nous spring 2012
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Waikato's Business EdgeTRANSCRIPT
NOUS SPRING 2012 1
Formerly known as Scope | Business innovation, inspiration and insight
Collaboration:The fastest path
to innovation
+Intellectual property:Striking a balance between protection and exploitation
Tertiary Cooperation: Working together for the greater good
2 NOUS SPRING 2012
NORTHERN REGION
AucklandLevel 10, 385 Queen StreetPO Box 3978Shortland StreetAuckland 1140Ph: + 64 9 375 [email protected]
HamiltonLevel 1, 469 Grey StreetPO Box 19359HamiltonPh: + 64 7 838 [email protected]
Bay of Plenty20 Cessna PlaceMt Maunganui 3116PO Box 19259Hamilton 3244Ph: + 64 7 571 [email protected]
CENTRAL REGION
Palmerston North915 Tremaine AvePO Box 1099Palmerston NorthPh: + 64 6 354 [email protected]
WellingtonLevel 3, 181 Vivian StreetPO Box 6441Marion SquareWellingtonPh: + 64 4 802 [email protected]
SOUTHERN REGION
Christchurch57 Princess StreetPO Box 25208AddingtonChristchurchPh: + 64 3 341 [email protected]
“Mainzeal’s relationship management has been first class throughout their workforce, from management through to site management and workforce. Issues that have arisen during the project have been dealt with in a positive manner and resolved quickly and efficiently.” - Paul Bennett, Braemar Hospital
SCOPE - OPTION 2.indd 1 2/05/2011 08:50:11
NOUS SPRING 2012 3
welcome
Welcome to the Spring 2012 issue of Nous. This issue we’re considering the topic of collaboration – why it’s important on a local and national level, the pitfalls, how to make it work – and talk to some great local businesses that are reaping the benefits of just such an approach.
It was so much easier when we were kids. We were always working in teams – whether we were playing, plotting or pretending – buoyed by the instinctive knowledge that we were all much more talented together than we were on our own.
Even though that remains a truth – as a species we are not wired to go through life alone – as we get older and gain more knowledge, we also become more aware of what could happen if it all went wrong, which makes us more cautious with our decisions. Especially when it comes to business.
Throwing everything we have into building a successful business brings out the compet-itive streak in anyone – even those who didn’t think they had one. Ideas, information and
lessons learned become things to be jealously guarded in case it gives the guy next door an edge; everyone becomes a competitor.
The irony is that, especially in today’s world, it’s this attitude that holds us back. We need to be looking at the big picture, working for the greater good of our industries, regions and country in order to get better returns for ourselves. Collaborations, partnerships, joint ventures and other forms of co-operation are key to making us more competitive on a domestic and international stage, and they can also go a long way to overcoming the challenges that are inherent in being based in a small, geographically challenged country.
We need smarter, more innovative ideas, and we need critical mass with larger funding resources to infiltrate markets much bigger and busier than our own. The fastest and most effective way to do this is to start working together.
As Dr Linda Sissons says on page 17 “no one of us has a monopoly on knowledge and skills, each of us does a better job when we collaborate”. There’s just something about combining complementary skill sets and different ways of looking at the world that tends to produce “out of the box” thinking and create a more well rounded product or idea.
Technology has made it a lot easier to collaborate and has provided us with some new ways of doing it, it’s now up to us to start using it effectively.
The good news is that a lot of people already are: Wintec is one of six metropolitan insti-tutes of technology working together to ensure they contribute to the country’s economy (page 10); podiatrist Lisa Dillon works alongside other independent health practi-tioners in order to be able to offer clients the most appropriate treatment (page 14); while Soda Inc, itself a joint venture, encourages its incubator businesses to work together and cultivate connections (page 28).
Of course, this doesn’t mean that we need to let go of that hard-won caution completely – while two heads are always better than one, they need to be the right kind of heads. Lawyer Dan Moore has seen many partnerships evolve or unravel over the past 25 years and is himself one of seven partners. One of his biggest pieces of advice, on page 25, is to take things slowly.
The key is to combine the best of both worlds – that wonderful innate instinct to team up and share in the success with the under-standing that it takes more than being a fellow human being to create a good partnership. It’s about seeking out and grabbing hold of the opportunities that are out there, all around us, just waiting for the right people to come along.
Enjoy this issue of Nous magazine and we’ll see you soon.
Ellie van BaarenEDITOR
The big picture
4 NOUS SPRING 2012
USING PROTECTIONIdentifying, protecting and exploiting intellectual property in a collaborative business environment.
p.22
contents
PublisherIan Cassels
EditorEllie van Baaren
DesignRebecca Walthall
ContributorsGreg Bruce, Brooke Baker, James Daniell, Isaac de Reus
ProofingSue Geraghty
PrintingColorite
WebCrescendo Multimedia
Advertising [email protected]
Nous MagazinePO Box 11808Wellington 6142www.nousmagazine.co.nz
Published in partnership with IN-Business Media Ltdwww.in-business.co.nz
©IN-Business Media Ltd reserves the right to accept or reject all editorial or advertising material. No part of the magazine may be reproduced without the written permission of the publishers. Letters and emails addressed to the magazine will be regarded as for publications unless clearly marked not for publication. All rights reserved.While the publishers make every effort to ensure that no misleading claims are made by advertisers, responsibility cannot be accepted by Nous magazine, IN-Business Media Ltd or any of the publisher’s related entities for the failure of any product or service to give satisfaction, inclusion of a product or service should not be construed as an endorsement of it by Nous magazine, IN-Business Media Ltd or any of the publisher’s related entities.
ISSN 2253-2374 (Print) ISSN 2253-2382 (Online)
iStockphoto
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COLLA BORATION
OPINIONPROFILE
ALL TOGETHER NOWThe collaborative future of tertiary education
p.10
GALLERY
contents
ALL TOGETHER NOWThe collaborative future of tertiary education.p.10
SHARE AND SHARE ALIKEThe many faces of collaboration and why it’s essential for NZ’s competitiveness.p.16
CHASING THE DRAGONA look back at four years of free trade with China and the opportunities we can look forward to.p.20
USING PROTECTIONIdentifying, protecting and exploiting intellectual property in a collaborative business environment.p.22
WHERE TALENT LIVESJames Daniell on creating connections and opportunities in our R&D industry.p.30
PLAYING YOUR PARTJames Keene talks about maintaining Palo Alto as a hotbed of innovation and technology.p.34
FULL HOUSELisa Dillon’s shares her experience of being based in a shared workspace.p.14
FROM THE DESK OFSoda Inc helps grow local businesses that can take on the world.p.28
Honorary degree for Monica Leggatp.32
50 Years of Samoan Independencep.33
Tyro – the Young Professionals Network launchp.33
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FOR BETTER FOR WORSEThe adage “it’s not personal, just good business” is turned on its head when it comes to picking a business partner.p.25
Congratulations to the mighty Chiefs Super 15 Champions 2012There was no escaping rugby fever last month as the Chiefs downed the Sharks 37-6 at home to win their first Super 15 title. Here’s to many more to come!
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Nous magazine is a quarterly publication focused on leading edge technology and business innovation in the Waikato region. Our purpose is to provide insights, connections and inspiration to business decision-makers. This is a unique initiative supported by partners with a shared goal: to stimulate and support Waikato business growth. We acknowledge our foundation partners – Wintec, BNZ, Mainzeal and Gallagher – and associate partner Prolife Foods.
in association with
We also appreciate support from: New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, SODA Inc, Opportunity Hamilton, Global Entrepreneurship Week and Colorite.
