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by Paul Ramsay on 18 July 2013
In my capacity as co-chair of NZRise and Director of independent New Zealand IT consulting company Equinox IT, I was pleased to participate in the NZRise 'Delivering Digital Development' workshop held in the Wellington in late May.
Sponsored by the Wellington City Council and with the support of the Institute of IT Professionals (IITP), the workshop focused on the Council’s 'Wellington Digital Strategy'.
The strategy’s aim is to set the direction for Wellington to achieve global recognition as a creative digital city.
The workshop included illustrative case studies and group discussions to explore three key areas of the strategy:
- How can we encourage innovation both within our own organisations and within the region?
- What do we need to do to facilitate the growth and development of the digital technology sector within the region?
- What trends and issues do we need to consider in the future?
Many participants felt that the Wellington region has carved out a unique position with many interactions and inter-relationships between organisations being facilitated by digital platforms.
What I personally found stimulating was the wide range of organisations that work together to develop creative digital products such as web design, gaming, applications, film, music, digital art and web tools.
I believe that by continuing to leverage these capabilities we can continue to add value and grow our region’s economic base.
As an analogy, I’m excited by the outstanding work of Peter Jackson and Richard Taylor (and many others) to build innovative, collaborative enterprises in the Wellington region based on shared digital platforms – in essence an interconnected ecosystem of both creative and economic potential.
I see small to medium-sized specialist organisations emerging to work alongside the likes of Wingnut Films, Weta Digital, Weta Workshop and Park Road Production (the contractors producing the chain mail costumes and Performing Legs for example) and the emergence of associated services and facilities (such as the Embassy and Roxy) to create an end-to-end ecosystem that has added immense economic value not only to the region but to the country as a whole. We’re not lying down and dying!
Creating a digital ecosystem
Digital technologies now permeate a much broader range of industries that what we might previously have simply equated with ICT alone. If organisations look at the nature of their business today, they will see that digital technologies are playing a much greater part in their operations than they ever have before. I believe we’re at the beginning of a new era where we’ll see organisations leveraging their investment in digital technologies to deliver enhanced products and services to their customers.
Rather than working as individual entities (as has often been the case in the past), I think the conclusion we can draw is that the sum of the whole is certainly going to be greater than the parts. Leveraging digitisation and participating collaboratively in a digital ecosystem will enable us to achieve a greater level of growth than if we all went ahead and did things individually.
I think we’ll see the likes of Trade Me and Xero becoming digital ecosystems in their own right as other organisations deliver add-ons and extensions.
Summary
Key to this change is moving away from an individual mind-set - no organisation exists for and by itself - and looking beyond to greater opportunities in a given sector, region and nationally. It’s about the creation of additional value and using technologies in a smart way to achieve that. By collaborating digitally, we’ll be growing the overall opportunity for products and services in a given area.
The region’s health and education sectors, for example, represent two major opportunities for the creation of a digital ecosystem that would add value to both the organisations involved and the region as a whole.
Download the Wellington Digital Strategy
About Paul Ramsay
Paul has 30 years’ experience in the information technology (IT) industry, and is a Director of Equinox IT where he works as a Principal Consultant. He is actively involved in the broader IT community, and is currently the co-chair of NZRise and was Founding President of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) New Zealand Chapter. Paul is also a regular trainer, facilitator and presenter.