It’s difficult to know why DOIR held the Leading Lights Conference. It was certainly good to see a bunch of innovative companies get awards today, and it was great to do some networking with other innovators and venture capitalists. But I came away with a few pessimistic messages.
Sure, almost everyone had to mention the “current economic climate” (should we start playing word bingo), but I think that’s just a great opportunity for those that are willing to work harder and smarter.
But unfortunately the focus seemed to be on raising money via venture capital, and their message was clear: don’t come and see us unless you’re based a car ride away, and you’re cash flow positive.
Fair enough, they want to minimise their risk.
But here is the thing: there are other ways to raise money other than venture funding. I think the organisers must have forgotten this. Because if we take the conferences advice at face-value, then really, unless you’re in the earth resource sector, you may as well move elsewhere, and surely that’s not the message the Western Australian Government wants to impart. Or is it?
Today I spent a good part of my day at the Leading Lights Conference, an event held by the Department of Industry and Resources.
Firstly, let me say that I’ll be excited about any opportunity to hear Steve Wozniak speak. So it was a joy to be at an event he was keynoting. It should also be noted that he stuck around the rest of the day, attended the other presentations, signed laptops, and posed for photos.
My only real complaint about his keynote was the direction his presentation took, and was largely out of his control. I’m sure many people enjoyed what he had to say, so I’m not about to complain (more than I will on my blog), but the presentation was interview-style and drifted through the history of Apple, which I’m already fairly familiar with.
Regardless, I got to pose for a photo with The Woz. That alone was worth my time .
There seemed to be several aims for the conference, mostly around connecting innovators with investors, with a bunch of education thrown in for the former. I think that was largely a success.
Other than some fantastic networking, I took a few other things away from day one.
Wozniak is a brilliant engineer. However, Apple would not have existed without Jobs. That’s obvious. But describing what Jobs did to progress was inspiring. He was seriously a brilliant entrepreneur and sales-man. It doesn’t sound like anything would have stopped the man from succeeding, and I think other successful business people are exactly the same.
The Government struggle, in a major way, to support entrepreneurship.
Several of the presentations focused on accessing funding from overseas. Most suggested that to access that investment, the entrepreneur needed to move away from Western Australia, to places like Silicon Valley.
Interestingly I got to ask Steven Goh, the cofounder of Mig33, a question. Steven started Sanford Securities in Perth in the nineties. He then went on to start Mig33 in Perth, but moved to Silicon Valley. I asked, “what other than moving to Silicon Valley would he suggest a technology entrepreneur in Perth should do.” His answer, in a nut-shell, was “get traction.”
I was sitting next to Jacqueline Shervington, of ex-CEO of ineedhits and now Founding Partner of Future Partners, and she suggested this was Goh’s way of saying, “get traction by moving to Silicon Valley.”
I also chatted with one of the department heads at DOIR. I explained that I wanted to open up a communication channel with them to make them aware of some of the initiatives I’m involved in in Perth, including AWIA and the Edge of the Web conference. I was told to contact them after Christmas, because of the recent election.
I hate to say it. But as an entrepreneur, several months can mean life or death. It’s obvious that the Government can’t operate at that sort of speed.
All up day one was a great event for networking. I was disappointed I had to leave part of the way through. I’ll be heading back tomorrow to see what else I can glean.
Ron Peno, from News, has blogged a request for people to nominate the 50 most powerful and influential Australian women in social media.
I’m always a fan of anything that gets people discussing the state of play in the web industry in Australia. So I’d love for any readers to jump on over to the blog post and add your thoughts or nomination.
Today I’m giving a presentation at the National PRIA Conference. It’s a brief one, as part of their Generation Y panel: Where Now Generation Y?
Makes me feel young .
Last Friday I was also given a chance to present at a lecture at Edith Cowan University. PRN2121 – PR Techniques. They got a preview of the presentation. In fact, calling it a preview might be unfair, as they got the extended version.
So here is my slide deck and my notes for both presentations. Feel free to correct me, or add your own thoughts in the comments.
1. Public Relations just got harder.
Earlier in the year I gave a presentation at Bar Camp with Bronwen Clune of Norg Media. In it I made a statement that I’ve repeated several times since.
Social media is a life choice.
By that, I mean that social media is something you have to live. You have to embrace it as part of what you do, everyday. It’s not something you can do successfully by ducking in and out occasionally. You need to commit to it, and be consistent.
