Tech & Innovation

While mainstream print media circulation figures decline, niche publications continue to sprout from nowhere like mushrooms in a sodden field. As long as there is an audience, publishers will keep churning out the content. We asked three independent publishing entrepreneurs how they seized their patch of turf.

Most people will always forfeit personal luxury to provide for their baby. It's no wonder that the baby industry is perpetually booming. Liz Heynes and Catherine Kerstjens take a look at five Australian companies on the move in an industry where only the best will do.

The path from start-up to success story can be a challenging journey. These two Victorian innovators are taking the path less travelled, turning good ideas into profitable international businesses, and they're not looking back!

It's a concept that has taken on many names in recent times, including buzz marketing, viral marketing, word-of-mouth, word-of-mouse and stealth marketing. Whatever you call it, the concept is simple: using customers to create a conversation about a product or service.

It's a concept that has taken on many names in recent times, including buzz marketing, viral marketing, word-of-mouth, word-of-mouse and stealth marketing. Whatever you call it, the concept is simple: using customers to create a conversation about a product or service.

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.

Before he abandoned his palaces for a hole and then a cell, Saddam Hussein had a reputation for being a bit of an adrenaline...

Before he abandoned his palaces for a hole and then a cell, Saddam Hussein had a reputation for being a bit of an adrenaline...

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.

We often associate high tech with exciting gadgets, but it's easy to forget that technological advancements are responsible for saving thousands of lives every day. It's big business, with profound purpose. Catherine Kerstjens and Liz Heynes profile six "Medical and Scientific" category finalists from the 2006 Australian Design Awards.

BI-GOODNESS is a bi-monthly column dedicated to the quirky, generally funny and often dangerously impractical inventions and business concepts that occasionally come our way. It is a tribute to the one-eyed entrepreneur, the nutty professor and dotcom jockey in each of us.

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?

You've seen all the ads that promise everything from tighter abs to fab calves. Then there are the ones that will help you find inner-peace, outer-serenity and even how to lose weight while stuffing your mush with plank-sized chips and endless vats of fried chicken and gravy.

There is a time-honoured business model in China known as "Copy To China" - find a product or service or business model that works in the US or elsewhere and replicate it in China. In the technology industry this is exemplified by ChinaHR.com Holdings Ltd building a Monster look-alike and then selling 40 percent off to Monster Worldwide, Inc. for US$50m or Joyo.com Ltd replicating Amazon and then selling it to Amazon for US$75m. The same model is popular in many other markets, particularly Australia. Seek has had great success emulating Monster.

Mobile companies across the globe have spent billions of dollars creating networks that essentially all offer the same services. It's been a huge investment just to get to the starting line. But the real challenge is in providing something that is different from the competition.

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.