Nonprofit organisations in Australia : what do we know nine years later and what should we find out now?

I welcomed this chance to look back over the past nine years of third sector research in Australia and the opportunity to participate in this gathering to chart another nine years. There will be two parts to this paper. Part one will review what I said in 1991 (Lyons, 1991) and summarise what has happened since to see if my hopes were realised. Part two will attempt to sketch a framework for a research agenda, informed by the same motivation as my 1991 paper. It will conclude with some reflections about how to build a stronger institutional framework to sustain third sector research...

Model-driven process configuration of enterprise systems

The configuration of comprehensive enterprise systems to meet the specific requirements of an organisation up to today is consuming significant resources. The results of failing or delayed enterprise system implementation projects are severe and may even threaten the organisation’s existence. One of the main drivers for implementing comprehensive enterprise systems is to streamline business processes. However, an intuitive conceptual support for business process configuration is insufficiently addressed by enterprise system vendors and inadequately researched in academia. This paper presents a model-driven approach to target this problem and proposes several configuration patterns that describe generic patterns of configuration alternatives, in order to understand what situations can occur during business process configuration. Based on these configuration patterns, a configuration notation is introduced that allows for visually highlighting configuration alternatives. Finally, we will sketch how configurable Event Driven Process Chains and the configuration of business processes can be supported using relational databases.

Count-min sketches for estimating password frequency within Hamming distance two

The count-min sketch is a useful data structure for recording and estimating the frequency of string occurrences, such as passwords, in sub-linear space with high accuracy. However, it cannot be used to draw conclusions on groups of strings that are similar, for example close in Hamming distance. This paper introduces a variant of the count-min sketch which allows for estimating counts within a specified Hamming distance of the queried string. This variant can be used to prevent users from choosing popular passwords, like the original sketch, but it also allows for a more efficient method of analysing password statistics.

Industry policy, finance and the AIDC : Australia from the 1950s to the 1970s

This thesis, conceived within a Marxist framework, addresses key conceptual issues in the writing and theorising on industry policy in post second world- war Australia. Broadly, the thesis challenges the way that industry policy on the left of politics (reflected in the social democratic and Keynesian positions) has been constructed as a practical, progressive policy agenda. Specifically, the thesis poses a direct challenge to the primacy of the ‘national’ in interpreting the history of industry policy. The challenge is to the proposition that conflicts between national industry and international finance arose only from the mid 1980s. On the contrary, as will be seen, this is a 1960s issue and any interpretation of the debates and the agendas surrounding industry policy in the 1980s must be predicated on an understanding of how the issue was played out two decades earlier. As was the case in the 1960s, industry policy in the 1980s has been isolated from two key areas of interrogation: the role of the nation state in regulating accumulation and the role of finance in industry policy. In the 1950s and more so in the 1960s and early 1970s there was a reconfiguration of financing internationally but it is one that did not enter into industry policy analysis. The central concern therefore is to simultaneously sketch the historical political economy on industry policy from the 1950s through to the early 1970s in Australia and to analytically and empirically insert the role of finance into that history. In so doing the thesis addresses the economic and social factors that shaped the approach to industry finance in Australia during this critical period. The analysis is supported by a detailed examination of political and industry debates surrounding the proposal for, and institution of, a key national intervention in the form of the Australian Industry Development Corporation (AIDC).

Much ado about nothing? Tracing the progress of innovations borne on enterprise social network sites

Enterprise social networks are organizationally bounded online platforms for users to interact with another and maintain interpersonal relationships. The allure of these technologies is often seen in intra-organizational communication, collaboration and innovation. How these technologies actually support organizational innovation efforts remains unclear. A specific challenge is whether digital content on these platforms converts to actual innovation development efforts. In this study we set out to examine innovation-centric content flows on enterprise social networking platforms, and advance a conceptual model that seeks to explain which innovation conveyed in the digital content will traverse from the digital platform into regular processes. We describe important constructs of our model and offer strategies for the operationalization of the constructs. We conclude with an outlook to our ongoing empirical study that will explore and validate the key propositions of our model, and we sketch some potential implications for industry and academia.

