Odds and ends

I use the button on the bottom right, a lot.

Right now, almost everyone is doing some online conferencing.

Almost overnight, video conferencing services have become a must, used by everyone. In business today, it is practically a necessity. I use it for family and business meetings. It has often replaced telephone calls as it's much easier to discuss something when we can see it. 

For example, my office above is that it is not precisely a great-looking space as it is a little messy now. At least it's an office. Many people want to appear professional, yet they have to give their presentation now in a kitchen or bedroom.

Plus, people want privacy. 

So what they do use a virtual background to change their space. To do this properly, you need a green screen to add an appropriate background.

I am in my workshop.

See the impressive skylights in my office. These types with skylights in business background images are now very popular.

Some prominent executive here, see my office.

Of course, if you want to use some fun themes to have a memorable meeting.

Here am I on the Startrek ship, zooming the galaxy.

In a cockpit of a plane

In a cartoon

I am going to have fun experimenting with this with my family with green clothes on!

A suitable virtual background can help you make an engaging meeting. You should of course pick a background that is suitable for your video call.

Want to learn more, this guy explains it well.

In business as in sports, we do not get far alone.

Today it's a public holiday in Victoria. You will find our support will be as good as usual today.  

It has been as good as a year as we could get considering what has happened.  As a steadfast blue Carlton supporter, I was pleased with my team improvement. Tomorrow I think we will see Richmond as stronger, but either could do it. So I will be watching just for the game. It is frustrating that we have two Victorian teams in the Grand Final, and we have to watch on TV.  We cannot even host a family or friends get together to watch the game. Detail here. Queenslanders, I suggest you treat yourself to history if you can get out there. 

Please, if you can avoid using support at the actual game time itself, our guys on support would appreciate it. But if you have to call, they are available.

May the best team win!

Imagine an airplane flying over the Earth a few mm. 

Have it count every blade of grass that is underneath it. 

Now shrink the Earth to the size of your palm. 

What is in your palm is comparable to a modern hard disk.

Revenue in itself does little for you. It looks good but does nothing for the business as such. Generally all you are doing is working for the wholesaler.

Profit is in the long term the best indicator of business robustness.

But profit is often a fairy tale. You cannot pay bills with a good financial statement, to pay these you need cash. Run out of cash and generally if you are lucky you will be working for the bank.

People tell me that it is too hard to get the point of sale software going. But to accomplish any task, we all start with a small step. I was 15 years old when I went in front of a computer, and I just stared at it, not knowing what to do. Then I pressed a button. I had started.

The most important thing is we START.

A friend of mine went to Woolworths for the oldies shopping today. He got there at 7.15 AM. He found no toilet paper (no delivery apparently), no eggs no sugar etc.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce has here put together a COVID-19 (Coronavirus) resources for business here with many useful links for you.

I do not know what to say about it, no matter what you think of the Coronavirus effect, it is clear to our community this is Economic and Social disaster.

If it continues it may grinding much of the country to a halt.  Schools are shutting down. The Australian Grand Prix is cancelled, they are talking of closing down part of Australia as they have done in some overseas country e.g. Spain, Italy, South Korea and China where 100 million people are in lockdown. In some countries now save for supermarkets and pharmacies, all malls are closed. Restaurants, public hotel dining, gyms, pools, amusement parks, zoos, bathhouses, beauty and massage salons, event and conference venues, public boats, heritage sites etc. closed too. People in religious activities have to keep at least two meters from one another.  

I have clients that have 30% to 40% of their business is Chinese tourists and most of that is gone, and that is hurting. Where is this going to go? 

The closest example I can think of is the Spanish flu which my aunty talked a lot about it, it closed down much of Australia for over a year, made sick about 40 per cent of the population and killed around 15,000. Are we looking at something like this?

Several of my clients have received advise sheets that state

- That they have to clean up frequently their public areas, door handles, public bathrooms, etc. with disinfectant.

- Make available antibacterial hand sanitisers. 

In theory, it is all good advice. The problem is that try and get antibacterial hand sanitisers now, I went six (6)  time to my supermarket, and they had none.  

One of my clients reported to me that they rang the government Coronavirus helpline, and the phone rang out.

Another told me that Coronavirus tests in Australia are now only available to high-risk people. 

Two pieces of advice, I was told besides the  handwashing everyone talks about

1) Give yourself plenty of fresh air, make sure the air in the shop circulates

2) Do not touch your face but without a mask, its almost impossible to do as a study here showed

Where is this leading too?