James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

You may have noticed that every second Thursday, over the last few months, I have posted a blog on a topic that explores entrepreneurship. I hope that these aren’t coming too frequently (if they are, I’m sure you’ll let me know).

Over this same period of time, there is one topic that has dominated the media.

You know what it is. I’m talking about the big ‘D’.

No…

Not Depression.

The big ‘D’ I’m talking about stands for…

Distraction!

In a recent interview with BusinessWeek, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked whether Google’s strategy would change as the US economy heads into a likely recession.

He replied, “What recession?”

And then went on to say…

Innovation has nothing to do with downturns. A hot product will sell just as well in a recession as it will in a non-recession. Let’s imagine that we invented a better advertising product for television.

What would our revenue growth be for that? Well, you’re into a $50 billion market, so it will be driven not by whether there’s a television ad recession but by what degree we can get people to substitute [our product] for the other.

The strong companies understand this, and during a recession, they invest.

Or take a moment to reflect on the words of Bill Gates:

Even though we’re in an economic downturn, we’re in an innovation upturn.

I’ve been watching the general behaviour and attitude of our readers pretty closely for the last six months, and I get the impression that they (I mean, you) tend to agree.

If you have a hot idea, the economy is unlikely to deter you.

If you’re a young venture, you just might need to bootstrap a little harder (like all quality startups, including Google and Microsoft in their early days). If you’re a more established venture, you’d be mad to not start working on your next big thing now (because innovation takes time and you want to be ready for the next upturn).

A venture associated with Anthill, called (re)innovate challenge, is inviting Australian organisations to form teams and undergo six months of training.

The goal for each team is to develop ideas worthy of spin-off, from wild new products to processes and operational efficiencies.

The program costs $1,650 per team and has already attracted 220 registrations of interest! This one example demonstrates that 220 companies already understand the value of innovation, irrespective of the economic climate.

(BTW - If you’re the CEO or HR manager, get your company behind this initiative. It’s a program designed to make innovation accessible to as many businesses as possible. The goal is to make innovation just a natural part of the employee development mix and make Australia’s innovation capacity absolutely explode! Click here.)

But I digress.

It seems to this not-so-humble commentator that the most harmful effect of this economic downturn on the state of the Australian economy, so far, appears to not be its impact on our hip pockets but on our hearts and minds.

So, if you are feeling stressed (spitting out beads of sweat, rather than gems of wisdom) just remember that many of the world’s most successful companies hit their stride at the height of recession. Just ask Eric, Bill or even Kellogs!

Thems my two cents for the fortnight (otherwise known as my dwindling share portfolio).

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

As you all well know, Anthill Magazine is committed to building a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in Australia.

Our readers probably know better than most that the majority of Australian businesses don’t get innovation. As a nation we are facing new challenges. New ideas are needed.

But only 34 percent of Australian businesses pursue innovation. There’s no doubt about it, for Australia to remain competitive more businesses must innovate.

That’s why Anthill is backing a new initiative called (re)innovate challenge.

(re)innovate challenge is a national business planning challenge developed to inspire businesses and teach them how to innovate. Over five months, these teams will receive extensive training to turn their ideas into viable business plans.

To spice things up (re)innovate challenge culminates in state-level awards and national-level prizes in the middle of 2009.

In short, (re)innovate challenge is a five month program designed to…

• Teach companies “how to” innovate.
• Over this time, ideas will be developed into business plans, creating spin-offs, efficiencies and a ‘can do’ culture in participating organisations.
• At a cost of $1,650 per team, (re)innovate offers on online program, concluding with state and industry prizes and awards.

Throughout the five months, each team will have access to forums, training manuals and video lessons to assist in every stage of bringing an innovative idea into reality – all this is done via the internet so becoming a part of (re)innovate challenge enables teams to work on this in their own time. 

Go to http://www.reinnovate.com.au/information/timeline for the (re)innovate challenge timeline. If you’re the CEO or HR manager, get your company behind this initiative. The goal is to make innovation just a natural part of the employee development mix and make Australia’s innovation capacity absolutely explode!

Plus, your employees might just develop the next big thing.

Teams representing Australian businesses are currently entering their ideas. 

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

Scattered throughout the latest edition of Anthill you may notice a series of black and white boxes.

No, they are not crosswords on crack. Rather, Anthill has partnered with QMCODES to create one of Australia’s first ‘Interactive Print’ magazines.

