The Perfect Gift for a Man

Every now and then something comes completely out of the blue that you have to be involved with. Just recently, I heard about The Perfect Gift for a Man through Gavin Heaton. I submitted my story on growing up and becoming a man (many, including myself and my missus when she wants to have a dig, might say I’m still far from it). My story has been included.

It was a great process having to think through the emotions and the events involved in my life.

Anyway, here is part of the press release:

A group of Australian men have banded together to create a book about some of the tough issues facing the average Aussie bloke.

The book, The Perfect Gift for a Man – 30 Stories about Reinventing Manhood aims to get men talking about their feelings in a bid to help prevent male suicide in Australia

Touched by the mental health, drug and alcohol problems facing young Australian men, local bloggers Gavin Heaton and Mark Pollard appealed to their readers, friends and family to honestly share the intense emotions and experiences of being a man. This collection of stories has been published into a high quality book for the first time, using online creative publishing website Blurb.com’s unique self-publishing capability.

The Perfect Gift for a Man is available for sale via the Blurb Bookstore with the profits going to the Inspire Foundation a national non-profit that delivers online programs that prevent youth suicide and improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

You can buy the book on Blurb.

Social and online media important for small business

You can’t avoid social and online media for a small business these days. The LA Times has an article on how social media, in particular, Facebook, has helped a small business:

“Each day on the website, Sprinkles announces a secret word, such as “ganache,” or “bunny,” or “tropical,” or “love,” and the first 25 or 50 people to show up at any of its five stores and whisper that word get a free cupcake.”

An article in the New York Times talks about online reputation for small businesses.

“Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.”

So, I wanted to share some of the links I’d come across that help small business with online and social media:

• How do I create a Facebook fan page for my business?
• Social media mistakes small business owners should avoid
• The plans of other Small Businesses
• Social Media for the Little Guy

It’s also worth checking out Gavin’s Servant of Chaos blog.

7 Things I Learnt In Getting To The First Invoice For infome

infome sent out its first invoice the other day. In getting to this point through pickmylunch.com.au I’ve learnt a few things, I thought I’d share them:

• Do something useful. It seems obvious, but it is so easy to get caught up in cool ideas and grand schemes. All you need to do is do something useful for someone. Businesses want more customers and customers want a good deal.
• Keep it simple stupid. If you’re going to be useful, people need to be able to use you. It’s tough for them to use you if they don’t even understand what you’re doing in the first place. For businesses, “we bring more customers to your door” and for customers “we get you a good deal on lunch”.
• Get yourself noticed. Placing massive red lunchboxes with our website on them around North Sydney, often accompanied by a glamorous blonde girl handing out discounts, has played a huge role in getting to this point. By making ourselves stick-out, we made people double take, point fingers and take notice of us. Don’t be afraid to be a bit outrageous. (I loved it when I put the boxes next to some suits handing out pamphlets and the suits didn’t even get a look-in from passers by.)
• Talk, talk, talk. The more people we talked with the more we improved the business model and the offering. Go and talk to someone. Now.
• Stick at it. It’s easy to hang up the boots when you’re facing a bit of adversity. It’s easy to move onto the next exciting thing. I’m learning to push through these sorts of things, pushing through is leading to rewards.
• It’s all about the journey. I’ve been saying to myself, I should have reached this point earlier. However, the more I look back, the more I trace my steps, the more I realise that each and every step along the way has been essential in getting to this point.
• It’s an internal battle. What’s stopping you from getting that next customer? What’s stoppping you from looking at new partnerships? What’s stopping you? Well, you. You are both the greatest asset and the greatest obstacle you have.

These are the things that have stood out the most. I hope you can take something away from them.

Invoice #0000001

Last night I sent out the first infome invoice. It’s been almost a year or more in the making. Evolving from rough idea, tried concept in many different fields through to what infome is today, www.pickmylunch.com.au.

Part of me wishes I could have reached this point sooner. Another part of me realises that there is no way I could have arrived at this point without going through the process I went through.

I’ve come to realise that it is a lot harder work then I thought it would be, however it isn’t hard in the way I thought it would be. Instead, it is hard in that you are confronting yourself each day, questioning yourself and pushing yourself forward. It’s easy to slave away writing code, writing plans and writing documents. It’s hard, so hard, to work up the courage to walk up to someone you’ve never met and convince them to pay you for a service that has never been used before. The battles you face are with the conflicting voices in your head, rather than with those around.

I love it. Every bit of it.

Things are going great

I’ve been pretty snowed under getting pickmylunch.com.au well and truly running. We’ve got a few people on board and we’re pushing into new locations.

I’ll try and get some interesting content up soon!!!

3 trial customers for pickmylunch.com.au

Last week we got out there and made things happen. We spoke to many of the businesses in North Sydney that offer lunch. We’ve still got many more to go, but we’re SO happy with the result of our early talks.

Many of the owners have been receptive and we’ve signed up 3 businesses in North Sydney to trial accounts. We’re looking forward to working closely with each of them to ensure that pickmylunch.com.au really does help bring people to their door at lunch time.

I can’t describe how happy it makes me.

The Perfect Gift for a Man

To me, becoming a Man (as opposed to a man) is an endless journey where there is always something new to learn. A Man aligns his actions with his dreams, takes responsibility for himself and others, and moves forward. A Man grows beyond just an awareness and understanding of himself and comes to an awareness and understanding of others; not as things in his world to possess or use, but free individuals in their own world with their own dreams and pursuits. A Man gives the world everything he has got and gives those around him the freedom he hopes to receive.

