Boots Theory

Stephanie Rodgers is a campaigner, communicator, and commentator on New Zealand politics.

She provides advice on messaging and communications strategy, media and social media, organisational culture and crisis management for progressive and community organisations.

She has been involved in campaigns including Stand With Pike and Keep It Public, the creation and rebranding of E tū, New Zealand’s largest private sector union, and has previously worked for the parliamentary Labour Party and Public Service Association.

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I’m always interested in new projects, having a chat about your communications needs, speaking opportunities and media comment. Use the form below to get in touch or tweet me at @bootstheory.

A lot of people wonder where the name of this blog comes from. Wonder no more! It’s taken from Terry Pratchett’s Men At Arms:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

PS. Get some more Terry Pratchett in your life. You won’t regret it.