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Transcript

Why wouldn’t a community have their own app?! · The Unmaking

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: So Tony, kia ora, welcome to The Unmaking.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: Where are we parked and what's the significance of this place for you?
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're parked on the lakefront for Lake Wanaka.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You asked me where would you like to do the podcast and I was trying to think of
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: a location that sort of meant something
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: and I thought well I drive past here every day and every time you look at it even
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: though it's the same it looks different.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that what a great metaphor for life that,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know, as much as it stays the same, everything changes all the time.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Even today, you know, driving past, it was beautiful and the light changes.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose I'm not a deep thinker in about that, but, you know, you made me think.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought the lakefront is just something that grounds us all, I think, that we live here.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just a lovely place.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: It is the biscuit tin lid, isn't it, of Wanaka, this view here.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's one I find really interesting.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I sometimes forget because I live in Albert Town.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a five-minute drive away sort of thing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't always see this view.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: But it is the money shot, isn't it, of Wanaka?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think the beauty of it, too, is the accessibility.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know we're watching people now just walking right along the lakefront
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: and they're connected to the town.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's very few parts of New Zealand, in fact I've struggled to think of any really.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean even Taupo, the lake is sort of drops down, the town's not on the lake.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we do have a unique setting, it's lovely.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: You grew up on a farm on the west coast, part of a big family.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think you said your parents were very principled and duty bound to the community
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: through council and various committees and things like that.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: How much of that west coast farm boy is still at the controls now?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I left when I was about 15 to go to boarding school,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: but you can't get away from those formative years.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: My brother has the farm now and we go back on occasions.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful place to go back to.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's where we're from.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it gives me a sense of belonging.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it's certainly, as a family, it's a great family.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very lucky.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we grew up in an environment where you worked when you weren't at school and
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: that was sort of a contribution everybody made.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was just the way life was.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we worked on the farm.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't a farmer and My mother knew that quite well,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: so when it came to what was I going to do after school,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: sort of farming wasn't an option,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: it wasn't something I wanted to select, I suppose, and yeah, so I moved on.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: As a job,
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: you mean,
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: is it something that you wanted to do,
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: or just as a,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I've finished school for the day kind of thing,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: as a 14-year-old, what do I do now, or you mean careers?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, even then I'd rather kick a football or something like that,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: but There would always be a job.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: One thing about farming, there's always a job.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter when it is.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there was always something that you were asked to do or to help with.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't something I was passionate about, I suppose.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I can understand why people are because it's completely, it's a lifestyle way of living.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a total commitment.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't something that inspired me.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: In those days on the coast we were very isolated.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know now you have the internet and things like that and everybody has access to
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: the same information.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then I can remember getting a television.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: What a great moment that was.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know my cousins would come to visit and they would talk about the latest music
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: and all those sorts of things and we were isolated from a lot of that.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So to me it was always the opportunity to go and explore somewhere else.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's what was what sort of drove me I guess in those days.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard East Germans talk about the first time that they came from East Germany
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: and went to the big department stores in Berlin and just how mind-blowing they were
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: by that experience.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: As a kid that grew up in perhaps a sensory deprived from an electronic medium
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: and perhaps cultural perspective,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: West Coast,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: to then landing in a Christchurch boarding school,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: What was the horizon expansion that went on there?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: I imagine it was relatively significant.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that at the time, but you grow up in a closed community.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has a similar view.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: When I went to boarding school there were all sorts of people,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: a diverse range,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: not as diverse as New Zealand is today but certainly culturally but there was
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: a diversity of thinking and where people came from and that really opened my eyes
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: a lot to what else was out there in the world.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I was really excited to go to boarding school,
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was wanting the opportunity but at the same time it was a challenge to find
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: that people actually Weren't the same and didn't think the same and had all sorts
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: of views.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I relished it, I really enjoyed it.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you came in then partway through,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: so there would have been a lot of kids that started there in the third form,
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm guessing,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: and you came in as a sort of a senior student kind of thing almost,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: fifth form, sixth form?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what was sixth form, so what's that now, year 11 or year 12?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know, I don't know the forms.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you do come in,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: but a number of others come in at that year as well,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: that was the trend at that time.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't that unusual, and...
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: There were some strong friendships and things,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: but when you're in that environment,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: you're tending to be together a lot,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: so it wasn't too difficult to sort of make friends and participate
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: in school activities,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: everybody else was participating,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: so it was a fairly strong community that you moved into and you were welcomed
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: into it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Did you thrive in that community?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of kids don't do well in a boarding school situation,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: so it can be the best of times,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: the worst of times,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: depending on your circle of friends, your own personality, the school environment.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Was it the best of times for you?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was great for me.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I loved the sport.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I played rugby and played for the college.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was,
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed that and the opportunity to,
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: have better coaching and play with better players and those sorts of things.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed the schooling and I enjoyed the environment of the school, sort of suited me.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I was a bit of a rule follower, so that wasn't too difficult.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: it was just something that,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: I thoroughly enjoyed and I'm grateful for the opportunity
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: that I had to do it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: And coming towards the end of that,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: At that time then,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: when it was clear that farming was perhaps not the desired option,
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: what were you considering?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Was there a plan when you were starting to head into that final year of school?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Was university on the cards?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: What were the family expectations?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: What were the options there?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember thinking, I went home for the summer after my seventh form, so I'd finished college.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we did a lot of logging and I was participating in that.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: There was some heavy machinery involved and I remember saying
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: to my mother I might stay and drive one of the machines there and she went no.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: No you need to find something else but I also remember thinking
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: the last thing I wanted to do was go to university.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't stand the idea of still studying.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: That felt like an extension of school basically.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: It absolutely did and I just did not want to study anymore which is sort of ironic
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: because then I tried to study as much as I could as I got a little bit older
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: but I applied oddly enough For a journalism course,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: but I had no interest in journalism,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: but it seemed to be something that appealed to me, to my nature.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't get in.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: What appealed?
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: What was the nature of journalism?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: the finding out about things,
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: communicating that to people,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: maybe something just deep inside that I've sort of come full circle.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not that I'm a journalist by any stretch of the imagination,
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: but running a media biz or being involved in the media.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was just my father obviously read the newspaper, he listened to the radio.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: News was a huge thing for a farmer.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: He needed to be, and for his sort of community life.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to be involved.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to know what was going on.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So as children, we were, you know, there was always...
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: The news is on, be quiet, those sorts of things.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a respect for the news.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's TV news or radio news or the whole kit and caboodle?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, primarily radio in those days.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: TV news a bit later on, you know, as I was probably just approaching my teenage years.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was 1977 when we got a television actually.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Leon Sphinx was fighting Muhammad Ali.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes, I was going over to my neighbour's house to watch those fights.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: I remember those, yes, yeah.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Pivotal moment.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, I'm going to get me back on track now.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've just digressed, I think, slightly.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now where were we?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Journalism?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just about what I was doing after school.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, and the decision where to go and what direction.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was a little bit lost I suppose.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't something that I aspired to do.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did enjoy drafting and or architecture.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I had done quite a lot of doodling around drawing and things like that.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they call it tech drawing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: I was about to say, as I remember the tech drawing classes and my friends who got to do that.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I got a job as a draftsman for telecom in Greymouth.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I moved to Greymouth and you did a technician certificate in drafting,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: which was a two to three year course, essentially an apprenticeship.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that involved,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you're putting cables underground,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: particularly in rural areas, you had to be able to find them again.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we would have drawings of paddocks and all sorts of things,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: aerial photos that we had plotted the cables on so everybody knew where they were.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And technical drawings around the cable themselves so that
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: the joiners knew what sort of cable it was and all that sort of thing.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like a record of what had been done.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I did that for three or four years in Greenmouth.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really enjoyed that.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: The most glamorous end of architecture
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: or anything architecturally adjacent I can imagine with that.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it wasn't,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: it was definitely drafting,
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: it wasn't architectural design or there wasn't any of that but it was something
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: though that I quite Enjoyed doing it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: It got me out a lot.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: You had to be out in the environment on the west coast,
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: traveled up and down the coast to wherever they were laying cables so that we knew
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: where the cables were and we could make sure we were putting them in
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: the right places on maps and things like that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess as a young guy on the coast, it was a pretty easy place to live.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Did the job, did, yep.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then that was then the, just before the beginning of your media career then, right?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: That was when you then started into radio after, or whilst you were living in Greymount?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there was an ad on the radio one day when I'm driving home from work.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'd literally that same day had a discussion with my boss about it.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Pay and he showed me the telecom book which had all the pay rates in it and you got,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: in those days you were paid based on seniority so if at the end of this year I go
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: to this pay scale and at the end of next year to that pay scale and it didn't matter
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: whether I was doing work more advanced than somebody else or not.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being frustrated with that,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: but I had this ad on the radio for a commissioned salesperson at the radio station.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh, what a great job.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I went and applied.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was 21 or two, something like that.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Applied for that job and was successful in getting it.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that started my career in media and commercial radio.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that was selling advertising then, was it?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Purely advertising or sponsorship
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: or how much creativity was involved around being able to put together a package
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: and things like that?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I had clients in Greymouth and Westport, so I had to travel up to Westport.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: You met with the clients and talked through what they were attempting to achieve, etc.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then we came up with ideas and packages and things around that
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: to promote their businesses on the radio station.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot easier then.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much one radio station,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: probably one newspaper,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: and that was really the only two options available for the businesses.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So you didn't have to sort of give them a hard sell about the radio station
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: because there was only one and pretty much everybody listened to it.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really just about relationships and being clever enough to get along
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: with people and give them some ideas and things from time to time.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Add a bit of value, I guess, was the objective.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: If I could help them in any way, then I'd be doing my job well.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the level of creativity that comes out of provincial radio or used
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: to come out of provincial radio in the past in New Zealand,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: what a What a stepladder that was for so many careers.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: started out writing copy for ads or selling ads or things like that
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: in those stations and then raised it, rose up through, which you did.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: You then,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: that became a stairway for you or a ladder then,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: you know, because it was part of a network, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: That you could then go and apply for bigger,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: better jobs and more interesting locations and onwards and upwards, basically.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I saw a pathway in the company for that.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved from Greymouth, I was there a year and I went and worked for ZB in Wellington.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of years there and then a year as a sales manager in Masterton and a couple
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: of years as a sales manager in Nelson and a couple of years as a sales manager
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: in Palmerston North.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: 2XS was it?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, so they were the competitors.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, yes.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Very successful station, 2XS.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so there was an opportunity for a career path and I tried to make the most of it.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And where did you go then and were you changing roles or was
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: the same role bigger station,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: bigger catchment,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: bigger kind of target sort of thing or were you collecting different parts
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: of experience of the media businesses as you went?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: The roles themselves are always in the business side of the of the operations
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: and sales and advertising sales but because you're on small stations you tend
