The most shocking thing about New Zealand is how few people there are here. I hail from California, where millions of people pack in, battle gridlock traffic, try to ignore the smog, and pay a premium to do so. So you would expect a land even more beautiful than California with comparable infrastructure would be swarming with people. Not the case.

It’s high season, which means the country is absolutely swarming with visitors from all over the world. Relatively swarming. Despite this huge influx of people, there is a rather deserted feeling – on some highways we would go well over 10 minutes without passing another car.

New Zealand is a little longer and much skinnier than California – in terms of area, it’s only 63% of the size, roughly equivalent to chopping off everything north of San Francisco. But with only 4.4 million people, New Zealand is quite empty compared to California’s 38 million. In fact, if New Zealand were a state, it would be the 27th largest most populous, right between Kentucky and Oregon.

A country with this much space has a different set of problems than what I am accustomed to back home. Take what you know about the difficulties of renewable energy, the malice of the lumber industry, the stagnancy of politics, and the horrors of factory farming – throw out all those old beliefs. You must reevaluate with the facts of New Zealand.

I won’t explore all of these in this post, but as a vegetarian I do want to quickly share my thoughts on the meat industry in New Zealand. Have you seen the “happy cows come from California” commercials? Anyone who has driven past cow-schwitz on the 5 freeway knows this is false propaganda. In New Zealand however, the cows must be happy. They have huge amounts of gorgeous land to roam and actually eat what comes naturally, grass (in the US cows eat corn and get sick because they aren’t well equipped to handle it, but are kept alive with anti-biotics long enough for the growth hormones to fatten them up).

Simply put, New Zealand doesn’t have the same factory farming issues that the United States has. Therefore, if I were to have grown up in New Zealand, I would not be a vegetarian right now. And yet I am not gorging on meat while here, why not? I firmly believe in the message in this Jack Canfield quote –

“One-hundred percent commitment is a breeze, 99 percent is a bitch. If you’re 100-percent committed, you never have to re-decide. It’s a done deal. If you commit 99 percent, every day you have to re-decide.”

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Credit to Jonah for the cow-schwitz term. (It’s a play off Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp)

Photo: Christopher Hynes

Most of us growing up in the Unites States have learned that hitchhiking is dangerous. Don’t attempt it and certainly don’t pick up someone on the side of the road with their thumb out. There is a pretty good Freakonomic radio podcast with some insights into why we all share this belief.

But now that I am in New Zealand, with the new culture comes a new mindset about hitchhiking. It’s fairly common in the south island and has been the primary way I have been getting around for the last month (but don’t tell my Mom since not everyone has adjusted their mindset yet). What have I learned through this experience?

• What we all accept as truth can and should be questioned. This is an excellent time to cite the oh-so-interesting monkey, banana, and water spray experiment.
• Both kiwis and other travelers pick up hitchhikers. In my limited experience the drivers have ranged from age 19 to 86. This tells me that its not just a narrow set of people that don’t know they aren’t supposed to pick up hitchhikers – anyone can recondition themselves to match the environment.
• People are interesting. So many of our conversations with strangers consist of smalltalk – well what if you were in a car with a stranger for 90 minutes? And silence isn’t an option, the main reason people pick up hitchhikers is for someone to talk to, so you better deliver. I’ve found that I have learned much about various countries around the world through these conversations. I’ve also found that these connections are pleasant surprises that would not be possible with an itinerary chock-full of tourist activities.
• The most important take away is that it has pushed comfort zone socially. It’s good to push your comfort zone in life – that’s how we achieve bigger and better things. I am not used to asking favors of strangers – anything beyond asking for the time or if they can take a picture. And then I found myself approaching strangers pumping gas to see if I could get a ride with them. I found myself low on energy talking about United States politics and thinking up unique questions about their home (if you must know, on my hitchhiking days I am generally dehydrated so I don’t have to make them stop for pee breaks all the time, thus the low energy). And I’m stronger for it. And to keep the growth going, I may do the rejection therapy challenge when I get back stateside.

Anyone out there have some other takeaways to suggest or awesome hitchhiking stories?

 

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Photo: Frank Farm

The last decade has seen increased attention paid to what a brand stands for, beyond the product they sell. No longer do consumers simply want a good product – they want to stand for something they believe in at the same time. Tom’s Shoes gives a pair of shoes to the less fortunate for every pair purchased. Patagonia represents sustainable manufacturing for outdoor gear. American Apparel says no to overseas sweatshops and child labor. Apple designs products that push the status-quo and embrace the elegance of simplicity.

