James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

We have fifty ‘R’ rated DVDs to give away.

But it’s not what you think.

‘The Man Who Souled the World’ is an award-winning documentary about Steve Rocco, pro-skateboarder turned disruptive entrepreneur and skate industry leader.

Rocco’s first finance came from a loan-shark. Not only did he stand to lose his shirt from his first entrepreneurial venture, he also stood to lose his knee-caps.

His first ‘reseller’ channel was the infamous Z-Boys. Why hire resellers when you can create multiple companies with pro-skaters as major shareholders and brand advocates?

His first scalps were the established industry leaders. When a prominent skate magazine refused to run his ads for being too provocative, he launched a rival magazine, sending the incumbent into insolvency.

Throughout the 1980s, Rocco used pornography, blasphemy, propaganda and truly anarchic business strategies to create World Industries, which has grown into one of the largest and most influential skateboard companies in the world.

When I watched ‘The Man Who Souled the World’ for the first time, I thought, ‘I’ve got to get this DVD into the hands of our readers!’

It could be because I’m ‘into’ skateboarding (even if I my Element deck hasn’t left the boot of my car since I gave myself a prolapsed disc earlier this year).

It could be because Rocco naturally embodies some of the anarchic personality of Anthill Magazine. (We sometimes describe our creative process as ‘organised chaos’.)

It could be because Rocco successfully reinvented an established industry sector, simply because he was dissatisfied with the status quo (an attitude that we also empathise with).

But I think my excitement for this documentary mainly comes from it’s simplicity as a real, contemporary David versus Goliath tale re-visited.

After enthusiastically lobbying its Australian distribution company, Mad Man Entertainment (who we covered in 2005 as a very Anthillian organisation), fifty copies arrived at our office door… for a price.

I won’t say what that price was but the discount rate was, indeed, very generous, enough to allow me to make the following two offers:

• One: If you are NOT a current subscriber to Anthill Magazine… Click here and when prompted insert the ‘promotional code’ SKATE2008. You’ll score a 12-month subscription to Anthill for only $34.95 and get this DVD for free, delivered to your door. (This offer only works if you subscribe online)

• Two: If you are already a subscriber…. Call 1300 760 373 and cite the ‘promotional code’ SKATE2009. We’ll extend your current subscription for another 12-months for only $29.95 and also send you the DVD for no extra cost, delivered to your door. (This offer only works if you call 1300 760 373).

So, OK. I’m sorry that it’s not a completely free DVD on offer. But we only have 50 copies and we also need you to use your credit card because ‘The Man Who Souled the World’ has an ‘R’ rating (not a completely fool-proof strategy but we figure that, if you’re a minor with plastic, this DVD will be the least harmful thing that you’ve already discovered on the internet).

It’s not often that we spruik our own wares through the blog. In fact, it’s our first time. So, I hope that you don’t mind this departure from the norm.

But I must make the following warning… This ‘R’ rated DVD is not for everyone.

If inspiring and provocative business documentaries push your buttons, this modern-day story of David and Goliath re-loaded will put a smile on your dial. If business strategies and marketing campaigns that really push the boundaries of convention make you feel uneasy, perhaps wait until our next offer comes up (I’m sure we’ll have something a little safer, but equally inspiring, available soon).

In coming weeks, we’ll be giving readers the opportunity to be among the first people in the world to road test a new Google Service (very exciting, indeed) and we’ll also be extending our Magazine 2.0 experiment (another magazine first). Also, we’ll be extending the way you can interact with Anthill by introducing QR Codes to our technology mix.

In short, there’s never been a better time to subscribe or renew your subscription. So, if this interests you, don’t mess around. We only have 50 copies of my second favourite business DVD (first in, first served).

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

I was part of an ‘intimate’ and ‘confidential’ dinner with Innovation Minister Kim Carr last Wednesday night.

The topic was innovation (of course). And it was held for a small group of innovation experts, mostly academics and policy makers. The discussion initially focused on the role of government (as we await the outcomes of Dr Terry Cutler’s National Innovation Review) and was held ‘off the record’ (I was bound to secrecy).

However, I can tell you this…

Innovation is fast becoming the most boring topic on the planet.

