A set of icons which ignite kiwi-centric interest and conversation.
A few months ago I came across a set of icons and a wonderful offering to the world:
EXPERIENCE JAPAN PICTOGRAMS were developed with the mission to help as many tourists as possible by providing functionally and aesthetically well-designed pictograms as part of the basic infrastructure for tourism in Japan. For this reason, all the materials are made available for free use, whether that be personal, business, commercial, or non-profit use, so long as the user complies with the Terms of Use. The PICTOGRAMS were designed as minimum tools to convey basic information about Japan, as well as its diverse aspects. Despite the deceivingly simple design, each symbol, for the most part, is provided with a text–a story that gives you a glimpse into the everyday life and history of Japan.
Imagine a similar available set of visual icons which provide pictoral micro-stories of Aotearoa; as the world is still going in and out of varying degrees of lockdown, this ‘graphical tourism’ is a way for these tales to permeate across borders (both digital and real).
Here’s what fell out of my brain regarding what could be included in the set for starters:
Places: The Beehive, Hobbiton, Mount Taranaki, Milford Sounds, Huka Falls, Moeraki Boulders, Milford Sound, Rotorua Hot Springs, Franz Josef Glacier, The Remarkables etc
People: Gandalph, Golem, Jacinda Ardern, Sir Peter Jackson, Sir Edmund Hillary, Lorde etc
So if you’re a designer or agency who wants to offer the world something distinct, feel free to take this idea, give it a home and action with the agreement that the set of iconograms created will be gifted to the global community for use under Creative Commons 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.
Will share on with the many other agencies and organisations I know once making this live. In the meantime, throwing it out to the cyber-world to see if it ignites some creative souls who want to take a crack. Let me know if you do take it on please.
This is what happens when you allow a digital artist and a cocoa bean hunter to share their stories and insights (full bios here).
Another two episode have already been recorded and will be out in the coming weeks so subscribe and catch the other episodes via Creative Welly plus learn more about the background in this ‘Creative Welly Launched | Learning Out Loud‘ post.
Another two good souls exploring all manner of wonderful topics, ideas, stories, experiences etc.
We curate and collide intrepid talent from the coolest most creative little capital in the world (with a few out-of-city friends as well from time-to-time).
Subscribe and catch the first episode via Creative Welly.
Again, this project is totally self-funded and wouldn’t be possible without these amazing collaborators:
All episodes are shot and edited by the wonderfully talented Jono Tucker, Empire Films. An extremely diligent and personable soul who has added a polish to the resulting video which I never could’ve achieved, thank you Jono.
Hosted at Xequals, a centrally based web development agency who provide us with a kick-ass office which totally gets kitted out for the shoot. Thank you Alex Matthews for being so gracious with your space.
A new long-form video podcast for curious and creative humans.
Creative Welly is a new project from an old idea repurposed and reborn during the isolation of lockdown:
We curate and collide intrepid talent from the coolest most creative little capital in the world (with a few out-of-city friends as well from time-to-time).
This project is totally self-funded and wouldn’t be possible without these amazing collaborators:
All episodes are shot and edited by the wonderfully talented Jono Tucker, Empire Films. An extremely diligent and personable soul who has added a polish to the resulting video which I never could’ve achieved, thank you Jono.
Hosted at Xequals, a centrally based web development agency who provide us with a kick-ass office which totally gets kitted out for the shoot. Thank you Alex Matthews for being so gracious with your space.
This first episode represents about four to five day or pre-production experiments with lighting and seating scenarios plus editing options. The result of which is something quite different and unique.
Two further episodes are already ‘in the can’ with another two lined up for this month plus a very long list of possibles from my network here in the capital.
Each episode takes about two hours to set up (one hour to pack down), another two hours to shoot then there’s the editing time of both the video and audio. After that there’s posting the curated bios and relevant content online plus sharing out across channels.
There are also ‘hard’ and recurring costs:
WHAT
COSTS (NZD)
Table (round table from thrift store)
$55
Chairs (x3, comfortable and supportive)
$379
Backdrop photographic paper (for style)
$105
Libsyn (audio podcast hosting & distribution)
$275pa
Vimeo (video hosting)
$130pa
Domain + hosting
$25pa
TOTAL
$969
I find myself feeling so privileged to be able to start this journey and explore a new format during these challenging global times. It truly serves my purpose of ‘giving people voice’ whilst also my skill base of ‘curating’ as well.