What a wonderful world it is. Unfortunately, there is one problem with all of these brands – they are all quite expensive. You have to pay a hefty premium to buy an iPod rather than a Zune, an American Apparel v-neck rather than Hanes, a Patagonia rain jacket rather than one from Walmart, and a pair of Tom’s Shoes rather than a pair from H&M. Not everyone has the luxury of expendable income to pay a 2x markup, but I’m sure they would still like to stand for something through their purchases.

Let’s forget about clothing and technology for a moment and examine a much smaller scale. Can the same stances be taken for highly commoditized goods as well? The definition of a commodity is that you don’t care which one you have because they are all the same. One brand’s iodized salt is identical to the next. But instead of looking so closely at the product, let’s look at the brand itself.

Let’s say you have two brands selling salt. Bradley’s costs $1.00 and Chuck’s costs $1.05. You know that they sell identical products, so logically you would choose the cheaper option. Now for the twist. Bradley’s ships their salt to the store on sleighs pulled by puppies and aren’t shy about using their whips to get moving faster. Chuck’s is a brand that came about to provide a direct foil to Bradley’s – they ship their salt by truck and donate 1% of all profits to PETA. Now which brand would you buy?

Of course, a 5% premium doesn’t sound so bad now! But even more importantly than the fact that it is a 5% premium, it is a 5 cent premium – something that is accessible for everyone who buys salt (which cannot be said about premium brands like Patagonia and Apple).

Some questions come out of this thought experiment. Is there a margin for any commoditized product that can be successfully taken by a “righteous” brand? Is it only an option when the established brands are bad? What about neutral? Can these “righteous” brands come into existence without a marketing budget that would kill their narrow margins above commodity prices?
 

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The change of Shell gas stations to Z gas stations in New Zealand got me thinking about this (btw pronounced “Zed” because kiwis follow British English for the most part). A New Zealand fund bought the 226 Shell gas stations in the country and are attempting to turn it into a source of pride – taking call center and IT jobs back within the country, selling NZ pies rather than Australian, and creating jobs by introducing full service gas pumpers. Is there anything that is more of a commodity than gas? And yet, which would you choose if you were a kiwi and the price difference were mere cents?

Photo: collective nouns

This blog is largely composed of writings intending to teach or explore a subject I finding interesting. Some posts are about subjects I know quite well, like nerdy ratios. But the vast majority of posts are about subjects that I want to learn about, like how check-sum digits work on credit cards. The beauty of having a blog with intelligent readers is that I have an excuse to research the subject, internalize it, and output a concise explanation.

Unfortunately, I’m finding that it is going to be difficult to produce research-based posts while traveling. With limited internet access, I simply don’t have the opportunity to explore a new subject to the level required to write a blog post on it.

I could react to this in one of two ways. The first is to simply stop writing blog posts while I’m traveling since I can’t write the heavily researched posts I love so dearly. But a far better solution is to see this as an opportunity to explore alternative types of posts.

So stay tuned for new posts that might be a little bit different. Rather than being so factual, they will be of a nature that can’t be argued with (and thus doesn’t require supporting data) – things like personal beliefs and observations of the world. Do you have any other ideas?

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Photo: Amy Lenzo

Merry Christmas to all! I know exactly what you should ask for next Christmas – a pet reindeer! There are three reasons why a reindeer would be a great pet.

Antlers

Reindeer lose their antlers every year and grow them back. This means each year you have your pet reindeer, you’ll have another set of antlers to hang in your den. Couple this with that facts that reindeer have the largest antlers to body size ratio of any deer and both males plus females have antlers, and you have a hell of a pet.

Milk

Pretty much all we drink is cow milk, and maybe occasionally some goat milk, but there are many other animals that product excellent milk, including reindeer. Compared to cow milk, reindeer milk has 3 times the protein, 6 times the fat, and half the lactose. Sounds pretty good, but be warned – it is pretty labor intensive as it requires someone to hold the antlers while someone else milks. Probably worth the effort though.

Santa Costume

How legit would it be to have a live reindeer to go along with your Santa costume? Can you imagine a reindeer pulling you down Lombard Street at SantaCon next year?

 

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Photo: Britt-Marie Sohlström

It has been almost a month since my last post – no I have not forgotten nor abandoned you. On the contrary, I have been spending my time becoming a more interesting person and broadening my perspective, which will only result in more interesting things to write about.

