Smart Work Hubs Project

We headed along to a showcase this morning put on by Regional Development Australia in the ACT and the Southern Inland to demonstrate the establishment of telework centres around the Capital region. These are part of the Federal Government’s funding to promote NBN readiness in regional Australia.

The project will undertake a “readiness assessment” to determine what is required to establish a professional office environment that utilises the NBN to provide conditions that may not be available in a work-from-home environment.

Mick Chisnell, Executive Director of the ACT Government Information Office, pointed out that there is a triple bottom line outcome from teleworking – economic, social and environmental. The other important point from Mick was that in 10 years we won’t be talking about teleworking, we’ll just be doing it.

This is something the JAM is highly conscious of – business and the community are already taking action with the opportunities presented by mobile computing (laptops, tablets & smartphones) and online tools and platforms. Government must act quickly in public policy to keep pace with the strategies and actions organisations are already implementing.

Younger people are also expecting to be able to bring their own devices into the workspace, engaging in social media platforms and presenting employers with the opportunity to change their work culture. To quote Cisco, “to transform a business, you have to transform the way work is undertaken.”

Providing flexibility and mobility in a workplace helps drive a business’s competitive advantage – not only in increasing staff retention but also driving workplace productivity and efficiency.

Robin Eckermann, who led the creation of TransACT, made the point that the digital economy has already been with us for decades. “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The 2nd best time is now”. This certainly reinforces the JAM’s view that the time to act is now.

Further gov info can be found at telework.gov.au

Why Online Marketing is not Digital Strategy

People have been asking: just what is digital strategy? Trawling through the web you would think it was all about online marketing. SEO, keywords, social media. But it’s not. It’s much broader and deeper than that. And frankly, more strategic!

Think about how you build a business plan – looking at the various elements of your business, your value proposition, your go-to-market strategy, your marketing strategy, your delivery strategy, your HR strategy, the strategy for managing your financials. Then think about how you execute – what are the processes, tools and resources you need to have in place to deliver the actions required? Then think about how you measure success, how you baseline where you are now and your progress into the future; how you build continuous customer engagement & improvement into your business, how you build innovation and collaboration.

Then think about what digital tools and activities you utilise to help you execute. How you use the web, the Cloud, systems, infrastructure; how people find you online, how you establish a dialogue with potential customers, partners, staff and others in your industry. How you convert bricks & mortar into online connection.

That’s your digital strategy – the means to execute your business objectives, the alignment of objectives and outcomes, the convergence of business, digital and the personal.

Online marketing is but one tool, one method of enabling engagement. It is one element of a much broader digital strategy that will drive your business success.

A Leap of Startup Faith

Our favourite saying at the moment is: “Just because you’ve done it once, doesn’t mean to say you can do it again”.

It’s a little like our sales mantra: “You’re only as good as your next sale”. That is, don’t take anything for granted, don’t assume, don’t presume. You can rest on your laurels for approximately one nanosecond and then it’s refocus and back into it.

We’re in the startup boat at the moment, putting together our content and program – a program we know will help organisations take the great digital leap from uncertainty to confidence, from disconnected to converged.

But we’re not taking anything for granted. No stone is being left unturned. And the elements we hope are certainties are being broken down and challenged.

It’s a balancing act – on one hand, starting up takes assurance, attention to detail and focus. On the other, it is a leap of faith, a plunge into the unknown. But unless you take the leap in the first place, success cannot be possible. As Arnold Palmer, one of the world’s greatest golfers said:

“If you’d like to win, but you think you can’t,
It’s almost certain you won’t”.

Digital Enterprise Online Marketing Workshop

ScrivenerJAM had the opportunity to sit in on the 2nd workshop in the ACT’s Digital Enterprise program held at the new Digital Hub in Gungahlin Library. The workshop was run by the very entertaining and knowledgeable Todd Wright from Threesides.

The concept of online marketing is at the heart of helping organisations grow their business on the web.

The full house of participants demonstrated the range of unique businesses in Canberra. From life coaching through financial planning, to dog grooming, landscape design and a natural deodorant product, there is no shortage of entrepreneurs willing to have a go at developing their own business in the nation’s capital.

The workshop looked at developing an online marketing plan, social media tools and practical information on what to do now, what to do next and what to do later.

Some of the key messages included:

• All roads don’t lead to your website, they lead to your customer
• Focus on your keywords
• Help Google search across all areas of your site – video, images, maps, text etc
• Create search engine friendly content
• Utilise Search Engine Optimisation to help drive traffic:
  • Develop content that can be linked to from reputable websites
  • Don’t link to poor websites
  • Create titles and labels
  • Create social media links
  • Develop a Google site map in XML (using the BetterWP plugin if you have a WordPress site)
  • Develop a clean menu structure; and
  • Optimise for people first.
• Use Google alerts to develop free media monitoring
• Use Google Places to define who you are and what you do
• Pay for individual keywords in Pay per Click advertising
• Use Google Analytics to determine how customers get to your site and what they do while they’re there and afterwards
• Turn your Analytics into the real world – for instance, how can you develop partnerships with organisations that refer traffic to your business?
• Make sure you use a call to action on every page
• Make sure your contact details are on every web page of your site
• WordPress has taken nearly 12% of the world’s CMS (content management system) market and is an excellent platform to get up and going
• Invest time in email marketing
• Have a two way conversation via social media platforms; and
• Create a culture of content, because remember, content is king!

Finally, don’t wait, get up and going, and do it quickly!!

Digital Strategy – Keep it simple and keep it relevant

Some do’s and don’ts about the digital strategies you are employing in your small business – build your digital strategy as a component of your broader business strategy, simplify your online presence, make sure you use the platforms you have, and review these regularly to maintain relevance and focus.

Don’t Make Customers Pay For Your Digital Marketing Mistakes

Being funny: A social media strategy?

People marvel at those marvelous folks on Twitter who have a knack for being funny in 140 characters. It creates a great vibe around the person or brand and people are drawn to them.

Clever businesses use humour to market their products, and Twitter has helped sharpen the digital funny bone. Otterbox, a maker of smartphone cases, show why you need their products. But they don’t show you the product…

Hubspot, A Cambridge, Massachusetts marketing software company, took parody to a new level a couple of years ago with their “Foursquare Cops” series.

But is it possible to have similar success in Australian small and medium-sized businesses?

It takes guts to be funny. Companies that half-arse it end up in the poo. It has to be well thought out yet spontaneous, executed professionally yet have a ragged edge. There needs to be an element of danger. Yet take it one millimetre too far and you have carnage.

Businesses need to be very careful when pushing the funny button. The Twitterverse et al is adept at ripping the guts out of anyone who is inauthentic, implausible or insensitive.