Published on the 13/07/2011 | Written by Newsdesk
NZ Inc needs to get aggressive and get noticed if kiwi innovation is to leave its mark – that was the conclusion from last Friday’s hectic Ice Ideas Conference in Auckland…
So how much can you say in six minutes?
That’s how long some of New Zealand’s and the world’s bright sparks had to get their point across at last Friday’s hectic ICE Ideas Conference in Auckland.
The sold-out event was held at the University of Auckland Business School, and bought some of the world’s best thinkers and doers together to share ideas and to encourage New Zealand’s entrepreneurs to get out there and have a crack at the world stage.
The fact that speakers had just six minutes to get their point across was a brilliant idea in itself. The day’s speakers were forced to get to the point immediately (which, in business, seems to be a rare gift indeed) with the short-and-sweet format keeping the pace fast and kept energy levels high throughout.
American headliners Peter Thiel (PayPal co-founder and Facebook’s first outside investor) and author Rob Adams had, of course, plenty of nice things to say about NZ. Both spoke broadly about the outstanding potential of NZ and praised the can-do attitude of Kiwis. This seemed to set the tone for the day, with most the speakers preferring to speak in terms of broad philosophy, rather than from a prescriptive, nuts and bolts perspective. Which is not to say that that was a bad thing at all. I’m as much of a sucker for a rousing speech as the next guy – and in a room full of would-be entrepreneurs, the nearly 600 others in the room were certainly receptive.
Derek Handley (Hyperfactory), Grant Ryan (SLI Systems, Yike Bike) and over 30 others shared their vision for New Zealand’s future over the course of one very full day. iStart tweeted from the event starting at 8:30am. Needless to say, by around 2pm, the break-neck pace was causing some serious thumb cramps for this editor (see below for the best tweets of the day – see more at #iceideas).
Summing it all up is a challenge, but if there was one overarching theme, it may have been this: New Zealanders make great engineers, but are not naturally great salesmen.
There are plenty of clever people and great ideas in this country, but if New Zealand is to get its potential recognised internationally, Kiwi entrepreneurs need to push their ideas, and push them aggressively, onto the world stage. Don’t make excuses about the geographical isolation or a lack of funding. Buy a ticket, get on the plane and make it happen (but please come back when you’re done). Rob Adams put it well: “You have to be aggressive to get above the noise and leave your mark”.
Here’s iStart’s list of the most quotable quotes from the day:
> Andy Hamilton (CEO The Icehouse): “We [New Zealanders] can’t achieve shit by ourselves.”
> Rob Adams (author): “New Zealanders say the same thing as everyone else: ‘we don’t have enough money’. Don’t say that anymore. The numbers don’t support the entrepreneurial claim.”
> Peter Thiel (PayPal): “New Zealand has to be geared towards technology, not just globalization…that means doing things that have not been done before.”
> Hon. Steven Joyce: “The ‘how’ [of successful entrepreneurship] is deceptively simple: innovate; think of things”.
> Peter Thiel (on the Facebook movie ‘The Social Network’): “It was great…there were a lot of inaccuracies in it”.
> Rob Adams: “Labelling yourself as ‘an entrepreneur’ is like saying your car ‘comes with physics’”.
> Richard McManus (ReadWriteWeb): “What does the US think of New Zealand? It doesn’t.”
> Mark Britt (Microsoft): “Kids in Microsoft videos are always smiling”.
> Tim Williams (ValueClick): “If you can’t get enough capital here, get off your ass and go and get it somewhere else”.
> Chris Jones (Mobilis): “Be paranoid until the money is in the bank”.
> Grant Ryan (Yike Bike): “The opposite of success is not failure. The opposite of success, and failure, is boring mediocrity”.
> Mark Eglinton (NDA): “How much technology is required to grow the agricultural sector by $13 billion? …heaps.”
> James Madelin (Enlight Photopro): “We need to champion the ‘positive deviants’”.
> Mike Carden (Sonar6) on the key to social media success: “Be friendly, be interesting. Be amazing. Don’t try to sell me shit”.
> Candace Kinser (Biomatters): “Entrepreneurs are people who are dissatisfied with being normal”.
> Peter Chrisp (NZTE): “We’re from the government; we’re here to help…yeah, right.”
> Fady Mishriki (PowerbyProxi): “The catalyst for change has always been a young, innovative population. What are we doing to retain ours?”
> Phil McCaw: (Movac) “For those of you who are thinking of parting with your money, come and see me after [the presentation] and I’ll show you how”.
> Murray Bain (Ministry of Science and Innovation): “You can’t sit in my job and see what I see and not be excited about the potential of this country”.
> Rod Drury (Xero): “We have to be the ones who do it, until we do it, things won’t change, it would be cool if everyone in NZ felt responsible for earning offshore money… It’s me. It’s you. Let’s go out and do some exporting!”
> Derek Handley (The Hyperfactory): “What we are ultimately failing at here is creating a country that matters on a global stage. You have to decide: what does all this mean? And what are you going to do about it?”
