VIDEOS, Rwanda — Engineers Without Borders-USA are doing a great job in this Rwanda project.
Rather than more political policy, it is these hands-on initiatives that practically help people.
Local matters.
Local economics, local innovation. That’s the 2thinknow view.
Practical small things help people here and now. In this generation, not in 100 years, as may be the macro-level solution.
Practical ideas improve lives in positive ways & move beyond the ‘too-hard basket’.
What’s yours? Thoughts? Experience?

This is one of our very popular earlier 2008 articles working to rebalance the criticism that Generation Y attracted, and pointing out that non-linearity may be an asset in a networked world. Enjoy the ‘Creative Generation’, reproduced for your reading pleasure…

COMMENT, Australia – The International Monetary Fund have just said that property prices in Australia, like the UK, are so intrinsically overpriced as to be a high risk to fall.
Long-time readers will know that I have been predicting this fall for some time. Friends will recall I have held the belief that Australian property has been strongly overvalued in recent years.
Why will house prices fall in Australia?
Property in Australia is globally overvalued. It is simply more expensive to purchase or rent an equivalent home here than most other cities …

COMMENT, Global, Easter — As we sit down and eat our chocolate eggs, and hot cross buns, there is much to be said about Easter and Christianity.
At this time of year, with also various Jewish and Muslim festivals, it seems natural to question one’s faith.

Yet tolerant Christianity is so central to our civilized Western world, as to be indivisible from it.
We forget the Western World is laid of Christian stone…
Laws are a substitute for basic Christian values, in a society of solid values, laws are needed less. For values, not …

VIDEOS, Youtube — From the Anglican Bishop of Ballarat, a regional centre of Victoria, Australia, not far from Melbourne.
Although I am not Anglican, this is a very accessible Easter message.
It is the sense of ethics, of Judeo-Christian ethics some say, that is missing to various degrees from around this commercial world.
And this well-spoken, accessible, message reminds us of how much Christian ethics are fundamental to the function of a society. And how, long-term deviation from ethics results in the inevitable decline of given societies.
It is ethics that make, build and …

ANALYSIS, Sydney — Property prices in Sydney (and other Australian capitals) are more expensive than almost any city in the world.

New York? Paris? Boston? Vienna?
In general, better value than Sydney, as has been reported in numerous media stories today. Property prices are at 7.5 average median earnings.
And we’re not talking Park Avenue property here, more like Queens.
Sydney suburban Bondi is a sleazy second rate suburb, not comparable to Park Avenue. Yet property is priced in the millions of dollars.
There seems little doubt that Australian capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and …

COMMENT, Australia — Call centre workers are an unloved occupation. But industry practise, and individual behavior are at least partly responsible.
The reality is basic infrastructure and services no longer work in Australia, which by Western standards has approaching the worst service ethics of any English-speaking country. Even worse than England, and that is saying something.

I still remember the Telstra monopoly float, wasn’t that supposed to improve telecommunication industry service?
Now to the latest debacle…
Primus Telecommunications: a herd of slovenly telecommunication cows wandering across the ‘fibre-optic’ dirt-track of Australia
To connect a single …

ANALYSIS, USA — Wealthy white people with academic economic dogma are a plague on all our wallets, let alone houses.

The economics brains trust of our last 8 years or so of US (and British & Australian) economic policy have been a few rich white guys, right-wing academic economists from big universities like Harvard. These folks theories are to blame for severity of the coming US recession.
Why?
Most universities (like Harvard) have a fair mix of dissent; but the current US administration selected all economists (and think-tanks) with far-Right free market views.
Clinton, …

VIDEOS, YouTube – An interesting video on the twentieth century, popular online.
Largely a narcissistic century in this view, increasingly focussed on the self.
English with Spanish subtitles.

COMMENT, Melbourne — Let’s face it privatized public transport has failed.
It’s not the same elsewhere in the world — where Public Transport is clean, reliable and safe.

