|
2001 Conference - Rotorua
Vicki Buck - Keynote Speech
Leadership - Its Crucial Role in
Regional Development
 Contents
Introduction - Hon Laila Harr鼯h2>
It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Vicki Buck, a
woman who has already been described by at least one participant as
his hero. Currently Vicki is the Development Manager for
Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology. Her achievements
are numerous but among them her nine years as Mayor of Christchurch
were a case study of her values in practice, which she will discuss
with you today. Leadership, flexibility and risk-taking but, I would
add, a sharp sense of the underlying needs of the community you led.
Vicki has been a member of the Employment Taskforce; she is now a
member of the Prime Minister's Science and Innovation Advisory
Council. You all know that local leadership is vital to regional
development. But leadership like Vicki's and other successful
practitioners of regional development works through sharing a vision
with a community and not imposing it. I am particularly pleased as
the Minister of Youth Affairs to be making this introduction,
because Vicki not only stands out for her contribution to grown-up's
regional development; she has also made an extraordinary commitment
to youth engagement in all community processes. The modern
Christchurch that she helped to define stands out as a city which
has a highly networked, highly resourced and highly effective youth
sector which engages very effectively with the young people of
Christchurch. This is in no small part thanks to the support she
gave to the Christchurch City Youth Council and to the Children and
Young People Advocacy Units within the Christchurch City Council. I
want to thank Vicki for that, because I have certainly been able to
learn a whole lot from how Christchurch works with its young people.
Please welcome one of your heroes - Vicki Buck.
Vicki Buck
I guess I'll deal with some of the mysteries of life and I guess
regional economic development is one of them, but there are some
others, like when you are told that if you cast your bread upon the
waters it will come back a hundred-fold. I have always wondered what
you did with hundred loaves of wet bread that came back to you, or
what it is that you send a sick florist, or if a light sleeper
actually sleeps with the light on what does a hard sleeper have on.
Market Unpredictability
In many ways I think regional economic development is very, very
unpredictable. There is a shop just along from where I work that
sells metaphysical gifts - things like dream catchers and crystal
balls. When I first looked at it I thought I wondered if it would
survive. Not only has it survived, it has tripled and bought its
building, but I don't know that if we were ever trying to plan
anything, whether a big shop selling metaphysical gifts would be top
of our list of major retail developments in the area.
A couple of days ago in Christchurch I watched in fascination
what people were buying in a local shop. Here's what they bought: I
was amazed to see that every good home now needs a mouse-cord
manager. It obviously manages the cord on your mouse. Also, a number
of these went out: an inflatable gurgle ball. Now how could anybody
ever predict that somebody would ever have a need - if they ever did
- for such things? You just never know they may be collector's items
or something useful.
I think that if we look at it - that's pretty much what it is
that we are dealing with - it's stuff that you have no way of
predicting. There is no way you can write a strategic plan for it, a
business case, or anything like that. You just have to go with your
hunch and know that you can do it and that everybody else can do it.
But I think also the other thing about regional economic
development is that it is probably some of the most fun you can have
with your pants on. I like the words of Margaret Mead, where she
says, "never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can
change the world". Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
We all have that power to make a difference, the choice that we have
is just whether we use it. So each of you is potentially the
difference in the world. Thomas Edison said "we are a bundle of
possibilities, if we did all the things that we are capable of we
would literally astound ourselves".
Who Will Effect Changes?
In the past we have often thought of development in terms of what
central government does. New Zealanders are great at asking
"what's the government going to do about that?" but I
think that's increasingly a thing of the past. They will be able to
achieve a number of things, a number of really good things - but
central government will suffer from the disadvantage that it is too
small to do the big things and too big to do the small things.
Increasingly it will come to communities, cities and regions
doing it for themselves. What are the good things about that? What
opportunities does it mean for us all? It means that you get work
with and for the very people who care most about your area - the
people who live there. They are often united by regional concerns
when they would be divided by political allegiance at a national
level. It means constantly that you get to experiment and innovate,
which is one of the huge advantages you have. It is really hard for
a government department to go and trial something in one street, or
in one school, or in one library. But all the time we have the
freedom to be that responsive, or to be initiating it at just such a
small level or across one community or one region.
