More on Luxury and Dubai

Following on from my last article on luxury in Dubai, I came across this fascinating article looking at Deepening Luxury in Delhi.  It tells of a presentation by Jem Bendell at the International Herald Tribune conference on Sustainable Luxury in Delhi, India, in March 2009.

The report focuses on the role that luxury brands can play in helping to promote sustainability.  “Luxury brands have the margin and mandate to create the most environmentally friendly products and services.”  And also “I am here because I believe that luxury can lead, not lag, in the transition to a fair and sustainable world.”

The ability for luxury brands to market environmental awareness, promote reliability and longevity, and have strong links with developing economies for the development of their products is well stated.  Some brands are doing it but so much more could be done.  Too often I have found that luxury tends to involve excess and waste rather than longevity and care.

Currently, my son is completing a project on renewable energy and discovering the frustrations of people not willing to take action on sustainability issues.  This “Life is good, I don’t need to worry about the future” attitude seems to be quite prevalent here in Dubai.  Brands tend to be used as status symbols to define someone in luxury rather than as monikers to encourage awareness raising and responsibility across the populace.

I like Jem’s approach of working “towards a new form of luxury that embodies what is personally, socially and environmentally the best of human creativity.”  This deeper luxury requires a change from buying a brand for status to buying luxury for the inherent meaning in the goods and services and to pass on that message of environmental awareness to others through the branding.

Luxury in Dubai

An article in the Gulf News today looks at the preference of many in the Middle East, particularly Dubai, for high-end luxury items.  An international survey found that the response by people that received the highest numbers from people in Dubai was for “luxury is a lifestyle”.  Other countries had a greater preference for a response that classified luxury as “something over and above what you need”.

This penchant for things luxurious is said to be one of the hallmarks of Dubai living, which boasts mega-shopping malls with many high-end brand name stores.  Dubai shoppers are more likely to buy impulsively and less likely to research items before buying an item that has the best value. The virtue of delayed gratification has taken a backseat to the instant elixir of a full shopping bag.

I feel really good about being one of the exceptions to this preponderance of free-wheeling luxury shoppers with more money than sense.  I must admit to never having a great desire for luxury brands and fail to see the need to identify myself with particular brands.  A marketer’s nightmare in other words!  For me, the term “luxury is a lifestyle” makes no sense, perhaps because I try not to live that lifestyle, or perhaps (and this requires some meditation on tonight) that I am living that lifestyle in Dubai and I am not even aware of it!

Blocking Innovation – The Falafel Syndrome

I miss listening to ABC Radio in Australia; either some of the interesting conversations with Jon Faine or some of the Radio National programs but fortunately I can get RN on podcast, particularly All in the Mind.  But there is one somewhat similar program here on the Dubai Eye network called Business Breakfast which tends to focus on business news but does have some good interviews from time to time.

One that I caught recently was with the CEO of Innovation 360, Kamal Hassan.  He was talking about innovation in the Dubai and Arab region which was most interesting following the recent publication of the Arab Knowledge Report.  This report discussed the lack of regional innovation and entrepreneurship.  The CEO mentioned three factors which blocked the effective implementation of innovation;

• Apathy – people are generally apathetic to trying out new ideas.  There are few local “heroes” that model innovation and new business development.
• Search for Best Practice – there is a tendency to import best practices from outside the region.  In fact, he mentioned that the result is the opposite to “Not Invented Here”.  People actively look to replicate the successes from elsewhere which raises all the problems of context, culture and local environment.  Rather than trying new things out and seeing what works, people take the easier option of bringing in expertise from outside.  Classic complicated vs complex issues (Cynefin).  The apathy towards innovation means that “Not Invented Here” does not even register.
• Falafel Syndrome – a great little metaphor for not being innovative.  He described someone setting up a falafel shop on a busy street and doing really well.  What tends to happen next is that someone else sees this success and sets up a similar falafel shop and does moderately well.  Others look to how these guys are faring and set up their own falafel shops on the same street which is all too much for the market and so they all become unprofitable.  There is insufficient thought towards establishing complementary shops like juice bars.  This metaphor furthers the cycle towards apathy as why bother being innovative when others will simply copy your business model.  The lack of effective intellectual property rights and copyright also means that many new initiatives lack good means of protection.

