Latest Posts
Demographic pressures
When you have a new baby, suddenly you notice them everywhere. Certainly, that’s how I felt with Chatterboy. I assumed that in my formerly childless state, they’d always been there, but I hadn’t noticed them before. But I’ve just been looking at the census statistics for my local area, andContinue Reading
Volunteering
The Eye family (99% Mr Eye) does a fair bit of volunteering around the place. But we also live in a quite affluent area, where there is a strong sense of entitlement, and willingess to pay for things. It’s interesting to watch the intersection of those two things. Freakonomics hasContinue Reading
Risk appetite
How risk tolerant are we as a society these days? I went to an interesting panel discussion today. We live in a less risky society than we have in pretty much any time in history. The risk of dying prematurely, of being severely injured, of having some catastrophic event makeContinue Reading
Part time workers
When the latest employment statistics were released last week, with the lowest level of unemployment since 1974, there was a bit of commentary about the increase in part tme workers: “Most of January’s labour market growth was in part-time jobs which grew by 34,600 to 3.043 million while full-time employment slumpedContinue Reading
Sorry
Many have written eloquently about the meaning of today. Until today, I had been too busy enjoying watching the liberal party squirm to think about it. But watching Martin Place today crowded with people huddled under umbrellas watching and listening respectfully to Kevin Rudd’s speech of apology to the Aboriginal people was veryContinue Reading
Heritage insides
There are some spectacular buildings in Sydney’s CBD – many of them heritage listed. My favourites are the sandstone public service buildings along Bridge St, but there some other pretty good ones scattered about the city. I was in one of them, today, and it struck me, again, how intrusive aContinue Reading
A title is inadequate
I said in my Unearthed post that I’ve had some great mentors. Christian was one of them. Fifteen years ago, Christian in an act of enormous generosity (that I only recognised as such in retrospect), convinced her boss that it made sense to split her own job up and give me (a refugee fromContinue Reading
How to be efficient – limit your work time
I’ve been listening to some of the podcasts at Manager Tools, while I’ve been running. Two advantages – if I’m listening to someone talk, I’m less likely to notice how unfit I feel, and I keep running, and the podcasts are some of the most practical management advice I’ve seenContinue Reading
Fairness at the top
EOWA recently released a study of remuneration of the very top of the Australian corporate tree. They took the public information about the top 200 listed companies, their five highest paid executives, their top management team – described as executive managers (CEO and director reports) and analysed the gender splits by roleContinue Reading
Book Review: The Secret River
Today, on Australia Day, it seems appropriate to write about The Secret River, by Kate Grenville. Australia Day commemorates the day in 1788 when the First Fleet landed in Sydney Cove with a cargo of convicts from Britain. The first recorded time that Europeans settled in Australia. Many Aboriginal peopleContinue Reading