It’s somewhat ironic but not unexpected if you understand how academic research unfolds, that this is the second book I have had a hand in publishing for 2020. Call me a slow academic if you like but it takes me years of work before the ideas, content, data, drafts and re-drafts result in a book […]
Continue ReadingA new book!
It’s been a loooong time between posts and, to be honest, I am not sure if anyone is reading this. I get the occasional email from my readers (ahem!) but the suspicion that I am talking out loud to myself on this site never ceases. Anyway, after a drought of many years I am happy […]
Continue ReadingProphets of Mass Innovation: The Gospel According to BAT
Media Industries Journal, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2018 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mij.15031809.0005.105 Permissions Abstract: This article examines the role that the CEOs of China’s tech giants (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent [BAT]) play as advocates of China’s vision of mass innovation. It seeks, first, to understand what mass innovation is and the conditions for its success and then […]
Continue ReadingChasing dignity and work
A recent piece [reposted here courtesy of Eureka Street] In a couple of weeks’ time my modest family of three will be spread across 4000-plus kilometres and two continents, all in the cause of finding work. While my adult daughter has been living and working in a country town an eight-hour drive away from home […]
Continue ReadingTeaching again
For a period of about three years I had very little to do with teaching, compared to earlier years. While I did continue supervision higher degree by research project, give a number of few guest lectures and talks, etc, it was not the same as having to run a class or a unit. Beginning 2018, […]
Continue ReadingShould the unemployed also be reimagining work?
After the article, The Work of Disobedience, was published a reader commented on the futility of the exercise for people who are unemployed. The basic notion is, if you have no work, you can hardly ‘disobey’. On first reading the comment made some sense but it kept niggling me and I realised, having had the […]
Continue ReadingWork and Meaning
On Master Chef Australia tonight (24 May 2017) a lawyer, an engineer and a doctor had to create a winning dessert to try and avoid elimination from the cooking contest/reality show. All three must have undergone years of training, schooling and working experience to become members of these stock migrant professions. It’s a cliché but being […]
Continue ReadingWestern Australia’s welcome engagement in Asia has been a long time coming
republished from The Conversation, 22 March 2017 The newly elected Western Australia premier, Mark McGowan, has appointed the state’s first minister for Asian engagement, Bill Johnston. The appointment shows that McGowan’s administration understands how deeply embedded the state’s interests are in the Asian neighbourhood. Some of WA’s strongest economic and cultural advantages come from its […]
Continue ReadingCan You Hear the People Speak?
It’s been a long time between posts I know. What can I say except life gets busy? Still, I couldn’t let November slip by without writing something about the Bersih 5 Rally, especially the one in Melbourne I attended and the one in Perth I had a tiny part in organising. On 19 November, I […]
Continue ReadingReviving a Dream of India
The paper that follows this is one I wrote a few years back and tried for months and months to have published by academic journals. As must be obvious, it didn’t happen and I’ll be the first to say it can be improved. In the end though, I decided to not pursue that part of […]
Continue Reading