Coffee Forum Travels

coffee with a flash, kona calendar, mink coffee & more

2008-08-21T15:11:00.001+10:00

You are receiving this email because the email address gilkatho.travels@blogger.com was subscribed to our email list. Having trouble reading this email?

View it on our website.

In this issue

Researchers confirm the obvious
History does repeat with a flash!.
Mink Cappuccino Blend
Coffee grows from the ashes of blast
Defence targets coffee cups.
Jura Impressa C5 for the home
Pass it on..

Jura ENA

Slim in diesign and slim on price. The Jura ENA is available in 7 colours including Ristretto Black, Espresso Brown, Coffee Cherry Red, Blue Mountian Sky and Coffee Leaf Green. . Browse more Ena online.

Jura User Manuals

The Gilkatho website hosts the full range of original Jura manuals in PDF format. If you need a manual for your Jura Impressa, follow this FAQS linka> to search for your manual in our FAQS.

Ladies strip for a cause

11 coffee farmers have taken their clothes off in a fit of passion - passion for the Hawaiian Kona bean, that is.

The lady farmers posed tastefully nude for a calendar to educate coffee drinkers about Hawaii's famous Kona bean, and encourage the sale of 100% Kona blends. The calendar includes eleven photos depicting idyllic scenes of farm life and coffee production.

Web Buys

Jura cleaning tablets . Where ever you are located in Australia, you can buy Jura supplies from Gilkatho and have them delivered to your home or office. Browse supplies online.

Researchers confirm the obvious

A researcher in Melbourne has confirmed what the coffee conscious already know - that different types of people frequent different coffee establishments. Victoria University researcher Po-Tsang Chen completed a four year study to discover the difference between those who buy coffee at chains such as Starbucks or Gloria Jeans, and those who prefer independent cafes.
Read more online!

History does repeat with a flash!.

It seems that being around coffee makes people want to get their gear off - at least, only in America. The Gilkatho blog has reported once before on coffee drinkers exposing themselves. Now another US Sherrif's office is appealing for help to find a frappuccino flasher. A coffee cart in Lake Stevens, Washington, reported that a man in his 20s to mid-30s drove up to the stand and stood while touching himself inappropriately in front of the barista. Read more online!

Mink Cappuccino Blend

One of the worst kept secrets in the industry has been the development and release of Gilkatho's new coffee blends. Mink coffee has been developed and opimised for the office coffee market, particularly for automatic coffee machine.

The Mink blends were developed in consultation with Sydney coffee ex-pat Serge Siboni, a 2nd generation coffee roaster.

Available now as Cappuccino & Espresso blends, we suggest you try some with yoru next order.

. Read more about Mink coffee online!

Coffee grows from the ashes of blast.

Coffee farmers in El Salvador whose crops were damaged by a volcano blast are now reaping benefits from the ash left behind.

Farmers growing coffee on the still-active Ilamatepec volcano initially lost 26, 800 bags of coffee to the eruption. The blast also affected the following year's season. Sulphur in the ash damaged coffee plants, causing them not to flower and resulting in another 60, 000 bags lost.

However, two years on the plants have recovered and coffee yields are increasing quickly, thanks to the volcanic ash adding nutrients to the soil. Several farmers who experienced losses in the eruption were selected for the country's Cup of Excellence auction earlier this year.

Defence targets coffee cups.

Australia's defence department is taking aim to cut spending on coffee cups. Department Secretary Nick Warner is confident $1b can be saved each year, and promotional materials such as coffee mugs and stress balls are set in their sights. The fate of the humble receptacles will be decided by a special team, who will also look at reducing inefficient processes, duplicated activities and unnecessary travel.

Jura Impressa C5 for the home

One of the most popular models in the Jura range, the C5 provides convenience and quality ready to go into almost any kitchen. At just $1,595 the Impressa C5 includes grinder, bean hopper, espresso brewing system and Jura's unique "intelligent pre-brew aroma system - IPBAS. .IPBAS is Swiss for great coffee every time!

