[ SCOOP EDITOR'S NOTE: Scoop Founder and General Manager Alastair Thompson has been nominated for election as an InternetNZ Councillor. Voting for four positions to council will start later today. Voting is electronic and members of InternetNZ are eligible to vote. Note that if you join InternetNZ now you will not be able to vote in this year's election.
There are eight nominees for the positions and their election statements are published below in full with links back to the versions on the InternetNZ website. The statements provide an interesting insight into the rising level of interest in Internet Governance issues in New Zealand.
From July 8th to 10th InternetNZ will be hosting a third annual Nethui event in Wellington bringing together a wide range of stakeholders who are interested in NZ's digital future and how that effects the wider. Scoop is proud to be a gold-sponsor for this event.]
InternetNZ 2013 Council Election
From the Internet NZ Website
Nominations have now closed for four Councillor positions serving on the Council of InternetNZ for a three year term (ending at the AGM in July 2016). Councillors whose Terms are expiring are Michael Foley, Neil James, Jonny Martin and Lance Wiggs. InternetNZ Councillors play an important role in governing and setting the strategic direction of our organisation. All InternetNZ members are eligible to stand for Council.
When
will voting take place?
Voting will commence
online on Monday 24 June 2013 and close on Saturday 6 July
2013. Members of Internet NZ are eligible to vote. Note that
if you join InternetNZ now you will not be able to vote in
this year's election.
More
information
The Returning Officer - Campbell
Gardiner - is happy to answer any questions you may have. He
can be contacted via email at
election@internetnz.net.nz
Nominees
Click
on the Nominee names below (in alphabetical order) to read
their election statements.
Nominees
For Office | Nominated by
Amber Craig |Cr Brenda
Wallace
Hayden Glass |
Dave Lane
Cr Neil James
| Roger Hicks
Richard
Orzecki | The Returning Officer
Karaitiana Taiuru | Laurence
Zwimpfer
Alastair
Thompson | Don Christie
Cr Lance Wiggs | Cr Dave
Moskovitz
Richard Wood
| Cr Jamie Baddeley
Amber Craig -
Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
My vision for the Internet is
that it is accessible to everyone everywhere, and that is it
treated as a right not a privilege. The Internet should not
belong to an individual or a company, and should remain open
and accessible to all. I would like your vote to serve on
the InternetNZ council.
I have a history in many parts of
NZ’s technology business. I spent six years at a large
telco, designing and delivering mobile applications and
services for New Zealand. I’m now working on web and
mobile technology within the financial services industry.
Along my career, I have coded, managed business cases,
coordinated and driven teams to deliver and have loved every
minute.
My experience of large challenges and strategic
thinking will inform my work on the InternetNZ council.
Although my role is with technology, I like to remind people
that the technology only exists for the people who will use
it. This is good preparation for InternetNZ, which operates
through technology services (.nz DNS), policy (DNCL and
InternetNZ), and the multistakeholder model.
Initiatives
that I have driven outside of my normal day
job:
• Organise and run Wellington Girl Geek dinners to
help connect and promote women in the IT
industry.
• Consulted to small businesses and large
corporates to help them set up their social media strategy
and enable them to take the first steps into the world of
social media.
• Helping to set up a social media team
(processes & management) staffed by volunteers, within a
large corporate.
• Helped to run unconferences within
various large corporates with an aim to push culture change
within an organisation from the ground up, breaking down
silos and connecting passionate people.
The Internet is
changing our world. InternetNZ has a role to play in
promoting the uptake of Internet access and the use of
Internet-based services delivered through the Internet. We
protect, but we could be doing more to promote.
Not that
protection isn’t important, as there is still plenty of
work left to do. I believe this next few years of council
will see the privacy and security becoming major issues for
Internet users. I’d love to help take us through this.
Please vote for me.
Hayden Glass -
Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
These are exciting times for
the internet. It influences more and more of normal
life.
