Hamilton Hoons and Five more die

Lewis Hamilton, the former automotive Formula One ‘number one’ had his car impounded on Friday night for alleged ‘hoon’ driving, having been spotted by police spinning his wheels at a busy intersection in St Kilda. Whilst many character witnesses have already jumped to his defence, with one interesting observation from Mark Webber suggesting we have a ‘nanny state’, there is of course another larger issue – five more people died on Victoria’s roads over the weekend with speed one of the many factors

The challenge of course is that it is likely that compared to most of us, Lewis Hamilton is a very skilled driver. He does after all, spend his life behind the wheel of a car designed to travel very, very fast. And that car is so much safer than anything else we drive on our roads. And herein lies the trouble – the Grand Prix is a circus – a huge technical and marketing development program designed to, in the end, sell more cars for the manufacturers.

If true, Hamilton’s actions were well out of line, despite whatever skill he has because as a member of the automotive elite, he IS a role model to others, and when the driving elite acts like hoons, others are likely to follow in his pedalsteps. And on Victoria’s roads the very weekend of the Grand Prix at Albert Park we lost another five lives with a dozen more seriously injured.

Webber misses the point – Victoria isn’t a nanny state because it takes away the vehicles of hoon drivers. It is a State trying to save the lives, costs and trauma of people connected to people who die. Unfortunately, the driving elite MUST be held to a higher standard of accountability,and on our streets, they must be held accountable to the SAME standard of accountability.

Lewis Hamilton is undoubtedly a good driver, he just failed to dsiplay good driving whilst on a public street – we expect better

Marcus Barber invited to attend World Water Week in Stockholm 2007

May 11, 2007

Futurist Marcus Barber has been invited to present at the Stockholm International Water Institute’s prestigious World Water Week conference to be held in Stockholm later this year. His abstract submission ‘Life versus Lifestyle: the emerging clash between consumer demands and water availability’ forms part of the key workshop item of ‘Managing Future Consumer Demands’ which…

Read More >

May Brainnovation Session now open

Apr 26, 2007

The May Brainnovation session is open for bookings. If you’d like to be invited to attend this highly focused, creative and thought provoking session please contact us. We’ll send you an invite and as these sessions are strictly limited to no more than 15 people, it’s ‘first in – best dressed’ for acceptances! You’ll be…

Read More >

Authenticity & the Craft of Brewing Beer

Mar 29, 2007

Every now and again you discover something well ahead of the general public that is worthy of further investigation. That is the key advantage of being a futurist – you get to spend a lot of your time just looking for signals of change. In this case it is the soon to be opened Barleycorn…

Read More >

Strategy and Game Shows

Feb 27, 2007

Marcus Barber joined Brigette Duclos on the Channel 10 program ‘9am with David & Kim’ to discuss strategy and the game show ‘Con-Test’ How do game shows reflect our approach to strategy and what does it mean for the business decisons we make? This will be the subject of an upcoming ‘Ideas Piece’ to appear…

Read More >

Advanced Organisational Strategy (AOS) Events

Jan 24, 2007

Your Advanced Organisational Strategy events coincide with a specific need for your business and lead to excellent outcomes. These events are customed tailored to help you solve an organisational challenge or to answer a key exploratory question for you. The AOS focuses on two main objectives – to create a specific ‘How to’ for solving…

Read More >

Innovation & Counter Intuitiveness

Jan 23, 2007

The idea behind Innovation is to create something new, that has yet to be conceived. A lot of the times that requires Counterintuitive thinking and that can be a very difficult challenge because it needs to break the habits in our thinking styles. For me the essence of being a futurist is the essence of…

Read More >