OIA0169 Millar ED Reports.pdf

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1)  Based on a successful approach I used at ACC, starting 30th August, we will be
running a 4 ½ week “procurement” type process where we present to a group of
interested partners about DV and the ventures we’re focusing on. This will be
streamed, and recorded for people who are unable to attend in person. From there
we ask them to register their interest on what ventures interest them.
2)  A co-design workshop with (ideally) three public, three private and six business
representatives to get together to develop (or even destroy) our MOU between Data
Ventures and private organisation partners. The effort here is to show we have
consulted with the private sector beyond our own experiences to refine what the
expectations are of a joint venture with Data Ventures, and help smooth out
working with partners in this new approach to business for Stats NZ.

The outcome of these two events is we will build a bucket of partners who have expressed
interest, and will keep them engaged with a stakeholder comms plan. We may decide to
repeat these events regularly.

KPI’s:
●
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  Products in Market:

0
●  MVP/Proof of Concepts:

6 (7)
●  Stats NZ people involved with DV:
13
●  Processes operationalised in Stats NZ:
1
●  Target date for first revenue:

September 2018
●  Revenue generated:

$0 of $600,000
9(2)(b)(ii), 9(2)(j)
●

The good:
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●  The focus shift towards getting a Go/No Go has created a good pressure of what is
required to keep ventures moving through the fields and gates.

The bad:
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●  We lost Aimee which left a gap in capability, that put extra pressure on Hollie and I
meaning we have been able to keep the quality of work up.
●  People have been raising concerns around impact to Maori and relations with Stats
NZ around what Data Ventures is doing.

The ugly:

●  9(2)(a)

Next steps/goals:
●  22nd August we have our Go/No Go event to do our internal health check on
ventures. The result of this could be one or more ventures is put to pasture, and
other validated opportunities will need to be pursued.
●  30th August our “Working with Data Ventures” event
●  6th September our “Co-design public and private working together” event
●  Discover if there’s any ventures in the maori/iwi space to help a leviate concerns
coming from that area.
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The event also highlighted which areas the ventures need to work on. There was more
work needed around market validation before bringing them to the board.

Working with Data Ventures event - 30th August

We invited potential partners to spend part of an evening with us. They were shown the
ventures we are focusing on. Many approached us afterwards with opportunities to work
with us using Stats NZ IP.

This was run as a leaner procurement approach, so if needed, we could use this to select
partners to build things if ever required in the traditional vendor/client relationship.

Intended outcome is to validate if partners were really wi ling to work with us.

You can read more about how the event here (including metrics of engagement):
https://medium.com/data-ventures/an-evening-with-data-ventures-849427fd2c8d

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To summarise, the points of interest f om the evening are:
●  179 people registered to attend in person or via stream
●  We went an email to all people who registered for the event, with 80% opening the
email and 50% of them clicking links (to the slides or the recorded stream). The
email asked people to register interest in one or more ventures, and then to meet
with us individually
●  40 organisations registered for interest in one or more ventures, or unrelated to our
ventures (usually something they are working on) and how they could work with us.
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This has blown away our expectations of about 20-30 people at the event, and then maybe
a couple of organisations wanting to partner with us.

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Joint Venture co-design - 13th September

And finally, we brought together a group of six lawyers and commercial people across
public and private to help us test the joint venture model. Particularly for them to bring
their experiences and help shape what was needed in terms of setting expectations early
on to allow them to be a success.

