Andrew Barnes was mid-air when he had a revolutionary idea about work.  

The New Zealand-based entrepreneur was on flight in 2018, flipping through The Economist. A survey result caught his eye: people are productive for just two and a half hours a day.  

The Perpetual Guardian founder and non-executive director couldn’t help but wonder: was that true in his own business?   

“That survey got me thinking about what the real issue around productivity is,” he says. “Business leaders often assume that the number of hours worked equals productivity. But if the research is right, people are only productive for small chunks of time, which suggests that much of the workday is spent just filling time.”  

The findings rang true for him personally: “Well, think about it. How many meetings do you go into that are unstructured, could be dealt with in five minutes, but pull in a cast of thousands and drag on forever?”  

He began questioning the belief that longer hours produce better results.  

“I thought, what if I challenged the workforce to figure out how they could do their jobs in four days instead of five? If they can deliver the same output in less time, the reward is time off.”  

By the time he got off the plane, he had already emailed Perpetual Guardian’s head of HR, saying: “I’ve got a great idea – we’re going to try a four-day week.”  

Small fix, big results 

Not long after, Barnes developed the 100:80:100 model.  

“I pay you 100%, you work 80% of the time, but I still need to get 100% productivity,” says Barnes. 

He launched a trial at Perpetual Guardian in February that year. 

New employees start by working five days to understand the expected output. If they switch to four days but fail to meet the agreed benchmark, they return to five.  

“It’s not a free lunch.” 

During the trial, Barnes found workers were interrupted every 11 minutes on average and took 22 minutes to return to full productivity. 

Drawing on Dr Glenn Wilson’s 2005 study on the effect of constant workplace distractions, he says: “If you’re working in an open-plan office, that’s the equivalent of having a 10-point drop in your IQ or operating under the influence of marijuana. Massive impact.” 

He incorporated a small experiment. 

“We gave people a quiet hour, put a flag in a pot or something, and you couldn’t be interrupted. That hour now generates the equivalent of about three hours of normal productivity across the board. 

“If you do that every day – if you’re normally productive for only two and a half hours – then by adding a quiet hour, you’re already increasing output simply by changing a couple of things,” says Barnes. 

Bottom-up transformation 

Besides introducing quiet hours, Barnes restructured the business around the 100:80:100 framework. 

“I’ve done enough restructuring in businesses in my time to know that there are often useless processes that no one questions – simply because they’ve always been there. 

“If you think about it, in a conventional restructure, someone might say, ‘Well, if I tell you about that, maybe part of my job is gone, or maybe you’re going to give me something else to do.’ 

“This model changes that. When the incentive is ‘I’ll get time off,’ people start eliminating things they’d otherwise leave in place,” he says. 

By trading time-filling tasks for time off, the trial saw a significant drop in the time workers spent on the internet. 

“People want the time off, so they change their behaviours, their business process as well as their environment. 

“What people don’t understand about a four-day week is that it’s really about bottom-up processes and business re-engineering. This creates the opportunity to give people more time off without costing the business,” Barnes explains. 

Better home life, stronger work drive 

Barnes ran the trial for eight weeks, with results suggesting it was beneficial for the business and employees.  

“Our research shows people value the time off. So they’ve got a strong incentive to make it work,” says Barnes. 

“As a result, they have more time at home, they’re better rested, their home life improves and they become more engaged at work. 

“And if they’ve got more time off, that’s theirs – they don’t need to use work hours for things like hospital visits or doctor appointments. So you end up seeing sick days go down by about 60%.” 

Among other benefits, Barnes says recruiting is easier and employee turnover has dropped significantly.  

Beyond work-life balance 

By the end of 2018, Perpetual Guardian made the four-day week permanent, with 80% of staff taking part. 

“We ask people, ‘What time off do you want?’ Some want to take a full day, others prefer two half days. Some working parents might want to work five days but with compressed hours. And then there are those who say, ‘I just want to work the normal five days a week.’ Fine, knock yourself out,” says Barnes. 

“Nobody gets paid more. It’s simply output-driven, and it forces you to work out what output is and how to measure it.” 