At least, that’s my ‘educated’ view.

I sometimes think of myself as an ‘addict’ (addicted to innovation) and that I’ve been told to talk through my addiction as part of my therapy.

Unfortunately, I’ve talked so much and listened to so much talk (call it group therapy) that I fear my addiction might soon be cured. This would be sad, indeed.

The confidential discussion that triggered this rant (I do have an eventual point, if you bear with me) was held as part of a book launch, Measured Success, edited by Peter Cebon of the Melbourne Business School.

The book itself is very informed and successfully highlights the main problems associated with innovation in Australia through case studies and commentary from experts.

In particular (pay close attention now), it makes the critical observation that innovative companies tend to focus either on the technology (the solution to the problem they’re trying to solve) or the market (what the market actually wants and how to reach that market).

It won’t come as a surprise that of the companies profiled those that focused on the market were more likely to be successful than those fixated on the technology.

So, here’s my question?

Why can’t the innovation community heed this observation?

I’m talking about the academics, the policy makers, the advisers and the consultants who have a greater need to generate passion for innovation than anyone else - because it’s their job to feed innovation (or feed off it).

Yet, time and time again the discussion rages on without true private-sector engagement, in a language that the private sector doesn’t use, in a way that would put the most afflicted insomniac into a blissful coma.

Are we too busy talking about the problem to think about the market (let alone engage with it)?

Am I alone on this? Five years ago, the cover story of Anthill’s launch edition asked the question, “Who’s carrying innovation?” Has anything changed? Are we making progress or or are we doomed to spend another five years engaged in verbal masturbation (speaking for our own gratification)?

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

To celebrate the Atlantic’s current issue with the thought provoking cover story, “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?”, the publishers of Australian current affairs periodical The Monthly are sending their friends from across the pond an online gift subscription.

This ‘gift’ includes access to the Monthly archive and Gideon Haigh’s award-winning essay published in February 2006, “How Google is Making Us Stupid.”

Yes, it’s another fracas between magazine publishers.

At Anthill, we haven’t been so outraged since SmartCompany.com.au decided to run an article titled ‘30 hot entrepreneurs aged 30 and under’ just 10 days before the long-publicised release of Anthill’s inaugural 30under30 awards.

Or since Dynamic Business ran its ‘Disaster Strikes’ cover two months after Anthill’s highly successful and trend-breaking ‘Disaster Edition.’

Or since Fast Thinking decided to launch in Australia because Australia didn’t have a magazine dedicated to innovation (What the!?).

Actually, I’m not outraged at all. I’m not outraged about the Atlantic article or my spurious accusations above (although I did gain personal pleasure from airing them).

No. Personally, I’m just proud that an Australian organisation is creating debate around the world. And I’m flattered that our ideas are entering the ‘zeitgeist’ and finding traction elsewhere.

Fortunately, the list of examples and controversial claims above also serve my purpose, by not-so serendipitously leading me back to the opening question.

If new technologies are making it easier for anyone to uncover and apply the ideas of others from around the globe, if Google is providing us with the answer to almost any question we can ask, if technology is overcoming the need to think cognitively or make personal deductions… is Google making us dumb?

The debate is obviously more complex than that.

Atlantic contributor Nicholas Carr makes the observation that, because media are not just passive channels of information, because they supply the stuff of thought, they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away at our capacity for concentration and contemplation.

“My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski,” he says.

At least, I think that was his main bone. I was too busy checking out a link on sea-turtles.

The Monthly’s Haig seems to be more upset at the effectiveness of Google as a tool for plagiarism and its ability to effectively convey misinformation.

Ultimately, a good angle is a memorable angle, just as surely as a good idea is infectious. And it’s impossible to prevent a good angle/idea from turning viral.

Personally, I doubt that any concept, cover story or angle that has appeared in any magazine, including Anthill, has ever been truly original, untouched by outside forces, and Google is not to blame. Quite simply, an idea can’t percolate in a vacuum (and all publishers rely on cultural mores, means and schemas to connect with our readers).

This statement includes the examples given above (from Google’s effect to business disasters and apple motifs). Yes, it might shock and amaze, but Anthill was not the first to focus on disasters, use apples on our cover or write about innovation.

