A Week in the Life of a Regional Councillor to March 1 2024
Reading: 356 pages Hours in meetings: 14 hours Council is gearing up for consultations and there are more meetings. Navigational by-laws has just ended consultation while the Regional...
Is social media your go-to for advice in an emergency?
This week I read about a plane that suffered bird strike, which damaged part of a wing and had to divert to a closer airport. Nothing particularly unusual about that. What really got me thinking was the passenger noticed the damage and was worried about its extent. He...
A Week in the Life of Council to Feb 23 2024
Reading: 495 pages Hours in meetings: 3 hours Just the one formal meeting this week. The reading was mostly in preparation for next week and a catchup on the Environment Court decision...
A week in the life of a Regional Councillor to Friday Feb 16th, 2024
This week we had Reading: 441 pages of Council documents and Hours in meetings: 7 hours This week was dominated by the monthly Council meeting followed by a workshop on how we time our Fresh Water Plan updates. I’ll do a separate blog on the water issues....
Pygmalian or Golem?
A fellow member of the Harvard Business Review Group, Sean Spurgin, contributed this week some thoughts on self-fulfilling prophesies. His infographic is shown here. “ Most parents are aware that teachers’ expectations about individual children become self-fulfilling...
A week in the life of Regional Councillor to Friday 9th, 2024
Pukekauri Farm It’s been a slow start to the year. A group of Councillors visited Pukekauri Farm near Aongatete to see how riparian planting, replanting of wetlands and change of use on the farm had made an incredible difference to water quality in the waterways of...
What Before SWOT?
An article I had published last year is the featured article for the Better Boards magazine this month. It asks what you should do before you even think about doing a SWOT analysis on "Strategy Day". Preparing for Strategic Planning There is a story about the tourist...
NZ Must up Power game -Transpower
The Government is encouraging new car buyers to buy electric vehicles. This is great until we run short of power and just like your hot water can be turned off when demand exceeds supply so will your charging station be reduced. Transpower’s press release: Transpower...
Was the rainfall in Jan 2023 climate change?
Look at the comparison of rainfall between 2023 and the 30 year average. It was a bad first half -and then about average. Last January we had over 130 mm more than this year. That’s almost 4 times more than normal. This year we are back to normality. A year ago, the...
Baby Names
In January we read that the “Department of Internal Affairs is delighted to announce the release of the annual list of the most popular baby names in New Zealand for 2023”. In 2023 37889 babies were given 18666 first names. What can we learn about our country from...
YOUR STRATEGY IN THE CURRENT ECONOMY
Happy New (Financial) Year!
This month we do a deep dive into some key economic indicators that will inform what you need to do in your organisation to stay resilient over the next 18 months or so.
I also report back on my first six months as a counsellor on the Regional Council. Happy to get your comments about whether I am making progress for you.
UNDERSTANDING INFLATION
UNDERSTANDING INFLATION
This month we take a deep dive into inflation.
Many of you will know that I have an economics background and inflation is one of those things which has caused great angst to economists over the decades. Milton Friedman said:
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”.