Harnessing Advanced Communications in an Era of Convergence

Today I went to a lecture at Michigan State University for their inaugural Distinguished Lecture Series for the 2009/10 academic year.  The lecture was by Dr. Johannes Bauer, Professor of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at the Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law, Michigan State University.  The title of his talk was Harnessing Advanced Communications in an Era of Convergence.

I was particularly interested in this topic as I assisted in the production of a Convergence Review, a report tabled in Parliament in 2000, during my first position in the National Office for the Information Economy (RIP).

One of Dr Bauer’s research interests is international comparison research.  Different generations of mobile technologies have had different leaders – the first gen was led by the US, second gen was Europe, and third gen was Asia.  It is uncertain who will lead the charge for the next gen of mobile technology.

Historically, government monopolies had run telecommunications.  But since the 1980’s, countries have been looking to remove state ownership and encourage more market forces and the efficiencies and innovation that come from liberalization.  But there are weaknesses with this approach and we are now at a crossroads.  There is a growing sense that the models used in the past do not scale well into the future.  There is now a search for a new balance between the roles of government and of markets/business.  This will involve experimentation with new and innovative approaches, often at a local level with community involvement.

East Asia and Europe have been able to surpass the number of voice access paths of the US after commencing well behind – it’s a success story for them, and not necessarily a disaster for the US.

China now has 55 access paths per 100 inhabitants and India only about 15 – even though back in 1990, both had a similar negligible number of voice access paths.  In 1990, you would have thought that India would have been more successful due to its western style economy.  Yet China’s growth, despite it being state-owned, raises the question whether the forces of government can be used in western countries to improve technology deployment?

He displayed a nice graph from the World Bank (their Information and Communication for Development report 2009) showing that broadband connections provides higher returns to economy than the Internet, then mobile, then fixed lines.  The benefits are even higher in developing economies than developed economies as there are more efficiencies to be gained.  There are social benefits of broadband penetration as well like education, health care, e-government, environmental benefits, public safety and emergency services, community engagement and social networking.

There is a now different paradigm of thinking about the use ICT for economic development.  It’s not just technology centric that sees ICT as critical for economic development based on modernization theory, but one (ICT4D) that is more about the importance of complementary factors like digital literacy, social capital, access to financing – a human-centric and systemic view.

As communities move to adopt even more advanced applications and services, there is a demand for higher speed transmission (including over mobiles) and for this to be more symmetrical (eg for videoconferencing) – and also the need for high quality (eg low latency) such as for video gaming.

There are major challenges in the creation of sustainable business models where organizations try to gain revenue sufficiency, particularly as many business models have high start-up costs.  Another challenge is the need to minimize risks to society like information security and privacy as well as overcoming digital divides.  Because of the Internet’s open infrastructure, we will need to restructure it in order to deal with the threats of malware.

Dr Bauer described the environment as akin to an ICT ecosystem that has three possible areas of state intervention.  These are focused on horizontal regulation (unbundling, access, interoperability), vertical regulation (network neutrality, openness, structural separation, etc) and public policies (tax credits, subsidies, public investment, industrial policy).  Different countries have adopted a mix of approaches:

• US – favour a laissez faire approach with minimal vertical and horizontal regulation
• EU – favours a synergistic approach of comprehensive horizontal regulation and  measured vertical regulation
• Asia – a more interventionist approach with comprehensive and proactive horizontal regulation and measured and proactive vertical regulation

Key points include that any regulatory model needs to be tied to specific national and local conditions.  There is no best policy mix; each has its unique advantages and disadvantages.  But most importantly, the policy choices need to be consistent (not internally conflicting) but with sufficient institutional diversity since no single approach can solve all investment issues. Finally, infrastructure investment needs to be complemented with other measures.

