The Biz Dojo

With all the growth and excitement currently surrounding both the Auckland and Wellington communities, we’ve found ourselves needing to grow the Dojo family to deal with all the added responsibility. Here we have a wee interview with our newest member, DK, who’s joined us in Wellington to help with activations and all things awesome in the brand spanking new Collider WGTN. 

1. So, DK, the first question we should as is...tell us about your name...It’s just a D and a K?

No mystery, it’s my name (DK Jones is what’s on my passport)...

2. What were you doing before you nabbed this sweet position at the Biz Dojo? You can go back as far or as recently as you like…

I’ve been part of online communities and blogging since 2000 plus produced over 200 podcasts and vodcasts.

In 2006 I founded a leading social media training / consulting agency, MediaSnackers (a term I coined early 2004/5’ish) plus a CEO / executive-level mentoring firm, Social Media For Suits, both paused in 2011. I authored Zen And The Heart Of Social Media (costs a tweet) and created the award-winning The Web Makes Me Feel research project.

Since then I’ve been a strategic advisor and (energetic) speaker on how / why social media can improve businesses, organisations, and individuals. This is a pedigree built through working with a vast variety of clients including The Gates Foundation, UNICEF, BBC, Welsh Assembly, Hasbro, Ubisoft, and many others.

I’ve also spent nearly a year with Design-Thinking agency Empathy Design as a business designer and also been a Social Media Manager for national education organisation, CORE Education.

Before all that I worked in various levels of local government and was the UK’s first & only (at that time), Corporate Youth Officer… oooh!

3. And it sounds like you’re kind of not from here? Where are you from, and how long have you been kicking it in NZ?

Originally from the Land Of My Fathers - Wales - a small Celtic nation in the UK which has the population of three million. I’ve been in NZ for over four years now and Wellington has similar wind, rain and hills which I grew up with so don’t feel too homesick.

4. If you had $20 million, what would you do with your life, aside from travelling?

I’d probably carry on doing what I’m doing on top of funding both side projects and investing in passionate people with purpose.

5. But let’s be real, you probably don’t have $20 million right now, but getting there may be an ambition for you. If it is, how do you plan on getting there? If not, how come...what’s more important to you?

Experiences are more important than financial gain. Obviously money can help create those opportunities, although I’ve managed to travel to five continents and make friends all over the globe on nothing but focussing on adding value and asking better questions. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

6. Are there any famous humans that you admire? What is it about them that you find admirable?

This was the hardest question to be honest. I obviously ‘admire’ a few (what folks would call) ‘famous people’ although I know more admirable ‘non-famous’ people. However, they all have common traits about challenging norms and exciting action by being creative thought leaders.

7. What do you do for fun?

Cultivate my curiosity.

8. Give us a brief synopsis of what you spoke about at TEDx.

Well, the first time was on what inspires people and the second was on taking a step into adventure. The former was a mistake and failure in terms of being true to myself. I was trying to be clever and failed my true voice. It was an experience which enabled me to learn about leaning into my pedigree and not trying to craft something which isn’t.

9. What’s one serious mistake you made in the past that you learned from - personal or business?

Well my first company bombed and I learned so much from the humble experience. It was a social enterprise before we knew what that meant. It functioned by taking corporate social responsibility funds from brands and investing them in community youth projects.

This was in 2003 and I was blogging heavily at that time, curating content from the sector and crafting new content as well. Fast forward three years and I was broke and so very tired, although I learned how to utilise the online opportunities in business and when new media broke into social a couple of years later, I simply leveraged this experience into my new endeavours.

10. Do you prefer working alone or in partnership?

Depends on the venture. I’m definitely a loner when it comes to public speaking although in anything else I do like company. Being the license holder for TEDxWellington is a perfect illustration as it’s a total voluntary role and the whole endeavour is a collaborative affair with other good souls giving their time and energy for free.

11. What’s the single most important thing we can do to make the world a better place?

Hug more, and stop trying to use social media channels to market or advertise - it’s a human channel for wonderful connections, creative inspiration and provocative conversations.

12. So far, what are you finding enjoyable about the BizDojo?

How the BizDojo team tackled the challenge of building the largest coworking community in New Zealand & the tech hub for Wellington, Collider all at the same time ... 

As the BizDojo Wellington becomes a tech hub, a home of innovation and a neutral space for fast growing ideas & companies to collide and collaborate the team have been on overdrive getting the space ready for the Collider launch. It’s not been easy.  A new team, doubling our floor space all at the same time as programming our tech and digital programmes while ramping up our community activations & events. We’re knackered.

Like most high growth companies, the build has come with it’s growing pains.

With the majority of us being newbies we’ve been in the ‘forming’ team phase, understanding each others working styles, motivators & trying to build trusting relationships.

With no time for offsites & training sessions we’ve been forced to find our own way (or the relevant Trello board).  And we’ve made a bunch of mistakes but where possible we’re learning and failing forward.  

With moving deadlines and surprise works happening on a daily basis the most challenging thing was keeping our communications frequent and correct.  So often we felt like we were 2 steps behind which made getting the right communications out very difficult. Sorry team.

But it wasn’t all bad. Thankfully we had some pro’s to lead the way and the results have been better than we could have imagined.

Our Cofounder and Chief Entrepreneur Nick Shrewing led the design with our partners Europlan and resident designers Spaceworks. Nick’s learnings from the design and use of each of our spaces nationwide has fed into this project, and of course the feedback from he guys that matter - our residents! 

