I’ve just completed reviewing my travel plans for the next six months and it looks like I’m going to be doing a lot of international flying. This is good because it means more business but bad because I’m away from home. So where am I going?

As you can see the second half of the year is going to be pretty busy. I really don’t know what happened between NamesCon in January this year and DomainFest Macau…..nothing that I attended. Seems to me there is an opportunity for a conference to be organised around May.

I love catching up with all of my friends at the various domain conferences around the world but what I really don’t like is the journey. Being from Australia, every flight is well over 10+ hours and sitting in a tin can for that long is never fun!

After clocking up way too many air miles over the years I‘ve developed a bit of a routine.

• Do whatever I can to ensure that I have a spare seat next to me. When I say, whatever, I really mean it.
• Hydrate with lots of water in the Qantas club
• Be nearly the last person to enter the plane
• Insert noise cancelling headphones into ears and put on some nice music
• Assume the foetal position
• Close eyes and pray for sleep

Every so often I open my eyes to check out the best movie on the plane. I’m sure you know the one, it’s the picture of the little aircraft moving on the map. Trust me when I say that if I can possibly move the plane icon by force of will alone I would. Anything to get the journey over with!

A few other things about the way I travel. I never take check on bags. A good friend of mine was traveling to LAX and said to the person at the check-in counter, “Do you mind sending my bags to London.”

The check-in person replied, “We can’t do that as you’re traveling to Los Angeles.”

At which my friend replied, “You seem to be able to do it last time.”

Flying with carry-on bags is the ONLY way to go. This is especially true if you’re on a business trip and jumping from one city to another. If you have check-on then you may be in the position that your bags never catch-up with you and you can kiss them good-bye. In fact, even when I travel with the family I insist that we leave home only with check-on.

For those of you that are from a country that is a member of APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) then you really need to get an APEC business card. This little beauty allows you to travel in the crew line and bypass the massive immigration queues…..it also allows you to be pre-approved for visas in countries such as China. It’s a hassle to apply for and requires that you get a police check etc. but if you travel a lot then it’s a must have.

A few other hints to help you in your own travels. Go to seatguru.com It’s a website that has a seat map of every aircraft used on every airline. Each seat is rated by travellers as to whether it is any good or not. For instance, seat 71D on a Qantas A380 has the crew escape hatch in front of you so it is always clear.

Assuming that you have the frequent miler points always put in for an upgrade. Cost wise, it’s the best option to spend your points on. For example, a business class airfare from Melbourne to LA costs around $8-9K while you can get an upgradable economy ticket for around $1.8K. You can then spend around 70,000 points to upgrade the ticket to business class. An economy ticket costs 100,000 points so clearly you get more bang for your buck with the upgrade option.

BTW, when you’re at the check-in counter always ask for the possibility of an upgrade…..even if an upgrade wasn't previously available you can sometimes get one due to someone else cancelling.

If I’m going to a conference, the first thing I do when I get to the hotel is have a shower and check in my dirty clothes to be cleaned for the return journey home. I then force my body into the local time zone….yep, it hurts but you’ve just got to do it if you want any chance of dealing with the jetlag. I always sleep with the curtains open so that the sun wakes me up in the morning (my wife hates this BTW). This also helps with the jetlag and triggers some sort of biological response to move my body as fast as possible into the local time zone.

Just on jetlag….I typically don’t drink alcohol when traveling on business. It completely messes up my routine for getting into the local time zone. I know that there is free drinks on the plane but in my opinion stick to bottled water. Alcohol dehydrates the body and so does flying at high altitudes….so drink lots of water. Whatever you do, don’t drink any water out of the airplane tanks….you’re very likely to come down with some sort of illness.

A few years ago I flew around the world in 12 days. The itinerary was a shocker! I ended up traveling from; Melbourne to Singapore, Singapore to Frankfurt, a train to Koln, train back to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Madrid, Madrid to Barcelona (for a conference), Barcelona to Miami, Miami to New York, New York to Toronto, Toronto to Denver, Denver to San Francisco, San Francisco to LA and then LA back to Melbourne. BTW – this was all flying economy.

When you have this sort of schedule you end up learning to sleep on the airplane, exist in the local time zone and do whatever you can possibly do to make the travel experience easier. It also causes you to groan when the person in front of you forgets to take their shoes and belt off when going through airport security. Cheers!

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

This is the fourth part in the series on the Domain Industry and it continues directly on from the previously three. Even with the decline in traffic revenues they have continued to underpin the entire domain industry since its inception. Everyone from the registry through to the parking company are dependent upon this steady relatively consistent stream of cash.

The one bright spot during this time was that domain investors began to set more realistic prices on their assets. This drastically improved the problem of domain liquidity and injected more funds into the industry.

