BLAB's New Year's resolutions

I am currently away from tiny Malta having a 1-week long break. There is so much more to revisit before the end of the year, but it'll be done in 2009. Before closing off the 2008 BLAB chapter I'd like to recommend the 'Top 50 Have-Yous' as a good start to some reasonable and useful new year's resolutions. I stumbled upon the free download on the Tom Peters website. The document is only 5 pages long and contains 50 questions in my opinion any team player, at the top or very bottom should question. Tom defines them as “practical stuff,” which is more important to the short- and long-term health of the enterprise, tiny or enormous.

My favorite of them all is the following:
44. Have you in the last … two hours … stopped by someone’s (two-levels “down”)
office-workspace for 5 minutes to ask “What do you think?” about an issue that
arose at a more or less just completed meeting? (And then stuck around for 10 or
so minutes to listen—and visibly taken notes.)

Locally, we could be more open to sharing ideas, whether or not they fall within or outside our primary area of responsibility. Sharing may end up in having your idea 'stolen' by some other guy in the office, but more often, discussion leads to a clearer picture of where we want to get to. To some extent, it is worth risking giving away your idea because the benefits out weigh the risks.

I hope, this BLAB, and others which should follow in 09, provide a discussion starter for many other ideas which we have stocked safely in our brain.

Best wishes for 2009.

Christ.mas

With all the new dots (.coms, .nets, .mts, etc.) we've seen in 2008 it's worthy to wish you all a happy Christ.mas. The dot makes the name even more meaningful!

Some more blogs should follow before the big 09 starts reading BLAB!

Vodafone showcases myIdeas initiative at University

Over the past year Vodafone has been working on an initiative which allows the man in the street, be it student or not, a Vodafone employee (like me) or not, to propose any ideas which they want. Vodafone will in return assist the idea originators to implement their ideas if the Innovation Committee deems the ideas successful. more info: http://www.vodafone.com.mt/page/whoarewe_myideas.html

20 Million for Industry...A blessing in a downturn?

Malta Enterprise has been entrusted by the Managing Authority for Structural Funds as an Intermediate Body responsible for administering six European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Grant Schemes. The Schemes focus on: tapping new international markets, encouraging start-up initiatives which have been around for less than 3 years, providing incentives for the introduction of innovations in SMEs, improvement in Environmental Performance, investment in e-Business solutions and grants for R&D initiatives.

Sounds like a big blessing in a lot of economic negativity, crisis and downturn. All this also goes in line with what Vodafone is doing about innovation (more about this in my next post)

Read more at 20millionforindustry.com

Quick blab: Competitor Intelligence

It has been almost a month since we blabbed in this space and a lot has been happening in our personal lives and the local market. Some things which I hope to be blabbing about soon:

The recent NSO news releases about Use of Internet and Communications
Some new names in print: Style (on Sunday), Phase
and some interesting initiatives online: blog.com.mt, youall.com.mt, superstoremalta.com

Finally, I will tomorrow exchange some of my thoughts on Competitor Analysis and Intelligence at the University of Malta. More about this later.

12,000 euro tax credit to go online

ICON has recently sent us some good news (posted below):

The Malta Enterprise E-Commerce Tax Credit Incentive, aimed at online businesses, will be in place until the end of the year. The tax credit is equivalent to 100% of the eligible costs as approved by Malta Enterprise, up to a maximum of 12,000 euros per project.

The incentive will be awarded under the de minimis aid rules in terms of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1998/2006 on the application of Article 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty to de minimis aid. Eligible costs must be directly related to the creation, development, or aqcuisition of a new or significantly improved electronic commerce system. These costs must be incurred within 2 years from commissioning the new electronic commerce system and should be specified in a maintenance contract, agreed to at the time of the development of the system.

Applications to qualify for the 12,000 euro grant must be submitted to Malta Enterprise by the end of the year!

Go to Malta Enterprise Website or read full post on icon's website

Agency Insider: Daphne Caruana Galizia about Taste

This is the 9th Agency Insider blog post. In this post, we chat with Daphne Caruana Galizia about Taste.com.mt and the whole Taste project, conceived in November of 2004(4 years ago this month)

KG: Taste turned 4 last June. How has the project changed since 2004?

DCG: Taste magazine has changed a great deal, growing from 64 stapled pages to 144 burst-bound pages at its largest. We’ve changed the paper from matt to a high quality semi-gloss, and now have the cover laminated. We’ve got more cooks, more features, and lots of interesting information, but we’ve kept to the same policy of keeping an advertising-to-editorial ratio of around 60% editorial and 40% advertising. In the vast majority of magazines published in Malta, it’s the other way round. We’ve also kept to a policy of keeping overheads to an absolute minimum, which frees up revenue to invest in editorial content. After all, readers don’t care how many staff you have; they’re only interested in what lies between the pages.

KG: Taste is a magazine for those who love food and drink...Who loves food and drink (who are the readers of Taste)?

DCG: Taste readers, we were amazed to discover, come from all walks of life, all ages, both genders and several different nationalities. We’ve even had enquiries from people who’ve seen a copy while on holiday here and want to know whether we run a subscription service. We don’t. It’s not feasible as the postage is too expensive and the administration is cumbersome. That’s not our main area of business.



KG: 4 months ago Taste also evolved online? Why and what was the feedback?

DCG: People don’t throw Taste away. They keep it, use it as a reference because of the recipes and features, and try to source back copies – which, incidentally, have run out at our end. We were receiving repeated enquiries about an index, but then said – hang on, an index is the old-fashioned complicated way of doing things. It makes much more sense to have an on-line archive, and it’s easier for people to use, too. They just key in the recipe they’re looking for and it comes up. Once we were going to all that trouble, we thought we might as well add on features like facilities which allow people to ask questions about food and food products, and a ‘blog’ which would allow us to communicate news like publication dates and so on. Further features will be added. The feedback has been very good. Lots of people now keep a laptop in the kitchen, so you can read your recipe straight off the screen while preparing it.

KG: Taste as the printed magazine and taste.com.mt? What's the relationship between the 2? How do they complement each other? How has this changed the lifetime of your magazine's content and its consumption?

DCG: The two are very different. The concept is different. Many people thought that www.taste.com.mt would be an on-line version of the magazine, like the on-line versions of newspapers, but of cours,e it’s not. The internet is not a substitute for the print media. It’s a different medium altogether and not necessarily a complementary one. It has to be approached with a different mind – not in terms of putting your magazine on-line, which would be the equivalent of developing a company website by putting its corporate brochure on line. No, people don’t throw the magazine away because they have access to the site. If anything, the site has built more demand for the magazine. The magazine and the site were conceived differently and are used differently. Also, people like to keep magazines that are beautifully illustrated, and thanks to our wonderful photographers and designers, Taste and its sister magazines Flair and Town look very good indeed.