By this offer during August and also receive

3 Months of Free Coffee
(1kg a month for 3 Months)
2 Mugs
2 Espresso Glasses
Chocolate Shaker for Cappuccino's

Pass it on .

You are welcome to forward this email to other coffee-dazed members of your company. They can subscribe to the Coffee Pot at our subscription page.

©2008 Gilkatho Pty Ltd, Unit 9, 43 Lang Parade, MILTON, Australia. Phone 07 3876 1210.
Unsubscribe http://gilkathoptyltd.cmail2.com/u/492658/7vii1yl/ from this newsletter.

To change the world, start with yourself

2008-07-18T08:11:00.001+10:00

Adelaide coffee suppliers

2008-05-22T09:49:00.004+10:00

5 coffee-aholics made the trip to the city of churchs earlier this week to discuss the latest trends in the office coffee marketplace.

Among the many topics discussed was the launch of a new coffee equipment distribution website at http://www.juraaustralia.com.au/. Designed to bring together the thoughts and products of professional Jura distributors in Australia.

2008-04-23T21:12:00.006+10:00

LITTLE INDIA: All of this sight seeing has to take a toll and by 1pm we were ready for some serious local cuisine. We had caught a taxi from the Orchasrd Road to Little India. After a few minutes of wandering through bargain stores, tailors, phone card sellers and, electronic outlets we came across an excellent Indian kitchen.

We ordered Lamb Masala, Chicken curry, yellow rice and chapati. All up S$10.30 (AUD $8.11) for this spread. The meal arrived quickly, about 2 minutes after the order.

A well run family business.

A coffee to remember

2008-04-23T20:59:00.003+10:00

ORCHARD ROAD SINGAPORE: Had a rest morning today and took the opportunity to sample this wonderful island nation's coffee. After strolling along Orchard Road past incredibly expensive departments stores we stopped at the franchise coffee store "The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf" located outside Borders book store.

Jeff ordered a machiato ($3.70) and I opted for a long black ($4.30). When my drink was being prepared I noticed that they just poured it from a thermos of drip filter coffee. I wasn't paying $4.0 for that and asked for it to be made fresh, on the espresso machine. He said OK, we'll just substitute your order and make it a double espresso.

When the order did arrive I did indeed have a double shot of espresso measuring about 50ml. Jeff had a machiato which was more a cappuccino in an espresso cup.

So of our two ordered drinks we weren't impressed. We were however happy with the body and flavour of the drinks.

Live Demonstrations at FHA

2008-04-22T15:07:00.001+10:00

One thing you can be sure of at Asia's biggest food & hospitality convention is a display of big hats and excellent cooking skills. Many of the halls are scattered with live cooking displays.

The live performance is an excellent medium for equipment manufacturers to have an expert use their wares, show the ease of use and speak in the language of the target audience - food service professionals.

This oven demonstration was in Mandarin but the audience certainly looked interested.

First day in Asia

2008-04-22T12:54:00.002+10:00

LITTLE INDIA, SINGAPORE: I arrived into Singapore last night after an uneventful Qantas flight. Meals were nothing to speak or write about. I was seated next to a man whom I thought was a very nervous passenger, constantly referring to his notebook of biblical verses. Turned out he was actually a minister or religion in Singapore for some spiritual preaching.

My hotel is at full capacity for the expo and has turned out to be quite nice given the package deal price I negotiated. Good location in Little India, nice facilities. Breakfast buffet is expansive ranging from Western - Singapore - Indian. This is a snap of the art deco furniture in the hotel foyer while I'm waiting to catch the expo bus.

The 2008 Food&HotelAsia got underway today. Seemed to be a few glitches with registration entry. Exhibitors were all happy working away on their stands. The show, the transport and the people all seem to be very organised.

