The iconic conceptual artist is also famous for coining the notion of fleeting fame for the masses when he said in 1968, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”

Annoyed with being constantly asked about that particular statement, Warhol dead-panned interviewers who continued to ask him about it, insisting variously that it was actually: ‘In the future 15 people will be famous’ and ‘in 15 minutes everybody will be famous’.

Warhol was famous for straddling the divide between creativity and business. Those learned in art will insist variously that the aesthetic was pretty much secondary, that he was more businessman than artist. That concept of fleeting notoriety, of vogue, of blink-and-you-will-miss- it applies as much to business as it does to art. In business, just like in fashion and art, trends come and go.

There are the latest fads, gadgets and buzzwords. The latest three- letter acronyms and motivational tools. The latest Theory-That-Will- Change-Your-Business. The latest from the talking heads about how to become a millionaire. We hear so often that design and creativity are the future of New Zealand business and export. Or some similarly worded statement. But what are the implications for the not-so-traditionally-creative: the accountants, banks, telcos, lawyers and public servants? Are they to be left out in the cold, left out of the cool-kids club? Are the be-suited and the be-spectacled of business to be excluded from the fun? How can they engage in the creative process in a genuine and inclusive way – not just ending up with something that is mutton dressed as lamb? How can we bridge the creative divide?

Their ‘Orcon + Iggy, Together Incredible’ campaign won Kiwi telco Orcon and independent advertising agency Special Group the advertising industry’s version of the Oscar: the Grand Prix award in the Cannes Lion International Advertising Festival in France.

Special Group also won eight of the 31 gold awards at the New Zealand AXIS awards, where Orcon also picked up the Creative Business of the Year award. Orcon Chief Executive Scott Bartlett says the idea for the ad was around a tangible demonstration of the eclectic nature of broadband, portrayed in a customer-centric, rather than technology-centric way.

“And you know, that’s the beauty about collaborative processes – to come up with creative ideas is that it’s not sort of design by committee, but ultimately you end up hiring a drugged-out rock star to pull together eight people via the internet to record music, a new music video, and then you put it on TV,” he says. The premise was simple: get Iggy Pop to record a collaborative new version of his song ‘The Passenger’ with New Zealand fans via webcams and broadband internet and in association with Orcon. Then they made the ensuing organised chaos into an ad. An open call for kiwis to get, as Campbell Live termed it, ‘jiggy with Iggy’ resulted in over 200 genuine audition videos being uploaded from Kiwis keen to record with Iggy.

Beyond just the individuals who were keen to make music with a rock legend, the videos received nearly 300,000 page views from interested bystanders, arguably the most successful Kiwi advertising campaign for a good few years.

It certainly achieved what it set out to do – raise Orcon’s awareness outside of their core base of highly- engaged customers, and it certainly did it in a creative way.

It’s a creative business model gaining traction overseas: ‘crowd- sourcing’ or ‘co-creation’. The process of using your customers’ creativity to inform company strategy. It is free creativity, effectively, but it is not all take and no give. Bartlett’s not shy about saying what you’re thinking: “it’s pretty unique for a company in our industry, because telcos are usually god-awful companies,” he says. In mass-market New Zealand, the Together Incredible campaign is significant for its relative novelty. It is a rare example of a company that has basically ceded control for the creative process to its customers.

A key aspect to the success of this kind of strategy is not just delegating, but practically outsourcing a brand, arguably a company’s biggest asset. You surrender your rights and your ability to control the process – your customers engage with the concept and drive the outcome of the experiment.

“I just sat back and went for the ride along with everyone else,” Bartlett says. “We gave Iggy no brief other than here are the videos, choose the people that you want to record the new version of the Passenger with and do your thing. I mean it wasn’t much more complex than that.”

Bartlett says increasingly the case studies of this kind of strategy are emerging, of companies realising they need to be genuinely interesting to get any kind of cut through the noise, especially because customers are never where you expect them to be nowadays. Using PR and advertising-space values, the worth of the media coverage the company received outstripped the cost of the entire campaign by a significant margin.

The coverage included a five minute piece on Campbell Live – the biggest single hit – and a bit of an anomaly: a current affairs show essentially covering the making of an ad. The front page of Wellington’s Dominion Post and the New Zealand Herald’s business section also came to the party. The success of the campaign would have been impossible without the rather-large head start Orcon spent years creating for themselves. The seeds were sewn, as it were, four or five years before.

“This didn’t happen in a vacuum either, this came from years of work leading up to this, of us understanding our customers and, as I say, building that really passionate base. We’ve had this whole facebook presence and twitter presence, been really engaging with customers on forums and blogs for years quite literally,” Bartlett says. “So we had this really strong follower/fan – whatever you want to call it – kind of base that was obviously a huge help in seeding the idea and getting the original excitement and interest going.”

Orcon’s Facebook fans quadrupled in a matter of weeks. International examples have shown the success of this kind of strategy is impossible without a strong social media foundation.

“It’s talking to people, there’s no other way to learn,” Barlett says of how they developed the knowledge of their customers that ensured the success of the Together Incredible campaign. “You can’t hire an analyst and plonk them at a desk and say ‘analyse our market would you please, and tell us who our customers are.’”

In addition to this, interest in the brand and the company was built by engaging customers in the eclectic and the irreverent – things that were of genuine interest to them. “You really only learn by engaging with your base. We’ve done some things that I think in many regards are more interesting than even the Iggy campaign.”

In 2009 they sponsored what they called the’ Great Blend’, evenings held once a quarter and open to all customers as well as the general public . They invited experts in topics as miscellaneous as women’s rights in eastern Europe, through to moon rocks, and then bought in both local and international experts and talent. Orcon Head of Brand and Communications Duncan Blair describes how it worked: “these amazing people, a little bit of music and a few drinks and everyone just sitting round.”

In a separate effort the company flew in eight digital artists from around the world, hired a house in Piha, locked them in it for a week, and charged them with the task of producing inspired digital art, which they then displayed on their website. “If we share, they might want to share back. So a lot of ideas that we get from our customer base do end up as products, do end up as hobbies that we invest in or infrastructure that we buy or build. It’s a great way to get creativity for free,” Bartlett says.

One of the most common instances that business people come in contact with creatives is around branding.

Jimi Hunt owns 12-month-old design and branding company The Creative Difference and has a fairly eclectic CV. It includes everything from building New Zealand’s biggest slip ‘n slide through to bringing in military technology from India to use in commercial operations in New Zealand, all while owning and operating a number of different Auckland bars.

Last summer his company worked on the biggest contract of his life: designing all the material – websites, brochures, identity cards etc – for the Rugby World Cup corporate hospitality. His job, he says, is “making things prettier. Because stuff is ugly, 90 per cent of stuff is.”

Hunt is currently in business with his father Paul, a traditional “suit” who, among other postings, was the Chief Executive of Tower Insurance for 15 years.

“The biggest thing that creatives hate in the entire business,” Hunt says, “is the business. I am here to draw pretty pictures, come up with crazy ideas. I am not here to do my taxes or anything like that.”

“So 29 years later we start working together. It works perfectly because he is that business balance to my creative chaos and I have learned a lot about business and he has learned a lot about creatives.”

Hunt says design is an increasingly widespread profession. He did not formally train in design and says it’s absolutely an advantage. “It seems to me design became very cool, like it is a cool job to have. It’s like ‘I don’t want to work in an office, I wanna be a designer and so everyone goes off to design school.”

Recently he needed to hire a designer so put up an ad. Coincidentally, he also needed a new duty manager for his Auckland inner-city bar. Both ads went up on Seek at the same time. Both jobs were for the same salary. In a week and a half he had 12 applicants for the duty manager’s job and in three days had 428 applicants for the designer’s job.

The ad Hunt wrote was funny and clever and creative. A creative ad for a creative job. He had four responses saying they liked the ad so much they would work for free. He had three responses from people who weren’t even designers saying they liked the ad so much they would take a job anywhere else in the company, making coffee or doing anything.

As for the rest of them, “the state of those 400 odd, the quality of the designers that are being produced at media design school is pretty fucking average,” he says. “They all produce the same style, the same stuff. One of the ones I opened up and this girl was like, ‘oh, I designed Ralph Hotere’s book about his life painting’. Then I opened up about 10 more of people who had designed Ralph Hotere’s book and it was a project at media design school. A class project so everyone had to design one. And the thing that made me the absolute angriest, not one them declared that it was a project and not an actual brief and produced book. That’s ethics 101.”

Out of 428 applications in three days, Hunt says he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of applicants who put in a creative application for a creative job.

“That seems like the saddest thing in the world to me for this industry,” he says.

“I was at M&C Saatchi, and we were flying to Queenstown to get inspired for the pitch, and the little pottle of water they handed out on the plane had a foil lid with a picture of a waterfall and the line ‘Pure New Zealand water’.

I was sitting next to this English art director from M&C’s Sydney office, and I said: ‘Pure New Zealand – there’s ya line right there.’

I thought it was a bit cheesy, but the English guy liked it and asked if he could use it. What made it good I think was adding the 100 per cent logo to the front. Not sure who came up with that…Personally, I always hoped the campaign would grow from more than just scenic shots of New Zealand landscape,”

Vegas says. “When we went into the pitch the feedback we had from the client was that they didn’t want to see a campaign full of postcard shots, so I’m not sure how it all ended up the way it did – I left M&C just after the pitch.

“I always thought that there was an opportunity to build on the ‘Pure New Zealand’ positioning in other ways. Make the idea of coming to New Zealand about a totally pure experience not just green hills and blue water. The people, the interaction you have with kiwis. That kind of pure.”

