Visit to Shift, Auckland

It was my last day on vacation in Auckland today, and I took the opportunity to do the rounds a little this morning.  First up I went into town to meet Malcolm Stenersen, ex-colleague of mine from Clearfield days, to discuss his new e-commerce venture.  I can't yet divulge the details, but the concept is great, and am looking forward to seeing it take shape.

Next stop was to see brother-in-law Carl and some of the crew at Shift's Auckland office where old partner in crime Richard Ram is at the helm.  After being shouted the finest chicken sandwich within a 35 metre radius of the building, I arrived back to see the whole Shift crew ensconced in a pep talk from Adobe about flash lite and other related stuff. 

When that drew to a close, we sat down with Ross Howard to chat about the mobile scene in Japan, and their efforts in sites for Tourism New Zealand.  I couldn't provide much more than a dumb user point of view of some of the issues, but it seemed to be a useful exchange, and to validate some of their ideas.

Based on discussions I had today and recently, there certainly seems to be a latent need for local basic intelligence, localisation and support for a lot of web businesses, who might just hit it if they move into Japan intelligently.