Ann Macbeth

MIGRANTS, especially skilled migrants, are good for WA, providing a much-needed boost to the domestic economy.

THE war of the moment – against terrorism – will engender immense change across our political, economic, social, and cultural lives. Some of these changes, such as the demand for higher security at airports, require little thought to understand.

WAR is not necessarily a bad thing. War can be positive in itself and have positive outcomes, depending on what is being attacked and how the attack occurs.

WE residents of the “lucky country” are very slack consumers. Keen, but slack. Our buying criteria are basically: Do I need it? Will the plastic cover it?

NOBODY moves faster than the Generation Xers. Those who were born between 1961 and 1981 are the first generation to create a new economy and then watch it crash – the dot.com experiment.

PASSION is popping up in the most unlikely places and over the most amazing things – like salinity in our wheatbelt.

SMALL is beautiful, so let’s talk big for a moment – big sports.The biggest global sports event turned another corner this month with the election of Belgium’s Dr Jacques Rogge as the 8th president of the International Olympic Committee.

THE loss of trust is arguably the most damning outcome of the 20th century. In many cases the words “trust me” do little more than encourage cynical laughter.

FROM America, that land of increasing desk rage from disk rage (computer meltdowns), comes a modern parable for the career minded. Reflect and, possibly, be amused … with caution.

THE shift from the corporate world, based on the masculine view of everything, to the coming corporate world based on the feminine view of most things will not be an easy transition for many corporate heavies.

ALBERT Einstein, that cool dude with more than a few smarts, said: “the intuitive mind is a sacred gift; the rational mind is a faithful servant – we have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift”.That is changing.

ACCORDING to a study published last week in Canada, a good job is no longer defined by pay or benefits, but by job satisfaction.

QUEBEC City may be half a world away, but what took place there last month has the potential to dramatically affect future trade freedoms in WA.

Bernard Salt, Melbourne Director of KPMG Consulting, said it 12 days ago; Dr Peter Ellyard, Futurist and Director of Preferred Futures, said it eight days ago:

BIG is beautiful, powerful, prestigious, and secure in a modern product-driven economy based on growth consumption. Twentieth century business survival was based on expansion.

WHILE a taxonomy for techno personalities sounds like a new GST on nerds and geeks, it is actually an emerging classifi-cation system of the most common personality types as they relate to technology.

AN employee at a formerly hot company said: “The cluetrain stopped there four times a day for 10 years and they never took delivery.”

THE business of education is failing. Neither the client - society - nor the customers - schoolkids - are happy with the service.

BAD news for fat heads. The size of your brain is not a factor of intelligence.

SELF-employment in America is dropping rapidly. This “free-agent nation” of management guru Tom Peters is reversing the expectations that the e-lance economy would produce an increase in the number of freelancers and entrepreneurs.

JUST when you thought the World Trade Organisation was back in its box, up pops the news of another multinational organisation with similar intentions - to promote global profit making for big business above all other considerations.

A GATHERING of 14 highly intelligent Perth achievers recently sat around a lunch table and explored the future of our city.

WE first make our habits, then our habits make us. Our mainstream government and our mainstream media are living proof of John Dryden’s words, written in the late 1600s.

WANT to run as Cathy Freeman, or sing as Savage Garden, or bowl as Shane Warne?Then get ready for the virtual reality body suit.The VR body suit, complete with surround sound, sends electrical signals directly to the brain informing it that the body

GLOBALISATION is not globalism. Globalism is the Olympics; globalisation is the IMF.Globalism is caring about all people’s right to have a say in their nation’s destiny.

WORKPLACE changes over the past five years have resulted in the decrease in full-time jobs and the increase in part-time and casual jobs.

PERHAPS the biggest threat to the aggressive global dominance of big business is optimism – the belief that there is a better way to achieve a better world.

DISTANT observers often see us more clearly than we see ourselves. Heard much about the “miraculous” New Zealand economy lately?

WHILE nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, sometimes something occurs which zaps you back to a previous time, place, situation or event which reminds you how far civilisation, if not you, has advanced since then.Sometimes you realise what has not adv...

DIPPING your toes in the water of tidal power can sometimes leave you wet behind the ears.

In the animal sob-film of the last century, Disney’s Bambi, there was an immortal line said by a scolding mother rabbit to Thumper, her contrite son and playmate of Bambi: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”.

In this year of the mighty Asian dragon, the tiny Celtic Tiger is roaring within the global economic jungle.