I have a big deadline this week - Friday at noon I have a research bid due so I am donkey-deep in Government speak. I am also, as always, donkey-deep in being a parent - this doesn't suddenly stop at Friday noon!
Anyway, when under research-bid timeline stress, parts of my world start to collide. I have started incorporating parental ways of speaking into the workplace and government speak into the home. What a jumble!
Interestingly though, out of my spaghetti brain are coming some rather intriguing threads of innovation. You see, for my research bid, I have been investigating the use of blockchain for tracing and tracking primary products into international markets, and ultimately to consumers.
Blockchain, blah blah, I can almost hear you switch off. Wait, let me describe this at the level of my simple mind. In a food blockchain, products are assigned data or information at each step along the supply chain, from on-farm production to consumer.
The product can never lose that data and the cloud-based storage systems are such, that many steps and data can be added -all together the data build the story of how that product has been treated over its lifetime, providing transparency to the consumer.
Similarly, I think we could apply this concept to the management of teenagers. Every party the teenager goes to could be added to the blockchain, and if they were moving over multiple sites on any one night, alerts could be set up.
Everything that they ingested could also add to the blockchain and when they reached a certain maximum limit, perhaps detected by a blood-alcohol sensor, that sensor could transmit data to the blockchain receptor and back to the family home.
You might think here, that I imagine myself being woken to go and fetch the recalcitrant teenager, but no, my innovation for teenagers is going one step further than my research bid. The data are transmitted to my driverless car which then automatically zooms out of the driveway without waking me - it is electric - and off to the party to pick up the teenager and beam him home.
On the way home, there is a recording of my voice talking about responsibility, resisting peer pressure and treating women well - let's face it, these messages are on repeat anyway.
In my research bid, the challenge of using blockchain in the food chain is the complexity of the food chain and the associated expense ... will the consumer pay for such knowledge? This is a rather big unknown and potentially an impediment to the technology uptake.
Blockchain for teenagers, though, has a far greater value proposition. Who wouldn't pay to lie blissfully asleep in bed, knowing that the blockchain had it all under control - perhaps I am in the wrong industry - think of the money to be made, and before you shake your head, remember the words of Mark Twain ''the man with a new idea is a crank - until the idea succeeds''.
Seriously though, my belief is that being a parent of a teenager is punishment for having been a teenager yourself. When I had late nights out, of which I had many, my parents always said to me they would pick me up no matter where or when and that I could phone them at any time of night - thank you Mum and Dad, I now have an appreciation of this.
When I had late nights out, I would always get home to a warm bed, because my Dad always put a hottie in my bed and left my door open so he would know I had made it home safely - thank you Dad.
And after a night out, whenever something had gone wrong, my Mum would always be available to talk, no matter the time of night or how busy she was - thanks Mum.
It's true that your appreciation of your own parents only happens when you live through what they have lived. If technology as I have described, is invented in such a timeframe as to fit my own parenting of teenagers that would be fantastic and I will be an early adopter.
However, should it take another generation and only be available when my grandchildren are teenagers, then I will do all I can to stop my children from adopting such technology.
My one feeling of delight in all this, is that everything my children put me through, in time, they will have to go through. Quite simply, what goes around comes around.
-Anna Campbell is managing director of AbacusBio Ltd, a Dunedin-based agribusiness consulting and new ventures company.
