Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Category: government

  • Why hung Parliaments are good for business

    Heather Ridout, the Australian Industry Group chief executive, is quoted that Independent control of Parliament will result in “instability, uncertainty and short-termism in policy development” which is an interesting view, given these are exactly the reasons voters have punished the major parties.

    Indeed Heather has seen this first hand as a member of the Henry Tax Review Panel, where the final report was hidden for six months, then the bulk of the recommendations were ignored and the few accepted were mutilated and taken out of context.

    All of this with no debate or consultation with the community in a review that would “position us to deal with the demographic, social, economic and environmental challenges of the 21st century.”

    So much for the vision of the big parties.

    Leadership isn’t delivered by risk adverse, focus group obsessed political managers doing deals with big corporations and lobbyists; it’s delivered by leaders who are capable of stating their case and steering their views, visions and policies through fair and robust debate, not hiding behind well crafted communications strategies and sound bites.

    We need leadership in both business and politics to face those 21st Century challenges the Treasurer identified when he announced the Henry Tax Review.

    A hung Parliament is a once in a generation opportunity to rebuild leadership and confidence in our governments. It’s one we shouldn’t squander.

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  • The freeways of the future

    “I don’t see why the Internet is important to me” said Maggie, the first caller to our “is the Internet the ultimate consumer’s revenge “ radio program.

    Maggie’s question is a very good one at a time when governments, businesses and households are investing heavily in Internet technology. Just a few hours before the radio show I’d been invited by television program A Current Affair, to discuss if Australia’s 43 billion dollar investment in a National Broadband Network is worthwhile.

    For Maggie and ACA’s viewers, the answer is “yes, it is very important” — the Internet today is what the motor car was to the early 20th Century and railways were to the 19th Century. Communities that aren’t connected will miss the benefits of the 21st Century economy.

    To illustrate how important it will be, let’s have a look at Maggie’s life. We’ll assume she’s an older person living in a regional Australian town or one of the fast growing fringe suburbs of a big city.

    Probably the most immediate change the Internet delivers for Maggie is how it is giving her a stronger voice as a consumer and citizen. This is what we discussed on the ABC program, how Internet tools like social media are giving customers and voters their voices back.

    With reliable broadband Maggie can be researching products and voicing her dissatisfaction with government and private organisations to the world in a way that would have been impossible a few years ago.

    Those Internet tools also growing communities around her as like minded people across the world and in her own district are connecting online then meeting in real life at events like Coffee Mornings.

    Not only does the Internet connect communities, it connects families — one lady recently described to me how she speaks more to her daughter living in Brazil through Skype than she did when they lived nearby. The net brings friends and families back together and helps overcome social isolation.

    Exclusion in education has always been a pressing issue, once upon a time you had to be in Cambridge or Oxford to access the world’s great minds. With a fast reliable Internet connection, the kids in Maggie’s neighbourhood can listen to a Harvard or MIT professor’s lecture without leaving their hometown.

    Bringing knowledge to local communities will also help Maggie should she have to have to go to the local hospital, the local doctors will be able to consult specialists without Maggie having to travel long distances to get specialist advice.

    Importantly for Maggie and her local hospital, the access to online training resources mean the local staff will be up to date with their professional development and across new trends, ensuring Maggie’s standard of care will be equal to the big city teaching hospitals.

    Solving staff training issues also delivers benefits for the local business community. It means the Maggie’s son Tim, the owner of a local plumbing business, doesn’t have to pay for expensive training courses or to travel into town to attend business conferences.

    The net also means Tim can access the world’s best business minds without leaving his office. Which gives him benefit of running his business more efficiently and profitably.

    For Tim’s kids, it also means they aren’t excluded from the entertainment world. They can stream and download the latest things happening and share equally on social networking sites. They may be in a small town, but they can play in the big world.

    Having these education, business, training and entertainment resources strengthens communities. It means kids and entrepreneurs can live in their home towns and still participate in the global economy. It means Maggie is a valued and important citizen of her country and the world.

    Fast accessible Internet is more than important, it’s vital just in the ways roads, railways, canals and the telegraph were in their eras. The investment in these freeways of the future is necessary to grow strong and dynamic communities.

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  • 5 ways to manage information overload

    In a speech to university graduates on the weekend President Obama described some of the problems we face with information overload. That the US President struggles with it despite his army of secretaries, assistants and advisors shows just how big the task has become for the rest of us.

    Albert Einstein famously said “information is not knowledge” and that’s certainly true of the net. We need ways to process the data that comes pouring in so we understand the context and value of what we’re reading. Here’s five ways to manage your information overload;

    Mail Rules

    For most business people, email is the first thing we look at each morning and it’s where half the day can easily disappear. The mail rules built into every email reader help you filter the important from the not so important.

    It’s also worthwhile reviewing your email subscriptions every few months and unsubscribing from newsletters that no longer interest you. The less clutter, the better.

    Google Alerts

    “Unknown unknowns” is a quote from a less esteemed historical figure and there’s a lot we don’t know happening on the net that can affect our lives and businesses. The Google Alerts tool gives you a regular email summary of what’s appeared on the web for any search term you enter.

    The right terms in Google Alerts gives you an insight on news and trends about your industry, competitors and customers. It’s a great, but underused, market intelligence tool.

