Australia Day 2024. Here we go again.

Australia Day 2024. Here we go again.

 

January 26 again, and out come the strident calls for it to be changed, in one of many ways, as well as the equally strident voices calling for no change.

To me it seems to be just nonsensical chatter.

In any event, January 26 is a confection. Prior to 1935 it was generally known as ‘first landing day’, which it was not, or Foundation Day, which rates as a ‘maybe’. It was only in 1935 that all jurisdictions used the label ‘Australia Day’. If we must change it to satisfy the noisy few who get hot under the collar, the sensible option would be May 9, which is the day the first federal parliament met in Melbourne in 1901.

We should be discussing more important things.

 

Climate change leading to floods, fire, with pestilence to follow. Another mouse plague perhaps? The impacts of climate change are there for all to see. They are more pronounced than the most pessimistic scientific opinion of a decade ago, and yet at the government level, little is being done beyond lip service and press releases. Private capital is making all of the relatively modest investment occurring, I suspect contrary to our long term best interests.

 

Covid has not gone away. What about the next pandemic, are we prepared better than we were when Covid announced itself to the world? I see few if any steps that act as ‘insurance’ against the impact of the next pandemic. Press releases will not stop it, when it arrives.

 

Generative AI has changed our world. I confess to being excited and confused at the same time by the explosion of AI. It is such a game-changer, it feels a bit like watching the industrial revolution happening at warp speed. Depending on who you listen to, true AI, meeting Alan Turing’s test will emerge anywhere between a decade hence, and ‘probably never.’

We are now in a knowledge economy. This is a term thrown around for years, but for the first time for me at least, it really sticks. It begs the question: what is the basic unit of production in the knowledge economy? How do we measure it, organise for it, pay for it in an equitable and sustainable manner, and critically, how do we optimise the utility of the time we allocate to any task.

The impact of the last digital revolution was articulated by Moore’s law, the compounding time frame of which was 18 months. If we apply the same logic to AI, the compounding time frame seems to be about a week. This will result, if it continues, in a logarithmic acceleration of AI tools surging way ahead of the hardware that delivers the physical outcomes. Therefore, the processes that currently consume the time of people will be in the gun, with the hardware lagging. Instinct, experience, in a phrase, knowing where to look to join the dots will be the critical leverageable capability for the good jobs and career paths.

The pressures the explosion of AI brings to the foundations of our country are profound. In our public discourse, these challenges are not being touched on in any way. We prefer to argue about the current but completely unimportant populist nonsense that is irrelevant to the country we leave to our grandchildren.

As an aside to any discussion of AI, there should be conversation about the coming deluge of litigation surrounding copyright. As Newton observed of his breakthrough ideas, he ‘Stood on the shoulders of giants’. Did that standing involve plagiarism under our current laws? Did Da Vinci’s most famous illustration, ‘Vitruvian man’ involve breach of ‘copyright’ of the work of Roman engineer Marcos Vitruvius Pollio? (I ignore for the sake of the debate that the sunset in copyright would have well and truly expired on Vitruvius’s original work). Creativity is a collaborative and experimental process always using the shoulders of others. How we align that reality to the current copyright laws designed for a non-AI world will be a lawyers feast, and a nightmare for the rest of us in the coming year.

 

The Geriatric election in the US will be impacted by AI. Putin is a capitalist, reputed to be the richest man in the world, but nobody knows where all the money (or bodies) hide. However, he does understand ROI. He can spend $10 billion getting his red headed, narcissistic, sociopathic mate re-elected, and cut off the supplies to the Ukraine that way, or spend $100 billion crushing the armies of the Ukraine, and wearing all the current contributors, distracted as they are by the conflagration in Gaza, down to the point where they back away. While the US election is half a world away, and totally out of our control, the outcome will have an impact on our economy, foreign relationships, and perhaps our way of life.

 

Our foreign policy is conflicted as never before. We have the China hawks yelling at the doves, while China is our major trading partner, upon whose goodwill our current standard of living rests. In parallel, we are committed to a program of procurement of nuclear powered submarines to protect us from that same vital trading partner. When/if they arrive, they will operate in shallow seas to our north, entirely inappropriate for nuclear powered boats that require very deep water in which to ‘hide.’ That ignores the probability that by the time they arrive, there will be sub detector drones available in Bunnings, and the barrier of building from nothing a nuclear industry to support them was not, after all, insurmountable.