And this makes it interesting because the policy
issues that are the fabric of debate in the internet world
are becoming matters of more general public concern.
Yesterday's tech debate or geek discussion is today's issue
of public interest. We are moving from the technology pages
to the front section. And this is good because the real
value of technology is not in its invention, but in its
use.
My particular interest is whether smarter use of
internet services can help New Zealand overcome the chance
of geography that keeps us distant from most of the world's
potential customers. The idea is not rocket science and you
have heard it before. It's that as a nation we can make use
of the internet to help people launch and run
globally-relevant businesses from here and attract
high-quality people and businesses from other places, and
that in due course this will help us find our way back up
the global rich league of nations.
There is a gap in
public discourse as to how the internet can help us. When I
look at the newspapers I see that the internet industry is
mostly still talking about the same issues that have
dominated the debate for the last ten years: how to ensure
that we have the right pipes in place, whether they should
be made of copper or fibre, how much they should cost, and
who should get how much of the money. If the solution to
getting the internet working for New Zealand was regulatory
reviews and changes to the framework, we would be world
champions already.
The focus of attention should be
moving from plumbing to water, and from how we get the
infrastructure to what we do with it. The troubles that we
used to have with the pipes are resolved or being resolved
and we need to focus more attention on the other parts of
the internet equation. Linking New Zealand more closely with
the global tech economy looks like a sensible economic
policy, but not one that is getting enough airplay.
It
seems to me that Internet NZ is ideally placed to contribute
on some of these gaps. It can help explain why technology
policy actually matters to the real life of normal humans,
and highlight encouraging initiatives for taking best
advantage of the internet from a national point of view. It
does not do this by itself, nor is it necessarily the lead
agency. But it can lead on some things, do some things and
enable and support others, as it works with like-minded folk
to advance on the issues that matter. I'd be delighted to
bring some of this conversation to the Council table.
My
background is in public policy. I trained as a lawyer at
Canterbury University but these days I work as an economist
for the Sapere Research Group, an Australasian consulting
firm. I advise government and private sector clients mostly
on telecommunications and internet policy issues. I worked
nearly seven years before that for Vodafone New Zealand,
including a period as its head of public policy. I was
fortunate enough to be involved in a whole range of debates,
including on spectrum, the design of the UFB and RBI,
regulated pricing of services (including mobile termination
and wholesale broadband services), the various separations
of Telecom, and areas touching more directly on the
internet, including copyright.
I was also Vodafone's head
of marketing strategy for a time. Before Vodafone I worked
as a consultant, and I started my career doing social policy
work (mostly immigration) for the New Zealand
Treasury.
Some other matters: I live in Auckland. My
background is mostly commercial. I have good relationships
with people in the sector. I am on twitter (@whereishayden),
I have a blog that I update less often than I would like at
(http://www.whereishayden.org).
I have
also set up a discussion group called the Moxie Sessions as
a modest attempt to encourage cross-sectoral conversations
on tech economy issues. (Check out the website (http://www.themoxiesessions.co.nz) and
subscribe to the podcast: there is a standing invitation up
there if you find yourself in Auckland and you'd like to
attend. The next few sessions are kindly sponsored by
Internet NZ too.)
I'd be honored to bring my experience
and background to the InternetNZ Council.
Neil James -
Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
I am currently an InternetNZ
Councillor. I have been associated with InternetNZ from
its very beginnings, having chaired the meeting in 1995 that
led to the establishment of ISocNZ, and serving on the early
Councils. I am a Fellow of InternetNZ, a Fellow of NZCS,
and a KAREN Fellow.
I have had a long and active interest
in the development of computer networking starting in the
1970s, and moving on to early international networking
developments. I chaired the NGI-NZ Society that worked
towards the eventual establishment of KAREN, the advanced
network for Research, Education and
Information.
