Independent enough to challenge. Respectful enough to listen. Grounded enough to serve.
More than ten years ago, when I finished my work with Whanganui Computers in Homes in 2013, I was given a beautiful glass sculpture.
Engraved underneath it was one word:
Maverick.
I loved it. I still do.
But I have become increasingly conscious that maverick can be an uncomfortable word.
It can suggest someone unpredictable. Someone who doesn’t play nicely with others. Someone who rejects structures simply because they are structures, resists accountability, or prefers being an outsider.
That isn’t the kind of maverick I want to be.
So, as I review where my digital inclusion work is heading, I’ve found myself adding another word:
Respectful Maverick
Not to soften the independence.
To define what that independence is for.
Why independence still matters
Digital inclusion has changed enormously during the years I have been involved in it.
There are now national organisations, networks, researchers, funders, telecommunications companies, government agencies and increasingly sophisticated conversations about digital equity.
That is progress.
But every established field develops its own gravitational pull. The same people meet, the same language develops, familiar assumptions become embedded, and sometimes it becomes harder to see what doesn’t fit.
That is not necessarily because anyone is doing anything wrong. It is simply what institutions and professional communities naturally do.
And that is why I still believe there is value in standing slightly outside the machinery.
Someone needs to be able to ask:
Is this actually working for the person sitting on the other side of the table?
Someone needs to notice people and problems that don’t fit neatly within programme criteria.
Someone sometimes needs to test an idea before there is a strategy describing it.
And somebody needs the freedom to say, respectfully:
I’m not sure we’ve got this right.
That, for me, is the useful part of being a maverick.
Independence has to be earned
There is another side to this.
Being independent does not excuse poor discipline.
I think it demands more discipline.
If I ask a community organisation to work with me, a researcher to take an idea seriously, or a funder to invest money in something I am proposing, they are entitled to expect that my independence will be exercised responsibly.
For me, that means:
- being honest about the evidence — including what I don’t know;
- listening properly before arriving with solutions;
- keeping commitments and being careful with other people’s resources;
- documenting what happens, including failures as well as successes;
- recognising the expertise, responsibilities and constraints of partners;
- being willing to change my mind when the evidence changes.
A respectful maverick isn’t accountable to nobody.
The challenge is to remain accountable without surrendering independent judgement.
That distinction matters enormously.
Solo — but not alone
One conclusion is becoming clearer as I review the next phase of Digital Inclusion Whanganui.
I increasingly think its strength may lie in remaining small, independent and adaptable.
Perhaps, fundamentally, a solo act.
But solo does not mean alone.
It means creating spaces where collaboration happens naturally, without needing to build a conventional organisation around every piece of work.
That is already happening.
SENSE Whanganui at Gonville Library gives us a continuing community anchor: somewhere to help people directly, listen, notice recurring problems, try resources and learn from what actually happens.
Our developing work with Age Concern creates another pathway — beginning with people, conversation and need rather than arriving with a predetermined programme.
A developing InternetNZ research proposal has opened another door: taking questions arising from practical digital inclusion work and exploring whether they deserve deeper research, particularly around safe assisted access to essential online services.
And an unexpected opportunity to provide commissioned individual digital capability training has shown that some of the knowledge developed through community work may also have legitimate professional value where an organisation has a vested interest in helping somebody gain digital capability.
These are very different activities.
I don’t think they need to be forced into one programme.
What connects them is the approach:
Listen → Discover → Test → Document → Analyse → Adapt → Build the pathway
Sometimes I will lead.
Sometimes I will partner.
Sometimes I will teach.
Sometimes I will research.
Sometimes the right decision will be to step aside.
That freedom to move between roles may actually be one of the strongest arguments for remaining small.
The risk of the outsider who is always right
There is an obvious danger in all of this.
The person outside the system can easily convince themselves that everyone inside the system has got it wrong.
That is just another form of groupthink — except the group contains one person.
So being a respectful maverick also requires the discipline to listen before disrupting.
Understand why something exists.
Assume that other people may know things I don’t.
Invite challenge.
Seek expertise.
Separate something that is genuinely failing from something that is simply different from the way I would have done it.
Respect isn’t politeness pasted over disagreement.
It is recognising that other people bring knowledge, obligations, experience and perspectives of their own.