Meanwhile, there is armed conflict in Europe and the Middle East, both of which have the potential to suck us deeper into a morass that makes Afghanistan look like a Sunday school picnic.

 

The taxation system is a dogs breakfast needing urgent and complete reconstruction. Such a sensible step is way beyond the reach of either of the major political parties, driven as they are by institutions that demand maintenance of the status quo for their own selfish reasons. The lack of voter appetite for change, despite the obvious gaping  holes in the system ensures that no real change will happen until there is a genuine crisis.

Last week the PM reaffirmed the legislated tax cuts would come into force as legislated. This was a surprise to me, as I believed there would be changes, aimed more at the bottom end of the income scale. On Monday he flipped, and let everyone know there will be some changes, which will consume much of the political capital he has left. Despite being very modest cosmetic changes, nobody will be satisfied. The various aid and welfare agencies will be wondering aloud, where this government lost its social conscience, as the changes will not go far enough, and the opposition will run around yelling, again, that the sky is falling. Michele Bullock will have pencil poised, ready to point out that inflation will not be helped by the injection of money into the economy.

 

The housing crisis, one of our own making, will not go away irrespective of how many press releases and Band-Aids are sent around. It is a systemic challenge driven over the last 25 years, and treating it as anything but is a nonsense. Commentator Alan Kohler, who has a way of deconstructing the babble of economists, bureaucrats and politicians into common sense wrote a quarterly essay that contains plenty of sensible comment. If you have an hour, this webinar is useful. Alternatively,  this precis on the Michael West media site gives a very good summary in a relatively short read.

 

Meanwhile the alternative Prime Minister is urging retailers to stock piles of Australia Day ‘merch’ that does not sell. This trivial matter, which is none of his business anyway, is not a contribution to the acknowledgement that we live in a great place, currently celebrated on January 26. It is just a shallow, meaningless, populist, and cynical appeal to grab a fleeting headline, and enrage some who live at the shallow end of the gene pool.

 

A decade on from this 2013 Australia day post, the observation that in the future, the core challenges to our society I saw then, education, research capability, diminishing manufacturing capability, and the flogging off of our national estate remain. Absolutely unchanged.

Have we not learnt anything?

 

 

What should be the word for 2024?

What should be the word for 2024?

 

Tempo.

Everything in life has some sort of tempo to it.

The change of the seasons, the cycles of our lives, the routines we follow often without thought, and the planning/execution cycles in our public, private and business lives.

What has changed dramatically over the last decade or so is the tempo of change. Our commercial, social, and political environments have had a huge dose of steroids injected, radically disturbing the placid status quo that has prevailed. The status quo is now fighting for its life, using any means at its disposal.

Some of this tempo acceleration has been driven by the now obvious impacts of climate change.

2023 was the hottest year on record, climate scientists are now muttering that their worst-case scenarios of a decade ago now look conservative. We are fighting fires and floods simultaneously on multiple fronts.

We are also fighting wars on multiple fronts, all of which have the potential to spread like a viral pandemic.

Much of the balance of the tempo acceleration has been driven by the digital revolution of the last 15 years. The release of ChatGPT into the wild in November 2022 makes what has gone before looking modest.

Look around, those businesses that have done well over the last few years are those that were able to pivot quickly, evolve their business models, and take advantage of the opportunities opened up by the suddenly changed circumstances. Those that fell on hard times were those that for one reason or another, often reasons outside their control, were unable to make those changes.

Once change gets rolling, it builds up momentum, and the tempo of change becomes a real thing. It drives activity, pushing aside many of the objections raised in less heated circumstances. The outcome is that you end up dealing with trade-offs and probabilities in entirely different ways, the impact on individuals and their own agendas seems to be diminished, caught up in the tempo of change.

Tempo, the word of 2024

Header credit: Dave Grohl  working up a sweat belting out the tempo for Nirvana

 

The two most important words in strategy.

The two most important words in strategy.

 

Imagine. Possibilities.

‘Strategic thinking’ has been overtaken by the ‘quants’.