First Coffee

2008-04-21T12:05:00.002+10:00

BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: What an exceptional day. After a cramped morning putting the final touches to my travel plans, my first coffee of the day was finally enjoyed at 12:45pm at Brisbane airport. I wasn't too concerned about the presentation nor the atmosphere....just as long as it had at some stage been extracted from the humble coffee bean.

Airport coffee has undergone a major revamp over the past four years. Two factors have driven this change. The consumer expectation of better quality coffee and the stringent security regime now in force for entering the airport. The extra security means more people arrive at the airport earlier with more time on their hands, more time to drink coffee and buy duty free.

Speaking of duty free the new limitations on carrying liquids through security have done onders for that business. A nice pay back for the effects of lowering duties and internet shopping which both reduced the attractiveness of 'duty free'.

Oh well...next coffee will be the standard Qantas economy offering.

Fine Foods ready to launch

2008-03-08T19:56:00.006+10:00

Just a quick note to let you know that the Brisbane Fine Foods Exhibition gets under way tomorrow morning (Sunday 9th March) at 10am at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Aimed at the professional market it is well worth commerical food operators visiting.

Gilkatho is exhibiting with our new Popcake automatic pancake machine. Stand Q20.(http://www.gilkatho.com.au/shop/Scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=237)

I walked the show while dodging the forklifts and managed to count over a dozen coffee exhibitors including Coffee Mio, Red Star, Nespresso, Byron Bay Coffee Company, Cafe Deluxe, Cafetto, Cappuccine, Dimattina, Nuova Pine Tea & Coffee, RP Vending, Spilsbury, Zeroz. It will be a tough job selling the coffee story at the event..every person interested one product is also going to be bombared with at least 12 other offers!

If you need a free pass, please call by the Gilkatho office (after 9) on Monday as we have a few remaining from a recent customer promotion.

Sales Workshop

2008-02-18T16:29:00.001+10:00

The entire Gilkatho crew headed to Twin Waters on the Sunshine Coast for a serious weekend of business.

The workshop focused on new businenss developments with the impendng release of some new products.

New skills were canvassed which included telephone and fae-to-face communicaitons skills.

We were also joined at the workshop by Judy & Gaelene from Coffee Plus Cairns.

I know I'm looking forward to the next workshop in August. Now, where is a good place for that one?

2008 Training Program

2008-02-05T12:02:00.001+10:00

Part of our ongoing budgeting has made available ongoing funds for the training of our staff. We do this in order to continue the personal development of each staff member in order for them to reach their full potential while acquiring skills that will continue to develop Gilkatho's business. We believe that this budget commitment is well above what is normal for a company of our size. Formal training activities taking place this year:

In the past year we have had one trainee complete a Cert IV in business. This year we are adding another two traineeships to our training budget.
In mid-February we are engaging all staff and contractors in a one day skills workshop. A follow-up workshop is in August.
Management will continue to develop skills through our association with the Australian Institute of Management.

With all of the news heralding Australia's skills crisis I was surprised at how difficult it is to put in place the various parties to access the federal government's traineeship funding. In the last two weeks we decided that it was simply too hard to access the funding and decided to go ahead with our own training plans. As it turned out, we were able to get all of the parties together and formalise the arrangement to the satisfaction of the boffins.

2008 looks like being the year of the workshop retreat.

Asian Barista Championship the first time

2008-02-01T14:26:00.001+10:00

Singapore, 1 February 2008 - For the first time in Asia, a competition between Asia's best coffee barista professionals will be held at an Asian level from 22^nd to 24^th April this year at the Singapore Expo. In conjunction with FHA2008 (Food&HotelAsia2008) the "Asia Barista Championship" will host professional baristas from all over the Asia-Pacific region to come and pit their skills against each other.

Asia Barista Championship 2008

The Asia Barista Championship is a regional event that seeks to develop the growth, quality and recognition of the Barista profession in Asia, as well as to cultivate a stronger appreciation and awareness of specialty coffee and the role of a barista in the specialty coffee industry. Participants from Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand will congregate on one competition ground to compete for the title of "Asia Barista Champion".