You can start anywhere. It doesn't matter where you start as long
as you do start. It is like, for those you who come from a rural
background: if you have a paddock of scotch thistle it doesn't
really matter where you are going to start to grub them as long as
you start swinging that thing - it will show you where the next one
needs to be attacked. The other neat thing about regional economic
development is that it is incredibly democratic. Anyone can do it,
and they be very, very unconventional. So it can be you or anyone
who decides that they are going to be the leader of this in your
particular area. As Frank Clark said, "why not upset the apple
cart?" because actually, if you don't, the apples on the bottom
will rot anyway.
Community Groupings
If you have the title "leader" then you need everyone
to know that they have the power and the opportunity to do
something, and to take a lead and make that real. In New Zealand we
have seen fantastic economic development examples from every
possible group imaginable: hapu, iwi, urban Maori authorities,
residents' groups, groups of women, children, young people and
Often community groups come together to do something completely
different, for example to oppose a motorway. I have often thought
that it would be a really good regional development strategy to
propose a motorway in a suburb. Because you get the residents coming
together really, really well and a whole pile of unintended
consequences.
From schools and individuals, there have been examples from a
parking warden, an engineer, from groups of unemployed. I think
there is one recorded case from a lawyer who took initiative but I
won't go into that because you know there are really only two lawyer
jokes don't you - the rest are case histories. There's been some
from government agencies or government agencies collaborating,
groups of immigrants, and from tertiary and other educational
institutions.
Dare to Be Outrageous
One of the things I realised when we celebrated the Centennial of
Women's Suffrage in New Zealand, was that all those women who were
struggling to get women the vote were, in their time, reviled and
mocked and regarded as completely outrageous. So Kate Sheppard and
all those fantastic women actually had a really hard time of it.
They were the outrageous ones. I just want to remind you of what is
on our ten-dollar note: Kate Sheppard is on there. And the question,
I guess, is: where are Kate knockers? Not in relation to the depth
of the note but where are the people who actually were the ones who
were saying that Kate couldn't do it?
The people we celebrate, the people we love now, were the ones
that were reviled and mocked and regarded as completely outrageous
in their time. So if anybody needs this ten-dollar note, it's on the
floor. Actually you might like to save it because there is the
possible hope that one day New Zealand money may become valuable
again. But all those people who said it was impossible - and
probably there was an army of people who wanted Kate to fill out
long forms for application as well - are not the ones we are
celebrating today on our ten-dollar note.
Make Mistakes
The other thing that I think is important is that you don't have
to know the answers. You don't even have to know the questions and
there is no way you can know the answers. How would anybody have
perfect knowledge of what is going to happen tomorrow, the next day,
in three months time? The best forms are those you get that ask you
what's going to happen in one and five years' time, and that's
really optimistic stuff to know that. I think you should just feel
totally free to guess because there is no possible way of knowing
that. If you have to forms to fill just make it as interesting for
the reader as possible. Because some poor bugger in Wellington
probably has to read those as well.
Thomas Watson said. "the way to succeed is to double your
failure rate," and I think we need to give ourselves and
everybody around us permission to make mistakes. We will make heaps
of them; some of them we may learn from, some of them we may not, we
may just make them again. But we have to have that permission to
make mistakes. The other thing about regional economic development
is that there is an incredible and wonderful instant gratification.
So I think it suits particularly the generation that has grown up
with really good PlayStation and video game skills because there is
that demand for instant gratification.
Infectious Attitudes
There is one more feature that I love about regional economic
development and that is the absence of committees. It is just
"you can do it", and you can actually start, you just
decide to do it and you can go do it. I think it is very much an
attitude thing as well, it is like a virus on a computer only sort
of in reverse. These attitudes are totally infectious and have a
huge, huge impact in a short time.
I remember coming to Auckland or somewhere from Christchurch and
there were a couple of people from Christchurch in the seat in front
of me loudly discussing - this was 10-12 years ago - the
shortcomings of Christchurch so that practically everybody in the
plane could hear. I thought that was a really revolting thing to do,
and on a plane you can't really ask them to step outside to sort out
an argument or anything. But it struck me as how important it was
that the people who lived in a community were actually the
ambassadors for that community. They were your walking, talking
advertisements or they were the denigrators of the place and either
way they were going to have a really, really powerful impact.
