In a case of life mirroring fiction, a recent insidious email scam bears some striking resemblances to an episode of UK TV show Black Mirror, where a visitor to online porn sites is blackmailed and coerced into undertaking a number of criminal activities to supposedly...
A recent news story about a campground operator in Gore, Southland got me thinking about online reviews, goodwill, and word of mouth. The traditional method of spreading goodwill about a business was analogue and worked perfectly well in the pre-digital age. One...
A renowned writer once famously wrote that there’s no such thing as a second act in American lives – meaning that it’s not possible to change, to reinvent, to forge a new path. F Scott Fitzgerald’s epigram isn’t a truism and wasn’t...
Every four years the most watched sport on the planet serves up a carnival that decides which nation’s team wins the FIFA World Cup. In just over four weeks, 32 teams get whittled down to one and along the way there is all the drama, beauty, desperation,...
I speak to thousands of business owners each year – from sole traders with a crew of one – doing everything from the actual work, the invoicing, the quoting, the tax, the marketing, the bookkeeping, the advertising and everything else involved with running a...
One of the facets of being successful in business is adhering to the principle of proactivity – staying ahead of the game, being prepared, having plans and strategies in place to ensure that when anything happens there is a solution to take care of it. Oddly enough,...