The Power of 100- an event at the MCA sponsored by Westpac to celebrate the 100^th Anniversary of International Women’s Day. The Power of 100, a 128-page book, was jointly launched by writer/editor Ita Buttrose, Westpac Group CEO Gail Kelly and the federal Social Inclusion Minister Tanya Plibersek. It honoured 100 Australian women who have made a difference past and present. It was a great night- friends and new connections.

http://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/sustainability-and-community/international-womens-day-lp/

Ad:Tech Sydney- Digital Marketing Conference and Expo. We went to a few sessions that explored the digital marketing landscape. The take-away message for me was about being really relevant when communicating with customers – and that conversations matter. Of course there are a myriad of clever ways to do this across many platforms.

http://www.ad-tech.com/sydney/adtech_sydney.aspx

Qantas Mentoring Program- an event for mentors and mentees to support this program for women at Qantas. The 2 main speakers were Sally MacDonald CEO Oroton Group and Jayne Hrdlicka Qantas. They shared their inspirational stories of corporate success. Journeys fuelled by hard work, attention to detail, risk, drive, energy, intelligence and learning. They shared where their passions came and the challenges they faced while being thoughtful, generous and true to their personal values. They were wonderful- I just wish some of the young women I know had been in the audience – and my son for that matter.

Chief Executive Women & Westpac Leadership Forum- where a panel of business leaders discussed how businesses could best facilitate, an increase in the number of women at senior levels.

Once again a stunning group of people including:

Alison Watkins CEO and Managing Director of GrainCorp Ltd. Elizabeth Bryan Director Westpac Banking Corporation Richard Lee Chairman Australian Institute of Company Directors & Chairman Salmat Belinda Hutchinson AM Chairman of QBE Insurance Group and a director of AGL Energy, St Vincent’s Health Australia, the Salvation Army Eastern Territory Advisory Board and the Centre for Independent Studies. Belinda is also the President of Chief Executive Women.

With MC Naseema Sparks Non-Executive Director Naseema sits on a number of company and not-for-profit boards including Blackmores Ltd, PMP Ltd, Chartis Australia and Sydney Dance Company. Naseema’s executive career was as Managing Director of M&C Saatchi and she was one of a small number of global equity partners.

Issues we need to address as a community- men also have to understand why as well.

http://www.cew.org.au/

Work wise I was reminded about how important authentic story telling is in product design & marketing. We rarely buy with our minds, but rather with our hearts. I saw some stunning examples of emotive story telling by sellers of some very unique wares in far off ‘the beaten track’ places. It was a powerful reminder that ‘real’ works.

Documenting your travels is something that most people do. As I have never travelled in a group before I had no idea how diligent people are about writing up their travel journals everyday. Corban & Blair have many stunning journals for this purpose in our collection – and I plan that we will have many more.

Below is the precious travel journal of my 21 year old son’s latest travels -his month in Ghana volunteering in a hospital, time in Europe and then a journey through Morocco with his mum (and 12 other Australians + a female co-operative making Argan oil)

A conversation from Digital Conversations – social media, creative, technology, user experience &  SEO.

http://www.readingroom.com.au/blog/category/technology/

“The rise and rise of social shopping.

While sites like E-bay and Amazon have opened up a new, global   marketplace to ordinary consumers, the simple fact is that simply buying online doesn’t fulfill many of the psychological quirks that makes us humans so interesting.  Social commerce goes beyond merely allowing consumers to make purchase where they happen to be already – i.e a social network, rather than dragging them back to your website.  We’re not satisfied by mere convenience: we’re social animals, and clever marketers need to use social influence heuristics to connect more deeply with consumers in a noisy marketplace.

Referral programs, reviews, wishlists and forums are all excellent ways of appealing to our innate need to, if not follow the crowd, at least know what the crowd thinks.  Trading reviews, information and favours (“I’ll tell you about this great deal and you’ll reciprocate”) is a simple way to reinforce social relationships and build an online word of mouth campaign.

Another of the things that makes us ticks is influence. Either by positioning ourselves as influencers (“she knows where all the coolest deals / products are”) or by choosing items that are endorsed by people we see as authorities in a given area, influence is at the heart of social commerce. According to Gladwell and many others, trends are often made or broken on the endorsement of a few pivotal “hyperconnected” people.

Group deals or buy-in programs are another great way of combining the classic marketing “scarcity” tactic with social proof. They also appeal to our natural desire to find affinity with one another.