Seize the Moment
Thinking about the point that Peter Kenyon made about seizing the
opportunities that are presented to you: you can both take those
opportunities and create you own. I remember my very favourite
business organisation, the Business Round Table, who didn't like
what we were doing for a long time (and probably still don't) and
referred to Christchurch as the People's Republic of Christchurch.
As though that was the worse possible thing you could ever be. But
instead of regarding it as an insult we actually went out and got
the T-shirts printed with People's Republic of Christchurch because
we thought it was a cool name and we were quite annoyed that the
Business Round Table would come up with it and not us. But it did
stick, and the T-shirts sold out. So you can take opportunities that
are presented to you and make them into big advantages.
You will recall some years ago there was a problem with filming Baywatch,
they couldn't film in the location that they were currently filming
in, wherever that was. I know a number of local authorities in
Australia also wrote and said, "come and film in our
place." Christchurch has not got a brilliant beach, but what
does it matter? I mean, here is an opportunity you just have to take
and you just have to be bold and grab it and it doesn't really
matter if it is not feasible or workable. I think if you look back a
couple years there was an opportunity of buildings for The Lord
of the Rings film sites; actually we weren't allow to buy those
buildings and convert them into something that had potential huge
revenue. Those things just come along whether you created them or
not. You just have to seize them. If you do it often enough the
media starts to ring and ask your opinion and create the opportunity
for you, which is really, really cool.
Be Bold
I want to look at some possibilities for regional economic
development in New Zealand, because I think basically all we have to
do, is think of what you like to do, and then do it. You can be as
bold as you like in whatever you are going to think about. Perhaps
in some areas of local government - and I do exclude some that have
basically not enough infrastructure. But it may well be important
that some of the areas are outside traditional realms of local
government. I know that for a lot of people in local government,
roads and rubbish can be incredibly riveting and they can spend a
long time on them but it is not likely to make you get really
noticed unless you do it differently. You don't often hear
"wow! they had a great road in that town," or "Did
you know they pick up the rubbish every week in that town?".
Those are the sorts of things we tend to take for granted in some
communities - not all. So I think it is important that we remember
to be as bold as we like.
Given that this conference is Government-sponsored I would just
like to give you total permission to be as bold as you like. And you
can say that you got that permission from a Government-sponsored
conference you attended. I think there are some fantastic examples
of that, just thinking of what you like to do and then doing it. You
are allowed to fake it till you make it as well!
I love the example, recently - I think it was Middlemarch down
south - that decided it had a lot of single farmers and that it
didn't have enough women for them. So they organised a weekend dance
and get-together and brought train-loads of single women in from
Dunedin. In fact lots of other people went from Southland and
various other South Island communities as well. I don't know if it
because we are a nation of voyeurs or whatever, but that made the
Holmes show, it made the Sunday Star Times; every time you picked up
a paper there was an article about it. Everywhere you looked there
was comment on this little town that had decided to do something
about getting partners for all the single males that they had. Huge
exposure - they went back later and interviewed the people to see
what had happened (as you would). And so it was a very, very simple
thing but what you know now about Middlemarch is that there are a
lot of young single farmers there - and you got the message out to
the entire nation. I would imagine because it is the sort of thing
Australian media would love, it's the sort of thing they would pick
up as well.
Peter Kenyon talked about the importance of toilets in towns and
how important it is to have a great toilet in the centre of your
town. And you have seen some lovely examples of that in a number of
places in New Zealand. But also if you've got no money, which is
often a feature of our towns in rural areas, there is the lovely
example we saw recently from Transit New Zealand. They had a poll on
whether the small South Island fence that had everybody's boots on
it could stay. It started when somebody left their boots there, and
people regarded this as a signal to leave their old shoes there as
well. So the whole fence was covered in shoes and Transit had a
lovely debate about whether this was a traffic hazard. I mean those
sorts of things are fantastic publicity. If Transit wasn't concerned
that it was a traffic hazard you would want to bring them and point
out that it was a potential traffic hazard. Just in order to get
that sort of publicity. And there are the rock sculptures that
people have started to create, just because somebody gets bored and
needs a place to stop, so they create a little rock sculpture, and
the next person comes along and creates another one, and then it
creates its own importance and it just does stuff. People then have
to stop, and if you have got people stopping you've got a chance to
do something major with them.