Exploring pedestrian accessibility and walkability : insight from public place observations in inner-urban higher density Brisbane, Australia

As planners work to create more sustainable and liveable urban environments, a priority is to transition away from prioritising the automobile and towards enhancing the pedestrian experience. Thus, this research explores the experience of pedestrian accessibility in inner-urban higher-density Brisbane in Australia, drawing on findings from semi-structured in-depth interviews with 24 residents and over 100 hours of public place observations in three case-study neighbourhoods. The interviews took place in residents homes and explored their experience of higher density living and their neighbourhood, whilst observations were recorded through a combination of methods including photographs, sketch maps, recordings and field journals. Observation locations included retail and commercial space, roads, parkland and open space, with multiple observations at each location. A thematic analysis identified common themes in both interviews and the observations, with this paper focusing on residents’ lived experience in urban built environments. This analysis revealed that pedestrian accessibility is linked to access to local amenities and direct routes, aesthetics, sense of community, ownership of space and safety. In particular, observations revealed how pedestrian accessibility and route-taking works with, against or in spite of the design features of urban environments, as well as the importance of the social use of the built environment. Residents spoke about although walking quick and preferred for local amenities, the decision to walk was moderated by factors such as time of day and perceived safety. Measures to ensure and improve the pedestrian accessibility of urban areas needs to take into account the propensity for people to prefer and improvise direct routes (often to the detriment of traffic safety considerations), the importance of ongoing maintenance and upgrading of walking infrastructure and the importance of aesthetically pleasing and safe walking environments. By combining interviews and observations, this research highlights the current dominance of the automobile culture in Brisbane and the layers of meaning, experiences and complexity hidden within the pedestrian experience.

Experimental creative practices

From the earliest human creative expressions there has been a relationship between art, technology and science. In Western history this relationship is often seen as drawing from the advances in both art and science that occurred during the Renaissance, and as captured in the polymath figure of da Vinci. The 20th century development of computer technology, and the more recent emergence of creative practice-led research as a recognised methodology, has lead to a renewed appreciation of the relationship between art, science and technology. This chapter focuses on transdisciplinary practices that bring together arts, science and technology in imaginative ways. Showing how such combinations have led to changes in both practice and forms of creative expression for artists and their partners across disciplines. The aim of this chapter is to sketch an outline of the types of transdisiplinary creative research projects that currently signify best practice in the field, which is done in reference to key literature and exemplars drawn from the Australian context.

Black comedy : the ABC makes bold foray into race relations

ABC’s new Indigenous sketch show Black Comedy, which premiered last night, is touted as a “show by blackfellas … for everyone”. As a blackfella, I’m not sure I agree that it is for “everyone” but that’s precisely why I love it. It’s been over 40 years since Basically Black, the first Indigenous sketch show aired on our screens, and it’s been too long a wait to see our mob doing humour our way in our living rooms once again. The characters we met last night were, as promised, bigger and blacker than ever. When it comes to Australian television … well it’s about time.

Regulating ride-sharing in the peer economy

The rise of the peer economy poses complex new regulatory challenges for policy-makers. The peer economy, typified by services like Uber and AirBnB, promises substantial productivity gains through the more efficient use of existing resources and a marked reduction in regulatory overheads. These services are rapidly disrupting existing established markets, but the regulatory trade-offs they present are difficult to evaluate. In this paper, we examine the peer economy through the context of ride-sharing and the ongoing struggle over regulatory legitimacy between the taxi industry and new entrants Uber and Lyft. We first sketch the outlines of ride-sharing as a complex regulatory problem, showing how questions of efficiency are necessarily bound up in questions about levels of service, controls over pricing, and different approaches to setting, upholding, and enforcing standards. We outline the need for data-driven policy to understand the way that algorithmic systems work and what effects these might have in the medium to long term on measures of service quality, safety, labour relations, and equality. Finally, we discuss how the competition for legitimacy is not primarily being fought on utilitarian grounds, but is instead carried out within the context of a heated ideological battle between different conceptions of the role of the state and private firms as regulators. We ultimately argue that the key to understanding these regulatory challenges is to develop better conceptual models of the governance of complex systems by private actors and the available methods the state has of influencing their actions. These struggles are not, as is often thought, struggles between regulated and unregulated systems. The key to understanding these regulatory challenges is to better understand the important regulatory work carried out by powerful, centralised private firms – both the incumbents of existing markets and the disruptive network operators in the peer-economy.

From News Blogs to News on Twitter: Gatewatching and Collaborative News Curation

This chapter, explores the role of the second tier of independent news blogs as it developed in the years following the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, and outlines the practice of gatewatching as a key element of news bloggers’ activities. We critique perceptions of the news blogosphere as an echo chamber or filter bubble whose discussions about current events are detached from journalistic coverage, and demonstrate instead the close interconnections between independent news bloggers and professional journalists in the wider media ecology. Finally, we sketch the gradual transition and broadening of gatewatching practices in the news blogosphere towards the collaborative curation of news sharing in contemporary social media spaces, and outline the further research questions which emerge from such transformations of the flows of news and discussion.

