Good mate to the Mojo Radio Show Blake Beattie is back to talk about making resolutions. Make them, keep them and get them done! Blake tells us how. Our double shot then rolls into Rik Mcaig and Adam Fleming who run the Athlete Development Program at Bendigo South East Secondary College in the Australian state of Victoria. This sports program has been so successful and is so impressive with its application, both the Australian Cricket Association and British Cycling have had their note pads out taking tips and tools about the program. Leaders and parents alike will learn valuable insights in this week's show. It’s a big show.
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 With petrol prices the way they are, for many of us filling up our tank is one of our major expenses for the week. Automotive supplier Bosch has announced the development of an accelerator pedal that can provide haptic feedback to tell you when you're burning fuel at too high a rate. The pedal can also tell you if you’re hitting a curb too fast, breaking the speed limit or driving in a way that could be seen to be dangerous (though that part will only work if you have your pedal hooked up to your GPS and have cameras that read road signs). All this is another step towards what we’re heading towards in self driven cars but for now this idea of having a pedal that will gently vibrate when you are using excess fuel seems like a pretty cool concept. Not only could it save lives but right now it's also going to save your wallet.  Table tennis or ping pong are said to be among the greatest activities for stimulating left and right brain thinking. It's the movement of playing left and right that stimulates both parts of the brain and can help creativity and innovation, plus it relaxes you and puts you in a better place for creativity. Yet for as long as I can remember the table tennis paddle has remained unchanged, until now. The Coconut Paddle has an edge that is grained bamboo wood that enables a precision style grip, however if you look at the grip, it’s completely different to what we are used to. Thanks to a hole in the middle of the handle, it lets you stick a finger through giving you a much more secure grip and ensuring that none of your fingers can fall of the back of the paddle. The centre is made from blonde three-ply bamboo wood and each one is finished in Winconsin with custom foam handle inserts that improve grip. Interestingly it works for both left and right handed players. It’s stylish, it's different and we love it because someone has taken something we all took for granted and asked, "How could I do that differently?"  A growing trend in our workforce is that of being a digital nomad, someone who essentially moves from place to place with minimalist needs, a laptop and connectivity. Regular readers of The Espresso will recall us talking about the trend of tiny homes - small places, less stuff but a more meaningful life. Being a digital nomad fits into the minimalist/tiny homes lifestyle. There are different types of digital nomads. The first is a van dweller who lives out of a car or van, moves from place to place and uses places like caravan parks for their essential amenities. Then there are the RVers who move around in RVs or tiny homes on wheels. They’re the same as van dwellers except they probably have more space and more facilities. The third type is the Airbnb-er who travels the world from place to place using traditional rental situations via Airbnb. They work from the road as long as they have access to Wi-Fi. The digital nomad finds a working space in coffee shops, co-working offices or the many new versions of creative spaces that you can rent by the hour or the day. As long as they have Wi-Fi connection these guys are happy. Recruiters, business leaders and people dreaming of a more minimalist, free and less controlled lifestyle are going to lean towards this new trend and it will be interesting to see how far this new world of remote operator will go.  There are not many apartments that have their own internal slide. From the top floor to the open plan bottom floor, the designers of the Kiev slide apartment have done away with a staircase and replaced it with a slide. Cool idea that most of us would love to have if we had the appropriate two or three storey home, but let's face it, practically speaking, it probably wouldn't work for most homes or families. Still, it’s a beautiful home complete with skylights to let in lots of natural light and we admire than rather than go through all the 'What ifs' and 'Why nots', they’ve gone ahead and said, "Hell yeah, let's do it!" If you were to design your perfect home with no barriers, no restrictions, to be your haven, exactly the way you wanted it, what would you do?  The smart home is just around the corner. Smart technology is ever increasing in the home and we’ve found ComfyLight, a wireless light bulb that screws into a regular bulb socket. It syncs with the app on your phone and in doing so begins to keep records of your regular movements. When you walk into a room the system automatically switches on the lights and if you head out, it turns them off. What’s cool about this idea is that once you leave your home it activates the security mode. ComfyLight will then simulate the normal user patterns that you have conditioned it to to mirror the home environment as if you were there. You can also keep track of the activity via your phone. After a very successful Kickstarter campaign, the first batch of ComfyLights are set to be sent out soon. 