Create Local Events
I think the other thing is that you can make up events or things
to happen in your town and area. England annually entitles someone
"Eccentric of the Year," and as you can imagine, in
England that would be a totally sought-after title. But it would
also work extremely well in New Zealand. There are a huge number of
wonderful eccentrics in this country - half of them live in
Christchurch, but there are lots and lots of them throughout New
Zealand. But we don't have, and nobody has created, an
"Eccentric of the Year" competition in their community,
with god knows what as a prize - it could be really something
amazingly bizarre.
And you can make up those things - we made up a festival of
Romance - basically because there weren't a lot of events and it was
actually quite a boring city. So we needed to make up some events
and things that got people involved and got people out from behind
fences and involved in the community and interacting with each
other. It led up to a huge free dance in Victoria Square on
Valentine's Day. Now I have to tell the only research we did on that
was in Queensland, where we asked males did they understand what
romance meant, and five males in the whole of Queensland did
understand what romance was - so we knew that there was a world
market for it, if Australians could actually get the point. So we
actually looked at, along the way of that, as you would, thinking
about it, the concept of a festival of sex - but we wondered in New
Zealand if it would last long enough to actually qualify as and
other ideas
Ram Runs and Other Ideas
We were also not too proud to actually pinch other people ideas
and adapt them. You know that in Pamplona they have a wonderful
"running of the bulls" competition which I actually think
dangerous and stupid but it gets a huge amount of attention.
Christchurch is surrounded by Canterbury where there are a lot
sheep, so we decided we could possibly have a "running of the
rams" competition. Which is really dumb and you just put it
down the main street and put little jockey things (no not the
under-things) on top of the rams and race them down the main street.
It was much more difficult than we thought because rams don't
naturally want to race. So it was quite difficult to get them to
actually run, and fun and silliness along the way.
But it is just an opportunity to do stuff and to get noticed,
because those sorts of things are so silly that the news media just
love them. You know the Wild Food Festival on the West Coast where
they eat huhu grubs and all sorts of disgusting things? And you know
how successful that has been, it is stunning. You have also seen
Wearable Art in Nelson. Those are really clever ideas where somebody
has taken the idea and just converted to a reality. Obviously a lot
of projects have struggled and worked really, really hard and done
brilliant work to get to where they are. But they are basically
simple ideas that somebody has decided to do something with.
One that is really simple is stuff like free outdoor movies. I am
amazed whenever we have shown free outdoor movies how many people
turn up, it doesn't really matter what the movie is, it is just an
excuse to create another event around that. It is like a teddy
bear's picnic, or fireworks or opera in the park. I suspect the
people that go to Opera in the Park in Christchurch, and I am going
get told off for this, don't go along at all to hear the opera, they
are just going because it is an event that a whole lot of their
friends go to, and there are another 20-30 or 40,000 people there,
that in turn create another event around it. That it is just a
chance to be together with a whole lot of people and something
interesting and something slightly chaotic and you never know what's
going to happen.
Go Global
I think a number of things happen actually as a result of
creating lots and lots of events and festivals. Another one we
created was the Buskers' Festival. We decided it would be the
Christchurch Buskers' Festival, and then we saw Wellington calling
their Arts' Festival the International Festival of the Arts, and
boy! Did that get up our noses! So we thought that if Wellington can
do that, let's call this the World Buskers' Festival. So when it
started, I have to say it wasn't a real World Buskers' Festival but
there were at least three acts that came from outside of New
Zealand, so presumably that embraced the world. But it has actually
grown into that and so I think having those huge aspirations and
just going for them does mean you can do it. But part of what
happened was that people started feeling really good about the place
they lived in, and brought their friends, and they created events
around the events and things we were creating. And visitors usually
found something happening when then came there, and they loved it
and went away and told others, and the locals went away and told
others.
Suddenly you have got your own community acting as advertisements
for your town and they are very powerful advertisements and if they
are really switched on to what is going on in the town or the city
or the district - then they really go for it. And also the other
thing that I hadn't thought of was that because the council had
organised a lot of these things people thought, as they would - well
if the council can do it any mug can do it. So they started
organising their own events and created quite a lot of interesting
events spinning off from that, which is nice.
I think another area where we don't pay particular attention is
in airports. When you fly into a country you get a passport stamp
and it says Auckland or Christchurch or whatever; it doesn't say
anything else about the country. It doesn't even have any sort of
identity of the country woven into the stamp, and yet people always
look at that stamp. You look at them waiting in line and they are
looking at their extra passport stamp. And I don't why we don't have
a stamp that says something like "welcome to" and then
perhaps the phone number that you need to get all the tourism
information, or a website or something that actually advertises the
place, or a great picture or whatever by a New Zealand artist,
anything out there on those stamps that go right round the world.
Because we have a lot people who get those stamps and we don't use
them as an advertising tool.
Mayors and More
I am also intrigued that when you come into the country there is
a questionnaire on your entry that asks, "are you bringing into
the country firearms, steroids, illicit drugs?" and all those
sorts of things. And then it asks, "are you bringing in more
than $10,000 in cash?" which doesn't seem to me to equate to
firearms, illicit drugs and such-like things. It would be really
nice to buy that spot on the form and say "if you are bringing
in more than $10,000 worth of cash, please visit our main street of
Rotorua," or whatever, "because we've got some great
bargains and we've got 10% discount," or whatever.
I think one of the other things that we can do and we don't
recognise this because we just don't, is use our title of mayor.
Because we all know a mayor and we know that they are just the bloke
or girl next door so we don't accord them any mana or reverence as
they do overseas. Which is very fair, I understand exactly why that
would be like that here. But overseas the office of mayor has some
dignity and mana and all sorts of things, that we don't use here
because we don't care here. So a letter from the mayor of a
particular town, district or city actually carries some weight and
it is really, really interesting. You need to get a really
interesting letterhead, not a boring one that just says "so and
so district council" or whatever (not that I've ever seen a
boring council letterhead at all). But it does need to be
interesting and the envelope needs to says "Office of the
Mayor" and it carries huge weight and people will open that. It
is a very good marketing tool.
When I was mayor of Christchurch I sent out letters to every
major business in New Zealand saying why it would be cheaper to come
and relocate into Christchurch. Which was really good except they
were all electronically signed and I didn't check where some of them
were going. And the best one, I have to say, went to the Port of
Auckland saying, "why don't you come?". Which they replied
to, I have to say.
You can use the office of the mayor in terms of getting energy or
enthusiasm around a subject. For example when I wanted to create
2000 extra jobs in Christchurch, without a clue actually of how many
jobs were created in a year, but that seemed like a nice number and
it didn't matter. Because what it did was focus on creating jobs,
and on positive publicity and support and practical help for those
who were creating the jobs - that is business. And businesses seldom
get the thank you they deserve. They often get the negative
publicity but they don't get positive feedback or people saying,
"Hey, we really want to lean over backwards to help you guys,
we are really glad that you are here creating work, creating
enterprise in this area". And just actually getting those ones
involved was really, really important. So a hotline, for example,
into the mayor's office - and a lot of other mayors had used this as
a really powerful tool - for saying "yes! we are really
concerned about this particular issue".
And you know when people are feeling a bit miserable about
something, and some people are doing really well and they don't want
to tell about it, for fear that they'll upset the other people
around them? One of the things we did was to have a monthly
reception using very good local wine and food with people there who
were all creating extra jobs. So they suddenly saw "wow!"
There were a whole lot of other people doing really well and maybe
it's okay to say yes, we are doing well. So it started to change
their attitudes and opinions.
Kid Power
Children are actively disengaged from involvement in their
community. Until they are 18 they can't vote and they can't stand
for any of the offices in their community. But if you ask them they
have really, really strong views about all sorts of things and they
also have solutions to the things that they have strong views about.
So sometimes just actively going and asking them what should be done
results in such lovely fresh thinking, that is so obvious that you
wonder why you hadn't done it before. And actually getting them to
make some submissions, even on your annual plan, perhaps not in the
usual written way or whatever, but just coming along to the
committee or your annual plan hearing on a day that is maybe set
aside for kids. Or maybe they have want to do in a artistic form.
