Issue 123 February 2017

In a landmark ruling from the Beijing High People's Court, Treasury Wine Estates ("TWE"), the owner of the 'Penfolds' wine brand, has successfully challenged the registration of the lucrative 'Ben Fu' trade mark which had been registered by well-known 'trade mark squatter', Li Daozhi, in China. TWE had failed to register the trade mark, a Chinese transliteration of the Penfolds...

Allhomes have just released to agents their latest Allhomes Property Market Index. I found the following items of particular interest. Looking at the sales market, median house prices have continued to rise across both Canberra and Greater Queanbeyan. The median house price in the ACT is now $638,000, Townhouses $435,000 and Units & Apartments $381,000. There were a total on...

What will be the key features of Canberra's recruitment market in 2017? Firstly, with 2016's Territory and Federal elections behind us and no major distractions ahead, competition for top talent will heighten. Add to this a number of high profile infrastructure projects and unemployment below three and a half percent and you have all the ingredients for a very competitive...

Author Amit Kalantri once mused, "An assembly is extra slow in taking actions". As a career strata manager myself, I have to confess that I don't entirely disagree. Of course, meetings are necessary for the successful management of an Owners Corporation. There just isn't any way of getting around it. However, it is important to ensure that the juice is...

'Tell me about your childhood?' It may seem an unusual question for me to ask when I first meet with an executive. It is, however, where all learned behaviours and beliefs start. Now, it is not my intention, at this point, for you to pull out the tissues and confess your inner most thoughts to your colleagues in the hallway...

Around 16 years ago, I gave an interview for an Assistant Marketing Manager's job. The interviewer's first question was, 'Tell me, what is marketing?'. I said, 'Well, I think everything is marketing.' I saw a puzzled face, so I added; '...I believe, everything a business does, that involves the customer is actually marketing. It's not just about branding and advertising.'...

Anyone who tried to log on and complete the Census of Population and Housing on the scheduled participation date in August of last year, may have become frustrated and questioned the value of this survey - in some cases with the use of expletives. Hopefully the minor technical difficulties people experienced will not colour their long-term respect for this important...

Celebrating Canberra's centenary in 2013 has helped Canberrans focus on what is special about our city. As a government and as a community, we must build on that feeling and create that future together. Cities do not succeed by accident or by leaving things to chance; they require good design, good governance and great collaboration. Cities must internally collaborate to...

Prepare your users for the journey and you will be pleasantly surprised at how successful your ICT implementation really can be … We see the projects and hear the stories, year after year and one could say decade after decade, yet we don't seem to learn or address the underlying reality: that the multiple millions of dollars being spent on...