We’ve already seen a great deal of social integration with e-commerce in 2010 and Facebook is increasingly the venue of choice to promote anything from fashion collection to car launches with its ambition to turn pages into storefronts. iTunes Ping is a clear move into social shopping, building a recommendation that acts as a social network for music lovers and providing purchase recommendations based on your connections as well as a huge amount of data and insight derived from learning about users’ libraries through Genius and the iTunes store.

The launch of Google’s Boutiques.com and major investment in the Facebook E-Commerce apps are a strong indication that social shopping will go mass market. After all, why spend all that money engaging with people in social spaces only to drag them off to a traditional shopping site.  Paradoxically, according to the CEO of Facebook app provider BigCommerce, the 25 percent of BigCommerce customers who use the app report that it has resulted in 17 percent more traffic to their sites, on average. It’s early days but it certainly seems that by offering consumers the chance to shop where they want, there’s a consequent improvement in brand loyalty.

Facebook’s bold claim is that by 2015 10 to 15 percent of total consumer spending in developed countries may go through sites such as Facebook. The question is whether this will be beneficial or detrimental to the social experience; for example, certain types of shopping experience, like auctions, are more suited to social spaces than others.

This year Facebook’s exclusive deal with oodle.com, who provide the Classified ads you find in the Marketplace, comes to an end, and if Facebook chooses to open up its online retail capacity, there will be everything to play for.”

Click here for further conversations

http://www.readingroom.com.au/blog/category/technology/

Also available are our new bright Mini Box Frames. They could be fun to brighten bedrooms or as highlights in other parts of the home. At the moment these products can be found in major David Jones stores only.

WINNERS of the Corban & Blair STORY BOOK

As it is Christmas we have decided to have 3 winners instead of one for the final draw of

The Story Book competition.

The lucky Winners are:

• Rafael Despradel from Redfern in Sydney

• Natalie Hibbert from Beaumaris in Victoira

• Geraldine Simpson from Bondi in Sydney

Congratulations!

We hope you write up some great stories, histories, poems or personal chronicles.

The show like Oprah was positive and showcased Australia very positively. A tribute to Oprah who has build an enormous brand that the whole of our huge Australian continent was collaborating with.

Taken with my Iphone.

We had a great time.

With our sophisticated fast moving communication, to engage others is something only the talented, authentic and creative do well.

In the past few weeks I have been to several events where I assumed I would learn something or be engaged in new possibilities. Most of these experiences were very HO HUM – nothing interesting that I felt compelled to share with others.

Two events did stand out that I have told lots of people about and are now including in a blog.

1.Johanna Featherstone from THE REDROOM COMPANY (poetry and poets) held an event at KPMG as a fundraiser to take poets and poetry experiences into schools. She and her team set up an old fashioned classroom where we all sat at old desks with lunch boxes and other desk paraphernalia- there was a role call- she certainly had our attention. She then took us through a series of experiences illustrating the power of language. It was lovely and I told masses of people about her vision and what she is trying to achieve. www.redroomcompany.org

2.Michelle Leonard and her team from MOORAMBILLA VOICES (regional choirs for young people) held an auction of hand made chooks (made by a friend) gorgeous, unique and colourful. Michelle and some of the students told stories of singing in regional Australia, and the power of music to change and inspire their lives. www.moorambilla.com

They both created memorable experiences with little money, but with loads of passion, authenticity, good will and generosity using every contact and many creative communication devices to inspire their audiences. They achieved engagement on a personal level and to their causes.

Congratulations.

The Story Book is designed to write, collect and store stories.

Record your experiences – feelings, dreams, family history, daily activities, ideas, creative writing, sketches or poetry. Information and insights for yourself or have others share. Record the life of others – holidays, visits to and from families, cultural and special events, 21st, Christmas, New Year, rituals, coming of age, weddings, christenings, school days, leaving school, entering work, going to tertiary education, trips overseas, birthdays, funerals, parties. Store- photos, clippings, articles, references, certificates, drawings, keepsakes and other original material.

A booklet with questions, tips and suggestions can be found in the back pocket. Use directly or as a memory prompt. Key questions can have an amazing effect on recalling past events or drawing out new insights.

Takes A4 size paper and sleeves. If you fill it up and need longer screws – let us know and we will send you some.  http://www.corbanblair.com.au/p-386-the-story-book.aspx

For businesses selling products on and off-line this is now a huge competitive challenge. Westfield has added to their mall portfolio with an on-line Mall launched 2 weeks ago. http://westfield.com.au.

Corban & Blair have a shop on this mall. It is early days. There is a wide range of merchandise available. See below the Corban & Blair shop front.