Results tagged “australia” from Trends in the Living Networks

I was recently introduced to Yvonne Adele of IdeasCulture through a Twitter introduction from Tim Longhurst – a great connection to make!

Not long ago I wrote how Australia is becoming a global hub for crowdsourcing platforms: Freelancer.com, 99designs, DesignCrowd. Yvonne’s service Ideas While You Sleep adds to the burgeoning collection of crowdsourcing services based in Australia. Yvonne described to me how the service works.

The concept is that challenges submitted by 4pm will receive an pack of 100 ideas with an action plan by 10am the next morning, currently at an introductory price of A$495.

Ideas While You Sleep draws on 440 brainstormers, who are ranked in experience from apprentices to premium. As they successfully contribute to projects, they are promoted to a higher roles.

Teams are always designed with diversity in mind, so they include the full range of levels of experience as well as background. Team members are rotated as new projects come up.

Crowdsourcing in the broadest sense will be one of the fundamental platforms of the emerging network economy. As such it’s pleasing to see that Australia is becoming a hub for a number of the most significant crowdsourcing platforms globally.

I caught up with Alec Lynch of DesignCrowd yesterday for an interesting conversation about the crowdsourcing space and thought it was worth giving a quick pointer to the three main platforms run out of Australia (though all are global in scope).

Freelancer.com, was founded in Sweden as getafreelancer.com in 2004. I first wrote about it in 2005 in an overview of the space. For many years it was the dominant online services exchange in Europe, and one of the top three globally. In May 2009 it was bought by Australian company Ignition Networks, which also acquired the domain Freelancer.com. The company is run by veteran tech entrepreneur Matt Barrie, who most recently founded and ran specialty processor firm Sensory Networks Inc.

Last week I was interviewed on Sky Business about recent data showing that Australia leads globally in use of social media, and the implications of such high levels of social media usage for business.

Here is the full interview, with major points noted below.

• It is surprising to see Australia at the top of the global charts in social media usage, given that just a few years ago it was significantly behind in uptake – this has been a dramatic acceleration in usage.
• It is a fascinating question why social media usage surged in Australia (see here for more detailed thoughts on the topic). Contributing factors include the sudden improvement in mobile data costs when the iPhone 3G was launched in July 2008, and the shift to more a conversational style of social media that suited the culture and dispersion of Australians.

This morning I gave the opening keynote at an internal leadership conference of a major Australian retailer, addressing the topic of Embracing the Future.

One of the key issues for the long-term planning of any large organization is the basic demography of the country. While I spent much of my presentation looking at social change, I started by looking at the state of population forecasts for Australia.

A few months ago Australia's Treasury department foreshadowed the release of the third Intergenerational Report, which examines the impact of population change and aging. The second report, released in 2007, forecast an Australian population of 28.5 million in 2050, however two scant years later the forecast has been revised to 35 million. This would make Australia the fastest-growing developed country in the world.

Let's look at some of the figures and uncertainties behind these forecasts. While we often hear that "Demographics is Destiny", in fact demographic forecasts are fraught with uncertainty.

This first image shows the earlier three population scenarios for this century from the government.

THREE POPULATION SCENARIOS FOR AUSTRALIA

I’m at Tech23, probably the biggest and best showcase so far of Australian upcoming tech companies. After creating the list of Top Web 2.0 Apps in Australia list last year and in 2007 and organizing the associated Web 2.0 in Australia events, I had originally envisaged that we would organize a broad information technology showcase event this year. However this did not manage to fit into our very packed priority list, and as it happens others are taking on the task of bringing attention to the best of emerging Australian tech. Rachel Slattery of SlatteryIT, who has long been running events for Australia’s tech community, has done a great job in creating Tech23.

Frankly, one of the challenges in running tech showcases in Australia is finding a sufficiently deep and broad pool of excellent early-stage companies. Overall I have been very encouraged by the pace at which new companies have emerged over the last two years, though there is still further to go. There were some great companies at Tech23, but I imagine that it would be harder to find another 23 hot emerging companies. By the time this event runs next year, and hopefully other tech showcases emerge, the signs are that the pool will be considerably deeper.

Unfortunately I am not able to spend the whole day at the event, but below are some quick notes from some of the more interesting companies that I managed to catch this morning. [UPDATE:] See also my notes from the SaaS/ In the Cloud panel and presentations.