InternetNZ has continued to grow as a
professional organisation and has developed with the
changing Internet environment. Notwithstanding our success
so far I believe there is an ongoing requirement to be
vigilant against those developments that would undermine the
open and uncapturable nature of the Internet in New Zealand.
InternetNZ works in this protection role through providing
platforms for discussion and debate, and advising on and
developing policy.
I have been a strong advocate for
InternetNZ working with kindred organisations to help
achieve progress in its objectives. Recently I took a lead
role in the development of a formal partnership with the
2020 Communications Trust. Through this partnership we are
helping support access to the Internet for those who would
otherwise have little opportunity to use online services
through initiatives such as the 2020 Communications Trust
Computers in Homes programme. I am keen to see other
appropriate partnerships developed to help ensure that the
Internet can deliver its full potential for our
citizens.
Living in Dunedin, I have a particular interest
in regional developments, including the effective deployment
of fibre infrastructure. I believe New Zealand has very
often set its sights too low in communications network
developments, and in consequence we have found ourselves
running to catch up with other countries. While there is now
significant Government support for fibre network
development, it is important to continue to advocate for
fibre deployment that does not hand monopoly control back to
a commercial for-profit enterprise.
It is equally
important to ensure that intellectual property rights are
developed in a way that recognises the Internet has
completely changed publishing, and our relationship with
content. The old models are often no longer
appropriate.
On a quite different issue I believe there
are 'green' network initiatives that InternetNZ could be
promoting to help lower greenhouse gas
emissions.
InternetNZ has a big part to play in the
future. I would welcome the opportunity to continue to serve
on the InternetNZ Council.
Richard Orzecki -
Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
I share InternetNZ’s Open and
Uncaptureable vision as the foundation for how the Internet
should be modelled locally and globally. My reason for
standing for Council is to help impart the relevance of this
vision to a wider audience than InternetNZ reaches at
present – to all technology-focused people and to all
those interested in using the Internet as an enabler for
creating a fuller, richer digital society.
I have worked
in information technology for three decades and have seen
first hand the evolution and impact of technology on
people’s lives. I bring a global perspective to Internet
issues – having worked in technology overseas for nearly
twenty years. As a director of a number of companies, I
possess a high level of commercial accumen that will benefit
the InternetNZ Council.
I am a founding member of the
National Maori Broadband working group called Nga Pu Waea
that was establised in 2011 to work on the rollout of Ultra
Fast Broadband and the Rural Broadband Initiatve. This
project spans over nine years and has afforded me a real
opportunity to work on the frontline of Internet issues with
many communities in New Zealand.
I have a sound working
knowledge of InternetNZ, working with staff and members in
the preparation of the highly-successful NetHui conferences
since 2011 and have been a judge in the ANZIA (Australia and
New Zealand Internet Awards) since its inception. It was
also a privilege to help in preparation of the powhiri that
was afforded Sir Tim Berners-Lee on his visit to New Zealand
in January this year.
I have a keen interest in the
Health sector and am currently appointed to the Whanganui
and Mid Central District Health boards, working to implement
technology that supports patient care and safety. I am also
involved in a professional capacity with the New Zealand
Qualifications Authority and the New Zealand Police (Central
Region).
I am keenly interested in collaborating with
InternetNZ members and Council in pursuing the good work
that has been done to-date in advancing the cause of an
Internet in New Zealand that remains Open and Uncaptureable.
If elected, I will bring my enthusiasm and broad range of
skills to bear to make InternetNZ the organisation you
deserve.
Karaitiana Taiuru
- Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
I first joined
ISOCNZ/InternetNZ in 2000 and have been actively involved
with InternetNZ, Internet governance/development nationally
and internationally ever since: including several DNC
working groups, Net Hui planning, InternetNZ consultations
both national and regional, InternetNZ Working groups
including the web site review group and have moderated
.iwi.nz since 2000.
