John Buchanan was coach of the Australian Cricket team during one of its most successful periods. In his book, 'If Better is Possible', he describes the ritual of presenting a new test player with their 'baggy green' cap as a 'sacred act': 'The cap is always given to a new player by a former player in a small team ceremony at the warm-up huddle on the day of the new player's debut. While every presentation is significant, the older the player who presents the cap, the greater the link to the legions of players who have gone before.'

It's easy to say that you're innovative. It's easy for companies to have an 'innovation' pillar in their strategic plan, to insert a paragraph on innovation in their annual report, or even to list innovation as one of their values, but what does true commitment to innovation look like?’

Barack Obama famously favoured blue or grey suits during his time as President. As he said to Vanity Fair, “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

I recently wrote a series of three articles on what it means to be committed to innovation.

If you're looking to progress your innovation in 2020, these articles cover three aspects of this commitment.

If you're making a commitment to be more innovative in 2020, it needn't be a chore. Each day I'll be sharing a fun idea to empower innovation for you and your team.  By the end of 2020 you'll have 365 ideas to try, but you can get started right now.

Whatever your goals in the year ahead, I'd love to support you to achieve them. Here's a taste of the programs and events I'll be running in 2020. 

A crash diet can help you to lose weight quickly, but it's common for people to regain that weight, and more, when they go back to eating normally. Crash diets are extreme, and not sustainable. Instead, a sustainable approach to healthy eating requires a long-term commitment to make more healthy choices every day. 

On our honeymoon in France, my husband and I visited Monet's garden at Giverny. It's a beautiful French country house, every room in a different monotone palette. Monet loved colour and his studio looked out over the garden. He built a lake, complete with a bridge, and planted his famous gardens, just so that he could paint them.

This year's BOLT Asset Management Hackathon brought together professionals from engineering, IT, operations and maintenance to tackle some of our most pressing asset management challenges.

​When I was a young girl, my grandmother had a beautiful rose garden. It was formally laid out, right next to the house that sat in a clearing on a hilltop, surrounded by about five hundred acres of native forest.

I've just seen the first jacaranda blossom of the season. These flowers have a distinctive purple blue hue. Right now in Brisbane their vibrant colour is starting to emerge as Spring unfolds across the city.

Over the past five weeks, I've written a series of articles on the Board's Role in Asset Management. 

Board Directors are asset managers. Delivering value from the company’s assets is one of the key roles of the board. It’s important that board directors have a thorough understanding of asset management principles and how they apply to board decision making.

Boards need to consider a wide range of compliance obligations as part of their oversight role. These may be imposed by regulators, government or donor-funding regimes, federal, state or local legislation. Industry based standards may apply in the sectors in which the company operates. While meeting mandatory compliance requirements is not optional, board directors need to satisfy themselves that the company has systems in place to meet these and that they receive relevant and timely reports regarding any potential or actual non-compliance.

My husband and I spent our honeymoon in France and we had the privilege to enjoy a wonderful lunch at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Cesar Ritz was a passionate entrepreneur, with a single-minded vision: to have his hotels be the very definition of elegance and refinement. He wanted his hotel to be a place 'where a Prince would feel at home'.

Last week I had a day trip to Canberra and as I waited in the pre-dawn darkness for my cab to the airport, it only took a moment to swipe my phone and find out that it was currently -4.7 degrees in the capital (feels like -7.7!). However inconvenient for a Queenslander, I had no hesitation in carting my winter coat, gloves and scarf, because I knew I would need them. 

United States President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that read 'The buck stops here.' He's quoted as saying, “It's easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you — the decision has to be made.”

The 'Oarsome Foursome' were an Australian Olympic and World Champion rowing team, competing most famously as a coxless four. Through the 1990s and into the early 2000s they were an unbeatable team and hugely popular in Australia.

We create value through connections, not in isolation. 

As a Certified BCorporation, it's been great to be a part of #BCorpmonth across Australia and New Zealand. It's fantastic to be involved in a community of business that is playing their part in creating a better world for our community and for our planet, now and into the future. 

In his book, This is Marketing, Seth Godin highlights that if all it took to upend the status quo was the truth, we would have changed a long time ago. The status quo only shifts when the culture changes.