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 18 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 22 hours 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 1 day 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 1 day ago from Echofon
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- 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: Female Entrepreneur
Conflict is not all bad.
People sometimes think that being a part of a best place to work means that it is party time all the time. That’s not the case. Sure we work hard and play hard, but really what we do is challenge each other to greatness. We know that to be challenged can also be truly rewarding.
It [...]
Posted in Lessons Learned Also tagged Business Leadership, Business Vision, Fun at work, Managers at work Leave a comment
Looking for inspiration
Facing a blank page and a lack of creativity and on deadline for a blog… I always ask myself the question what is going on for me now? Is it interesting for anyone else? What am I learning, discovering, being inspired by that could assist others?
The reality is that at the moment the number one [...]
I have a ’stimulus-response’ addiction… you might too
Andrew May poses the question ‘What does the perfect week look like?’. Is it an 8 day week, if you had an extra day what would you do with it? Apparently 63% of Australian workers are sleep deprived... (not me since I got my new sleep cycle app for my iphone). It is much harder [...]
Posted in Lessons Learned, Uncategorized Also tagged Managers at work, productivity, Work life balance Leave a comment
What does disengagement look like
Thank you to Bruce Morton of Talent2 for this very illustrative image of disengagement. Loved it. Gallup tells us that it takes six engaged employees to fix up the mess made by disengaged staff. In some instances it is clearly more.
Posted in Reward & Recognition Also tagged Employee Engagement, Recognition and Acknowledgement Leave a comment
Better out than in.
I was chatting with a friend this morning who said that he had three of his team resign in the last week. He asked ‘That’s not good is it?’
On the surface we look at the cost of replacing them and all the history and experience that they depart with, and of course we say - [...]
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 Growth, Business Leadership, Corporate Gifts, Employee Engagement, 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 Growth, Business Sale, Business Vision, Gift Experiences, GoDo, Wotif Leave a comment
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 Growth, Business Leadership, Employee Engagement, Rewards and Incentives 1 Comment


Good Old Fashioned Giggle