Oh and why not YouTube? Have no intention of monetising the content and don’t like their forced adverts plus the time it takes to figure out the algorithms with the hope they choose my content over others. Vimeo is a wonderful creative community which aligns with the brand values of the intention behind the initiative.
Please let me know what you think and triple please subscribe to receive the bi-monthly episodes via Creative Welly.
Where does the liability lie when employers stipulate the use of certain platforms / programmes / devices which could become a future privacy issue?
Following up on my ‘Working From Home Privacy Check‘ post last week, I tweeted out the above query as conversations with some of my peers raised the challenge they were facing. It doesn’t take much to come up with some other scenarios where issues could arise:
SCENARIO 1 : An educational organisation is transitioning to virtual classes and is using an online platform to deliver to the students. Teachers are working hard to digitise the content and subsequent workflow for all involved. During some of the online lessons, a couple of students innocently post images of the classes with all the faces plus full names of their fellow students publicly on social media.
SCENARIO 2 : A small company wants to ensure its employees are staying connected and has started using a messaging system which the teams are asked to download on their devices. This creates the opportunity for work discussions along with more personal communications, just like a work environment. The platform they use gets infiltrated with a spambot and it starts sending phishing messages to all the employees personal contacts in their phones contact book.
SCENARIO 3 : A large governmental department is starting to utilise a new video conferencing platform as everyone is working from home. Its operations and the information shared are highly confidential as they deal with issues of national security. Due to a flaw in the video system, some of the discussions are accessible to other parties who use it for nefarious means.
The question about liability bounced around for about a week until I got the following response via this tweet from John Edwards, Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand:
Employees are obliged to follow any reasonable instruction from an employer. If an employee conveyed reservations about using a particular tool and the employer said please proceed, they would likely be obliged to follow that instruction. The employer assumes the risk.
Agree. I would put it in writing to have a record of the concerns being raised. Employer should record the direction in writing too.
So if you are working from home and you have concerns regarding your privacy please do detail them via email with your employer. You might want to also ask for some risk assessment and scenario planning from the leadership also.
Stay safe and sane out there, plus wash your hands!
At the time of writing, we have nearly four hundred cases here (no deaths) and taking this approach could ensure the spread is contained.
Nearly all of my paid work has been cancelled although I just got notified I was approved for the COVID-19 Employer Payment for the next three months.
I feel lucky to be where I am.
However, the whole world is sharing this experience and every country is approaching it slightly differently, although many are adopting as isolation strategy.
I’m wondering (out loud) what good can come as we collectively pause together:
SOCIAL
We weren’t ready for this. Some knew:
It’s becoming clear that a mammoth economic recession is coming, along with a radical disruption of societal systems. This is a start not the end, and our overlapping society of nations will have to rethink many of its operating structures.
There’s a collective growing literacy at understanding exponential curves, inter-dependent industries and sectors plus how much small percentage points matter when it relates to economies.
Everything is being revealed as fragile.
Although this does present an opportunity to reflect on what is important. How, after a certain level of comfort and freedom is gained, everything else is a bonus.
We’ll also be critiquing the stale idea of traditional working cultures as swathes of humans turn to digital methods to deliver and continue their workload. However, as the crisis abates, I feel there will be a massive hunger for the physical and in-person again.
There are no special cases when princes, politicians, celebrities are getting it. The real super stars are those illustrating the innate goodness of humans:
Wildlife have rediscovered usually polluted areas like the canals in Italian cities:
As time goes on, this global pause will provide precious data and critical evidence for scientists to go further in proving the impact we’re having on the world.
CULTURAL
Talking here about the wider understanding that we all share a common space and are part of an operating system which is now in danger of collapsing.
Our streets and towns and cities personify the quiet we need to reflect on what’s crucial. To ask questions which transcend a rigged monetary system, to recognise the importance of community and amplify the need for evolving the politics of our time.
This forced reset is also ironic, separating us all from symbiotic elements of family, friendship, food, nature, place, space etc. which make us, us.
Going forward, the medical (especially front-liners) and educational establishment needs to be elevated, celebrated and remunerated properly (along with others who are now deemed ‘essential’ like rubbish men, supermarket workers, warehouse workers etc.), whilst we dull the idea of celebrity in its importance.