Just let them take over the offices in the city, like being
"mayor for the day" or other really important jobs. Just
let them run the place for a while.
From Grumpy to Growth
One of the events that we created was the Kids' Fest, because
often kids and parents are really grumpy in the winter school
holidays and need a good break. One of the events around that was
Kids' Market, where in the first year one of the kids got their
stand and, unbeknown to us, actually sold the contents of their
parents' wardrobe at the market - which presumably somebody learned
something from. But kids have amazing capacity for looking at things
with fresh and innovative eyes and they haven't often yet learned
that anything is impossible. We try to teach them that in the
education system but quite often they have managed to escape that
and they think that anything is possible, which is a fantastic way
of starting on anything in the community. We look at pre-school for
example - there was some lovely research done by the Warehouse
recently on what were New Zealanders' values, and what was the thing
that they held most dear. The key value for New Zealanders by a mile
was doing the best for our kids.
We have known for a long time that the first seven years of a
child's life are important. And suddenly businesses realised that
the quality of a child's early life and early learning experiences
really matters. That is their workforce in the next decade, and we
really need to do it well. It is always been one of those areas that
has been marginalised as women's work. "Women and young
children, they don't really matter." Suddenly we know just how
vital they are. But who has ever said, for example as a community,
that we will ensure really high quality pre-school education whether
it is in a cr?he, or child care centre or at home - for every
child growing up in this community. Maybe there is a community that
has done that, but they haven't yet made it hugely public. Or
imagine you just wish to become known as the best play area in the
whole of New Zealand, actually don't limit yourself to New Zealand
make it the world, because it is way more fun and there is not much
competition from the rest of the of the world anyway. So if you look
at the whole literature on the importance of play for children and
adults you can get a whole lot of really good stuff.
But you know, for example, that travelling with young children is
really hard. That kids dictate a lot of consumer choice, that if the
kids are happy the parents can spend lots more time and lots more
money in that particular place. But have we actually translated that
into great play zones or to really different stuff? There is a part
in the Seattle Children's Museum called "Imagination
Station" and it is a name I think is well worth stealing,
because it is such a nice concept of a really great place for kids
to go and for parent to have a really good time at.
Education
If we look at learning or education, the world our kids are going
to live in is changing at least four times faster than our schools.
What we have in New Zealand between the ages of six and sixteen is a
ten-year custodial sentence. To get that in any other government
institution you have to do murder in this country. But we create
that in our compulsory school system. And schools and education and
the whole of learning are centres for potential regional
development, fantastic unlimited opportunities. A practical example:
Computing for Free, which is now operated by at least six
polytechnics throughout New Zealand means you can go and do a course
in computing at no cost to you. And that could extend way beyond the
main centres where it is currently operating right out into the
rural areas. If you can provide a room and you can get some
computers then you can go along to your nearest polytech and say,
"Hey! We want Computing for Free in our area because our people
need this as well and don't give us your old dungy computers either,
we want really, really good ones in our area", and there are
tremendous opportunities for that. If you look at UCOL in Palmerston
North they have 10% of the entire population of Palmerston North now
enrolled in Computing for Free. In Finland they have kids teaching
parents and grandparents about a whole lot of
information/technology.
Innovation in education is one of the most sought-after
commodities in the world. One state school has had about 2,500
visitors in the last three or four years just because they do ICT
education so well. Since Discovery One has opened in Christchurch
there has been another state school where the government was
prepared to say, "Yes we are prepared to operate this school
and we are prepared to take the risk on that which is really, really
awesome." In five weeks it has had 500 visitors and is already
looking at a teaching training contract from Australia.
But if we look at what is possible, if you look at the Education
Act you will see that you can set up a new state school. It is
lovely section - legislation section 156A - that allows you set up a
state school that provides a style of education that you can not
currently get in the state system. It is a stunning piece of law
that has been there since 1989 and the Ministry of Education now
knows how it works. Actually in the law you only need 21 parents to
do something about it.
Talk about really powerful community initiatives - if you think
the schools in your area are not teaching your kids the skills that
they perhaps need - do something about it, take them on. There are
fantastic opportunities in rural communities in areas such as
computing and electronics. The world is desperate for any aspects of
IT, anything to do with science, maths or any of those areas; there
is a huge, huge world demand. If you get something operating, say a
biotech centre for the seventh form or whatever, it will go really,
really well. And then build it up to so that you've got the first
year's tertiary in your town so the kids don't need to leave.