For those in the Public Relations industry, it means that your job just got harder. Because the Internet has made it so much easier for almost anyone to communicate, it means that PR people need to spend more time involved online.
The good news is that although more time is required, it’s really just a matter of engaging common sense.
There are a bunch of different tools that someone in PR can use to get involved. I’ll outline some of them here. But keep in mind that these are tools, and it doesn’t mean that every one is useful for every industry. It’s easy for me, given I live in the IT industry, and almost all of them are applicable to that. Other industries will vary in their contact with the online world.
2. News and Echo Searches.
Every morning I get up and check my email, and a couple of news sites. In fact I almost completely rely on Techmeme to stay up to date with what is happening online. It aggregates a bunch of other news sources, and determines what is currently popular. That can save me hours in keeping up to date with blogs, and other news sites.
Fortunately almost anyone can cut down the time it takes to scour online news by using a news aggregator. One example is Google Reader. Simply bookmark the web sites that provide you with news feeds (almost all online news sites do these days), and it will check these sites for updates automatically. When there is a new story, it’ll update your list with just that news item. It can save you hours going to each of these sites individually, so that now you can skim the new headlines.
Aggregators work great for scouring a large number of sites that you’d like to stay up to date with. If you have a collection of news sites for your industry, add them to an aggregator, and you’ll stay up to date in minutes each day.
For specific updates, like details for a particular company, product, brand, or person, you can also use “Echo Searches.” Everyone knows about “Vanity Searches:” doing a Google search for your own name. Echo searches, are similar, but are a great way to check what’s happening online with other items. For example, you can set a Google Alert for any search term, and it will email you daily, or even as soon as it finds a result.
Another Echo Search is Twitter’s own search tool: Twitter Search. Search it for stock market, earth quake, or apple, when any of these major events take place, and you’ll see conversations and thoughts on each topic.
3. Blogging. It’s the conversations stupid.
Blogging has been around long enough for it to widely know. But some people still can’t grasp what they’re really made off: conversations.
This means that if you’re going to start a blog, or even read a blog, the best results are generated when you start using the comments feature. Or at the very least replying to blog posts on your own weblog. That’s when blogs become powerful. That’s when blogs become a community.
There’s also a couple of other benefits from involvement in conversations: networking, and search engine optimisation (SEO).
4. Podcasting, streaming, and user generated content (UGC).
I’ve lumped these together, because they are loosely related, but mostly because I’ve only got 10 minutes to run through Social Media in a general sense. But they’re all very powerful mediums if they’re done well.
Podcasting whether audio, or video, is a great way to do several things: inform, network, build or strengthen a community.
The important thing to keep in mind is creating compelling content. It’s got to be content that useful for the communities that you want to reach, and that just means you’re allowed to think outside of the box: interview experts, create comedy, aggregate news, etc.
Streaming is also another interesting way to be involved in a community. By streaming live, it provides a great way to interact in real time with other people. It’s very niche at the moment, and might not be great for many industries, but it has potential to be very powerful in the future.
User generate content is probably the most difficult to harness. Though if it’s done it can be the most effective, especially when it goes viral. A great example happened for Mentos and Diet Coke when Eepybird created a video of Diet Coke and Mentos eruptions.
5. Social Networks.
I’ve signed up to a bunch of social networks. Depending on the industry, some are more useful that others.
Personally I find LinkedIn (here is my profile, Richard Giles) invaluable. I’m constantly using it to find people in companies that I’d like to contact regarding my business.
It’s useful for doing background research, as well as finding connections who might be willing to introduce you.
Also worth investigating, from a organisations perspective is Facebook groups, and Ning.
That’s unless you’re willing to create your own Social Network, like Oracle Mix (thanks to @chloe814 for pointing out Mix to me).
6. Microblogging. WTF, I don’t even have a blog yet.
My god, if there is one social network that’s been mentioned to death in the last year, it’s Twitter. Saying that, it’s also changed the way a lot of people network online.
Other than meeting some great people through Twitter, I’ve also made some REALLY valuable connections with people from a business point of view. A recent trip to China was incredibly valuable because of people I connected with via Twitter.
Not only that, when you combine it with their search tool, and use it for Echo Searches you can learn some amazing things about companies or topics.