“I just don’t think green hills and blue water cuts it anymore. If you look at all the tourism advertising around the world it is banging the same, old, tired drum. I remember a press conference with one of the bosses of the Taliban in 2001 before they got kicked out. This was around the time there was talk that some Taliban had come to New Zealand. In the press conference someone asked the Taliban commander about New Zealand. He had never heard of the place. There’s your New Zealand advertising campaign right there, I thought.”

From these less than illustrious beginnings grew a behemoth: 100% Pure New Zealand has taken on a life of its own.

Last year Prime Minister John Key mooted the expansion of the 100% Pure New Zealand branding to be a “master brand” for all New Zealand business, not just tourism. It is, it seems, an occupational hazard of the man with the top job also being the Minister of Tourism, the relatively narrow area the brand was initially designed to cover.

Yes, the 100% Pure New Zealand advertising shoots us straight to the top of the list of small, obscure countries with nice scenery. Right up there with the likes of Iceland and Liechtenstein. In terms of the national self- respect, we would like to think that beyond the stale clichés of ‘clean and green’ is a growing perception of our businesses as being steeped in innovation, creativity and sustainability.

Is there? Whereas many think our origins should afford us a foot in the door simply by virtue of the fact we were ‘little battlers’, does it?

Top Kiwi businessman, Stephen Tindall, heads the Kiwi Expat Association (KEA), an organisation dedicated to promoting New Zealand business around the world by taking advantage of our vast expat communities.

He is amazed at the level of awareness other countries do have of New Zealand, but thinks we should now be telling a more refined story of how we do business.

“People are amazed how much innovation comes out of New Zealand. We’ve got quite a few investments, particularly in the States, and they always say: ‘How could you have spawned that there in New Zealand?’”

Although the curiosity towards all things New Zealand allows us to get a foot in the door, when it comes to the crunch Americans still prefer to buy American made, he says. And why shouldn’t they?

“The most [being from New Zealand] achieves is it gets you an initial conversation. People have an initial curiosity about what New Zealand has to offer – we’re perceived as having a good reputation about being good to deal with, so it’ll get them to answer the phone. But if the product isn’t good enough then it’s not going to work.

“In terms of technology products, I don’t think the fact they’re from New Zealand really matters. People don’t really care where it comes from – it’s how good the product is. No one would buy a Nokia because it comes from Finland compared with Motorola if it wasn’t a better product.”

Kiwi electronics giant Tait Electronics prefers not to use the ‘Made in New Zealand’ angle at all. They say the country of origin effect matters to varying degrees in different countries, particularly when your product, in this case high-end mobile radios, is not an exclusive product of New Zealand. Marketing manager Gareth Richards says in their line of business it barely matters at all. “All our customers need to know is they’re getting into a relationship with someone who can do the job and deliver results. If, down the line, they discover we’re from New Zealand, then that definitely is a talking point, but it’s not what our customers base their decision on.”

Tait Electronics makes a point of not using ‘made in New Zealand’ logos, believing that style of marketing to be too in-your-face.

Rakon is an Auckland-based electronics manufacturer. Communications manager Justin Maloney says as far as its branding goes, Rakon is not a New Zealand company – it’s an international one.

“In the current context of our business we don’t really use [New Zealand branding]. It’s there and we don’t avoid it, and we don’t completely ignore it, but we don’t need to use it. That’s more just the nature of the business and how it’s developed. It’s an international company, not a New Zealand company.”

Having said that, Maloney recognises the importance of having a New Zealand brand under which New Zealand businesses can band together.

“I suspect that in the long run it’ll probably become of more and more value, although at the moment there is no direct benefit to us.”

So do we need a broader brand other than just being clean, green and 100 per cent pure?

“I think the image we keep coming across is so strong, and it’s reasonably embedded. I think it would be a mistake to go and depart from that too much,” Tindall says. “We do push the green image, and we probably push it to the limit, which does create a risk. But it is still the way people think of us. New Zealand now needs to work on turning its national characteristics into a comparative advantage. There may be a need to increase the situation with which the brand is presented now because I think people in the States have the high level perception of what brand New Zealand is. But once they get here and dig a little deeper they find it’s more sophisticated than they might have perceived.”

And brand sophistication is what businesses want to push.

Export New Zealand is on the same page. Director Catherine Beard says while 100% Pure New Zealand may work well for tourism, a different approach than simply relying on what God gave us is needed for the majority of our export sector.

“I think amongst some of the business leaders in New Zealand there’s a desire to get a more sophisticated approach to what is brand New Zealand.”

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) works with businesses to increase their profiles overseas. They commissioned research last year which found exporters were increasingly leaning towards a New Zealand brand with a bit more substance – “showing more ‘business grit’ than ‘dreamy landscapes’”.

This was particularly evident for exporters outside the food and beverage and bioactives sectors. Findings from the research show exporters want the New Zealand brand to communicate technology themes more strongly and speak to an international business context.

NZTE says exporters are less likely to downplay their New Zealand-ness than five years ago. So what do we play on? Do we actually need an overarching brand for New Zealand business? It may be good to have something for those who do want to live under one banner, but what happens if a company inside or outside that group steps out of line and brings the house of cards tumbling down?

Sitting on the same side of the fence are those who say 100% Pure sets us up for catastrophic failure, should anything ever happen to tarnish that image. And let’s face it, not much need happen to bring our reputation down if we’re claiming we’re 100 per cent anything.

NZTE Group General Manager Business Solutions Grant McPherson says broadening the usage base for the “100% Pure” idea would, for many businesses, not translate.

There is also a danger the “100% Pure” brand could be discredited and devalued by a product scandal – bringing down those aligned with it. McPherson says there is no one-answer-fits-all solution to the branding argument.

“The thing is it’s about what’s right for New Zealand, and it might be that at each granular level it’s different,” he says.

One option is for businesses to join NZTE’s Brand Partnership Programme, which allows member companies to leverage off a New Zealand fern logo applied to their branding. The programme pushes ideals that are associated with New Zealand – guardianship, welcoming, resourcefulness and integrity – without the constraints of “100%”.

“Our brand is valuable. It has good recognition in the market place and good linkage to our values. But what we have to ask ourselves is, is that still relevant and still current?” McPherson says.

So if we start looking at how a range of New Zealand exporters do this – would we be any nearer to a consensus? Pipfruit New Zealand is a recent example of how changes in global demand require quick adaptation to branding. CEO Peter Beavan says its recent “100% Pure New Zealand Apples” campaign raised eyebrows, but was given the green light after a lot of “long and earnest” discussions with Tourism New Zealand.

Pipfruit’s new production system emerged after European supermarkets demanded residue levels on their fruit be reduced to near the point of detection. They, in turn, responded with their ‘Apple Futures’ system, and Beavan says the system’s success “really created the impetus for the industry to think, ‘hey we’re doing some really smart things here, they’re unique, they’re world leading’. We’ve got to find a way to tell the world about them and use it as a point of differentiation.”

Beavan believes New Zealand’s export industries, including tourism, need to work more closely together in branding themselves to the world. “I’m not suggesting we should all have a ‘100% Pure’ banner, because that would have the potential to drag all of us down. We’re all promoting our product as coming from New Zealand and the environment we grow it in is the differentiator. New Zealand itself is actually the brand for us.”

The agricultural technology industry has already been pinned as an area we can take hold of on a global scale. By promoting the pasture-based grazing model, as opposed to confinement, New Zealand Agritech is pushing companies like Gallagher and Skellerup into the international domain, and is using New Zealand’s reputation in sustainability to do so.

However, NZ Agritech Chairman Jim Grennell says that “100% Pure” is not the right campaign to align with.

“It applies to tourism more than anything, so we don’t promote with 100% Pure because it’s not necessarily relevant in terms of what we’re talking about. As a tourism campaign it has been very successful, it is certainly a very good entry point to talk about New Zealand, and I think it has been very valuable in that respect.”

So let’s get under one banner . . . just not 100% Pure.

Rutherford Capital is in the process of raising NZ$50 million from overseas investors to invest in a portfolio of New Zealand cleantech companies. Cleantech is the new word encompassing technologies and concepts that improve performance, productivity and efficiency, at the same time as reducing cost, energy input, pollution or waste. Director Nick Gerritsen says the rest of the world expects broader sustainable solutions from New Zealand.

So should the big tech companies make more noise about being from New Zealand?

“Absolutely,” says Gerritsen. “The reality for all New Zealand technology companies is, when we’re out in the world we need to speak together. We need to support each other, we need to collaborate, we need to go out with the same message.”

While that’s all very well and good to say, the fact remains that you can’t dictate to an already successful group of companies that they need to re-align their marketing strategy to assist other businesses’ entry into the global market place. Projects like the Rutherford Fund are noble and along the right track, but need to maintain their focus on “cleantech” rather than just “tech”.

Tindall agrees that our prospects are looking up in producing ground breaking, sustainable technology companies, but says the big challenge is finding capital to push that growth – which is exactly what Gerritsen is trying to do. At the moment, playing on New Zealand-ness is more beneficial for certain sectors than others. But the current connotations of New Zealand-ness limit the players who can leverage off that.

It seems fairly clear, ‘100% Pure New Zealand’ is not a wise decision in terms of a master brand for all New Zealand exports to be under. Many want to leverage off a broader picture of who we are as a business nation. NZTE’s McPherson notes our values need to remain current with the rest of the world.

It may not be the case of creating anything new, but the case of joining two things together – clean, green and proud, with high tech and understated. Tindall says there is a whole lot more we should be adding to New Zealand’s brand story.

One thing our business leaders can’t agree on is how we tell this to the world.

