Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: government

  • Google announces eTown awards for Australian towns

    Google announces eTown awards for Australian towns

    I don’t normally post media releases onto the site, but it appears there’s no posting of the Google eTowns announcement. As I’m writing a story for Technology Spectator on it, here’s the release.

    One thing that leaps out when reading the media reports on this is how many outlets just copy and paste. Only the Fairfax entertainment reporter went to the effort of rewriting the release and adding some additional context. You have to wonder how long ‘churnalism’ can survive given readers are onto this laziness.

     

    EMBARGOED UNTIL THURSDAY 30th AUGUST, 4:30PM (EST)

     

    Perth wins top spot in Google’s eTown Awards

    Western Australia capital beats out eastern states as centre of digital boom

    Perth leads the list of Australia’s top 10 eTowns, Google announced today. This new Google award recognises and ranks those communities which are outpacing the rest of the country in having its small businesses use the web to connect with customers and grow.

    The web is transforming all businesses in Australia, not just those typically considered to be “Internet businesses”. The digital economy is already worth as much as Australia’s iron ore exports, according to Deloitte Access Economics, and it’s forecast to grow by $20 billion to $70 billion by 2016.

    To provide a snapshot of this vital economic activity, Google looked at more than 600 local government areas to analyse which communities are contributing the most to the digital economy. The top 5 metropolitan and top 5 regional eTowns for 2012 are:

    Metropolitan

    1. City of Perth, WA
    2. City of Yarra, VIC
    3. City of Adelaide, SA
    4. North Sydney, NSW
    5. Ryde, NSW
    		 Regional

    1. Byron Shire, NSW
    2. Meander Valley, TAS
    3. Cessnock, NSW
    4. Wingecarribee Shire, NSW
    5. Scenic Rim Regional Council, QLD

    Federal Small Business Minister Brendan O’Connor, who is launching the inaugural eTown Awards at an event in West Perth today, said;

    “The digital economy is fuelling Australia’s economic growth and it’s important businesses of every size are well equipped to take advantage of the potential.  I hope this award encourages other small businesses to get online to connect with people who are actively looking for their products and services.”

    Perth’s Lord Mayor Lisa Scaffidi said, “Perth may be known for its mining boom but this award shows that our businesses are actively grabbing hold of the digital boom. The City of Perth is proud of its eTown Award and I am delighted to represent an area whose businesses are so connected with both their local community and the entire world thanks to the web.”

    Online advertising is a growing phenomenon and Google, through its online advertising and other services, is in a good position to act as a barometer for the strength of this commercial activity – particularly in small businesses. To come up with the eTown Awards list, Google analysed data on the number of local businesses in each local government area which are advertising with Google AdWords and/or have created a free website using Google and MYOB’s Getting Aussie Business Online initiative.

    Byron Shire, home to the popular holiday destination, leads the regional eTowns list with a high proportion of accommodation, recreational hire and tours providers using the web to drive their businesses.

    Claire Hatton, Head of Local Business for Google Australia said, “The eTown Award winners show that anyone anywhere can reap the benefits of the digital economy. These days being on the web is as important as having a phone. Australians expect to be able to seek out products and services online, and local businesses need to be found to compete.”

    For more information about the eTown Award winners and for case studies on how local businesses are succeeding online and driving economic growth, visit www.google.com.au/ads/stories [NB: website will be available after embargo lifts].

    Media are invited to attend the announcement of the eTown Awards with the Minister for Small Business, Perth’s Lord Mayor and Google Australia.

    Local businesses located in each eTown may be available for interviews.

    Thursday, 30th August at 2:00pm – 3:00pm
    The Yoga Space
    Shop 11, Seasons Arcade,
    1251 Hay Street, West Perth.

