Anthill Magazine

Can you remember the winner of TIME magazine’s Most Influential Person poll in 2009? Was it Barack Obama? Oprah Winfrey? The Dalai Lama? No, it was Moot, the pseudonym of 21-year-old Christopher Poole, a college student and founder of online community 4chan.org. So, why the long winded introduction to this year’s Cool Company Awards Readers’ Choice Award? Did we get gamed?

More>>

If you attended yesterday’s webinar with Pete Williams on outsourcing, offshoring and crowdsourcing, you might recall that I asked Pete whether we could share a video of his that I was fortunate enough to stumble across in the not-so-distant past. As mentioned, this video really got my head spinning. It begins with one logical and familiar example of outsourcing (creating content for a website) and then takes the process to the… wait for it… EXTREME! (Because Pete’s an outsourcing ‘extremist’, see?)

More>>

This morning, I sat down with my 9-month old son, Julian, to feed him breakfast. This is one of the jobs allocated to me as a first-time, new father. Remembering the arduous steps required to complete yesterday morning’s meal (and the day before that), and contemplating how bizarre it is that I must work so hard to provide him something that will make him stronger and healthier and happier, I began to think about online marketing. Yes, the brain works in mysterious ways. (And I am kind of sleep deprived.)

More>>

Incubator options for Australian startups will expand next month, with the announcement on Friday that “venture technology company” BlueChilli has acquired growth funding from early stage venture capital fund FCDF. If the names BlueChilli and FCDF sound familiar it’s because BlueChilli is the venture of serial entrepreneur (and 30under30 veteran) Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin. FCDF is the product of another well-heeled player in the Australian startup scene, Domenic Carosa.

More>>

Zach Nelson is CEO of NetSuite. He was named one of the 10 Visionary CEOs of 2008 by InternetNews.com, after guiding the company through its 2007 IPO. He helmed it from startup to one of the world’s leading cloud computing companies. So, it’s not surprisingly that he should hold this view. Yes, he is biased. But is he wrong?

More>>

Naturally, we receive feedback all the time from Anthill readers. Much of it is helpful. But, sometimes, the feedback contradicts what we know to be true, based on the cumulative behaviours of hundreds of thousands of site visitors. Rather than provide a polite but generally meaningless response (like, “Thank you for your feedback. We welcome and respect the views of all our readers”), I often try to explain why it is that we do things the way we do. But, today, I’m feeling a bit guilty. Too harsh?

More>>

Studies now show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension — and our creative thinking. So, why do we still feel embarrassed when we’re caught doodling in a meeting? In this fun TED talk, professional doodler Sunni Brown makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen. Doodlers, unite!

More>>

As you can imagine, I get sent books all the time. It’s one of the perks of being ‘Mr Anthill’. Despite being a prolific reader, only a few ever capture my attention. And an even smaller number capture my imagination. Several weeks ago, I was sent the Australian edition of ‘Become a Key Person of Influence’ by Daniel Priestly. I read it in an afternoon. And, several weeks on, my imagination is still buzzing.

More>>

Do you have an eyeball collection strategy? No, I’m not talking about some gruesome or macabre practice more likely associated with the works of Edgar Allan Poe than a commercial series on marketing. I’m talking about decreasing your reliance on traditional media, or at least maximising traditional marketing outcomes.

More>>

Some years ago, the Anthill office was all-a-chuckles when a seagull offered a beached whale a ‘chup’ (the whale was ‘beached as’). More recently, Brett, Germaine and the lads from Flight of the Concords had us rhyming like hip-hop-opotamuses. It was, therefore, with great pleasure that the Anthill ‘massive’ alerted us to this clip ‘en masse’. (If you’re not already reading this with a New Zeland accent, we’re not doing our job right, bro.)

More>>