The NZ government can help businesses too...
Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday that the Cabinet had agreed to lend Right Hemisphere up to $US8m ($NZ12.2m) over three years to keep the joint-venture company and its staff in New Zealand.The loan follows the departure of several other New Zealand-based companies overseas and is being made against the advice of Treasury, which says it is unfair to others and not a good investment.
Right Hemisphere, a computer graphics company, was founded in New Zealand but now has a significant part of its business based in Los Angeles. The company had warned it would have to completely relocate overseas if it could not find new investors.
The company designs software for several US military suppliers, including Black Hawk helicopter manufacturer Sikorsky Aircraft, Bell Helicopter, Halliburton, the principal supplier to US armed forces in Iraq, and Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defence contractor.
In a surprise move, the Government has agreed to an interest-free loan on the basis the company stays in New Zealand for three more years. If it does not, it will have to pay 25 per cent interest on the money. The Government believes the investment will pay off in downstream benefits.
The move has infuriated the founder of regional airline Origin Pacific, which folded this year under intense competition from majority Government-owned Air New Zealand after the Government refused to help bail it out.
Robert Inglis said his company had asked for half as much money as Right Hemisphere, and on a fully commercial loan basis.
Dunedin-based computer graphics company Taylor Made said the Government loan was highly unusual.
With 10% of that money I think we could take Geekzone to the next step. I'd love to get an interest free loan, and we would be creating job positions!
Connect to me...
Registering an ISSN for your blog
I looked up the official ISSN website for registrars, and found that New Zealand publications should apply through the National Library of New Zealand. After a couple of days I received a polite, but negative reply:
ISSN (International Standard Serial Numbers) are currently only assigned in New Zealand to serials, that is, publications issued in successive discrete parts, with each part identified by a number and/or date, and intended to continue indefinitely. As your website is not a serial it does not qualify for an ISSN.
Seriously, I disagree. I found out today that the National Library of Australia do accept blogs in its ISSN registry!
For more information resources on ISSN for blog, check this site, and more importantly this page about compatibility of weblogs and ISSN.
Oh, yes... New Zealand is only worried about having broadband, not necessarily information.
New Zealand is actually a good place to do business
Doing Business in 2006: Creating Jobs is the third in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. New quantitative indicators on business regulations and their enforcement can be compared across 155 countries—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time...The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where, and why.
These are the top thirty economies based on the ease of doing business:
1 New Zealand
2 Singapore
3 United States
4 Canada
5 Norway
6 Australia
7 Hong Kong, China
8 Denmark
9 United Kingdom
10 Japan
Great stuff. I just hope people realise not everything in the world is "cheaper, feaster broadband", but less bureaucracy helps too. At least we are doing well here.
Guy Kawasaki Art of Start: standing ovation
To them (and everyone else really), I recommend watching Guy Kawasaki's The Art of Start Video.
I know Peter is reading The Art of Start right now (he borrowed my copy last time he came around for dinner), and he's working his way through the maze trying to find funding for his idea.
Worth watching, worth reading the book.
Guy Kawasaki's Art of Start video
The Art of Innovation is a speech for any stage of company that is trying to create and marketing innovative products and services. The Art of the Start is for the startup stage--but for anyone starting anything.
You can watch the full speech on-line, recorded at the UCLA Tech Coast Angels, January 2006.
