Tomorrow time
Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.
Tomorrow time
A few months ago we posted letters to a dozen of New Zealand’s most successful creative thinkers and entrepreneurs, asking for their help in an Idealog feature about up-and-coming Kiwis. We’ve all read lists of established achievers; we wanted to do something different, and draw on the knowledge of our creative stars to introduce some of the stars of the future.
Now, we’re proud to bring you The Tomorrow People: ten talented New Zealanders who are quickly making their marks in business, art, science, moviemaking, design, advertising, architecture, music and IT. We despatched snapper Alistair Guthrie across the country to meet our terrific ten and he’s caught his subjects beautifully. Those letters produced impressive results—if you ever wondered who Sam Morgan—or perhaps Richard Taylor, Peter Haythornthwaite, Marti Friedlander, Mike Chunn, Karen Walker or Geoff Ross—would pick as our Next Big Thing, you can find out in the next issue of Idealog, on sale from Monday.
Also in Idealog #11, you’ll find Peter Griffin’s story on the fruitful collboration between Eagle vs Shark director Taika Waititi and his fellow Wellingtonians The Phoenix Foundation, who provide the film’s killer soundtrack. With the film’s US success Waititi and the Phoenixes are now working with Miramax and Hollywood Records—both Disney subsidiaries. It’s an unexpected development for both of them but Peter finds that they have their eyes on the horizon and are working hard on bigger plans.
David MacGregor meets Steven Carden, the McKinsey analyst who has returned to New Zealand and written New Zealand Unleashed, a fine book on our potential place in the emerging economy. There’s an extract from the book too. And Bette Flagler finds the Kiwi companies are quietly notching up some serious successes in the design and manufacture of medical equipment—a high-value market that is almost impervious to the attractions of low-cost, commodity manufacturing. After all, where would you rather your surgeon’s equipment or your new knee was made—Christchurch or Chongqing?
And there’s plenty more, including inspiring ideas, creative Kiwis, opinion and how-to articles. Subscribers will get their copy over the weekend and it will be on newsstands on Monday.
Free translations
The famous Tiger Translate is back—and we have two double passes for tonight’s launch to offer Idealog Weekly readers. Tiger Translate 07 is an interactive mashup of art, design and music from all corners of the globe, featuring cutting-edge creative types like Bruce Ferguson. To enter the giveaway, simply send me an email with your contact details and tell me who your pick would be for an up-and-coming Kiwi talent. Entries close at midday and we’ll let the winners know shortly afterwards. Tiger Translate kicks off at 8pm at the Tiger Beer Guerilla Gallery in Newmarket, Auckland; doors shut at 8.30 so don’t be late.
If you’re not one of The Chosen, don’t fret—in a departure from previous Tiger Translates, the work will be on display for the next week.
Kaynemail
Kayne Horsham is on a roll. The founder of Kaynemaile and the designer of its eponymous product has just learned that the polycarbonate mesh he designed after working with traditional armour on the Lord of the Rings sets has been nominated for the Designpreis 2008, the German government’s official prize for design. There must be something about chainmail that appeals to Teutonic designers—Kaynemaile has already notched up the iF Material Award in Hanover this year.
Sound design
“Acoustic design is a bit like sailboat design—a brain-splitting mix of mathematics, intuition and art,” says Lauren Bartlett in a story on our website this week. “So why has the French government selected Auckland firm Marshall Day Acoustics from 98 competitors to design ‘la Philharmonie de Paris’, the new $400 million opera house?”
Why indeed? The answer, says company founder Dr Harold Marshall, has something to do with his 35-year-old design for the Christchurch Town Hall, and the “alchemy” between acoustic designer and architect. Read Lauren’s story about the project and what makes the Marshall Day design so good on our website.
Code champs
They can be so mean, our Australian brothers and sisters. While every New Zealander hopes fervently that the Wallabies team at the Rugby World Cup does really, really, uh, okay, the Aussies seem to think that in order for them to win, we have to lose. It’s neo-Darwinism gone mad. Heimlich instructions for choking Kiwis?
But New Zealanders do their talking on the field, and happily this weekend our most kick-ass web developers will make a pre-World Cup statement at the 24-hour Full Code Press competition in Sydney. Teams from each side of the Tasman will build a complete website for a non-profit organisation, with some simple rules that many web projects could adopt: “no excuses, no extensions, no budget overruns”. Crikey.
Starring for the visitors, please welcome the Code Blacks team: Alison Green, Jeffrey Wegesin, Peter Johnston, Mark Rickerby, Steve Dennis, Zef Fugaz and Thomas Scovell. (Six Wellingtonians among the seven—clearly there’s something more to Silicon Welly than just a snappy name.) The Code Blacks will be blogging the event, it’ll be on YouTube and of course we can watch the sites being built in real time. Go you good things.
The dead wrong Den
Do you wonder whether the Dragon’s Den investor/judges are as clever as they think they are? One contestant who endured a slagging at the hands of those nasty British dragons has proven the investors don’t have a Midas touch. The Daily Mail reports that Rob Law was, in his own words, “ripped to shreds” when he introduced his wheelie suitcase for kids—but any kid I can think of would love it. So it’s proved: Law has quickly sold 85,000 of them.
Keep clear
If you’re not a font geek, this probably isn’t for you—but the type-obsessed will be delighted by a New York Times article on a new typeface for US road signs. It’s out with Highway Gothic and in with Clearview, a face developed from research begun in 1989. Don’t miss the slideshow.
The TZ1 talk
There’s a change of venue next week for the third event in the AUT-Idealog Innovation Series. Josef Roberts and Rod Drury kicked off the series in fine style at the Auckland Art Gallery; now we’re heading a bit north to the beautiful Bellini at the Auckland Hilton, where NZX chief executive Mark Weldon will share his ideas about New Zealand’s place in our carbon-obsessed future. Anyone who has an interest in sustainability, New Zealand’s global profile and in innovative thinking will want to attend. Some tickets are still available for the Thursday event—bring a client or two if you want to give them a glimpse of how businesses can deal smartly with the green challenge.
Meanwhile, it’s banana time again. The very successful Going Bananas conference returns for its third year this weekend at the University of Auckland. The feature event on Sunday at 2.30pm features a panel of movers and shakers will look at cutting-edge developments in the local and global Chinese New Media space. Speakers include mrbrown, Singapore’s ‘blog father’; Justin Zhang, former marketing whiz of local Chinese web portal skykiwi.com; and global media man Antony Young, president of Optimedia International, a US-based edge media agency. It’s chaired by Russell Brown.
And on Thursday next week this year’s Jasmax Architectural Film Festival kicks off in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Matakana, Tauranga, Rotorua, Havelock North, Palmerston North, Nelson and Arrowtown.
Check out Idealog’s events guide, Agenda, online and in print. Anyone can add an event to Agenda—just fill out the form on our website.
Quote of the week
“Science is a tremendously social activity—and a creative activity. Sure, there’s a lot of hard graft and bashing your head against protocols, but the fundamentals of science are the creative steps.”
—Scientist Rod Dunbar, one of the ‘tomorrow people’ profiled in Idealog #11
More at Idealog online
Read more on our website: web exclusives, opinion, Idealog IP, the Idealog blogs and the Idealog podcast. See you at idealog.co.nz.
Matt Cooney
Editor
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