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Working with migrants

We like to do things a little differently at the New Zealand School of Export. Recently, we have had an international student from Denmark working with us and we've also been supporting our local Ethnic Council's initiative to give new migrants experience of working in a kiwi firm. Check this out on the EEO website:

http://www.eeotrust.org.nz/peoplepower/view_case.cfm?id=103

IATTO Forum 2009

This year´s overall theme will be "Managing Change in Turbulent Times", covering subject such as "Change Management - Innovations - Global Networking. The Forum will have a blend of key notes speakers, seminars, best-cases, networking and social events.
Professor Albert A. Angehrn, INSEAD, France will run a full day seminar the 29th of October on "Change Management" using EIS simulation to better understand the dynamics behind change, collaboration and innovation.

IATTO is the body which accredits the Diploma of International Trade offered by the New Zealand School of Export. The Director of the School is a member of the IATTO Board.

Cannes is obviously the site of more than just film festivals. Check out the website at: http://www.iatto.org/Default.aspx for more details.

Hindsight

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
Warren Buffett (1930 - )

Perhaps this is a bit like international trade...

Warren Buffett also said: People are habitually guided by the rear-view mirror and, for the most part, by the vistas immediately behind them. (from "Warren Buffett on the Stockmarket" 2001).

In last week's budget, Hon Bill English must have mentioned export at least half a dozen times - but we still haven't seen much evidence of an 'export strategy' as such.

This begs the question: If you were in government, what would your export strategy be?

Wolfram promises new way to probe the web - maybe?

Photo of Stephen Wolfram from Google Images.

The Business Herald for Friday May 29, 2009 featured the new database "WolframAlpha" launched two weeks ago. The column by Anthony Doesburg says that 'this is a new way to interact with knowledge and information'. Users are encouraged to test drive this new search engine, so that is what I did.

I used the following questions related to international trade:

· What is the WTO?
· What is the Doha Round?
· How much butter is exported from NZ?
· What are NZ’s major exports?
· What is a letter of credit?
· What is the major export of the USA?

It only managed an answer for two of them – it told me that WTO stood for World Trade Organization – well maybe my question wasn’t phrased well (?) And it told me that NZ’s major exports were dairy, fish, machinery, meat, wood! Not sure what machinery this is!

For all the other questions it replied: ‘WA is not sure what to do with your input’. Maybe it will improve over time, but certainly at the present it is not very useful in spite of the examples given in Doesburg's article.

Has anyone had better results than this? Look at www.wolframalpha.com

"New things often come from a downturn" - Dale Herigstad

This quote comes from the website of XMediaLab www.xmedialab.com From May22-24th there was a 'Lab' in Auckland entitled 'Commercialising Ideas'. Dale Herigstad was one of a number of international mentors at the Lab. A couple of other notable quotes:

• Survival is the new growth - Tim Chang
• Trust is the social media currency - Patrick McFie

XMediaLab is about helping digital media companies improve their creative ideas and therefore increasing the likelihood of receiving funding, and getting to market successfully. In other words commercialising ideas.

The Lab in Auckland was supported by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise as part of its work to help grow New Zealand industry and build its international competitiveness.

There are other labs to come this year - the Sydney Lab this month will focus on games. Check out the website for more information.