Last updated: 4.45pm (Sydney) (Final Post - Comments are still live)
Day 1 is here. Day 2 is here.

I know most people are readers - welcome. If you want to be actively involved, please feel free to register and ask questions, leave comments, or email me. And don't forget to click on the links for more information (most open in a new window).

If you came to this conference, or not, and would like some more information I've put some details at the bottom of this page. 

9.00am - Final Day! Welcome for the final day of the 2008 Shirlaws Australian Client Conference. As the participants trickle in, let me share a key thought I always have when the final day or final session of a conference commences: Responsibility.

Two days ago, I outlined my agenda for this conference. With the final day here, it is my responsibility to ensure the lessons I want and experiences I seek are realised.

So let's check in on my agenda: 

"Distribution is a key topic in which I would like to build some more depth of knowledge." Check - I have a better understanding of the Distribution framework and its application.
"I also have some clients with specific procerns that I hope to address this week." Check - The Product and Distribution exercise yesterday will be seen by a few of my clients in the coming months.

"I know for many Shirlaws coaches and clients this is one of the first 'real' blog events they have participated in, and I want to give an educational and entertaining experience." Unsure? Your feedback has been excellent - has it been educational and entertaining? What could I do better?
"I also hope to connect with you in 'real time'." Check - thanks for the comments and keep them coming.

Andrew McKenzie has welcomed us. Marc will be talking about the future, but he's beginning with any questions or comments from yesterday to bring us back into the room.

9.25am - Blinding Flashes of the Obvious. As shared by the room.

Risk is decreased by increased capability.
Frameworks and matrices, Shirlaws or otherwise, exist to create a conversation that otherwise would not exist.
Understanding the Risk/Value profile of the business and the board can make communicating much easier. And there's no right or wrong.

And mine - every business has an enormous opportunity in front of it. This means that your business has an enormous opportunity in front of it...do you need help to discover what it is? 

9.35am - Community. Marc just volunteered me to create the Shirlaws online community website (so clients present can share their strategies from yesterday), preferably by morning tea!

I needed to clarify that I'm a coach who can write, a business geek sure, but not the talented tech head. It was a good way to flag this afternoon's technology session.

We're now shifting into a view of the future. Changing business structures, generational changes, global conditions, and business models.

9.54am - The Future.  This morning's presentation is very data heavy. I will keep to key points, so I don't flood this blog with data on population growth (in developing nations only), global economic shifts towards the BRIC nations, and the changing demands of education and training systems.

If you want more data, download the 12-page Shirlaws GFF Report here; and a quick plug - in Brisbane Tim Dwyer and I will be running a 2-hour workshop on Global Business Trends in April and May.

10.05am - Education. A question for the tables on the future of education. Bill Gates is one of many stating the current education system was designed for a different era. So what is your company doing to attract and educate the staff and leaders you want?

Shirlaws has used itself as an example - we're partnering in the Masters of Business Coaching (MBC) in addition to the training demands of our coaches (all Coaches are expected to participate in 4-5 of these conferences each year).

So what can you do to attract talent? Educate them?

10.20 - Staff turnover. A good rule of thumb - to replace a staff member usually costs 2x their salary. This takes into account recruiting, induction, and training costs, but also lost productivity on the way out and the way in.

It does not include the loss of corporate memory. I know of one 10 year old business where only 2 staff have more than 3 year's tenure - imagine how many time they've re-created the wheel because nobody remembered they'd done that before? 

10.40 - Unretirement. We are increasingly familiar with an ageing population, and the shortage that would face the workplace if the Baby Boomers retired to be replaced by half as many Generation Xers. Clearly, retirement won't be a desired option for many or a possibility for others who can't be replaced. What strategies does your business have in place to retain or attract those who don't retire?

Are you thinking Work-Life Quality?

10.45 - Environment. If we all lived like Californians, we would require 7 planets to sustain our lifestyle.

While Carbon offsets are nice, they're not resolving the source issue - think of them as the 21st Century equivalent of Catholic indulgences. 

And a thought as we head into morning tea - are you thinking about your CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)? Can you run your business using half the energy and produce half the waste you do today? And if it can, what's stopping you?

