Reclaiming the Enterprise - 3 - Stop Counting!

We're lost, lost in a sea of numbers. The numbers have become an end in themselves. We find more and more things to count, more and more numbers to tabulate. It makes us feel good, it assuages our anxiety.

It's a waste of time!

This is another of the illnesses that has infected our organisations. I have a sneaking suspicion that it forms part of a bigger illness called MBA Syndrome.

It's the fashion to measure organisational performance, and on the basis that if measurement is good then more measurement is better we measure everything. At best it's a distraction, at worst it's just another plank to launch yet more senseless bullying and pressure. Measurers aren't managers, they're analysts.

Real managers understand that any organisation is sensitive, in a meaningful way, to a very small number of parameters. Let's be clear: by "organisation" I mean a small to medium enterprise or a division of a larger enterprise.

Let's think about this: if you are a call centre business there will be a small number of parameters that are the real contributors to profitability. I'm not a call centre guy but I'd imagine that calls per hour is one, or in a help desk environment it might be calls resolved on first contact. In a professional services organisation a key number is staff utlisation ratios - if too many of your staff are on the bench then your head is underwater. Whatever the case. It's the same for any business. I would say that 4 parameters are the maximum that any business should focus on.

A further clarification: I'm talking operational numbers - I'll explain that more soon. By all means let the accountants and the analysts measure other things, but ensure that the business is focused on the real measures.

When you measure a small number of parameters you can:

1. Make those parameters widely understood and accepted across the organisation;
2. Make the performance against those numbers widely known across the organisation;
3. Spend only a small amount of time on the measuring process and instead focus on actually doing business;
4. Ensure that the argument doesn't become one about measurement methodology rather than business performance.

The critical issue here is that, as the quantum physicists know, when you measure something you change it. The same is true of organisations. When you get organisation focus on a small number of parameters and they are the right parameters then the mere fact that everyone is focused on them will lead to improvement in performance. I've seen amazing outcomes when everybody in an organisation "buys in" to a small meaningful set of measures. Employees really start to think about how the business runs and what the drivers are. They can see how their actions and their performance affect the business.

Deciding which parameters to measure and getting that right is one of the key attributes of a good manager. Equally important is the capacity to get shared ownership of those parameters across the organisation.

There are huge benefits to such a sparse approach to measurement:

1. The team can focus rather than spreading their efforts in a scatter gun approach;
2. Management can watch the big picture - they can manage - rather than spending inordinate amounts of time sifting through reams of irrelevant numbers;
3. Employees get a buzz out of being part of the organisation. They can understand the drivers and they tend to commit to achieving. They become self managing with respect to key performance measures;
4. Where it becomes apparent that a specific area needs focus an additional measure can be added for a short period of time to "clean up" an issue. This can happen without adding to a cumbersome system - the system is neither complex nor cumbersome.

I believe that as a manager, the less you trust yourself, the more you will measure. What do you think?

Cutting Dyneema & Spectra

This is just a quick thought for all those people who have tried to cut this stuff with a knife or a set of cutters. Whatever you use it seems to be very hard to cut. Even an apparently sharp knife often leaves a ratty end after you have sawed away at it. A hot knife slices right through it but the result is pretty ordinary and the material doesn't really melt in the way that something like nylon does.

In frustration the other day I reached over and picked up a big Japanese Deba. For those unfamiliar with a Deba it is the Japanese knife used for filleting fish. It looks nothing like a western filleting knife: instead it's heavy - the blade is often 3-5mm thick, sharpened only on one side and very broad. Like most Japanese knives the steel is harder than western knives and it is sharpened at a finer angle. Having said that, Deba traditionally have softer steel than most other Japanese knives in order to avoid chips when hitting small fish bones.

The Deba in question

The Deba I use is a modified Deba - the steel is slightly stainless rather than simple high carbon and it has a western style handle. Nevertheless it takes a seriously wicked edge with a few swipes on a water stone. This knife is so sharp that it's not until you see the blood that you realise you have cut yourself. It is the sharpest knife in the house and I have several other very sharp Japanese knives.

Back to the Dyneema. The stuff I wanted to cut was both heat set and "normal". I put it on a board and the Deba just glided through it. I was pretty stunned. I had expected that it might help a bit, but this was a revelation...it just sliced straight through the material, no deformation, no ratty ends, it just did it.

The problem is that you don't want to be carrying around 420g of knife with an 18cm blade and 32cm in overall length - that's nearly a pound of knife and over a foot long in the old measurements.

I think there are options however, a Ko Deba is a smaller version of this knife and it comes with blade lengths of around 8 or 9 cm - so half the length of mine. An example is here.

This might become an essential rigging tool. However you'll also need to learn how to sharpen a single sided blade and you'll need some decent sharpening stones.

Perhaps a good starting point for understanding this knife is to go to Watanabe Blade and have a look at some. It's also worth having a look around that site at other knives. Please be aware that Watanabe San says he's very busy at the moment! Just for reference Watanabe's small deba have a blade thickness of 3.2mm whilst my large Deba has a blade thickness of 5mm.

Two final things to be aware of: most Japanese traditional knives are high carbon steel and therefore they will rust easily unless cared for - camellia oil is your friend! The other point is that the steel is hard and therefore more brittle than the knives you may be used to. If you maltreat these knives they will chip and it is a sad thing to see. Some of the knives have a soft iron back forged to a hard steel cutting edge. These are stronger knives but the cutting edge is still hard and therefore prone to chipping if maltreated. I'm not sure they will take being hit repeatedly with a marlin spike or mallet!

Reclaiming the Enterprise - 2 - The Micro Manager

These women and men are an illness that has infected our organisations. They are responsible for much of the bullying and distress that happens in our organisations and they have a negative impact on performance. So that we are on the same page, let's paint a picture of the micro manager:

Jane is a GM responsible for the delivery of complex technical services to customers. She has about 8 direct reports and they, between them have about 400 staff in total. Jane insists that NO decision of any importance is made unless she is present (in person or by phone/video) in the meeting where the decision is made. Jane attends around 40 meetings a week. Her day and that of her direct reports starts at 7:30am and often goes late into the night. Jane never seems to have enough time for all the meetings that she has to attend and often decisions are delayed for weeks whilst people try and find a slot in her diary.

Often her DRs make decisions without her - albeit small decisions. It almost inevitably ends in tears. Jane will hear about it and will overturn the decision. Unless she has personally discussed something she will block it in discussions with other GMs and with the CEO.

Jane is very prone to ranting and raving at people - subordinates cop it most but she will also dish it up to other GMs. There is no stopping her and she is vindictive and erratic. Jane's behaviour becomes worse if she senses any risk in a decision. At that point she becomes paranoid and obstructive. The situation has got so bad that Jane will deny that she has heard of a proposal or been part of a decision, even though 6 or 7 senior people may have been with her in the room when she made the decision. The truth is that she works such long hours and attends so many meetings that she simply can't remember what she has discussed and what has been decided. Such situations however make Jane even more aggressive.

Jane's anxiety runs out of control - all of the time. She never feels able to stay on top of "her job"; she never feels able to run fast enough. Jane's DRs are almost all recruited by her, and a sorry bunch they are. Jane only recruits people who will do what she tells them and who she feels won't challenge or threaten her.