He rightly points out that this regulatory environment is a complex system and we don’t fully understand all the implications of the regulations that are implemented.  Therefore, this makes it critical to monitor and evaluate the policy implementations and to adjust or terminate policies quite quickly.  For example, if a regulator determines to unbundle the network, then there are later issues as to who will invest in new infrastructure resulting in unintended consequences.



The Knowledge Futures Blog Turns 3

Well a lot has happened in those three years.  Back then, I would never have thought that I would now be living in Dubai and that this blog now has 170 posts.  So to both of my readers out there, Happy Birthday to my blog!  We are now out of the terrible 2’s and into the thriving 3’s.

Alternatives to Executive Decision-Making

A number of articles from the latest What’s Emerging  newsletter from Paul at Emergent Futures piqued my interest in the combined topics of decision-making, Powerpoint and creativity.

The first article describes the views of a retired Marine Corps officer who laments the rise in the use of Powerpoint for decision-making by corporate and government leaders.  He claims that the use of powerpoint dumbs down complex topics into simple bullet points, forcing the decision-makers into perusing lots of information of dubious quality to make quick decisions.  Organisations that favour powerpoint breed a culture of having their leaders make more and more and faster decisions which often would be better made at a lower hierarchical level and  which could end up being wrong.  In the past, complex issues would be distilled into briefs that would analyse the topic and provide the decision-maker with time to consider their decision, and offer them the chance to “sleep on it”.

And sleeping on it increases the chance of successfully solving problems as research in this second article finds. Not just any problem but particularly those problems that are new and require creative problem-solving. And not just  sleep but REM sleep is required with the researchers believing that this allows the brain to form new nerve connections without the interference of other thought pathways that occur when we are awake or in non-dream-state sleep.

And so finally, the issue of creativity leads to the last article which explores creative people who Gordon Torr highlights have different biology (they think differently in a less inhibited, more dreamlike and weird manner), different motivation (ideas and expression are more important than money) and different personalities (impulsive, sensitive and ambitious). This is often a totally different character set to that of many senior managers who are often more controlling and target-oriented.

So if we are seeking creative solutions to problems by our decision-makers, many of us are using the wrong instrument.  Managers need to be more receptive to creative solutions and encourage an environment that requires them to make less decisions and focus their attention on the more important decisions.  Can you see your senior manager doing that?

So next time you are asked to prepare a Powerpoint for a decision-making meeting, suggest an alternative tack and prepare a considered two page brief, proffer creative solutions, and let the manager consider the paper well before the meeting. The major problem you are likely to face is if they can make the time to read it before the meeting!

You Get What You Measure

Working in the education space, my interest is piqued by articles such as this one looking at how measures are used for the benefit of the education system, which in this case is to get the best students into the more demanding and higher quality university courses.  But the simple measure, the ENTER score in Victoria, is a blunt instrument.  The article makes the point that students from schools with lower average ENTER scores perform better at university than their counterparts from higher performing secondary schools. Other measures should be used to augment the ENTER score for universities including aptitude tests to determine capabilities, personal essays to demonstrate interest and ambition, and expanded special entry schemes.

Put simply, simple measures are not always effective.  There’s often underlying aspects that mask important variations in the data that need to be uncovered and incorporated to make concrete and longer lasting system improvements.

Progressive Anti-Americans

Lots of various cultural studies have examined the role of the media in forming and informing the social customs of the time. This has evident links with politics and elected leaders attempting to influence debate towards the principles behind their policies. Yet too often this is portrayed in black and white terms, left and right, liberal and labor, democrat and republican, rural and urban, free market versus anti-globalisation.  The world is far more complex than simple dualities.

Which brings me to a look at a recent John Pilger article on anti-americanism.

