Inside Enterprise Issue 1: "The Gamechanger"

EDITOR’S MESSAGE Editor-in-Chief Jenny Huang Deputy Editor-in-Chief Howell Sze Communications Director Nicholas Fahy Publisher Matthew Green Branch Director Geoffrey Li Editors Mario Moreno Sun-Yong Kim Shayan Ganeshan Khosrow Kyanian Brian Kelly Chloe Saintilan Sama Rahman IT Director Andrew Huynh Designers Tracy Quan Evgeny Zvyagin Finance and Marketing Scott Liu James Pyo Andrew Peters Yianna Zafiriou Sarah Liu Board of Advisors Beau Chase Claudine Moutou Daniel Petrie Heather Robson Hugh Simpson Mark Chan Max Soyref Michael Allan Stefan Gruber

This journal comes to you with the blood and tears of an incredible group of people who believed it was possible to create a publication that would be ‘game-changing’. From its inception, Inside Enterprise was not only about giving students a voice amidst the overwhelming and tumultuous flood of information that comprises business journalism, but to make accessible the information that is truly relevant, important and transformative. Our founding vision was to become a platform that bridged two worlds – that of university-taught theory and real-world business applications. In effect, every business student would have regular access to a host of experiences and tools that could help them translate mere ideas into reality.

And so we interviewed entrepreneurs, professionals and students like yourself who have inspiring experiences to share. We investigated industries as diverse as music through to beer, and we engaged in debates that ranged from gender equality in the workforce to the ethics of controversial advertising. We did this in recognition of the fact that successful business people are often more than great thinkers: they are brilliant communicators who can inspire change through the very power of their words and ideas.

As such, it only made sense that our inaugural issue was to be themed ‘The Gamechanger’. We are approaching a brave new world where the quantity of information and the speed of change render us both powerful and vulnerable. IT can no longer afford to be simply a service provider, new skills are needed in the interview room, emerging economies are at the fore of cultivating entrepreneurial talent, big data and emerging knowledge fields such as brain science are realising hitherto undreamt-of possibilities, and cities themselves are innovating to become competitive, sustainable, global business hubs.

The ideas canvassed in this issue are but a cross-section of the immeasurable facets of the changing business landscape that we are each a part of.

Change is exciting – but we must first learn the game before we can play it, before we can hope to excel and revel in the possibilities it presents.

Towards this purpose, the Inside Enterprise website (www.insideenterprise. org) features many more articles, student stories and our selection of online forums, webinars and business blogs as further tools for your benefit.

I would like to sincerely thank our Board of Advisors and our sponsors for recognising the value in our publication and making this first issue possible across four New South Wales universities. To the Editorial Team and executives, I am incredibly thankful for your dedication and passion. Lastly, I would like to thank you, dear reader, for contributing your time to read and to write. We hope you find this issue informative and insightful. Above all, we hope you find it inspiring.

Jenny Huang Founder Editor-in-Chief

COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER © 2013 Inside Enterprise. All rights reserved.

The views expressed in Inside Enterprise are those of its contributors alone. Neither Inside Enterprise nor its Board of Advisors take responsibility for any material published. All pictures remain the properties of their respective copyright owners.

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C ONT E NT S INTER EST S

R E GUL A RS Around the World Jessica Kan, Frederick Nyguyen & Howell Sze

Ideas Intrapreneurship, psychometric testing, lean six sigma, coworking spaces, enterprise social networks, infographics.

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Linh Dao, Andrew Huynh & Sun-Yong Kim

Student Story Margaret Zhang on the business of fashion

Ehren Heilman

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Brain Science and the New Technological Frontier Greater understanding of brain processes can improve existing business practices.

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Student Entrepreneur Karl Bei

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Enactus

Scott Liu & Teresa Dang

INTE RV I EWS

AIESEC

Minh Thuy Thai

Daesol Lee

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44 ONLINE

Stephanie Chan

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For many more articles and to contribute your own, visit www.insideenterprise.org

Jenny Huang

Inside Start-ups An interview on young entrepreneurialism with Genevieve George, founder of OneShift

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Sun-Yong Kim

Mentorships

Inside Headhunting An interview with CEO Edward Andrew on the world of executive recruitment

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Ellie Hewitt

Vanessa Cartwright

Breaking Glass An interview with Chancellor Belinda Hutchinson on the gender realities facing our generation

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STUDENT RO OM

Joshua Shuvalov

The Fruits of Paradox Apple’s commercial paradise and Blackberry’s fall

Beer Wars The battle posed by craft beers and premium imports

Sam Tidswell

Aaren Cristini

Big Data: A Measured Life The business of measuring and predicting the future

Confidence: The Leadership Kryptonite In leadership, confidence is not always the key

The Rising Tide How shipyards are changing to stay afloat

Mario Moreno

Welcome to the Thunderdome How Jay Z and Kanye West are pioneering innovative marketing

Blight Rail Redeveloping Sydney's CBD

Alexander Chang

F E ATURE S Made in India How India is exporting entrepreneurs to the world

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Levi Romanov

Cecilia Le

Matthew Green

How to Begin investing in real estate

Shockvertising The psychology behind controversial ads

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Stay connected Tweet @IE_online

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Around the World US TAPERING OF QE There has been consistent discussion of tapering by Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve since April 2013. QE3 was implemented by Bernanke as the third stage of quantitative easing since traditional monetary policy was regarded as irrelevant with interest rates at 0 basis points. This stage involved the purchasing of $85bn of mortgage-backed securities per month. However, the decision to begin tapering on the 18th of December 2013 was met with resounding confidence from the stock market, with investors choosing to look towards the strengthening of the US economy to guide their perceptions on the tapering decision.

The Canadian dollar’s strong inverse correlation with US bond yields is expected to weaken the Canadian currency.

US RECOVERY Economic recovery in the developed world is being led by the US housing sector, which is strong due to lower interest rates allowing home-owners to refinance.

Growth is also expected in Japan and Europe over 2014 as low interest rates that are supporting growth in the US and euro zone are set to continue until 2015.

GOLD During the GFC, the price of gold soared as investors saw gold as a safe haven, with prices reaching its highest at $1889.70 per ounce – an almost 200% rise since 2004.

Yet 2013 saw one of the largest drops in gold prices. Gold was almost 20% cheaper than late 2012. It is expected to drop another 20% in 2014 as Goldman Sachs predicts further downside risks associated with commodities. There are arguments that high demand for gold in China and India may drive prices, but the reality is that investors continue to demand yield, something that gold cannot provide.

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Jessica Kan, Frederick Nguyen & Howell Sze

US DEBT CEILING On the 1st of October 2013, the US government shut down after failure to produce a bipartisan plan, with Congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Obama’s Affordable Care Act was repealed. The debt limit is set by the US Congress and depicts the total value of the US government’s borrowing. If the US fails to meet its debt, it will go into default which may lead to major adverse economic effects and a downgraded credit rating. In the past 12 years, the ceiling has been raised 10 times.

AMAZON PRIME AIR Amazon announced intentions for a dronebased direct delivery system within the next five years. Currently tested Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) can carry products under five pounds, approximately equivalent to 86% of Amazon's inventory. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is determined to put Prime Air into commercial use and deliver the ultimate goal of “getting packages into customers’ hands in 30 minutes”. The potential impact of UAV technology on delivery systems and other uses has been compared to by some as similar to what the personal computer did for technological innovation.

CHILE'S BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS Political risk is a major consideration for companies looking to invest, with many countries in the past having shied away from South America for that exact reason. The landslide victory by the center left party and its candidate Michelle Bachelet in December 2013 reflects the growing stability in the Chilean political scene, a trend which has propelled Chile to become one of the most competently managed economies in the world. As the first of South American countries to be accepted into the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Chile’s low unemployment and inflation rate remain the envy of Latin America, offering a blueprint of free market and trade policies for other countries to follow.

AFRICAN ONLINE SHOPPING In Africa, growing consumption demands are fuelling the growth of prominent retailers such as Jumia, Africa’s would-be Amazon, which hopes to drive the continent's rising middle class consumers towards online shopping. As local shopping continues to be more expensive and offer less choice, the growth of Jumia and rival Kongo.com reflects the untapped potential in Africa that investors and emerging market specialists remain optimistic about.

EUROPEAN RECESSION OVER The recession in the Eurozone has reached its pit, with economies forecast to grow by 1-1.25% in 2014 after falling by 0.5% in 2012. Due to record unemployment and a subdued inflation rate that is well below the ECB’s 2% target, any recovery will be very slow and gradual. 2014’s worst performer is expected to be Cyprus with an expected GDP’s contraction of around 3.9%.

THE AFRICAN 'ECO' In November 2013, the leaders of West African countries agreed on introducing a new shared currency, the eco, over the next few years. The currency is to be rolled out in six initial countries by 2015 and in another five years, the other members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) will adopt the eco too, creating a union of over 300m people.

However, the documented struggles of the euro have highlighted political and economic difficulties posed by a shared currency. Research shows there exists poor correlation between the economies of the various members of the UEMOA and wide gaps between national GDPs. Nonetheless, there are benefits of a simplification of trade, and the previous success of the UEMOA’s single currency provides strong arguments for the eco.

DATA BAN On 9 December 2013, Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft were part of a group of the world’s leading technology companies which published an open letter to Barack Obama urging an international ban on the bulk collection of data by governments. The companies claim that “the balance of power in many countries has tipped too far in favour of the state and away from the individual”, highlighting the need for reform to government surveillance practices world-wide.

JAPAN LOOSENS UP The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has been aggressively pursuing an 'ultra-loose' monetary policy, pledging to expand the monetary base by 13% to 15% of GDP (60 to 70 trillion yen), buying Japanese government bonds at an annual pace of about 50 trillion yen (10% of GDP) in order to stimulate the Japanese economy. The yen is dramatically weakening and will fall further, according to most analysts. This radical economic policy was implemented after two decades of economic stagnation that was a result of a housing boom eerily similar to the conditions created by the US leading up to the GFC. In September 2013, the government declared an end to stagnation. Japan’s growth has been unrivalled by any other developed nation during 2013.

CHINESE SLOWDOWN The Chinese economy appears to have stabilised. It grew 7.8% in 2012 – the lowest in 13 years – and could slow to less than 7% in 2014 (Richard Jerram, chief economist, Bank of Singapore). As China attempts to rebalance their economy away from reliance on investment, authorities are trying to slow lending growth.

MINING DECLINE The Australian economy is signalling a potential shift in dependence from its backbone for the last decade, the mining sector. However, the Chief Economist of Macquarie Group, Richard Gibbs, has indicated that it is not currently clear which sector can provide the sufficient impetus needed to offset the decline in investment in Australia’s mining sector

HYDROGEN CARS At recent car shows in Tokyo and Los Angeles, carmakers have announced hydrogen-powered vehicles, reinvigorating debate around hydrogen as the clean fuel of the future. Hyundai is set to release its Hyundai Tucson ix35 Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicle in 2014, claiming that volume production might push down the cost of hydrogen fuel technology faster than alternatives, bringing "together the best features of [gasoline engines and] battery electric vehicles.”.

AUSTRALIAN HOUSE PRICES Historically low interest rates, following the Reserve Bank’s rate cut in August 2013 as a means to stimulate growth after a year of below-average global growth, has helped to shift investor focus towards real estate. Housing prices are dominating the national conversation to an extent not seen since 2003, when house prices grew almost twice as fast as they have been today. www.insideenterprise.org | 7

Ideas

Linh Dao, Andrew Huynh & Sun-Yong Kim

According to author Cyndi Laurin, the four criteria essential to fostering intrapreneurship are: 1. Leadership that allows decisions to be made at the lowest levels, empowering employees to share and implement viable ideas.

2. Possessing a transparent culture where people understand and engage in the mission and vision created by the executive staff.

3. A democratic organisational structure.

4. A reward structure that encourages all employees to contribute to the organisation’s overall success

Psychometric Testing

Intrapreneurship REAL INNOVATION HAPPENS WHEN FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES SEE A PROBLEM AND CAN OFFER A SOLUTION

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eferred to as the art of getting employees to act like entrepreneurs within a larger, established organisation, ‘intrapreneurship’ has emerged as a defining feature of the new innovation economy where companies can become more dynamic, innovative and agile by adopting entrepreneurial approaches to drive business value. Intrapreneurship has been responsible for worldwide product innovations from Post-It Notes at 3M in 1977, to the Java Programming Language at Sun Microsystems, and Gmail at Google.

Intrapreneurs have the advantage of avoiding the financial risks of being an entrepreneur, while still having the freedom to develop new products, services and systems which do not conform to their company’s ordinary routines and protocols.

Companies today are realising the value of fostering intrapreneurship and striving to create conditions akin to Google’s famous ‘20% Time Program’ where employees spend one day each week working on projects outside of

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their job descriptions to develop something new to pitch directly to executives. This follows a recognition that real innovation happens not through formal innovation programs but often in the field when middle managers and frontline employees see a problem and can offer a solution.

Virgin founder Richard Branson believes the key to unleashing the power of intrapreneurs within firms is “to enable them to pursue their vision” and that “Virgin could never have grown into the group of more than 200 companies it is now, were it not for a steady stream of intrapreneurs who looked for and developed opportunities”.

However, unrestrained intrapreneurship may also undermine the very creative ideas that intrapreneurs seek to implement. American management expert Ken Blanchard states that unbounded creativity can undermine an organisation’s agenda if people, energy and resources are diverted to support new, edgy ideas that may never materialise into viable revenue streams.

PSYCHOMETRIC TESTS HAVE BEEN VERY EFFECTIVE IN ANALYSING THE MORE ‘HIDDEN’ TRAITS OF AN INDIVIDUAL WHICH ARE NOT EVIDENT IN THEIR FORMAL CERTIFICATIONS

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he return of humanist theories of management has seen an increasing use of psychometrics that perform personality tests on new employees. Roughly 18% of companies currently use psychometric tests in their hiring process, a rate growing by 10-15% each year. Companies worldwide, from accounting firms and banks to airlines and mining companies, spend millions of dollars measuring employee

personality types, learning styles and preferences. In Britain alone, the personality testing industry is worth $500m and rapidly increasing.

In addition to hiring, the InterAmerican Development Bank argues that psychometric testing can also be used by financial institutions to reduce loan defaults by 20% to 45%, and increase profits by up to 30%. Psychometric testing could be used to alleviate the struggle for microfinance services to remain financially sustainable, while still promoting economic equality by providing finance to impoverished groups, micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses which have traditionally lacked financial service access. These tests measure potential borrowers’ entrepreneurial and business skills, ethics, and general intelligence to generate a score which indicates their willingness and ability to repay a loan.

For example, Mumbai-based medical loan provider Arogya Finance, which lends to patients undergoing emergency medical procedures but who have no collateral to offer for loans, administers a psychometric test to score loan applicants on qualities such as risk-taking ability, impulsive behaviour and credit worthiness.

Unfortunately, too many organisations still inappropriately use psychometric tests. Correctly measuring abilities, aptitudes, personality, intelligence and motivations requires designing tests that accurately measure the wildly complex and dynamic nature of human behaviour – a task much easier said than done. Nevertheless, recruitment firm Michael Page states that modern psychometric tests have been very effective in analysing the more ‘hidden’ traits of an individual which are not evident in their formal certifications.

Bitcoin

Enterprise Social Networks TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE

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he digital age has transformed how we communicate within businesses. By the end of 2013, more than 90% of Fortune 500 corporations will have deployed an Enterprise Social Network (ESN) such as Yammer, Chatter, Tibbr and Socialcast.

