Exploring the impact of social media on lives, businesses and economies — as well as the cost of becoming an influencer.
2007 was the year that changed the world. Apple launched the iPhone, the GFC began, Facebook overtook MySpace and introduced the like button, and Season 1 of Keeping Up with the Kardashians aired. These separate events have since weaved through each other to shape daily lives and the world today. Almost 80% of us will check our phones within 15 minutes of waking up and will continue to check them every 12 minutes throughout the day. …
Recapping the year that challenged everything we knew about how nations work, economics and what to expect from our futures.
2020 (the ‘year-who-must-not-be-named’) launched an all out attack on economics. At every turn there was an event, a person or a theory that was throwing economic principles and nations into disarray. Did the years assault break economics, and do we need to rethink everything we thought about how the world worked?
This article talks about high impact moments, their effects, and what they might mean for our futures and for economics.
Where we live+work
As every real estate agent says it’s all about location, location, location. Most of us have been staying in place for almost a year now and our lack of location sharing is having massive ramifications on the world around us. Entire supply chains are reconfiguring to deliver more products to homes and home offices. …
How you can become an effective and successful leader
A Bold Move
Launching into an MBA during COVID meant jumping into a compulsory leadership unit by logging into Zoom. An online environment for an immersive course with high levels of interaction and live action simulations. A bold move. Opening an MBA with a mandatory leadership unit is another bold move but it makes perfect sense. The tools and mechanisms the unit uses empowers its students and puts all students across all cohorts on the same page for the remainder of their units. A collaborative and socially intense subject forces students to work together and to use frameworks for effective teamwork. As I highlighted in Part 1 I’ve decided to keep a journal of my MBA experience so that I can share my journey with you and help you figure out if an MBA is for you. …
Discovering why an MBA might be right for you, and how to choose a Business School.
Choosing to do an MBA or not is a tough call to make. The decision is made even harder by the fact that they are offered by most universities, can be hugely expensive and have the potential to change your life. MBA Notes is about using the insights from my journey to help you make an informed decision about whether or not an MBA is for you.
This article is the beginning, part one. It’s the context of my choice, it’s the reasons why. We all have our own story tell, with our own personal answers, and our own sources of motivation but there’s some common questions we can ask ourselves to try and find a pathway through. …
Let’s talk about the future of banking and financial services, and importantly — what it could mean for you.
The machines have arrived in banking. Stale old fat-cat bankers are up against a new era of nimble tech companies with smooth designs and artificial intelligence. FinTech disruption has got legs and it’s sprinting. The rapidly scaling companies are grabbing market share their traditionalist rivals, but the old school banks still have some fight left. Some are trying to reinvent themselves by deploying mission statements like “to be the best in digital banking experience” or by buying stakes in the upstarts. Will these strategies help them survive or win back customers? It’s reached a point where we need to talk about what’s happening in finance. Some of the things we need to talk about are what the future of the banking experience will be, what products will be available, where your spending data goes, what’ll happen to your credit history and what it all means for jobs and the industry as a whole. …
Six months to forget and remember — this is an investing and economic analysis of the year so far.
I can’t believe we’re already half way through the year! What a wild ride we’re all on and I have to say; I hope you’re doing okay. The modern media machine has been relentless in bombarding us with messages of chaos and tragedy over these past six months. The limited silver linings are that finally the world is uniting and pulling together, and that there’s hope we might be seeing real change for a sustainable future and shared prosperity.
The capital markets (money) has been flowing to investment in technology and a particular focus has been technology that’s enabling people to live and work on their own terms. Capital flows have also been a positive beacon for future productivity as these invesmtent into technology enable businesses to maximise their workers productivity regardless of where the worker is located. The last six months has continued to show huge growth in sustainable and environmental technology, as well as a big push towards a more equal society. The big fund managers and philanthropists are looking to create more opportunities for more people and for these opportunities to be powered by new technology and social awareness. …
Exploring the housing market and impact of COVID-19.
The value of a home is determined by the simplest market forces. Self interested buyers and sellers negotiate to a point where they both feel they’re getting a good deal. The perception of value from either side is driven by a range underlying forces such as their confidence in the market, their ability to access a loan, how many other houses are for sale, and how many other buyers are competing for a home.
Social and economic shocks like COVID-19, the GFC, or climate change reverberate through our communities in ways that we often don’t understand. That being said, house prices generally reflect changing sentiment and economic conditions as housing is a social phenomena just as much as it’s an economic one. …
War gaming the economic and financial fallout from coronavirus.
We seem to have lost our minds. The Novel Coronavirus has sent the world into panic and our common sense on a heavily discounted holiday package. There’s a region of 60 million people in quarantine, California in a state of emergency and fights breaking out in Australian supermarkets over a product that is made locally (toilet paper).
The toilet paper memes come dripping in humour reflecting that classical Australian larikkanism; but there are undertones of true panic and fear as supermarkets ration toilet paper, canned foods and sanitiser. This phenomena is no longer limited to the rioting and infected Hong Kong or hysterical Australia but is ocurring in the UK and US as well. …
Economic and market perspectives for a new year and a new decade.
Rolling into a new year is always exciting, it’s full of promise, resolutions and a chance for a clean slate — but rolling into a new decade is even better. The world is on edge as the political cooker boils, science and climate heat up, and markets sit at all time highs. It’s building to an inflection point and you can feel it in the air. The year of the Rat will be a year to remember.
Although 2020 will be a year of catalysts there’s also a general feeling of waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Sure, there’s a potential end to Brexit, Hong Kong might calm down, and the U.S. has one of it’s most divisive elections in history but we seem to be waiting for something to spark the fuse. A natural catastrophe, a political crises, an economic crises or a great fiscal expansion. …
Incumbents have launched a come back as they take ground and win customers.
‘Disruption’ has been a tag line of the 21st Century. There’s arguing that the internet and the power of big data have changed the way we live. The hype about companies like Airbnb, Uber, Facebook, Google, Netflix and Amazon has grown into the stuff of myth and legend as they’ve stormed through and created new markets, products and services for consumers. Until now, major businesses have been paralysed and stuck looking on as their industries were ‘disrupted’ and their customers changed forever. …