“Prolife Foods is a major supplier of quality food products in the Waikato region. We believe, as we obtain our revenue from the greater community, we have a social and commercial responsibility to invest back in that community. Accordingly, Nous magazine is a tremendous opportunity to communicate with the Waikato business world by celebrating Waikato successes and promoting topical commercial issues.“
Bernie Crosby, Prolife Foods
“To be an integral part of the community, we partner with many different organisations and businesses throughout the region. Nous is about showcasing innovation in the Waikato and providing credible insights, connections and inspiration to our businesses, industry groups and organisations. Having a wide range of stories to inspire people and stimulate growth in our region is key to our commitment to this magazine.”
Mark Flowers, CEO, Wintec
“Large, small or in-between, Waikato BNZ Partners offers businesses the support they need to grow and prosper. We believe there is no substitute for local knowledge and experience, which is why we provide access to local business specialists who can help you expand into new markets, manage foreign exchange, or simply enhance your cashflow – amongst many other things. Because, like the publishers of Nous, Bank of New Zealand is dedicated to the growth and success of the Waikato business sector.”
Phil McKinstry, Managing Partner, BNZ Waikato
“Mainzeal has a proud history of constructing some of New Zealand’s most iconic buildings and the Waikato is no exception. The Gallagher building, Tainui Novotel, Braemar Hospital and Wintec House are fine examples of Mainzeal partnering to build a better Waikato. We support Nous in stimulating business and innovation in the Waikato.”
Joe Roberts, Manager, Mainzeal Waikato
“We’re strongly of the belief that this particular medium reaches all organisations with a passion for doing the best in business, and we’re delighted to be involved. We see sponsorship as one of our core principles. It’s our commitment to the community. We’re always delighted when we find a sponsorship that fits all our criteria: the community, our staff and our stakeholders.”
Margaret Comer, Corporate Services Executive, Gallagher Group
Associate Partner
Foundation Partners
in partnership with
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8 NOUS SPRING 2012
Technopak developed the packing line, the first of its type in the world and a showcase for the new technology’s efficiency, compactness and speed.
Funding came from Innovation Waikato Ltd debt and a government grant of $3.95 million.
Hamilton-based Dairy Goat Co-operative has committed to utilising the plant as extra capacity for part of its dairy season, and up to eight new Dairy Goat Co-op staff will work on site.
NZ Food Innovation Waikato and Waikato Innovation Park CEO Derek Fairweather says his team is talking with specialty milk producers as well as companies looking to spray dry fruit and vegetable extracts.
The long-term strategy for the plant is to expand the spray dryer’s capability to manufacture infant formula.
> www.innovationwaikato.co.nz
… to the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Magic team for winning the ANZ Netball Championship in July. They became the first New Zealand team to win the trans-Tasman competition with a 41-38 win over the Melbourne Vixens. It was the team’s third grand final appearance, something that was earned despite a horror start to the season. A vocal group of supporters welcomed the team home and then thousands turned out in Tauranga for a victory parade. Now that the hoodoo is broken, may it be the first of many Waikato victories in the years to come.
Congratulations and celebrations!
Waikato’s component in the Government-sponsored New Zealand Food Innovation Network was opened on June 26, offering companies an independent spray drying facility in which to research and develop new spray-dried food products.
The facility is the only one of its kind in the country and took just eight months to go from a bare paddock to a fully operational plant. Construction finished in late April, while commissioning and testing were completed during May; the first fresh milk was converted to powder on May 25.
New Zealand Food Innovation Waikato is part of the Waikato Innovation Park and has a capacity of one-half tonne per hour, making it one of the smallest commercial spray dryers in the world.
Fifteen local companies contributed to the $11 million development, including NDA (who built the spray dryer) and Hendl and Murray who built the baghouse. Auckland company
Innovation Stations
Minster for Economic Development and Science and Innovation, Steven Joyce, opened the New Zealand Food Innovation Waikato spray drying facility on June 26.
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The Chinese will soon be fighting bad breath and looking after their mouths and throats with products that contain a patented milk protein developed here in the Waikato.
Quantec Ltd has announced a major deal with NZ New Paradise giving it exclusive rights to the unique IDP® ingredient for us in oral and throat care confectionary products to be manufactured in New Zealand and exported to China.
Based at the Waikato Innovation Park in Hamilton, Quantec specialises in the discovery and commercialisation of high-value bioac-tives from natural products. The ingredient was discovered in 2006 and is naturally derived from fresh milk. It has proven anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties and when used in an oral care product, IDP® targets and kills organisms responsible for bad odour while leaving healthy mouth organisms unharmed.
New Zealand is seen as a trustworthy producer of natural products, and demand has been steadily growing. The two companies have been working together to develop unique formulations, scope the Chinese market and test consumers’ attitudes towards IDP® products.
Auckland-based NZ New Paradise will be manufacturing the products under its existing brand Purel, and the first will be a mint to fight halitosis. The company also plans to manufacture an IDP flavoured chewable tablet for Chinese children to boost their oral health.
Founder and managing director, Dr Rod Claycomb, says the time the two companies spent in market indicates China has the potential to be a $2 million market for Quantec.
The products were launched at a major baby and infants expo in Shanghai in July and will now be progressively released to other cities and regions.
> www.quantec.co.nz
Hamilton Airport is encouraging travellers to book their parking at the same time as their holidays now that they’re offering an online booking system.
The system was launched at the end of June and allows people to book and prepay their airport parking, saving up to 50 per cent on drive-up rates. Hamilton is the first regional airport in the country to offer online booking.
CEO Chris Doak says the Airport will trial different carpark products such as super saver and weekend special rates to see what the uptake is like, but the general rule will be that the earlier you book, the cheaper the rate.
Customers enter their travel itinerary into the website and receive a quote and a range of options, which they then pay for using a credit or debit card. The customer then uses that same card to enter and exit the carpark, so they don’t need to carry a ticket or go to a payment machine.
“We believe regional New Zealand deserves the same advantages as metropolitan travellers,” Doak says. “There’s no longer a need to travel to Auckland to save on carpark prices.”
> www.hamiltonairport.co.nz
Minty fresh in China
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By the numbers: Fieldays
The total number of people who attended Fieldays 2012, an increase of 9% on 2011.
128,171 44
1000
30,000
9%
40%
The number of people who went through the gates on the final day, an increase of 40% on the same day in 2011.
The number years Fieldays has been held
The number of businesses exhibiting at Fieldays 2012 Fi
eld
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“On a global stage New Zealand is a small country and we are small institutions by extension. We need to work together to create scale and critical mass.”
10 NOUS SPRING 2012
Now, as part of their agenda around innovation and creating economic value through research and development, the government is
looking to raise the international profile of New Zealand education and to do that they’re looking to both universities and ITPs (insti-tutes of technology and polytechnics). Unitec CEO Rick Ede says that’s something that would not have happened two or three years ago.
Part of the reason behind that increase in influence has been the work of the Metro Group, a self-organised group of the country’s six largest metropolitan ITPs – Unitec and MIT in Auckland, Wintec in Hamilton, Weltec in Wellington, CPIT in Christchurch and Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin.
The group split from the original industry-wide representative body in 2009 in order to collaborate on an agenda of shared priorities in their efforts to become an efficient, effective and relevant driver of economic success and thereby contribute to improving New Zealand’s economy.
Nous talked to current chair and Unitec CEO Rick Ede, founding chair and Weltec’s CEO Dr Linda Sissons and Wintec CEO Mark Flowers about the experience, collaborations and what the future holds.
On the motivations behind creating the Metro Group
Rick Ede: It was time to help reposition some stereotypes on what ITPs are. We’re about applied professional training and economic productivity; we are redefining the role of the ITP for the 21st century. We came together as a group primarily through shared interests; similarities in terms of the programmes we offer, a stronger applied degree focus, a stronger focus on knowledge and technology transfer.
Each institution is a significant player in their metropolitan region but on a global stage New Zealand is a small country and we are small institutions by extension. We need to work together to create scale and critical mass.
