The New Zealand Edge :Brian Sweeney talks with Wayne Mowat about NZEdge: Radio NZ interview, 16 April 2002 : www.nzedge.com


		Wayne Mowat – 'In Touch with New Zealand', National Radio, interviews Brian Sweeney, co-founder and producer of NZEdge, 16 April 2002
	Mowat:	The New Zealand Edge is a new way of thinking about our identity. People, achievements, stories, our place in the world, I suppose we could sum it up as. It's nzedge, a website co-founded by Brian Sweeney and Kevin Roberts. The website is privately funded as far as I know and after a quick glance this morning… well, when I say quick I got hooked into all sorts of things. I got really into a story about the all-drain-and-no-gain which we might discuss with Brian in just a moment, but there's information on media, there's profiles on contemporary Kiwi achievement. In the hot section you can catch up with what's hot in the arts, innovation, society, style, sport, travel, that sort of thing. If New Zealanders are involved it's more than likely to be on nzedge. Brian Sweeney, good afternoon.
	Sweeney:	Hello, Wayne.
	Mowat:	That's the key word is it, edge?
	Sweeney:	Edge is the key word, edge is the metaphor for the website and this new way of thinking about who we are, what we're about and where we're from and where we're going.
	Mowat:	Why did you establish this site?
	Sweeney:	We love New Zealand, we are natural communicators, we have been successful in our businesses and this is one way of putting something back.
	Mowat:	In what way? How are you doing this?
	Sweeney:	By creating this website which tells new stories about New Zealanders in a new way for a global audience of New Zealanders. We are interested in the long-term prosperity of New Zealand, not in a political sense because we're not involved in politics at all but as New Zealanders and as business people. We see a primary need to connect with the million or so New Zealanders who live overseas as a key way of building the country here, physically here, out into the world. A sensible way of doing that is to connect with your overseas population which we've estimated at about a million people, and creating that emotional relationship for those people back to New Zealand because they want one and there are too few ways for them to put their finger on exactly what it is that they want to do.
	Mowat:	So is it joining up the dots? I read that, joining up the dots.
	Sweeney:	Joining up the dots, connecting the dots.
	Mowat:	Because we've been isolated for such a long time for a number of reasons - geographically is the obvious one, but all sorts of other reasons as well?
	Sweeney:	That's right.
	Mowat:	So are you trying to entice New Zealanders back through the edge, or what?
	Sweeney:	There's two or three things there. One is that we want to first and foremost connect with them, to recognise that there is a population there, that there are networks of New Zealanders in Silicon Valley, in New York, in London, in Tokyo and Sydney and all over the place. We want to put them together as a network. Secondly, we want to give them a story about New Zealand that really resonates, that goes well beyond the Kiwiana story that they're often fed, and we want them to be really useful for us overseas. We're not saying "come back". We want them to be useful to New Zealand where they are first and foremost, and we want them to also think about re-forming their relationships with New Zealand, be it in an investment sense, be it through coming back to visit or indeed considering coming back permanently and bringing their skills. But the notion that everybody has got to come back is in fact a false one.
	Mowat:	Well, they won't will they, because the reason they're not here is because they want to do what they want to do?
	Sweeney:	That's right.
	Mowat:	Over there, wherever they are in the world?
	Sweeney:	Yes, that's right.
	Mowat:	Tell me about the development of the site, Brian: an undertaking to coordinate all of this information, and how you're going to set it out and who you were going to get to contribute?
	Sweeney:	We see it as a 10 year project which is nice to have something of that horizon because so often what you're wrapped up in professionally is this day, this week, this month, so having something long term feels terrific. The second thing is that we knew we had an idea about a new way [to locate New Zealnders in the world]… it's based around the metaphor of the Edge… Once we had that and we'd sought to substantiate the edge proposition from a number of points of view, ie: we are on the edge of the world, and I think that if you want to play to the creative, to the innovative side of the New Zealand character, if you want to affect the attitude, then the edge metaphor is really empowering. So once we had that and we know how to work the worldwide web, it's a brilliant mechanism, we started about story-telling. We've simply layered it up and layered it up. We've put in more money, we've got a great small team of people - an editor, a web publisher and a marketing person - and once you put it on the web it does take on a life of its own. It just grows organically and it's been performing wonderfully.