Before the industry downturn domain investors honestly believed that every domain they owned was almost priceless….they were waiting for that magical pot of gold to appear at the end of their domaining rainbow. I remember one prominent investor publicly declaring that he automatically turned down all offers less than $200K!

With the squeeze on returns really biting, investors were now looking for another business model to help them out. This was the birth of the stock-turn model of selling domains.

Think of this business model as more like the supermarket rather than the boutique store. The supermarket has much lower margins but sells a greater volume of goods. It survives on these margins because of the masses of people that purchase through them….this was the problem that the domain industry needed to solve.

To join the stock-turn revolution, domainers had to realistically look at their portfolio and then price the majority of their domains at around the $1500 mark. The goal was then to sell 1-2% of their portfolio each year. Like the supermarket, this is effectively an eyeballs game. For the model to work domainers needed to get their assets in front of as many people as possible who are currently seeking to buy a domain name.

This was a seismic shift for the industry and really illustrates the pressures that domainers were under financially at that time. Domains that were once priced at $200K were now being sold at 1% or less of that value. These were desperate times.

In the entire domain value chain the end user eyeballs were all going to registrars to find the domain for their business. For the first time, registrars found themselves in the box seat to exploit this opportunity.

When end-users went to purchase a domain name rather than saying that it was unavailable a message would pop-up that the domain could be purchased for $1500 (as an example). A business wanting to secure their domain wouldn’t think twice at paying 150 times the registration cost of the domain.

The biggest challenge for this model to work was that domains that were registered with one registrar needed a fast way to be transferred if another registrar sold them. This was the birth of the multi-listing-services model that allowed fast transfers of domains between registrars. The streamlining of the fast transfer process has meant that consumers could now more easily purchase domains that are owned by domain investors.

Not surprisingly, there was a huge rush to get into this space by many of the registrars. Why sell a domain for $10 when you could sell the same domain for $1500? The profitability of a registrar now had the potential to dramatically increase. A virtuous cycle came into play as the major domain marketplaces sought the valuable eyeballs provided by the registrars and matched them with their existing marketplaces.

Here’s the interesting challenge. Everything, and I mean all domain sales hinge on traffic. Whether the traffic is generated by a registrars brand (eg. Godaddy, Afternic, Sedo etc) or from the domains themselves. If a consumer doesn’t know a domain is available then they can’t purchase it.

The decline in PPC rates impacted the sales market in two ways:

1.            Less liquidity in the domain space for domain investors to purchase domains.

I remember writing an article around 2008 about the fact that there were a number of large domainers that were market makers. In other words these individuals had amassed such a large amount of traffic revenue that they directly influenced the price of domain sales. As an aside, in the then relatively immature domain aftermarket, the prices dropped almost overnight when these players stopped buying domains.

2.            Less traffic as domains were dropped

This second impact is somewhat hidden. What many people haven’t considered is that the traffic domains would often be the conduits for potential buyers to the domain marketplaces. To date, the domain marketplaces have received this traffic for $0…..not a bad deal when you think about it.

For example, the major marketplaces do not pay anything to a domain owner when a buyer clicks on the “this domain maybe for sale” link. This makes sense, because the domain owner wants the person to buy their domain. What is interesting is that the buyer may go and then search the marketplace and purchase an entirely different domain. The owner of the domain that generated the lead gets paid nothing. In my opinion, this is an embalance in the industry that will eventually be ironed out by an innovative company.

What happened several years ago is that many of the marketplaces that are also tied to parking platforms became desperate for the traffic that also generated buyers. Domain parking was starting to be seen almost as a loss leader. Suddenly traffic became valuable not for its PPC value but for the potential buyers that it also brought.

This series on the history of the domain industry will continue.

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

Just over a week ago I was busily typing up an amazing analysis for my blog that covered “the meaning of life the universe and everything”. In other words, it was brilliant piece of work that caused my heart to skip a beat or two as it joined in the rhythm of my masterful keystrokes. I was in a really good place…..and that’s when disaster happened.

Some of you may be familiar with a BSOD. If you haven’t experienced a BSOD then let me say that the clock is ticking and that you should probably book in for an emergency session with either the local shrink or a big bottle of something that will make you forget about life for a while. Ideally, sharing the bottle with your shrink would probably be the best solution.

So what the heck is a BSOD? It’s a Microsoft Windows “Blue Screen Of Death”. Your screen goes blue (obviously) and a bunch of unintelligible gobble-de-gook gets plastered across which is really saying, “You’re stuffed.”