Mark Flowers: Originally there was one representative body for the whole sector, which ranged from small institutions to large ones, and it was very difficult to agree a common approach to anything. There were particular features we wanted to work on and collaborate on to get a clearer picture of what we felt our role was in economic development, applied research, post graduate qualifications, international and export education and higher
level partnerships with business and industry.We are working in an international
environment and if we’re going to provide qualifications that are recognised overseas we need to focus on doing just that. Applied R&D is important for business and industry, and you have to have the scale to be able to do that.
Linda Sissons: Polytechnics had seen themselves very much at the lower end, providing strongly practical qualifications and helping people get into their first jobs. This was a big sea change in that we saw the chance for providers to contribute to economic devel-opment; a chance to work with companies to design the sort of education and training the industry needs for their current workforce and for the future. It had the effect of forcing us to concentrate on the high level qualifications – levels 4–8 of the framework.
On how the collaboration works
MF: We spent time deciding what is important and what we should spend the time on. We’ve kept focus on a relatively small number of big things and tried to keep to the high-level strategic side of things.
There was a time in the not-so-distant past that polytechnics and technical institutes were looked down on in the tertiary
education sector. They were for trades. For people who couldn’t make it into universities. My how things have changed.
AS TOLD TO Ellie van Baaren
All together now
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12 NOUS SPRING 2012
LS: We all have different backgrounds. We held a workshop where we shared how we viewed R&D and everyone has slightly different perspectives on what it means to economic development. We take the time to understand our different points of view. We started off with a certain number of groups and we’ve stayed very true to that agenda.
RE: While each institution has its own city it needs to focus on but there is a very genuine sense of partnership across the sector. And there’s a huge goodwill from stakeholders.
On collaborating outside the Metro Group
RE: We’re exploring different models of collaboration and seeing what works. We are now also collaborating as part of the Mosaic Network to provide improved IT internships.
[The Metro Group is also part of the Mosaic Innovation Network, an initiative of the interna-tional non-governmental organisation the Future Cities Institute. It brings together local enterprises, students, researchers and digital experts together through internships, research and projects in order to boost New Zealand’s global competitiveness.]
The tertiary landscape is more complex than it should be for a country of our size. It’s about simplifying things for industry stakeholders so we can cut through some of the noise. It’s been a nice evolution. In the beginning it was either Metro or regional, but now we’ve moved to a more connected approach. We work together as a sector. There’s a lot of common ground especially where there’s national issues.
On what the future holds
MF: There’s quite a bit still to be done with the whole sector, and as long as we stick to half a dozen major lumps of work then we can achieve more. ITPs as a whole form a substantial resource with a great deal of experience in working with employers at the grassroots level and high level qualifications and there’s still a lot of potential that’s not being used by government and employers.
There are always opportunities for improvement around academic programmes right through to the top level. New Zealand has a really good profile internationally and I would like to see it leveraging on that.
LS: Personally I would like us all to present a very united front to employers and industry, because they are often confused by the multitude of institutions out there. Essentially I think we can be a one-stop shop for big employers, especially national employers, so they can get in touch with all major centres at one time. It will take quite a bit of work, but the benefits to industry would be great. n > www.metros.ac.nz
RE: We look for smart collaborative things we can do for students that are better for industry – providing added value and improved productivity. A lot of our collaboration is about sharing the things that we’re doing and the things we’re doing well. It’s a platform for institutions to learn.
You get out of collaborations what you put into them. There’s a lot of up-front investment and it’s really strategic.
LS: It’s been an amazing experience. The chief executives have personally taken responsi-bility for much of the collaboration work and as a result I know I can email any of them and get a reply back in five minutes or so. We’re committed to working together in an open and collegial way.
On what the Metro Group has achieved so far
LS: The development of the Bachelor of Engineering Technology is a specific example of us working together.
RE: It’s a shared degree and dovetails very explicitly into national engineering qualifica-tions plans. It’s a unique programme and one that is owned and operated by the Metros. Essentially it has helped change how the engineering career path goes.
[First offered in 2010, the national degree was developed by all six metro ITPs in partnership
with industry and incorporates both theory and practical experience.]
Being able to form a more strategic and more directed relationship with stakeholders has worked well with engagement at a national level.
MF: Repositioning R&D into an applied research approach has been pretty successful – by and large it should be directly relevant to business, industry and economic growth. It’s also about repositioning ourselves with government and the ITP sector in general has done that well. We’ve presented a number of position statements and contributed to a number of the reviews going on.
LS: We’ve been extremely open about publishing our position and what makes our sector tick, and I think that has been very much appreciated by ITOs [industry training organisations], the government agencies and businesses.
On what makes the Metro Group collaboration successful
MF: Collaboration in reality is quite difficult. There needs to be a strong alignment and you have to have enough confidence and trust in each other so you can take the highs and the lows. You can’t get a win-win for everyone all the time.
“Collaboration requires a fair bit of commitment, there has to be give and take and the chemistry has to be there. You’ve got to like working with each other.”
LEFT Wintec studentsRIGHT CEO Mark Flowers says the collaborative work of the Metro Group allows Wintec to give its
students internationally recognised qualifications
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“It’s another tool in your belt; you can throw ideas back and forth with the other practitioners. I found that when I worked by myself, I felt quite lost and isolated.”
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Not many people can say after 20 years that there hasn’t been a period of their career that they haven’t enjoyed. Lisa Dillon can.
“For a lot of people it’s just a means to an end. It’s not just a job for me, it’s my lifestyle.”
Part of a medically-oriented family, Dillon wanted to do something a bit different from the rest of the family and was attracted to the sporting aspect of podiatry. “I also liked having the ability to have a client come in, diagnose them and set up a treatment plan rather than filling a prescription from another doctor.”
A specialised branch of medicine focused on the study, diagnosis and treatment of the foot, ankle and lower leg, podiatry first became a registered profession in New Zealand in 1969. Sports or biomechanical podiatry looks at the way the foot interacts with the ground and the loads or forces that the lower limb contends with during high impact sporting activity.
This is where Dillon’s passion lies, and one of the reasons her practice, Functional Podiatry, is based in the Les Mills gym on Victoria Street in Hamilton.
“I analyse people’s gaits and do postural assessments – looking at why the feet do what they do – but I don’t just look at the foot, I look at the person’s lifestyle as well. I can see things from a fitness trainer perspective as well, so it might not be a foot thing and therefore would be better treated by a physio, or it might be better treated by massage therapy.”
It’s not the first time she has been in such a situation. After finishing her training, she started her career working for someone else, but after six and a half year she went into
partnership with another practitioner with three large clinics in Auckland and then went out on her own with two clinics.
“Then I fell in love and within three months I had sold up and moved to Australia. To be honest I was probably a bit young to handle it [the clinics in New Zealand] so it was good to have a change and get out of New Zealand. It was good for my confidence and it was good to have some time to sort out what I wanted to do.”
First stop was Bendigo in Victoria where Dillon worked with a Royal Health team and became a fitness trainer in order to help with her sports podiatry focus. Hamilton in SW Victoria followed and then in Melbourne she got her first taste of working in a private practice at a gym that also offered massage, physio and clinical pilates.
Finally she ended up in Hamilton New Zealand, and as an Auckland girl who’d spent so much time in Australia, it was a bit of a shock. “To be honest at first I felt a bit like I’d been cut off at the neck, but I love it here. It’s smaller but it’s going ahead. People are a little bit less frazzled. It’s harder to move around in Auckland and I was getting a bit sick of the ‘old boys’ club’.”
It did, however, take some time to decide what she wanted to do. She started, of course, by joining a gym, and then got talking to the physiotherapists there, who then offered her a room.
Working in shared premises is a reasonably common set up when it comes to health practitioners; providing customers more of a one-stop-shop and practitioners with a
good source of referrals. Dillon also says it encourages a more holistic view of diagnosis and treatment.