    To RSVP to the event or for interviews please contact:

    Redacted

    Notes to Editors

    1. AdWords is Google’s online advertising system which enables businesses of all sizes to advertise relevant text ads next to Google search results. Businesses decide the text and their budget and only get charged when someone clicks on their ad.
    2. The Google eTown award top ten list was created by comparing the number of small and medium sized enterprises that used AdWords in each local government area and/or have created a website using Google/MYOB’s Getting Aussie Business Online. The results have been normalised for the relative population of each LGA.

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  • Economic cholesterol

    Economic cholesterol

    Australia’s productivity isn’t growing and it’s fashionable among business community to blame Australia’s productivity decline on high labour rates.

    While there’s an argument that the cafe worker earning $25 an hour is overpaid – although we don’t hear the same criticism of multimillion dollar packages paid to executives with at best mediocre track records – the argument is far more complex.

    In the McKinsey report linked to above, the mis-investment is put down to the recent resource boom, but is this really true?

    To really understand why Australia hasn’t performed well, we need to look at why the country is so reluctant to invest in assets that will increase our productivity.

    The role of property

    Underlying the recent Australian “economic miracle” is the property industry. The country’s domestic building sector is one of the most efficient job generators in the world. Stimulate the Aussie property market and job growth ripples quickly through the economy.

    This was one the lessons learned in the 1990s recession – successive governments and bureaucrats have learned the mantra “go early, go hard and go residential” when it comes to cutting interest rates and introducing home building incentives like the first home owners grants.

    It was no coincidence that when the Rudd Government was faced by the Global Financial Crisis they launched a wave of initiatives to boost the property industry and shore household wealth. Just as the Howard and Costello governments did in response to the Long Term Capital Bank collapse, Asian economic crisis or the 2001 US recession.

    While those stimulus measures have kept Australia out of recession for two decades, the failure to unwind the measures after the economic shock has passed leaves the nation’s property market remains “hyper stimulated” and over valued. That over investment in property has sucked funds away from other areas which affects the competitiveness of Aussie industry.

    The great property squeeze

    One of the great tragedies of the 1990s was Sydney’s East Circular Quay precinct which could have been one or two of the world’s greatest hotel sites, literally on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

    Instead, high priced apartments were built on the site and Sydney’s tourism and convention industries are crippled by a shortage of top end hotel rooms.

    Tourism isn’t the only industry affected by the Australia’s obsession with residential property – across the country service stations, sports clubs and convention centres are being demolished to make way for high rise apartment developments. No economic activity seems to trump property speculation when it comes to attracting Australian investors.

    Ideological beliefs

    Adding fuel to the property obsession are the ideologies of the 1980s which are still closely held by the nation’s business and political leaders.

    Capital gains tax concessions introduced by the Howard government in the late 1990s made property and share speculation far more attractive that invention, innovation or entrepreneurship.

    To make matters worse, Australia’s social security policies and taxation laws favour capital gains – any Australian over thirty who has tried to build a business has plenty of mates who did far better out of negatively geared property than those who foolish enough to create new enterprises.

    For those older entrepreneurs facing retirement, they are in for a nasty shock if their businesses don’t sell for what they hope. They would have been far better staying in a safe corporate job and buy a few negatively geared investment properties.

    Again, this ideological belief that capital gains trumps wage or business income means investment is steered away from productive assets and into residential property that can be held for a capital gain.

    The Ticket Clipping Culture

    Australia’s failure to invest in productive assets is not just a feature of the household investor, the corporate sector has a lot to answer for as well.

    While good in theory, the superannuation system has been a failure in providing a capital pool for new and innovative businesses and productive investments.

    The superannuation trustees have largely focused on hugging the index, the ticket clipping funds management culture means that any real investment for productive assets is restricted to funding toll roads where fat management fees and guaranteed commissions mean an easy life for those fund managers.

    In a perverse way, the short term appearance of the ticket clipping might mean increased productivity as costs are cut to improve profits. In the medium and long term, the lack of investment in these assets means in the long term these assets too cease to add productive capacity to the economy.

    Of course there’s more to infrastructure investment than toll roads and airports with crippling parking charges, but the ticket clipping classes of Australia’s investment community don’t see a quick buck in that.

