Inspired by Auckland [2008]
I’ve been doing a lot more work in Auckland recently and I have to say I’m impressed. And inspired. So i+i that I find I’m starting to think "multi-local" thoughts - an inner city Auckland apartment [with whisper glass] AND my current southern bolt-hole.
With some very interesting and valuable work as the ultimate prize. And an enormous forest block to offset the carbon emissions of course.
What my friend quoted on the right finds in Auckland, and what I have also found in abundance there, is OPPORTUNITY. The entrepreneurial New Zealand kind – being able to slip through the gaps and try something new, taking slightly audacious risks and benefitting from them.
And being rewarded for core business values such as effort and perseverance.
I always thought I'd ultimately move my business base entirely to Wellington. But in business terms it just doesn't seem that vibrant. It seems less confident, more introverted. You don't expect major innovations or business initiatives to begin there anymore.
Maybe Jane Clifton's article in last week's Listener was right - that in Wellington, the dominant response to the nation's perceived problems is to procure sand in which to bury one’s head.
Since the nation's more interesting problems are my bread and butter, I guess my positive Auckland experience this year has been aided by the fact that I’ve been promoting my Economic Downturn project – which is now entering its fieldwork phase.
If any city would feel the flow-on effects of high petrol prices and diminished consumption it’s Auckland – which produces, imports and distributes most of our major consumer goods.
Our Auckland based subscribers are really interested in discovering what’s happening to New Zealander's behaviour and expectations and in finding constructive ways to help turn consumer crisis into new opportunities
That might surprise some people. Despite their central role in supplying the necessities of our lives, it's been common for many New Zealanders to see Aucklanders almost as lesser citizens of godzone.
Especially in Christchurch. There, they seem to have a hard job believing that Aucklanders are just as ‘in and of and by and for’ New Zealand as the rest of us.
I’ve always found the Christchurch [and Hamilton and Dunedin and Napier etc] habit of defining people from Auckland as outsiders quite adolescent and pointless.
As I said in my 2003 paper ‘Making the Most of Auckland’, if we didn’t have Auckland we’d awl huv to tawk loik thees – because we’d be part of Australia. And believe me, that would annoy Christchurch people even more.
Christchurch’s population has risen quite a lot since the 1980’s and it does a lot of our exporting, so it’s a very important business centre in its own right.
But ironically, as it has grown it has become more and more like Auckland – with more industry, more malls, more lifestyle, more cheap looking light commercial buildings and more people concerned about their property values and their career paths.
The NOT Auckland identity they still foster there is becoming largely fictional. [Especially if they’re really thinking NOT North Shore tribe].
However, there is one major difference in mindset between the two centres, which another friend illustrated for me just this week.
He was viewing a focus group in Christchurch in which it became clear that seven people held one opinion and one person had a contrary view. At this point group dynamics took a turn for the worse as the seven proceeded to browbeat the rebel into agreeing with them.
Funny. But it’s true isn’t it? Conformity has greater value in Christchurch. In Auckland the others wouldn’t really expect you to be the same as them because Auckland generates diversity, not least by enabling like-minded people to cluster together in more and more specialised ways.
The 8 tribes tap into this diversity of Auckland to great effect, [so much so that we had to create Dunedin and Christchurch versions of the tribes before they gained acceptance there].
The perceived personality of different places is a fascinating thing. And it isn't just an illusion. Richard Florida’s recent book ‘Who’s Your City?’ shows how different kinds of cities attract people of different ages, life-stages and even personality types – leading to an intensification of association between certain places, people and personalities.
I like his map of personality types which shows neurotics clustered round New York – along with people who describe themselves as ‘open to experience’. The latter are also clustered in LA, San Francisco, Seattle and Denver, Colorado – the new ‘it’ city.
I did some work some years ago [pre-tribes] on the different faces of Auckland – the wild and free west, the stark but vibrant south, the sophisticated middle and the safe lifestyle-focused north.
It fascinated me at the time how narrow the inhabitants' perceptions of Auckland were, compared to the social and visual richness which governed their actual experience of living and working there.
Recent migrants were the most clear-sighted about the city's qualities. It was as if longer term inhabitants made little tracks through the city - like a jungle – focusing far more on the traffic on those tracks than on the possibilities that surrounded them.
And all the rest of us saw was the Sky Tower and a bunch of fat cat yachts.
I’m glad to find Auckland coming into its own as a place for the ‘up for it’ people to live and I hope to do what I can to help them make more of their opportunities.
Because, seriously for a moment, if New Zealand is going to avoid the worst effects of this too-complicated-to-be-summed-up-in-one-catchphrase downturn, many more businesses will need to find constructive ways to help their customers to recalibrate their expectations and their spending patterns.
Right now there seems to be a potent cocktail of stresses and strains on households. And growing evidence that those stresses will be the catalyst for some fundamental changes of emphasis in how we live and consume.
So I think that meeting these challenges head on and finding ways to help clients manage money and anxiety will pay off handsomely for those who are up for it.
Cheers
Jill Caldwell is Director of Windshift Communications Ltd. Click Here to contact Jill directly This is a free monthly newsletter provided to direct subscribers and legitimate Windshift contacts only. No further use is made of subscriber information. [Copyright Windshift Communications Ltd 2006]
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"People there are just up for it. They don’t over-think things or have issues with not-invented-here intellectual arrogance” [A Wellington businessman talking about Auckland]