“It’s another tool in your belt; you can throw ideas back and forth with the other practitioners. I found that when I worked by myself, I felt quite lost and isolated. If I had a difficult client I could pick up the phone but it’s not the same. The biggest challenge is trying to keep your independence, but the clients and members are loving it. I get a lot of gym members coming through, so I can look at their technique and what they’re doing in a class to see if I can help.”
The business is growing quickly thanks mostly to referrals. “I’m a great believer in clients coming to you because they like you. I don’t do a lot of advertising and the business started off slow because of that, but now it’s going well. Some people do think I’m a physio so I have to explain what I do, but in this situation you need to have a good knowledge of what a physio or massage therapist does in order to refer anybody.”
In Dillon’s experience that kind of collabo-ration is far more entrenched in Australia than it is here in New Zealand, but it’s getting better. “In Australia it’s all through the health system and everything you need is there. The Millennium Institute here in New Zealand is great, but we are a sporting nation so there should be plenty more of it. People need to relax and network a bit more.” n
> www.functionalpodiatry.co.nz
Full houseWorking in a shared premises with other health practitioners gives podiatrist Lisa Dillon the opportunity to share information, network and discuss new ideas – benefiting her business and her clients.
WORDS BY Ellie van Baaren
all together now
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all together now
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There’s very little in our lives that we are able to do entirely alone; we’re social beings and constantly seek out the comfort of like-
minded people as well as those with skills and knowledge that we lack. It’s the same in business – collaboration and mutually beneficial relationships are at the core of every successful company or innovation.
Even without realising it we are reliant on basic relationships – those with staff, clients, suppliers, contractors and partners – but in an increasingly competitive, connected and economically constricted world these are often no longer enough. We need to actively cultivate collaborations from likely and unlikely quarters if we are to remain compet-itive – as a nation, as a region and as individual businesses.
It’s already happening. Business incubators, clusters and hubs are popping up around the country as small to medium operators see the potential in working closely with other complementary businesses – whether it’s around a particular project or on an ongoing basis. Companies are starting to use technology to involve their customer base – the “crowd” – in every aspect of product devel-opment as an authentic expression of meeting customer needs. Even large companies are working with other companies they used to see as competitors in order to tender for larger or more wide-ranging contracts.
Such arrangements are essential for New Zealand’s export markets in terms of both scale and creativity. They allow our industries and regions to lift their profile in key markets like China, and enable innovative individual
companies with limited resources to target larger markets than they otherwise would have – whether they’re domestic or international.
Meanwhile the addition of fresh blood provides a diversity of opinions, experience and backgrounds, which is a breeding ground for the creative, out of the box thinking that is needed to develop the innovative services and products the world craves.
The exciting thing is that creating and achieving something, anything, through collaboration is more possible than ever before – technology has provided us with the tools to be able to easily communicate and share with more people in more places than ever before, and collaboration itself is now firmly on the business radar as a necessity. The businesses that don’t take advantage of this will be the ones left behind.
Share and share alikeIn a world that has never been more open, collaboration is not just a helpful option, it’s a necessity for any business that wants to remain competitive at home or abroad.
WORDS BY Ellie van Baaren
Flowers: It’s easy to get a rush of blood to the head – we all want to give each other a hug and work together – but just because two people like each other doesn’t necessarily mean they get married. Collaboration requires a fair bit of commitment, there has to be give and take and the chemistry has to be there. You’ve got to like working with each other. You have to accept that there are costs and benefits to collaboration, but equally that sometimes you have to have a go and go with your gut despite the risks.
Ede: You need to be really clear what the problem is that you’re wanting to solve and how you’re going to solve it. You can’t be all things to all people but welcome the conver-sation around it and what value you can add.
Sissons: Be very open and very grateful for the experience that others can bring to the table. No one of us has a monopoly on knowledge and skills. When we work together we do a fantastic job; each of us does a better job when we collaborate.
Lessons learnedBeing part of the leadership of the Metro Group (see page 10) of tertiary institutes has left Mark Flowers (CEO Wintec), Rick Ede (CEO Unitec) and Dr Linda Sissons (CEO Weltec) with a few pearls of wisdom when it comes to collaborating.
18 NOUS SPRING 2012
Having said that, collaborations don’t just magically happen. They take work to develop, maintain and succeed, and they don’t all work out.
Firstly, to even consider working with others you need to admit you need their help. That can be difficult, because it also means admitting you don’t have all the answers and that the way you’ve been doing things may not be the best way forward. It takes a strong person, and a strong organisation, to be open to not just listening to other people’s sugges-tions, but also to be honest about which ones are most likely to work. The ego can easily get in the way, even when the choice seems obvious.
When the juices are flowing and you can almost taste the success, it’s easy to barrel headlong towards that pot of gold you can see in the road ahead without taking time to build the collaborative architecture that will be essential to reaching it.
How will the relationship work? What are the parameters? Is this really the best move for the company and our clients? Who “owns” what? How open is the network of collabo-rators? What happens when we reach that overall goal? Any one of these questions left unanswered at the beginning could sabotage any potential success. The money spent on formalising such agreements and covering as many eventualities as possible will be money well spent.
One of the main sticking points is often around sharing – of information, of resources, of skills. Companies spend an awful lot of good
money and effort in developing these areas so giving someone else access to the result of that expense and effort gives a lot of people pause, but collaboration, by definition, couldn’t exist without sharing at some level.
As long as you’ve chosen your partners carefully, it’s also the fastest and most effective way to innovate. A new pair of eyes often sees a lot more wood than one that’s been staring at the trees too long, while adding new skills to the mix can take what you have to the next level or in directions you had never dreamed of.
Some companies have taken things much further, using social media to share their problems, questions, opinions and issues in a bid to elicit advice from the people who are already taking an interest in them. They ask for advice on new products or services, bringing back old ones or improving existing ones. Of course, the businesses that are successful with this approach are the ones that actually use that feedback rather than treat it as a PR exercise.
Where do we find these collaborators? They’re all around us. Every time you meet someone is an opportunity – whether it’s at one of any number of organised business events or a social gathering. And if you’ve got an idea and want help developing it, or want to be part of a team that achieves something significant, then take a leap and participate in a challenge such as the Innes 48-hour Business Start-up Competition (www.startup48.org) in Hamilton or the first Tauranga Startup Weekend (tauranga.startupweekend.org). n
Developed by a group of four entrepreneurial University of Waikato MBA students, the idea for Vmail won the university’s “Dragon’s Den” competition in March of this year and have been working full tilt to launch the app to market.
It’s not the first voice messaging app around, but it is the first one that doesn’t require the recipient to have the app downloaded on their phone in order to listen to the message. In fact you don’t even have to have a smartphone to receive the message, Vmail allows you to send a voice message via text, email or Vmail, as well as incorporate maps and pictures. They also plan to introduce video capabilities.
This was the first time the University had held a Dragon’s Den style competition, where 40 MBA students had 25 minutes to pitch their business ideas to a panel of big business leaders. As part of the brief they had to prepare a business plan that included strategic decision-making, managing staff and stake-holder relationships, sales and marketing and financials. They also had to show an under-standing of risk and how to measure it.
Beta testing by those closest to the company is now nearing its end and the app is due to be released to the public in early September.
>www.vmailapp.com
Out of the fireEveryone who’s tired of tapping away at their on-screen or tiny-buttoned Smartphone keyboards can now turn instead to a new, locally designed app for sending voicemail messages.
“It is the long history of humankind that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
– CHARLES DARWIN
20 NOUS SPRING 2012
Chasing the dragonFour years ago New Zealand proudly became the first western country to sign a free trade agreement with China, but things move fast when it comes to the world’s second largest economy. Have our businesses taken full advantage of what the FTA offered and what other opportunities are out there? WORDS BY Ellie van Baaren
As the world’s largest exporter, second largest importer and the only large economy to average 10 per cent growth every year for the
past 30 years, China is a force to be reckoned with on the global stage. Which meant it was a considerable achievement for New Zealand to become the first western country to sign a free trade agreement with the Asian behemoth in 2008.