Everyone in the company acknowledges that she is a control freak. The CEO loves her because she is just like him: obsessed with detail and never able to exert enough control. He knows that things are safe with Jane, she's just so obsessive that nothing could get past her.

Unfortunately there is not a shred of exaggeration in what I've written about "Jane". My experience is that "Jane" is less obsessive, less controlling, less micro-managing than a very large proportion of what passes for "managers" in Australia.

Let's be clear about a few things:

• People like Jane are NOT managers;
• People like Jane are bad for businesses, bad for themselves, and bad for employees;
• Jane is driven by only one thing: her inability to manage her own anxiety;

Good managers do many things differently to Jane.

• They employ top quality people - they see the quality of their team as a sign of achievement;
• They empower those people to make decisions and to take action;
• They support and mentor their team, they provide them with challenges and support them if they stumble;
• They deal with performance issues in private and in a way that leads to growth and change rather than belittlement and negativity;
• The buck always stops with them for the performance of their team;
• Good manager have their anxiety utterly under control. They know what anxiety is and they have well developed strategies for managing it;
• Good managers are at peace with themselves and their egos. Yes they have egos but they are settled and quietly confident of their abilities. They don't need to show off to anyone;
• Good managers are entirely capable of leading from the front but they also know how to effectively lead by influencing and supporting others to perform. They don't need the limelight.

If you are a manager where do you fit? If you fit in the first group then you only have two ethical choices: either begin immediately to do serious work to ensure that you move from being like Jane to being like the Good Managers; or find another job that doesn't involve managing people and do that NOW.

Most likely however you are uncertain where you lie. The reason for that is that most micro managers also lack a key quality that good managers have: they have no capacity for self reflection and therefore they have no capacity to understand that they are in fact a dud and no capacity to do anything about it.

The saddest part is that when a managerial hierarchy in a company are all like Jane, then they all admire each other and none of them have any capacity to reflect on the inappropriateness of their behaviour.

Welcome to much of corporate Australia.

Soft Shackles - Modern Art & Craft

If you look at a modern high tech racing boat you'll find exotic fibres sprinkled all over it. Boats are even using exotics in place of things like chain plates and fibre rigging is making a come back. All that makes tremendous sense when you are in a high tech racing campaign where every gram of weight counts and strength per unit size is ultra important.

What's that got to do with traditional wooden boats though? Well the answer is "everything and nothing"! My boat displaces about 8 tonnes on a 29 foot waterline - a lightweight flyer she isn't. However our spinnaker block is an Equiplite spectra block - it's very light and what's more important it won't damage the mast varnish by banging on it as a normal block would. It also has massive reserves of strength.

The spinnaker is a great big 840 square foot asymmetric. The thing about a traditional style boat is that it comes, ready made, with the bowsprit and all the trimmings to fly an asymmetric. Our J measurement is 18 feet on that 29 foot waterline so we can carry a big spinnaker with ease. The real purpose of that sail is for light winds - from basically 0 to 15 knots apparent. After that we feel like it belongs below. The apparent wind angles range from 50 to 130 degrees in light winds through to 65 degrees to 160 degrees at the higher end. But what we really like it for is light winds. With an asymmetric in order to sail deep you need to ease the tack line and get the luff of the sail to rotate out to windward. Again the heavier the pressure the deeper you can sail.

However at lower pressures you can still get good outcomes if you can get the weight out of the running rigging. The less weight the sail has to lift - either from the sheets or from the tack line and shackle the more likely it is to fill and set. So that sets us on a path to get the weight out of the gear and that's where exotics come in. We want sheets that are light, strong and which don't absorb water. There's nothing worse than having the sail collapse, the sheets getting wet and then making it hard for the sail to set again. So that means spectra sheets with the covers stripped or single braid spectra with a non-wettable cover added in the way of the winches.

Elsewhere on the boat we still want "hardware" that isn't hard on the boat. Lots of manufacturers are now offering soft "shackles". These are great - they weigh nothing and are very strong - but they are also very expensive. USD$90 for a shackle is too much for me.

My first attempts are in the photo below:

Top to bottom: 1 & 2 use a brummel eye splice and a double figure of eight stopper

3 uses a slip eye and double figure of eight

4 uses a slip eye and a carrick bend stopper

Each of these shackles is incredibly light and potentially incredibly strong. The breaking strain of the line is about 5,300 daN or about 5.3 tonnes. Subtract say 30% for the knot and then halve that for a safe working load and you still come up with a working load of around 1.85 tonnes (and yes I know that daN doesn't quite convert to tonnes but it's near enough). I say potentially because I haven't tested these yet. I'm waiting till I perfect them.

The one I really like is option 4: Options 1 and 2 rely on a fixed eye and whilst I think it is secure it could possibly be induced to work loose. Option 3 is OK but the lengths and tensions are not quite right. Option 4 is the best because not only are the tensions right but the slip eye is highly secure as you can see in the two close ups:

This photo clearly shows the slip eye. The braid is formed into an eye, one side of the eye is passed through the centre of the other side of the eye. It's then passed back out and the two ends formed into the carrick bend to form the stopper.

Under pressure the outer braid grips the inner braid and even at very low tensions it is impossible to either open or close the eye. To open the eye the outer braid is bunched slightly and the eye slid open.

The cover bunched and the eye slid open

Time to make one of these is about 15 minutes, materials cost about AUD$8.00. It's a bit hard to find a new shackle when one breaks half way across the ocean but it's easy and simple to make one of these.

Just to clear up a couple of misconceptions: Spectra/Dyneema has extremely good abrasion resistance and extremely good UV resistance. The spinnaker turning blocks on our boat are attached to the bulwarks with some strops made of this stuff. They've been out in the sun for about 3 years with no signs of any degradation and the only thing that's being abraded is the bulwark.

All I have to do now is to find a better way of finishing the carrick bend so that the ends don't show (any suggestions?) and then put a couple on a test rig.

Recreational Aviation Governance in Australia

In Australia we have a very effective legislative regime for recreational aviation - what used to be called ultralight aviation. CASA - the safety regulator - has delegated organisations to undertake the management and oversight of recreational aviation.

In the case of traditional ultralight aviation this role is undertaken by Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus), the old Australian Ultralight Federation. You must be a member of RAAus to exercise the privileges of your pilot certificate.

Rec aviation has become extremely popular and RAAus has grown phenomenally over the last few years. Membership increased 13% in 2006, 12% in 2007, 8% in 2008 and almost 9% in 2009 to stand at around 9,180.

This has created some interesting challenges for RAAus. The two most important challenges that I see are:

• Enhancing governance to reflect the changed scale and nature of the organisation; and
• Ensuring that the activities of the organisation reap the available economies of scale.

Let's look at each of those. RAAus has grown from a small, easily understandable organisation to a large and increasingly complex organisation over recent years. The governance and management demands have changed and with them the demands on management and the Board.