So nearing the end of my epiphany I found myself staring at blueness. To say that my brain was momentarily trapped in some other dimension as it began to comprehend what had just happened was an understatement. I found my mouth moving but no words came out. I was stunned into disbelief. My PC had just had a massive stroke caused by some cancerous program deep within!

Sometimes in life you just have to make tough decisions. My PC was now akin to a lame horse or Disney’s much loved faithful dog, “Old Yeller” that at the end of the movie had to be shot. Rather than nurse my computer back to health I made the difficult decision to send it to the gallows.

I should say from the outset that I hate upgrading computers and making the decision to get a new one was monumental. So after a spot of research and a chat with my business partner (he’s brilliant at this sort of thing) I’m now typing this blog on my new mega-fast PC. The only problem is that I made the mistake of upgrading to windows 8.1 rather than sticking with windows 7.

Seriously, Microsoft, could have possibly made it more difficult for me to get up and running? I think not. The start button takes you to who knows where and finding your programs now involves multiple clicks. The task bar is forever semi-transparent which makes it incredibly difficult the read and the quick launch bar has vanished (yet again).

After a quick Google it took me about 2 seconds to realise that there were a multitude of users complaining about exactly the same things that I was. Despite having updates every few seconds the boffins at Microsoft seem to think that basic useability is something to ignore.

What Microsoft needs to appreciate is that I use my iPad every day and an iphone 6 sits on my desk next to me. My three kids have iphones and Macbooks, my wife has an iphone and an ipad and we have two AppleTV devices. I’ve never read a manual or Googled anything about an Apple product…..they all just seem to work! So Microsoft, why are you putting me through so much pain! It is clear to me that your user interface designers were born in some cesspit at the bottom of a very dim dark well!

When my iphone 5 had battery problems (ie. Got red hot) I took it to the local Apple store and they apologised and gave me a new phone with all of my data on it. That’s called service! I know that Apple isn’t perfect. For example, we’ve all seen the videos that prove that if you subject an iphone 6 to several tons of weight it will actually bend. Seriously, Apple has built products that are easy to use….which means I think that I made a big mistake with Windows 8.1

So for the past week I’ve been wrestling with my new PC as well as another bout of the flu (that wasn’t good). I’m now about to install third party programs that make my task bar opaque and another one that gives me back my Windows 7 start menu. At $5 a shot these developers are making a fortune.

So within the next week I should hopefully get everything just about under control….that’s when I noticed a little icon that said, “Get Windows 10”. You’ve got to be kidding me! So what level of hell am I about to be inflicted with now?

Microsoft is giving away Windows 10 (initially) so it’s free….right? No it’s not free! I’ll have to rebuild my entire PC and go through another few weeks of working out where they’ve put everything again! So my advice is….stay clear of Windows 10 and let some other guinea pigs sort out the mess.

Believe it or not I’ve been a strong proponent of Windows and have used it for countless years (since windows 1.0). For me to develop such frustration and angst towards a tool that I use each day just shows how wrong Microsoft is getting it. I’m now seriously looking at moving everything to Apple….so Microsoft, you’re on notice!

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

I often find myself talking to my own kids about buckets. These aren’t the regular buckets that you carry water around in but relate more to the short, medium and long-term plans for your life. Over the years, I’ve found that having buckets has been really advantageous in understanding my own direction in life.

Items in the short-term bucket are things such as earning money to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Without this bucket being constantly topped up then you’ll find it a lot harder to get through life.

The medium-term bucket is sub-five years. It has things such as education, training and gaining experience in it. This bucket is all about investing in yourself so that you can become better at whatever you do.

Then there’s the long-term bucket. This covers who you are and why you do the things that you do. In this bucket are items such as character building, relationships, guiding life principles and typically spiritually related issues. There’s only two things that are certain in this world, death and taxes.. This is the bucket that is all about what you would like people to say about you when you die.

Many people get stuck in the short-term bucket believing that if they can just earn more money then all of their problems will vanish. I’ve met a number of these individuals and they’ve climbed the ladder of success to find that it’s leaning against the wrong wall. They are very wealthy, have no close friends, disaster of a family and are often very shallow.

Those people that only focus on the medium-term end up starving and having bad relationships. These sort of people are often amazingly smart but incredibly unwise.

I could summarise the “long-termer” in one sentence….They’re so heavenly minded that they’re often no earthly good.” In other words, the people that focus entirely on this bucket believe that it’s a waste of time working to pay the bills and it never occurs to them that skills are worthwhile.

So back to my kids. I counsel them to work a little at all three buckets. There will be times in their life that they may have a focus (eg. Studying) but to never completely neglect any single bucket. They need to live now, develop skills and never forget that character is vitally important.

