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Wow, what an honour! Being short-listed was exciting enough.

Today I received that awesome letter to inform me that I was selected. I’ll post more information when things begin to happen.

Merry Christmas to all!

As with many, our family follows a traditional schedule of family lunches and dinners during this time of year.
Today, I decided to break tradition with my brother, by doing the “one thousand steps” (which only happens to be 800+ steps).
Bad decision, never run after Christmas lunch! Well, at least we burnt off what we ate.

Anyway, the reason for my post… I just can’t hold back my excitement, as we are leaving for our annual three week family holiday tomorrow.

Bring on the beach!

Well, so much for a whole week off. I was supposed to be coming home tomorrow, but decided to leave early.

I had a great time while on schoolies - partied hard (no doubt), and also learned a lot, both about myself and others.

Tomorrow I will embark upon my first ever holiday that is completely independent of my parents. My schoolies will be spent in Ventnore, Phillip Island, with a house full of my school mates.

I look forward to finally being able to do nothing. Despite finishing school a couple of weeks ago, it didn’t stop me from working.

Cool, a whole week off work!

Today marks the day I finish seconday education, forever.
At 3pm I walked in to, and at 5:15pm I walked out of, my last exam.

So, let tomorrow mark a new chapter in my life… time to relax, party hard, and maybe do a bit of work.

Today my write-up on my recent ABW 2007 experience was published in my school newsletter. Available as a PDF download (see page 10), however I have copied the text for you to read here:

For 60 students selected from around Victoria, the recent two-week holidays were cut to one, as each of these students was awarded a $2,000 scholarship to attend the Australian Business Week program run by Deakin University. I was one of those selected to be a part of this year’s program.

We were divided into six teams, each of ten members. I was in team Orange, and was elected Chief Executive Officer during our first “company meeting�?.

We were required to participate in a number of activities, the main ones being:

• Business Policy Game - A computer simulation of a public company which we ran for its third and fourth years, making eight quarterly “decisions�?.
• Mock Trial/Court Case - run from the Geelong County Courts with a real Judge. An invaluable experience in knowing where not to be in the future.
• Keynote Speakers - including Glenn Fairchild, founder/executive director, ARES Group, Dianna Williams, co-founder/executive chairperson, Fernwood Women’s Health Clubs, and Belinda J. Scott, founder/director, BJS Insurance Group
• “Outdoor Team Challenge�? - Physical challenges including a High Ropes challenge.
• Trade Display/Trade Show - We designed and built our own trade display. On the Saturday parents and visitors were greeted by salespeople at the door, and were directed to our display where we handed out fliers and product samples.
• Annual Report - One of the extremely stressful tasks was the company’s comprehensive annual report.
• Annual Shareholders’ Meeting - The final task for the week, with parents and visitors sitting with each company while we presented the report on our company’s performance, followed by a showing of the TV advertisement that we made earlier which presented a product we had invented.

The days were very busy, commencing at 7am with an hour’s exercise before breakfast. Bedtime became progressively later as the week went on, starting
at 11:30pm on Monday and ending with a crazy 4:30am finish on Friday. Our hard work resulted in our team being awarded two medals - we came first in
both Communication and Team Development. We finished equal second overall.

The week was great fun, extremely beneficial, and an experience I will remember for the rest of my life. I highly recommend it to Future Year 12 students interested in business.

Following our final breakfast, we had almost two hours of company meetings for final preparation on our report, trade display, presentation, and speeches.
Definitely a hard session, with nothing but adrenaline keeping me going (and possibly my overload of caffeine from the night before).

At 10am we handed in our report, and at 10.30am the mock trade show officially opened. Parents started rushing in, but I didn’t have time to watch - I had a presentation to rehearse! As per one of the tips we received about public speaking only two days earlier, practise, practice, practise - and that’s exactly what I did. I even used about 15 minutes to rehearse on the lectern, making sure everything was ready to go.

At 11am our trade display was dismantled and at 11.15am, the company presentations began. Luckily, our presentation was in the first round (before lunch), and we got it over and done with. However, this did present a challenge, as most people remember the last thing the best. Naturally, our high performing team pulled it off, and we delivered one of the most professional and clear presentations. At 12.15pm we had lunch, and at 2pm a Coke break.

At 2.30pm, Professor Philip Clarke, Dean, Faculty of Business and Law closed the week. The closing included presentation of certificates and special awards, of which our team received two. The first award we received was for “Team Development”. The second, known as the “Helen Handbury Memorial Medal”, was for “Communication”.

Unfortunately, our team did not finish first, however we were more than happy to accept second place. The entire week was probably the single most influencing week of my life, and I am glad I participated.

Our last 7am start, our last morning recreation activity, it was a good yet partially sad day.

After breakfast we started with a presentation by Andrea Sheedy, Team Leader of Student Admin Group at Deakin.
Andrea’s presentation as about Deakin University’s great features, titled “Adding Value by Degrees”, it provided interesting information about the Uni.

After our first session we had a quick Coke break, which I spent at the “CEO’s meeting”.
This meeting gave me a chance to talk with all my fellow CEO’s at once, and I was able to get to know some of them much better.
Unforunately there still seemed to be some restraint from some people to relax, as we still had work to get done, and technically we were still competing.

After the break we had around two hours of company meetings with our seventh decision due at 12pm.
Once our decision was in we had a big lunch to make sure we were ready for our mock trial, which was coming up.

