by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

Des emerged yesterday morning only just awake saying “I have a great idea- I’ll tell you at the beach!”

As we walked down to the water’s edge, Des began to talk about his idea and related it to

the book, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and make the Competition Irrelevant by W. C. Chan and Renee Mauborgne

He then decided to illustrate this by drawing how he sees red ocean / blue ocean in the sand.

The beach is such a great place for seminars!

Des was saying at this time of global economic anxiety, instead of trying to compete harder in the Red Oceans of existing market focus we should look for or create Blue Oceans of new opportunity.

An example from the Blue ocean strategy book is how Yellow Tail wines, from an until then little-known company Casella Wines, took the American alcoholic beverages market by storm.They did this precisely, not by competing with powerful, entrenched wine companies, but by way of a market strategy which targeted people the US wine companies had ignored or neglected.

His example of a Red Ocean (red because of blood in the water) was where so many many people selling services in the social media field target younger audiences, the growing market of baby boomers using social media is not being similarly targeted.

What is your blue ocean strategy?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

In any business there is an advantage to be gained in every now and again stepping away from the details of what we are doing and all our tasks, however essential and urgent, so that we can look at our challenges and the business itself from a more “elevated” perspective – a bird’s eye view.

Not an original thought, but how many of us do it? And if we do it, do we do so often enough?

The thoughts and the questions were prompted by seeing a new structure – a kind of observation platform made of scaffolding materials and a sheet of corrugated roofing – at our local beach, Rainbow Bay.

Every year about this time we have the week-long spectacle of the Quiksilver and Roxy Pro surfing championships at Rainbow Bay , or as surfers probably think of it, the famous Snapper Rocks break. The whole end of the beach, in the area surrounding the Rainbow Bay Surf Lifesaving club building, becomes a kind of instant tent city, with temporary shops, cafe, exhibition space, media center, and what appears to be a large chillout area for competitors. The event brings champion surfers, men and women, from around the world, and pumps large sums of money into the local hospitality industry.

We love it!

It also brings hordes of photographers, who set their tripods or other camera props up on the beach or on the rocks, to capture the performances of the competitors.

The observation tower at the other end of the beach is a new development this year. We spoke the other day to the guy in it, who was set up with still and video cameras, in a position commanding a totally uninterrupted view of the whole beach and looking straight down to the area where the surfers are doing their stuff over the coming days.

There is no question that he will have a better overall picture of what is happening than will his colleagues/competitors on the beach. Some of their photos and videos might be more striking than his, but he will be able to take pictures that they can’t take from the level of the beach or the rocks.

He has a bird’s eye view.

Have you been able to get a better picture of your business by stepping back and getting a bird’s eye view?

Any tips you would like to share, about how to do that most effectively?
Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

Our beach notes today are inspired by the 100 year commemoration of the first surf rescue on our local Coolangatta beach, by the all-volunteer Surf Life Saving Club.

Four women – clad in the neck-to-knee swimming costumes dictated by the times – and one man – swam out to sea, to then “get into difficulties” with the surf and have to be rescued by the volunteer “lifesavers”, to use the traditional term now being supplanted by the imported American term “lifeguard”.

It was an inspiring moment, thinking not just about that particular rescue 100 years ago today, but of all the volunteers, at hundreds of beaches around the country, turning out every weekend, rain or shine, to watch over their fellow citizens and regularly risk their own safety, even their lives, to save people from drowning and to resuscitate those they can.

Not all those stories end happily, but many have over the years been plucked from the waves by these courageous men and women in their distinctive red and yellow caps and spared the fate of a watery grave. Two years ago the Australian Surf Life Saving Association estimated the number of lives saved at over 500,000.

Yes, we do have some paid lifeguards, provided by local councils, during the week and even – in our part of the country – through the winter months, at the more popular tourist-oriented beaches.

But without the dedicated service of those thousands of volunteers of the Australian Surf Life Saving Association, a cherished part of life for many Australians – “having a surf” – would become a much more hazardous pasttime.

And it’s not just in Australia. The movement started by a few people in Sydney, Australia, some 103 years ago, has spread also to other countries, including South Africa, the USA, Great Britain, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Sri Lanka, Ireland and New Zealand.

The motto of the Surf Life Saving movement? “Vigilance and Service”.

We salute the dedication and heroism of our lifesavers, past and present.

A model of service, an inspiration.

What do you say to commemorate 100 years of people serving the world?

Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh