The non-appearance of a booked taxi, and the resultant mercy dash to deposit my agitated Sydney-bound guest at the airport, recently highlighted for me a peculiarity with Adelaide passenger trains. Speeding down Park Terrace towards Port Road, what should befall this hurried duo but a pair of rapidly descending level-crossing gates and the ‘ding-ding’ of the…
Month: August 2015
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept
I first ‘met’ Lieutenant General David Morrison in Townsville in 1998. When I say ‘met’, it was more a case of ‘quivered in front of’. Morrison is one scary individual. I was a young Lieutenant working as the Assistant Adjutant at the 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (or 1RAR, as it is known) and…
Pigs in a pedestrian thoroughfare
Strolling through Canberra’s City Walk, the city’s most popular pedestrian thoroughfare, one can’t help but be taken aback by the confronting pose adopted by one of the merino sheep sculptures. On its back with legs in the air, the sheep seems to be ‘presenting’ to its woolly companion a couple of metres away. Hardly an…
How about this for a hybrid product?
It was reported last week in The Advertiser that Cooper’s has teamed up with Haigh’s to develop a new hybrid product, Cooper’s Stout Ganache chocolates, to mark Haigh’s centenary. I understand that this is just one of numerous collaborations that Cooper’s is trialling with other iconic South Australian brands. To date, Cooper’s best known hybrid product has been Beerenberg’s Cooper’s Ale…
How Libraries of SA can become even more relevant in the digital age
Last week I wrote about how the SA Library Service has evolved and the great benefits that you can get by rediscovering your local library. In the second part of the series, I’ve got 10 ideas for Libraries of SA to become even more relevant in the digital age. Here we go… Libraries in the Digital Age…
Buses on tracks that run to Paradise
You know you’re in Adelaide when the nightly news bulletin is headlined by yet another story about a moronic, drunken European backpacker destroying the undercarriage of their hire car by accidentally entering the O-Bahn Busway at Hackney. Not only is the entrance clearly sign-posted, but there’s a special ‘second chance’ exit for cars that fail the…
Why your website is still your most important digital asset
Whilst we live in the era of social media and mobile apps, it’s important to understand that your website remains your most important digital asset. Here’s why… You ‘own’ your website and it’s enduring. You have complete control over your website. You own the domain. You control where it is hosted. You have the ability…
POST – A simple methodology for conceiving your digital strategy
Many organisations put the horse before the cart when conceiving their digital strategy – typically they start with the tactical stuff: they whack up a blog, rip out a Facebook Page, or start building an app, without really thinking about the reasons why. That ain’t strategy. That is doing digital for the sake of doing…
‘Bung Fritz’-Dispensing Butchers
One of the enduring memories of my childhood is spending time at my Nan’s place in the Riverland town of Renmark and accompanying her to Lindner’s, a local family-owned butcher just around the corner. Once my Nan had completed her transaction, the generously proportioned butcher would smile at us kiddies, give his offal-stained hands a cursory…
A digital strategy and operations model
If your business is serious about digital, then it’s important to invest some real time and effort developing a ‘digital strategy’. Unfortunately many businesses believe that building a website and opening a Facebook Page constitutes a ‘strategy’, but it’s a little more involved than that; at least it is if you want to derive as much benefit from…
Wellington Adds Up, but does Adelaide?
I read with some dismay yesterday in The Australian that Aussie startup companies are being actively courted by the city of Wellington in New Zealand. Recently, five Australian startups were lucky winners of the ‘Wellington Adds Up‘ competition and were flown ‘over the ditch’ to inspect the city’s tech and startup scene. They came away…
Love Your Library – Rediscover the benefits of your library service
When was the last time that you visited your local library? Next time you have a spare 15 minutes, I recommend that you drop in and take a look at how the humble library service has evolved. You will be surprised. The library service here in South Australia is fantastic and I’m sure you’ll be wondering why…
The competitive forces that are laying waste to booksellers
As an online book retailer myself and a lover of books, I was disheartened to see the demise of yet another Australian bookstore chain last week. Adelaide-based specialist university textbook retailer Unibooks, which has been in business for 80 years, will close its doors in 2016, with up to 100 employees set to lose their jobs. Are…