*This post was contributed by Megan Jones, who writes about the online college degree. She welcomes your feedback at Meg.Jones0310 at gmail.com

something that someone plans or intends to do; an aim or purpose

I think the core meaning in the word here is lost in Chambers dictionary. The main thing that bothers me about ‘intent’ is that it sounds like a ‘design’ or something that was made as a fit to a purpose.  To me, an intent is more fluid and therefore inherently more complex.  That is, when I intend to do something I am not completely sure of my purpose.  I may understand an element of it, and have clues as to my intent, but until I take action I am not sure or cannot know what my intent was.   My intentions often become obvious to me after I act. I will often say nasty things to people, then my intent was clear, I wanted to hurt that person (don’t get me wrong I am not Gordon Ramsey!).

Other times you act and the very actions you take reveal what your intention is… it’s not always a matter of pre-defined purpose or action.   So what does this actually mean? I think, it means we won’t always know what we think, until the stuff of life finds you out.  Ok, so this is me ranting… I write obscure fringe papers for a living… what can I say!

There are times when we nest, that we are doing so for many (no doubt) mental reasons: security, comfort, shelter and whatever else you can think of that makes you nest.  Often you will hear sports stars talking of how the ‘knew’ it was time to go.  I think sometimes they actually mean they realise the signs of change and they acknowledge the time to move on, mind you if they have money to do it, it does make the decision somewhat easier doesn’t it?

What happens to nesters?

I have a theory about that.  Nesters may be the people that die with the music still in them.  The grumpy old people you see who complain all the time, or the middle aged who whinge and complain about the state of the life or the young who know somehow that something is wrong and can’t work out what.  I don’t know.  What I know is that when I nest, I get grumpy, I stall, my personal development becomes endless reasoning to think through a problem that isn’t properly structured or designed for me to solve.  In essence, whether in our policy-making or personal lives when we nest – our growth comes to a grinding halt.

How do we break from a nesting cycle?

I would think that when we ‘nest’ our development cycle is stuck on repeat.  However, it may not always be the case.  You may need a few years of no growth in order to recover from a long period of sustained growth or alternatively it may be a lifestyle choice.  In that sense, nesting isn’t always bad.  It can be dangerous in some cases though to remain stagnate.  Especially when the pressure and the drive to grow is showing itself.

A key skill is recognising the time to change is when you know it and don’t do it.  A strange feeling of cognitive dissonance waves over you (well it does for me)… you can sense it intuitively.  For me your inward emotions are saying, ‘it’s time’ but your head is full of fear and worry.  Here’s where courage and common sense meet.  A hard place, but one that you have to move on if you are committed to personal development.  So the answer?  You have to commit to change.  The pain of not changing versus the pain of changing?  Which pain do you choose… because doing nothing is still a choice.  In short, you need to follow it through when you can and rely of serendipity and faith to provide the rest.  Plans are a great place to start… but random categories of action is even better!

In closing the Sunday afternoon post, I would like to you to examine yourself.  Are you nested or nesting?  If you are then is it productive to do so?  Is it the right thing for you right now?

25 Scientifically Proven Ways to Make Yourself Smarter

Worth a look… hey at least for me… I need this!

Redcliffe’s tent city.

If you are unsure where Redcliffe is in Australia (no not in Victoria) then check this website out:

Redcliffe near the beach

In this article we see people who are homeless living in tents near the beach.  What caught my attention was the sheer irony of this.  Here we have beaches and a seaside community with a collection of homeless people living by the beach.  Incredible isn’t it?  Now for once I am not inclined to rant (or ramble) but I will say as much as this: Where do we go when hard times fall on us?  I remember when I was studying the generosity of my relatives who cared for and looked after me.  It certainly makes you think.

Why Politics hinders creativity

Often solutions that should happen aren’t the ones that are implemented.  This is sometimes for reasons beyond our control.  However, it’s been my experience that some solutions that are creative challenge political arrangements.  I have heard it said this way, what is politically attainable and culturally feasible (nod to Checkland) doesn’t necessarily mean the best solution.  Often we dream up the best answers to problems and even in some cases we completely redesign things giving fantastic ideas.  These ideas are wonderful but workplace arrangements and politics hinder there uptake.  In essence an idea can be the ‘best’ answered in theory but through the reality of politics, it will not ever get off the ground.

