On day two of the recent EDANZ conference, the evening guest speaker was Alicia Beverley of IP Wealth in Australia. When being introduced to speak, Alicia was described as “the astoninglishly beautiful Alicia Beverley”. Both her husband and my wife preclude me from commenting on that description but suffice it to say that what she said rung true.
She’s agreed to have the text of the speech reproduced here so without any further ado….
Your Leadership Legacy
By Alicia Beverley
When PT Barnum, the founder of what was known around the world as the Barnum &
Bailey Circus or the “World’s Greatest Show”, died on April 7, 1891 he was surrounded by
his closest loved ones.
Here are a couple of edited paragraphs from the New York Times obituary published the
next day:
“The Great Showman Dead
Last Hours of the Life of Phineas T. Barnum
Bridgeport’s Great Benefactor
Appreciated Abroad
At 6:22 o’clock tonight the long sickness of P. T. Barnum came to an end. Mr. Barnum
seemed to realize that he could not live much longer, and spoke of his approaching end
with calmness.
When it became certain that the end was but a few hours distant, telegrams to relatives
were sent out, and among the sorrowing group in the sick room this evening when the final
moments came were Mrs. Barnum, his pastor, two daughters, his grandson; his physicians;
a nurse and his faithful valet. All were in tears. Although Mrs. Barnum has stood up
bravely under the strain, the closing moments were too much for her and she gave way at
times. His end was peaceful and apparently perfectly painless.”
116 years after his death, the vast majority of us gathered here today would not only
remember PT Barnum’s name, but would know of his show Barnum & Bailey and of
course the slogan, “The World’s Greatest Show”. From very humble beginnings he became
enormously successful, was an exporter on a huge scale (of entertainment in his case) and
his name was known around the world in a time when news moved much more slowly than
today.
Shortly before his death his estate was valued at $10,000,000. The will named
twenty-seven heirs and included many charitable bequests. The Children’s Aid Society was
specifically named as a beneficiary of a certain percentage of each season’s profits.
About this bequest to the Children’s Aid Society PT Barnum said, “I don’t know anybody
connected with that society but I believe in the society. To me there is no picture so
beautiful as smiling, bright-eyed, happy children; no music so sweet as their clear and
ringing laughter. That I have had power to provide innocent amusement for the little ones,
to create such pictures, to evoke such music, is my proudest reflection…[my bequest caters
for] four generations of children. I want children to remember me.”
And they did. And they still do. The circus is still running today. Continue reading ‘Your leadership legacy.’
Late last year a local filmmaker decided to shoot a short film focusing on the debate between NZ and offshore manufacturing. To this end he filmed four New Zealand based businesses. Two of them produce domestically, Cactus Climbing and Chalky Digits, while two produce offshore, IceBreaker and Macpac.
First a quick disclaimer - I actually like Icebreaker as a product and as a business and I don’t have issues with their move to offshore manufacturing. I’m just keen for people to realise that successful, scalable and profitable manufacturing business can occur in New Zealand.
Interesting discussion about the role of incubators to give start ups in New Zealand a helping hand.
Chris Kirk from Lincoln Uni gave some statistics on the value gained by giving start ups an environment where they can be nurtured and taken to a “ready for investment” stage. he did however raise the issue of the need for business parks, whereby an incubator could be part of a larger business park where Hi Tech businesses could progress from pre incubation to an actual incubator and then on to various stages of semi supported existence.
When you look at Silicon Valley it does seem a powerful argument - concentrate a critical mass of knowledge, ability, ideas and cash and watch the magic happen.
Chris’ comments were made doubly interesting by the lunch address by John Key, leader of the National Party, who reiterated his parties belief in Incubators and stated that National would grow this particular form of economic development assistance.
Perhaps under National we would see a technology park in Christchurch incorporating University buy-in and talent, an incubator to help the start ups with core business competencies and then a clustered area where new grads from the incubator could migrate to. These new grads would then feed knowledge, skills and creative thought back into the area. Perhaps in this way we’d achieve a self fulfilling (and most importantly self supporting, Hi Tech business development industry in New Zealand. Thoughts anyone????
Would TradeMe or Humanware have grown quicker or more readily if they were nurtured within a loose community of geographically and intellectually connected like-minded businesses - surely the Silicon valley experience would say yes
“Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.”
- Dr. Samuel Johnson
An interesting post here about, to simplify, shutting up or spouting off.
There exists an interesting incongruity between the fact that with twitter, IM, email, blogging any thought can be instantly and irreversibly transmitted without a moments hesitation. The incongruity lies in the old adage by SJ quoted above.
Now some future thinkers would say that, given time, all references to tact, contemplation and circumspection will be forgotten and people will just output what they think in one long stream of data.
I’d like to think human kind has more savvy than that and we re-learn the ability to hold back, to contemplate, to chose our words carefully - or maybe, just maybe, to chose no words at all.
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