Those that believe that by generating loads of data, analysing past events, behaviour, and outcomes, you can create a model that will give answers to the key strategic question: How best to deploy limited assets for the best return’?

Aristotle 2,500 years ago observed that in some things the past will always be the same as the future. Think about gravity. We know it will be there tomorrow exactly as it is today.

Your task in this case is to identify and quantify cause and effect.

Aristotle also observed that in other things it is not the case that what happened yesterday will be repeated today. In that case, you must form hypotheses, test them, learn, then rinse and repeat.

In other words, you need to imagine possibilities.

Look at the evolution on the mobile phone for evidence. On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs officially announced the original iPhone. On January 10, 2007, despite luminaries like Steve Ballmer poking fun at it, all preconceptions about what a mobile phone was, were out the window. The past was not representative of what the future would look like.

The world is a messy place, today rarely looks like yesterday. In that messy place our task is not to look at the past and project onto the future, our task is to imagine possibilities.

Strategy development is all about imagining those possibilities, making choices on what appears to be the best bet, and putting your money down, adjusting as necessary as more information and insight are gathered.

Aristotle did not conceive the OODA loop. He left that to John ’40 second’ Boyd 2,500 years later, but it was inherent in the ‘scientific method’ he articulated, and should be required learning for every decision-maker.

 

Header is a representation of the ‘Johari Window’, made famous by Donald Rumsfeld

 

 

 

6 words that drove a career.

6 words that drove a career.

 

‘Do not ever patronise me again.’

Those words are seared onto my brain, coming from the mouth of a new boss many years ago.

I had not long been employed and wanted to make an impression. Therefore, every conversation was a combative one, a conversation I set out to win, seeing that as a way to impress.

As the conversation which took place in my office ended, the new boss for whom I had quickly built a strong regard, stood up and walked out. He turned around just outside the door, and walked back a couple of paces, and uttered those words.

‘Do not ever patronise me again’.

He then turned on his heel, and walked out.

I was both astonished, and very concerned. It was only after a painful re-run and examination of the conversation that I realised he was right.

I had, completely unwittingly, patronised him.

What had driven that destructive behaviour?

It took a while for me to understand my own behavioural characteristics. In those days I went into every similar conversation with a point of view that I was prepared to defend aggressively. While I was always prepared to adjust my position in the face of good arguments, this was deeply hidden. In addition, I failed the most significant test of a good debater.

I failed to listen.

My ‘tin-ear’ did not hear a word that was said in any context other than: ‘with me or against me’.

No such thing as active listening, understanding the basis of a differing view, or reflecting on the quality of the foundations of my own.

Later that day I did go into the boss’s office and apologise, acknowledging my mistake, and thanking him for bringing it so painfully to my attention.

We worked together very productively for a decade after that incident in two different companies. We had many debates, and rarely was the outcome black and white, right, and wrong. It proved absolutely that two heads are always better than one, assuming the heads are aligned to the same objective.

 

Header acknowledgement. My thanks to Dilbert and Scott Adams. 

 

 

The competitive secret weapon for 2024

The competitive secret weapon for 2024

 

 

2023 was a difficult year for everyone. Uncertain economic conditions, war, dodgy deals, politicians cuckolded by their own weasel words, and the emergence of AI.

The last one is the only one over which any of us working to pay the bills can have some level of control.

AI has emerged from a long gestation since Alan Turing first made it a topic of conversation 72 years ago. It is now firmly on the plate of every person in business.

Like any tool, it is in the hands of the user, and cannot do any job without being directed. The cookies in 2024 will be awarded to those that best direct AI capabilities in their businesses.

It will not happen by itself, but is one of the secrets of competitive success.

The world is filled with noise and distraction. To cut through and resonate with an audience you need clarity.

Clarity of strategy, and clarity of all your messaging from the advertising and marketing collateral, the stories of the salespeople, to the colour of your delivery trucks, and the greeting of your receptionist.

Clarity.

AI will not give you that clarity in the absence of instruction from you, the user. Lack of such user clarity will deliver generic burble that will be unnoticed wallpaper.

Clarity Wins.

What AI will deliver in spades is the killer tool to leverage that clarity.

 

Header illustration courtesy DALL-E in about 20 seconds and two sets of instructions.