	Mowat:	How do you know what to put in and what not to put in?
	Sweeney:	We've got a long, long list of things that we'd love to do that we don't yet have the time or the resources or money to do. The first principle is that we wanted to tell people's stories in depth. We have, for example, a page we call Heroes which is about a group of extraordinary New Zealanders who, in some way or another, have changed the world. And Rewi Alley, Katherine Mansfield, Ernest Rutherford, Maurice Wilkins and so on, and rather than do the once-over-lightly we wanted to tell their story in a substantial way so you'll get a three to five thousand word essay with references and photographs and so on. So we wanted to, I guess, prove our scholarship first and foremost. It is more important to do that and to be considered to be authentic and credible rather than to cover the general map. There's 400 prime people on our to-do list.
	Mowat:	So who provides the essays? People in the field or people who you've commissioned?
	Sweeney:	Yes, we commission them. We either write them ourselves with the staff that we have, or we commission people to write them who are experts in their field, like John Campbell who is the Ernest Rutherford biographer. He has just done a story on Alan MacDiarmid, the Nobel Prize winning scientist. Damien Wilkins, the novelist, has done a great story on Katherine Mansfield.
	Mowat:	How often does something like your hot section need to be upgraded because things happen all the time in this sort of category?
	Sweeney:	We update the site at least once a month and in the particular category of the achievements of contemporary New Zealanders, we scan all the overseas papers, what they're saying about New Zealanders who are living overseas. We put together 80 to 100 stories a month of what CNN, The Times of London, The Times of India, The Times of Japan and the Irish Times are saying.
	Mowat:	Who are achieving?
	Sweeney:	Who are achieving, and be they people who are living in Kathmandu or London or somebody from New Zealand who's done something outstanding in a New Zealand sense that's been covered overseas. Sometimes they are sporting but our emphasis is really on music and film and medicine and computing as much as yachting or golf.
	Mowat:	Are you plugging into the fact that New Zealanders are one of the most plugged-in countries in the world, New Zealanders?
	Sweeney:	To give you a particular statistic, 11% of Americans have got passports, and there are more passports on issue in New Zealand than there are people apparently. That says a huge amount for our physical desire to be connected to the world. In a worldwide web sense, yes, we are among definitely the most connected people in the world. I mean we're great at working our way through the tools and the technology and customizing them. We just love taking that new stuff and we're very early adopters, so the web is a brilliant tool for us to be using.
	Mowat:	You say somewhere in this the intention is also to "own the channel" to its audience. What do you mean by that? That it will grow or feed as the audience realises what is in there?
	Sweeney:	Yes, and in a commercial sense, both Kevin and I are business people with a long term vision and if you took a commercial point of view you'd say that there's a market sitting out there (the size of Auckland) of New Zealanders that hasn't actually been put together. The web is the perfect vehicle to do that. We first and foremost want an emotional relationship with these people and if that graduates at some point into a commercial relationship in the many different ways that it can, then we are also interested in doing that.
	Mowat:	I had a look in the About You page. In fact, I printed it off because I just couldn't believe the list here, locations, the work that's done and what the jobs are. It's also a registration kind of page is it? Could you explain all that, what it's meant to be?
	Sweeney:	People can register for updates, we send out an email every month of what's new on the site and with some commentary about recent events in New Zealand or overseas. We have got people from all over the world. I'll give you two examples. One is that we had an email last week from a woman in Melbourne who said "I am a New Zealander, I'm a housewife in Australia, I'm married to an Australian, I've got Australian kids and every day as part of their homework they go onto your website to discover some of their New Zealandness." We had a chef from Chicago who wrote, "I am a Maori, I'd like to communicate with other Maori in America and preferably in Chicago, can you put me in touch?" And people, they connect through these mailboxes.
