Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: politics

  • Is Small Business Whingeing its way to irrelevance

    Is Small Business Whingeing its way to irrelevance

    “Is small business whingeing its way to irrelevance?” first appeared in Smart Company on August 16, 2012.

    Last week, TripAdvisor announced the results of a worldwide hospitality survey. One of the things that leapt out of the survey was how large hotel chains are using social media while smaller Australian establishments are languishing.

    Following on TripAdvisor’s survey was the release of accounting software company MYOB’s regular index that showed businesses are retreating from the online world with reduced usage rates of social media, eCommerce and online payments.

    At an Australian Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch in Sydney on Tuesday, MYOB’s CEO Tim Reed and Google Australia’s Tim Leeder discussed small business and the web with their Getting Australian Business Online program missing its target of 50,000 sign ups since its launch in March last year.

    The fact more than half of Australian businesses don’t have a website despite free services from Google, WordPress, Weebly and a host of others indicates a deeper apathy among small businesses towards a whole range of issues.

    Earlier this year the New South Wales state government abolished the popular Small Business September program with barely a squeak from the SME sector, with some small business groups actually welcoming what was a dramatic cut to support programs.

    Compare this to the Olympic athletes, not only do we see the AOC coming out swinging with demands for more funding but the yachting team are staging an effective campaign to reinstate NSW government programs to support their sport: The total opposite to the small business community.

    Small business, on the other hand, rolls over and accepts cuts to programs, poorly thought out regulations and government procurement policies that favour multinationals over local companies which are capable of the job.

    When small business is given a chance to have a voice, the community blows it with whingeing. At the NSW Small Business Commissioner’s roadshows earlier this year it was notable how much time was spent whingeing about group buying services, traffic clearways and council permits for coffee tables rather than sensible and achievable wins for the SME sector.

    So it wasn’t a surprise that the result of that roadshow was the cutting of useful programs and little effective change.

    The best example of this whingeing rather than action is the current campaign to increase the GST threshold and abolish penalty rates.

    Instead of focusing on the real problems facing businesses such as high rents, profit gouging from distributors and poorly thought out state and federal regulations imposed by both sides of politics – the small business and retail sectors manage to demonise their staff and customers and increase the suspicions of consumers and workers that they’re being ripped off by big, bad employers.

    In reality, the shopkeepers and other small businesses are struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing economy. They are feeling those changes earlier than the rest of the economy because they don’t have the cushions of fat margins, political connections or guaranteed incomes of the corporate, public or political sectors.

    Those struggles will give the small business sector an advantage over the bigger and slower groups – having adapted to the changed economy, those smaller businesses will be stronger and fitter than their bigger competitors.

    Chris Ridd, of cloud computing accounting service Xero, one of MYOB’s biggest competitors, puts this best.

    “Technology is an enabler and can actually help small businesses gain efficiencies, reach new customers and generate new revenue streams. Why turn your back on the one thing that can turn your business around.”

    It’s the proactive business people adopting new technologies who are going to thrive over the next decade. Whingeing about TripAdvisor, the GST or dumb government policies isn’t going to save an enterprise that’s become irrelevant.

    So make sure your website’s up to date, check what customers are saying about you on social media or review sites and have a look at those cloud computing services that can improve your business’ profitability and efficiency.

    The time to do it is now, before your business becomes irrelevant.

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  • Chasing away the astroturfers

    Chasing away the astroturfers

    Yesterday we heard the collective gnashing of teeth as social media experts, lawyers and business owners complained about the Australian Advertising Standards Board’s ruling that companies are responsible for comments on their Facebook pages.

    The ASB ruling (PDF file) was a response to complaints that comments on Diageo’s Smirnoff Vodka page breached various industry codes of conducts and encouraged under age drinking.

    While the board found the complaints weren’t justified – something that most of the hysterical commentators overlooked – the ruling contained one paragraph that upset the social media experts and delighted the lawyers.