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: to I would get exposed to quite a lot of the other areas of the business.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I would assist the sports department and things from time to time.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: you had an appreciation of the principles that were sort of the foundation of how
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: a radio station operated as opposed to being in a large organisation where you tend
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: to be isolated a little bit from the other areas.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that helped me a lot in latter years when I got some other roles,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: just having a broader perspective of what needed to be understood or appreciated
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: in order to make the business function.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And even in some of those smaller stations,
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: were you still very much in service of the stars,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: of the talent,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: that a lot of,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that sort of back in the day of sort of the 80s,
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: 90s radio in New Zealand,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: there was,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: there were the Mark McLeods,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: there were the sort of the superstar breakfast jock that that was the,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: they were getting the massive paychecks and everyone was,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: very scared that they might walk or go to the competitor or whatever it was.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Was there that sort of component as well?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I was fortunate I worked with some wonderful announcers and the beauty of
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: the business in those days is that no matter where you were all the announcers lived
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: in town and all the staff lived in town pretty much
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: and it really was coming probably The 90s,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: late 80s, 90s,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: when sort of this hubbing effect or moving some roles to a centralisation
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: of roles started to come into effect.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: But in my early days, everybody was there.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so the announcers were part of the community, which,
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: was something that a lot of,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: some of them had grown up in those communities or spent considerable time.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't, you know, this sort of separation, I suppose, of talent and others.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was doing the same sort of thing.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: But you certainly had appreciation.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, those who were good at their jobs on air were great.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the business needed those people, just as they needed everybody else.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, not everybody could do that role, if you like.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, there was an element of uniqueness about them.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they, yeah, hopefully they were rewarded and appreciated for that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: And did you also have copywriters as well that were actually doing the creative side
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: of things for the advertisement copy?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And what was that relationship like in terms of you as the suit,
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: as the account guy or the business guy?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then working together with the creatives,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: the in-house creatives that perhaps a little bit frustrated
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: by what their client is trying to achieve or the various buzzword,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: bullshit, bingo terminology that they're trying to work into this ad?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like you know the business better than I do.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it was hard for some of those people because they were creative
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: and they wanted to express their creativity and sometimes in a sales environment
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: that,
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: and it wasn't just necessarily internally but quite a lot of
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: the time externally too,
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: clients just weren't,
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: what's the word, they weren't willing to go outside of sort of any
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't so keen to be too creative.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some clients.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of the creativity that may have been developed sort of got squashed in
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: the sales process.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the client would really like to go ahead, but they don't want this, this, this and this.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And our job really was to try We had to try and explain
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: to them why those things were good for them but that wasn't always possible.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day the business person makes the decision,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: they do what they feel is right for their business and we had to respect that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that always provided the challenge back to creative people who couldn't see
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: the rationale for not expanding on what the client had wanted to do.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: There were always those sorts of challenges.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing unique about them, I don't think.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter really, I don't think, what sort of business environment you're in.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: You do have some level of conflict of roles around,
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: and particularly for creatives, it can be very challenging.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's a lot more outlets for them nowadays, which is wonderful.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think that conflict is still the same though often between a sales function or
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: a commercial function and a creative function and a client.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: That triangle of friction and a creative that can perhaps only see the genius
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: of their idea without all the nuances of perhaps the business reality.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: The person who's responsible for hitting those numbers and what have you
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: that is perhaps prepared to make a little bit more compromise on some of
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: the creative elements and that sort of thing.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's not always an easy three-way marriage, basically, between those three parties, right?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the job,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I guess,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: particularly as I moved into management,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: was keeping all the parties working together and aligned.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So in an environment like that, that can be quite challenging.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know you also have the risk of course of creativity for creativity's sake
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: and sometimes what was produced wasn't on song but yeah you have a person who's
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: then passionate about the idea maybe because they wanted to bring the idea
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: to life more so than it suited the client So I think that's just a constant thing
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: for any manager in that environment was to try and appease people,
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: if you like, and help them be appreciated.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, they have to move through that.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And look, there are just difficult times in life, aren't there?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you just have to accept that, OK, that's not my day today.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll wake up tomorrow and feel better about it.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've made a lot of amazing discoveries since moving back here,
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: but one of my personal faves has definitely been 1964 magazine,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm stoked to welcome them on board as The Unmaking's first partner.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Laura and Nathan produce four beautiful issues a year,
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: celebrating the special individuals and creativity to be found
• 20:52
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• 20:55
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• 20:58
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• 20:59
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• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: designers,
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: artists and poets and showcases small local businesses making and doing good things.
• 21:06
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• 21:11
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• 21:16
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• 21:19
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• 21:20
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• 21:25
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• 21:28
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• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of dubs, head to www.1964.co.nz forward slash unmaking and
• 21:39
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• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: to receive two free issues inside New Zealand or check the link in the show notes.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: How much cultural difference did you notice because you then started to work
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: and moved through to Australia and then after Australia then followed Asia.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: What cultural differences did you notice?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: So the work I assume remained similar or comparable to what you've been doing here.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: What changed in other parts of the work?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: When I reflect on that, the most interesting thing was moving to Australia.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: When I moved,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: or we moved,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that New Zealanders and Australians were pretty much 100% aligned,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: living there,
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: living here would be very similar,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: but I got quite a shock actually moving to Australia
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: and probably didn't appreciate cultural nuances and just phrases and sayings
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: and Things that you take for granted.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ways of using words that may be fine in one context but not in another.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or one culture and not in another.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the Australians too were far more combative.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: New Zealanders tend to,
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: we sort of explain ourselves and we're apologetic sometimes
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: and I think culturally we're a little bit like that.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not that that's a bad thing, but the Australians are a little more combative.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I have to do that?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this isn't working, we need to fix it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there were certainly some learnings that I had to
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: learn and also
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: to appreciate Weaknesses in my own culture, if you like, or environment.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then the move to Asia, I had some very good advice when I went.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was told not to come up with any suggestions for six months.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that helped me sort of assimilate,
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: but I also had the learning from Australia because I thought
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: if I found it hard going to Australia,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Asia is totally foreign to me and I really need to be quiet, listen,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: observe,
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: respect and I tried to do that and I think that that helped me assimilate
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: within my work environment quite quickly.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: What's the argumentation behind that?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: Don't make any suggestions for that first six months.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard that with New Zealand rugby players playing rugby in Japan,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: that a lot of those guys turn up with a lot of ideas and seeing things,
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: oh, this doesn't work, and apparently, no, no, no, that's just the way they do it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: You've just got to learn to roll with that,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: and they train 100% at training, and although most other
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Rugby playing countries have moved on from this sort of approach that's just the way
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: the Japanese do it.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: So what was the thinking behind that advice that came to you with don't say anything
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: for six months?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's when an outsider comes into an environment that's established.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be very careful as to how you approach people.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I was working in radio in New Zealand, we had a number of American consultants.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have one in particular that I thrived with.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I thought he was fantastic.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was an amazing man.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of people hated the idea of a foreigner coming and telling you what to do.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they just could not get past that idea that there might be something to learn.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when I went to Asia,
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: it was the chairman of the Australian company that I was linked to at the time.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was his thing.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Just take it easy when you get there.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try and change the world.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's also part of Asian culture as well.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: As fast as it's changing, The underlying values and principles are very, very strong.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And trying to move them in different directions,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: particularly as a foreigner, I think it's very, very difficult.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: you just had to try and build relationships with people,
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: make them hopefully feel, you know, I'm not a threat in my role.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: If things weren't working, it was me that was going, not them.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to really just make sure that I had mutually respectful relationships
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: with people in my work environment and that we were able to do the things we needed
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: to do.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with some really clever, intelligent people.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to be careful too.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that I'm going there to teach them,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I think I learned far more than they ever learned off me.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Far more because it was a very diverse environment and
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: an incredibly exciting environment commercially.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: The company was very,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: it was large,
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: it had great finances and it was very,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: very keen to build its footprint right across Asia.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: What was your brief that you started that job with?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Was it a very, you know, was it a business as usual, keep things ticking along?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Was it, okay,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: we've got a,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: small window of opportunity to get in there and make hay well as hay shines as
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: a turnaround?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: What were you trying to achieve?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: The business had launched about six years before I joined it and it was
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: a large commercial radio operation.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: They had six commercial radio stations all broadcasting nationwide across Malaysia.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really about continuing the growth.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was growing well and it was about continuing that.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was also a link back to specific role expertise.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: If we thought that our production team could do with some training
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: then I would find someone who had years of experience probably in Australia
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: who could come and do a few days, spend a week with them and just upskill people.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it was really about skill development at that time.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people coming into that business because
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: the commercial radio was relatively new They didn't have experience to fall back on.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: They hadn't come through a system like I came through where you just moved around
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of small stations, cut your teeth and learnt through doing.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you had people coming in who were then put into a role who may not have had a lot
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: of experience but we had access to a lot of experience so part
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: of my job was accessing that experience.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And identifying skill shortages and things like that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that what we were doing was building a bigger and a better organisation just continuously.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that was really the brief.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't any grand goal other than let's keep the momentum going,
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: keep the relationship strong and enjoy yourself.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: And was it an opportunity that you got shoulder tapped for or
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: that you saw advertised or you heard that was coming up and you thought,
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: oh yeah, that could be interesting?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was an initiative by me, but not for that job.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually had phoned the chairman of the company,
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: because I was working in Canberra,
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: and I felt that I was ready for a change,
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: and I thought, to me,
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: there were logical steps in the company from,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I started in Greymouth and you move through,
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: what's the next biggest place,
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: what's the next biggest place,
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: and I thought, well,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Brisbane and Adelaide would be quite good,
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: so I rang him and I said,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been here six years and I'd really like
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: To explore opportunities should they arise in Brisbane and Adelaide.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel that's next step, etc.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to sell the concept.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he just listened to all of that.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then he just said, would you go to Kuala Lumpur?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Which I didn't know where it was, I must say.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that came as quite a shock.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, don't worry about it now anyway.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it might happen.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get back to you.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that day thinking, my God.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and looked up where it was and I was so excited.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, what an incredible opportunity.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I went and saw Pip, my wife.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I said, oh, you won't believe what Peter's just said.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's just asked me if I wanted to go to Kuala Lumpur.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And she went, oh, let's do it.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then she went, where is it?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Good chronology.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that was great.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually quite a while after before that came to fruition.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he went silent on it.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Which you know I sort of thought okay you know people say things and nothing happens
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: but sure enough the opportunity did arise and yeah off we went.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that's at a time I think your kids at that point that's probably at a time where
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of people who are working internationally going oh kids are getting close
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: to school age time to come home.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: You and Pip went no bugger that let's turn that
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: on its head let's do it let's head off to a completely different culture.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: What was that like personally in terms of,
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: obviously you've got a massive business challenge and professional challenge,
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: but you've also got the personal challenge of being somewhere foreign with a couple
