Author: media

Get along to Kenmore next Wednesday evening to hear how the franchise model has some inherent lessons of value to every business owner and manager. CCIQ Brisbane West is holding the evening as part of its Business Mentoring series of talks.

Speaker for the event, Alan Biggs and his wife Lucy, bought the failing Kip McGrath Education Centres International Master Franchise for the UK & Ireland in 2001.

At that time the organisation, which had been going for some eight years had dropped from 55 franchises to 27 with a real likelihood of further attrition to around 14. Six years later the organisation had 264 franchises and was operating successfully in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

His major interest is in creating successful business systems for small to medium sized enterprises.

The basic rules of good business are the foundation of every successful franchise operation. Individual businesses or SMEs can benefit from learning these fundamental rules and then applying them to their own operation.

Date:           20th of August
Time:           6:00 – 7:45 pm
Location:     Riverglenn
70 Kate Street Indooroopilly
Cost:           $30.00 pp (2 course meal)

RSVP to CCIQ Brisbane West by the 16th of August

The Brisbane Marketing Convention Bureau has hit the ground running for the new financial year, already securing bids to host six Brisbane Conventions, worth an estimated $1.4 million.

The flying start follows a bumper 2013/14 financial year for the Bureau which worked in partnership with the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre to net more than $76 million in conference activity.

The recently secured conferences are the 14th National Solace Conference 2015, the 2017 Rotomould Conference, Hazards Australasia Conference 2015, Australian Local Government Women’s Association (ALGWA) QLD Branch Annual State Conference 2016, Highlands Senior Executive Forum 2015 and the 8th International Conference on Population Geographies 2015.

So far this calendar year Brisbane has welcomed several large-scale business conferences, including theEduTECH National Congress & Exhibition 2014 with 5270 delegates and an estimated economic benefit to the city of $8.6 million, The Asia Pacific Association for the Study of Liver 2014 with 3000 delegates worth $7.5 million and the World Congress of Audiology 2014 with 1700 delegates and a $4.7 million economic injection into the city.

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said he expected the business events momentum to continue on the upward swing for Brisbane as the city gears up to welcome as estimated 7000 visitors for the 2014 G20 Leaders Summit in November.

He said Brisbane’s suitability as a business events hub has grown rapidly alongside its infrastructure to improve accessibility, transport, venues and accommodation, cultural, business and research precincts.

“The 2014 G20 Leaders Summit will only help to reaffirm Brisbane’s attractiveness as a business events hub,” Cr Quirk said.

“Brisbane is reinforced by powerful industry and has the facilities, infrastructure and accessibility to support major national and international conferences with ease.

“We expect delegates attending business events in Brisbane will return to their home countries and spread the word about Australia’s new world city of Brisbane and its offerings.”

John Aitken, CEO of Brisbane’s economic development board, Brisbane Marketing, said aside from the 2014 G20 Leaders Summit, there were several other notable conferences on the Brisbane events calendar for 2014.

“In August Brisbane will host The 17th World Congress of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA 2014) at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, which is expected to attract 1500 delegates and $6.4 million to the city,” Mr Aitken said.

“Next on the agenda for August is the 29^th International Horticultural Congress at the same venue, with 3000 delegates expected and a projected $11 million economic benefit to Brisbane.”

The Westender received this cute media release from Urban Utilities, explaining how their tunnel being drilled in Mollison St (near the Supermarket) has been unavoidably delayed.

In true Ekka tradition, I’m afraid to inform you that our drilling machine in front of 26 Mollison Street has contracted a touch of the Ekka flu from a virus in the heavy rock that has seriously weakened its blades.

Unfortunately this means that while it recovers in its sick bed, we will have to wait until the larger drilling machine being used at the shaft in front of the shopping centre finishes tunnelling towards the centre ring at 26 Mollison Street before we can use it and resume our full show program.

No point [fairy] flossing over this unexpected issue on ‘Sideshow Alley’, this will delay works for several weeks.

However, we are working on bringing works forward in other areas so we can make up as much time as possible. So we keep the Mollison Street ferris wheel rolling, we have also been informed by our ‘carnies’ er contractors that there will be a few Saturdays where they will be working and we will need to run the generator in front of the shopping centre for about an hour on Sundays to run pumps to drain groundwater from the shaft.