Public transport succeeds in similar towns in Germany.
But not in Australia. Public transport can work, but does not now work in Melbourne & Victoria. There are issues in the approach of the State Government, private contractors and the various ideologically-driven desperadoes on this issue.
The biggest issue is the ideological gunfight set-up by far-Right gunslingers like Alan Moran, of the disingenuously-titled ‘Institute for Public Affairs’.
And …

COMMENT, USA, UK, Australasia– Why does the West play up the gender divide?
We receive input from a variety of professional bodies. One of the has become not the professional peak body it’s supposed to be, but the pretend Institute of Gender Issues.
Fully 70% of their recent industry publication is focussed on women’s issues.
It’s too much.
Gender Divide is damaging relationships
The only mission of this industry body is to focus on promoting it’s own agenda of female superiority. It only interviews women and features only business women in most of it’s publications …

ANALYSIS, Global — It is always a folly to assume the past is an extension of the present.

Thinkers call this the problem of induction. i.e. Assuming that the past is a predictor of future performance. It’s why if you draw a straight line above a graph, invariably the graph will deviate if it’s measured over a long enough time frame.
Don’t be economically disappointed
This flawed human tendency to view the current set of circumstances as normal is why many countries now place on financial products a disclaimer: “Current financial performance is …

COMMENT, Global – The places where we eat and live are our cities.
2thinknow rank and recognize innovation cities. Cities are important.
But there is a smaller unit that is critical to social change. This true key to positive change in our society is the role of where we eat and talk.
Families around the kitchen table.
It’s where families come together, eat, fight and discuss.
And despite feminism, it is still largely a female manager of the home and kitchen table. Let’s be realistic!
That’s why, as Western democracies are run by a cabinet of …

COMMENT, Melbourne — Corporations are often unhealthy, sick work environments. Not physically. At least not in the West. Emotionally.
Whilst corporations may have cleaned up the physical environment, we have created an unhealthy psychological and emotional environment.

Leaving many corporate workers of having the feeling of being empty and alone. Hollow vessels at times, especially over many years. And leading to unhealthy and socially irresponsible behaviours.
Instead the outcome of the upper echelons of the modern corporate workforce often seem to reward bitter, manipulative, win-at-all-costs people.
Why corporate workforce health matters…
We spend a lot …

COMMENT, Saudi Arabia — Add to the long list of things Saudi women cannot do.

Buy Starbucks with a man.
On that list you could add vote.
Drive a car.
Often, being seen with a man is enough for a woman to be punished.
In this case, a woman was punished for having a coffee at Starbucks in Saudi’s capital, Riyadh, with a male work colleague.
Punished?
Hand-cuffed. Lead away. Strip search. Lock-up. Interrogation.
Who does this if found guilty of un-islamic conduct punishment is barbaric.
We don’t want to westernise Saudi Arabia. I couldn’t care if they …

VIDEOS, Youtube — We all like Lego. But not only is it a great toy to teach your children spatial and logic skills, now it’s a tool.
The increasingly complex robotic tools made available by Lego Mindstorms allow your child to become a little engineer at a young age.
And quite a few university labs use them for various projects.
This great example is using Mindstorms to solve a Rubiks Cube.

Web 2.0 enables all new types of communication, for many reasons, the medium is indeed the message…

COMMENT, Serbia — Healthy and delicious serbian food! Serbians eat big meals. Huge meals in fact. Bigger than Americans often!
Yet Serbs are generally fit, healthy and not fat. No obesity problems.

And Serbians even eat Hamburgers, although with a lot less ‘bad stuff’ inside!
Serbians are mostly healthy as a result of the homecooked dishes they eat. With no additives and not from the supermarket. Although, this is changing.
Generally Serbians who live in Serbia do not have obesity problems despite the fact they eat large portions of meat. Serbians who live in …

COMMENT, Global – A couple of months ago I was in San Francisco at a business event. The topic was citizen journalism. The women next to me was writing paper notes.
However, every single person, almost in that room was writing on a laptop.
The wireless internet crashed in the first 15 minutes. A few people were asked to turn off ‘Bit-torrent’ a heavy duty file downloader/sharer. Napster-ish.
We’ll contrast that later with an event in Australia last week.

ANALYSIS, Melbourne, Australia — We have to look at technology as something to utilize for a practical outcome.
Australia needs new ICT policies.
Why we don’t have an ICT Export industry!
According to the AIIA, domestic production of ICT is worth between 4 and 5% of GDP.
ICT exports were once around $7.8 billion per annum, in 2000, according to AIIA.
Now, under Howard, these have declined to $5.4 Billion according to Austrade.
There’s no reason we cannot more than double ICT exports in 5-10 years through government policy.
Canada is a country closes to Australia in …