John Linton
I haven't read Orwell's 1984 since I was in my early teens so my recollection of Airstrip 1 and Airstrip 3 are hazy and I never could understand how Winston Smith came to realize he did actually "love big brother". I do recall how the book made an indelible impression on my understanding of, if not democracy, then of the inalienable right for any individual to think in whatever they wanted and to express whatever view they wished to do (other than urging armed insurrection against the elected government or to express specifically proscribed public utterances or making general statements likely to cause 'affray') in a free society of which I believed then and now Australia is. Apparently I was mistaken in that understanding at least in thinking that everyone living in Australia would understand such inalienable rights.
Apparently a sound and simple knowledge of personal 'liberties' (as defined in the Australian Constitution and, one would have thought, of common knowledge to any person living in Australia who has completed the first two years of a high school education in Australia) is not well understood by everyone living in this country and some of the personal views I express from time to time on these very personal ramblings (which as is clearly stated represent, and only represent, what is uppermost in my mind at the time I open up the 'edit' screen and start typing) are deemed to be somehow "unacceptable".
To any other sensitive soul (who also doesn't have any understanding that "Big Brother" was a fictional character in a novel and the "thought police" actually don't exist) the remedy to not being "offended" by what I (an individual of no possible 'power' or 'importance' or even 'relevance') think and sometimes express in this, my personal 'scribble pad' of things that pass through my mind is DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME READING MY RANDOM THOUGHTS. My personal thoughts, at any given point in time, are completely that - my personal thoughts and if they 'offend anyone' .............construct a two word phrase out of a vulgarism for sexual intercourse and one of the states of an electric light switch and apply it to yourself.
(the above is a typical example of the pointlessness of what passed through my mind as I opened this edit screen a few minutes ago).
I looked in to my metaphorical 'crystal ball' last night and saw a different future for Exetel probably caused by the communication that lead me to remember how affronted I had been when opening this screen today - but not entirely. In a couple of months, Exetel will have been in existence for 5 years and over that period has built up a quite sophisticated delivery network and an even more sophiticated set of procurement, provisioning, support and management tools that have constantly changed over the past five years and are built in ways that allow them to be constantly changed over the next five, or whatever, years. Most aspects of Exetel's operations (and this may well be because of my limited knowledge of other well run companies methods and processes) are far superior to those I've observed over the last few years used by the companies I visit or deal with or are run by friends and acquaintances.
So it occurred to me last night that it was past time to move away from using all of this hard won 'sophistication' (and of course all of the immense efforts that have gone in to creating it) to benefit organisations who I wouldn't, as the 'earthier' of my two grandmothers was known to say, "bother to spit on if they were on fire". We, or more accurately I, haven't put enough thought in to exactly what we should do over the coming five years and I've now spent almost six weeks developing a plan for the future without asking myself some very basic questions - the most important of which is "why are we doing what we are doing at the moment at all"?
I actually don't have a good (in strategic terms anyway) answer to that most basic of questions. So I looked in to the crystal ball and when its swirling clouds gradually cleared they showed a very different picture. I jotted down the main things I saw and will now tear up the last six weeks work and try and construct a viable set of plans to move from where we are today to a place we really would like to be today but where we should definitely plan to be within the coming 18 months or so.
While it looks impossibly difficult, like all planning to do something you've never done before and haven't got a clue how to do it, I will start with two lists:
List A - writing down every thing we find difficult or irksome today
List B - writing down every thing we believe we are good at and enjoy today
The plan then becomes to remove all of List A from being part of the future operation and replacing each one with something from List B.
Pretty simple to do in concept and, I suspect based on previous experience, not that difficult to do in reality. Just very frightening in terms of cash flows and investments and, as with all planning, ensuring the right people are available or can be found. It should only take a week or two and then maybe I won't receive any more missives from the thought police.........
.......providing I have the mental acuity and strength of will to do something that hard....one more time.