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.

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.

James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

Like many growing businesses, technology is our greatest friend. But it can also be the cause of enormous frustration.

You may have already noticed that parts of our website disappeared over the weekend when our host upgraded its infrastructure. One of those parts was our 30under30 application form, only days before our application deadline.

We resolved that problem. And now that’s it’s back up, it seems to be overloading! Very frustrating.

As such, we’ve decided to extend the application stage by one week. Instead of closing on Monday 14 April 2008, applications will now be open until next Monday 21 April 2008. We commend the early-birds who have already submitted their application and apologise to those who are still waiting to get their submissions in.

We hope to have our technology ‘issues’ resolved over the next 24-hours (watch this space). But in the short-term, here’s a sneak preview of the type of person who has already entered 30under30.

How old are our 30under30 applicants so far? It seems that more were born in 1979 than any other year. Is that when fluoride was introduced to drinking water?

In the early days of the awards, we coordinated a massive call to action (eg. I sent out an email), questioning the lack of female entrants (see blog post here). It seems to have worked. Female entries quickly jumped from 3% to over 30%.

How experienced are our entrepreneurs, Grass-hopper? According to the stats, 45% have started multiple businesses, Sensei.

If you still wish to nominate a friend (or yourself), because of our technical hiccup, time is on your side (nomination form here). If you have already nominated and wish to submit your application, watch this space (application form here).

Apologies again. We hope to have the matter resolved soon.

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

Wow!

The comments generated by yesterday’s blog post certainly had us on the edge of our seats and doing some serious introspection.

Firstly, some quick responses…

The category thing: We did add some categories after initial feedback and I’ve also added a new field today - ‘Create an award category’. Of course, we can’t have an endless supply of award categories but, this being our first year, we are largely being guided by participant feedback and what our statistics say (eg. what works and what doesn’t).

The age thing: Perhaps women entrepreneurs do run to a different clock (the ‘broken pathways’ debate). I just gotta say that we LOOOOVED Sonja’s idea of resetting age. But, ultimately, Leela’s point reflects our position. We created 30under30 because young entrepreneurs were lacking in entries and finalists for the Cool Company Awards. We wanted to create a platform to recognise the ‘up and coming’ talent. There are plenty of awards for entrepreneurs but few for young entrepreneurs.

James’ secret agenda: No agenda to meet more women here (I think Gulliver has been on too many travels). Our agenda was simply to generate more nominations from women. And it worked! Women now represent almost 30% of nominations. That’s a big jump from 3%. So, we’re very pleased. Also… by the way… I’m not under 30 (despite what the press releases might say).

Can someone tell me where to get one of those ‘age resetter’ devices from Sonja?

Finally…

Women as contributors: After all that… The following cheeky letter to the editor at BRW (below) titled ‘The X-Chromosome Factor’ had me take a quick measure of the male to female ratio of content in Anthill.

After reading this, I grabbed a nearby copy of BRW (February 7-13, 2008) and, after a cursory flick, found 51 opinions or stories featuring blokes and only two about women. That’s a gender ratio of 51:2… Ouch! The other business magazines on my desk didn’t do much better (and let me assure you, there are many business magazines on my desk). The exception, of course, was Vive.

So, how did Anthill Magazine rate?

We came up 15:6 in favour of the patriarchy.

Hmmm.

So, here’s my plan.

Firstly… please continue to nominate women for 30under30. Secondly… I have created a Forum thread, calling for readers to promote themselves and other female entrepreneurs. Thirdly… if you have an idea for an opinion piece, please read our Editorial style and contributor guidelines.

However, because I suspect that Leela and Phillipa’s comments are spot on (women are too busy RUNNING their business to have time for self-promotion), I suggest that you pitch the idea for the opinion piece before the editorial.

In fact, why not do it now as a comment below?

What’s an angle or story that you would like to contribute to Anthill?