Creativity isn’t unbounded

The lesson here is the creativity should be nurtured, I cite Google and 3M as examples (see also Semco, Virgin and other such places).   Often though, it isn’t nurtured, it’s squandered and crushed into Dilbert sized cubes.  In the rawest most artistic sense creativity is unbounded but only by itself.  When we apply it to a situation where other people are there to interpret it, it’s subject to their opinions and judgements.  Yet, if the artist is faced with a canvas or a page, they are truly unbounded.  Yet, when the art is released, it’s turn over to the political realities of social structures.  People engage with it, they interpret and reinterpret it and make their own judgements about it.

In essence you can’t predict how creativity will be received even if it seems it really obvious that it’s the best thing to do.  The fact is, there are a lot of areas in our society where we don’t do what is best.  For instance, in abandonded petrol station about a one kilometre from my house were 17 homeless children.  In this country, with our abundant welfare and support it shouldn’t happen but it does.  It’s very sad.

What’s creatively best may not be politically feasible and it may not be accepted socially… even if it’s a great concept.  These realities are not minor hindrances to creativity, they are the foundation of it.  Truly creative solutions must pay attention to things like culture and politics.  If they don’t they run the risk of not being redunant.

In saying all of this, sometimes there is a solution that should be taken up, but often isn’t because of politics.  People protect themselves from change sometimes because of the political structures they build around themselves.  They select the right deputy,  a certain person for a certain task and a cavelcade of yes men and women.  This is an enemy of creativity because it stands in it’s way and hinders it, to no positive end.   Yes, if you have read this far, I have contradicted myself and said that creative solutions need to consider politics and then how political structures hinder it.   Yet, as so often happens in real life, it is contradictory.   We want real change, we seek it because we know we need it, yet we fear it and build structures around ourselves to make sure we don’t change.  What ensues is usually disaster, and we need look no further than recent world events like global warming, financial crises and epidemics.

What can we do to be truly creative?

While we need to be sensitive to politics, social and cultural concerns and we should not ignore them,  on the other hand to be innovative and clever in our practices we need to question our assumptions and learning.  Doing so, offers us the unique opportunity to change.   I have to be cynical at this point and say most people I meet talk of change, but in reality return back to a revised version of the same thing over and over again.  True reframing, political restructure and redesign is rare because it means a complete shift of assumptions, a change in the frame of reference we used to assess things.  Why is this case?  Ask a psychologist, I have no idea!

It is clear to me that people what to be capable of change.  Yet, I am not certain of it.   I hope for it… but I doubt I will see real change in my life time.  There are times when I have seen changes, real creativity at work… yet 95% of the time we fail to change.  I have not given up hope to see real creativity in my life time and as a matter of fact I am committed to see it, wherever I may find it.  However, I suspect that real change and creativity escapes us time and time again.   I would welcome comments with your thoughts.

How do we box ourselves into obscurity?

The way I did it, was primarily through three ways.

Way # 1 – The language we use

A colleague pointed out to me the other day that I had reduced my potential on the academic market 400% (not his words mine) because I kept referring to the work I was doing as methodology rather than applicability.  He encouraged me to use more general terms accepted by the wider community and find more acceptable language to promote myself.  So instead of saying, “conceptual frame shifting” which is academic language I could use, “changing your perspective”.  Now my audience of interest is about 400 times wider than it was before.

Way # 2 – Having  a bad attitude

Another thing that I did which boxed me into obscurity was the idea that everyone didn’t have a clue… but me.  This is stupid.  You are not the only person who knows something about your area.  Chances are, you feel alone and rightly so in some cases… maybe even out of place.  However, you are the not the only one.  A paper I wrote recently was published in a journal that most people, or so I thought, didn’t really read.  After it was published I received several emails from people all over the world saying how the core idea of the paper was helpful to them.  They were from agricultural science, information systems, technical and management backgrounds to name just a few.  Now, I never thought I would ever get an email from anyone about anything I had written, let alone someone in agricultural science!  The people are out there, you just have to patient and look for them.  Most people are not going to hunt you down,  you have to find them.

Way #3 – Refusing to network

This one is particulary hard for me because I am not an out-going person.  I don’t like going to parties and I certainly don’t like swapping business cards!  That’s me.  However, if you want to work with interesting people you have to build bridges here.  It’s hard, but the world is not external to us, we made, co-create and develop it.  Without people there are no partnerships, no buildings, no work, no progress … only nature!  Now unless you worship the sun or don’t need a network to take your ideas and use them, then you need to find partners to work with.    This is hard but the fact of the matter is people support other people, there is no magic here, it’s a simple matter of maths!

