16 September 2026
Why I stopped running solo
Cairn has joined AI New Zealand. Here's the part of the story that didn't fit the announcement: what it took to decide, and why a solo founder needs a crew.
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Tagged Leadership
9 June 2026
High Use, Low Trust: What a Trust-Builder Makes of New Zealand's AI Problem
The AI Forum's latest Blueprint calls it high-use, low-trust: New Zealanders use AI constantly and believe in it less than almost anyone. I sat down with Sanel Tomlinson, who's spent thirty years getting people to trust things they can't check for themselves, to work out how trust in AI actually get
6 May 2026
The Plausibility Trap: Why AI-Written Strategy Looks Right Until You Try to Use It
"People don't really put the truth on the internet. When you really discover the useful insights is when you actually have conversations with the manager who was implementing that strategy or doing that thing. You'll hear all about the challenges that were faced, what really happened behind the scen
5 May 2026
Humans First: how 100 managers wrote their own AI principles
At the start of the morning one manager told me he doesn't do AI. Not interested. By midday he'd downloaded ChatGPT and was excited to give it a go. What 100 community services managers taught me about putting people before technology in an AI workshop.
8 April 2026
There's No Right Way to Do the Wrong Thing: Scott Arrol on Trust, Ecosystem Leadership, and What Digital Health Can Teach Us All
A conversation with Scott Arrol about what it really takes to build trust and collaboration across a complex health ecosystem. Scott's career spans more than two decades across health, disability, community services, and technology. He moved from business ownership into health leadership at Radius H
9 December 2025
Human Leadership in the Age of AI: Story Intelligence with Gabrielle Dolan
An authentic exploration of human leadership and communication in a world awash with AI-generated content. Gabrielle Dolan ("Ral") brings decades of global experience in strategic storytelling to challenge how leaders and teams stay real, build trust, and use new technology to enhance, not erode the
25 November 2025
“The Cairn” - Podcast, Episode 1
The Cairn brings you real conversations with people navigating real challenges. From digital transformation in tertiary education to AI strategy to digital health. We sit down with those steering their industries forward. Each episode explores how leaders think about the future, how AI and technol
31 October 2025
Every time you take a mis-step, you dull your blade. And a dull blade becomes increasingly hard to sharpen.
When I was twelve, a teacher shared a story I've never forgotten. At the time, I was likely misbehaving, perhaps for the second or third time. He pulled me aside and said: "Every time you take a mis-step, you dull your blade. And a dull blade becomes increasingly hard to sharpen."
13 October 2025
Sometimes expertise trumps enthusiasm.
What started as a "quick fix" became a several-hour project over months, multiple trips, and a small collection of unused plumbing parts. The lesson? Sometimes expertise trumps enthusiasm.