However, this optimistic projection by Deloitte does not guarantee an enthusiastic response from employees who view ESN as merely a form of 'Facebooking' within a business environment. Properly understood and implemented, an ESN – an internal networking platform accessible by employees which facilitates file sharing, communication and collaboration – can bring incredible benefits in the form of greater efficiency of information sharing, socialisation in an increasingly timepressed work environment, and speed up complex, cross-departmental work. ESNs

can also be leveraged for crowdsourcing, where needed services, ideas, or content are solicited from a large group of people.

'Two heads are better than one' is an especially true maxim in business contexts where people with different backgrounds, expertise and talents converge.

The success of many Australian firms which recently rolled out ESN creates a well-founded belief that this will spark a new trend in the digital workplace.

Banking and financial institutions such as NAB, Commonwealth Bank, Deloitte, and KPMG have been at the forefront: NAB has 22,000 active users on its Yammer – the majority of its workforce – who use it to brainstorm corporate strategy, work philosophy, working conditions and sustainability.

BITCOINS HAVE EXPLODED AS AN ALTERNATIVE CURRENCY INVESTMENT, BECOMING THE WORLD’S MOST EXPENSIVE CURRENCY WITH A PER UNIT VALUE OF OVER US$1000

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ollowing the GFC, a deep desire has emerged among contemporary investors for a new currency that central banks cannot debase and that the government cannot tax. While a return to the Gold Standard has preoccupied economists for

years, an even more intriguing alternative has surfaced in the form of Bitcoins, a decentralised virtual currency that may potentially revolutionise modern banking.

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which is traded among investors. Unlike other currencies, it has no central authority or government-based tracking and operates using a peer-to-peer network of decentralised computers from around the world. Despite these differences, Bitcoins can still be used as a trade for other currency and is now an accepted form of payment in many modern business sectors.

In recent years, Bitcoins have exploded as an alternative currency investment, causing vigorous debate over their viability as a global currency capable of being used as a medium for exchange. Bitcoins have already become the world’s most expensive currency with a per unit value of over US$1000 and a market value of over US$12 billion. 12 million of the 23 million bitcoins available have now already been created and are in circulation.

By far its most attractive feature is the extremely low processing fees charged.

Users may also include fees with transactions to receive priority processing. In addition, merchant processors base many of their functions in Bitcoins which means these transactions can be offered with much lower fees than those traditionally incurred with Paypal or credit card networks.

Bitcoin advocates claim that the use of Bitcoin as a currency protects the value of the currency in a way that fiat currency cannot. Unlike traditional fiat currency which can be eroded by quantitative easing, the supply of Bitcoins is limited to 23 million which experts estimate will not be reached until 2040. This allows their value to remain stable over time without any inflationary pressure.

The most common criticism that arises is from the increased potential for fraud associated with a virtual currency, where transactions are irreversible. Stealing Bitcoins only requires a private cryptic key that can be ascertained by trained hackers using sophisticated software.

These factors may explain the rise in Bitcoin robbery cases with Europe’s primary Bitcoin exchange, BIPS, reporting a loss of 1,295 Bitcoins in a DDOS cyber attack. Even more recently, China’s GBL exchange abruptly went offline, causing $4.1 million in Bitcoins to go missing.

As such, until the long term viability of Bitcoin currency becomes fully realised, Bitcoins will remain a mere speculative opportunity.

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Infographics VISUAL LANGUAGE HAS THE POTENTIAL FOR INCREASING ‘HUMAN BANDWIDTH’

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Co-working Spaces THE NATURE OF WORK IS CHANGING AND SO TOO IS THE WAY WE USE AND TRANSFORM OUR OFFICE SPACE

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n recent times the phenomenon of ‘coworking spaces’ has come to fascinate the modern labour market. Designed to unite and inspire creative collaborations, co-working spaces allow independent freelancers and start-ups to work alongside each other in a shared environment.

Melbourne and Sydney are now quickly catching up to the growth in American and European markets, with the opening of co-working spaces such as Vibewire’s Enterprise Hub, Home/Work and Fishburners, Sydney’s largest non-profit co-working space, located in Ultimo.

Their appeal lies in their provision of an alternative middle ground to paying expensive office rent or the stigma of a backyard operation. But perhaps the greatest advantage is in the element of community.

Spaces like The Hub, Melbourne, have between 70 and 100 people working at any one time. Working amongst a huge pool of potential business partners or clients, with exposure to entrepreneurs from as many as 50 different industries, provides occupiers with access to skills and avenues for testing their ideas which are simply not available when working alone and thus can greatly increase the speed and success of growing a new business.

Large corporations are also recognis-

ing the value of supporting co-working spaces. In December 2013, News Corp announced that it will sponsor Fishburners with the goal of allowing News Corp to, according to employee Alisa Brown, “foster innovation within the community while also gaining access to some of the country’s greatest digital thinkers”. Similarly, INCUBATE, a start-up accelerator originating at the University of Sydney, which offers co-working spaces where high-potential student start-ups receive professional mentoring, recently announced it would expand to other universities across Australia through a partnership with Google.

Co-working spaces have emerged because the nature of work is changing and so too is the way we use and transform our office space. AMP Capital, Deloitte and CBRE are just some of the firms experimenting with small office hubs, which form part of the ‘hybrid office’ concept expected to replace the traditional centralised office with interrelated, decentralised structures. So strong is this trend that in a recent report Deloitte argued that work places very soon “will operate like interconnected hubs, allowing people to select work spaces that suit their changing needs and wants”.

e consume more information today than ever before. In the age of Big Data, the true dilemma is no longer ‘how do we collect information’ but instead ‘how do we effectively use this data’.

Infographics, also known as ‘data visualisation’ or ‘information design’, are a way to visually organise and communicate data in a form that can be easily understood and processed by its intended audience – often by converting data into a digestible format via charts, maps and visual stories. Infographics seek attention in an attention-deficit society, where consumers’ intake of information has whittled down from page-long blog posts to Facebook status updates to 140-character tweets and 6-second videos on Snapchat.

The trend towards increasingly visual modes of communication is a recogni-

tion that the age-old maxim 'knowledge is power' must today give way to a consideration of how we can instead 'make knowledge powerful'. Research suggests that humans can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text and 90% of memory recall is based on visual impact. Robert E. Horn from Stanford University states that “when words and visual elements are closely entwined, we create something new and we augment our communal intelligence ... visual language has the potential for increasing ‘human bandwidth’—the capacity to take in, comprehend, and more efficiently synthesize large amounts of new information.”

Businesses use infographics to entertain, engage and educate, while cementing desired messages in the minds of their audiences. However, according to Mi-

chael Robinson, head of graphics at The Guardian, the explosion in data visualisations and infographics has also produced a number of ill-informed, badly-designed and even misleading representations which can have serious consequences for certain sensitive datasets.

Lean Six Sigma CREATING AN LSS PROFICIENT WORKFORCE HAS ALLOWED MANY COMPANIES TO REORGANISE THEIR PRODUCTION PROCESS IN A WAY THAT HAS ALLOWED FOR SUPERIOR FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE AND INNOVATION

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oday, the need to modernise organisational processes so as to enable internal creativity has never been more important. One answer to this need has been Lean Six Sigma (LSS), a management theory that combines the principles of Lean Manufacturing and the Six Sigma method of production. Lean Manufacturing is a set of principles that focuses resources purely on processes which generate direct value for consumers, treating the use of resources for any non-valueproducing tasks as wasteful. Similarly, the Six Sigma approach is a set of techniques and tools first developed by Motorola in the 1980s that aim to improve the quality of outputs by minimising the defect rate and variability of production processes.

Combined, LSS is a highly disciplined methodology that helps organisations focus on developing top-quality products through identifying and eliminating waste and quality issues – including non-utilised talent, over-processing, over-production, manufacturing faults and excessive wait times.

Vast sections of the corporate world have begun to establish LSS training

programs that teach their employees how to apply LSS processes in the business world. In particular, LSS accreditation programs have emerged with educational institutions such as the University of New South Wales offering ‘Green Belt’ and ‘Black Belt’ courses that qualify employees in directing LSS projects. Creating an LSS proficient workforce has allowed many companies to reorganise their production process in a way that has allowed for superior financial performance and innovation.

For example, POSCO, South Korea’s largest steel producer, faced fierce competition as it privatised in 2000 after decades of government protection. Using LSS’s focus on customer demands, POSCO developed process and IT innovations that dramatically reduced finished steel inventories and cut their lead times from 28 to just 14 days by 2003. LSS helped POSCO escape its low-margin business as a regional low-cost provider and enabled it to elevate itself to the global stage as a premier provider of innovative steel products and services, becomig now the world’s third largest steelmaker. www.insideenterprise.org | 11

student story

MARGARET

ZHANG ON THE BUSINESS OF FASHION Matthew Green While studying full-time as a commerce and law student, Margaret Zhang has chosen to define her own path in the business world by working tirelessly to pursue something that she loves: fashion. Hers is a story of how opportunities tend to present themselves to people who actively go looking for them.

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t is often said that the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. The implication of this expression may seem generic, but in the context of one of the Australian fashion industry’s most successful young talents, it has certainly held true.

Margaret Zhang, 20, currently runs her own fashion blog – Shine By Three – and regularly travels around the world for photo shoots and fashion weeks in cities such as New York, London and Paris. She also works as a contributor to Harpers Bazaar Australia, does her own freelance writing and photography, and works as a creative consultant for corporations that are seeking branding, creative and marketing direction in the age of digital media and online social platforms. But that isn’t all. Late last year, Margaret finished her first TV hosting job for the program ‘Fashion Asia’ – a show following fashion, design and art trends throughout dozens of cities across Asia – which aired on the Australia Network in December. Margaret is also in her fourth year of a combined commerce and law degree at the University

“Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.” of Sydney.

When asked to describe how this incredible journey began, she replied simply: “I was bored.”

Margaret explained that it was around the age of 16 when she started to develop an interest in fashion, imagery, editorials and magazines, but her friends didn’t really share the same enthusiasm. Her response?

She started a blog.

“I started my blog, Shine By Three, as a way to connect with others online who shared similar passions and could provide direction to more of the same material.”

Soon after, Margaret made her first significant leap into the fashion world by deciding to attend the New York Fashion Week. Half of the cost of the trip she funded by herself. The other half came from a sponsorship deal with smartphone maker Blackberry, whom Margaret had

approached in order to present an appealing business pitch. All of this achieved at an age before she could even legally drive a car by herself.

Since that first trip, Margaret has attended numerous fashion weeks and engaged with other major sponsors including Nokia, Harpers Bazaar, Milk Studios, major airlines and dozens of fashion brands. In establishing each of these partnerships, Margaret learned how to effectively leverage her skills and her influence with a large online audience in order to craft an assertive personal brand.

Prior to beginning university, Margaret explains that she had always wanted to become a lawyer, and achieving the ATAR cut-off seemed to confirm those aspirations. Up until that point, the blog was just a hobby. However, as she began her combined commerce/law degree, studies→ www.insideenterprise.org | 13

“You have to be willing to give up lots of time.”

in business and marketing began to slowly change her perception. Her previous view of the business world as a limited and routine environment was quickly replaced with an understanding of the endless opportunities available to those who are able to meet an unmet demand or sell an attractive product.

“Currently in Australia, the fashion blogging industry hasn’t taken off in the way it has in the US or Europe. I viewed this as a gap in the market, and saw the potential to turn my interest into something more than just a hobby.”

To further advance her position in the industry at the end of her first year of university, Margaret joined FELLT, an Australian blog network, where she gained experience in marketing and industry networking. One of the more amusing anecdotes from her time with FELLT was learning how to handle overdue invoices.

"If you have to personally chase up long overdue invoices, you constantly feel the risk of spoiling your good relationship with the partner." To solve this, Margaret created an alter ego – in the form of a fake email address – that she would use as her ‘agent’ to chase up invoices, allowing her to maintain her own good personal relationship with the partner.

While Margaret describes her time with FELLT as an invaluable experience that really set her on the right path in the

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industry, she explains that her decision to leave was driven by a desire to grow her own site into more of an online publication, moving away from the feel of a blog.

Around this time, Margaret also identified a fast growing interest in her material from Chinese viewers. She responded to this opportunity by entirely recoding her website to include a Mandarin translation, which has resulted in explosive growth in the size of her audience.

The common thread that weaves itself throughout Margaret’s inspiring story is that everything she has achieved has been the clear result of hard work, organisation and confidence in her abilities. While it may have been tempting to spend the summer at the end of year 12 unwinding after an arduous year of study, Margaret chose instead to step up her involvement with her blog by seeking out players in the Australian fashion industry, taking them out to lunch, making friends, and building her network. As the saying goes, perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.

“If you want something bad enough, you go after it, and you do what it takes until you get your hands on it.”

The key, she says, is that whatever your passion might be, you will only be successful if you want it as bad as you want to sleep, eat or breathe.

“When I first started reaching out to people and asked them to meet for coffee, their responses would initially be: ‘umm… you’re like 19?’ But now, with most of the people I work with, it feels like my age is irrelevant, and that’s a good thing.

If you’re able to communicate and work with people to a point where age becomes irrelevant, that means you’re on the right track.”

More recently, during a university semester filled with assessments, exams and hundreds of pages of weekly readings, Margaret also spent weekends and study breaks travelling to seven cities throughout Asia to film for the TV show.

“That was probably the hardest I’ve ever worked in a short space of time. When we were filming, we would be doing 20-hour days, and then I’d be on a plane home to write an essay due the following week.

But it was also one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had.”

So where does Margaret see herself in five years?

“I definitely want to see where the world of consulting will take me. It’s regular work, it’s challenging, and because I get to work with people, I love it.”

In the last year particularly, Margaret has worked with a number of Western fashion brands, assisting them as they move into the fast emerging consumer markets throughout Asia. She has been work-

ing with these organisations by running them through applied digital and online marketing strategies that corporations aren’t traditionally used to, but which fall right within her area of expertise. One of Margaret’s core competencies is her ability to interact with her own audience, observe how they like to shop and what they like to see, and then use this knowledge to determine the advice she provides to clients.

“Consulting is something I never imagined myself getting into, but then again, opportunities will only present themselves when you go out there looking for them.”

It’s easy to hear the story of a person like Margaret and immediately dismiss the possibility of ever being able to achieve the same kind of success. To come to such a conclusion, however, would be to overlook the entire message behind how Margaret’s own achievements came about. When she started a fashion blog as a 16 year old, she had no intention of travelling the world as the host of a fashion TV show or working as a creative consultant for fashion brands entering the emerging Asian markets. She simply found something that she loved and started working hard to make it a reality. It was only then that the doors started opening and the ideas for future projects started materialising.

“In the first critical stage, whatever your project may be, you have to be willing to give up lots of time.”

“It has to be regular; you can’t ever leave it, even if it’s just an hour a day. If you just do one massive chunk and then leave it for a few weeks, that’s not productive, and you aren’t going to be successful.”

Success and achievements aside, Margaret maintains a humble outlook on everything she has achieved. “I don’t really look at myself in a different light because of what’s happened in the last few years – I do all of this because I love it and because it interests me. I often have to pinch myself to make sure it’s all real, and I feel honoured to be able to have a part in such an exciting line of work.”

And what has been the coolest experience she’s had since she started travelling the world?

