Management Blog

Million dollar goal in sight for uni student

In just a few months, an ambitious online project, The Million Dollar Homepage, has almost reached its goal - to sell US$1M in advertising space on a single web page.

Started by a 21-year-old British university student, Alex Tew, to pay his tuition fees, the homepage has reached $912,000 of its one million dollar goal.

The pitch of the site - to own a piece of Internet history - has attracted a large number of advertisers who have purchased a minimum of 10x10 pixel block for US$100 and can show a logo or slogan and have a link through to their site. Testimonials reveal that many of these sites have received significant boosts in web traffic and sales as a result.

Alex has received international attention for his idea, and the site's fascinating blog reveals his phenomenally successful journey.

Ageing unemployed face uphill battle

Age is definitely a barrier to employment in Australia, with job seekers who reported they were considered 'too old' having a median duration of unemployment more than three times that of all job seekers.

That's according to analysis released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which finds the median time all job seekers were unemployed was 12 weeks at July 2005 versus 39 weeks for those who said employers considered them too old.

21% of unemployed people were 45 years or older at July 2005, and 49% who were aged 55 years and over said their main difficulty in finding work was that they were "considered too old by employers". This was also the main difficulty reported by over a quarter (26%) of unemployed people aged 45-54 years.

The great office teaspoon mystery

Australian scientists have conducted research into one of the biggest office mysteries - where do all the teaspoons go?

The scientists from the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health in Melbourne numbered 70 teaspoons as test subjects and tracked their office movements over a five month period. 80% disappeared within that period.

Theories included a Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy-inspired migration of the teaspoons and "resistentialism" (the inanimate objects having a natural aversion to humans).

Or, they suggest, employees might simply be taking them.

SME business confidence falls in WA

Decreasing consumer demand and the increasing price of fuel has led to a fall in Western Australian small business confidence.

In the November 2005 Sensis Business Index, report author Christena Singh said small and medium enterprise (SME) confidence fell five percentage points during the August to October quarter.

"When we asked business operators why they felt worried about their business prospects, they told us they had less business and were concerned about the rising cost of petrol and freight," said Ms Singh.

How to...

Information specialist and Internet consultant Phil Bradley has compiled a handy list of 'how to' links on his site, I want to.

Aimed at librarians and information workers, the collection of online resources is also useful for anyone interested in the online world, whether as a hobby or part of your role.

Topics include multimedia (creating podcasts, streaming media, editing video files), time management (web-based applications such as to do lists, calendars, note taking), and online communication.

Budget outlook predicts lower petrol prices

Treasury budget papers reveal that petrol prices are expected to fall through 2006.

The mid-year financial outlook shows the Government has forecast a $6.42 billion take in diesel excise in 2005-06, down 2.5% on its budget forecasts.

Petrol tax is expected to be down 2.7% to $7.41 billion. However, high oil prices have delivered a bonus in petroleum resource rent tax, which has been revised up $780 million.

Australia's population mix getting older

The median age of the Australian population has risen by 5.8% over the past two decades, to 36.6 years, reports the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Like most developed countries, Australia's population is ageing because of sustained low fertility and increasing life expectancy, which means proportionally fewer children.

The number of people aged 65 years and over is projected to exceed the number of children aged 0-14 years around the year 2016.

Sandwich strategy to squeeze the competition

Dipak Jain, dean of the Kellogg School of Management, is promoting a competitive "sandwich" strategy that applies to both companies and countries. The aim is to squeeze competitors to maximise market opportunities.

"Firms all too often compete exclusively on price, a scenario that can lead to a 'race to the bottom'," Jain said at a recent seminar at the Sasin Graduate Institute.

"If you respond to competition simply by dropping your price, two undesirable consequences occur: you give more legitimacy to your competition, signalling that the two offerings are more or less identical; second, you send a message to your existing customers that you have been overcharging them for years."

Instead, he said, companies should look at introducing a value-priced offering as well as a premium one and segment the market to draw new customers and squeeze competitors within the "sandwich".

Where perceived power makes a difference

Perceived power makes a difference to negotiations, even though power at the bargaining table is rarely distributed evenly.

A job seeker lacking alternative offers is not going to have much leverage in salary negotiations with a prospective employer. But what results when the job seeker is perceived to have more power than components such as organisational rank would indicate—for example, recognised experience in a particular style of negotiation?

In this Harvard Business School interview, researcher Kathleen McGinn describes the specifics of how "perceived relative power" makes a difference at the negotiating table.

New CO2 study counters arguments of global warming sceptics

The evidence for global warming caused by greenhouse gases is mounting. There is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point during the past 650,000 years, says a major new study that let scientists look back in time at "greenhouse gases" that may fuel global warming.

The amount of carbon dioxide have climbed from 280 parts per million (ppm) two centuries ago to a current level of 380 ppm. There has been a consequent rise in the Earth's average temperature, which has increased about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last decades.

Though global warming sceptics have often dismissed the rise in greenhouse gas levels as part of a naturally recurring cycle, this study provides clear evidence of man-made climate change.