James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

When you run your own business, some days are sooooo much better than others.

Most of us business owners seem to spend such an inordinate amount of time putting out spot fires, resolving unforeseen dilemmas and chasing forever imminent deadlines that it’s sometimes hard to remember the reasons we went into business in the first place.

That’s why, when something good and unexpected happens, life’s all the sweeter for it.

Today is one of those ’sweet’ days.

I am pleased to announce two developments that make me smile; firstly, at the ingenuity of a company that epitomises innovation and, secondly, at the growing reputation and influence of our own Anthill (and you, our proverbial tenants).

Development number one… Google ingenuity taps Australia.

Google understands that Australian business owners think differently from their friends over the pond.

We are tech-savvy but cynical. We are ambitious but largely risk averse (sadly). We rely perhaps too heavily on personal connections and because of that we build most our businesses using word-of-mouth as our primary marketing channel.

Whether this is good news or not, it nevertheless places Australian business owners in an unusual position. A unique position, in fact.

We offer the perfect commercial landscape for a ‘road test’. As Frank Sinatra once declared, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”

Could this mean that Australia is the new New York?

Either way, Google has developed a new e-learning tool, specifically for the Australian market, called ‘10 Steps to Promote your Business Online’.

And guess what? Anthill readers are getting the chance to road test it before anywhere else!

Development number two… Anthill’s readers are spreadin’ the news.

If Australia is the new New York, I can only assume that Anthill readers must be the new ‘Mad Men’, Madison Avenue’s famous (and infamous) marketing elite, known to ignite a global inferno of jibber-jabber at the drop of a designer cigarette.

Why? Because Anthill readers are erudite, articulate, educated, genuinely curious and driven by the process of creation (and hopefully not immune to flattery).

Seriously, you guys and gals represent Australia’s forward-thinking elite.

As such, we invite you to click here and test this new tool before anyone else.

The really good news is that this new tool was designed to help SMEs wrap their heads around online marketing and get started with a marketing plan, which first and foremost starts with search marketing.

It was developed by Google with an educational aim of helping SMEs understand the online space, whomever they might use to manage their online marketing and wherever they decide to implement their pay-per-click strategy.

By testing this tool, we also hope that you might just learn a thing or two about your business and its online marketing strategy in the process.

If, like ol’ blue eyes, you ‘want to be a part of it’ and shape a new business tool that has been missing in the Australian SME population for years (including the option to provide comments and constructive feedback to Google), click here.

First chance to trial. A new tool from Google for Australian businesses. And the opportunity to reward our loyal readers.

Now that’s what I call a good day in business.

Once you’ve ‘road-tested’ this new online learning tool, you can provide your feedback by completing our three-question survey (click here).

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

Not so long ago, we trialled an experiment in ‘new economy’ journalism that we dubbed Magazine 2.0.

We asked you, our readers, to share your best business tips, through our blog, for publication in Anthill Magazine. The response was so overwhelming, we were forced to turn the proposed column into a series.

Never ones to leave a good idea dormant, we’ve decided to take this experiment not just one step further but to its logical conclusion.

Here’s our audacious goal: We intend to produce the world’s first entirely reader-generated business magazine for publication this December.

We’ll be asking you, our readers, to suggest the people we profile.
We’ll be asking you to nominate the questions we ask.
We’ll be asking you to share your business stories through case studies.
We’ll be asking you to share your expertise through opinion pieces and columns.

We make no promises. We may not pull it off.

But we’re going to do our darnedest to do as we do best - turn conventional business practices on their head.

Of course, there’ll be some rules (and we might have to make up some extra rules as we go along).

1. If you’d like to be involved, click here and fill out our form. That way, we’ll know who to contact, how to contact you and, best of all, how to attribute your contribution(s).
2. Of course, we’ll be deeming your participation in this exercise as consent for us to use your comments for publication, permission for us to sub-edit and as a demonstration that you have agreed to our standard Terms & Conditions.
3. We’ll be conducting this exercise in a dedicated blog channel. Today, you’re reading our Editors’ Blog. To read the latest information on this experiment, visit our new Magazine 2.0 Blog.

Our promise is that we’ll try to keep up our end of the bargain as best we can, without compromising the quality of Anthill Magazine (or getting sued).

So… are you in?

If so, click here and register and/or make a suggestion below.

Is there anyone that you would like Anthill’s collective readership to interview? Is there a burning question you would like to ask Australia’s entrepreneurial elite? Is there a topic that you think constitutes essential business reading? Whatever your idea (serious, humorous, just plain kooky), leave your comment below (but don’t forget to register).

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

The following blog post was first published as the Editor’s Note of Anthill Magazine Aug/Sep 2008 (AA29)

Why do people keep asking me to be reasonable?

It was George Bernard Shaw who gave us the maxim, ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’

As you know, we like to question common assumptions at Anthill, fight conventional wisdom, rally together to combat commercial stupidity.