With social, active and focussed zones, an expanded café & bar area plus my personal favourite, the new soft seated area that up to 30 people can work from.  It’s beautiful & functional. We love it and hope you do too!

Being the new tech hub for Wellington is a big deal. For our residents it’s going to mean a bunch of great programmes, events and people focussed on helping each other grow.  A pretty good payoff for all the drilling and dust.

If you are your team are going through a big build, be it digital or spatial, here’s our top tips.

Ask for help: We’ve had Pat from One Percent Collective working on our artwork. Neville has been doing PPC Adword campaigns, Kate from Dakai has been vacuuming during her weekends, while our project manager Kerry has been spending nights with the team laying down carpet.  Swifty from Europlan has been sorting furniture and the Point Zero team helped us suss out the cool maps for our launch.  We truly believe in collaboration and this build has tribute to that.

Be kind: There’s been a few meltdowns in the house (me included)  So don’t forget to support each other with regular check in’s (wine and chocolate also helps) and be kind to each other & yourself.

Take ownerships: When stuff goes wrong put your hand up and suggest a solution. Blame or denial doesn’t get us anywhere.  The people I admire the most are those that take ownership of issues and offer up actions.

Say No: Prioritise what is important and put anything else on the back burner.  As a people pleaser I’m not the best at doing this so it’s something I’m working on. We ended up turning down a few events & said no to some tours/talks. There just isn’t enough hours in the day to do it all.

Surround Yourself with Supportive People When I took on this job I started a leanin circle choosing female leaders I admired in Wellington. We meet monthly & help each other out on a range of topics. It’s been beyond helpful to share & learn from peers you admire.

1. NAME: Steven Male

2. AGE: 23

3. COMPANY: Clean NZ

4. What is your business? Give us the elevator pitch.

Clean NZ is an inbound marketing company reserved for sustainable, social and green focused enterprises. We help these companies spread their message, optimise revenue and maximise impact. Recently we’ve partnered with Hubspot to help bring their $1.7 billion in resources and research on marketing best practices into New Zealand to help our country’s businesses grow like never before.

5. If you could time-travel back to day one of your startup and have 15 minutes with your former self to communicate any lessons you've acquired, what advice would you give yourself?

Maintain the momentum and stack each success. The biggest mistake I made (quite a few times) was celebrating and relaxing too much whenever I made massive traction. Although celebration is important, too much of it leads to a loss of momentum and you find yourself back at square one… which sucks.

6. List three qualities that you believe are essential to the character of an entrepreneur.

Ego-free – starting a business should not be because you want to be known as an entrepreneur. If you’re in this boat, you’re headed for some tough waters. Running a business is a “wantrepreneur” free zone. Perseverance – I know everyone is going to say this, and I think for good measure I’m going to say it too. Running a business is hard. You’re going to need the ability to push through the toughest times again and again to succeed. Finally I think you need to be an optimist – starting a business is hard so having the ability to find the fun in each situation for me was absolutely vital to the business… and for my sanity.

7. How does your job now compare to your childhood dreams? Did you expect to be running your own company?

I always expected to be running my own company, but I still think I have a long way to go to achieve my childhood dreams. Do you know how much it costs to buy a pool full of jelly?! But seriously, I wouldn’t change what I do for the world. Being directly responsible for every action I take has made me grow more in the two years of running my business than I could have possible imagined.

8. How do you feel about the startup ecosystem in New Zealand? Where do we excel and what do we need to strengthen?

1. NAME: Anna Guenther

2. AGE: 29 (but only for another week....)

3. COMPANY: PledgeMe

4. What is your business? Give us the elevator pitch.

We're a crowdfunding platform that helps kiwis fund the things they care about - be it projects or companies.

5. If you could time-travel back to day one of your startup and have 15 minutes with your former self to communicate any lessons you've acquired, what advice would you give yourself?

Easy! I've already blogged about that :) The main things are: document expectations, don't work with dicks, be yourself, don't be scared to ask questions, and surround yourself with people that care. Though, the favourite quote from my crowd was "don’t compare your insides to other peoples outsides. How you feel cannot compare to the game face other people put on for the world.”

6. List three qualities that you believe are essential to the character of an entrepreneur.

Resilience - things always go wrong.

Ability to learn - you never want to be the smartest person in the room.

Ability to connect - you need to connect the dots and connect the people.

7. How does your job now compare to your childhood dreams? Did you expect to be running your own company?

I come from a family of entrepreneurs. My granddad bought his first tractor at 17, and my aunt runs a franchise of restaurants. I think I always sort of knew it was an option, but I spent a bit of time figuring out what I wanted to do (which involved heaps of stints overseas learning how to be resilient).

8. How do you feel about the startup ecosystem in New Zealand? Where do we excel and what do we need to strengthen?

1. NAME: Kiran Patel

2. AGE: 20

3. COMPANY: Young Innovators Collective

4. What is your business? Give us the elevator pitch.

YIC is a youth for youth organisation that builds communities and projects that activate and amplify youth voice. We also provide services for youth and community organisations around youth engagement and community development. We exist to help all young people feel supported and encouraged to creatively express their full selves and do more of what makes them come alive.

5. If you could time-travel back to day one of your startup and have 15 minutes with your former self to communicate any lessons you've acquired, what advice would you give yourself?

I would tell my 18 year old self to do more reflection. I’ve learnt so much from simply writing out my thoughts and realising what I truly feel or mean or intend for a certain direction or decision. Having a support network and space where you feel safe to express yourself is key.

6. List three qualities that you believe are essential to the character of an entrepreneur.

Passion - you do it because you love it.