There are many more things we do to box ourselves into obscurity.  However, these are the ones that I have used and more recently realised were attitudes that were hampering my development.  I have to be honest here and say more often than not, I will avoid people.  BUT I am learning and getting better at this, and I hope you are too.

A few years ago I wrote a post about what I was learning from integrating a Tiki Wiki into the curriculum of a course called Mobile Workforce Technologies.  Time has passed, wheels have churned and work was done.  GUESS WHAT!  A paper came from that experience that started on this very blog…

Read the paper here

The idea that came to me while we were using the wiki, shaped the final outcome here and I am very happy with this paper.  Ideas are not just little things we keep and then throw away.  They are things from which BIGGER THINGS can grow.  Like papers for example.  More than that though, ideas have a way of being carried sometimes way beyond what you intended and can reach bigger and better heights when you let them go.  This small victory is a case in point.

Ideas are important and we need to be constantly building, shaping and guiding the ideas we have.  We need to stretch boundaries, go beyond what we accept and create more about what is known, we need to build better things from the dust of our past failures.  We need to destroy creatively the past sometimes and make new things grow where they need to.  Standing still doesn’t work, observing doesn’t work… it’s action and the engagement of new ideas!  Get out there and build something awesome right now! DO IT!

A list that makes my previous list feel less adequate

1. The art of starting a business (and not failing!)
2. Internet and internet business
3. Human problem solving and how that works
4. Fiction writing
5. Creativity and design
6. Gaming
7. Technology (cool stuff not fixing or repairing computers or programming… I HATE THAT)
8. Family stuff and values
9. Existence and reality
10. Theology, the human spirit and matters of Faith
11. Music and guitar playing
12. Film (pimpslap!)
13. Aid work
14. Having fun

This is all I could think of right now!  Our lives are rich are they not?  However, in all the fluff I read there is something I have found to be of value. Recently, in our standard occupational health and safety text, I was led to a section on strategic planning. This sectionthat had some interesting information on how to meet objectives.  You have to formulate the steps as a “To” statement (that was my interpretation, upon reflection it probably didn’t say that!!!) To me I think I could summarise what I would want (i.e. the deep down desires) as the following “To” statements:

1. To start new and interesting business ventures
2. To write new and interesting fiction
3. To learn new and interesting things every single day
4. To somehow contribute to the spirituality of people in a positive way

Now comes the next part.  I need the “how”.  Dammit!  Oh well… at least I have begun my life structuring exercise.  I can’t leave it here, I need a how statement of some sort.  The “How” puts legs on the “To” statement. For example how would I learn new and interesting things every single day:

How: Make a conscious effort to seek new opportunities to learn interesting things every day by making time to learn something (basket weaving, French, eschatology, step aerobics or fly fishing for example),  for a small amount of time everyday.

Now this is a commitment.  I am committed!  Learning is a way of life for me and I love it.  But I only love it while it’s new.  Hence, why I want to start new and interesting businesses.  I hate the boredom of repetition found in work  routines and the mundane grind of administration… if I could I would outsource the ruddy lot of it!   In fact I probably do… let’s not talk about that, let’s talk about the how statement.  Now, I must work out the how as I possess more clarity that I previously thought I did when I started writing this thirty minutes ago.   I am ending this post now because I must meditate on the “how”!

I submitted this video to win $20,000 and it was made at home on a Macbook Pro using: iMovie HD, Boinx TV and Garageband and I used a Kodak V1073 ($300 HD digital camera).   It was the most fun I have had in a while (being a star and all ).  When I submitted it to Doritos, they raised a question about the violence.  Personally, I think it’s funny but I am fan of comic violence.  What do you think… too violent?  The word, “pimpslap” didn’t really help I don’t think…

I find this interesting because in a way David, and probably a dozen or so solipsist philosophers, have a point. We can create realities from somewhere (the guts) that harm us… terribly. We can believe we are worthless or not of any value which is dangerous.

Why a false concept is dangerous

A false concept as Roy Bhaskar and someone else once said, is one that does not appear to reach a sense of what we call reality.  I shall it the Matix (I have filed the patent).  If our concept of our personal Matrix is false it too can be dangerous because it can put us at odds with our fellow colleagues, friends, neighbours, reverends, cheese, and the most important thing… life itself.  That aside, I think we fail to represent reality to ourselves with the wrong meaning, one that poisons our minds, we harm ourselves.

