Carbon Market Expo Gold Coast Event A Huge Success

Carbon Market Expo Austalasia 2009 has been lauded a huge success with the highest number of participants for any carbon market expo for 2009. The event has attracted almost 1000 delegates and all the key carbon market influencers in attendance. Today at 12 noon, Brett Janissen, the Executive Director, Asia Pacific, Emissions Trading Forum (AETF) will give a Background briefing on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), policy and market developments with the Deputy Secretary, ACCRA Group, Australian Government Department of Climate Change. ABC's Land Line will be filming this briefing along with a contingency of more than 50 journalists. Michael Whitehead has spearheaded this very important event at what is seen as the most critical time for carbon market announcements with updates saturating the news. A second workshop at 12 noon will include Ilona Millar, Senior Associate, Baker and McKenzie and Richard Doyle, Division Director, Macquarie Bank Environmental Financial Products as key note speakers. They will provide a very important background briefing on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Whilst the bustle of the corridors at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre is full of people eagerly awaiting the key note speakers and their views and announcements on the topic, people are expecting to walk away for this event better informed and more up-to-date with carbon markets. Don't miss the 2.30pm sessions with John Marlow from London (Macquarie Bank, London, Global Head, Environmental Financial Products, and India's Global Lead Partner, CDM, Ernst and Young, Sudipta Das. These two international speakers will join Martijn Wilder, Partner at Baker and McKenzie, Michael Wiener, Director Operations, Perenia, Arek Sinanian, Asia Pacific Technical Executive, Climate Change, Parsons Brinckerhoff, Garth Taylor, Trade Commissioner for ASEAN, Austrade, Kuala Lumpur and the Hon. Kate Jones, Queensland Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, to discuss The Clean Devleopment Mechanism and the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Check out the days events and updates on www.carbonexpo.com.au. Mellissah Smith Marketing Eye

Friday - and I am pissed off!

It's Friday and everyone should be happy, but guess what? I am not!

Firstly the day starts with this second rate web development company that has been working on a simple website for an education company for more than 6 months and still it is incomplete. The design was crap, the attention to detail - non existent and customer service - terrible.

Here we are trying to fix the mess... and keep the client from ringing the web companies neck. Hard work let me assure you.

Then, I am reminded by a man in his 70's just how great Paris Hilton is. According to this elderly gentleman, she is good looking and runs a great business. To his credit, he is right on both accounts. However, I am tired of being reminded about people who make it by walking the 'easy road'.

Here I am slogging it out in front of my computer 12 hours a day and being zapped of energy by the demands of staff, clients and sometimes friends.

On the flip side, I love my job. I can't wait to get to the office every morning and I dream of the next great marketing campaign that I am going to work on.

Mostly, my clients are adorable. They always engage in banter with me on topics ranging from the newest marketing technique to the colour of my shoes or my dogs behaviour.

Currently we are engaged in a pretty big PR campaign for Carbon Expo Market on the Gold Coast next week. Over 50 journalists are in attendance and after giving lessons to my inhouse PR team on effective ways in which to get media to respond, they have now been inundated with calls. He he... us older marketers still have a few tricks up our sleeves.

Next week I am off on a road trip to see two clients that are intelligent, enthusiastic and full of life. Should I really be complaining? Possibly not.

With a company that is currently recording 20 - 30% growth year on year and boasts some pretty talented individuals, I think I am fairly lucky.

So, what is there to complain about? Not too much. It's all in a days work and things are getting done.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Liberals need some serious marketing

I had the pleasure of attending the Malcolm Turnbull Dinner last night held at the Crown Casino in Melbourne to raise money for the Australian Liberal Party.

It's a sad day when one party outshines the other, not because of performance, but due to the fact one is better at marketing themselves than the other.

At the end of the day, the Coalition Government left billions in the bank and took just 11 years to get rid of the deficit that Labor handed them of $96 billion dollars and turn it into a surplus.

