Joining a startup? Read this.
Here’s a braindump of some things I’ve learned over the years. Caveat lector: my experiences inform this, and they aren’t representative of all the possibilities, etc. Ignore this if …
business
Proposed Changes to NZ's R&D Incentives
There’s an open consultation about to end, on the changes MBIE would like to make to NZ’s R&D incentives. In particular, they’ll phase out the Callaghan Growth Grants and replace …
"Outcome is a function of process"
I was just catching up on Tim Kong’s excellent blog, when I read this great quote from Dan Carter: “One thing we talk about over and over with this current All Blacks side is about never …
Startups and failure
(Wynyard Group, an NZ tech high-growth company [or, perhaps, not-so-high growth] just entered voluntary administration. On Twitter, a friend was adamant bad luck had nothing to do with it. Instead of …
Lesson: Moats and Flywheels
It’s bloody hard to build something new into the world. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy: there’s a lot of unfunded and unrecognised work that you have to do before you can …
On Villains
[I posted this on a Slack recently, and would like to give it a longer life than Slack’s 10,000 line scrollback. –Nat] Socially constructed roles like “douche-bro” and “rock star teacher” …
Lesson: Presume Good Intentions
Teamwork shares a lot of good practices with parenting. This lesson was no exception …. I realised fairly early on in my time as a parent that I had a tendency to fail, bigtime, by blasting my …
Lesson: Track What You Learn
When I was recruiting the fabulous Chris McDowall for a job, he asked me “why do YOU work here?” I replied that I was learning lots. He then said the most important thing anyone has said …
Kiwi Startups in Silicon Valley
I was asked for comment by Bill Bennet from the NZ Herald, for a piece on Kiwi startups moving to Silicon Valley. He built a nice little article, in which “Torkington says” features …
Some Things Don't Change
In this internal 1972 DEC memo (PDF) about the PDP-16 re-release, modern tech companies should find plenty of familiar territory: While the PDP-16 has been marginally successful to date, some problems …
"Work" continued
I moderated a panel today at Gather on the topic of “Work”. We had representatives from different types of work: self-employed, salaried employee, startup, and investor. As moderator, my …
Lighting a Spark Under Telecom
Telecom New Zealand is changing its name to Spark. Most commentators regard it as a backward move, most recently Lance Wiggs who diagnoses marketing capture, distraction from executive and board, and …
I'm Going on an Adventure
I caught up with Jesse Robbins at Foo Camp, and he gave me a great line that I remember as being something like: “I’m going on an adventure. The outcome is uncertain, there will be …
Dear Boosted: Surprise Me and Succeed
The NZ Arts Foundation has launched Boosted, a way to crowdfund arts projects. Now, if you’re like me, you’re probably wondering “don’t we already have several ways of doing …
Things You Learn
Things I learned while I was too busy to write week notes: if you don’t do it, it won’t get done (“delegate” qualifies as “doing”); learning to delegate is as hard …
Delayed Broadcast of International Programs
It’s always seemed strange to me that local broadcasters would hold off broadcasting Dr Who, Mad Men, and other high-profile shows. Viewers chatter about it as soon as an episode airs in its …
Innovation is a Moral Good
Pondering the New Zealand fishing industry, I had an insight today. Forgive me if it’s old news to you. You have three options to make more money: Lower costs. Sell more of the same stuff. Make …
Questioning University
There’s a trend now to question the value of a university education. It used to be that simply possessing a university degree gained you access to a Better Class of Job. That is no longer the …
Career Advice
I was honoured to give a talk of career advice to the 2010 Summer of Tech students. I appear to have let a few f-bombs fly, so don’t watch if that sort of thing offends you. (In fact, you should …
Changing the Demographics of Innovation
Text of notes for a talk given at the 50th Anniversary Conference of the New Zealand Computer Society in Rotorua, 17 September 2010. I will link to video when it’s posted by the conference …
Joined Silverstripe Board
Last month I was honoured to join Silverstripe as a director. Silverstripe makes an open source Content Management System backed by Sapphire, an elegant PHP framework, builds websites for NZ and …
Community Management Workshop
I attended a workshop on community management at Webstock, and at the end asked the attendees to write down some words of wisdom for a new community manager, maybe something they wish they’d …
NZICT Near Future Digital Priorities Paper
NZICT is an industry lobby group, representing the NZ ICT industry (software, hardware, services, networks, education, and training). They’ve just released a “Near Future Digital …
Predictions into Opportunities
Just a heads-up: over on the O’Reilly Radar blog, I posted about the opportunities for businesses in the future based on Stephen O’Grady’s predictions for 2010.
Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
The New York Public Library and Wired Magazine have collaborated to bring a set of evening lectures on how new technology is changing the economics of art with speakers Lawrence Lessig, Stephen …
NZ Broadband
There hasn’t been a lot of action from the new Government on broadband (or anything, really, yet) but this Economist article is food for thought about spending priorities: When it comes to …
Submission on NZ IP law and a free trade agreement with USA
SUBMISSION ON THE TRANSPACIFIC STRATEGIC ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES To: Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Trade Introduction This Submission is from Nathan …
Good one, National Library!
My friend Aaron Swartz writes about the increasingly-evil OCLC: Not satisfied with controlling the world’s largest source of book information, it wants to take over all the smaller ones as well. …
More on the bizdev shortage in NZ
James McGlinn emailed me a great reply to my piece on the business cofounder shortage in NZ, and he’s finally posted it. You should read it because I agree with everything he says.
NZ Broadband Pricing and Network Neutrality
In this Ziff-Davis Australia article, the leaders of Australia’s three largest ISPs declare network neutrality to be an American problem and explain why. It’s an interesting argument, but …
Software Freedom Day Notes: ACTA
Mark Harris lead this session. Was at SSC, MORST, now Independent. When Wikileaks in May released ACTA doc, saw NZ mentioned, began digging. ACTA is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Proposed …
Software Freedom Day
I’ll be in Wellington on Saturday, September 20th, for Software Freedom Day. It’s open source’s open day, a chance for the general public who might have been curious about open …
The Tyranny of Distance
Jenny Morel is raising a $100M NZ VC fund. That’s good news, in that NZ needs smart angels and VCs. I’ve had a number of NZ friends making the rounds of US venture capital firms and angels …
National's Broadband Plans
I see in Rod Drury’s blog that National have released their first real economic policy and it’s to do with funding fibre-to-the-home in NZ. It’s good! Anyone who travels knows how …
Telecom hosting not worth the premium
A client made the decision to use Telecom as their web site host. I argued against it because the price differential was so great between Telecom and, well, anyone else. The client’s management …
Travelocity are incompetent fuckwits suckled at Satan's poisonous nipples
I took a trip to ETech earlier this month. I initially attempted to book the trip using Travelocity but it turned into a massive clusterfuck of their making. I’ve documented it below in case …
Crafty Kiwis
Congrats to Sue Tyler and the Ponoko team, and all the others who were interviewed by Peter Griffin for the Idealog issue focusing on craft. The article (which will be online in a few weeks) has …
Microsoft sues its customers
There’s a lot of talk about this Fortune article around Microsoft, Linux, and the 235 patents that Microsoft claim Linux infringes upon. Here’s my redux: Microsoft is extorting patent …
From US to NZ
I just got back from a week in the US for Foo Camp, where I had a great time shopping two ideas around: New Zealand can be a hub of innovation, and Kids aren’t being turned onto science and …
NZ Expanding Immigration
NZ Herald reports the government wants at least 47,000 skilled immigrants and will recognize skills in applicants from India and China for the first time. I love that the desired professions include …
Budget
Six months back in the country, I’ve formed some opinions about where NZ is lacking. I was interested to see how the budget would address what I’ve identified as the country’s …
VCs and Contacts
Today I went to Auckland to meet Russell Brown of Public Address, to my uncle’s work, then finally to meet with some VCs. Russell first. He’s an interesting guy, very articulate (as befits …
Day 9: First Computer Conference
I think I’m probably doing it a favour calling it a conference: Convergence Oceania was a Wireless Forum sell shop, an expo hall with a room featuring the biggest exhibitors. Everyone’s …
Public Funding of Science a Shambles in NZ
Great guest rant on Public Address by a CRI (formerly DSIR, government scientific research org) talking about insanity of current contestable funding mechanisms. “A staggering amount of a …
Kea - Social Network of New Zealanders
Kea New Zealand is “global community of people who help each other achieve great things all over the world because of the connection they share with New Zealand.” Virtual Rotary Club :-)
Top 20 Jobs Done By Migrants in NZ
Fascinating report on the jobs that migrants with higher degrees or university degrees do when they get to NZ. Biggest category is computer professionals. Windows doesn’t just reboot itself, …