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: of young kids and bedding into life there,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm assuming probably in an expat community of some sort.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: How did you guys find that?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you meet a lot of other expats and we actually made lifelong friends
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: in our first two weeks when we were there because we were In a hotel,
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: but there were other expats in the hotel also just arriving.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so you all had something in common.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: We had a couple from Australia and a couple from the UK.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Do you recognise each other at the buffet?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: How do you figure this out, that we're in the same boat?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Very good in Asia.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: The free drinks at four o'clock in the afternoon are a great way for people
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: to get together every day, as it turned out.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: So after a while,
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: they had kids,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: similar ages to our kids,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: and so the kids would play in the pool,
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: and we would have a drink,
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: and one thing sort of led to another,
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: and then in most,
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think in all those cases,
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: it was the man that was the expat employee,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: The ladies were the partners and unable to work.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: So they spent a lot of time together,
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: built a great friendship and they would explore the city together and other things.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: So assimilation wasn't too difficult.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't recall it being too difficult.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly my wife might have a different opinion because she handled,
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, the home, the children, getting them to school.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Those things were really challenging.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Particularly things like schooling because just driving anywhere in the city was,
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: you know, you could drive a K but it could take you an hour.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or it could take you five minutes, you just didn't know.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: So even children going to and from schools,
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: just doing the groceries, you might get one job done in the day.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was possibly the hardest thing,
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: walking around the supermarket trying to work out what to buy,
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: because everything looked different.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly a great lesson in packaging and branding.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah,
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it would be definitely,
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: it was harder for Pip than it was for me, because I just went to work.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And everything at work was exciting and new and meeting new people,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know, and it was extending me.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas for her,
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: particularly as time went on,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know, friends came and went, expat people move around.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: So she became, I think, sort of a far more, she was getting lonely, I guess.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: She was also getting frustrated, I think, by the fact she couldn't do anything.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: To
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: give her that sort of meaning that you need in life and things like that.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm skipping ahead a bit but as we came to the end of that, that was the real driver.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: As well as having children,
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: there were just too many difficult areas that they could get involved in
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: or difficulties they might find themselves in if they had strong personalities.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: We wanted to bring them back home.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then that sort of culminated as well with the sort of pit feeling
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: that she needed to do something else and it was time for us to leave.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: Did they need a bit of boarding school steel then to sort them out?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: How did you approach that then?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: The grounding in Asia was good for them, but the Asian schooling is strict.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you talked about, say, the Japanese rugby teams train hard.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they worked hard.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's five-year-olds.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: They had two hours homework.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, things like that.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: my expectation of a five-year-old in New Zealand is they get home from school
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: and run around the backyard and maybe,
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know, kick a ball and those sorts of things.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's in our culture, it's very much driven like that.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: But there, I mean, they were doing assignments and projects and things of just little kids.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And their peers who,
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: particularly the local or the expat Asian peers,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: were off to tutoring,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know, straight after school with piano and all sorts of things.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: So they were,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose,
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: They had a lot of discipline as young children and that pretty much helped them.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: When we came back to New Zealand,
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: my youngest son,
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: he would have been 12 I think at the time,
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: around about, and he said, well 11, 10 or 11, he said, I don't have anything to do.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: He came home from school, he didn't have anything to do.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bored.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: No schoolwork.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was bizarre.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when they did get things or projects and they sort of smashed them out,
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: it wasn't really a problem.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just in their nature to do those sorts of things.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it was quite interesting.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Coming back culturally was as hard as leaving.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because, yeah, they would have been away for quite a long time then for the kids.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: Was that seven years?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: How long were they away from New Zealand, living away?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's longer than that because we left in 97, came back in 2000, more or less 2011.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: So...
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: 14 years.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's a long time.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And how do they relate to New Zealand now and other countries?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Do they see themselves as global citizens?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: Do they see themselves as Kiwis?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's their connection to Aotearoa?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're definitely New Zealanders.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were born in Australia.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: They have Australian citizenship.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: They went to an Australian school in Kuala Lumpur, an international school.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the grounding of their parents being in New Zealand,
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: when we came for family holidays we went to New Zealand,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: the family farm, back to the farm.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: My youngest son again at one stage,
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think when we came back to Auckland,
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: he was last year of primary school and they had to do a project
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: of where's your favourite holiday.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we thought, gosh, you know, when you live in Asia, everything's one hour flight.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: You could go to the most amazing places.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so whenever we had breaks or holidays, we tried to take advantage of that.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they had had some incredible holidays.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he wrote about his best holiday ever was coming home to the farm because that's
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: where he saw his cousins.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that was quite enlightening,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: that you think you're giving all these amazing experiences,
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: but actually the one that counts is really just the one with family and people
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: in it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was nice.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: The simplest one that's the closest one and the least glamorous from
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: an external perspective, but yeah, that's the one that it's about.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_02: You talked, I've seen you, you called your years working across Asia as living an MBA.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: What lessons have you kept from that MBA that you're still applying on perhaps
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: a daily or a regular basis?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: I worked in an environment where the senior manager in particular was described
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: as quite ruthless and you had to be very specific.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: So part of my role was exploring opportunities for us to expand the business
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: beyond Malaysia as part of a team.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we would travel to various countries and explore opportunities
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: where we might have had some contacts and then write an assessment about it.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then we had to
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of create that into a short PowerPoint essentially that would provide
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: a recommendation to a board.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so you had to be very specific,
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: very clear on why you were doing it,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: how you were going to do it, how much it was going to cost.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that was quite different to just running an operation.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because I really now had to think about business development and planning
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: and planning beyond just getting the yes.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: What were we going to do?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: If it was approved, then what was the next step?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because the organisation was large, I had quite strong teams around me.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a legal team and we had another team of business development people
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: who could run a lot of the numbers.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I would learn a lot from all of them and helped me,
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose, consider the various issues around any business venture.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've absolutely used those skills today constantly.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean when we started here in Wanaka with the Wanaka app,
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: we had a plan and it was fully costed and we knew what we were trying to achieve
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: and how we were going to,
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: well hopefully how we were going to achieve it, you know the best laid plan.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so certainly lessons around,
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know an idea is only as good as The analysis of the idea and the execution of
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: the idea and the ability to implement.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to go way beyond the idea.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: And were those people,
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: that was their personal style that they had developed,
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: or these were people that had gone to incredible business schools
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: and picked things up, or kind of a mixture of both?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: You had a highly intelligent,
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: like the board at the senior level,
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: the company was listed on a Malaysian stock exchange,
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: international directors, people who were extremely well educated.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah,
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: what we produced had to be fairly succinct and clear,
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: and if it was, Quite often got the nod of approval, which was super exciting.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we did have templates and you had to follow the template because that was the process.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you followed the template, the board would get a clear understanding.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to think that things hadn't been thought through.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if you couldn't complete the template, essentially, you had to keep going until you could.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you came back from that role and then was it Snow Planet?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: Was that around that time that you came back for that job or you came back
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: or what happened there?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot happened in about one year actually.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when I announced that we were leaving to our company,
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: a competitor who we'd been competing against in Malaysia and Indonesia asked
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: if I would continue to do some work for them.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we decided we would move to Perth.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I said I would,
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: but we'll take the children to Perth,
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: the family will be in Perth and I'll be able to fly up.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's only a four hour flight.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: However,
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: so we did move to Perth,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: but the final details of all of that, so it was all done on a handshake.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: The actual formalization of the arrangement never happened.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually saw a job advertised for a general manager in Queenstown at
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: the radio station for MediaWorks.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I applied for that job.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was then asked if I would join the management team of MediaWorks in Auckland
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: on a project, so a non-operational role in exploring projects that the company had.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, gosh, I've fallen on my feet here.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: What a wonderful opportunity to go back home and do something I love.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I jumped at the chance.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: We moved to Auckland and there weren't any projects.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: They tried to get me then into some operational areas,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: but three months in they made the job redundant.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: But that was a huge challenge for us because we'd just bought a home.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: The children had just moved into schools.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: We really didn't want to move them again.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: We were very keen, Pip and I, to be in New Zealand.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have to want to go back overseas.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of 2010, beginning of 2011, that wasn't long after the GFC.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: New Zealand, in comparison to the Asian environment we'd worked in, was really depressed.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Finding a job was very, very difficult.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it put us through the ringer a little bit at that time.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: However,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was then fortunate enough to secure a role,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: which then led me into running the indoor snow dome in Silverdale
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: in Auckland called Snow Planet.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: Got it.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: So there was some desperation, is perhaps the wrong word, but it was necessity.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it wasn't, okay, I've had enough of my industry, it's time for a change.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: It was more just, okay,
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: the industry changed,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: there were some things that weren't followed through on,
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: and then suddenly you're in a situation where, okay, need a job.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd say it was desperate.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: We were desperate.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to move.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: The company I had worked for in Asia gave us the opportunity to move back
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: to Australia but I didn't want to do or we didn't want to do that
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: so yeah it was times we were getting a bit desperate and I just kept applying
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: for roles that I thought I would be good at and suited the skills that I had.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know you saw a recruitment company
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: and he said look just tap all your networks I was like, well,
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: I've only lived here three months,
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: and we're 14 years away, so those networks didn't exist.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we didn't have anyone we knew.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't as though you'd grown up in the community,
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: and a few people knew who you were,
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: and someone goes, oh, so-and-so's looking for somebody to do this or X.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have any of that.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, times were desperate.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: oddly enough,
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: it took probably six months to get a role, and I got offered four in about two days.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't been offered anything for the six months.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: So in the end, we were able to choose a little bit.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: I actually chose two roles.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: I did two roles at the time because I was then worried if one fell over.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_02: Once bitten, twice shy, right?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 100%.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so, I mean,
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of business skills are quite transferable,
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: but something like a role like that or a business like that,
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: where suddenly you're talking about physical visitors,
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: tourism, all sorts of different demands compared to your previous work experience.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: What was that like?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: And how did you find that in terms of those knowledge deficits
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: that you're really conscious of,
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: particularly at the beginning, How did you find that?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Are you comfortable feeling a little bit out of your depth,
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: feeling stretched, not perhaps across everything?
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think I must be,
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: because every time you change a role,
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: you have to strip away some things and you have to learn others.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't take everything,
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: because not everything is transferable,
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: and then you have things to learn, and you have new people.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably the hardest part, really,
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: is trying to get the trust of the people that you're then going to work with.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: And once you gain that, things are a lot easier.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot easier to implement change or improvements if you can.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: And moving to that environment wasn't too dissimilar.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, media is essentially you have the capacity of what you can broadcast.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: So some of that is advertising.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a certain capacity.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get a certain price for it if you want to make some money.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: You need to sell a certain amount of it.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: So in a leisure company is very similar.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's about capacity.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: How many people can I put through?