What does this mean?

Always the early-adopter, Anthill is giving you, our readers, the opportunity to download extended articles, podcasts, vodcasts and other items of rich multimedia content directly from our print magazine onto your mobile phone.

  >>>>>>>>>> 

For example…

The story on Dominic Carosa on page 96 is supported by a podcast that can be downloaded directly from the magazine to your mobile phone.

The article about angel investor Jordan Green on page 31 is supported by an extended article, which also can be downloaded to a mobile phone.

The story about the Cool Company Awards on page 39 is accompanied by the vodcast (above).

Next time you stumble across one of these unique barcodes (above) in Anthill Magazine - or on a billboard, on clothing, anywhere - take a snap of the image using your mobile phone to reveal additional content.

We promise that you’ll be seeing a lot more of these strange squares, called QR Codes (Quick Response Codes), in all areas of your waking life.

They’re already so prolific in Japan that school kids are now sporting T-shirts that link to their own personal websites. Japanese pensioners are using them to check out when their bus is coming by scanning the code next to the timetable.

They are now even available on McDonalds’ packaging in if you want to know the nutritional value of a Big Mac!

Of course, Anthill Magazine (along with our advertisers) will be adding new features built around QMCODES’ technology that will allow you to post comments, participate in polls and share articles with friends, simply by using your humble mobile.

What now? All you need is a 3G internet enabled phone with a camera and a data plan.

As an added incentive to try out QR Codes (as if you needed any), text the word ANTHILL to 0429 883 688, download the barcode reader, tell us in 25 words or less how you would use QR Codes in your business and you could win a very stylish 16GB iPod touch. So, go get scanning!

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

Alan Bond’s name has haunted the Australian media in 2008.

And it has me conflicted.

As a child, I remember Australia winning the America’s Cup and Alan Bond’s prominent involvement. But I also remember the circumstances that led to his imprisonment in 1997, when he deceptively siphoned $1.2 billion from Bell Resources to rescue the Bond Corporation (then, the biggest corporate fraud in Australia’s history).

In particular, as a young law student with an interest in journalism, I remember Paul Barrie’s masterfully coordinated ‘run-in’ with Bond on ‘the court house steps’ after airing a series of reports as an investigative reporter for ABC’s Four Corners leading up to the trial. (If anyone can find the footage, I’d love to link it.)

This year, Alan Bond re-entered the BRW 200 Rich List.

I don’t know about anyone else, but while I can’t get over his wrong-doings, Alan Bond’s phoenix-like return has ignited a strange, quiet admiration in me, which has prompted me to write the following letter and make the following proposition:

You will never go hungry. Why not give it back?

Here goes..

Dear Mr Bond,

As an Australian, albeit London born, you will know that the Australian media can be unforgiving. However, you will also understand that the Australian people love a comeback.

Your return this year to the BRW Rich List prompted admiration from many of your fellow Australians. But it also unearthed a great deal of latent resentment.

You understand why that might be so, so I won’t labour the point, except to say that your actions, leading up to your conviction in 1997, cost shareholders in Bell Resources and the Bond Corporation $1.2 billion (at least).

This might sound like an over-simplification, but it is what history will show.

This year, you were reported as having an estimated wealth of $265 million. As such, I would like to present you with the following proposition:

Give 90% of it back.

I promise that you won’t starve. In fact, you will continue to make bundles of cash and live extremely comfortably with the $2.65 $26.5 million [thanks for correcting my arithmetic] still in your pocket. You will continue to amass your fortune and may even, in time, return the remaining shareholder losses, if that should become your intention.

Best of all, you will gain the admiration of your fellow citizens.

And when that certain day comes, as it does for us all, when you lay your head down for good, you will rest comfortably in the knowledge that your family, your peers and Australia as a whole respects you deeply as one of Australia’s greatest entrepreneurs, ever.

You will be remembered for your successful involvement in the America’s Cup. You will be remembered for your mistakes. But eclipsing all that will be the collective understanding that you lost it all, fought hard and gave it back.

I hope that you will give deep consideration to this letter, as it was put together with the involvement of Anthill magazine’s readership - Australia’s current and next generation of entrepreneurial men and women, business builders who take their lead from the successes and failures of those iconic figures that came before them.

Thank you for your attention and I wish you well.