Thank you for your patience as you join us on this rollercoaster ride. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

In the meantime, we hope your Sundae (sic) is a Strawberry one and we don’t have too many West(end)erly winds this year.

Yours sincerely

‘Dagwood’ Dylan Communications Consultant and our Senior Project Manager, ‘Showbag’ Stephen

With over 40% of all traffic on the web now being generated by mobile phones and more than half of searches being local, it is critical that retail service providers pitch their online business to customers via mobile.

Recognising the power of this opportunity and the challenge for many small businesses to take advantage of this opportunity, local entrepreneur, Andreja Brkan, has built an service portal around the concept that mobile phone users want to find out what is available nearby and now.

In the always-on world she believes that customers want to be able to book their services on demand. Accordingly, she has called her business, and the app that will drive it ONDI.

ONDI allows users to select a service from a drop-down list or simply type a word into the search engine and it will find them nearby service providers. With one click, their request goes through to the service provider and the booking can be instantly confirmed.

Inner city Brisbane is the launch platform and she has been busy signing up local hair and beauty salons, massage and health clinics as well as personal trainers and gyms.

“There will be over fifty service providers available on day one and we expect rapid growth after that,” she told Business Voice.

More information is available at www.ondi.com or by phoning 07 3844 5248

Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games, Jann Stuckey MP will officially launch the 2014 Queensland Small Business Week at a business lunch on Tuesday, 2 September at City Hall.

“2014 Queensland Small Business Week is a chance to celebrate the contribution our 403,000 hard-working, small businesses make to the State economy, and remind Queenslanders of the importance of buying locally,” Ms Stuckey said.

“The Queensland Government is helping small business to have a big future.”

To kickstart the week, Minister Stuckey has invited all Queensland businesses to attend or join in, via a live web link, to a panel discussion about how to become a small business tiger.

Businesses can register to hear international business expert and the head of America’s Harvard Business School, Professor Josh Learner, discuss how local business is performing on the international stage.

Other Ministerial events include a business breakfast on the Sunshine Coast with one of the most respected CEOs in America, Tom Szasky from Terra Cycle.

Tom brings a wealth of business knowledge, with Terra Cycle referred to as the ‘coolest little start-up in America’ and the ‘Google of garbage’.

A full list of events in, and around Brisbane, is on the Queensland Government business and industry portal at www.business.qld.gov.au/smallbusinessweek.

Last year, more than 4500 businesses participated in 91 events across the State. This year there will be an estimated 120 events.

Small businesses are defined as those employing less than 20 people. There are approximately 403,000 small businesses in Queensland, representing over 95 per cent of all businesses.

To register to host or attend an event, visit the 2014 Queensland Small Business Week website www.business.qld.gov.au/smallbusinessweek.

Bitcoin is promising to be the alternative payment method for retail shopping and online web sites.  Used the World over, Bitcoin is gaining momentum, acceptance and the attention of government regulators.

Bitcoin suffers from technical complexity but the savings are enormous.

With Bitcoin your money is stored on a plastic debit card which you can access at Bitcoin ATM’s, EFTPOS machines in shops and online shopping web sites – Just like your debit/credit cards in your wallet.

The great news about Bitcoin and other alternative currencies is they use cryptology to secure your money instead of centralised controls. Bitcoin and alternative coins such as BankCoin are unregulated.

Bitcoins where initially mined using high speed computer graphics cards and sold on currency trading exchanges for a few dollars each.  Today you can buy/sell 0.10000001 of a Bitcoin for about $66.  Bitcoins have eight decimal places unlike cash which has only two.

Diamond Circle moved from the Brisbane city to West End to be part of this revolution.

The company provides the hardware, software and service backup solutions to support peer to peer money transfer in and out of personal Bitcoin Wallets to their customers the World over.

Diamond Circle is forging a reputation in the emerging field of Bitcoins. It was recently awarded one of Gartner’s ten Cool Company awards.

The product that brought the company to Gartner’s attention is the NFC tags that function as Bitcoin “wallets – either hung from keychain or attached to a phone. The company has been given a vote of confidence, with Gartner recommending that “IT leaders” in finance who are investigating Bitcoins should look into trialing the product.

Since alternative coins are relatively new, Diamond Circle offers free introductory information sessions on accepting alternative currencies with confidence. FOr more information about these sessions, head on over to diamondcircle.net and register your interest.