Archive for June, 2008
June 30, 2008 at 5:25 pm · Filed under Globalisation
Today marks the end of the financial year in Australia. Yes, instead of following a calendar year we close our books and report taxes from 1 July to 30 June. My theory is the summer sun made it too vexxing to consider doing accounts in early January - that’s when every self-respecting Aussie is at the beach or burning meat on the Barbie!
In 1992 when providing a speech to mark the 40th anniversary of her coronation, Queen Elizabeth said it had been an “annus horribilis”. If you can’t decode the meaning of the Latin phrase she said it had been an awful year:
“1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.”
The financial markets would tend to agree - today we close the year and it has been really savage. Stock markets are down 20% - officially entering bear territory. Inflation is up. Profits are down. Credit markets are tight.
Perhaps we’ll have a resurgence this year. Probably not. Be prepared for a year of bear. Then next year we can ponder - what’s worse than an “annus horribilis”?
June 23, 2008 at 5:37 pm · Filed under America, China, Globalisation
Once in a while you get to attend a fantastic presentation. Last Thursday I listened to John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist. This news weekly is by far the best news magazine in the world. Amazingly they sell 180,000 copies in their home country the UK while total global sales exceed 1.3 million copies every week. The event was sponsored by Sydney Ideas at the University of Sydney.
Micklethwait makes “Big Picture” look small. He was singularly capable of encapsulating global issues and concerns in a broad perspective. Rarely do pundits back away from the headlines to achive such clarity.
There are dozens of themes and issues he explored. I’ll hone in on one - the upcoming Beijing Olympics and the USA Presidential Elections.
Make no error - China is poised to win a record number of Olympic gold medals. And they will run a flawless games with military precision (oops - did I say military?).
The United States hates coming in second in an Olympics. And if the games are truly “crisp” and run in military fashion, it will exacerbate anti-China sentiment.
Did you know the USA was in recession? Housing prices are expected to fall a further 20% by some estimates. And Iraq will still be dragging on (Congress approved funding last week).
So a matter of weeks before the USA election there’s the populace - bitter over second place, juggling home finances, worried about the nation’s future. This will all play into an election focused on nationalism, security and trade restrictions. And just as the USA economy is being kept alive by trade, there are no new free trade deals going through Congress.
According to Micklethwait, if you want to predict the outcome of the USA elections in November keep an eye on the medals tally in Beijing in August. If the USA is routed then a democrat will get in with a license to close the country down.
And if you ever get the chance in this life to hear Micklethwait speak then take it - he’s fantastic!
June 19, 2008 at 1:20 pm · Filed under America, Business Start-Up
Starting a business forces you to learn new skills and to reach out for new learning sources. I enjoyed Guy Kawasaki’s “The Art of the Start” even though the second half was better suited for a company making product. And yesterday at a friend’s recommendation I bought “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber*. Thanks to Paul Giezekamp at Property Secrets for turning me onto this gem.
The first half is rubbish and could have been edited to a chapter - but then I wouldn’t have felt right paying $34.99 for the paperback (did I mention books are expensive in Australia?). But the second half takes it up a notch and provides exceptional value.
Here’s the gist - Entrepreneurs have a “fit” and come up with a great idea. That one moment justifies their being. Taking that idea and turning it into a successful business requires different skills. Enter the Manager and the Technician. This trio of personalities will get a business running.
Better yet - treat your new business like a franchise. How can you capture the processes and eliminate the variability? Plan business #1 like it’s a model for office #5,000 and suddenly you have a successful model.
At Ford Motor Company I became a Six Sigma Green Belt - basically an apprentice who knows the tools and has completed a project. What Gerber recommends is a “DMAIC” approach to any small business - Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control. Treat this as a never ending cycle and you have a model you can replicate.
“It is literally impossible to produce consistent result in a business that depends on extraordinary people,” writes Gerber.
This for me was an “Aha” moment (or is that “Eureka”?). What I disliked about my time in major agencies was the lack of process or systems. In my 25 year career I’ve worked for Hill & Knowlton, Edelman Worldwide, Gavin Anderson & Company and Burson-Marsteller. Each had some level of process most usually confined to administration, reporting and finance. There was no well understood process for taking a client brief - or developing a communications solution. There were some courses meant for the junior levels but little consistency across offices - or even practises in the same office.
