Who influences the Influencers?
We asked a few on our Influencers list, as well some ‘ones to watch’, who influences them.
Tuesday, July 27 2010 || Influencers || BY Unlimited
Vice-president global marketing, large enterprise group, Dell
“The greatest long-term influence is probably Peter Drucker. Today, I'm following and reading Gary Hamel closely. We haven't rethought management for over a century — take a look at what he is doing with the Management Information Exchange. When everything else changes, it's time to rethink the core.
“Around this I'm a prolific reader, so everything in my RSS feed, which is pretty broad in scope [influences me] — everything from Tim Ferris to Nick Carr.
“Finally, I've got a pretty tight network of friends and colleagues who are as inspirational as they are influential: Greg and Helen Cross, Rod Drury, Jenny Morel and more. I'm very fortunate in this respect.”
Phillip Mills
Executive chairman, Les Mills International
Food: “Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma changed my health.” Ecology: “Jared Diamond’s and Tim Flannery’s books changed my life.”
Future trends: “Aussie economist Ben McNeil’s book The Clean Industrial Revolution points the way to the greatest opportunity of our lifetime.”
Business: “Authors Peter Lencioni, Marcus Buckingham, Ichak Adizes and the guys who wrote Firms of Endearment.”
“And Sir Stephen Tindall, for walking the talk and investing millions in green business.”
Daniel Robertson
Founder, Fishpond.co.nz
“I am influenced a lot by our advisory board, which includes Rowan Simpson, ex Trade Me, and Maurice Bryham, ex PC Direct and Exonet and now NZX-listed Sealegs. I think giving a small piece of a startup company early on to other people who have been successful or are entrepreneurs themselves is a great way to get high quality mentors without paying any cash.
“Externally I'm influenced by Zappos.com's Tony Hsieh. Tony's new book, Delivering Happiness, tells a great story of overcoming obstacles, and passion for customers. And I also draw a lot from Amazon's Jeff Bezos.”
Mark Stuart
CEO, WaikatoLink
“Commercialisation of research as a discipline is still relatively new globally and even more so in New Zealand. As a result people like me who have been around in the space a long time — eight years represents most of the history of formal research commercialisation at New Zealand universities — have had to rely on assimilating the experiences from other countries and sharing experiences with colleagues. The UCONZ group has played a big role in this. Membership in international technology transfer associations such as AUTM and ASTP has also been helpful.
“This has been a great advantage for myself and others in New Zealand because it forces us to start at first principles and come to grips with the big picture ‘how and why?’ rather than just the ‘how do I do this task?’, which are the questions that our international peers in countries with longer histories in the space seem to dwell on.
“As a non-academic, my view on the role of universities in the larger world was hugely influenced by Professor Richard Bedford, former deputy vice- chancellor research at the University of Waikato.”
The 2010 Influencers
• Who are they?
• Trading up
• Ones to watch and back-room influencers
• Science's renaissance man
• Net influence
• Wise counsel and outside the tent
