A combination of internationally-inspired, Australian-designed and affordable garments coupled with an intelligent approach to social media and ecommerce seems to have struck a chord with Australia’s fashion-conscious women.

Show Pony has had it’s fair share of print exposure, but it’s in digital that company founder Jane Lu is seeing her greatest returns. By working Facebook and generating exposure in fashion blogs, Show Pony is connecting with its customers where they most commonly congregate — online.

With close to 33,000 Facebook fans, Show Pony uses a simple but effective engagement technique of inviting customers to tag themselves in promotional photos to win the profiled garment. Not only does this increase engagement on the page, it spreads the promotion directly to the customer’s social network through their public feed, dramatically increasing brand awareness.

In order to streamline purchasing, Show Pony has kept its online shopping experience as lean as possible. Garments come in only four sizes with no colour variations, making it quick and easy for shoppers to make a decision. Further, by focusing on moving sale items online, Show Pony continues to drive traffic to their site, while simultaneously freeing up space in their three Sydney retail stores to focus on current season stock.

It’s an approach to digital that indicates Jane Lu — formerly in corporate finance with KPMG and Ernst & Young — understands that both online and offline marketing and selling are substantially different exercises; to achieve success in the highly competitive world of fashion, you need to give the right kind of attention to both.

To check out Show Pony’s Facebook page, click here.

Show Pony Fashion Show, September 2011

The Australian-born Twitter payment pioneer has banked $600,000 in new angel capital. Pollenizer, the startup incubator, raised most of the amount from a bunch of new and previous investors.

The new investors who get a share of the pie are Tasmania-based Andrew Spykes, Lend Lease CEO Anthony Pascoe, Hitwise founder Adrian Giles and Adrian Stone of the Melbourne-based incubator Angel Cube.

Previous investors include Yahoo!7 chief Rohan Lund; Tim Howard of Vividwireless, a division of Yahoo!7; and Pollenizer itself.

Facebook push ahead

“Investor enthusiasm has been high for Pygg in a way we have not seen before and we are all very proud of the demand we have seen from an impressive array of investors,” said Pollenizer Co-Founder Phil Morle. “It signals a renewed energy in the local start-up investment community and supports our view that Pygg has great things ahead of it.”

Pygg makes small micropayments as easy as sending a tweet. Its system enables, for example, you to pay your friend for the coffee. Pygg has linked with PayPal and some Australian banks to bring in money into an account, which is then linked to a Twitter handle.

Pollenizer says the first round of funding since Pygg’s founding last year came after “positive phase one results.” The Sydneyside startup plans to use the funds for a push into Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking site.

“The success of this funding round is a great vote of confidence in Pygg’s ability to drive change in the social payments space,” said Howard, a founding investor. “Pygg is in a unique position to adapt and respond to the market — delivering a product that is people focused, bank agnostic and fun to use.

Pollenizer is a three-year-old incubator that has invested $10 million in 25 startups and made one exit worth $40 million. It has 80 so-called “web-loving entrepreneurs,” covering all aspects of a web business and its portfolio of companies includes mogeneration, Posse, 99dresses and Spreets.

Pygg on Visible Banking [Oct 2011]

In 2005, Steve Jobs said, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” In 2010, Derek Sivers said, “The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader.” Today, we share the wisdom of Steve Carell’s Michael Scott, from the US version of The Office.

Watch and listen carefully. These inspirational words will change your life. Maybe.

The Office: Inspiring Quote

Before you flub your company’s finances, check out new Melbourne-based online marketplace Vumero.

Vumero – a mix of ‘numero’ and ‘value’ – pairs businesses and entrepreneurs with financial professionals, freelancers and other sum-savvy advisers.

Vumero is the brainchild of CEO John Persico, COO Johann Odou and CTO Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin. The trio developed the online marketplace to overcome some of the “pain” they themselves had experienced in the financial services industry.

According to Persico: “We often felt that the late night culture instilled in the financial services industry could be avoided if people learnt to work smarter as part of the Work 3.0 movement – including recycling knowledge, collaboratively learning and accessing an available network of resources on demand.”

Vumero also aims to address the barriers that exist between them what have financial know-how and those whose idea of tackling tough sums involves taking off their shoes and socks.

“In many ways we have created an ODesk-style business – dedicated to the finance industry.”

Vumero’s goals for the future

Having launched in December 2011, after just nine months’ planning, Vumero has two primary goals over the next 12 months: to build a quality library of Excel spreadsheets and financial model templates, and to educate businesses on the benefits of posting finance tasks to world-class finance professionals.

