Digital Transformation and Leadership

Greetings from CSIRO Black Mountain Laboratories, where Mark Toomey is speaking on "Digital Transformation & Leadership" to a meeting of the Australian Computer Society. He talked about  GippsTAFE's use of tele-presence for training apprentices in the workplace. In contrast he gave Fairfax as an example of a company which failed to embrace the use of new technology and is suffering the consequences. He described digital transformation as a rapid and disruptive process.

Mark went on to discuss the ISO/IEC 38500 IT Governance Standard (this was developed from Australian Standard AS 8015-2005 Corporate governance of information and communication technology). He then discussed how the principles in the IT Government Standard could be applied more broadly to digital transformation. He asserted that the senior management carrying out such transformation do not need IT skills. This is something I do not agree with, while those overseeing the digital transformation may not need to know how to write computer programs they will need technology planning and management skills which are those of senior IT professionals. As an expert witness in court cases involving failed IT projects, I have seen many cases were knowing what is and is not possible with IT would have prevented project failure.

The Australian Computer Society offers distance education programs  for those who want to improve their IT management skills. I am teaching Business Analysis, starting Monday.


Mark will be speaking at other cities later in the year.

Learning to Unravel Complexity

The Australian National University runs a series of "Vice-Chancellor's Courses", to encourage students to look beyond their own discipline. Courses now open are:

Unravelling Complexity

Convener: Dr Shayne Flint

This course takes up this challenge by offering latter year students from any part of the ANU the opportunity to explore a series of complex issues. The connections between economic, historical, social, legal, scientific, engineering, environmental and moral dimensions of complex problems will be explored.

The course will examine the linked themes of ‘collapse’ and ‘resilience’. Case studies will include global financial crises, the collapse of empires, contemporary ‘failing’ states, pandemics, engineering and network failures and the moral and legal dimensions of these issues.

Creating Knowledge

Convener: Mary Kilcline Cody

We will explore:

• how researchers in various fields including the arts, social sciences, law, science, business, engineering and Asia and the Pacific think about what they are doing, including the relationship between academic ideals and everyday research practice;
• whether and how academic inquiry differs from knowledge creation in other contexts (traditional ways of knowing, non-Western intellectual traditions, religious thought, policy making, investigations by police or journalists, corporate knowledge production, creative art and design); and
• the changing social context of academic research, including the idea of the knowledge economy.

In February 2013:

• Leadership & Influence
  

Senator Bob Brown on Leadership

Greetings from the Great Hall of University House, Australian National University in Canberra, where the Postgraduate and Research Students' Association (PARSA) is hosting a Leadership Forum. The draw card for the event is Senator Bob Brown (Australian Greens). Also speaking are: Professor Ian Young (ANU Vice Chancellor), Dr. Chris Peters (Canberra Citizen of the Year), Chamonix Terblanche, (Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations), and Dr. Christine Fejo-King (Australian College of Social Work).

Professor Ian Young spoke first. He mentioned that leaders need to cope with the fact that what they say me blogged a few minutes later, so I had better post this. ;-)

Senator Brown started by saying he had stayed at ANU University House over ten years, when visiting Canberra and so feels at home. He said he did not set out to be a "leader" and that it needs to be kept in mind that leaders are ordinary mortals. He recounted the difficulties which leaders have in relating to large numbers of people and suggested a little humor helps.

Senator Brown suggested leaders need to also enjoy themselves and recounted how he became an environmental activist after rafting down the Franklin River. As a doctor he pointed out that much illness is caused by stress and the natural environment can reduce stress and directly improve health. He urged everyone to have the courage to think beyond commercial materialism, reduce arms spending and improve health in developing nations.

Senator Brown reminded the students that there are many challenges in the world but that they could not solve all the world's problems at once. He related meeting David Hackworth in Hobart who urged immediate action on nuclear disarmament. Rather than rushing out to action, the Senator's response was to go home and read a book (the senator described David Hackworth as a former US Marine, but the wikipedia lists him as being an army paratroop).

Dr. Christine Fejo-King discussed her childhood in an aboriginal community and how her elders made her go to school. She pointed out that for her English was a language she had to learn (from audio tapes), this not being her first language and not the language spoken at home. This is an interesting point with the Australian Government funding of OLPC computers for students in remote communities. Part of the benefit of that may be in teaching English.

Dr. Fejo-King discussed the difficulties caused by the government intervention, which took control of money out of the hands of aboriginal people. She related how non-government networks of people were able to provide support over the Christmas period to relieve the suffering caused by the government policy. She related how being a leader required doing things which you may not be comfortable with, such as public speaking.

Dr. Chris Peters commented how he most enjoys his current role on the ACT & Region Chamber of Commerce & Industry because of its local focus. He related the stresses of travel in a national position: waking up in a hotel and having no idea where he was (it was Beijing).

Dr. Peters discussed support for the community after the Canberra 2003 brushfires. The voluntary community organizations and charities had difficulty coordinating their efforts. He argued that as this was an disaster, it required a new more coordinated approach. That is something I don't agree with: disaster management needs to be planned and practiced in advance.

At question time I asked the panel to what extent leadership skills could be learned through formal courses, such as those run by ANU and how much was about experience. Senator Brown responded that leadership required "Having a go". Dr. Peters responded that leadership was mostly about experience and only a little about formal training. In answer to the next question Dr. Brown commented that a good skill he acquired as a medical student, was how to listen.