Tim Calder

It has been 8 years since I started my Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Otago back in 2002, I have since finished this degree, a Masters of Entrepreneurship, and now I have only the last 10 week module of the Otago MBA to go before I embark on my 540 business research & report project.

Our last finance lecture with Dr. Robin Grieves was one of the most memorable yet. Robin invited our class to his beautiful house in Company Bay where he prepared us an enjoyable  lunch. As you can see the views from Robin’s house were amazing, and weather perfect!

Luke Herlihy and I (and a few other Otago MBA classmates) were going to give it our best shot at presenting the gains to students if OUSA was in support of the construction of the new Stadium at Awatea Street when quorum count was called and the meeting was closed as there were only 136 at the meeting when 196 (1% of student population) was required.

THAT OUSA rescind motion 26/07. “THAT OUSA does not support the construction of the new stadium in Awatea Street”

THAT OUSA rescind motion 27/07. “THAT OUSA does NOT support the construction of the new stadium in Awatea Street if it (or related development) either:

• Contributes to fee increases, or
• Negatively affects OUSA’s ownership or control of UNIPOL”

THAT OUSA actively establish a positive working relationship with the Carisbrook Stadium Trust for the betterment of students and the wider community.

THAT OUSA supports the construction of the new stadium in Awatea Street.

SGM’s are a way in which students can have their say in what they want from their University experience and how things can be improved for their betterment. The problem is though that as the University’s role has grown and technology improved the system in which OUSA is run has not. This system may have worked when the student role was 4000, 1% of this would have meant 40 people. Now that the role is up to close to 20,0o0 people, 200 people are required! This makes the logistics of coordinating the meeting considerably more difficult.

What I believe Edwin Darlow, OUSA President, is looking to instigate is an online voting system whereby all students have the ability to listen to motions via video feed and then after deliberation cast their vote. This would be a far better system as ‘all’ students would have the opportunity to have their say.

The Department of Economics in conjunction with the newly established Visiting Executive Programme present John McDermott, Assistant Governor and Head of Economics at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand as he presents “Conducting Monetary Policy in Turbulent Times”. This seminar will be held on Friday 13 March at 12noon in room CO2.03.

This is the 33rd year of the Otago MBA and my second year as a student on this course. The Otago MBA is a boutique MBA programme with just 10 full time students and with another 7 part time dBA students. This is my second and final year on the programme with only one other paper to complete externally in 2010, which is the Consulting Project - BUSI 540 - which I have already comenced. 

The central feature of the Otago MBA course is the management consulting project and research dissertation. The paper has two components, Firstly, students act as consultants to the senior management of a client organisation, identify and resolve issues confronting their clients and so add value to the clients’ operations. The theoretical underpinning of the management project is contained in a major research dissertaion, which comprises the second component. The Otago MBA

It was a great choice to take the Otago MBA over two years as I have been able to meet a wider range of people each with experience in different industries. As the class is small we are also able to get to know each other and lecturers more than if the class was larger. This module I am taking Economics with Dr Paul Hanson, Business Law with Stephen Baird, Marketing with Dr Rob Hamlin, and Statistics with Dr Lynn McAlevey.

Prof. Brendan Gray , course director and Dunedin City Council Chair of Entrepreneurship, organised an excellent event where local business people that had been involved in the Masters of Entrepreneurship programme were able to celebrate with the graduating students an end to another great year of this highly successful masters course. Among the guests was former Dunedin woman Amanda Ellis, Senior Executive of the World Bank based in Washington DC, who spoke about the strong need for Entrepreneurship in the current state of the world’s economy. Other invited guests included the team from Pocketsmith who have produced a cashflow and financial forecasting web application to help people with budgeting. This event highlighted the support and encouragement that Dunedin provides Entrepreneurs over other cities in New Zealand.

This has been an excellent week at the Otago MBA as Don Walker (course coordinator) put together a great line up of guest speakers from around New Zealand all with areas of international expertise.

• Prof. Robert Patman, Department of Politics
• Prof. Rick Garside, Department of Economics
• Stephen Jacobi, Director of NZ International Business Forum
• Rod Drury, CEO of Xero
• Michael Gleissner, CFO of Sealord Group
• Allen Frazer, Meat and Wool NZ
• Pat English, China Market Manager of NZTE
• Murray Denyer, Zespri International
• Dr. John Yeabsley, NZ Institute of Economic Research
• Geoff Cassels, Venture Capitalist
• Michael Parrott, CFO of Tower Investments
• Richard Mehrtens, Globaleagle
• Jen Porter, Investor and Director of TradeMobile
• Alex Duncan, Strategy Director of Fonterra
• Prof. Geoff Kearsley, Department of Tourism

The highlight of the week for me was listening to Rod Drury who would have to be New Zealand’s greatest Entrepreneur. Rod has no problem with sharing with others his goal of becoming a billionaire, and because he has had such a successful track record everyone who listens has no trouble believing it.

Over this week I met many successful business people whom I had never heard of before, one of which was Richard Mehrtens who gave an excellent presentation about International Business in general. Richard was easily the most entertaining as no other guest speaker was able to squeeze so many offensive words/phases into their presentation. Richard shared a lot of his personal experiences with the class, some good and others bad but all amazing as the deals he talked about involved several hundred million dollars.

