I was chasing up some information about KU Leuven, the oldest Catholic university in Europe and the site of a major EU/US meeting on tech and trade. In the process, I came across this description of the Beguines in the Belgian city of Leuven. Communities of beguines formed at the end of the 12th century . […]
In extremis: what Ukraine 2.0 tells us about reforming government and the public sector
I don’t know much about judo or any of the similar martial arts, but I gather one of the central features is the ability to use the power and momentum of the attacker to your advantage.When you are attacked, the trick is to turn the aggressor’s energy back on itself. Defence becomes attack. Aggression is […]
Cataclysm versus hope: a note on the US Presidential election
There are only two ways to respond to the US presidential election, one cataclysmic and the other chock full of hope. You could look at what has happened in the election, and the turbulent and distressing four years since the last one and come to the discomfiting conclusion that America is disappearing. All that we […]
Why is is so hard to do what we know? Or what happens when I’ve hit the wall
There’s a lot of movement at the moment around questions of rebuilding after COVID (assuming there is an ‘after COVID’; I think this is with us for a while) especially in what is sometimes referred to as the “foundation economy” (health, social care, education, food – what Sydney University’s John Buchanan recently described as the […]
Public Purpose 2019: the quick version
Public Purpose 2019: a brief review It’s been a pretty solid year and I wanted to thank the many friends and colleagues I have had an opportunity to connect and work with, drink quite a lot of coffee (and enjoy some good food and wine occasionally) to test and grow a mutual obsession with the […]
Are We There Yet? The Digital Transformation of Government and the Public Sector in Australia
Tomorrow (30 July) Peter Shergold, former head of the Prime Minister’s Department in Canberra and Chancellor of Western Sydney University launches a book that Deloitte Digital Director Simon Cooper and I have written about the digital transformation of government and the public sector in Australia. Your can buy the book here and here Over the […]