RAAus has a Board of 13 which is elected on a representative basis. This doesn't represent best practise in corporate governance and raises a number of issues:

• The Board is too large to be manageable and effective;
• The Board meets only twice a year - too little to effectively oversight the organisation;
• Representative boards involve a fundamental conflict of interest. Board members have a general responsibility to act always in the best interests of the organisation as a whole. At the same time the voters who elected individual Board members often have regional or sectional interests which may be at odds with the interests of the organisation as a whole (see Note);
• Representative Boards do not ensure that the organisation has the best possible Board members and often lead to a lowest common denominator outcome from elections (see Note)
• Representative Boards do not give the organisation the ability to seek professional directors to serve on the Board. This prevents the Board from effectively ensuring that it has the requisite expertise amongst its membership;

NOTE: To be clear I am not suggesting in any way that any past or present member of the RAAus Board has acted in conflict of interest, nor am I saying that any past or present Board member has represented the lowest common denominator. I am simply highlighting that the current system supports the occurrence of both of those things.

There are further issues of growth which also touch on Board roles and responsibilities. The most important of these is the transition from a Board that is intimately involved in every aspect of the activities of a small organisation to the role of a Board of a larger organisation which must focus on governance and oversight of the activities of the organisation.

An example at RAAus is that the Ops Manual gives Board Members specific powers with respect to operational matters. This is entirely appropriate for a small organisation and increasingly inappropriate for a large, complex organisation (like RAAus) with competent employed staff.

The difficulty with dealing with these issues is that neither the Board, nor membership has any real incentive for tackling them. For the membership, any meaningful change will see a reduction in the representative nature of the Board. For Board members there is that issue and also a reduction in the absolute number of Board members. What is certain is that governance challenges will increase unless action is taken. In that respect CASA has an obligation to seek constitutional change at RAAus as a condition of its continued delegation of oversight to RAAus. At a minimum the required changes are:

• Board elections to change from regional voting to national voting;
• Board to change from 13 elected members to 5 elected members;
• Creation of a selection committee (see next point) to select and appoint 2 professional directors with specific required skills who are not members of RAAus;
• The selection committee would consist of 2 representatives of CASA, 2 members of RAAus not Board Members, and an independent Chair all appointed by the Minister;
• Professional directors would have a two year term with one of the initial appointees to have a 3 year term so that only one appointee is due for replacement in any given year;
• Board meetings to be increased to 10 a year with at least 3 of those face to face;
• Review of the Ops Manual to ensure that Board Members no longer have operational roles unless they hold another role (such as a CFI) that requires operational activities.

These changes are a first and urgent step on the way to improving the governance, Board effectiveness and financial viability of the organisation. These changes will allow for much more effective Board performance, a skilled Board and effective strategic direction and oversight of staff.

Once those changes have been undertaken we will have a Board that is in a position to direct a review of the organisation and its operation. As RAAus has grown there is little evidence that the per unit cost of doing its business has fallen as it should have. This means that too much money is spent on administration (issuing certificates, renewing them, etc) and therefore too little is available for safety, operational and technical oversight and indeed employment of suitably qualified management.

Food for thought for RAAus and CASA

Apple's new iPad

I know many of you are sick of hearing about this thing already - and it was only launched a day or so ago. Nevertheless I thought I'd have my two cents worth on the basis that I have previously said what I wanted in a device like this.

Let's start with a caveat: I haven't seen or handled this device yet. Indeed many hours after its launch it wasn't even on Apple Australia's website, though it is now. Rather I'm basing my response on Apple's published material.

Firstly, this thing will sell, and sell lots. Apple is a good marketing company and this will sell. I've no doubt that it will change and morph over time and that will make it sell more. But right now here's my scoreboard.

iPad = iPhone - voice + screen size - portability

The key issue here is that this thing feels like a first edition. We don't see any startling new developments in multi-touch; we don't see any startling new capability; it seems like a larger, less portable iPhone. I think the screen real estate will provide an awesome browsing, reading game-playing experience. The problem is that iPhone "works" because it's in your pocket. Not because it's the best and brightest screen to work on or the simplest interface, rather it works because it is the best compromise and above all it's with you.

Not so the iPad, it's too big to be "always-with-you" and I'm sorry Steve but I don't think it's small enough (or sexy enough) to be "intimate".

For me though the killer is that it isn't a productivity machine. If this was to work for me I need to be able to leave a gadget at home when I travel. At the moment I travel with iPhone and MacBook. I need iPhone for voice communication and I very much like its app ecosystem (though not its closed nature) and its pocketability. I use the MacBook for real work though, composing lengthy emails, working on documents, spreadsheets, databases. In addition my MacBook has two Java apps that I cannot do without. One of them is an XML editor and the other is the local client for our Component Content Management System. I can't travel without them. Simple, end of story.

In addition every bit of productivity work I do sees me switching between applications - often the email app and the browser with a word processor interspersed from time to time. Or alternatively the local client and the XML editor. The iPad doesn't support multi-tasking and even though I'm a bloke and I'm not supposed to be able to, I do multi-task.

That means that when I travel I still need my iPhone - the iPad has no voice comms capability (yes I know about VOIP over 3G but I need real ubiquitous calling capability); I also need my MacBook because the iPad won't run my workday applications. The question then becomes "Does the iPad add sufficient value that I can add it's 600g or so to my carry on baggage?" Despite the welcome addition of iWork the answer is no.

There is one "maybe" though. It does make me wonder whether you might ditch the iPhone and revert to a $100 simple mobile phone and then the iPad might have a place alongside the MacBook. In the end I think that it just means that your bag got heavier for not enough reason really.

So the iPad doesn't create a place for itself in my bag. Three simple additions would get it there though: multi-tasking, support for Java apps and a move away from the closed App Store ecosystem to allow me to place my applications on there. Oh and a fourth thing: a real and accessible file system.

Beyond that I'd like support for modern wide-screen formats, HDMI out, an iSight style camera (making a cool Skype conferencing device) and a true "next-gen" multitouch interface.

What do you think?

The Bidding War

Politicians are mugs. They can't help but let the opposition wind them up. Then the poor, long suffering populace get....what they deserve. Yes, it's an election year.

Let's take the horrendous bush fires that Victoria suffered, almost a year ago. A very large number of people died and a very large amount of property was destroyed. It was a dreadful day, it had an apocalyptic feel to it. I never wish to see that kind of destruction and loss of life again in my lifetime.

The problem is that the Premier of Victoria, in my view pushed by the opposition, has spent the whole year asserting that he won't let it happen again. Read my lips: it can happen again and it will. I've been faced with the destruction of my house in a bushfire, it wasn't finally destroyed but that was by the narrowest of margins. What I know is that if you live amongst the bush in Australia then at some point you risk losing your house and your life. No government can change that. Any government that asserts that they can is not being straight with you. Any government that lets an opposition push them to assert that, well they're mugs.

So now in Victoria we are in the midst of a "law and order" bidding war between the government and the opposition. The opposition is pushing and the government is playing right into their hands. "We'll crush the hoons' cars with bigger crushers than you." "No we will."

Sorry guys it's all crap . The government can never win a game like this and whatever happens the only people who are really better off are the opposition who feel better and the companies that run the privatised prisons. They'll have their facilities full to overflowing and still the populace won't be better off.