Acknowledgement needs to be made to Don Walker for preparing such an interesting and enjoyable program for the week. This week is definitely a highlight of the Otago MBA course I have completed to date.

This evening Students of the University of Otago were fortunate to participate in Public Policy discussions with the New Zealand Business Roundtable Executive Director, Rodger Kerr. Unfortunately much of the discussion seemed to circle around the recent event of Winston Peters and the undeclared donation of funds to the Spencer Trust.

It was good to see however the range of different diciplines the students came from and how each of their questions related to policies that would potentially effect their future careers. There was a good turn out of business students, many of which had recently competed in the Audacious Business Plan Competition who had some excellent questions for Rodger Kerr and the MP’s that attended the event. These questions brought about great discussions on Entrepreneurial incentives and support and challenged the MP’s that attended to pay more attention to this growing area of activity.

After constantly hearing about all of my parents exhaustive efforts in competing in the Ballance Farm Environmental awards over the past few years I was shocked to read the google alert that came up reporting on a ‘Scoop article’ explaining that they are keen to do it all over again. A lot of time goes into preparing farms for these awards as such a wide range of areas are judged. I understand that this time my father has been preparing for a couple of years and thanks to Environment Bay of Plenty (EBOP) he has managed to retire and plant many uneconomic and environmentally sensitive areas of the farm.

Bruce and Tessa entered the Ballance Farm Environment Awards in 2006 and won the Ballance Nutrient Management Award. Judges were impressed by the Calder’s switch from blanket fertiliser application to a planned approach of identifying individual paddocks and liming and fertilising them according to the results of soil test recommendations. (Scoop, 16/9/08)

This announcement comes just as I finish my Sustainability paper which is part of the Otago MBA with John Craig. John has spent the last three weeks discussing the many areas of unsustainable business processes, many of which are not often considered by those exploiting the environment. It was John’s intent to make us aware of how companies are making unsustainable decisions, which can be prevented, in order for us to become more environmentally aware managers.

Last week I met with Pierre-Em and Jason over drink at South Bar to catchup with how our ventures are progressing. Pierre-Em is the co-founder of G-tours which is developing a cross platform software solution that combines GPS technology and data management on mobile devices for the tourism industry. Jason is the co-founder of PocketSmith which is an online cash flow management system used to help you budget for future purchases/savings goals.

At this meeting we talked about forming an ICT network of young entrepreneurs around Dunedin who would meet regularly to discuss our highs & lows, successes & challenges. We would also use this opportunty to allow people to network with other companies in related industries and to listen to guest speakers and angel investors. This would also provide people like us with a chance to discuss the support they require as many new business ventures are not aware of what organisations can help them.

One of the main objectives of forming this group would be to endeavor to gather together enough like-minded people that have great ICT ideas which need developing so that we can establish New Zealand’s first Y-Combinator which we would call The Distiller.

Y Combinator is a new kind of venture firm specializing in funding early stage startups. We help startups through what is for many the hardest step, from idea to company.

We invest mostly in software and web services. And because we are ourselves technology people, we prefer groups with a lot of technical depth. We care more about how smart you are than how old you are, and more about the quality of your ideas than whether you have a formal business plan.

The Y-Combinator has experienced huge success overseas with a range of great investor ready businesses coming out of incubation regularly. We believe this can be replicated in Dunedin as there is already the key components of this concept in place;

• Kickstart Entrepreneurial support,
• UPSTART Business incubator,
• New Zealand’s most valuable Angel Investor network,
• Otago University’s Centre for Innovation and research,
• and five supportive regional mayors which make up the Otago Forward Economic Development Strategy

In the next few weeks we will be approaching these different organisations and others to try to establish ways that we can all work together to achieve success. At the same time we need to start our regular meetings at the Dunedin Club where we have been allocated conference rooms and more importantly the bar.

Kickstart is an excellent promoter of Entrepreneurship in Dunedin and has helped a surprisingly large amount of students in from the University of Otago and the Otago Polytechnic. Kickstart representatives are present at all the major business seminars held in Dunedin by either the University, Polytechnic, Chamber of Commerce, or other organisations like BioSouth. With the support of the University of Otago School of Business, Kickstart has a ‘Start-up’ lounge where students have access to business material, meeting rooms and internet. ‘Start-up’ is a great place to meet like minded people, share some ideas you’re working on, and make some good business contacts. I am encouraged to read how many students have taken advantage of Kickstart’s resources and setup their own business.

Some statistics to date (as at November 2007):

• Over 2700 students spoken to at lectures across a wide range of departments
• 1505 one-on-one student consultations since February 2005
• 230 have started a business alongside their study
• Wide range of study majors (45% Business, 36% Science, 19% Humanities)
• 61% of the general student population has considered their own business
• 31% of the general student population knows of the Kickstart service

Kickstart also runs the NBR Audacious Otago Business Plan Challenge which is held annually and makes available prizes to the value of $50,000 to launch student business ideas and plans. More valuable than the money is the UPSTART Business Incubators services which includes professional mentoring from very experienced current business people who can also put you in front of Angel Investors when your business is ready.