It’s more than just work-life balance, he adds, it’s an opportunity to reshape thinking. 

“This is really about being honest as a business leader, knowing what’s really happening in your business. Not just making a glib argument like, ‘I pay people for 38 hours a week, so I should get 38 hours of productivity.’ No, you don’t.” 

Instead of taking a financial hit, the trial helped the company perform twice as well per capita as its biggest competitor. 

The success quickly gained global traction. In 2019, Barnes and his wife Charlotte Lockhart launched 4 Day Week Global, a programme helping companies run trials worldwide. 

About 20 years ago, young Norwegian backpacker Audun Amundsen set out to explore India. What was meant to be a three-month adventure took an unexpected turn when he lost his return flight ticket. That twist of fate led to a two-year journey across Southeast Asia.

“I just wanted to get as far away from my own culture as possible. So I ended up deep in the jungles of Indonesia in Mentawai, where I met a tribe who lived there. That was back in 2004,” says Amundsen.

The way the tribal family lived – without money, electricity, or what most people consider essentials – mesmerised him. “I thought that was incredibly interesting and I decided to start making a film about that.”

Full of ambition but new to film-making, Amundsen returned home to learn the craft from scratch before eventually putting on his director’s hat.

From there, he spent 15 years following the family with his camera, fully immersing himself in their ways of life, including learning their unwritten dialect. The raw footage he captured over the years became his first documentary, Newtopia – an award-winning film that reveals the impact of modernisation on the tribe and their culture.

A lightbulb moment

After returning to Norway from the jungle, Amundsen couldn’t believe how much the modern world had changed. “I was quite shocked because I had documented the paradigm shift that happened in the jungle. They had gone from not using money to having bank cards, roads and everything that comes with modernisation.

“But what really surprised me was what had happened in my own society while I was away. Suddenly, social media was everywhere, and the changes it brought had transformed the world in a profound way,” says Amundsen.

With social media taking the world by storm, the rise of influencer culture caught Amundsen’s attention. “Eventually, these gurus started popping up, telling me it was easy to get rich online.” Eager to break free from financial constraints, he bought into the hype of influencer marketing.

“I thought maybe I could make more money by creating a business that helps film-makers market their films online,” he says. So he invested $7,500 in an online coaching programme that promised a tenfold return.

Stepping into the world of money-making gurus sparked a lightbulb moment for Amundsen’s latest film, Click The Link Below. “I realised, ‘Oh, this should actually be my next film,’” he says. While Newtopia explored tribal life without money, electricity or wi-fi, this new documentary portrays the contrasting pursuit of success in the digital age.

Bold dream meets reality

To get a close look into the enticing industry, Amundsen spent thousands of dollars interviewing top digital marketers and online influencers for their golden advice. But he soon realised the gap between the glamorous online facade and the harsh reality.

“You have these very successful pioneers who’ve made so much money, they can easily sell you the dream – with the flashy cars, the mansions and all of it,” says Amundsen. “But it’s like a pyramid: at the lower levels, people are really just struggling, trying to make things work – and that’s very difficult.”

The film captures Amundsen’s frustration as he struggles to find his footing, exposing the blurred line between inspiration and exploitation.

“Oftentimes, they say they want to help you become successful and rich, but honestly, I’m not sure if I should believe that. Ultimately, they want you to sign up for their courses,” Amundsen adds.

Expose the hidden truth

The documentary dives into what causes the dark side of online hustle culture. Experts including professor Robert Waldinger, author Gretchen Rubin and data engineer Frances Haugen share their insights.

“A get-rich-quick scheme – a guru who promises to make you wealthy – is very, very appealing, and these algorithms take those kinds of people and they send them viral,” says Haugen.

“The way Facebook selected content to show people was through algorithms that fall into a general category called ‘engagement-based ranking’. If you were more likely to click on it, dwell on it, or comment on it, that content was considered better,” she adds. However, that kind of content doesn’t necessarily enhance our wellbeing – in fact, it can reduce our sense of happiness.

Humans tend to fall into the trap of social comparison, often driven by a fear of missing out, says Rubin. “We think everybody is doing X, but me. What’s wrong with me?”