“When I was at a fashion week after-party in New York, I got to chat with A$AP Rocky, and he said I have ‘dope’ style, so I’m pretty happy about that.” ■

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MADE IN INDIA a nation of entrepreneurs Mario Moreno INDIA MAY BE THE WORLD’S 19TH LARGEST EXPORTER, BUT THIS COUNTRY WHICH IS HOME TO MORE THAN A SIXTH OF THE PLANET NOW LEADS THE WORLD IN EXPORTING THE 21ST CENTURY’S MOST VALUABLE COMMODITY: ENTREPRENEURS.

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here are some famous words that Indians of a certain generation are said to have learnt by memory. These words came from India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, minutes after an independent India was born in 1947: “A moment comes… when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends; and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance”.

Unfortunately, in the few decades after independence India’s inward and protectionist economic model did not render Nehru’s words sufficient justice.

Economic reforms in the 1990s were the first ingredient of change. India finally adopted an open, market-oriented approach, encouraging rapid and unprecedented levels of foreign direct investment such that within the next ten years it would become one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Today, Nehru’s words find relevance

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in the chaotic and messy growth that India is experiencing. India is on the rise as a potential superpower and its secret weapon has nothing to do with reforms. The spirit of entrepreneurship, made strong because of the obstacles that corruption and inefficient bureaucracy have posed, is allowing the country to make use of its best asset: its people.

The spirit of entrepreneurship in India goes much deeper than venture capitalists making a killing in Silicon Valley. For many, it begins with the chaos of the street markets in India which have been dubbed the breeding ground for the world’s future captains of industry. It is here where child vendors first learn to ‘hustle’, developing valuable skills in negotiation, salesmanship, risk-taking and resilience which are pivotal to succeeding in the business world. → www.insideenterprise.org | 17

Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy being brought back as Executive Chairman Photo: Bollyshowtime

Running the Show from the Back Ambition may very well start on the street but for many the cliché of the outsourced call centre serves as the first rung in the ladder to success. In fact, the outsourcing wave which occurred after the reforms of the 1990s was a potent sign of a changing economy that was ready to play ball on the global stage. India was lifted to an

THIS EMPHASIS ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND GROOMING YOUNG TALENT TO BECOME LEADERS ATTRACTS 1.4 MILLION APPLICATIONS A YEAR WORLDWIDE, WITH ONLY A 2% SUCCESS RATE investment grade rating by Moody’s in 2003, the same year that Goldman Sachs released a report predicting that India would overtake France and Italy by 2020, Germany, UK and Russia by 2025 and Japan by 2035 to become the third largest economy in the world. However, these predictions and growth statistics mask just how important India’s role has become in global commerce as the switchboard for 18 | www.insideenterprise.org

the world’s largest corporations, and the back office for the entire world.

What many fail to realise is that there is significant power in running the show from the back. In 2008, Pakistan and India were on the brink of a nuclear war and the Indian business community, particularly the tech-sector, lobbied the government to order a ceasefire. Their rationale was simple: controlling the backroom of so many Fortune 500 companies meant that they really could not afford a week off from work and, by extension, neither could the Indian economy. Subsequently, leaders in New Delhi ordered the ceasefire within the fortnight.

Reverse Brain Drain While outsourcing remains a prominent driver of Indian economic success, college students in India have decided that outsourcing does not have to be limited to company back room operations. Middle class Americans are now increasingly tapping into India’s brain power by hiring tutors for their children that operate straight out of their homes and offer savings that cannot be matched in the U.S. One such successful venture is Growing Stars, an online tutoring service based in Fremont, California, whose 38 tutors are located in Cochin, India. They offer tutoring in maths, science and English to students in grades three to twelve, with

all the tutors possessing postgraduate and teaching degrees. The company chairman, Saji Phillip, highlights the firm’s attention to detail, for successful tutors are even required to undertake two weeks of ‘accent and cultural training’ in order to be able to adapt to American English instead of the British English taught in India. It is this thoroughness and commitment which has seen globally successful Indian start-ups engineer what is now being referred to as the ‘reverse brain drain’. Rather than losing talent to countries like the U.S., India is fast becoming a popular destination for the best and brightest from Ivy League Schools.

Perhaps the most successful of the reverse brain drain pioneers is Infosys, India’s answer to Microsoft. Infosys was created in 1981 by seven engineers with a combined starting capital of only US$250 and has since grown to an estimated US$30.8 billion. The lure of Infosys is its reputation to place such a high premium on human capital, an ethic which Chairman Narayana Murthy sees as key to innovation.

This emphasis on knowledge management and grooming young talent to become leaders attracts 1.4 million applications a year worldwide, with only a 2% success rate. Even the headquarters in Bangalore stands as a potent symbol of an emerging India: an ultramodern, 43 acre, resort-style complex. Once more, it has been entrepre-

neurial drive that has propelled Infosys in its ascent to prominence.

Narayana Murthy has been listed among the twelve greatest entrepreneurs of our time by Fortune magazine and is widely known in India as the father of outsourcing. A visionary, he was one of the first CEOs to actively support entrepreneurship amongst employees, supporting the most promising ideas with infrastructure, mentoring, funding and a year’s salary.

Benefits accrue to both parties, as any successful product or service lines can either be re-absorbed by the employer or the employee can venture solo but become a valuable industry partner. Observers have dubbed such initiatives ‘intrapreneurship’ and giants such as Google have already reaped significant value from this approach.

Gmail, Google News and Adsense have all been products of the Innovation Time Off (ITO) program, whereby employees devote 20% of their work day to their own independent projects. Regardless of the name given, it is this love affair with entrepreneurship that is fuelling change in India.

The Other Asian Superpower We can place India's formidable entrepreneurial revolution into perspective when we compare India with the other Asian rising superpower, China. A number of factors would in fact indicate that China has a

better environment for entrepreneurism: on a macroeconomic level, China, like the U.S, has a large homogenous market meaning that consumers across vast regions buy largely the same products. This means new ventures can build scale quickly by adopting a franchise model. China also has growing infrastructure to support sales into the large, homogeneous market. The highway system is almost complete in China and, to avoid urban sprawl, the government is developing concentrated population clusters connected by high-speed rail which benefits consumers and business alike. Chinese entrepreneurs also have access to a signifi-

‘ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS EMBEDDED IN INDIAN GENES’. NO OTHER MARKET OF THE WORLD IS SO CROWDED WITH START-UP BRANDS, NOR HAS SUCH COMPETITIVE INTENSITY cant amount of funding from the supply of private equity, something which India has very little of in comparison.

Yet, there is a key difference in their entrepreneurial engines which tilts the advantage in favour of India. China’s model

is largely focused on low costs which will deteriorate as more of the middle class emerges from low income brackets, and traditional cost and price undercutting becomes no longer feasible as employees demand higher wages.

In India, the focus is on talent grooming and innovation – something far more sustainable. This is manifest in the success story of Wipro, a disorganised agriculturebased distribution company turned global tech powerhouse. The company put in place comprehensive employee education programs to help anyone from the call-centre operator to the boardroom executive to further their skills. In many cases, bonuses are offered in the form of a diploma or masters (depending on the employee level) subsidised by Wipro. It is not surprising then that many in India have called it the ‘learning’ rather than ‘earning’ company, and while spending on education may have hit its bottom line, it has paid dividends when the economy opened up to the world and the company became a truly global player in IT consulting.

In India, the power of ideas drive profits which are spent on education and training which then breeds better ideas – and so the cycle continues. This is not to say that China is devoid of good ideas. However, when there is such an emphasis on human capital, although China may outperform→ India in the immediate term, the Indian www.insideenterprise.org | 19

India in the immediate term, the Indian model appears more ‘future proof ’.

Forbes wrote in 2010 ‘entrepreneurship is embedded in Indian genes’. No other market of the world is so crowded with start-up brands, nor has such competitive intensity. India created over 400 television channels within 2 decades, and in its telecoms industry, 15 million new buyers are added monthly to its already excess of half a billion subscribers, overtaking China as the fastest growing mobile phone market in the world.

Education These ideas are not simply a product of natural talent though. Often overlooked, the education system is undoubtedly the fuel behind the entrepreneurial machine that is modern India. The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are the most prestigious colleges in India and boast an alumni list that includes the head of Mckinsey, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Vice Chairman of Citigroup, Vice President of Google, former Chairman of Infosys, and former CEO of U.S Airways.

IIT’s rigorous curriculum is rigidly focused on engineering, mathematics and science,

often with pre-dawn classes. According to former leading student Vinod Khosla, now a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, students act like entrepreneurs the entire time they are on campus. Unlike typical universities, the on-campus services are all run from the dorms by IIT students like small businesses littered around campus, organising everything from sports and the hiring of chefs, down to the food served in the cafeterias. With admission by merit and few places, it is not uncommon for Indian students to use Princeton, MIT and Caltech as ‘backup’ schools for IIT. Many graduates say that the power of IIT in creating the world’s next leaders is largely due to the dream it represents to so many young students in India. Once you complete a B.Tech degree it is almost as if you must do it justice by creating a company or product which far surpasses the ordinary. IIT’s rigid curriculum is designed to create leaders in science and technology, people who can translate knowledge into high-value products. It is this leadership in innovation that is poised to give India the competitive edge in what is an increasingly knowledge-based global economy.

More with Less: The Changing Indian Reality The India of today is by no means a glamorous, skyscraper-filled, corporate utopia. It has neither the visual appeal of Asian cities like Shanghai and Tokyo, nor the sophistication of cities in the West. It is still a country where a common vista is that of people queuing up to charge their phones from a car battery, simply because the nation is short on electricity.

Even now, the country faces many issues.

Inflation is very high and poverty remains widespread. India is home to a third of the world’s poor and more than two thirds of these live on less than US$2 a day. But it seems that India’s story is one of necessity being the mother of innovation. An entrepreneurial class is fast developing, one that has had to succeed in spite of poverty and corruption. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, the Minister for Human Resource Development, refers to this as India’s ‘frugal’ innovation, one that begins in the mud-walled, derelict shanties in Indian villages. Coupled with a fierce drive to gain a first rate education that rivals that of the Ivy League Schools, India is the nation that has learnt to do more with less. ■

WELCOME TO THE THUNDERDOME

AAREN CRISTINI With digital media integration now a central component in effective marketing strategies, where can organisations find inspiration to truly surpass their competitors’ offerings?

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any businesses are struggling to realise success in the online environment as a result of hard-wired outlooks on operations and a reluctance to draw inspiration from young and unconventional marketing ideas. Musicians Jay Z and Kanye West, through a comparison of their radically different marketing strategies for their most recent album releases, ‘Magna Carta…Holy Grail’ (MCHG) and ‘Yeezus’, highlight the potential for innovative digital marketing strategies through offline-online integration and smartphone app technology.

INDIA’S ‘FRUGAL’ INNOVATION BEGINS IN THE MUD-WALLED, DERELICT SHANTIES IN INDIAN VILLAGES 20 | www.insideenterprise.org

“I have this new strategy. It’s called no strategy.”

For his most recent album, Yeezus, Kanye West implemented a minimalist guerrilla marketing campaign which focused on prompting a viral effect. This cemented

the anti-establishment and paradoxically anti-commercial sentiment he associated with the album, which itself was released without artwork or packaging in an empty jewel case. In addition, the promotional campaign was then supported by dystopian-style visuals which were projected upon walls in sixty-six cities around the world.

Despite these promotions existing in the physical space, they are the perfect example of a successful integration of offline and online mediums. The absence of album artwork took advantage of the user-creating and content-sharing zeitgeist that permeates the modern digital era.

It encouraged consumers to design their own covers, which were then posted and shared on image-sharing sites including Tumblr. Similarly, the video projections drew enormous crowds where individuals shared the event together before then

moving to online platforms to upload and share their experience on social networking sites such as YouTube and Vine. From a marketing perspective, this engagement further facilitated strong consumer-toconsumer interactions and word-of-mouth promotion.

Researchers have attributed the paradigmatic shift toward social media experiences to the medium’s unprecedented accessibility. Social media provides individuals with a platform for self-expression which satisfies both ingratiation and altruistic needs.

Thus, these platforms are an intrinsic component of consumers’ social identity, which in the case of West’s approach aligned this identity with emotional capital towards his brand. One consumer commented that “Very few pop-friendly reasons were given for purchasing [the album]”. Instead West achieved international exposure by

KANYE WEST AND JAY Z ARE SIMPLY TWO INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE BLURRED THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL BUSINESS MARKETING BELIEFS AND SUBVERSIVE CREATIVE STRATEGIES engineering a unique culture around his brand that appealed to more rebellious and renegade consumers, embodying the antihero archetype.

“Write the #newrules.”

Referring to digital marketing as “the wild, wild west”, Jay Z antithetically embraced the dominance of smartphone technology to exploit online and app-based promotion for his album MCHG. Jay Z took advantage of smartphones’ distribution potential by entering into a partnership with Samsung for US$5 million to exclusively release MCHG through an Android application. Prior to the launch, Jay Z released a series of videos through the app which showcased the album’s writing process, featuring interviews with high profile collaborators and advance releases of his lyrics. Only the first one million people to download on a Samsung device had access to the app, with this exclusivity heightening interest in the campaign and dually leading to content being shared unoffi-

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cially on the internet, benefiting from the subsequent viral effect.

However, some consumers became frustrated and experienced disconnection as a result of the strategy’s implementation as many were unable to download the application or were deterred upon discovering the invasive data collection permissions required for its use. Despite this drawback, and the much more corporatised approach, Jay Z’s method of reaching the market was able to effectively balance innovation demands with an appeal to a more mainstream audience.

“You are now watching The Throne.”

The conventional techniques for marketing an artist’s album revolve around releasing singles to radio, premiering music videos on television or Vevo, and holding concert and press tours which also include television interviews and magazine articles. The common denominator between West and Jay Z’s strategies is their evident creative

and unique subversion of this traditional marketing model. If success is understood to be the creation of customer value and a strengthening of customer relationships, then West effectively achieved this by forging a unique culture around his product through experiential consumer interactions. However, viewing marketing as a function of business with profit as the end objective, the sales of Yeezus were the lowest of any of his previous releases, only selling 380,000 copies. On the other hand, Jay Z’s MCHG received both Samsung’s five million dollar advance and proceeded to sell 500,000 physical copies. Assessed against these traditional business dimensions, this is well above West’s sales figures despite his approach achieving a similar viral effect and exposure, if at the cost of some consumer dissatisfaction due to its exclusivity.

Since both albums were released, to maintain the momentum of their initial strategies and ensure awareness remains at the forefront of consumer consciousness,

the two artists have announced tours and appeared prominently in the media, such as West’s interview with Zane Lowe and Jay Z’s appearance in Vanity Fair magazine. This highlights that while both

WEST ACHIEVED INTERNATIONAL EXPOSURE BY ENGINEERING A UNIQUE CULTURE AROUND HIS BRAND THAT APPEALED TO MORE REBELLIOUS AND RENEGADE CONSUMERS digital strategies were successful and innovative in different ways, it is ultimately sustained, integrated marketing communications which prevail overall.

But How Can I Learn Anything from Rap Music?

There have been a number of large corporations that have struggled or failed to uphold a sustainable competitive advantage because they were delayed in identifying changing consumer habits and preferences activated by technological developments. Research In Motion’s Blackberry failed to gain momentum in the marketplace with the advent of smartphones. Microsoft continues to attempt to recapture its 1990’s market share in product categories now dominated by Apple and Google. The music industry as a whole continues to reinvent its business model to adapt to pervasive digital piracy and streaming services such as Spotify. Focusing on the direction of digital media into the future while capitalising on social networking and the personalisation afforded by Web 3.0 technologies is the logical step towards

maintaining revenues and long-term customer relationships.