Matt Lumsdaine helps individuals and teams in the corporate sector improve their wellbeing, productivity, and ability to manage conflict by teaching them to manage their most precious resource, their power of attention. Matt has faced the challenges of overcoming distractions and learning to master his own power of attention. In this overly distracted business and personal world we live in, this show draws back the curtain on attention and gives you powerful thought provoking ideas that can help you focus better in order to crack better ideas and ultimately win at life and business. It may just enhance or even save your personal relationships.... and is sure to get your MOJO working!  Have you ever wondered about the condition of your phone? Kyocera have developed a smartphone that you can wash with soap. The DIGNO Rafre handset contains standard Android software but the outer casing has been done in such a way that it will resist the penetration of soap and water. As well as this, the back of the smartphone is coated with a scratch-healing material that allows minor abrasions to restore themselves. If you’re worried about the condition of your phone and what nasties may be on the front or back then this one may be for you.  With the amount of accidents being caused by people’s distraction with social media and digital communication, this one has the potential to save lives. Carloudy is an ink display that basically puts your navigation system onto your windscreen as opposed to having it as part of your dash. It all works from light outside the car hitting the display and bouncing onto the windscreen allowing you to see a map, speed, and relevant information. If it's dark or you’re in a tunnel, sensors pick it up automatically and activate the back lighting so you can still see the display. It’s controlled through voice commands so you can ask it for help to navigate to a location, find a park, search nearby restaurants or the nearest place for petrol or a car wash. You connect with your smartphone via the companion app and Bluetooth and it takes over the car's media controls in an instant. It dosen’t look that great yet however the concept is encouraging, the functionality is great and once it becomes mainstream, I’m sure that the optics are going to quickly progress. It's important to note that features such as text alerts and email and social media notifications were left out of the design.  So how was your day yesterday? Did you foster your creative spirit? Spend time with your loved ones? Develop your passion? Lose yourself in a hobby or interest? Catch up on reading? Get plenty of rest? Exercise? Or sit under a tree and ponder your dreams? Annie Dillard says, ‘The Way We Live Our Days is the Way We Live Our Lives’. Sometimes it's worth taking an audit of your yesterdays to work out what your tomorrows will look like. It’s not a should or could, it’s a will. Think about whether you’re maximising your day, making the most of every moment, being present and engaging in true conversations with friends and loved ones. How you do it each day is a representation of what your life will look at the end of that long winding dirt road. If you live your days in chaos, frantically jumping from meeting, email, conversations and posts while shovelling down food, then that’s how you’ll lead the rest of your life. As Derek Sivers would say, 'If your yesterday was busy it means your life is out of control.'  Many wine connoisseurs would love to have a full cellar in their basement. There’s something about wine from a cellar that gives it a certain cache and enhances the drinking experience. Maybe this was the inspiration behind Sommi Wine Cellars. Made by hand in Portland, Oregan from regionally sourced wood they’re designed by engineers with the end result being a pretty cool looking cellar for your wine that is robust, temperature controlled with a top of the line cooling system and the visual appeal of a cellar. Inside they’re lined with high performance insulation and filled with a two bottle deep racking system, then covered with salvaged barn wood and fitted with hand crafted hardware, finished to match the decor of your home. Although it's not cheap, if your absolute passion is wine and everything to do with it, this may be one for your christmas hamper.  Australia has been ravaged by fires over the last three to four months. If you’re a regular reader of The Espresso you'll know that we love a good drone! Well now we’ve found FAROS (Fireproof Aerial Robot System), a fireproof drone which can navigate a fire site and provide vital data and information before firefighters go in.
Firefighting is risky business and the unpredictable nature of fire and all that it is decimating makes it extremely dangerous. Researchers at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology) have developed a fireproof drone that can detect fires, navigate buildings and transfer vital images and data to firefighters remotely, giving them potentially life saving information before going into to fight the fire. The drone can both fly and climb walls and uses a 2D laser scanner to spot obstacles and autonomously alter it’s path or mode according to what's in front of it. Potentially a life saving innovation and yet another chapter in the drone handbook.  Recently I had the privilege of being interviewed by the fabulous Andrea Wien, entrepreneur, writer and founder of Gap to Great. We chatted about everything from creativity to Mojo, to following your dreams, to journalling and even living on the land. I had a great time and hope you enjoy listening! 
