Who needs Chicken Little when you’ve got The Age’s Peter Hartcher.

On March 7 The Age front page (also in the SMH) was devoted to an illustration of a massive red map of China with war planes flying towards Australia and a banner – Red Alert.

The basis for the story was a series of interviews with a panel of five experts (that’s right five) “brought together by The Age for a special review of Australia’s national security, who blew away the fog of war to give Australians some critical points of insight.” You got the cliches as a bonus apparently. read more

One of the blog’s best friends died just over a year ago. Don’s family kindly agreed to the blog writing an obituary, with their assistance, which was published in The Age year. As a commemoration the blog republishes both the obituary and the eulogy the blog was honoured to be able to deliver at Don’s funeral service. read more

It has been some decades since the arts community was last under such pressure from government cutbacks; ideological attacks; and attempts to undermine peer-reviewed assessments of funding needs.

This puts pressure on both large and small arts organisations and for many their survival is at risk. Writers’ Victoria is not immune from these pressures. But what is remarkable is the resilience it has shown; the fact that it now has the largest membership in the organisation’s history; and, that it is experiencing – and meeting – strong and growing demand for its services and courses. read more

A few weeks ago I was at the PRIA Conference in Adelaide to attend the annual Fellows Dinner

I was sitting opposite someone who has been in the industry for about as long as me – which incidentally is about 20 years more than the RMIT program has been in existence. Like a few of the older members of the industry who seem to think the past was better than the present he was bemoaning the quality of students coming into the industry and holding forth, while waving a glass of wine, on their shortcomings. read more

While there has been much scholarly study of how change managers transform organisations, there has been no simple guide to what change managers do. This guide has been prepared to remedy that lack.

A discussion paper prepared in May 2010 on behalf of local community groups.

A submission to the VCAM Review panel in February 2010.

A look at the July Melbourne Winter Masterworks event, published in The Age in 2009.

A review of public relations education, published in the Asia-Pacific Public Relations Journal in 2003