All I can say is give it a rest!! Don't insult our intelligence and for goodness sake don't go the way of New South Wales where they think they're better off but they're not. All they've got is a problem with overcrowded prisons.

Grog and Sugar

Making my coffee this morning I got to thinking about an afternoon ritual that we used to have many years ago. We worked in the Philippines and we used to come home after work and sit in the shade and drink tuba. It's known by a range of names throughout Asia and the sub-continent - palm toddy, palm wine...In a world where everything appears to be packaged, refrigerated and preserved to deliver a long shelf life, tuba is very ephemeral. Tuba is made from the sap of a palm tree often the coconut, palmyra or nipa palm though the date and other palms are used in various parts of the world. Almost immediately on collection the very sweet sap begins to ferment from natural yeasts living on the plant and probably in the collection containers. This is what makes it so ephemeral. The containers are placed in the morning, as the fermentation proceeds you first get a sweet, low alcohol, slightly frizzante drink which is known as "ladies' tuba". Then, as the day progresses, the alcohol content rises and by the late afternoon you have a sharp tasting, high alcohol drink with a pungent hydrogen sulphide smell from the autolysis of the yeast. This is "mens' tuba" and it's a completely different beast from the pleasant drink of earlier in the day. If it is left alone tuba rapidly becomes vinegar. It is very ephemeral - drink it now or it's gone. So drink it you do!

Our tuba used to be bought at the market each day and drunk that evening. It is refreshing and also an inexpensive way to get loaded if you drink mens' tuba. Much better than the local gin, though San Miguel is a good beer if you want something to slake your thirst after a hot day.

The other interesting product of the palm is palm sugar (pictured at the top). Much of the palm sugar available in Australia comes in hard blocks that are a light honey brown colour. I suspect that much of this "palm sugar" is in fact mixed with cane sugar. These blocks tend to be very hard and shatter when hit with a hammer or crushed with a pestle and mortar.

True palm sugar is dark yellowish brown and has a soft fudgy texture. It often comes in tubular shapes and has a complex caramel flavour. It's easy to cut or grate because it's so soft. Palm sugar is made by boiling down the sap of the palm tree before it begins to ferment. It reportedly has a very low glycaemic index and is rich in nutrients. Palm sugar is also remarkably cheap if you know where to find it.

And that's why I thought about tuba, because I was spooning grated palm sugar into my coffee. It adds a indefinable richness to a cup of strong, black coffee. Pure luxury.

Ady Gil - Part 3

A further update is generated from this video which was posted on 8 January, after my last two posts. It is clear from this video that the Japanese vessel was approaching Ady Gil from astern and was therefore the give way vessel with Ady Gil as the stand on vessel. In my view this video swings weight behind the claims of Sea Shepherd that fault rests with the Japanese. There still remains a small question in my mind about whether Ady Gil was in fact maintaining a proper look out and doing all she could to avoid collision. That issue is however much diminished by this video.

Just as a further note however, it is interesting how partial "pictures" make it hard to determine just what went on. The problem also is that each party is engaged in a propaganda war and has been for some years. That makes Joe or Jane Public less inclined to believe either party, making it harder in turn to work out what went on.

Reclaiming the Enterprise - 1

Down to tin tacks, after being interrupted on the way here by the Ady Gil affair.

Australian enterprises are severely damaged, they are ineffective and they need change. Big statements, I can see people launching out of their chairs and beginning to tell me why it isn't so. They'll tell me about how much more profit they make than they did 5 years ago; they'll tell me how their turnover has risen; they'll tell me how their costs have fallen; they'll tell me how they are expanding into new markets.

As far as I'm concerned that's all dross unless those organisations are also good places to work; places that empower and validate their employees; places where people individually can achieve and feel good about themselves. This is where Australian organisations fail. Too often organisations are places of stress and fear for employees, they are homes to managers with personality or psychiatric disorders, they are home to long work hours, a sense of powerlessness and to bullying and a raft of other bad behaviour. Knowledge is selectively withheld in order to manage power, people are demeaned and belittled, they are not nice places to be.

Take this test. Have you ever been subject to any of the following or witnessed somebody in your organisations being subject to them:

• Being shouted at by somebody more senior;
• Being subject to workplace harassment, whether sexual or otherwise;
• Having your job actively threatened;
• Finding out about your employment future from a co-worker;
• Working more than 40 hours a week more then 4 times in a year, except by your choice;

That's only a small sample of the abuse that goes on in Australian workplaces. I would expect that a fairly large proportion of people who read that list say - yeah one of those things has happened to me. As an aside, I don't believe that Australian workplaces are any worse than those in other western economies, I'd expect that similar things happen there.

My bottom line is that we've forgotten a key thing: enterprises, organisations are there as places where people work. Without people they don't exist, and indeed there is a fair argument that they only exist for people. The problem is that very often they only exist for a subset of people - those managers senior enough to control the outcome and "the shareholders" who are the reason that the senior managers use for all of their abuses.

Until enterprises step backwards from their present path and begin to deliver value to everyone within the organisation Australian enterprises will continue to suffer from their current pathologies and will therefore not excel as they could.

There's a lot to talk about here and I'm going to pick it off one item at a time. More to come.

Ady Gil - Part 2

NOTE (10 January 2009): Please read this post in conjunction with my post of 10 January. Later video substantially alters my conclusions.

Having reviewed the video and other record of this incident I'd like to go into print once more on a couple of issues:

I made an error in my original post: Despite early reports it does not appear the the Ady Gil was sunk, although damage was substantial. I apologise for that error.

Now to the nuts and bolts. Firstly Sea Shepherd say that the Ady Gil was "dead in the water" or words to that effect. That was not so from the video I've seen. The Ady Gil at a late stage of the incident appears to have used engine thrust which drove her into the side of the Japanese vessel.

COLREGS 1972 are the rules of the road for all vessels at sea. They represent the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea and are published by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

Now let's look at the legalities. COLREGS 72 Part B Section 2 say, in part:

15. Crossing situations

When two power-driven vessels are crossing, the vessel which has the other on the starboard side must give way.

16. The give-way vessel

The give-way vessel must take early and substantial action to keep well clear.

17 The stand-on vessel

The stand-on vessel may take action to avoid collision if it becomes clear that the give-way vessel is not taking appropriate action.

These are the bare bones of the rules and it is important to note that another section of rule 17 says:

(b) When, from any cause, the vessel required to keep her course and speed finds herself so close that collision cannot be avoided by the action of the give-way vessel alone, she shall take such action as will best aid to avoid collision.

This was undoubtedly a crossing situation. The Japanese vessel was the give way vessel - it had the Ady Gil on its starboard side. Therefore the Japanese vessel is subject to rule 15 and rule 16. It must give way, and it must take "early and substantial action" to keep well clear. It did neither of those things.

The Ady Gil however was subject to rule 17 as the stand-on vessel. It did not take action to avoid a collision as it was required to do.

Should the Japanese vessel argue that Ady Gil was originally more than 22.5 degrees abaft their beam, then they could argue that the Ady Gil was the give way vessel under rule 13. We don't have the evidence for such a claim in the video that I've seen, but it may be that Ady Gil approached from abaft the beam of the Japanese ship and was therefore the give way vessel. Nevertheless, that does not relieve the Japanese vessel of the requirement to take all necessary action to avoid collision.

