New Zealand’s neglected digital diplomacy

Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: New Zealand’s neglected digital diplomacy

New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was ranked 102 in the Digital Diplomacy Review 2017.

By Fahad Alammad

New Zealand has unique values, culture and history – but it rarely features in international media. Our small population and isolated geographic location means a lack of prominence within the global system and this affects our level of newsworthiness and influence.

One way to tackle this issue is to bypass mainstream media and tell our stories through social media networks like Twitter and Facebook. A coordinated and a well-considered digital diplomatic strategy could substantially strengthen New Zealand’s international status and support its efforts to leverage greater influence and appeal.

Facebook and Twitter could be useful tools in supporting a new kind of digital diplomacy to reach out to citizens, companies, global audience, and others. These have shown they can be a means to drive fundamental changes in societies when used in the right way by the right people. There is no reason to believe they can’t have a bigger role in enhancing New Zealand’s reputation by directing the world’s attention to what we do.

But New Zealand’s official social media channels are mostly under-utilised, or segmented towards specific regions and to an English-speaking audience. Among 209 world foreign ministries, New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was ranked 102 in the Digital Diplomacy Review 2017 – just after Uganda and Pakistan. The review measures ministries of foreign affairs’ presence, creativity and engagement across different social media assets such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Massey PhD candidate Fahad Alammad is researching business diplomacy.

Sceptical of ‘megaphone diplomacy’

To establish a social media presence and influence views and perception, different governments and ministries of foreign affairs engage in digital diplomacy. For example, Sweden, the United States, France, and the UK have created multiple social media channels in different languages directed toward diverse regions to defend and promote their countries’ interests. Some of these channels attract hundreds of thousands of followers with millions of interactions from all over the world.

In comparison, the government of New Zealand’s only official social media account is not verified or actively seeking to communicate directly with either a foreign audience or foreign governments about its news and stories. New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT) is increasingly using social media channels but the channels are in English, and not necessarily innovative and customised. As a result, these channels do not generate the engagement and influence aspired to by digital diplomacy.

MFAT’s chief executive Brook Barrington said this about digital diplomacy: “New Zealand has long favoured the benefits of modest and moderate collaboration…and being sceptical of megaphone diplomacy”, so it’s no surprise its social media efforts, so far, have been understated.

But digital diplomacy should not be viewed as a form of megaphone diplomacy. Rather, it should be used as a tool to actively communicate, engage, and promote New Zealand’s interests worldwide and to tell the stories of who we are, what we are doing, and why we are doing it. Universities also have a role to play in training politically astute and media savvy graduates in the art and science of digital diplomacy.

Looking forward, I believe the government of New Zealand should actively seek to increase its global presence in social media by creating different channels across various platforms in multiple languages. These channels need to be run by enthusiastic and interactive people who truly understand and appreciate the uniqueness of New Zealand and express it in a way that other parts of the world can recognise.

In the long run, the government of New Zealand, and its various ministries, need to actively engage in multi-language e-diplomacy to spread information about New Zealand to the rest of the world. These activities can only serve to enhance New Zealand’s reputation and promote its interests globally in different areas of public life, including tourism, education, politics, and research.

New Zealand might be isolated geographically, but there is no need to insist on being virtually isolated as well.

Fahad Alammar is a PhD candidate at Massey’s School of Management. His PhD thesis is focused on empirically investigating the concept of business diplomacy.

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March 6, 2018

International Women’s Day cycling event expands

Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: International Women’s Day cycling event expands

International Women’s Day cycling event expands

Cycling enthusiasts, from left, Ellie Clayton from ChangeMakers Refugee Forum, tutor Nicola Macaulay from Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Leidy Hurtado who took part in the event last year, Cushla Donovan from Revolve cycles and former postgraduate student Alex Neems who are participating in the 2018 cycling event to coincide with International Women’s Day.

For the second consecutive year, Massey University has teamed up with other Wellington organisations for a community event that invites former refugee women to improve their bike riding skills.

Coinciding with International Women’s Day on Thursday, senior lecturer Dr Negar Partow and tutor Nicola Macaulay from the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the Wellington campus, have teamed up with the group including the non-governmental organisation ChangeMakers Refugee Forum, to offer the women new to Wellington the opportunity to try a new skill and meet others in a similar situation.

