In the country of New Zealand there continues to be a lot of wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth and even self flagellation over the ‘Kiwi productivity issue’ - working harder and harder every year and somehow falling further and further behind others on ‘the league tables of productive nations’ … what’s to be done?

It’s a question that is constantly asked and answered in posts all over LinkedIN - everyone seems to have an answer - but ‘execution’ remains lacking. I have also attended a few sessions in the past couple of months where the same questions are asked. The same answers emerge The inaction continues.

I have my theories - not least of which is answered by what will be going on in Aotearoa soon - and will continue until Waitangi Day (ask a local). It’s worse - because there is a lead up to the period - already in full flow as the ‘great wind down' begins to kick in.

Apocryphal? Maybe - but some told me recently that in their “28 years in business they had not once received a purchase commitment after October 28th.” .. he didn’t say - but I am guessing “and never before February 6th”.

Doug wrote ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus in 2016’. This quote just popped up in my feed and prompted this post

It’s taking a while to sink in - though it always does ‘down here’.

This in turn reminded of this observation by Alex Pawlowski over in the land of Substack (coincidentally - ‘Hamish’ one of the two co-founders is a Kiwi).

Alex was riffing on AI …

AI has made ideas abundant. You can generate a strategy, a campaign, a business plan in minutes. The new scarcity isn’t insight — it’s implementation. Execution becomes the strategic moat.

I would argue that has always been the case. I’d be a billionaire if I had a dollar for every time I have been told ‘that idea isn’t original - I visualised that years ago’. The correct reply?

They executed.

(A dollar? What happened to cents? Dollars only accepted because the cent is apparently no more.)

That (execution) is what we are not doing. (Broad sweeping generalisation for sure - but in a nation that prides itself with its ‘edge’ - the blade does seem to have become a tad ‘dull’

Having a coffee this week with someone I saw talking about this very problem last week. I know we are on the same ‘thinking’ page - I wonder how we can move the conversation to action - because down here we do seem to be waiting - for everyone else - to make the move.

If you want to red more of my related ramblings on New Zealand - you can do that

🤯

If you have at all been paying attention to this stream you will know that I have been wrestling with a mouse issue. My Trackpad is fine - never an issue. My Magic Mouse is fine - only one issue - in a browser - any browser - I have to swipe and swipe and swipe to scroll down a page - any page. With the trackpad - smooth as silk. Outside of a browser - no problems at all.

I have posted into bulletin boards, logged onto community, changed my user profile, asked Apple - changed every friggin' setting known to humanity - and much more besides - including for the cognoscenti - I even learned about ‘EtreCheckPro’ and installed … ** Nada.**

This morning I happened to read about someone having an unresolvable Mac issue - and so turned to ChatGPT … 🤯 - number two.

I have been a paid user of Claude and ChatGPT for a while - but sometimes I still forget that they are there … so I thought - hell - why not.

it took it 4 or 5 minutes of back and forth to make sure it was happy that I had all the right bits switched on and off - and then we did some testing on sites - and then - Terminal …. so now I knew I was going into uncharted waters.

AND - I kid you not - about another 5 minutes later including a couple of reboots - FIXED - after months of elapsed time and HOURS of actually trying to fix this very weird thing … all done in less than 10 minutes.

This was the final recommendation that turned it around.

… needed.

Just rewatched - had forgotten all about it - so good.

🔗 Safari 26 Bug Turns Routine Browsing into a Memory Nightmare

.. I have been suffering from this - and I THINK this is the problem.

I originally THOUGHT I had narrowed it down to TextExpander since every time I closed TextExpander the problem seemed to right itself. Escalated to TextExpander - who told me how to do a clean install - which I did - but it didn’t fix the problem - because of course Text Expander isn’t an Electron app.

Props and big kudos to ‘Christa’ at Text Expander for the response time and help. 🙏🏼

Later: TURNS OUT NEVER WAS A TEXTEXPANDER ISSUE - all coincidence.

This morning I gave Claude a list of all my Mac apps - and it tells me that these are the electron ones …

• ChatGPT
• Obsidian
• Signal
• Microsoft Teams (the only part of Microsoft allowed on my Mac)
• Dropbox
• Slack

So I think ChatGPT and Slack are my likely biggest culprits.

