articles
Field notes from the studio.
Field notes on growing a business digitally, importing and manufacturing well, and designing and engineering products, written from practice with an eye on how AI assistants and agents are changing each of them.
SEO or Google Ads: which should a growing business fund first?Rented clicks arrive this week; owned visibility compounds, in AI answers too. The arithmetic, and the crossing.Read the article
digital growth
Get found. Get chosen.
Google reviews for service businesses: the engine that earns them honestly
Reviews decide before your site loads, and assistants can read every one. The engine that earns them honestly.
paid social
Facebook and Instagram ads: creating demand you can count
Search captures demand; social creates it. The boost-button trap, and ads measured in customers, not applause.
organic social
Social media for growing businesses: pass the inspection, skip the theatre
The feed is an inspection, not a stage. Prove you're real, recent and good by doing less, better.
lifecycle email
Lifecycle email for growing businesses: four sends that pay, zero newsletters
Four sends that pay: follow-up, close, reminder, reactivation. Written for people, legible to their assistants.
call tracking
Call tracking: how the phone enters the marketing report, whoever dials
The phone call enters the marketing report. Number swapping, plainly: the consent line, and callers that are software.
redesigns
The redesign that didn't crater: keeping rankings and citations through a rebuild
Relaunch traffic falls for mechanical reasons. The inventory, the map, the checks, for people and machines.
diy or agency
Doing your own digital marketing: when it works, when it costs you, what agents change
Plenty of owners should run their own marketing. Agents widen what's DIY-able, not what's safe to get wrong.
vetting agencies
How to choose a digital agency, and the flags that say walk (AI included)
Guaranteed rankings, hostage accounts, busywork at machine speed. The questions that expose them early.
ai search
When customers ask AI instead of Google: what changes, what doesn't, what's next
Assistants answer, cite, and are starting to act. What's real, what's oversold, and the durable play.
local seo
Local SEO for service businesses: how the map decides who gets the call
The map pack takes the call, and assistants read the same data. How to earn your place in it.
websites
The service website's one job: turn a visit into an enquiry
Thirty seconds, on a phone, sometimes via an assistant. What the visit needs, and what quietly kills it.
paid search
Google Ads without the waste: fences for an automated auction
Most wasted spend is structural, and automation can widen it. Fence the campaign and the budget buys customers.
measurement
Which customers came from where? Measurement for growing businesses
Attribution is hard, not hopeless, even when assistants do the research. The join is the whole game.
industrial seo
Industrial SEO: ranking for buyers and their assistants, not browsers
Traffic is a vanity metric when the buyer takes months. Rank for the engineer, and the assistant they brief.
importing guides
Import smarter.
Sea or air? The freight decision, decided properly
The cost gap can change a product's viability. Decide it with current numbers, not panic.
duty & fta
ChAFTA in practice: the paperwork that deletes your duty
The free-trade rate isn't automatic. It's paperwork, checked before the ship sails, with a person signing off.
finding factories
How to find a manufacturer in China: the process that works
Names are cheap now; proof isn't. The process that turns any channel's candidates into a factory.
marketplaces
Importing from Alibaba to Australia: DIY or a sourcing agent?
An AI agent can do the legwork; it can't stand in the factory. When Alibaba alone is enough, and when it isn't.
freight
Choosing a freight forwarder for China–Australia shipping
The forwarder is your logistics department, and increasingly your shipment data. Hire one that way.
economics
Why is it still cheaper to manufacture in China, and when isn't it?
It's not labour. It's the ecosystem, and sometimes the answer is still 'make it here'.
comparison
China vs Vietnam for manufacturing: an honest comparison
The headline says diversify. The category data says it depends. Then look past the first tier.
checklist
Your first order from China: a checklist with evidence behind every tick
The whole journey in one list, with proof behind every tick and a person at every gate.
trade fairs
The Canton Fair for Australian buyers: what the week is for now
Screen from your desk, judge in the hall, and run the follow-up before the contacts go cold.
marketplaces
1688.com for Australian buyers: easier to read, no easier to import
Translation gets you in the door. The export layer, the paperwork and the recourse are still yours.
incoterms
FOB, EXW and DDP in plain English
Who owns risk on each leg, and how to compare quotes on the same terms, whoever does the comparing.
landed cost
What importing from China really costs, landed in Australia
The full anatomy of a landed cost, and why a generated estimate is a draft, not a quote.
manufacture
Make it properly.
