Revisited

Published May 25, 2010 @ 4:19 pm

Orion’s Hunt

Congratulations to Orion Health founder and CEO Ian McCrae, recipient of a World Class NZ award in the ICT category.

The awards celebrate our country’s business leaders and global talent, with past winners including Weta’s Richard Taylor, fashion designer Karen Walker and businessman Phillip Mills (see page 94 for Mills’ latest venture).

“Getting the award was fantastic and I’m really appreciative of it,” says McCrae, “but it’s really the team behind me that deserves the award. We make world-class software for the healthcare sector and we have world-class people working for us. So I see it more as validation that our whole Orion Health team is doing a world-class job."

Next, McCrae hopes to win some big business, thanks to President Obama’s newly passed healthcare reform bill in the US. With a presence there already (as well as Canada, the UK, Spain and Australia) the company is well positioned to take advantage of what must surely be a multibillion-dollar healthcare IT market.

The wild bunch

Dunedin-based production company Natural History New Zealand has found new habitats to adapt to.

Highly respected around the world for its wildlife, science and history documentaries, the company has acquired a stake in award-winning South African production company Aquavision.

While NHNZ already has offices in Washington DC, Singapore and Beijing, managing director Michael Stedman says joining forces will allow both companies to increase their profiles internationally. “NHNZ is part-way through a strategy to bring like-minded companies around the world on board to strengthen our global filmmaking capacity and giving us access to an enormous range of footage and production opportunities,” he says.

The next step in its global expansion plans will see NHNZ open a production office in Abu Dhabi, collaborating with a local agency on 3D productions.

Trade Aid

Was it something we said? Last issue, Idealog spoke exclusively to Sam Morgan about his startup investments, philanthropic ventures, environmental interests and tax breaks. But one of our favourite quotes came when writer Peter Griffin mentioned New Zealand’s international bandwidth problem, and Morgan replied: “We need a cable which is not based on price maximisation. I’m almost inclined to just do it myself. It’s maybe $600 million and I think you can make that happen.” If only he would, we sighed.

Just weeks later, he did. Along with Stephen Tindall, Rod Drury and many others (including Idealog contributor Lance Wiggs; see page 18), Morgan announced early stage plans for Pacific Fibre, an upgradeable 5/12 Terabits/s fibre cable to connect New Zealand, Australia and the US by 2013.

“We need this infrastructure if we are serious about growing international businesses from New Zealand,” says Drury. For more see www.pacificfibre.net

Northern Exposure

A darkly humourous year-end gift won Alt Group the inaugural In-House Agency of the Year Award at the CREATIVE Hotshop Awards, where they also took home the Design Agency of the Year title.

The Ponsonby-based design company sent the kiln-fired leaning wine bottles, filled with merlot, to 160 clients. The simple, opaque bottles tilt precariously to one side, a design that one judge said “quickly communicates the bruising the creative process has taken”. Titled ‘A Lean Year’, the wine commemorated 2009 as one of the worst years in economic history.

Alt Group beat out respected design-industry names in the sixth annual awards, which are held for design and creative professionals from New Zealand and Australia.