Businesses

I was driving home last week and noticed a Thai restaurant I hadn’t seen before. Feeling adventurous for dinner that night, we thought we’d try it out and order some take away. I jumped on Google and, to my surprise, the mysterious Thai restaurant could not be found. I tried Google Maps, and again, no result.

At this stage, most customers would have given up and moved on. But on a desperate hunt for a delicious Penang curry, I even went so far as to stalk them on Google Street View. Unfortunately, their phone number wasn’t visible in the window, so we decided to go back to our trusty local. Read more

I’ve spent the day communicating with people in different cities in varying parts of the world.

One of them is an integral part of my team, but in reality, no one would know we weren’t sharing an office.

The modern world of interconnectivity means that we no longer have to sit with our co-workers in the same room from 9-5, 5 days a week. We don’t have to be in the same state, country or time zone, as long as we are working towards the same, unified goal as someone else, we are part of a team. Read more

These days we spend more time looking at screens almost anything else. About the only time I look at printed material is when I’m on a plane and all the devices have to be turned off. What is worth pondering is whether these connected to the Internet devices with their large amount of storage is changing the way we think.

I pick up my Kindle. It has the capacity to hold the contents of a complete library. Now I don’t really want to wander around with 3,000 books but I am finding that I often have 4 or 5 books on the go. Usually some fiction, some business management book, some technology book and some science fiction. I find that I jump from one to the other. My reading habits have completely changed. Of course I could have done this in the past but who wants to carry around 4 or 5 books? Read more

Did you set out to achieve some key goals in your business this year?

Maybe you set some aims at the beginning of the financial year or maybe at the beginning of this year.

Whatever the case, the end of the Australian financial year is looming. How are you tracking to your targets?

As June 30 approaches, so does colder weather, shorter days and for many people, bouts or various lurgies.

So how do you stay motivated – or regain it if it’s already in hibernation? Read more

The conventional wisdom has it that Governments hate giving a zero budget. The budget is normally a time for Governments to announce popular big ticket items or the sort of big spending on heath or education that usually wins votes, so if there’s no money in the till, meeting expectations can be difficult.

However this year the Government is rolling out its second zero budget in a row and, according to the MYOB Business Monitor, the approach is going down surprisingly well. 68% of New Zealand businesses support “an increased focus on cutting Government expenditure to ensure the New Zealand Budget returns to surplus faster.”

Given the ongoing crisis in the Eurozone, driven by unsustainably large levels of debt, it’s perhaps not surprising that New Zealanders are feeling good about the Government’s emphasis on thrift.

We’ve seen what happens overseas when countries like Greece embrace “Visanomics” and we don’t want the same thing to happen here. Read more

If you are in business it’s important to spend some time building a great business connection base, but how are you currently doing it?

If you are still networking your way across all of the golf courses throughout the country, and attending as many networking functions as possible in the evenings, there maybe a smarter way to meet new business contacts, and probably more your target market. LinkedIn.

I‘ve written many articles on building your connection base and networking within the groups on LinkedIn in the past, so let’s take a look at a way that you may not have thought about. Read more

Self-help books are extremely popular. They’re a great friend of New Year resolutions, but with so much help around it’s a wonder that there is still so much help needed.

Turns out a lot of these publications and workshop handouts become what’s termed in the industry as ‘shelf help’ books. That’s because people buy them, collect them and then store them… never to look at them again. Read more

The latest technology revolution isn’t just under way, it’s about to get bigger.

Hot on the heels of the “consumerization” of IT is a new uprising, one poised to forever change how we use technology at work. Known as “Bring Your Own Device,” or BYOD, it promises to provide the workforce with increased flexibility and mobility while possibly lowering costs for IT departments.

The consumerization-of-IT revolution took place after technology devices marketed for personal use—most notably, smartphones and tablets—began being released and adopted faster than corporate IT groups could test, deploy and support them. People bought these devices in droves and brought them—iPhone and Android, iPad and Kindle Fire—to the office. Read more

Flowers? Chocolates? A day of pampering? Not on my birthday wish list today… Nope, this year, I’ve decided that for my birthday, I’m doing the giving.

During my Grateful in April campaign last month, I really love the feeling of regularly giving to others. I felt happy, invigorated and had a renewed sense of meaning.

As a pleasing side effect, the benefits of feeling so good also translated into some great business opportunities. Read more

Looking at my iPhone and iPad today I realized there had been a changing of the guard. The apps I traditionally assumed I was using have kind of fallen by the way side and a new breed has taken their place. Change is normal and the tools we use do go in and out of favor every now and then but I thought it would be nice to mark the moment with a little blog post.

Here are my top three right now. Read more