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: What price can I get from the people coming through?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I give them a great experience while they're here?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, absolutely things that were totally new was there was a restaurant attached.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: That was completely new.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: So learning about the nuances of pricing a restaurant and costing and then
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: The temperaments of chefs and things like that,
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: that was a real challenge for me to learn that side of it.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the essence of a leisure attraction and a radio station is actually very similar.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: You've got time or space you need to fill and you need to get a yield for it and
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: the experience or the product needs to be terrific.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there were quite a lot of similarities and the principles were very similar.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: And once you're in that role,
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: once you've worked through the teething problems and figured out where everything is
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: and how it all works and fits together,
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: was it then a feeling of,
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: holy shit,
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: this is great,
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: this is miles more fun than anything else I've been doing,
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: or was it more of a thing, okay,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: this is okay,
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen what's going on here now,
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: I actually know I really miss my industry, I want to get back
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: to that.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: I did miss the industry.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: There was quite a bit of excitement around Snow Planet.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: They sat on 14 hectares and there was a plan to develop the whole site.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big site, so the snow dome didn't take up anywhere near most of it.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that really was a plan which was heavily driven by the board to expand.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of my role wasn't just operational, it was exploring what could we bring on site.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Where would it go?
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: How would it work?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: We need to master plan the site.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that was quite exciting and new.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: So master planning a site was totally foreign to me.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the board were very motivated in that direction.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a lot for me to get my teeth into.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: But certainly as it progressed, I probably missed the industry a bit more.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we weren't, I guess, living in an environment we really wanted to be in.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: Physically?
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah well we were in Auckland so for us that wasn't really a place we wanted to be
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: in New Zealand.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_02: So it felt a little bit sort of like rat race and yeah got it.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so was South Island always the long-term return destination
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: or particular locations within the South Island?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I don't think Pip and I really ever discussed it In great detail but for both
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: of us it was very clear that South Island was always going to be some,
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: at some point we would probably always be back here no matter what.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was where our families were I guess it was where we were grounded and things like
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: that but being in Snow Planet we were,
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: so my introduction to Wanaka really was coming down for school holidays
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: and things like that and we would bring children and teenagers down to compete.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Some who have gone on to be Olympians, who learned in the snow dome in Auckland.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah,
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: we started looking at the place here and going,
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it's a much nicer place to live.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then an opportunity came to move, and so we took that in 2015.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: And this is another opportunity for Pip to say, yep, let's do it.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: So obviously a lot of trust there.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: How much of a bet or a gamble was it then at that point to move down here to launch the app?
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: So from looking at your background, I'd say tech adjacent at best rather than a tech guy.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, talk me through that process.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the app actually wasn't even on our radar.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was consulting,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: so while I was working in Auckland at Snowpland I was also consulting to
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: an Indonesian radio company and I would use my annual leave and travel up there
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: and we'd have management meetings.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: They were making great progress and it was through that that we had the opportunity
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: to come to Wanaka because They asked if I would spend more time.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, I had to quit my role in Auckland.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it seemed like too good an opportunity to not take up.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we came to an arrangement and then it became a matter of,
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: well, it didn't matter where we lived.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: We could have lived anywhere in the world.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we just chose Wanaka.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we moved down with me travelling every quarter, answering a few emails a week.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the app was not on the horizon at all.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was only really the fact that because I didn't have full-time occupancy
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: of my time that I started to get a bit bored yeah
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: so yeah I was literally just sitting on the Herald app and thought well we just have
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: a local app because one of the things I knew too was just you know anyone can create
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: a website so we could have created a website and started a business
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: but websites are not a great distribution channel for Or not great for business.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're not a bad distribution channel.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're just not great for business.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard to get people to be...
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: In media, you need people continually coming back.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: So in commercial radio, I just took radio principles.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: You want people listening to your radio station every day.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: I turn it on in the morning, I listen, or I listen in the car on the way home.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever your habit is, you need it to be a daily sort of habit.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a once a month or once a fortnight habit, advertisers aren't very interested in that.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if you've got habitual listening,
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: habitual reading,
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: those sorts of things,
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: then you've got something that will gain the interest of an advertiser.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's loyalty to that,
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can get my messaging into it and my messaging through to those people.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Websites haven't been like that.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: Websites have been very hit and miss.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: People are not so loyal to the website itself,
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: but you discover a piece of content, you might read the content and then you leave.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that person comes in, reads, leaves.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then maybe it's another week or two weeks or three weeks before they do
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: the same thing again.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the statistics around websites are quite poor.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: Even though reach can be quite high but engagement is low and if you're going
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: to have an advertising model you have to have engagement.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at Google and Meta,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: who now take most of the advertising money, there's a lot of engagement.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: How often do you Google something,
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: or used to maybe,
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: maybe now you ask an AI language model, but how often do you do that?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: Quite often, regularly.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: Social media has had quite a strong following and people are often engaged in it,
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: so it attracts advertising.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think of traditional media,
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: that sort of instant experience, I turn the TV on, it works.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: I turn radio on, it works.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: I get the paper and I can see it.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: New websites didn't fit the mold.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: They are good for discovery of content, but they Now, this instant access, it's not that easy.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: I still have to make an effort to get to the website.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just doesn't attract sort of this instant loyalty.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things I thought was, well,
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: Facebook's an app and the Herald's, well, my experience on the Herald was an app.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Stuff's an app.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's an app.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: So why wouldn't we just have an app?
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: And why wouldn't a community have an app?
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: It just seems it's such a logical thing.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: You think about, there's lots of talk about having a hub for the community to find things.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the app's the obvious choice.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought it was.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, so I chatted to Pip about that.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: She was again, you know, I mean, Nothing would happen without her.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we needed her experience as well because on the client side that's her expertise.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: She's been in media most of her life and has worked with advertising agencies
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: in print and radio and digital now.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: So her ability to work with clients is extraordinary.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually said to her, I've got this idea but it can't happen unless you want to do it.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I knew that without her it would never work.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: And again, she's just, you know, with her adventurous side, just said, yeah, let's do that.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give that a go.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm familiar with the way that the print industry,
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: print news industry has really struggled with digitalisation and,
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: how they've handled things internally and that you had your digital team
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: and you had your print team and all the,
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: you know, keeping things separate for a long time.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: What was going on in radio at the same time around things like podcasts
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: and moving away from a linear model?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to listen to the morning show, you can also listen to it in the evening now.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_02: How much was going on in terms of disruption around apps and things like that in
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: that space as well?
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_02: Were you seeing that in the radio?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Not as much.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly not as much.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that I can listen to radio in the morning or in the evening or listen to
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: the same show,
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fit because good radio should be contextual or relevant to the moment.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: if I am listening,
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: if I think I'm going to listen to the morning show at six o'clock at night,
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: they're talking about the Crown Range,
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: in our context,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: talking about the Crown Range being closed because it's snowing or,
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it's all old news, so it's not relevant.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that sort of thing doesn't happen.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: Podcasts were just starting up and...
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: I never really thought they'd be a great threat.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: They seemed to me to be an opportunity to repurpose content,
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_00: particularly because if you had a good radio program,
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: you had some great content,
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_00: great interviews and things like that,
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: and you could repurpose them and make them available for people to listen to it
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: at another time, which you never used to be able to do.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you weren't listening to the radio at the time, you missed it.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a huge opportunity.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think where radio was struggling was the digitization side.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, everybody got a website.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think back to,
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_00: we had a,
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: in Malaysia,
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: we had a team of about probably 15 people working in a department building
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: the websites, creating for the radio station.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: They never returned a dime.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it was just such a waste of money.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you see that just constantly with media and websites.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's still to this day,
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to be in digital,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: you get a website for media, but,
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know, they're essentially hopeless from a business, improving business value.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it really comes back to that, getting repetitive engagement.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: They just haven't delivered on that.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, radio, you know, every, all the traditional media have had pieces taken out of them.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Probably print far more than anybody else.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: You think back in the day all the real estate was in the paper,
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: all the cars for sale were in the paper,
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: all the jobs were in the paper,
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: you know it's all gone more or less and taken by niche products like Trade Me
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: and things like that and then you've had Google and social media come in on top of
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: that so there's Back in the day,
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: even if I just go back say 20 or even less than that,
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: probably 15 years,
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: newspapers were probably getting 25-30% of all advertising dollars,
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: they get 6% last year, so that's been hard for them.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: Radio has been incredibly good at continually reinventing itself,
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: but it's not It's not necessarily a growing industry.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to go, oh, let's get a radio station and we'll double its turnover.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: That sort of thing's not going to happen.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Media is an incredibly challenging environment simply because now there's so much choice.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if anybody wants to do anything,
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: they have to compete against two of the biggest corporations in the world
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: who have endless, endless people who can develop things.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have to be very careful about how you approach that and how you do it
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: and make sure that you're embedded in your community because that's an advantage.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's something they don't have and will never be able to replicate.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: What did week one look like then?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: So you start, it's you and Pip at that point, is it?
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_02: And no tech, but we're going to make an app at a time.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_02: This is not quite vibe coding, it's not quite a thing just yet at this point in time.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: So what did week one look like then?
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was as close as you could get to vibe coding because I found,
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: so there were platforms on the internet that you could build.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: Websites and apps using and I had found them and I experimented with quite a few
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: and we found one out of the Netherlands where you can build an app.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't designed for media but it had a news page that you could add and it had
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: an events page that you could add and it had a couple of other things
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: and we thought well if we've got news and events
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: and you can push notifications Thought that was pretty critical.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if we've got those things, then we can launch.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is this kind of a white label solution kind of thing that you
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: can buy off a K?
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: White label solution.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Primarily designed for restaurants and schools, actually.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they thought, who they thought their market was.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_00: We chose to try and run a local news business.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing, none of the content was discoverable.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a closed app.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if we wrote a news story and you Googled the story, we didn't come up.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the only way we could make it work was have people download it and use it.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so we really focused on really being part of the community.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_00: We pushed notifications on the school bus running late.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: We probably don't do that anymore,
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: but that was just a way of trying to say to people,
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: this is something that is really useful to you.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_00: And social media,
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: while it was still,
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: we thought it was always significant then, but it's not as significant as it is now.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, so week one was just about trying to make this thing work.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: We downloaded it onto our phones,
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_00: people would go and show it to advertisers, and people said, oh, that makes sense.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why wouldn't we have a local community app?
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, I'll be on that.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah so we got some really good momentum in the first year
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: and we employed journalists so we actually had genuine news and that we thought was
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: the key to continual engagement.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is there daily news?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes there is.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: And is it good?
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I hope it is.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's terrific and the staff we employed are with us today
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: so you know there's a great bank of knowledge now built up in our team and Yeah,
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're pretty heavily ingrained in what's going on.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that was advertising supported,
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_02: that was the business model,
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: we're not going to sell subscriptions,
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: we're basically going to find advertisers and the advertising money is going to pay
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: for the production costs and everything else.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we would run it as a traditional
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: media business,
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: just Using technology as it,
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: so really all we did was try and change the distribution platform.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: Newspaper is a newspaper,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: that's the distribution,
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: radios, broadcasts, distribution primarily as FM, I'm streaming now.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: so it was just another,
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_00: would the distribution platform support very similar business model,
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: very similar content?
