Category Archives: My businesses

December 17, 2009 Posted in Business, My businesses 1 Comment

Service Done Right – Insurance Broking Par Excellance

By Ben Kepes

All too often this blog has been a place to critique service that I’ve received from commercial providers – generally bad service is the impetus to sit down and write. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing but it seemed appropriate to send out a bouquet for fantastic service. As most reader

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September 14, 2009 Posted in Business, My businesses, New Zealand, Strategy 10 Comments

Why Banking is Broken, A BNZ Rant (Part two)

By Ben Kepes

I posted last week about a banking situation that had me all hot under the collar. In an effort to continue naming and shaming (and hopefully drive improvements in the process), here is part two. This morning I received a check from a US client. The client in question is

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September 7, 2009 Posted in Business, IT, My businesses, New Zealand 3 Comments

Time for a the BNZ Rant, They Don’t Get It….

By Ben Kepes

My fellow blogger Lance Wiggs tends to be a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to banks in new Zealand, in light of the fact that he’s sitting somewhere in the middle of Africa, I figured I’d take up the baton. I’ve banked with the Bank of New Zealand

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August 21, 2009 Posted in Business, Design, Manufacturing, My businesses, New business, New Zealand 5 Comments

Yikes! The Ryans are at it again

By Ben Kepes

The Ryan brothers are something of a powerhouse of Kiwi entrepreneurship and innovation. Between them Doctors Shaun and Grant (underachievement obviously being a familial trait!) have set up and been involved in a raft of exciting companies – GlobalBrain, Eurekster, SLI Systems among them. They’re also involved in a bunch

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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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May 14, 2009 Posted in Business, Design, Manufacturing, My businesses Leave a comment

The Consumerisation of Design, the Death of Fitness for Purpose

By Ben Kepes

On my way to the United States, US Airways unfortunately misplaced my bag. Faced with the prospect of a week without my stuff i made a quick assessment of what I really couldn’t do without. Top of the list 9after a NZ/US power adaptor) was my gym gear. I trundled

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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

October 21, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Efficiency, My businesses 6 Comments

Why Not e-dollars?

By Ben Kepes

Awhile ago I was involved with a start up that was trying to create a barter driven system for online transactions, leveraging the power of the community rating, meritocracy and subversion of traditional currencies to both lubricate commerce and cut out a number of the middle men" who add drag

August 23, 2008 Posted in Business, Economic Development, Manufacturing, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 2 Comments

Another one bites the dust…

By Ben Kepes

Its been a few months since I had a rant about the demise of first world manufacturing. Sure there are companies like American Apparel and my own Cactus Climbing creating a brand story out of retaining a first world manufacturing ethos but they are in the minority. News this morning

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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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