	Mowat:	So you're actually working on the opposite side of the brain drain? You're saying the drain is not there at all, it's there but they're filtering back through into New Zealand, connecting or reconnecting.
	Sweeney:	Absolutely.
	Mowat:	With the land from whence they came?
	Sweeney:	Absolutely. And we're not saying that you should be here or you should be there, we're saying that people are free to do whatever they want to and we want them foremost to be passionate New Zealanders, wherever they are, and to have a meaningful relationship with the country wherever they are, and for the million or so, the Statistics Department has said 886,000, we think a million is a rounder number.
	Mowat:	Is that right? That's a lot of people, isn't it?
	Sweeney:	It's a huge number of people, it's 25% of the population that live offshore. The most affluent and influential section of the population lives overseas, and their productivity is not counted as part of our economy and we want to create an emotional then a functional channel for that to come back onshore by storytelling, by connections.
	Mowat:	We have to reaffirm the swelling masses overseas really, isn't it? It's kind of incredible. Are they plugging in or is it to too early to tell?
	Sweeney:	In their thousands, absolutely. And it grows and grows and we're now moving into the phase of doing some overt promotion of the site. We've spent three years building it before we really had something that we felt we could go out proactively to the world and say look, this is here. It's grown you know, virally. People have told their friends and it's grown and grown and we've worked the search engines. Our traffic is up 120% on the same time last year. Last month there were 55,000 pages of information downloaded, there were 20,000 Hero stories downloaded, many of them by schools in New Zealand who didn't know that the most decorated woman of World War II was in fact born in Roseneath.
	Mowat:	Who was that?
	Sweeney:	Nancy Wake. Left New Zealand when she was 2, grew up in Australia, went to France in the 30's and as the war came she became involved in the resistance movement and she led an army of 7,000 French resistance troops in a 4 year war against the Germans in the south of France and she won all the medals. She was the most decorated woman of World War II. Australia wouldn't give her a medal because she was born in New Zealand, she says, and she has a somewhat controversial relationship with Australia and she said at the time, "You wouldn't give me a medal because I'm a New Zealander and I've still got my passport." Nancy is still alive - she's just turned 90, I think.
	Mowat:	Living where now?
	Sweeney:	She has lived in Newcastle, Australia for many years and she had decided to spend her last years in France because the police there stop the traffic and salute her when she wants to cross the road.
	Mowat:	Serious?
	Sweeney:	She's a Kiwi.
	Mowat:	Yes, and that's the sort of thing you're digging out and looking for because it's not just, as you say, a once-over-lightly of the people, the names we already know pretty well.
	Sweeney:	One of the greatest mathematicians of last century is from Dunedin. We've got extraordinary rocket scientists. People who think that our greatest achievements have been on the rugby field are selling the story somewhat short, and we are a deeply innovative country in a way that could only have come from being on the edge, from being so far away from the centre, as it were.
	Mowat:	Is this taking the knowledge economy a step further would you say? Does that fit into it or is that a sort of trendy word in your vernacular?
	Sweeney:	The last four letters of the word "knowledge" spell "edge". That's my answer! We're very much in tandem with the knowledge economy but knowledge itself is a commodity. Everybody around the world has got knowledge and so we're looking into what is within our spirit that we can evoke and draw out, can multiply, can get there quicker than anybody else and if we say look, everybody has got to do a full university degree to be competitive, well, that's not going to cut it. When you look at where Peter Jackson came from, for example, he's a classic edge guy and he wants to do it here. He completely believes that he's great at what he's doing because he's doing it from this point of the world.
	Mowat:	Yes, and there's plenty like him. And all of this came out of your interest in this kind of thing - entertainment, technology, other things designed, other things you've been involved in over the years?
	Sweeney:	Yes. At university I trained as an historian so I've got an academic interest in this. After university I worked in the entertainment business as an entrepreneur, promoter, for 7 or 8 years, and for the last 16 years I've worked in corporate business here and around the world.