Positivity - you need to be able to see the bright side of ‘problems’.

Perseverance - you need to be able to get past things when they are tough.

7. How does your job now compare to your childhood dreams? Did you expect to be running your own company?

My childhood dreams were all about making films and telling stories. I’m incredibly grateful that I can say my job includes telling, sharing and creating stories.

8. How do you feel about the startup ecosystem in New Zealand? Where do we excel and what do we need to strengthen?

1. NAME: Sarah Guejdi

2. AGE: 29 

3. COMPANY: MeetAndTravel.net

4. What is your business?

MeetandTravel.net helps people find and meet travel mates with the same Travel wishes

5. If you could time travel back to day one of your startup and have 15 min with your former self to communicate any lessons you’ve acquired, what advice would you give yourself?

Be well surrounded by friends and family. Be persistent. Believe in yourself no matter what. Invest fully into your project as soon as you can.  

6. List three qualities that you believe are essential to the character of an entrepreneur.

Passion, Adaptability, Persistence

7. How does your job now compare to childhood dreams? Did you expect to be running your own company?

I have always dreamed of having my own company. My father has his own, and I've always looked up to self-made men and women and entrepreneurs. But I didn’t know what, when and where. If someone told me I'd create a traveler's website (though gathering people and travel are subjects I have always cared about) in Wellington, New Zealand, before the age of 30... I wouldn’t have believed it. Even if it's small and only starting, the journey to get there is incredibly inspiring and enriching. I can't wait to see what's next!

8. How do you feel about the startup ecosystem in New Zealand? Where do we excel and what do we need to strengthen?

As I am quite new in New Zealand, I still have a lot to learn from the startup ecosystem. But here in The Biz Dojo I have the chance to meet brilliant people. There is a feeling here that everything is still possible. People are very creative, friendly and open-minded.

1. NAME: Aston Wells

2. AGE: 30 yrs

3. COMPANY: JAN-PRO of New Zealand

4. What is your business?

JAN-PRO is the newest International Commercial Cleaning Franchise to enter the NZ Market in approximately 10 years. JAN-PRO originated in the U.S 25 years ago & have grown to service 14 countries & have over 10,000 franchisees internationally. They were rated the fastest growing cleaning franchise in the world 2013, 2014, 2015 by Entrepreneur Magazine.

I started a small cleaning company with my brother seven years ago whilst finishing our Degrees at AUT in Auckland. Sean unfortunately passed five years ago leaving me to run the company. Late last year I initiated a joint venture with JAN-PRO that resulted in a rebrand of my company & acquiring the Master Franchisor rights for NZ.

From April 1st, 2015 I have grown the company significantly (doubled annual revenue) and now have a full management team consisting of a Sales Manager, Operations Manager, and Accounts Manager. I am looking at taking the company national within the first year with the support of the JAN-PRO systems I have subsequently acquired through the deal.

5. If you could time travel back to day one of your startup and have 15 min with your former self to communicate any lessons you've acquired, what advice would you give yourself?

I would start by telling him to ensure he is aware of all the financial obligations of running a company in NZ. I would stress that even though growth is key, having the resources & systems available and ready are essential to coping with that growth. There are a robust amount of systems to help manage their business so selecting the right ones is also key.

Surround yourself with key people of experience in the world of business, and ideally with some knowledge of the industry. And don’t be worried whether any questions you may have are “silly,” as no question is silly!

Be prepared to be busy! Don’t let the passion or motivation dwindle as anything is possible with the right attitude & determination.

Set goals. Start working backwards from the end result you want to achieve. A clear path with planning is very important.

Finally…ENJOY YOURSELF!!! Don’t let the little things worry you or interfere!

6. List three qualities that you believe are essential to the character of an entrepreneur.

Motivation, determination & passion. Everything else can be learned.

7. How does your job now compare to childhood dreams? Did you expect to be running your own company?

It’s fair to say I never, NEVER dreamed of running a cleaning company but now that I am here I wouldn’t change it for the world! I get to meet people from all walks of life and provide solutions to problems most would rather not deal with.

8. How do you feel about the startup ecosystem in New Zealand? Where do we excel and what do we need to strengthen?

As civil aviation authorities grapple with developing drone regulations in short order, tech-centric workplaces are also being forced to consider new policies on drones as they become cheaper and more ubiquitous in the tech world. 

If you’re a coworking space or a company working in the startup sector, there’s a good chance you’ve already had a drone, or UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), show up in your workplace… lord knows we’ve have more than a few at BizDojo. They’ve gone from being a little known military technology to an increasingly common part of the vernacular in conversations across a wide range of sectors - from innovative tools to deliver humanitarian relief to new ways to engage kids with nature and the outdoors (see: moose v drone). Callaghan Innovation is in the final throes of the C-Prize, which has them investing up to $110,000 plus development resources to the finalists, with a particular eye to improving the technology specifically for the film sector. And at the consumer level, you can pick up a basic model for under $50 USD.

It’s that last sentence that is of particular relevance here. I imagine that our reaction at the BizDojo to drones in the workplace likely mirrored the reaction of civil aviation authorities, municipalities, local law enforcement, and neighbours: it was a gradual one. (The US has only recently started regulating civilian drone operation; Canada has had laws on the books since 1996 but is being forced to tighten them with their growing popularity.) Curiosity gives way to benign novelty; novelty fades to mild concern over environmental impacts; and finally, as stakeholders increasingly vocalise their stands on the tiny buzzing instruments over their heads, an event happens that forces you to put guidelines in pace around this new, increasingly accessible, technology.

