Our stories
The (my) future and other predictions with greater than 5% error
What are you going to do after you finish your PhD? Where do you want to go? Are you going to become a lecturer? These are all questions that I field on a regular basis. Rather than going with my instinctive response of “What the hell? I don’t even know what my PhD is...
Innovation & R&D spending – a data-driven conversation
In my post on Monday, I looked at New Zealand’s research and development spending. The R&D dollar is just one of the proxies used to try to understand innovation and while it is certainly an important input to the innovation process, it is possible that our low...
Navigating the jagged rocks and journeying through the looking glass
A case and a space for diversity and connectivity - reframing innovation in New Zealand read time / 25 mins Thinking about how we might reframe innovation in the New Zealand context, and using data available from Figure.NZ to do so, has given me pause to consider...
He aha te mea nui?
This blog looks at reframing innovation in the context in which most of my research in the last decade has been – transforming Māori communities. Some scene setters: The Māori Economy is estimated to be worth $42.6 billion (BERL Report, 2013). The Ture Whenua Māori...
At risk youth or innovative resourceful youth?
I wonder what was the most difficult thing you learnt in the last three months? Recently I went on a family trip to the USA. It was the first time I had travelled outside Aotearoa New Zealand in 18 years. Everything had changed. The Visa was online. The passport...
Innovating the New Zealand education system
Innovation. This word has been thrown around a lot lately. In a recent guest lecture at the University of Waikato, I spoke about innovation being a mix of creativity, serendipity and courage. New Zealand is uniquely qualified for all three of these attributes so it...
How grassroots innovation turned around the youth vote after decades of decline
“The rules are made by the people who turn up” - that was one of many slogans for the RockEnrol campaign in 2014. Why? Because we had learned that when it came to voting for the rulemakers, 3 out of 5 young Kiwis weren’t turning up.[i] Young people make up 20% of the...
Interesting things that I learned
When Shaun Hendy offered me the chance to write a blog for this project, I jumped at the opportunity. I have been working for interesting and innovative organisations who trade in knowledge for over 10 years, and before that I was a patent examiner – so the...
Innovation is the key to survival in business
This doesn't seem to be a universally accepted proposition in New Zealand. The total innovation rate for New Zealand businesses is less than 50%. Think Walkman and iPod. Innovation can kill a product. Think Blockbuster and Netflix. Innovation can kill a company....
It’s Just Innovation
The first time I visited a prison, I was 12 years old. I went with my father and a group of musicians to hold a church service for the inmates. We repeated the service in various parts of the prison, and in the minimum security wing I was allowed to sit and talk with...
What’s so innovative about innovation?
Innovation is bandied about as the word “de rigueur” – it would seem we all need to be innovative and it’s even become the subject of surveys in national newspapers. A recent New Zealand Herald article reported 97% of bosses saying their organisation has an innovation...
Innovation in a small, Māori, non-for-profit
Te Hiku Media is a charitable media organisation, collectively belonging to the Far North iwi of Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupouri, Ngai Takoto, Te Rārawa and Ngāti Kahu. The station is an iwi communications hub for radio and online media. Māori language revitalisation is a core...