The jury is still out, but @BigPondTeam recently joined the conversation, and have been showing that even Telstra can get it right. If they continue to embrace the medium they may actually show that they care.
There are also other microblogging platforms, like Plurk, and Seesmic.
Another interesting way of using microblogging is to roll your own. The Presets, an Australian dance band created their own as part of a viral campaign for their latest single: Talk Like That.
7. Other social media. Flickr, Wikis, FriendFeed etc.
I’ve only managed to cover a handful of social mediums, but it’s worth knowing that there are a vast range of ways of using any of them for public relations.
One example I love to use is meeting people through Flickr. If I attend I technology conference I like to take my camera and grab a bunch of snaps. If you take the right sorts of photos, and tag them well enough, you’ll manage to meet a few people at the conference through Flickr.
Check out Modofly on Flickr. Companies like them do an excellent job of using the photo sharing site.
Wikis can also be a powerful medium for public relations. Imagine turning a web sites control over to the customer. Image a Government department doing that. Might be some harsh words, but the lessons and information could be invaluable.
8. Face-to-Face.
I wonder if I put this one in to make sure I keep myself honest. It’s probably there because us lot that are involved online on a daily basis need a reality check once in a while. Most human interaction happens off-line.
It’s also worth repeating what I said at the start. Not all these online tools work for every industry. Some communities just don’t live online, and no matter how hard you try, you won’t reach them there.
9. Authenticity. Rule # 1: Be yourself.
If there is one thing I’d like people to remember when it comes to Public Relations and Social Media, it’s the word Authenticity: being real, honest, and genuine.
All you need to remember is to be yourself. It’s the easiest thing to do, though when we start communicating for an organisation, we often lose the ability. But when people hear from a company, or want to tell them something, they really want to speak to a person, not a corporate handbook.
At face value the title would suggest that the author, Kafka, thinks that Facebook currently doesn’t have a business plan. In the blog post’s first paragraph, he confirms his thought.
If you’ve had a nagging suspicion that Mark Zuckerberg really doesn’t know how he’ll turn Facebook into a business, wonder no more. You’re right. Here he is talking to German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
I’ve said it before, just probably not blogged it for prosperity, but any company that has raised funding (including Twitter) has a business plan. There is no way a company would raise money without one. It’s also just insane business practice to not have one.
In fact, in the section of the interview that Kafka quotes, I can see that Zuckerberg has a business plan that outlines several revenue models.
But we are experimenting already. One group is very focused on targeting; another part is focused on social recommendation from your friends. In three years from now we have to figure out what the optimum model is.
A business plan is always in flux. So it’s reasonable that in a industry like the Internet that a company has some flexibility in it to work out the “optimum model.”
OK, so I might have just been sucked in with some clever link baiting, but to suggest that Facebook doesn’t have a business model is just not right (or is clever link baiting).
The other day Gary asked a question in my blog’s comments.
This maybe a rude question. But the entire web 2.0 (bad term) seems to be only a young players space. When you have no responsibilies, family, kids, mortgage etc. When you have lots of free time to work on that crazy idea and bring it to life.
So how does one go about all this when you are over 35 with the usual baggage etc. You wouldn’t want to just stop bringing in a regular income as you have others depending on you. So what’s the magic.
Or do you just forget about all your crazy ideas and just continue on the endless grind.
It’s a great question Gary, and one I think everyone asks, not just us old folk .
OK. So it’s definitely an easier decision for someone without kids and a mortgage, but to be honest this is exactly where true entrepreneurial spirit shows itself. An entrepreneur finds a way, no matter what.
It sounds tripe, but there is always a way. It obviously means hard work, and that’s another defining factor. When others are happy to “continue on the endless grind,” there are special rewards for those willing to slug it out. Most people are lazy, an entrepreneur sees that as an opportunity to stand out.
Given current economic uncertainty, I’d suggest an aspiring entrepreneur keep there day job, and work their idea on the side. If necessary, do some research and find another outstanding aspiring entrepreneur and partner with them to halve the work load. Just make sure this person is as passionate, or more passionate than you.
But I can bet you, that even over the coming months and years, a bunch of clever people with quit their job and start a successful venture. Among other factors, passion, focus, and hard work is really all that is required.
The beauty of starting an Internet based company, is that there are so many online resources that can be used for research or networking. Here are a few that I think any Australian web startup should keep handy.