I painted a picture of lower Willis street with spaced fountains down the centre, of street cafes spilling down the middle of Lambton Quay, of a Saturday market with ultimately hundreds of stalls selling produce, bric-a-brac, books and what have you, of a year round ice-skating rink in the middle of Courtenay Place, of a small soundshell for open-air lunch-time and evening concerts as in Brisbane’s Queen Street mall or Kazakhstan’s new capital, Astana, and much, much more. All in all, an exciting, quirky, buzzy, central city, exactly as is now common throughout Europe.

The Evening Post, much missed but a victim of newspaper decline, gave my proposal considerable coverage and editorialised with a why not theme. Some correspondents wrote letters to the newspaper endorsing the idea and then the matter faded. But it did not fade in my mind as over subsequent years I did a great deal of travel and saw what I had envisaged being enacted everywhere. Cities throughout Britain were all pedestrianising their “golden miles” with visible success as the public flocked to them to avoid the horrors of motorised traf- fic. And in their wake came all of the major retailers which of course, says it all.

Such was the malled streets’ popularity that in some cities such as Perth in Scotland or Stockholm in Sweden, they left the surrounding streets a semi-ghost town, although for good reasons, that is not a threat to Wellington.

What was particularly annoying however, was the observe that even the old communist nations of Eastern Europe were all up with the play and doing the same and I don’t just mean the glamour cities of the Prague and Budapest ilk but also the more remote such a Chisinau, the capital of Molodova, or Romania’s Black Sea port city of Constanta with its main pedestrianised shopping street a good mile long, or indeed elsewhere on the Black Sea, the Ukraine’s Odessa and Russia’s delightful city of Sochi, the venue for the next Winter Olympics. But still Wellington dragged the chain.

But it didn’t stop there. Whether Budapest, Brussels, Boston, Brisbane or Buenos Aires, just to name some “Bs”, it seemed the whole world was embracing the concept, always with highly conspicuous success. So, last year, when invited to address the Property Council I repeated the message. This time the Dominion Post gave it front page coverage, another editorial and ran a poll on their website – déjà vu.

Co-incidentally however, a few days later the Dominion Post  reported that Manhattan had just announced a similar program.

Predictably they began with Broadway and a few weeks later the Dominion Post published a photo of Broadway, now packed with people enjoying the traffic-free city ambience. Following the successful example of Amsterdam, New York intends to keep expanding it to adjacent streets, ad finitum.

This time speech-wise however, was different. My telephone rang repeatedly with our more prominent building owners, plus a number of other public figures.

Let’s stop talking and do it, they said.

A series of meetings took place and it was at one, when we were addressed by a senior Transport Department official, that we learnt that the Wellington City Council, on two separate occasions, had commissioned future town planning reports from world renowned experts, one a Scandinavian and another an American. Both, it transpired, had recommended exactly what I was advocating.

Aside from that revelation, that meeting was significant for another reason. When we asked, why on earth had the council not acted on these reports, the official looked at us wryly. “Have you ever analysed city councils?” he asked, adding, “We have.”

His point was that councils throughout the land are 90 per cent composed of nonentities, of unaccomplished and unemployed people, motivated by the not insignificant councillor stipends. They are people whose backgrounds are such, they are never going to change their stripes and behave boldly. “Don’t rock the boat” is their main strategy and of course, being re-elected. That is not meant as a criticism but simply a statement of fact. And of course if they didn’t put their hand up then our democratic system would end.

Note for example that the two most significant additions to the city in recent decades, namely the Town Hall and the stadium, were under the mayoral watch of people, respectively Sir Michael Fowler, formerly an architect and Fran Wilde, formerly a cabinet minister, or in other words, rarities in the local government scene as they actually had form as doers.

It was at that point we realised we would have to contest the election if it was ever going to happen and so the Vibrant City group was born with the slogan “Don’t vote for us, vote for this”.

THE TALK ABOUT THE WALK

WILL IT WORK?

It has everywhere else. With the exception of Manhattan and to a lesser degree, Frankfurt, Wellington has a huge advantage over the European cities that have pedestrianised. Unlike them our golden mile is lined with people-filled, high-rise buildings. There is no danger of empty streets, indeed the golden mile is in need of relief, such is the pavement crowding.

WHAT WILL IT COST?

The cost of the paving, if put to open tender, will be well off-set by the capital value established from the creation of new high value, central street retail sites, notably at the northern end of Lambton Quay and in Courtenay Place with high-rise apartment sites down the middle and with retail plazas at their base. Values will rise and so too will rating revenue.

WHERE WILL THE CARS GO?

Where they do now. There are only 28 parks in Lambton Quay and Willis Street and Manners Street encompassing 450 retail premises. It is simply not an issue. Frankly, it has staggered me that some critics have opposed the concept solely on this ground.

WHERE WILL THE BUSES GO?

Where they go now, namely to the suburbs,only they will no longer pointlessly drive through the golden mile but instead depart from various depots, easily reached on foot. Currently the golden mile is wall-to-wall buses throughout the day. They’re mostly empty and paid for by the regional council. That must stop. Buses and people don’t mix, aside from the disgraceful misuse of public funds to keep bus-drivers employed to no purpose.

WILL IT CAUSE TRAFFIC CONGESTION?

Not especially. The council’s excellent policy of deterring cars travelling through the golden mile has been successful. Traffic through the golden mile is light, other than buses.

BICYCLES

As in the several hundred other cities that have introduced bikes, a two-metre-wide cycle lane will be built. Unlike buses, bikes equipped with bells mix successfully with pedestrians.

But they will not be introduced until we have succeeded in obtaining a helmet exemption, otherwise there’s no purpose. In that respect, it should be noted that New Zealand is one of a tiny handful of countries with this requirement, which incidentally, is strongly opposed by many members of the medical profession.

If we can obtain an exemption which I’m confident we will, then we can emulate Paris and other cities which charge through a meter system for their use. Personally, I would rather they were free. I envisage a bulk purchase from China of brightly coloured, no cross-bar bikes with a bell and a front basket for purses, brief-cases or whatever.

Every 100 metres would be a bike rack. It would be a fineable offence to leave the bike anywhere but in a rack or to take it off the golden mile. The bikes will be so distinctive and basic they will be unstealable and we won’t face the problem Vienna encountered when they introduced a free bike scheme and they were all stolen by Slovaks who took them across the Danube in row-boats.

A council worker with a golf-cart towing a light-weight wheeled bike rack would drive up and down the golden mile re-distributing bikes. At night they would be chained up.

IS THERE A CONFLICT OF INTEREST?

While nearly all of the golden mile building owners are enthusiastically involved, the organising team is not confined to them. The object is to make Wellington’s CBD a vibrant exciting centre. That will attract brain activity companies to the city with an obvious economic benefit for all Wellingtonians.

Wellington’s biggest economic threat lies with its lack of a summer. We all know numerous people who have pulled stumps and shifted to Auckland or Australia solely because of this and frankly, who can blame them? Only by making the capital incredibly vibrant can we reverse this flow.

The climate of most European cities is arduous; incredibly hot in summer and freezing in winter yet people remain and indeed love their cities, solely because of their ambience.

No other New Zealand city can do this as Auckland excepted, they don’t have the necessary CBD population. Auckland could do it in Queen Street from Vic-toria Street down to the sea and indeed, extend eastwards to include the already high ambience High Street precinct but they won’t because of Council ineptitude.

FREE TRAMS

These are not essential, indeed I see their function as more an ambience-adding novelty and don’t envisage more than four, running two each way from Bowen Street to Courtenay Place. But we have not investigated the cost and they can be considered as a possibility after the pedestrianisation has settled down.

I have some reservations having experienced them running through Amsterdam’s milling pedestrian throngs so at this stage, they’re simply an idea to consider down the line.

WHAT ARE THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS?

Aside from killing the costly racket of paying a bus company to drive wall-to-wall empty or near empty buses blighting the city during the day, the benefits are enormous.

Tourism will boom as it has elsewhere when pedestrianisation has been introduced. Retailers will do tremendously well as the CBD will become a shopper’s mecca and with a Saturday street market, Saturday will be an enjoyable day out.

The building industry will flourish as the demand for city apartments will be unquenchable, the more built and occupied, the greater the ambience and demand. So too fringe of city parking buildings. Retirees will flock to live here as they have in Auckland with the pedestrianised Viaduct precinct.

The CBD is the economic life-blood of the city. If it flourishes then so too will Wellington. Otherwise we will have to pray that the global warming alarmists are right and we begin to have summers.

VIBRANT WELLINGTON PARTY

People have asked why I don’t stand? The principal answer is that as one of the largest Wellington ratepayers (my company owns ten CBD buildings) too many conflict of interest issues will arise. Aside from that, there’s no need. We’ve been approached by many competent people who love the idea and are keen to put their hand up.

WHERE ELSE HAS IT WORKED?

Everywhere. Nearly all European cities have pedestrianised their central city. The public flock to it and success is also evidenced by major retailers rushing to locate there. Some have emulated Amsterdam and pedestrianised virtually the entire CBD, notably York in England. Having seen the crowds in Budapest, Stockholm, Frankfurt and many other single pedestrianised main streets, I suspect they will go further and widen the no traffic zone to adjacent streets.

Closer to home one can look at the enormous success of Brisbane’s Queen Street which has, as a result, extended pedestrianisation by nearly its full length. Or consider Sydney’s Pitt Street mall which has been a phenomenal success, or Martin Place, pedestrianised, from memory, about 25 years ago.

But consider this. Wellington has actually already done this with obvious success, namely Cuba Street and Woodward Street. Cuba Street would be a wasteland if it were to revert to a traffic street and the hue and cry would be enormous. I’m old enough to remember driving down both Vulcan Lane and Woodward Street. Today they are jammed with people.

Jones envisions turning the space into a pedestrian haven, a little corner of Europe in New Zealand, with free bicycles, street markets, cafes, and fountains. It’s would-be European chic, antipodean style. Jones is not standing for mayor; instead he’s assembling a team to contest the Wellington mayoralty and council.

