I have a lot of interactions with students these days. I teach a class of students who are primarily going to graduate in the next few months with degrees in media and communication. In addition I have a research project that involves PhD students from the sciences in interviewing CEO’s of corporations in high tech [...]
You would think that it might be reasonable to assume that good companies aspire to provide great customer service, wouldn’t you. Some companies establish customer service as their primary goal. The bigger the company, the more the focus on the customer, in my view. But how much do we, as customers, help them to achieve [...]
It looks like it is going to be a big year. This year I will be back at University Of Wollongong teaching in the Arts Faculty – the same subject as last semester, ARTS301. I had tremendous feedback last semester from students. The subject is really about helping those about to graduate to understand how [...]
I have been involved in a few start up companies and I have helped quite a few others to get their businesses cranked up, funded, and operational. I have also advised many more that their ideas, their companies – were not ready for prime time. Regardless of whether the ideas are fully formed one thing [...]
I’ve been at a conference on the Gold Coast of Queensland for the last two days on the commercialization of Intellectual Property. Last night I got talking to a young PhD student who is trying to figure out what to do with his life. He registered for the conference because he is looking for a [...]
Prologue: (purloined from http://www.fourthturning.com/html/boom_generation.html) The Boom Generation (Prophet, born 1943-1960) basked as children in Dr. Spock permissiveness, suburban conformism, Sputnik-era schooling, Beaver Cleaver friendliness, and Father Knows Best family order. From the Summer of Love to the Days of Rage, they came of age rebelling against the worldly blueprints of their parents. As their [...]
When young men reach the age of 17, (in Australia) they obtain their driving licenses. Then they buy a cool car (death trap) that isn’t worth the money that they or their parents paid for it. The next three years of their lives are spent “tricking” out the car with the best mag wheels, [...]
Another Koltai Rant of a personal nature. It would appear to me that the Supreme Court in New South Wales is more interested in clearing it’s docket than ensuring that justice is served. This might be because yesterday, I lost my case (filed in March 2007) against Tricom Equities. Or it might be [...]
This is the third article in this series entitled: The Economics of Video Entertainment Part 1 Here Part 2 Here For the last couple of days I’ve been leading up to talking about the individual value proposition as to why people purchase, watch, read or listen to certain types of content. Hedonic pricing [...]
I listen to a lot of science on podcasts one way or another. There are the obvious programs from the ABC and BBC. But there are a lot of other radio programs that then get podcast that feature information that is science related – mainly from the BBC as far as my listening habits are [...]