Tag: entrepreneurs

Greetings Anthillians! I've been sipping a glass of fine wine and contemplating the grapevine. Word of mouth has to be the most powerful form of advertising. How else could a brief conversation by the water cooler precipitate the purchase of a $300 dollar bottle of plonk? Professional antagoniser, Ray Beatty, is on the case.

If you've ever received an invitation to a wedding being held interstate or overseas, you'll know that sharing the love can be expensive and time consuming. But with technology doing more and more of our leg work these days, more palatable options were bound to emerge.

I recently had the good fortune to host the Commercialisation EXPO 2006 conference held in Melbourne. It covered all the right areas and was a great success, but it is clear that one troubling issue remains - the chasm between innovation and marketing is as wide today as it has ever been.

I recently had the good fortune to host the Commercialisation EXPO 2006 conference held in Melbourne. It covered all the right areas and was a great success, but it is clear that one troubling issue remains - the chasm between innovation and marketing is as wide today as it has ever been.

They cartwheeled, schmoozed and cajoled us; dangled riches before our very eyes. But coolness cannot be bought. Coolness simply is. And while some thought us nuts for trying; here they are. Australia's coolest companies revealed.

Pete Thomond spent the past four and a half years working out the secrets of successful innovation. The British academic and business consultant was co-manager of the "Disrupt-it" project, a €3 million European Commission co-sponsored programme of research and business tool development. Now he's spreading the word downunder, as a Research Fellow and innovation consultant at the Brisbane Graduate School of Business. At 29, he's young, but how many people do you know with a PhD in disruptive innovation?

As the person responsible for commercialising all new technologies emanating from the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation, Nigel Poole knows all about transforming ideas into companies. From where he sits, Australia's so-called "commercialisation gap" is receding, with seed investment culture and managerial experience the keys. He's a busy man with busy ideas and a penetrating vision for Australia's future as a knowledge nation.

As the person responsible for commercialising all new technologies emanating from the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation, Nigel Poole knows all about transforming ideas into companies. From where he sits, Australia's so-called "commercialisation gap" is receding, with seed investment culture and managerial experience the keys. He's a busy man with busy ideas and a penetrating vision for Australia's future as a knowledge nation.

For the most part, we Australians huddle in and around our eastern seaboard cities, with healthy respect for the harsh realities inland. But there's more to Australia's tech sector than MBA-educated entrepreneurs and wealthy investors in Sydney and Melbourne. As globalisation levels the international playing field, so the performance gap between urban elites and regional innovators narrows.

London, New York and . . . Shanghai. When global citizens call to mind the world's mega-cities in 2010, Shanghai's Government wants to rank in the very top echelon. Becoming an "international city" by 2010 might sound like a strange goal for a municipality, but foreign entrepreneurs need only look as far as the incentives Shanghai's government is offering to understand that this is an opportune moment to set up shop in this sprawling metropolis. In the final instalment of his four part series, returning Australian expat Paul Waide delves into the city that is commonly acknowledged as being a window on China's future.

J P Morgan, the famous American Industrialist, said: "People do things for two reasons... the right reason and the real reason". Understanding the real reason can be the ultimate point of differentiation when pitching for business.

I just don't get the handout mentality. A friend of mine is doing his Doctorate. His research institution and the university will own any IP generated, and he is immensely grateful for the modest stipend that he is surviving on throughout this process.

A prison sentence early in life can dash the hopes of a would-be entrepreneur. Or it can fuel them. In the youth unit at Port Phillip Prison, rock bottom gives way to the bottom line as teenaged inmates become CEOs. Jodie O'Keeffe clears security to find out what it takes to build a business behind bars.

Has it really been six years since the world's first wave of internet entrepreneurs fell through that plump cloud they'd conjured in the sky, taking with them the turgid hopes of our fledgling new economy? It's been six years peppered with hard luck stories, investor reluctance and, lately, cautious hope rekindled. Australian internet startups were in the thick of it back then. The survivors emerged with slightly bloodied noses and wisdom far beyond their years.

Achieving your first sale can literally make or break a start-up. Many investors will delay committing significant funds until you can identify a customer...

All successful niche-market entrepreneurs have one thing in common: an enthusiasm for their work that extends far beyond mere profit-lust. Tim Anderson and Paul...

Mervyn Jacobson is the richest man in Eden. He is the Executive Chairman of Melbourne-based biotech company, Genetic Technologies (GTG), which controls patents on 95 percent of your DNA. Once considered ‘junk’, because it lacks genetic coding, this vast area of the genome is now known to contain markers indicating our susceptibility to some of life’s most devastating diseases. GTG is cashing in on everyone else’s myopia and many in the calculating world of science are fast discovering their moral outrage.

Entrepreneurs and scientists use the concepts of ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation’ interchangeably. This is not surprising, as both play an integral role in the new...

Peter Farrell’s authoritative baritone is at odds with his mission in life: to put people to sleep. From the embers of an idea, this...

Peter Farrell’s authoritative baritone is at odds with his mission in life: to put people to sleep. From the embers of an idea, this...