Last week I was posed the question by the Australian newspaper “what are the difficulties of being a digital woman?” I share with you my response which appeared in full in the paper on Monday 29 August 2011. “Being a women in the business world (online or offline) is very normal to me – but I am kind of like an Ostrich with my head in the sand. I don’t really know what I miss out on – the rugby…
It seems that lately I am being approached by many people who are asking a similar question, “How did you do it?”. Obviously I write this blog so that I can share what I have learned which also means that people can dip into what they think is relevant for them whenever they choose. My initial reaction when people ask “how did you do it?” Is that it wasn’t ‘I’ … it was ‘we’. I have been fortunate that I…
We are fast approaching RedBalloon’s tenth birthday, with that it mind I wanted to check in with the team ‘What does it mean to you to be a part of the RedBalloon story?’ The answers were delightful and insightful… but this particular answer from one of the newer RedBallooners is very worth reproducing in whole. If you were to ask the similar question in your organisation, you too could get a great insight into the ‘mood’ – think of it…
An associate brought to my attention recently the antics of the US-based ‘Entrepreneur Magazine’. For the last few years the magazine publisher has fought against every entity possible that uses the word entrepreneur in its business name. Yet as far as I can tell it does not represent entrepreneurs apart from writing articles about them. Does this mean Ernst and Young will be getting a call asking them to cease and desist in their global entrepreneur award, and spin off…
I was interviewed recently for an industry publication about my early days, family and getting ahead…. I thought I’d share my answers. Q1: You say on your website that “life is the sum of our experiences, not our belongings”. So can we have some thoughts on another sort of experience, the experience of buying a home to live and raise a family. What can you tell us about your experience of the first home you purchased? A1: I bought my…
Presenting to 150 fifteen year old girls is probably one of the tougher gigs that I have had. Not helped by the fact that my daughter said just before I left home… ‘Don’t be embarrassing – and they really aren’t interested in all … I looked at these young women and thought what would I have liked to have known all those years ago? I showed them a photo of my girlfriends and I at the same age. This started…
To give or not to give that is the question. Giving a gift is not always the right thing to do. In fact a bad gift can do more harm than good. A gift can either enhance a relationship or detract from it. In giving a gift it shows our intentions towards that person, it tells us something about our relationship with them – what we think of them, how important they are to us, the potential future relationship we…
In another life I would love to have the ‘futurologist’ gene. I get so excited when I see clips like the one below. I cannot imagine what my children’s lives will be like. I was at a sales convention some months ago and one of the delegates was excitedly sharing that he could purchase media so cheaply… "this downturn is fantastic he said – if you’ve got some dollars, media advertising has some real bargains to be negotiated." It got…
We managed to achieve a pretty good growth number in the past 12 months. We are proud not just of the revenue and EBIT growth – but more importantly the sheer number of people who receive RedBalloon gifts grows exponentially. But why do we want to continue to grow, why do we have such an ‘addiction’ to growth. We are impatient! There is so much we want to achieve and we are clamoring to do so. We want millions of…
Imagine running a business based on fun - that's what I decided to try when I left a very serious corporate career in marketing to set up RedBalloon...
Read More »
Three steps to making money online
Another interesting question posed by the Australian – everyone is looking for the get quick rich scheme – and the reality is that there are none – unless you don’t mind a bit of hard work… here is my response to the question “How to make money online?”. This century is all about transparency and authenticity – people want to know that you are real. But having a great product that appeals to people and will get them talking is…