    The Board considered that the Facebook site of an advertiser is a marketing communication tool over which the advertiser has a reasonable degree of control and could be considered to draw the attention of a segment of the public to a product in a manner calculated to promote or oppose directly or indirectly that product. The Board determined that the provisions of the Code apply to an advertiser’s Facebook page. As a Facebook page can be used to engage with customers, the Board further considered that the Code applies to the content generated by the advertisers as well as material or comments posted by users or friends.

    The key phrase in that paragraph is “over which the advertiser has a reasonable degree of control”. Obviously someone posting on Twitter, their blog or someone else’s website is beyond the control of the advertiser.

    With Facebook comments, the onus is on businesses to make sure there is nothing illegal appearing on their streams and any misconceptions or false statements are answered.

    In many ways, this is common sense. Do you, as a manager or business owner, want your brands tarnished by idiots posting offensive or illegal content? Sensible businesses have already been dealing with this by deleting the really obnoxious stuff and politely replying to the more outrageous claims by Facebook friends.

    What’s more important with both the ASB ruling and the Allergy Pathways case the ruling relies upon make it clear that ‘astroturfing’ on social media sites won’t be tolerated.

    Astroturfing is the PR practice of creating fake groups that appear to support a cause or product. A group paid for by an interested party appears to grow naturally out of community interest or concern – a fake grassroots group so to speak and hence the word ‘Astroturf’ which is a brand of artificial grass.

    Organisations like property developers and mining companies have been setting up Facebook pages and websites that appear to be community groups supporting their projects and many smaller business have been inducing friends, relatives or contractors to post false testimonials. In the run up to major elections in 2012 and 13 we’re seeing many of these fake groups setup to push various political agendas.

    For a few consulting groups, astroturfing has become a nice line of business and those of us on the fringe of the social media community have been watching the development of ‘online advocacy services’ with interest.

    While no-one has claimed Allergy Pathways or Diageo were posting fake testimonials on their own Facebook pages, the rulings in both cases are a warning that the courts and regulators are prepared to deal with those getting clever with social media.

    For honest businesses this ruling is a non-issue, it’s timely reminder though that web and social media site are not ‘set and forget’ but need to be regularly checked, valid customer comments replied to and inappropriate content removed.

    The ASB ruling reaffirms what sensible social media experts have been advising all along, and that’s good news for them and their clients.

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  • Verified Jerks

    Verified Jerks

    When you work in customer service you quickly learn that some people are just rude jerks. Depending on how bad a day you have it could be 2, 5 or 10% of the population.

    For these people the Internet has been a paradise with almost anonymous forums and newsgroups allowing them to be rude and obnoxious with little risk of being held accountable for their spiteful behaviour.

    One of the hopes of social media services was that forcing people into using accounts tied to their real identities would impose some self discipline among these trolls and haters,

    Sadly The argument that verified identities would stop people being irresponsible is wrong.

    The sad story of seemingly mature people insulting and wanting to beat up a five year old participant on a reality TV show illustrates how manners, good taste and style are beyond some people.

    It’s depressing, but unsurprising that this demographic can’t figure out that ‘reality’ TV shows are anything but real. The programs are carefully edited to suit the dramatic narrative of the producers with some of the participants being portrayed as villains and others as heroes.

    The little girl in question could be in a spoilt little brat, but you’d want to be careful making that judgement from what you see on TV.

    Many would put the spiteful behaviour of the Facebook commentors down to being another example of social media destroying our society, but this behaviour pre-dates the web.

    In the 1990s we saw a similar wave of insults aimed at President Clinton’s then teenage daughter Chelsea. In many ways it was far worse in what we are seeing today in that those encouraging that behavior were the leaders of political parties and their ideological fellow travellers in the media.

    The abuse of Chelsea Clinton marked the rapid decline of standards in politics that leaves many of us now sickened by the behaviour of all parties – and that of the media that treats their shenanigans seriously.

    Notable about the raucous political partisanship is that most participant are happy, even proud, to be named as they debase the institutions they’ve been elected to represent.

