by theEmother | May 31, 2011 | business ideas & thinking, events, women in business case studies
Huggies have announced the 5 winners of the $20,000 MumInspired grants. The ideas range from hearing aid devices to top of the range breastfeeding bras. Check out the winning entries here: http://www.huggies.com.au/muminspired/winners-2011/.
I hope you are one of them? Please let me know if you are…
The next exciting stage of voting is the ‘People’s Choice Award.’ Huggies are asking the Australian public to vote for their favorite idea and the mum with the most votes will win an additional $10,000 grant.
Voting has opened and will be running until June 12th. I encourage you to vote for your favourite idea. I have!
Check out these links if you need to refresh your memory!
Huggies Website: http://huggies.com.au/muminspired
Facebook page: http://facebook.com/HuggiesAU
by theEmother | May 31, 2011 | MEinc, single parent l single mother, so you think you're in business
Why do we plunge into career situations in which we’re unlikely to excel or feel good about ourselves?
…Of course, the choice isn’t always between absolute right and wrong. Often the litmus test can be much subtler, such as making the distinction between sticking to the golden rule or bending the rule. The net result is that many of us take the plunge and go along with the ruse or silently comply with what’s expected.
And then, naturally, we try to forget all about it. We dismiss it as the price of “getting things done” and push it into a dark corner of our memory bank. But inevitably the subject lingers, demanding an answer. Within mere hours or days we begin to ask ourselves, “Did I abandon my moral compass in favor of expediency?”
Or the even more unsettling question: “Am I allowing my personal belief system to be co-opted by others? Am I staying true to who I really am?”
The truth is that virtually all of us sacrifice some measurable degree of who we are at heart and even our inborn honesty in the course of doing our jobs. Because it typically happens over a long period of time and in gradual stages. I call the process “integrity erosion.”
“Not me,” you say? Just ask yourself: How different are you today from the fresh-faced graduate and business rookie you were just out of the starting blocks? Are you still an idealistic young maverick, or have you changed into someone you may not have recognized in your youth?… read on
A thought-provoking piece by Karen Duncum for Bloomberg Businessweek.com
by theEmother | May 26, 2011 | aCE talentNET, build a Mother of a Business, entrepreneur trends (past & present!), entrepreneurial mothers, EXIT execution, political offerings, so you think you're in business
You’re probably familiar with eBay and PayPal. They’re businesses that have transformed and challenged traditional retailing because they enable individuals to trade online, bypassing normal supply chains. We’re now on the edge of another wave of transformational change of how business and work are done.
Robert Gottliebsen at Business Spectator recently interviewed Matt Barrie from which connects workers with businesses on a global basis. Businesses post jobs that workers bid for. Payment occurs online when jobs are finished. It’s mainly small business people doing work for small business people. But it brings the power of ‘big’ to the little businessperson’s business. The interview is here:
At that link we last covered zaarly and uber which also empower self-employed people to do big things. I know of many other transformational business service models. It’s the replication of a trend we’re seeing in IT, for example, where contracting is rising. Forget about industrial relations, human resource management and jobs for life! This is about stock exchanges for jobs, fast moving, with people making their own choices.
Government isn’t coping. This is reflected in comments from Peter Strong of the Council of Small Business Australia. He referred to the recent budget as a ‘big business budget’ in a TV interview. This big business view is probably why the administration of paid parental leave, for example, is looking so complex for small business people and why a Commonwealth Bank survey found small business drowning in red tape.
Government will fail when it tries to force its administrative convenience onto this global business realignment. So watch out politicians! An analysis of voting trends amongst self-employed people showed a strong willingness to swing their votes.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45026.html
Very, very interesting indeed… a sign of things to come… just wonder how the government will view it/legislate for or against it??? Time will tell.
From Ken Phillips (Exec. Dir.) and the team at Independent Contractors of Australia
by theEmother | May 24, 2011 | MEinc, so you think you're in business
In the global race to achieve faster, better, cheaper business greatness, most leaders face a huge gap between the goals they set and the actual results achieved by the people in their organizations. This phenomenon is not a failure to plan, but rather, a failure to execute. […]
While there are many possible explanations for the root cause of the gap, the one common, recurring element is a stubborn, nagging blind spot: People issues.
They won’t go away. They are always around. No matter how much you try to avoid them by setting goals and staying busy, people issues are always right in front of you, either helping or hurting your organization’s competitive advantage in the marketplace….
read on
an extract from The Three Gaps Between Goals and Greatness
By Pelè Raymond Ugboajah, for ChangeThis.com
by theEmother | May 20, 2011 | business ideas & thinking, so you think you're in business
While I am not advocating that we all run around blundering and goofing up all the time—and certainly none of us like dealing with people who make the same mistake over and over—our fear of mistakes has a very high cost.
We exert enormous energy blaming each other when something goes wrong rather than finding a solution. Defensiveness and accusations take the place of apologies and forgiveness. Mistake-avoidance creates workplaces where making changes and being creative while risking failure is subsumed by an ethos of mistake-prevention at the cost of daring and innovation…
Read on
The Mistake Manifesto: How Making Mistakes Can Make Us Better
By Alina Tugend for ChangeThis.com