The challenge is to stop criticising and start developing processes that can be repeated, defined, measured and improved.
Suddenly this new business is looking a lot more interesting!
*Footnote: “The World’s #1 Small Business Guru” the cover proclaims - and here I thought that noodle shoppe guy in Kyoto held the title. Why do Americans crave to be World’s #1 all the time? Baseball’s “World Series” only has teams from the USA - oh, does the token Canadian team really portray the globe? Segue to Freddy Mercury…(click below)…
June 17, 2008 at 8:07 pm · Filed under Issues Management, Australia
Australia is fixated on a political scandal - “Iguanagate”
It’s always bad for the parties involved when their issue gets a “-gate” added to the end. For those not “in the know” this suffix originated from US President Nixon’s ordered break-in to the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office complex in the early 1970s.
For trackers of crises and issues, the time to turn public opinion in your favour is well before your issue is “gate-d”. All now assume guilt.
“Iguanagate” started at a Central Coast restaurant two weeks ago. NSW Minister John Della Bosca and Federal Minister Belinda Neal were dining at Iguana Restaurant on 6 June and were asked to move tables. Apparently a row erupted with Della Bosca and Neal shouting abuse at staff.
Staff filed Statutory Declarations outlining their recollection of events. Some were withdrawn - others were hidden. Two versions of events are circulating. Bar staff and waiters - putting their jobs on the line - state the political pair were rude, abusive and threatening. Della Bosca and Neal claim there was no such rancour.
What makes this murkier is the allegation that some staff were coerced into changing their statements. Others were never released. And Della Bosca penned an apology letter that he faxed to the restaurant - which was meant to come from the restaurant to him!
Today Federal Minister Blinda Neal “promises the truth” (see today’s Sydney Morning Herald). It’s all too late.
People in public office are held to a high standard. This would have been better managed from the start to admit to the blow-up and offer a full and frank apology. Then this storm in a tea cup would never have spilled over into a second week of national reporting and intense questions in Parliament.
It’s bad enough to lose your temper - but hey, we’re only human. What’s inexcusable is to attempt a cover up. We can forgive a bully. We can’t forgive a bully and a liar.
June 17, 2008 at 1:55 am · Filed under Business Start-Up
For the last three months I’ve been planning a new business with another financial communications and investor relations expert. We are perilously close to launching our new business. Please stay tuned - in the interim here’s how we describe our business:
Perception Counsel is an independent corporate and financial communications firm. We are known for the caliber of our experts and respected for the quality
of our counsel. Our professionals have in-depth experience communicating in today’s financial markets. We offer strategic communications counsel and implementation covering a range of corporate actions, from IPO through M&A, to developing plans for corporate positioning.
June 16, 2008 at 9:41 pm · Filed under Leadership, Australia
Today the news is book-ended by character failures.
Belinda Neal is on the front page for her tirade ten days back at a Central Coast restaurant (”Do you know who the f**k I am?”). She is accused of using her Ministerial position to threaten bar staff, and even yelled she’d have the liquor license of the pub repealed. Apparently staff wanted her to move to another table so they could finish the daily swap from restaurant to dance club.
The back page eulogises the shortest Olympic career in history. Swimmer Nick Darcy had his appeal yesterday, and his bid to be restored to the Olympic team was quashed. He’d brought the sport into disrepute when he assaulted Nick Cowley, another swimmer, six hours after being appointed to the Olympic team. Among other injuries Cowley’s “orbital socket collapsed.” Alcohol was a factor.
In our rush to appoint an illness to every daily grievance, a recent health reporter talked about a new epidemic – Irritable Male Syndrome (IMS). Seems us modern men – when not busying ourselves with metro-sexual face creams and visits to the tailor – are too harried to properly express ourselves. We take on all the troubles of the world (mortgage, career, child raising, relationships) and don’t have the communications skills or the support networks to vent our frustrations. So we continue like boiling submarines until one issue tips us over into IMS (rhymes with PMS). Then we act out in a volcano of pent-up emotion.
