Archive for June, 2013

Australian are a forgiving lot!

Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

Aren’t we Australians a gullible lot? Roger La Salle

Over the course of the 20th century the taxes of the Australian people built the PMG Department that included both telecoms and post.

Some year ago these entities were separated and the PMG became Australia Post and the telecom part, Telecom Australia.

Some years later, the Government, probably in a cash grab, decided to privatise Telecom Australia and create Telstra; and guess what – they had the cheek to sell it to us. To sell us an asset, we the Australian people, already owned!

The government made a bucket load of money from that transaction.

Now after many years of successful trading and bringing innovation to the market, guess what, my taxes are now financing a rival to Tesltra in the form of the NBN.

The government sold me Telstra and now is using my money, my taxes, to build a rival.

Sometime in the future, you can bet the NBN will also be put up for public offering, no doubt after an unsuccessful attempt to decimate Telstra.

Boy are we suckers for government policy.

Finally, to add insult to injury, just how clever are those Telstra people.

Telstra have long realised that their cable network and ducts were fast becoming a liability and that in the not too distant future wireless will be the dominant internet delivery means. So what did Tesltra do – of course they sold all their ducts to those idiots running the Government, and for billions to boot!

Whether I am a labour or liberal voter is irrelevant, what is relevant is that too often our so called leaders make monumentally stupid and in my view unethical decisions.

Roger La Salle, is the creator of the “Matrix Thinking”™ technique and is widely sought after as an international speaker on Innovation, Opportunity and business development. He is the author of four books, Director and former CEO of the Innovation Centre of Victoria (INNOVIC) as well as a number of companies both in Australian and overseas. He has been responsible for a number of successful technology start-ups and in 2004 was a regular panellist on the ABC New Inventors TV program. In 2005 he was appointed to the “Chair of Innovation” at “The Queens University” in Belfast. Matrix Thinking is now used in more than 26 countries and licensed to one of the world’s largest consulting firms. www.matrixthinking.com

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Ill informed – Bill Shorten

Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

Ignorant Labour “Experts”? Roger La Salle
In a radio one on one with Joe Hockey a couple of weeks ago Bill Shorten criticised Joe Hockey regarding the NBN to the effect saying, “why would you want to use that crusty old wireless technology when we can use the vastly superior fibre in NBN”

Well, let us ask a few questions of Mr Shorten?

Firstly, as a non-technical person, you are a trained lawyer I believe, where do you get your information?

Is it from the same bureaucrats that advise you on border protection, or the mining tax, global warming, remember Tiny Tim Flannery saying ”even the rains that fall will not fill our dams”, or the treasury fanciful budget estimates, etc.

Finally Bill, do you have a wireless network at home, a LAN (if you know what that is)?

Yes, I’ll bet you do. So it’s OK to use that “crusty old wireless technology” for the last 100 meters it is it Bill, but not the last mile?

Further Bill, I wonder if any of your experts have told you that wireless signals in fact travel slightly faster, yes faster, that those down a fibre.

Further, do you know that Samsung have just announced that within a few years, long before the NBN is ever completed, if ever, that they now have a technology that can wirelessly download up to 10gbits per second, That’s a quite fast Mr Shorten.

Last of course, wireless will mean we do not need to be tethered to a glass fibre hanging from the wall, unless of course, we all use that crusty old wireless technology for that last 100 meters.

The NBN is a costly extravagance that will never be completed and will be obsolete within a decade at most.

Roger La Salle, is the creator of the “Matrix Thinking”™ technique and is widely sought after as an international speaker on Innovation, Opportunity and business development. He is the author of four books, Director and former CEO of the Innovation Centre of Victoria (INNOVIC) as well as a number of companies both in Australian and overseas. He has been responsible for a number of successful technology start-ups and in 2004 was a regular panellist on the ABC New Inventors TV program. In 2005 he was appointed to the “Chair of Innovation” at “The Queens University” in Belfast. Matrix Thinking is now used in more than 26 countries and licensed to one of the world’s largest consulting firms. www.matrixthinking.com

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Opportunities Abound

Tuesday, June 4th, 2013

Opportunities Abound

Roger La Salle

In this Business Insight I did intend to discuss the structured way to explore the third Horizon of business, but time and events have changed the priority, so below are matters of a different nature.
Using Innovation to achieve Innovation
No matter what business you are in, there are two things that should never be overlooked:

• up skilling your staff in how the business operates, and

• the need to embrace both innovation and opportunity.

There are many ways to achieve this upskilling and you would be aware of my books and workshops already in the marketplace on these topics.

However, as an Innovator myself I am always on the lookout for new ways to get these messages across to employees and companies in general. So, when I come across a new idea, I am always keen to give it a try. Business Development at trainingsnippets.com.au is such an idea.

I have teamed up with Training Snippets to produce the first six of what I expect to be a series of Business Development video snippets presenting my workshops in a format that can be used by companies who cannot attend workshops or for people more comfortable learning through video. Eventually, the entirety of my material will be in this modern format.

You can view the first six in their entirety at this link:

vimeo.com/album/2346487 (Password: tsrls1to6), or to purchase them, go to:

www.trainingsnippets.com.au/topic/roger-la-salle-business-development

Roger La Salle Business Insight Roger La Salle Business Insight www.trainingsnippets.com.au

Upcoming topics will include:

• Innovation and Opportunity capture

• Product evaluation and ranking

• Management reporting and even KPI setting

I am keen to hear your thoughts on this method of educating the workforce.