Look at older people in education - in areas of Scotland like
Strathclyde for example, the 50 plus group are the fastest growing
enrolments in the tertiary education sector there. They have a
seniors' college and it is huge, and if we look at the ageing of our
population these people are active and involved and you are often
working (bad luck) until you are 80. So you need to learn new skills
as you go. If you look at English, ESOL particularly (English for
speakers of other languages), people are constantly, especially from
China, looking for safe, friendly welcoming places, particularly now
outside the main centres. Remember the choice is often made by the
parents who are looking particularly at safety, not necessarily at
the shopping opportunities, for their children. If you look at the
Chinese and how they use computers, if you think about Mandarin
speakers using a computer, it takes five strokes for every one that
you need in English. So they are going to need a combination of
English and computing in order to go places. And they will want
places that will offer English and computing - the demand is huge.
Student Loans
We saw our select committee report back on student loans after 18
months of research and what did they tell us? That they needed some
more research. But which region is going to pick up for their kids
the issue of student loans? Imagine, for example, if on visa cards
you were allowed to get hot points (or whatever) towards students'
accounts - that we had a numbered account and when you get those hot
points you could actually put dollars into a student's account.
Imagine if you did that on a regional level, imagine the power you
would have to go Westpac or some of the others and say, hey, this
whole region is staunch on this and we want to do it.
I think if you start thinking about the power of region in terms
of dealing with supplies, whether it is electricity or whatever, it
is huge, it is stunning and we haven't tended to use it all the
time. And I think just forget about the concept of the level playing
field - it is really good for croquet and I don't know any other
game that it actually works really well for. There is now a level
playing field at Jade Stadium - that's why the Crusaders keep
winning because it tilts both ways - part of the redevelopment plan.
In fact you want a very, very tilted playing field so that it ends
up in your region, and probably a cliff face is actually really
good.
Ideas, Ideas
Say you want to be known as the innovation centre of New Zealand
or the world, then what might you do? You might, for example, run a
Business Break of the Year - where the best business get some really
excellent prizes (usually money is helpful to them, or some premises
or whatever). You might want to steal an idea from Christchurch,
which is the Young Inventions, which encourages primary and
secondary kids to invent and exhibits in the convention centre -
fantastic stuff those kids come up with.
You might want a road show; you have seen stuff like that Antique
road show, where people bring their antiques along to be valued. Or
you might want to persuade TV or someone to run such a roadshow
where people bring their inventions from the shed, then they get
real help in terms of the IP protection, or help to take further, or
to sell on to somebody who can make it a marketable commodity - do
it in conjunction with TV or with your regional TV.
You might to establish your own venture capital fund for
residents and newcomers to your area. We ran a competition called
"What's the Big Idea?" where we took a chunk from the
council's budget and allocated it to "What's the Big
Idea?" and then put forms in coffee shops (where there is huge
amount of creative thinking) and people got to say what it was that
they most wanted the council to do - it didn't matter whether it was
in their street, school or wherever. And the prize was, the council
did it with this money that it had. Great stuff comes out if you ask
people the sorts of things they want and make it really easy for
them to tell you. You might want set some creative thinking time on
the council agenda, you might want to talk with secondary schools
and encourage them to teach entrepreneurship in your area and help
them get the secondary school kids to set up businesses. So instead
of Young Enterprise schemes where they set up the business and then
fold, business keep those ideas running. Why would they go through
all the effort and let those businesses fold? Take them on to create
an innovation incubator around the school for young kids, because a
lot of them are doing it at school but they just aren't encouraged
to keep it up.
Award Awareness
Ireland had a Young Scientist of the Year award - we don't have
one yet, just create one, nobody else is doing it! New Zealand
doesn't yet have a Innovator of the Year award or a Young Innovator
award. You can create some other awards for the most innovative
government department in your area, or for retail innovation, or
education, motoring, fashion - it doesn't really matter. For
entrepreneur you could just put the infrastructure there, then go
after them like crazy. And for social entrepreneur you could attract
major speakers - hook into a tertiary so that they can fund as a
course - and make it a course on social entrepreneurship but run it
in your area so that all the people you want have to come to your
area to hear it.
