Random stuff you need to know about

In YESTERDAY’S post I wrote about how your body ‘thinks’ = Embodied Cognition.

I asked you a question. If you haven’t read it, read it quickly before continuing because the answer follows at the bottom of this post.

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I have changed my writing schedule to bring you DAILY blog posts instead of a weekly posts and a monthly (more-or-less) newsletter. But sometimes you just come across stuff that can only be shared as ‘titbits’ in a newsletter, so I am introducing a ‘random stuff you need to know about’ post.

1.  There is a place that kids can turn to get homework help. Mmmmh….

2.  I juxtapose this with Seth Godin agitating for change in the school system – a noble dream and interesting read. (Although it has been around a while.)

3.  Two interesting facts from some academic research:

ONE

Our results show that a higher degree of customers' convenience orientation in contrast to the degree of risk aversion and service orientation encourages the selection of the online channel over the offline channel. 

TWO

The negativity of the service failure has the potential to escalate when consumers who are part of a traditionally stigmatized group believe the service failure to be a purposeful event brought on by physically observable differences in appearance

As always, YOUR JOB when being confronted with facts like these are to ask yourself: SO WHAT? And then respond to your own interpretation.

4.  And fourthly, being entrepreneur, I was attracted to the title of this site: http://www.thestartupofyou.com/ - and since it was written by the founder of LinkedIn I thought it was interesting enough to check out.

5.  This wonderful piece from Ian Martin on turning 60 – one for the Boomers.

6.  Have you ever wondered what the world's first website, looked like? It is recreated on its original URL 20 years since it launched? Check it out.

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The answer to yesterday’s question is:

People moving UP are more likely to donate because they are more ‘upstanding’ or ‘high-minded’ and will act accordingly.

Dennis Price

GANADOR: Building businesses that can jump the curve with certainty.

On the Ganador business model

I am (obviously) fascinated by business models. That is how you design your business to respond to the opportunity in the market.

In my mind your strategic success is determined by your business model and thinking and tinkering on your business model is more important than strategic planning - which usually perpetuates the status quo.

When we started out, we replicated the business model that worked for us running our own business in South Africa. (Consulting, Training, Mystery Shopping.)

Those three elements work well together:

• Mystery Shopping finds the problems
• Consulting identifies the solutions
• Training Implements the solutions

Over time we also added:

• A Publishing division (we have so many training resources it makes sense to sell it to other companies)
• A Technology division (we use two amazing technology platforms for eLearning and for Knowledge Management and we are registered resellers of those platforms.

But putting all of the above into an ‘elevator pitch’ becomes hard. Explaining to a CEO of a potential client what we do is not easy. In fact, whilst it may be true, it is not credible to for a small organisation like ours to be a ‘one-stop shop’.

On a more personal note; we now simply say we are business architects: if you are business with a retail presence (brand or retailer) we will design and deliver solutions to make that happen. It may or may not include training and it may or may not include technology - and so forth.

I hope our message is clearer. I hope by stripping back everything that we do to only the essentials (building businesses in a retail environment) is a better way of communicating – because it is more relevant to the needs of the intended receiver.

Emails, comments and even phone calls are welcome.

Dennis Price

We don't need more money spent on education

Originally published on my private Tumblr because it is slightly off-topic. But on second thoughts I figure there is something about finding the opportunity in every crisis that is a valuable lesson in this post. Hope I am right.

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Like most other countries Australia is struggling to balance the budget. One of the areas which are being slashed by the States is TAFE funding. 

The Federal Government is trying to buy votes with a watered down implementation of the so-called Gonski report – which recommended additional billions of funding for schools. Their sleight of hand is to grab money from Universities to fund the schools.

But the one thing everyone agrees is that they would like to spend more money on education – if they could.

Given that (a) Australia spends a lot of money on Education (at least on par if not better than most developed countries) and given that (b) school education is free and given that (c) tertiary education is relatively accessible (free, pay when you start earning more than a threshold); I would argue we have reasonably good system.

