Good news for you, good news for me!

This story appearing recently on news.com.au tells of how a study by financial services firm Grant Thornton found that 22 per cent of Australian businesses are in the 'Super Growth' category.

Wow! TWENTY-TWO per cent! That's a lot of fast-growing businesses!

So what does this mean for you and me?

1. If you're in a B2C/retail business: The people who work at these fast-growth companies (as well the new employees taking on), are confident and flush with cash. If you can find them and sell to them, that's good for you!
2. If you're in a B2B/wholesale business: Some of these fast-growth companies (and their entire supply chain, of course) need products and services like yours. That's good for you!
3. If you're in a non-profit organisation: There may be partnering opportunities with many of these fast-growth companies . That's good for you!

What are you doing to become a 'super growth' organisation?Is it time to take advantage of good economic conditions and ramp up your marketing & communications programmes?

That's going to be our strategy. And if it's going to be yours, we'd love to help you with that if we can :-)

Technorati Tags: economy, boom, marketing

First Fuel-Cell Powered Camera on Display by Canon

This (rather ad-laden) story on Softpedia about a Canon fuel-cell powered camera is a few months old now, but it caught my eye.

At the end of last week, Canon presented at a technology expo in Japan a digital camera running on a fuel cell powered by hydrogen. The fuel cells are included in the handle of the camera, where regular batteries are now inserted. The cells Canon has presented offer the same energy levels regular lithium-ion secondary batteries of the same size do.
However, Canon promised to further develop these cells and improve the density, which could mean achieving three to five more times energy for these cells in the near future.

Here's what fuelcells.org, (which claims to be a non-profit project of a Washington, DC organisation called 'Breakthrough Technologies Institute') has to say about fuel cells as replacements for chemical batteries:

Fuel cell power sources are also being developed for portable electronic devices. In these applications, the fuel cell would provide a much longer operating life than a battery would, in a package of lighter or equal weight per unit of power output. The fuel cell would not require "recharging;" a liquid, solid, or gaseous fuel canister could be replaced in a moment. Fuel cells also have an environmental advantage over batteries, since certain kinds of batteries require special disposal treatment. Fuel cells provide a much higher power density, packing more power in a smaller space.

The engineering and materials challenges related to micro fuel cell applications are substantial and will require innovative solutions to bring them to commercialization. If these technologies can be commercialized, then the portable and micro application market could be the fastest to develop. There is a huge potential market.

Portable fuel cells carry environmental benefits comparable to fuel cells in other applications to the extent they replace combustion systems in homes, in business, or in recreation.
Productivity. Fuel cells carry productivity benefits in an increasingly mobile economy.
Allied Business Intelligence's report on "Portable Fuel Cell Markets" says portable fuel cells are being developed to respond to the "poor performance of rechargeable batteries by quadrupling the run time before refueling is necessary."
Developers expect a fuel cell powered cell phone to have up to 200 hours of talk time. Recharging fuel cell powered electronic devices could be as simple as inserting a small methanol fuel cartridge or hydrogen container.

Worth keeping an eye on!

Technorati Tags: digital photography, digital cameras, fuel cells

Doing what you know best - NOT

Hat

"I don't know anything about fashion. Only aeroplanes!", I kept saying. But Chitra insisted I shoot her 2006 Spring/Summer collection.

Fashion designer Chitra Mangma, actress Mikaela Martin, and I had worked together previously on a shoot for Chitra, so I guess it was an easy choice. While it's fun working with new people, there is great advantage working with people you know.

Mikaela's look suits Chitra's clothes so well (especially when she is in character as the wholesome, yet slightly cheeky young lady you see here).

Speaking of character, working with an actress is a photographer's dream. Very little direction needed, which leaves a bigger part of your attention free to concentrate on camera, lighting, and all of that stuff.

I had to have a laugh at one point during the shoot. We were shooting on reasonably busy Victoria Street in Brunswick, and I was on the opposite side of the road to Mikaela. So every now and then when a bigger burst of traffic would pass by, I lowered my camera and did a bit of 'chimping' (viewing/editing the images on the back of the camera). Invariably when I looked back up, Mikaela was still in character, posing away!

Technorati Tags: photography, professional photography, commercial photography, fashion photography, fashion, modelling

Deck, dusk

Deck, dusk,
originally uploaded by Steven Pam.

I've just finished processing the shots I did last Thursday night for architect Justin Moore.

Although it's usually preferable to get things as close as possible 'in-camera' to how you want them to look (because it's invaribaly quicker and therefore also cheaper than doing it in Photoshop), sometimes there's still a lot of work to be done after pressing the button.

And architectural photography is a perfect example of the kind of work for which I usually spend a lot longer in post-production than I do on the shoot itself.

This is because of the mixed lighting and large contrast range which are often present.

For this shot I blended different exposures (and different 'processings' of each exposure) for the main scene, the sky, the door in the foreground, and the lit area of the deck. This lets me adjust the colour temperature and brightness of each area so that it matches as closely as possible how the scene looks to the naked eye. It makes you realise just how much 'processing' your brain does when you look at a scene like this!
Technorati Tags: architectural photography, architecture, photographing buildings, professional photography

Bullshit at your peril

A couple of months ago I subscribed to the Early To Rise newsletter.

It seems to be interesting and useful - and also often full of marketing hype (which I also find interesting and useful).

This morning I found an e-mail in my inbox with the subject, "Early To Rise: Never Again Will We Offer This!"

The message opens like this:

Dear ETR reader,

"Are you crazy? You're giving away $73,520 to each subscriber over five years! Stop selling this immediately or you'll put us out of business!" That's what ETR's business manager Josh told me when he ran the numbers for ETR's Lifetime VIP Club...

If you're a student of marketing and advertising, like me, then you'll recognise this type of headline. Now, I don't know who used it first, but I'm guessing it's fairly effective, or it wouldn't still be doing the rounds after all these decades.

It's natural to want to 'talk up' what you do. And you've got to grab your prospect's attention. But to me, this opening just reeks of bullshittery.

I mean, seriously, why would the business manager be pissed off about the prospect of signing up a bunch of people for a $5000 product (an info product at that - sure, some of it is hard copy, but the margins are still pretty nice at $5k, don't you think?).

And the $73,520 they're "giving away" is of course in the form of money they're 'leaving on the table' by not selling the individual program components for their 'full price'. (Wow, what a lot of inverted commas! - All intended)

Anyway, as you know I'm always looking for the golden nugget in these stories - in this case it's something like, "go easy on the bullshit!".

Have a nice day,
Steven

Technorati Tags: Bullshitting, honesty, marketing, truth in advertising