“Vumero truly believes that all global businesses can make great financial decisions if they have access to the great professional capability and resources.”

“Everything from reviewing a complex financial model, preparing a cashflow forecast, managing inventory levels to valuing your online startup,” Persico says.

“[Our] long-term vision is to become the world’s most trusted and value-adding global professional services marketplace.”

Which comes first, the chicken or the spreadsheet?

Just to keep things interesting, Vumero has effectively launched two marketplaces on the one website – a document repository and a freelancing community – “which introduces a few additional strategic and operational complexities,” Persico says.

“A major challenge with any marketplace is to understand ‘chicken and the egg’ interplay and responsiveness between buyers and sellers.”

“Building credibility and trust within the finance industry requires open feedback, transparency and authenticity. The Vumero team remains focused on maintaining the quality of spreadsheets and financial models and upholding a strong value-adding community of financial analyst and financial modelling professionals.”

“We also help ensure credibility by maintaining a quality rating system, independent verifications, secure Escrow processes, effective dispute resolution, transparent user profiles and strict confidentiality procedures.”

Although Vumero only launched a month ago, the company’s happy to share useful nuggets with other aspiring online marketplaces.

“Start simple. Understand the price and demand elasticity between buyers and sellers in your chosen marketplace. Never forget why you are creating a marketplace. Get your hands dirty. Focus on the ‘big trends’. Network widely and aggressively.”

And that’s not all.

“Mistakes are awesome if you learn from them. Demand excellence in everything you do. Measure everything. Even the things you can’t measure are super important. Always thank all your loved ones for all their encouragement and support.”

And finally…

“Have lots of fun.”

What is Vumero?

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?)

It references a Market Samurai product called Article Samurai. While I’m personally not familiar with the tool, I do appreciate the importance of content creation — if you have a desire to build an online community, improve your website’s visibility in search engines or simply want to position yourself as an authority.

Content Leverage System

Best. Sickie. Ever!

Well, Matthew Broderick is clearly still no teenager. But this clip suggests that he hasn’t lost his zest for adventure. (Or the big bucks.)

Clearly crafted to appeal to the maturing Gen X market, this Honda ad has been released as an an attempt to score a pre-Super Bowl touchdown.

While traditional advertising budgets are decreasing, Super Bowl advertising costs are on the rise — not because of the vast number of people who watch ‘the game’ but because of the even vaster number who share the ‘made to be viral’ clips before and after.

Could it be that the most sought after marketing metric has shifted away from ‘Views’ to the more ellusive ‘Share’? What do you think? (Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?)

Ferris Bueller, 2012

Shit people say in Silicon Valley

Shit People Say on Facebook

Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls

Shit People Say To Tattooed People

Or, apparently, too young.

Welcome to the heavy-metal pantheon, Juliet Childs — a product of Queensland, all of 8 years old, and a bonafide music sensation.

A video featuring Juliet, posted to YouTube earlier this month, had 13.8 million views as of 24 January. Her mum shot the footage. A family friend and music producer, Rob Sharpe, took Juliet’s angsty love song to her family dog Robert and her pet fish and slipped it into a full-metal jacket.

“My First Hardcore Song” is on iTunes, and there are T-shirts. And a Facebook page. Bite that, Lemmy.

What’s next, then, for this hard-drivin’, air-kickin’ rock ‘n’ rebel? According to the Courier Mail, her parents are drawing the line. It’s back to school for this Grade 3 wunderkind.

Now that’s hardcore.

Queensland’s Juliet Childs, “My First Hardcore Song”

I’m an early riser and enjoy these moments alone, before the hustle and bustle of the day sets in.

But, sometimes, just sometimes (read ‘often’), this small job can require the patience of a saint.

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.)

I began to see synergies between the process of caring for my son and the process of attracting and retaining new prospects and customers. Hence, this video.

Sure, I do feel a bit guilty about exploiting the fickle taste of my son for the purpose of marketing my personal consulting brand. *cough* I mean for the purpose of ‘reader education’.

But, heck. The following six-minutes will surely contain nuggets of embarrassment to roll out at his 21st. And, more importantly, I had fun making it. And I hope you have fun watching.

