awards.

Graphisoft New Zealand is extremely proud to be the sponsor of this event and I have enjoyed attending a number of the presentations.

The presentation quality of this years awards is outstanding. The diverse range of schemes from the Porosity of Architecture to Extra Sensory Experiences of Architecture to a collapsible Whare  is certain to make the judging interesting.

Tonight is the official award ceremony where one student will be picked as the best in New Zealand –  I have chosen my winner but having not attended all the presentations I could well be (and most likely will be) wrong!

Congratulations must be extended to all 12 finalists as reaching this stage is a fantastic success in itself:

2009 Finalists:

UNITEC Department of Architecture
Callum Dowie
Alisha Patel
Jayshree Magan
Elisabeth Tryland
AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY – School of Architecture and Planning
Sebastian Hamilton
Barrington Gohns
Lyannie Tran
John Hawkins
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON – Faculty of Architecture and Design
Daniel Davis
Simon Harrison
Charlotte Hoare
Frances Vessey

UNITEC Department of Architecture

  • Callum Dowie
  • Alisha Patel
  • Jayshree Magan
  • Elisabeth Tryland

AUCKLAND UNIVERSITY – School of Architecture and Planning

  • Sebastian Hamilton
  • Barrington Gohns
  • Lyannie Tran
  • John Hawkins

VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF WELLINGTON – Faculty of Architecture and Design

  • Daniel Davis
  • Simon Harrison
  • Charlotte Hoare
  • Frances Vessey

Twitter and Business

Twitter is certainly getting a huge amount of hype at the moment as it makes the transition from gimmick to becoming a core part of  business and their social marketing plan.

Twitter to many seems like a waste of time and as many tweets revolve around what I ate for breakfast or what my dog just did. As a result of this and not surprisingly there is a lot of scepticism as to whether Twitter is a fad and how long will it last. I myself have times where I tweet a lot and then days go by without a single tweet.

Many smart businesses are now finding that Twitter is a great tool to communicate with customers, make offers and answer support questions. This is based on Twitters ability to connect quickly with a large audience that can see your messages on all types of devices from Internet cafes, to computers, to phones. While I cannot mention the exact number Andy Lark recently told me how much business Dell does via Twitter which was simply astounding.

While we are starting to use Twitter increasingly for our Cadimage Tools business (@cadimagetools) initially we have also found it beneficial as a way of receiving information. *

For those who want to read more here are some recent links that may be of interest:

Twitter 101

Twittering on about Business

Twitter marketing tool of the future

Seth Godin outlines on his blog he doesn’t have time to Twitter but does at least have his blog ‘hooked up’ to Twitter so that a Tweet is created everytime he posts a blog item.**

Twitter and Business

* There are many ways to receive Tweets I find Seesmic Desktop particularly good as I can easily create different lists or groups of tweets so I can easily review them.

** There are a number of ways of having Tweets automatically created when a blog article is published. I use Twitter Tools, Seth uses twitterfeed – there are many more but once set up it is a great way of publishing content to multiple sources in a simple and efficient way.