Anthill Magazine

Since making the transition from service provider to start-up investor, I've developed several criteria that allow me to quickly identify if a business idea is worth taking on. One requirement is that I believe a business must have three customers. Obviously I don't mean three individuals – rather, three distinct groups of customers that play an important role in a business' lifecycle.

While Australians have come to expect a casual approach to service, visitors aren’t so forgiving. “Having recently been in the USA, the standard of customer service there is great, staff actually want to help you,” says Australian marketing manager Jessica Hannant. “Here the sales assistant doesn't get off the phone to her friend to even serve you at the checkout.” Are things here getting worse?

According to a new report from the ARC Centre for Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology, Australians spent $17 billion in the entertainment industry in 2009, with each Australian over fifteen years old spending an average $756. That ranks us fifth among the world’s biggest entertainment spenders, right behind the United States, Japan, United Kingdom and Germany.

My favourite colour is blue. If, when I was a wee tyke, you’d asked me why, it's likely I would have said: “... Because!" Kids are pretty blunt and uncomplicated like that. And yet we grow into professionals who use business jargon to explain why we do and don't like something.

Talking Business is a podcast review of the Australian economy, presented by seasoned business journalists Leon Gettler and Garry Barker, produced in association with the RMIT College of Business. In this podcast, RMIT economist Jonathan Boymal breaks down the latest ABS figures on retail spending, building approvals and job vacancies.

This 99-minute film -- available in its entirety in YouTube and reconfigured as Android and Apple apps -- combines archival video and audio with footage shot from the International Space Station to re-create Gagarin's flight in real time. The space station closely followed the orbital path of Vostok 1, giving us an idea of what Gagarin saw out of his window on 12 April, 1961.

We’re all living longer these days thanks to better medical care and healthier living. German-based demographer, James Vaupel, estimates that the average baby girl born in Western societies today will live to 100 years old. Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Statistics forecasts a baby boy’s life expectancy is 79 and a baby girl’s life expectancy is 83. Whichever number you believe, compared to 100 years ago we’re getting older.

In case you missed it, SydStart Autumn was held last week to the jubilation of entrepreneurs from all areas of the New South Wales start-up scene. Here are five (and a half) lessons gained from the event.

Talking Business is a podcast review of the Australian economy, presented by seasoned business journalists Leon Gettler and Garry Barker, produced in association with the RMIT College of Business. In this podcast, RMIT economist Jonathan Boymal talks about falling housing stats and lending finance. He also looks at the durability of Japan's economy and how it may impact Australia in light of the tsunami and rebuilding efforts.

We won't give away the ending to this environmentally conscious flashmob event staged at a shopping mall somewhere in Quebec, Canada. We will say 1) that the video makes a disappointing statement about attitudes toward recycling and 2) one person ends up being a really good sport.

When promoting your product or service, it’s easy to miss a key trick by failing to make what you’re selling unique. The term ‘Unique Selling Point’ (USP) was first coined in the 1940s, and first defined in print by advertising executive Rosser Reeves in 1961. A good current example of a clear USP is the well-known brand Head & Shoulders’ "You get rid of dandruff."

In my previous article, I discussed that companies with access to capital will have a competitive advantage in the marketplace, even though capital is going to be harder to come by. However, while capital raising can provide a myriad of new opportunities and strong competitive advantages for your business, it is not necessarily a panacea for whatever malaise your organisation might be experiencing. It might sound like an obvious statement, but getting people to invest in your company requires a great deal of preparation – yet there are still plenty of companies that eschew the necessary groundwork.

The video for this fill-from-the-bottom beer dispenser has been sudsing up the Interwebs for about a year now. Yet, strangely, it has never reared its frothy head as one of Anthill's breathtaking (often thirst-inspiring) Beer O'Clock innovations. Sure, we've brought you this beer tossing fridge and Melbourne based Beer Vaults, but not this well-lubricated lubrication machine that can crank out more than 40 pints a minute from a four-tap dispenser.

On Wednesday, Anthill held its first ever webinar, with the help of Roger Courville and Citrix GoToMeeting. At its conclusion, I invited participants to share any 'take-homes', as a way to reinforce lessons and share their knowledge. To get the ball-rolling, here are three of my own.

Advances in technology – including cloud computing, Software as a Service and the next generation of CRMs – are all changing the landscape for sporting organisations. However, the primary influence on sport’s digital future is not – strictly speaking – technology-based. Social media, and the ways organisations and their stakeholders are using it, are redefining what it means to interact with a community. So, how is the digital landscape changing and what future does it hold for Australian sport?

A fall from a 10-story-high mainframe extrusion can be messy. Worse, it can damage that expensive handheld portal generator. In a promotion for the new video game "Portal 2," Aperture Laboratories makes a slick investment pitch.

Billy Tucker is CEO of the group-buying discount website, Cudo.com. In this podcast, he talks with Leon and Garry about Cudo's use of TV advertising to target the average consumer, how this publicity helps merchants find new customers, and the relevance of group buying in the post-GFC era.

Ovum's "Is your city smart enough?" says that cities should start integrating information technologies into their infrastructure so they can become more competitive in the future. The report also states that this implementation has to happen in two different ways: by Digital-City strategies and by Digital-Society initiatives.

Imagine a device that responds to your thoughts instead of your fingers. This capability is at the core of technology being developed by Emotiv, an Australian-born company headquartered in San Francisco. “It’s about total communication,” says Emotiv President Tan Le (pictured). “It’s about having a device that is sensing your bio-signals, so it’s truly understanding how you feel about certain things and how you are experiencing things, and tailoring experiences to you.”

Poor, poor entrepreneurs. No sooner have they had the Best. Idea. Ever, then they start fretting that someone’s going to thieve it. Other than never telling another living, breathing soul about your plans, there are several ways to protect your business model, invention or confidential information.