He’s sick. With a body like his even a sniffle could be catastrophic. From the sounds of it this isn’t a sniffle.

There’s not a single thing about Stephen Hawking that doesn’t resemble in some way the struggle, future and success of the human species. His mind has lifted our understanding of the physical world like no other man of our time. His struggle with severe disability has exemplared the power of hope for countless people around the world. His spirituality in the face of scientific scepticism has done so much to bridge the gap between fundametalists and athiests.

We cannot afford to lose him. Not now. 

Citizens of the internet are often dramatically polarised in their beliefs. Hardcore Christians face off with equally dogmatic Athiests. Pro-lifers shread reams out of pro-choicers. Right wings clip left wings clip right wings. 

Nobody is polarised on this man’s worth to the world. 

Get well soon Professor.

As a society, the notion that we’re going to progress from this step to the next by thinking with today’s philosophy is dangerously myopic.

The Australian government’s plan for a Nationational Broadband  Network (NBN) aims to build an infrastructure that surpasses the economicly justifiable ‘next step’. Senator Minchin, the opposition’s man of tech, has labelled the idea a ‘pipe dream‘, invoking ideas that this plan was born from smoking too much opium and has no place in rational or practical movements. 

He’s not alone, commentators both from a #NoCleanFeed pedigry and from more traditional sources have criticised the idea as being too much, too expensive and unwanted.

This whole situation is rife with inconsistancy on both sides, more so for the #NoCleanFeed gang that are opposing the NBN. The government showed near-lethal myopia in pushing the ISP level filtering project and were criticised, quite rightly, for not enough forward-thinking. We argued the importance of a strong and powerful internet on Australia’s global future. Now some of those same people are lambasting the government for spending money on a strong and powerful internet. It’s a lot of money, $43 billion would solve almost any problem you could imagine, but in the context of forward thought, this is $43 Billion for which we should all eagerly be opening our wallets.

When the Sydney harbour bridge was built in the 1920s, it was built with 8 lanes – far more than was required for the traffic needs of the time. Now the traffic is insane, but 100 years later the bridge is still providing for Sydney. 

The tunnel underneath the bridge, however, was opened in 1992 and only carries about half of the amount of traffic; $552 million to for a 50% increase in traffic capacity. 

Similiar infrastructure decisions have been made here in Brisbane, and one can assume, in most population centers. Something is built to counteract the issues we are experiencing today and by the time they are built are rendered, at best, adequate to keep those issues static – not improve them. 

We keep getting away with it with transport infrastructure. We should, presumably, see it fade from being an issue as cars and the like become less dominant over the next 100 years. 

We won’t be so lucky with communications infrastructure. 

Technology is the one thing that cannot be made obsolete by technology. Cars – dead to telecommuting. Pollution – dead to sustainable energy. War – dead to blurred geonational boundaries. Death – ummm, dead to medical technology. 

Transcendance or Armageddon aside, communication and its symbiote technology, are realities that defie mortality and herald the end of those realities that don’t. 

In simpler terms, in the next 100 to 200 years, most of our problems are going to go away due to technology. technology will still be here in some form or another. If we’re going to blow $43 Billion on something, let’s make it something that will still be useful to our great grand children. 

I welcome any policy decision that is made with a considered time frame measured in decades and centuries. 

Here are the questions we are asking:

• How much will it cost consumers?
• Can we trust Conroy to do this?
• Do we really need it?
• Is this economically feasable?

Here are the questions we should be asking:

• Is fibre optic cable the best option for longevity?
• Is there something better?
• What is the most speed we can get at the proposed level of expenditure?
• While we’re digging, for what else should we leave room in the pipes?
• Are we thinking big enough?
• Are we thinking long term enough?

Our society, on all levels, is going to have to start making serious decisions about where we want to be in 200 years. We have a whole bag of socio-economic and ethno-political tricks up our sleeves, it’s about time we stop experimenting and start looking at which ones will put us in the best place in the long run.

The ISP level filter was an example of short term thinking gone wrong. The DBCDE convinced itself that today’s technology could help solve (they never said it was a silver bullet) a timeless problem. We reacted appropriately.