For Texas lawmakers, that event was a man shooting down a drone flying over his backyard. In LA, it was a massive power outage when one went head to head with a powerline in West Hollywood. For us at the BizDojo, it was a drone getting stuck above the ceiling panels in Auckland. What was meant to be a singular, brief demonstration of the drone’s flying capability resulted in the flying robot making a beeline for the roof, triggering a potential health and safety nightmare scenario as we debated ways of retrieving the wayward drone. Needless to say, it was time for us to enact a framework for drones in the Dojo.

I never like to assume that my opinion on something I don’t use is a universal one, so I took the question to the community: what were the possible perks of being able to fly drones inside? Does it contribute to the sense of the Dojo as an interesting, stimulating, experimental place to work? Conversely, were there any drawbacks we weren’t already aware of (noise clearly being the biggest issue, with health and safety a close second)? Was anyone worried about privacy?

The result was surprisingly uniform. Surprisingly (to me), the drone users were the first to suggest that drones shouldn’t be flown inside. We want the BizDojo to remain a space where people can test the latest gadgets and prototype their own, but we are also conscious of the fact that not everyone is happy to work in a makerspace - so when we turned it over to the community, we took their lead. We now have a line in our House Rules specifying that drones are welcome, but only in outdoor areas - and the Respect Rule, as with everything, applies. (We have yet to write a don’t drink and drone policy.)

Now if only it were so simple in the real world... 

Motion Capture or mocap is one of those technologies that you may (like me) associate strictly with animated films and Andy Circus. But mocap s becoming more ubiquitous as minds open and costs of implementation come down. We had a chat to Harry Silver from Colab about the what and why of MoCap as he and the rest of the Colab team prepare for the 2015 Motion Capture Symposium.  Where do you feel are the most exciting new uses for MoCap? Motion Capture is being used in some of the most exciting areas of technology at the moment including virtual and augmented reality. As costs come down and the barrier to entry lowers even further we are going to see an amazing range of new uses of the technology. Motion capture is indispensable for VR and location-based entertainment as it makes for much better immersion. Magic Leap and 8i are exciting new ideas in the entertainment space that demonstrate this combination of motion capture and other technologies creating ground breaking experiences.

(The Video is of a Daito Manabe collaboration, using motion capture to choreograph drones into a dance performance) What is exciting you about Motion Capture today? Two things we are excited about this summer are the Choreographic Coding Lab that we will be hosting in early 2016. The event brings choreography, dance and code together in our Motion Capture Lab for a week long workshop that would no doubt come up with some exciting experimental use of the technology and it’s applications. On the “straighter” side, the AUT Motion Capture Lab is being used to host the judging of Callaghan C-Prize so that the UAV’s performance can be measured with pinpoint accuracy. Why is the 2015 Motion Capture Symposium important? Motion capture is fast becoming a staple technology in some major industries including the film, military, health and games industries. You might not know that it’s also used in training animators, perceptual research, biomechanical analysis for rehabilitation and ergonomic design. There is a lot of development happening in the space across the spectrum and the symposium allows people to share and learn what is happening and what opportunities lay ahead especially when motion capture is combined with other technologies.

(The Video is of a Weta Digital animators working with mocap for the bouncing barrel scene in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug)

“For a well-educated, small country in the middle of nowhere, IP is a really good export. I personally think it’s is a better export than milk powder.” 

It’s a Friday afternoon when I turn up at the new Melodics HQ in Kingsland. I’m here to visit co-founder Sam Gribben and his team, recent graduates of The BizDojo Auckland. Gribben, ex-CEO of DJ software giant Serato, began incubating his startup idea at the Dojo in August 2014. By November, he’d formed the company, and in December was raising investment rounds. This January, roughly ten months after his initial idea, he began developing the product that is launching this week.

Melodics is an app that helps you learn pad drumming - also known as cue-point drumming. If you’re a fan of electronically-flavoured music, you’ll likely be familiar with the concept; drum pads are used by everyone from indie-electro band CHVRCHES to pad-drum protege AraabMuzik, and are an increasingly ubiquitous piece of hardware in the equipment suite of acts using any kind of sampling or synthesized music in their live sets. As Gribben points out, there are a plethora of hardware and software options out there for pad drumming… but nowhere, other than YouTube tutorials, that will show you how to be better at it in a structured way.

As a recent graduate of The BizDojo Auckland, I wanted to pick Gribben’s brain about how he came up with the idea of a responsive platform to help you learn an electronic instrument, what he’d gained from being in our coworking space, and keeping a tech company in New Zealand.

What was the gap in the market that you'd identified?

We make software to help people learn pad-drumming. The gap in the market is that pad drumming is this thing that not many people really know how to do, and yet lots and lots and lots of these products are sold. It's like MIDI-controllers with pads... in the layman’s terms, it's a musical instrument for electronic music. Kinda like a drum machine. And hundreds of thousands of these things are sold every year, but there's only a handful of people that really really know how to do it.

The other gap is that I knew lots of these companies from working at Serato - companies that make this gear. They have lots of software for making music, and they have lots of software for performing music - so if you want to make some stuff or perform it live, that's all really well-covered by companies like Serato and Ableton - but there was very little that actually helps you to learn how to do it.

There was no consumer offering, basically.

No. For me it started with learning off YouTube. There's millions of lessons on YouTube, and the top ten searches on YouTube with the word “lesson” in them are all music lessons. But it's really low tech; you can pause it, rewind it, and that's pretty much all you can do. So it got me thinking... wouldn't it be cool if you could plug your instrument into a piece of software, it would listen to what you're doing and it would slow down for you if you're struggling, and respond based on how well you're doing?

