In the distinct vernacular of fictional family-man Daryl Kerrigan, Australia is a nation of ‘ideas people’. We’re educated, we’re passionate and we love to share our own great moments of creativity with almost anyone who’ll listen. But innovation is not just about clever ideas. It’s also about commercial outcomes. To celebrate the 2008 Australian Innovation…
Blood is thicker than water, but the livelihood of any family business depends on far more than DNA. It’s not always easy to protect and build the family jewels while avoiding a family feud. We ask the custodians of three iconic Australian family empires how it’s done. Glenn Cooper AM Executive Chairman and Marketing Director,…
Life is rarely predictable. So why would business be any different? Paul Ryan and Jodie O’Keeffe square up to a meteor shower of corporate Kryptonite and figure out how to dodge commercial doom. Cyber-attack, idea theft, competitor outsourcing, cash-flow crises, disruptive innovation and fraud. Take a deep breath, assess risk, consider your options…and never turn your back on a clear blue sky.
With much of Australia in the grip of the most serious drought in modern memory, technology promoting the efficient consumption of our most essential resource is most welcome. A key part of any water management strategy includes a precise and consistent method of monitoring water consumption.
For Anne-Marie Birkill, CEO of i.lab technology incubator, life has been rather serendipitous. Graduating with a science degree, she fell into plant biotechnology, where a short-term secondment to Brisbane transformed her into General Manager and 25 percent shareholder within two years. So began a twenty year career spanning management, consulting, lecturing and new technology incubation.
Discovering that you just don’t cut it as a stand-up comedian must be one of life’s tougher lessons. Wil Anderson is thankful this never happened to him, but he has learnt a trick or two on his journey from the Canberra Press Gallery to a theatre near you.
Bootstrapping entrepreneurs might think the hallowed halls of academia are for those avoiding the cut and thrust of the private sector. After all, an MBA is for those looking to skip a few rungs on that creaky old corporate ladder. Right? Wrong. Business schools around the country are now focused on supporting and developing your entrepreneurial streak. More than ever before, higher learning is one ticket to start-up success.
Book Reviews
Dr Don Fry’s ultimate objective in life is to see every home on Earth powered by sun and water. As owner and director of AIMTEK, Fry has designed and built 225 ships and trained 1,000 apprentices. Now he wants to fly from Sydney to London in two hours and unleash the sun’s nuclear power.
Your IP is registered, but that’s no guarantee your livelihood is safe from harm. Without enforcement, those patent and trademark certificates aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. Manipulating the IP system is a fine art, resulting in tactical stoushes between big players and small. Jodie O’Keeffe reports on a business world turning Patently Aggressive….
You might think that your product or service is the best in the world, but you might also need your head read. Market research is one of the best ways to get into the minds of customers. And it’s no longer the expensive and exclusive domain of big corporates. Hell, you don’t even need a clipboard! Jodie O’Keeffe reports.
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?
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.
Highly acclaimed marketing expert Tony Surtees prefers to avoid labels. If he had to nominate one for himself, it would be ‘enterprise creator’. His particular ability is to assess changing market places and pick future trends, uncovering opportunities. He lets us in on some tricks learnt so far in his glittering global career.
If you ever feel under the pump at work, spare a thought for these three professionals. How would you have dealt with the pressure to win gold placed on Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics? Perhaps the intensity that greets a police sniper at a siege would be more to your taste? Could you have surmounted your own vertigo to launch the Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb business? When it’s your job to deal with fear, you’d better learn fast.
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.
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