Government Grants – Taking it for granted

Dominic Pelligana for TheAge.com

The Australian Federal Government announced a new range of grants and funding initiatives in May as part of the 2008 budget to improve innovation and technology development.

The new programs focus on the environment and climate change, with the greatest emphasis on carbon and decreasing emissions through a new ‘clean business strategy’.

However, the new grants do not replace the Commercial Ready program, which was discontinued this year.

This currently leaves a large gap in grant funding for many Australian companies and creates doubts on how to progress with grant and concession funding.

So what is left for the small to medium enterprise market?

There are still many grants available, but deciphering the new changes and when these programs will be released can take some time to research and understand… read on…

I wonder how many of these Blue Collar Billionaires started off with grants, or at the very least borrowed from someone, to take the next step…
what are you prepared to do to realise your life design?

The World Is Flat… Now It’s Free

How good is this!…

Beginning the 26th, and running through August 4th, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Macmillan Audio will be offering the audio edition of Thomas Friedman’s THE WORLD IS FLAT for free. Listeners will receive the audiobook in three easy-to-download sections, and soon after that, as an added bonus, will also receive an exclusive prepublication audio excerpt of Friedman’s HOT, FLAT, AND CROWDED: WHY WE NEED A GREEN REVOLUTION AND HOW IT CAN RENEW AMERICA. The book itself will be released by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on September 8th.

Jeff Seroy, Senior Vice President of marketing and publicity at FSG, said the purpose of this audio giveaway is to “celebrate Friedman’s enormous influence on our lives and times. And in preparation for the release of his new book, a green manifesto and a continuation in many ways of his thinking in THE WORLD IS FLAT, we want to enable anyone who hasn’t already read THE WORLD IS FLAT to catch up with Friedman’s argument and vision for the future.”

If you’d like to receive these free audio downloads, sign up at the address below:

http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/giveaway

Enjoy!
ChangeThis
http://www.changethis.com/

Blog On! – The Business of Blogging

iQuantum couldn’t help noticing that blogs are taking over the world. Well, not really. But sometimes it feels that way. They’re no longer just for the gossip columnists, the social satirists, the travelers and the trainspotters. Businesses have caught on and are using them as yet another weapon in the marketing arsenal.

Join us on a two part “cooks’ tour” of blogging, which will be completed in next month’s newsletter. Hey, you might just discover along the way that blogging is for your business.

Let’s talk about why a business would have a blog. What can it do for you? Read on…

aCE talentNET redesign #3

next stakeholder meeting booked 17/7…

A further suggestion has been that we look to “replace” us!
That is, in so far as finding one or more entrepreneurial mothers like us who are ready to use their network/experience and have a go at building a business within the aCE talentNET structure…
This will be discussed further on the 17th no doubt.
Part of that will be, I think, to “document” (mindmap) what an the ideal future business partner will look like (not physically 😉

As part of our marketing strategy…
Yesterday I spoke with Design VIC about the “Business Immersions” program, which I am most interested in. The program, funded by the State Government, is encouraging “business” to marry with “design”. What difference that marriage has made on the business will then be tracked over a 2 year period, with the story to be developed into a case study.

So first steps first…
I have been sent some preliminary reading about “service design”.
I am keen to look at “strategy design” as well. I will look at the material of the next few days.

Why am I interested in the program? for 2 reasons:
1. In both Tom Peters Essentials “Design” and Daniel Pink’s “A Whole New Mind“, they refer to how “the future belongs to those with… A Mind for Design”.

Pink writes “The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind – computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognisers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
One other zinger that says it all:
“The MFA (Master of Fine Arts) is the new MBA.”

2. What an amazing learning experience this would be. To be able to get a real handle on this, via being part of a live case study, is just too enticing to not want to be a part of.

aCE talentNET redesign #1

Yesterday I spent some time reflecting on where aCE talentNET is…
What current revenue streams do we have/use?

What revenue streams are available?

And true to form, as you can see, I mind-mapped both of them.

A useful exercise to do as it became obvious that aCE really does generate approx 90% of its income from the one channel. Not ideal given that I persoanlly aspire to multiple income streams.

Clearly, I’ve identified what we are missing, possible gap fillers and can therefore start investigating ways to turn that around.

This is all in readiness for our first stakeholder meeting that we are having Thursday, specifically around this topic.

excellent start…

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