Early last year I had three things on my mind. I was researching the possible use of Amazon AWS for a project we were working on; I was watching the events at the Auckland Startup Weekend wishing I was there; and finally I was preparing for a presentation I was due to give at the College of Business at Massey University. It was a holiday weekend, so much to Sonya's dismay, I wondered if I could run my own Start Weekend. The question I asked myself was "Could I launch an internet business in one weekend, in the process write all the code, learn AWS including EC2, Route53, To View More >>

'How did you become so wealthy?' is a question I've asked plenty of people in my life. But the answer I got from a very successful colleague of mine when I worked at Xerox wasn't about a product, or a service, or a sales  or marketing strategy. It was about a belief that underpinned everything he did. His answer was this. "I got rich by making other people rich... I add value to peoples lives." He took it upon himself every day, to go out and add value to peoples lives - whether it was his clients', or his customers' or his friends'. Now you're not necessarily going make people rich simply To View More >>

I was listening to a commentator today on National Radio talking about how the manufacturing sector, and especially exporters in New Zealand were in a really bad way. That doesn't apply to us, but he did help me remember three things about why I came back from Australia to help grow Queensberry. It's her 40th birthday next month, and while she has changed beyond belief these past 10 years she grows up next month. I returned for ... Passion I came back to be part of some thing much bigger than myself. I have been passionate about this industry since I was a child and love photography, love weddings To View More >>

My regret if I did have one would be around business projects I didn't take a leap of faith to take advantage of. I don't however believe in regret as each part of ones life is purely a "step". None of us are perfect, and often we will trip. So long as we get up and do our best to put right what we broke, everything is good. If you like, all these moments become learning's ... they weave the colour and texture into the blanket we call life. I've always been proud of coming from a very entrepreneurial family, and one that has been astute at picking trends. #1 In the early 90's after years on Compuserve To View More >>

I'm new to blogging and although I have seen consistent and significant growth in unique visitors, I have been keen to find tips to grow my blog quickly. I've spent my spare time over the last few weeks researching and what I have found scares me. There are lots of ways to grow visitor numbers and one of the most heavily promoted is back-links. The benefit of back links is that search engines give greater ranking to sites that have lots of back links as these links are seen as votes (endorsements) from other sites. Of course this makes sense and like everyone I will be doing my best to develop To View More >>