Clik here to view.
2012 Update: Define Instruments
2012 saw me involved in a wide range of activities – which has always been a personal target. However I did experience one serious clash of priorities in September and October, and client work...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Dell is being taken private again
Dell used to set the standard for computers and ecommerce, but has fallen on such hard times that the founder is taking it private again. I’m not going to comment on the products, but while they have...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2012 Update: PLTech and the ARDA Engine
I’ve been working with Lee Ter Wal Design to assist Kerri McMaster and PLTech with the launch and commercialisation of the ARDAEngine. ARDA takes the output from the biometric sensors that athletes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
2012 Update: Cadimage Group
I’m the independent director at Cadimage, who sell a range of architectural and technical software in New Zealand and Australia, and who develop and sell tools for Archicad. 2012 was an excellent year...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pocketsmith: Advanced personal financial management
While banks are increasingly offering tools to help you manage your finances, and Mint.com offers those services for free, there is a gap in the market for people looking for a higher quality way to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Where predictions eventually become true
From a post shortly before the last NZ election in 2011: I’m picking National will just win, draw or nearly win the election outright, that ACT will not earn more than one seat (hopefully none), and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lessons from Webstock: We’ve come long way, now let’s move on up
Another superb first day yesterday at Webstock, New Zealand’s must-attend conferences for anybody involved in web design or related businesses. Once again the speakers were universally superb, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What makes for a good newsletter?
About 13 years ago I started an internal newsletter at McKinsey, with the intent to educate and inform other consultants about the goings on online and in telecommunications. It failed badly. That...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Doing business the hard way
Good news: A US-based site for doing the legal documents for venture capital backed start-ups in the USA. It’s not the first, but it does seem lovely to use, and they have yCombinator’s General Counsel...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are NZ house auctions illegal?
Over on 200Square Grant Wakelin wonders whether some house auctions are illegal: ..real estate sales and auctions are governed by among other things the Real Estate Agents Act 2008. Under those rules...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nothing Advanced Here
Nothing advanced here, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs. A search for my site on Google shows only one post has an Advanced reading level – and it was written by my father. Read what you like into...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lightknight: Place a big order now
Lightknight is receiving customer interest, reports Christopher Adams from the NZHerald (no paywall yet). So I thought I’d check them out. I had no idea I could also give them a big order. It seems...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Novopay is Not Found
Not Found, originally uploaded by LanceWiggs. A real basic failure from Novopay that is symptomatic of the much greater issues. Even now, months after launch, the site does not resolve unless you type...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Stand firm Meridian on Tiwai – we can all win here
Patrick Smellie reports in the NBR that Meridian are unlikely to reach an agreement with Rio Tinto on renegotiating the 18 year electricity supply agreement for Tiwai aluminium smelter. I guess it’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Let’s stop hurting our container opening dock and warehouse workers
About a year and a quarter ago I was lucky enough to do some consulting work for Syft Technologies, a technology led company with a better mass spectrometer. They were well known for a few years, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can we replace the Tiwai smelter with a data center?
(I was going to save this for Nine To Noon tomorrow, where I’m doing the technology segment, but things are moving fast. But do listen in) A few people have muttered, sometimes out loud, that one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
New Zealand’s tourists are very very happy
Buried in this MBIE report on the tourism outcome from the 2011 Rugby World cup was this chart: The little red pice of the left hand side of the bottom bar represents the percentage of people who gave...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Electrickery
Let’s have a look at the Greens proposal to reduce electricity prices. I’m entering this as a sceptic, but also as founder of Powerkiwi [join!] . Powerkiwi sold a good amount of power on Powershop last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Integrity: What to do if your academic paper is challenged
In the news recently is University of Massachusetts Amherst economics doctoral student Thomas Herndon, who reworked a very influential paper, and found some real calculation errors. He dug into the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
MiniMonos is closing; MinoMonsters is hiring.
No – they are not the same company. Sadly Kiwi Melissa Clark-Reynolds’ MiniMonos is closing down. It’s a virtual world for kids full of monkeys, and seems to have had a good run, so this is a tough...
View Article
