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Brisbane is keen to spread the word: floods won’t dampen spirits or finances for long. Industry forecasters, IBISWorld, predict the city will receive a $10 billion economic boost due to rebuilding efforts, while Brisbane’s Lord Mayor Campbell Newman says it’s vital at this time to assure business and industry that Brisbane has resumed operations.

Marketing agency April5 has secured a $20,000 Enterprise Connect innovation grant to develop and implement business strategies and plans which will increase productivity and growth.

Last night, at the 55th Annual Walkley Awards, veteran television political reporter Laurie Oakes was honoured with the award for the most outstanding piece of journalism for his coverage of the Labor leaks during the federal election campaign. In addition to calling Prime Minister Julia Gillard's stance on WikiLeaks "ridiculous", he also posed the question, with typical dry humour, "When did 'leak' become a four letter word?"

Appalogues (see what they did there?), created by Brisbane company Min-i-Mags, is a smartphone application that combines old-school catalogues with new mobile technology to create a product it hopes will replace shopping catalogues -- Australia’s third largest consumer-directed advertising medium (after newspapers and TV).

Zygo's boots are now available to be purchased in Australia. An Australian brand, Zygo was founded in 2004 by Con Hatzilias, a sports marketer. Zygo's boots have a special technology which enhances power, grip, spin and swerve.

According to the BSI, retail registered the biggest fall of all the industry sectors in April with a loss of 1.4%. The BSI, which tracks spending in the Australian market, indicated that sales fell in April across all sectors by 0.2%. Curiously, if one doesn’t take retail sales account, the BSI found that sales have risen by 0.3%, which is the highest rise since November 2009.

Sensis reports have found that almost half of Australian SMEs are missing an online presence and that most lack a digital strategy, prompting a tour across Australia to help businesses enter the digital world.

With the new financial year upon us, business information research and analysis group IBISWorld has compiled its annual list of Australian industries set to fly and fall in the next 12 months.

Nissan Casting Australia (NCAP), a company that manufactures casting and parts for the automotive industry, wins bid to develop components for Nissan’s LEAF electric car with the help of a series of cost-competitive casting technologies developed by CSIRO.

A great post by regular Anthill contributor and Rentoid.com founder Steve Sammartino over on his Start Up Blog. A list of the 10 things...

Travelex and EFIC (Export Finance and Insurance Corporation) have partnered to provide an extension to the limit of the EFIC foreign exchange facility, allowing exporters to have higher foreign exchange trading limits. The two entities have agreed to double the overall limit of the EFIC foreign exchange facility guarantee.

Devoted to the propagation of “Ideas Worth Spreading”, TEDxSydney 2011 will provide a speaking platform to around 20 of Australia’s leading innovators, thinkers, global leaders and change makers. As a member (free to register), you can also nominate a speaker whom you feel is deserving to be present for the event.

Perhaps the biggest misconception about social media is that it creates market segments from nothing.

For those who are not familiar with the phenomenon of Pitch Club, it offers aspiring entrepreneurs a proven pathway to develop, evaluate and get the assistance they need to capitalise on their ideas.

Much of the discussion about business innovation and commercialisation in this country focuses on technology transfer and public R&D. However, it’s worth reminding ourselves that agriculture and primary industries still constitute a large proportion of Australia’s GDP. And these sectors are crying out for innovation reform too. Brian Ramsay explains the significance of the upcoming Productivity Commission inquiry into rural R&D corporations.

After months of speculation, Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr today announced that the new CEO of Commercialisation Australian will be entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Doron Ben-Meir.

According to a new report, the Australian private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) industries generated attractive returns over a one, three and five year period, as of June 2010, in comparison to traditional stock indexes.

Compare Broadband, a broadband comparison website, recently conducted a poll where it asked its visitors if they were willing to pay extra for their broadband provider to include unmetered Australian TV shows. Two thirds said no.

Two-thirds of Australian businesses are taking longer than the usual 30 day period to pay their bills, says the latest Dun & Bradstreet Trade Payment Analysis report. On average, Australian businesses are taking 53.4 days to make their payments.

Melbourne-based telcom analyst Ovum says Flash 10.1 support will grow across the smartphone market, leading to pressure from developers and users for Apple to support the technology on its iPad, iPhone and iPod touch devices.