    Increasingly the boards of Australia’s major companies are appointed by those running the superannuation funds and these people have the generational bias away from productive investment. Instead they see slashing IT, training or asset investment as costs to be cut in the quest of boosting bonus delivering profits.

    More fundamentally, three decades of consolidation in most of Australia’s industries has seen a generation of Australian executives whose main expertise is that of maximising their market power at the expense of their competitors. Investing in productive capacity is not a major concern for those corporations.

    Fixing the problem

    Getting Australians – whether mom and dad property speculators or high paid fund managers parking money in the ASX 200 or plonking money in the latest toll road boondoggle – to change attitudes and invest in productive capacity is going to take a generational change.

    As long as the attitude persists that property is a safe investment that doubles in real value every ten years then Australians are going to continue to ply cash into apartments and houses.

    It is possible that a period of Australian Austerity that suppresses property prices may force that change in investment attitudes. An weak property market is one of the unspoken effects of the spending cuts advocated by many right wing commentators,

    The question is whether those commentators, or the political classes who derive their much of their policies from right wing ideologues, view have the stomach for disruption that will come when weaning Australians from the teats of corporate ticket clipping and property speculation.

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  • Reliving the Hong Kong Handover syndrome

    Reliving the Hong Kong Handover syndrome

    After Margaret Thatcher 1984 agreement to hand Hong Kong over the People’s Republic of China, the hoteliers of the British Colony sent out the message “book now, or pay dearly for rooms at the time of the handover.”

    It became perceived wisdom that the territory would be booked out for years in advance and any rooms available would cost a fortune. So people made other plans.

    As a result, Hong Kong’s hotel occupancy rate during the handover was only 45%. The “buy now or you’ll miss out” message backfired as people decided they’d rather miss out.

    In the second week of the London 2012 Olympics the same thing is happening – the regular tourist trade has been scared away and even the locals who haven’t left town are staying home to avoid the transport and other hassles.

    For London, the Olympics have backfired.

    This is what is always missed when cities or governments make bids for big events, they displace existing trade and the benefits, if any, are short lived.

    At least the Olympics do attract millions of visitors and the eyes of the world are on the host city for two weeks.

    Far worst are the pointless heads of government meetings that pop up with monotonous regularity, for a few days of fleeting notoriety a city is locked down and its citizen corralled as Presidents and Prime Ministers meet to discuss something that will be forgotten in weeks.

    The Sydney APEC meeting of 2007 was case in point, nothing was achieved for the weeks of disruption to normal business except for the spectacle of the so called leaders of the Asia Pacific region scuttling between hotels like frightened cockroaches in their armour plated motorcades.

    Governments around the world keep falling for the myth that these major events generate some sort of economic benefits when it’s clear to the population who aren’t invited to the VIP cocktails parties that their money isn’t being well spent.

    For businesses, the lesson is not to make too many “buy now or miss out” claims. If customers take you at your word then you may find your shop is half empty, just as Hong Kong did in 1997.

     

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  • Closed data doors

    Closed data doors

    “Sydney now joins global cities including London, New York and Hong Kong that also have public transport on Google Maps” boasted Gladys Berejiklian, New South Wales minister for transport, last week that Sydney’s complex and confusing public transport system will now appear Google’s mapping service.

    The minister neglected to mention the other 400 cities that already offer this service including Perth, Adelaide and Canberra in Australia. What’s more concerning is the attitude of public servants and governments towards access to what should be freely available data.

    It’s difficult to think of anything less innocuous than public transport timetables yet access to the data is carefully guarded by most Australian governments under the claim of ‘Crown Copyright’.

    Underlying the idea of Crown Copyright is all the information held by governments is the property of the state – or the monarch in Australia – rather than belonging to the people. This is a great example of governments and the law living in the 18th Century which gives a modern perspective of what the US founding fathers were thinking of when they wrote their constitution in 1787.