Opinion is divided as to the practicality of pedestrianising Wellington’s CBD. But it’s a vitally important issue for retail and other central city businesses. In Auckland, a two-year project to upgrade Queen Street was completed in 2008, under the banner of “reclaiming the city for the people”. Urban design manager at Auckland City Council, Ludo Campbell- Reid, says personally that is what he interprets as the ultimate aim of the Jones proposal.

Campbell-Reid says Queen Street was typical of New Zealand’s city high streets: dominated by the requirements of vehicles. The upgrade meant widening footpaths, more pedestrian crossings at more intuitive places, decreased waiting times at lights, decreased car turning circles, more planting, street furniture and art, better lighting, and raised median strips.

Campbell-Reid says pedestrian traffic has increased by 27 per cent on weekends and 32 per cent during the week.

Exact figures are difficult to calculate, but indications are that retail revenues are increasing. In a recession, Campbell-Reid says, this is something of a feat. High-end retailers Louis Vuitton and Gucci have moved into retail space previously occupied by a $2 shop. Campbell-Reid says limited pedestrianisation is a future option for Queen Street.

“I would love to pedestrianise parts of Queen Street. I don’t think the whole street needs to be pedestrianised,” he says.

But the idea should not be thought of as one-size-fits-all. “Anything that starts to reclaim the city for people is an exciting thing,” he says. “There are many, many ways of doing it and there are many, many success stories around the world where it has worked.”

He says Wellington’s council has taken significant steps on behalf of Wellingtonians. “It is definitely seen as a more human city than Auckland. It is more compact, there are a lot more people living more closely to the city, to their place of work. Wellington has certainly led the way with the public realm and the money that it has put into the streets.”

But Auckland has no intention of being left behind: “We now feel we are taking on a bit of leadership in that area,” he says. Campbell-Reid says there are situations in urban design where boldness is called for, and also times where an incremental step by step approach is best.

“To come in and just pedestrianise something – that is quite a dramatic approach to take.”

Christchurch City Council Principal Advisor for Urban Design Hugh Nicholson worked at Wellington City Council for 10 years. He explains the street-level relationship between people and vehicles is a continuum with motorways at one end and full pedestrian malls at the other, “but actually most streets need to be somewhere in between that”.

“It is seldom that you need to go to the extreme of total pedestrianisation. They are only the very special streets, so often the answer is somewhere in between,” he says. One such special street is Strøget in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, which was pedestrianised in 1962.

“If you go to Copenhagen and to the main street there, which is pedestrianised, while the retailers opposed very strongly when it was pedestrianised, now if you tried to put cars back through there would have a riot,” Nicholson says. “So if it works, it is really good for business. If it doesn’t work, of course, it is disastrous.” Nicholson says personally he applauds Jones for the intent of his proposal.

“The idea of putting people at the centre of the city, it’s the core of urban design thinking around the world.”

He says a lot of the work already done in Wellington has used similar thinking, but Jones’ proposal is taking it a step further.

“Actually his step is a lot further, but they are not diametrically opposed. He is putting people back into the centre of the city in a more radical way. I think, absolutely fantastic idea: the concepts, the intention behind it. I think the mechanism he proposes is perhaps gloriously simplistic.”

A major risk of the proposal lies in losing the strength of the Wellington public transport system, which Nicholson says is among the most effective in New Zealand.

“Wellington’s public transport network is the envy of the rest of the country. Really it is very strong,” he says. “The risk with Bob’s proposal is that you cut the public transport network off at the knees; you are shooting yourself in the foot. On the other hand he has got a real point: there comes a stage when the number of buses along the Golden Mile becomes a negative factor. And while I am a tremendous supporter of public transport, at the end of the day I do think the cities are for people – and even buses, when they start to take over the people space, that becomes a negative thing.”

With a problem identified, it is just a matter of employing some creativity to fix it, he says. “I think it is really just a matter of finding a little bit more subtlety to create the spaces for people rather than just chucking everyone else out.”

Wellington City councillor and urban development spokesman Andy Foster says Jones’ proposal poses more opportunity for disruption than it is worth.

“There are elements of Bob Jones’ idea that are already being thought about, like more activity and more people space, but others which would be highly disruptive and likely to damage the city rather than benefit it,” he says.

Foster is under the impression Jones’ proposal is responding to a perceived need that isn’t there. “At present we think the balance of pedestrians, public transport and private vehicles in Lambton Quay is about right and that an incremental approach to change is the most prudent approach in this instance. That is: change is made in response to a need for it.”

Foster cites Australian examples such as Church Street in Parramatta, Sydney and Hunter Street in Newcastle where vehicles have eventually been reintroduced to under-performing pedestrian malls. A proposal to allow buses back into Wellington pedestrian zone Manners Mall is currently before the Environment Court, the end game in a two-year public battle to save the space.

He says the Vibrant Wellington team should be under no illusions that even “relatively modest” changes like Manners Mall are subject to huge and lengthy public debate and “that would inevitably be dwarfed by the debate over pedestrianising the Golden Mile”.

Mayoral candidate Jack Yan says a mayoralty should be based on more than just one proposal. He questions the ethics of an unelected businessman bankrolling a city plan in the capital.

“It’s not about one road and that is what Bob is about. He’s about one road,” he says.

Yan is worried about the success of such a large pedestrianised space during Wellington’s colder, windier, and wetter months. “I don’t know if it is going to look that romantic and nice and warm and lovely and quaint year round,” he says.

Jones is a clever man, Yan says: “He knows how to pull the strings of some people. He knows people will say ‘hey, I look back on the last sunny day I had in Wellington, wasn’t it great’.

“People aren’t going to look back on that day that it was wet and four degrees and effing freezing walking around town.”

Chief executive of software company SilverStripe, Brian Calhoun, has experienced the ‘request for proposal’ process through bidding for work building websites for local government.

“You fill out this document and you kind of throw it over the wall so to speak, and several other people that you are competing with throw it over the wall as well,” he says. “Then the government makes a decision and they say ‘okay, you are the winner’ – no negotiation. “A lot of times we can’t even find out why we weren’t selected; it is like talking to a brick wall – no response.”

Chief Advisor for Procurement Reform Chris Browne says they accept there is a perception from business that responding to government tenders can be an exercise in frustration.

He says the best thing he can say to reassure businesses is that the reform programme is actions as well as words.

“The first thing I would say is change is happening, this project is happening, it is changing the way in which we do procurement in New Zealand. That is really what we are very focused on: trying to make it a very different experience – a positive experience.”

The first three all-of-government contracts for passenger vehicles, stationery and IT (laptops, desk- tops and multifunctional printer/ scanner/copiers) will be in place by 30 June this year. It is expected that every all-of- government contract will be serviced by a multi-supplier panel as opposed to a single company.

“At the moment there are about 200 agencies covered through the reform programme, so that is 200 separate contracts,” Browne says. That is a lot of repeat bidding costs, so what we are trying to do is take some of those repeat costs out. And equally, for government that is a lot of repeat procurement cost, plus legal cost and everything else. So it is trying to take that cost out of doing business.”

The grand objective of making supplying government more acces- sible to business is to be fulfilled in several ways. Standardised contract terms and conditions to be piloted in June are designed to reduce the costs of seeking professional advice, and will provide consistency. A ‘suppliers guide’ document will set out the expectations and process of working with government.

And by engaging earlier with businesses, government procurers are intending to push innovative solutions. The primary goal in the first year is, unashamedly, cost savings. The money saved will be, as Min- ister for Economic Development Gerry Brownlee puts it, “a truck- load of hips, cataracts, and knees”.

There are those in business that see government savings as money taken directly out of their pockets. Chief executive of Ricoh Mike Pollok says businesses making noise over lower margins are not in tune with commercial reality.

“I think that is a very naive view to have and if you think that, you shouldn’t be in business.”

Brownlee responds to business fears of margin squeezing by saying companies need to look past the emphasis on price to see there are genuine opportunities when it comes to volume.

“I suppose you could take that rather pessimistic and fatalistic view that the government is setting up an opportunity to hammer people on price, but the other side of it is to say ‘well, the government does spend a terrific amount of money’.

“We spend a great deal of that, it would seem, offshore with the suppliers who are not from New Zealand and so therefore if you can be a domestic supplier there is huge opportunity there as well.”

He says it has not gone unnoticed that New Zealand businesses may have been overlooked by government procurers in the past.

“Anecdotally you hear of [government procurers] that could have got something a kilometre down the road, but instead they took an international flight to see what was available somewhere else. And there is a little bit of, I guess from the procurer’s point of view, we suspect there may have been a bit of a question asked: ‘well, do I want to go to Christchurch and get this or do I want to go to, well, any foreign capital, the United States or whatever’, you know what I mean?”

The New Zealand procurement reform programme is based on successful overseas initiatives in Australia, Canada, Scotland, Eng- land and Wales, where savings have been in the range of 10 to 15 per cent a year. There is much positive support for procurement reform, but it comes hand-in-hand with scepti- cism about priorities, practicalities and long-term outlook.

Chief executive of state-owned telecommunications and media company Kordia, Geoff Hunt, says procurement reform, if implemented and followed through correctly, can only be positive for New Zealand business.

“From the point of view of a supplier to the government, this is good news. In terms of one of the other ones, achieving costs savings, that is always a motivation to do the big deals well.”

He stresses that procurement needs to be about more than just price.

“It needs to be quite a proactive thing by the government procure- ment organisations; they have got to have in their minds that this is not just buying at lowest cost. Just the word procurement, to me is a little bit of a problem. Procurement to me is about buying commodity services – lowest cost and highest quality and about compliance and so on. But when it comes to building industrial capability I think there needs to be more emphasis on part- nering as well as procurement.”