This group of national champions will be judged by an esteemed panel of experienced international judges, including Mr. Christopher Short from Cafetto Australia; Mr. Meechai Amornpathanakul from the Barista Association of Thailand; Ms. Tuti H. Mochtar from the Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia; Mr. Joe Hsu from Taiwan; Mr. Andrew Hetzel from CafeMakers; Mr. Jeffrey Dutton from Da Vinci Gourmet Australia; Mr. Richard Barkauskas from Hamilton Beach. The judges are grouped into the following teams: Four Sensory Judges, Two Technical Judges and One Head Judge.

During the Championship, each competitor will be required to serve each of the Four Sensory Judges, a single expresso, a single cappuccino and a single blended signature beverage of his/her choice, for a total of 12 drinks during the period of 15 minutes or less. Although four drinks of each category must be identical and served simultaneously, the competitor is not restricted to produce different latte art for the drinks prepared. The quality of the latte art will be taken into consideration for the "Best Latte Art Competition". Competitors will be judged based on the following criteria – Competition Area, Taste Evaluation, Beverage Presentation, Technical Skills and Judges Total Impression. Other awards in the Championship include the "Best Espresso Trophy" and "Best Blended Signature Beverage Trophy".

The Asia Barista Championship is jointly organised by Singapore Exhibition Services, organiser of FHA2008; Kerry Ingredients Asia, one of the largest and most technologically advanced ingredients companies in the world producing application specific ingredients for the world's leading food manufacturers and foodservice companies; and the Singapore Coffee Association, established to represent all sectors of the coffee industry.

La Marzocco is the exclusive sponsor of the Championship for its Expresso Coffee Machines. Other sponsors include Da Vinci Gourmet, Greenfields, Hamilton Beach Commerical, Coffex Coffee, Mahlkonig, Cafetto, and Purence. The Championship is endorsed by several international associations, such as the Barista Association of Thailand, China Coffee Association Beijing, Taiwanese Association of Specialty Coffee (T.A.S.C.), The AustralAsian Specialty Coffee Association (AASCA), The Indonesian Specialty Coffee Association of Indonesia, and the Singapore Coffee Association.

"The F&B industry in Asia has witnessed a rising interest in the Barista profession, fuelled by the growth in consumer understanding and appreciation for specialty coffee. Through the Asia Barista Championship, we hope to raise the bar of the Barista professional knowledge and expertise, cultivate closer ties within the Barista profession in Asia, and meet the market's growing demands for higher quality and greater range of specialty coffee," said Ms. Ting Siew Mui, Singapore Exhibition Services' Project Director of FHA2008.

Would you like sugar with your meltdown?

2008-01-24T07:38:00.001+10:00

In the past week we've all been affected by the "adjustment' in global stock prices through superannuation investments or direct shares. Further falls are expected on the Australian market today.

Statements from Commsec Securities have indicated that many of their margin loan customers are choosing to reduce their loans with cash rather than sell shares in a declining market. This would indicate that investors are still optimistic for the future and are prepared to stick out the short term pain.

In the recent past we've seen:

World share markets tumble
USA Fed lower interest rates
Australia's RBA increase interest rates
USA House prices falling
Australian house prices rising

Those events got me reaching for the text books and refreshing myself on "The Economic Clock". The clock represents the economic cycles of economies as they move from boom - bust - boom - bust. For every bust their follows a boom and in the boom of the last few years, this is the bust we had to have.

According to the clock the USA has rounded the depths of depression at 6 o'clock with falling real estate and falling interest rates. The USA is headed for rising share prices. (They couldn't go lower could they?)

Australia is somewhat behind USA and still enjoying a booming economy, full employment and rising interest rates. Depending upon the strength & speed of the USA recovery will determine how quickly and severely our economy can move through the bust portion of the cycle.