And the other thing that I was looking at was things like health and fitness apps and hardware, as examples of gamifying the process of achieving a goal - a personal goal that you want to achieve, like get fit or learn a language, getting points and rewards and really emphasizing daily practice and all these things. It got me thinking: why is no-one applying this to learning instruments?

The software that we make, you get feedback from it when you're sitting in front of it. And when you're not sitting in front of it, hopefully you're encouraged to come back and do your practice - because maybe you're on a five-day streak and if you get up to ten days then you unlock all these extra lessons, so it's motivating you to keep going. So while the message is “this is software to help you learn”, it's actually more about helping you to practice.

Was there any awkwardness approaching contacts that you’d made during your tenure at Serato?

No. The parting conversation with Serato was, “I really hope to find something that I can work on next that fits alongside what you're doing.” By going to, say, Ableton - which was a partner of Serato - a company heavy in the world of music creation software and music performance software, we were finding this thing that went alongside what they were doing. It's a nice fit. And in fact, there is a product that Serato makes called Serato Flip. It's a way of cutting up a song and playing it using pads, and then recording that. That's a really cool product, and what we're making is a way for people to learn how to actually do it, so it's quite complementary.

So the Melodics app is really the first step that enables anyone to get onto that pathway of music creation and then performance.

Yeah. And working with some of the DJs I worked with at Serato to make the lessons. There's this competition in the world of DJing called the Red Bull Thre3style which is really big, and we’re working with some of the previous years' winners. Last years world champion is a guy from Germany called DJ Eskei... we’re working with him to figure out these cue-point drumming routines and turning them into lessons.

Which artists were you most excited about working with?

Jazzy Jeff is a big one, I’ve worked with him for years. There's a guy called Jeremy Ellis, who is one of the world's best at this thing of pad drumming. He's amazing. He's from a long line of music teachers, so he's going to make a full course. Gaslamp Killer because he makes really cool stuff and it's fun to play. Tall Black Guy, who... is a tall black guy who does great work. And there are a few more, but I can’t say just yet.

When you were starting this journey and looking around at spaces, what convinced you that the Dojo was going to be the right place for you?

It was really the vibe. It was a place where I could be focused and productive and... being surrounded by people doing things is as much of it as any one individual whose brains I was able to pick or networks I was able to tap into. Being in that space where there's stuff going down, there's people doing interesting things, was quite motivating and helpful. Especially when you're chipping away at an idea and there was nothing really concrete, and I was just putting pieces together and having interesting people to talk to was good.

How did you know when to leave?

When the sound of [taps on table] got too much for the other residents. The two things were wanting to put things up on walls, and make noise. Because we're a company that makes noise, it was kind of obvious when it was time to move on.

The way things are set up in general in Auckland is that there are stepping stones, so I'm not too worried about [what happens when we need to move again]. It's not like it was 10 years ago where you had to go out to a real estate agents and find offices... there are quite a few options now.

Where is Melodics five years from now?

We'll have created a method for learning to play an instrument that has changed the way people think about learning to play instruments. When I've been talking to people about this idea over the last year or so, the general reaction is "that sounds great, I'd love that because I'd like to play an instrument but it's too hard." Almost everyone says that! Who doesn't want to learn to play an instrument? Everyone's like, "It's too hard." The dream is to make that not hard. To make it easy to start, and to make it fun.

It's what people struggle with when it comes to fitness goals, or learning languages, without a sense of accountability - without knowing that someone or something is there recording your progress - it's all too easy to stop.

The other word that's important is "progress" - a feeling of progress. So many of these things are about an end goal, like "be able to speak french" or "be able to play the guitar". [But] there's no end point. It’s more “I play it better than I used to, I speak it better than I used to, I'm fitter than I was,” whatever. So as long as you feel like you're making progress and you're enjoying it, then you're good.

I was surprised to read a headline in Idealog recently calling Serato “the biggest Kiwi tech company you’ve never heard of”. Is Serato really that unknown outside of the music industry?

Five years ago, even people in the music business here didn't know what it was, even though it was big at the time in the States. Over the last few years the profile's grown quite a lot, but I think it's still pretty under the radar. Everyone knows about Xero and Vend and Trademe. In New Zealand there are a lot of people that don't know about Serato that know about similar-sized tech companies. So it has a low profile; it always has. They're doing a little bit around raising that local profile, now that they're a certain size it makes sense. It's not just about New Zealand customers, it's also about the employees and finding new people and giving the people there a sense of working for a significant New Zealand company.

What I always found compelling about Serato - knowing that ScratchLive was the standard for DJ software world wide - is that they stayed in New Zealand. They had this massive global influence but they remained here and hired here and a lot of the people who worked for them were from here. As the former CEO, can you speak to what was behind that choice? Was that strictly an economic decision or was it because there was something about being here?

It was something special about being here, and it was also a lifestyle choice. It was because, for me at the time - and I think for them now still - that's where we're from. And that's where we wanted to make our money from and grow up from. It wasn't really an economic choice. Purely on numbers, it would have made sense to move to the US, even though costs would have been higher, it would have made sense. We never really seriously talked about upping and moving the whole thing. We wanted to be from here. And that's the same for Melodics.

Are there ever any concerns about finding the right kind of talent?

