IN TOUCH: Possums and positivity

The Kiwi DIY gene was well and truly outed at an entrepreneurial summit held late last month to – in the words of its instigator Chris Simmonds – “fire up some energy and get people to see that there are positive opportunities to pursue”.
Limited to just over 100 participants, the summit was full-on brainstorming session to utilise the grey matter and positivity of people who’ve already proved their own business start-up credentials. With starter kit of 30 ideas, helped by top facilitators and regular coffee runs, workgroups eliminated and refined to emerge with bunch of opportunities that will be further developed.
The top five:
• an “attitude” campaign with the tagline “give it go, bro” that’s about fundamentally shifting the Kiwi psyche into more positive, self-directed, forward gear, private-sector led, government supported and involving national ad campaign;
• Kiwicard travel – special $10,000 debit card to help promote inbound New Zealand tourism;
• “possum economics” – harvesting pests for economic benefit rather than spending millions poisoning them;
• “flying Kiwi fund” – creating fund to attract investors with view to funding the “growth” phase of exciting New Zealand business opportunities;
• research and development – making intellectual property emerging from CRIs available to entrepreneurs and commercial users.
Others in the top nine included building stories about New Zealand, focusing on exports to be world leader in value-add dairy food, high performance business academy where people will be nurtured by experts to up-scale and maximise growth, and 24/7 online trade-show as springboard to SME exporters.
And this, says Simmonds, is just the first step in journey. The summit leadership (including Tony Falkenstein and Tenby Powell) has signed up for 18 months of work, the ideas have captured people’s imaginations, more are already enrolling to participate. The attitude is “let’s grab the coil of No.8 and fix everything”, says Simmonds.