Intended outcome is to fashion out the best way to set the expectations between parties in
a joint venture, particularly when it’s focusing on private and public working together.
This event was meant to happen a week earlier, but due to unavailability we had to settle
on the 13th September.
The outcome of this one was very different from what we had in mind. What I thought was
going to be an evening of refining our engagement principles for a joint venture, and
maybe at worst having to re-name from an Memorandum of Understanding to something
else, ended up being a deconstruction of why we were doing joint ventures in the first
place.
Even with context, background, examples of business models, the room turned against the
challenges we’re facing for ourselves by things having to be joint ventures.
To summarise, what we’re doing is already hard (setting up a commercial arm in a
government agency without setting up a CRI/SOE/etc.), and using joint ventures as a way to
mitigate some of the challenges around competing in the market was adding a large
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element of complexity and risk.
The overall suggestion was to let each venture define what the best business model was,
and then use whatever the legal constructs are best for that model. They could be a joint
venture in some cases, but most likely not.
What now?
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There are a lot of spinning plates right now from these three major tests on how Data
Ventures is approaching things, and it made me reflect on why we were doing these and
how we got to where we are today, and if it’s the best it can be.
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I have also been having discussions early with people like Margaret Delaney (CFO Stats NZ)
and Emmett Geoghegan (Chief Counsel Stats NZ) discussing “what if’s” around any
potential changes Data Ventures could make and what the impacts might be.
9(2)(g)(i), 9(2)(a)

In our next board meeting, the topic for the deep dive is “reflection”. A chance to look back on
the last 10 months, the decisions along the way, the events that have happened, the learnings
along the way and present a few options for what I think is the Best Thing™ for Data Ventures
going forward. This is also good timing with Amanda joining the board.
9(2)(a), 9(2)(g)(i)
The good:
● People want to work with us, and it’s not just a niche.
● The awareness I have to raise this now before it’s too late
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The bad:
● I have noticed I have been in the weeds” a ot lately, and only recent reflection on
this being why I felt I was running th n
The ugly:
● 9(2)(a), 9(2)(g)(i)
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KPI’s:
● Products in Market:
0
● MVP/Proof of Concepts:
6 (7)
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● Stats NZ people involved with DV:
13
● Processes operationalised in Stats NZ:
1
● Target date for first revenue:
September 2018
● Revenue generated:
$0 of $600,000
● 9(2)(j), 9(2)(b)(ii)

Next steps/goals:
● To get a decision on the direction of Data Ventures, and then put in play any of the
good/bad actions that are needed to steer in this new direction.
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To help set clarity of what each persons new roles are, we got everyone to write three
responsibilities people believe that person has. We ended up with 15 per role, with a lot of
them grouped into about 5-6 once we found common themes. After that I asked each
person to note the KPI’s they see themselves being measured against.
I will be taking these and formalising them into new position descriptions.
End of Monday, I checked with each of the team to see how they feel with the roles
confirmed, responsibilities detailed and KPI’s noted. A few comments around they are
needing to wait and see how the team will settle in, but all in all positive.
The weeks tasks are set, the goals of month are noted, the team is back in actions.
The good:
● We’ve been able to get everyone into a new role, while managing some crossed
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expectations on what role people in the team initially wanted.
The bad:
● It’s slowed progress fo a few weeks.
The ugly:
● The new roles means people need to settle in again, and that can take some time.
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KPI’s:
● To be discussed, with the change of direction.
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Next steps/goals:
● By next board meeting, we would like to report on progress of first sale, how the
product build is going, and what the situation is with the data providers for
population density and initial travel pattern product offerings.

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brought to an end the team restructure with all roles confirmed and we are working
through the process of hiring three new roles:
● Lead dev
● Dev
● Front-end designer
We are also sourcing resource from Stats NZ for support of SME and around modelling
data.
9(2)(b)(ii)

Refer to

appendix -

Note 1

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I met with Nick Gerritsen and Dr Steve Meller around the GovtTech innovation fund across
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multiple countries and how Stats is relevant as the lead agency. I also talked with Ian Cope
from ONS. We validated our approach and how we are further ahead than some countries
in bringing mobile data together.
I caught up with Rhonda Paku. We discussed the impact that this could have on iwi and
Maori organisations and communities. We discussed how as well as the privacy impact
assessment, there could be the development of a cultural awareness assessment. The

