Photo credit: Kirk Hargreaves, The Press
Today has been a great day of quiet celebration and looking forward to the future at the official opening of Memia’s (and 16 other technology companies) new home, the EPIC centre in Christchurch CBD: http://www.epicinnovation.co.nz . That’s exactly 1 year and 9 months since the devastating earthquake of Feb 22nd 2011 disrupted all of our lives and left so many businesses without a base and with a very uncertain future. Today’s building opening draws a line under the last 2 years and sets the foundation for building a leaner, stronger and better organised technology sector based in our fantastic brand new 21st Century New Zealand city.
Once again, great job Wil, Colin, the sponsors and to all the individuals who have put in huge amounts of voluntary time and effort to make the whole project the success it is already.
Here are some links to today’s media coverage:
TV1:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/business-looking-up-in-christchurch-video-5233356
TV3:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Christchurchs-answer-to-Silicon-Valley/tabid/309/articleID/277739/Default.aspx
Stuff.co.nz:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/7985547/Pair-win-battle-in-Silicon-Gully
…and no, Mayor Bob Parker, “Silicon Gully” is probably NOT a particularly apt description! Firstly Christchurch CBD is flat and there’s no gully (?!?) – and secondly “Silicon Valley” in California is so called historically because the whole silicon microprocessor industry based themselves there in the 60s/70s/80s. We don’t have any silicon here either!
Let’s focus instead on what we do have: New Zealand’s burgeoning high-tech scene (to which today’s EPIC opening is a core addition) is developing a global reputation for producing niche solution innovation - the realisation of new customer value in new ways in many different deep market niches worldwide. Personally I think we need to highlight this growing delivery capability of high-value specialist solutions to an international audience of investors, entrepreneurs and technologists – rather than spout clichéd phrases from a technology industry 20 years ago and half a world away.
Here are the underlying memes:
Christchurch /Canterbury / South Island /New Zealand
Technology / Software / Niche / Specialist / Innovative /Solutions / Value
…over to the branding specialists…!