This crisis simply illustrates how interconnected we all are.
Everything is linked.
All aspects of our well-being are joined to man-made constructs like capitalism as well as natural systems like the wider environment which need to remain healthy.
This is an opportunity to transform.
Become warriors and guardians of wiser and kinder system of living.
This joint deep breath, allows us a chance to redesign our intent as humans in focusing on the right things (rather than continue doing the wrong things righter).
The world has changed so much in three months, imagine if it we were intentional in rebuilding it.
Truly hope wherever you are reading this you’re staying safe and sane.
Your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.
We are heading backwards not forwards into any kind of gentler approach to help the planet heal.
And I’m really struggling to find the token approach to adding a few bus lanes into the road investment strategy as the way forward as a nation (which builds its reputation on the 100% Pure brand).
I’m currently subcontracting on a piece of work around stakeholder engagement in the capital regarding some ideas to accelerate Wellington’s transformation into a low carbon city to reach their goal of becoming zero carbon by 2050, this has honestly taken the wind out of the sails.
The continued adventure of establishing a bold event brand in NZ.
Last week was the third Creative Leadership NZ (and second time) at, NZ’s new Institute of Creativity, Te Auaha. It was another sold out affair hosting nearly two hundred humans exploring the intersection of creativity and leadership.
The feedback has been very positive with the general theme of ‘warmth’ coming through. The speakers modelled this in their talks and delivery plus openness to connect in the breakouts, as well as the eagerness of the delegates to embrace the opportunity to share their stories whilst participating in the sessions and / or conversations with others.
As with previous years (2017 and 2018), here’s my review as I continue to learn out loud:
Stats
As you can see from above, over two thirds of attendees have female names and anecdotally the average age is about thirty-five to fourty.
This year over eighty cross sector organisations and brands were represented, aiding the variety of discussions and connections made in this community of leaders. In theory, the experience and learnings will be taken back to the seven and a half thousand people managed by the delegates.
CLNZ truly bucks the trend of other leadership conferences, away from the pale, male and stale.
Speakers
What an amazing array of folks we had this year. Tried really hard to again balance the breadth of arenas in the two respected focusses of the conference and the delegate feedback has reflected that aim.
This year I put together a speaker guide which simplified communications of all the aspects of the conference whilst also outlining expectations.
Thanks to these good humans below—a pure delight to collaborate with.
David Bill (keynote / masterclass) : designing empathy at scale, Interaction Designer, Booz Allen Hamilton
David Bill is an interaction designer. He has done research on, redesigned websites and mobile apps for, and brought service design to federal government agencies and startups.
David has a background in education and design. He taught secondary school world history and was an education technology director for two schools. As a design strategist, he redesigned classrooms, helped reimagine libraries, improved the service and customer experience at a mobile food market, and created the framework for and coached two incubator programs.
His passions are varied and lie at the intersection of design & technology, movement / wellness / mindfulness, learning, culture & society, biking, and porridge.
Emily Chang (keynote / workshop) : The Power of AND – unlocking new ideas by finding the intersection of seeming juxtapositions, Commercial Leader / ex-SVP Marketing at Starbucks
A strategic business leader with over 20 years’ experience, Emily was most recently SVP, marketing at Starbucks. She joined Starbucks as China CMO in 2017, responsible for marketing, sales, loyalty, customer engagement, and digital flywheel (ecommerce, payments, partnerships). She helped open the first Starbucks Roastery outside of Seattle, tripled digital tender, managed the commercial side of Starbucks’ largest merger, and launching the brand’s delivery program.
Prior to Starbucks, Emily was the Chief Commercial Officer for IHG, Greater China, where she was responsible for all commercial functions across Greater China. Looking after 320+ hotels and an extended team of 5,200 Sales & Marketing members, Emily spearheaded the market share turnaround of six hotel brands.
Moving to Shanghai back in 2011, Emily built a high-performance marketing organization that established the face of Apple Retail in Asia Pacific. She first developed her Marketing expertise at Procter & Gamble, with 11 years of end-to-end business experience across all three business units and spanning everything from upstream design to retail marketing with Walmart.
Greg Broadmore (keynote interview) : leading at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and creative processes, Studio Director, Weta Gameshop / Magic Leap
I am a human male who likes to make things up and pretend that they’re real.
