Creative3, The Awards

Last Thursday, I had the privilege of attending the Creative3 Awards. It was my first time going to the Awards. But I did get to the Creative3 Dinner last year. Indeed, I believe the Creative3 Awards replaced the Dinners because the Creative3 teams like to keep things fresh by mixing things up. The event was extra special because the team was celebrating ten years of Creative3!

I always enjoy activities organised by QUT CEA because they bring the most interesting speakers. But before we get to the four speakers, here are the four winners from the afternoon:

• The Rising Star, Creative Tech: Creatively Squared

• The Innovator, Creative Tech: Toast VR

• The Rising Star, Fashion: Buluuy Mirrii

• The Creative Trailblazer: Monica Davidson

Congratulations to all the winners! They were a great cross-section of the creative industries sector of Australia. But now, on to the speaker!

The first speaker was Carolyn Miller, the founding director of communications consultancy: The Honeycomb Effect. She gave a fascinating talk about brands and how important and emotive it can be. She also touched on how we often define ourselves by NOT following brands, but that still involves acknowledging brands. As I was sitting there, I was thinking about how I consider myself an Android person and partly define myself by not buying Apple products. I enjoyed her talk that’s partially captured in the article “There Are No Boring Brands, Just Boring Marketers“.

The next speaker was Nick Rakis, who is a business designer and founding Partner of Accelio. He is one of the mastermind CSIRO’s ON PRIME program. His talk focused on the fall of Blackberry, and now Microsoft was heading that way after losing the mobile wars to Google and Apple. But he pointed out that Microsoft had quietly bounced back, overtaking Google and Amazon in market cap during our current cloud and AI wars. He talked about how the current CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, hand changed the culture of Microsoft so that it could better tackle current and future challenges. The central message of listening to customers is one I have heard before. Still, unfortunately, it is a message that businesses just don’t seem to do! After his talk, I added Satya Nadella’s book, Hit Refresh, to my wish list.

And now: A fashion interlude!

(I swear the audience missed it’s cue to clap on the day but that’s another story!)

After a short break and a short fashion show, we were back with Mareile Osthus, who is the Chief Category Management Officer, The Iconic! Her talk focused on “new retail” now that we are no longer bound the old limits of geography. She talked about how, when she was growing up in a small town in Europe, she could tell a classmate who was wearing a particular brand had most likely been to the US recently. You can’t do that anymore. I mean, obviously there are still places where Amazon does deliver or the Iconic is not available. But for the most part, brands are not geographically bound and we can shop any brand, any style and at the price point of our choice. So what becomes the differentiator? Mareile suggested it will be around values, customer experience and aspirations. I agree and I think new retail will be exciting!

Finally, the last talk of the night was delivered by Adam Elliot, the Oscar Award-winning independent stop-motion animation writer and director. Unlike the others, he’s talk was more motivational and less educational. But it was a great way to end the afternoon. I enjoyed all the talks, and I look forward to seeing what Creative3 does next year!

Another RCL Pitch Afternoon!

Team Josari took advantage of the River City Labs open day to work from RCL last Friday. Naturally, that meant we ended the day taking in some pitches while eating chips! Okay, the rest of the team was drinking. But I, of course, don’t drink anything harder than coffee and even that is usually drowned in milk and sugar! But I digress.

I am not going to go pitch by pitch. But I am going to highlight two pitches. Firstly, it was great to hear once more from Anne-Marie Walton of Kids Wantu. She’s in the middle of a crowdfunding campaign. I have already pledged, which acts as a pre-order for her family activity app Kids Wantu.

I cannot wait to get the app, so I can use it to do activities with my niece and nephew. My niece is 4 and spends at least 3 days with me. But at the moment she spends way too much time watching movies and tablets when she’s over. My nephew is under 2, and it would be great to be able to be prepared to entertain him as he grows older!

The other pitch I wanted to highlight was from Joshua Savage about his two cannabis-related businesses. I have noticed an absolute explosion of cannabis-related startups. I like Joshua’s approach to the explosion because he’s on the support side. His two companies are helping growers and consumers, grow and consume good quality cannabis. I think that’s a smart approach. His two businesses are 1) Australia Cannabis, and 2) Disruptive Industries.

Finally, there was a pitch on the night that was for a consumer-facing app. The pitch made me realise that we need to stop thinking of users as the product. We live in a post-Cambridge Analytica world that’s already drowning in data. I don’t believe this is an environment into which we should be launching another app that tries to make money by monetising user data.

Especially as there are movements afoot to force companies to share the revenue generated by selling user data with said users, I don’t think selling data is a viable business model for new ventures. For long term success, I think it’s time we moved beyond treating our user as the product. Maybe I am wrong in this. Only time will tell!

September In Review: A bit slow but got better!

September was a slow month for me as I was very sick! I had to go to the hospital for an iron infusion as my blood haemoglobin had dropped to dangerous levels. But I did do a few things. Given how this month has gone, I decided to make a list of everything that I did as a general life update!