The challenge is making sure that new thinkers understand the distinction between plagiarism and the proper means of sharing ideas - giving credit where credit’s due.

Is Google making us dumb? I suspect that Carr is right in one sense. It is changing the way we think and analyse information, but possibly it’s doing so in a way that’s no different to the effect the mass production of books had on the way we reason and communicate.

In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates bemoaned the development of writing. He feared that, as people came to rely on the written word as a substitute for the knowledge they used to carry inside their heads, they would, in the words of one of the dialogue’s characters, “cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful.”

Fortunately, I don’t need to be scholar in Greek history to know this tid bit of information. I just applied an example provided by Carr, verbatim (I plagiarised with credit, or is that an oxymoron?).

Like writing, books and libraries, Google and other search engines (and the web) are opening us up to perspectives and experiences, many of which were previously inaccessible and impossible to share cheaply .

So, to mashup an old quote with a new setting (searched and found using Google, edited and manipulated using my wee, human brain)…

If we can all see further from the shoulders of giants, I’m just grateful for the comfy perch, steering system and dashboard that search engines have provided.

And I, for one, feel smarter for it.

*UPDATE: It seems that the battle of “similar” ideas is not confined to print publications, with Channel Seven now being accused of ripping off an Apple iPod TVC with its new TiVo promotions. Seven’s riposte? “There’s no copyright in an idea.”

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

When we launched our inaugural 30under30 Awards in April (Anthill’s award program to recognise young entrepreneurs), we were immediately surprised at the lack of female entries (initially three percent).

We threw out a rally-to-arms, posing the controversial question: Are women less likely to self-promote? Quickly, our three percent figure jumped to over 30 percent.

The question has since been rendered moot (or at least proven wrong), as our women readers have embraced the Cool Company Awards with gusto, representing 42 percent of companies entered.

What we have found surprising is the low number of web companies to enter. This completely contradicted our expectations.

Firstly, it would be no surprise to our readers that we are borderline obsessed with online business models. We try to moderate our exuberance and cover a range of industries, but due to the internet’s power to radically disrupt traditional business models, we often can’t help ourselves and keep coming back to those three influential Ws.

Secondly, our 30under30 Awards attracted online entrepreneurs in droves. Among our young entrepreneurs, by far the greatest interest in the awards came from online business owners. We even went so far as to create a section to recognise in our magazine online economy finalists (‘Behold the New Economy’).

Thirdly, we made a concerted effort to make the awards easier for online businesses to enter, reducing the requisite time in business from 24-months to 12-months. We recognise that many companies in this space may not have existed 12-months ago. Indeed, the technology may not have been available for them to exist 12-months ago.

Lastly, so many online businesses are very, very cool!

They are innovative, they are constantly reinventing themselves, they are generally driven by entrepreneurial ‘futurists’, they are born global and often they have the X-Factor (frequently like no other).

So, why the absence?

It could be the $49 application free.

Online businesses have grown accustomed to ‘free’ goods and services, a staple of internet businesses, from new media to open-source tools. But a barrier to entry is sometimes necessary. It sorts the leaders from the also-rans. (If you can’t afford $49 to gain a better understanding of your business and maybe even win some accolades, there’s something intrinsically wrong with your business.)

It could be the cynicism of online entrepreneurs.

While the web community often likes to ‘stick it to the man’, I don’t think Anthill yet qualifies as ‘part of the establishment’. (To check out a video about our humble beginnings, click here.) The irony is that it is currently easier than ever for an online entrepreneur to come up trumps in the Cool Company Awards, simply due the lack of competition.

What we desperately hope is that the poor showing is not a reflection of the industry as a whole. We voiced our anger at the close of Commercial Ready and I recently heard rumour that the ICT Secrets program has also been put on hold.

What is going on?!

Should we simply close this category and give up on our webtreneurs?

1. If you would like to nominate an online business (maybe your own), click here.
2. If you represent an industry association and would like to help, click here. (Does anyone have any contacts at AIIA or AIMIA?)
3. If you represent a popular blog, why not click here and join our ‘League of Champions’.
4. If you have any thoughts, leave ‘em below.