David Rymer

In The Beginning In the minds of consumers, brand are living, breathing entities, particularly on social media. Thus, the boundaries between brand and marketing are constantly being blurred, creating a behavioural minefield.

This is especially so in our increasingly always-on hyper-connected, 24/7 world. Digital disruption has fundamentally transformed the way we live, work and play. Inevitably this has revolutionised the way people buy and thus how we do business in this new millennium.

Traditional mass advertising is no longer as effective as it once was in reaching an audience. The advertising techniques that once proved so effective in the past simply aren't as potent for advertisers today. As marketing continues to evolve, methods that work today, probably won’t work as effectively in five years’ time!

Two major economic and social forces are rapidly transforming how we view work. Firstly, economic turbulence and certainty are being unleashed as machine learning and automation trigger yet another wave of industry restructuring. Secondly, the Internet has made it easier than ever before to create a side business to supplement your revenue and operate it from home.

The Internet Changed The Face Of Small Business

Before the Internet exploded into our lives, starting and operating a business was intensive. Attracting customers need expensive marketing campaigns, office space rental was expensive and even maintaining customers relationship via the phone or mail could be time-consuming and expensive. With the Internet, however, starting a business became more accessible than ever before. Many high-cost business expenses have given way to low-cost, online alternatives or been rendered obsolete by new digital technology.

Debt solutions and strategies to pay off debt and then stay out of debt forever can be different for everyone. One thing is clear, the sooner you are able to resolve your debt issues and deal with your debt, the more options you will discover open to you. Part of paying off your debt is learning sensible money habits, which help you to stay happily out of debt in the future.

People who have experienced significant and unanticipated expenses pop up to disrupt their lives can testify how glad they were that they had put aside an emergency fund to fall back on to deal with these unpredictable contingencies. As with most financial challenges, pre-planning your emergency fund will be critical to its success. While collectively, we do poorly overall as saving nation, there is no reason you can’t take steps to ensure you can weather an unexpected storm.

When we think about investing, we are inevitably drawn to focus on the upside. We love words and phrases like earnings potential, yields, ROI or profit outlook. On those occasions when we let our thinking walk on the wild side, we broaden our horizons to encompass concepts such as investment mix, risk profiles, portfolio lifecycles and market volatility.

Rarely it seems do we pause to consider every investment comes with costs attached. Even at the most surface level, you are taxed on your gains and likely encounter fees and charges along the way, often regardless whether your investment is successful or not.

The key to managing your personal finances successfully is a mix of disciplined investing, sound financial structure and good planning. One of the keys to planning is developing a personal budget.

Now no one finds budgeting exciting. It may be dull, but it is well worth your time and effort. You don’t have to spend hours slaving away on creating a budgeting masterpiece but half an hour here and there will put in a powerful position; to understanding where your money is going, compared to where it should be going.

Forget, cricket, and forget AFL, rugby, union and soccer. Australia’s national sport is home ownership. So, as property prices continue to rise and auction action is fierce, first home buyers are increasingly frustrated in their attempts to enter the property market.

Buying your first home can prove to be stressful, confusing, frustrating and even intimidating experience. Potential first home buyers encounter a strange new world of unfamiliar terms and seemingly endless paper-intense processes.

Australians are by and large an unapologetic nation of car owners and car lovers. Whether it’s our need to traverse vast open spaces, commute to work from distant satellite suburbs or simply our love of independence, cars do it for most of us.

That is right up until we need to replace our car. Then the nightmare begins. Ironically, after a bank account and a credit card, a car loan is usually the third financial encounter Australians have with our financial services system.

Sydney is Australia’s gateway to the world. There are so many places to see in this cosmopolitan city, it’s hard to decide which truly are the best places to go in Sydney. Here, you’ll encounter a heady mix of sun, surf, culture, and cuisine, classical music recitals, climbing tours of the Harbour Bridge, indigenous art, and native wildlife. With so things to experience and see in Sydney, it’s hard to decide what deserves a place on your Sydney bucket list!

Whether you are staring spellbound at a titanic plume of water plunging majestically into an abyss or watching a set of rushing cascades scurrying down an idyllic stream, Costa Rica waterfalls will leave you with enduring memories. From its lush green, tropical forest-clad slopes to its mist-shrouded cloud forests, surely no other country plays host to such idyllic waterfalls. Aside from the mesmerizing waterfalls themselves, you’ll encounter bejewelled butterflies, rainbow-hued hummingbirds and a jungle bursting with wildlife. Here are 10 of the best waterfalls in Costa Rica.

Anyone who has been whale watching in Sydney during its annual migration cannot help but feel entranced as they romp in its warm waters. Happily, whale sightings in Sydney are common as around 15,000 whales swim past Sydney annually making the whale-spotting season an unusually long one. Each year these majestic giants migrate up Australia’s east coast from their feeding grounds in the Antarctic to their mating and calving grounds in the Coral Sea. Now, international visitors can readily see the famous Humpbacks and Southern Right Whales from onboard a whale watching cruise, from the air on a scenic charter flight, from a cliff top trail on North and South Head, which form the entrance to Sydney Harbour, and even occasionally from shore, right in Sydney Harbour itself as the ever-curious whales swim right inside the harbour.