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we did.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: Were you after classifieds at the beginning?
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: Was that something that you thought,
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: we're going to be able to do this as well,
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: that you've since realised, yeah, okay, it didn't quite work out?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, we were definitely more so directories.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: So business directories and helping people expose their business,
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: I guess, to an audience that was coming possibly for other things.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, business directories, that was also low cost.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a good way to get a client involved and engaged with the app.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we had display, we had a model for the capacity that we had.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: We needed to have a certain...
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_00: We needed to be able to sell it at a certain price.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_00: The beauty of digital was that we were able to keep that price low
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: so we weren't pricing ourselves out of the market but it then required volume
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: and that's where Pip came into her own.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: It would never have succeeded without here
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: and even today maybe it wouldn't I don't know actually today now it's you know it's
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: got a reputation and there's not too many people in the community
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: who haven't either heard of it or using it so you know I think it is now
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: a viable proposition for possibly somebody in the future to take on but in
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: the early days it would never have started without here.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's talk around the sort of three categories of knowledge.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: So there's the things you know you know,
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: the things you know you don't know, and the things you don't know you don't know.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_02: Ideally, when you're getting into a new business, that third category is as small as possible.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm assuming it probably wasn't, and you're on Pip's case.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_02: What was the biggest thing that you found out from those first couple of years
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: that you really didn't know, that you didn't know when you got started?
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: We had a lot of institutional knowledge for what we were trying to do
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: that wasn't new to us and we applied the same principles,
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: the same skill set to what we were trying to do and that worked well.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_00: The technology was probably the hardest part.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: At some point After a couple of years
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: the platform we had used there was just no opportunity for expansion.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't interested in our industry,
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: they weren't interested in building anything and it became very clear to us at
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: that time that we were going to have to build our own.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is a quantum leap for us because And we just had to trust our developers.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: And even today, there's just so much I don't know.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: I surprise myself sometimes with how much I have learned because you're involved
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_00: in it every day and so obviously you're building up knowledge.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: But technology, what you think you know, tomorrow you don't.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just such a fast-moving beast.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I think probably the tech side of it has been The most challenging.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's also been incredibly rewarding.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it gave me something to learn way beyond what I had experienced.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_00: If I were running those businesses now that I'd run in the past with
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_00: the knowledge I have of what I've learned,
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would be a much stronger person in that environment,
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think, To take on the digital challenges.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to know what I know now 10 years ago.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: How do you keep in something that is so tech driven then, how do you stay fresh?
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: Is there something that you say, okay,
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_02: this is our rhythm and every two years,
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_02: four years, whatever, we review everything to decide what are we going to do next?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is there some set cycle?
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: How do you roll through those evolutionary changes?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we tend to have a fairly fluid plan, a development plan.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: So these are the things that I think would add value.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: These are the things we think would work.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: If we then want to prioritise them, what should we be doing first?
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: What should we be doing second?
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that changes.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some things on my list which I was looking at just earlier this week.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: While the idea still has merit,
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: how we would do it has completely changed because If I was
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: to develop it how I was planning to develop it six months ago,
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: it would be old school as to what might be possible today,
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: particularly around AI and the opportunity that that now presents
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: for reader engagement and exposing our archive of the history
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: of everything we've written.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: The idea that
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can read an article, say about freedom camping, very popular on Wanaka.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: But what's the context?
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm new to Wanaka, what's the context?
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: What's the history?
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: And historically we would then try and produce,
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: here's some other reading of other stories,
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: but with AI you can simply just give a full history, summarise and collate.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: So can we develop that sort of thing into the platform where A person can go,
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: oh, I'm really interested.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've read that.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do I find out the history of how that came to be in Wanaka?
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: What's the history of Mount Iron and why is it now under council control and not dock control?
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why are they talking about building things, tracks and et cetera?
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's an incredibly powerful knowledge base And what's happening
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: with AI at the moment is that they're trying to steal that information,
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: if you like, not from us, but from everybody.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that if you do ask a large language model a question,
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: the challenge for the model is to give you the right answer.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it can't do that unless it has the right information.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: So journalism and news is...
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: Possibly,
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: they'll talk about a potential renaissance because without it,
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: where does the language model get?
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: They can't go and talk to somebody,
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: not yet anyway,
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't have sort of that embedded knowledge of living in a community.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: Popping down to the supermarket and somebody mentioning something and you go,
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: hang on, that doesn't sound right.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: Or that's interesting.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then someone else following that up and interviewing people and getting photos
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_00: and things like that.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: It could write the story probably,
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: but it would have to have a lot of input and it still needs somebody to edit
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: and proof and Things like that,
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: so maybe it would make us more efficient,
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: but the challenge for AI is going to be to produce the answer you're looking
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: for correctly and in truth and that information needs to be sourced somehow.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_02: Which then makes your archive,
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: your back catalogue then actually tremendously valuable as a source of truth
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_02: and real information.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: When have you started to kind of understand the value of that or what's connected to
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: that value as opposed just to seeing it as,
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_02: yesterday's news,
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_02: today's fish and chip wrapper,
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_02: the digital equivalent of that,
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_02: but to actually see, no,
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: actually what we've got there in the archive,
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: that's where the real value is long term because that's what nobody else can offer
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: because we've been doing this over this period of time and we can collate
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_02: that Information or summarize it and give you a background of reporting
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_02: over this issue over the last eight years or whatever it is.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think anybody in our industry, news, newspapers, etc.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_00: knows that their archive has value.
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_00: The hard part has been bringing that value to life and usually it's done
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: by connecting to historical stories and so the reader has to click another story,
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: read another story, click another story, read another story.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that easy a process,
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: you're asking people to do a lot, they'd have to be highly motivated.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when the council comes out with,
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_00: we're making this change or that change,
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: it's often,
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_00: that's up to our writer to try and put that in context,
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_00: but it's not easy to capture The whole history and everything.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: And yet,
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: it's there and you're trying to sort of still say, look,
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: this is likely to happen,
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: but this has been a process over 20 years, you know, in this community.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, your archive has value, but it's been the challenge to bring that value.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you asked me how long, I'd say a month.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I started to,
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_00: it started to become,
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: there's been a lot of writing about AI models, possibly having to license content.
• 1:09:01
  SPEAKER_00: Which sort of brick my ears up and you go, this might be an opportunity.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_00: With Google search,
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: there's always been this quid pro quo Yes,
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: you give them access to your content and they turn it up in search as a link.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if someone clicks on the link, well, they're then on our site.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an opportunity for us to expose our advertisers and our content.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a trade, yeah.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you accept the trade-off.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: But with AI, they scrape all the information and then just produce your written documents.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: And don't send you any traffic.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: And don't send you anywhere.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, in the last two to three months, websites have seen humongous drops.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking 80%, 90%.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are there other news sites?
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, and ours.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, ours in terms of news,
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_00: or what you call referral traffic,
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: if we have 150,000 engagements a month,
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: 130,000 are on the mobile app, so you maintain all that.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_00: But those other 20,000,
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: which are not always news related,
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_00: so you don't lose them all,
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_00: but the news part of that has dropped quite dramatically.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're only reliant on a website,
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Potentially you've lost 80% of your readership,
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: which wasn't that great in the first place.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So any news sites looking at that and going,
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_00: and so what they're talking about now is the potential
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_00: that news sites will now just start to ban Google.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_00: So in order for Google to get the information,
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_00: they have to be able to, what they say, crawl your site.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you ban the little bot that does that, then Google won't have the information either.
• 1:10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've got nothing to lose,
• 1:10:35
  SPEAKER_00: so if Google's not sending you any traffic anymore, why let them take the content?
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the potential might be that AI models are going to have to license content.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they have done some huge deals with things like News Corp and places like that.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_00: The huge international global media companies have achieved some licensing.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is,
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think anybody in New Zealand has achieved any yet,
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_00: outside of, Google has done some, but that's historic.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there's certainly nothing has flowed down to little old Wanaka,
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: which might give us an opportunity.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, at some point, maybe it will.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, then how do we get value out of it, out of the archive?
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there is potential now that,
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know, I can connect what they call an agent, an AI agent, to the archive.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it knows everything in the archive.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if we are writing a story,
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_00: it can provide historical context,
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: if anybody wants it, without us doing too much more.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But it's bringing our content to life in a new way.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's super exciting.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_02: so a couple of years in then of operation under the Wanaka app and you then get to
• 1:11:47
  SPEAKER_02: the point where you can see an additional opportunity,
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_02: I guess, for the business that wasn't really the core drive at the beginning, right?
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was actually around the technological platform and then to be able to license
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_02: that or sell that or franchise that or whatever business model you then would settle
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: on.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: But that was not an initial part of the ambition of the business, right?
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, so the ambition was to have a local community media business
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_00: and it really became out of necessity that we started to focus on the tech because
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_00: a couple of years in the technology that we were using was clearly not going
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: to Cut it in terms of being able to grow the business and make it better for
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: the people in the community,
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_00: which was the ultimate objective was to find something that would engage people.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if we could continue to do it, we needed some money.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you needed to find a commercial revenue stream, which was the advertisers.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it really became out of a reality that the tech wasn't going to be good enough.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_00: But because we've been using somebody else's,
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_00: we thought, well, if we'd built our own, And we need it.
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Surely every community in the world needs it.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So with this grand idea that we were going to go global,
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_00: we decided to build our own tech platform, which I'm glad we did.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we did gain some momentum prior to COVID.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had about 20 licensees across New Zealand and Australia,
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_00: and it was looking like that would continue to grow.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_00: But some of those fell over during COVID that only just launched.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a great time to try and launch a media business just before COVID.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_00: So some of them fell over.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were sort of back to square one, really, probably even five years later, 2025.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we're running now with 10 licensees on the platform.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the next step for us now is to try and see, well, how do we try and get some momentum back?
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, the industry is under such pressure.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to find people who get excited about media or a local media business.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Outside of the niceties of it and the desire to be part of a community
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_00: and those sorts of things, the commercial realities are tough.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah so we then focused on how do we diversify revenues on the platform
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: so we've been the last two years building payment interface so
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_00: that readers can make payments if they want to.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: The licensees themselves would have the flexibility
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_00: to either charge like let's say like the Herald does
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_00: where they have some premium you know some stories are behind
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: a paywall some aren't you can now do that on
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: the platform you can put all your stories behind a paywall if you wanted to
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_00: so it's what they call reader revenue where the readers might make a payment
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_00: or subscribe To read the news.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Both subscription and micropayment per article kind of thing?
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_02: No, not micropayment.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, just be pure subscription.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you subscribe, you get access.
