Hans Frauenlob

BBD Summit 2012 - Day 2

The second and final day of the 2012 Better By Design CEO Summit took us into the realm of 'corporate iguanas', a company asking its customers not to buy stuff, big questions about our impact on the planet, and live examples of how New Zealand companies are putting design ideas into practice and making a difference to their businesses.

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BBD Summit 2012 - Day 1

This year's sold-out Better by Design Summit is currently in full swing at the beautiful Villa Maria estate out near Auckland Airport (if you haven't visited, do yourself a favour and take a look when you are next in the area)…. as usual, it is tremendously thought-provoking.

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NZTE Beachheads customer delegation with Meg Whitman, CEO of HP

An all-star assortment of US business leaders providing advice to New Zealand companies was the highlight of the North America Beachheads Forum, attended by 50 New Zealand companies recently in San Francisco.

Refreshingly, a lot of the business firepower on display was from women.

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There's a Method to their madness...

The penultimate (love that word) day of the Better By Design study tour saw the team start the third day bright and early with a trip to the flagship Apple store in Union Square in San Francisco.

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The Better By Design US Study Tour

Day 2 of the Better By Design Study Tour was an awesome trip into the heart of Silicon Valley and in the spirit of the place.

We started our day at Intuitive Surgical, which makes robotic surgery devices. Six of the 2,000 robots they've made are in New Zealand.

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Better By Design study tour

The first day of NZTE's Better By Design study tour was really good. At IDEO we got some people-focused tools and techniques to quickly create testable prototypes from ideas and interviews.

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Occupy Wall Street tents in San Francisco.

The participants of NZTE's Better By Design Study Tour have now arrived in San Francisco.

As one of the world's most renowned 'counter culture' places it is hardly surprising that one of the 'Occupy Wall Street' encampments is here, and about 50 metres away from our hotel!

The action begins in a couple of hours with the first group meal for the participants. I've already spoken with a few of the participants, like Grant Brady from Kea Campers and Sir George Fistonich from Villa Maria. They are enthusiastic about what they might learn this week.

For me, coming back to the Bay area has some happy memories for me. Before I moved to New Zealand, I used to manage technology for the Toronto Blue Jays, a professional baseball team. In 1992, we all came to this area to watch our team play the Oakland A's in the playoffs. We won a game in extra innings in Oakland that sent us on the way to winning the World Series that year - a great memory.

Coming here for is like being at ground zero for the tech sector. You can feel it all around - billboards advertise jobs with major tech companies, and wireless devices are everywhere. My own background is in the tech sector, so this week will let me get my inner geek on.

This tour, and the Beachheads Forum at the end of the week, are amazing opportunities for our customers to connect to the leading thinking of some of the world's most innovative companies. Yet I also think we've got a lot to teach the world as well. As I've said to others, for me the definition of New Zealand research and development is 'tell a Kiwi that it can't be done'.

A good opening dinner to get to know the team - and now we roll into it. IDEO this morning, bus leaves at 7.30am, then Google, Ericsson and the Joie De Vivre group to round out what should be an interesting first day.

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Office building in Silicon Valley, California.

Trips always seem to sneak up on you.  

I'm leaving tomorrow evening for a very exciting week in the USA. NZTE's Better By Design US Study Tour sees 30 company leaders from New Zealand head for one of the worlds epicenters of design, San Francisco and the Silicon Valley.

The tour is action-packed experiential learning, with the group visiting the likes of renowned design house Ideo, the Stanford University d.school, the California Academy of Science, and great design-thinking companies like Google, Facebook, Method and Intuitive Surgical.

As if that wasn't enough, this Friday in San Francisco is NZTE's Beachheads North America Forum. The team has put together an absolutely outstanding programme featuring the likes of the founder of LinkedIn, and a visit with Meg Whitman, CEO of HP. Nearly 70 NZTE customers are signed up for the Forum - a real value-add for companies involved in NZTE's Beachhead programme.

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North America remains a fiercely competitive market

I've just returned after a month in Toronto, Canada visiting family. I get the distinct sense that North America is at long last emerging from its economic funk.

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In business, as in ice hockey, anticipation is crucial.

I grew up in Canada. The number one sport there is ice hockey. Canadians have the same attachment and link to their national identity to hockey (cultural tip: a Canadian would never call it 'ice hockey') as we do to rugby. If you saw the gold medal hockey game at the Vancouver Olympics you know what I'm talking about.

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