In the UK, Shirlaws has undertaken a green audit which is filtering its way through our business. What we could do better is spread the message, and guide our clients on this issue.

11.35am - Business Structure shifts. This promises to be an interesting information session. To kick-off, a discussion on Outsourcing. In the US, only 54% of companies that outsource are satisfied; costs (which have traditionally been the main driver for outsourcing) are not proving to be justified.

11.41 - So if costs aren't proving worth the effort, where does outsourcing shift? Skills and Capacity - businesses outsource when they don't have the skills and choose not to train/recruit, and when they don't have the internal capacity and choose not to invest in the benefits of coaching.

Does your business outsource? If so, why? And what can you do to benefit from the shift from cost to skills-based outsourcing? 

11.50 - Innovation. We can't know it all. What are you doing to stay in touch with industry innovations, to ensure your business isn't left behind? (Well, reading this blog is a good start!)

When you accept that, you can realise that Innovation is linked to outsourcing when you can share what you know and take onboard what others have developed. Avoid the not-invented-here (so we can't use it) syndrome.

This can apply to IP as well as more general knowledge. Potentially scary stuff for a company that believes its IP is its Key Business Asset!

12.11pm - Don't forget internal knowledge, innovation, and the networks your team have access to. Technology is helping make this easier.

12.18 - What to expect. Shortened lifetime of business models, a blend of business models, and the rise of the networked company where key sources of activity and innovation come from your community not just your employees. 

Are you aware of innovation externally? What are you doing to benefit from this?

12.35 - Generations. I won't delve into the detail differentiating the generations - Builders, Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. Here's some of our articles on recruiting and motivating Gen X & Y.

I will point out that 'Gen'usually stands for Generalisation as well. Many arbitrary dates define me as a Gen Y, while I identify myself as Gen X based on the broad generalisations that define them (eg, I'm far more into Happy Days than Big Brother, CDs thaniPods, and Feeling my way through a decision rather than joyously embracing spontaneity).

12.45 - Gen Y. An important point made by Marc that I believe doesn't get made often enough: Gen Y is just as conservative and care just as much about their work as Baby Boomers do, they just communicate differently.

For your business - it's not about 'accommodating' Gen Y, it's about managing all the different communication styles that exist. Instant feedback is a good start.

1.00pm - Food for thought. Final thought before lunch.

You must manage the rate of adaption your business can handle. Change is risky, but not changing can be fatal. 

2.12pm - Web 2.0. The focus of the afternoon session is how we can use what's on the web to create more channels and more relationships that leads to more customers and a higher value business.

Here's a nice definition: Web 1.0 (the original internet) was push - putting your content out there. Web 2.0 is pull - collaborative, interactive content.

2.25pm - Today's Web. Marc has put up a list of 10 web terms (avatar, wiki, narrowcasting etc). Pick the only geek in the room who knew all 10?

There's a real mix in the room, largely between 3 and 7, and Marc's doing a good job of explaining these terms. One example? Tagging is like the yellow highlighter in the university textbook that marks the important context words.

2.35pm - Internal. A few examples of large multi-national businesses,  who have between 1/3 and 1/5 of their staff defined as 'Digital Natives' (ie, most of X and all of Y). These are the people who grew up with computers. Training, for example, is a great example of an internal process that may need to be different for this group and the older 'Digital Immigrants'. 

How big is your business? Obviously, for the multi-nationals, conferences in Second Life are much more feasible than an single-site mid-tier firm or an SME. At the very least, you need to implement a hybrid training strategy that works to the strengths of both groups. 

2.48 - Community. One of the best ways to build value for your business on the internet is to build a community (or rather, create the space for a community to build itself). I'm planning to blog about this, and websites in general, shortly - so if you're interested, be sure to check back or sign up for an RSS automatic feed.

There are differing degrees of community, partly linked to the profiles from yesterday. For instance, do you need to know every who joins your community? 

