Edge Message #85 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM
Aotearoa whanau whanui ki te Aonui
Global Community of New Zealanders
Greetings. We are now publishing on most days www.nzedge.com. See the most recent posts below – and if you wish to receive the content daily in your InBox or as an RSS feed, please register on the blog (top left of the front page).
Following are summaries of stories we have published over the past 17 days. We will send these summaries every week or so from now on.
NZ SCIENCE & INNOVATION – GLOBAL HEADLINES
People, companies and organizations accentuating the edge in New Zealand science, technology and innovation – Auckland Airport, First Light ERA, Geoff Vuleta and New York’s Fahrenheit 212, Wallflower Global, Alpine Wasp rescue helicopter, Txtstation, Kerry Black’s Versareef, Wellington telco OpenCloud, TrustPower, UNESCO Science Laureate Margaret Brimble, palaeontologist Trevor Worthy, Massey, Victoria and Auckland Universities, NZ bio-fuels research, cellulosic ethanol production, possums, Aquaflow …
CROWDED HOUSE AND ‘TIME ON EARTH’
Neil Finn is in full voice in more ways than one. The preview webcast of Crowded House’s new Time On Earth album, due July, shows him in crackling, lyrical, lilting form. Finn and Nick Seymour, with Mark Hart and Matt Sherrod, have reformed the band and announced tour dates in the US, Australia and the UK …
NEW ZEALANDERS IN GLOBAL HEADLINES
New Zealanders featured in this week’s survey of global media headlines include Carlisle Everiss, Kate Webb, Frank Bateson, David Bain and Joe Karam, Marshall Day, Antony Young, Antony Romano, Stevens Lawson, Bob Rigg, Tim Finn, Ray Comfort, Ted Thomas, James Ferris, Ingrid McDonald, and Peter Jackson; also NZ food globalizers NZ Blue (New York), Hell Pizza (Fulham) and Reload (Glasgow); from Wallpaper*, The Scotsman, Sydney Morning Herald, New York Times, NZ News UK, Pittsburgh Observer-Reporter, Open Democracy, MediaVillage, BBC, and ABC News …
PETER BLAKE
For New Zealand, the America’s Cup campaigning that began in 1987 has been a multi-billion dollar value-creator for the country in terms of – global nautical industries; NZ global logistics; elevating our agrarian brand image to something more sophisticated; a showcase for design, engineering and craft excellence; global media coverage; employment; development (Auckland’s waterfront); visitation; teamship; reputation; respect …
90 YEARS SINCE FLANDERS FIELD JUNE 7
“Shoulder to shoulder with the Australians, the men of the New Zealand Division began their attack in gales and driving rain, faced with a morass of mud, uncut barbed wire up to 13 metres deep, an erratic and ineffectual artillery barrage to protect them and withering machine-gun fire. Slowed by the weather and struggling through thick mud, they died in their hundreds.” …
EARTHRACE AROUND THE WORLD
While the crew of NZL92 rest in Valencia after qualifying for the Louis Vuitton Cup against Luna Rossa, another stunning New Zealand-designed vessel is at sea audaciously attempting to break the world record for circumnavigation of the globe by a powerboat. The Earthrace, a 100% bio-fuelled, wave piercing trimaran, must arrive in San Diego on or before 21 June to break the record of 75 days set by the British boat Cable & Wireless in 1998 …
NB: News in the last hour is that Earthrace has had to abandon the attempt because of damage suffered during a vicious storm in the Mediterranean Sea.
DOING BUSINESS IN THE USA
A key element in developing an international-looking culture in New Zealand is hearing from those people who are already doing it. As always, it comes back to people and stories. In early 2007, Kea Network and New Zealand Trade & Enterprise produced an excellent forum in New York with five international New Zealand companies, offering candid accounts of the challenges, insights and practicalities of doing business in the USA …
KEVIN ROBERTS ON THE HEART OF WELLINGTON
Invited by the Wellington City Council to address business leaders and influencers at Te Papa on the subject of creativity, in the context of being awarded a WCC-sponsored Kea/NZTE World Class New Zealander Award, Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Worldwide and nzedge.com co-founder Kevin Roberts commenced by revisiting the 1991 Saatchi-created Absolutely Positively Wellington campaign, which put modern moxie into the beige government town …
IT’S THE EGG, NOT THE KIWI!