My generation will never be able to repay what debt the current Labor Government has handed our future generations. They are so big on spending for votes and like all other instances in which they have come into power, taken our Federal finances into the red - that I just don't seem to get why they get voted in.

Is the average Australian not good at basic mathematics or is it that they have bought the marketing 'bullshit' that spin doctors put in the papers we read and the television we watch.

How embarrassing is it that our Prime Minister tries badly to make jokes on Rove. Now if you are going to do Rove then you should do every other talk back as it is very un-Australian to pick one show over another.

I don't have a personal problem with Labor and to be honest, their PR job is so far superior of that of the Coalition Government that it is laughable. From a marketing prespective, I have to applaud that.

But I am not a numbers person and I don't want to pretend to be, but if the information that went up on the screens last night about Hon Peter Costello's very impressive track record is in fact true, then I am scared. How much more are we going to get in debt before everyone wakes up?

I don't pay too much attention to Politics and I was an invited guest, so I don't actively participate but sitting in front row forced me to listen and some of the information coming out which I know is one-sided was concerning.

Coalition really needs to;

- Get better PR people
- Present themselves better
- Engage in communicating their key messages repetitively to Australians
- Choose a leader like a Joe Hocking who always looks fresh faced and trustworthy. We all know Malcolm Turnbull can do the job, but the public are not going to vote him in so move aside. It's not personal.
- Engage more in Web 2.0
- Get new speech writers - the speech from Turnbull was long-winded and boring. Never bore the socks off your audience.

Simple, but true.

Marketing Eye could help but we are A-Political and know too little about Politics!

How profitable is your talent?

We all have talents, but some are harder to find than others.

Mine took many years to work out and eventually I was able to turn that talent into a money making enterprise. Luckily for me, my talent is aligned to my passion and everything is pretty much honky dory.

Today, I was needing a little direction. Many people ring their friends, colleagues or see a counsellor. I ring a Clairvoyant. Go figure.

Being a person that is willing to try anything once, it's not unlike me to go and see a Clairvoyant who may or may not motivate me, make me happy or at the least provide some entertainment for myself and my girlfriends for the next couple of days.

So, off I trotted in the middle of the day to a Clairvoyant, referred by a friend, in Malvern East.

On the way, I rung another friend and they said, 'Save your money. I can tell you exactly what they are going to say.' Although that provided me with a good laugh, it really wasn't an option. Giving away $90 to a complete stranger that espouses to tell me my future is easy, but paying $90 for a new dress that I really want is something I need to think about for at least a couple of days. Madness really.

Now, I am told, that this Clairvoyant is spooky. She is accurate, names names and very blunt, so I go in prepared to hear it all.

So she starts...

'You are lacking drive and start many things but don't finish them. You are going to get married at 37 years of age to someone I have met or know. You have back problems, your parents separated when you were 21, you are going to have children (2 - either twins or quickly after each other), guy in my life who is stuck in the past and still bangs on about an ex that he used to date and can't move forward, London connection and basically cutting to the chase - I meet a guy, get married, have two children, he is going to be in a family business, a total gentleman, sophisticated, supportive and travels alot.

Now seriously, what single girl at 36 doesn't want to hear this?

Of course, I am hoping it's all true, but if it isn't I not about to go back and ask for my money back am I?

Because I choose to, I am going to focus on this information being correct at the time of the reading - I am a positive person, so by nature this is what I would always do.

However, what a great business! Say she does 6 readings a day, 6 days per week... not a bad income earner I say. Cash in hand, no strings attached.

How profitable is her talent? Very!

We all want the good news and shy away from bad news. She allows you to opt for just good news. Why wouldn't you go to someone who is going to give you good news?

I am a fan because I have walked out of her house on cloud 9. My life is going to be good - actually great! Fantastic!

I can't be happier.

Fortune telling is a talent and I am not sure whether I am a believer or whether I think that some people can read your mind and tell you want you want to hear. But it is something that requires a minimal qualification, good money and your own hours with people like me only too happy to hand over $90 for a reading from a complete stranger.

Not bad I say!