Waldinger adds: “With influencers, we can count exactly how many followers they have. We know exactly how much money they make.”

These curated lives can leave others feeling discontent. As a result, algorithms and social comparison allow influencers to hijack the business.

More than a film

By sharing his vulnerability, Amundsen hopes Click The Link Below will open up broader conversations around the influencer phenomenon.

“I hope that this film can create a little bit of discussion about algorithms and how they are working,” says Amundsen.

“Like Frances Haugen said, the more extreme the content, the more views it gets and the more it spreads. I don’t think these gurus and influencers necessarily want to behave this way – they’re just adapting to the algorithm to reach more people.

“That’s why I believe social media platforms carry a huge responsibility,” he adds. “We can’t keep relying on algorithms that are only optimised for making money, because that’s not really the purpose of life, is it?”

No one knows what the future of influencer culture and social media holds. But Amundsen invites his audience to reflect on our search for deeper meaning in a world driven by clicks, likes and online fame.

Click The Link Below is part of documentary film festival Doc Edge 2025.

Or perhaps: “How much time could I save if I didn’t have to go to the salon?”

Michael Woffindin had the same thought – and that curiosity led him to create Hairspace, an Auckland startup that makes an AI-powered hair clipper. Woffindin says the clippers deliver salon-quality haircuts for hair up to 10cm long in just 12 minutes.

Claiming to put the skill of a hairstylist in every hand might sound far-fetched, but Woffindin isn’t bluffing.

The clipper lifts hair straight as it moves – just like a barber does with their comb – ensuring precise control over cutting lengths. It can even scan and store haircuts, making style recreation just a tap away, says Woffindin.

Fresh cut made easy

With a background in software development, Woffindin had always been fascinated by robotics and saw its potential to shape the future. But the idea of building a robotic clipper didn’t take form until he found himself wasting hours just to get a simple haircut.

“One morning, I went to my favourite barber, and it was a bit of a drive. It took a few hours with parking and waiting for other people. By the time I finally walked out, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be incredible if I could recreate this haircut myself? I wouldn’t have to go through all that hassle,'” says Woffindin.

From that moment on, he began experimenting in his garage.

Built from scratch

Over the past seven years, Woffindin taught himself how to build hardware from scratch and learned about different hair types.

“I bought a 3D printer and started making prototypes, trying to figure out how hair works and how it behaves. It took me a couple of years,” he says.

“Around four years ago, I managed to recreate the first haircut – it was on a mannequin. I took it to a hair dresser, mapped the haircut using the device by measuring all the lengths and then recreated it.

“With that evidence, I was able to get $1M funding from the Callaghan Innovation programme here in New Zealand, through one of their partners, WNT Ventures.

“Getting that investment was a big moment and it really helped move things forward,” he adds.

A leap of faith

For someone who had never built hardware products before, it’s been a long and difficult journey, says Woffindin.

“I got told plenty of times that I was crazy. Even when I first spoke to a patent lawyer, they literally laughed at me and said, ‘No one wants to get a haircut from a robot.’

“But for me, once I started experimenting with hair early on and figured out how it might work, I’ve always had this unwavering belief. I’m not sure if it’s optimism or craziness,” he says.

Woffindin adds that his passion – or perhaps blind faith – is what pushed him through the tough times.

“Passion helps if you’re really excited about the product yourself. I thought, this would be so cool if I could make it work. I even cut my own hair with it before the trial,” he laughs.

Work in progress

Last year, Woffindin and his small team launched trials to demonstrate the product. They invited 12 people to cut their own hair using the clipper – and the results were positive.

“We had lots of different hair types and nationalities, which was great. The exciting part was seeing these people come in, watch the clipper work and witness their reactions,” he says.

Although the trials created a buzz, the team still have to overcome a fair bit of doubt.

“One of the challenges is that you tell people about it, and they say, ‘This sounds cool, but I don’t believe it’s possible.'”

To combat scepticism, Hairspace plans to explore influencer marketing down the line.

