In the last week a major report has been released in the UK on the state of IP and economic growth. This is really quite significant because what it serves to do is to look at the issues of copyright and patenting not from the subjective point of view of corporations in the content industry, […]

The movement to mobile is incredible, isn’t it? I have been reading up on data relating to the growth of mobile over the last couple of days so that I can deliver a reasonably coherent lecture on a number of issues relating to mobile to first year communication students at UoW. At the same time […]

So someone calls you up and says that they want to buy your company. You take a deep breath and then say, let’s talk… There are a lot of wrinkles in selling your business. The main one is that most people are so unused to the concept that they stumble at the first fence…. Imagine […]

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 […]

How important in the development of ideas into commercial reality is talent? And how important is persistence, determination and hard work? They used to say: “1% inspiration and 99% determination”. The thing is that there are a lot of steps along the way to launching a business, launching a product, or launching a company. At […]

The earthquake that hit Japan has to be one of the most tragic events of the last few years – and there have been a few! Over the last 6 or 7 years I have spent a fair bit of time in Japan, always on business. Its a country that I truly love. Actually that […]

Niall Ferguson, the Scottish economic historian, often talks about people who see economies as balanced ecosystems ignoring the fact that these ecosystems are always teetering on the edge of chaos. The thing that takes the system out of balance and into chaos is often something that has been ignored or discounted as impossible – like […]

I came across an interview with Michael Chugg earlier today, via a posting in Facebook. (Amazing that Facebook now appears to spread news in the long tail better than any other technology). He was talking about the lack of support for new and emerging musicians by commercial radio in Australia. Obviously a comment of this […]

Have you noticed that even as we see the power of digitization modifying business and, in my view driving productivity gains into the consumer marketplace, we also see regulation of the worst kind creeping into the system? Lets talk about productivity gains for a minute. The power of the smart phone. New apps are coming […]

Last week I was in Japan for the Nanotech conference. It was very interesting…. I made some new friends and I think that there will be a couple of very interesting business opportunities that come out of it. But that is incidental to what is important in Japan. What is important is trust, friendship, respect, […]