Category Archives: Economic Development

December 11, 2009 Posted in Business and the Environment, Compliance, Economic Development, Efficiency, New Zealand 22 Comments

Lobby Groups, Vested Interests and Short Sightedness

By Ben Kepes

(Warning – off topic, but still important) Despite statements to the opposite, New Zealand is a country that gains significant wealth from agriculture and horticulture. That we do so, such a long distance from our main markets, is in part testament to the fact that we’re blessed with significant rain

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November 23, 2009 Posted in Business and the Environment, Economic Development, Efficiency, New Zealand 1 Comment

Commoditization… and the Tragedy of the Commons….

By Ben Kepes

My good friend Ruth has started blogging and, in what can only be likened to a “butterfly from the chrysalis” moment, we get to see the thoughts her previous employment have rendered her unlikely to utter. Her latest post looks broadly at the Emissions Trading Scheme and questions the strategy

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July 20, 2009 Posted in Business, Economic Development, New Zealand, Society 3 Comments

Individual Credit Ratings – A Blunt Tool for a Big Problem

By Ben Kepes

News this morning that credit rating company Veda Advantage plans to introduce a credit rating system for all New Zealand citizens. The system will; give Kiwis a score from minus 330 to plus 1000. Most people will rate above zero but anyone with a score of less than 100 will

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June 17, 2009 Posted in Business, Economic Development, New Zealand, Society 2 Comments

Charity Begins At Home – Lending for Small Business

By Ben Kepes

Image via Wikipedia Kiva is a US based peer-to-peer lending system that allows people to temporarily loan money to entrepreneurs in the developing world. Kiva acts as the agent hosting profiles of entrepreneurs for lenders to access, collecting the funds to be distributed through agencies on-the-ground, and, once a loan

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June 15, 2009 Posted in Economic Development, Efficiency, Governance, IT, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 2 Comments

Government 2.0 – A Way to Go

By Ben Kepes

Jim posted the incredible story of the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) proposing a $117 million upgrade of IT infrastructure, a sum that equates, from Jim’s reckoning, to $234k per NZIS process worker. It’s a sorry tale and one that, as Jim points out, smacks of desperation, silo building and

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June 3, 2009 Posted in Business, Economic Development, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 5 Comments

“Deleveraging” – A New Word for Economic Rape?

By Ben Kepes

For a long time I’ve been something of a lone voice (I’d like to think somewhat akin to the little boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”) crying foul about the economic development direction we seem to take in this country. Part of the reason I co-founded bizchat was because I

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February 26, 2009 Posted in Business, Economic Development, New Zealand 11 Comments

What I don’t Understand….

By Ben Kepes

Is why, when we face a huge economic downturn, and our trading partners moves towards more protectionist measures, here in New Zealand we go in entirely the opposite direction and farm more stuff overseas. From the DomPost this morning; A small-town clothing manufacturer has been dealt a blow on the

January 27, 2009 Posted in Economic Development, New Zealand 1 Comment

It’s the Economy, Stoopid

By Ben Kepes

Overnight some 70000 jobs were axed in the US and Europe with some big name big-cos involved in the cuts. Here in New Zealand we’re yet to see the sort of tumult that the rest of the world seems to be facing. Maybe it has to do with the fact

December 16, 2008 Posted in Business, Business and the Environment, Economic Development, Efficiency, Manufacturing, My businesses, Society 2 Comments

What Part of Rampant Consumerism do People Not Get?

By Ben Kepes

Doing the rounds at the moment is a UK Sunday Star Times story about an undercover operation at an Amazon warehouse. Basically the reporter discovered terrible working conditions, very high demands on staff and not allowance for sick days off. The thing that caused the shock for people (we all

December 10, 2008 Posted in Economic Development, My businesses, New business, New Zealand, Strategy 1 Comment

Testing the Made from New Zealand widget

By Ben Kepes

I got an email from the [mfnz]Made From New Zealand[/mfnz] guys sayign that they have just released their new widget aimed at getting comapny information to show after blog posts (yup – much like crunchbase for for NZ companies. Check out my entires – [mfnz]bizchat[/mfnz], [mfnz]Cactus Climbing[/mfnz] and [mfnz]Diversity[/mfnz]. It

The Author

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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