Social or Viral
One of the questions I am most often asked is "how do we make this go viral". To my mind it is also one of the silliest. The objective of "social" weather it be media, or a drink in the pub, is engagement with others. The objective of viral is, well... not sure,...
Lessons from SPC
Once the dust has settled, political mud-slinging completed, recriminations done, and blame been allocated over yesterdays decision by the Government not to support SPC Ardmona to the tune of $25 million, which would have triggered another $25 mill from the Victorian...
8 core questions of strategy
Carl von Clausewitz first said, "no strategy ever survived the first contact with the enemy" It was true in war, and is equally true in business, the only real difference is in the human cost. That said, not having a strategy is akin to setting off on a holiday, not...
5 most powerful management words.
This post emerged from the monthly company meeting of a small , but successful Australian manufacturing business for whom I do occasional work. One of their great practices, in my view, is the monthly "progress" meeting, where the results of the previous month are...
The year of analytics
In Australia today, January 26, it is "Australia Day", the day we Aussies, or most of us, think the place was started, conveniently ignoring the thousands of years of habitation before Captain Philip turned up with a bunch of convicts in Botany Bay. For most of us it...
Three steps to agreement
Peoples reaction to a question, choice, or situation is always coloured by their experience, education, background, and a myriad of other qualitative factors. Where there is a divergence of views, it can become heated, as people invest emotionally in an...
Visual analytics and statistics
Analytics is perhaps the buzzword of the moment, it seems to be attracting some of the same purveyors of snake-oil previously touting SEO as the saviour of all sins. Amongst the detritus, however, there are some gems. Avinash Kaushik's "Occum's Razor" blog is one...
WCB spits the curd
It has been pretty certain that control of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter (WCB) would change since the opening bid by Bega Cheese in September last year. It rapidly became an auction as rival bidders emerged, and WCB shareholders struck the short term jackpot. The...
The idea muscle
We all know instinctively that with exercise, we get better. Running, jumping, swimming, all that stuff makes us fitter, healthier, but it takes time and effort, and we are all busy. Busy doing what? Besides, running is boring, sweaty, and bad for the knees. We also...
Marketing flatulence
Every day I get stuff by email that purports to make me some sort of compelling offer, something that some dill out there kids himself (herself?) that I need. It often starts: Dear Alan (wrong spelling) I am the CEO of Buttstuffers & Co, we are experts at...