Cycle trails and simple obstacle courses will be set up at Kilbirnie Park as instructors from Revolve, ReBicycle Wellington and MUD Cycles, take the women through the cycling basics.

This year, similar events will also be held at The Esplanade in Palmerston North and the Sandringham Road extension in Auckland.

Undertaking such an activity was a great way for the women to take their minds off their own struggles to re-settle at a time when the plight of refugees and rising nationalism dominate world headlines, Dr Partow says.

It also highlighted Massey’s relationship with the city’s NGOs and wider community, and hopefully signalled to other Wellington businesses the importance of engaging in social activism.

“Settling into a new culture and facing the challenges of adapting to a different way of life can be incredibly stressful for former refugees who have fled conflict and destruction in their home country,” Ms Macaulay says.

Dr Partow adds: “Participating in social and sporting activities allows diverse communities to interrelate and exchange ideas about some of those challenges.”

Ms Macaulay says the main point of the cycling morning was for women to come together and have fun.

“Agencies have come together to make these opportunities possible. It’s important that organisations do more of this and reach out to refugee background populations.”

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March 6, 2018

The Māori economic renaissance

Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: The Māori economic renaissance

Massey alumnus Mavis Mullins, of Rangitāne, Te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi and Ngāti Ranginui, has forged a hugely successful career in primary industries.

By Dr Jason Paul Mika

Māori businesses now account for an economic asset base of more than NZ$42.6 billion, according to the latest estimates. Small and medium-sized enterprises make up the largest part of the Māori economy. These entrepreneurs are building on a business approach with ancient roots – a Māori way of thinking and doing business and its ability to reconnect with our common heritage as descendants of Papatūānuku, mother earth.

Drivers of Māori entrepreneurship

A number of developments are likely to be driving this. Chief among them are Māori frustration and anger over the negative effects of loss of land, language, culture and tribal autonomy over successive generations. The response has been a cultural renaissance. It started in the early 1970s and set out to reaffirm Māori as tangata whenua (people of the land) with enduring rights as the indigenous people of Aotearoa.

Out of this period of tumult came the Crown’s attempt at peace and reconciliation with Māori through the Waitangi Tribunal. Settlements under the Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed by Māori chiefs and representatives of the British Crown in 1840, are probably the single-most important factor in changing perceptions of the Māori economy.

However, settlements made up only about one per cent of the NZ$36.9 billion Māori economic asset base in 2010. It is the 15,600 or so Māori small and medium-sized enterprises, managing NZ$26 billion in assets, that make up the largest part of the Māori economy. Bankers, investors and suppliers are drawn to Māori enterprises as potential partners, eager to understand how to modify their offerings and methods with this market in mind.

Air New Zealand’s increasing use of te reo, the Māori language, springs to mind. While casually introduced, it belies a much sterner “behind the scenes” challenge to normalise Māori language and culture within our national carrier.

Dr Jason Mika researches Māori entreprenership and is co-director of Te Au Rangahau, Massey University’s Māori Business and Leadership Research Centre.

Booming Māori economy

Not since the burgeoning tribal economies of the first half of the 19th century, when surpluses from hapū-based (sub-tribal) enterprises sustained settlers and tribes, has entrepreneurship been viewed as an appealing possibility among Māori.

Until recently, being Māori and an entrepreneur was an anomaly. The mainstay of Māori livelihoods since the 1930s was employment in labouring jobs in “salt of the earth” professions such as construction, forestry, fishing, health and education. Yet, appetite for entrepreneurship is growing among Māori.

The Māori renaissance brought forth support for other forms of Māori-centred policy. Kōhanga reo (Māori language preschools), kura kaupapa (Māori language secondary schools), and wānanga (Māori tertiary institutions) are examples of successful Māori-centred initiatives in education. There is also acceptance that Māori health models and practitioners are needed to improve Māori health. The official recognition of the Māori language as a taonga (treasure) led to the institution of Māori radio, television and spectrum to sustain it.

Māori ingenuity in business

While Māori ways of thinking and doing were becoming increasingly normalised within health, education and the media, the same acceptance was not apparent in commerce and industry. For instance, few Māori business leaders in the 1980s and 1990s could easily point to their equivalent of Māori health’s “te whare tapa whā” (four dimensions of health) as a model of how Māori do business.

