I’m currently in Australia visiting Intellect’s counterpart, the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) and I’ve got some fascinating insights since my arrival here.
“G’Day.” (They really do say this – even in a business setting!). Jack, one of AIIA members, picked me up at Canberra airport after what seemed like a lifetime on three successive planes. “The bill’s being paid by AIIA?” queried the receptionist at Canberra’s smartest hotel as Jack helped me check in. “Yes”. “Including incidentals?” “Er… maybe not the Krug” Jack joked weakly, clearly nervous about the open cheque he was signing. Angus, Intellect’s Financial Director, would have been proud of him. Nice room, unpacked, now what? Sleep/run.. run/sleep? Opted for a short run on the ‘try to get on local time asap’ principle. I was told last night that Oz city maps are always bigger (or is that smaller) scale than UK. Which could explain why I ended up running for an hour – not 30 minutes as I’d planned.
On Sunday afternoon I had a briefing in AIIA’s office followed by drinks and dinner with Ann Steward and her colleagues and some AIIA board members, including Fujitsu who are generously sponsoring my trip.
The run/sleep strategy seemed to work as I began Monday fresh from a full night’s kip. Just as well as we visited two cabinet ministers and then had a two hour presentation and Q&A with a collection of CIOs and industry on our public sector programme.
The ministerial meetings were a revelation. Unfortunately the PM was busy and so couldn’t meet, something about a global economic crisis! But I did meet with the Australian equivalents of Stephen Carter (Stephen Conroy -The Digital Economy minister) and Alistair Darling (ish) (Lyndsay Tanner – the Finance Minster).
Both were very open and completely switched on to the role of technology in a modern economy and assured me the vision really started with the PM Kevin Rudd. I asked Stephen how he’d managed to persuade his ministerial colleagues to commit to spend A$43bn on a 100mb next generation network. In summary they were tossing billions on banks and car yards so why not into something that would put Australia in a good place for the future? A refreshingly forthright approach I think you’ll agree.
I was also interested to hear that the AIIA had also produced something similar to the ITIF report and Stephen said it arrived just at the right time to support the case. Lyndsay was full of praise for the Peter Gershon work and also talked about the web 2.0 pilots they are running. This is very similar to UK Power of Information work which they were very aware of.
A very enlightening first couple of days, and with more lunches and dinners on the agenda it looks like I’ll need to keep running! Tomorrow starts with coffee with the British High Commissioner and ends with a flight to Melbourne for another workshop with members on Wednesday – then repeated Thursday & Friday in Brisbane and Sydney. I’ll keep you posted.