Yours sincerely,
James Tuckerman
Founder / Editor-In-Chief
Anthill Magazine

A brief history of Bond’s activities can be found on wikipedia.

Should Alan Bond be given a chance to redeem himself? Does my letter make sense? Am I barking to the wind? Will he always be a devil in the eyes of Australians?

Whatever the case, I plan to get a version of this letter on his desk, preferably in his hands, including whatever input and thoughts you, Anthill readers, care to submit. Any tips on how to reach the man himself would also be helpful.

So… want to help me write an open letter to Alan Bond?

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

On 25 September we staged a Gala Awards Ceremony, hosted by our Primary Sponsor PriceawaterhouseCoopers, to celebrate the Winners and Finalists of our 2008 Cool Company Awards.

The bash featured a Star Wars theme. The category winners each took home a 5′11″ surfboard (The biggest award in business!). The night was understandably ‘cool’.

But what makes a company ‘cool’? (And, perhaps more importantly from the perspective of our applicants, what makes one company ‘cooler’ than another?)

For those who’ve watched the evolution of the Cool Company Awards, you will know that it was initially created as an ‘in-house’ joke – a way for us to lampoon all the existing and various business award programs held by the media (it still makes us chuckle).

But, of course, the awards have since taken on a life of their own.

While we still maintain our responsibilities as founders and custodians of the ‘Cools’, we also acknowledge that, like all good initiatives, we are ‘slaves’ to our creation.

‘Cool’ is a subjective term. It is also a concept that is constantly mutating.

Fortunately, the Awards were created to be similarly malleable, designed to “recognise companies that are applying rule-changing behaviour to bring about positive change” (a foundation that already recognises the importance of change).

Of course, the Awards have rules. They have criteria.

Over the years, we have developed a complex application process and, of course, we employ the services of a highly talented and knowledgeable panel of judges from a diverse range of industries.

But we are still sometimes left scratching our heads while attempting to define that important word upon which the Cool Company Awards are based.

So, for our third annual Cool Company Awards, in addition to each applicant organisation’s eligibility, commercial intelligence and reference to the formal criteria, here’s what went into out thinking.

Firstly, if you haven’t already noticed, Anthill Magazine is about more than simply making profits. It is not about pure wealth creation, but rather about the process of creation itself.

It’s about the passion, the excitement, the trials, the tribulations, the highs and the lows of entrepreneurship and business development. Of course, the ultimate goal is to make a profit, but never to profit at all cost.

We believe that cool companies recognise this distinction. Applicant organisations that were able to demonstrate their own understanding of this philosophy were given a big tick by our judges.

Secondly, a while back we noticed that most business magazine award programs ask participants to answer only six to nine questions, supported by some key financials. We have always regarded this common format as shallow. (How can you truly understand an organisation by simply peering at its Profit & Loss statements?)

For the Cool Company Awards we ask participants to answer over 50 questions, requiring candid and intimate responses, as well as self-reflection. We also ask the key financial stuff, but these questions are mostly used to ensure that applicants aren’t telling us porkies.

We believe that cool companies are transparent companies. They understand their strengths and their flaws. They engage their employees and customers as informed benefactors of the organisation’s success (not just necessary cogs in the maintenance of the ‘machine’).

Finally, we looked at the ‘personality’ and ‘purpose’ of the organisation. Ultimately, it seems that the ‘personality’ of a company has as much to do with its ability to succeed as its ‘purpose’. Organisations with a compelling purpose and commanding personality were more often than not deemed ‘remarkable’ by our judges and this distinction quickly moved to the core of the judging process and the awards itself.

For example, if an application caused one of our judges to sit up, often involuntarily, and make the remark, ‘This one’s interesting!’ before providing a justification for his/her sudden awe, that application would automatically be pushed through to the next round of judging.

These companies were, by definition, ‘remarkable’ because they caused our judges to ‘remark’.

And this, it seems, became the ultimate benchmark upon which all applications were measured.

We all know that some companies inspire conversation and fuel word of mouth. We intuitively understand that these companies do so because they are somehow able to capture our attention and our imagination. Through the process of judging this year’s Cool Company Awards we began to fully appreciate this one commercial truth.

Most companies aspire to be very good. But only great companies aspire to be and achieve the description ‘remarkable’. And those companies, we believe, are simply… cool.

• To check out this year’s winners, click here.
• To see the surfboard trophy and other pics, click here.