SilverStripe’s Brian Calhoun has seen how all-of-government contracts have panned out overseas and is unconvinced they can offer any value to New Zealand. Calhoun cites the situation produced by low-bid, all-of-government contracts in California, where the wining company for the state furniture contract was Prison Industries Inc.

The name says it all – the com- pany has an abundant supply of low-cost labour at its finger tips: state prisoners.

“Any time I hear things like ‘all- of-government contracts’ or ‘low-bid winners’ I think that is a bad idea for New Zealand,” Calhoun says. “Everybody wants to cut costs. Nobody can fault that logic. The problem is where do you cut the costs and how do you cut the costs?

“That is precisely what stifles innovation: when you get monopolistic practices and that’s what this is really.”

It’s no secret government tenders can be a confusing world of smoke, mirrors, and red tape. Win or lose, you often come out the end of the process a little more frustrated than when you went in, and a little lighter in the pocket as well.

One industry professional puts the success rate for average companies responding to govern- ment tenders at about one in five. The average time given to respond to a tender in the United Kingdom is 30 days. In the United States it is 42 days and in New Zealand just 12.

Research carried out by the Ministry of Economic Development found the main issues the private sector had in doing business with government revolved around a lack of transparency, short timeframes, a myriad of varying terms and conditions, risk aversion of agencies and mixed skill levels of government procurers. Manager of the Government Procurement Development Group Phil Weir says the difficulties stem from the fact that the procurement profession across both the private and public sectors in New Zealand is under-developed.

“I know I have seen things in the past – people’s perceptions of the profession in New Zealand being about five years or so behind Australia, and even longer behind Europe and the UK,” he says. “Perhaps because of the small na- ture of our country, or the types of industries and things we have had in the past, it has just been slower to grow as a profession in New Zealand.”

The next steps in the reform in- volve the implementation of further all-of-government contracts based on the success of the first three. A review of the current tender interface, the Government Electronic Tendering Service (GETS), was carried out last year.

Companies and stakeholders were asked what kind of function- ality they would like to see in a second generation GETS. The government has already tendered for a separate e-procure- ment tool to help agencies connect into the all-of-government contracts, and there is potential for the same tool to be used to give suppliers access to government.

In terms of change management, Ministry of Economic Development documents have identified “pockets of resistance”.

Brownlee says he does not expect resistance from government agencies and departments because, “that would be requiring you to be very cynical about the willingness of the New Zealand bureaucracy to participate in a government programme.”

The objectives of procurement reform throw up some interesting ques- tions around mutual exclusivity.

Can the reformers have it all: innovative solutions at a low price, government savings, and increased business capability and access? Will the words and intentions translate into the appropriate actions? Will the actions filter down correctly from the reform team to affected government agencies and departments? Will those agencies and departments fully comply? Calhoun echoes the sentiments of several executives spoken to by IN-Business.

“I think it is just all talk. It’s not realistic. When you want to find out the effects of what is really happening in any situation in life you look at the actions, you don’t look at the words. “You look at the actions of low- bid, all-of-government contracts on one hand, and on the other hand you’ve got these words that say, ‘we want to support local business’. It doesn’t match.”

If the office homogenises us, it never diminishes our desire to stand on a podium and wave a trophy, to tearfully thank God, and to be crowned the lower North Island’s top grey-suited, grey-haired; middle- aged, middle-management practitioner of the year. Far be it to take recognition away from those that deserve it, but have we reached a critical mass for awards?

It doesn’t help when you look at the accolades afforded to quintessential evil corporation Enron, which include the title ‘America’s Most Innovative Company’ for six years running. Closer to home, ING was named ‘New Zealand Fund Manager of the Year’ in October 2008 after $400 million of investor funds were frozen in March of the same year.

National Sponsorship Manager at Westpac Mark Graham compares business awards to the heart foundation tick as a mark of credibility.

“If someone has won an award, and has been put through a process and judged against their com- petitors and peer evaluated and all those kinds of things – hey they must have actually done quite a few things right here. So we can feel comfort about them being acknowledged as a winner – that says something.”

There have, of late, been questions asked by central government agencies about the value and place of our business awards. A report commissioned by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise for the Business Capability Partnership in 2004 found around 200 separate business awards programmes in New Zealand. “The proliferation of the award ‘industry’ is seen by many of the key stakeholders within the areas as both a positive issue, and a potentially damaging challenge,” the report says.

Positive, because awards encourage New Zealanders to identify with the concept of celebration, and because they showcase role models outside of the sporting area. But potentially damaging because the number of awards has grown in an ad-hoc way, because there has been little integration across sectors and industries, and because there is little national planning.

Graham says the situation with inconsistent national judging criteria has at times produced unworthy winners of some awards.

“There was quite a focus on trying to bring some consistency across how awards are judged, for ex- actly the point we were just talking about: inconsistencies. Suddenly people are given kudos when in fact, jeepers! If you really sort of looked a little bit deeper into the business there is no way they should have actually got that award,” he says.

New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation CEO Mike Watson sits on the Business Capability Partnership and the Capability New Zealand Council and says personally, he feels awards in New Zealand are not stacking up.

“Let’s face it: a lot of the awards in New Zealand are just rubbish,” he says. “They don’t ask many questions, they don’t give any decent actionable feedback to the applicants.”

Watson, as part of the Business Capability Partnership, was heavily involved in the development of a condensed version of the internationally recognised Baldrige judging criteria for use in judging New Zealand business awards. The Baldrige criteria break down judging criteria under the headings of leadership, business planning, customers and stakeholders, information and analysis, workforce, project management, and business results.

Watson says many New Zealand awards are not so thorough.

“What we were trying to do was institute or implement a robust criteria which we had developed; implement robust evaluation and judging processes so that the right people were winning – not the guy that you play golf with sort of thing,” he says.

While winning leaves you feeling warm and undeniably fuzzy, is the sheer number of awards given out nowadays really constructive? Or is even thinking such thoughts a manifestation of our tall poppy tendencies? Business is a fickle game, as evidenced so well by the little arrows up and down on the TV news every night. Every year there are new awards with new agendas and new categories popping up, new ways to pat each other on the back.

All this begs the question: are the business awards given out nowadays worth less than the frosted plastic trophies they are screen printed on?

The big business winner

In her haste to retort, former awards winner Diane Foreman cuts off the question about which awards she will be entering this year: “definitely no more awards”.

“Last year was a hard year for awards because we entered the Entrepreneur of the Year, we entered the NZTE awards and we did a couple of awards in Asia, plus we do the Ice Cream Awards. So there were five different awards processes going on and that was a big year for us and we have decided that we won’t do that again. It’s very time consuming and you take the focus off the business and you put the focus onto the competition. Our business needs our focus.”

Foreman is the Managing Director of Emerald Foods, the company that carries, among others, the New Zealand Natural, Movenpick and Killincy Gold brands. They have had a good year. Foreman was named 2009 New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year and Emerald won the Best Business Operating Internationally – $10m to $50m category in the International Business Awards. Foreman is awards-wary though, saying the realities of business dictate she takes each year as it comes and judges her own business success by her bottom line.

“You can only ever judge yourself on your latest budget, and I am expecting that I have as many down years as I have up.”

In an awards environment where it is not uncommon for achievement to be further cross classified by gender, ethnicity or geography, Foreman is clear on one particular point: she loathes gender-based awards.

“I hate it…I think we are all on a level playing field, and while we promote business women awards, you are never going to be on the same ground as men. I don’t like the gender split, I think if you are good enough to compete you are good enough to compete against.”

Foreman has the rare experience of seeing both sides of the fence, having been both a judge and an entrant in Entrepreneur of the Year. She rates the role behind the table as far more enjoyable.

“Being a judge was amazing and the exposure to bright, young creative minds was incredible,” she says. “Being a participant was really harrowing, because you didn’t get that kind of exposure to everybody else, you got to meet them a couple of times but you didn’t get to go really deep inside their business, which as a judge you did.

“It was very lonely. You are there and the spotlight is on you and you can either win it or lose it.” Any award, she says, is ultimately what you make of it. The first one she can remember being part of was “a hundred years ago” when a staff member won Hairdresser of the Year at the salon she was a partner in.

“We plastered it over our whole window, we just made it so huge, we took ads in the local paper, we did everything.”

Foreman speaks of her disappointment upon recently coming across a winner of the same award complaining of inadequate post-award support and recognition.

“It is an opportunity for you to use it in your marketing; it’s what you do with it that counts.”

She agrees an award is like a mark of authentication, and says she found it good for attracting franchisees, bankers and other professionals to the business because of the sense of confidence a thumbs up from independent judges instils.

“We haven’t got any new clients but we haven’t been actively seeking any, but it has been a mark of respect.”

While the benefits to her business are more qualitative than measurable, she is under no illusions as to where the benefits of awards lie for the companies that sponsor them.

“Well, obviously they are doing it for their own branding, they would be doing it because it helps their brand and it is a passive way of marketing themselves – the whole ‘tie yourselves with a winner’ thing. So obviously that is why people are doing it: it’s the whole marketing ploy.”

The small business winner

Casey Martin’s dilemma is: How do you market a funeral business – but seriously – what do you do? Do you go put business cards in old people’s homes? Do you give out pens? It’s an interesting dilemma faced by the funeral industry and even tougher for the smaller players: to be recognised as a business when it’s something most people don’t like to think of as a money-making venture.

Taranaki Regional Business Ex- cellence Awards Judge Paul Fifield understands well the challenges faced by one such small business, Eagar’s Funeral Service. He and his panel judged them as the winner of Best Small Business category of the Taranaki awards in 2008 and 2009. For owner Casey Martin, the awards have helped to create ‘top of mind’ recognition for the family business, which employs three staff.