Kanye West and Jay Z are simply two individuals who, through the adaptive requirements of the twenty-first century, have blurred the boundaries between traditional business marketing beliefs and subversive creative strategies, emerging as moguls who are both successful musicians and enterprising strategists.

Instead of operating in opposition with a reckless disregard for strategies that are transforming marketing and succeeding, organisations struggling to adapt should carefully watch, observe and listen to the world’s omnipresent influences. At the moment many organisations are the little boy watching the lion at the zoo – they know the lion is dangerous and they are scared it might escape. Yet what they fail to recognise is that with a little imagination they too could become the lion. ■

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Big Data a measured life

Joshua Shuvalov We are now the most measured generation in history and most of that measurement remains well beyond our individual control.

‘Big’ data, or the drawing of information from every potential source, processing and transforming it into powerful insights that help predict the future, is causing the so-called ‘datafication’ of the world around us. It has made possible the array of new and improved services which is already making life more efficient for many, and it has also made possible the idea of Korea building an omniscient, pseudo-utopian, computer-controlled city. What this means for consumers and businesses may need to be calculated in more than mere dollars as we question how closely we really want to be measured.

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WHAT DO A KOREAN METROPOLIS, A BRITISH SUPERMARKET AND DISNEYLAND ALL HAVE IN COMMON? ASIDE FROM BEING NOTORIOUSLY KITSCH, ALL THREE OF THESE MODERN WONDERS ARE EXEMPLARS OF THE KIND OF CONTROLLED, PREDICTIVE ENVIRONMENTS BIG DATA MAKES POSSIBLE. IN RECENT TIMES, BIG DATA HAS BECOME ONE OF THE BIGGEST BUZZWORDS TO GRACE THE BUSINESS WORLD AND IT REFERS TO THE WAY THE INCREDIBLE INCREASE IN VOLUME, SPEED AND VARIETY OF INFORMATION THAT EXISTS IS BEING COLLECTED, PROCESSED AND ANALYSED.

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o properly fathom the scale and scope of this volume explosion, Peter Norvig, an artificial intelligence expert at Google, suggests that it is like the difference between a picture and a video – a picture of a horse shows you a horse, while increasing the volume of pictures per second creates a moving image. The same is true with big data: by changing the quantity of data, we arrive at a qualitatively different result.

An Orwellian City The city of Songdo is a $35 billion dollar development located 40km south of Seoul.

It is being built from the ground up to have roads, air conditioning and lighting completely interconnected, alongside a network of garbage disposal pipes and sustainability optimised construction

WITH THE DISTILLATION OF INFORMATION FROM MASSES OF UNSTRUCTURED DATA INTO BETTERINFORMED DECISIONS, BUSINESSES CAN AUTOMATE PROCESSES TO EFFECTIVELY PREDICT FUTURE EVENTS AND BEHAVIOURS 26 | www.insideenterprise.org

buildings – all tied to the same gigantic Cisco-built network. On top of this, the city is set to debut the concept of ‘telepresence’, an ubiquitous system of large video screens set up in every nook and cranny of the city, including inside homes, which allows constant contact with other citizens and the universal delivery of commercial and government services, including education. This distinctly Orwellian city is due for completion in 2015, and will most certainly not be the last of its kind.

Tesco: A Data Driven Example While at its logical extreme the possibilities brought by big data will rest uneasily with many, the distillation of information from masses of unstructured data into betterinformed decisions, has brought unprecedented benefits to businesses which can automate business processes to effectively predict future events and behaviours in everything from pinpoint marketing to cost reduction. Tesco, the world’s second largest retailer, is a leading example. The company uses an array of radio frequency identification (RFID) chips, bar code scanners and image analysis software to make thousands of decisions which span the entire supermarket chain. Price tags are digital, allowing prices to change dynamically according to product age, and trays in the vegetable aisles are under the watchful lens of cameras that alert employees when the tray is empty so that it can be refilled.

In the refrigerated aisle, fridge tempera-

ture is taken every three seconds and the information is used to optimise their temperatures and save millions in energy costs each year.

However, this flood of information extends far beyond the mere shelves. Their loyalty scheme, Clubcard, opened their eyes to the shopping habits of millions of customers – when, how and what they bought. That data has been used to determine everything from staffing levels to sales promotions – and now customers can use their phones to scan items instead, providing yet more information. Combining that data with weather information means that the supply chain is aware of how much extra BBQ supplies are needed if the local temperature rises by ten degrees; three times as much, to be exact.

At the risk of being left behind, companies have moved rapidly to exploit big data – we are well past the point where there is a first mover big data advantage in many industries. In 2011, McKinsey predicted that big data would add hundreds of billions of dollars in value every year across a variety of industries, and organisations world-wide have begun integrating big data systems into their strategies. With so many firms finding value with this kind of analysis, professional services, in particular firms such as IBM, are assisting in turning big data into a capability that can be effectively bought ‘off the shelf ’ and integrated into any existing business system with ease.

The city of Songdo, South Korea – the ultimate future city Picture: Courtesy of Gale International The Electronic Crystal Ball Increased data means that there is greater ability to do what businesses have always strived to do: anticipate consumer behaviour. Expertise is growing at finding minute correlations within data sets, using tools like machine learning, systems that can attempt to build models from existing data, to discover surprisingly accurate predictive algorithms. The information to be gained from even small pieces of information is stunningly useful. One Cambridge University study has already demonstrated the ability of such algorithms to reliably estimate everything from sexual preference to race with more than 80% accuracy based on the fragmentary ‘Likes’ of a Facebook profile alone.

The real world applications are all around us, certainly reaching well beyond just internet activity. Mymagic+, the

Tesco Clubcard: the first example of big data according to Sir Terry Leahy, former Tesco Chief Executive.

system replacing cash at Disneyland resorts and cruises, individually tracks the behaviour of its tens of thousands of daily visitors via RFID embedded wristbands.

And this is not just for payments – this system passively builds a profile of everything you do in the park, suggests rides you forgot to visit last time, and even informs the nearest Jack Sparrow impersonator that it is your birthday.

DATA IS NOT JUST PRIVATELY USED BY COMPANIES – DATA IS NOW ON THE MARKET Disney staff already walk around with tablets for monitoring the activity of every visitor in their vicinity, creating a tiny

utopian surveillance state in their labyrinthine resorts.

Such data is not just privately used by companies – data is now on the market.

Banks like NAB have begun to sell transactional data, while energy companies have sold consumption information that has enabled Amazon to make estimates about disposable income for any given demographic, predicting the amount of disposable income their consumers are willing to spend. Online profiles are especially ripe for this digitisation of price discrimination, and companies like Fliptop scrounge together bits and pieces of identity which is then mapped and sold in packages to corporate customers, enriching the information gained from social media. Even fairly innocuous pieces of information, such as whether a user is accessing a website on an Apple product have been used to estimate what someone might pay, enabling firms to adjust their displayed price on the fly.

Our Data, Ourselves: Decisions and Risks The improved ability to quantify people and predict behaviour means increased automation of decision-making. The important question is whether this represents a threat to individual agency and participation in the decisions that affect us.

Students are already tested mercilessly during applications for graduate programs and internships with many hired or rejected on the basis of a finely tuned algorithm rather than a traditional interview. But some firms are even going a step further.

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employees who stayed at their call centre the longest, thus recouping their $5000 training cost, could be found via psychometric testing – which has now replaced their entire hiring process. However, the ends may in fact have justified the means: their new policy has reduced employee turnover by one fifth.

Results like Xerox’s have urged many organisations to do their best to ensure that usable data is produced and stored with our every action, raising concerns about an upcoming over-reliance on data.

Nassim Taleb, Professor of Risk Engineering at Oxford University, has highlighted the statistical reality about big data: the more data you have, the more likely some correlations will be spurious. Together with increasingly automated decision-making, this could lead to severe consequences. The data that is being collected is still limited by the construct that captures it. How can a bank infer the trust of a customer if it only encounters them through online transactions and ATM security footage?

Will we disregard the notion of trust if it

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cannot be measured? Human psychology is not a solved problem, and simply throwing data at murky problems and hoping for the best is unlikely to lead to improvements.

With data-driven decision making threatening the agency we have always taken for granted, views on the ownership of customer information and what privacy consists of are evolving as well. We are increasingly hearing demands for the ‘right to be forgotten’ – to be removed from corporate databases at our own will. Customers may rightly feel at a disadvantage if a firm possesses their entire purchasing and personal history. Similarly, demands for data minimisation are coming to the fore, advocating the setting of standards to reduce the kinds of data a company is legally allowed to source and store. Though the EU has ruled as of 2013 that the right to be forgotten is outside their authority, this kind of legal question will only become more prominent and complex as data becomes an ever more important form of asset. ■

WE ARE INCREASINGLY HEARING DEMANDS FOR THE ‘RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN’

g n i s it r e v k c o h S v Le

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SOMETIMES THEY SCREAM SEX. SOMETIMES THEY SCREAM HORROR. AND ALMOST ALWAYS THEY INVITE SHOCK AND AWE. WHAT ARE THEY? THEY ARE THE HEAVY ARTILLERY OF ADVERTISING POWERHOUSES.

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hen being good and cheap is no longer enough to sell your product, there is nothing like the outrageous ‘low blows’ of advertising in order to peddle your agenda. Whether they attack the sacred notions of culture and tradition, expose the glamourlessness of a glamourful industry, or embrace notions of tough love, they definitely will capture your attention.

Professor Alex Gardner, a psychologist and psychotherapist, has suggested that shocking advertising “traditionally worked because the message became so deeply lodged in a person’s consciousness that they were eventually forced to act upon it.” But how do you create this psychological inevitability? Is there a formula as to why this marketing approach works? Or are some subjects simply more shocking than others? On a daily basis we are immersed within the perils of society and the injustices of the world, with television shows practically embracing drug use and violence. So why are we still shocked?

Bars of the Burqa The subject matter of this campaign launched by the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) may not be suited to everyone’s taste but without a doubt it commands a level of respect for its creators and circulators. After a Danish cartoon satirising the Prophet Mohammed caused massive uproar which led to violent raids across the world in 2005, this 2007 advertising campaign released by the ISHR, which depicts a Muslim woman metaphorically behind the ‘bars of her burqa’, was by all means a piece of courageous advertising.

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ISHR challenged this notion of critical immunity by subverting the protective veil which typically ends any questioning of the legitimacy of Muslim cultural and religious practice. As a result, advertisements depicting flaws, injustices or simply religion in a deplorable light seem automatically off-tune to our ears. As soon as an image or idea challenges that which many hold ‘sacred’ our sense of political correctness seems to tingle unpleasantly.

Thus, responses to the advertisement were significantly varied, ranging from religious fanatics proclaiming it to be ignorant and sinful, to international praise and support from global communities, culminating in the advertisement being awarded a bronze Epica Award in 2007.

After the initial shock and awe behind the emotionally confronting image of a human trapped in a prison cell staring deeply into your soul, the mind begins to

wonder as to what really happens behind those bars?

Legitimising Fashion ‘Junkies’ Blinding flash photography and heartpounding music, beautiful people everywhere. The fashion and modelling profession is often perceived as a glamorous and exciting playground. However, behind the façade of glossy celebrities, the prevalent drug culture and countless physical and psychological disorders frequent magazines and television programs, revealing the darker side of the industry.

In what was initially thought to have been a legitimate advertising campaign

by Sisley, but which their parent company United Colors of Benetton has since denounced as a fake, the Italian Fashion brand turned perceptions of the industry upside-down and flipped them in everywhich-way, using what we all know to

be bad to sell us the good. The beautiful has now become drugged, the drugged is now beautiful, the new drug of choice is fashion and the new fashion is drugs. Two ‘beautiful girls’ in a frenzied attempt to snort what initially appears to be cocaine, experience an unbelievable high from what a closer examination reveals is actually a white Sisley dress. An unassuming credit card, presumably used to purchase the dress and cut the coke, lies off-centre with an ambiguous white glare.

This advertisement exploits the fatalism of its own industry, deconstructing its flaws in order to market the very product which perpetuates its controversial nature.

Different and contradictory, this fake advertising campaign captivated its internet audience eliciting responses ranging from passionate proclamations of brilliance, “I like this ad for its part truth and irony… there are a lot of fashion addicts out there” and “I like this ad for the giggle shock I got out of it”, to strong aversion and condemnation, labelling it as “pathetic” and “irresponsible”.

Head Shot Sexual assault is no laughing matter. Well, except for the gentleman smiling in what can only be described as an advertisement that did not go down smoothly. Although an obvious entendre for oral sex and subtle rape themes may not have been the best idea for an advertisement uploaded to Facebook for all to see, Belvedere certainly drew a lot of unwanted attention.

Humorous to some, offensive to others, memorable to all. The aftertaste that Belvedere has left is certainly not going to

be forgotten any time soon. Nobody said that trying to market right on the cutting edge of changing consumer expectations was easy, but pushing the envelope too far in this case has had as much of a negative effect as if the commercial vanished into the vacuum of all the other bland advertising that has ever graced social media.

Adult themes have consistently been used in the marketing industry to seize the attention of consumers by surpassing

THE MAJORITY OF THE ADVERTISING WE SEE OR HEAR WE AUTOMATICALLY REJECT, NOT BECAUSE THE PRODUCT IS INFERIOR OR BECAUSE WE DO NOT NEED IT, BUT SIMPLY BECAUSE IT IS BEING ADVERTISED conservative expectations. However, in order to successfully incorporate adult motifs to sell a product, those themes must be dealt with in an adult way.

In other words, treating sexuality in a callous way, leaving room for far too much ambiguity and expressing it visually by sharing it on Facebook, was not the right point of call for whoever was responsible for letting, what is now affectionately called the Belvedere ‘rape’ commercial, see the light of day. Following an influx of condemning messages, comments and emails, the commercial was taken down from all social media channels shortly after it was uploaded. A formal apology was

immediately issued by Belvedere who were certainly not having a very happy hour.

Is There No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?

As the popularity of advertising on social media continually increases, with sponsored posts, group pages and promotions becoming commonplace, consumers have developed an in-built ‘off’ switch. The majority of the advertising we see or hear we automatically reject, not because the product is inferior or because we do not need it, but simply because it is being advertised. We are bombarded with advertising every day to the point that it has become senseless clutter within our lives, with the latest studies showing that many consumers now actively boycott companies that advertise excessively or without flair.

Marketing firms have to tackle this problem. They need to find a way to snap the consumer out of their ambivalent ‘zombie-like’ state. By taking an approach which simply cannot be ignored, ‘shockvertising’ in essence does what its name suggests, it appeals to us by provoking a reaction. No matter how offensive, no matter how quickly they were removed, these advertisements captured your attention. Regardless of whether you think they work or not, they elicited a response.

It is safe to say that the emotive visual of a person barred from life and two women ‘fashionably’ high will not be leaving your memory any time soon, for the ideas and images which ‘shockvertising’ throws at us are not forgotten easily. Perhaps you will think of them again over a nice cold Belvedere, lime and soda.■ www.insideenterprise.org | 31

WHAT DIFFERENTIATES APPLE’S SUCCESS FROM BLACKBERRY’S FAILURE? BY FAILING TO RECONCILE THREE MAJOR COMMERCIAL PARADOXES, BLACKBERRY’S REIGN HAS NOW RECEDED INTO THE ETHER.