Regulating ride-sharing in the peer economy

The rise of the peer economy poses complex new regulatory challenges for policy-makers. The peer economy, typified by services like Uber and AirBnB, promises substantial productivity gains through the more efficient use of existing resources and a marked reduction in regulatory overheads. These services are rapidly disrupting existing established markets, but the regulatory trade-offs they present are difficult to evaluate. In this paper, we examine the peer economy through the context of ride-sharing and the ongoing struggle over regulatory legitimacy between the taxi industry and new entrants Uber and Lyft. We first sketch the outlines of ride-sharing as a complex regulatory problem, showing how questions of efficiency are necessarily bound up in questions about levels of service, controls over pricing, and different approaches to setting, upholding, and enforcing standards. We outline the need for data-driven policy to understand the way that algorithmic systems work and what effects these might have in the medium to long term on measures of service quality, safety, labour relations, and equality. Finally, we discuss how the competition for legitimacy is not primarily being fought on utilitarian grounds, but is instead carried out within the context of a heated ideological battle between different conceptions of the role of the state and private firms as regulators. We ultimately argue that the key to understanding these regulatory challenges is to develop better conceptual models of the governance of complex systems by private actors and the available methods the state has of influencing their actions. These struggles are not, as is often thought, struggles between regulated and unregulated systems. The key to understanding these regulatory challenges is to better understand the important regulatory work carried out by powerful, centralised private firms – both the incumbents of existing markets and the disruptive network operators in the peer-economy.

Borrowing from the geeks: What can healthcare facility design learn from IT?

People get into healthcare because they want to help society. And when a new hospital is briefed, everyone tries to do their best, but the process is mired by the impossibility of the task. Stakeholders rarely understand the architectural process, nobody can predict the future, and the only thing for certain is that everything will change as the project unfolds, revealing errors in initial assumptions and calculations, shifts in needs, new technologies etc. Yet there’s always pressure to keep to the programme and to press on regardless. This chaos leads eventually to suboptimal results: hospitals the world over are riddled with inefficiencies, idiosyncrasies, incredible wastage and features that lead to poor clinical outcomes. This talk will sketch out the basics of Scrum, the most popular open-source Lean/Agile methodology. It will discuss what healthcare designers can learn from the geeks in Silicon Valley reduce risk, meet deadlines and deliver the highest possible value for the budget despite the uncertainty.

Conducting Gestures : Institutional and Educational Construction of Conductorship in Finland, 1973-1993

Anu Konttinen: Conducting Gestures Institutional and Educational Construction of Conductorship in Finland, 1973-1993. This doctoral thesis concentrates on those Finnish conductors who have participated in Professor Jorma Panula s conducting class at the Sibelius Academy during the years 1973 1993. The starting point was conducting as a myth, and the goal has been to find its practical opposite the practical core of the profession. What has been studied is whether one can theorise and analyse this core, and how. The theoretical goal has been to find out what kind of social construction conductorship is as a historical, sociological and practical phenomenon. In practical terms, this means taking the historical and social concept of a great conductor apart to look for the practical core gestural communication. The most important theoretical tool is the concept of gesture. The idea has been to sketch a theoretical model based on gestural communication between a conductor and an orchestra, and to give one example of the many possible ways of studying the gestures of a conductor.

Leibniz on Rational Decision-Making

In this study I discuss G. W. Leibniz's (1646-1716) views on rational decision-making from the standpoint of both God and man. The Divine decision takes place within creation, as God freely chooses the best from an infinite number of possible worlds. While God's choice is based on absolutely certain knowledge, human decisions on practical matters are mostly based on uncertain knowledge. However, in many respects they could be regarded as analogous in more complicated situations. In addition to giving an overview of the divine decision-making and discussing critically the criteria God favours in his choice, I provide an account of Leibniz's views on human deliberation, which includes some new ideas. One of these concerns is the importance of estimating probabilities in making decisions one estimates both the goodness of the act itself and its consequences as far as the desired good is concerned. Another idea is related to the plurality of goods in complicated decisions and the competition this may provoke. Thirdly, heuristic models are used to sketch situations under deliberation in order to help in making the decision. Combining the views of Marcelo Dascal, Jaakko Hintikka and Simo Knuuttila, I argue that Leibniz applied two kinds of models of rational decision-making to practical controversies, often without explicating the details. The more simple, traditional pair of scales model is best suited to cases in which one has to decide for or against some option, or to distribute goods among parties and strive for a compromise. What may be of more help in more complicated deliberations is the novel vectorial model, which is an instance of the general mathematical doctrine of the calculus of variations. To illustrate this distinction, I discuss some cases in which he apparently applied these models in different kinds of situation. These examples support the view that the models had a systematic value in his theory of practical rationality.

Suedseelegende : Dramatische Skizze in drei Akten (vor mehreren Jahren entstanden).

Annotated typescript of a dramatic sketch about life in Tahiti. According to a note in 1967, the work was written ‘some years ago’, probably in 1952.