Savannah Peterson is a 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 in Consumer Technology and the Founder of Savvy Millennial. She makes the future less scary by dispelling myths and building community around new technology. Savannah is one of the judges for the New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards and an international advocate for New Zealand innovation (see her 10 reasons NZ innovation is so unique article).
Before starting Savvy Millennial, she was the Director of Innovation Strategy at Speck Design and Massive Labs. She was also previously the Director of Global Community at Shapeways, the world’s largest 3D Printing community in New York City, where she empowered and enabled the over 25,000 3D Printing businesses. She guest teaches entrepreneurship, community management and digital marketing at Stanford, NYU, UCLA, PACE and Xavier. She has been featured in/on the Today Show, the BBC, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Gizmodo, CNET, The Verge, and more.
Kaila Colbin (keynote / masterclass) : why courage is the new leadership skill (via Brene Brown), Co-founder, Boma Global / CEO, Boma New Zealand, Boma Global / Boma New Zealand
Her purpose in life is to be an uplifting presence.
Samantha Gadd (keynote / workshop) : nurturing brave cultures, CEO / Director, Humankind / Kin
Samantha Gadd is Founder and Managing Director of Humankind, a business with the vision to create the best employee experiences in the world. Humankind (formerly HR Shop) was a 2015 Deloitte Fast 50 winner, and named fastest growing services business in the Wellington region in the same year.
Samantha is obsessed with Employee Experience and the difference it can have on business performance. Samantha has advised hundreds of organisations over the last 15 years on leadership, culture, performance and all things people. She is passionate about the future of work and the importance of modern leadership to attract and retain top talent. Samantha is currently focused on growing Humankind and recently launched Kin (sister company to Humankind) and building an exemplar employee experience in both organisations. In 2018 Samantha also launched the first Employee Experience Awards programme in New Zealand. Also Mum to three young boys, Samantha is experienced at blending life and work.
Sarb Johal (keynote / workshop) : Making space for creativity: Leading yourself well Dad / Content Creator / Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Dr Sarb Johal is a Clinical Psychologist with over 30 years’ experience in research, training, clinical practice, and policy development, in both NZ and the UK.
He has a passion for storytelling, communicating sometimes difficult or unique topics to non-technical audiences. He has been a creative content creator and producer for 24 years, including; BBC World Service Radio, regular contributions on RNZ’s Nine to Noon Parenting slot, his own podcast, Who cares? What’s the Point?, and collaborating with James Nokise on RNZ’s Eating Fried Chicken in the Shower. Most recently, he has ventured on a steep learning curve on YouTube, creating two (here and here) channels, with over 150 videos in 9 months.
Sarb is dad to three young girls, enjoys TV made for kids, and wears burp stains with pride.
Selina Tusitala Marsh (keynote / workshop) : the power of poetry, Poet / Academic, NZ Poet Laureate 2017-19
Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English and French descent. She was the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD in English from The University of Auckland and is now a lecturer in the English Department, specialising in Pasifika literature. Her first collection, the bestselling Fast Talking PI, won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry in 2010. Marsh represented Tuvalu at the London Olympics Poetry Parnassus event in 2012; her work has been translated into Ukrainian and Spanish and has appeared in numerous forms live in schools, museums, parks, billboards, print and online literary journals. As Commonwealth Poet (2016), she composed and performed for the Queen at Westminster Abbey. She became New Zealand’s Poet Laureate in 2017. She was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order Of Merit this year and won the Royal Society Aronui Award for outstanding contribution to Humanities.
Topaz Litman Adizes (keynote / masterclass) : courageous conversations, Founder / Creative Director, The Skin Deep / {THE AND}
Topaz Adizes is an award winning Writer, Director & Experience designer. His films have been selected to Cannes (BOY), Sundance (Trece Años, Laredo Texas, {THE AND} Marcela & Rock), IDFA, SXSW, Cinéma Du Réel, and other festivals around the world.
His interactive documentary {THE AND} won the Emmy for New Approaches to Documentary 2015 as well as the World Press Photo award for Best Interactive Documentary 2015. {THE AND} was also a viral sensation reaching #1 on Reddit and Buzzfeed and experienced by over 70 million users, featured on the CBS Morning show and Good Morning America and selected to numerous international digital storytelling competitions.
