About dreamstorm
Most of this industry builds for the people who already have everything.
Big clients. Well-funded founders. Early adopters with engineers on staff.
dreamstorm exists for the rest. The businesses across Aotearoa New Zealand who deserve the same quality of thinking as anyone else. Regional owners. Solo operators running lean. Service businesses ready to grow. Established operators who've built something worth protecting.
I'm Lian Passmore, and dreamstorm is my consultancy. I'm an AI consultant who builds: I work out where AI fits in your business, and I build it when that's the answer. Sometimes the smart move is a tool you already have. Sometimes it's building something custom that's properly yours. Sometimes it's nothing yet. The point is you get told the truth either way, and the quality of thinking doesn't depend on the size of your cheque.
What you can expect
Five things I'll do, every time.
- 01 I'll tell you the truth, even when it's not what you want to hear.
- 02 I won't perform expertise to justify a price.
- 03 I'll send you elsewhere when I'm not the right fit.
- 04 I'll explain things plainly. If I have to use a piece of jargon, I'll translate it.
- 05 I won't oversell. I'll undersell, and overdeliver.
The longer version of what dreamstorm will and won't build is written down. Read the Charter →
Why people pick dreamstorm
I'm both the things most people make you choose between.
Most people in this work are one or the other. The strategist who sees how it all connects but can't build the thing. The builder who moves fast but never stopped to think about the actual humans on the other end. I'm both, and that's the rare bit.
The receipts, briefly. Fourteen years at Northpower, one of New Zealand's largest organisations, designing how people learn and how systems work, across ten different roles from the help desk to the people and capability leadership team. A Master of Technological Futures, with original contributions in ethical AI design. And now a new build most weeks: coaching companions, marketing engines, membership platforms, course platforms, and the systems I run my own business on.
I didn't come at this from the tech and pick up the business later. I came the other way round. You bring the knowledge and the smarts about your own business. I bring the expertise to supercharge it.
What it's like to work with me
Most people say it feels like we've known each other far longer than we have. I'm an open book, I'll tell you what I actually think, kindly, and I don't perform a polished distance to seem more expert. We're in a partnership, walking alongside this together.
I'm organised about it. You'll always know the steps, what we're doing, and when. No surprises. I shape the contact around you, more updates if you want them, less if you don't. And because I've studied a ridiculous range of things over the years, you tend to get more than you came for. A resource you weren't expecting. A connection. The thing nobody told you to ask about.
And what I say no to. I know a lot about a lot of things, and I'm genuinely good at a few. When someone else is better for you, I'll tell you. I won't take your money for something another person would do better. And there are things I simply won't do: I won't build anything that's in conflict with my values, and I won't work with someone who is. That's not a marketing line. It's just how I work.
The person behind it
The job I wanted didn't exist yet. So I built it.
A Samoan and New Zealand European woman from Maungatūroto, the only Samoan family in a small rural Northland town. Always in the in-between space, translating between worlds. That shaped everything: who gets considered, who gets included, and what it means to design something for someone rather than just about them.
A mum of five, including triplets. They're the reason the values aren't up for negotiation, and the reason I only do work I'd be glad to show them one day.
And the first small business owner I ever knew was my dad. He ran his own business and worked relentlessly hard at it, and I saw the whole thing up close: the highs, the lows, what it actually means to back yourself. He's not with us anymore, and I'm not sure I ever saw the man touch a computer. What I wish for is simple. That he was still here, still running his business, and that I had the skills I have now to help him with the world he'd be up against. I can't do that for him.
So I do it for people like him instead.
A small thing that explains a lot
I talk first, write second. Oratory is in my DNA, it's how my mind moves, and it's why dreamstorm sounds the way it does. For a lot of communities, mine included, voice isn't a preference. It's a justice decision, and it runs through everything I make.
Cultural grounding
I think in relationships first. I build with communities, not for them, grounded in kaupapa Māori and Pacific principles: reciprocity, care, and designing with people rather than at them. One piece of work that came out of that: the Tikanga-Led Framework for Conversational AI Agents, co-authored with Lee Palamo and validated by Dr Karaitiana Taiuru. It governs every build I do.
Recognition
Winner, 2022 HeadFit Awards (Engagement and Communication) ·Finalist, 2024 NZ Energy Excellence Awards ·Finalist, 2021 NZ HeadFit Awards ·Finalist, 2020 Transpower Star Awards ·Board Appointments Panel, Sport Northland ·Co-host, Follow the White Rabbit, with Larissa Daly
Qualifications
Master of Technological Futures (AcademyEX) ·Bachelor of Applied Business Management, Strategic Management (Otago Polytechnic) ·Advanced Certificate in Change Psychology ·Lean Change Agent ·Mental Health First Aid Instructor ·Experience Design Certification ·Level 4 Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety
If this sounds like the kind of person you've been looking for, let's talk.
Thirty minutes, free, and you'll leave knowing your next move. Even if the answer is not yet.
Book a free half hourBooking an event? Book me to speak →