Two things never to discuss with your hairdresser: religion and politics. Why? Probably because our opinions are hard to justify with logic or facts, leaving only emotion leading to passion, leading to punch-ups. In the race to the bottom this campaign, what started out as the least relevant policies for the average voter have suddenly… Read More
When paternalism goes wrong
In November 2007, Australia voted to change the party that runs Federal Parliament. For many of us, there were some promising, if not particularly radical, platforms that Kevin Rudd and his new front bench would take as a mandate for their government. One that was barely fleshed out and not laboured much was its policy… Read More
Social Networks' double-edged sword
The other day, one of our kids asked if they could have a Facebook account. “But everyone else has got one and they keep asking me to join!”, was the response to my inevitable answer. Kids are different from employees (or are they?), but the naivety with which many use social networking sites makes the… Read More
'Pad'dling to a new shore
If you wanted to allow people to get from one side of a river to the other, you could provide boats, and teach them how to use them or build a bridge, and let them walk across – something they already know how to do. I first heard that arresting analogy at a presentation in… Read More
Taking the brain outside the box
Let’s say you’ve given yourself the job of thinking into the future of IT. You want to know the strategic technologies and trends within IT that you’ll have to be across to stay ahead of the game. I’m not talking about next week, next month or even next year. Try 5 – 10 years from… Read More
Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey
Google’s purchase of DocVerse, allowing MS Office users to collaborate via the Google Apps cloud, might be more significant than you think. Read More
Cloudy, with a chance of chaos
With this so-called “cloud computing” stuff, the theory is, if you want to do something, you “do it in the cloud.” The prospect of having your data, applications, life, beaming magically “up there somewhere” to be fetched from anywhere is kind of liberating. It’s a realization of a promise from the early nineties, when the… Read More
Hello, world!
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m new to blogging. Just when I get the hang of it there are so many other ways to communicate with your ‘followers’ out there. I’m already on Facebook and Twitter (see my tweets to the right…) – but for those of us with real lives, how do we find the… Read More