Wayne's prediction for 2008. In aeronautical terms, Tighten your belts for a rough touch-and-go before resuming normal flight.

M is for Manager & Mind

2007-12-19T11:11:00.000+10:00

I was lucky enough to give a presentaiton at the CHrsitmas Function of the Australian Institute of Management's "Public Speaking Club" last week. This is how it went:

"Since I last spoke to you I had yet another birthday, they are becoming an annual thing. A friend of mine told me that being married makes for a longer life. Married men may live longer – but they wish they didn’t.

The good news is that tonight I can show you the way to a increase your life span and techniques which you can use in your own life. I invite you to compare it with your own experiences and decide what you think.

M may be for Manager but I am sure that you know that the key to a good manager is the power of their mind.

Who has been on a management development seminar/boot camp/retreat where you are encouraged to get in touch with your right brain? Now tell me, how many people weren’t already being creative in their jobs?

Recent research at Harvard Business School has identified that companies can get just as much management development by also developing the logical left side. Let’s for a few moments talk about our brain – we’ve all got one. We do gym classes for our body but when was the last time you exercised your brain to develop it.

The early brain explorers like Freud were convinced that the brain developed up until late teens and then couldn’t be developed further. Yet we also know that Socrates and Galileo were at their most productive in their 60s & 70s.

Enter the field of neurogenesis. We now know that we can make our brain continue growing, offsetting aging , dementia and Alzheimers as well as helping us be productively engaged with society for much longer.

So how can we exercise the brain?

Manage By Walking About
Read funny books - humour
Play games –chess suduko
Act out – role play scenarios
Find what you’re not learning
Get the most out of business trips – visit a museum , Milan story
Take notes and then re-read them –Branson, NLP
Try new technologies – geeks ville
Learn a new language – Italian
Exercise, exercise, exercise

I said earlier that M is for Manager for I think we are a long way towards knowing that the mind makes the manager. Albert Einstein said that Imagination is more important that knowledge. I hope that each one of this in this room continues over this next year to develop our minds. So much so that I’ve already enrolled in Italian lessons starting next year. Perhaps next year, instead of opening with Guten Abent, perhaps we’ll be saying Buona sera."

Holiday Price Gouging

2007-12-13T08:48:00.001+10:00

It was surprising to see the extent to which some people will go to maximise their profit from the holiday season.

This week we have seen the price of milk in this humble camping ground go from

$3.10 on Monday

$3.40 on Tuesday

Flavoured milks are now charged at a higher price to kids than they are to the watchful adults.

I guess this milk man, as hard working as he is, is in for a consumer backlash.

Froth report

2007-12-10T16:21:00.001+10:00

The quality of the foam was excellent today. Swell was moderate. Water temperature about 18c.

Chrismas Greetings

2007-12-09T08:54:00.000+10:00

It is that time in the Australian busines calendar when offices start to become deserted. I'll be away for a short break in the classic norther NSW holiday township of Lennox Heads. I do wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas and a safe festive season. If you are driving - be safe.

I'll leave you with this message:

=============
A young man went to a fortune teller. Gazing into her crystal ball, the old lady asked, "What is your dream, young man? What do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to become a great writer."

"How do you define great?" she asked.

"I want to write things that the whole world will read, things that people will react to on a truly emotional level, things that will make them scream, cry, wail, howl in pain, desperation and anger."

The fortune teller reassured him, "It will be so."

He now works for Microsoft, writing error messages.
==============

Merry Christmas

The 'pressures' of competition

2007-12-07T16:28:00.000+10:00

Today I received an email from a supplier whom we have recently ceased to do business with. The gentlement whom purports to be the CEO of this organisation was surprised that we had chosen to take our business elsewhere.

In supply relationships Gilkatho aims to be an excellent client in order to gain strategic advantage by having better supply terms, faster delivery and earlier access to new products. We expect and often receive informaiton from suppliers before it is generally available in the market. This allows us to plan our business better.