This year I have campaigned against
the Governments proposed software patents, radio spectrum
decision and several new GTLD applications with ICANN. I
have also welcomed the cyber bullying legislation
recommendations (albeit not perfect) and the New Media
recommendations from the Law Commission.
I have also been
active within the following Internet groups promoting a more
accessible Internet; Computers in Homes, ICANN, APRALO,
APNG,NZMIS, Maori Spectrum Group, ISOC and its various
chapters as well as having served one term on PIR.ORG
Advisory board and one term on the United Nations
Information Development Programme-Asia Pacific.
A regular
participant of ICANN where I participate (as does
InternetNZ) as a recognised structure representative in Asia
Pacific Regional At Large (APRALO) of which I have been the
Chair, Vice Chair and served on the New GTLD and IDN working
groups. I have also served a term on the ICANN Nominating
Committee (NOMCOM).
I have a good working relationship
with some of InternetNZ’s past and present staff, Fellows,
council and registries. Also with InternetNZ’s strategic
partners of which I serve or have served on several of their
governance groups including 20/20 Communications Trust and
Creative Commons Aotearoa. I am also an active supporter of
Open Source and Net Safe.
I have authored a number of
publications, presented at a number of conferences, and have
been cited in a number of academic reports in regards to
national and international Internet issues including
Internet Access.
Presently I am researching usage and
attitudes of Indigenous Domain Names and the perceptions of
the .nz structure of which the InternetNZ fund contributed
to financing. My interim findings have gained international
credit and invitations to share my work on a global
scale.
My personal web site bears the “I Make a
Difference - InternetNZ member” image and is fully
Creative Commons licensed. This is representative of the
fact that I believe the Internet should be open and is a
human right that gives education, culture, social and
economic development opportunities to its
users.
Professionally I work as a Digital Media
consultant in my home town of Christchurch while also
contributing as much as I can to the local community
including the local Computers In Homes Steering Group where
I am actively involved.
My online resume http://www.linkedin.com/in/ktaiuru will
fill in the gaps of my bio and my personal web site has more
biographic and contact details http://www.taiuru.māori.nz
(ASCII 2LD also available). I am happy to discuss any
concerns or questions you may have.
If elected to the
council of InternetNZ, I will bring a range of diverse
skills and knowledge and a long term desire to nurture and
promote the Internet that will both enhance our society and
our environment.
Alastair Thompson
- Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
Dear Internet NZ
Members,
Why I Am Standing For Internet NZ
Council
My vision for the Internet is for it to
continue to remain at least as open, accessible, innovative
and transformative as it has to date. However I would like
to see governance step up a gear and become more globally
networked and responsive to the challenges being thrown up
by a new significant wave of technological change.
The
Internet everywhere stands at something of a crossroads
thanks to the advent of ubiquitous mobile super-computing. I
believe I have the experience to help guide New Zealand's
contribution to charting the path ahead.
Chapter
Two In The Personal Computing Revolution Is
Beginning
33 years ago in 1980 Christchurch,
circa Stubbies and HQ Holdens, my father Stephen Thompson
who worked for the DSIR brought home an Altos 64. Several
years pre IBM-PC it was one of the first ever commercial
personal computers. It had an 8 inch floppy disk drive and
64kb of RAM memory (Total. To run the full stack - swapping
to disk was vital). Aged 11 I taught this computer to play
a Star Trek game by typing in several thousand lines of code
from a magazine.
I recount this experience back then we
were at the beginning of the personal computing
revolution.
We are now at the beginning of a new chapter.
Smartphones are not just phones - and nor are they computers
- they are something new.
They are fast becoming
pocketable super-computers which connect us - via the
internet - to super-computers of scale in the cloud. It
seems likely that soon we will be able to talk to them and
they may even become capable of at least pretending to be
sentient.
What Happens Next Will Be By Definition
Unpredictable…
Bell's law teaches us that new
technologies don't even start to crystalise for 10 years (
HT: Webstock 2013 ). Usually it takes us at least that long
for us to even name a new kind of technology.
