Unwaivering vision.ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.ooo.oooooooo..ooMarch 29.
        Perhaps this is the golden age of our growth.
        We are still very much influenced by the wide experiences of our founder,
but are constantly tugged in new directions as the internet evolves each day.
        Our founder, Simon Chen, was the Managing Director of the Asia Pacific
Region for InterCall. InterCall predated the internet and was the world's largest
private network for teleconferencing.
        Simon Chen oversaw the daily teleconference meetings of global banks
and corporations as they got their messages out to staff. Some conferences
had over 10,000 attendees at a time, all listening in each week. Staff in different
teams, in different countries, could arrange teleconference meetings the same
day to listen in and solve problems. Big companies and their big clients could
talk about projects, and issues.
        Then the internet happened, big time.
        And from people all over the world didn't have to dial in at a certain time,
and listen. They could dial up, and talk, argue, rant, and buy, anytime they
wanted, for as long as they wanted, anywhere they wanted.
        Big companies.
        Little companies.
        People, of all sizes.
        With the InterCall experience of arranging how best to get people and
companies communicating from different sides of the world, Simon Chen saw
the untapped use of the internet for two-way conversations.
        No longer was it one teleconference chairperson talking down to the
phoned in masses for a half hour, but a lowly lit table for two that lasted all
evening.
        And with his commercial experience in getting people to buy services,
Simon Chen switched loyalties in 2003 from snippets of conversation being
carried by the wires that span the planet, to the checksum packets of data of
the internet.
        But there was little knowledge around at the time of this digital frontier,
and even fewer teachers.
        Everything was still so new. Marketing online was being defined each
morning, and torn down each night. Fate got off the bus in the form of Ken
McCarthy. He suggested that Simon should stop trying to make sense of it all
from afar, and jump in fully clothed by attending the upcoming internet event
in San Francisco.
        That was September of 2003. Those three days changed Simon's life.
        Simon returned enlightened, and determined to bring the best talent he
could assemble to Australia, and to uncover the brightest home grown talent.
        It took a year of organising.
        The X10 Seminar staged in September 2004. Some say it was, and still is,
the most memorable internet event ever staged in Australia.
        There are remnants of the speaker footage still scattered on Google
Video. The speakers were treated as envoys from another world by old big
budget print marketers frightened by the new world, and as sports stars by
those eager to take their offerings online for the price of a dial up.
        In the audience sat one of Hutchisons most senior and respected
managers, Phil Wise. Phil approached Simon moments after the seminar
ended and The Eight Black Group had its first client.
        While some firms say they have created some fresh online marketing
ideas this year, we listen to the internet and try to get our commercial heads
around the fresh marketing ideas that its people create every day.
        It is the energy of the internet that drives us, drives us working for our
clients. It is a vast market of human beings, not some simple demographic pie
chart.
        Our company, our skill, is to assist our clients to talk to each of their
prospects about themselves, to open up, to engage, to appeal, and to ensure
they don't buy from someone else tomorrow.
        The people of the internet like the new information, the new choices of
this market place much better than the old, so they are creating it, growing it,
tirelessly every hour.
        Our approach to the internet is simple. And if Eight Black stands for something it is these three guiding principles.
        1. Relentless testing, testing, and testing again.
        2. Content of substance, not of layout busyness.
        3. Continuing education level up of all staff.
        Simon Chen is constantly on some plane heading for talks with specialist
internet marketers. He has never stopped learning, never stopped questioning,
never stopped attending seminars, and he is a prolific reader and observer of
the industry in general.
        His blog attests to this unfettered energy. He invests heavily in his own
education like an addiction, because the giddy rewards are seen every day.
        And he invests in the education of the team that surrounds him. He invests
in their well being with wages that recognise their actions. They are challenged
each day to create marketing anew, and to dazzle clients with bankable sales
results, not finger pointing reports.
        If there are topics here that you would like to discuss with our Managing
Director, do email. Email here.
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