Bismarck’s comment about sausages and legislation is probably apocryphal but it keeps being repeated because it is so apt.

How apt the blog discovered when it spent four and a bit hours at its local Council’s meeting to make a three minute submission which was misunderstood by one councillor; provoked a Kumbaya moment in another who was having palpitations about ‘negativity’ when obviously we should all be channelling ‘positivity’; and subjected to managerialist obfuscation by staff commenting on the subject. read more

Ten weeks ago the Canberra Press Gallery was swooning in appreciation of Malcolm Turnbull’s double dissolution strategy.

Last week the conventional wisdom was that the Government would be comfortably re-elected. The blog rated the probability of that at between 60 and 70% but expressed a niggling doubt (partly prompted by Tim Colebatch’s insightful piece in Inside Story) that it might be closer than we all thought.  Tim’s latest Inside Story piece is also very useful for analysing what might happen. For the blog this niggling doubt was reinforced initially by the close election eve polls and then the closeness of the exit polls. read more

As the Federal Election has been largely a leadership-free zone the blog has been visiting, and re-visiting, some important new reports on leadership in other areas – particularly in the areas of technology and the public sector.

The blog has referred before to the rich resources to be found on Brian Donovan’s leadership website and the series of Big Kahuna leadership survey reports he has produced. The latest survey is on digital disruption as a leadership challenge. It’s based on in depth interviews with influential leaders about digital disruption and the need for “game-changing digital and technology strategies”. But, as the report says, the big question is whether organisations have the leadership capability to respond and turn digital and technology strategies into opportunities for business growth. read more

While think tanks add many things to the political debate, activist groups rarely do. Worse we have to put up with the ‘Get Up illusion’ in which some activists believe that signing an online petition, or crowdfunding an ad, is effective political action or a way to deal with African war criminals. read more

The 2016 Federal election campaign will go down in history as one characterised by the exceptional depth and breadth of policy debate and analysis. Eh? Sorry, the blog was not referring to the political party campaigns but rather the contributions of various think tanks.

For those despairing of negativity, puerile slogans, scare campaigns and robotic responses turn off the TV, put the papers in the recycling and turn to the very impressive contributions made by think tanks such as the Grattan Institute, the Australia Institute, Australia21 and assorted others. read more

In the next week we are going to see a disconnect between the emotional and the structural views of politics – and the media’s capacity to understand which is which – as the Brexit referendum result becomes known.

The blog has previously written about the paradox that the people most likely to vote Leave are older people, while those most likely to vote Remain are most likely to be young and less likely to vote of which more later. read more

The Netherlands holds the record for the longest continuous economic expansion in modern times – almost 26 years ending in 2008. Australia – despite what both political parties have been saying for decades about the damage they each do – might well break that record sometime early next year.

But who would you trust to predict whether it would happen and whether, if it did, how much longer it might last? The Reserve Bank is a possibility although in contrast the track record of academic, bank and other private sector economists is appalling. In most years they are lucky to get the trend, let alone the final numbers, right. read more

A Nobel Prize winner; one of Australia’s leading composers; the Chancellor of one university and the Vice Chancellor of another; two former Victorian Premiers; several former Federal Ministers and ditto Victorian Ministers; assorted authors and journalists; a few lawyers and judges; and, assorted others attended a book launch at the Hill of Content bookshop in Melbourne a few months ago. read more

There are often times when the blog feels some despair about the PR industry, the people who run it and the skills of those in it.

The latest was when the Issues Outcome newsletter’s Tony Jaques sent him a link to the latest US Holmes Report research report on talent in the industry which demonstrates some insights into structural changes in the industry and, more importantly, some strange findings on the skills employers looked for in that talent. read more

If framing is the most important thing communicators do, audience segmentation comes a close second. If you set the frame you set the agenda, and if you identify the segment of the population you most need to convince, then much else about the communication (eg tone, channel and tactics) just falls out naturally. read more