Phew! That felt good.
But then you wake up on the back bench of Parliament facing a day of questioning over your outburst. Or you are stalked through airports flying from swim practise to Court of Appeal. And all that “feel good” is gone and you have another tonne of frustration and angst to bottle up.
When learning to be an Executive Coach, I gained one stunningly simple insight. Between stimulus and response, man (and woman) can add thought. If we remove thought between stimulus and response then we’re primal – no better than animals. We scream at bar staff and we elbow fellow swimmers in the “orbital socket.” But if we think – and consider our options – we’re more likely to swap “reactions” for “considered actions.”
I know yesterday Belinda and Nick were re-living their separate and damning evenings. And after the fact they were no doubt inserting many, many thoughts into that moment between stimulus and response.
June 16, 2008 at 3:14 am · Filed under Media Industry, Australia
In Australia to chuck a fit is to spit the dummy. Babies do it when they throw tantrums - so do adults.
In July I need to media train executives at a client company. I took today to refresh the media training materials I use for executives. There is so much to teach and adults are hopeless learners. So material needs to be compelling and provided in mind-sized chunks.
The best way is to show by example. I cruised YouTube to add new media interviews that showcase good and bad media behaviours. In my search I found a personal favourite. It’s less contrived than Tom Cruise jumping around on Oprah’s sofa. And it’s not as painful as Miss Teen South Carolina. If you haven’t seen those, then get to my Playlist at YouTube.
My favourite bad media interview is a simple sportscaster trying to file a simple story from South Australia (aren’t you glad I didn’t say simple a third time?). He’s just having a real bad day…
June 15, 2008 at 7:55 pm · Filed under Climate Change
Either I’m getting older and more sensitive to the state of the world, or we are truly lurching from crisis to crisis.
Petrol prices in Australia are $6.00 a gallon. China is digging out from under a killer earthquake. Iowa is flooded and the price of corn and soybeans has shot up. (Iowa is a “breadbasket” state that is now a “basket case” state.)
Then this morning on ABC Radio National came an interview with author Maude Barlow. She’s just released a book, Blue Covenant. Here she outlines the globe’s water shortages and predicts massive dislocation and conflict over access to clean water.
Seems our grade school lessons of constantly recycling water were false (remember condensation, rain, condensation, rain?). Groundwater is being sucked faster than it can be replaced. Mexico City is sinking as a result. Pollution has made most of Northern China’s water non-potable and it’s beyond recovery.
So add this to the list of concerns that imperil our life. Kind of makes me wish I’d slept in today - after all it is reaining and it is cold and the world is coming to an end.
As a member of the human race I do probe crisis issues like the lack of water. But I switch off if there’s no solution. I don’t expect anything simple like a magic trick - Voila! - however the dominoes of doom crashing over and over feel unstoppable.
Can’t we just get Mother Earth safely out of this mess with a little smoke and mirror? On the count of three, everyone say “Abracadabra!” Problem solved? Or is that a sleight of hand to make us feel a little better…
June 13, 2008 at 2:10 am · Filed under Learning to Blog
Writing a blog is a little bit like performing on film. You never know who will see it, what they’ll think and if it even gets a viewing. Will my blog be straight-to-DVD?
Yesterday in a meeting I was trying to express my passion for writing. The other person said they knew already. They read this blog and really liked the style! It was a wonderful validation and will fuel another fortnight’s postings.
Then of course I’ll wonder who reads this drivel…
June 10, 2008 at 7:37 pm · Filed under Business Start-Up
Sorry for the long interlude. It’s a shame to leave large blanks in a blog. Part of the reason to keep an on-line presence is to remain current.
Then life happens. And work.
I have been in the throes of plans to merge my business with that of a peer. We see a market opportunity for a combined, larger presence. Stage one was business planning and that took a lot of time - how do you synthesise large scale plans and make them palpable, real?
Then we were into the detail of a new partnership agreement, asking each other tough questions about life, work, management, responsibility.
Finally we started developing our “go to market” look and feel. From there came marketing materials.
We’re almost ready - so watch this space. And sorry for the interlude. I’ll try not to forget!!!