Low self esteem as a concept is dangerous par example…

We can believe in things that are harmful.  If I believe that I am worthless then to me I have that ‘reality’ as a false assessment of myself.  If I think of myself as useless then that false concept harms me  It will create in your mind a hotbed of lies about what people think about you, what they say, how they act and what they do.  More to the point this false concept is DANGEROUS.  It makes you think about things that may or may not actually be what other people think… it could be that people think you to be a toss.  If that is so, and it may be, is it any business of yours?  Probably, but I digress.

What I am saying here is that there are some “things” we believe which harm us dreadfully.  When you agree with people who create false concepts for you to believe in,  you are saying, “yes I am useless”.  You believe it then VOILA it is so.   If you believe it, it becomes reality to you.  You then take false reality to work, to bed, to the shower, to the toilet, to the kitchen, to the car, to the shops, to the doctor, to the lawyer and so on.  I am haunted by plenty of false realities… yet I am hoping through the use of my mind, spirit, body and will I overcome these ‘demons’ and begin enjoying life.  No false concepts here… keep moving.

In concluding this post I want to encourage you not to believe your own press… if it’s bad.  Bhaskar, for all his vagueness and Theosophy has a point… we shouldn’t believe false concepts.  Things we know that don’t help or cause us to lack effectiveness.  I implore you, don’t let the evil people in this world of asshattery convince you of false concepts.  You have value… and not just transcendent value either (I am looking at you Roy), I speak of actual value.     Some concepts are false, bad, evil, wrong, sick and nasty.  Don’t allow your reality to be invaded by them.

Courtesy: http://www.austinabney.com

Whatever it is… have a safe easter and if you live in Queensland avoid the Bruce Highway.  The traffic lately has been horrendous.

All the best

Luke

courtesy http://missdebbie.net/

A while back I started reading self-help books.  Now, I need as much help as the next guy HOWEVER… I am starting to wonder why this phenomena has become so successful.  Yeah I know (potential flamers) that thousands of people realised this long before I did.   Anyway, as a preclusion to the following let me say that I think that you can get a lot of value from reading self-help books.  But, one thing has bothered me… so much so that I am about to say it in CAPS:

I DON’T HAVE A VISION!!!

Phew.  That’s better. Nine out of every ten self-helpers will promote the idea of ‘manifesting’ or ‘having a vision’.  What if there’s nothing there?  I stopped (as in put the book back on the shelf and closed it NEVER to open again) reading a book that began with … all you need is a vision.   I suspect that I have dreams, passions and desires.  I sure as hell do (read this for more information).  Nevertheless I have been thinking about this for a while… I have no great desire to do anything much.  Sure, if I could land an agent and sell my book to a willing publisher that would be good.  Getting promoted recently was also pretty sweet and having children is lots of fun.  Yet, inside the great vast of my spirit is the essence of nothing.

I am not alone.  I know of heaps of people that are clueless about the reason they exist.  From the time I was sixteen until now I have had desires, only to find out after a period of time that I no longer wanted to do that.  Perhaps I am a transcient?  Anyway enough glamourous navel gazing let’s think outside the box.

Visions for sale

Perhaps the core part of the problem lies in the belief that our lives are said to have a grand ‘awesome’ plan to them.  What if we decided to anti-vision?  OR Anti-plan?  Let’s imagine that there is already a plan and the plan is to find out how NOT to plan?  I feel at peace the most when I am relaxing and not worrying too much about what tomorrow will bring.  Maybe anti-planning is the answer?  Planning to not have a plan… living by … emergence?  As things cross our paths we can deal with them and begin to build a better existence for ourselves.  Why do we need a vision?  Yes, I know, I have said having a vision is important… but hey MAYBE I AM WRONG!  I think what we find in the majority of self-help literatures is the manifestation of false hope syndrome. We believe in hope and hope lies to us.

We believe in what they say so badly we think we need a grand narrative and meaning to our lives.  Go to a cemetary one day for fun.  Look at the tombstones.  These are ordinary people that died, perhaps they had a dream, perhaps they didn’t.  What’s important now is that they are food for worms.  They are no more.  However, this is not a depressing thing.  It means simply that life can be ordinary.