result is that Rhonda is discovering what type of light-framework we can put in place for
when people bring our datasets together with their own to raise awareness.
We met with Office of the Privacy Commissioner. We discussed our initiatives, focusing on
population density. We prepared ourselves with a Q&A, with questions sourced from news
articles and blogs from around the world around the concerns and questions they had with
these types of initiatives. We talked through those concerns. OPC was very happy with this
and wanted us to go for the tick of privacy. They said it was “a good showcase of big data
and privacy.”
They saw this as a good opportunity for the telcos to show what was done with customer
data, and how it was handled responsibly.
The good:
● Being in a position where we can confidently take the nex  steps on a paid pilot.
The bad:
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● Some of the feedback on pricing on the pilot was not as positive as we’d hoped.
The ugly:
● We were happy with the last month and don’t believe there was something that fits
“ugly”. This new focus means we can foresee and expect some of the roadblocks
and plan for them
KPI’s:
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● To be discussed  with the change of direction.
Next steps/goals: Official Information Act
● Hire the three key roles that will help us with the product build.
● Have a mature pipeline
● Have new KPIs reflecting our focus.
○ Sales
○ State of data providers
○ State of product/roadmap
○ Financials

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Obviously this is a
much lower figure than a subscription to our services, so we have put them aside for now.
Internally, we are bringing on board Haydn Read. The role is to be finalised but Haydn will
be in a role like a chief analytics officer. He brings with him strong links to Iwi and to the
Bay of Plenty region. 9(2)(b)(ii), 9(2)(j)
is one that we are
targeting so Hayden will provide some support in that space.
We are still working through the process of hiring four new roles. Finding the right people
before Christmas was difficult, as we expected, meaning a new focus in the new year after
everyone makes their New Year’s resolution to find a better role  Those roles are:
● Operations
● Lead dev
● Dev
● Front-end designer
Finally, we also took part in WellyTech where we had a ConnectFour booth. People were
able to come and play against one of the DV team in ConnectFour. Over the course of the
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games we were able to answer questions about us and talk about what we did. While new
leads weren’t generated it was a good opportunity to for us to work on our elevator pitch
and talk to different people about what we do  Also, I won a game while blindfolded.
The good:
● Further validation of the great things we’re doing with the product that we are able
to turn around some enterprise sales in the short period of the Population Density
product existing.
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The bad:
●  9(2)(j), 9(2)(b)(ii) Official Information Act
The ugly:
●  9(2)(a)
KPI’s agreed until Christmas
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● 9(2)(b)(ii), 9(2)(j)

Communications since last board meeting:
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●
●
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● 9(2)(b)(ii), 9(2)(j)

Communications since last board meeting:

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refer to
appendix -
note 1

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Appendix – Content summaries
Note 1 – Data Provider
This is a general update around communication company’s involvement, progress and
negotiations around the MOU Data Ventures has with each party. These include the various
stages of where they are at in terms of our pilot and highlights the various levels of
capabilities which may cause damage to the parties mentioned.
In addition to the telecommunication companies, it includes an on-going discussion relating
to a dataset to determine if it is applicable to us, our roadmap and may affect our negotiation
status with that party.
Note 2 – Real-time data (RT)
The platform we are developing can take in real-time data. This is unrelated to the data we
currently receive, which as this is a one-off snapshot of data of 13 months for the Population
Density pilot and is not real time.
Note 3 – NZTA
This is related to discussions with NZTA to which Data Ventures is helping in a Stats NZ
capacity to raise any issues, opportunities, and overs ght alongside other organisations.
NZTA has identified a need for a higher level of understanding about how, where and why
people move within the New Zealand transport system. NZTA is exploring the potential trial
of a model that enables:
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•  better targeting of network inte ventions to support stated national, regional, and local
policy outcomes
•  a more fine-grained understanding of the impact on the network of seasonal
variations and other recent changes
•  a standardised input to further specialised and local scenario transport demand
modelling.
NZTA is yet to decide whether the trial will go ahead or not, following which the information
may be available
Note 4 – Revenue (Rev)
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Data Ventures intends to release revenue, however at this point amounts can be attributed
to individual organisations and the pricing of the product, risking future negotiations and the
commercial position of both parties. As the customer base grows, revenue information will
be available for release.
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