“Our clipper is still a proof of concept, so we need to go through one more design cycle before it’s ready for manufacturing,” says Woffindin.

“But once we enter the market, influencers will play a big role in our marketing campaign – letting people see others they trust getting great haircuts with it.”

Look out for what’s next

Hairspace is also looking to incorporate an AI assistant into the clipper and expand its product range to include a razor for beard maintenance.

“Our next big plan is to build an AI assistant that helps you plan haircuts. You’ll be able to download styles from a hairstyle store and try different looks before you cut,” says Woffindin.

“You can even talk to the assistant and say things like, ‘I’d like it a bit longer.’ Or ‘Can you give me some ideas?’ Once you’ve previewed it on a virtual version of yourself, you’ll be able to download the style and cut it straight away.”

With this full grooming package, will salons be affected once the products hit the market?

Woffindin says it depends on personal preference: “There are a lot of people who really enjoy going to the salon – they love the experience. So there’ll always be those people. But there are also people who just want a great haircut done easily. I think it’ll be a mix.”

Run by Master Builders, the awards celebrate innovation, craftsmanship and collaboration in commercial construction. They remain the only competition in New Zealand to honour the entire project team – not just the building.

“It’s a really good reward for all the folks who worked on this job,” says Peter Breen, Breen Construction’s executive director. “And that’s for all stakeholders – whether they’re carpenters, electricians, plumbers, architects or structural engineers.”

Beautiful + Functional

The new distillery, located on the banks of Lake Dunstan in Central Otago, stood out for its meticulous blend of architectural impact with precision-engineered processing facilities.

The Breen Construction team worked closely with Cheshire Architects, who led the project’s design. Since architectural appeal and industrial function don’t typically go hand in hand, Breen is proud of the collaboration that brought design quality into a practical manufacturing setting.

Built using laminated timber and powered by electric boilers, the structure reflects green thinking by minimising the use of steel and diesel. It also includes future-ready infrastructure for retail and hospitality.

“There’s a wider vision for Scapegrace,” says Breen. “It’s not just about brewing or distilling liquor and getting it out the door – they want to create an experience on site as well.”

There’s a plan to add more features further down the line, including a cellar door or a restaurant where visitors can get food, sample products and take tours, he adds.

Harsh weather for top whisky

Daniel McLaughlin, managing director at Scapegrace Distillery, says the development’s precise location on the 45th parallel was strategically chosen to support a premium distilling process. Straddling the line between the Equator and the South Pole, the site’s extreme temperature variations create ideal conditions for ageing whisky.

The judges praised Breen Construction for their ability to deliver high standards despite harsh weather. “The strong wind and winter fog created some pressure,” says Breen. “I mean the wind is almost as certain as the sun coming up – but we were able to reprioritise critical path elements and still deliver on program.”

McLaughlin adds: “Their calm, solutions-first approach under pressure made a huge difference in delivering a project of this complexity.”

A team culture that thrives

Receiving an award that honours teamwork also highlights the strong collaboration and dedication behind this project.

“The culture set by Scapegrace was pretty cool,” says Breen. “We took pride in what we did. Everyone challenged each other, and no one got offended. We just worked together to come up with the answers to the problems.

“I think the biggest thing is that the client really trusted Breen, the architects and the other consultants to deliver what they wanted. At times, that might’ve felt a bit challenging, but everyone was quite honest, and we got there through good discussions,” he adds.

McLaughlin says, “Breen were more than builders. They were strategic partners who shared our long-term vision from day one. They embraced the sustainability brief, helping us implement future-forward systems without compromising design.”

Major film releases were highlighted, including Zootopia 2, Inside Out 2 and, of particular interest to Kiwi audiences, Moana 2, which features a strong lineup of homegrown talent, including Temuera Morrison, David Fane, Awhimai Fraser and Rachel House.

The biggest announcement of the presentation centred around the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Krysten Ritter will return as Jessica Jones in Daredevil: Born Again season 2, following the debut of a new web television series, Wonder Man.

A host of stars

The presentation also featured actors from the platform’s award-winning shows, including Selena Gomez, Steve Martin and Martin Short from Only Murders in the Building and Jeremy Allen-White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach from The Bear.