Four years later and China is our second-largest bilateral trading partner with two-way trade in the year to October 2011 reaching $12.7 billion, and exports from New Zealand increasing by 152 per cent. It’s difficult to tell how much of that growth has come directly from the FTA, but New Zealand China Trade Association chairman Tim White says there is no doubt it has made doing business with China easier for New Zealand companies.
New Zealand Trade and Enterprise recently said New Zealand businesses had saved $50 million in 2011 because of changes that came about through the FTA. However, they also estimated that around $90 million is going begging because as Kiwi exporters fail to make the most of tariff preferences.
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BY THE NUMBERS:
1.34 billion The population of China as at 2011
70 millionChinese people travelled abroad in 2011
$5.81 billionNZ-China trade figures for the 12 months to October 2011
12%The percentage of Kiwi exports that go to China, making it our second biggest trading partner after Australia.
$1.87 billionThe amount of Chinese investment stock in New Zealand during 2010/2011
$547 millionThe amount of New Zealand investment stock in China.
$90 millionThe amount New Zealand businesses are leaving on the table in China by not claiming tariff preferences, as estimated by NZTE.
6 hoursThe time it takes today for New Zealand to do the same amount of trade with China as it did in the whole year of 1972.
“Have we really been able to leverage the FTA? No I don’t think we have,” White says. “I don’t believe we have evolved enough to take full advantage of the FTA. We are too focused on a small group of products. We need to be pulling together and looking at what they want, and what we’re offering.”
White was recently in China at the invitation of the Chinese Government along with 210 delegates from a range of other countries. Part of the visit included a group meeting with the Premier Wen Jibao who talked further about the areas China was looking to external markets for help in, the largest among them being clean energy and energy conservation, and community healthcare. White says each of these areas provides opportunities for New Zealand businesses.
One of the biggest challenges is scale. White points out that South America had a huge presence on this trip and in general the individual countries work together on their relationship with China in order to create a bigger market for the Chinese to deal with.
“It’s not just a question of volume, it’s also about available capital to go into such a big market [like China]. Rather than looking at each other as competition, we need to see other businesses as collaborators so we can go into markets together. We need to do business in a way that we get maximum exposure.”
White says this approach is even more important due to the fact that while we were the first to sign an FTA with China, we were by no means the only country working to do so and high-level discussions are being held with a wide range of powerful countries and blocs. “The competitive advantage the FTA gave us is diminishing by the day.”
Another opportunity that New Zealand businesses need to start taking advantage of is the increasing internationalisation of the Renminbi (RMB), or Chinese currency. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) first started relaxing their currency restrictions through a pilot scheme in 2009. By 2011 all of China’s provinces were eligible to use the currency outside of China.
Gary Cross, head of trade and supply chain for HSBC New Zealand, says New Zealand businesses need to seriously consider the option of settling some transactions in RMB, especially as more Chinese businesses look to cut out the “middle man” so to speak of currencies such as the Euro and the US dollar.
“There may be some pricing benefit for New Zealand companies,” Cross says. “It may be that the Chinese buyer wants to deal in RMB because that’s what they’re selling the product in. Being able to offer it eliminates an unnec-essary expense for both sides.”
The conversations and opportunities around settling in RMB will only increase in the coming years, and if the rest of China’s figures are anything to go by, those increases will be relatively quick – New Zealand businesses cannot afford to be left behind.
HSBC’s economists predict that the RMB is set to replace the pound sterling as the third most popular currency for trade settlement globally, behind the US dollar and euro. A survey done by the bank also found nearly eight in 10 businesses in Mainland China that haven’t yet started to use RMB to settle cross-border trade are planning to use it in some capacity for future transactions. It also shows that more than US$2 trillion, or half, of China’s total trade with emerging markets is expected to be settled in RMB by 2013-2015.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the PBOC established an RMB25 million (NZ$5 billion) reciprocal currency arrangement in April 2011 in order to support trade settlement in RMB. The swap line lets the RBNZ borrow RMB if financial market disruption makes it difficult for businesses to access RMB to settle transactions with Chinese businesses.
The government also came on board at the end of last year, when it approved New Zealand Export Credit Office trade guarantees (which provide a guarantee to exporters or banks against defaults on contracts) to be underwritten in RMB.
“There’s the opportunity for companies to have pricing discussions in two different currencies – ‘RMB or US dollar, what do you think works best in this case?’,” Cross says. “We’re still going through a learning curve. There’s still a natural instinct for the US dollar, but New Zealand companies are becoming aware of the potential benefits. It’s an evolu-tionary process.”
HSBC is one of three banks in New Zealand that can settle in RMB – the others are ANZ and BNZ – and in June 2010, Fonterra became the first New Zealand corporate to issue debt denominated in RMB when it sought to raise 300 million Chinese Yan bonds.
“Both trade with China and the RMB are significant and it’s where things are going to be in the very foreseeable future. China will be even more of an economic powerhouse than they are now, so we’re in a good position to take advantage of that.” n
“We’re still going through a learning curve. There’s still a natural instinct for the US dollar, but New Zealand companies are becoming aware of the potential benefits of the Renminbi.”
22 NOUS SPRING 2012
Using protectionIn an economy increasingly driven by innovations, ideas and creativity, protecting and exploiting intellectual property is an important topic. But protecting it is just one part of the puzzle – you also need to identify where the value lies and then be able to enforce that protection.
WORDS BY Greg Bruce
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Maybe the best place to start is with the story of the paint tin lid because, although it happened nearly 130 years ago,
it’s a story that resonates unfortunately with many innovators today.
In 1884, Dunedin man John Eustace invented the lid that is still used today on millions of tins of paint and golden syrup and Milo and myriad other products. He never took out a patent. Shortly after having a die made in England in order to begin mass production of the lids, his design was being copied without mercy by firms across that country.
At one stage, one company even offered Eustace a large sum for the rights to the design before realising there was no need and withdrawing their offer.
Eustace was no failure. He was still success-fully producing his lids in the 1920s, but by that time he was just one of many. His is a tale of what might have been. And there are plenty of similar examples littering New Zealand’s history, says Ceri Wells of intellectual property law firm James & Wells.
Intellectual property is an unwieldy term. Not many years ago, Wells would introduce himself at parties as a plumber. He doesn’t need to do that anymore – people under-stand it better. It’s property that comes from the intellect: ideas, innovation, the fruits of creativity. And it’s important because in an increasingly innovation-driven economy, how we deal with it, protect it, share it, exploit it, is critical to our success. And that is no simple matter. But in Waikato, a powerful example of how it can be done has started to emerge.
Few places produce more intellectual property per capita than universities, and the ability to turn those ideas into money-spinners has become an
increasingly well-developed business model over recent years.
WaikatoLink is the University of Waikato’s commercialisation company – a company that exists to take the knowledge within the university and transfer it into industry.
CEO Duncan Mackintosh says that while universities already do that in a number of
ways – teaching and publication for example – WaikatoLink’s role is about tangible intel-lectual property in the form of patents or trademarks or specific designs.
“We’ll generally transfer that to industry via licences to the technology or sales of the technology or potentially even put it into start up companies and get the start up companies out to the real world,” he says.
What WaikatoLink is to the University of Waikato, Prima Group is to Wintec. It would be easy to think of the two organisations as competitors but the fact is that, right now, they are working together on a high profile project to commercialise a clever new filtering technology that has emerged from research carried out at Wintec.
It’s all happening through KiwiNet, a consortium of universities and Crown Research Institutes dedicated to a collabo-rative approach to research commerciali-sation. Through Kiwinet, agri-nutrients company Ballance has also been brought on board to assist with development and commercial applications.
“The key with this technology,” Mackintosh says, “is that we went to Ballance, the customer, and asked them, if they could filter something of interest, what would it be? We then delivered exactly that.”
