Links

1.	Maureen Houssein-Mustafa's three most important business lessons
2.	Best of our blogs

Business News

3.	Where the NBN's going next - and what it will cost
4.	Consumers will pay for Christmas with their own savings, not credit
5.	National push for more council protection wins taskforce support

Announcements

6.	Win the new book - 'Across the Divide'
7.	We're looking for startups to pitch in a new online Pitchfest
8.	Help us write a great business plan for a tradie
9.	Call for Expert columnists
10.	Why we're late :-(

Feature articles

11.	Who is the world's next President of Technology?

Links

Maureen Houssein-Mustafa's three most important business lessons

Maureen Houssein-Mustafa's Australasian College Broadway is one of Australia's leading private training institutions. Founded 17 years ago, the company can now handle up to 2,500 students and is pioneering new qualifications in the health and beauty industry.

Houssein-Mustafa's contributions to industry and philanthropy have seen her awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia.

In this four-minute podcast, Houssein-Mustafa outlines three things she feels are essential for business success.

Click here to access the podcast.

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Best of our blogs

My Business’ writers have been hard at it again. Here are their best online efforts for the week.

The human side of outsourcing
Flat Planet’s Chris Moriarty explains just what outsourcing can mean for a community – a chance to keep families together and raise living standards.

Is speed networking killing your business?
Maree Hamilton of Network Events Melbourne says speed networking is like a one-night stand. And we all know how unsatisfying they can be!

Five ways to get rave customer reviews
Franziska Iseli-Hall of Basic Bananas offers her five best ways to get customers saying wonderful things about your business.

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Business News

Where the NBN's going next - and what it will cost

Yesterday was a big day in the life of the National Broadband network.

First, NBNCo, the body charged with implementing the network, announced the locations where it work for the next year. 28 locations, covering 485,000 premises, will get the NBN treatment. But if your suburb's name is on the list below don't start planning to flick the switch: NBNCo says it will take about a year from the moment it digs a hole to the time when you can actually hook up (once you are hooked up, here's what to expect).

A couple of hours later, Telstra shareholders approved the $11billion deal that will see it give up its copper network so NBNCo can use its ducts and other assets to bring links to your home or business.

While that was happening, price comparison service WhistleOut released a blog comparing NBN and ADSL2+ pricing that finds NBN plans are often cheaper.

You can find the blog post here., but we've popped in a shortcut to one of the charts below.

And now for that list of new locations; we hope your town has made it!

Australian Capital Territory

Gungahlin

New South Wales

Armidale

Blacktown

Coffs Harbour

Dapto

Gosford

Jamberoo

Kiama

Lidcombe

Long Jetty

Penrith

Richmond

Riverstone

Sawtell

Strathfield (Homebush)

Wollongong

Northern Territory

Casuarina

Darwin

Queensland

Aspley

Goodna

Nudgee

Toowoomba

Townsville

Townsville City

South Australia

Aldinga Beach

Modbury

Port Augusta

Port Elliot

Prospect

Seaford / McLaren Vale

Stirling

Strathalbyn

Yankalilla

Willunga

Tasmania

Deloraine

George Town

South Hobart

Kingston Beach

Launceston

Midway Point

Scottsdale

Smithton

Somerset

Sorell

St Helens

Triabunna

Victoria

Bacchus Marsh

Ballarat Central

Brunswick

Melbourne City

Melton

South Morang

Tullamarine

West Australia

Applecross

Geraldton

Mandurah

Meadow Springs

Pinjarra

South Perth

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Consumers will pay for Christmas with their own savings, not credit

Consumers' credit cards won't leave the wallet this Christmas, with piggy banks to be raided for hard-saved cash instead, according to ?the new Dun & Bradstreet survey of Consumer Credit Expectations.

The survey asked consumers how they plan to fund the additional expenditure that many people make in the December quarter and found that "only 20 per cent planned to apply for new credit, down from a peak of 33 per cent in mid 2009."

Nearly 60% of respondents said they will cover extra spending from their savings.

The survey also recorded "a 25 per cent fall in the proportion of consumers anticipating having extra money in the lead up to Christmas."

Dun & Bradstreet CEO Christine Christian said "This does not bode well for key sectors like retail and tourism that are already experiencing an otherwise dismal year. At this stage it is doubtful whether consumers will deliver as expected this Christmas."

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National push for more council protection wins taskforce support

The National Sea Change Taskforce has given its backing to a national push for greater legal protection for councils currently at risk when they provide advice or make decisions on coastal planning and the impacts of climate change.

Chair of the Taskforce, Barry Sammels, said additional protection from legal liability was the top priority in an updated taskforce policy currently being reviewed by member councils.

Cr Sammels said the taskforce was delighted that the board of the Australian Local Government Association had agreed to advocate the adoption of the NSW model as a national template for supporting councils in managing liability risks.

The board decision followed the presentation of a report on the legal position of councils by the legal firm Baker & McKenzie – a report commissioned by ALGA with support from the Federal Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

The report said potential management levers provided to councils for adapting to and addressing climate risk created many challenges, particularly in relation to legal liability.

It said there was “uncertainty about the extent of liability and responsibility of local governments to address climate change”. The full report can be found here.

