Have we reached peak smartphone? Henry Burrell reviews the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, an engineering marvel which all but highlights how few ways there are to improve phones in 2020. In the age of smartphones, notifications and constant communication, you might wish for a simpler time when the old flip phone in your pocket was … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Emma Ogilvie and Nick Landsman from Bar Céleste. You’ve probably seen their food on Instagram: people ripping into … Read more
After a decade in business on Auckland’s North Shore, the multi-storey complex that once attracted out-of-town shoppers has finally closed its doors. Its owner, fashion designer Karen Walker, explains why The Department Store had run its course. Opening an upmarket shopping hub is the last thing you’d expect to be doing in the middle of … Read more
Real data shows SMEs are in good health, yet business confidence is down. Three issues need tackling, writes Xero’s David Bell, to reshape the way we view the small business economy. Business confidence survey questions have been the lifeblood of how many view the economy for too long. Significant national business decisions are being made … Read more
From video games to face masks to seafood, coronavirus is shaking up global supply chains in unpredictable ways, writes Michael Andrew. “When America sneezes, the world catches cold,” goes the old adage – a metaphor to explain the global consequences of any disturbance in the United States’ economy. Certainly the same can be said of … Read more
The merger of TVNZ and RNZ is a huge boost for government-controlled media. Duncan Greive asks what that means for the rest of the sector. Last year, NZ on Air convened a meeting of senior executives from almost all the main news organisations in New Zealand. Around 20 surrounded a large table at the Heritage … Read more
Crocs aren’t ‘back’, they’re timeless. Josie Adams writes in defence of the injection-moulded clog that just won’t quit. When my flatmate mentioned she was going to fashion store North Beach, I asked if she could pick me up some Jibbitz™. “What the fuck is a Jibbitz™?” was her response, and then everyone laid into me … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Jimmy Hayes from Minaal. This week’s podcast guest is a Kiwi making a big impact on the global … Read more
The idea of paying someone by signing a piece of paper may seem foreign to younger people, but less tech-savvy New Zealanders are having to adapt to a world without cheques. When Kiwibank announced in May last year that it was going to do away with cheques from the end of this month, some of … Read more
I would love to see New Zealand lead on bringing true ‘stakeholder capitalism’ to life, and my time at the World Economic Forum suggests the world is up for it, too, writes Shruthi Vijayakumar. I strapped on the crampons and stepped onto the icy, main street of Davos, the Promenade. The cafes, ski stores and … Read more
As the world’s second-largest economy rushes to contain the deadly coronavirus which has killed more than 360 people, what effects will it have on some of New Zealand’s key industries in the short term? Aviation From Monday, foreigners arriving from or transiting through China will be refused entry into New Zealand in an attempt to … Read more
Sky’s new CEO hasn’t yet been in his job for a year, but has already achieved more than his predecessor did in a decade. Duncan Greive sits down with Martin Stewart to find out whether it has changed Sky’s fate. When Martin Stewart arrived at Sky a year ago this month, he found the corporate … Read more
The man who led the All Blacks to victory in the first World Cup went on to become a Rhodes scholar, political operator and business leader. Today he’s worried about tribalism and the Trumpian tendency to vilification. He sits down with Spinoff business editor Maria Slade in Sydney. Rugby legend, Rhodes scholar, business leader and … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Morris Pita from EmergencyQ. You might be unlucky enough to have experienced sitting with a kid at an … Read more
In episode two of The Spinoff’s newish media podcast The Fold, host Duncan Greive conducts an exit interview with Hal Crawford, the departing head of Newshub. Hal Crawford landed into a TV3 newsroom in crisis in 2016. Campbell Live had been axed. Hilary Barry had resigned. He had been hired by Mark Weldon, the much-reviled … Read more
You don’t want your retirement savings invested in nuclear bombs, sure. But what about conventional defence equipment that’s also used for essential civilian purposes? This month’s assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and the Australian navy’s evacuation of people escaping bushfires are two very different events, but they highlight the dilemma faced by KiwiSavers wanting … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Greig Brebner from Blunt Umbrellas. This week on the podcast is a business that began with the realisation … Read more
I thought I could wean myself off my smartphone by using another piece of technology. Turns out I was fighting a losing battle. I look left and right. There’s one guy stacking shelves to my right but otherwise the coast is clear. I raise my left wrist quickly to my face and say, “Show me … Read more
The case for the meeting that everyone loves to hate, by someone who used to go. This week sees 3,000 of the “global elite” gather on the top of a Swiss mountain to opine on the state of the world and people could not be more outraged. Again. The stereotype of the “Davos man” (only … Read more
Pool toys are cool for the summer, but don’t do so well in landfill. Alex Casey meets a woman trying to prolong the life of New Zealand’s novelty inflatables. If Instagram is any indication of real life, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the human race is currently being ruled by giant inflatable swans, blow-up … Read more
A Wellington startup is tapping into the worldwide move away from ocean-destroying sunscreens with a natural product. Sailing fans got used to seeing helmsman Peter Burling’s ghost-like face as he and the Emirates Team New Zealand crew battled to reclaim the America’s Cup in 2017. Red-headed Burling clearly felt the need for heavy sunblock to … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Bridie Picot, founder of Thing Industries and Wrappy. This week’s podcast is a chat about turning cool ideas … Read more
Uber’s habit of pushing tax rules to breaking point is the reason Terry Baucher refuses to use the ridesharing service. But price and convenience outweigh most people’s moral indignation, he writes. In the 2010s the true extent of aggressive tax planning practices by tech giants like Apple, Google and Facebook emerged. These behemoths simultaneously piled up … Read more
Sales of environmentally friendly dental care products are steadily on the rise, but as business editor Maria Slade finds it isn’t easy being green. Sorry planet Earth I’ve tried, truly I have, but I just can’t do bamboo toothbrushes. The feel of the rough wooden handles in my mouth is like fingernails on a blackboard. … Read more
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he talks to Mike Taylor, founder of Pie Funds. On this week’s Business is Boring, Simon Pound talks to a founder … Read more
Wellingtonians claim that securing sought-after rental properties is becoming a battle royale. Are they over-reacting, or is the shortage of places to live real? Horror stories of even well paid young professionals going into battle to find themselves a home in Wellington’s cut-throat rental market keep hitting the headlines. It now costs an average $550 … Read more
Summer reissue: The lack of female faces in the hallowed halls has been put down to their traditional roles in our colonial society. Now the digitisation of historical records is blowing that theory out of the water. This story was first published on 11 October, 2019. There are 171 people in the New Zealand Business Hall … Read more
In the wake of the shocking revelations about Three, Duncan Greive assesses the health of New Zealand’s six big media companies. This story was first published on 20 October, 2019. Winston Peters has studied the cold, pitiless heart of a certain strand of New Zealander for four decades now, and has become our foremost expert … Read more
Summer reissue: The $800 per ticket, council-funded festival of ‘creative collisions’ has been cancelled and the company behind it has gone bust. Alex Casey reports. This story was first published on 17 June, 2019. The first problem was that nobody knew how to say it. Without any discernible vowels, pronouncing WLG-X, the name of a … Read more