• 1:14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we're planning to launch ours probably in August, but you won't have to pay to read the news.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It'll just be a donation, essentially.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Support the WannaCrap.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we get a lot of feedback from people.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_00: They really love what we're doing.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: They love the fact that we're part of the community.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_00: They love reading it.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that there's daily news.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: If some things happen, they get updated, which is a huge thing.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Update me is a big thing for people.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_00: If we can continue to work in that space, hopefully some will make a donation.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've got 30 so far who have sort of just voluntarily made subscriptions.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I remember a previous podcast you did with Nathan from 1964 magazine.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_00: He talked about having subscribers and the game changer that would be to his business.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_00: It would be the same for us.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Even 500 subscribers, if they're paying $10 a month, that's $60,000 a year.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_00: we can do a lot of journalism and a lot of good for the community with that sort
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_00: of revenue, but the individual cost to people is small.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if we could build up a supporter following, then that's a real opportunity for us.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that the advertising side of our business is always going to be challenged.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_00: As good as we think it is,
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_00: and it really is good and the exposure we can give,
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_00: we've still got to compete against the behemoths of global companies
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: and just any change in digital,
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_00: who knows what AI will bring in terms of opportunities for companies.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: To continually rely on advertising as a revenue source still got a long way
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: to go I think but some form of diversification and you know it may come down to
• 1:16:20
  SPEAKER_00: a day when communities really want local news or they're just going to have to pay
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_00: for it which when I
• 1:16:24
  SPEAKER_00: grew up that's what everybody did anyway but over
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_00: the years that's become something that's sort of become a free use as opposed
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_00: to people subscribing.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_00: The downside with things like subscription for news Is that you do have a lot
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_00: of people in your community who then don't have the news or don't have access to
• 1:16:41
  SPEAKER_00: the information.
• 1:16:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something we want.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_00: We want everybody to have access.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_00: We want everybody to have the same opportunity to understand what happened at
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_00: the council meeting,
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_00: why Freedom Camping's being banned here,
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_00: why this road's there, why the council's spending money on a pipe.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_00: All those sorts of things,
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_00: house subdivisions,
• 1:17:02
  SPEAKER_00: what might be coming up,
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_00: what's been approved,
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: who's applied for consent,
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_00: all those things that are important to our community that help people make sense
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_00: of their own lives and those sorts of things.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_00: We want that always to be a free service.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_00: We probably will need, I think at some point, the support of the people who enjoy the service.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that will be something we'll explore over the next few years.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_02: How much of that do you see as an education challenge in terms of making sure
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_02: that people really understand the business models of companies like Meta and Google
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_02: and also the implications on national and In regional and local society in
• 1:17:42
  SPEAKER_02: a place like this, just looking at the business models, at the changes.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_02: For me personally, moving back to New Zealand, I got off Facebook.
• 1:17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Eight years or so previously moving back here,
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_02: I realised if I'm not on Facebook,
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm kind of invisible and I can't actually participate in small town New Zealand,
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know, to understand what's going on.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So to see things like the community groups that this is, that's there on Facebook, you know.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_02: So what is it that's stopping people from understanding
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_02: that actually I could set this up on Facebook,
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_02: but the more logical thing to do would actually be to set this up on the Wanaka app.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Technically we can't do that at the moment but that would be something
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_00: that we would aspire to do that particularly say a club or some sort
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_00: of group could actually engage through the app instead of having to be on Facebook
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_00: because there are a lot of people who choose not to be on half of our staff and
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_00: on Facebook
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_00: and it actually surprises me how many people aren't like you know some things get
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of traction and social media can be incredibly powerful But there's just a lot
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_00: of things there that people can't handle consuming continuously.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of people have chosen not to participate.
• 1:18:59
  SPEAKER_00: That does leave a gap for sure.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a gap.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have the opportunity to fill that gap.
• 1:19:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just haven't worked out exactly how yet.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got to build the technology around that.
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, things like there are other platforms people could use,
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_00: like WhatsApp and things like that, where they don't have to be on social media.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But that also hasn't gained great traction in New Zealand.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot better traction overseas.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you know there's other parts to that as people then have to you know you've got
• 1:19:26
  SPEAKER_00: to sign up and over the years signing up to something has become quite a barrier.
• 1:19:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of accepted that I've signed up to social media okay you're signing up
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_00: to something new that you haven't really heard of or maybe not don't know enough
• 1:19:43
  SPEAKER_00: about because once people sign up to you've got a lot of security issues and
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_00: then you've got what they say How do you moderate that?
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_00: even like adding a discussion forum,
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_00: say to a news story, add your opinion at the bottom.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be super careful because there is,
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_00: one precedent was set in a court case in Australia where the platform,
• 1:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: the media company, was found guilty for what the person said.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Not the person.
• 1:20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming this is not one of the bigger platforms?
• 1:20:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was a small place,
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_00: but it's sort of put us all on notice that if people are going to have an opinion
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_00: on your platform,
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_00: on our platform, then we have to be able to find a way to manage that.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we also don't want some of those opinions, if you know what I mean.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_00: If it's something that's You know, it's just an undesirable comment.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the opinion itself, but just undesirable comments.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want that to manifest in any way.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_00: like I said before,
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_00: there's lots of ideas,
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_00: but sometimes when you start thinking through the idea and trying to say,
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_00: well, how do I bring that to reality?
• 1:20:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot to consider.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there can be a lot of technical issues around how you do it.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then there could be additional time.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_00: AI might be able to help because AI might be able to monitor And highlight
• 1:21:06
  SPEAKER_00: and pull aside anything that's undesirable until you have a chance to view it.
• 1:21:13
  SPEAKER_02: But you're going to put your hands on,
• 1:21:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not putting my,
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: what we've built over 10 years, I'm not willing yet to give that a bot.
• 1:21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, but you know,
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_00: the future of tech is,
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_00: gosh, It is hard to imagine that AI won't be able to do a lot of things.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_00: People go, oh, I'll never do that.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, oh, I don't know, actually.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think maybe it will.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it won't.
• 1:21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it'll do it in a physical sense with a robot or not.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_00: even our business,
• 1:21:47
  SPEAKER_00: there are some things that it could do if I could find a way
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_00: to just administrative things.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, load the news stories.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have to load news stories into our system every day.
• 1:21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a repetitive task.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take very long, but somebody has to do it.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of things like that.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you decide what to focus on?
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a finite amount of time and budget, infinite opportunities and ideas.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_02: How do you prioritise?
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Is this going back to your Asian MBA,
• 1:22:16
  SPEAKER_02: your living MBA and going, okay,
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_02: I need to build my business case and I've got my template and this is how I'm going
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_02: to prioritise things?
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is pretty much like that.
• 1:22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a small business, we can be quite clear.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it only has two things we have to focus on.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_00: One is the reader value to a reader.
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then in turn the value back to us is the engagement we get.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the value, the opportunity that it might present us to derive a revenue stream.
• 1:22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_00: four years ago,
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_00: four years ago, something like that, we launched the Wanaka Newsletter.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was another way to,
• 1:22:49
  SPEAKER_00: one of the things with content,
• 1:22:51
  SPEAKER_00: people are often happy to read about the same thing or watch the same thing.
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_00: I read about it today,
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I watch it on TV tonight, I listen to it about the radio, I see it somewhere else.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it could all be the same thing,
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm happy to, Read about it or listen to or learn about it in multiple formats.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we thought we'll have a newsletter as well.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_00: It also helps us take away an opportunity for someone to compete against us.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it also helps us build a direct relationship with people.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And coming back to what AI and Google and things are doing,
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_00: having a direct relationship is an absolute critical thing.
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So thinking about,
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_00: we thought about the Wanaka newsletter and thinking about what's the opportunity.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_00: How do we add value?
• 1:23:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it has commercial value.
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_00: It helps us build a database of people who are probably loyal and like what we do.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully,
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_00: we can talk to those people and say,
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_00: if you really like it, would you become a supporter and those sorts of things.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a long term goal with the newsletter to try and build that database
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_00: of people who were engaged in the community.
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_00: To keep people direct,
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_00: so the relationships direct, they don't have to go through something to get to us.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then to hopefully see if they will support us in the future.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, the two things are either audience engagement or revenue stream.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_00: In theory, if we can deliver both, then it's a project that will probably make it.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And what's the relationship like then with your licensees?
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Is this then, are they feeding ideas back up to you?
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_02: Is this more of a one-way relationship where they're expecting you just
• 1:24:25
  SPEAKER_02: to tell them your new ideas and what you've got going on and they'll hopefully try
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_02: and implement those as well?
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Or what's that look like?
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_00: You get a little bit of both so we share you know our sort of short-term plan
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_00: and what we're thinking and they often provide a bit of feedback around that.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_00: They'll often get an email out of
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_00: the blue saying I really wish you could you know would do this or would do that
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_00: and we can't always accommodate that so but what we've really tried to focus
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: on is just continual development As best as we can with the budget we have.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_00: So with 10 licensees it's not as easy as it was with 20.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you know again a key factor for us is that
• 1:25:05
  SPEAKER_00: if we can get more licensees we can build a better product.
• 1:25:07
  SPEAKER_00: That means that little Wanaka because I can't afford the technology if I'm just
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_00: the Wanaka app I can't afford it and I certainly can't afford to keep improving it
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_00: which means that over time our business would deteriorate.
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So to have licensees means that you can continually improve your product and your platform.
• 1:25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's hundreds if not tens of thousands of people out there like us who have
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_00: the same problem.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_00: What we're trying to do is encourage them to use our platform but that's proving a challenge.
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_02: And is that one of those sort of potential targets for that sort
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_02: of opportunity would then be a former journalist or
• 1:25:45
  SPEAKER_02: a journalist that's just being made redundant or in the process
• 1:25:48
  SPEAKER_02: of being made redundant but sees,
• 1:25:49
  SPEAKER_02: well actually I can see I'm losing my job because Is that the way that's working?
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there are certainly those people.
• 1:26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever takes it on, they need to be able to conceptualise their own business.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_00: We provide a tech platform and I can provide,
• 1:26:25
  SPEAKER_00: this is how we do things and this is advice, etc, etc.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, they have to do the implementation and run their business.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_00: So journalism is part of
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_00: the business, a very important part, as is the advertising sales, as is managing the business.
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_00: A person can do all of that.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And survive.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck to them.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so normally they're going to need some skill, other skill.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_00: But whoever takes it on also needs to have their business, some business, some business acumen.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if I'm a great journalist without business acumen, probably not.
• 1:27:02
  SPEAKER_00: But that could be anything, not just us, you know, if they try to start anything.
• 1:27:05
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm great at sales,
• 1:27:07
  SPEAKER_00: but have little appreciation for news and other areas of the business,
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_00: then probably not.
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_00: But if they can bring a A willingness to learn and sort of some appreciation
• 1:27:18
  SPEAKER_00: of what it takes to start a business.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's really the startups in most cases.
• 1:27:23
  SPEAKER_00: We also though look for existing community media who probably a newspaper,
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_00: local community newspaper,
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_00: just has poor digital infrastructure
• 1:27:32
  SPEAKER_00: or digital infrastructure that's not giving them any value.
