Google nears launch of paid YouTube subscriptions, report says

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

@YouTube is a key company to watch in my opinion, its consolidated its strategy and now its ready just about ready to roar.

LinkedIn Company Pages: a great way to showcase your organisation, for free!

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Free Guide: LinkedIn Company Pages

It is not often you get things for free, but Company Pages from LinkedIn give small business owners, managers, NFP and NGOs a chance to showcase their organisation for no cost (at the time of this blog!). Linked in Company Pages currently have four sections:

Home page
Products and services
Careers
Insights (including views)

Will creating a company page on LinkedIn really make any difference? Well, have you noticed how when you are searching for a local business or person on Google, LinkedIn profiles typically rank very high in the ‘natural search’ results.

Natural search is what Google finds based on its proprietary search algorithms and ranks the results for you to review.
Paid search are results that appear (usually at the top or side of your search engine results page) that are only there based on advertisers paying for you to seem them based on your key words and phrases used in your search.

Adding a company page to LinkedIn strengthens the natural search result rankings of your business. You can create a Home page and Product / Service descriptions with links to your other websites and social media accounts. While not only providing a free way to showcase your business, it also provides a structured way to think through your products and service offerings.

You can link individual LinkedIn profiles of your management team and key staff to each product or service. You also have the option to ‘pay’ for your job listings in the “Careers” section of your Company Pages. This paid service targets your job vacancies to those meeting your requirements and will cost about $200 AUD for a 30 day local posting in Melbourne (Australia).

Check out the attached guide for more information on LinkedIn Company Pages above. You can create a Company Page from the links here at LinkedIn FAQ.

Creating value for society is not only measured in terms of publications and grants

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Dr Craig Rayner

On 28th Nov 2012, Senator Evans announced, on behalf of the Australian government, the National Research Investment Plan.

The plan states a commitment to “deliver a strong, cohesive research fabric”. I sincerely hope this means there will be renewed focus on developing a stronger “research and commercialisation ecosystem” than what we have today in Australia. If so, then this provides hope that we may be able to attract back to Australia and also retain, more of the experience necessary to help the nation better captialise on our world-class science.

And then there is the Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research in Australia, with the McKeon Review being finalised this month.

Will either of these reviews improve Australia’s biotech ecosystem?

I hope so.

Is there enough recognition that a key training ground for developing and commercializing medicines is the Biotech and Pharmaceutical industry? Some skills can only be obtained by “doing”.

Encouraging cross sector collaboration is key. Breaking down silos between academia, clinical practice and industry and encouraging easier movement of professionals across the sectors.

This works at a student and also senior practitioner level. One barrier to fluid movement across the industry and academic interface is the old “publish or perish” mentality. A greater awareness that “impact” and “creating value for society” is not only measured in terms of publications and grants.

An excellent example is the Monash University and Gates Inhaled Oxytocin program.This collaboration brings in the best and brightest, irrespective of sector, to be focused on finding a solution to the critical issue of postpartum hemorrhage.

Creating a new medicine is never a slam dunk. We wish it was. This means academic investigators engaged in such programs, based on the old “publish or perish” mentality risk their publication records whilst pursuing these potentially life changing areas. Should they be trading off career versus impact to society?

Extend this argument now to innovators who have left to academic environments to work on life changing medicines in biotech and Pharma.

We need the Australian research ecosystem to encourage, not discourage cross-sector collaboration. I hope the outcome of the reviews above address this mind-set.

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Optimize Business guest blogger Dr. Craig Rayner BPharm BPharmSc(Hons) PharmD MBA MAICD, is blogging at drcraigrayner.com and is Director of Clinical Pharmacology (previously Global Due Diligence Director) at Roche and Adjunct Associate Professor, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University.

Stranded sea turtles could help Australia transform locally discovered molecules into global medicines

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Dr Craig Rayner

How many of you had seen the articles Smart Country Sells Itself Short and Australia Blind to the Innovation Boom – Beattie published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 10^th November 2012? Well, ironically, I was first made aware of these articles by three antipodean, but internationally stranded sea turtles!

The article titles themselves paint a view that is shared by many ‘international’ Australians who, having left for foreign shores at various stages of their careers, are faced with the desire of returning home; it hits a particularly raw nerve with those of us closely involved in the development and commercialisation of medicines.

The strengths of Australian science, discovery and optimisation of potential new drugs, are appreciated here at home, and also abroad. We celebrate our fair share of Nobel laureates and the discovery triumphs of brilliant scientists: Ian Frazer and his Queensland team’s cervical cancer vaccine discovery, the discovery of flu-fighting Relenza at CSIRO and Monash University; and world class research productivity from institutes like the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research that showcases Australia’s outstanding research focused medical fraternity.

So why is it that Australia sits 107^thon the 2012 Global Innovation Index, behind Georgia, Malawi and Colombia? As Peter Beattie highlighted, “Our basic research is world-class, our commercialisation is not”. Australia is viewed as a rich hunting ground for “early stage opportunities” for international medicine developers. Real value capture in the life sciences space for Australia is lost when we sell our drugs too early in the development process. Rather, we should be managing risk and intelligently moving some of these early opportunities further along the development path. This requires “development and commercialisation” skills.

This process of “development and commercialisation” of a medicine, like rocket science, is extremely complex, expensive (>$1Bn), risky (<10% of drugs that eventually make it into humans reach the market), and it is definitely not an “individual” sport. It requires “teams” of dedicated, top minds tackling a problem from multiple perspectives in parallel. A typical core drug development team may have 10 or more highly qualified representatives (most with doctoral degrees, and many with multiple qualifications across disciplines) from diverse functional areas, each supported by many others. Roles include medical development, clinical pharmacology, clinical safety, toxicology, pharmaceutical science, project management, operations, commercial, intellectual property, modelling and simulation, epidemiology, regulatory affairs, health economics as well as very smart project leadership.

For a molecule to become a medicine, each of these elements must come together and be integrated successfully. A seasoned “medicine developer” is someone who has not only deep technical knowledge, but importantly, an ability to integrate knowledge (and to ask for expert help as required) gained from substantial experience working within cross-functional development teams solving development problems. The process of applying science in this way is not a discipline which is taught in Universities, but rather is a skill and art which is only learned by experience.

In contrast to US and Europe, this profile of a development professional is under-recognized, under-valued and under-resourced in Australia. A major reason is Australia’s lack of critical mass in this area, a fact which unfortunately drives abroad Australians seeking to pursue leading edge experiences in drug development and commercialisation. A seldom celebrated fact is many Australian’s do incredibly well in these environments. Some have established themselves internationally as leaders in their respective fields, making significant contributions to human health. In fact, the next time you open a medicine’s patient information leaflet, you should reflect that it is quite likely an Australian abroad had a hand in creating the product. Unfortunately, when after years away, such talented Australians ask themselves the question, “What opportunity could I return home too?”, the answer is generally silence.

Can we fix this? What really strikes me, is the chicken and egg problem that we have in Australia.

On one hand we bemoan the fact that we are not good at commercialising the discoveries from our brilliant scientists. I would argue, that an important driver is lack of critical mass in “development and commercialisation” experience in Australia. On the other hand, we actually have a bale (thanks Wikipedia) of sea turtles with critically relevant experience wanting to come home. China has recognised the value of its diaspora, encouraging the return home of internationally experienced scientsist: Australia should do the same.

Now is the time for Australia to be investing in our success beyond the mining boom. I believe an important challenge for Australia, is determining how we can best access such “development and commercialisation” talent to support the existing strong discovery and innovation base our life sciences industry is reputed for. However, retaining the talent will also require creating the right soft infrastructure for the sector. Bring our turtles home but make sure they have any environment in which they may thrive!

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Dr. Craig Rayner BPharm BPharmSc(Hons) PharmD MBA MAICD, is blogging at drcraigrayner.com and is Director of Clinical Pharmacology (previously Global Due Diligence Director) at Roche and Adjunct Associate Professor, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Monash University.

Personal Note: After many years abroad, I was extremely fortunate to be able to continue a global role in an International Pharmaceutical company working from my home in Melbourne with teams based in Europe, US and China. What amazes me, is that incredibly talented Australian’s are peppered throughout the international industry. If we could gather them all up and bring them home, I am sure we could assemble a faculty that could rival any major Pharmaceutical company.

Ever thought you would love preparing invoices? Here’s how

Video

Having worked with many accounting and invoicing systems over the last 20 years, Optimize Business knows a good billing solution when we see one. That is why Optimize Business uses and recommends Freshbooks. It offers the convenience of cloud accounting and an easy of use and efficiency you have to see to believe.

Forget about backing up your invoices: it is done in the cloud
Stop fussing with an email or envelope: it is delivered in the click of a button
Convert that estimate to an invoice and email: done in seconds

Visit our Optimize Business Bookshop for the latest books, DVD’s and resources to optimize your business performance

It is great for small business start-ups who can use it free for three or less clients and even better for bigger businesses who can streamline their invoicing process with the click of a button. And the best part? Clients pay quicker because of the paper-less email delivery and the easy of payment!