We particularly enjoy it when we’re able to rattle some cages in partnership with our readers, because if progress depends on the unreasonable man (and woman), just imagine what an unreasonable army of Anthillians can achieve.

And we’ve been busy lately, joining our readers to collectively protest the surprise closure of Commercial Ready, inviting Anthillian blog readers to contribute to our Magazine 2.0 experiment and, in this edition, we contradict some basic assumptions of business and test the boundaries of ‘freeconomics’.

A recent highlight of Anthill activism, and the first of the examples above, took place on 19 June when ‘up to one hundred’ annoyed constituents, according to one of Minister Lindsay Tanner’s media spokespersons, called the offices of the Federal Minister for Finance and Deregulation to voice their collective concern over the Federal Government’s decision to cut Commercial Ready (CR).

The decision to cut CR, one of Australia’s most successful grant programs to support innovation, was made in reference to a report completed by the Productivity Commission, part of Minister Tanner’s portfolio, which found that the program supported too many projects that would have gone ahead without public support.

Of course, that’s easy to say once a project has raised development finance elsewhere, enhanced by the endorsement implicit in a government grant, and, only then, proven commercially successful. The scrapping raised the ire of our readers and almost anyone dedicated to the development of Australian innovative, new-to-world technologies and the companies that support them.

A stream of angry comments communicating the frustration, disappointment and general dismay of many Australian entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, scientists, technologists and innovation professionals began to appear on the Anthill blog, accompanied by a swelling ant hill of emails and letters to the editor.

And then, with a bit of help from Anthill, this general ire began to manifest itself into action, a ‘flash protest’, a mass ‘call-in’ to the Minister’s parliamentary office in Canberra with a simple message:

“My name is [insert name here] and I’m calling to voice my concern at the closure of Commercial Ready. Can you please make sure that the Minister gets my message?”

Normally an uninspiring and fairly bland sentiment such as this would go unnoticed, particularly if the 30 word message was presented by just one, lone and often lonely recalcitrant (as is generally the case). However, when delivered by ‘up to one hundred’ people, over a six hour period, orchestrated by email and SMS, the impression created becomes hard to ignore, representing one call every 3.6 minutes, relaying the same repetitive message.

Surprisingly (at least to me), all this ‘rabble rousing’ (without the rabble) has caused some of our observers (and even supporters) to criticise this editor because, by providing the technology and guidance to coordinate this flash protest, we complicated the jobs of our elected officials.

What the!?

To set the record straight, I am a proponent of positive change. (That’s how I ‘lean’.) However, change for the sake of change is just plain dangerous. And it’s the responsibility of every unreasonable man and woman to exclaim vigorously, “Hey! There’s a baby in that bathwater!” whenever the need arises, irrespective of their political persuasion or slant.

As I post this blog, Federal Innovation Minister Kim Carr has yet to make any decision on the matter, after declining to do so until the outcomes of the National Innovation Review, chaired by the respected Dr Terry Cutler, are released. (However, he did contribute his thoughts on Australian innovation in an Op-Ed column for the current edition.)

I, for one, without the benefit of hindsight, am excited. Like Anthill’s editorial ethos, the recommendations won’t please everyone. But that’s fine, so long as Australia keeps producing unreasonable people, progress will prevail.

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

If you missed out on nominating your own organisation (or another ‘cool’ company) for Anthill’s 3rd Annual Cool Company Awards, don’t slap your forehead in dismay. Click here instead. We’ve responded to your requests (your demands, your pleas) and extended the application deadline until this Thursday 7 August 2008 (two days away).

In the meantime, we’ve downloaded some overview statistics about the companies that have completed applications so far.

So, who has entered Anthill’s 3rd Annual Cool Company Awards?

Largely, they are private enterprises (no surprises there). The majority have one to 50 shareholders. Only 45% have a board of directors and 36% plan to exit through a trade sale. A surprising 28% have no exit strategy at all.

Of our ‘cool’ company founders, 54% are male, 24% are female. The rest have more than one founder. Forty is the most common age for starting a ‘cool’ company. The slim majority (53%) relied on personal savings to start their businesses.

The most popular award category is the Innovation Award, followed closely by X-Factor and Online Business (clearly, our ‘call-to-action’ had its intended effect). The most poorly represented category is the Big Kahuna Award, not because big companies aren’t ‘cool’ but I suspect the outcome simply comes from the fact that there are less of ‘em.

So, will this blog post help those companies thinking of entering? Or frustrate those that have already completed the application form? Probably neither. But there’s always something intriguing about statistics, even if they can only ever tell us part of the story. To get the full picture, you might just have to wait until October.

Until next time, best of luck to all you ‘cool’ Anthillians!

The winners of the 3rd Annual Cool Company Awards will be announced at a Gala Awards Ceremony, to be held at the Melbourne headquarters of Primary Sponsor PricewaterhouseCoopers in September. The full outcomes will be published in the Oct/Nov edition of Anthill Magazine, available in the first week of October. Companies wishing to enter the 2008 Cool Company Awards can do so by clicking here.