Do fairytales come true?

That will be the question many will be asking leading up to the replay of the AFL Grand Final this Saturday between Collingwood and St Kilda. Regardless of the outcome, the AFL have already had their fairytale come true courtesy of a drawn game which is believed to have handed the AFL a bonus likely to be in excess of $35 million dollars based on ticket sales, catering and TV rights. It’d be nice to see a goodly portion of that money go to some of the charities already on the calender for the AFL – Breast and Prostate cancer. I reckon organisations like HomeGround Services who is working to end homelessness might also be a worthy recipient. So as to fairytales,

I’m not a great believer in them so think that Collingwood should hold the cards for the match – it is theirs to lose (as they almost managed to do last Saturday thanks to some woeful kicking and perennial underperformers from a couple of players), and it will be up to the Saints to overcome their underdog status. I like the idea of the underdog getting up but can’t see it happening from where I sit. Whatever the result, I hope the AFL keeps the replay of the match if there is a draw because the facts of life are that sometimes on any given day, two people and two teams are evenly matched but on the next day may not be.

Social Issues Hackathon co hosted by Casey and Dandenong

Jul 25, 2019

Great to see some quality collaboration between the City of Casey and City of Greater Dandenong aimed at addressing or tackling Social Issues and importantly bridging the divide between ‘our area’ and ‘their area’ artificial boundaries. Well done to both Councils   Here’s the oveview of what they’re doing. This one looks to be an…

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Beyond VUCA – the VUCA 2.0 concept

Jul 9, 2019

Most people who’ve been involved in planning and strategy development will have heard of VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous. Emerging out of the US War College in 1987, it’s come to be more widely used by consultancies aiming to at least ‘sound smart’. But that’s not the main problem with its usage   Instead…

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Is Manufacturing Output Data a Reliable Indicator of Economic Activity

Mar 19, 2019

In short – ‘No’. In days of yore manufacturing data meant jobs being done, employed people being paid, sales being made. But with robotics and off-shoring in many parts of Australian manufacturing, it’s no longer the value indicator it once was.   In the US it is an even less reliable indicator because in the…

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The Drive to Make Futures Thinking Pragmatic

Mar 13, 2019

  I’ve writen a fair bit over the years about the need to move futures thinking out of a theoretical approach and into a more applied model.   Recently I’ve come off a 6 month project working with the Asian Productivity Organisation, an entity that brings together 20 member countries and their core government policy…

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Australia, We Are Killing Ourselves

Jan 28, 2019

Every where we look we are being given clear signs of the blatant stupidity and arguably outright criminality of a toxic system of decision making. The Menindee Lakes and Darling River disaster is one example   A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at a Private Equity conference at a lovely resort…

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2019 The International Year of the Cooperative

Dec 30, 2018

Every year I aim to identify what I think a major focus of the upcoming year will be and in that light I’m declaring 2019 the International Year of the Cooperative. I’m prompted by a multitude of signals that my daily research has uncovered, many of which will be familiar to you – Cost of…

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Can the United States Survive the Childish Tantrums of an Incompetent President?

Dec 23, 2018

Here we are with the last posting of the year looking at the potential for wide ranging strategy for a country like the United States. Arguably the United States is undergoing its own version of #Brexit though without the vote of the people. Instead the dictatorial nature of what I see as an incompetent strategic…

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When will the next Federal Election be held in Australia?

Dec 3, 2018

I’m reluctant to make predictions but am getting a few calls so: My tip is on a March 2019 election – the 9th or 16th But that will be an attempt to protect the existing NSW Government hoping that voters will have sufficiently vented. That said though, it also required a Federal Minoroty Government to…

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Asia on the Rise – why Australia’s Neighbours Will Leave us Behind

Oct 30, 2018

The Asian Productivity Organisation has shifted gears from being a centre for member countries to talk about productivity, to one that now wants to upskills its member countries. We’ve just completed the first chunk of helping National Productivity secretariats to ready their staff for a more proactive, future facing approach to their Country’s development  …

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10 years on from the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit

Oct 18, 2018

The question is, ‘how does the thinking inside this document stack up?’ Turns out, pretty good. What we spotted and what problems we said we’d have to watch out for, are just about spot on   When it was discovered that the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was going to hold the Australia 2020 Summit,…

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