Life is ordinary… most of time

I can count the amount of times I have had ‘defining moments on one hand.  Marriage, when my kids were born, getting my first real job etc.  Yet, none of these things teaches me about me.  It teaches me, that life is like a punctuated equilibrium with long delays inbetween the spikes.  Why do we strive to work SO hard to have all this stuff that destroys us in the end.  Why?  Is being ordinary so damned terrible that we have to avoid it.  We can’t all be Richard Branson or GOD FORBID Bill Gates.  No, you can’t all be rich millionaries.  SORRY.  Through hard work, divine favour (perhaps), money and good connections you can be something you think you should be… although I am wondering about the hard work part.   Everything I have I worked for, yet in that, the best things I have at the moment were given to me.  Hmm… DOWN WITH WORK!

I guess the point of this post is to highlight the beauty of the ordinary.  There is real worth in being nobody in particular.   Ambition is a double edged sword that on one hand makes you want something but on the other takes you to extraordinary lengths to achieve it. Why do that?  Be normal, be beautiful!

Why should we sell our souls for a vision?

Synthesis as Conception Shifting at JORS

This is a culmination of my PHD.  Now I can’t access this for security reasons *cough* *cough* COPYRIGHT!

I had to tell someone and I only told two people so far.  This is an acheivement for me so I feel awesome about it.

*Courtesy the cheezburger people

It’s interesting to note what people would do for money.  Decieve others, rip people off, sell drugs, hire hookers, snort coke (ok too much underbelly) and the like.  The question is what would you do for money?  How far would you go for cash?

The reason I am asking is recently a thought had crossed my mind to do with some rather dubious online marketing tactics.  After a period of time I realised that if I was going to do the said thing in question… then I would be deliberately have to deceive someone in order to make some money.  The bible has a bit to say about that so do many other books.  But, in my mind the question that I thought to ask was: what would YOU do for money?  I have lied for money before and felt like crap afterwards!  I have done all kinds of things for it.   YES.  Probably the worst thing I did was steal from my parents when I was a kid (hey they had it coming!). What about you?  What would you do for money?

It’s good to be back.  So what have I been doing?  Well, that’s interesting.  Far too interesting to mention in my comeback post.  I will say this however, I have been busy! I have read a lot, spent some and thought a little.  A month of very busy work times made me realise how much I missed this bizarre form of human communication.  I can say, without too much doubt, I am glad to be back.   So what’s new?

Not much.  Good times.  More to come from me – I am not done yet and you can take this to the bank:

Where’s there’s a will there’s a way

A special thanks to all the people who emailed or commented (yes all five of you).  These comments make me realise that in the difficult times you can still have a blog that some people will read.

All the best for 2009 (late I know but hey… we still have 8 months or so to go!).

Given that at the moment it isn’t adding value or making me interested I need some time to sort out if I want to continue down this road. I will see after a short break if it’s worth my while continuing.

All the best.

Luke

Phase 1: Don’t stay in the same place

Where most business, universities and the like fail is that they baulk when it comes to change.  Change for the sake of change can be a good thing because it can get you into the mindset that everything can be improved.  Somethings will never innovate (COKE) and in this sense I am not entirely sure that they could change it and have great results.  However, by adding value to the same product (macadamia meet chocolate) you have something innovative.  They added vanilla flavouring to Coke and viola!  We have innovation!  Be prepared to launch.

Phase 2: Staleness is your enemy

According to some authors (Tim Ferriss) you can automate things.  I am wondering if the automation of things makes us forget that some things have a shelf life and a process is only as good as its lifecycle.  If this is so, then I am certain that a lifecycle, has a start and an end point.  Everything gets stale.  Life, marriage, Web 2.0, bananas.  The bottom line is when you allow “staleness” to come and form into predictable patterns you are hindering learning, which in turn hinders innovation.  I have heard it said this way, “a good teacher prepares the cirriculum then bounces their ideas off their students to deliver the best possible course”.  About 4 people said that… and I can’t remember in which order.  That doesn’t matter… what matters is that when we enforce rigidity, patterns and process managerialism we are forced into cycles of defensive mechanisms and staleness is born.

Phase 3: Run towards your fears

I have a lot of fears.  The biggest is that I will remain bored and stuck doing things that I have no interest in (hence the evil survey from careerone nailed my ass on this one).  I have to create new things to do because I am the kind of person who likes new challenges… for this reason I have taught everything from E-Commerce to Occupational Health and Safety.  You could argue that I lack discipline… fatness may also prove this to be so.  However, when you are faced with a fear of change or failure you feel paralysed.  You feel helpless… the key to remaining innovative is to act and to act decisively.   Run towards your fears and go through it with gusto.  Balls out!  This gets the innovation train (hat tip: Alison) chugging along at full pace.  It does… fear is the primary killer of innovation.

