The original takes the premium
The easier it is to quantify, the less it will be worth. This appears to be a pretty harsh judgment, but the reality is that if you can quantify and standardise something, it can be copied. This is the case, until you consider the value created by subtle differences,...
Peak oil?
We are pretty familiar with the notion of "Peak Oil" the point at which the consumption of oil is greater than the rate of discovering new sources, giving us a doomsday outcome at a calculatable point in the future, but is it such a new idea?? William Jevsons an...
Walk and talk marketing
Those who say one thing and do another have always been at risk of being found out. Now, the capabilities of the net make it virtually inevitable, with the downside risk to your brand being multiplied by the probability of being found out. BP has spent millions on PR,...
Proximity enables engagement
As a group, you may not like something. A style of music, a literary style, a type of product, a group of people, but when you see one of the group individually, and find you like it, or them, the rest of the genre becomes less confronting. It is the same with brands,...
Cash for suggestions – is it necessary?
Many businesses offer cash for suggestions, put a suggestion box near the canteen, and wonder why most of the suggestions are physically impossible, morally debatable, and often both. In the end, successful suggestion programs offer the reward of personal...
To tax or not to tax!
Despite the optimistic nonsense coming out of the Government in Canberra, and the shrill response of the opposition and mining industry, we need to consider the proposed new mining tax in a wider context. I am not an economist, so perhaps am not trained to come up...
It would be nice to know
Now there is an explanation for the common situation where a person fails to see what to others appears to be blindingly obvious. The Dunning-Kruger effect provides the psychological evidence supporting what most of us see often, and that is that our (and others)...
Cheap or Frugal
"Cheap" implies less of everything that is important, not built to last, minimal attention to the detail, and certainly little customer service. However, "Frugal" implies a discipline that ensures that waste is eliminated, unnecessary features eliminated, but the...
Data and useful information.
Working with a relatively new client recently, I was very impressed with the data that was available, but bemused by the almost total absence of productive use that was made of it. It became obvious pretty quickly that most of it was produced by rote, and there was no...
Changing the climate game.
The current debate, such as it is in Australia in relation to climate change, is all about the sort of tax regime that is required, and the need to change peoples behavior, and thus their attitudes. What all this misses is the fundamental nature of the change that is...