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I love the Lean Startup Machine weekend. I took part in their previous one in 2012 at Fishburners in Sydney. You can read more about the process here: http://leanstartupmachine.com/about/ but it’s really about introducing a scientific, no-nonsense approach to rapidly validating or invalidating new business ideas. My favourite motto from the weekend is “Get out of the building” which basically means:…

Photo Credit: giveawayboy via photopin cc I was on my way in to Fishburners today. It’s a truly gorgeous Saturday and as I was coming in on the train enjoying the always awesome views you get from Edgecliff station to King’s Cross and from King’s Cross to Martin Place I was downing my cap with two and had my…

If you just want the take-aways then scroll down to the third section. The Backstory To The Interview I first met Gary Swart at Fishburners in Sydney where he was taking part in a panel on the future of work. At first sight he looked like a polished corporate figurehead practiced in managing his public…

Much has been written about writer’s block. It’s often believed to be something that effects everyone who writes from time to time. You can see the scenes in movies where the struggling writer stares at a blank page in total bewilderment. The biggest misconception is that writer’s block is the inability to begin writing. I…

What’s a Zombie Startup? This post was provoked/inspired by Danielle Morrill’s post on Zombie Startups but it’s also something that’s been on my mind for a while. Eric Ries talks about some startups being in the land of the living dead. This is what people mean when they say: “Zombie Startups”, they look like they are alive…

The image above describes many corporates: the house is the company and the people posing are the managers. Not one person is responsible for letting the house burn but collectively they’re doing a bad job of stopping it. One of the great tragedies of how we’re hard-wired as a species is our preference for short-term…

Going out for New Year’s Eve. Every year, against my own personal wishes, I get roped into going to a gathering somewhere only to spend hours (literally) walking home and wondering what people get out of the whole affair. I’d rather be at home with a good book or hosting the party myself so that…

Putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes is one of the most valuable abilities to have. I’m a guy who has a lot of empathy. It’s true. So perhaps that’s one reason why I think it must be an important thing to have. To me, empathy is the ability to exercise emotional imagination. The ability to…

“Hud”, staring Paul Newman, was one of the best films I saw on the IMDB top 250 that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. One project I’ve been working on for a while is to watch every film on the IMBD top 250. One of the consequences of growing up on a boat and travelling a lot…

I’m not a big fan of creating resolutions at this time of the year. Mostly it’s because everyone else is doing it and I think you should make resolutions all the time instead of when mass media prompts you to. It should be a proactive choice not a reactive one. That being said, there’s something…