Evolutionist Charles Darwin would have made a prototypical New Zealander – reserved, socially conservative, slow to make up his mind but eventually pulling off the big kahuna. A new book on Darwin – The Kiwi’s Egg, by David Quammen, a science, nature and travel writer from Montana – offers hope for a metaphorical makeover, one that puts the kiwi in the territory of innovation and big ideas rather than hoodies and hunched shoulders …
NZ LITERARY – GLOBAL HEADLINES
Recent headlines (2007) regarding New Zealand writers and books – from The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Shanghai Daily and others – Katherine Mansfield, Tzeming Mok, CK Stead, Charlotte Grimshaw, Elizabeth Smither, Denis Dutton, Robin Maconie and Fay Weldon …
NZ ART – GLOBAL HEADLINES
Current and recent (2007) headlines about New Zealand artists exhibiting internationally – Julian Dashper, Reg Mombassa, Alexis Hunter, Horace Moore-Jones, Claire Fergusson, Donald McCarten, Peter Lyons, Chip Hooper, Michael Parekowhai, James Boswell, Angela Dwyer and Lisa Ferguson …
DENIS O’REILLY: “Those that have ears let them hear”
The killing of Jhia Te Tua (2) in a drive-by shooting in Wanganui on May 5 has created grief among her family and iwi – and quite possibly a tipping point in New Zealand gang history. In the latest post in his Nga Kupu Aroha: Words of Love series, Denis O’Reilly tells of Jhia Te Tua’s tangi at Tukorehe marae at Kuku south of Levin; the talk of whanau and warriors; linkages between gangs, social development and criminality; factors, findings and recommendations of the latest Government report on youth gangs in Counties Manukau; a New Zealand gang timeline; international strategies for community-wide approaches to gang prevention …
BACK TO THE FUTURE
The genesis of the “New Zealand as Edge” metaphor was a conversation started at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference www.ted.com in California in 1996 with Kevin Kelly, then founding editor of Wired magazine, about biological constructs aka change in the species always starts at the margins, the fringes, the edges. Recently I have been been back in Monterey for my 10th TED and have been boggled as usual by the range of presenters, from economists, demographers, architects, photographers, designers, space scientists, geeks, VCs, surgeons and singers. TED is like drinking from a firehose …
FROM THE MAILBOX
“If you ask a lot of ex-pats why they left, it is because they felt their creativity, innovation, get-up-and-go, can-do, want-to-make-things-happen, stop-standing-in-my-way passion was frustrated, damped-down, locked into mediocre-levelling, chop-the-tall-poppy, can’t-do-anything-but-the-status-quo, type individuals who hold onto many leadership positions and are allowed to do so” …
SPECTACLE, SERENITY, SAFETY
Attracting visitors to New Zealand, and sending them on their way with a smile on their faces and a promise to return, is our most important industry. Matterhorn, Poor Knights Islands, Blanket Bay, Ruapehu, Christchurch, Pinot Noir Festival, Martin Bosley, Great Barrier Island, Whare Kea Lodge, Travel Cafe Japan, Bay of Islands, Wellington and tourism statistics …
NZ FILM – GLOBAL HEADLINES
Stories recently published (2007) on the nzedge.com – Cliff Curtis, Phil Keoghan, Peter Jackson, Jessica Rose, Black Sheep, Ben Cooke, Kirk Marshall, Jane Campion, Peter Donnelly, Miranda Harcourt, Taika Waititi, Park Road Post, Alan Dale, Martin Henderson, Bruce McLaren, Weta Digital, Russell Crowe and Bro’Town …
RECOMMENDED
The Roar is a hard-hitting sports opinion website and e-newsletter which takes an informed look at some of the bigger issues and characters within Australian and New Zealand international competitions (including Union, League, Football, Cricket). The Roar features some of Australia’s best sports writers including Wellington-born Spiro Zavos, recognised as one of the world’s most insightful rugby writers, whose column in The Sydney Morning Herald has run for 20+ years. Spiro has written on New Zealand politics, literature, sport and identity since the late ’60s …
Good wishes to all nzedge.com subscribers throughout the world and in New Zealand.
Brian Sweeney
Producer
THE NEW ZEALAND EDGE
http://www.nzedge.com brian@nzedge.com