What is most extraordinary about the United States today is the rejection and defiance, in so many attitudes, of the all-pervasive historical and contemporary propaganda of the “invisible government”. Credible polls have long confirmed that more than two-thirds of Americans hold progressive views. A majority want the government to care for those who cannot care for themselves. They would pay higher taxes to guarantee health care for everyone. They want complete nuclear disarmament; 72 per cent want the US to end its colonial wars; and so on. They are informed, subversive, even “anti-American”.

This links with the earlier work of Paul Ray on cultural creatives and progressives in US society; the “moral majority” who are often portrayed as conservative traditionalists but more often than not are informed social progressives. The people who are:

feminist, ecological, anti-globalization, pro-civil-rights, pro-peace, pro-health-care, pro-education, pro-natural/organic and even pro-spiritual movements that together make up the New Progressives.

From a political point of view, who is representing these people? And do they care sufficiently to make concrete changes in their world, to transform their views from personal beliefs to a social movement?

This article from The National has a different take, questioning whether the rise of disaffection in right-wing traditional areas of the US as a result of the GFC, declining standards of living, globalisation concerns with a loss of manufacturing jobs in the heartland, long-running wars and the election of Obama to the US presidency, could lead to a rebirth of nativist sentiment fuelled by shock-jocks and the tabloid press.

From this uncertainty, one thing is certain though.  The future will be decided by how these cultural forces play out rather than by external technological drivers.  Will there be a sufficient groundswell of public support for progressive points of view embracing social responsibility, ecological sustainability and a love of foreign cultures to overcome traditionalist perspectives that promote fear of the unknown?  Whose spin will win?

Senate Independence and Government Control of Information

A great little quote from a report by Harry Evans who has been Clerk of the Australian Senate for at least the last 20 years. Now that is what I call experience!

More than ever before, independence in the legislature depends on the ability to obtain information that governments would rather conceal. Knowledge has always been power, but the management of information has become the key to government. The executive wants the public to receive only the information favourable to it, and strives to manage the release and the presentation of unfavourable information, and to keep much secret. A functioning legislature is essentially an instrument for breaking down that information management in the interest of the public’s ability to judge governments. It is in this role, however imperfectly, that the Senate, with its committee system and its culture of independence, has performed.

I have always appreciated the Upper House in Australia as a legislature of review or as Don Chipp said “to keep the bastards honest”.  As Australia has a very strong executive government that controls the votes of its backbenchers, this is even more important. The role of parliamentary clerks should not be underestimated as they provide senators with assistance and advice in a professional and apolitical manner in the interests of parliamentary oversight and transparency. These checks and balances strengthen the honesty of governance by asking the “inappropriate questions” that the government may wish to not be raised.

In places like Dubai where I currently reside, there is no bicameral system of government or a form of Westminster system.  The checks and balances cannot come from a Senate-type equivalent which raises the profile of both the media and the public service to promote transparency and provide information to the public so that there is greater awareness of local topics of interest.

Neuroscience of Leadership

And continuing on this theme from my last post on brain science and leadership, I read the paper from Rock and Schwartz on the Neuroscience of Leadership.  Some great points, particularly that behaviourism and humanism are overrated management approaches and that the preferred model of leadership is to encourage people to work out the solutions on their own.  This is not just about empowerment but actively working with people’s brains to harness the energy that is created when problems are solved.  Brains are pattern making organs with an innate desire to create novel connections and can undergo significant change in response to new environmental signals.  The paper states that the key is to focus attention on desirable practices and behaviours as then, the brain changes its physiology to meet the new pattern.  Leave the problem behaviours in the past and focus on identifying and creating new behaviours. 

Overcoming resistance to change is easier when the brain goes through the moment of insight when new connections are created.  But that is not all.  Training may yield these insights but the addition of follow-up coaching helps to embed the insights that occurred in the training session into the brain. 

Many old adages came to mind while reading the article.  Practice makes perfect was one.  Be the change you want to see was another.  Definitely “food for thought!”