Twitter. Well, duh, really. If you’re involved in the web industry in Australia, and you’re not on it, then you’re nobody. These days I use it daily. Not only is it great for a few fun conversations, it comes in handy for networking, research, and also quick polls.
I also use LinkedIn constantly. It has helped me meet people that I wanted to contact within potential companies. I’d use the site several times a week.
It’s also worth checking in to the Silicon Beach Google Group. It has a bunch of very bright people, who will be happy to answer questions and debate pros and cons.
While we’re on the topic of Silicon Beach, there is also the new Silicon Beach Podcast. So far they’ve had some great guests that are more than worth while listening to.
There is always a bunch of magazines sitting on racks around the place, but the one I’ve found worth grabbing is Australian Anthill. Not only is it a great resource, the crew are uber-friendly.
It’s also worth while frequenting Vishal Sharma’s Startup Blog, as he interviews a new startup on a regular basis.
Now I’m a great fan of focus. So I wouldn’t suggest that any entrepreneur take their eye off the ball to pursue funding from the Government, but there are three things any budding Australian entrepreneur should know about: R&D Tax Concession, COMET, and Export Market Development Grants.
Finally, but probably the single most import link, is a great resource for developing a business plan. You might have this nailed, but I’m forever reworking mine, and always find this guide from the NSW Government useful: Guide to Business Planning.
I’m not saying these are the ONLY resources an Australian entrepreneur should keep handy, but their certainly the ones I keep top of mind.
A couple of weeks ago I noticed John Haining had started a “poll” to pull together a list of “Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 Gurus in Australia.” The aim was to submit the suggestions to the Australian Government for an advisory committee of web 2.0 practitioners.
I’ve always said that anything that gets Australian’s thinking about the Internet/web, and the industry, is great. And so regardless of if anything comes of the list, it’s a great exercise to get involved in.
It also got me thinking about my role as an Internet entrepreneur and business owner. I’ve learnt so much over the last several years, and enjoy giving back to the community where I can. I’m also a fan of helping any potential or active entrepreneurs with questions, feedback, or simply to discuss thoughts or ideas. That’s when I realised I needed to restart my blog, and focus it on the web industry of Australia.
But given blogs are all about conversations, I’d love to hear what people would like to know. So I’d love for people to add their thoughts, or questions on what they’d love to hear discussed with respect to the Australian web industry. That way it gives me some scope to work with over the coming weeks.
So, what do others think? What would you like to know about? Are their some Aussie entrepreneurial questions about the web industry in Australia?
Ask away in the comments below, or feel free to email or dm me.
Since the end of 2007 I’ve been actively speaking to a broad range of Australian Internet companies about my company’s services. One thing occurred to me very early in the process: large corporates own the Australian Internet.
Now I might be a bit slow, incredibly naive, or both. But I had a Utopian view of the Internet: that it was owned and run by every average Joe that happened to stumble across it. The social web has crowed about it for the last few years, essentially declaring it our patch. But we’re way off the mark, at least in Australia.
To give you an idea, here is a list of the most trafficked (according to Alexa Top 100 Australia) Australian owned web properties, and who actually own them.
Ninemsn, PBL and Microsoft
News.com.au, News Corp
SMH, Fairfax
Realestate.com.au, REA Group which is majority owned by News Corp
Commbank.com.au, Commonwealth Bank
Bigpond, Telstra
Seek, Seek Limited of which PBL (CMH) own 25%
The Age, Fairfax
ABC, Commonwealth of Australia
ANZ, ANZ
Westpac, Westpac
Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Commonwealth of Australia
NAB, National Australia Bank
NSW Government, Commonwealth of Australia
Carsales.com.au, majority owned by PBL
Domain.com.au, Fairfax
Optuszoo.com.au, Optus with content from ninemsn (PBL and Microsoft)
St. George Bank, St George
Victoria Online, Commonwealth of Australia
Yellowpages, Sensis (Telstra)
Whitepages, Sensis (Telstra)
YourTV, ninemsn (PBL and Microsoft)
Optus, Optus
Queensland Govenment, Commonwealth of Australia
Qantas, Qantas
Whirlpool, Simon Wright
RSVP, Fairfax
Emailcash, PermissionCorp
CareerOne, News Corp
Trading Post, Telstra
AFL, AFL with Bigpond (Telstra)
TPG, subsidiary of SP Telemedia (12% owned by WIN and 27% by Washington H. Soul Pattinson)
ASX, ASX Limited
Mycareer, Fairfax
Monash University, Monash University
The 35 sites listed consist of Banks (5), Government (5), PBL (5), Fairfax (5), News Corp (2), and Telstra (5). A total of 27.