Culpability on both sides, clearly and by video evidence. Further there appears to be video evidence that Sea Shepherd are not being entirely transparent with their claims. The Ady Gil was NOT dead in the water.

So here we go. Sea Shepherd are committed to stopping whaling. Good on them, I understand that they wish to see whaling stopped, so do I. However they are clearly breaking the laws of the sea in so doing. That's not OK, those regulations are in place to stop people being killed in collisions.

Now to Japan. The Japanese vessels should, in my view cease whaling immediately and go home and stay there. They clearly did not comply with COLREGS and Japan as the flag state should take action against the master of the vessel for failure to comply. I have faint hope that that might happen. However, despite the fact that they shouldn't even be there, the Sea Shepherd guys are putting the Japanese in a very difficult situation. By continually harassing them they place the Japanese in a situation where they must always be turning away to comply with COLREGS. Despite what the Japanese think, they are required to do so. I can see why they may not wish to. To do so means that they have let Sea Shepherd drive them from their goal. Nevertheless they must do what is required to avoid a collision.

Overall my fear is that we will see deaths in the Southern Ocean if this behaviour continues from both parties. Flag States must act decisively now to ensure that skippers behaving in this fashion are disciplined and that, if necessary their ships are arrested.

Enough: Stop killing whales and stop playing dangerous games with each other in the Southern Ocean. Oh and stop bullshitting us about what happened as well.

Here's the video:

Just a further update on this, with a video from Sea Shepherd. From this video (below) it could be argued that the Japanese vessel turned towards the Ady Gil. It's hard to know, given the sea state at the time.

In any event, it doesn't alter the argument I've set out in the body of the text.

Japanese Whaling Must Stop

I was working up another post but then the news about Ady Gil broke. If you haven't caught up with it a Japanese "security" vessel has sunk Sea Shepherd's Ady Gil in the Southern Ocean. Let me first say that I think often Sea Shepherd gets the balance between protest and seamanship wrong. They take dangerous risks with their lives and with the lives of others.

Nevertheless Japan cannot claim the high ground on this matter - they are equally engaging in dangerous behaviour. The fact that they have sunk Ady Gil means that their behaviour is unacceptable.

What is utterly clear however is that four things need to be changed:

1. This is not science as the Japanese claim. It is simply a jingoistic insistence on continuing, what the Japanese claim is, a cultural tradition. It is long past acceptable. The world has already once hunted whales to the verge of extinction. It should not be allowed to happen again;
2. Both Japan and Sea Shepherd are very likely in breach of the laws of the sea. The Japanese government as the flag state of the Japanese ships and the flag states of the Sea Shepherd ships must act to stop the bad behaviour now;
3. The Australian government needs to get off its backside and take this issue aggressively up to the Japanese government. Legal action should be taken if possible to cause the cessation of this whaling. At the least vigorous diplomatic action should be taken and these vessels should be banned from all Australian waters;
4. CASA and the Australian government need to take action to ensure that flights in support of the actions of the Japanese whalers do not take off from Australian territory. CASA needs to use all aspects of the CASRs, CARs and CAOs to stop these flights and in any event the government needs to ban them.

Show your disapproval of the Japanese whaling activities by using the #antiwhaling and #boycottJapan hash tags on Twitter.

Reflection, Mastery & Mentoring

Being a parent is an interesting experience, it gives you a great deal to think about! But first I want to define that word "mastery" so that we're all on the same page: my use of the word mastery is definitely a lower case use. I don't mean mastery in a "masters of the universe" way, not in an ego driven way, rather I use it in a lower case, quiet satisfaction way. Mastery to me means a quiet understanding that in a particular little subject area you are on top of things. It doesn't mean you've stopped learning, it simply means that you pretty well "get it", whatever "it" is.

A number of years ago my son, then about 16 or 17 had his first public gig with a small band at a well known Melbourne jazz joint. I was sitting at the bar along with a friend who is a very well known jazz and latin musician. She was also my son's teacher. The band were playing and my son launched into a long solo. A friend of my friend walked in, he was also a well known muso, he said to my friend, "who's that guy? He's on fire." My friend said "yeah, he's a student of mine" and grinned.

Meanwhile I was sitting there gob-smacked. As a parent you nurture, support, challenge, and help your kids to learn. But as I was discovering there is a revelatory moment. I was seeing my son for the first time as a truly and utterly separate entity who was, at that moment, in absolute mastery of his sphere. He was knocking the house down with the quality of his improvisation, he really was on fire. I understood for the first time (slow maybe) that here he was demonstrating mastery of something which was beyond and above my scant knowledge on the subject. That really made me think as a parent - it was a new moment, and a good one.

Yesterday I had a different parental moment. My daughter and I were doing what most pilots do from time to time - shooting a few circuits. Approach and landing account for an uncommonly large proportion of aircraft accidents and it's an area that pilots practice a lot, hence shooting a few circuits. I was just ballast, my daughter was the pilot.

She was flying well, in the groove and coping well with the thermally conditions. If you are flying well you get into a really good rhythm flying circuits, it all just flows. That's where she was.

After an hour she decided that this one would be the last circuit. It was starting to get really bumpy and hot. As we slid down final we flew into a great big bubbly thermal. Even with the throttle closed and full flaps we were above glide slope. She grinned at me and said "big thermal". As we got closer to the ground I said, without thinking "you'll sink when you come out of the other side". I have no idea where that thought came from, just one of those snippets that you "know" through having experienced it so many times.

We were by now very close to the ground and at that moment we flew out of the lift and, lo and behold, we sank like a stone. From the left seat there was an involuntary "oh", she responded well, moving aggressively into the flare and using a bit of throttle, nevertheless, the landing was a bit firm. I couldn't help thinking that if she had instinctively known, as I did, that we were going to get big sink out of the other end of the lift, then she would have reacted a little more instinctively. She reacted well but if she had been a few micro seconds sooner the landing would have been up to her usual perfect standard.

This got me thinking about what gives rise to mastery and why it's important. The key is experience and what you do with experience. David Kolb proposed a model of learning and a set of learning styles. You can read about it here. The important thing about Kolb's model is that it proposes a theory about what you need to do with an experience to turn it into learning. There are four steps: Concrete Experience, Abstract Conceptualisation, Reflective Observation and Active Experimentation. These steps are closely aligned to 4 learning styles: Diverger, Assimilator, Converger and Accommodator. It is a process, such as that proposed by Kolb, that turns a simple experience, through a process of conceptualisation and reflection into something that we can add to our kit bag as new knowledge that will affect how we act "next time". This is what true learning is about. Whether it's in the midst of a negotiation for a multi-million dollar contract where you are using this process to understand the people across the table, or it's my daughter thinking about the sink after the lift and therefore what she would do next time.