2.57pm - Blogs. A nice little pitch - blogging is how you are pre-sold online. Depth of useful information on your website can help explain what you do. Better still, if someone who knows what they're talking about (we used Robert Scoble's blog as a good example) links to your website on their blog, this automatically positions you as knowledgeable.

Every business wants pre-qualified, pre-sold leads that come to you. Since that's what blogging can do, clearly blogging is important Distribution online.

3.07pm - Who lives in your online community?  Great awareness piece I recommend you all read. Only 1% of visitors / users of your website do anything - imagine what would happen to your business model and profits if that was 5%?

This is why I'm not concerned about a low (or non-existant, like today so far) number of comments on my blog posts. If only a very small number of visitors do something, a few comments is indicative of hundreds or thousands of visitors.

While I don't have exact traffic figures yet, I can tell you that more people have registered for our site in the last 3 days than in the last month, and 1 in 10 of our registered users did so this week. Is there anybody who still questions the benefit of blogging?

3.33 - Long Tail. We're now at afternoon tea, and one of the conversations that seems to interest a number of the people here is Long Tail terms as a blogging tip. This is a way to create more content, and more importantly attract some clients with small-volume, very specific needs that can meet.

Here's an example. Yesterday, we discussed 'Extension Strategies'. That's certainly something Shirlaws can assist with, but it's probably not a phrase we would use in traditional marketing material. Historically (like, Web 1.0 five years ago history), people searching for Extension Strategies would never have discovered Shirlaws.

Now, thanks entirely to yesterday's blog, Shirlaws ranks number 9 in Google. 

3.53 Long Tail business model. Just to demonstrate the strategic advantage and profitable outcomes of long tail thinking - many web-based business models, such as Amazon.com, generate 60% of their revenue from the long-tail, small-volume sales.

Compare these Google searches, and think about the conversion rate you would achieve from people who make them:

"Sales training" - 6,430,000
"Sales coaching for women" - 8

Which would you rather have - high traffic, or specific traffic where you are one of the few people able to meet that searcher's needs? 

3.58 - Another Google tip: People don't search for the solution, they type in the need they want solved (ie, they type 'headache' not 'aspirin'). You'll notice over the last few days I have included a lot of questions - these are more likely to be found on Google than the answers, so if I include both I attract more people and deliver value to them. 

Check your website (even if it's just a brochure). Are you talking about aspirin or articulating which headaches you can solve? 

4.10pm - How hard is Web 2.0? Honestly, it's not that hard. For the most part, you will use exactly the same means to contact and sell as you have always done. This is just a slightly different communication style, and opens up a whole world of potential clients you may never have encountered otherwise. 

4.15pm - The end if nigh. Marc Johnstone has just finished the presenting part of this conference, the end of a marathon effort - he's now run this conference three times on three continents in three weeks. 

It's Key Learnings time again, and time to cross off the agenda items. At afternoon tea (completely unprovoked I assure you) one of the other coaches had a chat with me thanking me because he'd "learnt so much about blogging" over the past three days. With that, I feel I can safely check off my final agenda item.

Key Learnings to come. 

4.30pm - Key Learnings.

This isn't all of the key learnings in the room, even all of the ones shared as a group. It's just the ones that have meaning for me and the content I've put online (which is only part of the strong material presented and tested over the last three days). 

Role Plays - Do you swap roles, or always play yourself?
Several clients have developed strategies by combining some of the different sessions here - eg, distributing their Key Business Asset through Web 2.0 methods.
Crowd sourcing and long tail web - the answer is all around you.
Be strategic first, don't dive into Operational questions too soon. 

Personally, I have learnt an enormous amount about blogging and live-blogging at conferences. I'd like to thank everybody who came online and shared the information I've documented, and especially those who left comments, sent emails, or spoke with me in person. 

If you've made it this far and would like more information (like, perhaps, some of the slides that were used, or a coach to discuss your ideas with), then you have a number of options. You are welcome to email Jacob; learn more about Shirlaws or contact Shirlaws directly; even track down a coach in your area around the world.

I would also love if you have a look around while you're here, bookmark this page or sign up for an RSS feed - ideas and innovation won't always come from within, so if nothing else I trust that I've sparked some thoughts for you and your business. 

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