Use some innovative and creative thinking to solve the
traditional problems. There is lovely example out of America where
McDonalds had problems with young kids hanging around the car-park.
The traditional solution was to use security guards, etc, so that
they didn't get into trouble. They thought, well, how could we do
this differently? What they did was to pump some music into the
carpark every night that was more suitable for 50-60 years old then
for young kids and the kids disappeared over night.
Specialise Your Region
You may wish to become the artistic centre of New Zealand, just
say you want it and it becomes that. Imagine if your main street was
a continuous expression of art from the community and surrounding
district, imagine if you asked some of the great artists of New
Zealand to contribute something on loan there, or you asked your
sister cities and towns to send a major work or art, but something
that you could actually put up there that people could see. Get
students from the nearby school, university or polytech to create a
different piece of art - just give them a space and let them see
what they can do. Street art - great, footpaths are such boring
places, but they are great if we create all sorts of images on them,
and graffiti artists are great at that - run it as a course. We have
a street art course at Christchurch polytech and the Ministry funds
it, which is just fantastic. You can put art on the caf?all for
sale, letterboxes are traditionally boring; fences can be great
things; lampposts. So as you drove through this town maybe then you
could contribute some of your creative energy or you could do
something that left a little of your creative spirit there. So you
want to bring your kids back to see it later.
Or you could shape the trees in some sort of thing, or artists
could paint your picture, or there could be outdoor movies every
Thursday night. Or you just decided that your region was going to be
the friendliest region you could possibly get. Imagine if all the
forms that went out in your region from your council, from your
regional council and from government development were really, really
friendly. Can you imagine the friendly IRD form, your GST form that
never actually says thank you for all the money that you are just
giving us - imagine if it actually said thank you or it had nice
little cartoon or picture in the corner or something that relieved
the incredible monotony of filling in those things. If you crack the
friendly form market I have to say there is a world market for you
in that, because nobody has yet done it. Or the notices - instead of
"keep of the grass by order of the council" imagine if you
actually made people aware that they owned the park? And maybe there
was something they could do that was a nicer way of telling them
that you were trying to grow new grass there, or imagine if the
foyer of your council building was open to store your bags as you
were shopping?
Media
Use the media. The media in your community actually want to help.
They live there and they have their business there, and they make
their money from a buoyant confident town. "Moving on up"
was one we started in 1998 because we could see the Asian recession
starting to hit, and if you remember the economists successfully
predicted at least 37 of the last three recessions. We didn't want
another one. So we officially declared the recession over in
Christchurch. Actually we launched the morning after the whole
economy of Thailand collapsed, but that didn't really matter because
all the retailers had their signs up saying "the recession is
over and it is not hitting Christchurch". And it is just one of
those things that you tell each other and it actually gathers some
traction.
Sports Events
I looked at the new sport, beach volleyball, which seemed to be a
very interesting sport - particularly for males - at the Sydney
Olympics and thought maybe there are some opportunities here in
terms of creating some competition around that. If we look at
netball between Australia and New Zealand we haven't yet got the
best teams like the Sting playing the best regional team in
Australia. The Golden Oldies is a total make-up, the East Coast
second division rugby team this year - wasn't that a fantastic
regional economic development story? That was just wonderful in
terms of the inspiration that came from that area. If you had a
number splashed on the TV screen where we could donate money I would
have sent money for that team because they were just so incredible
in what they were doing. Southland Sting has been supported by the
Invercargill Licensing Trust. Netball is predominately young, Maori
and Pacific women and it will increasingly become so. The franchises
in the North Island are open and offering huge, huge potential.
Celebrate Successes
You have permission to make mistakes, but remember when something
good happens that we as New Zealanders should celebrate, we should
give ourselves a hand at doing that. I know how bad we are actually
remembering to celebrate the things that we do - maybe it's a New
Zealand feature or something. So just remember - each one of you is
the difference in the world. I want you to think for a minute or two
what you would like to do in your area that would make a difference
and then I want you to go for it. And I want to give these awards
which I've just made up from the 2001 regional development
conference - for the most stunning regional economic development
that takes place by 2003.
|