• 1:27:36
  SPEAKER_00: In many ways that's ideal because they're an existing business and so a lot of
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_00: the skills that are necessary are baked in.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's really just a distribution channel that they're adding.
• 1:27:46
  SPEAKER_02: How much change do you see then actually within the people's use then of media?
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_02: How has that then changed over that time and in terms of the expectations that
• 1:27:59
  SPEAKER_02: the app users have?
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Are they coming for the same things or has that changed since you've been working?
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Use of media has changed in a way that people are less loyal to particular channels.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I get my information in multiple sources.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can get it from the BBC, Radio New Zealand, the Wanaka app, the local newspaper, TV at night.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_02: The radio during the day
• 1:28:30
  SPEAKER_00: you know there's there's just and online
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_00: in particular I mean there's just so many sources so and everybody has access now
• 1:28:40
  SPEAKER_00: so you know what are you interested in you can find it and you can subscribe
• 1:28:45
  SPEAKER_00: and you can continue then perhaps through a newsletter to be engaged so I think
• 1:28:50
  SPEAKER_00: The choice for people as to where they decide to get their media has been
• 1:28:56
  SPEAKER_00: a big change and I think that's going to continue.
• 1:28:59
  SPEAKER_00: I
• 1:29:03
  SPEAKER_00: mean AI is still just so unknown as to how that's going to change the information landscape.
• 1:29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly I mean I'm already typing things in Particularly, even from business operations.
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_00: If I, you know,
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_00: you're thinking of,
• 1:29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
• 1:29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to think of something that I've done,
• 1:29:24
  SPEAKER_00: but it could be, oh, tech, I did it this morning.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_00: I saw a term that I'd never heard of,
• 1:29:29
  SPEAKER_00: so I just asked the AI what the term is and explains it,
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_00: explains how it might be relevant to my business.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Even then asked, you know, would it like me to draft something for implementation?
• 1:29:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it goes through quite a wide gambit.
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_00: It gives me the knowledge or that understanding and it's stolen that information
• 1:29:47
  SPEAKER_00: from somewhere essentially.
• 1:29:51
  SPEAKER_00: So there's constant change and that's probably the challenge of the environment is
• 1:29:59
  SPEAKER_00: that level of change is constant.
• 1:30:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I think AI is probably going to challenge just about every business
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_00: in some shape or form in ways that I'm sure we don't understand just yet.
• 1:30:09
  SPEAKER_02: And looking at your business then,
• 1:30:11
  SPEAKER_02: from a demographic perspective and geographical perspective,
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_02: what do you say, okay,
• 1:30:16
  SPEAKER_02: this is the sweet spot where we know that our platform
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_02: in this environment will work perfectly.
• 1:30:24
  SPEAKER_02: So this,
• 1:30:25
  SPEAKER_02: for example,
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_02: is this between 10 and 20,000 permanent residents and
• 1:30:30
  SPEAKER_02: a relatively high tourism import or less tourism is better,
• 1:30:34
  SPEAKER_02: at least 100 local businesses,
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_02: or what are the various things that you say, okay,
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_02: if those things are fulfilled,
• 1:30:40
  SPEAKER_02: This is going to be a good opportunity either for the local media organisation
• 1:30:44
  SPEAKER_02: to also have an app offering or a digital offering or for a local entrepreneur
• 1:30:49
  SPEAKER_02: or former journalist to go, I'm going to make this my
• 1:30:51
  SPEAKER_00: thing.
• 1:30:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've built it primarily with a focus on local communities,
• 1:30:56
  SPEAKER_00: but that doesn't mean they can't be in a city.
• 1:30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you know the technology now could have the Auckland app and you open it
• 1:31:03
  SPEAKER_00: and you live in Howick and you just click Howick and from that day on for you
• 1:31:07
  SPEAKER_00: the Auckland app opens to Howick and has all your local news as well
• 1:31:11
  SPEAKER_00: as anything Auckland wide and if I live in Manukau then it opens for me,
• 1:31:16
  SPEAKER_00: it opens for Manukau and I get all the Manukau news.
• 1:31:19
  SPEAKER_00: So all that's required is a sense of community and I actually think the opportunity
• 1:31:25
  SPEAKER_00: in cities and things could be greater because there's a loss of that sense
• 1:31:28
  SPEAKER_00: of community.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if I drive down my street and see somebody digging up a pipe,
• 1:31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've no idea why, because nobody cares.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_00: In Wanaka, if someone's digging up a pipe in a street, we're a small community and people care.
• 1:31:42
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know, why are they digging up my road?
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I still think that in a large community or in an urban environment,
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_00: people still want to know why that's happening.
• 1:31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not able to find out anymore.
• 1:31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there is I think an opportunity for anywhere where they can identify a community,
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_00: whether that's geographically, culturally, there's an opportunity to use the tech.
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Running a business as a couple is not without its challenges.
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_02: How have you guys Have you sort of figured your way out or figured your way through
• 1:32:18
  SPEAKER_02: to, okay,
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_02: or was this actually,
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_02: it wasn't,
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_02: there was actually a formal process, okay,
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_02: we don't talk about this at home or we don't talk about this at work or how do you,
• 1:32:26
  SPEAKER_02: do you delineate between those two worlds or is there nothing?
• 1:32:30
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about it all the time.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, occasionally we just go, I just don't want to think about it right now.
• 1:32:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think the keys to us working together, one is a mutual respect.
• 1:32:41
  SPEAKER_00: We both bring skills to the business that the business needs,
• 1:32:44
  SPEAKER_00: and we try more or less to stick to our lanes.
• 1:32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well we're supportive of each other but appreciating that you're great at that,
• 1:32:52
  SPEAKER_00: you do that, I'm good at this, I do this.
• 1:32:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we just have a healthy respect for the role that we both play within the business.
• 1:33:04
  SPEAKER_00: We try not to step on each other's toes in that regard and we're doing something we both enjoy.
• 1:33:13
  SPEAKER_00: We came to Wanaka not really knowing anybody A year later, we launched the Wanaka app.
• 1:33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Probably a year after that, Pip knew just about everybody.
• 1:33:22
  SPEAKER_00: So more, you know, within reason.
• 1:33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really helped us be part of the community.
• 1:33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think, you know, we enjoy what we do.
• 1:33:31
  SPEAKER_00: We love being in the community and the town.
• 1:33:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have a healthy respect for both each other's ability and we have clearly defined roles.
• 1:33:39
  SPEAKER_00: It seems to work.
• 1:33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Kept us going for 10 years.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of the pressures around dividing your time and understanding which area
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_02: to focus on,
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_02: is there any conflict around that in terms of like, hey, look,
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_02: this is a good local business,
• 1:33:54
  SPEAKER_02: that should be our focus, as opposed to, no, let's build a tech platform?
• 1:34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the local business needs the tech platform,
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_00: so we need the tech platform to hopefully expand.
• 1:34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's sort of not really a case of one or the other.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if we...
• 1:34:11
  SPEAKER_00: If we didn't continue to develop the tech platform that wouldn't be the end of
• 1:34:14
  SPEAKER_00: the world because it's actually at the stage now where it's pretty good
• 1:34:16
  SPEAKER_00: but you know four or five years time that could become quite challenging
• 1:34:22
  SPEAKER_00: if people's experiences now are feeling a little bit oh that was what used to happen
• 1:34:28
  SPEAKER_00: in the you know 2020s not the 2030s so
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've sort of lost track of my train of thought there thinking about the future.
• 1:34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we could just run the Wanaka app.
• 1:34:48
  SPEAKER_00: We could.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the tech is integral.
• 1:34:54
  SPEAKER_00: The tech is integral.
• 1:34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's your distribution platform.
• 1:34:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bit like saying I could run the newspaper without printing anything.
• 1:35:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, you can't do it.
• 1:35:02
  SPEAKER_00: The two things go hand in hand.
• 1:35:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a bigger opportunity, though,
• 1:35:06
  SPEAKER_00: that if we could expand on the tech and have more licensees,
• 1:35:10
  SPEAKER_00: then there is possibly even additional funding that would enhance our ability to
• 1:35:15
  SPEAKER_00: the operations in Wanaka.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_00: We could pay for more news,
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_00: more journalism,
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_00: have more stories, maybe deeper stories, better stories, those sorts of things.
• 1:35:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're adding even more of that.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_00: If the quality of the news improves.
• 1:35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it's like anything, limited resources.
• 1:35:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we hope we're doing the best with what we've got.
• 1:35:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of engagement at the moment.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're just trying to keep it there.
• 1:35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and the challenge of the day-to-day reality of competing against two of
• 1:35:48
  SPEAKER_02: the world's biggest organisations.
• 1:35:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's something that... And there's that as well.
• 1:35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Don't forget about that.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, how do you...
• 1:35:57
  SPEAKER_02: You've been working around those companies for a long time now.
• 1:36:02
  SPEAKER_02: How do you evaluate their performance and are there things
• 1:36:05
  SPEAKER_02: that you think they've got wrong when it comes to issues like local news
• 1:36:09
  SPEAKER_02: and community?
• 1:36:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing that would scare you the most probably is if
• 1:36:15
  SPEAKER_00: a social media platform decided to employ journalists.
• 1:36:19
  SPEAKER_00: And put news on their platform.
• 1:36:21
  SPEAKER_00: The best thing going for us at the moment is Facebook is,
• 1:36:24
  SPEAKER_00: their algorithm is deprioritizing news, actively deprioritizing it.
• 1:36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things they're afraid of, as is Google, is regulation.
• 1:36:32
  SPEAKER_00: So in Australia now,
• 1:36:33
  SPEAKER_00: the Australian government is proposing
• 1:36:35
  SPEAKER_00: to regulate large multinational tech companies who over a certain,
• 1:36:42
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember what the amount of revenue is,
• 1:36:44
  SPEAKER_00: but it's significant, you know, 200 million or something like that.
• 1:36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then they will charge a levy of 2.5%.
• 1:36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they will use that money and give it to the local publishing industry.
• 1:36:56
  SPEAKER_00: What they're hoping is that those companies then will go
• 1:36:59
  SPEAKER_00: and actually do deals directly and they won't have to implement the levy
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_00: because I don't think the government wants to manage the levy.
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you then have those companies.
• 1:37:08
  SPEAKER_00: So in Facebook's case,
• 1:37:10
  SPEAKER_00: they have just been very defensive and said,
• 1:37:13
  SPEAKER_00: right, If that's the case, then we'll deprioritize news.
• 1:37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in Canada, for example, you actually can't post a news story to Facebook.
• 1:37:21
  SPEAKER_00: They've actually banned news.
• 1:37:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they're saying news isn't important to our audience,
• 1:37:28
  SPEAKER_00: entertainment is, and so we're just going to focus on that.
• 1:37:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not going to get anything from us.
• 1:37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Google's had a monopoly, I suppose.