What have I been doing? As you may know, I left my job a few weeks ago to travel the world before the next step in my life. Traveling is important for building perspective – we all get caught up in our environment without realizing that there are other ways we can live our lives. This can manifest itself in many ways, but there are a couple specific examples I want to closely examine.

The first is what I call work-fun balance. The United States has a different relationship with work than any other place in the world. I don’t think I have to go into it here, but some countries have 35 hour work weeks and 8 weeks of vacation. They work to live and don’t put the same intense focus on their careers. The work-fun balance is particularly pronounced in my environment – having gone to an elite university, I am surrounded by friends that are on the hardcore side of US work schedules.

The second is how each of us approach money. Americans comparatively don’t travel as much and spend more money on possessions. There is a strong “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality that causes us to spend approximately what those around us spend. Running up a $100 bar tab, spending $50 on a meal, and popping into Vegas for the weekend – are these things I fully appreciate or just do because of my environment?

I don’t think my current perspective on these items is necessarily wrong – really there is no right or wrong. But I want to realize that there are other options available – in the end, not making a choice on these matters is effectively the same as a conscious decision.

What else should I focus on during my time on the road?

What do you with a baby you are ill-equipped to raise? Depends who you ask. Pro-life – you suck it up and raise the baby the best you can, even though it might be a disastrous situation with horrible consequences. Pro-choice – you likely nip it in the bud and try to not let it happen again. But why does pro-choice refer to abortion, isn’t there another option that we are forgetting? Whatever happened to adoption?

The Bell Curve prodded my mind through statistics of American life. By slicing the data in various ways, the book examined the significance of inheritance and environment on intelligence and success of a child. As you may expect, both genes and upbringing factor in producing a kickass adult. One particular takeaway has been stuck in my brain – children adopted from a poor home environment to a better off home increase their likelihood of being successful.

This is particularly poignant as the world focuses on the life of Steve Jobs – an adopted child who turned out to change the world. What would the world be like if he wasn’t adopted and instead raised by his biological parents? What is the unreached potential of kids that are raised in ill-equipped households, without the option to escape to a better home?

Keep reading…

Everyone has an opinion about how tax dollars should be spent. Without getting into politics, I want to take a stance on one way that tax dollars shouldn’t be spent: entertainment.

Today was Fleet Week in San Francisco – a free annual boat and air-show over the bay. It’s a first-rate two day performance featuring some of the best pilots in the world showing off their fancy moves, topped off with the world famous Blue Angels. But one thing it certainly isn’t is cheap. The fuel expense of flying jets for hours should be immediately obvious to anyone that doesn’t drive a Chevy Volt. But then factor in the pay for the huge number of military personnel on hand, as well as local police and firemen, the total cost must be astronomical.

Why should everyone have to chip in their hard earned money to provide a good time for someone else? That doesn’t sound fair at all. But who says tax spending has to benefit everyone evenly? How about this question: why should everyone have to chip in hard earned money to provide sturdy roads that everyone doesn’t personally use? You could argue that roads benefit everyone, even to people that don’t drive themselves. But that misses the point – entertainment spending is fundamentally different than infrastructure spending.

The government should not control your entertainment spending! You should have the right to live in the United States and spend zero dollars on entertainment if you want. By using tax dollars to fund events like Fleet Week, you are paying for entertainment, but don’t have to attend if you don’t want. How unfair!

I’d imagine most the expense for Fleet Week is payed by the city of San Francisco from local taxes (with the belief that the event will attract tourists that will spend money). This is much better than using tax dollars from a citizen in Alaska to fund an air-show a thousand miles away. Nonetheless, not everyone in San Francisco necessarily wants the economic boost for the city nor the brief entertainment. Four days of loud airplanes overhead and two days of crowded streets aren’t graciously tolerated universally.

The bottom line is that not everyone appreciates the same type of entertainment. Fleet Week is one thing, but there are many more controversial events that our tax dollars fund. Think of how many events have police stationed for public safety. Do you think each one reimburses the city for the cost of providing police officers? Consider that events scale from providing two police officers to block off a few city blocks of snowy San Francisco for a television show, all the way to providing 4000 officers in downtown LA for the death of a pop icon.

Where do you draw the line? I say the line should be drawn at zero tax dollars contributing to entertainment!
 

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I personally love Fleet Week and would chip in a few dollars for the entertainment. I think this is how it should be handled for entertainment events, all the way down to small-town Fourth of July parades.

Photo: Reuben Yau