My brother Graham Dawson moved to Sydney at the beginning of this year. It’s been great to have him around, not least to tap his tech expertise!

Graham launched his first iPhone app on Sunday, and it’s already selling extremely well. It’s aimed at the Australian market and provides weather forecasts, detailed current weather and daily extremes, and an extremely nifty rain radar that provides timed moving images and centers on your current location.

Graham's blog post Oz Weather goes live provides a full review of the app and Graham’s experience with the iPhone submission process - very interesting. He’ll have more up on his blog soon on what he’s learning as an iPhone app developer and marketer.

Also see the OzPDA site for info and access to the iTunes store for the app.

If you’re interested in the weather (including avoiding showers!), definitely download it.

See below for a video demo.

A great article in Smart Company on Australia’s best business blogs by Brad Howarth discussing the ins and outs of business blogging, and names the top 15 business blogs in Australia.

Trends in the Living Networks makes the list, which seems reasonable considering Wikio ranks us in the top 40 business blogs globally.

The article begins:

Australian businesses have shown remarkable trepidation when it comes to communicating with customers and stakeholders through blogs. But blogging need not be a difficult exercise.

Numerous individuals and small businesses are leaping into the blogosphere as they seek new ways to engage with their customers.

I’ve spoken and written many times before about how slow Australian business has been to embrace blogging. Fortunately we have come quite a long way, with a number of major corporates involved in the space, however I still believe that Australia is lagging, and there are many opportunities for those companies that do it well. I look forward to greater momentum on this front.

The article is definitely worth a read, with some great quotes from companies that are already getting benefits from blogging.

For the record, the top 15 list is:

The flourishing Australian start-up scene is about to get yet more coverage. Renai LeMay, having returned to CNET (now CBS Interactive) as News Editor from a stint at the Australian Financial Review, has set up Bootstrappr, a blog covering Australian start-ups.

Below I have put his guide to getting coverage on his blog – an extremely rare instance where I respond to a request for coverage, since it’s in a good cause :-)

So far excellent coverage of the Australian start-up scene has been provided by Vishal Sharma’s startup blog. I was one of the judges on his Startups Carnival earlier this year. Vishal has also just announced he is considering writing a book on Australian start-ups, which I think is an excellent idea.

Of course I also compile the annual Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list, which appeared in BRW this year, and which won’t appear again until around May.

Just the last 3-6 months have seen a real shift in technology entrepreneurship in Australia – there is far more activity and a higher level of sophistication. It’s great to see.

[UPDATE:] The final Top 100 list is now up.

In researching the Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications list, I created a draft list on Google Docs of 125-odd applications I was aware of, and invited a dozen of the most connected and influential people in the space as collaborators, to add any applications I wasn't aware of and provide updates on any apps in the list.

Phil Morle of Pollenizer told me the Australian Twitter community has been asking for the spreadsheet to be opened up. Click here to view the early draft list of Australian Web 2.0 applications. Note this is absolutely a draft, does not necessarily cover all the applications we're looking at, may have incorrect information, and comments are unmoderated.

If you want to add to the list and are not currently invited into this list, either email me or comment on this blog, or ask me or your favorite leading Australian Web 2.0 entrepreneur for an invite to collaborate on the document.

[UPDATE:] The final Top 100 list is now up.

Following the great success of last year’s Top 60 Web 2.0 Apps in Australia list and Web 2.0 in Australia event, this year we will release a list of the Top 100 Australian Web 2.0 Applications.

The list will be launched on 19 June in BRW magazine together with feature stories on the relevance of the leading online applications to business, including on investment, corporate productivity, customer engagement and innovation. It will then be published online on the Future Exploration Network website and this blog.

A lunch event on the same day at KPMG’s Sydney offices will formally launch the list, including showcases of some of the winners and a panel discussion by leading figures in the Australian scene. Full details of the lunch event, including registration, are coming soon. It will be in a similar format to our full capacity Web 2.0 in Australia last year, though open to everyone instead of invitation-only.

We are again looking for event sponsors. I’ve approached the obvious candidates in the last couple of days but we're open to interest from any organization. Download the event and sponsorship information here or by clicking on the image below.

We currently have over 125 candidates for the list. Please email me or comment below if there are relevant apps that you think I am not aware of. We have information on all of the apps listed last year and those that applied to Vishal Sharma’s Startup Carnival earlier this year and those featured on his startup blog (a great resource!).