The iPhone
is now seven years old. Three years ago low voltage mobile
CPU processor sales caught up with PC and server
architecture processor sales. Mobile is now substantially
ahead of them.
And thanks to the magic of Multicore
Processing (HT: Multicore World 2013) the throttle of
innovation is back wide open. Multicore+Mobile offers the
prospect of lower power consumption (i.e. longer battery
life) and exponentially faster computing power everywhere.
What this means is that much of the current technology
architecture that underlies what the ICT industry is working
with is now obsolete. And so we stand at the edge of a
period of technological change, innovation and opportunity
unlike anything seen before.
… And The Legal
And Political Structures Are Showing The
Strain
But the legal, social and business
infrastructure of New Zealand and the world are ill-prepared
to understand or navigate the complex issues we now
collectively and globally face.
Copyright, surveillance,
privacy, accessibility, robotics, computing security,
cyber-warfare, policing the social universe - these are some
of the challenges we all know we need to address and which
we will soon be discussing at Nethui.
The reality is
that the NZ Parliament cannot govern the internet, either in
NZ or anywhere else. Nor can any other single nation's
legislature, the pace of change is too fast for the law to
keep up and has been for years. And so we all need the
internet to continue to govern itself - and to get better at
doing so.
Peronally I am delighted that NZ's internet
users are represented in these discussions and negotiations
by Internet NZ. Prudent governance of Internet NZ over the
past two decades means we have a strong organisation which
should be able to respond well to the challenges it
faces.
I Think I Have Relevant Experience And
Knowledge To Help At This Time
Recent
revelations about the NSA's PRISM programme are news to many
but not everybody. Scoop.co.nz has been reporting on the
rise of such global surveillance since these projects were
first conceived in the wake of 9/11. The details and names
we now see "PRISM" and "Boundless Informant" are what many
thought was happening. Now we have proof. But what should
we do about it?
As a practitioner in the world of online
news media I have a decade and a half of experience in
dealing with the challenges in a market being disrupted by
technology.
As a news editor and publisher of NZ's
leading independent online news service I have an array of
connections and access to decision makers and stakeholders.
And as an NZ entrepreneur I understand the particular
challenges and dangers posed to businesses in NZ by
uninformed change, capricious decision making and the scale
of NZ's markets.
I believe this experience will be useful
in representing the interests of Internet NZ members at
council.
Finally I have chosen to stand for Internet NZ
council now because it is a time of significant challenge
and change both externally and internally.
During the
period ahead Internet NZ is likely to need to step up its
game.
We will soon have a new chief executive and then
it will be time for Council to consider setting a new course
for the organisation. I would welcome an opportunity to
contribute to plotting this course. Please support me by
voting for me to join the Internet NZ
Council.
Who I Am
• 44 years old,
with three grown up children, living in
Wellington;
• An internet entrepreneur in business
online continuously since 1997;
• A business and
politics journalist by background, and a member of the
Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1993;
• Founder of Scoop.co.nz
in 1999 and General Manager and editor ever since, managing
both business development and online editorial
direction;
• Member of NZ Rise and alumni of Kiwifoo
and Telecom One;
• Instigator of the Scoop Foundation
Project an effort to launch a new foundation in NZ for
public Interest Journalism;
• Experienced in online
news media, social media, community engagement, government
engagement, online marketing and communications;
Scoop
and its Scoop Media Cartel sponsored Nethui in 2011 and 2012
and is sponsoring Nethui again in 2013.
Alastair
Thompson
10 June 2013
* (BACKGROUND NOTE ON SCOOP: Scoop.co.nz is New Zealand's leading independent online news provider with an audience of 500,000+ unique browsers monthly. Scoop publishes around 200 items of news each day - and is -according to media commentator Russell Brown- "The Home of the National Argument". For 14 years we have remained committed to providing open access to information in the interests of better informing New Zealand democracy. Scoop is also the hub for the Scoop Media Cartel which reaches 600,000+ ubs monthly and includes several of New Zealand's leading blogs.)