Phase 4:  Shift concepts when required

Another key to innovation is to remain open to new concepts.  When we form defenses, we form a solid unbreakable model of the issue at hand and we think that this problem will create for us a genuine threat/opportunity matrix for us to decode.  In reality such things don’t exist… they are mere tools for the analysis of problems.  Are you stuck in an either/or, black vs. white cycle?  Move past either or to AND!  Or simply, take both options you are stuck with and add something that is completely different ala lateral thinking.  Shift!

In closing this short (obscure) post I would like to say that true innovation is a way of life.  If you define yourself too early in the game then you leave yourself with no way forward in the future EXCEPT the past.  A concept has power.  Innovation is measured by actions more than thought… deeds more than models… yet every innovation starts with a single person(s) decision to think about change.  Why don’t you think about change?

Leaders know the way

What we really need at work at the moment is someone to stand up and show us the way forward.  Most of us don’t have the faintest idea what the hell to do or what is going to work.  Leaders know what needs to be done and they know there is a path.  Even if a leader doesn’t know what the path is and where it will lead they have insight, foresight and direction.  We need a leader to help us in these times and most importantly we need direction.

When you don’t know what to do … you need a leader

In my life I have been spiralling downwards with a clear lack of direction for about twelve months.  I won’t lie, this has been one of the worst experiences of my life to date.  What I have learned in this time is that taking advice from other people is great… but I really need is leadership.  Some turn to various places to get that kind of leadership but for me I find people that are willing to listen and can offer some sound advice.   Still, you can’t live your life around these things you need to “man up” and make decisions that you are accountable for.

A good leader helps you to see the bigger picture

One thing I have come to find very annoying is people who deliberately leave out key information about a topic in order to protect ideas they think are valuable… why share it in the first place.  DAMMIT!  I don’t know how many times I have read something on the internet about how to this or make something and the end result is different.   My wife’s grandmother used to leave key ingredients out of recipes all the time for example!

However, a good leader will be able to call you out and help you to see the bigger picture at all times.  They will be able to point the direction towards what you need… not necessarily what you want.   A good leader can show you the way and point you towards the steps you need to take in order to make it work for you.  They will give you keys and help you to see the very best.  In short a good leader will help you to think strategically.

I think that in every area of life there are leaders.  You would be hard pressed not to find one.  However, how many good ones are there?  I leave you to work that out.

What this actually means in terms I can understand is this:  Housing has gone up in this country while the income we make has not multiplied by the same amount.  That is, if we are to measure housing affordability and median income over time we are to see that this graph shows that while housing prices have risen, income has not by same factor.  The following is even more staggering:

This report shows a stunning fact that the place I grew up (well since 1985-1995) is now the least affordable region in the entire world! The numbers in the top column that read 9.6 represent the amount of median income you would need to purchase a house in that area.  The another represents a rank score in terms of overall affordability (please see the report for more details).   An example from my own life is someone I know bought a place for around 2.4 times their income in 1990 on the Sunshine Coast and now it would take 6.4 times their income in same location.  They have had pay rises and dual income, yet the gap continues to widen.

That aside (POP goes my dream), here is another astounding fact about this report. The city I presently live in (Brisbane), scores marginally better:

I thought this to be bullshit at first but I looked into it.   I checked my income (as a family) and did the maths.  A house in our area is 6.1 times what I earn when compared to the median price of 430k.   6 times!  This is a major concern for those of us that are this far behind the eight ball.  Yet, if we take the strategic view and say that 68% (as of 2006) are mortgage owners then 32% are in the minority which has me fighting a losing battle.  I would like to say though that if we don’t take steps to correct this situation, as the demographia report suggests (i.e. government control of land ownership, increasing of supply of land and other solutions… read it!) then we are placing plummeting home ownership rates in conjunction with plummeting rental availability which also ties into things like government housing (a 9 year wait at present) and a host of other issues (homelessness for example).

Towards a solution

I think it’s time we discussed this and began addressing the plummeting levels of affordability in Australia and the regions beyond.  We simply cannot allow this situation to become so bad that we see housing affordability slip below the 50% mark.  I think we need to engage stakeholders like government, developers, economists, practitioners, renters and home owners to begin to come up with new ideas to beat this crisis… yes we need a strategic systems view and a systems solution.   Yet, I can’t see one… can you?