Spending more money on education seems such a no-brainer that most people actually don’t think any further about it.

The problem we face is not lack of money.

In the very short term I believe the bureaucrats would be able to find at least 20% savings in expenditure somewhere to fund priorities elsewhere. Every bureaucratic system is inefficient; they just have to work at finding out where. That will do for the next 3- 5 years.

The real challenge and the real solution is to change the culture of educating our children in the homes better.

Parents are not doing a good job at educating a robust, healthy nation. Simply look at the figures for:

• Obesity
• Gambling
• Drinking

The pervasiveness of these trends proves we are not making smart lifestyle choices – which are all traced back to how we raise our families.

These are not indicative of poor government and certainly not indicative of poor schooling systems.

People need to develop a culture of autodidactism - because that is the only truly effective form of learning:

With today’s technology (and the abundance of free educational resources literally at our fingertips) the need/ function of traditional education is largely redundant. The kid who wants to learn, can. All they need is a computer and internet access.

Autodidactism underpins lifelong learning and is a requirement for productive life in any progressive society and economy.

If parents could instill sound values (discipline, self-directedness etc.) then the only role that schools would have to play are:

1. to create an environment for group learning and socialisation in a peer environment
2. to set standards or criteria for certification as an objective measure of a certain level of education

I think schools can fulfill that function with 20% of the current budgets. (Based on the Pareto Principle.)

The lack of money to fund the traditional model of education is a good thing and a smart government will use that to re-think how education is delivered.

The only flaw with this argument is that the parents are not taking responsibility for the education of their children.

The obvious target is the group who are probably at the RSL playing the pokies and having a beer instead of doing their job as the primary educator of their children. 

But equally guilty are those who are snorting coke and conferencing at Hamilton Island or having after-work drinks at The Establishment. They paid good money to put the kid is in some grammar school at exorbitant fees in order to shift the responsibility onto the education system.

I believe teachers are doing a very difficult job. Admirably so. I could not teach most of the brats I encounter in the malls, so hats off to them. 

But more of the same is not the answer and tipping more money down that endless pit won’t solve our problems and challenges to create a healthy, smart and productive society.

We don't need more money spent on education, we need to figure out how families can be made healthy again. And that will require us to innovate...

Franchisors, here is your operations manual solution

There is a simple solution to the nightmare of updating and disseminating your operations manual.

The CLOUD has been invented for problems like this - and we could put you in 7th heaven :)

Have a look:

OPERATIONS MANUAL PROBLEM SOLVED

Sneak Peek: Want some?

It has never been done in Australia (or anywhere we know of)  - so CHECK IT OUT: 

DENNIS

The end of the GFC: Good times ahead

What is the Big Prediction

I predicted on 25 June 2010 that Apple will fail. (Shares are currently at a 5-year low.) That is one of my most high-profile predictions, but without getting to much wind being blown you-know-where; let’s just say I have the knack.

So, here is my next big one.

I am predicting that we are entering a Bull Market. (Some ups and downs – but overall at least 10 years of growth.) This growth won’t come in the same sectors and industries that we previously benefited from growth, so there will still be massive pain for many businesses as those industries fade into obscurity.

There is one caveat about Australia: The government is extremely meddlesome and they are tinkering with a system they don’t understand – in fact, no one can truly understand a complex adaptive system.

Most other governments have learned a lesson over the last five years – but since Australia was spared the worst of the downside, we may not have much of an upside – and there may even be some pain coming our way depending on what the government will break anytime soon. (Or they could still be lucky.)

That said; if you have used the opportunity of the GFC to become more antifragile, then you are in for a good run.

If I am wrong you will be no worse off than you are now and if I am right, you will be smiling all the way.

Lesson: Always associate with optimists.

Hundreds done, hundreds more

Dear RSS READER

OK, so 200 people have come across. If you are reading this and you haven't subscribed HERE. Please do it NOW. 

You know I am going to send you annoying messages until you have done it. :)

Check out the site if you are not sure what you are subscribing too. 