Oh yeah, always. Always. But it's worth it. It's doable. Part of it is that it can be done, and showing that it can be done, and I think it's a really good thing for New Zealand to have companies doing what we're doing. Because I personally think it's a better export than milk powder. For a well-educated, small country in the middle of nowhere, IP is a really good export. A big part of the message I had when I was CEO at Serato was that I would like to see New Zealand known for exporting amazing technology. Amazing technology is the tangible thing; the less tangible is exporting IP. Get a whole bunch of smart people and you think up ideas and turn them into products and then you send them out into the world... it makes a lot of sense for us as people who are three hours flying away from the nearest major city. I think it's got more future than growing grass and turning it into milk.

Head to melodics.com to download the app for free (no hardware required - you can use your keyboard) and take a peek at what they’ve got in store.

Fail fast. It’s a startup mantra. It speaks to risk-taking, but more pertinently, it speaks to experimentation. Try something new; if it doesn’t work, try something else new. And for heaven’s sake, don’t let the fact that you’ve never seen it before stop you from just giving it a go. 

Working for an organisation that counts “Be Bold, Be Original” as one of its core values, I’ve had to become intimate with the concept of experimentation and overcoming the fear of failure and publicly admitting that something you tried didn’t work. It doesn’t come naturally; I am a planner, a researcher, and a perfectionist. These traits are certainly not incompatible with experimentation, but often we think them to be.

Being given permission to experiment is crazy liberating, though. Having the freedom to know that you can try something weird and different and that your bosses will support you doing so doesn’t just lead to great outcomes… it’s also FUN. That can be anything from turning half the kitchen into whiteboard surfaces (did not work) to launching a weekly seminar (worked!) to DIY-ing an acoustic solution for a meeting room (verdict still pending). On a larger scale, The Printroom was a massive exercise in experimentation - there was certainly no roadmap for a coworking operator to brand and run a fine art printer, but we figured there were probably a few ways to do it, and away we went. And it’s the singular reason why every piece of furniture we buy has wheels. 

That’s not to say we make snap decisions and throw money at things. Like validating a product, we put our ideas and potential solutions under a critical lens and do everything we can to assess the likelihood of our desired outcome. What it does mean, though, is that in cases where we just can’t tell or where it seems 50/50, we take the risk. We experiment. We try it on.

The added bonus to trying, failing, and acknowledging those failures, all in full view of our community, is that it fully demonstrates us living the values that we know can be beneficial for our residents to live by as well. Experimenting with acoustic tiles for a meeting room may not be quite the same as pouring your life savings into a startup venture for the first time, but culture and values are upheld in the everyday. So next time you’re unsure of the next step… just try something.

At the BizDojo, we see collaboration as a metric of community health. But how do we determine what is more or less collaborative? Is it the number of people involved? Is it the amount of time each member contributes? Is it how many different skillsets are at play? We can measure the number of projects that come about that involve multiple Dojo residents, but true collaboration is when an outcome is a unique product of their work together. Not advising, not contracting, but devising... together. 

Some cool projects have unfolded here during my ten months at BizDojo Auckland, but the most collaborative project I’ve seen to date has just gone live. This is a story about that project.

There once was a programmer named Erik (well...he still exists), who works mostly in the realm of Adobe products. A revelation was had one day when he realised how frustrating it was to read PDF format files on a mobile phone. The whole “pinch to zoom” thing just didn’t work well anymore (way too 2009!). So Erik set out to do something about it, and change the experience of countless mobile phone users around the globe.

His fingers hit the keyboard and piece by piece, a new software was gradually constructed. The next question was how to tell the story of his software with maximum effect? Along came a longstanding resident of the Dojo, Dylan Du Plessis of Luc Identity (Dylan and his team specialise in digital and graphic design, as well as branding). Some basic ideas were thrown around before they reached out to Han Law of Pixel Push. Han and his team specialise in digital and 3D animation, but decided to try something new and use stop-motion video for Erik’s new project. 

Countless hours of workshopping began. Props were built. Lights were installed. Cameras were set up. Days turned into nights and again into days, and weekends disappeared (it’s actually quite amazing to see how many hours go into a 30 second video!). As production neared an end, watching and rewatching, the team realised there was a missing element: narration. 

Quickly pivoting away from overlaid text, the team brainstormed what kind of voice would help tell the tale in the most digestible, accessible and international way. They landed on “American”... conveniently the native tongue of this author. The 18 years in New Zealand have softened my accent enough to give it a feeling that was international without being inaccessible. 

Han tapped my shoulder one Friday afternoon while I was already two beers in, and asked what I thought about reading a script they wrote. Already feeling liquid courage, I grabbed the laptop, played a Jack Johnson song, and read the script. The team loved it. The following week, with a little bit of my input, I found myself in a studio recording the voiceover. A few more edits later, and FlexPaper was born. 

Ultimately, this was organic collaboration at its best. Nine people spread over four separate entities came together to create a unique idea far from its initial iteration, all of whom were within Erik’s reach because of the BizDojo community. If that’s our measure of health, we’re doing pretty well. 

Casey McLellan

We just keep getting the raddest humans joining our team. The personalities here at BizDojo constantly remind me that people do not and cannot fit within a pre-established box. We have an Activation Manager with trapeze silks, a Comms and Branding superstar who fosters abused Guinea Pigs ( if ”fosters” means keeps and loves them forever), and a Community Assistant who is also a damn fine personal trainer, just to name a few. Wellington’s new Regional Manager Jessica Manins is no exception. She is a woman of many many talents, having played a key managerial role in the international expansion and growth of online talent community StarNow, on top of her own acting and theatre success born through a passion and love for the creative arts. 