A number of years ago I was working with an organisation that was in strife, they were dysfunctional and disconnected from their environment. The members of that organisation were extremely intelligent and very well qualified but they weren't cutting it and they had finally realised that. One of the early activities that we ran was a workshop for the majority of the staff of the organisation in the ballroom of a large city hotel. We asked each person in the room to complete the Kolb learning style inventory. Then we used chalk to draw a grid on the floor - one quadrant for each style - just like the inventory. Then we said to the 40 or so people in the room: "go and stand on the grid where you were placed by the inventory". The only people standing in the Accommodator section of the grid were me and one of the members of the organisation - he was seen as an outsider. Almost everyone was crowded into the Assimilator part of the grid - in fact there was barely enough room for all of them. I simply said to them: "Start talking - one at a time, what are you thinking?". It was a very powerful experience. The first person addressed the person standing alongside me and said "we always knew you were different, what are you doing there?". Then they began to talk about why the organisation was like it was. There was nobody to act, it was all quiet reflection and proposing ways to act but never any action. That was the start of massive change in that organisation driven by awareness of all sorts of issues.

Here lies also the reason why an MBA is not the answer to the world's woes. If you are a good learner, and you develop mastery of an area it gives you the capacity to deliver that gift to others, through being a mentor. Book learning doesn't cut it in this sphere. Instead it is the capacity to learn from experience, to draw the book learning and the other experiences of the past together, to make sense of a situation and to cast effective action. To be an effective mentor you must be an effective learner.

I would argue that mentorship also requires that you are comfortable in your own skin. That your ego must be at peace and must not intrude. Mentorship is a zen experience. It comes along in lots of ways, by modelling behaviour, by helping others to reflect on experiences, by challenging others to explore alternative perspectives, to experiment with different approaches, to submerge their anxieties.

The current cult of Management and Leadership - both capital letter words in this context - misses out on the notion of mentorship, the quiet leadership of wisdom and experience. Mentorship is aimed at supporting others to learn and excel. It derives from personal mastery and continued learning. In my view it's the key behaviour that's sadly missing in our ego-driven and often pathological organisations.

The Apple Tablet Computer

On January 26 - an inauspicious day if you are a Koori Australian - Apple is announcing their new Tablet Computer. I don't actually know that, but that's what all the Apple watchers are saying is going to happen. Whatever the case I'm fairly certain that we will see something from Apple in this line sooner this year rather than later.

That got me thinking about what I'd want from such a device, what digital niche this device would need to fit into to be allowed into my ecosystem. It's an interesting question. Of course if you are Apple you'll have tickets on yourself about any major new product being a "niche creator" - we won't know that there is a niche until we see the product. At that point we'll smack our heads and say "of course I need that, that's so obvious now I see it".

So what do I want? Any new device would need to fill a niche between the iPhone at the little end and the MacBook at the big end. It could entice me if it:

• Was a multitouch device with substantially more screen real estate than the iPhone, to allow me to browse the web, compose real answers to emails and do all those day to day communications tasks;
• Has real document creation and editing capability - I need to be able to open and edit real Word/Excel documents in real versions of the apps, not some "app replacement". Indeed these first two items - real estate and documents are the key shortcomings of the iPhone for me;
• A file system I can access and browse. The iPhone file system and the way that it's "private" as far as the user is concerned sucks. I need to be able to load, store and access documents on my mobile device;
• Real presentation capabilities. If this is going to be my go-to mobile device then I need PowerPoint et al and I need to be able to use an Apple Remote to drive it. Unless there is a wireless connector for the data display device I can't carry this thing around the room so I need a remote;

Now the interesting thing about that list is that I'm talking about the Tablet device, not as consumer electronics but as a road warrior's device. I want a single, low profile device to take on the road. I want to be able to do all the things I do on my iPhone, plus I want a chunk of the desktop capability, but using a multitouch interface. Just for good measure it needs to weigh in at 500g or less (iPhone 3Gs with a silicon skin is 134g and my MacBook is 2181g for comparison).

The difficult bit is that I'm still left with the Tablet and an iPhone, because sure as hell I'm not holding a Tablet up to my ear. More importantly I'm not carrying a tablet everywhere I go. So how does the tablet hook into the cellular network without a completely new SIM, number... I suppose via a WiFi network to your iPhone. Tethering anyone?

Guess what I don't want/need? I don't need a book reader - at least not as the compelling, central raison d'etre of the device. I'm not likely to go and buy or rent books to read on this device - I hardly use the iTunes store for music - in fact I don't think I have. Maybe I want TV, though given the quality of the TV programmes at the moment I doubt it.

So, that's my somewhat biased view of what I'd like to see. Somehow I doubt that it will feature in those areas. I'm pretty sure we're getting a consumer electronics item, not a road warrior's device. So back to lugging the MacBook or trying to file flight plans on the tiny screen of the iPhone. Pity, it would make it very attractive to me if it was a road warrior's weapon!

A Self Righteous Fire Storm

A fascinating miniature firestorm is going on across the US at the moment. No, it's not about a guy with explosive jocks. It's about a woman who styled herself as Alexa DiCarlo. She had, to my knowledge, three different but related websites: Her blog - The Real Princess Diaries, a site with stories of sex workers' first experience of professional sex - My First Professional Sex, and her "professional" site as a sex worker. Alexa also had a formidable presence on Twitter as AlexaRPD.

Of those sites the first and last are currently "down for maintenance" and only MFPS is still up. Alexa has also gone silent on Twitter. Why? Well that's the nub of this story.

Alexa popped onto the scene about 2 years ago with the Real Princess Diaries. Briefly the story was that she was in the process of moving from Florida to San Francisco in order to start a Masters in Human Sexuality. She was also going to change from working as a stripper to working as an escort to fund her studies. She was leaving her girlfriend Niki behind in Florida but the relationship continues.

The RPD website was a place for Alexa to present her views about sex work, sexuality, Yellowstone National Park and anything else that caught her fancy. She also increasingly posted about elements of her work and private sexual activity. Alexa also maintained Tumblrs with erotic photos. She is a pretty engaging writer, opinionated and forthright. Clearly intelligent. She presented strongly as a sex workers' advocate and had a passion for sexual education. Her politics are left rather than right.

You can imagine that she garnered a pretty big following on her sites and on Twitter. But trouble was brewing. Alexa refuses to meet with other sex workers. She says that she doesn't want to compromise her future by becoming publicly known for engaging in illegal activity. And sex work is illegal in the US for all intents and purposes. It seems to me its her right to remain anonymous if she wants to.

Behind the scenes there have apparently been attempts to meet with Alexa and to verify that she is in fact who/what she says she is. To no avail. And so this article appeared on Carnal Nation and one of its key targets was Alexa. The premise being that she is likely neither a sex worker nor "real". That then spawned articles such as this one - it's the Drama Llama post of 23 December you want; and this one by Amanda Brooks.

I'll let you read those articles and blog posts for all the gory details and all the "evidence". Basically the argument is that she's not real, she isn't a tart, she has ripped off others' photos and she certainly can't claim to be an activist.

Perhaps the mildest of the posters is Amanda Brooks, a noted activist and writer who wrote a thoughtful piece. I posted a comment on Amanda's blog which she responded to. Basically we differ and the difference is, to quote Amanda: "As you yourself stated, you are not a worker, therefore you will NOT see the issues the same as we do."