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nly a few years ago the BlackBerry was the premier mobile gadget on the market. Canadian company Research in Motion Ltd. (RIM), renamed BlackBerry Ltd., pioneered and led the smartphone market for a whole decade from 1999 to 2009. BlackBerry developed three major godsends for the titans of global business and politics: BlackBerry Messenger, automatic email delivery, and the QWERTY phone keyboard that would usurp the numeric keypad. In 2009, Fortune magazine named BlackBerry the world’s fastest growing company, with earnings accelerating by 84% per year. At its height, the company held 47% of the U.S. smartphone market and had a market capitalisation that exceeded $83 billion. U.S. President Barack Obama even pledged to continue clinging onto his beloved BlackBerry…but then

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Android came along. And the iPhone.

BlackBerry now holds a miniscule 2.1% of the U.S. smartphone market and has a market value of only $4.6 billion—a 95% collapse since 2009. Clearly, BlackBerry has fallen to the very bottom of the smartphone pack as Android devices dominate market share and Apple’s iPhones dominate the industry’s profits.

But what differentiates Apple’s success from BlackBerry’s failure? The answer resides in Apple’s stronger ability to reconcile key paradoxes inherent to business strategy, paradoxes which present both opportunities and perils for marketers. By failing to reconcile three major commercial paradoxes, BlackBerry compromised the consumer-friendliness, focus and strength of its business strategy, such that its reign has now since receded into the ether. →

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1. Who Knows Best: the Firm versus the Customer BlackBerry failed to anticipate that ordinary consumers – not businesspeople – would drive the smartphone revolution, brutal evidence that it blatantly ignored the wants of its customers. AOL and BBDO revealed in their joint 2012 study that 68% of smartphone usage happens at home, and the most common use of a smartphone is for personal entertainment. BlackBerry, however, did not believe that mobile phones would evolve significantly beyond communication tools and consequently underestimated the power of the emerging ‘app economy’ that would skyrocket sales of iPhones and Android devices. According to one former BlackBerry insider, quoted by Silcoff, McNish and Ladurantaye in their 2013 Globe and Mail report, consumers would typically say, “I want a super big, very responsive touchscreen”. In response, BlackBerry staff would reply, “Well, you might think you want that, but you don’t want your phone to die at 2 p.m.”. This ‘we-know-best’ mentality caused BlackBerry to become detached from the very customer base which it aimed to serve.

In contrast, Apple’s emphasis on relationship-building enabled them to gain from the simple truism that reciprocity is fundamental to making transactions, valuing both the internal knowledge of its 34 | www.insideenterprise.org

company and that of its customers. The iPhone has topped the consumer satisfaction rating in nine consecutive smartphone studies by JD Power and Associates, and their advertisements emphasise the

CONSUMERS WOULD TYPICALLY SAY, “I WANT A SUPER BIG, VERY RESPONSIVE TOUCHSCREEN”. IN RESPONSE, BLACKBERRY STAFF WOULD REPLY, “WELL, YOU MIGHT THINK YOU WANT THAT” 'consumer-up’ approach taken to product innovation. As Aidan O’Driscoll concludes in his 2008 study in the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, taking a “both-and” approach to decision-making better reflects the ambivalences, polymorphism and self-contradictions in today’s society. Firms like BlackBerry simply miss important opportunities for themselves and their consumers by taking a one-sided approach to product development.

2. Brand Identity: Focused versus Flexible Successful branding depends upon identifying which market a company is really

serving and keeping products relevant to customer needs. Identifying with customers became a problem for BlackBerry when its executives argued about who specifically these customers were. Some executives, like co-founder Michael Lazaridis, wanted to maintain a focused brand identity through specialising in corporate devices with keypads. Others, such as former CEO Thorsten Heins, wanted to expand into the consumer touchscreen market.

Trying to satisfy these two sets of customers, corporate users and ordinary consumers, ultimately left the company satisfying neither.

Since entering the phone market in 2007, Apple avoided an identity crisis by focusing on the ever-growing consumer segment – with astounding success. It achieved such a powerful and focused brand identity as a result of loyalty to its original three-fold marketing philosophy which was assembled in 1977 by Mike Markkula: have “empathy” for customer needs, “focus” on the important opportunities and “impute” the desired qualities in a creative and professional manner. Even as Apple has surprised with its flexible diversification from selling computers to a whole ‘ecosystem’ of electronic devices, its brand identity retains these same essential tenets. This indicates that even in today’s rapidly changing global marketplace a brand still requires clear unifying princi-

ples and a focused strategic direction to most effectively capitalise on its strengths.

3. Strategic Focus: Building Strengths or Improving Weaknesses Marketing expert and author Alex Goldfayn constantly tells his business clients that they should build on their strengths.

RIM all but abandoned the development and marketing of its key strength, the BlackBerry, to create a tablet, the PlayBook. This tablet lacked BlackBerry’s core strengths of built-in email, contacts and messaging. It therefore failed to attract habitual BlackBerry users. Similarly, these

“IF YOU WANT TO MARKET WELL, IDENTIFY YOUR STRENGTHS – PRODUCTS, SERVICES, TECHNIQUES, APPROACHES, RELATIONSHIPS – AND EXPLOIT THEM RELENTLESSLY” users were deterred from BlackBerry’s Z10 smartphone because it lacked a physical keyboard. Therefore, myopically trying to improve its weaknesses caused BlackBerry to overlook its strengths – strengths that could have better differentiated its products. Nevertheless, strengths do change

over time. Rival messaging and email systems and reduced demand for physical keyboards mean that BlackBerry must find a serious new take on its strengths in order to survive the rapidly changing smartphone landscape.

Specialisation versus Amplification Goldfayn advises that “If you want to market well, identify your strengths – products, services, techniques, approaches, relationships – and exploit them relentlessly”. However, instead of perfecting just a few outstanding, specialised devices like Apple has done in accordance with this philosophy, BlackBerry has instead amplified its range of phones dramatically, flooding the market with different models – Bolds, Curves, Pearls, Storms, Styles and the Torch. Apple meanwhile minimised conflict in the consumer decision-making process by endowing one product series, the iPhone, with multiple, versatile functions and by creating user-friendly interconnections between the iPhone, the iPod, the MacBook and the iPad. Paradoxically, this strategy incorporates product amplification through specialisation. Thus, reconciling the potential trade-off between these two dimensions has increased Apple’s strengths, whereas exclusively focusing on amplification has weakened BlackBerry’s ability to further innovate upon its own competencies.

Advertising and Image ‘Buy the emotion’. This is essentially what Apple asks its customers to do. Apple’s product launch videos and advertisements usually project a game-changing image, regardless of how small the changes may actually be. The company’s ability to generate hype, even from fairly minimalistic advertisements, is known as Apple’s ‘distortion field’ by sceptics including BlackBerry’s Michael Lazaridis. But so far it is working. Following their three-fold philosophy, Apple’s relational marketing manages to be at once captivating and relatively subdued. BlackBerry, in contrast, has suffered marketing mishaps from taking game-changing to extremes. A prime example was its 2013 Super Bowl television advertisement: “In thirty seconds, it’s quicker to show you what it can’t do: the new BlackBerry Z10”. It was difficult to see any relevance at all for consumers interested in learning more about the product when all they saw was a man using his BlackBerry and catching on fire, sprouting elephant legs, bursting water mains, making colourful explosions and turning an oncoming truck into lots of rubber duckies. While the ad was humorous, it was memorable for all the wrong reasons. Focusing on what a BlackBerry can’t do simply reinforced its reputation as a phone that can’t do much at all. ■

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Cecilia Le

Blight Rail

IT IS THEREFORE NOT A QUESTION OF BUILDING MORE TRANSPORT OPTIONS, BUT BUILDING MORE EFFICIENT TRANSPORT NETWORKS

Redeveloping Sydney’s CBD

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uccessful cities need to be carefully planned. By constantly innovating through sustainable urban design practices and entrepreneurism, these dynamic hubs are able to remain at the forefront of their times. They are able to cultivate and nurture talent, which in turn creates an atmosphere that attracts entrepreneurial clusters and highly skilled foreign workers.

Consequently, cities that do not innovate run the risk of falling into the shadow of their peers. When growth outstrips basic infrastructure requirements, cities stagnate and degenerate into urban nightmares.

In these cities, municipal administrations fight a losing battle against congestion and the conflicting demands of the public and

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private domains.

Although such an image is rarely attributed to Sydney’s CBD, it too is beginning to exhibit signs of urban weariness. Sydney is now ranked the worst in Australia in terms of traffic congestion – by car it may take up to forty minutes to travel from Central Station to Circular Quay along George Street during peak hour, a journey that should take no more than fifteen minutes. By bus it can take even longer, leaving commuters frustrated and stranded as they watch pedestrians overtake them.

Peak hour congestion is largely attributed to the CBD’s massive inflow of buses that enter the city. It is not uncommon to see a queue of buses on George Street, all

travelling in the same destination. Cost and convenience are the drivers that push commuters towards buses rather than trains. The journey from Central Station to Circular Quay costs $1.76 with an Adult TravelTen but $3.60 by train, and bus stops are often located much closer to workplaces. In recent times, debate has sparked demanding a shift towards more efficient transport, one potentially centred upon rail systems which would be able to transport larger numbers of people during these peak times. Gehl Architects, commissioned by the City of Sydney, has proposed the construction of a light rail system which runs along the CBD’s spine, George Street. Combined with the pedes-

trianisation of the street from Bathurst St to Hunter St, there is an aim to shift the balance of transport on George Street away from vehicular traffic and toward softer modes such as cycling and walking. With the light rail system also set to link the CBD with the Eastern Suburbs, the greater number of travel destinations covered by the network will cement its viability through the increased consumer demographic it services.

The result of these initiatives is greater convenience for consumers and commuters, as the time taken for trips between offices decreases, increasing the opportunity for stronger intra-city links between firms. It will also alleviate both vehicular and footpath congestion, improving the overall city culture and generating a more productive business environment.

However, any changes must fit into Sydney’s current landscape. Paul Jones, Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning and Policy at the University of Sydney, warns that a transit system should add to the quality of existing city spaces – it is therefore not a question of building more transport options, but building more efficient transport networks. Sydney’s hapless monorail network, removed mid2013, was doomed to fail from its inception. It was chosen over light rail, despite having higher construction and operating costs and smaller load capacities. As a mode of transit the system was impractical: the cost of travel was too high, and

most monorail stations were unrealistically far from commercial centres. It was simply cheaper and easier for commuters to walk to their destinations. For these reasons, the monorail became more of a novel tourist attraction than a viable transit option.

Tragically, for the last twenty-five years it stood as an icon representative of the need for more prudential urban planning in the CBD. The changes required do not need to be on a grand scale. In Portland, Oregon, the Portland streetcar network is an example of small-scale urban revitalisation. The City of Portland launched the network in 2001 initially as an effort to reduce total vehicle miles travelled but has since evolved into an effective urban development tool, attracting substantial economic growth to the area. Such infrastructure development is a permanent and long-term investment.

It has invited $3.5 billion of investment in economic development along rail corridors and the surrounding areas, a considerable achievement if one considers its overall cost was a mere $103.15 million.

In addition, there are a myriad of social benefits to Portland’s sustainable transport system. As a soft mode of transport, the streetcar accommodates greater interactions between commuters and their environment. The streetcars’ slower pace allows users to alight and debark with ease, creating what Chandra Brown of Portland Streetcars calls a “neighbourhood circulator”. This has positive consequences for

both retailers and citizens: retailers benefit from greater visibility and citizens benefit from their ease of travel. A paper by the European Commission further draws attention to the attractiveness of successful urban concentrations. An aesthetically pleasing, comfortable environment with access to social and recreational facilities fosters innovation in businesses. Such places possess a number of high education and research institutes that supply firms with a talented workforce. The presence of cultural infrastructure in these environments creates a medium for the exchange of ideas between individuals and professionals alike.

It is often thought that cities that are economically, socially and culturally larger are more innovative than smaller ones.

However, Portland is proof to the contrary.

By fostering residential and commercial growth, this development-oriented transit model has played a key role in renewing the city. When we compare Sydney to Portland, it is apparent that both are city centres situated within a larger metropolitan area, and are cultural and economic hubs which strive to attain sustainable business growth within infrastructure restrictions. If Sydney can plan its urban landscape carefully by adopting a development-oriented transit model, it can begin to rival the success of Portland as it moves to position itself as a global city. ■

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Alexander Chang

opinion

Confidence: the

Leadership

Kryptonite T

PEOPLE WITH REALISTIC CONFIDENCE LEVELS LET THEIR PERSONALITY INSPIRE OTHERS – NOT

BY THEIR CELEBRITY, BUT BY THEIR ABILITY TO BE THE KEYSTONE OF A COHESIVE ORGANISATION, TO BE A FIRST AMONG EQUALS RATHER THAN A HARVEY SPECTER

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he next time you are asked a question about leadership in an interview, replace the word ‘confidence’ with ‘humility’ instead. Stereotypical leadership traits seem to be falling short of what is desired in today’s post-GFC corporate leaders and it may well be that the best leaders, those capable of transforming companies from good to great, share one common characteristic: they are not the most confident people in the room.

Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of Business Psychology at the University College London and an international authority in personality profiling, has conducted research into the qualities shared by CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, revealing an important trend visible across the business landscape. While leadership traits such as high confidence levels, tireless energy and ambition may allow an individual to scale the corporate ladder, being a candidate for C-suite positions such as CEO, CFO and COO demands a different set of skills that leaders find harder to develop.

Introspection The first of these skills is introspection.

Faced with a greater responsibility than simply your own personal goals, as a CEO you need to be your harshest critic. This means recognising that you possess weaknesses and, more importantly, recognising that the recipe for success is often found through failure. Daniel Vasella has been CEO of Novartis, a US$60 billion life sciences company, for 17 years and cites introspection as the key to leading very motivated people, for without an under-

standing of yourself you cannot conceive of your potential. Such sincere introspection is challenging if you have a high level of confidence that turns a blind eye to neg-

THE ABILITY TO SELF CRITICISE AND SELF REFLECT BECOMES JUST AS IMPORTANT AS SELFCONFIDENCE IN THE HUNT FOR CONSTANT IMPROVEMENT ative experiences. Once you are the head of a corporation, the ability to self criticise and self reflect becomes just as important as self-confidence in the hunt for constant improvement and unlocking future opportunities for the company.

In an interview in early 2013, Bill Gates was asked to comment on how he measures success, specifically in light of the transition to the new CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer. Gates commented that he and Ballmer were “Two of the most self critical people you could imagine” and, despite acknowledging recent accomplishments, Gates made it clear that they both use innovative breakthroughs as their yardstick for the company’s performance.

Under that measure they were not satisfied at all. As current CEO, Ballmer is by no means a pessimist but his treatment of the company’s late entry into the mobile market as a “mistake” creates a concrete measurement by which employees can gauge their own performance, urging them

to not become complacent with their past accomplishments. It is this delicate mix of ambition and self-awareness, tainted with a hint of pessimism, which particularly confident people find hard to muster because they are more susceptible to optimistic biases.

Empathy Realistically confident people also tend to be more empathetic which former McKinsey Director, Bill Drayton, sees as the key to being a successful leader in a business era in which “every employee needs to be a change maker”. One such example has been said of Lyndon Johnson during his time as leader of the Senate, for he was able to meet individuals and immediately adapt his leadership style according to their idiosyncratic motivations. The typical confidence-charged leader often finds it hard to achieve this level of empathetic understanding because the basis of their confidence is an intrinsic belief that they are ‘better’ due to a given trait.

