Posted by James Tuckerman, Publisher, Founder & Editor-In-Chief

Thirty must be a magic number. Within 30 minutes of launching our 30under30 awards program last Wednesday, we’d received over 30 nominations.

They came from every State and Territory. They represented a good cross-section of our award categories. But there was one notable, unnerving discrepancy with the data. Where were the women?

We can only assume that Ms Rhoade of Diva Promotions must be pretty special. Not simply because she is under 30 and runs a marketing company for women in business. But because she was the one and only female Australian entrepreneur to be nominated among this initial group of 30.

This, of course, baffled me. I’m still baffled.

Surely female entrepreneurs represent more than 3% of the entrepreneur mix!

So, I did my research.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), an annual report that monitors entrepreneurial activity across nations, women make up about half the Australian labour force “who are actively involved in starting a new business or who own/manage a business less than 42 months old.”

This has remained consistent over the past 10 years.

So, if women are responsible for approximately half of all entrepreneurial activity taking place in Australia, why the lacklustre response to our awards program from the ‘fairer sex’?

I suspect that there lies a clue in this dated and, let’s face it, deliberately provocative expression. You might want to slap me down for using it (there’s a place for comments below) but I invite you to first hear me out.

From our side of the editorial desk, Paul Ryan (who’s probably not thrilled about his involuntary inclusion in this hoary debate) and I have observed the disparity between the gender of incoming callers for a long time.

A day will not pass without a big, blokey egoist barking his credentials for a feature story down the phone. “Write about me! My business is unique!” (And we all know the disproportionate nature of barks to bites.)

But we rarely, if ever, receive even the most courteous enquiry about the potential possibility of placing a female entrepreneur in our pages. Even a delicately phrased suggestion is a rare thing from where we sit.

So here’s my unscientific conclusion.

Female entrepreneurs simply seem less inclined to self-promote. And I suspect that the only reason why Anthill Magazine’s male to female ratio is as high as it is (said with the caveat that we know we could improve) is because we make a concerted effort to chase opinions and stories beyond the obvious members of the Australian bizerati, which has nothing to do with gender at all.

So, why is it that Australian women are so under-represented in the Australian business media?

Am I onto something or are my opinions simply another part of the problem?

Posted by Paul Ryan, Editor, Anthill

With the launch today of Anthill’s inaugural 30under30 competition, it’s worth underscoring the growing role younger entrepreneurs are playing in the Australian business landscape… and beyond. And who better to place this exciting evolution in broader economic context than Austrade’s Chief Economist and regular Anthill contributor, Tim Harcourt?

Are you experienced?

by Tim Harcourt

This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the float of the Australian dollar by the Hawke-Keating Government. This was clearly a momentous decision in Australia’s economic history. After all, the float was the ‘beach-head’ economic reform that kicked off a number of other measures such as tariff reductions, financial deregulation, education and training reforms and the social wage and enabled Australia to become one of the world’s best performing economies. The tariff reductions took the lead out of our saddle bags and many businesses found to their surprise that they could compete effectively on the global stage.

However, twenty-five years on, we are now at a point when generation who got Australia through the transition from a closed, isolated economy to an open, dynamic economy are beginning to retire. After all, this transition has taken time and nearly 40 percent of exporters have now over 20 years experience in the global game (see below).

The baby boomers, who have been carrying the load as far as exporting is concerned during this transition are ‘sea-changing’ and ‘tree-changing’ (and maybe with global warming - ‘cool-changing’ - so watch housing prices in Tasmania) and going onto superannuation boards.

Can we cope? I think we can for several reasons.

Firstly, succession planning is part of life. Look at the Australian cricket team. Adam ‘Gilly’ Gilchrist knew he couldn’t go on forever and has anointed his successor. The team is staggering their retirements for the sake of team stability. The same thing happens in political parties - or should do.

Secondly, in business, we are already seeing a number of aggressive ‘Generation X’ business leaders coming to the fore now. Take Eddy Groves of ABC Learning or Janice Allen of Boost Juice.

Thirdly, Generation Y is gearing up too. Look at Peter Sheahan or Emma Brown (the self-styled ‘Chief Chick’ or CEO of Business Chicks.). Newspoll regularly shows that Generation Y is positive about globalisation and naturally entrepreneurial.

You just have to see it in music. Watching the old Countdown specials on the ABC, you could tell that in the 1970s and 1980s there were ‘Sydney’ bands and ‘Melbourne’ bands and it was hard to crack the big time internationally. Nowadays, bands can go global sooner and there are less trade barriers in their way.

Going global is hard yakka and takes strength and experience. But the signs are good that Generation X is becoming generation eXport and generation Y can go one step further to become the global generation.

Tim Harcourt is Chief Economist with the Australian Trade Commission and the author of The Airport Economist (forthcoming). You can read more of his musings on export at www.austrade.gov.au/economistscorner