The first thing I managed to this month was on the 16th. That was to attend another talk organised by the Connect Collaborative. I met a few more people, but it wasn’t a good night. I was still suffering from the after-effects of Gastro. But I am glad I went. I haven't completely decided what to do with “the Hub”. But I understand the importance of networks. So I am likely to visit again. Hopefully, I won’t have Gastro the next time I make it to the Hub!

Later that week was my birthday, on the 19th. I started celebrating on the 18th, going out to dinner with my family. But I continued to celebrate on the 19th with cake while relishing the ability to eat without throwing up.

My iron transfusion took place on the 23rd, which was just-in-time for me to be more myself during the Breakfast with the Angels. It wasn’t a great start as my Uber driver did not know the city area. So blindly followed the Wave navigation app to turn what should have been a 15-minute ride into a 45-minute ordeal! But I got there eventually, had smashed Avacado with feta with Brisbane Angel’s Gianni. Inndox’s Andrew, and Energy Lab’s Camille. The conversation was good. I loved hearing about Andrew’s journey with Inndox. I picked up a few tips from Gianni. I had a good morning. My Elevate+ cohort mate Andrew Chow of Shenovi was also there, but I didn’t get a chance to speak with him.

After breakfast, I walked to QUT Foundry and officially joined a team taking on the Alexa Skills Challenge: In-Skill Purchasing. I don’t have a picture of my team yet. But I’ll make a point of snapping one as we undertake the challenge. 43 days to go!

I met my team again on the last day of September at the Precinct. We are all members of the Brisbane Internet of Things (IoT) Meetup. So after our meeting, we head down to Avestix Lab, which yet another innovation hub and co-working space for a pizza and a talk on industrial IoT. Not a bad way to end a slow September.

Soulful Social: Social Media for Business

Yesterday I attended a free masterclass hosted by Tracy Stubbs, a participant in the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme (NEIS). She s building her business around providing social media services to business owners. So her talk was half about convincing business people, especially those who are a bit older, that they can build a brand on social media. But business owners of all ages can get a lot of benefit out of the systematic approach to social media posting that Tracy was teaching.

I have been on various social media platforms for a long time. But it should be obvious that social media for personal use and social media for business is two different ballgames. Like, a lot of my social media use was and is dedicated to fandom. Then I moved to the UK and needed social media to keep my mum, brother, sister-in-law, and whoever was interested in the loop. So my social media was private and mostly contained food, travel and shopping stuff.

I never bothered with a social media following as research. Because I didn’t see a lot of value in academia being placed on a social media presence unless you wanted to do “popular science” type stuff.

It was after I started working in the startup scene that I made my Twitter public. My Facebook is still private, but then again, on Facebook, business pages work better. I only got on Instagram leading up to the MIT Bootcamp. So I am always looking for tips on how to maximise social media for business.

Tracy advocated approaching social media as not “I need to say something” but by taking the approach, “I have something to say”. She outlined an approach of thinking about what to say in terms of categories. When to say it, so there is a consistent schedule. Finally, how to say it in an engaging but authentic way. That was a big take away from her class, and I think its a good one.

I mean, I have read “The Thank You Economy” by Gary Vaynerchuk, and there is no shortage of tips and tricks out there. But sometimes, you just need a system that works for you. Not to mention a mindset change if you really are not a social media person, no matter your age. I think she’ll be very successful with her business, given her niche and approach!

The Connect Collaborative

A few weeks ago, two people reached out to me on LinkedIn about The Connect Collaborative. I didn’t know anything about this collaborative, but I asked around. I got wildly different takes. One of my mentors, I have several, had heard about the Hub. So she let me know that it was a well-known networking venue with hundreds of members. A co-worker in one of the startups I work with said he had gone but got bad vibes. But another founder I am working with said that he had been a few times, and found the people lovely. Also that he had worked with people he met at some level. So naturally, I had to go and check things out for myself!

Turns out that the two people who invited me, Doug and Wells, knew each other. Doug had invited Wells. So that worked out. I attended the talk last week, which on personalities. That’s bumped the article I have wanted to write about personality tests near the top of my to-do list. I went back yesterday, but I couldn’t stay for the talk. I touched base with Doug and Wells, and a few others that Doug invited to the Hub. But I am suffering from a weird ear issue and chronic headache, so by the time 7:30 PM rolled around, Tinni.exe was very much shutting down.

So why did my co-worker get “bad vibes”, and why did the other founder think everybody was lovely? Well, Connect Collaborative does use network effect, which can give of multi-level-marketing (MLM) vibes. Indeed, just last night Doug acknowledged that some people do come into the Hub thinking they are about to get an MLM pitch from Amway. Amway being notorious for co-opting entrepreneurial language. Some rules might not make sense on the surface, like waiting to be introduced. But I can see the benefits of slowly meeting people.

Also, I think that whoever the speaker is the first time you attend can make a huge difference as does whoever invites you into the room. Also what you know about the Hub can probably colour your impression. I got such wildly different takes on people who attended that I am more curious than apprehensive. But so far, no one tried to sell me anything, and it seems like a small business version of a lot of startup events I have attended.

There are overlaps, of course. People I know from the startup scene turned out to be regulars at the Hub. So it’s interesting. I’ll try to go a few more times and see where it leads. It should be fun and interesting!