For example, this week my daughter had a flat tyre. She had no idea what to do so I went out and put the spare tyre on and discovered that it was also flat. In the process I found that the tyres weren’t just flat, she was driving on the metal belts on the inside edge.....not good!

She had to go out that night (urgent friend business) and said that she would just drive the car on the flat tyre. This caused me to relieve her of the car key. This then meant that Dad was the worst enemy in the world at which point I asked her why she was getting so angry at the person that was about to help her.

So here was her problem. The short-term bucket didn’t have any cash in it to fix the tyres, the medium bucket didn’t know what to do with the situation and the long-term bucket of our relationship was taking a beating.

The next day she took a bus to her part-time job (Dad still had the car key) and unbeknown to her I started solving the problem. I managed to get the car to a tyre workshop (that’s a long story) and had three of them replaced plus a general check-up. It was no longer a death machine...which is always good!

When she returned home she was so happy that her car was up and going (short-term). I then took her through (again) some basic car maintenance (tyres, brakes and steering) to help improve her skills (medium-term) and to point out the disaster that driving on a flat tyre could be. We then had a talk about our relationship and that working on the problem is far better than yelling (long-term).

Later that night, this is what she posted on Facebook:

I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge how amazing my father is! I found out my car was more like death on wheels yesterday. And while I was at work today (I took the bus) my dad took my car to a mechanics and got 3 brand new tires and a wheel alignment done for me. Thank you to the best daddy in the world! Even when I yell and scream at you, you always amaze me with how selfless and thoughtful you are xx

This story wasn’t to show how great a Dad I am….trust me when I say that all Dad’s struggle. It does illustrate that working on the different buckets is so important. If I had left my daughters car broken and tried to mend our relationship then my guess is that I wouldn’t have received the above post. After all, what’s the point in talking to a starving man about their character? Give them a meal first dummy!

I find the buckets can be used in many different areas of my life and help me approach problems by considering the implications of the short, medium and long-term. I hope that you find this blog interesting and even share a few of your own experiences. Have a great weekend!

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.

I was talking to a young man the other day and I told him that if I wanted anything done then he would be the last person that I’d ask. He was a bit taken aback by the comment and asked me why.

I looked him in the eye and said, “Because you’re not busy.”

There’s an age old adage that says, “If you want something done then give it to a busy person.” The reason for this is that busy people put the item on their list and get it done while lazy people will get around to it one day.

For example, the young man I was speaking to crawls out of bed around 11am each day, works at a local fast food place for maybe 20 hours per week and honestly believes that he’s working really hard. So what does he do with the rest of his time? Television, hanging out with friends and games are all high on the agenda.

I told him to get some pride in himself and to at least pay his parents some money for board each week. It’s fair to say that this didn’t go down too well.

For some stupid reason the current generation seems to think that everything should be served up to them on a platter and that the world owes them everything. The job of parents is to provide for their every need and their job is to expect that this will be done. I hate to rain on their parade but this isn’t the state of the real world.

In the conversation I discovered that he had some notion about starting his own business (he’d dropped out of university). The biggest problem was that he couldn’t come up with any ideas. So I rattled off about a dozen ideas that he could do immediately…that was a big mistake. He then told me that he would have to really think about which idea to go with. It was clear that I’d given him too many to cope with…..darn it!

Contrast this young man with a young girl I know. She’s studying to gain a qualification in an industry that she’s passionate about. In the time when she’s not studying she’s working at a part-time job so that she can be self-reliant. Although she’s half-way through her course she’s already applying for jobs and letting companies in her industry know that she will be available later in the year. Everyday she’s up at 8am and in bed by 10pm….she’s a girl on a mission!

As an employer, which of these two people would I employ? It doesn’t take rocket science to work out that the girl is by far the better candidate. You can build a business around a person with her kind of attitude.

So what do I need to do? Probably the first thing is to stop generalising about the current generation….there’s quite a number of them that, like the girl, have incredible drive. I find myself constantly looking for motivated young people as I find that they inspire me and often provide a fresh perspective on life.

I would encourage you to take a 20 year old nephew or niece out for coffee and ask them questions about life. You may suddenly gain a fresh understanding on the current generation…..or you may end up giving them a kick up the seat of the pants. Whatever happens, I'm sure that it will be an interesting experience!

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Michael Gilmour has been in business for over 32 years and has both a BSC in Electronics and Computer Science and an MBA. He was the former vice-chairman of the Internet Industry Association in Australia and is in demand as a speaker at Internet conferences the world over. He has also recently published his first science fiction book, Battleframe.

Michael is passionate about working with online entrepreneurs to help them navigate their new ventures around the many pitfalls that all businesses face. Due to demands on his time, Michael may be contacted by clicking here for limited consulting assignments.