Dialogue: Cyberspace has overcome disadvantage of distance

THERESA GATTUNG* says New Zealand's isolation has become an advantage and our future success lies in the internet, which enables us to turn distance to our profitable benefit.

The internet presents New Zealand with unlimited possibilities to become a richer society in all sorts of ways.

As Carly Fiorina, the chief executive of Hewlett Packard, has said: "We are entering the renaissance of the information age because technology now permits incredible invention and creativity and technology truly allows any person anywhere to change the world in large ways or small."

That's fantastic for New Zealand because it provides unprecedented opportunities for us to make choices about how we want to live and work and huge opportunities to innovate.

In the past, New Zealand has always battled the tyranny of distance. It has been our competitive disadvantage. The worldwide web enables us to turn distance into our competitive advantage.

While much of the rest of the world sleeps, we work. That enables companies such as Wellington's New Zealand Translation Centre to offer an overnight language translation turnaround for major European companies, including the likes of DaimlerChrysler.

The overnight service is just one offered by the Wellington-owned company, which employs 40 staff, but it is a great foot in the door and has enabled it to become one of the world's biggest translation companies.

It couldn't be done without the internet and the broadband technologies that allow vast amounts of information to be transported across the globe almost instantly.

The internet is underpinning a transformation in our company and our business. Becoming an online company - or an online society - literally does open up the world. The translation centre is one example but there are countless others out there.

One small example is a family selling kiwiana in cyberspace. They used to have a gift shop in their local shopping centre. Now they take orders from as far afield as the United States and Portugal. It's great to think that icons as familiar as Buzzy Bees and greenstone jewellery are being exported to people around the world.

The internet is not simply about New Zealand-based Kiwis marketing their wares across cyberspace. We are inveterate travellers. By some estimates there might be as many as one million New Zealanders living and working in places as diverse as Anchorage and Zurich.

These people are not necessarily lost to New Zealand. The internet makes it easier than ever to marshal their talents and for them to act as our advocates or resources.

Most Kiwis living overseas remain passionate about their birthplace, no matter how long they are away. The prospect of being in contact with other New Zealanders gives them a tremendous buzz.

I heard of a Kiwi working for an international telecommunications company who is bringing together, via the net, other New Zealanders with specialist skills scattered around the world to develop a wonderful new wireless product.

We all know Kiwis who have done well overseas. We need to coopt their skills and contacts and get them working for New Zealand. The beauty of the internet is that they don't need to come home to do it.

Globalisation is also changing the way some people live. They are adopting a more transient lifestyle, spending part of the year in different countries, particularly in industries such as film, sport, engineering, IT and consulting of all descriptions.

At Telecom, in our own way we are going global. For example, through our takeover of AAPT, Australia's third-largest telecommunications company, we have a strong beach-head into a market several times bigger than our own.

We're doing a lot in New Zealand, too. Among our investments is a half-share in the $2.3 billion Southern Cross fibre-optic cable across the Pacific to the United States and under the Tasman to Australia. The cable comes online next month to provide for exponential growth in internet traffic.

There's no doubting we need it. Xtra, our internet group, is now processing two million e-mails a day - two and a half times the number of e-mails our customers sent a year ago.

It's worth noting that New Zealanders are very wired. A study just out from Victoria University found New Zealand is a world leader in the take-up of electronic commerce and internet use. We have extremely high use of eftpos and ATMs. We're in the top few in internet connections and our connectedness is growing faster than any other OECD country.

So we have the talent and the infrastructure to blast the world with the Kiwi knowledge economy. How do we do it?

Most successful businesses start with a good idea or an unfilled need. Web businesses are no exception. The difference is that their potential audience is unlimited.

Take Denis Dutton's Cybereditions. This New Zealander created a web page that introduced interesting features, essays and book reviews he found on the web and it was voted the world's top website by London's Observer newspaper.

He sold it for more than $1 million and has since set up a new business that publishes out-of-print books through the internet. Customers can download from their own computers, and authors and publishers still get revenue.

As we become a more on-line society, it will be the endeavours of individuals, as much as corporations or large organisations, that count.

New Zealanders traditionally have been great at teamwork. That's going to continue to be important in a networked world, but we need also to encourage and embrace the value of the individual. The internet is absolutely about individual behaviour. It is a fantastic platform for entrepreneurs because it is the individual who has the choice and control. We need a national mindshift that one size doesn't fit all.

We are already seeing that behaviour shift start to occur with the growing trend for people to contract their skills, often working for a number of organisations on assignment. Because of the changes the web is instilling in how we work and play, we will also need to change the way we learn.

A greater focus on individual achievement will be increasingly important at school.

The best way of making the most of the talents of every New Zealander is through education.

Finally, we have to let the cream rise to the top, to nurture and cherish excellence. In seeking to close the gaps between the haves and have-nots, we must aspire to bring the bottom to the top, not the opposite.

That means cheering our businesspeople, not just our sportspeople, to win, not just play the game.

* Theresa Gattung is chief executive of Telecom.

TOMORROW: Council of Trade Unions economist Peter Conway.

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