The power of enterprise to transform Māori lives was embraced when a decade of Māori development was set in motion following the Māori Economic Summit (Hui Taumata) in 1984. Within its remit, enterprise development was identified as an important means of realising Māori aspirations for self-determination.

Somewhat against the tide of the then government’s withdrawal of direct support for industry, a number of initiatives to assist Māori enterprises were established following Hui Taumata. Some of them still exist today, including Poutama Trust and Māori Women’s Development Incorporated.

Among many examples of successful Māori business leaders are Business Hall of Fame inductee Mavis Mullins, iMoko innovator Dr Lance O’Sullivan, Kono chief executive Rachel Taulelei, animation entrepreneur Ian Taylor, horticultural robotics entrepreneur Steve Saunders, Federation of Māori Authorities chair Traci Houpapa and 2017 Young Māori Business Leader of the Year Blanche Murray. All are exemplars of a rich vein of modern Māori entrepreneurship, integrating Māori and Western capabilities to create value.

Traci Houpapa, pictured after winning a Massey University Distinguished Alumni Service Award for her work in raising the profile of Māori agribusiness.

An ideal model for enterprise assistance

This history shows that public funding of enterprise assistance for Māori ebbs and flows with changing political ideologies. My doctoral research shows that Māori businesses operate on an uneven playing field where Māori providers face a different level of scrutiny as to their value for money. Māori enterprises need both Māori-specific and mainstream support, but the knowledge of what works for Māori has so far been limited to policy evaluations, rather than empirical research.

My research found that Māori entrepreneurs identified seven main features of the ideal model of enterprise assistance:

Operates within an entity substantially owned and controlled by Māori;
Partially government funded;
Delivery by Māori in partnership with mainstream providers;
Multiplicity of assistance (e.g. information, advice, facilitation, training, grants, and finance);
Cultural authenticity and flexibility;
Long-term relationships with Māori enterprises; and
Varying assistance over the business life cycle.

Within Te Au Rangahau, Massey University’s Māori Business and Leadership Research Centre, we are building on this work. We found that Māori-specific providers tend to resemble these characteristics, but mainstream providers could improve.

Research identifies three key competencies that consistently matter to Māori entrepreneurs: cultural competency (knowledge of the Māori language, culture and history and the ability to use it); relational competency (time invested in forming relationships with Māori entrepreneurs); and technical competency (delivering on promises).

It also identifies principles that providers (Māori and mainstream) can use to evaluate their assistance against Māori entrepreneurs’ needs and preferences. With such change in enterprise assistance, all of Aotearoa is set to benefit from the “new normal” – Māori entrepreneurial success. Mauri ora!

Dr Jason Paul Mika, of Ngāi Tūhoe, Whakatōhea, Ngāti Awa and Ngāti Kahungunu descent, is a senior lecturer with the Massey Business School and co-director of Te Au Rangahau, Massey’s Māori Business and Leadership Research Centre.

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March 6, 2018

Memorial bursary continues supporting student success

Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Memorial bursary continues supporting student success

Hilary Kitt and Bruce Gallie from Colliers International present Scott Larcombe with his award.

This year’s Marcus Kitt Memorial Bursary has been awarded to final-year business student Scott Larcombe at a special presentation at Massey University’s Albany campus.

The former Rangitoto College student, who is studying for a Bachelor of Business with a double major in economics and property valuation, was chosen to receive the $5,000 bursary established by global real estate services company Colliers International.

The firm partnered with the Massey Business School to create the bursary in memory of long-serving staff member and Massey alumnus Marcus Kitt, who died in 2015 after developing a brain tumour. The father of two children had worked for Colliers for eight years in Auckland, London and Jakarta.

The criteria for the bursary included strong academic achievement, good communication and interpersonal skills and the potential to succeed in a real estate career, all characteristics exemplified by Marcus Kitt.

Massey property lecturer Alan Pope said Mr Larcombe was a worthy recipient of the annual prize.

“Scott is an excellent student with a proven academic record in both his property and economics majors,” Mr Pope said. “He also stands out in his class as a great communicator, working well with fellow students and staff alike.”

Bursary reduces financial burden

Mr Larcombe said he was “overjoyed to be recognised for all of the hard work that I have put into my studies”.

“I am currently working nightshifts to cover the cost of my study,” he said. “This bursary will take some of the financial stress off my shoulders. The bursary is also an affirmation of my choice to study property and has really helped to grow my passion for the subject – and I hope that this will show in my future grades.”