It is a case of collaboration in action – bringing together intellectual property with industrial know-how to create a product that has serious commercial appeal. John Luxton, chief executive of Prima Group says the collective approach has led to a much stronger proposition than would have existed otherwise.
“The technology has several unique selling propositions that make it attractive,” he says. “The filters are reusable, capture down to parts per billion and allow highly specific binding. The other thing that is particularly satisfying is the opportunity for the commercialisation businesses of Waikato University and Waikato Institute of Technology to work collaboratively on a project that has such potential.”
It’s refreshing because, as Anna Kingsbury, senior law lecturer and intellectual property
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specialist at the University of Waikato, points out, the prevailing attitude to intellectual property is to guard it jealously – and not necessarily to best effect.
“You’ll struggle to find an academic that doesn’t think that IP is a little over protected these days… The people who want to use the invention are often quite restricted and people who want to invent or improve an invention are also. We talk about how we can provide incentives for people to innovate but we also need to provide sufficient access for people who want to use or improve the innovation.”
The collaboration between Prima Group, WaikatoLink, their respective academic organisations and Ballance is an example of how that access might be achieved.
Far from being nervous about the legal implications of collaborating with a “rival” organisation, Prima Group’s Luxton says that he is inspired by it.
“The commercialisation space and the handling of IP can seem incredibly daunting to the layperson – very dense, boring, fraught with danger and difficulty – but it doesn’t have to be. At end of the day this whole area is about the fabulous opportunity of new thinking and bringing things to light that have not previously existed and that’s actually a really fun, invigor-ating thing and it’s a terrible shame when it gets reduced to boring legalese nonsense.
“This is the part of life where possi-bility exists and that can get lost in the maze sometimes. I just find being around inventors and inventions and the whole infrastructure around it to be fascinating. And for my own childlike purposes, I find it important that I take the piss and poke holes in the stuffiness of it all.”
One thing that sometimes get lost, Luxton points out, is that ideas come from real people: inspiring and interesting people. For example, Luxton says the person behind the polymers at the heart of the Prima / WaikatoLink collabo-ration is a brilliant, mad scientist:
“Now, she’s got her head frighteningly full of very pointy-headed things, but you just have to scratch the surface and discover her very peculiar sense of humour and musical taste, and that’s the thing – none of this stuff gets invented by people without a passion. Behind every invention and piece of IP, there’s a bloody fascinating human being and that’s the bit I like to focus on. The privilege of being around people who do this crazy stuff.”
As exciting and inspiring as such successful collaboration undoubtedly is, bringing together as it does like-minded people
with a goal and the passion to make it work, there is, of course, a darker side to the world of intellectual property. It’s the side where brilliant inventions – paint tin lids, say – fail to reap the rewards their inventors deserve. And that’s why patent attorneys exist.
“One of the things our firm has been very successful at,” says Ceri Wells of James &
“Behind every invention and piece of IP, there’s a bloody fascinating human being and that’s the bit I like to focus on.”
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Wells, “is we’ll talk to firms that are creating new products from time to time. We’ll ask them: ‘What is your business strategy going forward? Where do you want to be in five years’ time?’ What you need is an intellectual property strategy that matches that, that is totally embedded in the business strategy. And we just develop an overall strategy for them and they will start developing products they control.”
That is to say, a good intellectual property law firm is able to provide much more than just a solution to the problem of: ‘How do I protect my intellectual property?’ They work together with businesses from the earliest stages of the development process. They are collaborators.
“You can build a map which will show you this is a really good area to do R&D in because nobody controls this space. We can point to areas where all the major companies are investing huge resources into developing new products so that’s either a sign to get into that area yourself because that’s where all the profit’s going to come from or that’s an area to keep out of because there’s just too much activity in that field. The consequences of that is you can work out who’s going to be inter-ested in my idea, where are the threats and where are the opportunities?”
Finally, at some point, if your idea is valuable enough, the importance of protection will be put to the test because, of course, establishing yourself as the legal owner of your intellectual property is only the beginning. The real test of what that protection means comes when it needs to be enforced, and that enforcement is not as simple as it may appear at first glance.
The University of Waikato’s Anna Kingsbury: “Bringing an action is not a cheap thing. That’s okay if you’re a big company and you can afford it – and if you’re a big company and you’ve got deep pockets, you probably will afford it, so they’re probably not going to infringe.
“But there are a lot of examples of a small inventor, a person who’s designed a new thing, but they can’t necessarily afford to bring an action… Somebody in another jurisdiction will start to infringe your right. You’ve got the right but you’ve got to show they are infringing. There are a lot of steps. With copyright, you’ve got to prove they actually did copy your work and that’s not always the easiest thing to do. You need to get a whole bunch of evidence and you need to bring your action in a court in another country. And that doesn’t come cheap. It can be prohibitive to actually do that. And if they know you don’t have deep pockets, they say: ‘Well, sue us’.
“So it’s not a goldmine. You can spend a lot of money getting IP protection and then spend a lot more money enforcing.”
Establishing and protecting good ideas, then, is not simple. It means working with the right people, getting good information and advice and using it to make smart decisions. There will be problems and for smaller businesses particularly, they will sometimes be too big to face alone. The key is to not face them alone; the key is to collaborate. n
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For better
Having a business partner can make the world of difference – they can lighten the load, halve the stress, provide a more stable funding base and enable faster expansion. But they can also do the complete opposite. It comes down to whom you pick and that relies on how you pick them.
WORDS BY Ellie van Baaren
For better
for worseThere are many people who claim
they knew their partner was “the one” as soon as their eyes met. But there are few – outside
of Hollywood perhaps – who would stake their future on that initial feeling. And yet, in business, love at first sight can often be enough to encourage many people to go into business together.
“I always get apprehensive when I get the phone call from a client telling me they’ve found someone they want to go into partnership or business with,” lawyer Dan Moore says. “They’ve looked at their complementary assets but often they know nothing about each other. It’s kind of like a marriage – but without all the fun bits. You have to approach it the same way as you would if you were selecting a partner for life.”
Moore is a partner with Hamilton’s Norris Ward McKinnon and has been advising businesses at every life cycle stage for 25 years. The key to making it work? Forget the adage “it’s not personal, it’s just good business”. In fact, turn it on its head. Because when it comes to business partnerships, it needs to be personal in order to be good business.
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Where you met them, how you know them or what existing relationship you have with your potential partner isn’t a make or break factor in and of itself – as Moore points out, some people can think of nothing better than working with their spouse, others couldn’t think of anything worse. It comes down to the personalities.
“You have to be very clear about your expec-tations and the better you know the person, the better you’ll be able to manage those expecta-tions. I often suggest they spend a couple of nights out on the town to make sure they at least get on at that level.”
History also bears out this advice. Paul Allen and Bill Gates were childhood friends before they started Microsoft; Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were Stanford University classmates before they started HP; Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both doctoral students at Stanford who got over their initial bickering when they worked on a research project together, a project that became the basis for their company Google.
Each of these partnerships also exemplifies the other aspects of a successful partnership – complementary skill sets, similar backgrounds and world views, shared goals and a commitment to put in the same amount of effort to make the business work. All of which need to be discussed honestly before the ink gets anywhere near any dotted line, necessi-tating some hard questions.
“You also need to agree to deal with disagreements in a way that doesn’t damage the relationship. You have to have the hard conversations without being concerned that it’s going to be the end of things.”
Moore has been with Norris Ward McKinnon since 2000 and is one of seven partners. The firm has established a successful process when it comes to picking partners – you don’t survive almost 100 years without one. “Someone coming into a partnership has been with the firm for a number of years. The ones that haven’t worked out have been people who’ve come in cold. It just takes one person to ruin it. If you get someone without the right skills, or they’re not fitting into the norms of the business, then one person can make the entire thing dysfunctional.”