ENDLESS MARKETING 101: BREAKFAST

The Nine Lessons

1. Your prospect’s default state = distrust
2. Build trust by solving needs
3. Solutions needn’t be expensive
4. You are always competing for attention
5. First sale = Product-for-Prospects
6. Continually foster engagement
7. Provide more free solutions (content) to encourage word-of-mouth
8. Then, and only then, should you offer your core product
9. Follow us at facebook.com/TheEndlessLoopExperiment

Time to give up? Some do. But we like to think that the readers of this website, this beacon of entrepreneurial achievement, will instead digest the words in this video and then bellow (or type quite loudly): “AS GAWD IS MY WITNESS, I’M NOT GIVING UP!”

Or something to that effect.

The speaker in the video, Ira Glass, is a journalist and quite brilliant thinker who has forged an inspiring career in public radio in the United States. And here, he finds an amazing way to express the rewards you can earn from sticking to your convictions and logging some hard work.

Give it a click, then get back to business. At some point, Mr. Glass says, you’re gonna be awesome.

Creativity: It’s all about hanging in there

So here’s why this bit of choreographed silliness tickles us: These are accountants. Accountants!

Cheers to New Jersey-based WithumSmith+Brown (which did a passable lipdub through the office for the previous year’s “state of the firm” meeting). Whenever we get around to firming up that partnership in Paramus, we know who we’ll hire to do our books.

Accountants flash mob

Among the first tools of its kind, since its official launch it has accumulated Facebook fans at the phenomenal rate of 500 to 1,000, per day.

“We are currently experiencing rapid growth with a total of 60,000+ books being sold since the launch of Winkiwoo eight weeks ago,” said Brendon Watson, General Manager of Winkiwoo in a media release. “We have 124,000+ fans on Facebook and this is growing daily. The uptake of Winkiwoo has just been amazing and international acceptance is evident with purchases from overseas making up ¾ of sales.”

“Winkiwoo is a global business and with our dedicated team and innovative technology we are able to run the global operations of Winkiwoo right here from our home town of Glen Innes, NSW.”

There are more than 90 billion photos on Facebook, and a further 2.5 billion being uploaded every month, 89 million uploaded per day, 3.7 million per hour and 62,000 per minute; the opportunity for Winkiwoo is immense.

Winkiwoo

What is a back-issue bull-ant? It’s where we follow up on a person or company that we have previously featured. It’s just another way we support Australian entrepreneurs and innovators. Cool, huh?

He’s a reasonably big deal in other words. His last posting in the military before retirement was the Commander of the International Security Assistance Force, and Commander of US Military Forces, in Afghanistan. People tended to listen to him.

After many years in uniform, General/Mister McChrystal (I suspect he still gets ‘Sir’ a lot) is bound to have picked up a few tricks and truisms after many trials and tribulations as a professional leader.

One of the fast-growing areas of corporate intrigue, head-scratching and frustration is how best to lead and motivate a dispersed workforce that has a growing Gen Y membership.

Technology can often be viewed by the older echelons of Gen X and the Baby Boomers as a hindrance, or at best a distraction, to the real game of traditional work practices.

Many change management programs are devoted to the implementation of technology to better aid leadership, with varying degrees of sustained success.

In Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal had no choice but to use and rely upon technology to facilitate his leadership, mostly relegating his preferred method of a face-to-face meeting to the sidelines. Whatever your politics on the war in Afghanistan, there is no question that he was, and remains, a very successful leader.

So how’d he do it?

He listened. He learned. He trusted.

He addressed the possibilities of failure openly.

Watch this TED talk to gain more of General McChrystal’s insight into the realities of modern leadership. Boardroom or battlefield, you’ll soon see that some things remain the same regardless of the setting.

General Stanley McChrystal (Ret.) at TED

Chris Walter is a leadership development trainer at Qimota Training, and an invited facilitator at the Royal Australian Navy’s leadership and ethics program.

An earlier version of this article first appeared at the Qimota Training website.

There are numerous methods by which to solve these disputes, some more satisfying than others. For the “satisfying” column we offer this video from The Game Station, a collection of joyful geeks who revel not only in the latest stuff for Playstation and XBox but keep alive the memories of Pikachu, Luigi and Link.

Sadly, Team Rocket is nowhere to be seen. But there are interns, and they know how to use them.

Internmon

In New York, the 11th Annual No Pants Subway Ride involved nearly 4,000 participants, spread out over six meeting points and ten subway lines.

Why? We don’t know.

But we love the fact that we live in a world where this sort of hobby is accepted. We may not approve of your nobbly knees and saggy bottoms but we’ll fight to the death your right to show them! (Happy Beer O’clock Anthillians!)

No Pants Subway Ride 2012