The NBN is an example of long term thinking in serious need of guidance. I’d say that offering to spend $43 Billion on the NBN shows that he’s not just trying to win the tech vote. By the look of the political timeline, he’s willing to lose the ’status quo’ vote to improve Australia’s world and temporal standing. 

We need more pipe dreams like this one lest we find ourselves tethered to yesterday and yesterday’s problems – unable to move forward.

Websinthe’s favourite 10 songs of all time (to which he’s willing to admit)

-or-

10 songs for a desert island.

1. All Along the Watchtower – (Bear McReary – orig. Bob Dylan)
2. Blood, Milk and Sky (White Zombie)
3. Spite and Malice (Placebo)
4. Burn (The Cure)
5. Rocket Brothers (Kashmir)
6. Still Alive (Jonathan Coulton)
7. Stolen (Dashboard Confessional)
8. Secret Crowds (Angels and Airwaves)
9. Nessun Dorma (Puccini – 3 Tenors)
10. In A Big Country (Big Country)

Discuss

*Edited for accuracy

My ability to communicate has never been in question. I pride myself on writing without needless decoration. I can be civil, friendly and even endearing. I can be trite, crass and sometimes blunt.

10 years of broad writing experience means sweet bugger all in corporate communications.

If you’re looking for a writing style that blends all the wonders of passive-aggression, insincerity and hubris without tacky old bugbears like meaning, honesty and relationship building then corporate comms might be your idea of a day well spent. I feel dirty, dirty like the first time you discovered porn dirty, whenever I don my ‘writing for the man’ hat.

Unfortunately corporate communications has become a stand alone language; linguistics in all its complexity is the only way to approach such a mature monster. It permeates the pores of the entire commercial machine, nobody is safe and no topic is sacred. It must, it must, it must come like a memo. They think in corporate commspeak now – it cannot change.

I don’t wonder why the ages of 22 to 42 are now a catalogue of excess and chemical debauchery for most mainline folk. I pin the blame directly on the workplace personality vacuum and its well honed sense of sameness.

Don’t be fooled – it’s costing you money

Here’s the picture in my head – you’re a boss in middle to upper management and you’re shaking your head. “We foster creativity and workplace culture here.” That’s great, I know, I worked for you once or twice (or more depending on how well you’ve paid attention to this blog.) Unfortunately you’re kidding yourself and the cardboard flavoured social club you’ve written into workplace procedures has the social creativity of an accountant in a padded cell.

• When was the last time a team member emailed you to tell you that a client was a sodding moron that couldn’t breathe without tech support?
• When was the last time you read something about your company on an employee’s blog (facebook, twitter) without cringe or suppression?

Teamwork requires honesty and honesty requires open language. Self-censorship amongst employees is costing you money in poor decision making.

Your decisions as a manager need to be based on the most appropriate feedback from front- and mid-line staff. The ethos of corporate communications that has evolved allows for meaning and fact to be obscured in censored language and pre-packaged communication. Corporate language is not required to keep intra-office communications civil – that’s what social norms and values are for.

Be open and others will equally be open. Don’t let them hide the information you need to know behind procedure and pro-forma. It costs money and slows commercial agility.

The rules as they stand

It’s not hard to see the rules of corporate comms.

• No negativity – if you have bad news, deal with it, hide it, ignore it but for God’s sake don’t tell anyone about it. don’t tell your immediate supervisor either, he might need to show your latest email to his supervisor who needs to send a folio of recent comms off to head office.
• Posting an internal email on your website is like lifting your skirt at a bikie bar. Public interest was removed from the syllabus years ago.
• Proposals don’t mean shit if they’re not pro-forma.
• Nor do ideas, updates, thoughts or warnings.

How to fix this

Keep your client-facing communications controlled – let internal emails go to hell. If the point isn’t getting across, ask if that employee was making any sense before they dropped the commspeak.

Keep your eye on employee’s public writing – let them write it anyway. If your public image spirals downward you didn’t deserve it in the first place. Behave yourself and you have nothing to fear, in fact, your employees will be your greatest PR asset.

Keep your Jargon – let employees choose not to use it. Shortening a sentence down to a single word is not the same as simplification.

Keep your reporting procedures – let yourself report the ugly side of the situation. A board of directors wants to hear what’s going on, they can get PR spin from advertising.

-fin

Today’s announcement by Kevin Rudd that the National Broadband Network (NBN) will be a public venture reflects a critical aspect of Australia’s economic situation.

