Im not on Facebook (or Stalk-book as a friend calls it) - in my opinion its not very cool, poorly designed and a little 2000's and i spend way too much time on computers anyhow. Perhaps its my attitude, but of late im also finding Instagram boring, monotonous and a waste of time. Sure, people (.....most often competitors) get to see how amazing you are, all the work you are doing and how kick-ass your life is, but we all know its their 5% life - you dont post the black eye your wife gave you or the meal you just microwaved from the freezer. Its slowly turning into another daggy app and the latest feedback is showing a significant drop in users. Im one of them.
So i decided to put Instagram on hiatus and get back to business as usual, no bullshit - put your head down and get the work done, meet people and talk to them (remember that?) and read lots. Its been a very enjoyable experience. This attitude has quite alot to do with our economy, which as i read today - we just dodged the recession bullet with the ABS stating GDP figures in growth mode over the final three months of 2016. The last time around they showed Australia's economy had gone backwards. Rumblings of better times. This may be the case for our east coasters but here in the west unemployment has hit record highs since 2002 at 6.5% in Oct 2016.
Where is all this going? Well i say put your smart phone down and get back to business. Good ol fashion business. Of course I do the work i do to make money and provide for my starving children. But more importantly i do this work to make this City a better place, to contribute and give people a more enjoyable lifestyle. Im conscious this feeds into the economy, more people venture out, more competition arrives, businesses try new things and the result is always a healthier community.
Tonight we hosted the Maylands Business Association function and had Andrew from the Small Business Development Corporation to give all of us a good reminder of the services (often free) they provide - www.smallbusiness.wa.gov.au - of which i recall using when i first started out
So this year im pushing it further, im going back to Curtin University Centre for Entrepreneurship to get my laser focus on, pull my socks up and reconnect with that early start up passion - Paul Keating would be proud.