CEO Bob Iger made an appearance, mentioning the upcoming opening of a Disney theme park resort in Abu Dhabi and highlighting new shows, films and streaming content across Disney’s platforms – including ABC, ESPN, Hulu, FX, and Disney+.

“I’m happy to be here with you today to open this show, which will once again highlight creativity from an array of our brands and businesses,” says Iger.

A focus on sports

Sports played a key role in the presentation, with Rita Ferro, president of global advertising sales, celebrating Disney’s diverse content portfolio across sports, entertainment and live programming.

Stephen A. Smith, NBA analyst for ESPN, described Disney’s new ESPN streaming service which will launch in early autumn in the US. He adds that it will bring all ESPN content into one direct-to-consumer app, further strengthening ESPN’s leadership in sports distribution, particularly in women’s and college sports.

Football and basketball analysts Elle Duncan, Andraya Carter and Chiney Ogwumike echoed that message: “ESPN is true to women’s sports, not new to women’s sports,” say Duncan. “Our commitment is fuelling the growth of ESPN. Last year, fans spent 54% more time watching and that includes the WNBA, college basketball, gymnastics, volleyball and tennis.”

To mark its release in New Zealand, the company partnered with local advertising agency YoungShand and seven local artists for an eye-catching collaboration. The artists include Stephen Templer, Margarita Vovna, Robbi Carvalho, Gwilym Devey, Guy Ellis, Pepper Raccoon and Marcus Watson.

The following features creative insights from Stephen Templer, Margarita Vovna and Marcus Watson (pictured above). Templer’s work spans children’s book illustration, animation, street art and more. Vovna specialises in both commercial work and personal passion projects. Watson brings together illustration and graphic design in his art.

Together, they share how their artistry reflects the power and freedom of creativity, highlighting how the Reno13 Series places design and creative freedom at the forefront.

Tell me more about the elements you used in your design

“I’m a visual storyteller, so the elements used are characters and landscape. I wanted to show energy and movement. With the underlying composition of butterfly wings, some symmetry was important, but also breaking out with individual characters,” says Templer.

For Vovna, the theme is quite literally ‘elemental’. “The main shapes are influenced by flowing water or maybe mist with flames and blooms intertwining throughout the smoky butterfly wings.”

Whereas Watson says he used “a combination of surreal, organic and symbolic elements that collectively form the shape of the butterfly motif.

“The aim is to convey a sense of balance and duality (hence the yin and yang symbol) so naturally I went with a symmetrical composition. I also wanted the artwork to feel dreamlike yet futuristic, so I rendered the elements using soft gradients and neon glows.”

What message or emotions do you want customers to feel? 

“I want the customer to see an exciting and dynamic piece of art. Also a glimpse into some underlying stories and characters,” says Templer. “I want them to feel like they are witness to a moment in an adventure. I would like them to see themselves in this story.”

Vovna says, she aimed for a core feeling of harmony, infused with the energy and vitality of fire and blooms. “I think there’s a sense of balance and motion in this design that suggests embracing the dynamic nature of things and life. I like seeing these different elements co-existing with ease.”

Meanwhile, Watson hopes his artwork will make people feel “curious, empowered and inspired!”

How does the butterfly shape convey the power and freedom of creativity? 

“The movement and transformation of butterflies is a symbol of rebirth and creativity,” says Templer. “The shape feels like an embodiment of dynamic beauty.”

Vovna, who has incorporated butterfly imagery in much of her earlier work, highlights their visual variety and fleeting presence. “It’s easy to admire the many shapes and forms butterflies come in,” she says. “Much like creative ideas, they float in and out, can be fleeting and hard to catch but add so much beauty and diversity to our visual world.”

For Watson, the butterfly carries a deeper symbolic meaning. “The butterfly is the archetypal symbol of transformation and growth,” he explains. “Its ability to undergo metamorphosis reflects how through creativity, ideas and concepts evolve through a series of limitations and boundaries to ultimately take flight and break free – mirroring how creative freedom transforms limitations into liberation.”