A Busy Week

Mills Reef Winery - Hosting Tonight's Investor Reception....

Busy? That is no understatement.

John Beer has now been in NZ since Saturday and we have covered a fair number of meetings and events already. And, it is not going to get any quieter, any time soon.

Today finishes with a Pingar Investor Reception at Mills Reef. They have heard about him. Now they can meet him.

Tomorrow the focus is on product as we head for WaikatoLink in Hamilton. And then it's Auckland on Thursday and Friday for a round of nine meetings. No-one is missing out on this visit.

What this week is doing is enabling John to update on all things Kiwi and for Jacqui and myself to update on all things UK. I have blogged on this before, but no matter what comms technology you have, there is no substitute for good old 'face to face' meetings. The week to-date is proof of that.

It's the Real Beer

John Beer is traveling from the UK to spend a few days in NZ next week.

As the joint co-founders of Pingar, it will be a great opportunity to update on events both here and offshore. It is going to be one busy week.

It will also help prepare me for my own market visit to the UK in January.

Tonight, there is a scheduled conference call at 21.30 between NZ and the team in London. That's normal. Next week's face to face meetings though will help consolidate what we have achieved over the past few months. It is almost time to unzip.

FASTForward 08

I had expected to depart Auckland today for FASTForward 08. It is being held in Orlando, Florida over the next three days.

Pingar's nomination to present at the UK Technology, Innovation and Growth Forum in London next month has changed all that. John Beer, my UK Pingar partner, is traveling to Florida instead.

It is a fact that few truly international technology conferences are held in New Zealand. It does mean that NZ ICT businesses need to go that 'extra mile' when compared to competitors in countries such as the UK or the US. Global engagement demands an NZ presence at such conferences. This is one significant aspect Pingar's planned entry and expansion into the UK market will address.

London First

After 18 months, I finally stepped out in London yesterday.

The morning was spent with Michelle Templer, NZ Trade Commissioner to the UK and Ireland at NZ House in Haymarket. Jacqui and John Beer joined me and it was yet another great opportunity to introduce Pingar to NZTE during a market visit.

Of course, the UK is not a new market to me. Having spent the best part of 46 years domiciled in the country, it was more of a return to basics. Yet it is now important as part of the overall engagement strategy that NZTE remain a key focus of our offshore activity.

In the evening, it was dinner with a potential distributor of the Pingar platform to the Chinese language market. We plan to launch a Chinese language version of Pingar at DRUPA in May, so as a follow-up to the recent visit to Hong Kong, it could not have been better timed.

Between these two meetings, we found time to conclude the Pingar Board meeting. A number of key targets have been set and these will now set the tone for our product and market development strategy for the first quarter 2008.

There was time for a final visit of the day - to the 77 Wine Bar in West Hampstead. For some, it is an occasional drop in bar. For the best part of fifteen years however, it fulfilled a much greater role for me. It was here that I first met Jacqui. So time to reflect and time to remember.

London Calling

Russell Square, Bloomsbury, London

It's Monday morning and I am about to skype John Beer back in the UK. It is a deja vu moment.

John and I used to meet at the cafe in Russell Square for breakfast on Monday mornings when I lived in London. It enabled us to cover off the upcoming week's activities and co-ordinate our diaries. Nothing has much changed except now we communicate on Skype and of course it is still Sunday evening back in Blighty.

Skype does make a difference. Recently, I have been involved in a project that has been using the resources of HBI Software in Bangalore as well as an application architect in France. Skype has enabled us to hold three-way conference calls and bridge the global divide.

This morning's call with John will do the same. Except that unlike 3 years ago when we met in Russell Square, toasted bacon sandwiches and cappuccino will definitely not be on the menu.

Just One More Day....

John Beer, my UK Pingar partner, departs tomorrow for LA, en route to Heathrow.

John arrived last Tuesday and we have since had a hectic week of meetings with both partners and suppliers. It has been a fascinating, though tiring eight days. The temptation, which we have both succumbed to, has been to fit in as many meetings as possible in the time available. The benefit though is that we now have a strategic plan to take Pingar to the next stage.

The planning therefore is now over. It is time for the execution to begin.

China Calling

OK - so you recognise the guy on the left - that's John.

But what about the guy on the right? No? I will reveal all soon..........