To this end, lower and more realistic confidence levels reduce not only the chance of being perceived as arrogant, but also that of being deluded. People with realistic confidence levels have no problem making fun of themselves, especially if they are in a position of power or authority. They let their personality inspire others – not by their celebrity, but by their ability to be the keystone of a cohesive organisa-

tion, to be a first among equals rather than a Harvey Specter. A great example is the case of Southwest Airlines, the largest low cost carrier in the U.S., which has operated profitably for the past 40 years.

Founder and former CEO Herb Kelleher believed that if he could keep employees happy then they in turn would keep customers happy, which in turn would keep the company profitable and the shareholders satisfied. To this day, one of the hiring criteria at Southwest is the ability to tell a good joke.

Humility It seems difficult to accept the idea that confidence can in fact be harmful. However, the trick is not to look at confidence as bad per se, but humility as a better alternative. This is because humility is often intrinsically linked with personal struggles.

When faced with obstacles, individuals are either overwhelmed and abandon their pursuits, or overcome these challenges with fierce resolve. The latter is also often accompanied by a realisation of personal weaknesses and imperfections. Jim Collins, a leading management researcher, calls this mix of humility and iron will ‘level 5 leadership’, which is what executives must possess in order to be successful.

The story of Darwin Smith is one of the greatest in level 5 leadership. Smith grew up as a poor Indiana farmer, paying his way through night school in order to

progress through college and become a lawyer. Working as a harvester he lost a finger on the job one day but still made it to class that evening, and every other evening until his graduation when he finally earned an admission to Harvard Law School. In 1971 Smith was appointed CEO of Kimberly-Clark, a flailing paper company, despite his personal objections that he was unfit for the job. Not two months passed and he was diagnosed with nose and throat cancer, with less than a year to live. Continuing to work demanding hours, he went on to live a further 25 years, serving twenty of those as CEO of Kimberly-Clark. Smith transformed the company from a simple paper firm to one that rivalled Proctor and Gamble in consumer paper products. When asked about the success of his journey he simply explained that “I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job”.

Not all of us have stories as dramatic as that of Darwin Smith. However, what we do have is the capacity to engage in opportunities that develop skills often overlooked as being crucial to great leadership.

Extroverts with high confidence are not doomed and introverts are not guaranteed success. For most of us, not even on the corporate ladder, how you market your understanding of buzzwords such as leadership, team-work and interpersonal skills is just as important as what you put under those bullet-points on your CV. ■ www.insideenterprise.org | 39

Ellie Hewitt

Beer Wars The Battle staged by Craft Beers

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here are those of us who would profess that beer is what makes the world go round. So important was a good drink that early humans ceased their nomadic ways to become domesticated farmers in order to grow crops and brew a good brew. Since that time, our love of beer has never faded.

So versatile and enduring is that love, that there’s little wonder it’s also big business.

Historically, the Australian beer market has been dominated by four big brands: Carlton Draught, Tooheys New, Victoria Bitter and XXXX Gold. In a world where identity is as essential as the product, these iconic Australian brands have sought to associate themselves with traditional ‘Aussie’ values. Attested by their all too memorable advertising campaigns, they have each succeeded by building and maintaining a persona of larrikinism, mateship and humour to ingratiate themselves with consumers.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the ever-exuberant brand image shaped by Carlton Draught, whose recipe for marketing success seems a simple one: the bigger, the better. Its constant aim is to produce large scale campaigns, typified in the ‘Beer Chase’, the ‘Big Ad’, ‘Flash Beer’ and the ‘Slo Mo’ campaigns which have all become viral sensations, entertaining countless audiences. Meanwhile, Victoria Bitter (VB) has ridden a wave of success with its “Hard Earned Thirst” campaigns. Its advertisements idolise the daily heroics of the tough, hardworking, blue-collar Australian male, positioning itself as the only 40 | www.insideenterprise.org

beer to quench such “a hard-earned thirst”.

Similarly, Toohey’s New has repeatedly leveraged the age-old tradition of creating and cementing bonds over a glass of beer, which acts as the ‘currency’ of mateship, championing the idea that when a ‘mate’ does you a favour, you repay him with a proportional amount of Toohey’s New. For XXXX Gold, advertising campaigns are built to create personally-lived experiences for its consumers. Leasing an island in the shape of an ‘X’ off the coast of Queensland and renaming it ‘XXXX Island’, this brand positioned itself as “the ultimate destination for mates’ trips away” in a move of appreciable marketing genius.

However the beer industry in Australia has changed dramatically over the past few years. Against a backdrop of declining per

MICRO-BREWERIES AND CRAFT BEERS HAVE EXPLODED INTO THE AUSTRALIAN MARKET, INDUCING A CHANGE IN CONSUMPTION PATTERNS THAT HAS BEEN STABLE FOR THE PAST 100 YEARS capita alcohol consumption, the increased popularity of wines and spirits, and the emergence of new players, immense pressure is being placed on this historically unwavering industry. Micro-breweries

and craft beers have exploded into the Australian market, inducing a change in consumption patterns that has been stable for the past 100 years. In 2004, VB, the leading beer brand, commanded in excess of 25% of the market share; today it holds a mere 9.5%. In fact, the top four beer brands, VB, XXXX Gold, Toohey’s New and Carlton Draught combined now only control approximately 33% of the beer market. The ‘premiumisation’ of Australian tastes, an elevation of status and social significance attached to our alcohol choices, has meant that consumers have begun to trade mainstream beer of a lower price point for high-quality, premium and more flavoursome beers, or for the alternatives of wine and cider. The quality-over-quantity maxim is certainly back.

This has driven the growth of craft beer – beer not brewed by one of the big ‘mega-brewery’ corporations – which has outstripped the growth of its traditional counter-parts. Brands such as Little Creatures, James Squire and Batlow are together gaining greater influence and capturing market share away from the global beverage giants. While individually craft beers pose little threat to the traditional players, together they represent a tidal force, marketing as one. Industry cooperation has seen mass events that, ironically, have remained exclusive from the mass market. The Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular and the Sydney Craft Beer Week showcase hundreds of craft beers

ALCOHOL IS INCREASINGLY BECOMING AN ISSUE OF STATUS, AND ABOUT BEING SEEN DRINKING CERTAIN BRANDS. together for consumers who realise that alcohol is increasingly becoming an issue of status, and about being seen drinking certain brands.

It is not just the consumers who are benefiting from this explosion of craft beers; it is also highly profitable. While standard lager retails in a range of $4 to $8 per litre, craft beers can command prices upward of $11 to $15 per litre. In another example of corporate ingenuity, almost all craft beers are sold in 330 ml bottles that are almost identical in appearance to the 375 ml bottles used for the sale of standard beers, thus further masking the dollar per litre premium paid by the consumer.

Additionally, their elevation of Australian tastes has not been restricted to domestic shores: beyond craft beers, the growth in premium imports has prompted the overall beer market to become more fragmented. Increased accessibility and information surrounding beer has shaped consumer decisions when electing to experience different styles of beer. Consumers are introduced to key international beers

on vacation and have begun demanding these products back at home. Imported beers are providing a trendy alternative to the traditional big four, refreshing to Australian consumers who are becoming tired of the same old brands. The largest of Australia’s main style of imported beer, the premium lager, is Corona Extra which employs a simple and uniform marketing strategy: it offers year-round summer escapism, to an exotic reality where all Australians ‘would rather be’. Targeted at younger beer consumers, the “Corona Beach Getaway” campaign features youths in their 20s clutching bottles of Corona on bright, sunny beaches. This campaign leverages the imagery of the beach not necessarily as a physical place, but rather a state of mind, proving that in the world of beer, the experience is inseparable from the product itself.

But what we are beginning to realise is that the image of these beer brands are one in the same. The mammoth parent companies associated with the big four are now diversifying by acquiring individual bou-

tiques, particularly those in the craft beer segment. In 2012, Lion Nathan, maker of Tooheys and XXXX and the owner of James Squire, acquired Little World Beverages, the maker of Little Creatures and White Rabbit. Fosters, the maker of Carlton Draught and VB, also recently released its plan to double the sales of craft beers from its Cascade brewery during the next four years. Clearly our new and exciting love affair with microbreweries is more than just a summer fling, and the backing of microbreweries by big companies serves only to assist their future growth.

Never has the beer industry been so active and divergent. Beer is even diversifying out of the alcohol market and merging into cocktails, lollies and ice cream flavours. While purists may disagree with such frivolity, none can deny that ultimately microbreweries are improving the stature of beer in Australia by bringing high-quality, distinct beers to the market, and this increased variety will ensure a new standard of beer emerges.■ www.insideenterprise.org | 41

Sam Tidswell

Sun-Yong Kim

The Rising Tide

Brain Science

How Shipyards are Changing to Stay Afloat

and the New Technological Frontier BRAIN SCIENCE COULD CHANGE THE WAY MODERN MANAGEMENT DECISIONS ARE MADE

DESPITE THAT OVER 90% OF WORLD TRADE IS CONDUCTED

BY SEA, THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF THIS INDUSTRY IS NOT ENOUGH TO ENSURE ITS SUCCESS AND FUTURE PROFITABILITY

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s an often under-exposed industry sheltered from mainstream commentary, it is forgotten that the shipbuilding industry has always been the lifeblood of global exports and imports. Since the Industrial Revolution of the mid-eighteenth century it has been a catalyst for greater economic development, facilitating logistical transportation from raw materials all the way through to finished manufactures.

Even now, almost three hundred years later, the industry has experienced a flourishing in the early-to-mid 2000s due to the rapid growth in world trade, fuelled by widespread technological diffusion.

However, more recently the general slowdown in global trade due to the GFC, coupled with firm overcapacity, have raised questions about the shipbuilding industry’s future sustainability. In an attempt to adapt and combat such woes shipyards have altered their business models and sought new and innovative solutions to reassert the invaluable nature of their service.

The industry’s first constructive move has been shifting towards the ‘cluster model’ of operations. This model posits that the industry’s complete supply chain, from the development of materials to end-manufacturing, are located in close geographical proximity. This simple act of bringing supply chain components closer together reduces transport and logistic costs, and maximises economies of scale.

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A key example of an effective cluster model that is reaping the benefits of a fluid supply chain is the Korean shipbuilding industry which, due to its geo-political isolation, has been forced to operate under a geographically condensed supply chain. Its 29% share of the international market is testament to its ability to leverage the cost minimisation associated with this operating structure, for its second place position competes fiercely with that of the Chinese industry which leads internationally with its 45% share.

The second primary shift which the industry has undertaken is an engineering improvement in the mechanics and design of the ships themselves. This shift is the rise of electronic propulsion technology (EPT) which replaces gas fired propulsion systems with ones that are partly powered by an electric current. This allows for the construction of quieter, lighter and larger ships whose speed and power consumption are far easier to control and which can travel at faster speeds for longer periods of time. Siemen’s Industries, which has recently been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to equip ships with its unique diesel electric propulsion solution, also claims that the system will not only reduce dangerous emissions but will also decrease long-term costs through less maintenance.

This leads to a third important trend within the industry, which is the move

towards greener technology. Today’s shipbuilders not only need to provide quality, competitive products but have also had to react to changing consumer preferences regarding environmental sustainability.

Such pressure has forced many shipyards to alter their supply chains to enable them to employ greener technologies in their production process such as the growth in manufacturers using abatement filters, filtration devices which capture dangerous microbial spores that are by-products from the manufacturing process. Furthermore, many firms are ingeniously linking their operations to offshore renewable energy sites, entering into agreements which leverage the fact that their own ships are frequently used to maintain these facilities.

An inevitable repercussion of the global trend toward environmental sustainability, these technological developments evidence the shipbuilding industry’s pivotal awareness of its need to adapt to the demands of this changing landscape.

Despite that over 90% of world trade is conducted by sea, the essential nature of this industry is not enough to ensure its success and future profitability. Yet the recent technological and strategic developments, most notably evident in the changes to Chinese and South Korean operations, evidence a foresight in adaptive business strategy that will see the industry thrive over the coming decades. ■

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roundbreaking scientific innovations are modernising the way contemporary organisations operate. In a world where scientific knowledge will expand seven fold over the next 25 years, the potential for scientific innovations based on this new knowledge to dictate corporate operations is nothing short of ‘mind-blowing’.

In particular, the emerging field of brain science offers an interesting insight on how science could modernise the business world through the application of its many sub-fields such as Connectomics, Memory Prediction Theory and Adaptive Resonance Theory.

One of the most prominent applications of brain science technology in the business world has been the remarkable strides in productivity due to the progressive automation of the workforce. Existing labour market tasks can now be performed more efficiently by artificial intelligence machines, as a result of the emerging field of Connectomics which uses neural imaging and histological techniques to create a map of the human brain. From this, scientists have been able to construct machines that mimic advanced human behaviour, but have faster, more efficient and resolute neural connections than a natural human brain. According to Robin Hanson, an Economics professor at George Mason University, establishing a computer smarter than humanity would expand productivity so dramatically that world output could double every two weeks rather than every 15 years as it does currently.

Such technologies are not entirely unheard of: the supercomputer Watson, which was specifically created to answer questions

on the quiz show Jeopardy, outperformed its human opponents to take out the show’s first prize in 2011. This result is not surprising given that Watson had access to 200 million pages of structured and unstructured content, over its human competitors.

But the reality, as IBM’s General Manager for Watson, Manoj Saxena argues, is that Watson could conceivably replace many labour functions in many information intensive fields such as telecommunications, financial services, and government. As a result, the rest of the labour force will be forced to seek higher educational attainment to maintain their competitiveness in an evolving labour market – such that PhDs will emerge as the MBA of the 21st century.

In addition to its rudimentary foundations in labour market automation, brain science could also conceivably change the way management decisions are made through memory prediction theory. A brain science phenomenon which allows managers to predict events and objects that will shape future managerial decisions, Memory Prediction theory originates from the ideas of US inventor Jeff Hawkins who in his book ‘On Intelligence’, outlines the use of the neurological properties of the brain’s neo cortex to predict human behaviour.

A practical example of this can be found in the Numenta Platform for Intelligent Computing (NuPIC), a new approach to machine learning using memory prediction theory to create actionable predictions in real time, enabling managers to establish error detection systems which can accurately predict any errors within their network systems. In progressively competitive business landscapes, this ability to minimise

time and cost by implementing timely, adequate responses to future problems before they arise will prove priceless. For example, the EDSA power analytics system – an electrical power analytics system regularly deployed in the oil field of the North Sea, uses this technology to differentiate between ‘routine’ and ‘non-routine’ events in an electrical power network.

But brain science is not only empowering modern businesses to pre-emptively respond to ‘abnormal’ occurrences; it can help formulate likely future human behaviour too. This modern application has been made possible by Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) which uses the human brain’s capacity to learn new information without erasing old ones to design enhanced error detection systems that absorb newly available macroeconomic and microeconomic data. By absorbing this new data, error detection systems are able to make predictions about the future based on patterns of corporate behaviour ascertained from analysing new data together with old data that has not been forgotten.

ART based error detection systems have been essential to the construction of many new technologies around the world, from a Solar Hot Water Reliability Testbed which identifies when a pump is beginning to fail, to allowing businesses to detect anomalies in their capital equipment early and providing them with adequate response time. Such interesting examples of brain science innovation make it apparent that we have barely skimmed the surface of the vast ocean of commercial possibilities that future exploitation of brain science will bring. ■ www.insideenterprise.org | 43

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any”.