In the case of this distressed supplier today he assured me that many issues had been fixed in their organisation and their performance would be better in the future. He did apolgise for the lack of communication in the last 18 months. "18 months!!!" That last comment simply served to reinforce our business decision from February. That is how long it took us to move after deciding that we had a problem with this supplier's arrangements. At anytime they could have responded to the issues with price, delivery times etc etc. Instead they held out until we had made our move to a new supplier.

18 months...wonder if they have heard of the modern competitive environment?

Competition

2007-12-06T10:36:00.000+10:00

Over the past three years we have seen a dramatic influx of competition in all segments of the market place. The most obvious example has been the release of many "category" killers in the sub $1,000 category.

At the time of a new model's release the manufacturers' state how their new unit is going to cream the competition in the home appliance category, after 6 months each manufacturer realises that they have very little competitive difference and the large retailers just want to carve the price further reducing margins.

Gilkatho was fortunate to have foreseen the looming amount of competition in the home appliance market. In 2004 we ceased to renew a very effective print media campaign that we had been running in a glossy publication aimed at home appliances. This budget was re-allocated to direct marketing to the corporate market.

Three years later it is nice to still have a growing business and not to be caught up relying on the sales from the appliance wars between the likes of Myer, Good Guys and Hardly Norman.

The management foresight in avoiding a deteriorating market is one skill. Identifying opportunities in another market segment is another core management skill. More on that another day.

Google Adwords

2007-12-05T16:38:00.001+10:00

Two lessons about Google Adwords.

Gilkatho was an early adopter of the Google Adwords technology that displays relevant advertisements next to search results. It was real case study material to watch how Google followed the "build it and they will come" strategy. The first years of their company's development was all about growing the effectiveness of their search results. The founders were more interested in the technology than the money. It was only after they had the commanding market position in the search engines that they introduced advertising. Google did advertising differently though. In their usual low key way, they were better at targetting adverts to the search users. That meant two things:

1. The searchers were happier as they got the most relevant search results and the most relevant adverts
2. The advertisers were happiest as they only advertised to the right buyers thereby reducing advertising costs while getting better return on investment.

With our web analytics we were soon able to track our conversation costs of a Google referred web visitors compared to say the pathetic results from Yellow Pages online. Today people search in search engines not directories.

One expected side effect of the success of Google has been the increased costs of the pay-per-click advertising. As more people see the success of Google Adwords, more people use it. More people bidding for the ad space means higher prices. Adwords was probably incorrectly prices at the start...offering excellent value for a very low price. The built-in protections of the bidding system means you know you will always be paying the market price. Got a niche product with few advertisers? Google is cheap. Enter the fiercely competitive world of coffee and the prices are going sky high.

Now, why this insight? Did you know that one of the least successful ranking positions is the Number 1 Adwords position? The visitors are less profitable and more likely to spend less time on your site. They aren't reading the search results, just clicking on the first placing. The visitors who choose carefully from the advertisers, spend more time on the chosen website, visit more pages and are more likely to convert to a sale.

The first lesson, to get the best value from Adwords, bid to be in the top 2-4 places, reduce your costs and maximise the sales return....we do.

And the second lesson...buy GOOG shares....I did.

Coffee Snobs love coffee

2007-12-04T07:46:00.000+10:00

You may be aware that Gilkatho has been a sponsor of the coffeesnobs.com.au coffee forum for the past year. In the past couple of months our Milton office has been the drop off point for the premium green bean supplies that some of these home roasters have been buying from Andy.

What an interesting bunch of people we've had visiting the office. We've heard stories of people with using their heat gun/hair dryers to roast coffee. Stories of modified overheated popcorn makers to the semi-professionals with their drum roasters. We love the enthusiasm that coffee drinkers the world over have for this humble beverage.

Melanie and LIz have also been giving out roasted samples of our development blend, code named "Blend 207". We are looking forward to the feedback from these coffee patriots.