We live in a world where brand is becoming increasingly important for any company leader. The Mojo Radio Show dives deep into brand, marketing, promotion and strategy with agency expert Darryn Altclass. We met Darryn through his very insightful Instagram account and he agreed to speak with us on the latest news in brand and social media. He runs an agency called When Then How. There is a lot changing in the world of product and brand marketing and it is paramount that we keep on top of what is happening in this space. Listen in and discover why your brand exists and how you can maximise your digital media activity to improve sales and profits.  Many people have commented to me that advertising agencies always have a ping pong table in their office. Apart from the fact it’s good fun and can be quite social, it’s also very good for your brain. The left and right side of the table is good at building new connections in ones creative mind. With that in mind, here's a cracking idea called Pull Pong. It’s essentially a dining room table that seats 8 people, but when unfolded it creates a full sized ping pong table. Cracking idea, great for the tiny home movement in dual application, great option for the boardroom and definitely great for the creative spirit.  Another week, another drone story - but it's a good one! Watching many television programs these days, what was once done by choppers are now being done with the use of drones. But not all of us can afford the big heavy duty industrial drone to play with. Enter the Axius Videus FPV Drone, a small drone that's capable of capturing both video and still images, yet fits into the palm of your hand. It's the world’s smallest FPV drone, it communicates with it's four channel controller, basically via Wi-Fi with an android or IOS device. The battery only lasts up to seven minutes per charge so it's not a long flight time but definitely enough to have some fun with. With a 100 foot range it isn’t going to take you into the Star Wars realm however it could be a fun toy and will certainly whet your appetite for the more serious big brother drones.  Recently I read a very good book by Gihan Pereracalled 'There’s An I in Team'. Gihan cleverly flips the idea of teamwork on its head by showing us it's the empowered, motivated, self interest of the individual that actually drives the team. I highlighted many parts of this book but one I particularly liked was a quote by Annie Dillard that said, "The way we live our days is the way we live our lives". Last week we spoke about taking control of our to-do lists. Before starting our day we need to have a clear focus on the one most important thing you need to do in your world to move you towards your dreams. Whether it's business or personal, pinpoint that one thing and make it your key focus. How you set up, drive, focus and get that most important thing done in your day ultimately determines how you will live your whole life. It’s been said the first 15 minutes of each day determines the rest of your day. And each of those days determines your life. Think about how you choose to live today, tomorrow and the day after, as that will be a representation of how we tend to live the rest of our lives.  Standing desks are nothing new and we’ve been talking about them here at The Espresso for some time. However the majority of corporate offices still have traditional sit down desks and boardroom tables with chairs. But what if you really want a stand up desk and don’t want to go to the expense or trouble of hauling your own fully serviceable standing desk into your corporate environment? Perhaps Oristand, a lightweight and flexible alternative is the answer. Oristand is a stand up desk made of recycled cardboard that costs only $25USD. It can hold up to 30kg and comes in a flat pack form. This means it's easy for you to take into the office, it will hold all your stuff and worst case, if you decide to move on to a different company, you can leave it and buy another. Oristand have thought about the mobility part for you in that supposedly if you need a break from standing or you do decide to move locations, it can be folded up and stored. Pretty cool.  Here’s one of my favourite ideas of the year so far. The University of Malaya has developed a smart outdoor LED light that is powered by wind and solar energy and can function off the grid even when there are power strikes. However the real innovation and how they’ve thought differently about this is that as well as being a hybrid energy light, it is also capable of imitating human scent to attract and trap mosquitos. The lamp produces UV light that shines on a titanium dioxide surface causing the release of small amounts of Co2, the gas exhaled by humans. Mosquitoes are attracted to humans and other prey by following Co2 trails which in this case leads them to the lamp. As they get closer, the fan motion of the wind turbine sucks the mosquitoes inside a trapped netting. Brilliant. This whole idea came about to combat the rise of Dengue Fever in Malaysia. We love the idea and we hopes that the lure of the human scent given off by the street lamps will prove to be successful. 