INNOVIC
Have you ever wondered how to identify a new opportunity and what to do next to turn it into a viable business? Well, INNOVIC is running an Opportunity Cafe on 14 June at a funky down town cafe/bar (Campari House, Melbourne) that can explain exactly what you need to do to create, refine and fast track new ideas and opportunities.

I will be running the session on innovation and opportunity capture and other experts will be discussing IP, idea-to-market strategies, grants and “crowd funding”. It will be a very innovative and stimulating day. Details at: www.innovic.com.au

As we all know identifying a ”frustration” is one of the greatest sources of opportunity for any business. For example: coffee cups/glasses that are too hot to hold, poor service in restaurants, jam jars that can’t be opened. The list goes on.

INNOVIC

Join INNOVIC’s Frustration to Innovation Competition on Facebook and post your frustrations.
http://tinyurl.com/c6p4pkj (facebook.com/innovic.ideas).

INNOVIC is offering a free ticket to the Opportunity Cafe for the best and most insightful frustration.

**** END ****

Roger La Salle, is the creator of the “Matrix Thinking”™ technique and is widely sought after as an international speaker on Innovation, Opportunity and business development. He is the author of four books, Director and former CEO of the Innovation Centre of Victoria (INNOVIC) as well as a number of companies both in Australian and overseas. He has been responsible for a number of successful technology start-ups and in 2004 was a regular panellist on the ABC New Inventors TV program. In 2005 he was appointed to the “Chair of Innovation” at “The Queens University” in Belfast. Matrix Thinking is now used in more than 26 countries and licensed to one of the world’s largest consulting firms. www.matrixthinking.com

Regards,

Roger La Salle
Innovation – Opportunity – Inspiration
Conferences – Key Notes – Workshops – Facilitation

www.matrixthinking.com
Twitter @rogerlasalle
Mobile 0418 370 828
Office + 613 9842 7267
Fax + 613 9842 2260
Sponsor – INNOVIC Next Big Thing Award

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Exploring the 3rd. Horizon

Monday, June 3rd, 2013

EXPLORING HORIZON THREE! Roger La Salle
In my penultimate business insight the McKinsey’s three horizons was presented demonstrating the unsurprising fact that research has shown that less than 3 percent of executive time is actually spent exploring the third horizon. Yet this is the one most relevant to the longer term survival and growth of an organisation
EXPLORING THE THIRD HORIZON
In many cases business and association conferences engage speakers known as a futurist to present some insights as to what the future may hold. Such people most often deliver interesting and engaging talks, mostly about where technology is taking us and the gizmos of the future, fascinating as they may be. However, the direct relevance of this to your business may be somewhat obscure so perhaps an alternative approach could be considered. This alternative is somewhat more rigorous than the abstraction of futurism and is based on the known mathematical methodology of extrapolation.

In short one of the best ways to explore horizon three and envisage where you business, or perhaps just as importantly your industry sector is heading, is to plot a trajectory curve of the past and extrapolate that to the future. This approach leads to outcomes far more precise than the abstraction of futurism and allows you to make plans to position yourself precisely at the future waypoint.

How can we do this?

The starting point is to first decide what represents your core offering.

McDonald’s is an excellent example. Their core offering is definitely not great tasting and wonderful food, but standardised safe food at an affordable price but most of all with a minimum of queuing time (i.e. convenience).

As competition emerged to challenge McDonald’s they rose to the occasion by expanding their range to match their competitors. Most of all they leveraged their core offering of convenience, by providing customers with drive through service. An extrapolation of this core offering of fast convenient food would have revealed the need to migrate the drive through service well in advance of its initial introduction. Now so firmly has McDonald’s embraced this convenience offering that it is in fact usually much faster to use the drive through service than to enter the shop and get served at the counter.

An extrapolation of the present convenience at McDonalds may now be to offer even faster service, if that’s possible. One wonders how long it may be before an iPhone app will be developed to allow “pre-ordering” and collection via a rapid drive through
“E-queue”, possibly with payment via a direct debit from an iPhone app even before you get to the store.

Convenience stores

Another example of this extrapolation approach may be to look at convenience store businesses. What is the core offering of a convenience store, certainly not low price, but convenience of course! Based on an extrapolation of that we would look to offer even greater convenience, and what would that be? Drive through convenience stores, again maybe with a pre-ordering App and even pre-payment?

Use this to foresee the future!

This type of extrapolation approach can be done in many industries. The only requirement is for your management team to be able to agree on your core offering(s) before applying extrapolation as a means to forecast the longer term position of your industry and to thus make plans to address this new horizon.

This is far more likely to provide accurate outcomes than the abstraction of futurism and can be done with your senior team at you next management getaway. You may be amazed at the outcome, an outcome that reveals horizon three and sets you apart from the competition.

Roger La Salle, is the creator of the “Matrix Thinking”™ technique and is widely sought after as an international speaker on Innovation, Opportunity and business development. He is the author of four books, Director and former CEO of the Innovation Centre of Victoria (INNOVIC) as well as a number of companies both in Australian and overseas. He has been responsible for a number of successful technology start-ups and in 2004 was a regular panellist on the ABC New Inventors TV program. In 2005 he was appointed to the “Chair of Innovation” at “The Queens University” in Belfast. Matrix Thinking is now used in more than 26 countries and licensed to one of the world’s largest consulting firms. www.matrixthinking.com

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