“Most people only use a funeral director two, maybe three times in their lifetimes and we can’t exactly have a sale if we are quiet. So it is that top of mind stuff and because we push the fact that we have been recognised as business leaders in our community, it has raised our profile,” she says.

Martin was pressed to enter for the first time in 2007. She didn’t win that first year but saw the experience as an opportunity for some professional advice and feedback in running the business she bought from her parents’ estate after her father was killed and her mother died of cancer.

“In the first year I was looking for a free business review and that information to help me grow. Because you find that in small business you can get caught up in the way you do things and sometimes people don’t tell you a different way, you don’t even think of it, and it is just being open to other people’s suggestions.”

Martin took her staff to both the awards ceremonies as a way to recognise the team effort. On a personal level, the most poignant recognition of her business’ success came from a previous judge.

“I had a congratulations letter from a lady who was my judge the very first time around and in between her judging us, her daughter died and we looked after the funeral. For me that was the best recognition, she came into our business, she saw what we did, the passion we had, and the ultimate compliment was to use our service.”

Martin says business awards need to recognise the Davids as much as the Goliaths.

“We need to be recognising other areas, the likes of Taranaki and Manawatu; we are not Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch. There are some very important companies and very important businesses all over the country and you do get a little bit frustrated sometimes when you only hear about the big boys.”

The sponsor

As far as sponsorship goes, Westpac is heavily into awards. They sponsor the 15 Regional Business Excellence Awards, as well as the Halberg Awards for sport, and national industry awards in tourism, franchising, retail, agriculture and the restaurant industry. They also sponsor numerous categories in other awards ceremonies.

With so many ways to spend marketing dollars nowadays, Westpac National Sponsorship Manager Mark Graham says they have persisted with awards because of the association with, and celebration of, excellence – as well as more commercial motives.

“If they [winners] are not a customer we might try very hard for them to become a customer and look, that is how it works. We want to be associated with the best and this an opportunity for us to work closely with some very successful companies, and that is another fantastic benefit for us.”

Graham is familiar with comments about too many awards, but points out that in recessionary times he would have thought more people would be eager to celebrate and learn from others’ success.

“Let’s put them on a pedestal, let’s talk to them and find out what they have been doing that we could perhaps learn off,” he says.

The judge

Taranaki Business excellence awards Judge Paul Fifield says being a business award judge is like being a nosey parent.

“I don’t know about you, but my parents don’t know what I earn or anything like that, but we are just saying to these people ‘just show us everything you’ve got’. We do it without blinking almost. It is probably quite unnerving.”

Fifield says he believes the unique fingerprint of New Zealand business, in terms of our traditional strengths in the primary industry and prevalence of small business, is under-represented by our business awards.

“I think at the moment we can’t do enough [awards]. I look at the primary industry – it just doesn’t get any pats on the back, yet without it the country would be dead in the water. I look at the SMEs in particular – they represent probably 80 per cent of business in New Zealand, they just don’t get thanked for what they do.”

He says one of the biggest challenges in judging is with the mix of company sizes and industries within categories. “It is never apples with apples, rather apples with pineapples – especially when it comes to the Supreme Award winner. To me that is a fundamental flaw in the awards at the moment. I don’t know how you compare a one- man band, mum and dad business with a medium business. I hate to say it but it is going to be near impossible for a small firm to win the Supreme [Award] – it sort of, I don’t know, bastardises the whole process.”

Fifield doesn’t subscribe to the less is more school of thought, saying they took a firm stance in all the speeches delivered at all the various Business Excellence Awards around the country last year: tough economic times warrant an increased celebration of success.

“I don’t think we can do enough patting on the back…we have got to look for opportunities to really get in behind these people.”

The organiser

John Dow is involved with organising both the WELLYS and the Gold Awards. He does it because he believes the business community is seriously undervalued for what it does: providing employment and livelihoods, and generating the income that funds the workings of society.

He says celebration should come before feedback.

“I believe that business awards should be primarily a night of cel- ebration and acknowledgement of the achievements and innovation within a region’s business community; a public way of thanking these hard working risk takers rather than an onerous and laborious process of ‘checkin up’ on people’s businesses. In my opinion if business people want good advice or support they can engage a professional consult- ant or advisory firm and do it in a confidential and considered manner in their own chosen way.”

The Critic

Ceo of the new Zealand Business Excellence Foundation Mike Watson sits on the Business Capability Partnership and the New Zealand Capability Council. Personally, he feels we are heavy- handed with business awards in New Zealand.

“I think there are far too many awards in New Zealand. I think a lot of them are of dubious benefit in terms of their process for evaluation.”

He says the fragmented nature of the awards industry is some- thing you see in many areas of New Zealand business, and has resulted in an enormous variance in the calibre of awards. “I won’t mention names – prominent awards programmes ask sort of half a dozen inane questions and then judge, and then make an award when there is absolutely no rigour to it. The awards, a lot of them are just celebrations of business. The ones who win, in no way are they necessarily the best business there. They win the thing for a variety of reasons.”

He says awards should be in place to not only celebrate excellence, but also to build the capability of applicants and businesses.

“If they are not there to do that then – what the devil – what is the point of them?”

“You can easily get yourself into a situation where you think you’ve arrived. And then follows the tendency to start doing a lot of things you don’t need to be doing, things that actually take a lot of energy. The secret is to be able to set a goal, then to just do the 20 per cent that will make a difference and discard the rest.”

By ‘discard’, I suggest, Hill actually means ‘delegate’.

“Yes! Delegation is so important! Someone said to me the other day, ‘well, you can’t really trust people can you?’ And I think we’ve just got to! If you don’t trust someone, you have probably put the thought into their head that you can’t. Also, a lot of people feel that if they let others do everything, they’ll work themselves out of a job, but they’ve got it totally the wrong way around, because they are now even more valuable. I try to delegate everything, the whole lot.”

Indeed, after picking Hill up from the airport he glances through his diary and realises he’s double booked himself, and is supposed to be in another city entirely, due to start a speech in 45 minutes. Out comes the cellphone, and after a quick call to a protesting employee (who also happens to be his daughter, Emma Hill), he has delegated the speech to her.

He’s also turned off my car radio (objecting to the “squawking” coming from it), answered a million of my questions and helped read the map while I’ve got us hopelessly lost in Mt Eden. Does nothing faze this man?

Actually, things do. Life hasn’t always been so smooth for Hill. When he was young, he wasn’t academically successful in the slightest and was told he was impossible to teach. In his book Toughen Up he says he doesn’t want to sound too Dickensian, but “I was widely regarded as a dud, and nobody hesitated to let me know.”

He worked for his uncle for 23 years as a salesman and store manager and thought that was as far as he’d ever get. Though he describes his life as “lovely” at this time, he also says he didn’t have any real aspirations.

“I never felt I was ever any good at anything and life was just a fog. It was a very small-time view and I just couldn’t see any bigger, I never thought I would own my own shop let alone go any further than that.”

And then he watched his brand new but underinsured house burn to the ground.

“It completely made me make a choice. I really knew something had to happen. It can go either of two ways you know – you can decide not to do anything or youan jump at it. It would have been really interesting to have seen me if it hadn’t been for the house fire.”

He decided to buy his uncle’s business, and when his uncle wouldn’t sell he became a competitor with the goal of opening seven shops within seven years. After achieving that goal, he says, it was time to adjust the dream. “This is another key part of my system. As soon as you have achieved your dream, it’s time to get out another piece of paper and write down a new set of dreams.”

Hill did: 70 shops in seven years, and then one thousand shops in the 20 after that. The last is a work in progress.

He says New Zealanders are not short of the same sort of opportunity he has made the most of.

“Generally speaking, a lot of people, particularly in New Zealand, have an opportunity to do something at some stage in their lives, but whether it’s taken up is another thing. The thing in life is actually deciding to do something. Once committed, everything becomes totally effortless and it’s amazing. It’s that first move, making that jump.”

“New Zealand has this problem you see, it’s almost too good a place and everything is too easy. And when I see young people after work, out for a meal and two or three big chardonnays and all they’ve been doing is looking forward to the end of the day, it’s become sort of a narrow view of success really, which is quite disappointing, because there is so much more out there to pursue.”

It was after making the move to expand his brand overseas that Hill discovered how ‘easy’ the New Zealand market was in comparison. “I compare it to fishing. In New Zealand you can put a piece of green string down with three hooks, and every time you pull it out you get three fish. If you do that all day successfully, you might ask yourself why you would bother doing any more.

“Whereas if you put the same hooks down in Australia the baits have to be perfectly positioned and the hooks can’t show and then you’ll maybe get one or two fish. Do the same thing in Canada and you may sit there for an hour before you pull one up. Do it in the states and you could sit there all day and maybe not even catch one fish.”

Hill feels that a lot of businesses here are completely under-utilising their potential. Possibly even, he admits, his own. “I think there is so much more we could pull out with a different mindset. We are creatures that like to take the easy route, and of course people don’t like change. They want to do what they’re doing and think they are secure and safe with that. But in fact it’s the total reverse! It’s hopeless! Because everything’s going to be changing around them every year, every day, every minute, and it’s only going to change quicker. We absolutely have to be prepared to change with it.”

Speaking of dramatic change, we have to mention the colossal failure that was Michael Hill Shoes. After opening nine shoe shops in rapid succession, they realised they were confusing the customers with the brand and that they knew nothing about the product. They soon decided to close all the stores down. Hill says that, despite losing a huge amount of money, some valuable lessons were learned and it wasn’t a complete failure.

Despite this particular incident, there is no doubt that Hill is unbelievably good at sales. As we wrap up our interview, a gentleman approaches to ask if he could have a signature in his book. Hill notices the copy is second hand and the man explains he has actually borrowed it from a friend.

