Knowledge wave aspirations can be captured by design

The 2003 Knowledge Wave Conference promoted a vision of the economy transformed by smart thinking. While one of that vision's advocates believes a big gap remains between that aspiration and what's been achieved so far, success may be achieved - by design.

David Skilling, now chief executive of privately funded think-tank the New Zealand Institute, was among those talking up New Zealand's future as a high-value design and research driven economy at 2003's Knowledge Wave conference.

Then a principal adviser at Treasury, he told the conference New Zealand would by 2020 be known for creative, innovative work with back office or manufacturing work being done offshore.

Since then, manufacturing has gone overseas -- particularly to China -- and while Mr Skilling says the "aggressive aspirations" of Knowledge Wave remain, sufficient means to achieve them have yet to be put into place.

"There's probably still a bit of daylight between the size of those aspirations and where we're likely to get to under current course and speed," he told NZPA .

The economy was currently doing well -- but that was due more to strong commodity prices rather than new industry and products.

"We're probably moving to encourage better design and research and development... But if people are serious about New Zealand becoming a knowledge economy and hoping to see a large and sustained increase in our economic growth rates, then I don't think we have much evidence to suggest that that's happened or is imminent."

While there were some high profile successful individual companies, "I think the challenge is really about materiality," Mr Skilling said.

"When you talk about success stories you often resort to the same 10 or 15 companies and talk about how wonderful they are. But when you add up their sales as a share of GDP it's still not a very significant proportion."

The stars include whiteware manufacturer Fisher & Paykel Appliances, merino clothing manufacturer Icebreaker and vodka maker 42 Below.

A significant element of those companies' success has been smart design as well as clever marketing and brand development.

Government supported schemes such as New Zealand Trade and Enterprise's Better by Design programme are intended to help more companies achieve similar success.

Better by Design aims to raise awareness of the importance of design in mainstream commerce and its architects hope it will generate an additional $500 million in export earnings over the next five years.

Wellington based design consultant Ray Labone -- who led the initial Design Taskforce that preceded Better by Design -- believed New Zealand's continued reliance on commodity exports was "a big concern".

Like Mr Skilling, Mr Labone said New Zealand's small to medium-sized design-led enterprises were making relatively little contribution to GDP.

"We need to leverage that up and make them so much more of a force."

This will be addressed at Better by Design's three day conference in Auckland later this month.

The conference starting on March 29 in Auckland is aimed at providing practical design-led business advice to up-and-coming exporters and will be headlined by international business guru Tom Peters and chief executive of leading global design agency IDEO Tim Brown.

Mr Labone said Better by Design was working on initiatives to foster collaboration between designers and business people.

"There's too much evidence and talk coming from overseas now about design being a critical value driver to be ignored any longer."

Better by Design offers audits, design mentoring, funding of up to $50,000 for design-related projects and executive design education.

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise creative industries sector director Dame Cheryll Sotheran said design represented "a huge opportunity" that was as yet "pretty much unrealised for New Zealand's businesses and industry".

"We're good at innovation and we're good at design what we're not good at is commercialising it."

"This whole programme is a process that's designed to accelerate that commercialisation."

- NZPA