Dear EMAIL Reader

EMAIL subscribers - you are automatically subscribed to a WEEKLY update list and will continue to receive posts that way. (instead of getting the posts once or twice a week as published, I have elected to send it weekly. Feel free to change if you like.)

Dear Everyone

Anyone can choose to get ANY/ALL of the following options:

1. Daily RSS Feed
2. WeeklyEmail Update
3. Monthly Newsletter Notification (or less often)

ALL OPTIONS IN THE SIDEBAR AT: GANADOR.

Thanks - we really appreciate the effort...

Here goes...

Made the switch away from Feedburner.

The ONLY option (and believe me I tried everything) is for current RSS readers to subscribe here.

That means if you are getting/reading this post in your FEEDREADER you must please re-subscribe. (You don't have to change your reader, just your subscription.)

Email subscribers DO NOTHING because you have been manually migrated to an email service and will receive WEEKLY UPDATES because that was the frequency of posting previously. We are posting more regularly, and if you want that please subscribe where you see this image on the site.

Check out the blog for recent updates to ascertain whether you like what you are getting.

We'd be honoured if you stick with us.

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Thanks for understanding.

Friday Fun One - Taking the mickey out of customers

It's Friday (in Australia at least) so maybe time for a a fun one :)

I generally reserve these for Facebook Updates, but thought I'd share it here with more of you. (Of course if you come and like us HERE we can have more fun more often.)

Consumer behaviour: some interesting stats to think about

Some interesting stats to chew on from an industry research project by Miller Zell cited here.

In the 2.3 seconds that most people spend on in-store brand decisions

Just over 90% of shoppers make unplanned purchases and shopping list use is up substantially (65%).

Gen Y shoppers are also more likely to make impulse purchases at "end caps."

• About 70% say they responded to end-of-aisle signage.
• 62% to merchandising displays,
• 58% to department signage, and
• 55% to shelf strips.

Sale prices motivated more shoppers (70%) than "everyday low price" positioning (47%.)

About 93% of Baby Boomers say they prefer product messages rather than price-point messages while shopping.

In case you missed it earlier- 1 Feb

Everyone is busy during the week – and we hate to see a good idea go to waste. Not every idea works for everyone, but one of these may just be what the doctor ordered. From Ganador's Blog:

1. A Friday fun one (cartoon) with a smart arse kid that reminds me of a customer.
2. Always fascinated by success and failure, I was thinking that what the gurus tell us in the self-help books are just their particular journey and that it might not apply to you. Success is not sexy.
3. Human motivation is an interesting subject – because you can’t do it! Daniel Pink shares some thoughts.
4. A successful business must be successful at recruiting. What type of questions should you ask in an interview? Smart questions, of course.
5. Making more money as a retailer is easy and hard. By studying some numbers you will find easy things that will transform your business. They will be easy because it will be things you already do – but must do differently.
6. Some musings on the good/bad things that the internet has brought us. And how bad is sometimes disguised as good.

And for some contrarian ideas and insights, get your free eBook on 101 uncomfortable truths about marketing you don't want to know. (Click on Image)

If you don't get our newsletter (The Winners Circle) - please subscribe. It is published erratically when we have curated content from around the web that is worthy of your time.

News Roundup

There have been so many changes recently at Ganador, I thought some of our readers may be interested.

1. Our latest newsletter (Winners Circle) was published - and you can get that be subscribing.
2. We published a free eBook (no subscription, just download): 101 uncomfortable truths about marketing you don't want to know. (Download link from website.)
3. We are releasing those 101 truths as a series of posts on Ganador Facebook page. Like us there if you are happy to receive updates that way.  (99% of our updates are tips/ insights that you can use.)
4. We have started collating our favourite books on a personalised Amazon Shopfront - and we would love you to come and visit. and check out our recommendations.
5. We have refreshed our website and added a new section for articles (Think Pieces) which are longer articles (4-6 pp) that you can download. We think there are some important ideas in them that we want to share - and make easy for you to share.
6. On an operational level, we are cancelling our RTO registration and instead will focus more on this exciting new service.