Supplier red flags: the signals that still predict trouble
Polish is cheap now. The gap between what's claimed and what can be shown is still the tell.
negotiation
MOQ isn't a law: negotiating minimums with Chinese factories
Minimums move once you understand why they exist. Worry when they move too easily.
quality
How to evaluate a factory sample, before it costs you a container
Calipers, not vibes: the checklist that turns a nice sample into a production standard.
product paths
White label, private label or custom: which product path lasts?
Fast, cheap and defensible: the three paths let you pick two.
tooling
Tooling: what you're paying for and what you own
The most misunderstood line on the quote, with an ownership clause attached and a record to back it.
payments
Staged payments: the leverage structure of a China order
Payment structure is quality leverage. Let the evidence release the money.
lead times
Lead times from China: what's real and what's optimism
A lead time is five clocks running in sequence. Optimism only quotes one of them.
ip protection
Protecting your IP when manufacturing in China
First-to-file, NNN agreements, tooling ownership, and where your drawings go now.
studio notes
How we think.
How to brief a design firm so the quote means something
A good brief isn't a spec. It's the problem, honestly told, for people and machines alike.
cost drivers
What does product design actually cost?
AI changes which parts of the work are cheap. It doesn't change what moves the budget.
medical
Usability evidence: designing the file, not just the device
The device and its usability file come out of one loop, release after release.
robotics
Why operators trust some robots and route around others
A robot earns trust by being predictable and honest, whoever sends the task.
instruments
Modernising instrument software without losing its operators or its integrations
Hands and integrations both have muscle memory. Don't break either.
connected
OTA updates: the feature that decides your device's lifespan
A connected device without a safe update path has a shelf life, not a lifespan.
energy
Designing energy hardware for the truck roll you won't need
Every avoided truck roll was designed in months before the product shipped.
visualization
Product photography vs CGI: when to shoot, when to render, what to generate
Shoot the truth you have. Render the truth you've engineered. Label every image for what it is.
engineering
Design for assembly: the cheapest cost reduction available
Unit cost is mostly decided in CAD, long before the negotiation.
choosing a firm
Ten questions to ask a design partner, now that every pitch looks polished
Ask all ten in person. An assistant can compare the answers; only you can hear the pauses.
studio notes
Why good products still die in handoffs
Files move instantly now. The reasoning behind them still doesn't.
strategy
The discovery sprint: cheap certainty before expensive tooling
Renders are fast now; steel is as slow as ever. Get the evidence before the tooling invoice.
research
Field research beats focus groups and synthetic users
Context never attends a focus group, and a simulated user has never stood at the bench.
industrial design
CMF is engineering: specify for year three, not launch day
Colour, material and finish are lifecycle engineering, and increasingly they're data too.
human factors
Designing for gloved hands: beyond the percentile table
The anthropometric table says the handle fits. The double nitrile glove disagrees, more so on glass.
engineering
The unglamorous distance: design freeze to first article
Programs rarely die at the concept review. They still die between freeze and first article.
engineering
Simulation belongs inside the loop, now that answers come faster
Analysis keeps getting cheaper. The test stays the same: which decision does it change?
software & hmi
Design the fault state first: a device's worst day, legible to people and agents
Products are judged in their worst five minutes. Increasingly, an assistant is the one asking what went wrong.
computational
Generative design that ships starts with constraints, not prompts
Geometry is getting cheap to generate. The truth it must obey still has to be written down.
visualization
Render what you can build: product imagery as an honesty test
Every render is a promise someone else has to keep, and an assistant can check it against the spec.