I sat down for a chat with Jessica so we could give you all a little insight into the newest Dojo Panda on the block. 

CM: You’ve taken on the Wellington Regional Manager role at BizDojo. How is the position shaping up against your expectations? Are there things that surprised you about your role?

JM: It's exactly what I expected (and I had high expectations).  Probably the biggest surprise is the level of talent already working in the team.  Some kickarse content creators and people that know how to get stuff done extremely quickly. It's great to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.

CM: (*blushing furiously* Shucks...great start). How are you settling in? Are we weird enough for you?

JM: Weird? I haven't met anyone weird yet. I've grown up in the film, theatre and tech world and if you combine all of those together you’re bound to get some interesting folk. I've met fascinating, positive, innovative, generous people. Everyone has been very welcoming and I am feeling really lucky.

CM: Tell us about someone who greatly inspires and motivates you, and why.

JM: My Dad. He's an outdoor education teacher and growing up he pushed me to do a ton of physical activities that were outside my comfort zone.  He taught me to challenge myself and never give up.

CM: Who was 16 year old you? What was your outlook like, your goals and dreams? What would you say are the biggest changes in your thinking as you have grown and gained experience?

JM: I was immersed in the theatre world at 16 with aspirations of going to drama school. I was positive with little self doubt. The biggest change in my thinking from that 16 year old is probably the realisation that you could be so passionate about something and believe that that was your world and would be forever, only to find yourself growing just as passionate about other things that come along, if not more! 

CM: What REALLY grinds your gears more than anything else?

JM: Being late.  I can't stand it.

CM:  Where is your favourite place in the world and why?

Wellington. I've travelled the world and there is nothing like coming back to this amazing city. It's where my family are, the air is fresh, the south coast stunning, amazing theatre and people with substance.

CM: What’s in your headphones? 

JM: Nothing. If you see me with headphones on there is probably something wrong.

CM: Last but DEFINITELY not least, whats your Secret Ninja Skill?

Talk to any community manager in a coworking space about their biggest day to day frustrations and they’ll all tell you the same thing: it’s the mother*&%$#@! dishwasher. Loading it, turning it on, emptying it… for those of us in the trenches, the struggle is real. At the BizDojo Auckland, I have waged a war on Dishwasher Apathy since starting here nearly two years ago, and I’ve picked up some good strategies along the way.

I’m sharing them now not only for anyone else out there in a shared space struggling with their dishwasher, but also because this scenario is a microcosm for any issue in your community that can become subject to a Tragedy of the Commons mentality. 

1. Ask for help in the moment.

This one I learned from our fearless co-founder, Nick Shewring. When you go to fill/turn on/empty the dishwasher, actively solicit help from other residents in the kitchen. “Hey, would you mind putting these away for me/grabbing the dish powder/rinsing those bowls?” At this point I don’t even ask when I’m emptying it, I just start handing stacks of plates or the cutlery basket to whoever is around me. Half the time I get residents jumping in as soon as I start.

2. Make them think.

We’ve had signage above the countertop - directly above the dishwasher, in fact - that says ‘Clean Up After Yourselves, We Ain’t Your Mamas’. Pretty blunt with a playful edge, right? You’d think that would do the trick, but nope… people become numb to things they’ve seen every day for a year. You have to keep signage fresh, and preferably it’s something that makes someone pause to think about for a second. With that in mind, behold: NSync. The number of times I catch new residents staring at it quizzically… priceless. But by the time you figure it out, you’ve been forced to actually process the message, which is DON’T LEAVE YOUR DISHES IN THE SINK! #result

3. Public shaming!

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I call people out (either politely or with a dash of humour) in public when they drop their dishes and walk away. I’ll also bring it back to your desk if I know it’s yours, AND I’ll take photos and post them on our private residents-only Facebook page. It’s not about being a jerk, it’s about developing a sense of accountability to their fellow community members - and yes, that means inspiring a little bit of guilt.

4. Gamify it.

In a bid to acknowledge the residents who do actively help with the dishwasher (and to be clear, that’s most of them!), I’ve initiated a chalkboard that bears the name of whoever did it last. This was actually a suggestion a couple residents made a wee while ago, and made me realise two things: I’m not alone in wishing everyone would clean up after themselves, and a little credit for helping out goes a long way. Today the chalkboard said ‘Satan’, other days it says ‘The Dish Fairy’, but often it bears two or more names in a touching reminder that collaboration is borne of the everyday.

5. Sometimes, you have to let it all fall apart.

The first time I went on vacation for a few weeks, back when I was the only community staffer at the BizDojo, was the single best thing I ever did for the dishwasher. Because eventually, once there is no more room on the counter and no more dishes on the shelves, our residents were pretty much forced to figure it out themselves. DREAM RESULT! So to this day, every once in a while I decide to go on a private mini-strike, ignore the dishes piling up, and let the community self-correct. It’s magical. (Provided you don’t have a high profile guest coming through the space at the same time you decide to let anarchy reign for an hour.)

I always talk about community management as being similar to teaching, in that theoretically, you want to become redundant because you’ve created a self-sustaining mode of thinking. Realistically, that will never happen - we will always need to be actively stoking the fires of communal responsibility to combat the natural entropy - but building a strong culture of self-reliance like we currently have at the BizDojo Auckland can certainly make your job easier.

For those of you who haven’t visited BizDojo’s greener pastures down in Wellington (haha) it’s about time you did. The Wellington culture lends itself to a vibrant, bustling and well connected hub for innovation and technology, and we are lucky enough to host some of the coolest startups in our space!

