Overview
From a very serious corporate career in marketing to creating a business based on fun RedBalloon, this is my journey. In this blog I share what it takes to be an entrepreneur and what I have learned - warts and all. I am also the author of I want what she is having which chronicles the first five years of building of a fast growing business.
Very proud to be awarded National Telstra Business Womens Award for 2008 in the Nokia Innovation Catogory
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Where I’m Speaking
My presentations to company events are not listed because those engagements are not open to the public. Contact Kate on +61 2 8755 0034 for more details on speaking.
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- Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today... African Proverb about 23 hours ago from Echofon
- New post: Teaching an Old Dog new tricks. http://naomisimson.com/2010/03/12/teaching-an-old-dog-new-tricks/ about 1 day ago from Twitter Tools
- New post: Good Old Fashioned Giggle http://naomisimson.com/2010/03/11/good-old-fashioned-giggle/ about 1 day ago from Twitter Tools
- 'You can employ men & hire hands to work for you.. But you must win their hearts to have them work with you.' #quote Tiorio about 2 days ago from Echofon
- 'Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.' #quote Dwight D. Eisenhower about 2 days ago from Echofon
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- MCGASIA » Blog Archive » People are the Brand: lesson from a Roman Holiday on Roman Holiday – Brand lessons
- Jean Schirle on Employer Worst Gifts ever
- samantha mclean on Let the numbers speak for themselves.
- Pete Williams on An Amazing Experience
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Tag Archives: Business Growth
Good Old Fashioned Giggle
I often have a good giggle with audiences, when I'm presenting, about what it was like working ‘last century’. The funny thing is that in just a decade, many of the practices seem completely archaic.. how did we cope? We had telephones that you would dial, and then wait after each number you dialled for [...]
Posted in Lessons Learned Also tagged Entrepreneurial Journey, Female Entrepreneur, productivity Leave a comment
Recognition Every Day… (RED)
At RedBalloon we talk about recognition all the time, not only what we do at work, but what we are learning from our clients. Matt the RedBalloon head of corporate has put 52 recognition ideas into a handy little business card size piece. It is really quite fun – filled with great suggestions of how [...]
Posted in Reward & Recognition Also tagged Employee Engagement, Fun at work, Recognition and Acknowledgement Leave a comment
An Amazing Experience
This is my ninth RedBalloon Christmas... And so far it has been the most exhilarating. The numbers are way up on last year. All the planning, preparation and investment means that things seem to be going smoothly. No chaos. The team has it all in hand. We are so much bigger now that there are [...]
Posted in Gift Experiences Also tagged Business Leadership, Corporate Gifts, Employee Engagement, Female Entrepreneur, Gift Experiences 1 Comment
Leaving Home.
In the past eight years since founding RedBalloon, we’ve created several businesses along the way and they all have lead to other greater things.
One of the businesses that we invented was to solve a particular ‘problem’ that we had at RedBalloon - some 30% of our customers are self purchasers, another words they really like [...]
Posted in General Also tagged Activities and Events, Australian Tourism, Business Sale, Business Vision, Female Entrepreneur, Gift Experiences, GoDo, Wotif Leave a comment
Press Release – Sale of Go Do Pty Ltd
Wotif.com Holdings Limited (Wotif Group) today announced it had entered into an agreement to acquire all the issued shares in Go Do Pty Ltd (GoDo) from RedBalloon Pty Ltd (RedBalloon)
Established in 2006 as part of the RedBalloon Group, GoDo provides a real time online booking service for "things to do" in Australia and [...]
Let the numbers speak for themselves.
We've finished the report from our recent survey and we heard from 3,053 employees on how well their managers and companies perform when it comes to recognizing and rewarding them, and what the impacts are. We also uncover the secret to what employees really want.
It might be worth downloading the full report
Below are some of [...]
Posted in Interesting Numbers Also tagged Business Leadership, Employee Engagement, Female Entrepreneur, Rewards and Incentives 1 Comment
Where does the entrepreneurial drive come from?
Probably one of the questions that I get more than ever is 'How?'
How did you come up with the idea?
How do you do it?
How do you stay passionate?
The question that drives me though is 'Why?' It is the why I do what I do which makes me bound out of bed every day (even in [...]
Posted in Lessons Learned Also tagged Business Leadership, Business Vision, Female Entrepreneur, Gift Experiences 2 Comments
Taking fun seriously.
I participated on a business owners panel last night for the PricewaterhouseCooper Private Clients area. Russel Howcroft asked each of the panelists questions about what we'd learned and how we viewed the economy.
Each of us reinforced the importance the people around us. To have a successful brand it is determined by our people moment by [...]
Posted in Lessons Learned Also tagged Business Leadership, Business Vision, Corporate Gifts, Employee Engagement, Fun at work 4 Comments


Teaching an Old Dog new tricks.