Welcome to NZ, John

Hong Kong Airport

I had planned to meet John Beer, my UK Pingar partner at Tauranga Airport this morning. Air New Zealand had other ideas.

The text arrived in the early hours. The Air NZ flight from Hong Kong to Auckland had been delayed by 10 hours. Fortunately, Cathay Pacific had a spare seat on their next flight to Auckland so the delay was reduced to just 3 hours. I now plan to meet John at 14.45.

We have set up a good agenda for the next seven days. Perhaps the key aspect of the visit will be the refinement of the Pingar Business Plan as we integrate various aspects which have emerged since our last meet-up in Dubai in early April.

What the last three months have provided are substantial new global opportunities for the Pingar Platform. I expect to blog about these in the coming weeks. For the coming days, I will talk about events closer to home.

Postscript: Air New Zealand released its 2007 Annual Report this morning: Air New Zealand Expects To Continue To Improve Performance.

Planning An Agenda

John Beer, my UK-based Pingar partner arrives in Tauranga next Tuesday for a one week visit.

The purpose of the visit is to discuss the global launch of the Pingar platform. There is much to discuss.

I have blogged quite a bit about the significant partnerships and relationships Pingar has already developed globally. The focus next week is to engage with NZ-based businesses and organisations that will add value to those partnerships and relationships.

It means that part of today will be spent preparing the agenda for the visit. It will also mean touching base with some old faces: Microsoft and NZTE, amongst others.

Of course, quite a bit of time will be spent refining the existing Business Plan to ensure it maps against current objectives. With John attending important meetings in Hong Kong en route to NZ, our strategy for Asia will be high on the agenda. With the global launch now so close, next week's agenda and meetings will help shape the months to come.

Focusing on Pingar

In two week's, John Beer, my UK-based Pingar partner will arrive in New Zealand.

We plan to spend a week meeting potential partners and introducing the Pingar platform to a key group of stakeholders. The build up to this meeting has been a long time coming.

It started with engaging both New Zealand Trade & Investment (NZTE) and UK Trade & Investment (UKT&I) back in 2006. Since then, John and I have either separately, or together, visited the United States, the UAE, India, Australia, Hong Kong, Taipei and Singapore for specific Pingar focused events. The momentum has built.

During John's visit, we plan to consolidate this build-up by signing off Pingar's medium to long term Business Plan. Over the next few months, more and more of this blog will be focused around the execution of this Plan and the impact that has on the global role out of Pingar.

It has taken over two years to build the platform. It is now time to focus on its commercialisation. The next few months will define a critical period in this process. It all starts now.

John Beer to Visit NZ

You can now put a face to the name!

John Beer, my UK Pingar partner, is traveling to NZ to spend a week at the end of August. It is going to be a good opportunity to both introduce John to our partners here as well as get feedback on his Pingar experience back in Europe.

Just so long as he does not bring their rain!

FP7 Anyone?

My UK-based Pingar partner, John Beer is once again in Brussels, contracted to the European Commission as a Technology Expert, Rapporteur and Assessor for requests for funding of R&D and commercialisation projects in the European ICT sector. We spoke this morning via Skype.

I have blogged BEFORE about FP7 funding. Following the Skype call, I had a look at the Cordis funding portal to check out NZ engagement. Under 'Partners', I found 5 references to New Zealand; Under News, I found 39; Under Events, 3, Under Programmes, 0.

Digging deeper, it became clear that New Zealand was referenced in many cases only as a cluster of other country names. The key measure laid in participation in actual funded Programmes. Here, the cupboard appears to be bare.

NZ economists often comment on New Zealand's supposed disengagement from the global economy in terms of OECD reports. Perhaps they, and business leaders, should check out the Cordis Funding portal to find out how this process could be reversed.

Pingar Hits Taipei

One of the joys of living in New Zealand and having offshore partners is the knowledge that whilst you sleep, they work!

John Beer, my UK partner in Pingar, was speaking to an invited audience last night during the UK Trade & Investment's Mobile & Wireless Mission to Hong Kong and Taipei. In my experience, for an SME, meeting senior executives from the likes of BenQ, Motorola and others is only really possible either on such Missions or via other organised networking opportunities. (See my previous post on NZTE Beachheads)

Check out the UK Trade & Investment stand in Taipei yesterday.



Pingar is a global application. Although now based in New Zealand, I repeat the assertion that I have made in previous posts. If you think globally and act globally, then you will succeed globally.