I am a happy generalist. Happy to be generally in this space.
A very proud New Zealand resident. I grew up in Australia as a Chinese Malaysian Australian, spent a reasonable amount of time in Asia and have New Zealand business partners that are Canadian…to get a diverse view of the world.
My primary role was establishing Ziptrek NZ with a view that sustainability in tourism is both a responsibility and a characteristic that we must value. Earth is really a good planet and travel within it should be one of the most powerful forces for good.
As I generalist away I am a board member Tourism Industry Aotearoa, founding trustee of Startup Queenstown Lakes, retired TEDx organiser, sustainability broken record and active participant in all things new and shiny.
DK (Master of Ceremonies) Creative Producer / Speaker Coach
As a Creative Producer, DK crafts delicious learning experiences for clients and is the TEDxWellington / TEDxWellingtonWomen licensee, plus the founder of the Creative Leadership NZ conference. He’s also a Speaker Coach, working with CEO’s and senior executives plus a random ex-All Black and Dame thrown into the mix. Previously, DK founded Mediasnackers and through it has over a decade of working in the social media space consulting / delivering training on five continents and to a cross-sector range of clients from UNICEF, Gates Foundation, BBC, Ubisoft, Hasbro plus spent time as a social media manager for a national education company in NZ. He also established Collider, a city-wide programme focussed on transforming Wellington into an internationally recognised Smart Capital (with 200 events in 14 months with over 5000 attendees averaging quality rating of 4.2 and above (out of 5)). DK loves ‽’s.
As an aside, one of the overseas speakers pulled out with three weeks to go before the event due to a board meeting timing change which they had to be at. This added thousands to the costs with all the flight changes which had to be made. A fun little hurdle to get over although after a couple of days of panic it all came good.
Sponsors / Partners
This year was the first time CLNZ took cash sponsorship. The Institute Of Management New Zealand (IMNZ) was the founding sponsor and with that got featured heavily in all promotions, received a bunch of VIP passes to share to staff and clients plus also had the opportunity to run an interaction to engage with the delegates. The monies received enabled some additions to the conference (see below in ‘extra costs’).
The second sponsor was for our technical side of the event and enabled the recording of the main keynote talks for the first time (which will be released in the new year). NW Group stepped into this role and looking forward to releasing the videos early next year of the main keynotes.
The other partners contributed either cut-rate services and / or free plus financial grant support for specific speakers.
Finances / Extra Costs
As with previous conferences CLNZ19 was profitable and very pleased to again increase the profit margin from last years event.
All speakers were remunerated financially plus many of them had their expenses covered. When a significant promotional support didn’t transpire I had two invest in a third party agency to assist in the marketing and sales. Other costs included:
Reprint of event brochure due to design error (click the above for pdf version);
Banner for arrivals and video backdrop;
Massage therapists for interactions;
Carpet tiles to make speaker rug;
Recording / editing of all keynote talks.
Over half a dozen folks registered who then didn’t pay / attend which equated to over four thousand potential profit lost so next year will have to think how to manage this.
The video above played when delegates arrived into the main theatre and was crowdsourced from the registration process. It served to prime the audience and get them situated into the subject matter of the conference.
The massage therapists I have seen and done in previous events so was a lovely addition to this years offering and was constantly utilised.
Our main sponsor IMNZ installed a Christmas tree and invited delegates to write a future message to themselves along the lines of the event theme of ‘nurturing courage’:
At the opening of the second day, I ran an exercise exploring where delegates ‘stand’ on certain topics and get them in the interactive and exploration mindset for the masterclasses:
Lessons / Future
Last year the three future aims for the 2019 event were to gain sponsorship (tick), record videos (tick), build an ongoing community opportunity (ongoing).
For 2020, the focus will be on:
Building out the interactions both in the main theatre and break out spaces to promote connection through conversation;
Been approached to explore hosting the event in Auckland by an attendee who is from a major institution up there so will explore that;
Further financial sponsorship which amplifies the conference values and offer.
Due to the positive feedback specifically relating to the venue have already booked in next years event which will be Monday 30th November & 1st December 2020, put it in your diaries now!
Photos – Day One & Two
So did you attend and if so how was it for you? Are you a creative producer who can answer some of the challenges I have above? Any other observations for me?
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