Of the 8 remaining sites almost all the others are owned by large corporations. There are only two exceptions, Whirlpool and EmailCash.
Now this list is only what I harvested from Alexa. You can do your own digging by looking at PBL, Fairfax, News Corp, and Telstra. You’ll soon see they own much more than just these.
So, firstly, well done to Simon Wright (his team and the Whirlpool community), and to PermissionCorp. Job well done building some awesomely trafficked sites.
Secondly, I’m sure that there can be much said about how this effects the web community, and other companies. I personally think it makes innovation within the Australian web industry much harder. I say this because the process involved in initiating projects, internally or externally, is usually very long for a large company. Understandably, they need to take due diligence.
However, this could kill the Australian web start-up commmunity.
To gain mind-share a small company, like a new social network, needs to overcome the firepower of the large web companies. This of course is made harder when they all own the news media (Australia’s attention) as well.
It also makes it much harder for an innovative company to sell services to Internet companies. Having a large swathe of the Internet owned by a hand-full of corporations certainly limits the number of potential customers.
It also makes short work of the argument that suggests that large media companies in Australia don’t understand the effect the Internet will have on their business. Because, actually, they own the damn thing. It’s no wonder they’re not concerned about erosion of their print, radio and TV divisions to the web! Because there the ones reaping the benefits: literally billions of page-views a month!
I know not much will change with the Australian Internet in the short term. After all, money talks. But I thought it was worthwhile putting this knowledge out there for discussion, debate, or even just awareness. I might have been the only optimistic one, but I know I’ve heard other people’s conversations that have made me realise that some others may also not know, or are simply choosing to ignore the situation.
There has been a bunch of talk recently about the credit crunch/slowing economies and start-ups. Yesterday I noticed an article on Techmeme: How start-ups can survive by Rafe Needleman.
It’s a great list of things to do, but I think it’s a great list of things that any start-up should do in any economic environment.
So let me add my comments about the list from an Aussie start-up perspective.
Firstly though, I’d question anyone getting more concerned in the current environment. I mean seriously, we’ve known this economic slow down has been coming for some time, they always do. I’ve also heard of issues with the US economy for well over a year. So it’s no real surprise. We should all have a solid business plan that works in and out of a recession.
Secondly, what Needleman outlines sounds like common sense business practice to me. You’ll see what I mean.
1. Advertising is a trailing indicator. People have questioned the reliance of advertising in the start-up world for several years. It works for some, but traffic needs to be dramatic for it to be successful.
2. Rotation into business. Really this is the same underlying issue as number one, and harks back to having a robust business model. He’s also spot on when he says, “to sell to business you need products that are more robust than single-feature Web sites, and you need a top-flight sales team. B2B products don’t sell themselves.” But again, that’s mandatory for any business, in any economic environment.
3. Nobody trusts start-ups. Very true. Again, this applies to any environment.
4. Forget the VCs, head to the angels. Now this is where I get Aussie specific. For Australian web based start-ups, this is going to be the case for almost all of us, and has been the case even through the boom. Aussie VCs are more primed for established companies, not those starting up, and definitely not those based on the web.
5. No credit. Or as Needleman says conserve money, and “lay off the fancy parties and expensive conference travel.” I can’t think of any Aussie startups that have had fancy parties, and again, it seems like business sense in any environment. We all learnt that lesson from 2001.
6. Spend into the recession, or move. This one is great advice, and harks back to old sayings about opportunities in recessions. “Every cloud has a silver lining,” blah blah blah. I certainly agree with one of his last comments, “The clouds will lift eventually–and if not in this economy, then perhaps in another, like China or Dubai.” I was speaking to a web entrepreneur the other day, and suggested that he look to China. I think all Aussie start-ups should. There is far greater potential in China right now than in Silicon Valley. If you’re going to invest some time somewhere, or even relocate, I’d look there for the opportunities. Especially now.
The bottom line from my point of view is that it’s business as usual for Aussie web start-ups. We’ve always had to have our head down and bum up, and we’ve never had it easy from a VC point of view, so what has changed in the last week? Nothing. So lets keep barreling along as normal.
.