Sydney, sweet Sydney! With its iconic harbour, fabulous beaches, dramatic cliff-top walks, hedonistic nightlife, world-class cuisine, museums, art galleries and superb shopping, Sydney is one of the world’s great international cities. The only difficult decision to make is just when is the best time to visit Sydney.

Spain has long been a popular retirement destination and little wonder. With so many beautiful locations to choose from, the biggest challenge for would-be retirees is how to settle on what is the best place to retire in Spain.

A fabulous climate, a vibrant and engaging culture, awe-inspiring natural beauty, heavenly cuisine, festivals, and mile after mile of brilliant coastline dotted with divine beaches are attracting expats in Spain to retire permanently.

Relationships are universally valued and important in almost every culture. Not surprisingly, dating around the world reflects differences in cultural attitudes, customs and accepted norms.

So, dating success can often come down to understanding the nuances of local approaches to dating around the world. Dates can vary from freewheeling encounters to heavily supervised skirmishes through to a casual outing at the movies.

For some committed pet parents, a trip just isn’t the same if their pet companions can’t come too. However, travelling with animals can be highly stressful, both for you and your pets. If you’re planning to take your pets with you on a trip, we have some tips to make the experience safe, comfortable and enjoyable for everyone.

There is a certain allure to being an expat, a definable and seductive je ne sais quoi that is evoked when someone describes their experiences in leaving everything behind to move abroad, embrace the expat life to live and work. On any given day, the evocative dream of swapping your dreary workplace for an office in an exotic local surely beckons.

By some counts, there are an estimated 232 million expats currently living abroad around the world today. Their reasons for choosing to leave their home countries for a new life overseas are many and varied. What unites them, however, is an intense desire to seamlessly combine the economic imperative of earning a living with a wanderlust-driven desire to experience the world.

As the effects of globalisation continue to evolve and talent becomes a truly international resource, many executives, specialists and members of the professions are finding it helpful to be able to point to international careers as a fundamental part of their work experience.

Enterprises are increasingly searching outside their own struggling local markets to the growth markets of other regional economies to acquire talent with the experience to relate to and understand these emerging markets.

Relocation to any new destination always brings with it advantages and disadvantages. Expats will soon find Hong Kong China is no different. The more prepared you are for living in Hong Kong, the more successful your move will prove to be.

The good news is that Hong Kong daily life makes it one expat destination where the upside seems to far outweigh the downside. Today, Hong Kong is a vibrant, dynamic city. It showcases the stark contrast between Asian and Western cultures while drawing upon both cultures to create the city the vigorous, energetic city it is.

The world is shrinking as globalization and the Internet brings people together like never before. Yet the value of learning a foreign language remains as hotly debated as ever.

Today, even a small business can find themselves competing overnight thanks to the power of eBay and Amazon.com. Moreover, Google translator and others are getting better. So, do the benefits of a foreign language still hold up?

A lot of shade gets thrown at the French for, frankly, being uncompromisingly French. They’re teased for their underwhelming economy, and they’re accused of nurturing a deeply held conviction of their own superiority. However, when it comes to popular French food, the French sense of entitlement sits comfortably on solid ground.

Istanbul is where the West meets the exotic East in a riotous collision of cultures. Over the centuries, the city’s strategic location has attracted marauding Greek, Roman and Venetian armies before the Ottomans finally succeeded in storming Istanbul. This intersection of cultures gives rise to many of Istanbul’s points of interest.

The final leg on the legendary Silk Road, which connected a distant Asia with Europe, Istanbul soon emerged as a major trading hub. The cosmopolitan nature of its merchant visitors imbued the city with a delicious cultural diversity that survives to this day.

Fabulous food, wonderful wine and warm and welcoming people mean the most difficult question you have is where to go in Portugal? A low cost of living in Portugal combined with an idyllic climate and incredible natural beauty make a Portugal vacation one to remember

An international relocation is equal parts exhilaration, frustration and terror. The logistics are formidably complex and almost unbelievably time intensive. International moving is not for the fainthearted! However, the art of making your relocation as painless as possible lies with your planning and preparation.

Great relocation services companies can take much of the sting out your relocation. While they can carry much of the load around packing up your home and preparing it for international shipment, you will still find yourself facing a seemingly inexhaustible checklist of tasks to coordinate, government officialdom to deal with and last minute panics to endure.

Spain’s Malaga is deservedly popular as a chic and unashamedly cosmopolitan destination for expats and holidaymakers alike. Many expats and their families are choosing to settle in Malaga, lured by its fabulous year-round weather, its economical lifestyle, divine fresh cuisine and vibrant Andalucian culture.

Moreover, living and vacationing in Malaga remains more affordable than in comparable parts of Northern Europe thanks to its comparatively low property prices and the equally low cost of living in Spain’s sunny southern city.