“That’s a bit weak!” exclaims Hill, and whips out a copy from the suitcase he’s been trundling along behind him since the airport. “Here, you can have mine, the $40 goes straight to Cure Kids!” No argument from the fan, the exchange is made and the salesman has struck again.

Philosophy is important to Hill, and his book gives us a pretty good idea of how he ticks. The 16 lessons are illustrated with examples from his own career, and on the final page there is a subtle yet unusual call to action. Simply: “If you have what it takes to be a winner, I want to hear from you.”

He admits the book is aimed at recruitment, and claims it has worked so far.

One final pearl of wisdom from the quirky jewellery chain owner: “If you really think about it, and have a vision of what you want to achieve, it’s amazing. Once you have that vision, it will happen. Yes, you have to have some skill set to achieve these goals, you have to be realistic, but goal setting is such a vital part of any- thing you do, and it should never ever stop.

“The biggest fear I have is that you feel you are invincible and you’ve arrived. And of course you never arrive, you are always arriving.”

With that, he’s off to practise what he preaches, onto the next speech, the next thing, the next opportunity.

Minister of Finance Bill English said it best in September when he effectively put the frighteners into every grey-suited public servant in the land.

“We simply cannot afford to continue the public sector growth we have seen in recent years. We cannot escape this fact or wish away this constraint?.?.?.

“It’s about doing the things that work and stopping doing the things that don’t work. It’s about doing fewer things and doing them better.”

In the nine years from 2000 the number of public servants grew by 54 per cent.

The message is clear: It is no longer appropriate for the heavy and methodical gears of government to turn ever onwards at the same pace.

Effectively the public sector has been asked to do more, better – with less money and less people, and to do it smarter.

And they aren’t having a quick look behind the couch cushions for some silver coins either.

 The powers that be have said the strategy to cap numbers and salaries in the public sector will extend for the next three to five years. Many commentators have said we will never see anything like the number of public servants we had under the previous government. So this year and those that follow are an interesting time for those in the public sector, and an interesting time for those that work around it.

Brian Cowper is the newly appointed director of public sector at Hudson, one of New Zealand’s largest recruitment and talent management companies.He puts the situation bluntly.

“The current account deficit needs to be managed, that can only eventuate with a sinking lid. You’ve got the Minister of Finance saying that the public sector funding  for this year will be down to $1.1 billion. It was $1.4 billion.”

Cowper is newly appointed, but his role is also newly created – showing an increased private sector interest in public sector goings-on. General Manager of Hudson Wellington Peter de Boer says their increased focus on the public sector is in anticipation of both wider changes in the industry, and a shift in public-private sector relationships as the government strives to cut costs.

“The dust is starting to clear now, but the recruitment industry in New Zealand has changed,” he says. “The whole focus and strategy of the public sector is shifting – working with them creates the best of both worlds.”

So will this year be the year of the public-private servant? Possibly.

Cowper reiterates there are some interesting trends just about to reveal themselves. Like their friends in the private sector, public servants have been hibernating. It’s been a long winter. It’s human nature to want to hold onto your job once you see others losing theirs, so hardly surprising the 2009 Human Resource Capability Survey released late last year showed the largest annual increase in public service tenure since records began.

But with the green shoots of economic recovery now appearing, the winds are changing – people perceive there is more opportunity to change jobs. Here comes what Cowper predicts will be a kind of labour market musical chairs – everyone vies for the higher salary, better development opportunities, communication, and job reassurance once the music stops.

This upswing in mobility will be in part motivated by the mental situation many public servants currently find themselves in – disengaged and disassociated.

“When you go through tough times you have to increase employee engagement,” Cowper says. “Increasing your employee engagement when you are negotiating no pay increases and not rewarding performance as much as you would like to – it makes it extremely difficult.”

He says disengaged employees are also symptomatic of the fact that a large percentage of public sector managers have never managed through hard times – their lack of experience is compounded in the public sector because there is little left for them to give out as incentives.

This is all further complicated by the fact that the safety net of not replacing the people that leave is gone – because they simply haven’t been leaving. Cowper says where previously there was a cushion in budgets – money saved on salaries by not replacing staff, being spent on operations and service delivery – there is now only the bottom line.

“What it means is that people who haven’t had the experience managing in the tough times will find it even tougher because now they haven’t got the margin with which to work, and my recent conversations with some senior managers have confirmed that.”

Part of the government’s new strategy is an active encouragement of public sector innovation, which may sound like an oxymoron but considering the amount of attention they have given to it, it definitely is not. In the same speech he spoke of shaking things up, Bill English said his government would not only push innovation in the public sector, but would also accept the associated risks.

“This is fundamentally important because without innovation, we will not deliver better, smarter public services over the next five years.The government will support innovation – even with a risk of failure.”

Innovation is a concept Cowper says was never a high priority in the public sector.

“I don’t think it was stifled by the previous government, it certainly has never been encouraged as much as this government is doing so,” he says. “The government is encouraging innovative ideas, they are encouraging organisations to come up with something different and not be frightened to – not to experiment – but to innovate in a logical way.”

He cites the initiative to change the service delivery of Primary Health Organisations, and the establishment of the shared services board to save $700 million on back office functions as an example. “I think when you see some radical changes – like in health with the shared services approach to back office functions – you can see that it’s an innovative idea. It came from taskforces that looked at service delivery and then identified efficiencies.”

While there is no denying the recession has changed both the public and private sector forever, questions remain over what the long-term effects will be.

Cowper agrees nothing quite like what we have seen has ever happened before. We have experienced the regular ups and downs of the economic cycle but the collapse of banks and finance companies was a different story. As for the effect on the labour market, after 30 years of corporate and public sector experience, Cowper is capable of giving a pretty informed opinion about the future of the “complex beast”. He says the crossroads between the retiring baby boomers, many of whom lost significant portions of their investments in 2008 and 2009, and younger generations is an interesting space.

 “It is a unique period in history because you have got baby boomers that are coming up for retirement and you’ve got ageing workforce populations. There are some big questions around what happens now if the baby boomer generation want to hang on. What’s the effect of that? What’s the effect of it for the younger people coming through?” he says. “It is a small country, the effects could be quite large. People might start to pursue opportunities overseas; the economy in Australia has already started to lift.”

The recession seems to have thrown up more questions than answers, but as Cowper says, at least we know what we are facing.

Change is coming. Look busy.

Some kids learn but in adulthood forget what their pretty and patient young kindergarten teacher so lovingly taught them. If we think of the main players in the New Zealand tertiary education sector like a playground, all the usual kinds of kids are there.

There are the big kids – they have lots of clout, they shout the loudest. They steal everyone else’s toys. There are the kids that like maths, the kids that like music, the kids that like science, the kids that like to play house. Then there are the kids to whom anything is a magic wand. These kids like to explore, use their hands, take risks, learn new things. These kids are the polytechnics. Some kids like to read. Some kids like to do.

The polytechnics like to do, and the six largest New Zealand polytechnics are definitely doing something big. They broke away from the other 14 New Zealand polytechnics earlier this year and banded together to form the Metro Group. They are deep in uncharted territory. Collaboration County. Leadership Land.

The Metro Group’s ambitious plans are to change the mechanics of this country’s tertiary education sector and to play a more integral role in modernising the economy through a focus on innovation, technology, and higher level learning. They also plan on reducing the number of qualifications offered across their institutions by 25 per cent by 2012, thus decreasing back office costs and allowing for content streamlining.

Linda Sissons of WelTec, Mark Flowers of Wintec, Rick Ede of Unitec, Peter Brothers of the Manukau Institute of Technology, Neil Barns of the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology, and Phil Ker of Otago Polytechnic are the six CEOs on a mission. The Metro Group’s first initiative, the pilot, the testing of the collaborative waters, is the Bachelor of Engineering Technology – a common degree shared among all Metro Group member polytechnics.

It is a bit of a diversion from the out-wit, out-smart, out-educate mindset seen in the wider sector, which the six CEOs agree largely results in money being spent
unproductively.

“There was a lot of money spent on the competition and not a lot of purpose,” Flowers says.

Long hours have gone into crafting this new course. 2010 is the inaugural year with 2000 students enrolled across the six Metro Group members. The structure of the degree plays to the strengths of individual institutions in the civil, mechanical, and electrical majors and sub majors rather than every polytechnic replicating every major within their own institution.

A common first year is offered at all institutions and students will then move according to the area in which they choose to specialise. For the polytechnics it means greater efficiencies. For business it means a higher standard of graduates with a more specialised knowledge. For the wider tertiary sector it means an exciting new business model for education.

The creation of the Bachelor of Engineering Technology was spurred by the results of career research and mapping carried out by the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand. Rick Ede says it was a natural progression of the polytechnic model of working closely with industry.

“There was just the perfect opportunity there to say, ‘hey look we can come together and package up a national qualification that goes directly into this career structure framework of the industry. It wasn’t easy developing the choices, but it is an awful lot easier when you know exactly what the industry really needs,” he says.

It’s textbook management practice in action. They are walking the walk and so far – it is early days yet – it seems to be paying off.

 “For business – I think they should have a high expectation of what institutes of technology do, we are supposed to be modernising this economy,” Flowers says.

“You know as well as I do the pace that technology is showing. So the real benefit should be if the six of us can get our act together and really get focused and make a difference. And if we don’t then we bloody well ought to be.

It’s like the old sayings go – no polytechnic is an island. You can lead a man to university but you cannot make him think.

Flowers says the Metro Group’s model considers both the employer and the student as customers of the service of education.

“Business is the customer, you will find all tertiary institutes say ‘oh the student is the customer’ but I believe the employers are just as important,” he says.