I am #KeepingAmEyeOnThis

Marvellous … so good.

I joined Lyris roughly 13 years ago. On my arrival - I had the ‘swag bag’ waiting for me in which was a mouse mat …and 13 years later not only do I still have it but it travels with me to most places I go.

Today I was taken by an article by 🔗 Scott Brinker - famed for his ‘stack maps’ - in which Lyris used to feature.

His articles arrives - and I either miss it - or I scan it - or I read it. On this occasion 🔗 1967 was the summer of love we will remember 2025 as the summer of vibes I read it - and - ummmm - no.

Umm - hell no.

…maybe one day I will follow this up with a more detailed reasoning why - but for now “yeah, no” is the only appropriate response.

Why?

1967 was music, movement, and meaning.

2025? Unless you live in a tech bubble (and clearly many do) I would suggest that when people look back from 2050, and ask how they remember 2025 - I suspect the answers or more likely to fall into categories such as;

• That America lost democracy.
• That the world slipped further into fascism.
• That we tipped past the point of no return on climate.
• That AI passed the tipping point - ushering in 50% unemployment. OR
• That AI passed the tipping point - and finally - humanity is actually free to live, create, and flourish.

My bet? However it lands, it won’t be remembered as the ‘summer of vibes’.

I am assuming that Scott has one of his tongues in one of his cheeks - so I won’t get too uppity - but just one more question - how many of you look back to 2022 as the year of

• The SPACs (and their collapse) - until their 2025 revival
• Web3 (remember when that was going to save us?)
• Cyber <fill in your ‘phrase du jour» it mainly created headlines)
• The restart of the Ukraine War (potential start of WW3)
• The end of free money
• The arrival of ChatGPT

.. and this was just 3 years ago

That said - BIG doff of hat to Lyris CMO and all round lovely man - 🔗Alex Lustberg for being 15 years ahead of tech culture and capturing ‘vibe’ as part of The Lyris culture.

This post is extracted from something I received from my friend 🔗 Randall Rospond - over on Maui.

He writes …

I first became aware of this song in 1989 when I purchased the cassette of Jackson Browne’s ‘World in Motion’ … and it spoke to me deeply then and has throughout the years.
It speaks to me more these days in the midst of America’s great lying disaster in the White House and the ruin of what I believed the USA had always ‘tried’ to stand for. Freedom. The song was written by Little Steven … and released on his Disciples of Soul album 1984. With this … I pray some sanity , rule of law , integrity , honesty and compassion return to America and the world … asap. … peace and aloha Randall

Ticketmaster - for it is they that own ‘Moshtix’ now have in THEIR system MY full and legal name that ‘must match’ the name I used to book my tickets, my phone number, my email, which city and country and zip code I live in - all of which was ‘needed’ as I booked tickets for a concert. Quite why they needed all that is unclear - because even the ID ‘enshitification’ stuff is their ‘information grab’ doesn’t solve the problem of scalping - they are just forcing data out of people - the bad guys have ways round it.

This all came to mind as I read 🔗 this from Don Marti - after he read this from Doc Searls.

Doc is a personal story - the key one to read is Don’s where he summarises surveillance ‘myths and the reality’.

I particularly liked this one …

surveillance myth: small businesses want social media advertising
reality: they wanted social networking and got switched over. Policy changes that limit surveillance will make independent businesses better off.

.. but the others are just as important.

Which is all currently high in my mind - because I am reviewing a new app that someone has recommended to me - and on their web site they write ( I paraphrase and add bold)

… a B2B marketing company that helps businesses find and close high-value customers faster by identifying which companies are most likely to buy before they raise their hand. They use AI and data signals to spot early intent, then deliver targeted ads and personalised outreach to decision-makers at those companies. Their model blends analytics, account-based marketing and sales activation to reduce waste and boost conversion.

I wonder how they do all that if they aren’t into surveillance … which as you know - I am not a big fan of … back to Don

surveillance myth: content is fungible, targeting algorithms are uniquely valuable.
reality: expert brands such as King Arthur Baking and Tieman Tire have product and service knowledge that differentiates them, and that the company can keep and build on.

The problem with that reality is that it takes time - and most people want the shortcut.