    Twitter

    90% of what you read about Twitter discusses marketing, in my view Twitter’s real value lies in following smart people who tweet smart things. You get the benefit of the accumulated wisdom of the people you follow and the things they find interesting.

    These days I find I spend as much time reading links I’ve saved from Twitter as I do surfing the net. It’s become an invaluable tool.

    RSS Feeds

    Most websites have a built in feature called Really Simple Syndication, or RSS feed, which pumps out updates to the site as they happen. You can use the built in RSS features in your browser’s bookmarks folder or a dedicated feed reader to keep up to date with your favourite websites. Just click on the subscribe button most websites feature.

    Favourites

    Bookmarks or favorites is the oldest way to save information off the web and it can result in overload of its own. If you keep your bookmark folders organised, it can be a treasure trove of useful information.

    We’re at the early days of the information economy and the flood of data which engulfs us is going to get even greater. The challenge for all of us is to learn how to manage this so we can derive the best benefits from this new economy for our businesses, society and families.

    As President Obama said in last weekend’s speech at Hampton University, Virginia;

    “What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart.

    “It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.”

    The same is true of our personal and business lives as it is of our citizenship. Get informed.

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  • The Future Summit 2: Artificial divides

    I took a lot from the Melbourne Future Summit, much of it good and some of it worrying.

    One of the worrying aspects was the hostility from the “creative thinkers” towards Engineers and scientists.

    This was apparent in the Innovation Imperative seminar where many of the panel’s and audiences’ comments were notable for their hostility towards Engineers and scientists along with their view it was time for some “creative thinking”.

    Most of questioners from the floor went as far to blame Engineers and scientists for the Global Financial Crisis.

    This is odd as scientists and Engineers are no more responsible for the banking sector’s financial engineering any more than artists are responsible for the bankers’ creative accounting.

    Creating artificial barriers between “creative” and “scientific” thinkers is dangerous and foolish. Our greatest Engineering and scientists are creative thinkers by definition. Many great artists have applied science to their work.

    If we force people into these pigeon holes where an Engineer can’t be creative and an artist can’t use science then we are all the poorer for it and less equipped for the challenges ahead of us.

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  • Big, hairy broadband goals

    Big, hairy broadband goals

    fibre_opticThis column first appeared in SmartCompany. Since writing it, I’ve also done an ABC spot on the National Broadband rollout.

    The more I research and reflect on the proposal, the more I’m convinced this plan is a winner – assuming it goes ahead.

    I’m also more convinced than ever that Telstra is the big winner from the proposal as it relieves them of the Universal Service Obiligation and means they can avoid the massive costs of maintaining and upgrading the copper network. Not to mention the likelihood that the government will end up leasing space on Telstra’s existing fibre network.

    Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great” coined the phrase BHAG, or Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Few goals are bigger or more audacious than spending $43 billion to run fibre to every house, office, school, farm and factory in Australia.

    My first reaction to the national broadband plan was disappointment – on Twitter I commented “there goes the Rudd Government’s final strand of tech credibility.”

    Having had time to think about the plan, it’s clear I was wrong. The announcement is a huge change in policy and it will have immense ramifications on how we do business.

    Fibre-to-the-premises completes the gaps in our communications systems. When the rollout is complete, we can rely on our internet links and assume our customers and employees have the same dependable connections.

    For regional enterprises this is great news, as it will bring the world to the door to some of Australia’s best industries and businesses. It levels the playing field between big and small businesses, regardless of their location.

    For Telstra, the result is mixed. While it means more competition in regional areas, it also means it can save billions on upgrading the aging copper network. The criticism of the rollout’s cost ignores the massive replacement cost already required to replace the old phone lines.

    While perhaps not good news for management, the proposed break up of Telstra is good for shareholders. Sensis and BigPond, for example, would be worth far more when not shackled to a company fixated on maximising revenue from a ramshackle copper network.

    Another great change is in Canberra’s communications policy. Australia has suffered from communications and media being tied together, with the interests of well connected commercial groups being more important than good planning.

    The Keating government’s disastrous cable TV rollout was an attempt to provide modern infrastructure while appeasing the dominant media tycoons who saw technology as a threat to their empires.

    As a result we got a mess and the cable TV networks, which could have provided this infrastructure 15 years ago became a political and financial quagmire, which delivered little of what was promised.

    We shouldn’t understate the social benefits of the plan either. As the recession bites, the need for skilled and unskilled labour to build the rollout will assist in keeping unemployment down.

    It’s certainly billions of dollars better spent than propping up shopping centre developers, banks or the manufacturers of cars that no-one wants.

    The biggest change though is ideology. Until now, it’s been difficult to imagine a government proposing a massive infrastructure project without the ticket clippers of the merchant banks and other cronies skimming a fat share.

    In every respect, this is the best communications plan and one of the most visionary ideas we’ve seen out of Canberra in generations. While it’s going to cost, history will show it’s money well spent.

    Whether the broadband rollout becomes reality or not, fast, reliable communications are already a business necessity and will become even more so.

    Think about what fast broadband means for your business and plan how you can take advantage of it. Those who don’t grasp the opportunities are going to be left behind.

    So have a think about it. You might come up with some BHAGs of your own.

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