“Direct is digital and digital is direct” . . . or so says the USDMA at their annual forum. Ok, so now what? Or to put it another way, so what? Claims like this are best analysed by a two part test: 1) asking who stands to gain by making them, and; 2) testing whether by accepting them th... [More]

Cloud Computing – that is, software, infrastructure or technology platforms served via a web-browser, is undoubtedly an exciting technical idea but also a compelling business one. Put simply, to use technology as if it were a utility, paying for just what you use, makes good sense. And now it ... [More]

Today, a vast majority of global equity trades (buying and selling of shares) originate out of “black boxes”, literally algorithms that think and act for themselves seeking out incremental gains from small pricing discrepancies. These black boxes work - they deliver massive gains to the ... [More]

An article in The Monthly by Noel Pearson, http://www.themonthly.com.au/node/1785, makes me regret the political career he almost had. He explains a main-stream issue, the GFC, with a much more obscure one, The Anthropomorphic Fallacy – the habit of “ascribing human traits to a non-human... [More]

Whether we like it or not, current economic conditions, indeed our very economic model of boom and bust, demand that responsible managers take cost out of their business. It is the ugly side of our collective bargain in business. The more enjoyable side is innovation - making a difference by thinking differently. Never before (an over-used term, but indulge me) have the two been in such a tense standoff. After all, what is innovation if not ideas that have a long term and uncertain payoff? Clearly this is where you start in your cost cutting to minimise unfortunate trade-offs. Or not? [More]

Marketers might be second only to bankers as the most out-of-work professionals in this GFC. The latter were almost certainly part of the problem, but why aren’t marketers considered part of the solution?Marketer’s lack of board-level influence and the discretionary nature of marketing s... [More]