Posited by novelist Alice Walker, this sentiment fittingly applies to the predicament women presently face across the public, private and non-profit sectors. As of 2013, Australian women account for more than 45% of MBA graduates yet only 3.5% of ASX200 listed companies have a female CEO – one of the lowest rates in the Western world. And this is a figure that has barely moved in a decade.

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Stephanie Chan

Breaking Glass BELINDA

HUTCHINSON shares her insights into how women can overcome their inhibitions to become a new generation of business leaders.

Belinda Hutchinson is the outgoing Chairman of QBE Insurance and Chancellor of the University of Sydney.

Hutchinson has held prominent positions across many business sectors and industries, from serving as an Executive Director of Macquarie Group and Vice President at Citibank, to Director at Telstra, Coles Myer and Energy Australia. Hutchinson is also the President of Chief Executive Women (CEW), an organisation of over 270 Australian female leaders which aims to facilitate greater representation of women in senior level management.

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ccording to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Global Gender Gap Report’, the economic participation of women in Australia is even lagging behind that of countries like Mozambique and Kazakhstan, while we are being outstripped in the political empowerment of women by Bangladesh. Those of us who have lost interest in the gender debate simply expect that gender inequality in senior management will somehow dissolve naturally over time.

We are blind to the truth that the very same problems faced by previous generations will continue to exist for our own and subsequent generations of women unless we ourselves initiate fundamental change.

In particular, both men and women in the modern workforce must change their perceptions, beginning with an abandonment of the erroneous stereotype that it is men alone who perpetuate the ‘glass ceiling’. In her TED talk, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, proposed that the glass ceiling itself is perpetrated by women when they systematically underestimate their own abilities.

This is a belief shared by Belinda Hutchinson, Ms Hutchinson describes her fruitful career as the result of always taking professional development opportunities, an especially challenging task for women who often postpone career advancement in anticipation of starting a family. “You have to keep taking opportunities. My career has been swinging around doing a whole range of things to develop overall skills. I actually think this really suits women, because there are times in our careers when you need to take time off because of a child. I started off in accounting at Arthur Anderson, and moved to management consulting, went overseas for 3 years, moved into banking, moved into project finance, then equity capital markets and then executive director roles.”

Hutchinson overcame core obstacles that face women who aspire to enter

senior-level ranks, obstacles that extend far beyond mainstream theories of gender discrimination. A study by the management consulting firm Bain showed that on average women tend to underestimate their abilities, while men generally overestimate theirs. Hutchinson says that:

“Not only do men think women don’t claim the success they deserve, but women think it too. Women tend to say that ‘It was a team approach, it wasn’t all me’."

"When I was working at Macquarie, women often would not highlight their contribution to a project as much as their male counterparts”. Hutchinson says that methods by companies to “put up mirrors for both men and women” can help to resolve this by making each individual’s real capabilities apparent. “If you had a process in the organisation whereby everybody is expected to state their objectives, and everybody is evaluated at the end of the year against their objectives, then it becomes a fair, open and transparent process.”

One of the more confronting arguments advanced by Sandberg in her TED talk is that studies have shown that success and likeability are positively correlated for men, but negatively correlated for women. While masculine authoritativeness is often viewed as an ‘assertive’ trait desirable in leaders, women who are assertive are negatively perceived as aggressive and ‘bossy’. Ms Hutchinson relates that “In my own career, there are times when I have to be strong and assertive but I try to do it in a diplomatic way. I try not to appear to be tough; I try to convince people who I want to take on a journey with me based on the rationale for the decision. Men tend to choose like selves

in terms of those they want to work with, and so you are challenged with having to break that stereotypical norm. You do this by showing that you have what it takes to work hard, show initiative and deliver on results.”

The overwhelming conclusion is that women need to begin to “sit at the table” – learning to ask for what they deserve – rather than to take the backseat. Hutchinson confesses that she too used to be not very good at sitting at the table. “When I was assistant VP at Citibank I wasn’t earning very much money compared to my peers. I didn’t think I was being recognised for what I was doing or getting the promotions I thought I deserved. Then at a leadership training program when I said that I wanted a pay-rise, a woman asked me:

"When was the last time you asked for a promotion?" and I realised I’d never done that.

You’re supposed to do that.

You’re supposed to ask for what you deserve. You’re supposed to look for opportunities.

So then I started to ask, and I got a promotion in two years and doubled my salary in three years. I do try to sit at the table much more than I used to.”

And why should young people care about empowering women for leadership? “This is about taking initiative yourself. We keep talking about productivity and the need for talent. Well, there’s the talent pool - it’s all these women,” explains Hutchinson. “My view is that if you are that talent pool, you need to push through. I have seen so few women in senior leadership roles. It seems to me an incredible waste of resources.”■

www.insideenterprise.org | 45

Inside

Headhunting

Jenny Huang

Edward Andrew is an ex-barrister, entrepreneur and seasoned headhunter. With two decades of experience in the legal recruitment industry, he gives us insight into the elusive career of headhunting.

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Edward

ANDREW

"In my career, the philosophy has always been the money follows the success, not the other way around."

CEO, Andrew Recruitment & Consulting Founder, EA International

There are no formal qualifications required to be a headhunter. The world’s most successful headhunters have backgrounds ranging from management consulting through to entrepreneurs. What drew you to headhunting?

I had decided to be a barrister since the age of 15. But the reality was that life as a barrister in the 90s in the UK was very low pay. I spoke to many headhunters who dealt with the top of the market, and they were all ex-bankers, ex-lawyers and professionals like myself who decided they didn’t enjoy what they were doing but wanted another professional career.

It is also a tempting job which pays good money. At the Partner level, your commission for a placement can be 25% of the candidate’s salary. 26 year olds working for me were earning $500 000 annually, which far surpassed what their friends were earning in investment banking. Even as a partner, you only make that sort of money through intense work hours. But unfortunately a lot of recruitment places suck the soul out of you.

In my career, the philosophy has always been the money follows the success, not the other way around. As a student, if your only goal is to make money, there are many ways to do that but that doesn’t mean they will all satisfy you in terms of a career.

How do you make a successful placement?

How you present someone to your client is 46 | www.insideenterprise.org

very important. Most recruitment firms simply send in a candidate’s 2-3 page CV with an attached cover sheet. The truth is that most hiring partners will simply flick straight to the back to the headhunter’s own comments: why should this person be hired? Will this person make partner and why? We use seven page documents with language that is targeted and meaningful. We sell the candidate prudently.

Trying to sell a hopeless candidate across to a firm will only damage the recruitment firm’s reputation.

In the legal industry, there are only 3 things which really matter when hiring at top levels: 1. Academic grades 2. The firm and specialty area of practice 3. The level of experience If all three are ticked, there is a good chance this candidate will succeed. If one is missing – for instance, they have terrible academic results – you may still be able to show the client firm that your candidate compensates by way of great character, is very hard-working and easy to work with.

What does it take to start a successful headhunting business?

When you’re starting out, you have no brand and no credibility. I came to Australia when I was 30 and had never done business here before. Your success as a headhunter really depends on the

o succeed in business, acquiring top talent is crucial. Ambitious companies understand this and are willing to pay sizable amounts for it – client companies might pay recruiters $80,000 fees in return for them finding an individual who will generate $350,000 of profit every year.

It is this demand that underpins the profession of ‘headhunting’ – the talent brokerage that sees the trading of individuals through the ranks of CEOs, presidents and partners at the world’s largest and most prestigious corporations. Regarded as specialist ‘executive recruiters’, headhunters are typically hired to fill high-skill, high-pay roles, often ‘poaching’ top talent away from competitors. They subsequently control successions and ascensions to a host of C-suite positions.

credibility you can generate as you move forward. For me, as an ex-lawyer, I had instant credibility with the people I was working with because I had been one of them. Next, I knew the international market very well, which is important as my product was sending lawyers around the world. You have to thoroughly understand your market. You can’t expect to do business without actually going over to your client’s country; you can’t confidently place your candidate in a location which you have no clue about. I easily spend four days a month flying.

Your software systems also have to be the very best. You need to have a very well-run, tight-knit operation.

Most importantly, your staff is your highest asset. The people I hire are always first class honours students, all hungry and driven. I can put them in front of any managing partner anywhere in the world and they would be able to speak to them with a degree of credibility.

Unlike an employment agency, headhunters don’t wait for career seekers to send in resumes; they actively search for the ideal candidate. This is said to require intelligence, strong communication abilities and confidence. What skills are required of good headhunters?

I have hired all sorts of people – some painfully shy and quiet, others naturally

boisterous. Often it’s the quiet ones who are the best headhunters though, as they prove to be steady, controlled and very smart communicators on the phone although are otherwise silent in the office.

The mood you are in when you pull out the phone makes all the difference. Your body posture and the pitch of your voice will carry across to the candidate and the client. You need to assert your own importance and demand respect or you will not be given the chance.

What sorts of headhunting approaches are there?

One way of doing things is where you need to meet a quota and so you put forward as many candidates as you can.

I don’t believe that’s the most efficient way of doing it, as your chance of getting repeat business is substantially reduced if your candidates are no good. I work on a ‘contingency’ rather than a ‘retained’ recruitment model where fees are only earned when the organisation hires someone, rather than in advance to conduct a search which may or may not result in a hiring. There is more flexibility as I’m not bound to any particular client and can offer candidates up to fill positions at various firms.

My view is that our job as headhunters is not to compel people to take on positions but to advise and consult. My job is to empower candidates to understand what it is they want to achieve. ■ www.insideenterprise.org | 47

Inside

Start-ups

Michael Read

Genevieve

GEORGE

Genevieve George, founder of OneShift Jobs, shares her insights into the demands of being young and successful in the world of start-ups

"There is only one constant in business and that is change. Therefore, to outrun the bigger businesses, start-ups need to maintain a constant insight into where every dollar is going and be prepared to change at any time."

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eaving her job at Colliers International to develop OneShift at just 21 years old, Genevieve George had the idea to create an online job network that matched employees and employers like a dating website. Perhaps the most popular of its innovative features is the ability to upload a video CV, a feature which has reportedly seen some candidates perform love songs to their prospective employer in the hopes of making an impression. Just one year on, OneShift boasts 230,000 users and a growth trajectory most entrepreneurs would envy.

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Financing Financial institutions are generally less willing to lend to startups due to the inherent risks associated with new and untested businesses – a trend especially pronounced following the GFC. Many start-ups have had to resort to alternative sources such as venture capital and crowd funding. Did you find your age an impediment to sourcing conventional finance?

OneShift is all self-funded to date. I believe that your age will only hinder you if you make it an issue. In today's start-up environment, there are lots of options from angel investors, crowd funding and even co-founder arrangements that can help get your business off the ground.

The best advice I ever got was to never be greedy. You are better off getting your business off the ground rather than not getting anywhere and still having complete ownership.

Business Planning Academic research shows a positive correlation between writing a business plan and success in business. However, many young entrepreneurs are dispensing with writing a business plan altogether. Did you consider writing a business plan to be a necessary part of the start-up phase?

I used a mixture of both of these approaches. I began with the original idea behind OneShift – a network which could match employees with employers – and wanted to test this idea on a small, cheap scale before really going forth. I created a WordPress account and tested the automatic matching idea behind OneShift through this, as well as by conducting surveys with a number of small businesses in the hospitality sector in Sydney.

Through these methods I was able to make a judgment that a service like this would be positively embraced in Australia’s business sector.

Before developing and launching the current OneShift platform, I created a business plan – goals, ambitions, objectives and targets. To be honest, I haven’t stuck to this plan by any means! OneShift is a site that must change and develop according to our users and their staffing

needs. Nevertheless, the initial plan was very useful in giving me a focus and a timeframe for determining the growth and potential success of the site.

Cash Flow A recent study by a US bank revealed that 82 percent of business failures are due to poor cash flow management. Have you struggled dealing with cash flow in the development phase of the business?

As a start-up every cent and every minute counts. I think it is very important for businesses to keep a close eye on their cash flow but in turn they need to remember that they are a start-up. Not everything can be planned and there is some risk in moving quickly.

There is only one constant in business and that is change. Therefore, to outrun the bigger businesses, start-ups need to maintain a constant insight into where every dollar is going and be prepared to change at any time. This can be achieved through not locking into contracts and always knowing your exits and their costs.

Entrepreneurial Spirit Why did you take the risk of being an entrepreneur at such a young age as opposed to opting for the

safety of a salaried job?

I think it was because of my age that I didn’t think of launching a new website as a risk. The beauty about youth is that you have your whole life to make mistakes. I’m confident now that OneShift will be a successful platform for businesses to hire staff but when I first thought of the idea, it was like a pie in the sky.

Skills Have you struggled to gain access to the core skills required to make your vision for the business come true?

OneShift attracts so many users because the idea behind it is so unique and innovative. No other online jobs site in Australia has the same functionality to match job seekers with employers like we do. However, I do believe that it’s more than having a great idea. You must approach this idea in a certain manner – you need to be able to let it develop – sometimes not to your liking.

I’m by no means an expert in recruitment or technology and at first I lacked most of the skills needed to launch an online jobs platform. I’m so fortunate to have such a talented team that has taught me, from day one, how both the worlds of the internet and recruitment can collaborate and combine effectively. ■ www.insideenterprise.org | 49

How to: begin investing in real estate “I personally began learning about property investment at the age of 13 and have always been attracted by the relative security and profitability it offers relative to other forms of investment.

You too can learn how to profit from investing in property, mitigate the risks involved and begin assembling a quality portfolio.”

How can you profit from property investment?

Effectively, there are three ways in which one’s personal wealth can benefit from building a property portfolio: 1) cash-flow 2) capital gains and 3) tax benefits. In reality, seldom are these benefits achieved simultaneously. For instance, to achieve the tax benefits from property will normally mean it is negatively geared, where the cash-flow generated from renting out the property is less than what you pay in mortgage repayments. Equally, properties that are positively geared are more likely to be situated in regional areas, which tend to experience less capital gains over time than locations closer to the CBD. And although a property might experience strong capitals gains over time, 50% of any profits made by individuals on a property sale is generally subject to the capital gains tax.

There are various strategies to profit from property investment. The conventional process of building a portfolio is to put savings into acquiring properties and then repeatedly using the equity created in these properties (by their values increasing over time) to buy even more properties. This process of ‘buying and holding’ continues until eventually the person with, say, a portfolio of 10 properties can sell 5 of them to pay off all the debt on the remaining 5 so as to finish with a portfolio of 5 debt-free, positive cash-flow properties. Aside from the appeal of being able to say you own a portfolio of 100 properties, indeed the focus should always be on the quality of your investments, rather than quantity. That is to say that the person who owns 5 debt-free properties which each generate $350 weekly rent is evidently going to be better off than the person who owns 50 properties that each only return $30 positive cash-flow after 50 | www.insideenterprise.org

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the well-known financial literacy book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ and a prominent American investor identifies in his asset-liabilities model four distinct sources of cash-flow that characterise the financial statements of wealthy entrepreneurs – stocks, businesses, commodities and property investment. In Australia, it is this last asset class, property, which remains the highest sector for wealth generation on the BRW Top 200 list, with 52 of the 200 wealthiest Australian entrepreneurs sourcing their wealth from real estate investments. Evidently, it is difficult to find a wealthy person who hasn’t got at least a portion of their wealth tied up in bricks and mortar.

Ehren Heilman

mortgage repayments are accounted for.

