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Business Magazine Shortfalls

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Anthill Magazine, an Australian-based publication, has been in steady production since September 2006 and, as an entrepreneur my hat’s off to Anthill’s founder and publisher James Tuckermann, who earlier this year transitioned to a mostly-online commercial model, while the magazine itself still physically appears a few times each year.

Anthill now publishes a series of themed daily e-mails and acts as a sort of aggregation blogging site for a number of contributors. It also has a number of annual awards: Cool Company, 30 Under 30 – and an Innovation Index.

And I really respect what James has done and is doing, so it was with a split conscience that I clicked on the recent survey link and added my two cents worth. And – on one level because there’s a case of Shiraz in the offing – decided to be clear and concise in my feedback, AND willingly assign my name to it.

Which was, simply, that if James’ intention on founding Anthill was to counter a perceived “dryness” in Australian business media, amassing a collection of blogs on “contemporary” business topics (SEO, SEO, SEO + social networking) doesn’t automatically make a good business publication.

In fact, it seems kind of like a lazy way out – and hence my summation that Anthill fails to live up to its potential.

I’m not for a minute suggesting that I’ll be awarded the prize case of Shiraz (although I’d gladly give it a good home), and I know that in a resource-starved business environment accepting the multitude of  blogged contributions from SEO swaggerers and business coaches might be of some use to the broader SME market. but to me that isn’t business, it’s just providing online advice outlets to self-promoters. Who might as well (and usually do) have their own blogs anyway.

What’s lacking in the Australian business media is any sense of business journalism aimed at the innovation sector. Seeking out good stories, not just publishing yet-another “cool” list or ghost-writing OpEd pieces. I’ve run my own businesses, generating software IP and real revenues, for more than 7 years now – and I can say without any sense of self-deprecation I have learnt literally everything I know from listening to the war stories of fellow entrepreneurs. Not their product pitches, not their VC-endearing confidence-speak, just the stories about how and why they took or were forced to take the directions they did.

In this country it seems that you have to massively fail in a ball of flames, be a property developer, or have a mining lease somewhere to get anything written about you in the business press. Or be able to brag about your SEO prowess.

Look at Andrew Denton’s ability to get stories out of ordinary people with extraordinary experiences, and compare that to what you see on current affairs programs, and you’ll appreciate the contrast I’m talking about.

I really wish Anthill or someone else would pick up this opportunity to provide business journalism; James clearly has so much potential – I just wish he would follow his own mantra.

And James, if you’re reading this, I really meant what I said – I’d willingly give that Shiraz a good home!

Posted in Brisbane, Social Networking, Venture Capital | No Responses »
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Employee Share Schemes go out the Window in Australia

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

I’ve blogged previously about the Australian Government’s seemingly mindless attacks on support initiatives for innovation companies, but this latest ignorance really takes the cake.

In last week’s federal budget, the Government closed what it considered a “loophole” which allowed company employees to defer personal tax liabilities on company shares or options they are granted as part of a remuneration scheme. Employee share ownership plans (ESOPs) are a really valuable way of engaging key staff in an emerging company. It empowers “ownership” in a true sense, and is something that I’d preferred to engage our key leadership and growing team here at Locatrix.

Unfortunately, it’s also a method that highly paid executives of ASX-listed companies have used to defer tax, something the government is hell-bent on cracking down on. Fortunately, I’m not the only one complaining about this decision.  There’s also a page one article in today’s Financial Review (link only available to subscribers).

While they probably have good intentions in one regard, Minister Tanner & co have again made a decision oblivious to the impact it has on the folks who work genuinely to create innovation jobs in this country.

Again, Mr Rudd, I voted for you. Willingly. Because I believed the country needed change. But as an entrepreneur, working to create jobs and commercialise Australian innovations, you are really, really disappointing me.

Posted in Business, Politics | 1 Response »
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All the News That’s Fit to Print

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

One of the many small joys I get from business travel is the chance to read great newspapers. I’ve been a longtime fan of the Straits Times, and the South China Morning Post will be a starting point of any day I spend in Hong Kong. In the past few years, having added Europe and the UK to my “patch”, I usually gravitate to the UK dailies – I’d love to have a favourite, but I don’t find any of them to be a standout. On the continent it’s the International Herald Tribune, or Le Monde, only to exercise my pathetically basic French comprehension.

To be enjoyed, a newspaper needs time, a good coffee, and a quiet spot to read.  An airplane has only one of these attributes, but a good newspaper helps fill the time anyway. At home I’m usually pressed for time, so I mostly restrict quiet newspaper reading activities to the deck on Saturday mornings, which is the one time each week I willingly buy a newspaper.  (Of course it’s the Sydney Morning Herald – the Brisbane Courier Mail is effectively now a content-free advertisement vehicle).

It seems I’m not the only one that’s reducing newspaper consumption; publishers are going to the wall so quickly in the US that a Democratic Senator has introduced a bill to allow newspaper companies to reconstitute themselves as non-profits. (Remember the old joke Jeff Bezos used to tell about Amazon?  The one where even he called it Amazon.org because it was a non-profit? Think about that again in 5 years when we all have Kindles.)

We can lament the downfall of quality newspapers all we like but it was flagged by cost-cutting in recent years; of course when classified revenues go downhill, journalists feel the pinch and are let go. There’s less journalistic opportunity in new media than many of us would like to see (”Content? That’s what our readers create!”) because the type of journalism I remember from my youth is now the way of the dodo. Details, agendas and context don’t seem to count as much to Generation Y as immediacy, colour and star quality.  The journalistic effort that went into the events leading up to and resulting in the Fitzgerald Inquiry probably wouldn’t be reproduced in today’s newsrooms, and certainly not outside the ABC.

This challenge is being felt all over the world. The Huffington Post even has an entire section devoted to bad news about newspapers and the impact on investigative journalism.

All this explains why yesterday morning, reading the SMH at home over coffee, I read (in order) Peter FitzSimons, the sports results, the arts section and…… went back to my PC. Where I found nothing much of interest, either.

Seems I’d already read all the news that was fit to print. Or publish, in any form.

And it made me sad.

Posted in Business | No Responses »
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