Lance Wiggs -
Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
I'm proud to be a current
InternetNZ Councillor, finishing my first term with this
election, and I seek your vote for this 2013
election.
The last three years have been a great time for
Internet NZ. The team and members responded with energy and
intelligence to bring a calm and authoritative tone to a
large number of critical policy debates. We’ve also been
active in less visible work including IPV6 and Internet
Filtering, and in supporting the 2020 Trust in getting
better at helping people to learn and connect.
But we
really caught ourselves doing something right with NetHui,
and kudos goes to Vikram Kumar for both pushing for the
event, and coining the name. This year promises more than
ever, and I’ve been impressed with the continuing
professionalism in the preparation and conduct of the event
under the acting leadership of Jordan Carter.
But we can do more. A lot
more:
• Too many people are not connected to
the internet in New Zealand. Statistics NZ reports 331,000
households don’t have broadband and 63,000 households with
children don’t have internet*, and that’s unacceptable.
We can count the number of disconnected better, and we can
work to connect them and keep them connected.
• There
is no single authoritative place to find information about
the Internet in New Zealand. We are the natural place to
collate and host it.
• Our policy makers and media are
often at a relatively early stage of a learning journey in
topics that we know well, albeit often a rapid one. We are
the natural providers of fact-based independent advice and
education.
• New issues rain upon us all of the time,
and we need the scale and experienced hands on the team to
be able to present well informed and aligned responses and
advice across a broad range of topics.
However:
• We have perennial
discussions about the scope of Internet NZ. Are we guardians
for the infrastructure and values, or are we also guardians
for matters that are more material today, such are privacy,
security and copyright? We need, in my opinion, advocates
in NZ for all of these matters, and to ask if not us, then
who else? for issues like copyright, PRISM and TPP.
• We are wonderful custodians of our .nz mandate, but
I worry that a large share of the source of our source of
income is from purchasers of domains for profit, who may
switch to more lucrative gTLD offerings. NZRS will need
Council support and guidance that allows them to conduct
their business in a newly competitive realm while still
adhering to the Society’s values.
• We hold funds,
most of which are payments in advance. We have an incredibly
conservative bank-debt-only investment strategy, and need to
continue to gently explore more professional ways to manage
those assets. That means we need professional investment
heads around the Council table, to act as a committee to
advise the council and the external parties who are the
investment professionals.
What I stand
for
My shared mission is simple - Let’s
connect everyone at ever increasing speeds, let’s help
individuals and business take advantage of this wonderful
infrastructure to improve society and the economy, and
let’s create the best environment to create and consume
content in the world.
But let’s also ensure that while
we are a non profit, that we are unafraid of money. Money
allows us to better achieve our objects, but like any
business we need to be prudent and take a long-term
perspective.
Bio
I’m a founder,
director, active investor or advisor to several early stage
companies including 200Square, PocketSmith, Vend, Lingopal,
myTours, Powerkiwi, Define Instruments, Cadimage and
more.
I’ve recently launched a fund management company
a colleague, and that in turn is launching a fund, Punakaiki
Fund to invest in growing Internet, Technology and
Design-led businesses.
I’ve been a part of the NZTE
Better by Design program as a private practitioner, and
serve on the Return on Science Investment Committee. I’m
also the current Chair of the Council’s Investment
Committee, and was a driver in creating the strategy and
committee itself.
I was a co-founder of Pacific Fibre. We
tried, and I learned a lot. It’s now the time for someone
else to have a go, and one of our team is now with
Hawaiki.
http://nz.linkedin.com/in/lancewiggs
Writing:
Blog at LanceWiggs.com and business advice column for
Idealog.
Education: MBA (Yale), B Tech (Massey) and a
large number of professional development courses, including
the COMU/Massey course in governance.
