Straight talking best way to Uncle Sam's business heart

Ditch the safe speeches and tell it how it is - that's the best way to Uncle Sam's business heart.

Better business will be done between the United States and New Zealand if "safe speeches " are dumped and replaced with "tell it like it is" spontaneity, realism and debate.

Speaking on the back of a NZ-US Council conference in Auckland, council president William Moroni told NBR ONLINE: “We need real world examples of business to make rhetoric tangible to people."

“Safe speeches” need to be dumped and replaced with spontaneity, realism and debate.

He envisages the 2013 partnership forum, in Washington next May, to be a two-day event focused on the next steps in the trade relationship, and not covering the same topics discussed "over and over again".

“We are looking at clusters of short 15-18 minutes presentations, punctuated by music, memorable activities or unstructured time for smaller conversations."

To date, he says, influential US audiences continue to have a limited and dated understanding of New Zealand and its importance to the United States. 

“This is not surprising since the forums were designed to be off-the-record conversations among 70-110 individuals, many of whom have participated in all four events.”

Inspired by world-class conferences such as TED, Fortune Magazine’s Global Summit, and The Economist Ideas Summit, Mr Moroni says more business needs to get involved and the forums need to be “more exciting”.

“I never get why at these things people are told to switch off their phones. Their phones should be on. People should be tweeting about what is going on.

"We need dialogue - even if that dialogue is debate,” he says.

Mr Moroni believes the success of previous partnership forums presents an “imperative” for 2013, to adopt a new, dynamic format that can help write the next chapter in US-NZ relations.

The current bilateral environment has changed drastically from when the partnership forums were conceived more than six years ago.

Today, US and NZ officials meet frequently in Wellington and Washington to discuss shared interests. 

In the past few months, delegations from treasury and ministries of defence, education, foreign affairs and trade met US counterparts and members of congress and the US business community. 

The NZ-US Council welcomes their counterparts proposed format, casting a wider net to engage more influential Americans.

Council executive director Stephen Jacobi says the change in format is important given the on-going discussions of a free trade agreement in Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations.

“The US is important beyond trade figures. It is a major source of investment, innovation and business ideas and models of entrepreneurship we want to follow in New Zealand.” 

This strategic dimension is not captured in trade figures, he says.

“We have a big job in the US to demonstrate why New Zealand should be of interest to them, given our distance from them and our small scale.”