It’s the best reason for taking things slowly, something that can be a challenge when there seem to be so many tantalising opportu-nities just on the horizon. Moore says larger companies are often good at this – no doubt partly because an organisation of that size naturally moves slower and because they’ve got a lot more to lose – but it’s relevant for businesses of all sizes.
“Year one is often about strategic intent” Moore explains. “They have a letter or some light and fluffy agreement saying that they’ll work together. Then they can use that time to see if they are doing the same sort of things
and making the same sort of effort. Then, if they get the right feel and the right vibes, they can take it further.”
Even then, “further” doesn’t necessarily mean jumping in boots and all. “It doesn’t need to be a formal partnership agreement, it’s an agreement that there’s a concept there that could work.”
Even businesses that do the up front spade work, can then fall down when it comes to formalising their partnership. Regardless of the
size of the business, or the closeness of the relationship, a handshake just isn’t going to cut it.
Moore says that many businesses don’t spend the money on getting the documents drawn up beforehand, whether it’s because they’re not 100 per cent sure about it, they don’t have the cash or would rather spend it on something that contributes more directly to their bottom line.
“There’s a huge tendency to wait because it’s better at the beginning so they think they can do without it,” Moore explains. “Two years into it, things might still be going quite well but then the momentum fades and you start facing issues you don’t want to face and that would have been easier to deal with at the beginning. There’s no framework in place for resolving those issues and you’re forced to negotiate on everything. It can get nasty.”
There’s a reason why traditional wedding vows include the promises “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health” –
the hardest work comes after the “I do’s”. The same is true for a business partnership.
“You’ve got be continually working at it, continually communicating,” Moore says. “You’ve got to be intentional about seeing them and doing things together in order to connect with them as a human being. With us [NWM], we’re on two floors so you can go a fair while without seeing one of the other partners. You have to make the effort to spend time with them, otherwise if you don’t have that level of communication with them the next time there’s a difficult issue, it’s harder to resolve it.”
Resolving any issue that crops up relies on being able to see things from both perspec-tives. And sometimes the result of that is you need to bite your tongue.
“It’s unusual for one person to be right and one person to be wrong,” Moore says. “In an ideal world you would deal with everything as and when it comes up, but sometimes you have to pick your battles. Business partners are all individuals and they are going to think differently about things. It’s about letting the smaller things go because the larger picture is working – you’ve got to get over it and on with it.” n
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“It’s kind of like a marriage – but without all the fun bits. You have to approach it the same way as you would if you were selecting a partner for life.”
NOUS SPRING 2012 27
Based in an old soda factory at the bottom of Victoria Street in Hamilton, Soda Inc’s entire environment promotes a collabo-
rative approach. While there are currently several businesses based out of Soda’s offices, there is only one closed business room.
Instead, the space is designed to create a community of business endeavours, including “the round” which consists of chairs and a coffee table, providing a meeting space for office mates and visitors. It’s all to reinforce the idea that Soda is a place built on business relationships, creative transformation and networking.
This year Soda supported and helped organise the Innes 48-hour Business Start-up Competition, where teams must design and launch a start-up company in just 48 hours before presenting them to a panel of judges. For the 2012 competition teams were competing for a cash prize of $3500 and six weeks’ participation in Soda’s pre-incubation programme.
Soda also hosted the first Internship Meet and Match event where student talents were speed matched with knowledge intensive regional enterprises.
Nous talks to Business Growth Manger Petr Adamek about the competition, attracting talent and creating connections.
The team and incubator businesses at Soda Inc know exactly how important collaboration is for success – they wouldn’t be there without it. The business incubator is a joint venture between Wintec and the Hamilton City Council, formed in 2009 as part of a vision to develop Hamilton into a vibrant entrepreneurial city.
From the desk of…Soda Inc
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Isaac de Reus
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We help companies gain confidence and develop the skills to become world-class exporting companies, create jobs in the Waikato region, bring export dollars to the region and enhance competitiveness.
If they’re accepted to our incubation programmes, my job is to see how they develop their products, design an export plan and troubleshoot for up to three years on anything that acts as a barrier to their business plan. Hopefully by year three, they’re robust enough to start growing exponentially and creating jobs and can move out of the incubator.
If we grow world-class companies here, they will be looking for world-class staff and attracting people to work in the headquarters of global technology firms.
Job opportunities are important but so is quality of life. The decisions made by an individual to live in a place have a profes-sional and personal component, so you need a balance of both. New Zealand’s remoteness and distance works in a number of ways for the country to preserve its unspoiled character, uniquenesss and easygoing style. In terms of how we live in Europe and how we live here, there’s a huge amount of difference – especially stress levels, times to travel to
work, dress code and everything, there are less people and they are closer together so it’s easy to get used to the New Zealand ways.
On the other hand, the same advantages may mean there’s not enough local market to create demand for your services, so you do have to focus on export if you want to survive. NZ Inc. needs to work as an export engine. We have to make sure that we have the capability to compete internationally as our growth will not come from selling to each other.
Together with our partners, we recently organised a business competition, called Innes 48-hour Business Start-up Challenge. Eight teams competed – about 48 people –and created some fantastic viable business ideas. We’re talking to at least half of them about possible involvement in Soda programmes.
The youngest people were a few weeks before graduation and some of them were senior people in their 50s. Some of them have an already established business and came to compete with other teams, and pitch to the judges. Some of the teams were purely university graduates or students. Overall it was quite diverse.
What’s important is that it was so successful that we already have a cash prize sponsor for next year, $10,000, and we already have a number of people signed up for next year’s competition.
In cooperation with Wintec and Waikato University Soda has held an Internship Meet and Match event that connected students and regional businesses. More than 1000 individual introductions were facilitated during the evening.
Events like the Innes 48 Hours Start-up Competition and the Internship Meet and Match are important in terms of attracting talent. Many of the people who participated were international students and it was good to see that they believe this is an entrepreneurial hub so that after their studies are over they can start up a business or get an attractive job in this region. Soda’s purpose is to accelerate growth of businesses that are directly aligned with the goals that we have: create competitive jobs here in companies that create value for customers globally. n
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The late Sir Paul Callaghan was very concerned about the implications the Kiwi diaspora has for New Zealand’s future as a first-world
country. Fortunately he also put forward a solution: New Zealand needs to be a country where talent wants to live. Sir Paul argued that to prosper as a nation we need these talented and inspired people who will build innovative companies. With 100 more companies like Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and Tait Communications we would enjoy an extra $45 billion in exports per year – all without destroying our environment.
In general talented people want to live where they can enjoy good quality of life while harnessing their creativity and skills. New Zealand has an exceptional quality of life, so to attract and retain talented people we need to focus on providing them with the opportunity to do interesting things.
Innovative companies are very good at this, something I have experienced first-hand. As part of my studies I carry out research with LanzaTech, a New Zealand biotechnology company recently named one of the 50 most innovative companies in the world alongside Apple, IBM and Google by the MIT Technology Review. The majority of LanzaTech’s research and development staff have recently moved to New Zealand to work for the company, many bringing families with them. These people
Connections and collaborations can lead to new understandings and opportunities.
James Daniell says that’s exactly what we need to attract and retain the best and
brightest talents from at home and abroad.
Where talent lives
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are world experts in this specific niche, and LanzaTech has attracted this resource of scientists and engineers who have made New Zealand their home.
Since these talent-attracting companies are so important, how do we foster them? Firstly, we need to envision high-value indus-tries as being the future of New Zealand. At a fundamental level New Zealand still sees itself as an economy of impotent industries like agriculture and tourism, a situation often lamented by Sir Paul Callaghan.
Yes, our economy is chiefly based on the primary sector and tourism, but we also have many examples of exciting science and
technology-based companies – high value manufacturing is one of our biggest industries. Successful companies like Rakon and Douglas Pharmaceuticals are focused on the interna-tional market and do not get much exposure within New Zealand. This needs to change – we need to celebrate these companies and change our attitudes so that we view ourselves as excelling in the area of high-technology.
