James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

When people pick up Anthill for the first time, they often ask, “Is Anthill just for young entrepreneurs?” My answer is a resounding, “No.”

Anthill is not for young entrepreneurs.

Rather, it is for people young in mindset (irrespective of age).

I then get asked, “But isn’t entrepreneurship a young person’s game?”

To begin answering this question, here’s a snapshot of our readership…

As you can see, a clear majority are over 35. And further, these statistics only represent the people who subscribe online.

There seems to be a misconception that innovation is only for minds untethered by the binds of experience.

Living legends, who spawned vast empires from dorm-rooms and suburban garages, such as Gates, Jobs, Brin and Page, perpetuate the idea. And media outlets (including Anthill) love to spruik the success of young gun entrepreneurs.

Why wouldn’t we!

But, if that’s the case, if entrepreneurship is only for the young, why are our statistics so back to front?

In the words of WIRED Magazine:

The twentysomething Web prodigies are fun and all, but the veteran visionaries will save the world.

A recent study by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation surveyed 652 US-born CEOs and heads of product development who founded high-tech firms in the boom (and bust) years of 1995 to 2005 and discovered that both the average and median ages were 39 - far older than the mythic dorm-room visionary.

What’s more, the chronologically advanced are especially successful at solving the problems that we desperately need solved:

Mature entrepreneurs tend to launch startups that require huge amounts of capital - biotech companies, energy firm, outfits that make expensive hardware. Then, to take their innovation to market, they have to navigate complex entrenched industries, which requires connections.

Whereas the fearless (and perhaps naive) young’ens will not hesitate to throw their attention at a cool, new social networking app, because the startup costs are so low, while the rewards are so great (apparently), the older folks seem stuck with the heavy lifting - solar energy, health tech, energy efficient transport etc.

Whitney Houston once crooned, “I believe the children are our future.” Maybe she, too, had it back to front.

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

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

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)?

By James Tuckerman, Editor-In-Chief, Anthill Magazine

In the cover story of Anthill’s launch Edition, way back in 2003, we posed the question, “Who’s carrying Australian Innovation.”

Five year’s later, we have a new Government, a new Minister (for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) and a newly launched series of stakeholder consultations to kick-start a Federal ‘Review of Australia’s National Innovation System.’

This is obviously a good thing. The Federal Government is taking innovation seriously.

But there’s also something ironic about an ‘innovation’ review (launched to “promote a culture supportive of new knowledge and fresh ideas”) that relies on a progressively outdated method for gathering feedback. The public forum is a crowded, generally awkward and genuinely artificial meeting of largely self-interested people.

I wondered the same thing when the Prime Minister gathered his 1,000 brightest minds in Canberra last month. If the lack of gender balance wasn’t already a concern, the added cost to Northern and Western Australians also highlighted a financial inequality.

So, of course, you can understand my consternation at why the Review of National Innovation Stakeholder Consultations chose the antiquated ‘public forum’ as its preferred method for gathering feedback (alongside the more exclusive, invite-only ‘think tank’), particularly in the progressive arena of science, technology and R&D.

Frustration #1: Public Forums are Opportunistic

Attending a public forum is a headache. It’s a boring, time-consuming distraction from running a business. As such, it seems to attract only those who have the most to gain from getting their own generally self-serving agendas across. If you want to observe where 90% of innovation funding ends-up, you now know where to go (perhaps with cap in hand). It means that only the most saintly of altruists will ever make their presence known, which rules out most members of industry and the private sector.

Frustration #2: The Same Ideas are Pitched Ad Nauseum

Wearing my editor’s cap, I get a swag of innovation proposals across my desk, generally seeking our support through coverage, promotion or endorsement. The surprising thing is that few of these innovation proposals are genuinely innovative. In fact, I have had the same idea pitched to me by two separate organisations in the same week, after seeing the same concept fail two years prior. While this shouldn’t exclude a good idea that was poorly implemented or simply the subject of bad luck from getting a second chance, the lack of communication and the degree of duplication does frustrate me (as I’m sure it equally frustrates forum organisers).

Frustration #3: They Favour the Establishment

Forums can be costly to attend, particularly if you are not a city dweller, and ‘think tanks’ favour established players, often with too much time on their hands. In short, the same people are generally invited year after year and, of course, they share the same opinions year after year. Further, an entire generation of business people (two generations, in fact - Gen X and Gen Y), half the workforce, prefer consultative, collaborative and downright more efficient ways to share information and discuss trends. They use this little thing called the ‘Internet’ (ohhh… it’s great, you should check it out).

So, here’s my offer to the new Rudd Government, the new Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, and the new National Review (to be conducted by another “expert panel”)…

Over 10,000 Australians will read this blog. Over 50,000 Australians will read the next edition of Anthill Magazine. That doesn’t make us big in the grander scheme of things but it certainly puts us at an advantage in the innovation space.

We have the technology. We have the readership. We have the will. Come exploit our altruistic nature and desire to create a truly democratic innovation system in Australia.

Call me… Call me now (said with breathy excitement caused by Australia’s genuinely explosive but often untapped innovation potential).

In short, we have a ’soapbox’, so why not use it? (note my oh-so clever use of metaphor - ’soapbox’: archaic, obsolete physical object used for public speaking).

And here’s my offer to new and old Anthillians…

If you weren’t able to attend the Public Forums and would like to contribute, please go crazy with any comments you’d like to leave below. We’d be honoured to submit your thoughts to the PTBs (powers-that-be) responsible for the National Review (whether or not our offer is accepted).