I am lucky to have supportive parents who challenge me and encourage me to make my own decisions. When I was younger they were worried that I would burn myself on the stove, so Dad turned to my grandfather who said “let him burn his hand, he’ll learn his lesson and be more careful next time”. I did end up burning myself and I certainly learnt an important lesson. That’s the thing about Dad, he makes sure I consider each option (even though he tends to bend his advice towards his preferred outcome) but will always let me burn my hand even if it means picking up the pieces afterwards. I believe this approach has helped me make the first steps to becoming a Man.

That isn’t to say I make the right decisions. Boy have I made some bad decisions! When I was 18 my family moved to Adelaide and I decided to stay in Sydney and move out with my girlfriend with whom I had a chaotic relationship. It was both the best and the worst decision I’ve made. It enabled me to pursue the opportunities Sydney offered however it accentuated the problems in our relationship. Moving out with my girlfriend was a mistake I had to make to learn about people, what I wanted from life (or didn’t want), how to handle myself (or not handle myself), and that its important not to let things linger when a decision has to be made.

The morning after my parents left I was driving up to my new house to go to work and my journey took me under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was HUGE. It struck me for the first time that my decision to move out was HUGE. I started crying. To this day the bridge, to me, is symbolic of tough decisions. It is such an inspirational yet intimidating structure. I love it.

I guess I’ve been lucky because of my parent’s guidance and because I’ve always had a sense of direction. As a kid I learnt how to write software for computers and soon began to believe that my purpose in life was to be a great software developer. I relentlessly pursued my dream and developed a globally available mobile game when I was fifteen. It wasn’t until I took a job as a software developer straight out of school that I realised it wasn’t for me; I enjoyed creating things I believed in. I still believe this and am relentlessly pursuing my dream by running my own business. Whether my dream will change again, I don’t know. What I am sure of is that the pursuit of each dream will lead me to discover if it’s right for me. It’s win-win. It’s all part of the journey.

I’ve had a couple of failures along the way and these have forced me to push my boundaries. I don’t see failure as a negative thing; it forces me to closely evaluate myself and the way I do things. A mentor of mine who was teaching me about sales once said to me “you need to work out what’s in it for them”. This has had a profound effect on me and I’ve learned that when you have an idea but no money, your ability to inspire others is your only currency. It has also opened my eyes to an alternative way of dealing with people in general; I think more about what’s in it for them.

The other night another mentor and friend advised me to “accept that people will always act in their own self interest.” Whilst it might seem like he undervalues the good in people, simply accepting this as fact has led me to form better relationships with people. For years I’ve failed to realise that everyone around me is just trying to get the best out of life, just like me. Once I realised this, I came to see that behaviour that I might consider to be negative (friends not returning calls, people pushing in cues) might just be my misinterpretation of people who are just like me and caught up in their own world. Life overwhelms everyone. Coming to accept this has given me a greater sense of freedom.

Just recently I’ve met a fantastic girl who has given me an even greater understanding of others and myself. She has helped me transcend me and my ego. She challenges my world view and some of the beliefs I didn’t even know I had. Recently, she poked so hard that I came to realise that whenever something goes wrong in my life, I use a coping mechanism where I turn negatives into positives to inflate my ego. For example, I recently failed an assignment and my immediate reaction was “what idiots they clearly aren’t as intelligent as I am” and literally felt larger: my ego + 10. It was only thanks to my girl that I came to notice my habit. By acknowledging it I can now chose to apply it or not.

I’m actually having difficulty writing this next bit. All of these little events along my journey to being a Man have led to one moment. The moment my Dad said “I really think you’ve become a Man.”

I don’t think this is the end though.

This has been written for the Perfect Gift for a Man initiative.

UrbanSpoon Generates $5k per 100k Visitors

Through brand advertising, affiliate networks, ad networks and citysearch ads UrbanSpoon is generating $5,000 per 100,000 visitors.

This traffic and revenue is predominantly coming through the iPhone.

You can read more about it over on TechCrunch.

Mobile Internet To Spur Carriers To Acquire

Mobile carriers are predicted to start acquiring more and more mobile internet services. With the rise in mobile internet and phones like the iPhone breaking down those wall gardens this seems a smart move, on the carriers part, so the carriers can maintain their end to end service for the customer.

An article from mocoNews got me thinking about this:

A bigger role for telecoms: The rise of the mobile internet will also spur carriers to buy up services. Case in point: AT&T’s 2008 purchase of Wi-Fi operator Wayport is seen as a way for manage the flow of content and expand their relationships with other companies. For example the Wayport deal expanded the carrier’s Wi-Fi network to nearly 20,000 hotspots in the U.S. by adding locations at some Marriott Vacation Club and Four Seasons hotels as well as McDonald’s restaurants.“In the wired Internet, the carrier was a dumb pipe,” Jefferies & Co.‘s Robert Jackman told Reuters. “In mobile Internet, carriers will play a bigger role. If you can’t control end-to-end through to the billing relationship, you can’t control the end-customer.”

Are Mobile Operators Anti-Competitive?

The U.S. is looking into whether it’s major players are abusing their power.

The Department of Justice has started reviewing the practices of mobile carriers in the U.S., including AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), to determine if they have abused their power in recent years, reports the WSJ, which quotes unnamed people familiar with the situation.

(read more)

This could have serious implications for the local Australian market so I will be following this story closely.

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