The mock trial was held at the Geelong Magistrates Courts, so everybody got dressed up and we all headed down in a few buses.
In our trial, we versed the “Silver” team, and although the verdict wasn’t on our side, we all learned a lot and thoroughly enjoyed watching the trial take place.

When when got back to the management centre we had and hour and a half of free time, followed by an hour and a half of company meetings.
Most of this time was spent working, where I concentrated on getting the report finished, as well as my presentation and my speech which was due the next morning.
At 6.30pm we had dinner, which preceded another two hours of company meetings.

Since we had less than two hours to prepare tomorrow morning, it was a late night for all.
Most people got to bed by 3am, but I stayed up until around 4am checking on what other teams were doing.
Unfortunately for those other teams, three of them still had at least one or two people working later than me.

Another 7am start, followed by morning recreation and breakfast.
After a physically challenging day yesterday with the Outdoor Team Challenge, I must admit I was still feeling a little sore.

To kick off our day we had another team development session, “planning for high performance”.
Hosted by Ian McDonald and John Lindros, we learned a lot about not just how to run a team, but make it really perform.
Every bit of information I took to heart, from simple concepts to techniques for improving communication and motivation.
This was the last of our team development sessions, and was a great way to finish off one of the most benificial aspects of ABW.

Following our daily Coke break was a company meeting to put the final touches on our story board, which was due at 11.30am (along with “decision” 4).

At 11.45 we were presented with a keynote about insurance and insurance brokers.
Held y Belinda J. Scott, Founder and Directo of BJS Insurance Group, the talk was particularly interesting as this was something fairly new to me.

After the keynote we had lunch and then listened to a keynote by Andrea Kelly, Business Consultant, Kelly and Associates.
Kelly’s session was all about making an oral presentation, which I had to pay a lot of attention to, since I was set to host our mock shareholders meeting only two days away.
Some interesting tips included changing pace of speaking to keep listeners interested, notes on body language/presentation, and how to use facilities such as a lectern.

Next up was the taping of our TV ad, which happened during nearlly five hours of assigned company meeting time.
During the filmig process, I made it a priority to be on set as I find media-related things such as filming very interesting.
Although our actor was a little nervous and finding it hard to remember his lines (understandable), we got the job done.
Once the filming was complete, only one team member was allowed to participate in the editing process, so I stayed out of it.

At 6.45pm our fifth “decision” was due, which was followed by dinner and further company meetings to prepare for the mock trial, company reports and trade display.
Here I spent most of my time working on the reports and thinking about my presentation.
I delegated the individual reports while working on the main body of the final report, which was unfortunately not the most enjoyable process.

With so much to do, it was a late 1-1:30am before I got to bed.

“Two down, three to go” is all I could think when trying to get myself out of bed.
As with day two, we started the day with exercise, breakfast, and then company meetings.

At 10.15am we had our first keynote speaker of the day, Dianna Williams.
Dianna is Co-Founder and Executive Chairperson, Fernwood Women’s Health Clubs, and in 2005 she received the Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year.
Her talk was mainly about franchising, which at the time I was interested in as our family business was looking at franchising opportunities.
Dianna’s story is a very interesting one, and I think would be very inspirational in particular to business women.

After the keynote and a quick Coke break, we started preparing for our mock TV ad.
For our prepartion, we were privelligd to a session with Roger Box, Group Account Director of Reality Group.
Roger’s keynote gave us an insight to the diverse and creative world of advertising, in particular to TV.

After his talk, I walked up and had a chat with Roger, asking questions specifically about new media and advertising.
The company, Reality Group, specialise in more than just TV ads, but also things such as online marketing campaigns.
One of the subjects I brought up was Joost, which I had recently beta-tested and found to be a very hot topic.

After listening to Roger, Peter Lane, Video Producer from Deakin University gave us an overview of story boards.
My understanding for how story boards work and are created was quite good, as I had made my own in 2006 Media class.
This gave me the opportunity to think about a few other things on my mind while not missing out on what was going on.

By the end of an hour and fifteen minutes of open ears, we were all ready for another great lunch break.
Following this we participated in the “Outdoor Team Challenge”, hosted by Ian McDonald and Jon Lindros.
The challenge consisted of four main activities, where two teams competed against each other at any one event.
The activities include a game with a play cross-bow, a running/bike circuit race, a high ropes challenge, and canoeing.
Our team performed very well, however results were not available until the following day.

Luckily we were given an hour of free time after the challenge, because I needed a good break.
However, me being as usual, my break consisted of checking up on emails and talking business with my dad over Skype.

After our break finished we had another excellent dinner, following by a siminar held by Ernst and Young.
I found the presentation to be interesting, as we were given an insight into the workings of one of the coolest corporations operating locally.
Some of the most interesting points included the culture of the company, the events they hold for staff to socialise, and sporting groups they run.

From the Ernst and Young seminar we moved into the board room for another company meeting.
It was time to work on idea’s for our TV ad, our trade display, and our “legal team” were all working hard on the mock trial.
During this period I split my time between brainstorming for the TV ad, encourging the team working on the trade display, and making sure the legal people weren’t going nuts over paperwork (which I figured wouldn’t be much of a challenge to do).

Our third “decision” was due at 9pm, along with drafts of our story board.
That night, I stayed up working with the team on both the TV ad and trade display.
As I recall, one of the legal team members was looking fairly dilapidated, so I suggested they get some sleep (which definitely paid off the following day).

Bed time for me was around 12-12:30am.