• 1:37:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the 90% of search goes through Google.
• 1:37:42
  SPEAKER_00: They've been in an incredibly strong situation but AI is starting to change that
• 1:37:46
  SPEAKER_00: and they've got competitors now who can produce an answer just like they can produce
• 1:37:50
  SPEAKER_00: an answer.
• 1:37:51
  SPEAKER_00: So they may be maybe a little more lukewarm to working with the news industry
• 1:37:56
  SPEAKER_00: but having said that they have taken the or the way they're moved at the moment
• 1:38:01
  SPEAKER_00: and producing sort of text answers, written answers as opposed to links
• 1:38:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're not helping the industry or not in the way they were anyway.
• 1:38:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I'm not sure how that will evolve.
• 1:38:16
  SPEAKER_00: But neither of them are hurting us now,
• 1:38:19
  SPEAKER_00: if you like, because most of our readership here in Wanaka is direct.
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's because primarily of the app, you know, people go into the app, they open the app.
• 1:38:28
  SPEAKER_00: They don't get into it through something else.
• 1:38:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're not through Google or through Facebook.
• 1:38:35
  SPEAKER_00: So for us,
• 1:38:38
  SPEAKER_00: the criticalness of the direct relationship is hopefully good for us to be able
• 1:38:41
  SPEAKER_00: to license our tech because other people hopefully will want
• 1:38:45
  SPEAKER_00: to build direct relationships with their readers.
• 1:38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And from a Wanaka point of view,
• 1:38:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:38:50
  SPEAKER_00: if they are deprioritizing news and not serving Accurate answers,
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_00: that's good for us because we've become a stronger source of that information.
• 1:39:00
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a government or a platform internationally that you look at and go, well,
• 1:39:06
  SPEAKER_02: if only we were doing things more like those guys, they've really got it nailed?
• 1:39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Australia's been the most proactive and most of the worlds are watching Australia.
• 1:39:13
  SPEAKER_00: They've been very active in trying to regulate big tech.
• 1:39:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's quite recent, isn't it?
• 1:39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like last five years or so, but not longer than that.
• 1:39:21
  SPEAKER_02: That seems to be a relatively fresh kind of interest.
• 1:39:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty new.
• 1:39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Canada did move and they did regulate the industry or the big tech
• 1:39:31
  SPEAKER_00: and big tech pretty much gave them the middle finger.
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's still in flux, really.
• 1:39:36
  SPEAKER_00: But Australia, I mean, Australia's close to home.
• 1:39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Often we...
• 1:39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Adapt similar regulations and things so it's just fascinating
• 1:39:45
  SPEAKER_00: to watch what's happening there and how that might materialize.
• 1:39:49
  SPEAKER_00: There doesn't seem to be a lot of appetite for it in New Zealand and despite
• 1:39:53
  SPEAKER_00: the fact that there's about 2.5 billion dollars flying offshore
• 1:39:56
  SPEAKER_00: of our company's advertising money that goes untaxed
• 1:40:02
  SPEAKER_00: to both Google
• 1:40:04
  SPEAKER_00: and Meta domiciled in a tax-free haven in Ireland.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_00: That money just flows straight out of New Zealand.
• 1:40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Even at a reasonable tax rate there would be a few hundred million dollars there.
• 1:40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time it weakens the potential for local publishers like us
• 1:40:24
  SPEAKER_00: to provide local news and information.
• 1:40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's always talk of something we'll have to give at some point,
• 1:40:31
  SPEAKER_00: but I guess the main thing is just watching what's happening in
• 1:40:34
  SPEAKER_00: the regulatory space, but not being reliant on it.
• 1:40:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to be, you know, we've got to be sustainable without it.
• 1:40:43
  SPEAKER_02: What does life look like for you then when the meter's not running?
• 1:40:46
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're not, because obviously you've got a lot of things to think about
• 1:40:52
  SPEAKER_02: and to do,
• 1:40:53
  SPEAKER_02: but in terms of work-life balance,
• 1:40:56
  SPEAKER_02: so obviously you're already taking work home with you,
• 1:40:58
  SPEAKER_02: in your relationship with Pip, but how do you actually then recharge and replenish?
• 1:41:05
  SPEAKER_00: I try to think of it as a lifestyle business.
• 1:41:07
  SPEAKER_00: I guess growing up on a farm,
• 1:41:08
  SPEAKER_00: you're talking about my formative years,
• 1:41:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:41:11
  SPEAKER_00: farmers don't go, oh, it's five o'clock, I think I'll go home and knock off.
• 1:41:14
  SPEAKER_00: They go, well, the sun's shining and I need to mow a paddock or we'll build a fence.
• 1:41:19
  SPEAKER_00: They work and, you know, they just do things when they need to be done.
• 1:41:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've always looked at our business and gone, well,
• 1:41:25
  SPEAKER_00: actually, even for it to be successful, I just need to do things when they're done.
• 1:41:28
  SPEAKER_00: But to unwind and relax, I play golf.
• 1:41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that that When I play golf I can actually spend a whole round more
• 1:41:36
  SPEAKER_00: or less not thinking about work
• 1:41:38
  SPEAKER_00: because I'm worried about how I'm going to hit
• 1:41:39
  SPEAKER_00: the ball.
• 1:41:40
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't always,
• 1:41:42
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes that's a bit of a clash because things do happen you know
• 1:41:45
  SPEAKER_00: while I'm playing and we're a small team and sometimes it would have been better not
• 1:41:49
  SPEAKER_00: to have played and to have been home and maybe we didn't get a notification out
• 1:41:54
  SPEAKER_00: when it should have gone out it could have been two hours later
• 1:41:57
  SPEAKER_00: so little things like that are always on your mind but I have
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_00: to just manage my own sanity and health.
• 1:42:06
  SPEAKER_00: We seem to have a reasonable balance.
• 1:42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the gym, play golf, work, enjoy walking around Wanaka.
• 1:42:13
  SPEAKER_02: Golf also has one of those, you're never going to finish it are you, aspects to it.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pursuit that will just keep you fresh forever.
• 1:42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Once you're hooked it's tragic.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_02: So speaking about the farm, you know, so the family farm wasn't for you personally.
• 1:42:33
  SPEAKER_02: What does your own succession plan look like?
• 1:42:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you now have the metaphorical family farm and the business that you've created.
• 1:42:40
  SPEAKER_02: How's this going?
• 1:42:41
  SPEAKER_02: What's looking like for your own kids?
• 1:42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Is this something that you'd welcome if they took an interest in the business
• 1:42:48
  SPEAKER_02: and wanted to step in as it was just like,
• 1:42:49
  SPEAKER_02: oh no, whatever you do, don't get into media and journalism.
• 1:42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Go and do something else.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_02: How are you approaching that?
• 1:42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at the moment,
• 1:42:57
  SPEAKER_00: they're exploring their own interests and their own lives,
• 1:43:01
  SPEAKER_00: which we're totally happy with.
• 1:43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it sort of never...
• 1:43:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's occurred to me a few times I think because people talk
• 1:43:08
  SPEAKER_00: about their children taking over their business and things like that
• 1:43:10
  SPEAKER_00: but it never really occurred to me that
• 1:43:14
  SPEAKER_00: We would want them or push them into that environment.
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_00: They can do what they want to do.
• 1:43:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're happy doing what we're doing and we can continue to do it.
• 1:43:24
  SPEAKER_00: If someone came along,
• 1:43:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:43:26
  SPEAKER_00: four or five, six years time and said, you know, it'd be really interesting.
• 1:43:32
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose,
• 1:43:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not worried about the timeline,
• 1:43:35
  SPEAKER_00: but what would be most beneficial for us is that if we could hand it off to somebody
• 1:43:41
  SPEAKER_00: who will continue to run it,
• 1:43:43
  SPEAKER_00: As a community hub for news and information that was adding value to the community.
• 1:43:48
  SPEAKER_00: That would be the main thing.
• 1:43:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's what we set it up for.
• 1:43:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
• 1:43:52
  SPEAKER_00: if there is somebody who has that skill set and has the desire at a point
• 1:43:58
  SPEAKER_00: when we're ready to consider offloading it, yeah, we'd do that.
• 1:44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Finally, what advice have you got for a young person who's considering a career in journalism?
• 1:44:11
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think there's great opportunities in journalism.
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, the number of jobs may have declined,
• 1:44:20
  SPEAKER_00: but I think journalism in and of itself is not as good as it used to be.
• 1:44:27
  SPEAKER_00: If I look in totality, and that's often a time thing and I think an experience thing.
• 1:44:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to be a good journalist.
• 1:44:36
  SPEAKER_00: You really need to be able to
• 1:44:40
  SPEAKER_00: You really need to be able to understand and conceptualise and make things succinct.
• 1:44:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the other thing you're going to need to be able to do is embrace tech more.
• 1:44:53
  SPEAKER_00: There is probably quite a reluctance in the journalism world around tech.
• 1:44:59
  SPEAKER_00: No one else can do my job sort of thing,
• 1:45:01
  SPEAKER_00: but I think there are going to be elements that tech can really enhance,
• 1:45:05
  SPEAKER_00: which will speed things up.
• 1:45:07
  SPEAKER_00: It may even improve the quality of output.
• 1:45:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're going to be more of a researcher,
• 1:45:15
  SPEAKER_00: an investigator,
• 1:45:17
  SPEAKER_00: a questioner,
• 1:45:18
  SPEAKER_00: an interviewer,
• 1:45:21
  SPEAKER_00: as opposed to possibly historically people have got into
• 1:45:23
  SPEAKER_00: because they love writing and they were good at writing and had a general interest
• 1:45:26
  SPEAKER_00: in the community sort of thing.
• 1:45:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do journalists a disservice because I think they're wonderful
• 1:45:31
  SPEAKER_00: and they do an incredible job.
• 1:45:33
  SPEAKER_00: They do get a hard time but some of that is down to quality issues and
• 1:45:38
  SPEAKER_00: which may not be necessarily their responsibility but just because we're now open to
• 1:45:43
  SPEAKER_00: a world of information and what is promoted as news and you read it
• 1:45:48
  SPEAKER_00: and think actually that's just a load of rubbish the industry gets tainted more so
• 1:45:55
  SPEAKER_00: than when You had certain journalists and they were the only ones who you read
• 1:46:00
  SPEAKER_00: and you built up a trust with them and they were good at their jobs
• 1:46:03
  SPEAKER_00: because they really did have a long term foundation and saw it as a career.
• 1:46:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah,
• 1:46:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think anybody interested in that in the industry just needs to be open minded,
• 1:46:12
  SPEAKER_00: particularly I think around the value of The tech and the way it's going
• 1:46:15
  SPEAKER_00: to be able to enhance what they do.
• 1:46:17
  SPEAKER_00: But they're still going to need to be curious.
• 1:46:21
  SPEAKER_00: Never accept status quo and don't accept anything at face value.