 “Whereas if I was sitting in a university I’m not sure that I would be saying it quite as insistently as that, and that is a connection I would like to make and I think my colleagues would all agree.”

By placing business as the end customer of the process they are ensuring employers get graduates that can hit the ground running, promptly add value to the business, innovate, and create breakthroughs. Chief Executive of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited (GNS) Dr Alex Malahoff agrees.

“They have the right desire, the attitude, the right training for specific areas,” he says.

“New Zealand is such a tiny country, in order to make use of all available avenues to get as intense a degree as possible, you might as well make use of your colleagues and make use of the other institutions. All the institutions realise that of course you compete for students and all of that but in the end if you get the right facilities and the right really special talent you can help make the degree a better one.”

The Metro Group initiative is a diversion from the decade of ups, downs, and identity crisis the polytechnics and the wider tertiary education sector has seen. Courses in twilight golf, incidents of bail out funding and appointments of crown managers at several institutions have, according to Ede, tainted the whole sector with the same brush.

The Education (Polytechnics) Amendment Bill, currently before Parliament, riled up the sector earlier last year by tabling a reduction in the size of polytechnic councils and giving the Minister for Tertiary Education the right to appoint the chair and deputy chair of those councils.  Unitec, under Ede’s 18-month leadership recently dropped their 10-year-bid to become a university. He says New Zealand needs to recognise that polytechnics and universities are different but equally valuable.

Flowers agrees, “Personally I just see it as two parallel systems with a slightly different emphasis, it shouldn’t be seen as superior – they are just different.”

 The tertiary education sector has been in a constant state of flux. The Metro Group leaders say in particular, the growing importance of the international student market and the increases in entry-level qualifications have kept them busy over the years. Where previously a certificate or diploma would have been sufficient for an entry level position a degree is now the norm – due largely to the increased role of technology at work.

 “Look at nursing – nurses used to do a diploma, now they do a degree,” Ede says. “Radiographers – they used to do a diploma and now if you want to specialise in ultrasound or MRI you need a postgraduate qualification. Over time it’s been a gradual shift.”

The international student market is a lucrative one, and one largely dominated by universities and private providers like language schools – the polytechnics now want in on more of the action. WelTec’s Linda Sissons says one goal of the six institutions banding together is to present a united front to the international market.

“Other countries and other agencies would much rather work with a consortium of providers than with one after another,” she says.

Some have already made more progress than others; Mark Flowers spoke to IN-Business at Auckland Airport before he flew out to Beijing on a 10-day trip to cement current relationships and look into new projects.

Sissons reiterates collaboration is the key to their success in Asia.

 “We won’t succeed unless we go out together, go out as metros united or New Zealand united, not one by one,” she says.

Above all else he believes in doing things well, proceeding slowly and developing a truly worthwhile business relationship. Once that is in place and the trust of the client has been gained, the result is that you’ve earned the right to be involved in the deals and plans much earlier on, which Jupe says is when the “good stuff” really happens.

By way of illustrating this philosophy, the head of Bluestar Group in New Zealand gives us a metaphor to mull over. He starts by describing a close family gathered around a table, sitting down to a well-cooked meal of a slow food like lamb shanks. He mentions the Italians, known for being great wine and diners, and likens the lot to a truly great business relationship. “Above all else, relationships take time,” he says. “There is absolutely no quick-fix solution and you aren’t going to be able to solve anything with kneejerk responses. It takes time, effort, and the goal of really understanding the problem.” Just like you can’t microwave lamb shanks, you can’t expect a great business relationship to happen overnight. This is the core of his message: slow down, and you will have the rewards soon enough.

Earning your place at Jupe’s metaphorical table is a big part of the philosophy. It is not just handed over. “It’s not for whingers. You can’t just rock up and talk about what you don’t like and leach off others. You’ve got to contribute, and everyone’s got to bring something to the table. Busy people need to see value in you being there. And that also means having the ability to make decisions. There’s no point having someone engaged who is going to have to go back and run things past someone else all the time.”

“Your network has value too – as a client, whose network are you going to choose? Who else are your suppliers bringing to the table with them? There’s a whole team, and that team isn’t linear. Traditionally people look at the supply chain and that’s not the whole network, it’s far more holistic than that. Blue Star have a great client network, but broader than that, we are working at getting a seat at the table with other industries where we can share ideas and collectively solve clients problems.

“And building this network means finding people with similar values, whether it’s about responsible printing and long-term sustainability, or something else. You don’t want to end up with a network where all the players are the same, but rather a network with a collection of all the right ingredients. But you absolutely need people with similar values who can collaborate with others.” This collaboration is extremely important in Jupe’s eyes. “You’ve got to be comfortable to share ownership, and part of it is that everyone’s got to have their turn. But don’t confuse it with the terrible political correctness we’ve got going on in New Zealand, the most important thing is the outcome!”

After joining Blue Star in 1997 and starting their print management division, Jupe has turned his hand to making this philosophy a reality. “Now more than ever, I’m trying to refocus our team on the things that matter. Who do we need to be talking to? How do we build a relationship with those people? How do we understand their needs better, and who else do we need to bring to the table to make it credible?”

“And part of that credibility,” he continues, “is in the informality. There is a space for the suits and ties, but the reality is that people are having to do much more in their day now to achieve similar or lower results. People are really busy, and often they’re only comfortable to take some real time out for breakfast to meet if there’s value in it. They’re not going to do it just for the sake of it, but once you have that seat at the table with them, you can begin working on a real relationship.” This informality also helps spark ideas – Jupe is big on getting out of the offices and cubicles into a more relaxed environment. “Only then have you actually got a better chance at being creative. You can’t be creative if you’re under pressure!”

Interestingly, Jupe thinks business in this country has had it too good for far too long. “If we look at our economy over the last 10 years, it’s been too easy for all businesses to be reactive. If a client needed something, people reacted.” Now, says Jupe, if a business wants to survive, it’s time for a change. It makes the current climate a perfect time for his ‘dinner-table’ methods to really make a difference.

“You have a lot of people under a huge amount of pressure at the moment, they’re trying to make tough decisions, and if they’re going to try to do it all on a spreadsheet, it’s going to be even tougher. We all need to refocus on what really matters in business, and what is going to help people when they are facing these decisions.”

And Jupe reckons this ‘new’ way of doing business, isn’t actually that new at all. “It’s getting back to the roots, the way things used to be done. It isn’t a new way of looking at commerce.” He also thinks it’s also a more ‘Kiwi’ way of doing things. “New Zealand is made up of many small businesses and we tend to place value on relationships, and that’s really important.” It’s also not just an ‘easy’ way to do business either, it requires integrity and the ability to be honest if there is something you cannot commit to doing. “You can’t just get together and tell lies to each other!”

This whole philosophy challenges the way many business leaders think. For example. the way that senior staff are so often not involved with their clients at all. Jupe laments about this, saying it is not a way to make people feel heard. “So many of them are so many steps removed from the customers. They would rather interact with emails, RFPs and formal presentations, when actually most people just want to talk and engage with people who are going to listen to them. There is absolutely nothing more important than talking with your customers. No Powerpoint, no powerplays, just common ground.”

Blue Star are also challenging the way their customers think. Often, print is thought of as the ‘last step’. We figure everything else out first, and then contact a printer for a price for putting it on paper. But as Jupe says: “We want our customers to say if it’s anything to do with print or related to print, think of us first. And even broader than that, if it’s how you manage your information, we want to be part of that as well.”

When we ask about the possible ‘hippy’ perception of some of Jupe’s ideas, he tell us about his Masters Degree in business strategy, and laughs about the irony of it. “I think one of the best approaches to strategy is taking the time to get to know the environment you’re in, and the people. Talking about what it is that we really need to be doing, the stuff that doesn’t rank in charts or in people’s strategic plans. It’s in the conversations, exploring opportunities and being comfortable throwing ideas around, and ultimately, trying something.”

 In fact, this is an important distinction, Jupe thinks. “You can’t spend all your time fighting fires. In business we need to have people doing today’s business, yes, but we also need people taking a breath and looking forward, creating a future we can get excited about.”

Jupe is equally philosophical when we ask him about the oft-prophesied death of print.

“Everyone always thinks that new technology will replace the old, but it’s not always the case. I was a small boy when TV came out, and it hasn’t replaced radio even though people said it was going to. In our industry there are a lot of people talking to customers about their latest piece of equipment, but it’s far braver to say ‘I’m interested in what your business problem is and we’ll go away and find a solution.’ I’d rather take the time to understand the problem, and not just peddle technology.

“Again, this is part of stopping and taking the time to smell the roses. More and more businesses need to do that – stop and not panic that the role your service plays is going to be different, but rather figuring out what it’s going to be. First understand what ‘different’ means and then figure out how to make that different thing happen. I think the onus as a printing organisation is on working out what the role of print really is and how we can deliver it well. That could be anything from running on-site print rooms for people, storing all their documentation and providing it when they need it, it could be managing digital documents, it could be back to the basic stuff – just printing their business cards or forms.”

We’ve heard a lot of philosophising from Blue Star’s New Zealand CEO, but Jupe knows he has to do more than just talk. “The best evidence of whether you have a culture that can make all of this stuff work is actually doing it. We started our business 12 years ago with no print management capabilities, and now half of our business in New Zealand is in print and document management solutions. This is reflected in our business structure as well: we don’t have an IT team, we have a business systems team because business systems encompass everything about how we work internally and how our clients interact with us.

“A lot of companies have IT and that’s all back office, they shut the propellor heads out the back and throw pizza under the door. Our view is that business systems are a key part of how our customers interact with us, so we want them involved in helping understand our clients problems.”

Positive in a downturning market, and productive though his industry is under attack, Jupe still manages to make business sound exciting. You could say he’s given us plenty to chew on.