Anthea Roberts is busy reinventing the world of public governance and decision-making for the complex, volatile and uncertain times through which we are lucky enough, in the Chinese proverb sense, to be living. Australian grown, globally nurtured and profound and compelling in every way. Lucky us… I’ll talk about that work in more detail another […]
Governing human: energy at the edge
“The system is dying from the middle, but there’s vitality at the periphery.” With an apt mix of despair and hope, James Plunkett front ends a very handy inventory of some evidence of the energy and renewal typically found at the edges as harbingers of system shift and renewal. It’s where he’s increasingly looking for […]
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 […]
“We are as gods and might as well get used to it.”
I’ve borrowed the title for this blog from a recent review article from Foreign Affairs. It references Stewart Brand’s introduction to the first issue of The Whole Earth Catalog, “an encyclopedic compendium of resources for back-to-the-land living that became a foundational document of Silicon Valley’s techno-utopian culture.” This wonderful review essay is built around a […]
Artificial intelligence: a registry of power
I am reading Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford, partly because of an interest in all things digital (and the AI ‘thing’ is hot and hotter) and partly because I am a member of the NSW Government’s AI Advisory Committee. The book is a powerful thesis from a significant thinker and practitioner that suggests a […]
The New Orthodoxy
Why we need a critical review of digital transformation of government and the public sector in Australia to support human flourishing through sustainable and shared prosperity. Australia needs a critical review of 20 years of digital transformation of government and the public sector to provide an honest and tough-minded critique of what’s been done and […]