That's absolutely right, but there is always more than one perspective on a situation and none of them is necessarily "right". I'm a radical constructivist by the way so that might help you understand how I think about these issues!

So now to the bits that make this so interesting. Firstly you have got a group of people - sex workers and sex worker advocates - who are all in a tizzy about who can call themselves an advocate. I fundamentally differ at this point. I can call myself a "car drivers' advocate" if I want. You of course don't have to accept that I am, and if you are a car driver you don't have to accept that I represent you. But what you have no right to say is that I can't call myself a car drivers' advocate because you don't think I am. I believe the same principles apply to the Alexa situation. People can say "I don't see Alexa as an advocate", I don't see that they have a right to say "Alexa can't call herself an advocate".

The second interesting point is about "what's real". In this country we've had a number of literary "scandals" over the years - writers who were not as they presented themselves. The Ern Malley affair and the Demidenko "scandal". These matters were not funny for a lot of the literati. They did however shake the tree, many of us found them enlightening for the way that they shed light on the literary establishment. More recently we've had the whole discussion about Anon - the author of a Bride Stripped Bare and even more recently the whole disclosure of the identity of Belle de Jour.

As far as I'm concerned this is all grist for the mill. You can present as whoever you want on the net or in print. It's up to your readers to determine how authentic you are and whether you are worth reading. I think there's a bit more to flow under the bridge with the Alexa saga and it will be an interesting thing to watch. But two elements of the whole issue are worrying:

1. Somebody or a group of people have taken it upon themselves to begin outing sex workers in the US. They are on Twitter here. I have no idea what their motives are but they appear to be related to the Alexa saga somehow. I think that's most unfortunate;
2. A commenter on Amanda Brooks' blog said, in part " To see people who should know better, who do know better continue to buy into the line that “Alexa” is somehow being harmed in all this, floors me. “Alexa” Is a fictitious character. " That also worries me. "Alexa" is certainly a working name, a blogger's handle, but there's a human being in this somewhere. I think it would be unfortunate to forget that. Human beings can get hurt, even if they are not who we think they are.

Food for thought in this movable feast called the net. Oh and if you are wondering...yes I'm real. It's just that my Mum doesn't call me Critical Alpha.

The Days of Christmas - Number 12 - Christmas Reflections

Well the first thing to do is to apologise that this is so late...but I've got a fair excuse. I've spent the whole Christmas period in increasing pain, culminating in a trip to the Emergency Department today. I hope, after 7 hours there, that I'm finally on the improve, though it's not really clear at the moment.

Seven hours, mainly waiting, gives you some time to reflect. The thing that always comes to me is that EDs are amazingly inefficient. It's interesting to speculate on why this is. What is clear though is that the process is not very streamlined, not designed for speed and effectiveness. What it appears to be designed for is to deliver on the antiquated notions about how a doctor should do their job.

Before I go further I need to say two things: Firstly, every time I've been to an Australian ED the care has been exemplary for whoever the patient was. Protracted, a feat of endurance, but great care. The second thing is that on a number of occasions I've been to an ED and have been startled by the speed with which they have assessed and treated the patient. Royal Hobart Hospital holds the record: 15 minutes to clerk the patient in, assess them, suture the wound and kick them out onto the street. The suture line was very pretty and the result was great. It is therefore possible to be efficient.

Go to a busy ED on a busy day however and you see the system failing. Each and every staff member, individually works hard to do a great job, to look after the patients and to get a good outcome. Collectively however the system creaks and groans. Staff are often tired and overworked, the "doctor system" just doesn't work. It is patently inefficient, repetitive and slow.

The difficulty is that doctors, by and large, believe that doctors and only doctors are the people who are capable of understanding the system. Therefore it is only doctors who are capable of proposing change. Take the matter of overwork. Which other profession would not only tolerate fatigue from excessive working hours, but actively propose that it was necessary to achieve good training outcomes? The airlines, the maritime industry, train and truck drivers are all subject to mandatory maximum working hours and prescribed rest periods. We know from detailed research that fatigue has a similar effect on human performance to excessive alcohol intake. The medical profession continues to argue that in order to get the necessary amount of patient contact during a period of training, doctors must work excessive hours - sometimes shifts of 24 hours or more. Sorry that's simply wrong, negligent and unacceptable. Quality not quantity is what we should be aiming for and please don't let me hear "I did it so why shouldn't this generation". Yes steps have been taken, but we are still a long way off.

I think there is also plenty of evidence from a wide range of fields that often really effective change is generated by a set of outside eyes. A new perspective leads to challenge and change that never would have occurred if those who "own" the system are left to their own devices. I suggest that this is never more true than in Emergency Departments. These are intensive environments, resource hungry and highly inefficient. The nurses, doctors, radiographers, porters, cleaners, ambos and all the other staff deserve a better working environment. The patient, oh so patient, population deserve a better deal. Ultimately as a society we can't afford the continued inefficiency.

Someone I know, a medico, once tried to reform the system at a major ED. He described the "assassination" process that ultimately led to his demise. It wasn't pretty and it points to the inordinate power that the medical establishment wields. It was ultimately the worst sort of industrial thuggery.

The irony is that perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of real reform at the coal face - the EDs - would be the staff. Reform can't come soon enough for them - or for me!

The Days of Christmas - Number 11 - Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve wasn't a big deal when I was a kid, it was just a day of waiting. Now though it's taken on a new significance, for two reasons.

Firstly it's the day of preparation, make sure we have all the ingredients for tomorrow's food, make sure we have the wine and drinks for tomorrow and make sure that we've got gas for the barbecue and presents for each other.

That makes it a busy day. Shopping, sometimes battling through crowds, and it's nearly always hot. Today wasn't so bad, it was around 30 degrees C but very muggy and humid. I did my last minute present shopping and then it was on to the food shopping for tomorrow. We're having a simple day with a menu that's based on Thai snack food, rice flour pancakes, satay sticks, prawns, mussel pancakes, green papaya salad. Seafood is always a feature of our Australian Christmas. Not for us the big hot Christmas dinner, the weather doesn't suit it and anyway, the seafood is always so good.

Tomorrow is going to be very low key - just four of us. It brings memories of one Christmas a few years ago where our extended family all stayed at a conference centre near the beach. Four of us started cooking at 5:30am and at 1:00pm we served Christmas lunch for 56 people - the extended family, including 99 year old great grandma. I felt like an afternoon nap after that.

With the food, presents and wine laid in it's home for the second part of Christmas eve. Our small family has had a tradition for the last few years of having a low key evening meal on Christmas Eve. Sometimes we have friends over, sometimes we don't. We eat a simple meal, decorate the tree and lay out the presents. Sometimes we watch a movie, sometimes we just chat. It's a low key, relaxing preparation for tomorrow.

I'm sitting here right now with the first glass of bubbly, looking at the decorations and thinking about tomorrow and thinking about the snow storm in the US.

A happy evening.

The Days of Christmas - Number 10 - Kevin Rudd's Report Card for 2009

This is a bit like my school reports as a kid: Kevin could do better if he tried. In fact Kevin could do better without even trying.

