Archive for December, 2009
December 31, 2009 at 10:53 am · Filed under Globalisation, Australia
I can’t get family to visit me. It’s not my hospitality. My partner and I are renowned hosts. We have a spare room always on the ready and a bevy of activities for newcomers and old hands alike.
What keeps family away is the journey. From the East Coast of the USA to Sydney is approximately 24 hours travel time (perhaps longer with the new security measures going into place). There’s the flight to LAX which is really a warm-up act to the 14.5 hour flight to Sydney (six movies! four meals!).
When you come to Australia you fly over the International Date Line. If you leave on a Monday you arrive on a Wednesday. What happened to Tuesday? Hell if I know. I think you lose it – forever. (Apparently you get it back when you fly to the USA as your plane lands in LAX several hours before your take-off time/day in Sydney.
Go figure.
Tonight is a lot like flying across the date line. With the tick of a clock hand we say farewell to a year – and a decade. Time Magazine called it the “Decade from Hell”. Reflect back. Enron, September 11, Paris Hilton, Lehman Brothers, George Bush (twice). Won’t go down as my favourite years.
New Year’s Eve is a bit like an Etch-A-Sketch or absolution after confession. Your slate is clean and you get to start again. Fresh starts! New thinking! Changes to the old me!
To me it’s like a flight across the Date Line. It all seems slightly artificial. I won’t drop 5 kilos tonight or have a refreshed bank balance. I’ll wake tomorrow in the same bed with the same family. And that’s really, really okay by me. It’s good.
What tonight is good for is promoting Australia. As New Yorkers freeze in winter we’ll showcase our beautiful city and its amazing displays of fireworks.
Get ready world – Sydney gets to dash first into the new year and the new decade. Feel free to follow!
December 30, 2009 at 1:22 pm · Filed under Australia
Just re-wrote the credentials document for Fleishman-Hillard Australia. The last one was filled with tons of useful information, but little separated it from the pack. What’s uniquely ours? How do you separate your own business, especially when there are 150+ public relations firms in Sydney alone.
Instead of traditional dialogue I used everyday language. And I added an Australian twist. Irreverence.
I remember, years ago, a Big Kahuna visiting the firm I worked for then. He’d flown from Hong Kong to Sydney and was used to being received in other offices in Asia. He didn’t understand the rudeness of the Australian staff! They were direct. Straight-forward. Not disrespectful but neither deferential. Australians are a world away when business leaders expect Asian manners. We’re not that refined. Sorry.
Here’s the section on our team:
WE’RE EACH RATHER CLEVER.
BUT WHEN YOU SEE US TOGETHER, WE’RE PRETTY SPECIAL
In a hot employment market we’ve attracted and retained the best people. And while we expect a lot from them, we give a lot, too. Like training every Wednesday afternoon. Or at a global conference – such as the Digital Immersion in Washington, DC in late 2009. Or the regional leadership conference in Tokyo in early 2010. We have an entire on-line curriculum that turns hard-won insights into practical lessons.
And we’re trying to build tomorrow’s leaders. So we keep inviting interns to work and learn. They seem to like it. They keep coming back.
Fleishman-Hillard is a great career choice. We host international colleagues who bring their skills Down Under for awhile. And we travel ourselves, too. Australia’s part of a great, big region and we’re constantly called on to help solve client issues in other cities, other countries.
Didn’t we say Australians are resourceful?
To give the text some real impact, I paired the words with images from James Brickwood, finalist for the inaugural Young Australian Journalist of the Year Award in 2008. See his portfolio at www.Oculi.com.au.
Whaddyathinkhuh?
December 7, 2009 at 8:24 am · Filed under America, Australia
Changes rocked Australian politics last week. The Leader of the Opposition last Monday was Malcolm Turnbull until Liberal party colleagues voted for a change. Media pundits backed Joe Hockey and, much like the Melbourne Cup, the favourite was nowhere near the finish line.
The new leader of the Opposition is Tony Abbott – conservative, anti-Emissions Trading, anti-union and a practicing Catholic. While religion rarely matters in politics, for a Catholic head of party it may make a difference as Australia has socialised medicine with a broad offering in reproductive medicine.
In August I wrote a post, “Facing an Election? Take Your Shirt Off!” Abbott is a fitness enthusiast known to bicycle 60 kms on the weekend for fun. There is no shortage of photos in the newspapers featuring Tony dashing across the finish line after an ocean swim. Of course he’s wearing the Australian standard – budgie smugglers (aka Speedos). If you’re not up on Aussie slang, a budgie is a type of bird. Put the two words together and you’ll probably get a visual. No? Look at this made-up campaign poster from today’s The Australian.
Later in the week the State of New South Wales (home to Sydney) also forced a change. This time it was the leader of the sitting government. Premier Nathan Rees was dumped in favour of Christina Keneally. Amazingly Christine is originally from Ohio and is the first female Premier in NSW. She still has a Yankee twang.
And like me, she fell in love and married an Australian – and fell in love all over again with Australia. It’s rare you get to choose your nationality!
Keneally shares a famous last name with Australian author Tom Keneally – best known for “Schindler’s Ark” which later became Speilberg’s film “Schindler’s List”. Christine is married to Tom’s nephew and they have two bi-national sons (Aussie-Yanks like my son).
Sad for Keneally is the view she’s a puppet to factional elements within the Labor Party – which was summed up neatly in The Sun Herald this weekend in their cartoon by David Rowe. I like the Yankee dress, the demure pose – and the numerous wingtips under the bustle of her dress.