From what we can tell so far, it seems that the coffeesnob participants are not snobs!

December

2007-12-03T07:16:00.001+10:00

December is traditionally a busy time for most companies and our humble coffee company is no exception.

The hospitality sector is at its peak with the ubiquitous Christmas parties, social nights, after work drinks etc etc etc. Australia is in party mode and our customers' venues are where they are heading. All of this work does lead to extra demands on our service resources. We find that we get an increase in "user errors" as by the end of the day staff don't really feel like taking care of the coffee equipment. They have already worked a long shift and maintenance is not something that takes priority. As the festive season rolls on, the lack of maintenance and cleaning leads to...more faults. Not complaining, we make provision for this as we also enjoy an increase in sales.

On the OCS (office coffee systems) front many prospective clients are wanting to get projects finished or initiated before they take a break. A good time to get decisions. At the same time our ongoing clients are partying hard and drinking more of those early morning espresso shots.

With just three weeks to do four weeks work, December's customer demand, and the prospect of being on-call over Christmas, this month is looking like a lot of fun.

2nd Roaster arrived Friday afternoon

2007-12-01T18:06:00.001+10:00

There was a particular aroma of excitment in the airs of Milton yesterday afternoon for two reasons.

Firstly, Liz was roasting some of her favourite Blend 207 which is our [leading} development blend for release late this year. The blend has such an interesting flavour profile. Everyone notices how the roast really matures 5 days after the roast. This is evident in crema, taste and on the tongue.

Secondly, our new shinny red roaster arrived by air freight direct from Europe. It is so shinny that it wont be long before we are the shiniest roaster in Brisbane. It will be another couple of weeks before we have completed the installation and commissioning of this new unit. In the meantime we'll continue roasting on the original smaller unit.

2008 is shaping up to be an exciting year with the release of our new blends to complement our existing coffee range.

The Email Newsletter

2007-11-30T11:12:00.001+10:00

A pillar of our marketing strategy for the past 7 years has been our humble but regular email newsletter - The Coffee Pot. In the past few months we have been reviewing progress and the effectiveness of our email campaign as we have quite a body of emails now floating across the web each month.

In August we conducted a respondent survey which gave qualitative feedback on the types of articles people like to read, what they don't like, what they think of font sizes etc.

We've been incorporating the feedback into the latter issues and getting some interesting results. We have always enjoyed the speed and effectiveness of email campaigns.

Tracking the quantitative aspects of the emails ie bounce rate, opening rate, links clicked we have traditionally used the same software as our general website statistics. This was good at giving us raw numbers of people whom landed on our site from the newsletter.

This week we started to use Campaign Monitor, a dedicated service for email campaigns. I had this on the "To-do" list for quite a few months and I wish I had done it 7 years ago.

The reporting has brought our effectiveness under the spotlight. It is so much easier having the response rates "at a glance" on just one report page.

Can't wait to send the next newsletter and track our improvements and add to our pillar of strength.

Hard work verses Talent

2007-11-29T09:55:00.001+10:00

Last night I attended a school presentation night and heard the Head of School quote Abraham Lincoln as saying "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work". His message to the graduating 12 year old scholars was that they have innate talents as youngsters but their success is now needing the input of hard work.

This got me thinking about the greatest challenge facing the Australian small business sector in 2008. In my opinion it will be maximising productivity from existing constrained resources. Our corporate talents which have carried us through the past few years werecarry overs from entry of timing and market opportunities. The move to coffee machine automation and the Australian resources boom have both conspired to propel our business forward. So far.

2008 will be a challenge year. Competition is certainly increasing. Inflation is certainly becoming a factor in our market place. Rising corporate financing rates will mean our corporate clients will be under pressure to contain cost as their own costs of business increase. Gilkatho will be needing to continue developing new services, new products and delivering services at the same if not lower costs.

We certainly have the corporate talent. The next years looks like our opportunity to apply the elbow grease even thicker.