Mr Larcombe believes the bursary will also enhance his employability when he graduates.

“I hope the contacts that I have made here at university, and through the bursary, will help me to start a long and successful career,” he said.

Marcus Kitt’s widow, Hilary Kitt, and Colliers’ chief operating officer in New Zealand, Bruce Gallie, were on hand to present Mr Larcombe with his award.

“The bursary is designed to encourage excellence in real estate studies and is an ideal memorial to Marcus,” Mr Gallie said. “We hope it encourages students to consider a commercial property career, assisting them at a financial level to do so.”

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March 6, 2018

Landscape specialist to give annual photography lecture

Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Landscape specialist to give annual photography lecture

One of Professor Jem Southam’s most renowned images The Pig, the Lamb and the Goat

Professor Jem Southam

One of the most respected British photographers of the last 25 years, colour landscape specialist Jem Southam, delivers a public talk organised by Massey University’s Wellington College of Creative Arts on Saturday.

Professor Southam will be delivering the annual Peter Turner Memorial Lecture at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre on Saturday March 10 at 6.30pm. His lecture titled Landscape Stories: Encounters, Voices and Pictures will address the complexity of the landscape genre in the light of his own career as a photographer, whose work results from the patient observation of singular sites, usually near where he lives, over long periods of time.

Professor Southam’s work has been the subject of many solo exhibitions dating back to the 1980s at venues including the Victoria and Albert Museum and part of international collections featured in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Museum Folkswang, Dusseldorf and the Yale Centre for British Art at New Haven.

As Professor of Photography at Plymouth University, Professor Southam has developed a method of slow accrual of images, which are then presented in structured narratives revealing a complexity of personal, political, literary, psychological and cultural associations.

While now working digitally, much of Professor Southam’s work has been made using a large format camera to produce 8 x 10 inch colour negatives. This is a slowed-down time-consuming image making process that requires patience and precision. When the resulting large format negatives are then enlarged to create c-type prints, the images reveal an extraordinary level of detail and degrees of tonal subtlety rarely matched by contemporary digital means.

The annual Peter Turner Memorial Lecture is hosted by Massey University, and each year brings to New Zealand an international photographer, theorist or historian, to discuss their work in the expanded field of contemporary documentary photography. The lecture was established in memory of the late Peter Turner, author, editor, curator and former teacher at the Wellington School of Design. Whiti o Rehua – The School of Art also offers a Masters scholarship in documentary photography in Peter Turner’s name.

Distinguished Professor Anne Noble from the School of Art says Professor Southam is a notable addition to the list of photographers who have previously headlined the lecture.

“In a world where our experience of time is shaped by the traffic of instant photographic images on social media, Jem Southam’s slowly accrued photographic narratives of singular places as us to stop still and reflect on environmental change within much larger and longer time frames.”

Professor Southam’s lecture is part of Wellington’s biennial Photobook New Zealand Festival that showcases artists’ photobooks published by New Zealand and international small presses at a photobook fair at Te Papa on Friday and Saturday March 10-11. The New Zealand Photobook of the Year Awards will be announced at the Festival launch on March 10 at 7.30pm.

The Peter Turner Memorial Lecture is on at 6.30pm, Saturday March 10, Soundings Theatre, Te Papa, Wellington. Go to www.photobooknz.com for more details

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March 5, 2018

Opinion: Transgender guidelines need to be carefully considered

Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Opinion: Transgender guidelines need to be carefully considered

Professor Steve Stannard argues sporting bodies must carefully consider their rules about transgender athletes.

By Professor Steve Stannard

It’s better watching some sports played by women – a slightly slower-paced game can emphasise the importance of skill over power.

Field hockey is a great example, sevens rugby too, but if you like the “slap” of colliding flesh, then men’s rugby league might float your boat more than the women’s version.

Some sports are a little mind-numbing to watch on TV regardless of which gender is competing, golf for example. And in other sports, you’d not know, or perhaps care, which sex was in the drivers’ seat or pulling the trigger.

But when it comes to sport, competition and a level playing field, should we be talking about gender or sex?

The word “sex” in noun form is used most often to partition the male or female division of a species in relation to reproductive function and the physiological characteristics that generally accompany that.

