New Zealand Unleashed

My daily foray into Unity Books at 57 Willis Street has just yielded the sort of book about New Zealand that curls your toes up with anticipation. “New Zealand Unleashed: the country, its future and the people who will get it there” by Steven Carden (with Campbell Murray) is a geo-bio-histo-psycho thriller about the emergence of New Zealand in a pan-global sweep through nature and technology. Rooted in the biological science of complex adaptive systems, “Unleashed” is sectioned into “The end of certainty,” ”How to build a successful society,” “New Zealand’s DNA” and “Ideas for a more adaptable New Zealand.” A sped-up world and how we need to face change are key subtexts.

There are several elements to return to in “Unleashed” including the chapter “Maori 1 – a crash course in survival” about the extraordinary adaption of Maori society. “…after landing in New Zealand, Maori sat apart from the rest of humanity for perhaps another six hundred years. No one came to visit. No sailing vessels appeared over the horizon. No mail or telegrams arrived with news of the outside world. No one had sailed over the horizon in either direction for a long, long time. As far as Maori were concerned, New Zealand was the world.” (p 164)

Most resonant for me is the Steven Carden’s placement of New Zealand at “the edge of chaos”: “Innovations rarely emerge from systems with high degrees of order and stability. Systems in equilibrium lose diversity and give rise to the sorts of problems one encounters in homogenous communities and centrally planned economies. On the other hand, completely chaotic systems – riots, stock market crashes, revolutions – are not that great either.

“The key is to find that spot where disequilibrium breeds vitality and creativity, but doesn’t do so at the expense of all order and structure. The spot is the ‘edge of chaos’, a term coined by the physicist Norman Packard. He uses it to describe a state of untidy creativity, between rigidity and chaos. In this zone, the system is best able to function, adjusting constantly to a turbulent world, but without traumatic upheaval.

“Systems operating at the edge of chaos are excellent information processors and are highly creative. They are sensitive to slight changes in external conditions and internal events, generating innovative responses to these which adapt or evolve to suit the current environment. ‘The ghost in nature’s machine,’ he writes, ‘almost seems to be purposefully piloting the system to the edge of chaos.’…

…[The edge of chaos is] where productive agitation runs high, innovation thrives and breakthroughs occur. It’s the place this book argues New Zealand should be. A dynamic, innovative, creative society that is comfortable changing.” (pp 112-113)

Globalization is an exciting concept for New Zealand when viewed through a biological lens. We have a unique and powerful location in the world that is significantly underappreciated by a mass of people stuck in the rut of “small, remote, isolated.” “New Zealand Unleashed” puts some much-needed intellectual and metaphoric moxie into our perspectives about who we are, and what we are capable of achieving. “Unleashed” introduces new thinking and language that picks us up and points us to a better place that has us fully engaged with global change.

Steven Carden is an Engagement Manager for management consulting firm McKinsey and Co., and returned to NZ in 2006 from a posting at McKinsey’s New York office. He has arts and law degrees from Auckland University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. In 2005 Steven was one of five New Zealanders awarded an inaugural Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leaders Award. Campbell Murray is director of the Novartis BioVenture Fund in Boston. He trained as a doctor and also has an MBA from Harvard.

“New Zealand Unleashed,” by Steven Carden with Campbell Murray, Random House, Auckland

Education Edge

Received mail this week asking "Is the Heroes series of articles available as a book? I want to use the articles to inspire my boys. Boys educator/speaker Joseph Driessen suggested that parents provide their boys with heroes and I could not find a book about heroes in the bookshop today!!"

Publishing books is for another year. In the meantime we enjoy the company of parents, teachers and students on the nzedge Heroes page. We love helping with homework: "I am 12 years old and I am doing a study on Jean Batten and I would just like to say that I think you have put together a great web site" (Palmerston North); "I've found this page very useful for a year 9 social studies unit that I teach on famous New Zealanders. I reckon it's a great site and the kids will be using it in term four for research on famous New Zealanders" (Teacher, Leeston); and "Thank you for all the information, I needed this for my assignment due in next week and I’ve found all my questions reading this, so thanks heaps to those who got together this information" (Auckland).

We started to drill deeper into some of our "legends" from an educational point of view, and developed school kits based on the NZ curriculum for Kate Sheppard and Alexander Aitken, plus some homework on Katherine Mansfield prepared by Damien Wilkins. The Aitken story has been especially helpful to mathematics teachers for personalizing a difficult subject for many students (try teaching math to 5th form boys!). "What a fabulous site! It was neat to read more about Alexander Aitken. I find it incredible that no-one else seems to know about such an amazing New Zealander!" (Teacher, Porirua).

Role modelling and "virtual mentoring" is an important aspect to nzedge. A mother from Keyborough, Victoria wrote us: "As a mother of three children with a Kiwi mother and an Aussie father, I feel they need to know how special it is to be half Kiwi. Being raised in Melbourne, they do not get to see the diversity and uniqueness of New Zealand and New Zealanders. My 12-year-old son is now in High School and uses Kiwi examples in his projects, including Lord Rutherford of Nelson for a science project on The Greatest Scientists. This is a wonderful site showing a small part of who and what is great about being a New Zealander. Thanking you."

And this is sweet: "Hi, I am a 10 year old girl and I have found this site really good for class assignments and for learning about the people who have helped make this country respected around the world. Well done in doing this, you are keeping the dream alive" (Christchurch).

And: "Leading the world from the edge by being fast and a generator of ideas is the encouragement students like myself need" (Student, Auckland).

And: "Reading the literature on this site one thing kept occurring to me: "These are my sentiments exactly". New Zealand is a special place without a doubt and New Zealanders are special people. I moved to Australia 7 years ago, and I still think about New Zealand on a daily basis" (Student, Melbourne).

Finally: "What a great web-site. My daughter (aged 7) is to write an assignment on a famous New Zealander - she had initially chosen the old favourite, Edmund Hillary and then moved on to Kate Sheppard, both great choices but on reading through your web page she has decided to do William Atack ! I am of course delighted that she is thinking outside the square and that you have provided an interesting website to accommodate this. We have marked you in our favourites as I am sure we will revisit your site for projects in the future."

Posted from LAX.