australian km? deceptive pragmatism

I was shooting the breeze having a very serious business meeting with Laurie Lock Lee yesterday and I was reminded of this post I wrote a few years back. Laurie has been applying some VNA stuff to a specific set of business issues in a neat way. In many ways it reminds me of Shawn's approach to the Cynefin / Cognitive Edge stuff.

• There is distinctly pragmatic approach to both Laurie & Shawn's work.
• This may mean simplifying the source material and adapting it to local needs.
• There is a willingness to mix approaches from different sources where appropriate.

In many ways with chimes with Thomas Barlow's book on the history of innovation in Australia. As a nation, we are great at taking other people's stuff and making it work. You want a 2020 vision, then go for this. The Chinese are brilliant at ripping off other nation's brands (and creating their own unique forms of innovation in the process). We need to return to our past as the China of Ideas & Tools.

I doubt Australian KM will ever produce someone with the mercurial brilliance of a Dave Snowden or the visionary fervour of a Verna Allee. We are more likely to produce writer/practitioners with the clarity of Tom Davenport or the considered erudition of a Larry Prusak (although arguably Singapore has got that last one already).

N.B. I have probably offended everyone mentioned in this post but I'm writing this with a huge amount of respect & gratitude to all concerned. And if you don't like what I've said about you, well, tough.

australians & social media

Laurel notice this research from Nielsen (& a brief search also reveals this recent data about Australasian SNS usage). At last, data, sweet data! What can we tell:

• Kiwis are more into this stuff than Aussies (esp. in the "friend finding" area).
• The most popular kind of shared media are photos.
• Lots of people like reading blogs and wikis.
• Quite a few people update blogs (about 15%). Now the survey refers to "online consumers" as the sample population. ABS data indicates that 61% of the 11.3 million online Australians purchased something. Which might indicate* there are approximately 200,000 bloggers in the Sydney area. I feel much less special now. Do you believe that figure?

*Sydney population x (% who purchase online x % who blog x Aussies online / Total Aussie pop)

2020 hindsight

So there's been a lot of noise from Stephen & Laurel & others about the Australia 2020 Summit. Frankly they are welcome to it. Because these things are about timing.

Australia is not in a place to ask any questions about 2020 let alone answer them. The 2007 election was fought on a common platform by both parties: "We will stuff things up less than the other guys". We are still doing rather nicely from the commodities boom. Australia will only be able to define its future when it can work out what it should be. And it will only be able to do that when it faces an existential crisis brought on by declining commodity revenues.

Let me tell you what I think Australia's future should be. Australia is at the edge (or arse-end) of the world. Frankly no one cares about us. Which is good. It gives us a freedom. An opportunity to innovate & experiment should we choose to do so. If we take our position as an edge culture seriously, if we own our outcast nature rather than reject it then the future is ours to invent. We need to cast of the last vestiges of our anglo conservatism and recognise that none of us can go back to a 50s semi-rural world. And our future will be different to our present.

The best the 2020 Summit can do is float some tenative suggestions around that future - upturn a conceptual apple cart or two - but its immediate impact will be minimal. The rest of us will be biding our time...