The highlight of last week was attending the NSW Telstra Business Womens Awards – a massive congratulations to Catherine Burn Deputy Commissioner for Corporate Services of NSW Police on being named this years NSW winner. Always a delightful event to hear the amazing stories of these business women’s achievements – but I think one of the cutest comments from a past winner “Now that I am part of this select group of TBWA winners I can do anything, even parallel…
Tag Archives: Business Leadership
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…
Dancing in the conversation.
I don’t really like the word ‘networking’ – it implies something forced or not easy (I think the term should remain the domain of IT folks). I was recently at the EO conference in Amsterdam and one of my friends asked me if I was going to ‘network’ there – which made me cringe. I know people have said of me that “You’re a great ‘networker’!” I don’t necessarily think that I am, given that you will rarely see me…
Coming up this week 19 Sept 2011
I have had a couple of weeks out of the office – I had a week in Perth – with three speaking engagements before heading to Amsterdam (via a weekend in Paris with a long time girlfriend.) for the Entrepreneurs Organization conference. I found the event completely inspiring, insightful and educational – I will share in future blogs. This week: Arrive back to Sydney and have breakfast with Verne Harnish (he is in town delivering the Rockafeller Habits Program…
Coming up this week – 1 August 2011
This week is exciting at RedBalloon – we are celebrating many things, including 17 RedBallooners being promoted to new roles… which is wonderful to be able to provide career growth in such a relatively small organization. Last week I had lunch with the ‘newbies’ and I always delight at their enthusiasm – funny now though for me, as many of them were in primary school when I started the business, so when I ask “how did you hear about RedBalloon?”…
Coming up this week 18 July 2011
Last week I had the privilege of speaking for NICTA in Melbourne at their ‘Meet the Founder’ series. I did a podcast for Anthill magazine – and finalized plans and reviews to finish of FY 11. As well as enjoying the last week of school holidays with my every growing teenagers. This week I’m doing a breakfast series for the Optus technology series ‘Connecting your business to the Cloud’ in Sydney and Brisbane. We are having Cameron Herold visit RedBalloon…
‘Real women’ don’t need quotas?
‘Real women’ don’t need quotas? was the topic debated last week in Canberra at the AIM great debate event at the National Convention Centre. I was given the task of debating for the affirmative. Which meant that I was debating against having quotas. I’m not sure of the number but there seemed to be about 1000 people in the room. And they voted a resounding ‘Yes we do need quota’s’. I think however that the audience was not really simply…
Big Hairy Thinkers
I recently attended TedX Sydney as a guest of PwC… I enjoyed most of the content… but this speaker particularly resonated with me. I particularly enjoyed the way Saul Griffiths approaches the data of the impact he personally is having on the planet.
Five great lessons in greatness
I wonder what it is like to work for a business that has been around for 100 years? IBM turned 100 and Fortune wrote up a great article on ‘Lessons from IBMs 100th anniversary’ The five lessons are: At the start, convince the troops you’re a company of destiny, even if that seems crazy. Build a cult-like culture that people either buy into, or run away from. Bet the company once in a while. Make people talk about you. Hand…
Secret Sauce on Engagement
I had a great time debating with my colleague Megan (Employee Experience Manager – an HR professional) about what engagement means at RedBalloon – she has developed and documented all the things we do – and Matt in our corporate team is getting ready to share that with the world. Here are some points from a webinar that my colleague Emma sent me on the same topic I have added the RedBalloon view of the world in italics: Engagement is…
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...
