Sponsor's Message

As regular readers will know, I've just spent the past few days in Auckland filming for an upcoming kids TV show. The filming (as expected) involved a lot of sitting around and waiting followed by just a few minutes of "performance" under hot lights.

Fortunately, the waiting around became the best part of the whole experience since the producers had gotten together a group of some of NZ's brightest and most innovative minds to participate in this programme.

It was extremely enlightening to discuss the issues that surround the very difficult task of taking an idea and turning it into a successful reality.

The most striking thing was the similarity of the hurdles that we'd all faced and the hassles we'd had with bureaucracy along the way.

Perhaps the government and investment communities could do a lot worse than to call in people like this and sit them down around a table so as to get a real indication as to why life is so hard for those who have the potential to create some really amazing industry here.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

The experiences, tips, warnings and ideas that were exchanged over the past three days showed just how much there is to be gained by organising some kind of regular get-together.

Despite the fact that those present were involved in such wide-ranging areas as kites, biodegradable serving dishes, first aid equipment, and other seemingly disparate subjects, the common ground was huge.

Fortunately we have all exchanged email addresses so I'm hoping that the little network we've already formed will be maintained, despite our geographic separation.

And I'm wondering just what kind of software/services there are available online to facilitate such a network of such similar people.

Yes, there are forums and mailing lists -- but is there anything specifically designed for common-interest groups that helps in perhaps identifying opportunities to meet when in the same part of the world, share ideas, opportunities and the like?

Maybe there's a market for such a system -- who knows?

Right now I need to sneak off and score a little sleep, having had just three hours since 6am yesterday morning.

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