	Mowat:	So what's in it for you?
	Sweeney:	I love New Zealand. I've got a real interest in the development of New Zealand as a country and again not in a political way. I'm not involved in any institutions or any movements.
	Mowat:	You said before it's a way of putting something back because you've been successful in various fields of endeavour?
	Sweeney:	That's enabled us to do...
	Mowat:	But is this more than a burning passion for your country?
	Sweeney:	No, I don't think so. I think it is a burning passion for the country and for its desire to succeed. I'm passionate about being a New Zealander and living here and contributing to the development of the country. I love the web. I've got a background of being one of the original people in New Zealand to understand things about the web and so it's partly an experiment in terrific web architecture and the global reach of that.
	Mowat:	And you are involved as what, editor, adviser, producer of everything that goes into nzedge.com?
	Sweeney:	Yes, and I've got a senior editor, Paul Ward, who works with me and he's contributed a lot to the sharpness of the thinking on the site. Kevin Roberts, my partner in this, has contributed very significantly in terms of the top-level thinking about it. But you know, I guess I'm the driving passion.
	Mowat:	OK, how long has it been up and running now?
	Sweeney:	Three years.
	Mowat:	OK, but you haven't shouted too much or too loudly about it? It's just finding it's own way?
	Sweeney:	Yes, and that's one of the beautiful things about the web. You're out there and people find you. The search engines… if you were to search on, for example, Bruce McLaren on our site, our story would come up as probably number three. If you were to search on Maurice Wilkins who was born in New Zealand in Pongaroa, northern Wairarapa, and who won the Nobel Prize in physiology for his part in the discovery of DNA, we're probably number one on the web in terms of his history, so we're relatively easy to find. And we've got a lot of traffic from overseas on our great New Zealanders.
	Mowat:	So are you on a journey of self-discovery yourself, as you work into this, about your fellow country people?
	Sweeney:	Sure. I think that I made up my own mind about that some time ago. When I was involved in the arts and entertainment business some years ago, that was probably the journey of discovery which took me into very sort of deep parts of New Zealand and so this is really working it out, this is the expression of it.
	Mowat:	So how do we know really what does add value to New Zealand from overseas, New Zealanders? Will we ever know that?
	Sweeney:	I'm sure that an economist can do…
	Mowat:	No, I don't mean in actual figures. Will we know that, for example, do they contribute goods, finance, you know, services back here?
	Sweeney:	Oh yes.
	Mowat:	For New Zealanders living here?
	Sweeney:	Yes. I think that the majority of New Zealanders living overseas are very keen to have a relationship with New Zealand and nobody has ever come along and actually offered them one.
	Mowat:	Yes, nobody has asked! So you have fostered this link. It's all about the linkage, isn't it?
	Sweeney:	Yes, we've helped people make up their mind to come back and, in fact, one of the projects we're about to start is seeking people's stories about the process of coming home because it's said "people should come home". And when they get here, they're greeted with "Oh, what did you come back here for?" And so we're building up stories of people's experiences about the decision to come back to New Zealand, the excitement and the anticipation, the nervousness and the anxiety and, in fact, what the experience has been like. Some people have come back and found it to be quite difficult and negative and yet it's rated as you know, the thing that they must do to help their country and when they come back, well, there's nothing… nobody actually thought about what it is they do when they come back.
	Mowat:	We have to grow up a bit then, is that what you're saying? I mean we won't get over this… it's a cultural cringe, isn't it, and it's the knocking thing we hear about all the time?
	Sweeney:	Yes, and I guess this is a concerted attempt to overcome that.
	Mowat:	OK. Well, we'll swoop in a bit more and have a look and see what will come up on nzedge.com. That's it, isn't it?
	Sweeney:	Thank you, Wayne.
	Mowat:	Brian Sweeney, good talking to you.
	Sweeney:	Great to talk to you too.
	Mowat:	New Zealand Edge for Kiwis. Well, just for Kiwis really, not much more to say, with edge.