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Announcements

Win the new book - 'Across the Divide'

Across the Divide: Navigating the Digital Revolution as a Woman, Entrepreneur and CEO sees Susan S. Elliott, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Systems Service Enterprise, share her insights into how to manage change and thrive, complete with plenty of examples of how she made it happen herself.

We've got five copies of the book on our desk waiting for a home on yours.

To score the book, simply Like our Facebook page. The first five to do so will receive the book.

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We're looking for startups to pitch in a new online Pitchfest

Are you working in a startup?

My Business wants you.

For the last year or so, we've featured a 'Startup of the Month' in the pages of each issue.

Truth be told - it's been a bit of an arbitrary award.

Not any more. As of now we're looking for three startups a month and will soon stage our first Pitchfest webinar to select one as our next, more democratically selected, Startup of the Month.

If you think you have what it takes to stare down other startups and win a popular vote, let us know by sending email to mybusinesseditor@mybusiness.com.au

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Help us write a great business plan for a tradie

My Business has started a new 'How-to' series that will help you if you are thinking of starting a new business, or want to improve your current business.

Each week we'll tackle a common business challenge like planning a business, finding ways to grow or working through cash flow problems. We'll also look at the most common types of business around Australia.

Our first effort illustrates the kind of thing we want to do: write a great business plan for a tradie.

We need your help to do this! So ... if you have any insights or tips on how tradies can write themselves a killer business plan, write to our new Online Editor Andrea O'Driscoll.

Click here to send Andrea an email.

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Call for Expert columnists

MyBusiness.com.au's "Experts" section is on the hunt for some new writers. We currently lack a writer on import/export, business planning, technology for small business, online marketing, and training.

If you'd like to put yourself forward as a regular columnist, contact Online Editor Andrea O'Driscoll.

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Why we're late :-(

The My Business team apologises for late delivery of this week's newsletter, and for it being a little light-on compared to previous weeks' efforts.

Illness among the team meant we didn't have as many people at work as we would have liked. It seems the very nasty flu responsible for the absences is now under control so next week should see a resumption of normal service.

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Feature articles

Who is the world's next President of Technology?

Story by Simon Sharwood

In the early 2000s something very odd happened.

Bill Gates started being invited to meet Presidents and Prime Ministers, or to speak at global economic events like the World Economic Forum. Gates is an astoundingly successful capitalist, so the latter made sense. But I could never quite figure out why he belonged on a global stage and why he was relevant beyond his core activity – making software that sells really, really well (and at a wonderful profit margin).

I eventually wrote, for a long-forgotten IT website, that Gates had become a kind of World President of Technology. As the Secretary General of the United Nations spoke for us all on matters humanitarian, Gates' astounding business success let him become our global oracle on technology .

When Gates retired I predicted Steve Jobs would inherit the crown. I think I was right: Jobs came to be regarded as the ultimate techno-capitalist.

But with his passing, the position of World President of Technology is vacant.

The twin founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, still lack the charisma to take the crown. Neither has done anything to suggest they are willing to put a friendlier face on Google and I cannot see them dong it now.

In 2008 I wrote that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was too young to get the crown. I think that may still be the case. Facebook is a remarkable entity, but is growing pretty slowly compared to the likes of Google – at least in terms of revenue.

Facebook is also quite a cynical company, in my opinion. It is shameless about harvesting data in ways that benefit Facebook, even if customers don’t always benefit. The less-than-flattering portrait of Zuckerberg in The Social Network doesn’t help – he may be young and rich but he scarcely seems admirable. Zuckerberg is also a bit reclusive. He seldom speaks in public and when he does scarcely ventures beyond discussion of Facebook.

It’s also far from clear that Zuckerberg has built a durable company. MySpace was run down in years and people are very fickle about their online loyalties. So there’s little assurance Zuckerberg is worthy of the crown because while we all use Facebook, it lacks the obvious permanence of Windows or the smartphone as a part of everyday life helped crown Gates and then Jobs .

So who else is there? Oracle’s Larry Ellison runs an amazing company but is so focussed on business customers that he lacks the wide appeal to get the gig. Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff is a wonderful challenger whose company is going like a train, but again lacks the consumer outreach to make him a global figure.

The fervour for cloud computing makes someone from that industry seem a likely presidential candidate. But it’s hard to think just who from the cloud can swing the gig.

Except for one person who is not really associated with cloud beyond the technology community – Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos. Unbeknown beyond geeky circles, Amazon is a leader in cloud computing services for business. The company is also swinging that expertise behind a range of new services that will power its new Kindle Fire and represent cool new ways to access and organise content.

The current Kindles are selling (pardon the pun) like wildfire. All indications are that the Fire will do likewise. When they do, Amazon will become a more prominent part of many peoples’ lives, embedding itself in their lives as a hub for content acquisition and sharing. When that happens, Bezos will gain a lot more profile and take credit for making people happier.

Will it be enough to see Bezos take the unofficial crown of World President of Technology?

To do so, I think he’ll have to fight off Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter who has since gone on to launch Square, a mobile payment system that is going astoundingly well and giving the likes of PayPal a real tickle. Dorsey’s serial successes could give him the platform to become a global go-to figure, especially as his business wins achieve the rare feat of straddling business and consumers.

Dorsey might need one more big score to take the crown, so for me the smart money’s on Bezos.

Who do you think could become the next honorary World President of Technology? Let me know: mybusinesseditor@mybusiness.com.au

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