One such team, Point Zero (formally known as One Legged Crab) was started by Chris Mather and Ryan Loader who met at University and went on to make it through Victoria’s Entrepreneur Bootcamp (another initiative we host out of our space). Their first year of work resulted in one game and earned them “a grand total of $11”, (“I wonder if it has earned more money now”?). They then set about a new tact of developing a new game every week. One of these; Boy Goes to Space was a wild success on the indie game sharing website Playism. They got somewhat of a cult following after showcasing at PAX Australia last year and have come a long way from developing short and poppy leisure games to one of their most current projects; developing educating and informing digital experiences that will help shape the course of medical marketing.

So what do pharmaceutical companies and game developers have in common? That may be a hard one, but both use cutting edge technology to stay at the top of their game. One of Point Zero’s current projects has them developing a way to allow their clients to demonstrate the complex aspects of how their new technologies and medicines work. They translate complex human physiological and therapeutic mechanisms into high quality, scientifically accurate, highly memorable immersive 3D experiences.

Still lost? Point Zero is in partnership with Genulin (another BizDojo Wellington resident) and The Malaghan Institute of Medical Technology, to create the very real experience of seeing how a medicine or treatment affects your body at a cellular and molecular level by using Virtual Reality. The idea is to be able to witness exactly what a new treatment will do to combat an illness, i.e those watching through a virtual reality experience with Oculus can dive into the human body and observe how a new pharmaceutical is working to treat cancer; visually.

Virtual reality allows you to interact with the concept, they can zoom in to a cellular level where the user can explore and even influence their environment. The experience lets you travel down blood vessels and through important processes in the human body. For example; “a monoclonal antibody can be shown attaching itself to a receptor on a specific type of cancer cell and how it then causes the cell to be targeted by other elements of the immune system”. Did that make any sense? Well now imagine you are watching it through an Oculus Rift! Virtual Reality has changed the face of gaming and now gamers are changing the face of medical technology.

For the sake of brevity I won’t harp on about the other technologies they are developing, but these boys are definitely ones to watch. As a side note, would you like to win a Samsung Galazy 6? Download the game Point Zero developed for Victoria University “Victoria Balloon Blitz”, get yourself on the leaderboard and every month you will have a chance to win a shiny new phone. While you are at it go and check out Pogo Sheep (my current favourite time wasting activity).

A few years back, a few fine gentlemen were offered sponsored desks at The BizDojo for three months to work on a super cool event concept. Two of them included Shane O’Connell, and Matty Blomfield. The former, coming from a computer science and event background, and the latter, coming from a marketing background, realised that there was an obvious missing piece in the hackathon ecosystem.

Thus was born Hacktivate - the first of its kind. It was essentially groomed to be an eSport for coders. What exactly does this mean though? Well, much like chess is deemed a sport, these two saw the massive growth in coding around the world, and recognised that there’s a better way to give it a competitive angle.

And what competition it brings! The first, as well as many successive iterations, saw several teams enter a venue packed full of all the goodies generally exhibited at a standard Saturday night event; lighting gear, a sound set up, a DJ, a bar, entertainment of various descriptions, bands, and best of all, a full house of spectators and cheering onlookers. The difference here was the focal point of coders waiting to be let loose to dominate their opponents.

It works like this: each team gets briefed on what the challenge is going to be prior to the competition. This allows for some basic planning. The tournament is programming language agnostic, which means that teams could use any programming language in their arsenal and still affect the logic that occurs behind the scenes. The challenges have been well thought out, and built from the ground up. Concepts like “Hungry Hippos” running around the screen chasing apples, and “The Heist” which required the teams to break into a vault, then outrun the police in a street-style chase, all done with code, and all done on the fly. As hippos or bank-robbers of one team make movements and choices, other teams can respond, completely live, in this tense, high speed environment. All is displayed on big screens in a visually aesthetic format (rather than code), with live MC’s and two commentators, in classic sporting style.

You wouldn’t necessarily expect a computer based event like this to pull a crowd, or actually maintain the excitement. But if you’ve had the opportunity to attend one of these, you’d see how interactive the whole experience can be - it’s not just passive viewing. With some thought and creativity, the Hacktivate team manage to gamify the whole night, with various challenges, card games, ice breakers, and so on. The effect is, ultimately, a multifaceted and exciting, action packed evening, that has a broader spectrum of appeal than you’d get from a standard “geeky” event - especially a run-of-the-mill hackathon.

That being said, things have recently changed for the Hacktivate team. After many successes, and even getting commissioned to set one up in Christchurch, they realised that there is serious potential in the brand. They’re now mobilising to open the event to the whole Asia-Pacific region and opening it up to an online audience of both competitors and spectators. This is not without its hurdles of course, as it will require an entirely new format - competitors can’t compete from within a live venue if they’re all over the world. Hundreds are already registering for the online event from New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and more - and the overt marketing machine hasn’t even begun to push the concept to the world.

One thing’s for sure however. So far as research has shown on their end, there’s nothing quite like it on the planet right now, and that makes it very exciting. With coding becoming such a key part of the tech world, and the industry growing, there’s plenty of room for Hacktivate to be a lead player. Now all we need to see is the Hacktivate crew organise a Silicon Valley edition of the event, pitting representatives from various tech companies against each other. It may be a dream, but seeing Zuckerberg vs Musk vs Gates in an all out battle of their greatest attributes would be likened to a clash of modern titans.

The world of code is already cool. What coders do is already incredible. Hacktivate aims to bring the crème de la crème to the top of global rankings so we can celebrate the world’s best.