The word “gender”, on the other hand, describes whether a person feels they are male or female, man or woman. Gender identification is an internal recognition that mostly, but not always, aligns with a person’s sex. When sex and gender don’t match, a person may be described as “transgender”.

In many sports, competitive success comes to the person who is the strongest and most powerful. Weightlifting is one such example. Sure, there is a good deal of technique involved in getting and holding a barbell above one’s head, but perfect technique is useless without the requisite physical strength.

To lift a heavy weight requires a strong skeleton and strong joints over which a large volume of muscle can safely do its work. Big muscles and small joints pushed hard will result in injury, like what would happen if you put a Ford Ranger engine into a Corolla and then try to pull a 3.5-tonne trailer.

Conversely, having big joints and small muscles would be akin to having the big strong Ranger’s chassis, but an engine barely capable of lugging the 2-tonne vehicle up a hill, let alone pulling a horse float.

The physiological characteristics that accompany the male sex include bigger muscles, thicker bones and wider stronger joints that provide a mechanical advantage. These develop in adolescence and are even more pronounced if worked hard during this important period of development. While muscle mass can come and go to some extent, the size of the skeleton and the structure of joints at maturity then remain the same throughout adult life.

Thus, an adult whose sex is male is generally going to outperform a female in strength and power sports tasks such as weightlifting, and almost certainly so if they are in similar body weight categories. This is regardless of self-identified gender.

The current situation regarding a transgender New Zealand weightlifter competing as a woman in the Commonwealth Games has raised some eyebrows across the ditch, where some have called for her to be banned. The Olympic Committee has a set of rules that govern the ability of transgender athletes to compete so the “playing field” is level. The Kiwi athlete appears to satisfy these.

So, should we just ignore the whining Aussies and let the athlete get on with going for gold?

The transgender rules that pertain to a wide range of sports do not take into account the ongoing physical advantages in pure strength that a person will have if they went through puberty as a male, and they certainly do not take into account the further advantage an athlete would have if they had previously competed as a male. The sport of weightlifting is much about strength.

Levelling the playing field properly would mean that a transgender athlete could not compete as a woman – it will almost never be the other way around – if they have previously competed as a post-pubertal male in the same sport.

The enjoyment of watching or participating in a sport, whether it be men or women competing, is underpinned by the knowledge that there is a set of rules that enable either side, be it through fitness, skill, or even luck, to come out as the winner. This is indeed why the sexes generally don’t compete against one another.

But when gender and sex collide transgender guidelines need to be carefully considered to ensure a level playing field or else participation in strength and power sports, particularly by women, will suffer.

Steve Stannard is a professor of exercise physiology from Massey University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Nutrition.

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March 5, 2018

Synlait welcomed to Manawatū campus

Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Synlait welcomed to Manawatū campus

Palmerston North Mayor Grant Smith, cutting the ribbon to open Synlait Palmerston North, alongside Massey University Vice-Chancellor Professor Jan Thomas.

Synlait Palmerston North was officially opened last week on Massey University’s Manawatū campus.

Synlait is a dairy processing company which employs more than 550 people in Canterbury, Auckland, and now Palmerston North.

The Palmerston North team, based in the Riddet Complex, will primarily concentrate on innovative dairy liquid product development, as well as supporting processes and technology.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Jan Thomas opened the facility and highlighted the important new relationship between Synlait and the University.

“The establishment of Synlait’s new Research and Development Centre at Massey’s Manawatū campus is an excellent example of industry and the University collaborating closely to achieve real, tangible outcomes,” Professor Thomas said.

“Strategic partnerships like these are vital if we are to start and grow new industries, create new jobs, and remain competitive in the global marketplace. Massey University is New Zealand’s premier provider of food research and education, and at the forefront of pioneering such partnerships with the food industry,” she said.

Synlait managing director and chief executive officer John Penno said, “We’re very excited to be opening Synlait Palmerston North today, which is home to our new Research and Development Centre.

“We have some major opportunities in front of us. With the strong team and partnerships we’ve got in place to lead liquid innovation within our business, we won’t miss a beat,” Mr Penno said.

The team of 35 staff members will work within the Research and Development Team, but this will continue to grow as Synlait Palmerston North ramps-up its operations.

Among attendees were Palmerston North Mayor Grant Smith, FoodHQ chief executive officer Dr Abby Thompson, and Distinguished Professors Harjinder Singh and Paul Moughan of the Riddet Institute.

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