Date: October 2013

Humbled by an employee discussion in our US office, I was pleasantly surprised that given the hypothetical situation of winning the lotto, all employees said that after a brief holiday, they would want to come back to work at Marketing Eye.

As an international business owner, I have come to the realisation that my company culture is different in each country in which we have offices. The engagement level on a day-to-day basis in our Atlanta office is very high – not to say, other offices are not the same. Company culture is everything and there are many reasons why it has a direct impact on bottom line.

There are a number of lessons learnt from having a start-up in Atlanta that is inherently different from other offices we have. 

The first being that all employees have chosen each other

Usually, a senior manager or myself makes the ultimate choice on who is going to join the team and in what capacity. Instead, in Atlanta, I have been over-ruled twice, and both times, I had to put my hand up and say that my choice would have been wrong for the team.

In Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, he popularised the theory of The Two-Step Flow of Communication (Lazarsfeld & Katz, 1955)¹ by explaining how innovation and information is spread in a two-step flow, from mass media to influencers - and then onto the masses via the influencers. Gladwell renamed this theory ‘The Law of The Few’ and colourfully reworded it as, "The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts (the ability to influence others)".² If you can overlook the blatant plagiarism, Gladwell must be congratulated for bringing the principles of the original theory back into the mainstream almost 50 years after its original publication, at a time when understanding influencers is more important than ever (if you're in marketing or politics).

There is not a small business on the planet that hasn't heard of Twitter, yet many are still failing to execute a social media strategy that cleverly integrates Twitter as a social media platform designed to connect and communicate key messages.

Co-founder Jack Dorsey, a 36 year old tech titan, and now CEO of small business payment technology, Square, has built his billions on knowing what small businesses want and need. Square is the fastest growing small business payments technology in the world today, and through his small business meetings in Town Halls throughout the US, Canada and Japan, #letstalk, he is educating small business owners to talk and support each other, rather than work alone.

Five years ago, I was invited to play in a Pro-Am on the Gold Coast, and as a casual golfer, realized that I needed some coaching to ensure that I didn't embarrass myself.

Marketing automation has the fastest growth of any CRM-related segment in the last five (5) years and there is a reason why. Senior management have been desperate for years to have a clear picture of sales pipeline performance, which until marketing and sales automation came along, was unheard of - in a real sense. There were many inferior solutions in the market, but none that really hit the nail on the head quite like marketing automation.

Interestingly, after speaking with a number of marketing automation vendors in the past few weeks, it has become apparent that there is one clear contender for the top marketing automation spot - and that is Marketo.

I saw an invitation today to attend a masquerade ball in Toorak on 1st November, 2013. 

Everyone looks a masquerade ball! The opportunity to dress up and be a bit mysterious is just too alluring. I have quickly rung up a group of my friends and put a table together. While there are heaps of events to go to at this time of year, I would much prefer to save myself for the Black Velvet Masquerade Evening at Lincoln of Toorak, than make it all the way out to the track where I need to toss a coin as to whether it will rain, be cold or be so hot that I end up with third degree burns.

It took me a few minutes to realise that this ball is all for a good cause. While Cancer and Mental Health causes are very popular, its the one's that fall down the way-side that really need our help.

Epilepsy is dear to my heart. Growing up with a brother that has epilepsy brings back some raw memories of how much this disease affects people's lives and ability to live in normal society. 

There are 225,000 Australian's living with epilepsy and more than 800,000 people in Australia are expected to be diagnosed with epilepsy at some stage in their lives.

For those who have not been able to learn about the pitfalls of epilepsy; it is when the seizures are unprovoked and recurrent - in other words, happen more often than once. 

Not sure about you, but there are certain things you take for granted as a boss.

The first is that your employees will respect you. The second is, that although everyone has a good laugh, they think you are reasonably smart.

Well, that was all thrown out the window today.

I flew into Melbourne on Friday afternoon, after spending more than a month, hiring people in Atlanta and taking the business to the next level. As the plane landed, I couldn't help but reminisce about the things that I love about Australia.

Melbourne is a city that has grown on me. I have lived here for most of the past 10 years and it really has been the perfect home away from home. As a Queenslander, it took some time to get use to the weather, and talking about it all day long, but other than that, I have learnt to appreciate the finer things that make Melbourne and Sydney for that matter, so special.

As the plane landed, the first thing that came to mind is that I needed to get a coffee from my favourite barista. Secondly, how easy it is to walk through customs with the new technology that alleviates all the queuing that takes place in every other airport in the world. 

Having spent so much of this year in Atlanta and the US as a whole, it strikes me that I have been "bitching" too much. 

"No good coffee."

"Too many diner style restaurants."

"Business people are too aggressive."

"Everyone's homes look the same - boring."

It's a Saturday and rather than head to my nearest Starbucks to buy a NY Times, I decided to get all of my news online. Looking for some inspiration from other bloggers as I am about to embark on phase 3 of Marketing Eye's expansion and to be honest, I am nervous and excited at the same time. Any wisdom from my fellow bloggers is welcome. 

Another thing that struck me while looking for blogs is how out of date they are. If you type in a search in Google, you will get blogs as far back as 2005 that have never been written on again. Hope with the new change of algorithms that Google fixes this problems.

However, there are 20 very worthwhile blogs that are great weekend reads if you are looking for something easy to absorb, interesting, educational and business savvy.

TOP 20 ENTREPRENEURS BLOGS : 2013

Last night I caught up with my good friend, recruiter Michelle Fish, a new friend Chocko Valiappa and a couple of other people. 

As we sat down and enjoyed a bite to eat and a glass of wine, I began to talk to Chocko about Ashrams in India. I have been wanting to go for some time and wanted his insight into which ones were the best to investigate. 

Chocko is a spirital man - and although he didn't say as much, I could tell. I gravitated to him and before long we talked about different aspects of spiritality. He then mentioned that he read handwriting. Within seconds I was writing on a napkin hoping that he would pass on some wisdom about myself that would enlighten me.

He said:

"I am level headed and connect well between my head and my heart"

"I need to celebrate my highs more"

"I have discovered myself, but not other people"