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UncategorisedUnderstanding Asia’s Daily Concerns
Warren Reed | April 7, 2008Would an 'Asia Daily' news bulletin help Australia to better understand its closest neighbours?
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Uncategorised
Civilised society
John V Ryan | April 6, 2008Australia should teach its people the elements of a civilised society. I mean, the rule of law, periodic elections, government by majority subject to the protection of the rights of minorities, freedom of expression, freedom of religion subject to respect for the rights of others to practise their own religion or lack of it, submission […]
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UncategorisedWater wise, Desalination Wise
lindonr | April 5, 2008
Desalination plants can provide a long term solution to Australia's water supply issues.
What is fresh water? Don't be too quick to say it's a precious natural resource. To me fresh water is energy. There is heaps of water on earth it may just not be where or in the form that you want it at the time that you want it. You will get fresh water anywhere you want it in any quantity if you are willing to provide the energy and infrastructure to get it there. To me energy and infrastructure are fairly similar too as infrastructure is produced at its source by energy.
When we look at conventional forms of water supply consisting of dams and piping systems we don't see the huge energy costs involved or the massive environmental damage caused by these schemes. The biomass destroyed in the flooding on the valleys upstream of the dams alone adds millions of tonnes of green house gases to the atmosphere.
Building the associated dams and infrastructure utilise massive resources in the construction and manufacture of the component parts. Once operational we then forget about the massive pumping that has to be undertaken to get the water to the point of supply at the pressure we want to use it at. In many cases the electrical usage of present systems rival that of desalination systems. For example Sydney Water has always been one of the biggest users of electricity in the state of NSW.
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Uncategorised
Populate and Perish
lindonr | April 5, 2008Sorry, I can't see much correlation between increasing our population and sustainability. Why do we need to endlessly increase our population? This idea has been the dominant paradigm in this country for some time now which appears to me to be the main reason it continues to exist. I believe logic and good sense should prevail to kill this sacred cow of an idea. There are plenty of prosperous countries in the world not increasing their populations so why do we continue to do so? The Aboriginal people of this country achieved equilibrium and balance with the environment and became care takers of this land over many thousands of years. Why can't we return to this belief that we are here to take care of this country and not exploit it?
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UncategorisedShort memories, deep pockets: a bad combination
Douglascomms | April 2, 2008Why does this whole credit crunch look so damn familiar?
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Uncategorised
Don’t forget Earth Hour!
Douglascomms | March 28, 2008Surely we should be thinking about our power consumption more than once per year.
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UncategorisedLeading by example
editor | March 27, 2008
By Kerry Fallon Horgan
Better work/life balance needs to start at the top.
When I asked John McFarlane, then CEO of ANZ Bank, whether to create an enabling environment that supports work/life balance it is necessary for an organisational leader to model this balance, his response was illuminating.
"Get a full life and then have success at work!"
One of his key strategies being to follow a personal mission statement. This statement sets out the roles and pursuits on which he focuses all of his attention, avoiding "with good grace activities that are inconsistent, however appealing". He also takes very practical steps to ensure his time is managed well such as only having meetings in the mornings and if people are "high maintenance" he sends them away.
To create sustainable flexible workplaces managers must lead by example. Unfortunately all too often what we find in our organisations are "mega-managers". They are the people, who because of the long hours spent at work, have highly developed roles as managers at the expense of other life roles. When these "mega-managers" return home late at night, usually tired and stressed, the only role accessible to them is that of manager. And no partner, child or friend wants to be managed!
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Uncategorised
A whole new approach to Women’s business
Douglascomms | March 20, 2008Sometimes it's ok to break the rules.
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UncategorisedLet’s hear it for Sydney
alison gordon | March 19, 2008Sydney scores 8% lower than the "place to be" in a survey released today by recruiter Talent2.
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Uncategorised
Calling all polyglots
Douglascomms | March 19, 2008We've trained our sights so far out we can't see what's in front of our noses.
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If it’s public then it’s not private. Really?
StephenWilson | March 19, 2008Can Metcalf's Law be applied to personal data management?
It is often said that if data about someone is already in the public domain, then that information is no longer private. Sounds reasonable, but I reckon that can become an insidious furphy.
"The data is already public" was the chief debating point advanced by proponents of searchable white pages. They argued that because publicly available paper white pages reveal everyone's phone numbers, surely having a searchable database didn't change anything. But a searchable digital white pages really is different. And not just quantitatively — it makes reversing names from numbers vastly more efficient — but also qualitatively.
For one thing, the very act of searching generates new types of information, much of which is private (and commercially valuable). For instance, whomever owns the searchable white pages also gets to know stuff like who else is interested in my phone number, and why. The owner can synthesise brand new information, none of which is accessible to me, even though nothing other than my 'already public' number has been revealed.
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Web 2.0 & rating the Police. A Bruce Schneier perspective
Malcolm Crompton | March 17, 2008The transparency debate is nuanced & needs a lot more work.