What are the risks of investing in property?

Before getting too caught up in the allure of financial freedom and personal wealth through property investment, you should remember that analogous to other forms of investment, be it stocks, commodities or starting your own business, investing in property is not without risk. As the property market is merely an amalgamation of individuals pursuing their own vested objectives, the irrationality of human decision-making, combined with the operation of domestic and foreign economic fundamentals on the property market ultimately leads to one unavoidable risk: market unpredictability. Although it is true that on average property prices will rise(attributed mostly to the fact that construction of new housing tends to occur at a slower rate than the rate at which the population increases over time, leading demand to continually exceed supply in the long-run), the general notion that ‘property prices will double every 7 to 10 years’ is more of a mantra than an unshakable fact. Consider for example the coastal area of Cairns in Northern Queensland where median house prices dropped close to 10% following the GFC as a higher Australian dollar, global uncertainty and higher overseas household debt levels caused a reduction in the number of tourists coming to Australia, deteriorating a local property market which is dependent on the success of the tourism industry.

There is also an obvious risk accompanied with the decision of whether or not to buy property – are you paying more for the property than it is really worth? Is the property you’re considering purchasing one that could quickly re-sell on the market if you were forced to sell? Are the

signs that the property’s location is going to boom well-founded or are they merely the result of market-hype?

Risk exists in the hidden costs that prospective investors might be unaware of when setting out to amass a portfolio – namely stamp duty costs, legal fees for having solicitors organise the paperwork for purchasing a property, bank fees when getting a loan and lender’s mortgage insurance, a mandatory fee when a person seeks to borrow more than 80% of the value of the property and which is normally the case for people starting out who do not have substantial initial capital. Having acquired a property, there are further costs involved in holding property, including mortgage repayments, landlord insurance, maintenance costs, council fees, buildings and contents insurance, management fees and strata fees (for unitsSo the total cost you will end up paying for the $300 000 house you think you can afford will in fact be closer to $320,000,. A good rule of thumb is to add 5% on top of the purchase price when working out what you can afford.

How can risk be mitigated?

Avoiding impulsive decision-making and basing decisions on thorough research of the property, its location, and the market rather than acceding to market excitement, are some of many positive steps which can be taken to reduce risk. Indeed, while the property adage of ‘location, location, location’ is well-established, the more important philosophy one ought to adopt is ‘research, research, research.’

Your ‘criteria’: What should you look for in an investment property?

For someone planning on starting a property portfolio, there are many con-

siderations which, if made, will contribute to minimising your risk and increasing the profitability of your choices. Just as it is ideal to inquire into the quality of a product or service, its price relative to substitutes and its long-term durability before purchasing it, this same principle applies to purchasing property and building a portfolio.

Does the property have certain features (for example, bedrooms, size of land or entertainment features) that will attract buyers or tenants? Is the property located close to local amenities, such as schools, parks, shopping centres, transportation and hospitals? Are there living conditions that are likely to deter buyers and tenants? Undeniably, if a property is situated in close proximity to an industrial area, aircraft flight paths/airports or heavy traffic conditions, these factors will likely reduce the number of people willing to live in the property.

Is the property well-presented, both on

the inside and viewed from the kerb? Is the floor-plan of the house fluid and convenient or is it impractical and lacking in space? Are there any significant structural issues with the property? Consider having a building inspection undertaken prior to purchase. Remember that once you purchase a property you inherit the problems within that property, so any structural or cosmetic defects regarding plumbing, electrics, plastering or flooring, just to name a few, might represent costly areas that must be addressed and will therefore affect the profitability of your investment.

Why is location important?

Just as the property itself needs to be thoroughly researched, the property’s locale is also a fundamental area of research. Has the location currently got a stable supply of infrastructure – schools, hospitals, shopping centres, and public transport links?

Are there future infrastructure developments planned for the area? Any prospective location must demonstrate some type of infrastructure project, whether that be the construction of a new hospital or shopping complex or state government expenditure in expanding transport links.

Investment in these projects by government and development groups indicates that they have realised the desirability of these areas and so are building services to meet the demands of people who intend to

move there, at which point it just becomes a simple case of supply and demand: the more people that are expected to move to an area and buy there in the future, the more houses prices will rise. This has been perfectly exemplified by suburbs located in the outer-metropolitan rings of NSW such as Parramatta, Liverpool and Campbelltown. As new migrants continue to settle in the Western suburbs, in areas well-established as multicultural hubs, this population effect, together with youngfamilies moving out of inner-city areas in pursuit of more affordable housing, has led to strong-price growth and rental yields.

Houses in Blacktown, which is located close to Parramatta (now well regarded as ‘the geographical centre of Sydney’) have experienced a solid 7.79% growth in the previous year, and perhaps even more exceptional is the case of Campbelltown, which has seen 33.33% house price growth over the last 5 years. This means had you bought a house in Campbelltown in 2008 for say $270,000, even if it were just a standard 3-bedroom, 1-bathroom house, today it would be worth close to $360,000 – a capital gain of $90,000 over just 5 years.

How can you get started?

As university students occupied with study and without a solid financial base, it should come as no surprise that banks are reluctant to offer the large amounts of finance required in property investment.

For this reason, accumulating as much savings and generating as much weekly income as possible should be the priority. By improving the way banks perceive our serviceability and security, the more willing they will be to offer their finance to us, and the earlier we can begin laying the foundations for a fruitful property portfolio.■ www.insideenterprise.org | 51

Student Room ENACTUS: Utanga Project Scott Liu & Teresa Deng

A 'local solution to a local problem' "A passion that—if unleashed—can inspire others to act. A talent that—if developed—can create opportunity for ourselves, our families and our communities. An idea that—if cultivated—can build a healthier, more prosperous and peaceful world."

Student Entrepreneur Karl Bei 'suits up'

Describe some interesting challenges The first challenge was finding an appropriate manufacturer.

I realised that it was impossible for me to purchase a suit off every manufacturer to test out their product since they were all extremely reluctant to send out any sort of samples. I ended up buying a suit off a well-established Sydney-based retailer which I knew had an overseas manufacturer and then I went to the post

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his is the 'entrepreneurial spirit' cultivated by Enactus, an organization where students create and execute sustainable business projects to address community problems. Every year, national conferences are held for students to present their projects and compete against each other to win the World Cup. Enactus Sydney’s Utunga Project, which placed third in Australia, used innovative business thinking to address the dire situation facing Zimbabwe’s rural schools where learning rates have plummeted and widened the disparity between rural and urban schooling. The Utunga Project sought to find a self-sustaining education model which would revitalise communities by teaching students practical life skills such as farming and sewing, and inspiring them to apply their entrepreneurial skills to create a sustainable livelihood. The project also looked at generating sustainable income to detract from the need to rely on outside funding.

The project established a poultry farm and vegetable gardens in St. Boniface Primary school, where produce is sold in markets,

generating income which subsidises the children’s school fees and is reinvested into school infrastructure.

To raise the capital needed in the early stages of the project, students fundraised by designing Utunga-branded bracelets which were sold to the wider Sydney University community. 285 bracelets were sold, raising $2600 which enabled the team to purchase farming tools, gardening supplies and the first 100 chicks to be bred and sold at St. Boniface. The proceeds from the poultry and seed farm resulted in 90% of the students having their school fees subsidised by 55%. The result was an astounding progress in school attendance produced from just $2600.

The Utunga project is one of many which use students as agents of social change, and this model which provides a local solution to a local problem has the potential to extend to other countries with similar problems. The project has now become separate from Enactus and completely self-sustainable. It’s your turn to pick up where this project left off and work towards making a positive impact – the opportunities are endless.

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What were the costs involved in starting your own business?

The biggest barrier and expense to the e-tailoring business is the possibility of a non-fitting suit, requiring the work of a tailor to fix. Currently, I have an existing agreement with a tailor as a partnership to minimise these costs and share the profits.

I specifically modelled the business so that overhead costs were at an absolute minimum. The only start-up costs incurred were the first five sets of suits that my friends and I had bought from Institchu, an online tailoring company, to test out the quality, fit and construction of the suit. All other costs arise only when the customer makes an order since alterations are performed in-house. I was extremely risk averse in my selection of a business model which required taking on inventory as this represented a risk for someone fresh into any sort of enterprise.

Mentorships Minh Thuy Thai

Karl Bei is a 4th year student currently studying a Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Laws. Curious to try his hand as a real-world entrepreneur, he began his own e-tailoring business at the age of 20, providing university students with high quality, wellconstructed, made-to-measure business suits. His business hopes to banish the humble polyester suit inherited from the days of year 12 formals from ever materialising in formal interview rooms or black tie events.

What is your business model?

My e-tailoring business offers customers made to measure, 100% wool, fully canvassed suits. Customers simply select a colour (navy blue, black or charcoal grey), and come into the store to get measured. The measurements are then sent to an overseas tailor, who manufactures the suit and sends it back for us to deliver to the customer. Measurements at this stage are not entered online, because from my experience dealing with other online tailors, I’ve found that the biggest expense in terms of both time and money arises from poorly measured suits which require a lot of effort to alter.

I don’t compete on pricing, as I feel this would lead to a deterioration in product quality. Instead, I differentiate by offering an unlimited alteration guarantee which is currently not offered by any competitors.

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office to find where the package had come from via the return address. I then went to Alibaba to contact that supplier. I later confirmed with that firm that they were suppliers to a number of e-tailors including the Sydney-based retailer. I found them to be the best in terms of quality, and unlike their counterparts who mainly try to compete on price but offer significantly inferior products.

Where to now?

Thus far I have found an overseas supplier and began some marketing to potential customers, specifically through wedding planners and celebrants. I have future plans to partner up with various alteration business fronts as potential shopfronts for my company to take measurements. Tailors are often more knowledgeable in the measuring process and will therefore help to reduce the margin of error, as well as giving us additional foot traffic and the potential to elicit more business.

It may take a month or a year or even longer for my business to reach the bulk of my target market, but that doesn’t matter. As students, we shouldn’t be fixated on celebrity-status entrepreneurs and fail to acknowledge the benefits of engaging in entrepreneurial activity even on a smaller scale.

‘Ask any successful person how they got to where they are and they will tell you that they could not have done it without a mentor.’

– Barack Obama

hen I sent in my application for the Lucy Mentoring Program, little did I know what I was putting my hand up for. When I was assigned Leanne Bloomfield as my mentor from the mid-tier accounting firm HLB Mann Judd, I did not see its immediate value given my finance major and decision to pursue a career in banking. I could not have imagined this to be a key to a whole new world of opportunities for professional development, and more importantly, personal growth.

A memorable conversation I had with Leanne is when she asked me what my motivational drive was. I was caught off guard as I have always been a motivated person. I set goals and pursue them with fierce determination. Never before did I really ask myself what drives me. Leanne put on the table a few simple cards labelled ‘motivational drivers’ and asked me to pick three out of several key drivers including opportunity, job fulfilment, relationships, work-life balance and rewards. I chose opportunity, job fulfilment and relationships. Leanne told me that based on these choices, I am the type of person who finds an experience satisfying where I am able to try new tasks, feel valued and build meaningful and long lasting relationships and that this source of motivation will change as I mature personally and professionally.

Mentorships give mentees the chance to look at the professional world through the lens of an experienced mentor who possesses an advantage in years of knowledge, leadership experience and expertise in, perhaps not one, but a variety of sectors and industries.

It is easy to see the benefits in learning from the successes and mistakes of someone who has been through the same stages we are yet to face in our career, from being newly employed, to moving across firms and sectors, through high-points and low-points. The

transfer of wisdom from a mentor to a mentee stems from this wealth of experience and does not stop at the professional door.

In my experience, having a mentor is also an opportunistic way to gain valuable industry contacts and exposure to the intricacies – the do’s and the do-not’s – of the profession, while also learning about the emotional strength and attitude needed to progress in a chosen career.

Mentees are also encouraged to break free of any limiting preconceptions. For example, while she was enrolled at Harvard, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s current Chief Operating Officer, was mentored by Larry Summers, the then Harvard professor who offered to supervise her thesis, and who later recruited Sandberg as his Chief of Staff when he was the Treasury Secretary. In addition to Larry Summers, Sandberg also learnt from Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, and Mark Zuckerbeg, CEO of Facebook, on the importance of challenging the status quo rather than pleasing your critics to succeed. According to Sandberg, a woman’s self-confidence is honed through these mentorships – the key to unlocking a woman’s potential. And this is exactly what the Lucy Mentoring program aims to do.

In my case, my perception about the gap between partners and junior accountants changed dramatically. Leanne organised social events at HLB Mann Judd where I conversed with partners, managers, graduates and cadets. I learnt about the differences between commercial accountancy and chartered accountancy, and the opportunities and traits each offers and requires. The mentoring experience made me question my perception of accounting as a profession, and even challenged me to look inward and ask ‘What do I value?’ www.insideenterprise.org | 53

AIESEC: 2 learnings from 2 weeks in Egypt Daesol Lee

I

t was the second week of August, two weeks into semester two.

I told my lecturers that I'd be missing some classes, packed my luggage and flew into Egypt for one of the most memorable two weeks. As the President of the Sydney University chapter of AIESEC, a global, youth leadership development organisation, I was representing Australia at AIESEC's 65th International Congress in Egypt. Over 800 youth from 124 countries gathered in the city of Sharm el Sheikh to realise AIESEC's vision of "peace and fulfilment of humankind's potential." We were welcomed by government officials at Opening Ceremony, participated in workshops with Google, discussed the most pressing world issues and launched our strategies to meet AIESEC's goal of delivering 1 million leadership experiences by 2015. Attending International Congress was a privilege, and there are 2 key learnings I want to share from this experience: 1. Young people should stand for what they believe in, and realise that they have the potential to create change August 2013 was a time when Egypt was in political chaos.

Consequently, the conference organisers took stringent safety measures and delegates were not allowed to travel in Cairo. News broke out a couple of days into the conference that the death toll from protests in Cairo had reached over 500. Many delegates received emails from their families and governments urging them to leave the country immediately.

Egyptian university students who organised the conference surrounded by the 800 delegates.

AIESEC could have easily cancelled the conference and any delegate could have left. But the political situation was only testament to the relevance of youth leadership. If we were to cancel the conference we would be giving up and running away from the world's problems. 800 delegates had flown across the world for the chance to contribute to solving their nation’s problems by working with businesses, educational institutions, governments to develop more young leaders. For this reason, the conference went on and not a single person left. We dealt with problems ranging from poverty in India, the financial crisis in Greece, the brain

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Join our editorial team drain in New Zealand, the deceptive media in Brazil and corruption in Cambodia. Youth should stand up for what they believe in and directly lead positive change 2. Many sit back and complain, very few choose to take action. Be a part of the few.

In Australia, we often complain about our government and inefficiencies in 'the system' but very rarely go out of our way to do something about it. Speaking to university students from Romania, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico, reminded us that Australian university students are very lucky given the plethora of opportunities that surround us: clubs and societies, well-paid work, and tertiary education itself - opportunities which define our generation as we face an education paradigm shift from theoretical to more experiential learning. With AEISEC, I have had the privilege to run a social enterprise, develop essential business skills, speak to dozens of CEOs and work with some incredible young people. As a bonus I got to travel around Australia, see the world (34 flights, 11 countries since I joined), meet over 1000 people, and discover what is truly important to me. But AIESEC is just one of many organisations that you can get involved in.

University really is the best time to try things you haven't done before, make mistakes, learn from them and find out what you are really passionate about.

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