Deflect, defer elsewhere and finally block – councillors answer to innovation

No one likes to be blocked on twitter. My first reaction to being blocked by William Owen-Jones, a local Councillor on the Gold Coast, was that he’s a sore looser and I had won. He’d just thrown in the towel. I was sort of rejoicing. However, there was more to this, I must have really hit a few bad nerves. This happens when cultures and what one values as important are worlds apart. 

As can be seen in the photo, attached to this article, William Owen-Jones threw this blocking straight in my face. I never swore or called him bad names and tried very hard not to be rude. I asked questions and responded to tweets directed at me. I’m not really sure that this is acceptable behaviour for a public profile – which can be seen here.

One may also argue, that this blog post, is doing the same thing – throwing it back in his face. However, I’ve been thinking for a while, should I write it or not. Clearly, I’ve decided to do so, because the little online incident shows just how much work is required in the city I live presently, being the Gold Coast Australia, to change attitudes. There is no real tech/entrepreneurial culture here, outside of a small few pockets; whereby those presently classified as leaders have had little, to no real exposure to an innovative tech culture based around startups; nor to large groups of techies & programmer types.

Twitter is the place where you can communicate with persons that you normally wouldn’t. In the case of an elected officials, twitter acts as a conduit through which those persons can engage more readily to find out what constituents needs and wants are. But this works both ways in that constituents can find out the machinations behind the public office. When a public official blocks – it just says, don’t talk to me unless you agree with what I’m going to tell you. For intelligent and inquiring people, thats just so wrong.

I, like so many other techies, in Australia, have been amazed over the last decade or so at the very conservatism in our leaders, at all levels in public and private sectors, regarding technology and innovation. It was the later, that I was really pushing the councillor on. I wanted to know what the local council was doing and how they intended to respond to the recent statements by Australia’s new Prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull that innovation is at the forefront of Australia’s economic agenda – opinion piece can be found here. An excerpt from Malcolm’s speech

“We have to work more agilely, more innovatively, we have to be more nimble in the way we seize the enormous opportunities that are presented to us. We’re not seeking to proof ourselves against the future. We are seeking to embrace it,” Malcolm Turnbull said during ministry announcement speech.

What I found was that I was deflected to things such as a press release to run for office (yea right) 

Or I was deferred to other levels of government.

But I wanted to know  “what the local Council policies were?” and “What were they doing?”. Unlike other councils around Australia e.g. Sunshine Coast , there appeared to be no policies. There also seemed to be no understanding of what or how local council, in particular the GCCC, will play a potential role (or like to see it).

It also became clear, that what innovation meant was not well understood by Will – he deferred to some BRW (Business Review Weekly), an Australian publication, definition as “change that adds value”. Thats just continuous improvement. I referred him to Clayton Christensen and disruptive innovation. However that was lost on him ….. no response.

There was no distinction between old school internal enterprise IT and innovation (R&D, entrepreneurship and commercialisation of novel IP) that I could perceive. They seemed to be the same thing??? This really surprised me.

I tried to suggest its time to stop following and to start leading. Clearly by pushing for answers and calling BS on him, I just highlighted his ignorance.

I feel quite strongly, after seeing so many colleagues and associates leave the Gold Coast, for greener pastures, that the GCCC needs to address this question of innovation in a more professional, thought out way. The existing approach is just ticking a few boxes. Old players are protecting turfs (and budgets and reputations).

Its time for some renewal. They can’t just keep blocking it out!!

Renewed Australian tech innovation – will it keep our best and brightest home

There are apparently 20,000+ Australian tech entrepreneurs in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area. They left Australia, as there is limited ability to pursue what they are passionate about here. The government and business environment, hampered by conservatism and a risk adverse culture, stifles their creativity and throttles funding for early stage commercialisation.

The Australian tech entrepreneur community is rejoicing this week. Finally we have a Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull who is a friend. He is placing innovation and technology at the forefront of Australia’s political agenda. Its a brave move, with significant inertia in all levels of government and business needing to be addresses. Can it be overcome? Will anything change?

These are hard questions to answer succinctly in this post. My initial rejoicing, the same as others, has been quickly bought back to one of the usual lethargy about pursing activity in Australia. The Australian business executive, politicians and government people, appear to be IMHO, living in this dream world, that they have nothing to fear about technology disruption. I believe this, like many other entrepreneurs to be a misguided view.

In the past, Australia as a country, has had economic success from primary production and resources. The last decade seeing a mining boom, fuelled by Iron ore, being supplied to China, producing significant wealth. It enabled the economy to ride out the GFC (Mk I & Mk II). However unlike in other parts of the world, it didn’t clean out inefficient businesses. Its too much to go into the detail here about how technology in the US, reduced the need to rehire to same employment levels and beyond once the GFC was over. They just kept the same number of employees as they recovered i.e. they became more productive.

Australia has one of the worst productivity ratios of any OECD country. The economy now is fuelled by banking and property (Sydney and Melbourne prices have not burst and the ratio of house prices to wages means many simply will not own one in their lifetimes). But this thinking that bricks & mortar, property is a safe bet, permeates throughout levels of execs be it private or public sector.

There are generations in the Australian work forces, that have never bought to market novel invention, which is the crux of innovation. Such that if you try to have a meaningful discussion, they block everything out. They just don’t have the knowledge or vocabulary to talk about it. Even worse they think its SEP (Someone Else’s Problem) so they’ll just sit back and wait to find out. In my eye, its just so wrong.

There are major issues ahead for the federal government, and I keep hearing that communication will be a key part of any policy. Yet I fear, that as an economy we do not have the time or budget to re-educate/bring along these people. Most just like things the way they are now. If we leave it that way, our lifestyles will continue to suffer and the real value of our wages will also continue to decline.

Whats to be done with them? As a nation do we just increase welfare and accept that unemployment will continue to rise?

It does sound harsh, but the smart ones, have already left our shores (Many more want to follow but can’t for various reasons). They won’t want to come back to work with people, that just don’t get what they are talking about. They’ll want people, that can openly debate and discuss the matter at hand, in an intelligent way.

If we invest more in innovation, science and entrepreneurship in Australia, will we attract any of the 20,000 back. Maybe a few, but that’d be natural. Having visited the Bay Area a few times, I feel that the government has a lot of work to even start to come close. Presently it just appears to be euphoria – we’ll need to see actual dollars being invested and attitudes changed. Hopefully, a new batch of political leaders will also be installed to help pave the way. So it’ll take a while.

Apple Steve Jobs The Crazy Ones

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.