Secondly, we need a highly connected innovation ecosystem. My experience with the student-led organisation Chiasma has demon-strated to me the importance of this. Chiasma connects university science communities with high-tech industries, two traditionally disparate but fundamental components of the innovation ecosystem.
I have seen first-hand the value in connecting these two groups. For example, many scientists in academia don’t realise that there is scope for them to do exciting things in New Zealand, and instead head overseas – this is reflected in the fact that one third of our PhD graduates are working overseas. Furthermore, many may not recognise the commercial potential in their research. By making science students commercially aware and professionally developed, they are able to identify opportunities where they can use their skills and knowledge to advance New Zealand outside of the academic paradigm.
The advantages of making connections
between different groups are equally present throughout the innovation ecosystem, and talent parks and business incubators such as Auckland’s Institute for Innovation in Biotechnology, Hamilton’s Waikato Innovation Park and Christchurch’s soon to be developed Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus are an excellent way to quite literally bring together complementary parts of the ecosystem and foster the development of talent-attracting innovative companies.
In the 1990s Ireland transformed itself from one the poorest to one of the richest countries of the OECD. During this time Ireland focused on attracting and retaining capital and talent, and as this process started taking hold, hundreds of thousands of talented people flooded back into the country in a virtuous circle of economic success. Today the majority of Ireland’s exports are in high value industries – powering an export-led recovery from the recent financial crisis.
We will experience this same dramatic shift when New Zealand truly becomes a place where talent wants to live. By supporting and encouraging talented New Zealanders to use their skills and knowledge to advance New Zealand, this vision will become a reality. n
James Daniell is the CEO of Chiasma and a commercial PhD student in synthetic biology at the University of Auckland.
“New Zealand has an exceptional quality of life, so to attract and retain talented people we need to focus on providing them with the opportunity to do interesting things.”
opinion
iStockphoto
32 NOUS SPRING 2012
1. Netball Waikato Board members Mike Pettit and Senga Allen with Sport Waikato’s Matthew Cooper. 2. Ron Satherley, Anne Mahn, Ron and Jill Shanley. 3. Gordon Chesterman and Monica Leggat. 4. Amigene Metcalfe, Erin Andersen and Grant Metcalfe. 5. Trish Duggan and Ruth Aitken. 6. Maxine Hodgson and Julian Elder. 7. Wintec’s Tame Pokaia and Gaye Barton. 8. Old Fairfield College buddies – Barbara Cumming, George Cumming, Monica Leggat, Olwyn Laurie, Neil Laurie and Josie Gordon.
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Honorary degree for Monica LeggatThe cream of the netballing community gathered at Wintec in late July to honour a woman who has been involved in the sport for 60 years. Monica Leggat received an honorary Master of Science in sport and exercise science from Wintec after a career that has seen her fulfilling many roles in netball for Waikato and New Zealand. Leggat is currently the patron of Netball Waikato and played an instrumental role in creating Hamilton’s Minogue Park netball venue, as well as helping to guide the national team to World Games titles in 1985 and 1988, and the World Netball Championship title in 1987. In 1999 she was awarded a Member of the New Zealand Order or Merit for services to netball and the community.
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1. Whitney Joblin, Mareet Carley, Sandra Perry (Waikato Chamber of Commerce), Kashka Tunstall (Waikato Times). 2. Dave Mourits, Jonathon Chew, Lei Fang, Lili Zhou, Nic Reichardt, Tania Griffin, Kevin Wong, Justin Boswell (NDA Group). 3. Toby Braun, Kieran Lomas (Harkness Henry Lawyers). 4. Lacey Joblin, Kelly Wilson (Waikato University). 5. Kate Beech, Jeremy Friar (Laminex Group).
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50 years of Samoan independenceSamoans around the country were celebrating 50 years of their nation’s independence from New Zealand in June, and in Hamilton three days of events kicked off with a pre-independence dinner at Wintec’s Atrium. The night featured local performances from the Waikato University Samoan Students Association, Maddison Horsefield Nonoa and a few special guests from Auckland. On the Monday the flag ceremonial celebration began with a parade from Knox Street and rounded off at Garden Place by further traditional ceremonies and performances.
Tyro – The Young Professionals Network LaunchThe Waikato Chamber of Commerce helped launch Tyro, a new network organisation for Waikato’s young professionals, at Easy Tiger on Victoria Street in early August. The group is aimed at people in the first 15 years of their careers, providing professional and social events to help with networking and professional development.
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34 NOUS SPRING 2012
Palo Alto may not ring many bells with you on its own, but throw Stanford University and Silicon Valley into the mix and it’s sounding
a little more familiar. The Californian city is home to around 65,000 people, but perhaps more famously it’s also home to some of the world’s leading high-tech companies including Hewlett Packard and IDEO and has served as an incubator for a who’s who list of successful companies. Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Apple, Logitech and PayPal are all part of that list.
As city manager, James Keene is respon-sible for running Palo Alto and by extension maintaining its reputation as a hotbed of innovation and technology; an inspiring and creative base for ambitious technology companies.
“There’s a type of invention here that attracts talented people interested in solving problems and creating,” Keene explains. “It’s the birth-place of Silicon Valley and was producing 50 per cent of the world’s internet traffic in the late 1990s.”
That was at the beginning of the so-called “dotcom” bubble, which proceeded to burst in 2000-2001, fortunately without taking Palo Alto down with it. “Our economy has never been linked to one or two businesses, it continues to reinvent itself every decade.”
Keene visited Hamilton as a guest of business incubator Soda Inc, providing a knowledge-sharing experience for both sides.
The success of the city comes from a whole combination of factors. We want to attract the best talent and it helps if the city is good to live in, so we’re trying to ensure an outstanding quality of life through urban design and our city values.
We partner directly with businesses. It’s important that we signal to the wider world that the city is interested in having any of the world’s leading digital companies, and in wanting them to stay here. We deploy test-bed opportunities for start-ups and experimen-tation grants, and we were one of the first cities to have a greenhouse gas desktop dashboard so organisations can measure their carbon footprint.
Palo Alto’s city manager James Keene knows a thing or two about
the importance of collaboration in creating
a vibrant, attractive and creative city. Nous
got a chance to pick his brains on a recent visit
to Hamilton.
AS TOLD TO Ellie van Baaren
Playing your part
opinion
Palo Alto city manager James Keene during his recent visit to Soda Inc.
We see a city as a partnership. We are a key player in making it successful, but just one player.
These are challenging financial times and we have tried to build on our city’s tradition, provide open government and encourage collaboration across all areas.
We are an active part of the open data movement in the US and as of 2012 we’ve implemented an open data initiative for the city. We held the city’s first hack-a-thon giving computer hackers and techies 24 hours to build an application to utilise geographical information system data provided by the City.
We want to open up all this information to the wider world, and challenge communities to find valuable new ways to use it.
Palo Alto is as vibrant as it’s ever been. I would say that things are hotter than in the dot.com period. There is a tremendous amount of energy and job creation, but it’s all around the fact that what matters are the people and what has made us successful is that we have a critical mass of talented people who freely move between companies.
I’ve been really impressed with how Soda Inc have designed their programme and what they’re trying to do. It felt like I could be in Palo Alto. There is a discipline and rigour that they have displayed.
I’ve had a great day at the Hamilton Innovation Technology Park and being able to see that kind of cross-cutting perspective. It’s how Hamilton and New Zealand needs to be positioning themselves. It’s very clear to me as a visitor that New Zealand has a lot going for it. It’s an island jewel with a fantastic environment and great people.
We tried to focus on how we integrate and be true to ourselves. Be New Zealand and build the economy and businesses connected to distinctive, New Zealand-based value that can be added, not something that everyone else does. n
“We see a city as a partnership. We are a key player in making it successful, but just one player.”
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