Advanced Strategic Planning Workshop in Melbourne

Just a handful of places are left for The Australian Strategic Planning Institute’s one day Advanced Strategic Planning workshop at Karsten’s in Melbourne on the 26th of May. Please note that there are no places available for the June workshops in both Brisbane or Sydney, and the Adelaide workshop in July is half filled though yet to be promoted! We hope to run another date later in the year for both Brisbane and Sydney if both Steven Bowman and Marcus Barber are in the country at the same time

If you’d like to secure a place for Melbourne, please phone Marcus Barber directly on 03 9445 0289 or email him.  He will respond as quickly as he is able.  For workshop details you can also check The Australian Strategic Planning Institute website

Futurist calls 2011: International Year of Solutions

Dec 19, 2010

Reckon it’s time we had a focus on getting things done and so I am declaring 2011 to be the ‘International Year of Solutions’. Seems to me that a lot of talk fests have been gobbling up the neuronal space for a few years now with insufficient ACTION being generated – just lot of promises…

Read More >

Customer Service – why the future is BEGGING you to get it right today

Nov 24, 2010

Another stream of consciousness on the customer service theme that I come back to frequently. If you’ve ever received one of those scam emails from say ‘the past Minister of the Immigration and Business Department in Nigeria’ seeking your assistance at repatriating funds for which you’ll be paid a fortune, or those other scams claiming…

Read More >

Active TV slowly emerging

Nov 16, 2010

A shift is underway in television in Australia and it has nothing to do with digital versus analogue or the pay versus free shifts. Instead we are finally seeing the promise of TV as a medium of engagement. That promise sees a shift from the passive watching of TV (a ‘push’ approach) to the active…

Read More >

Do fairytales come true?

Oct 27, 2010

That will be the question many will be asking leading up to the replay of the AFL Grand Final this Saturday between Collingwood and St Kilda. Regardless of the outcome, the AFL have already had their fairytale come true courtesy of a drawn game which is believed to have handed the AFL a bonus likely…

Read More >

A quick plug for Google Chrome

Oct 25, 2010

Being someone who questions the value of technology before climbing on board, I’ve been perhaps a tad slow to check out the Google Chrome web browser. Mistake! Given it’s speed and ease of use, the first couple of days have impressed me greatly and I’m mindful that I don’t have all the working of its…

Read More >

What Businesses can learn from Tourism (and vice versa)

Sep 11, 2010

In preparation for work with a couple of clients in the past fortnight I’ve had to throw myself into substantially more ‘tourist’ style activities than I have for quite some time in an attempt to answer the following question: ‘How do we get more people to come here?’ Yes there’s a lot of fun to…

Read More >

Why who the next Prime Minister is might be of little importance

Aug 29, 2010

Whilst the counting of votes is over the election is yet to be completed. Right now the discussions continue between the ‘three amigos’ who are clearly maximising their time in the spotlight, and the two leaders of the major parties. And whilst the media is fixated on who ought to be, deserves to be, should…

Read More >

May we get the Goverment we both deserve AND need

Aug 20, 2010

If you’ve seen any of the media campaigns for the Australian Federal Election you could have come to the following conclusions: Julia Gillard had a fixation with hand getsures; Tony Abbott had a fixation on Boats; and the Greens had the best Television Commercial not only of this campaign but of any other they’ve had…

Read More >

Is Mainstream media a reliable guide to the 2010 Australian Federal Election?

Aug 12, 2010

If you’ve been following any of the mainstream media election coverage here in Australia (stuff in the usual papers, radio and TV programs) you’ve no doubt got a good understanding of what is going to happen on election day. The mainstream media synopsis thus far is that a) Julia Gillard got off to a good…

Read More >

‘Us’ or ‘Them’ – how to tell the customer they are irrelevant on your website

Aug 1, 2010

This great little cartoon/graphic says it all and although looking at the subject of Universities, there is much that we can all learn   Here’s the Graphic.  If your website spends all its time talking about you, and no time talking about the customer, how do you think your customers (and prospective customers) feel?  I…

Read More >