Matariki: The Anchoring Point in Time
Photo credit: Richie Mills and NAIA Limited.
Puanga and Matariki are pictured above Ruapehu.
Matariki — honestly, the best holiday of the year if you ask me. I might be a bit biased, but over the last four years it’s grown and become a real part of us — woven into the whāriki of Aotearoa.
Ever wonder what Matariki will look like in 100 years? I’m already seeing new traditions form, many rooted in te ao Māori — like whakawhanaungatanga, sharing pūrākau, and digging into the stories of the land we stand on. I’ve caught up with old school mates, had deep kōrero and wānanga in a van — it’s everything I love about this time of year.
And honestly, if you think about how big Santa Claus is around the world, I don’t doubt Matariki will become just as deeply woven into the future of this whenua. Maybe someday, stories like Te Wehenga and Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea will be as well known as Santa himself.
A Glimpse Back: Life in 1925
What was life like 100 years ago? New Zealand was a very different place.
A loaf of bread cost about 7 pence — roughly 10 minutes of a worker’s wage.
Houses went for around £1,000, which is roughly $100,000 in today’s money (compare that to today’s median house price of about $780,000).
Workers took home about £3 a week, roughly $250 today.
Radios were the big thing — phones were rare, and TV wouldn’t arrive for decades.
The population was about 1.4 million, with around 63,000 Māori communities still holding strong to te reo despite pressures.
It’s wild to think how different things were — and I often wonder: if you swapped a 20-year-old from 1925 with a 20-year-old from today, who would fare better? I reckon the young person from the 1920s might survive better in our modern world than we would back then. Toughness, skills, and the way they managed life without all the tech we take for granted might give them an edge. But that’s a whole other story!
My mum told me a story about my Nāna Hine and Papa — deeply religious, studying the Bible with scribbles and notes everywhere. Mum still has those Bibles. Nana once said, “Girl, one day everything will be paid for with plastic. Money like we know it will be gone.” A wild prediction for the time, but maybe some had a sense of what was coming.
The Tech Leap: From Then to Now
Fast forward to 2025, and technology has made huge leaps.
Computers today are incredibly powerful. For example:
The NVIDIA H100 chip can perform 30 to 40 trillion operations per second.
Apple’s M3 chip packs 25 billion transistors, compared to just 2,300 on the first Intel chip from 1971.
Quantum computing is emerging, tackling problems that traditional computers can’t.
Alongside this, artificial intelligence has exploded in capability. AI systems can now:
Write, speak, translate, and create images, music, and video.
Summarise books, write code, and translate languages in real time.
Operate near human-level reasoning, as seen in models like GPT-4.
AI’s growth is staggering:
Its power doubles every 6 to 10 months.
By 2030, AI could be 1,000 times more powerful than it is today.
Some experts predict AI will surpass human reasoning within the next 5 to 10 years.
It’s expected that 40 to 60 percent of jobs will shift or change by 2040.
Sources: OpenAI, McKinsey, Future of Jobs Report (WEF, 2023)
What This Means for Flooring
Robots aren’t laying carpets yet, but AI is already transforming the industry:
Faster, more accurate quotes using room scans and AI-generated plans.
Stock management that predicts and orders just in time.
Virtual tools letting customers see flooring in their space before installation.
Apps guiding installers step-by-step on site.
Smarter business ops — from costing to marketing to follow-up.
We want to start leveraging these tools, but we need to learn to walk before we run.
The Choice Ahead
The gap is only going to widen between businesses that adapt and those that don’t — flooring businesses, and all businesses alike.
The future is already here. The real question is: are we preparing our businesses and communities — including our tamariki — for what’s coming?
Those who lean in will move faster, waste less, and deliver better experiences.
Because in the end, we’re not just building businesses — we’re shaping stories, histories, and futures.
And we’re ready to show up for it.