Inverting the City/Country Dynamic

At a recent session with the Gen Y group working on the ‘Future Melbourne’ project for the City of Melbourne I suggested that the group consider what the result might be if they could ‘invert’ the way the State of Victoria operates. What would you be likely to see if more of the functions of the city occured outside of the CBD and more of the functions of the country occured in the City?

In pushing them to think further than they originally did, I suggested that there is no reason why these monolithic edifices called office buildings would be used for temporary storage of workers. After all, I reasoned, the function of the CBD would be conducted elsewhere which means workers would begin to gain benefits from the broadband access now denied to them and the required management techniques that fostered remote working. One element of the CBD inverted to the country.

But what to do with the existing infrastructure? That of course is a no brainer – the city office blocks would become our farms. More predictable and controllable weather patterns and water use, we’d have Wheat growing on floors 3-9; Corn on 10-16 and Rice on 17-20. In the underground carpark right to the ground floor we’d run cattle and other stock. The methane captured would be used to power the 24 hours a day hydroponic lamps that grow the crops. There’d be a reduction in transport costs as local farm sites began popping up right where they are need – next to the actual population that needs to be fed. In Austraia with our relatively poor soils and ever increasing periods of drought we have a real boon in food production.

And think of what all that new city space could lead to in terms of community engagement projects. That’s not to mention the drop in stress levels as hundreds of thousands of work hours lost in traffic crawls to and from the city get converted into usable and highly productive time. And just think of the air quality in town! A case of the rural activity inverted to occur in the city.

It’s no pipe dream. Just one that requires some serious thinking.

The Wheel Keeps Turning

Sep 28, 2024

Or so it may seem. This quarter has seen me interstate facilitating some strategic planning workshops; overseas working with an established Government client, working with CGD, SELLEN, and Hilton Manufacturing among others here in Oz, a couple of weeks holiday down in Tasmania, and also the occasional radio interview looking at the ‘Future of…’. And…

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Employee Engagement starts with a Deliberate Exploration of Futures

Aug 13, 2024

Some thoughts flowing from my session discussing challenges in Futures Consulting posted by James Balzer: I’d explained to the group that what I do is engage employees in thinking about their own and their organisation’s future potential. My strong view over twenty years of work in this space is that employee engagement is DIRECTLY driven…

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The Future of Workplaces

Jul 10, 2024

Tomorrow morning (Friday the 12th)  I’ll be joining Elizabeth Kulas on Disrupt Radio discussing the Future Of Workplaces. There’ll be a particular focus on why most organisations choose to struggle because they rely on outdated models of employee management. A 7.15am kick-off where, in about 7 minutes or so, I’ll try to distill 20 years…

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A New Form of Goal Directed Intelligence

Jun 28, 2024

It’s extremely rare that I post to a specific article and say ‘go read this’, which is what I’m doing today. This article on goal directed intelligence at a micro level is a challenge to read. And I do recommend you read it because it pushes forward our understanding of how our biology and arguably…

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Looking Up Feeling Good Partners with Steel Chicks

Mar 10, 2024

If you followed my numerous posts over the years you know I like jumping in early on new products or services – not all have been successful, especially on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but you roll the dice sometimes and see what happens. Over the years Looking Up Feeling Good was an early community investor in…

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Dragging Workplaces back to the 1760s – the Work In Office Dilemma and the Productivity Myth

Feb 16, 2024

In the 1760s Josiah Wedgwood changed forever the nature of workplaces. He expanded his pottery business and constructed a new large scale factory that required two critical elements: a) Systemisation of processes to ensure consistent high-quality outcomes b) Skilled workers on site The systemisation required experimentation, observation, trials, failures and recording of data – what…

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Dr Kim Hazendonk joins our Speaker’s group

Jan 18, 2024

We’re delighted to announce that Neuro-Psychologist Dr. Kim Hazendonk of Positive Brain has accepted our offer to join our elite speaker’s group. We’re looking forward to bringing her to more groups across Australasia as she discusses effective workplaces, positive mind management, and managing busy lives. If you have a need for an engaging and passionate…

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Embracing the Hybrid Workspace – are You there yet?

Nov 15, 2023

I flag my bias towards the need for a vastly improved approach to managing staff in the work environments. V A S T L Y improved. I’m still surprised at how clunky, disorganised or naive some senior managers are when it comes to that part of the business that considers ‘people’. And rather than cover…

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Exploring Strategy Development – the Organisational Evolution model

Oct 17, 2023

An interesting public workshop in Perth in the first week of October introducing a varied group to the Organisational Evolution model. The Org-Ev is the model I developed for the start up of The Australian Strategic Planning Institute in conjunction with Steven Bowman. Given the diversity of the group, there were a number of surprises…

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Perth workshop 5th October almost fully booked

Sep 18, 2023

A note for those of you in Perth that there are just 4 spaces left for the Introduction to the Organisational Evolution Model workshop at Adina Apartments in Perth.  The Org Ev model has been designed to enhance Strategic Planning and decision making and this introductory workshop is aimed at those looking to attend the…

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