I can disagree strongly without diminishing another person.
Respect is not compliance.
And independence is not isolation.
People remain bigger than systems
There is one test that sits underneath all of this.
However sophisticated the technology, programme, funding structure or policy becomes, the person must remain bigger than the system.
Digital inclusion ultimately happens in very ordinary moments.
- Someone trying to access their bank account.
- Someone frightened by a suspicious message.
- Someone applying for work.
- Someone learning how to use email.
- Someone who needs another person sitting beside them because an essential online service has become too difficult to navigate alone.
That is where the abstractions become real.
Policies, technologies and organisations are tools. People are not.
Dignity, agency, privacy, choice and the right to say no matter.
That is also why I want to retain enough independence to keep asking uncomfortable questions when the experience of the person does not match the intention of the system.
Building momentum — not simply becoming busier
An old piece of thinking has also returned to me during this strategic review: Jim Collins’ idea of the flywheel.
Meaningful progress rarely comes from one heroic intervention.
One useful action strengthens another.
Relationships build trust.
Trust creates opportunities.
Opportunities allow ideas to be tested.
Testing creates evidence.
Evidence strengthens credibility.
Credibility creates new relationships and possibilities.
Round the wheel goes again.
That feels much closer to what is happening now than trying to manufacture growth for its own sake.
And it introduces another discipline:
Do not confuse activity with progress.
More projects, meetings and opportunities do not necessarily mean greater impact.
Sometimes the strategic answer is:
Not now.
And sometimes it is simply:
No.
Build something that can outlast the maverick
There is another part of the strategy that I now think needs to become explicit.
If Digital Inclusion Whanganui only survives while I remain able and willing to drive it, then it isn’t truly sustainable.
Succession cannot be something dealt with when succession suddenly becomes necessary.
It starts now.
That means documenting what we learn.
Creating resources other people can use.
Building a proper independent online home for Digital Inclusion Whanganui.
Maintaining relationships and records.
Developing physical and digital assets that belong to the work rather than to one event.
And gradually creating something that could, when the time eventually comes, be handed on.
Jim Collins distinguishes between telling the time and building the clock.
Perhaps this stage of my work is increasingly about building the clock.
Not making myself indispensable.
Making the work useful enough to continue without me.
The Respectful Maverick Code
Out of this reflection has come a personal operating code.
Not a declaration that everybody else should work this way.
It is primarily a standard against which I can judge myself.
Its central ideas are:
Purpose before ego.
Challenge in service of something better, not simply to be right.
Respect without compliance.
Disagreement does not require disrespect, and respect does not require silence.
Listen before disrupting.
Understand first. Challenge second.
Go where need and invitation meet.
Not every problem requires my involvement.
Tell the truth — especially when it is inconvenient.
No manufactured certainty. No exaggerated success.
Start small enough to learn.
Test before declaring something an answer.
Keep people bigger than systems.
Protect dignity, agency, privacy and choice.
Remain independent without becoming isolated.
Seek expertise, relationships and challenge.
Be gentle with people and tough on problems.
Do not confuse activity with progress.
Leave something others can use.
Stay curious.
The poster version of the Code expresses these ideas visually. Over time I may compress and refine them, but I don’t want to lose what sits underneath them.
Why give it a name?
Because naming something creates accountability.
If I call myself a maverick, I need to earn the independence that word implies.
If I add respectful, then people who encounter me should actually experience that respect — particularly when we disagree.
And if this becomes part of how I approach the next phase of Digital Inclusion Whanganui, partners, communities, researchers and funders should be able to hold me to it too.
So perhaps this is less a new brand than a clearer statement of something that has been there for a long time.
I still want to question things.
I still want to experiment.
I still want the freedom to go where an emerging need takes me.
But I also want to listen, collaborate, demonstrate results, accept accountability and leave something worthwhile behind.
**Independent enough to challenge.
Respectful enough to listen.
Grounded enough to serve.**
That is the kind of maverick I want to be.
AI-assisted creation
This article and its accompanying Respectful Maverick visual framework were developed collaboratively by Alistair Fraser and ChatGPT. The experiences, perspectives, strategic direction and final editorial judgement are Alistair’s; AI was used as a thinking, drafting and visual-development partner.