    The reason is they aren’t accountable, they know most of us are rusted on voters and the few that aren’t can be conned long enough by expensive advertising campaigns to get them elected.

    Should they not get elected, they’ll be welcomed into the arms of their corporatist friends who will find them a nice sinecure on a board, committee or think tank.

    The real reason people act like jerks is because they think they aren’t accountable – the politicians know they aren’t and most Facebook users figure the odds are in their favour that they’ll never be held to account for their boorish behaviour.

    Anonymity is the reason for bad manners on the net, accountability is. While our society doesn’t make people accountable for cruel, rude or corrupt behaviour then these people will thrive. With or without the internet.

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  • Australia – the Noah’s Ark of business

    Australia – the Noah’s Ark of business

    During a week of big business news, the buyout of another boutique brewery by a big corporation was barely noticed, but Lion Nathan’s takeover of the Little Creatures brewery illustrates the duopoly problem that is crippling Australian business.

    A few days after that deal was announced, rumours that Business Spectator – which the above link takes you to – would be taken over by News Limited started circulating. These turned out to be true.

    In both cases, existing duopoly players bought out small competitors, a process that’s been going on since Australia decided industry duopolies were necessary to protect the nation’s managerial classes, and these takeovers kill genuine innovation and stymie new thinking.

    For those duopolies the definition of success is grabbing a few percent of market share off each other while using their market powers to screw down supplier costs.

    A good of example of this is the retail duopoly, the farmers and producers get screwed while the supermarket chains engage in price wars driven by truly awful advertising campaigns.

    Un-imaginative, un-original and plain un-inspiring. Any smart young kid wanting to get ahead in the retail industries knows they have to look overseas for job opportunities or inspiration.

    Therein lies the real problem with Australia’s duopoly business culture – it triggers a brain drain as comfortable managements block any innovative new thinking as being too hard or just unnecessary.

    In the media duopoly, telecoms analyst Paul Budde illustrated the problem in his account on trying to convince Fairfax of where the media industry was heading in a connected economy.

    Fairfax’s management didn’t get it and didn’t care – today they still don’t get but they care deeply as their business model crumbles.

    It’s not just future managers that are looking overseas for opportunity, the customers are well.

    The duopoly model that evolved in Australia over the last thirty years depended upon the tyranny of distance to act as an effective trade wall. The Internet has demolished that wall for most industries.

    Almost every Australian duopoly is living on borrowed time. If, like the proprietors of Business Spectator or Little Creatures, your business plan relies on selling out to a local duopolist then you’d better move quick.

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  • Looking at the wrong curve

    Looking at the wrong curve

    “We don’t understand it, there’s a property shortage but prices are going down,” bleats the property expert in a recent interview.

    Property booms are always excused with claims of “shortages”. The US, Ireland and the UK in recent years property markets all collapsed despite business and political leaders claiming there was a “property shortage”.

    The shortage meme happens because the property spruikers, economists and finance writers focus on the wrong curve – they look at the supply curve and assume prices are going up because there isn’t enough property to go around.

    What drives speculative booms is easy credit – demand driven by access to money drives speculation, not supply shortages.

    Australia’s long term property boom which started in the late 1960s and went onto steroids in the late 1990s has been driven by access to credit. Banks were prepared to lend to property buyers, who were increasingly speculators, and government policies favoured those speculating on property over investing or building businesses.

    The crisis of 2008 was the end of the easy credit era and the Australian property speculation boom is over. For the policy makers, politicians and economists the basis of the 1980s corporatist ideology is crumbling around them.

    No ideologue lets go of their beliefs easily – that’s why Western governments who bought into the corporatist worldview are pumping trillions of dollars into supporting zombie banks and releasing constant stimulus packages to prop up the property market.

    Like the communists of the 1970s, today’s corporatists are looking at choosing the statistics that suit their ideological views.

    To support their beliefs they look at the wrong curve and then wonder why the world isn’t working as they thought it would.

    Times have changed. Have you?

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