Member of the
Institute of Directors and (currently unpaid) member of
NZICT.
Thanks to Jonathan Brewer for these stats: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/sending-party-pays-answer-digital-divide-ck...
Richard Wood -
Election Statement
read on InternetNZ Website
A common thread in my thinking
is of freedom - of information, of action, of thought, of
access, of opportunity. I grew up hugely interested in
technology, experiencing the evolution of the PC, the
Internet, the Web, cloud software, mobile technology and the
opportunities they present. I’m an advocate for the
benefits the Internet brings through its fundamental design
and governance, and the innovation this has supported. I see
the dangers in collateral damage from ignorant or malicious
activities of governments and self-interested parties.
We
are only beginning to experience the depth of opposition
that exists in the world to the change in mindset the
Internet presents to societies and individuals. We have to
be careful not to be jaded or distracted as we fight across
all fronts of copyright, privacy, security and more. We must
continue to build strong relationships and punch above our
weight to counter the corruption we see in certain other
country’s processes. Protection of the Internet has to be
the bottom line, but promotion and education about its use,
nature, history and benefits are so important in achieving
that.
I offer council and members a questioning,
objective and focused mind. Having worked for InternetNZ
for five years up until last July, I am very familiar with
the breadth of InternetNZ policy and activity. Having been
away from it for a year I am confident I have the
perspective to help steer InternetNZ in the right
direction.
I have a thorough understanding of governance
and management within InternetNZ, the structure of
InternetNZ's component organisations, and the relationships
with international Internet organisations. With my
journalism and communications background I can also
contribute at Council level around how the organisation is
perceived externally.
InternetNZ’s strength comes from
the dedication to its democracy, and its principled approach
makes it a powerful advocate. I support InternetNZ in taking
a national and global leadership position in Internet and
Web research and standards, in driving hard to protect the
fundamental nature of the Internet, in advocating at the
highest levels of government and business, and in
collaborating with like-minded people and groups here and
overseas to achieve its public good objectives.
My quick
back-story - started programming at high school and began
working life as a programmer after curtailing a uni computer
science degree. Moved into PC tech support and wrote product
reviews before jumping into a job at Computerworld as a
journalist. Over time wrote for various publications
including NZ Herald and DomPost and was editor of eight
technology and business publications in New Zealand and
Australia over twenty years. Somewhere in there took time
out to run a CD shop for a year or so. Was employed by
InternetNZ six years ago and after a roller-coaster of
various projects left last year to join Xero as senior
communications manager at its HQ in Wellington, where I look
after global communications and investor
relations.
InternetNZ experience - came on board to do
communications and policy research work. Was involved in
submissions and publicity around Telecom separation,
copyright, media regulation, DIA filter and more, was
secretariat for the ISP Association and for the IPv6 Task
Force. Then was given the opportunity to organise the NetHui
conference, which over two years exposed me to the huge
variety of topics and discussions that members want to talk
about and see action on.
Motivation - I entered
journalism because I yearned for more meaningful
communication and expression beyond my daily technical work.
Became thoroughly imbued with the philosophy of objectivity
and serving the public good through openness of information.
InternetNZ was an opportunity to move on from journalism and
work in a more direct way for the public good. Am now in the
commercial world at Xero helping to improve the lot of small
business and create a better future for New Zealand through
innovation and export growth.
In seeking to serve
InternetNZ at Council, the sharpest tools in my toolbox are
research, objective questioning, technical understanding,
knowledge of the operating environment of InternetNZ, and
communications skills. I live to be up-with-the-play and
working through strategic issues, having absorbed all the
information available.
I feel that given the opportunity
I can make a significant contribution to InternetNZ Council
decision-making over at least the next three years and will
really appreciate your vote.
I live in Wellington with my
partner Meg and we have three children. You can find more
about me at linkedin and contact me via LinkedIn,
Facebook, Twitter or
Skype.
ENDS