From being a professional actor, singer songwriter, a psychotherapist and a neuroscientist, our guest on this weeks show, Richard Hill, has an amazing back story. Today Richard is a leading keynote speaker, author, trainer, counsellor and psychotherapist and is an expert and practitioner on the dynamics of human brain behaviour and how that impacts performance and productivity in our lives. He has studied the brain and speaks and writes on how to use the brain and knowledge of the brain, to make you more successful in your own life. This is a very entertaining and enlightening interview that will change the way you look and think about your brain and its operation.  Here’s a cracking idea! As you know, normally when we buy our electronic products, they come with a massive manual explaining how to set it up and use it - which of course we never read. Enjoy Technology is an online electronic retailer that delivers the product along with a specially trained expert to set it up and guide you through its use. (Just as an aside, former Apple retail chief Ron Johnson created Enjoy - why am I not surprised!) Enjoy partnered with AT&T for the launch of the iPhone 6S which meant that people who bought the phone could arrange for an expert to deliver it to them in person, configure it and take them through the ins and outs of the new technology. The delivery service is free of charge for shoppers and is certainly a great example of solving a problem and then adding it into an additional customer service, value-added option. I for one would sure Enjoy that.  There is no doubt that oner of the hottest categories in the future will be digital healthcare. Many people would like to monitor their wellness and fitness tracking steps, heartrate, calories, distance walked etc, however many of the available tools look and feel like fitness equipment. The MisFit Ray Fitness Monitor looks more like a piece of jewellery than a fitness application, having been designed to look and feel more like a stylish bracelet that can be worn at all times as opposed to just a fitness monitor. It's a good way to separate yourself from the herd, create news from day one and create a new category for yourself. The MisFit Ray Fitness monitor is water resistant for 50m, has a multicolour LED for quick progress updates and vibration motor for notifications and can track your steps, calories, distance travelled and sleep. Pretty cool concept and I’m sure that the market leaders will quickly follow with more fashionable pieces to block the attack from MisFit.  Recently I had the privilege of speaking at a conference for an organisation that has seen extraordinary growth in the last number of years and was looking to continue their success. When being briefed for my speech, a member of the senior leadership team told me that the company's strategy of the past 3 years will continue for the next 3 years as, 'I’m a lazy strategist and I don’t like to change much.' I found it quite profound and rewarding to hear that this organisation sets a strategy and sticks to it. Most organisations have a number of strategies on the go at any given time and most leaders can’t articulate even one of those! Yet this organisation (whether you think it's lazy, clever or otherwise) has set a strategy that is clear, succinct, single-minded and focuses on the one thing. It's little wonder that companies like this see extraordinary growth when most of their competitors have flat or even negative growth. What’s your strategy for this year? What’s the one single-minded, important focus that you have for this year that will make it an absolute cracker? Once you have it, write it in your journal and stick to it. Don’t be tempted into running numerous strategies simultaneously through lack of true focus.  Drones are now becoming more commonplace and seem to be in the news weekly. Whether it be Amazon using drones to deliver merchandise, courier companies doing the same or drones being explored to provide an additional service, it seems inevitable that it’s only a matter of time before we see drones in our skies. AirMule by Tactical Robotics, is a drone that’s capable of ferrying human casualties from conflict zones, when a helicopter can’t access the battlefield because of rough terrain or even perhaps a street in urban conflict. The AirMule is capable of vertical take-off and landing, has a maximum load of 1100kg and can sit two humans and extra supplies. It can fly up to 18,000ft and can travel up to 31 miles at more than 110mph and has just completed its first untethered flight. This seems like a model that will find a home in the military and probably amongst fire, ambulance and medical services in all sorts of conditions.  With many more people living in built-up urban areas, there's less and less need for us to own a vehicle, but there are still times when an Uber or a GoGet just won't cut it and you need to borrow a friend's car. Which of course comes with the issue, 'Am I covered should we have an accident?' Well now a new service called Cuvva is offering on-demand car insurance via an easy to use Smartphone app. You start by taking a selfie and giving Cuvva permission to verify your identity and your license. You then enter the license plate number and how long you want them to cover you for and they’ll give you a quote. You accept the rate, the excess and you’re covered immediately. We’re going to see more of this type of on-demand product from the service industry as we go forward. Good ideas today begin when you fix your own problem, your friends love the idea and then you commercialise it. This is a classic example. |
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