This is why Optimize Business is pleased make Freshbooks available to Australian and New Zealand business through our relationship with Freshbooks. In fact, Freshbooks can be used by any business, anywhere! From Deli to Denver, over 5 million businesses are using Freshbooks.

So why not test drive this great product? We did, and we were so impressed with the customer service, support and user experience, that we can’t help but recommend it! Try it for free:

Twitter for small business

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

Is your small business on Twitter? Do you understand how Twitter works and why so many small businesses have jumped onto Twitter?

The above two minute video from Twitter gives a basic understanding of how you might use this social media for your organisation or business. Optimize Business uses Twitter as the main form of social media to engage, communicate ideas, develop business relationships and keep abreast of the latest news or trends in business.

Social media is an investment in our brand. Five years ago, people would use a search engine like Google to find your website, learn about your business and assess if they want to do business with you. Today, consumers and businesses also look at your social media presence to gauge “who you are”: YouTube is now one of the most popular search platforms and Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media are also being used to find businesses.

Unlike Google and Yahoo!, if you are not ‘present’ in Twitter (for example), you will not appear in the results of a search that is done within Twitter. Your business will be Missing in Action in the Twitterspere, this is unless your customers are talking about you (good or bad!), or worse, your competitors are filling your void.

The absence of “your voice” from social media platforms, like Twitter, says something to the world about your business. For those who have used social media to find you, or to talk to you, your absence from their preferred channel will be noted and probably not in a good way.

It is important not to just jump into social media. You should speak to other businesses that use social media, and make sure it is done in a planned way, as part of a social media strategy that suits your brand, your business and your customers. A failed social media presence is perhaps even worse that no social media at all.

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn and other forms of social media, each “Tweet” is limited to only a 140 characters. Other forms of social media have larger word limits. Tweets therefore need to be short, engaging and easy to understand. The 140 character limit is quite helpful in helping you take the ‘padding’ out of your business communications.

So back to Twitter. It is a great tool for start-ups, small and large businesses alike. You can easily share (tweet) links to videos, blogs, webpages and photos to provide richer content with your short Twitter ‘broadcasts.’ If you content is engaging, you will probably find each tweet brings in additional new followers and people may share your communications by retweeting (RT) your message.

Twitter is a free social media tool that provides an incredible networking and communication channel into the hands of even the tiniest business, NGO or NFP. You can do a lot of targeted ‘campaigns’ yourself for free:

Twitter can provide almost perfect customer targeting, for free! Just search for a topic relevant to your organisation on Twitter.com and look at the people that are engaging in discussions or following others on that topic. Then search through the “followers” of relevant people and you will find people, businesses and organisations that are interested in the topic. These people will therefore be likely to follow you back if you follow them. Be a little selective in who you follow (avoid those who you would not really want following you) and you can easily build up your own followers by simply following those with common interests to your own.

Businesses, large and small, can also pay to have their products or services promoted on Twitter, via promoted “accounts” and promoted “tweets”. This video gives you a good sense of how you can pay to promote your organisation, but most new Twitter users would initially try the free approach outlined in the paragraph above.

For more information, Twitter publishes a great guide to get your organisation started on this exciting social media platform: Twitter for Small Business.

2012 Andrew McIntosh CPA Optimize Business @Optimize_Biz

The “Five Ws” of Mission

Posted on September 19, 2012 by ovari

Have you ever misunderstood what your boss wanted you to do?
Have your staff ever carried out your directions, however the outcomes are not what you expected?
Have you ever wondered what your boss wanted to do or you didn’t think it made sense? (Don’t worry your staff have in the past felt that way about you too).

Hi, my name is Attila Ovari and I am guest blogging for Andrew McIntosh on his Blog Optimize Business. If you answered “Yes” to any of the questions above, don’t worry…. You’re not alone. These are common misunderstandings in any organisation. However what can we do to improving communications and in giving directions. The “5 Ws” is a simple tool that I learnt as a Trainee in the Australian Army. The “5 Ws” are Who, What, Where, When and Why……

In the Army when giving orders it is important to ensure that the directions provided are clearly communicated and fully understood. However this should be no different in any workplace, community group or team. So how do you communicate your intent and ensure that it is understood by the team?

This article will not cover all the ins and outs of communications and direction giving, however it will discuss a simple tool that you can use for giving instructions. The “Five Ws” – Who, What, When, Where and Why…..