This has been a pretty disappointing year for those of us who had some hope for this government. Very disappointing indeed. Here's how I read it:

1. The internet nanny filter: Kevin, you and Stephen Conroy just need to get over this. I WILL vote against you if you implement this as you are proposing to do. I know I'm not alone by a long chalk. Let's agree on a few things first: paedophillia and other similar material is abhorrent but you don't need a net filter to get rid of that. You have ample laws in place now to stamp on that stuff. As for the rest of it, you would do much better if you looked hard at the violence in films and television. You want to filter out sex on the internet but it isn't sex that does harm, it's violence that does harm and the biggest feed of unacceptable violence is in television, film and video. Change the censorship laws to get stricter on violence and you will do a lot for society. As for censoring the internet (and it's not just sex you want to censor), sorry that's like China. We don't like it when they do it and we don't like it when you propose it. Beyond the obvious we are big people and able to decide for ourselves. Bluntly, we don't trust you, we don't trust you not to filter valid dissenting content like China or Iran do. We don't trust any politician with that sort of power. Spend your effort elsewhere not on this.
2. The intervention in the Northern Territory. Fail, Kevin, fail. The approach that the previous government took was one of command and control. You have followed that approach. You have insisted on taking control of community resources in return for action. You don't need to. What you need to do is things like working with the Territory government to get the housing money they have already, actually doing some good. You need to do something sustainable about health in these communities and you need to do it now. To much worrying about fighting for control and not enough action. Apologies are important but real, meaningful action needs to follow and it hasn't;
3. Rudd the International Statesman. It's a fine line this. We like to see Australia playing a meaningful role in world affairs; we like to see meaningful international influence. We hate hubris. Watching you through the course of the year I felt that you slipped from playing a sensible and competent role on the international stage to displaying unacceptable hubris. Copenhagen was the worst of it;
4. So let's talk about Copenhagen. Watching from the outside the appearance that we got was that a small group of nations, with Australia in the vanguard, tried to scam a deal and shove it through. You failed to get a meaningful deal and in so doing you appear to have created damage to our relationships with other countries, not the least being Pacific nations. Not good enough, we expected more and you promised more. The key issue was hubris in my view, an excess of it;

Kevin, those are the main things we want you to work on. Next year is a very important year, a lot rides on 2010 for you. You'll probably scrape through but you have that unpleasant fellow Abbott chasing you hard and I think he'll do a fair bit of catching up to you if he works hard. He won't catch you completely but he might give you a fright.

Whilst you're at it do something about the refugee issues that you've stuffed up. There are other things you'll have to work at but that will do for now.

The Days of Christmas - Number 9 - Google Me Dead!

I was just doing some run-of-the-mill tasks in my digital life and I stopped short: how fundamental is Google to the way I run my digital life? How much does Google know about me? How ubiquitous is Google?

The answers to those questions are really something to make you pause for thought. Hands up if you have never used Google or any of its services. I bet there isn't a single hand up, in fact there can't be - you are reading this blog by kind favour of Google, they offer the service that I use.

My guess is that Google "knows" more about you than any other organisation or person in the whole world (please read the NB at the bottom of this post). They have your email running through their systems, they have your thoughts on their blogging system, they "know" what you search for; if you use Latitude they "know" where you are; if you use Google maps on a GPS equipped device, they "know" where you are...

There is another side to this though. Google is pretty fundamental to my digital life:

• If you want to read RSS on the iPhone, in my view the simplest way is to manage your RSS feeds in Google Reader and read them on the iPhone in something like Newsstand. That's what I do and it's fast and simple. But of course Google "know" what RSS feeds I subscribe to;
• The quickest way to search the web on the iPhone is with the Google iPhone app. I use it every day, and I like the way it also gives me direct access to Google apps. But you know the tagline here...;
• Here's one for the pilots. Do you want a simple, cheap (free), flight tracking app for your iPhone? As long as you are in mobile range Google Latitude does that for you. You can make your friends aware of your exact location...and Google of course;
• Google Calendar is the best way of managing shared calendars, if like me you don't have a corporate network and calendar server. The functionality is good and the iPhone calendar app allows you to synchronise direct. Now they "know" what I'm doing and when and probably with who!!
• The best thing about Gmail is IMAP. That makes life so simple if you access your mail from multiple devices. It keeps everything nicely synced and once you've read an item in one place, every other place knows its been read. Very nice...and a great reason to let Google "know" what you are saying to who;
• Google Maps is just about the most used app on my iPhone. Where's a particular shop, show me a picture of the front door of that address, show me the way to go home, show me the traffic on the way...But in a way it's the most worrying. Do I want a picture of my front door on the internet for all to see?

That's just a sample but you get the idea, there's also Earth, and YouTube that I use a bit.

So my bottom line is that Google makes my life a hell of a lot easier than it might otherwise be. I do have genuine concerns however about the information that I "give" to Google in return. It's the same old story. Your concern about that is going to be directly related to your view of Google. If you see them as a benign force for good, then you probably aren't concerned that they "know" about you. If you see them as like any other corporate titan then you are probably substantially more concerned.

NB: Please be aware that I am NOT suggesting that Google pries into your email, your search history or any other information about you. Nor am I suggesting that they do anything improper with the information which flows through their systems. I simply don't know what if anything they do with that data. My point is that all of this information flows through their systems and is capable of being used in a way that you may not care for.

The Days of Christmas - Number 8 - Live to Fly Another Day

Changing subjects entirely for this day of Xmas: Human Factors in Aviation.

If I have one thing I'd like to see in 2010 it's for all of us who fly light aircraft to realise that it's us, and generally us alone who cause crashes, and then to act to fix that. It was this realisation that spurred the whole development of Human Factors and CRM in heavy aircraft flying. It's long overdue that we get the same benefit in light aviation. Sadly we still get human factors derived crashes in RPT operations. This recent crash in Vanuatu is an example. The pilot flew the Islander about 7% overweight and misjudged the aircraft's climb performance and its clearance from a ridge. Realising that he would not clear the ridge he slowed the a/c and tried to land amongst the heavy timber. The pilot and one passenger died and there were some serious injuries amongst the other pax. Weather does not appear to have been a factor.

I think that, at the initial and commercial training level, too much emphasis is placed on "human factors" such as how your ears work and how altitude affects us. Not enough emphasis is placed on decision making, situational awareness and threat and error management.

Try this: think of the last 3 aviation accidents that you have personal experience of or which you know well. Now ask yourself "what was the underlying cause of that accident?" I think it will be a salutary experience. Rarely if ever will the primary cause be structural or mechanical failure. Yes engine failures do happen. But a fair proportion of those are due to things like fuel starvation or exhaustion - both almost always down to human factors.

One recent ATSB report appears at first glance to be a structural failure. However closer reading suggests that other factors, human factors, probably played the major role.

I can't think of a single crash that I have seen or known about that wasn't driven by the person at the controls.

To understand that is really important. It means something vital for my safety and for your safety: If we are the cause of our crashes, then we can do something about not becoming a statistic. If we change the way we manage threats and errors and we enhance our own situational awareness and the way we manage situations then we are less likely to be the subject of a crash report. I reckon that's something worth doing.

If you want to explore HF further then here's a simple starting point. Google will find plenty more for you.

Stay safe and live to fly another day.