    This refusal to make data available is not the attitude of any single government, the Victorian government notoriously refused access to fire information during the tragic 2009 bushfires and Google are still negotiating to add Melbourne’s public transport information to the Maps service.

    ‘Open Data’ is a concept that many agencies pay lip service to, as do many politicians while they aren’t in government, but in practice information is a precious resource which should be hoarded and hidden.

    In the public service itself, information is power – your position and status with an agency is directly proportional to the knowledge you possess and the contacts you can hoard. This attitude spills over into the way services are delivered, or not as the case may be.

    For startup businesses, this hoarding of data hurts local industry – with transport timetables application developers have to negotiate on a case by case basis for data access meaning that only big companies with plenty of resources are able to get hold of the information.

    The tragedy is government are trying to encourage smaller developers and startups. New South Wales had its Mobile Concierge program but these well meaning initiatives fall down when agencies won’t open their data.

    It’s time to scrap the idea of Crown Copyright and the philosophy that all government data is the property of the public service, or the monarch of the day. Certainly there are plenty of areas where it isn’t in the public interest to release confidential information but bus timetables are not one of those areas and there are plenty of laws already in place to protect that sensitive data.

    Like many things in our political and legal sectors, thinking is stuck not in the 1980s but in the 1780s. Maybe it’s time to grab our politicians and their learned lawyer friends and drag them by their horse haired wigs into the 21st Century.

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  • Redefining affluence

    Redefining affluence

    Finance writer Scott Pape always has an interesting perspective in his regular columns.

    This week he talks about Melissa a mother of three who lives in the US state of Georgia who also happens to be Scott’s virtual PA.

    Scott hires Melissa because she’s cheap; far cheaper than her competitors in Australia.

    For the $8 an hour she earns, she gets no sick pay, no health insurance and no retirement benefits. Unless Melissa has a well paid partner and her work for Scott is just a sideline to help pay the bills, she will work until she drops.

    This is the new reality for those in America, Spain, the UK and most of the West. It’s slowly becoming the reality in Australia as well despite the current hubris about the Down Under Economic Miracle.

    Melissa’s job as a secretary or PA was safe and comfortable twenty years ago. Today – just like auto workers, shop assistants, accountants and even lawyers – secretaries are having to trade their secure jobs for precarious, and reduced, incomes in the globalised and casualised marketplace.

    Scott makes perfectly valid points that individual drive and determination will be important in the globalised economy, but nothing changes the fact that Melissa and millions like her – including ourselves – will not have the living standards of her parents.

    While we can talk about billions of Indians and Chinese improving their standard of living the new globalised world, we shouldn’t forget for a moment that living standards are declining for the most of developed world’s middle and working classes.

    This decline isn’t totally due to globalisation and was probably going to happen regardless of the rise of China. The West’s prosperity was built upon the post World War II reconstruction and the credit booms of the 1980s and 2000s. Eventually the money – or the credit – had to run out.

    How we as a society deal with this will define our nations and communities over the next fifty years. Our governments, business leaders and media commentators are ill prepared for the effects even if they recognise the problem.

    Those most deeply affected are the businesses based on the twentieth century model of ever increasing prosperity. As our retailers are finding, this model is running out of steam.

    While some expect the newly affluent Chinese and Indians to save their well padded hides, most will find Asian consumption patterns in the 21st Century will be different to US auto workers of the 1950s or English real estate agents of the 1980s.

    Even financial planners like Scott are going to find things different – many financial planners thought they could get rich just skimming commissions off their clients’ portfolios which grew with the ever climbing stock and property markets. That model dropped dead in September 2008.

    For those of us born and raised during the Western world’s era of great prosperity, we’re going to find we have to work a lot harder and not take affluence for granted.

    Melissa and her eight dollar an hour secretarial service is the future and it’s probably Scott’s, yours and mine as well.

    Some may say that’s a pessimistic view of the world, but a leaner, harder economy may be the best thing could happen for us as individuals and a society.

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