Many years ago when I as a Staff Cadet in the Australian Army Reserve, we were taught about Mission Statements. The mission statement (or Mission for Short) was a sentence on what you are to achieve. This sentence, “The Mission”, was to be a clear and concise statement that articulates what the team is to achieve. It was drummed into me that each and every mission statement was to include each of the “Five Ws”.

Since that time I have found this tool very useful in many circumstances when I am clearly communicating my intent to my staff around what I require to be done. Each of the components of the “Five Ws” has been very important to ensure clear communication.

Who: Though this may seem obvious, the who is often a point of confusion. How many times have you left a meeting assuming that some action items are being done by someone else and they thought you were actioning these same items?
What: This is what you want to achieve. This component is the part that is most commonly communicated as part of a direction. The What combined with the other four Ws will ensure clearer communication.
When: How many times have you been tasked with something and assumed it was not due for a while? Then all of the sudden you are asked to deliver the outcomes and it is not ready. How many times have your direct reports not been sure of their deadlines and been caught off guard? So ensure that when giving directions you include when it needs to be conducted or when the work is due.
Where: Again the where is something that is often overlooked, as we assume it is implied in our directions. The where is about the environment or where the work is required to be delivered. This may be a physical location, a presentation or a virtual location (i.e. email).
Why: Often when people give directions, we fail to also give the reason why. In my opinion this is one of the most important parts of a mission or when giving directions. The Why relates to the purpose of the task and the mission. This is the intent of the task and should align with your bosses what part of their mission or task.

When drafting the Why, where possible ensure that it is in accordance with the intent of your boss and your bosses boss. The reason why it is important to look at the boss’ intent is to ensure that your direct reports have a clear understanding of the organisation’s required outcomes. With the understanding of the organisation’s required outcomes it opens the door for staff to seize opportunities in these directions.

Here is a simple Example of the “Five Ws” in practice:

My monthly Report is due to my Manager via email by the 2^nd Friday each month in order to allow time for my manager to submit the monthly report to the board in time for the board meeting.

So here is the breakdown:

Who – Me
What – Monthly Report
When – by 2^nd Friday each month
Where – email to my Manager
Why – ensure my Manager has time to submit Report to Board

In this example it is clear what I have to do in the broader context. I also know that my report is important for the information that goes to the board and hence I need to consider what the important items to report for that audience are.

In concluding I hope this simple tool, the “Five Ws”, is helpful in providing clear communication to your staff, so they have a clear understanding of what is required to be achieve and the require outcomes.

Blogged by: Attila Ovari

©Attila &Kim Ovari 2012. The content of this Article may be reproduced with permission of the author. Last update 09 Sep 12. More information about the author can be found at www.attilaovari.com.

Twitter for Business: link your tweets to appear on Facebook!

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

: Get your Tweets posted on your Facebook page automatically! It is easy to set-up, go to the Twitter Help Center to learn more.

The Facebook Settings page (when you are logged in as a profile Administrator in Facebook) has a “Link to Twitter” button. This is a good way to post onto Twitter if your primary social media tool is Facebook.

But remember the most Twitter users will see of your Facebook post is 140 characters. This means you need to fashion your opening Facebook wording carefully to still make sense once it posts on Twitter. The link to your Facebook post in the Tweet will also decrease your available characters.

Optimize Business suggests doing the reverse: log into your Twitter account and then have your Tweets automatically post onto your Facebook page. This will mean that you have more control over the final text outcome that is communicated on both social media platforms. You can carefully craft your Tweet to 140 characters and this will then look and ‘feel’ better across both mediums.

You will probably find you end up doing more Facebook entries as well, because avid tweeters often end up tweeting more from their mobile devices…. so why not communicate to your Facebook crowd too!

If you want big, attention grabbing photographs or links to interesting articles, simply post direct to Facebook to ensure you do not get a thumbnail of the Twitter photograph.

Facebook for Business: allow subscribers!

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Andrew McIntosh CPA, Optimize Business

For the sake of business, don’t for get to “Allow Subscribers”!

If you are running a business page on Facebook, don’t forget to go into your Facebook Settings (found on the top right of your page) and tick the “Allow Subscribers” check box.

This means Facebook users will be able to find you on Facebook, via public search engines and connect… which is probably why your business is on Facebook, so people can find out about your business! Your customers and the public can subscribe without becoming a “friend” also.

© 2012 Andrew McIntosh CPA Optimize Business @Optimize_Biz