Rudd and Conroy have both stepped on the private sector submissions as not meeting government requirements. The particulars of each submission notwithstanding, there is an underlying economic reason why none of them were likely to succeed in the first place. Telecommunications is an expensive industry, especially when infrastructure is concerned.

The Australian population is not large enough to make a globally competitive broadband network economically worthwhile.

Within a few hours of the announcement, comparisons were being drawn with international networks already in existence.

@andrewbarnett: Why is govt aiming for speeds that Japan, Korea, etc., had years ago? Is that all the technology allows?

@randomwire: Average broadband speeds (mb/sec): South Korea – 100, Europe – 24, China – 1 or in other words slow like a snail

The comparisons between the two situations are baseless and silly given the differences.

@Pollytics:  South Korea: less than half the size of Victoria and a population density of 486 people/km^2. Let’s get a grip here folks.

This is a valid point, Korea is geographically small and has a much larger population at 48m compared to ours at barely over 20m. Building a high speed broadband infrastructure is not only easier to do practically, there’s also a much larger economic incentive.

The base cost of laying the cables for any kind of network here in Australia is enormous. Worse than this is that consumer expectation is, for the broader market, low and the demand curve not particularly attractive. Besides overactive face book users and chronic media downloaders, there just isn’t a major call for South Korean levels of broadband here.

This doesn’t mean that we should be happy with what we have, that would be disastrous as the global community moves into hyperdigitalism. What it means is that there are few incentives for private enterprise, operating on economic motivations, to undertake such a project properly.

I’m glad that Rudd and the DBCDE have decided to put this ahead through public expenditure and not private. The Government is open to pressures other than economics:

• Keeping up with the world technologically
• Providing for the population’s standard of living
• Lobbying by industry groups
• Angry twitterati upset that YouTube keeps dropping out.

A globally competitive broadband network and universal access to the Internet is an important social need. When Rudd describes Australia as a ‘Broadband Backwater’ he’s not saying it out of a desire for more cash – he’s genuinely concerned with getting this built for us as citizens.

The government should, however, have raised the bar significantly higher than 100mb/s. Given the expense and the current state of the art globally, it makes sense to go into this national upgrade with serious vigor. This is what is meant by ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’; If you’re going to do something crazy and ambitious, you may as well do it to its fullest.

It’s a positive sign that Rudd is able to pick the times when private enterprise is not the best option. This is especially important given that his political ideologies force him to choose wisely between the market and the broader context of ’society’ on a regular basis.

While bullying is one of the more pervasively negative realities in our society, the national debate that has arisen over Rudd’s airborne outburst shows that the Big Brother crowd is getting bored.

The global economy is in tatters, Australian society needs some desperate fine tuning and the labor factional machine is operating under extreme pressure; if Kevin Rudd makes the occasional angry outburst it’s hardly a mystery as to why.

We rightly hold our elected leaders up to a high standard of personal behaviour, but this is puerile. If Rudd had made those comments in any Australian workplace then yes, he would be fired. Unfortunately for those that would like to see him fired over this there is a serious difference between his job and your 9 to 5 McJob taking calls for MBF. If you were under an iota of the pressure he is under, you’d file for disability payments.

I disagree with Rudd on many things, his personality, however, is not my concern. Hitler was a lovely bloke if you put aside the slaughtering of millions. People who look at Rudd’s fitness to lead by his personal behaviour have an ineffective and immature measure of the man. We applauded him for his sojourns into a strip club and yet when he falters, once, in being polite we call the local radio station to voice our disgust.

What? Do you people miss reality TV so much that you need to look for low-brow entertainment in politics now? Politicians have been acting like children since they sat on red and green leaves.

I’m disappointed by the response to this story. Not so much that they go either way but that they exist. If you’re so bored that you’re outraged by this then why not kill some time by getting an education.

I learned a long time ago that your level of writing determines the level of those who will read it. So far these articles have attracted the bored suburbanites that are well practised at eloquent trivia. They are the kind that writes letters to the editor over racy billboards or joins a student guild to protest the length of a promo-girl’s skirt.  

Stay concerned with idiotic minutia so that the rest of us can get on with important issues. The political sibling of natural selection awaits you.