How to do (and not do) social media for business
Why starting a Facebook page for your business and getting people to ‘Like’ you may not the best way to do social media for your business.
Zen and the Art of Washing Dishes
They say life is a series of imperfect facts and there is much we cannot control. The sequence of washing dishes is not one of them. Glassware first.
Letter to My Accountant
Dear Senior Accountant, Thank you for your very kind letter. My initial tax meeting with your very pleasant sub-contracting accountant concluded with a statement I was not expecting to hear. Not the mellifluous, “you’ll be getting a refund of a thousand dollars”. Rather, the strong and discordant “you owe the tax office two thousand.” After [...]
Versailles of Relief
What began as “a little house of cards” is sure to be the most opulent experience you’ll have in a lifetime—no matter how well-to-do your friends may be. Initially set up as a hunting lodge for Louis XIII, Chateau de Versailles became France’s grandest and most famous chateau by his successor, Louis XIV—the Sun King. [...]
The Big Spin-Out: Politics by PR
The corporate world has moved on. They recognise that PR is not a professional working title for an employee and that ‘spin’ does not work in a world of high information search power and acutely tuned radar for any lack of authenticity. Politicians, however, are lagging behind.
Branding Nonprofits – a case study of the Salvos
A brief look at the differences between commercial and nonprofit brands with a view for guiding nonprofits, using the Salvos as an example.
World Music: Areas of Negotiation
Music is an expression of culture. But culture is never static. It’s emergent. With our mixing and dividing of culture on a global and fragmented scale, what’s going on with music? Is traditional indigenous music being lost or reinvigorated?
Bundanoon says ‘No’ to Bottled Water
Bundanoon says ‘No’ to Bottled Water “Australians spend half a billion dollars every year on bottled water that we could get for free from a tap, but we complain when petrol goes up a few cents a litre,” said Jon Dee, Founder of Planet Ark and Do Something at a public meeting held in Bundanoon [...]
No one thinks big of you – the ‘Pinkie’ Campaign
A detailed autopsy of a road safety campaign that – finally – doesn’t produce a corpse. Why the Shame Appeal works better than Shock & Fear for this target audience. How the campaign could be even more effective.
From the Village to the Brothel
After nearly 30 hours of flights, the city of Kathmandu was awash with blood and there were headless carcases of horse-sized beasts on every corner. In my shock, I sent a sarcastic email to family saying that I had not expected such fanfare but thought the entrails lining the streets to herald my arrival was an absolutely lovely gesture…More
